Michael Gaiyedr.

Run's The Lead LAG Report, an Investing Group on Seeking Alpha,

has been writing for us for a very long time.

He talks to us today about the markets, the U.S. markets,

the international markets.

Any articles discussed today, you can find links to them

on our show notes, and all episodes have transcripts

available on Seeking Alpha.

After the first week of January, I made the argument that will probably see a melt-up and

then potentially a crash all in the same year.

I know that sounds dramatic, but let's look at the historical precedent.

So usually in pre-election years, you end up having very strong market,

you end up having a melt-up.

Now all that has pretty much played out so far.

You've had a fairly sizable run in the S&P 500.

We know what has happened to the NASDAQ and Tech with the AI media that's run wild.

So it's been by all the metrics, you know, one of the strongest six months to a year

in history, let alone in pre-election years. But I've been warning that in the context of that melt up there is a credit event that's out there.

Now in January when I started making that argument I put the time frame around the latter part of the year under this idea that you have a large number of loans that are going to be refinance into higher rates next year and most crises are refinancing crises right it's on the

rollover of debt where typically there tends to be a problem and higher

volatility if that's going to happen and start in earliest next year, if it's going to be a stress point for the bond market, the stock market and bond market won't respond off of it next year

they'll respond off of it this year because the markets are supposed to be forward-looking mechanisms.

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