Making Sense of Today's US Markets with Richard Carleton & Jason Paltrowitz | AFTER MARKET SPECIAL

Curious about what's happening in the US stock market? We invited two market experts to discuss the recent rally in the US on our AFTER MARKET programs and compiled both interviews for your listening pleasure.

Firstly, JB & Bear are joined by their third ever guest on AFTER MARKET - Richard Carleton, CEO of the CSE - Canadian Securities Exchange. In this "After Hours" segment we tap the expert to better understand the recent stock market rally in the face of the global pandemic.

Here's a highlight of everything discussed on this podcast:

0:35 - Introducing Richard Carleton, CEO of the Canadian Securities Exchange
2:35 - Understanding performance attribution within indices
5:00 - What happens to the stock market when things go back to “normal”?
7:05 - Investing FOMO and behavioural economics
11:20 - Why it's hard to beat ETF and Mutual Fund returns (but the lizard brain doesn’t care)
13:55 - Money is effectively “free” - how does this impact the equity markets? (Warning: inflation alert!)   

Following Richard's interview, JB & Bear are joined by their fourth guest on AFTER MARKET - Jason Paltrowitz, EVP of  @OTC Markets Group In this "After Hours" segment we tap the expert to better understand how the US markets and economy are proving their resiliency in historically difficult conditions. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, it's James here welcoming you to this presentation of the hashtag finance podcast. This is just a reminder that if you like video, all of our CEO and expert interviews are featured on the hashtag finance playlist on CCTV, including the show that you were about to listen to remember that a CSC space TV on YouTube. And finally, this is just a friendly reminder that the views information or opinions expressed during the podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of the Canadian securities exchange and its employees. So happy listening, and now enjoy the show every once in a while, Barrington and I, we would give you a headline. It's lazy. We don't read all the details and you come across something where you just can't make it. And, uh, you need to bring an expert in, and thankfully, uh, for this next headline, we actually have the appropriate person, uh, that we work with or work for, I should say, uh, mr. Richard Carlton, expand, uh, let me, let me read the headline. And then, um, I just want to make it very clear to those watching, uh, that doesn't implicate Barrington. So the title of this headline is bears are going extinct and stock markets,$13 trillion rebound. Um, and for this question, we've brought in Richard Carlton to help us explain with everything around us, burning to the ground, how is the stock market rallying and seeing all time highs and we're even using the word trillions. So Richard, welcome to the show,

Speaker 2: 1:25

Welcome to the show, Richard. And, uh, for those that follow us and follow me on Instagram with my bare market handle, I was concerned that I was going extinct and I want to rest assured that I'm not, but here to dispel any rumor about that is our very own Richard Carlton. Is this happening?

Speaker 3: 1:45

Thank you very much, gentlemen. And indeed it would be a tragedy if a bears were to go extinct. And again, it's a real pleasure to join you because, uh, you know, three time guy on hashtag finance and now first time on, uh, you know, after hours, uh, do I get like a, you know, a bathrobe or something I can, uh,

Speaker 1: 2:08

So if you, if you get on SNL five times as a host, you exactly hang on a special lounge of Steve Martin and Tom.

Speaker 2: 2:14

Well there's, um, you know, earlier in the show we were talking about, uh, the Branchini, so we'll get,

Speaker 3: 2:26

Okay, well, let's get into the deep, uh, you know, market market structure, conversation, uh, you know, before we get too crazy. But, uh, you know, um, when we look at, uh, you know, all time highs market highs, we have to understand that we're looking at, uh, indices, you know, S and P 500, the Dow Jones, the S and P TSX comps at the CSE cups that index. And, uh, you know, the issue here is you have to understand what's what's in that index and where is the performance coming from? And, uh, you know, it's what investment professionals refer to as performance attribution. So who is, or what companies are contributing to the rise in the indices. And when you look at it, um, you know, over the last six months or so the vast majority, and in fact, this has been true. The last five years in the United States is that the Netflix, Google, Apple, Amazon Facebook have been responsible for a huge percentage of the returns of the S and P 500, uh, and, uh, you know, the other broad market indices companies in the industrial sector, the banking sector, uh, and the hardest head of, of all of course is the energy production sector have not been doing very well at all. And so the, um, uh, investor intention, and in fact, the, the increase in prices has been limited to a very small number of stocks. Uh, we talked earlier today about, uh, Exxon yesterday being removed from the down Jones. And what was it? Eight years ago? It was the largest company in the world,

Speaker 2: 4:03

20, 2012 largest company in the world.

Speaker 3: 4:06

And now it's coming out of the Dow Jones, which is a, you know, 30 stocks. So it's, uh, it's not a broad market measure, but it's basically being replaced by Salesforce. You know, another company that's done well, um, over the last few years and particular through the pandemic. So, um, when, when people talk about these all time, highs understand that it's not every segment of the stock market by a long shot. In fact, it's very narrowly focused on a small group of, uh, generally speaking technology stocks, um, that are expected to, um, as we returned to whatever normal looks like, uh, over the next 12 to 24 months, uh, do well under the new market and business conditions,

Speaker 2: 4:56

Right? And 13 early, you were talking about what happens when things do get better. When more people go back to work, it's like, it's like, okay, things are, things are bad right now. Yeah. We're seeing a trillion dollar gains when things do return back to some sort of normality and people are as what we were used to. Does that mean those stock market's going to go down? Does that mean, what does it mean?

Speaker 3: 5:27

That's a great question because of course, you know, when we look at where the performance has come from, do you expect those stocks, uh, to perform well in that, in the, you know, the two to five year time horizon? And the answer is probably yes, right? I mean, those companies can continue to grow from where they are. There's addressable business for them to do and to, to capture, they can grow some more. Um, and in fact, if you think about retailing, um, is Walmart going to take, uh, Amazon's rise, uh, lying down, um, are they going to compete with Shopify or are they going to join forces with Shopify to compete against Amazon? Like, there's a lot of growth, uh, in that particular space to come, and that can drive these overall, uh, indices in ways that you think, Hey, everything's great, but the reality is maybe 80% of the stocks aren't doing so well. And that in fact reflects what's going on in the real economy, not in the markets. And again, we talked earlier today about, uh, you know, how tough it is for lots of people. I mean, obviously unemployment is, uh, is, is, uh, you want to talk about a pandemic. There's a pandemic of unemployment in Canada in the United States, incomes are shrinking. Um, it's tough, uh, for, for, for people in the real economy, but we do have a small segment of really big companies, uh, that are doing extraordinarily well under the current conditions and that growth can in fact continue. Now, there's another factor. Of course, it has to be, uh, uh, looked at when we, uh, examine the overall market conditions. And these are the sorts of things that we understand by, uh, looking at behavioral economics, right? How do individuals make their buying and selling decisions? And there's been a lot of work done over the last generation in terms of how people decide to buy and sell stocks. And one of the things that we've learned is that people fear loss more than they enjoy the gains. And that drives an enormous number of decisions. In fact, it drives all the decisions. And one of the things that happens is if people see prices rising in a particular sector, they're terrified that they're missing it, fear of missing, uh, and they will pile in exactly. And those prices will get bid up. I mean, does any of us believe that Tesla, uh, has the ability to, uh, grow at a faster rate and command higher margins than the rest of the automobile sector combined? You know, that's kind of it tough one, but is it a good company? Did they provide good products that their customer service, uh, uh, rankings very, very high? Yeah, absolutely. But, uh, does it value it, does it justify the current to evaluations? Well, they know that's kind of a hard question now. It doesn't matter because Tesla is actually not in the S and P 500 at this point, it's part of the broader market, uh, that, uh, people and in particular retail investors are training. Um, I was looking at some data this morning and, uh, you know, average daily turnover in the United States, uh, which was in the eight or 9 billion share a day range. Uh, over the last quarter has been as high as 17 billion shares a day. And a lot of that increase has come from the retail space and the stocks that they tend to trade in the cash equity space are non S and P 500 listed stocks. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So I was looking at the, uh, the most recent to Robin hood report and some other information that was released by the other big U S discount brokers. So obviously, uh, the folks who service the retail population in the United States and, uh, you know, people are trading individual stocks and, uh, you know, of course Tesla is a hard stock for retail investor to trade. Uh, what's what's the board lot these days. Uh, they just split it and we put the price up on two episodes, so it's a few hundred bucks, but yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's one of those it's still in that$20,000 trade to trade a hundred shares, I think, as opposed to$500,000 share trade. Right. So, uh, yeah, it's, uh, so as I say, it's a tough name to trade for retail, but they are now in the audit market by and large, but, but, uh, you know, again, people are in fact piling in, um, for fear of missing out on what they see as the, uh, as the gains. So this particular market, and what's particularly interesting is that, um, you know, again, not to shine the flashlight on Robin hood unduly, uh, but their clientele is generally speaking, quite young, um, you know, mobile savvy, uh, users who have not had brokerage accounts before. And, uh, their clientele are coming into the market literally by the millions. And, uh, that's, uh, you know, that's having a profound effect and we see the similar, uh, similar patterns in Canada where retail participation rates are up. The Canadian securities exchange volumes are, are increasing month over month. Um, I think we've had our first, uh, June to July increase, uh, which never happens, uh, because, uh, you know, people tend to go on vacation. They're not trading individual individual stocks. And so on yet this year, we saw an increase in volume, uh, from June, which was very healthy to July, uh, which was, uh, which was a really good month today. We traded almost 140 million shares. Um, you know, so it's, uh, it's active and it's largely driven by the, uh, the retail population that, uh, you know, are active and engaged in the markets. Um, uh, at this time, do you think people are disenfranchised by packaged investment products like ETFs or mutual funds where, you know, it's not great water cooler talk anymore. People aren't chatting about the huge double digit gains that go down there, ETF mutual fund. Well, as one of the founders of the ETF, uh, industry in Canada, and I guess that makes the world because we were the first to get to an ETF listed on the Toronto stock exchange way back in the day. Um, the, uh, you know, you're right. I mean, you know, ETFs, aren't supposed to be water cooler talk. Uh, they're supposed to be an extremely cost effective way for people to, uh, acquire, um, uh, access to broader market trends. And one of the things that we know from hundreds of years of data at this point is that equity markets, uh, tend to return somewhere between six and 8% compounded annually over the longterm. And, uh, it's extremely unlikely for individual stock pickers to beat, uh, that benchmark, uh, again on similar sort of time horizons that people should be thinking about for their retirement savings, their children's educations. And so on now that said, again, we're getting back into the behavioral economics, uh, you know, people love to talk about the penny stock that they bought, um, that, uh, has gone up

Speaker 2: 12:54

[inaudible]

Speaker 3: 12:55

Or whatever. Uh, absolutely, uh, you know, that's, uh, uh, that touches some, uh, pleasure centers deep in the, um, the lizard brain of the human beings. And, uh, you know, it, it, uh, it, it, it, uh, you know, brings people back to that particular market and don't get me wrong. I mean, it's an extremely important part of the capital formation process for, for young companies, because Lord knows big companies that got to come from somewhere and, uh, by and large, uh, you know, we've, we're, we're at the Canadian securities exchange in a position to nurture the growth of those companies. Um, but again, it's a very complicated, uh, dynamic is people, you know, think about, you know, instead of these sort of broad market investments, uh, looking at individual stock picking, which is really what goes on, uh, more in the small cap space, then, then the, uh, in the large cap space.

Speaker 2: 13:50

Um, I got a question and I don't, I'm not sure how we are for time, but earlier, uh, when we were talking off camera, um, you were discussing a lot of about inflation and the role that inflation played in what's going on today. Uh, could you, uh, just briefly touch on that?

Speaker 3: 14:09

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's not just inflation, but of course, interest rates as well. Barrington, you've got a situation now where, uh, you know, money is effectively free and, uh, you have signals, uh, from the, uh, leading central banks in the world, uh, that they're basically prepared to, to pump unlimited amounts of liquidity into the system, uh, to prevent, uh, the, uh, you know, ineffective finance markets, whether it's debt or equity from seizing up. And, uh, you know, that that's had a few effects. I mean, one of them is, you know, it does make equity look very attractive, uh, for, because companies are able to secure growth capital at a very low cost entrepreneurs are to build businesses without having to pay, you know, significant, you know, double digit to rates in order to raise capital. But by the same token, there are a bunch of folks out there who sense that this could lead in the longer term to inflation and with this amount of money being pumped into the system by the central banks. And that's why you see the, um, uh, dramatic increase in, uh, gold, uh, which is traditionally seen as a hedge against inflation. And, uh, uh, you know, as a knock-on, uh, consequence of that, uh, you know, the gold exploration space and the, the gold production space, uh, has, uh, has gone up quite dramatically over the last, uh, as you know, from, you know, three to six months. And, uh, again, what we see, um, in the, uh, you know, in the business that we're working on at the Canadian securities exchange, um, are a number of new, um, exploration projects that are attracting funding from investors and in the secondary market, uh, investors looking to, uh, buy, um, names that to come up with promising results. Um, so again, cheap money right now, but, uh, concerns that, uh, there are significant inflationary pressures to come, um, in a, maybe two to five year time horizon. So everyone's using this cheap capital to move to the suburbs, nothing to work anymore, buy stock, pick, and hope to make their fortune. So they never have to go back to work. Um, well, James, I guess I'm, I'm contract counter to the trend, uh, because, you know, I I'm, as you know, uh, we've sold the rural property and we're moving back to the city. So, uh, uh, which, which, which may be, uh, uh, you know, again, moving against the hurt, uh, I don't know, but we'll see how that works discussion. You are a contrarian, maybe. So we, uh, we don't see a lot of barrier signals in the market, but we do see a bear on the podcast tonight. So, uh, that's all I care about, and we'll, we'll keep an eye on this topic, uh, as the trillions get higher and things get more whipped up into a frenzy in the market, Richard, I'm sure we'll bring you back for a second aftermarket after all you are our boss, you're less like in a bathroom. I really want you to earn that bro Kini. Uh, and, uh, you know, you can have one, I will buy one for you with that, but thanks again, we really appreciate your insight on this stuff. Uh, we do want to provide educational content, uh, and engaging educational content at that, uh, through aftermarket. So thank you for your knowledge and, uh, until next time, Richard, uh, we'll, we'll keep an eye on the market together and we'll see you soon. Alright, it's James and I'm back here with Barrington Miller and we're pleased to be joined by our friend,

Speaker 1: 17:50

Sophie and the boarder, mr. Jason,[inaudible] who's with a company called OTC markets. He's, he's one of the big bosses there. And, uh, this is a segment on after hours on aftermarket that we want to, uh, I guess premise as meanwhile in America. And, uh, we've, we've mentioned the U S few times on our program, uh, but who better to talk to than someone who is at the, uh, at the heart of it all, uh, in Manhattan, mr. Jason,[inaudible] welcome to the show.

Speaker 4: 18:15

Thanks for having me guys great to see you. It's been a while too long, and I miss seeing you live and in person.

Speaker 1: 18:23

Um, but first and foremost, the last time we talked, um, I think it was on Instagram, uh, on our, on our channel CCTV. I'll link it above. And the reason why, uh, I want people to maybe go back and watch that after this interview is just to juxtapose, uh, where things have come in in a matter of, I guess, four months, I've lost track of time, but, um, basically it was three or four weeks after the pandemic really, uh, caused a shutdown. And you guys in New York were in the middle of it. Uh, it was tough. And you were up in your apartment and I not going to provide specific address, but somewhere in the upper West side. And am I in the right, uh, you heard of, uh, of the township of mountain Manhattan. So, um, back then, you know, you were, you were hanging tough. Uh, I don't, I didn't see any sort of Instagram posts from you saying you laughed and pulled a snake plus skin and escaped New York city. You've been a Newark strong, uh, but just walk us through quickly. Like, what are the last few months been like for you and then New York?

Speaker 4: 19:20

Um, so yes, I am New York strong. I did not up and leave. I didn't buy a house somewhere and I'm looking, cause I looking out the window here. Um, yeah, it's, it's been interesting, right? We went through the worst and interestingly enough, I think now we're probably in the best position. If you look at where we are from a piece of you, the rest of the country, um, I'm a born and raised new Yorker and in fact, born and raised up or West side or so, I have seen New York city and, you know, I'm a product of the eighties. I went to public school during a crack is whack and all that other stuff. Um, so New York has been a lot worse than it is now. And so, you know, I am New York strong and I'm going to stay. Things are opening up, you know, next week, I'm going to start going back into the office again. Um, the infection rates are way down. The death rates are way down. There's more and more people out in the street. Uh, you know, restaurants will start opening up the net for those of you that are into art museums, then that is opening up. So I think we're, we're slowly coming out the back end of it. Um, this is a resilient city. It's seen its share of tragedy, whether it's nine 11 or the great depression, or almost going bankrupt in the seventies and, and it'll bounce back, but I'm staying.

Speaker 2: 20:34

Um, Jay, I got a question. Let's uh, if you don't mind, sorry, James, I didn't mean to interrupt, but uh, no, no. This is your, uh, how's work. Like how, how are the OTC markets?

Speaker 4: 20:49

Have you guys stopped, slowed down, picked up or you're busier, what's going on? We just shut down, start over. We've become an, um, actually we're probably like you guys, right? We, we hit a little bit of a wall with, with some activity slowed down in the March, April, um, point of view, if you think about new listings, um, companies coming to market, we've come out of that. Uh, gangbusters, you know, we spent a lot of that time building pipeline, reaching out to clients and prospects, you know, realizing that people weren't going to necessarily make a move to, to join OTC markets, to execute B. Um, but all that work in the low is, has paid off, right? We've got more applications in process, more companies coming to market August. Interestingly enough, for new companies joining our markets was, was the best month ever or not ever the best month we've had this year. Um, and August is historically the worst month of the year. So I think we're seeing that bounce back on the, on the company's joining our market, um, on the trading side, you know, you guys are seeing it as well, just, just volumes are hot and up and up. And, um, you know, billions of shares a day trading just on our market at a Robin hood record. Um, I think it's a little bit back you to Robin hood. Um, you know, it's probably a lot, thank you to just general retail activity, which obviously Robin hood is a part, but we're seeing it across all of the retail brokerage platforms, whether it's the, the trades or the TD Ameritrade's or, or anybody you're just seeing volumes, uh, consistently, consistently kind of stay high. So that's good for our trading business. And then of course, on the market data side, all that feeds into a desire to see more data. So our indices are, you know, like yours are going up, companies coming to market are going out and, you know, I'm sure like you were riding the wave, but some, some, some various specific industries that are, that are seeing the benefit, not the least of which from a Canadian perspective, there's the resource sector. Um, and I want to talk about it and I want to drill into that, Jason, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but, um, you you've provided me a, uh, uh, an opportunity to segue into something I really want to pick your brain on. So, um, you're talking about systematic, uh, things that are happening in the market that has improved our business conditions actually more so than I think we would have predicted back in March. Um, but we are also seeing sort of signals in the market that caused possibly some concern. And we talked to Richard Carlton about this last week, um, which was sort of this, this rally that's happening mostly in the U S but Shopify is a big contributor to this as well here in Canada, around the, uh, you know, what I would pull out as a headline, I'll share a headline when we post this, but stock

Speaker 1: 23:46

Markets are at tech bubble valuation levels. So with all these people piling into the market and people specifically looking at these tech stocks, do you have any concern that this is not meant to last?

Speaker 4: 23:59

I think there are a lot of underlying concerns in the market, not the least of which that I think the stock market economy has kind of divorced itself from, from the real economy. Um, and you know, there's, there's a lot of stuff going on in this market. And I think I actually watched Richard and I agree with him. Uh, if you look at the stock market, what people view as the stock market, right? They look at two or three indices down here. You know, we look at the NASDAQ, we look at the, the S and P and we look at the doubt. Um, if you look at the long tail of stocks in the S and P 500, those companies are not doing well. Um, you know, you're really limiting it to some very large tech stocks, uh, you know, whether it's Amazon or Netflix or Apple, then once you take those out of the equation here, you're looking at a lot of companies and a lot of industries that are just kind of getting by and are not performing well. And I think it's bad for the economy and it's bad for investors when we have a view that markets are doing really well when it really is five or six stocks and everything else isn't, and that goes down to not just the stock prices, but if you look at, you know, even trading volume, if you look at price fluctuations, um, if you look at, you know, it's just kind of flat, all those indicators are flat. If you take out those five or six stocks, and I don't think that's healthy for anybody, um, I do think, look, you know, who knows what's going to happen with, with this pandemic, you're starting to see spikes again in Europe, um, which is a little scary. Francis is spiking and Spain is spiking. Um, and so you don't know what's going to happen. There certainly is a long run for, for an Amazon. Um, but you know, you mix that in with a lot of free cash. You know, there's just a ton of cash floating around. There's no better place to put it than the equity market because interest rates are so low. Um, and so, you know, that, that creates theoretically, if you look at history that those create all the signs for a bubble, um, whether that's this year and next year or the year after, and then, you know, we're coming out of this cycle of the pandemic. So unemployment is high. And we haven't seen in the U S the, the evictions that I think are gonna start happening and, and kind of the natural repercussions of three or four months after a pandemic. So, you know, I can't predict the future, but there's certainly a lot of, if you look at credit card debt, if you look at automotive debt, if you look at, you know, educational debt, there are a lot of things in the market that would kind of scare me medium to long term it's. Um, it's

Speaker 2: 26:44

Interesting, uh, for our audience that have been following the show, um, we're referencing Richard Carlton's interview from last week, and he distinctly talked about the two different markets, the real market and the not real market. And, um, there's a lot of similarities and going back even further to one of our shows when we had a trader TV, uh, dot live on the tip of one of one signal, when you're looking at charts is the longer something stays in a range and a really, really tight range. Uh, the more likelihood there will be a violent reaction one way or the other, and to take what Jason Paul Schwartz was saying, removing the fangs out from, uh, I guess, from your evaluation, everything else is trading within a range within a really, really tight range. Um, so if I was a chartist and I was looking, um, I'd be thinking that there would be a reaction one way or the other one direction or the other. Um, but, you know, we don't want to, yeah,

Speaker 4: 27:55

Don't forget the American, the American consumer typically drives the economy. Um, you know, and the American consumer is hurting. And so even keep it as simplistic.

Speaker 1: 28:10

So, and that's, so it's funny cause um, I was going to get to that point, but, and let's just dive into it. So what is it that gives anyone optimism about the American economy and U S capitalism? Is it that is that the U S consumer has always had so much buying power that they can dictate terms globally with the supply chain, with the retail power that they have to, um, you know, really the buying power in general to, um, sort of dictate terms. And they've got that engine that can get started really quickly when, you know, we saw coming out of 2008, um, is, is that the, the key variable here that gives America its power or is there something a little more, uh, in depth to it than that?

Speaker 4: 28:51

Well, certainly the American consumer helps we spend a lot of money. I knew I don't need to talk more about that. That's kind of the history and anything that number of things have been written about the American consumer America has always had, you know, for better or for worse that innovative entrepreneurial spirit. And I'm not saying other countries don't. Um, but what I think has always been our strong suit is our ability to adapt and adjust and find new ways and find new paths. I mean, you know, Amazon is the best example, right? Kind of starts thinking you can sell books online and look what's happened to Amazon, um, America, you know, Tesla's a good example of that, that innovative entrepreneurial spirit has always driven, uh, this economy. And I think it will continue to do so. And so in that respect, I do think this country gives people the ability to, to be, and to see the visions of those dreams. And, you know, now we're in a perfect, uh, economy or in a perfect position where those dreamers can actually fund those dreams easier than ever before, which is interesting. You know, there's so much money in the system that entrepreneurs are having a great time when it comes to funding their endeavors. And so I think that's, what's again, I don't want to be a American elitist that it separates us from Canada or anywhere else in the world, but that definitely, we, the conditions are right for business and for entrepreneurs in this country, I hope that continues. Um, you know, there are a lot, there's a lot of political, uh, issues that hurt or hinder that not the least of which is immigration policy. Um, you know, Elon Musk didn't come from the United States and the founders of Google didn't come from the United States. And then there's, you know, there's, there's tax power. There's all sorts of political things at play that either will propel that or hinder that what I like about the U S on themselves, my own opinion about that America will never be in the country hall of fame. Well, we know how it started, and we have no idea where it's going, but we do know that in November. I have no idea. I wish I could see people that will tell you one way or the other, you know, you talk about, we always bet on ourselves. This might be the one time I don't put my money on the table. We're in strange times, we're in strange times. My father used to say, you can't argue logic or the Trump administration or this election, you certainly can't argue logic. And so, I don't know. I mean, unfortunately you've got 20% of the people on either side of the equation that don't want to hear any logic. Don't want to hear any facts. They're just sticking to their guns, no matter what, maybe 20% is being generous. And so what it really comes down to is, you know, that, that sliver in the middle and which side of the equation they fall on, the American elections used to come down to, are you better off now than you were four years ago? We clearly are not, you know, I don't care what side of the political spectrum you're on, but we're in the middle of a pandemic over double digit unemployment. There's riding in the streets. You can talk one way or the other who's responsible what policies, but America is not better off than we were four years ago when the markets were working great. And people, you know, unemployment was at an all time low. And, you know, there was just this feeling of optimism. I don't sense there's feeling of optimism the same way. There was four years ago, eight years ago. Um, so I don't know what that means because traditionally people would vote based on that. Um, people don't seem to be thinking that way anymore. There's definitely a mentality or, you know, it's more about the person than the policy. So we'll see, I don't know. I don't know either way, whatever happens. Um, you know, that it's going to resolve anything after hours. What does, what does business, I think business, Jason might be personally, I think we need to deep breath, right? We need some semblance of normalcy, just back to the traditional ebbs and flows of, you know, not every day needs to be a fire drill or a news cycle or something more ridiculous than the day before. I think, you know, whatever happens in the election, you have certainty because you've got four years of certainty and it's just built into the system for four years. So it's not just certainty. It's gotta be just like a deep breath back to some civility back to not everything being a fire drill, not everything being reactive. I think that's what business wants. I think that's what people want. You know, if you get rid of television and the news deep down, everybody kind of gets along and we all pull together. We all want to grow business. We all want to make money. We all want to support our family. And we all want to be able to do the things that people in countries, both business and people in general, I think they just want a deep breath and they don't want everything to be just crazy. We'd like to be more Canadian we've ever on problems. Sometimes it comes back to when you started the car and we started the conversation around, I guess, well, I know the snow, but I've always thought about this one community. And you mentioned New York, New York strong face, you have in your chatty to

Speaker 5: 35:38

See through all this, to kind of hold it together. You know, they've, they've got this, uh, almost like a memory of as, as a community to, to know how to deal with. And I think that's where you guys are headed. I think you'll get through it, but you've got to rely on this foundational stuff. That's made the country so great and the people on it, so great. And, uh, and most of the people, I can't speak for all of them, but you know, it's just that community and being able to look at your neighbor and say, you know, I trust you to help me get through this, or I trust that you're not going to do something too crazy. We're just going to get us through it. Cause, cause there's high times, low times. And I know that's what I've looked at over the last few months. It's just, you know, that look there's stability in my neighborhood. There's good people. They're all trying to do the right thing by themselves. Look out to their families. And then I think that that's a foundation. You can't go wrong with that. So hopefully that's, um, again, the assets of that people that people get back to in a, in America that's if it's the last, I don't know. I hope so. I hope you're right. You know, New York, you mentioned New York. It's interesting. You know, there's more nationalities, more languages spoken potentially in the world in terms of numbers, of people from different countries and languages. Yeah. It's got some troubles, but you also find a place where people seem to be able to coexist better than anywhere else people are doing the right thing and yeah. They're outliers or things that you wouldn't like for the most part, the city has pulled together and you see people helping other people and you see charity donations going higher than they've ever been. If there's a bright spot in all of this, it is that I've been impressed by this city. Certainly the bold impression growing up as kids of New York city and crime was the movie. The warriors were pretty much. It's not far off. It's not like I grew up in New York in the seventies and eighties. This is a cakewalk. I don't know if you guys have seen the HBO show, the dues, but that does remind me of my early, early childhood. And every time I watched that, I always long for the days, you know, times square from the dues. Maybe we're getting a little better. I'm getting a little closer to that. I kind of like times square the way it is. Thank you for joining the show. I know that you may or may not live in the same building is a very famous radio announcer. So I don't want to tip anyone office or Jason, but thank you for taking it down. A couple of notches and joining us today for this podcast, presentation, aftermarket, variants, anything you want to say before we a wish our good friend, Jason culture, I'd say before, before all of this, you may or may not know, or perhaps our very own Richard curls. Jason, just out of curiosity, where's the first place you will want to travel when everything really opens up and settles down. Well, I do have a flight booked on October 3rd, October 3rd. If that doesn't happen, I'd love to get up to see you. I am a man of the world extensively. That's another number in the calendar to be determined. What I hope we do is we do get to hang out and do this in person next time. Uh, and, uh, yeah, no, do it, do it, uh, you know, amongst a table with maybe a couple of beverages and just, just catch up. So thanks again. Thanks Jason. We're going to wrap. I want to thank everyone for watching this evening. Um, again, we mentioned a lot of the great programming that we've already presented. It was Richard and trader tv.live. I'll link that below. Um, it's been linked above during the show and if you have any questions or comments, please like, please subscribe. We need your support for this program. And thankfully Jason's going to be available to answer any questions. If Jason wants to drop an email, it's Jason, jason@otcmarkets.com. Perfect. Well with that, I want to wish you a great evening Barrington, once again, I think we survived to live another week. I think we'll make it. Okay. We'll really appreciate it. And once again, this is James Black, that's Barrington, and this was aftermarket. Hey, it's James here reminding you that if you just enjoyed this episode of hashtag finance, there's a lot more, make sure you subscribe to this show available on Apple podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google podcast shows coming at least twice a week. So please do not miss out. Oh, so if you're on Instagram, please don't forget to follow us at Canadian exchange. That's all one word Canadian exchange. We're hosting live daily content with great guests, discussing the capital markets, entrepreneurship, investing, and much more. And finally, if you like video, please subscribe to CSE space TV, that CSC space TV on YouTube. You can find more great stuff, including exclusive series content like cannabis month, 2020, and our new series investing in psychedelics as always. Thank you for listening.