The most concrete conclusion I’ve come to since President Trump started his trade war is that I’ll probably never misspell the word “tariff” again. I kept trying to use two Rs and two Fs, but it’s just one R. Having now written the word 45,397 times, I’ve got it down. Tariff is the new Koenigsegg. Everything else is a little more up in the air.
I took a look at my retirement savings this morning, which is almost always a mistake when you’re in your early 40s. Not because it’s down, but because it’s up and I don’t trust it. While my investments are well-hedged (I hope), a huge drop in the economy would not be great. The success of my investments feels at odds with my general sense of where the economy is going. It’s troubling.
Of course, The Morning Dump is a car news roundup, and so I’m going to make this about cars. A new report out shows that new car inventory is shrinking, which is generally good, but a lot of that is pre-tariff inventory. I’m curious how long all of this holds together when pre-tariff inventory shrinks.
Chinese automaker BYD reported a strong first half but a weaker Q2, and everyone is going to run to talk about how this compares to Tesla, but there’s an argument to be made that Tesla isn’t as much in the conversation anymore. GM’s EV sales are going “great guns,” as they say in the Commonwealth countries, but that doesn’t mean the company is going to start producing a lot more EVs. Across town, Ford seems like a company with a ton of potential growth if it could only get its recall problem under control. It still hasn’t.
About One-Third Of New Car Inventory Is Pre-Tariff Inventory
If I didn’t have this gig, I’d want to be an economist. It’s a job with a fun mix of statistics, history, public policy, and psychology. I’m also sort of glad that I’m not an economist right now, because the world feels like it’s at an inflection point. That would normally be exciting, except it’s felt like we’ve been at an inflection point for the last three years.
In theory, something has to give, but it hasn’t. Here’s the top-down view from Bloomberg:
Economists anticipate ho-hum US economic growth for the remainder of the year and well into 2026, with steady, tariff-driven inflation buffeting consumers.
Gross domestic product is now set to grow 1.1% in the second half of the year, a downshift from average growth of 1.4% during the first six months, according to the latest Bloomberg monthly survey of economists. Consumer spending, the economy’s primary growth engine, is also seen expanding at a 1.1% pace in both the third and fourth quarters.
At the same time, economists expect core inflation — measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index — will top out at an average of 3.2% in the fourth quarter. While year-over-year inflation is expected to gradually ease through 2026, it will remain above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
Slowing growth is bad. If you get slow growth + rising inflation + high unemployment, you get stagflation. That’s real bad. One of the arguments the President has been making is that the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, aka the Fed, needs to cut interest rates to counter slow growth. That’s fine, and maybe coming, but if you do that while spending is up and inflation continues, then, well, bad things happen. Here’s another Bloomberg article from this morning:
Inflation-adjusted consumer spending rose 0.3%, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data out Friday. The advance was boosted by income growth and driven by goods.
The so-called core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy items and is favored by the Federal Reserve, rose 0.3% from June. From the prior year, the gauge picked up to 2.9%, the most since February.
The latest data, which showed a pickup in services prices, could fan concerns about a more worrisome rise in inflation as President Donald Trump’s tariffs also work their way through the economy. For now, Americans continue to spend, but it’s unclear how long that momentum will last amid rising prices and a weakening job market.
It’s worth remembering that the President sacked the person whose job it is to count the number of people getting or losing jobs, claiming they were fake numbers (they were not), because no one wants to be the President who drags the country into stagflation. Especially when, pre-tariffs, it looked like the economy had rather remarkably gotten through the post-pandemic period without a major economic shock. Inflation was bad, and remains bad, but people mostly kept their jobs.
We’re now in this position where inflation remains elevated, people are still spending money for now, but the job market looks weak, and economic growth is slowing. Something has to give, right? One of the biggest fears is that lumping tariffs on everything and killing the de minimis exemption will, at least in the near term, cause prices to go up a lot. That then results in inflation.
There’s a strong echo of this phenomenon in the car world. Sales have so far remained fine. They’re not increasing as much as carmakers had hoped last year, but they’re not entirely in the toilet. With all the uncertainty, though, carmakers have pulled back on some production and paused some deliveries. While this is smart for automakers to do, it might represent a belief that things aren’t going to get better when cars get more expensive.
According to S&P Global Mobility, new vehicle inventory in America dropped to 2.65 million new cars in July, which is down 6.1% month-over-month and 4.4% year-over-year. If you’re worried about the economy slowing down because of, oh, I don’t know, more expensive cars and slow economic growth, slowing production relative to demand is what you do (this gets very complex, and we’ll need a bunch of quarters of production numbers to get a better sense of it, especially as production shifts from Japan and South Korea to the United States).
Again, I think managing inventory this way is entirely logical.
The other interesting datapoint is that carmakers are also still burning through pre-tariff cars, albeit at a fast clip.
While the overall advertised inventory is down 6.1% month-over-month, pre-tariff inventory dropped from 948,000 units in June to 884,000 units in July, or about 6.8%. Right now, pre-tariff inventory makes up roughly a third of the total market.
The latest tariff action and agreements mean that, potentially, car price increases won’t rise as much as initially feared. At the same time, prices will probably go up, and automakers learned last time that they could find other ways to make their margin, which was bad for consumers. Incentives are already starting to drop, according to this report, and while 2025 MY cars aren’t seeing huge price increases, new models are.
My sense of all this is that car sales will muddle along through the rest of the year so long as the economy doesn’t crater. Next year, though, is going to be harder. Even if the tariffs do what the administration hopes and there are more big projects announced, it’ll take time to work its way through the economy. In the interim, fewer cars will be built/imported, and the ones on the market will get more expensive either through trimflation, pricing adjustments, and lower discounting.
Or maybe nothing happens? That’s also an outcome.
Is It Really BYD Vs Tesla?
I woke up this morning to these two headlines:
- “BYD profit dives 30% as price war takes toll on EV champion” – Nikkei Asia
- “BYD Profit Jumps as Aggressive Overseas Push Bolsters Sales” – Bloomberg
Uhh… what?
The short answer is that the first article is looking at Q2 and the second article is looking at the full first half of the year, so they’re both right. The temptation is to compare the future of BYD to Tesla, which would make BYD look a lot better.
There’s an argument that was made this week by analyst Tu Le that, maybe, this is the wrong way to view the dynamic. The basic premise is that this ignores the many other Chinese automakers and that BYD will probably sell more 4.5 or maybe even 5 million+ vehicles this year, while Tesla isn’t even going to sell half of that.
I think BYD vs. Tesla is a reasonable framing device because Tesla is still a massive player, including in China. However, his argument that Tesla is becoming less of a volume player and isn’t a premium brand anymore is quite persuasive:
That WAS true when Tesla entered the Chinese market in 2014, but over the last few years through numerous price reductions, they’ve pulled themselves more and more into the mass market. When Job #1 of the Model 3 SR rolled off the line at ShanghaiGiga on Dec 17, 2019 the MSRP was: ¥356K (~$50K), today the MSRP is: ¥236K ($33K).
[…]
Most importantly, traditional premium isn’t a thing anymore in the China market, if it was would Audi, Merc, Bimmer and especially Porsche struggle the way they have over the last few years in China?
Premium in China is being redefined by technology and user experience. That’s how Xiaomi is winning. Broken record: It’s really difficult to understand that if you’ve not been to China in the last several years.
Here’s the kicker though, it’s not been about BYD vs Tesla in a VERY LONG TIME as much as the media and some analysts want to make it about that.
If you continue to lower the price of your product, it’s no longer the “premium” product it was. While the price war made life a lot harder for a lot of Tesla’s competitors, and helped lower the price of EVs for some markets, it might have done so at the expense of Tesla’s aura.
GM Is Slowing Down Hummer EV And Escalade IQ Production Just A Bit
While BYD is on its way towards huge EV sales this year, GM is temporarily slowing down production of the Escalade IQ and Hummer EV at its Factory Zero plant. Why? Here’s what the company told the Detroit Free Press:
Production is slated to stop the day after Labor Day and resume Oct. 6. Meanwhile, the temporary layoff in place for second-shift production also is going to be extended until Oct. 6. The move impacts approximately 360 employees.
“Factory Zero is making temporary adjustments to production to align to market dynamics,” GM spokesman Kevin Kelly said in an emailed statement. “General Motors updates schedules as part of our standard process of aligning production to manage vehicle inventory.”
I guess the market dynamics don’t support a bunch of extremely expensive, heavy electric SUVs.
Ford Is Recalling Newer Cars
Ford CEO Jim Farley goes on a lot of road trips. I like this about Jim Farley. If I were CEO of a major car company, I’d do the same. Perhaps he should take a few more trips to visit his own plants and suppliers, as Ford’s ongoing quality problems haven’t gone away.
Ford has recalled over 800,000 vehicles due to issues with rear brakes, tail lights and air bag issues that could increase the risk of a crash.
The wave of recalls, which also include certain Lincoln vehicles, are part of three separate notices that Ford issued on Aug. 22 to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and were posted by the agency this week.
The recalls include vehicles such as the 2015 to 2018 Ford Edge, the 2016 to 2018 Lincoln MKX, the 2025 Ford Explorer, the 2025 Lincoln Aviator and the 2024 to 2026 Ford Ranger.
Even if Ford did massively improve quality going forward from, say, 2023, then the company would still have to contend with recalls related to older vehicles. It sucks, but what can Ford do about cars built before it made a big push to reduce recalls? What’s troubling here, though, is that the vehicles included are the 2025 Explorer/Aviator and 2026 Ford Ranger. Those are newer vehicles.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
In honor of Funkmaster Flex’s last show on HOT 97, I’m breaking my “I don’t want to think about Kanye West” rule to play Flex’s historic 22-minute version of the song “Otis” from the Jay-Z/Kanye album.
The Big Question
What are your Labor Day plans?
Top photo: DepositPhotos.com
Tariff is like sheriff, if that helps 😛
When I was a kid, a teacher explained a trick to tell the difference between desert and dessert as being that dessert is so good, you always want two (S’s).
Same with tariffs I guess, more than one would be bad.
Labor Day weekend includes a trip to the Illinois Railway Museum (Thanks for highlighting them, Mercedes!), The Kenosha History Center (thanks to the awesome series on AMC that ran on YouTube), and the Duesenberg/Cord/Auburn Museum. Looking forward to getting some interesing and new photos!
I’ve been to the latter and it’s truly amazing. Enjoy!
All three are great.
I’m planning to do some yard work tomorrow and take the wood chipper on its maiden voyage (so to speak). After assembly and adding some fuel to the tank, it started on the first pull so I’m cautiously optimistic.
On Sunday I’m going on a road trip to pick up another old motorcycle. This one (allegedly) runs and rides so I’m cautiously optimistic about that as well.
And that – to tie it back to today’s TMD – is where the optimism ends.
Working from home today, have a pork butt on the grill to slow cook all day.
For the rest of the weekend? Watch F1, maybe play some putt putt, then try to avoid going near or around downtown Cincinnati on Sunday because of the WEBN fireworks
Labor Day: I got a new-to-me sailing canoe a few months ago, it is a 1969 Grumman with the factory sailing kit. I had it out once so far this summer, but hope that I will get another chance this weekend. Other than that I am trying to bike more, ride my motorcycle more, and generally be outside more. I am so much happier when I am outside, so my goal this weekend is just that. Also, my wedding is two months away and I think we are in a good spot planning-wise, so I should probably thank my Fiancée too. Going to be a busy weekend.
Sunday is my birthday so that’s neat. But this summer has been so loaded with plans and other nonsense, I just want to chill at home/in town with the family and do basically nothing.
Nothing is the ultimate luxury.
Thanks!
I wonder what a market with dropping vehicle sales based on a lack of consumers that can afford the product, does to companies plans to invest billions in manufacturing for said market.
Meh. Those consumers shift to 120-month loans and somehow everything keeps chugging along.
If the cars can’t last the term, that’ll compound the problem. Most folks can afford a payment or repairs. Not many can afford both.
I was being somewhat sarcastic. I say somewhat because I feel like it was a decade ago I started hearing about people rolling “negative equity” from their previous loan into their new loan. At the time I thought this is gonna end badly. And yet here we are and somehow the shoe has yet to drop. So what do I know. But yeah, it obviously cannot continue indefinitely. And the longer it goes on, the worse the bust is gonna be.
I love you, MH, and always listen to your song selections in case I learn something, but this shit today is unlistenable. It’s like the worst of self-promoting corporate radio in a loop. No hate on hip-hop, and I believe Kanye is good at what he does, but this is not a song, it’s a series of station breaks.
…Unless it somehow gets better in minute seven, but I’ll have to take your word for it.
It’s insane. It takes him 22 minutes to play a three-minute song. There is only one person in the world who could do that, so this is me paying tribute to him. It is borderline unlistenable, though.
Labor Day: Going to ride my mountain bike on Saturday, volunteer for trail work on Sunday, and finally get around to replacing my front wheel bearings and maybe brakes if needed on my 4Runner Sun afternoon – Monday.
I also kind of want to go look at new F150’s but should probably stay away from that.
Longer loan terms.
I was thinking about this the other day. I typically buy cars that have closer to 100K miles on them (80K 4Runner, 90K Volvo), and finance for 5 years, though I pay off early. I went ham on the 4R, paid it off in about 20 months.
If I buy new and start at zero miles, maybe 6 years can make sense. I do 20K/year, so buying at 80K is already 4 years’ worth of mileage.
Probably makes more sense on something like the Toyota which don’t depreciate as much, especially 4Runners. This is purely speculation but I bet you can still benefit from depreciation on something like a Volvo since they seem to be a luxury vehicle now.
If they factor depreciation into their purchase decision, they are probably smart enough to either buy in cash, and/or as a CPO.
I bought my 07 Volvo in late 2012. It originally stickered at 43K, I paid 12,900 with 90K miles. That depreciation definitely helped there. At 233K now, it’s essentially worthless.
My 4Runner was 23K in 2019 with 80K, at almost 200K it’s probably worth about 12K now.
Modern indentured servitude? Neo-feudalism economic policy? That’s what a loan that exists over an increasing period of the average human life is.
Could be worse. Could be longer than a lifetime. In Japan, children inherit their parents debt.
Read an interesting article recently. The earned wage access companies are now directly partnering up with employers, allowing workers to be paid daily. Granted, there’s fees involved, but this is billed as a viable alternative to loan sharks, despite having a higher effective APR (sometimes three times that of loan sharks)
Knowing that majority of fellow Americans are paycheck to paycheck, neo-feudalism is appropriate.
I was in a Ford service station when I noticed all these personalized coffee cups on the wall behind the counter.
“Do you have that many mechanics?” I asked.
The guy shook his head. “Those are for the customers that keep getting recalls.”
That sounds like a joke, but that’s hilarious if it’s true.
Yep.
I feel you on the retirement! I check mine every once in a while, and other than a large drop in April, it’s continually gone up the last few years. It’s nice to see the number, but with 20 years to go, I look at it like Monopoly money that’s I’ll never get to spend. I’m suspicious that A) some Republican knucklehead will crash the economy right before I can collect, or B) the greedy fucking parasites running things behind the scenes will finally come up with a way to seize everyone’s retirement accounts.
Just read up on what happened to Germany between the wars. If Trump decides to default on the debt or something equally insane, you can cash out your 401k, schlep it to McDonalds in a wheelbarrow or two, and exchange it for a Happy Meal. Fun times we’re in…
We live in a land and time where lies are acceptable.
Someone belongs in jail.
Many someones belong in jail.
“because no one wants to be the President who drags the country into stagflation”
I’m no longer convinced this is true. While I’m generally a believer in Occam’s Razor, it sure seems like so much of the “winning” the economy is experiencing now is 100% intentional and not the result of incompetence.
This is a 4 day weekend for me, but will begin and end with grief. Tomorrow morning I’m getting a smog check on my 1985 Ford LTD (yes, CA still sadly requires this on all 1976+ vehicles) which always maked me nervous, but I checked over everything and it should hopefully pass. Then on Tuesday I’m attending my mother in law’s funeral 🙁
I can’t help but thinking tanking the economy is the point. Seems to me that a real estate mogul flush with 3.4billion made on crypto scams (and his reptile cronies) would just love to buy up devalued real estate in a crashed economy.
I’m not one to wear tinfoil hats but agreed.
I remember when the tariffs etc were announced, there were many experts that said, “if I wanted to tank the economy, this is how I would do it”.
It’s not wearing a tinfoil hat when it’s actually happening.
It happened in 2007/2008. Another huge wealth transfer to the rich, from the suffering middle class. This one is going to be larger, and I do believe it was planned.
It’s the way our economy is designed to function, isn’t it, extracting as much wealth from the bottom to the people at the top as possible.
I’m convinced doesn’t matter. I’m sure there’s going to be some other crisis, manufactured or otherwise, to distract the general public from it.
Good point, there’s always some new thing to distract.
Sorry for your loss. My MIL died several years ago. It’s tough to walk your spouse through that grief. Best of luck.
And good luck with the smog check. 🙂
I’m sorry for your family’s loss. Sucks.
A week or so ago I had to get a new lawn mower – I got the old one on clearance six years ago because the battery was being discontinued, and a rebuild costs quite a good fraction of the cost of a fancy new one from Costco – and I haven’t really used it yet. This weekend may be my first chance to do so.
My labor day plans are not doing anything besides counting my spare change. I just closed out a week at work that was the slowest labor day run-up I’ve seen in 15 years. Also one of the slowest Augusts I’ve seen as a whole. When you see that on the automotive service side, that’s not good.
Did I interpret that wrong: charging more money for a vehicle makes it premium?
Labor Day weekend: Lime Rock Historics. I’ll be there and not there over the weekend, but mostly there. If you see a black ’94 Toyota Pickup near the camping bathroom, that’s me.
You got it right. It’s a weird thing that happens when you bring down the price of something–people perceive it as less premium, so buyers who are concerned with such things choose something else.
It’s somewhat related to the reason you see very visible branding on a lot of luxury goods, but it isn’t quite the same, as the perception may not be about status, but assumptions related to higher price equating to higher quality.
Yup. Your goal should be to be the second cheapest option on Amazon. Doesn’t matter if the cheapest one is better than yours.
Cutting rates right now would be a very stupid idea. Combined with all the other economic factors in play, you’d be throwing gasoline on the inflation fire while improving very little.
All that said, I feel like this economy needs to “shit or get off the pot,” so to speak. Recession (and yes, even Depressions) are part of the modern economic cycle, whether we like it or not. It’s kind of like prolonging a sickness you have because you’re not taking your medicine in accordance to the doctor’s instructions, wondering why you won’t get better. But hey, there’s no fever, so that’s good, right? This is an unpopular statement, but we need a recession to run its course or we’ll remain stuck in this economic limbo we’ve been experiencing the last couple of years.
Mostly agreed. But we attempt to avoid one by not engaging in destructive economic actions. The same cannot be said of the last six months.
The thing is, usually massive social unrest happens after economic downturns/collapse. I don’t know what happens when it’s the other way around, but it’s not going to be pretty (some poor group is going to be blamed for the economic downturn and the mobs will respond in kind).
It’s a classic abusive relationship telling you that you can’t do anything without them, and that you’re not good enough without them – all the while, getting abused saying that it’s for your own good.
If you continue to lower the price of your product, it’s no longer the “premium” product it was.”
Why would that be?
“Premium” here is market speak, which is based on perception of the product as much as the performance of the product.
My perception is “premium” means you’ve paid too much.
I’d love to say “username checks out” but I think we’ve beat that horse to death.
Am I wrong?
Objectively, no. But your average consumer sees it a bit different, which is what matters.
The average consumer by definition isn’t a consumer of premium goods or services.
They aspire to be, which is why our world is full of “luxury apartments,” “premium credit cards” and so on. These are all mass market products that people get fooled into thinking are special and therefore pay more than they should. Your average consumer can’t afford the play things of the rich and famous, but they can shell out 10% more than they should if you trick them into thinking the thing they’re buying is “exclusive.”
Labor Day
Hopefully do the opposite of that, actually. Take it easy. Cook a porchetta roast and some cannellini beans (btw, cannellini is a word I often misspell. It is what tariff was for you). Mozy down to the farm stand down the road and pick up some produce.
No attempts at a pithy or perhaps even semi-witty reference, but simply a note to say that I always enjoy your TMD Matt. 🙂
What are your Labor Day plans?
Gonna try to avoid working. That’s the big one for me. Really what Labor Day is about.
The same thing that’s happening to every other consumer shelf item according to a Wall Street Journal analysis this morning. Prices are going up, up and away. Those pre-tariff cars are like all the pre-tariff panic buying American businesses and suppliers engaged in. They filled their warehouses to the brim. When that content runs out, our prices go up.
Probably what is actually propping up consumer spending for now. I know fears of things like computer prices blowing up in the face of windows OS changes in October along with likely price increases due to Tariffs is probably helping in that sector a bit. But I would not be surprised if the end of the 800 dollar import rule does not also end a lot of the amazon purchasing of a lot of things as well.
500 to 1000 dollar e-Bikes – Probably going to go away or the price will go up to 1000 to 1500 dollar e-bikes and sales will reduce as a result. I don’t know that we have any US ebike makers that price their stuff much below 2K so I am not sure the tariffs will steer many more to US built unit, especially because many of the parts they use are likely built and shipped from a country getting tariffed anyway. And of course all those people who were doing gig work or shipping or trucking will likely be unemployed or concerned about money and the future of their jobs, so they likely will hold off on buying the teen looking for one of these for christmas.
The Keynesian Cycle is a thing and we have either had especially good market stabilization techniques in the recent past or just got pretty lucky. the extreme inflation a few years ago should have been a bigger deal than it was and the fed rates to control it have probably helped a bit, but the Stagflation as noted is often the result for at least a short term while we cycle down so the next up can occur.
Ebikes were not getting imported through de minimis, because this has to do with places like Temu where the product is shipped directly from a foreign country to the consumer. Ebikes are too big to get shipped directly from China individually by UPS. It is cheaper to ship an entire container and pay the tariffs, so this changes nothing for large items.
I never really understood the inflation from a few years ago. I was taught in the 80’s that inflation was too much money chasing too few goods. But, outside of cars, I was able to buy anything easily (except toilet paper). It seems that this was an excuse to jack up prices. In spring of ’22 I went into a Home Depot and the store was packed to the gills with pallets of goods, and the shelves were full as well. I would read about supply chain issues, but the reality was that was not the case, again excluding cars.
It was BS. Yes, there were some supply issues for some JIT goods, but what we actually saw was global greed and manufactured (no pun intended) price gouging. The worse part is that never went away.
The cracks are forming. Likely read the same WSJ article this morning. All of this was completely avoidable and unnecessary. There was nothing wrong before all the meddling. It was working smoothly.
the real thing is, it smacks of Chrysler’s euro management not reading the room and going cold Turkey on the change. Targeted tariffs get less press I suppose, but certainly slowly easing into them gives the US companies, who also get most of there stuff oversees some time to right side the change.
Basically reintroducing MFG infrastructure in the US.
Certainly it would be nice to see some of the low wage jobs elsewhere get to the point that ROI on automated production in the US takes its place, but that is really just so we are not beholden to countries with questionable civil rights practices for goods and services and to get the average us consumer mindset into one that realizes that things are not cheap.
This market is over-saturated with expensive vehicles, whom the majority of buyers go into crippling debt to purchase over extended payment plans at ridiculous interest rates. Time for the whole bubble to pop so that some reality gets slapped back into the automakers for a change.
Should this transpire, those companies with inexpensive, efficient, reliable, and basic offerings, like Nissan, Mitsubishi, Toyota, and Mazda, will come out ahead relatively speaking. As will the Chinese if they are ever allowed to sell their cheap offerings here. The big 3 are going to be in a lot of trouble.
Isn’t it more like the big two and “ask your doctor if Stellantis is right for you” now?
Can we get them to drop the second T? I always read it as “Stellanis.” That would be a crazy thing for a normal company to do, but given their decision-making I think they’d be open to give it a try if we ask nice.
“The big 3 are going to be in a lot of trouble”
Nothing a series of massive, tariff fueled bailouts can’t fix.
It’s coming. The rest of the world is moving forward. Trump just gave the domestics a hall pass to keep building gas guzzlers. This bailout is going to be huge.
I just talked to some folks who are having a big family event this weekend. No one from the Canadian side is coming because they refuse to travel to the US. It’s little data points like that, and there are more and more of them every day. . .
If that happens, Americans need to riot. The big 3 could have been building affordable 80 mpg midsized sedans and 150-200 mile range BEVs in the 1990s.
They won’t.
Our little (blue) FL town hosts the Toronto Blue Jays for spring training. It will be interesting to see what happens this upcoming spring (this spring was fine).
It’ll be an interesting time for options outside of the USA where options are available.