A Turning Point for Value Investing | Mark Holowesko

In Episode 402 https://hiddenforces.io/podcasts/a-turning-point-for-value-investing-mark-holowesko of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Mark Holowesko, the founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Holowesko Partners—a Bahamian-based, value-oriented investment firm that allocates capital across a wide range of industries, geographies, and market capitalizations. This episode is part of a series in which Demetri interviews value investors, motivated by his concerns about how the global economy's direction and the ongoing geostrategic competition between the U. S. and China will impact asset markets in the coming years. In the first hour, Holowesko and Kofinas discuss: Mark's macro framework and approach to value investing His concerns about government debt and its implications for interest rates and inflation Trends in global liquidity The future direction of the U. S. dollar Why Holowesko believes that 2022 marked a long-term turning point for value investing—with enormous implications for investors In the second hour, Mark and Demetri explore some of the most promising investment opportunities outside the United States—particularly in the UK and Japan—as well as how to assess similar opportunities in China, whether the country is investible, and the risks investors face when deploying capital in Chinese companies and the broader Chinese market. They also delve deeper into Mark's investment process, his views on the role of gold in one's portfolio, opportunities in the U. S. energy sector, and much more. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe https://hiddenforces.io/subscribe. If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe https://hiddenforces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-forces/id1205359334, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8URhgYos5fjHqFSO4RSIEg, Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0TK6u251zGSlMgJKH6cOaP, Stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/demetri-kofinas/hidden-forces, SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/hiddenforces, CastBox https://castbox.fm/channel/2629539, or via our RSS Feed http://hiddenforces.libsyn.com/rss Writing us a review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-forces/id1205359334 & Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/0TK6u251zGSlMgJKH6cOaP Joining our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at https://hiddenforces.io https://hiddenforces.io/. Join the conversation on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenforcespod/, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenforcespod/, and Twitter https://twitter.com/hiddenforcespod at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas https://twitter.com/kofinas Episode Recorded on 02/11/2025

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Demetri Kofinas?

  What's up everybody? My name is Demetri Kofinas and you're listening to Hidden Forces, a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens to challenge consensus narratives and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world. My guest in this episode of Hidden Forces is Mark Holowesko, the founding partner and chief executive officer of Holowesko Partners, a Bahamian-based, value-oriented investment firm that invests across a wide variety of industries, geographies, and market capitalizations. This is one of a series of episodes that I'm recording with value investors motivated by my concerns about how the direction of the global economy and the ongoing geostrategic

• 0:44Demetri Kofinas?

  competition between the US and China will impact asset markets in the years to come. In the first hour, Mark and I discuss his macro framework and approach to value investing, his concerns about government debt and its implications for interest rates and inflation, trends in global liquidity, the future direction of the US dollar, and why he believes that 2022 marked a long-term turning point for value with huge implications for investors. In the second hour, Mark and I discuss some of the more promising investment opportunities that exist outside the United States, in particular, within the UK and Japan, as well as how to assess similar opportunities in China, whether the country is investable,

• 1:26Demetri Kofinas?

  and the risks investors face when putting capital to work in Chinese companies and the Chinese market. We also discuss more about Mark's investment framework, his views on the role of gold in one's portfolio, opportunities within the US energy sector, and much more. If you want access to that part of the conversation and you're not already subscribed to Hidden Forces, you can join our premium feed and listen to the second hour of today's episode by going to hiddenforces.io/subscribe. All of our content tiers give you access to our premium feed, which you can listen to on your mobile device using your favorite podcast app, just like you're listening to this episode right now. If you want to join in on the conversation, become a member of the Hidden Forces

• 2:10Demetri Kofinas?

  Hidden Forces Genius Community, which includes Q and A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events and dinners. You can also do that on our subscriber page. If you still have questions, feel free to send an email to [email protected] and I or someone from our team will get right back to you. Lastly, because this conversation deals with investing, nothing we say on this podcast can or should be viewed as financial advice. All opinions expressed by me and my guests are solely our own opinions and should not be relied upon as the basis for financial decisions. And with that, please enjoy this thoughtful and extraordinarily valuable conversation

• 2:55Demetri Kofinas?

  with my guest, Mark Holowesko.

• 3:01Demetri Kofinas?

  Mark Holowesko, welcome to Hidden Forces.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Thanks very much. Nice to be here.

• 3:05Demetri Kofinas?

  I'm excited to have you on, Mark. This is part of a series of episodes that I'm doing on value investing, informed by a macro framework that sees the future that we're embarking on as being one that may be more favorable to that investment style. And so I think I want to expose our audience to it and explore some of the work that folks like you are doing in this area. Before we start, I'd love to talk a little bit about your career because you seem like someone whose career progressed very quickly. And I'm curious to learn a little bit more about you and how you got your start in this business.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  I guess I started very young, I guess, when you say it progressed very quickly. I started working for a trust company while I was in college and high school here in the Bahamas. I grew up in the Bahamas. And when I came back from getting a master's degree, started working for the trust company and basically decided I didn't want to be a a trust employee. So reached out to Sir John Templeton, who was on the island, famous global international investor. And he turned me down initially for a job. And then I decided I would get him to sponsor me for the CFA exam, Chartered Financial Analyst exam, because there are only two CFAs on the island. He was one. You needed to get a CFA to sponsor you. So I wrote him back and said, geez, you know, thanks very much for turning me down,

• 4:24Speaker 01

  but would you sponsor me for a CFA? And he agreed that a year later, when I passed the first level of the CFA, I wrote him back. Thanked him for sponsoring me, told him I'd passed the first level and he invited me in and after a conversation and a Saturday morning in his office, which used to be in the attic of a shopping center, he offered me a job. And so, you know, that certainly changed my professional life and my life to many, in many respects. And I guess my career developed rapidly because at the time, it was just Sir John and I in the office on the investment side. He had two accountants, two secretaries and receptionists. And we had an office in Fort Lauderdale with more analysts, but Sir John and I, we were it

• 5:08Speaker 01

  in terms of the investment staff in the Bahamas. So I got to work next to him and he became comfortable with me and gave me more and more responsibilities. I started off researching companies for him. He would come in, lay a piece of paper on my desk. Normally it was hotel stationery because that was the cheapest way of getting stationery was to take some from a hotel you stayed in. And he'd write me a little note saying, you know, do this or do that. And I would do it, put it on his desk. And yeah, so he just kept giving me more and more responsibilities. Became a research analyst for the group, took over the management of some of the portfolios that he ran for private individuals. And

• 5:48Speaker 01

  then in May of 87, so I started working for him in 85. In May of 87, he came in and put all of his mutual funds on his desk and said, from now on, you figure out what should go in these portfolios and leave the trade tickets on my desk. And that was 11 o'clock in May of 1987. And I left the office and I went for a long run to try to calm down. But then that was sort of the beginning of my management of mutual funds. So yeah, very quick progression with him from 85 to 87 and then, you know, did other things after that.

• 6:26Demetri Kofinas?

  Yeah. And so it was your time at Templeton Global Advisors and how you went from a research analyst in 85 to managing all of the portfolios that were previously managed by Sir John Templeton himself, that I identified as the sort of reason why I said that you progressed very quickly. I have a number of questions that I wasn't prepared to ask because I didn't know some of those details. I didn't know that you got turned down on your first pitch. So I'm curious, what did you say to him that you can tell us that didn't work? And then I'm just curious to understand how you, actually, before I even ask you that, I didn't know that you grew up in the Bahamas either. What was that experience like? And also, did you have some sort of template in your father that got you interested in finance? Or what was the source of your early fascination with this business?

• 7:10Speaker 01

  I really couldn't figure it out. I grew up in the Bahamas. My mother's family's been here since the 1700s, so a long history in the Bahamas. I did all the typical things you do when you grow up in the Bahamas. I worked on a dock pumping gas. You know, I worked for a mechanic on boats and I decided that working outside in the blazing heat in the summer really wasn't for me. My mother knew somebody at a trust company and got me a job there. And quite honestly, I was in the file room when I first started. But I was just always fascinated by the idea that somebody could give you their money and you could grow it over time. And quite honestly, at the time, the trust company that's no longer in existence really didn't do that well. Both of my parents were lawyers. I decided I didn't want to be a lawyer.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  So I was just fascinated by it. And I was also fascinated by the fact that every day you woke up, you know, if you're an architect and you're designing a building, you can put those plans down, you can walk away and the design is exactly where it was when you left it two weeks ago. If you're a portfolio manager or a research analyst and you know, you put your portfolio down, you go away for two weeks, you're two weeks behind. So I enjoyed the fact that it was, I'm a very competitive person. So I enjoyed the fact that you could quantify what you do and you can compare it to other people. I was also fascinated by the fact that it changed every day. It was very fast paced, in my opinion, at the time. So I was, I didn't really have an aha moment in terms of getting in the finance business. What did I say to Sir John? You know, it was interesting.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  When I first wrote to Sir John, he turned me down. So he'd never met me. When I wrote him back a year later and thanked him for sponsoring me, you know, I think part of asking me in was he wanted to see if I could pass the first level of a CFA, even though I had a master's degree. I also caught him at the right time. He really needed help, needed staff, although he could have hired anybody, anywhere in the world. But it was interesting. When I sat down with Sir John on that Saturday morning and he interviewed me in an office with butterflies all over the wall, which was sort of fascinating. He had a pink jacket on, yellow pants, you know, suspenders and butterflies all over the wall. He didn't ask me any investment questions.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  I'd prepped for a week to answer all sorts of investment questions. And I guess he felt that because I passed the first level of CFA and I got a master's degree with a concentration in finance, technically I should know what I'm doing. You know, his first question was, you know, where did I go to church? So it was really, hopefully, an interview of character, of work ethic, you know, talk to me about team sports that I did in school and extracurricular activities, my family, things of that nature. So, and you know, I was so excited when he offered me a job on the spot and he didn't tell me what the salary would be. And I went home and I very excitedly told my dad I got a job with a great Sir John Templeton.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  The first thing out of his mouth was, what's he gonna pay you? And I said, I don't know. My father thought I was an idiot because I didn't, you know, know what I was gonna get paid. But actually, it was paid by the hour, too. My first raise was a dollar and 50 cents an hour. I joined him in this, in the early summer, in the late summer, I came to work and there was an envelope on my desk. And I thought, well, it's not working out too. And I opened up the envelope and it said, due to your hard work and diligence, I'm happy to raise your salary by a dollar and 50 cents an hour effective September 1st. So I was paid by the hour. I got my first raise, it was a dollar 50, and it sort of went off from there.

• 10:42Demetri Kofinas?

  I love that you didn't ask him how much money you made. I wonder if that also was an important indication, not only of your character and motivations in seeking employment with him, but also an indication of maybe what he saw in you or what he was looking for in someone to mentor, which was someone that was passionate about the work and not necessarily motivated by making money, which is a common motivation in finance.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  You know, at 25, you know, fresh out of school, trying to start a family, you know, you obviously worry about money. But quite honestly, I had struggled trying to find a good job coming out of college. When I finished college in 82, US was in a recession, so, and I didn't really know anybody in Boston and New York and, you know, thought that was the route to go if you wanted to get into the financial service sector. So I went straight to business school, to a school that would take you without any full-time work experience. And so I was just happy when I got the job that I was gonna actually learn, you know, that obviously Sir John had such a great reputation. And to me, you know, if anybody worked for Sir John Templeton, whether it was for a

• 11:47Speaker 01

  month or six months or six years, it's sort of like going back to school and, you know, the reputation that he had would be so valuable. So I wanted to be able to eventually buy a car. You know, I was sort of going to work on a motorcycle, which was difficult in the rainy season, but at the time, money really wasn't that important.

• 12:05Demetri Kofinas?

  Yeah, you had a long-term perspective. You said that you got a master's and then you said business school. I'm assuming the master's was a master's in business. What did you study in college?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Economics. I went to Holy Cross College studying economics. But really, I, what I really studied was crew. I was on the crew team. And although I majored in economics, I learned so much in athletics and rowing crew and the camaraderie, the teamwork, you know, the joy of working hard, accomplishing goals, things of that nature. You know, I got as much out of rowing crew in college than I did out of classroom. My parents hate to hear that after spending all the money to send me to college. But I started economics in college.

• 12:48Demetri Kofinas?

  If you had to identify one, the most valuable lesson from your time in athletics, could you pick one specific thing? Was it overcoming challenges? Was it the teamwork? What was it?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  For me, it was the learning the joy of hard work. You know, a lot of people shy away from hard work. And, you know, when I consider how hard we had to work and prepare to row, I still sort of get tingles, you know, it was just such a, you know, we had an amazing coach who basically taught us the value and the beauty of hard work. And so for me, I always like to tell people I'm not really, you know, smarter than most people. I'm just willing to go the extra distance. I'm willing to work harder than most people. You know, if you take four steps, I'm willing to take five, that sort of thing.

• 13:33Demetri Kofinas?

  Well, if anyone's inspired by that, I recommend they go back and listen to our conversation with Tim Grover, who was Michael Jordan's strength coach, for a conversation about what it takes to be a winner. One of my favorite episodes ever. So last background question, Mark, which is, what led you to start your own fund in 2000? What was your vision then? And what were you hoping to accomplish with that?

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Well, I started off with Templeton and it grew very rapidly. And it turns out that in 1992, Sir John sold the business. I became a director of the firm, the head of global equities. But my main job was running the global equity division and managing the mutual funds that was assigned to me. And then in ninety two, Sir John sold the business to Franklin, became Franklin Templeton. And they were fantastic and they grew the firm rapidly. So the funds that I was managing grew extremely rapidly. We had about nineteen billion of assets when we sold to Franklin. And as my funds grew, I gave them up to other people to manage. And by two thousand, I was running the Templeton Foreign Fund, which is about fifteen billion, and Templeton Growth Fund,

• 14:38Speaker 01

  which is about the same size. And the group that I was managing, we had about another forty or fifty billion. So it seemed like I was becoming a manager of people as opposed to manager of assets. And I was in a unique position where I had a great relationship with the Johnson family, who owned majority stake of Franklin. And I told them that, look, I, you know, we had grown rapidly, we'd had great success, but I wanted to concentrate on picking stocks and doing it with a few people for a few clients. And that's what I truly love. I truly love coming to work and turning on the computer and seeing what's going around the world. And I didn't enjoy, you know, the seventy people that reported to me from nine different locations

• 15:22Speaker 01

  around the world. I mean, they were fantastic people, but it involved an enormous amount of travel and administrative work. And I found that my time on research was shrinking and my time on administration was growing. And I just love, you know, investing. So I had an agreement with them that I would start a new subsidiary. I would get sixty percent of the profits, they would get forty, and we would concentrate on running a global equity long-short fund. But that was also at a time in two thousand when the markets were, you know, we had the bubble and there was a great opportunity to start that fund. And we eventually started a long-only fund and then eventually I bought the majority of the business off of them. So really, it was, I decided to start my own business

• 16:03Speaker 01

  because of the love of investing and the lack of love of managing large groups of people. And you also remember, when I started working for Sir John, it was just Sir John and I and, you know, five other people in the office. And the decision-making was so quick and my boss was just next door and... And then when you get into a larger organization with people all over the world and committees, and it was just phenomenal people, but just a different environment. So I wanted to go back to the environment that I found myself in when I first joined John Templeton.

• 16:37Demetri Kofinas?

  So what an interesting conversation that would be. I'm not gonna, we're not gonna have that because we're here to talk about investing. But what an interesting conversation that would be to discuss the difference between running a large and small organization, especially in the investment world. I'm glad that you said that you love investing because that's what we're here to talk about. Let's start with frameworks, which is something I always try to pull out of people to get the first principles in terms of how they see the world, how they see investing. You invest with a value-oriented framework, and you also have a macro overlay that you bring to your investing. How would you describe each of those? Let's begin first with your value framework.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  People describe value investing different ways, and I guess I would describe it as that we try to compare a company's price to its intrinsic value. An intrinsic is an important part of the phrase. And so what's the company worth? And an intrinsic value can encompass growth, encompass breakup value. So to us, it's not just investing based on momentum or growth per se. It's, you know, what is this company worth? And where's the stock price? Now, very simplistic description, but very complicated process. And when we do that, we try to come up with a price target. If I'm right, I think the stock can go to this level.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  But more importantly, we come up with a risk target. If I'm wrong, how much money am I going to lose? And in the investment business, it's really that component that I think distinguishes us from other people. We spend an enormous amount of time on what if I'm wrong? How much money am I going to lose? And you know, if you have a collection of stocks and your upside is 50% and your downside is 10, you don't have to be right more than half the time to make good money. If your upside is 25% and your downside is 25%, well, you've got to be right a vast majority of the time to make money. So the framework is that, you know, let's try to find things that are intrinsically

• 18:38Speaker 01

  cheap, where our upside to downside ratio is skewed to the upside. And that sort of gives me a sense of how much risk I'm taking in the portfolio. I remember coming out of the bubble in 2000 and at one point, you know, stock markets had dropped, I think, 15% one year and 20% the next year. And we got to the point where in a hedge fund, we were 90% net long, which, you know, hedge funds don't get 90% net long. And somebody says, well, that's an enormous amount of risk you're taking in the portfolio. And I thought to myself, wow, it's the least amount of risk I think I've ever taken in a portfolio. Because my downside on the collection of 40 or 45 names that I have in my portfolio was single digits.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  And my upside was more than 50%. So from my perspective, it was the least amount of risk I'd ever taken in the portfolio. Although, when you look at the net exposure I had in the fund, people say, well, you're taking a lot of risk. So there's a couple of points there. I guess one is that we look at risk, it's the possibility of losing money. That's the risk. And when I, when an analyst recommends a name, I talk about, you know, what is the catalyst for this name in terms of, you know, how will we achieve the upside? And what will convince you if you're wrong? And what do you think can go wrong? And so for a bank, it may be that the analyst is using a downside that reflects a recessionary environment.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Then it's my job as the portfolio manager to decide when that may occur and when that risk in that stock may occur. Or if you're the energy analyst, you might be using $80 upside for oil and $40 downside. And then it's my job more the analyst to think about, under what scenario could oil prices get down to $40, which would make that a poor investment. And I guess that's where some of the top down work comes into play. So it's intrinsic value as opposed to value. And sometimes that incorporates growth, sometimes it doesn't.

• 20:38Demetri Kofinas?

  So if I'm listening to you correctly, it sounds like in addition to the importance of how you define value, it's also important how you define risk. Do you believe you can do more to limit the downside than you can to control the upside?

• 20:56Speaker 01

  I'd say we're more aware of the downside. And I don't know if we have control over it because a lot of times we have no control over markets, but we have more, I have more control on how I put my portfolio together. I can manage the risk in my portfolio by limiting the amount of names that I have that have lots of downside. You know, and you're going to be in this business, as you know, if you're right, you know, two thirds of the time, that's a phenomenal batting average. But you don't have to be right two thirds of the time if you limit your downside. Once again, if you really do your work, and you're going to be wrong on the downside two thirds of the time, you know, when you pick an upside, you know, you're going to make mistakes or that something's going to happen that you don't anticipate, same thing on the downside.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  So we're constantly trying to adjust our upside and downside. But to me, it sort of gives a framework for how much potential reward and risk I'm taking and how aggressive I need to be. If I've got tons of names all over the world and I can put together a portfolio with 50% upside and 10% downside, that's a great ratio. If you get to a point in the United States where you have very frothy markets and it's difficult to find a portfolio that has, you know, that type of ratio, I mean, most of the names in the US are more, you know, up 50, down 50, unfortunately. And, you know, that tends to move you and push you to other markets around the world. So a lot of times your framework decides how you allocate assets, both in terms of

• 22:23Speaker 01

  types of names and the geographic places that you might, might look.

• 22:27Demetri Kofinas?

  I poorly framed that question about relative measures of control and managing upside versus downside risk. Let me see if I can ask it again. Does your focus on mitigating risk to the downside reflect a broader recognition that over many cycles, the benefits of being invested outweigh those of being in cash? And so focusing more of your attention on what can go wrong so you can remain in the game, so to speak, makes sense?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  You know, I think my history has given me a better appreciation for downside. I mean, when I took over the funds from Sir John Templeton, I took them over in May of 87. I don't know if you remember what happened in October of 87.

• 23:16Demetri Kofinas?

  I was six, but yes, I've read about it.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I always joke with people that Sir John Templeton was a better market timer than people think he was. You know, he gave up all of his funds in May of 87. And in October, we had the great crash. You know, and we were, we ran both global money and international money. We ran the Templeton Foreign Fund was a non-US equity mutual fund. And so we were investing outside of the United States during, you know, the Asian crisis, the Latin American crisis. And, you know, if you grew up in the 1980s and early 1990s, you saw an enormous amount of damage in equity markets outside of the United States. So I guess I was somewhat conditioned by the environment that I grew up in professionally,

• 24:00Speaker 01

  where I'm perhaps too concerned about the downside. And I would say that's probably, if you say, you know, what's one of the faults of your approach, or what's one of the downsides to your approach, I would say that we're too much of a nervous Nellie sometimes.

• 24:14Demetri Kofinas?

  So you started the fund in 2000, which was a great year to begin a fund, a value investment fund. It sounds to me like, I mean, if I were to put some dates together, it seems that 2000, 2007 or so was a good period for value. What explains why value investing has underperformed and lost so much favor with investors, especially over the last five to 10 years, in your view?

• 24:42Speaker 01

  Well, it's underperformed dramatically over the last five or 10 years. And that's because we've just been in unusual interest rate environment, more than anything, and in an unusual liquidity environment. And when you have massive liquidity and when you have interest rates to the extent they are, historically, you've always unfortunately had these periods like this. You know, if you're, if you're a company and your cost of capital is 2%, you only need to make 3% to borrow capital. Well, and you know, you get all of these inefficient companies that are out there that compete effectively with more efficient companies, more profitable companies. But really, we just had unusual amounts of liquidity in the system. Liquidity leads to speculation.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  You've also had a real lack of growth in, you know, look at last year, I think the MAG 7 in the United States, the earnings grew 36%, something along those lines. The other 493 companies in the S and P 500 grew their earnings low single digits. And so there's really been a lack of growth, not only outside of certain stocks in the U.S., but outside of the U.S. And as a result of that, people have overpaid for growth. But if you look at a graph of value versus growth investing over time and start in the 1970s, there were periods of underperformance for value, but nothing as prolonged as what happened after the financial crisis, when they just brought rates down to unusually

• 26:12Speaker 01

  low levels and flooded the system with money and after COVID. And I would say those are two extremely unique events and that, you know, we're slowly trying to figure out how to move away from that period. And with a higher cost of capital, I think you're going to see a major change in that environment between value and growth. But so liquidity and rates really has driven this fascination with growth versus value investing.

• 26:37Demetri Kofinas?

  So I've heard you say that 2002 marked a turning point for value. Why do you feel that way? And what would you point to specifically to support that argument?

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Well, I think rates pretty much bottomed back then. And I think that as rates normalize and as liquidity starts coming out of the system, the two of those events, which I think have already started, you can say, okay, well, rates have gone up or down. I would say that, you know, that marked a low point in terms of rates and a high point in terms of liquidity. And there's such a disparity now between value and growth all over the world. And there's so much concentration of people's portfolios on growth versus value that I real... To me, it's cost of capital and liquidity. The things that have caused this disparity in performance have changed. And, you know, in terms of liquidity, you know, there's different ways of looking at liquidity.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  If you take the US, the Federal Reserve balance sheet, you know, that's rolled over. Okay, it's still massive, but it's moving, whether it's on an absolute basis or as a percentage of GDP, it's shrinking. You look at government spending, okay, it's completely out of control. You know, we've never had government spending, these budget deficits, 6% of GDP, when you have basically a good economy and low unemployment. Obviously, there's a new administration trying to get that under control. There's absolutely no way you can continue with 6% budget deficits as a percentage of GDP. So you've got the Federal Reserve balance sheets are starting to turn, government spending's going to turn, the Treasury with the way they've been issuing government securities on the short end versus long and provided massive liquidity.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  The other area would be bank credit, and bank credit is also changing. So I just feel that liquidity is... All the things that provided excess liquidity in the system are beginning to change. The other thing, too, is that government debt is so high in the United States, it's high everywhere in the world. You know, it's the same level as it was coming out of World War II. You know, back then, the government basically inflated their way out of the debt problem. And there are very few ways of solving the debt problem rather than growing the economy and trying to inflate your way out of the problem. So, you know, to me, that argues for sustainably higher rates than people anticipate as the world also struggles with lower liquidity levels.

• 29:02Demetri Kofinas?

  Is that another way of saying that the reason why you think we're in a period of structurally higher rates is because... Of the refinancing costs reflected in part in government deficit spending and the size of national debts?

• 29:17Speaker 01

  That's a part of it, but I think people's view on rates is conditioned by what's happened over the last 10 or 15 years. And what has happened over the last 10 or 15 years is completely abnormal. So, you know, people who haven't been in business in the financial sector, haven't been alive for, you know, more than 50 or 60 years, just think that, you know, the post-financial crisis era was normal. It's not. So I just think that we're going back to a more normal level of rates prior to the 2008 period. And part of that is, yes, sustainably higher inflation. That doesn't mean inflation is going to be, you know, 6%, 7%, 8%. But if you have, you know, 3% to 4% inflation, or even 2% to 4% inflation, you add some

• 30:00Speaker 01

  risk premium on top of that, you know, rates today are much more normal than people realize. This idea that rates need to continue to come down, you know, I don't think we're going to go back to 2% on the US Treasury.

• 30:12Demetri Kofinas?

  And the inflation, in your view, would be driven by monetization, government spending?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Well, government spending has certainly provided massive amounts of impetus to inflation. We've had too much money in the system, and a lot of that money's been provided by the US government. And unfortunately, a lot of the employment's provided by the US government as well. If you look at the employment statistics in the United States, and look at changes in employment, and how much that's been created by the government, yeah, so tariffs cause slightly higher inflation, although, you know, the administration will tell you it won't. There's so many different elements out there that are adding to inflation. You know, the government's got a real tricky job in the United States now to try to grow the economy without letting inflation rise too much. But at the same time, the only way you're going to get out of this debt problem is to let inflation help and inflate your way out of the debt problem.

• 31:04Demetri Kofinas?

  So this is a problem, obviously, that's not unique to the US.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:08Demetri Kofinas?

  However, there is an outstanding concern about the value of the dollar. You've written about this as well. How does this factor into the value of the dollar? Because the dollar has been very strong in recent years.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so as a global investor, obviously, if you invest outside the United States, you have to take currency into consideration. The great thing about investing outside the United States today is that you can hedge away most of that risk and it doesn't cost you anything. So when you hedge, if you use the forward markets, basically, the cost of hedging is normally the differential in interest rates. And because of where US rates are today versus most countries around the world, you don't really have to take much currency risk. So that's interesting and helpful. However, currency does a lot of different things to different companies in different parts of the world. We had a morning meeting today.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  We were discussing how a change in yen value impacts the book value of Japanese companies. And you have to be aware that currencies have a major impact on how companies report. It's a global economy. You know, BMW in Germany does 40% of its business in China, has a large business in the United States, although you're investing in a euro-based company, its actual business exposure to the euro is very low relative to its dollars and Chinese currency. You have to take all that into consideration, figure out whether or not the companies hedge themselves, and then whether or not you want to overlay a hedge on top of that. So currency is something you take into consideration when you're evaluating a company, the risk to that company in terms of where it's doing business.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  It gets very complicated, particularly when companies themselves are hedging, and then you have to decide whether or not I want to hedge again. But it's just one of those macro factors that you need to take into consideration. I just believe that, you know, purchasing power parity, which a lot of people look at, doesn't really tell you where the currency is going to go. It tells you what the environment is in a particular country at any point in time. You know, there's the famous Big Mac index, you know, what would a Big Mac cost in the US versus Japan? And if it's cheaper or more expensive in Japan, maybe it tells you something about the purchasing power of the currency over there. But really, differences in interest rates and what business people decide to do is

• 33:24Speaker 01

  what drives the currency in the short run and the medium term. And right now, I think that, you know, it's difficult to say with tariffs being imposed that the dollar is going to weaken substantially because normally the dollar, you know, if you put a tariff on a foreign country, their currency tends to adjust somewhat to take into consideration that tariff. But over the long run, it seems as if, to me, that the dollar is one of the most consensus trades in the world. Our funds are based in dollars, so we have to take that into consideration when we invest overseas. But if you look at the DXY, you know, the trade-weighted basket of currencies, generally

• 34:04Speaker 01

  these levels, you know, Sir John has an interesting graph he gave me a long, long time ago. It basically showed the trade-weighted dollar going up, and on one side, he wrote, "Time to invest in US names." It showed the trade-weighted dollar going down, and he wrote on the side, "Time to invest in foreign companies." And in 1990, when he gave me the graph, it was at a low, and he wrote on the side, "Time to invest in US companies again." Well, we're at a point in time where the currency buys you a lot overseas, and the dollar is very sort of crowded. So I'm happy to slowly be looking to increase non-dollar weightings in our funds.

• 34:44Demetri Kofinas?

  I'm actually interested to ask you about this because I think I've heard you say that you own a small percentage of US-based companies, or you aim to own a small percentage. Do I have that right?

• 34:55Speaker 01

  No, we don't aim to own any percentage in any country. We just try to look around the world and see what's cheap. And, you know, 20% of the names around the world are in the US, but the US is 70% of the index, that we were 20%. So in a long-only fund, we're roughly 20% in the US. In our hedge fund, because we can also short securities, on a net basis, we're single-digit. And that's pretty unusual. However, you know, when I joined Sir John in the late 1980s, I ran the Templeton Foreign Fund. It was a fund that invested outside the US. And at one point in time, the EFA index, which is the index of non-US stocks, was 70% Japan.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  And I went to zero and people thought, wow, that's incredibly risky. You know, you're being compared to an index that's 70% Japan and you're zero. And my response was, wow, you're taking an enormous amount of risk. You're investing half of your portfolio in a country that you know is substantially overvalued just because it represents 70% of an index. How could you do that? I looked like an idiot for a year or two in the Tumbleton Foreign Fund when I was so underweight Japan. But quite honestly, for most of the 1990s, it didn't matter what I did, I outperformed the index because Japan, you know, peaked out and it started to drop. The same thing today in the United States. People say, geez, you're taking an enormous amount of risk. You only have 20% of a long portfolio in the United States that represents 70% of

• 36:24Speaker 01

  an index that you're compared to. Isn't that risky? But once again, I define risk as the potential to lose money. And from my perspective, when I look around the world, the downside in the US is much greater than the downside in a lot of the companies that I'm invested in, Japan, UK, et cetera. So in the short term, maybe, you know, it's risky. In the long run, you know, it helps your career.

• 36:51Demetri Kofinas?

  So I have a few more questions I want to ask about rates and tariffs, but this benchmarking has come up a number of times on this conversation. And it sounds to me like something that's been very important in your career is not just what you've benchmarked to, but not being wedded to benchmarks that everyone else is focused on, which is also another way of saying being a contrarian, being willing to go your own way. Would you agree with that? And how important has that been in terms of your success as an investor?

• 37:19Speaker 01

  You know, I was thinking about this the other day because they asked me, what characteristic makes you a good investor? And I said, well, you have to be rational versus emotional. And to a certain extent, you have to sort of enjoy. Being off on your own, you know, if you're comfortable in a crowd, you know, if you enjoy waking up on a Saturday and going playing golf with everybody on the golf course and dressing like they all dress and playing with all the rules and, you know, sitting around the golf, you know, shop afterwards with everybody and, you know, I find that incredibly uncomfortable, quite honestly. I'd rather be outsailing on a windsurf by myself. Or at the same time, you have to have the ability to work with other people, you know,

• 38:02Speaker 01

  go back to the crew analogy, you have to have this love of working with people, but being uncomfortable, you know, being with the crowd, you know. I heard someone describe that, that, you know, if you're in the jungle and, you know, a tiger approaches you, you want to run away with everybody away from the tiger, but at the same time, you don't want to be running over the cliff when everyone's running over the cliff. So I think you have to have this, you have to have this comfort level about doing things by yourself and an uncomfort being in the crowd. So I think that's a characteristic that's really helpful as a, as a global money manager. And it goes to the index. You know, I want to be in business, I want to make money and I don't want to lose money.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  And I want to be, you know, when I started my business, somebody says, why are you starting it now? I said, look, I don't want to be a long only money manager and be down 20% when the market's down 50 and say, wow, what a great job I did. You know, I want to make money. And so for me, I think over the long, there are going to be periods, sometimes, you know, long periods where you underperform the index. But over the long run, if you can stick to what you're doing, regardless of what the index said you should be doing, and if you're not worried about that index and the composition of that index, you know, you can only get different results from other people by doing things that are different from other people.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  And it's easier, it's easier doing that when you're not following the index.

• 39:32Demetri Kofinas?

  Is it also fair to say that you're less concerned about career risk than most people?

• 39:37Speaker 01

  You know, you're always worried about your clients and you don't want to disappoint your clients. You know, one of the things you have to be careful of is you get older and more established and more comfortable, that you actually take risk. You know, in this business, you're not avoiding risk, you're just managing risk. You're understanding risk. And sometimes, as you get older and you're more comfortable financially, you're not willing to take risk. But you have to take risk and you have to manage that risk. So, yeah, it's easier to do that if you're financially comfortable and if your clients have been with you for a long time. Eighty percent of our clients have been with us since the first year we started our hedge fund. And that's helpful.

• 40:17Demetri Kofinas?

  So I mentioned that, well, hopefully we'll have a chance in the second hour to talk more about your process and philosophy. But I mentioned that I had a couple more questions about rates and tariffs. So you mentioned earlier in our conversation that it's likely that we're moving into a higher, structurally higher inflationary environment and an environment of higher rates. The question I have for you is, what do you see for real rates? Does that still mean a positive rate environment? Or is the inflation indicative of structurally negative real rates? I'm just curious how you see that.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Well, it would be better for the government if we, we had negative real rates.

• 40:55Demetri Kofinas?

  And you think, is that, that speaks to the discussion we had earlier about the debt and deficits and government spending? And some of the outstanding liabilities that need to be financed?

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Look, the new Treasury Secretary, who's I think an incredibly capable guy, you know, smart as a whip, you know, probably one of the better Treasury Secretaries the US has had for a long time. He's got this 333 approach. And one of his threes approach is he wants to get the budget deficit down to 3%, minus 3%. That's still a budget deficit, you know, so he's still talking about adding to the debt. So for me, the only way they're going to get debt under control is to inflate their way out of the, out of the problem. So, you know, I'm not a rate expert, but to me, it means negative real rates.

• 41:45Demetri Kofinas?

  So tariffs, I'm confused. I mean, I do feel like there is some obvious way in which tariffs are used in this administration for political or geopolitical purposes. I don't necessarily see the larger strategic game plan for revitalizing the American economy and how tariffs are being used in that context. They still seem to be more of a tactic than a strategy, a tactical deployment than a strategic use. How do you view tariffs being used in this administration? Is there some way in which you expect them to be used? I mean, do you have some confidence around how they'll be deployed and what impact they're going to have going forward?

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Well, I agree with you. I think they are tactical, and I also agree that they don't really improve the competitive structure of the companies they're trying to protect longer term. You know, why are they tactical? I think these numbers aren't exactly right, but they're close. I think something like 80% of all exports from Mexico go to the United States, and it represents something like 25% of GDP. Mexico, you know, is very, very vulnerable to rates. If you want to negotiate with Mexico and you threaten to slap tariffs on Mexico, that's huge. Same thing for Canada. I think something like 70% of all exports

• 43:06Speaker 01

  from Canada go to the United States, and it's also a very large percentage of GDP. However, you've got to be very careful because if you look at the percentage of cars being produced by US manufacturers in Mexico, you know, it's a very large percentage for General Motors. I think it's like 35 or 40% of the cars sold in America come from Mexico. So you're also damaging, you know, US companies to a certain extent. You know, it's interesting. We have an investment in BMW, and BMW is actually quite good in terms of its domestic production versus its Mexican and Canadian production versus the US manufacturers. So I would say, you know, BMW is in a better situation to not get hurt by these tariffs than the US companies that you're trying to protect.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  And the other thing it does is that, as I mentioned, higher tariffs also impact the currency. So the currencies tend to adjust a little bit, not by the same extent as the tariff, but to some extent, depending on the country. So if you put a 10% tariff on, you know, certain goods coming out of a country, it tends to weaken that currency to offset the cost of the tariff. But that makes the dollar stronger, which makes your goods in the United States less competitive overseas. So, yes, I think it is a negotiating tactic. And I believe that a better scenario for the United States in terms of its competitive industrial base is to remove regulations, which they're doing quite rapidly, keep the

• 44:32Speaker 01

  tax rate low, which they're trying to implement, but also not keep the dollar so strong. I mean, obviously, if the dollar weakens, that's to your benefit as an exporter around the world. So I think the tariffs are creating a lot of confusion. I think they are a tactical negotiating tool. However, you know, there are some countries that dump things into the United States. Sometimes they don't dump them directly into the United States. And tariffs on certain goods from certain countries, even when they come indirectly, you know, some goods come from China to Canada, and then from Canada to the US. And so it might appear as if you're putting tariffs on Canadian companies, but it's actually goods coming

• 45:15Speaker 01

  from China. It's very complicated, but I would say it's a tactical tool. It's going to create confusion. Confusion's good if you're a long-term investor, because it creates abnormal price movements. And if you can take advantage of that from a longer-term perspective, then that's okay.

• 45:30Demetri Kofinas?

  I've heard what feels like mixed messages coming out of this administration on the dollar. It sounds like there is both a desire for a strong dollar, maybe because it sounds good, and then also some policies to weaken the dollar. I mean, I'm curious if you have a sense of any kind of clear direction in this area.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Um, look, I think that nobody in the administration is going to come out and say they want a weak dollar, just like the current Treasury Secretary has come out and said he's not going to change the allocation of government debt when it rolls over more to the long end. Although, when he was in the Treasury Secretary, he was criticizing the then Treasury Secretary because they didn't roll a lot of the debt into the long end to take advantage of low rates. So, I don't, no one's going to come out and say, I think they want a weak dollar. I don't think that politically is acceptable, but I think it would be to their benefit to have a weak dollar. And it would be much better longer term than tariffs. Just as, if they could get long end rates down, yes, they would love to roll this enormous amount of debt coming due this year into the long end of the Treasury, but they're not going

• 46:34Speaker 01

  to tell you that upfront.

• 46:36Demetri Kofinas?

  So, let's go back to this question of valuations, the valuation of US companies versus companies in the rest of the world, Japanese companies, companies in Europe. You've written quite a bit about how there are a lot of opportunities in the UK. We touched on this a little bit, but what explains, if you had to be specific and summarize this, what explains the overvaluations in the US, in your view?

• 46:57Speaker 01

  The overvaluations in the US is just liquidity and low rates and the concentration around the world, and the fact that the United States has been a place dominated by companies that are growing. And so, to a certain extent, the success has caused the overvaluation. Some of the overval, some of the valuation is justified, but not the extent, you know, companies selling at 20 and 25 times revenues, you know, we have companies out there that are 250 billion in size that are generating a billion dollars in cash flow. You know, at some point, valuations became stretched in the United States. So, but the success and the differentiation between growth in the US and a lot of countries around the

• 47:40Speaker 01

  world has caused this over-concentration on US assets and the overpricing of US assets.

• 47:46Demetri Kofinas?

  There's a sort of momentum trade associated with this.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Very much so.

• 47:50Demetri Kofinas?

  How much do you factor in systematic passive flows into this equation? And do you have any concern that value will continue to struggle? As those flows continue to dominate the pricing relative to discretionary allocation decisions of active managers like you.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting because it works both ways, right? It works on the way up and then when you get some of these companies reporting poor earnings and the MAG7 starts to struggle, it's going to work on the way down, too.

• 48:17Demetri Kofinas?

  So you think that cost of capital that we talked about earlier, some of the underlying structural economic effects are going to ultimately be the spark that serves as a catalyst? And then that momentum will go into reverse?

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Look, you never know what the catalyst is going to be for the system. You might be identified for companies generally. But look, look at AI. Look at all of a sudden, the information has come out on Chinese development of AI, totally unexpected, and what that did for those companies. And if those companies, you know, there's such an over-concentration and if people start pulling that and they start shrinking as a percentage of the index, then it's sort of self-suffilling, right? The index starts to shrink in that area. So it's difficult to say what's going to cause it. We're even having companies that are reporting great numbers and beating and they're dropping. Once again, I think it's just, you know, over-concentration in people's portfolios. They've gotten too big and they need to, quote unquote, "rebalance."

• 49:10Speaker 01

  But generally, I would say higher cost of capital, you know, the percentage of companies in America that don't make money is at an all-time high while the market is at an all-time high valuation. That's interesting.

• 49:26Demetri Kofinas?

  I love that you brought up DeepSeek because I also had that reaction. The market got so spooked and besides the fact that it didn't entirely make sense why it was selling off, given the fact that the software innovations made by DeepSeek weren't necessarily bearish, if anything, you could argue they were bullish for the need for further compute. It just shows you how fragile this bull market is, I think. And it also reveals something else. I'm curious if you agree with this. I think it reveals an underlying anxiety about America's place in the world, our geostrategic positioning, our national security state, our geopolitical power.

• 50:03Demetri Kofinas?

  And so that kind of, you know, brings me to another question, which is how do you factor these things in? Politics, national security, how do you factor these things in when you consider where to invest, understanding that government regulations may change in line with the needs of the national security state, and that could impact the value of your investments?

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Well, I guess the greatest example of that today is China and Taiwan. You know, a lot of people say China is investable. There are other people out there that say, because investors say China is uninvestable, it's actually a great investment. You know, the risk to your Chinese investments is that a situation happens like Russian investments. I'm on the board of a company in Europe that manages funds for individuals, and they had some exposure to Russian invading Ukraine. You couldn't trade those assets. You had to price them at zero. So that's the geopolitical risk. Obviously, the biggest geopolitical risk today is China-Taiwan. And, you know, the impact that would have, obviously, on the semiconductor sector is

• 51:09Speaker 01

  massive, given the strength of Taiwan semi-manufacturing. So it goes back to that upside-downside. I mean, when you get to the point where companies get close to net cash, and in the course of a year, or two, or three, you feel you can get that investment back in terms of cash returned from a company, you know, your job as a portfolio manager is to decide, well, is that geopolitical risk reflected in that? And, okay, I'm not certain about what China will do with Taiwan, so how much do I want to have in China? Do I want to take that risk? And will it be 5% of my portfolio, 15% of my portfolio?

• 51:54Speaker 01

  So I'm willing to take some risk with Chinese investments, but it's not 10% of my portfolio. But, you know, what most people don't realize is, you know, we mentioned BMW earlier, 40% of their business is Chinese. You know, most people's investments in China Are much greater than they realize, even if their portfolio manager says, oh, we don't invest in China. Heck, you do invest in China. You know, you go down to your portfolio and you look at all the investments that these companies have and all the revenue and income that's generated in China. Most people would be shocked. So my direct investment in China is about four and a half percent. But my indirect investment in China is probably closer to 15%.

• 52:34Demetri Kofinas?

  So I love that you brought that up. I mean, first of all, how confident are you in that 15% number? Because as we saw, even the US government, even the military, didn't understand how vulnerable its supply chains were. They had to cancel or halt production of the F-35 fighter at some point because they discovered that a magnet, a critical magnet, was being produced in China.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:56Demetri Kofinas?

  How confident are you about the vulnerabilities of the companies that you invest in, given how interconnected this world has been?

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:05Demetri Kofinas?

  And how globalized it's been?

• 53:06Speaker 01

  Well, I hate being compared to the US military because I believe they've never been able to complete an audit. So I don't know that they're the best comparison. So, look, let's look at some of our investments in China. You know, outside of the political risk in China, there are industry risks in China, like real estate. You know, the real estate industry is a mess. The banking industry is a mess. So one of our largest investments here is Yum China. You know, they have the Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Pizza Hut franchise in China. Net cash balance sheet, you know, this time last year, it was like 25% of its balance sheet. Now it's a little bit smaller because they've just raised their dividend 50%. They're, you know, they're opening new stores and the population continues

• 53:48Speaker 01

  to become wealthier and, you know, able to afford eating out more. You know, it's a company that basically you can look at the growth of its store base and the amount of cash it generates and the amount of cash you're getting back. And, you know, what's the geopolitical risk of, you know, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut as opposed to real estate or finance, et cetera? But you can be pretty comfortable. It takes a lot of legwork. You know, I've been to China, visited the management of Yum China in China. You know, I remember the first time I ever went to Hong Kong, I went with a gentleman by the name of Mark Mobius, who ran our emerging markets group. And we were chatting with an analyst in Hong Kong and they'd invited some companies there.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  And one manufacturer of a company was talking about his watch facility and it was pretty close to the border. So we decided we'd go check it out. Turns out it wasn't there, didn't have a watch manufacturing facility where he said he had it. So, you know, a lot of information is available if you're just willing to read through annual reports and go visit companies. So we're pretty comfortable with what our indirect exposure is to China. That's our job. Our job is to figure out where these companies make, or where they generate revenue, how they generate profits, what competitive advantages they have, what are the risks to that business, both politically, technology or corporate wise? And then, you know, sort of adjust accordingly.

• 55:13Demetri Kofinas?

  It also sounds like you might be more willing to invest in a Chinese company if its operations are primarily overseas or its factories are located outside of China or it's listed outside of China. Those are all nuanced ways of assessing the risk of the particular company.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Somewhat correct, yeah.

• 55:31Demetri Kofinas?

  So I'm going to move us to the second hour, Mark. I want to talk a little bit about opportunities outside of the United States. I asked you, for example, what accounts for the overvaluations in the US? I'm curious to ask you the opposite question of what accounts for some of the undervaluations, especially in places like the UK. I also would like to discuss more about your investment process and your investment philosophy, as well as some of the unique opportunities that are in the US. I think you've written quite a bit about the energy sector. For anyone who is new to the program, Hidden Forces is listener supported. We don't accept advertisers or commercial sponsors. The entire show is funded from top to bottom by listeners like you. If you want access to the second hour of today's conversation with Mark,

• 56:11Demetri Kofinas?

  head over to hiddenforces.io/subscribe and sign up to one of our three content tiers. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which you can use to listen to the rest of today's conversation on your mobile device using your favorite podcast app, just like you're listening to this episode right now. Mark, stick around, we're going to move the rest of our conversation onto the premium feed.

• 56:34Demetri Kofinas?

  If you want to listen in on the rest of today's conversation, head over to hiddenforces.io/subscribe and join our premium feed. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius Community, you can also do that through our subscriber page. Today's episode was produced by me and edited by Stylianos Nicolaou. For more episodes, you can check out our website at hiddenforces.io. You can follow me on Twitter @Kofinas and you can email me at [email protected]. As always, thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.