Shadowing Practice: Untangling Signals of Market Stress - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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This is The Markets.
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This is The Markets.
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I'm Chris Hussey and today is Thursday, March 12th, and I'm here in the Goldman Sachs trading floor with John Flood,
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who is head of America's Equities Execution Services within Global Banking and Markets.
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Flood, thanks so much for joining us.
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Thank you for having me.
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OK, John, believe it or not, it's been a year since I last had you on the show.
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It was right around Liberation Day, a lot of volatility back then.
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Compare today's market to what we were in a year ago.
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I would say right now we're in a period of extreme uncertainty, more so than we were a year ago.
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And frankly, there's a lot of focus on what is control, what we can control and what we can't control.
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So right now, during this geopolitical uncertainty, it's is there going to be an off ramp to this conflict?
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And that is a very confusing question to come up with a firm answer to.
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It's a great point.
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Trying to answer the questions, it's not an economics math problem at all.
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It's a geopolitical problem.
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All right, John, you get to look across institutional investors all day long.
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You get a sense of how they're positioned in a market like today.
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This week, we saw the VIX spike to 30.
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We saw oil going back up towards $100 a barrel.
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How are institutional investors positioned today?
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People are on edge.
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So as of right now, let's start with hedge funds, who are our most active traders from the institutional community.
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they have held on to their single stock longs because there's still high conviction in your core ideas.
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But due to the macro uncertainty, we're seeing an extreme amount of hedging.
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And what that means is we're seeing a lot of shorting of macro products, futures, ETFs, custom baskets.
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So there is a there's a thought that, OK, we're bracing for more of this headline risk.
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I don't want to give up on the names that I've held for a long time that I think are alpha generating.
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But I need to make sure I'm fully hedged up.
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Makes sense.
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I want to get to that hedging thing a little bit more.
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But first I want to ask you about liquidity
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because sometimes in these crises you see a liquidity squeeze that makes it just hard for people to trade.
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Have we seen anything on the liquidity front?
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Absolutely.
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Liquidity is terrible right now.
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And a lot of times people confuse market volumes and liquidity.
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Right now market volumes are explosive.
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If you look at total shares that are trading across all U.S equity exchanges it's 21 billion shares.
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Last year 18 billion billion shares traded a day.
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That was a record.
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For comparison back in 2020 it was 11 billion shares a day.
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So with this retail engagement in the market you're seeing market volumes increase year over year And frankly, right now, they've never been higher.
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On the other side of the equation, liquidity is really poor.
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How do we measure that at Goldman Sachs?
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S&P top of book depth.
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What is that in English?
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Bottom line, it's S&P 500 futures.
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There's a price that you can see on the screens.
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How much notional can I buy or sell at the price that is seen on the screens?
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Historical average is around $14 to $15 million.
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Right now, today, we're at $3.8 million.
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So as you are trying to have institutions move in or out of sizable positions,
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you're having a lot more impact than you would on a typical liquid day.
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And you're also sort of suggesting that it's a little bit harder to hedge with futures, and so that's kind of tricky.
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You mentioned ETFs in the prior question, too.
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Talk to me about how customers are using ETFs here, and has that become a bigger part of the market?
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It's become a much bigger part of the market.
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And like we said, we're seeing hedge funds short a lot of ETFs to hedge against macro risk.
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But a standard that we use is of the shares that I just talked about trading 20, 21 billion shares a day.
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What percentage is directly tied to an ETF in a healthy market?
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It's typically 30, 31, 32 percent.
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Right now we're north of 40 percent.
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This makes sense because people are reaching for these macro products to hedge against their fears in the market.
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So an important signal for us to see this tape, this market being more healthy.
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It's OK.
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S&P top of book liquidity will trend higher.
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It's below four million dollars.
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Let's see it move towards 10, which is still significantly below historical average.
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But below seven million dollars is a real signal of stress.
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And let's watch ETF representation of total tape trend back towards 30 percent north of 40.
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Another signal of stress in the market.
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And in the meantime, though, is there enough ETFs to be had?
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I mean, can these guys get the liquidity in the ETFs?
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Absolutely.
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Believe it or not, right now, there's actually more listed ETFs than listed stocks.
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There's 5000 listed ETFs versus around 4000 listed stocks.
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So there are plenty to choose from, but it's clearly, you know, most institutional investors aggregate towards the most liquid, you know.
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Right.
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That's a fascinating stat.
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There's more ETFs than there are liquid stocks, but every ETF is made up of stocks.
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Correct.
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That's exactly right.
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We'll figure that calculus out at one point.
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All right.
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Let's talk a little bit about themes, because, you know, prior to February 28th, we were playing a couple of pretty interesting themes.
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There was a rotation taking place in the market.
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There was this halo theme, hard assets, low obsolescence, over the AI theme.
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But now you've got oil up the wazoo and all this other stuff.
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What are the themes that people are leaning into?
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The themes that are most present right now is, you know, exposure in Asia, specifically Korea and Taiwan.
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Do they want it or not want it?
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They want it.
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These trades have been working again there's a big retail footprint in both these markets
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but Korea and Taiwan have been excellent trades and the hedge fund community
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and institutional investors are long these regions right now during this unrest we've seen a pullback
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so you've had a drawdown in the momentum factor Korea Taiwan
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viewed as high momentum you know high momentum areas of the
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market the momentum factor is pulled back what is this trade easiest expressed it's long semis versus short software, that's the AI trade.
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So it's Korea, it's Taiwan, it's momentum, it's long semis versus short software.
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You've seen all of those trades.
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Those are the most concentrated, highly crowded thematics in the market come under real stress since the conflict started a couple weeks ago.
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But if I strip down to the fundamentals, the AI trade also seems to be the most insulated from the problems of the geopolitical front.
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Like, you know, higher oil prices.
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What is an AI care?
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Unfortunately, it's becoming entangled with momentum factor.
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So you're right.
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Stepping back, they shouldn't be, you know, tied.
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But because factors underneath the surface of the market do drive a lot of trading behavior, they've become entangled.
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Does this also suggest that investors are looking to come back home and invest more in the U.S instead of ex-U.S.?
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During this two week period of, you know, political unrest, we have seen assets gravitate back towards the U.S.
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And the thesis is that U.S is energy independent
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and there's concerns around Europe's reliance on LNG specifically from Qatar and on Asia's reliance on oil from the Middle East.
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So yes we are seeing assets flow back into the U.S. If
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when we do get some more clarity on a resolution being
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around the corner I would expect to see those assets
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that were just moved back here as a parking place in the U.S back into Asia and Europe.
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What's the trade today then?
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The trade today like what we talked about is we're trying to stay present in the moment
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and historically you are supposed to buy dips in U.S equities that are caused by geopolitical unrest.
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If we look at the positioning dynamics
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that we just said in terms of there being a whole lot of short exposure in macro products, I am confident that when we do get a headline that progress is being made,
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that you'll have a lot of those short positions taken off.
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What does that mean?
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A lot of buying in macro products and in illiquid tape, likely more risk to the upside than the downside, even though that doesn't feel very natural at this moment.
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ROBERT COSTA, The last on these is the catalyst ahead.
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Is there anything that matters other than those announcements around the geopolitical risk?
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We saw CPI this week.
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It seems like nobody cared.
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PEOPLE CARE ABOUT JOBS DATA.
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We had a negative jobs print last reading.
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We think it was a relative one-off due to weather
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and strikes and some other technicals we can get into at another time.
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But bottom line, we have to watch jobs very closely
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because we think that the retail community the community stops buying stocks when there's job loss.
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So hopefully negative jobs print was a one-off.
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If you start to see two, three, four consecutive poor jobs prints, you could potentially see that retail bid, which has been so consistent, wobble.
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That would make us uncomfortable.
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Great point.
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All right, let's cut to the question that everybody's been waiting for.
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You are the FOGO.
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Harvard's undefeated, unbelievable in La Crosse right now.
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Can Harvard go undefeated for the whole year?
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Absolutely.
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They're going to take down Penn this weekend.
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much for joining us here.
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That does it for this week's episode of The Markets.
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I'm Chris Hussey.
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Thanks for listening.
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This material may contain forward-looking statements.
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Past performance is not indicative of future results.
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Neither Goldman Sachs nor any of its affiliates make any representations or warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the statements or information contained herein,
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and disclaim any liability whatsoever for reliance on such information for any purpose.
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Each name of a third-party organization mentioned is the property of the company to which it relates, is used here strictly for informational and identification purposes only,
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and is not used to imply any ownership or license rights between any such company and Goldman Sachs.
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A transcript is provided for convenience and may differ from the original video or audio content.
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Goldman Sachs is not responsible for any errors in the transcript.
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This material should not be copied, distributed, published, or reproduced in whole or in part, or disclosed by any recipient to any other person without the express written consent of Goldman Sachs.
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Copyright 2026 Goldman Sachs.
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All rights reserved.
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Context & Background
In the recent dialogue on market stress, Chris Hussey interviews John Flood, who leads the Equities Execution Services at Goldman Sachs. The discussion revolves around the current market situation, highlighting the increased volatility compared to the previous year, especially in light of geopolitical uncertainties. John shares insight into how institutional investors are reacting to market conditions, emphasizing the contrast between market volume and liquidity. Such high-level conversations provide valuable context for English learners, especially those interested in finance and economics.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- "Extreme uncertainty" - A powerful phrase to express doubt or unpredictability in any situation.
- "High conviction" - This means a strong belief in one’s investments or ideas, useful in both financial and personal contexts.
- "Market volumes are explosive" - Indicates a significant increase in trading activity, applicable when discussing trends in various fields.
- "Fully hedged up" - A term used in finance to signify being protected against potential losses; can be adapted to everyday situations to imply being prepared.
- "Liquidity is terrible right now" - This relates to the ease of trading assets; useful for describing any situation where resources or options are limited.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
Improving your spoken English through the shadowing technique is effective, especially with specialized topics like finance. Here’s a structured approach to tackle this video’s content:
- Listen Actively: Play the video and focus on John’s key points regarding market conditions. Take notes on any financial terminology you're unfamiliar with.
- Pause and Repeat: Use the shadow speak method by pausing after key phrases. Repeat them out loud, mimicking the intonation and pace.
- Practice Contextual Usage: After mastering the phrases, create your own sentences using them in different contexts. For instance, “I feel there is extreme uncertainty in my decision-making this week.”
- Engage with the Terminology: Use platforms like IELTS speaking practice scenarios to incorporate finance-related vocabulary in discussions. Practicing with a partner can enhance retention.
- Review and Reflect: After a few sessions, watch the video again. Notice any improvements in your pronunciation and fluency. You may also want to record yourself speaking to evaluate your progress.
The shadowing technique can significantly bolster your english speaking practice skills, particularly in specialized fields such as finance. Make it a routine to listen to similar content while practicing these steps!
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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