Podcast - January 16, 2024
In this captivating episode of the Barenaked Money Podcast, hosts Josh Sheluk and Colin White take listeners on a speculative journey into the financial year ahead. They approach the episode with a blend of scepticism and wit, reminding us that predicting the future is more art than science, and their insights are meant to stir curiosity rather than serve as concrete financial advice.
Their discussions weave through an array of bold, yet tongue-in-cheek predictions. They don’t stop at finance, venturing into predictions of AI advancements and healthcare becoming a hot topic.
Both hosts concede that accurately foreseeing the future is a near-impossible feat, setting expectations for a year filled with unforeseen developments and surprises. Tune in for an episode that expertly balances financial insights with a healthy dose of realism and humour.
The transcript is automatically generated
Announcer (00:00):
You are about to get lucky with the Barenaked Money Podcast, the show that gives you the naked truth about personal finance. With your hosts, Josh Sheluk and Colin White, portfolio managers with Verecan Capital Management, Inc.
Colin White (00:14):
Welcome to a very, very impressive and special edition of Bare Naked Money. Call Colin and Josh here going to tell you what’s going to happen this year and maybe what’s not going to happen this year and maybe be a little bit right on some things. I don’t know, Josh, you didn’t share your list, which is great. I want this list to come out. Be nice. Impression. I haven’t shared my list, so it’s going to be nice and fresh. Are you excited?
Josh Sheluk (00:41):
You bet. I would just correct you with one thing. The intention of these is not to be right necessarily. This is a weird predictions podcast where we don’t actually want to be right necessarily with our predictions. What we want to do is be a little bit thought-provoking and a little bit conversation provoking and that’s really the way that I’ve attacked this.
Colin White (01:06):
Yes, so there comes the disclaimer, this I’ve asked is for entertainment purposes only. Do not take anything that we say here as the gospel truth and or bet your life on it because that would be bad. Don’t do
Josh Sheluk (01:17):
That. Yeah, don’t bet anything on it is the short one here. Okay, where do you want me to start? Give me a general theme and I’ll pick out, because my prediction span a variety of different things.
Colin White (01:32):
Alright, so why don’t you start with inflation. Is that a big enough of a pool to swim in?
Josh Sheluk (01:38):
You bet. You bet. And I have one that is pretty much bang on with the idea of inflation and the topic of inflation. So my prediction is that Canadian inflation will be under 2% at some point this year.
Colin White (01:56):
Okay. At some point for five or 10 seconds or a quarter?
Josh Sheluk (02:02):
Well, let’s say the monthly inflation reading will be under 2% on an annualized basis at some point through the year. Okay, so here’s a bit of my thought process as to how this could come true. So this is predicated on lower interest rates at some point through this year, which we don’t know is going to happen for sure, but it seems like that’s the direction or the path.
(02:27):
Shelter is the biggest component of CPI consumer price inflation. It makes up about 30% of CPI. And if you’ve looked at CPI numbers over the last, really most of the last year, the biggest increase has come from mortgage interest. If you have interest rates going down, that’s going to naturally drag that inflation on mortgage interest down and being such a big component and such a significant increaser over the past year. I don’t think it’s too hard. It’s not too much of a stretch to see inflation under 2%. There have been multiple times throughout 2023 where inflation excluding mortgage interest has hovered around the 2% mark. So you get mortgage interest coming down to a reasonable level of inflation. All of a sudden you could be in that 2% range for the overall inflation reading.
Colin White (03:31):
Well, as usual, your math is spot on, but you may have missed some of the playing field field, remember the knock on effects because inflation has been high, therefore people are negotiating higher wages, which is going to cause the price of goods and services to continue to rise X housing costs. But yes, your math in a straight line is absolutely bang on and it is one of the leading indicators that we should see inflation be more control this year, but nobody truly has got a grasp on the spiraling costs of that feedback loop that begins when you see wage inflation kick in and therefore causing, because wages are a big part of pricing when it comes services and some manufactured goods. So that knock on effect is the reverberations, the echo, gee, well these things going forward I think is going to be the more interesting thing to look
Josh Sheluk (04:23):
At and there’s no doubt about that. And you could also take my argument and turn it on its head and say, well, if mortgage interest costs are coming down so much, people are just going to spend money on other things and that will drive inflation up in those things. So my prediction doesn’t, it’s not without holes, it’s not without holes, but if I’m going out on a limb, it’s something that I think would surprise a lot of people this year.
Colin White (04:46):
Can I tack a prediction on top of your prediction? Go
Josh Sheluk (04:49):
For it.
Colin White (04:51):
I think you’re probably right. I think at some point this year we will see inflation hit the bank. I’m going to say it differently. I think it’s going to hit the central bank target, which is a fungible number because they may change it later this year, but I think they’re going to declare victory at some point this year. And I think by the end of this year somebody is going to write a paper or there’s going to become an area of thought. It was like now did central banks really do that or was it just the supply chain fixing itself or was it the money supply? Was it really these interest rate hikes that actually beat inflation or was it just naturally going to play out this way? Anyway, I think that’s going to be the debate that’s going to erupt once we declare victory. And I think that should begin to unfold by the end of this year at some
Josh Sheluk (05:34):
Point. And that’s an interesting take and it would be great if we all controlled our own successes and failures. I know if we’re the central bank, we could say, you know what, we are targeting this all along and yes, we declare victory. So yeah, not all of us have that luxury but happy they do.
Colin White (05:53):
Well, I think the thing is, and the reasoning and it’s not flawed is they’re going to take the blame if we have inflation. So alright, fine, take all the credit even if you didn’t really earn it. I mean maybe that’s share of a big cosmic kind of way.
Josh Sheluk (06:06):
Yeah. Well my second prediction here somewhat related to interest rates real estate. So my thinking is that short-term real estate will be okay. It will be okay and in the long-term it’s going to be okay if you know what I mean. So what I mean by that is I’ve kind of come full circle a little bit, like I thought we were going to see more weakness in real estate, but there has been some, not as materially as I would’ve expected, but I think that short term now there’s some signs of safety I guess we’ll call it, with potentially interest rates coming down and longer term I say it’ll be okay because I don’t think we’re going to go back to the banner last decade that we’ve had in real estate. I think it’ll tread water maybe for the next five or 10 years and people should be reasonably happy with that.
Colin White (07:06):
Well, I think that’s the danger. I think that’s why it’s going to be seen as a failure because it’s not going to return back to what it was. It’s going to mud along pretty much where it is. My other issue with talking about real estate, we talk about it’s if it’s this homogeneous blog and it isn’t, there’s radical differences across the country in different pockets and different provinces or areas within provinces or kind of real estate. Are you talking about residential? Are you talking about multi-family are talking about recreational. All of these things are dramatically different and we try to cast a net and just make a comment on real estate and that’s on average. We can comment on it, but people’s reality is going to be very, very specific to where they, they’re both from what kind of property to talk about and where they’re geographically. So it is not that easy to make a comment that’s actually valuable to anybody in that space, in my opinion.
Josh Sheluk (08:01):
Yeah. Well it’s funny you mentioned that because doing the research for this podcast yesterday and looking into how CPI on real estate is calculated CPI and shelter more specifically, they’re taking for the, it’s a bunch of different things really. It’s actually pretty complicated. They have a full article just on CPI for shelter, which is crazy, but the owned, owned real estate inflation is based off of only 20 something markets in Canada. So it’s fairly limited. The actual CPI inflation number for shelter might have nothing to do with the place that you live. Now I’m sure that those 20 markets capture the vast majority of places where Canadians live, but it’s by no means everywhere.
Colin White (08:50):
Well, it’s everything you deal with in these numbers is an approximation and the devil can do the details and this is where I always challenge people. The CPI never comes out and it’s not like when you go to the grocery store, everything’s going to be more expensive that day. These are things that you’ve already experienced in your own sphere that this is a measurement of what’s already happened. So whether you’ve taken it in or not, this is just the codification of everybody’s general experience and it is going to have a varying degree of impact on an individual person except where it comes to things like influencing monetary policy, which the interest rate does affect. Everybody borrows money or everybody borrows money. So there isn’t back there. But the actual, I mean again, I just bought a tv, this TV is like 20% of the price of the last TV I bought in way nicer. So my inflation this month has probably way down.
Josh Sheluk (09:42):
Yeah, congratulations. Are you ready for a Bitcoin prediction
Colin White (09:51):
Would be a prediction show without Bitcoin?
Josh Sheluk (09:54):
Yeah, you’re right. So my prediction is that Bitcoin will trade at a higher point this year at some point this year than at any point during 2023. And it will also trade at a lower point at some point this year than at any point during 2023.
Colin White (10:13):
You’re predicting increased volatility in the truest sense of the word will up and down.
Josh Sheluk (10:19):
Yeah, I guess I don’t know if it’s increased volatility, but it’s just volatility and I’m kind of cheating. I already got the first half of this one correct that we we’re recording here on January 3rd and on January 2nd it hit a higher point than any point last year, but you kind of hit the nail on the head. I’m just predicting volatility for Bitcoin. This is still not for us an investible idea, but it does seem to track as a risk asset pretty well. So when people are risk loving, it’ll go up. When people are afraid of risk, it’ll go down just like stock markets, but to a more significant extent of volatility. So I’m just kind of playing up on that theme.
Colin White (11:05):
Well, I think again, we’re here on January the third recording this and I was looking today and apparently it has fallen significantly today and it’s based on the prediction as to whether or not there’s going to be an ETF that’s allowed to be listed. So all of the people who were early adopters who are in are going, oh my god, this is going to become easily available to everybody and therefore the price of the currencies are going up. But the SEC and the startling moment of clarity appears to be reluctant to allow this to happen. So I think that this is where the rubber’s going to hit the road. All of the tough kids, all the anarchists want access to the big table and they’re now hitching their cart to the big table. The big tables go, wait a second, I didn’t thought you guys wanted any irregulation. Well if you’re going to come play at the big table, we’re going to have to regulate you. So it’s kind of an approach, avoid situation where they want all spoils becoming more mainstream, but in doing so, you’re going to give up a lot of, I think what brought people to the table first place.
Josh Sheluk (12:10):
Yeah. So I don’t really have a thought or opinion on how Bitcoin will perform this year other than it will be volatile.
Colin White (12:21):
Alright, I’ll give you that one that receives my endorsement.
Josh Sheluk (12:26):
Alright, good. So this next one here, I stole the exact same prediction as I did have last year. Now this year I have a higher hurdle, so my view bonds will outperform last year’s returns.
Colin White (12:42):
That’s alright. Alright, you’re going. So
Josh Sheluk (12:46):
Now we’re talking. So to give some context, I made this prediction at the start of 2023 and it was an easy prediction to make because in 2022 bonds had just about the worst returns that they had on history, depending on which market you’re looking at in 2023, bond returns were a lot better. The measurement that I have for the Canadian aggregate market was up 6.7%. So essentially I’m saying here today that we think that, I think anyway, that bonds will outperform that 6.7% number this year.
Colin White (13:20):
So correct me, I’m wrong because I haven’t looked these numbers up. So 10 Canadian is creating 4.7% right now.
Josh Sheluk (13:28):
It’s in the threes while we’re talking here, I’ll tell you exactly where it is at the moment.
Colin White (13:32):
Okay. Okay, so wow. All right. So it’s only going to get three something on interest, and you’re saying that rates are going to fall enough on the 10 year over the year that’s going to get to a 7% return for the year.
Josh Sheluk (13:46):
Year. So the 10 year Canadian bond government of Canada bond right now is just around 3% for the aggregate market. You’re also including some provincial bonds and corporate bonds in there as well. So let’s say we’re at 4%,
Colin White (14:04):
I’ll give you
Josh Sheluk (14:05):
Four I’ll percent yield today. I think we’re pretty close.
Colin White (14:09):
You’re planning to pick up 3%, 3% interest rate. Wow. Wow. All right. Josh, I’m not sure, have you started taking new vitamins or something?
Josh Sheluk (14:18):
Yeah.
Colin White (14:20):
Should we have some performance enhancing drug tests for you or something? I mean that’s, dude, what has made you so bold
Josh Sheluk (14:27):
Once? Well, hey, it felt like 2024. I had to go a little bit out on a limb, a little bit bold this year with the prediction. So yeah, realistically this is not maybe a high probability outcome, but I do think there is a probability there that this happens. And if you think of the duration of the Canadian aggregate market, so a measurement of interest rate sensitivity is about seven years at the moment. If you get about a half a percent decrease in interest rates over the course of the year, there’s the three plus percent that you need to outperform last year.
Colin White (15:07):
I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just saying that that’s bold money, but I’m like us. So this one’s not going to get my endorsement. I’m sorry, you’ve scared me.
Josh Sheluk (15:18):
Well, that’s okay.
Colin White (15:19):
I’m a little afraid now.
Josh Sheluk (15:20):
And we do have to remind everybody of the disclaimer, don’t make this investible necessarily, but again, I would just want it to be thought provoking in the conversation as to how you could get there. We’ve had a pretty bad run of returns for five years on the bond market leading up to 2023. It wouldn’t be unusual to see a couple more solid years of returns for that market. And as we’ve been talking about, bonds are a viable investment for returns above inflation for the first time in maybe 15 years.
Colin White (15:56):
Well, no, no, listen, absolutely. And I think that it’s not a completely impossible thing to have happen. And given that the market January of last year had priced in two interest rate cuts last year, and they never did happen, and the market is, I’ve check the figure gly, but I suspect they’re still pricing in interest rate cuts this year. Now that market’s wrong last year. Now whether it’s going to be more right or less wrong this year mean to be seen, but you have a lot of people in your corner who would say, yes, Josh, you’re going to be able to pick up that half a point without too much difficulty.
Josh Sheluk (16:32):
Yeah, I mean the market longer term bonds are already priced for those decreases. So to some extent you need to see more decreases than are already priced into the market in a way.
Colin White (16:47):
Can’t wait. Is this a trend? Because if we’re going to plot the certainty of your predictions, we’re on a pretty steep, is the next one going to be even further out or are we going to come back towards the medium?
Josh Sheluk (17:02):
We’re going to come back towards center here with this one, and I’m going to focus on the stock market for this one. So my prediction related to stocks is that the magnificent seven magnificent seven stocks, which is a representation of five kind of growthy tech related stocks, the value of those seven stocks as a percentage of the s and p 500 will fall throughout this year,
Colin White (17:26):
Throughout the year, throughout the year. Yesterday. Yeah.
Josh Sheluk (17:28):
Well, yesterday, yeah. So on one day I won’t claim victory for that, but over the course of the year, so these seven companies, as of the end of 2023 represent over 30% of the s and p 500. That’s the US stock market. So I guess really what I’m saying here is that they’re going to underperform the US stock market as a whole throughout 2024. They started just for some context, they started 2023, around 20% of the US stock market. So these seven companies grew from 20% to 30% of the overall stock market. And just as a reminder for people, s and p 500 means 500 stocks. So that’s a pretty concentrated market in seven individual companies.
Colin White (18:16):
It’s not a Nortel Canadian perspectives, but yeah, no, it’s absolutely getting up there. Yeah, it’s interesting. In order for that to happen, there’s two variables there. The value of everything else or the value of those set up. So what predicted to you? Are you predicting that their value is going to fall or that the others are going to catch up?
Josh Sheluk (18:37):
You got to pay extra for bonus prediction.
Colin White (18:40):
Oh, come on. Everybody wants to know Josh.
Josh Sheluk (18:43):
I’m not predicting either. I just am predicting or seeing that the valuation of these companies is very, very high and these are massive companies with very high valuations. And as the saying goes, trees don’t grow to the sky. Now, you could look back five years ago and say, look at the five most valuable companies at that time, and these were already massive trees and they did grow out of the sky. They grew more, they’ve even taken market share as a portion of the overall stock market. So I’m sort of going a little bit contra to the herd in terms of the way that things have gone over the last 15 years with this prediction. But it’s just from the perspective of there’s a lot of hype around these companies right now, even though they’re already massive companies. So how big can they really get? How much can they really grow? And if you see a misstep or one or two or a few of them along the way, then that’s going to be a high hurdle for them.
Colin White (19:42):
Well, I also think the question is how much is the AI height entering into these names? Now we could argue and debate as to how much it’s going to directly impact any one of the seven, but I think they are generally going to caught up with the AI is coming, the big tech firms are going to do great, and I’ll ask a supplemental prediction. I think that the investability of AI is going to wane a little bit this year. I think some shine is going to come off that Rose people are going to be maybe a little less excited about the investment. I think we’ve seen the first wave of real big enthusiasm bidding up a whole bunch of companies that think there’s going to be a sober second thought it’s going to currently share that. Wait a second, maybe this isn’t investible yet, and I think it’s going to become a little more, going to be some more prudence. It comes to investing in these things going forward, which is not going to help the magnificent seven, although I think it’s cool that she get jackets done, not the same magnificent seven. That’s one of the better naming things that have happened. That’s probably my favorite naming thing from last year.
Josh Sheluk (20:49):
Yeah, that’s fair. It’s better than bandag or whatever we were using for a while as an acronym, that’s for sure.
Colin White (20:58):
Yeah, absolutely.
Josh Sheluk (20:59):
But I’m glad you mentioned AI because my next prediction has to do with that, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the investability of ai, but my thought is that AI will take another large leap forward in 2024. I feel like we’re kind of in the early two thousands stage of the internet for ai. And at that time as you’re talking about, there was a lot of hype, a lot of very high expectations around internet companies at the time, and the internet was truly revolutionary. I think we can look back and say that with conviction and it changed a lot of lives for a lot of people, and there were a lot of companies that made a ton of money off of internet and network related things, and I think all of that is going to be true for ai. But there were also a lot of companies that were way over-hyped went totally bust in the early two thousands and were way overvalued at the time. And I think that’s also probably going to be true for ai.
Colin White (22:06):
I think that’s the step that we have to get through, and I don’t know whether that’s going to be this year thing or a multi-year thing because the appetite for investing in AI far exceeds the availability of solid investible opportunities. So what are we going to do? We’re going to manufacture shit and we’re going to put shit out there that says AI on it, because that’s a business model and you can raise capital that way. So you’re going to get your pets.call and all the other names that actually never did anything back in the day. And we’re going to invent new things. We’re going to have to dust off your textbooks and go back and look for peg ratios. Josh, I dunno if you remember what a peg ratio is, but when you run out an E and you have a P, you need to have something else in there. So you have to find a G in order to make that ratio work.
Josh Sheluk (22:49):
Yeah. See, I am less convinced that we’re going to have that sober second thought this year. I think it’s going to happen at some point, but I would say we’re probably going to have more drunk second thoughts this year. Then the sobriety will come the year after for the That’s true. Or something. Yeah.
Colin White (23:09):
Well that’s funny. I’m a bit on both sides of it. I think that you’re going to see some smaller stuff show up that’s going to get a lot, but I think the shine’s going to come off the rose for some of the bigger players this year. So I think those two things can happen in tandem a little bit. But yeah, it’s going to be interesting to watch a play for sure.
Josh Sheluk (23:27):
Sure. So another large trend, I’ll hesitate to call it a megatrend. Everyone calls everything megatrends these days, but
Colin White (23:36):
Super trends,
Josh Sheluk (23:37):
Super trend. Yeah, A little bit less than mega. I think maybe the story of 2024 from a popular culture loosely related to economy type of thing will be healthcare. So I’d say that for 2023 was ai, and I think we started to get a trickle of ai, excuse me, AI stuff coming through AI information, AI hype in late 2022. And that just kind of flourished through 2023 like Cha, GBT for example, launched in late 2022, and that just led to the real AI boom for 2023. I think for this year it’s going to be healthcare and specifically pharma and biotech and drug related companies because I’ve been seeing some extremely fascinating, very hype worthy, I’ll call it hype worthy information and data points coming out of this space this year.
Colin White (24:31):
Well, it’ll be interesting. That’s a pretty wide space, and in most people experience science doesn’t have those eureka bonds. It is more of a slow grind in one direction. There’s not going to be one study that comes out or one domino that’s going to fall. It’s going to be just super revolutionary. That doesn’t tend to be all that kind of progress happens, but yeah, it’s great to be optimistic and I told that we see enough, it’d be nice for it to get some positive momentum so we can have enough good news come up short enough period of time that generates that momentum, that interest. That would be a very healthy thing in my opinion. Again, when you go look into the good news, you find those tidbits of these studies drug or the same reactions to treatment or whatever, and it could take two years before you actually have it in the local pharmacy or the local hospital and things like that. So it would be nice. I’m hopeful I’m not going to endorse this prediction. I’m going to add my hope. You’re right to this.
Josh Sheluk (25:37):
I’m not saying that we’re going to have all these things that are curing cancer massively available this year. It’s more so I think this could be the story of the year that the hype builds over the course of 2024, and it becomes a real thing that’s dominating people’s discussions with their cab driver or their bartender starting to talk about some of these things the way that I think AI has dominated those discussions this year. You mentioned that there’s not often a eureka moment. So I was listening to a podcast about how these, they’re called GLP drugs, but things like Ozempic, which has been in the news quite a bit, there’s a few drugs like that that are targeted towards diabetes but now seem to have a lot more benefits for obesity. And they discovered these drugs by studying a lizard, a lizard that has some enzyme or I’m not a scientist so I’m going to screw all this up, but something within this lizard that helps it suppress its appetite. So to me, that’s kind of a eureka moment. That’s crazy.
Colin White (26:52):
Well, listen, when you go in and start reading this stuff, and I love to go read it too, and this was years ago that there’s a lab somewhere in Quebec where they were crossing spider DNA with goat DNA, because on a molecular level, spiderweb is the most powerful substance naturally occurring in nature, and they were trying to take those proteins and have a secreted in goats milk so they could use it for all of these wonderful technologies that are building, I don’t know how many legs the goat had, but it’s just really interesting when you start reading that stuff that wow, that could be a big one and that could be a game changer. So
Josh Sheluk (27:30):
Hope, well, this sounds a lot, it sounds a lot like Spider-Man, but this is real. These drugs are actually available on the market and have positive, very, very, very positive effects in humans. So it’s not like this is some pipe dream. And I’ve heard other things like we are making significant progress on gene editing to the extent that we think we can cure sickle cell. Somebody mentioned to me recently who’s a healthcare analyst, that there’s a potential cure for type one diabetes in the midst being tested right now, and things that again, are not totally out of the realm of possibility, something that is somewhat reasonable. All these things on their own could have a massive, massive positive economic impact. I was looking at some data on obesity and what it costs just the American economy on a yearly basis, and it was estimated in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine that it costs about 190 billion in direct medical expenses and about 131 billion in lost productivity. If you start to even just chip away at some of that impact, then you have a massive tailwind for economies and productivity over time.
Colin White (28:58):
Absolutely. A billion here, a billion there, and the pretty soon you’re talking real money.
Josh Sheluk (29:03):
You got it. So my next one here is something that’s near and dear to your heart, Colin. I know there will be at least one significant novel investment product this year that launches and it will do so at exactly the wrong time.
Colin White (29:25):
I’ll love that. I want to say one a quarter.
Josh Sheluk (29:27):
One a quarter,
Colin White (29:29):
And I think that I want you to hold me accountable to this. Sometimes I get so frustrated and I stop looking and I stop paying attention because again, but only so many hills I can die on. So I’m suggest at least once a quarter there’ll be a nonviable investment product launched and it will be comical for how badly timed it’s, and again, the bonus round, it’s going to be successful. They’re going to be able to successfully raise capital with it. So it is going to be a good business for the people raising the money and a bad investment for those. Invest in it one a quarter and hold me to this. Let’s set what’s a quarter that you challenge me to go dig it up. I’ll go find it and we’ll do a podcast that includes at least a mention of my favorite bad product launch.
Josh Sheluk (30:18):
I’m looking forward to that bad product launch of the quarter.
Colin White (30:21):
Yeah, absolutely.
Josh Sheluk (30:22):
Okay, good stuff. That’s it for my list. Did you have anything else to add predictions
Colin White (30:28):
Wise? I’m so glad that you left this big end of the field for me to play
Josh Sheluk (30:32):
In. Josh, there’s, there’s a lot of ground to cover still.
Colin White (30:35):
I like to take our audience back through the last couple of years, the January of 2020. Let’s go back to January of 2020. Everybody had predictions for what was going to happen in 2020, and the biggest story was nothing anybody saw coming. And then by the time we get to 20 21, 20 22, 20 23, each of those years, you can say the largest most impactful story was nothing that was seeable Jane, or whether you want to talk about the Russian invasion, Ukraine, the gas and conflict or anyone of another. I’m going to predict that one of the most meaningful things that’s going to affect the economy of markets this year is something that absolutely nobody is talking about right now. And there’s absolutely zero inkling of it possibly occurring, but it’s going to be something that we haven’t even envisioned yet. That is going to be one of the major stories for the company.
Josh Sheluk (31:31):
That’s a really good prediction. I will endorse that. I was listening to two podcasts today on trends going forward or what 2024 looks like, predictions, I guess economic related of course. And they both said that they think that it’s going to be a boring 2024 economically. There’s going to be a boring economic here. So just like last year when everybody said there was going to be a recession in 2023, this prediction of nobody expecting anything of remark for 2024, almost certainly going to be wrong.
Colin White (32:06):
Oh no, listen, I’ll bet all the money in my jeans. There’s going to be something that’s going to occur this year that comes completely out of left field that nobody’s talking about right now, and it’s going to become one of the big stories of the year. That’s just how the planet rolls. And the problem is I’m starting to stretch now. I have to go back all the way to 2020, which is four years ago, to talk about pre pandemic. We’re sitting here pre pandemic or planning the year out and how badly or how dramatically that shifted everybody’s focus and the direction of everything has shifted based on that event. There’s people who have graduated from school since then, so they’re now, they’re post pandemic people. I talked to people who weren’t investing during 2008 when they had the big financial crisis and interest rates have always been a slow, there’s people in this industry who have never seen these interest rates right now, just beyond anything they could imagine because their whole investment career, this is the way it’s been. So again, I think that that’s going to keep playing up forward. And again, I can’t wait till you sit here and hold my knees to the fire next year and say, okay, what was it? And make me pick something.
Josh Sheluk (33:19):
Yeah. Well, we will. We will. And we appreciate everybody listening, and that’s probably a good point to end this podcast on. But we will do that year in review as we do every year to look at our predictions. And just once again, for everybody listening, don’t go out and make investment ideas based off of this. It was meant to be, again, thought-provoking and thought-provoking does not make good investment idea.
Colin White (33:44):
And feel free to reach out to us with suggestions for future podcasts. And if you like what you’re hearing, feel free to share. Paul, thanks for your attention.
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