Market Trends, Consumer Sentiment & Optimal Blue’s Exciting Rebrand | August 18, 2025

Jeff (: 00:18

Welcome to Optimal Insights. I'm your host, Jeff McCarty, Vice President of Hedging and Trading Product at Optimal Blue. In today's episode, Jim sits down with Sarah Holtz, our Chief Marketing Officer, to talk about the big Optimal Blue rebrand, why now, what it means, and where we're headed. And as always, we'll check in with James Cahill and Alex Hebner, our resident desk economic gurus, for a look at what's happening in the markets.

Our clients and industry partners have long relied on Optimal Blue for trusted insights and commentary. And these podcasts are an evolution of our commitment to keep the industry informed. Let's get started.

Jeff (: 00:54

All right, welcome Alex and James.

So we are recording this on Friday, August 15th. This will be ⁓ released on Monday, August the 18th. Obviously nothing exciting known to happen over the weekends in the current economic landscape. So ⁓ I'm sure this will be currently fully up to date still on Monday. ⁓ What we thought was gonna be actually a quiet episode, ⁓ since we recorded just a few days ago our last episode.

Actually, there's always something interesting going on in the economy, so we have a lot of really good stuff to talk about today. We've got the OB-MMMI sitting at 6.571 overnight, so still can't get below 6.5 on the OB-MMMI. It got a little bit lower through the middle of the week, bumped back up yesterday. And likewise with the 10-year sitting at 4.3, we're grazing 4.2 and below.

James Cahill (: 01:49

reason for it.

Jeff (: 01:52

has bumped back up just a little bit. So let's talk about a little bit, you know, why some of those things are happening. And Alex, I'll go straight to you on some of the inflation numbers from the week.

Alex Hebner (: 02:04

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Just broad level. got both the CPI and PPI this week. CPI looked pretty healthy at a 0.2 % expected at 0.3%. That's good for the rate cut crowd. Got everyone excited on Tuesday. Really pushed those numbers on the FedWatch tool for rate cuts in September and October up even higher. Just kind of showed that the inflation seemed to be under control. PPI showed a bit more of a mixed bag, mixed picture. We got...

James Cahill (: 02:27

We got

Alex Hebner (: 02:34

Good services were up in the

James Cahill (: 02:34

good services. ⁓

Alex Hebner (: 02:36

range of the expectation, 0.5, 0.6%. But services were a little bit higher, north of 1%. We can dive down into some of the line items that brought those averages up. But services were up 1.1, 1.2%. So overall, the number came in at 0.9%, which is above the expectation. The expectation was, believe, 0.7 % or so.

James Cahill (: 02:39

.

Alex Hebner (: 03:01

So, so we've seen a bit of a divergence in the, in the goods versus services. Um, and, what that means we we were discussing just before the call here, exactly what's going into that services, box, found some, some interesting little tidbits in there of what is considered a service. James, I thought you broke it down pretty well on, on breaking down, you know, cost of goods, um, and what services is on that line.

James Cahill (: 03:19

Thank

Yeah, so to kind of explain CPI and PPI, think about your net income and revenue. So you have what you've actually sold this item at is your total revenue. You're going to subtract a cost of goods sold. So what it costs to produce this thing off of the spread between that cost of sale and your revenue, your margin there, that is CPI.

That is what's being passed on to the consumer. That is what you are netting there. Now, the cost of goods sold, what it costs you to actually create this good, that is the PPI. That is internal. That's what's happening within the company. So one of the things we noticed is that machinery was one of the really high services. And we kind of sat for a moment saying, well, isn't machinery a good? But if you think about the example of a worker at a steel mill, steel is the good, right? That's the commodity that's actually coming out of this.

but the saw horse, the ⁓ steel saw, all of the ⁓ oils and fuel and lubricant that goes into actually creating that, those are inputs. That is the producer that is going to be ⁓ seeing that cost increase. And so this actually lines up a lot with the story that we've kind of been saying over the past few months with the tariffs is that the producers have been eating this cost. And so as the PPI, as the producer's price is increasing,

they're actually losing a little bit of that revenue. So they're eating the costs and it's not yet making it as hard onto the consumer.

Alex Hebner (: 04:57

Yeah, it really seemed like based on based on what we're seeing in the PPI that it was those inputs that were going up in price. was machinery was a standout one. was called out in the, rundown published by the BLS. we saw fuel costs, which, which are pulled out of some of the numbers to give core numbers, but fuel numbers were up. So it does seem that prices have increased on, on the inputs. So it's potentially just a matter of time until we see those, costs passed down on into the CPI.

James Cahill (: 05:23

It's definitely a question of when rather than if,

Jeff (: 05:23

So back it up.

Yeah, absolutely. That was a great explanation, James. And just looking at the overall landscape of tariffs right now, there's still plenty of things in flux, right? You know, we had at the beginning of the week, we got another 90 day extension for the China tariffs. But, you know, various countries have not had these extensions. know, there's heavy negotiations going on with India where those tariffs are much higher already, other countries as well. So piecing this whole story together, you know, while

⁓ China tariffs are still getting pushed out. We still have plenty actually going through as we've seen with tariff revenues, with some of these PPI numbers, ⁓ but very much in a state of flux overall.

James Cahill (: 06:09

This definitely creates a question as well ⁓ for the Fed. So as everyone's expecting after that jobs number, we're almost certainly looking at a rate cut come September. The CME is reporting a roughly 91 % chance of a rate cut, but every inch that inflation gets does bite into that story a little bit.

I saw CNBC reporting today, one of the Fed chairs was saying like, hey, I'm actually not convinced. I would like to see a little bit more information before we start ⁓ formalizing that we're moving on to that rate cut. And I think it's a question, right? The Fed is a balance of high employment and low inflation. And if inflation is still creeping up, then there's only one way to get it down, and that's to keep the rates higher for longer.

Alex Hebner (: 06:59

And it isn't to say that the labor front hasn't shown pressure as well, which is where we've gotten the idea for cuts in the first place. We have seen weak jobs numbers. It's a microcosm, of course, but I saw a New York Times reporting that hiring inside New York City dropped off a cliff. There were only, I believe in the last quarter, last month, there were only 900 private sector jobs added that they saw in Manhattan. So it was really just dropping off a cliff there. And we've seen weak jobs numbers. It goes back to the last non-farm report.

the analysts laid off because of the revisions to the downside where we lost a quarter million jobs there. ⁓ So there are pressures on both sides, which I think bring us back to the conversations we've been having since the beginning of the year of, we entering a stagflation scenario?

Jeff (: 07:44

The other thing with the jobs numbers that I've been reading more about this week is just kind of a reminder about ⁓ with net ⁓ immigration falling off a cliff as well. The bottom line jobs numbers, you've got to reset how you're looking at that. And again, we go back to the unemployment rate, and that has remained stable. So how much is the Fed looking at overall jobs numbers, jobs ads?

Is that unemployment rate still healthy enough for what they would like to see? So that's another interesting dynamic, right? What does net 900 add means 900 jobs added for New York City if there's not many people moving to New York City, right? There's no, which for the most part, you know, often is, or the majority of new labor coming into the market is traditionally immigration in the United States.

And that has of course fallen off a cliff. So just another interesting dynamic to throw in there as you're looking at all these numbers, right?

Alex Hebner (: 08:43

Same for,

yeah, the new grad unemployment rate is also ⁓ in the hole as well. Those that have graduated from college this year, this past May, or ⁓ even before that, they've been having a really hard time finding employment as well. ⁓ All this to say, again, these are all just examples of things you can nitpick out of the economy, but there does seem to be pressure on both sides. And we talk about these things as,

offsetting and not offsetting but ⁓ Both employment and inflation as you know when one goes up the other goes down ⁓ but That isn't mutually they are not mutually exclusive is what I should say and again that just brings back to the scenario that we're discussing of the potential for a speculation scenario which economists have called for ⁓ or The warning sites have been there for some time now

Jeff (: 09:39

Right, that Phillips curve doesn't always hold, right? The classical Phillips curve does definitely not always hold, especially when we have kind of outside shocks like we're seeing today. So it's an interesting dynamic. So we've talked a little bit about, I think that CME number at 90 % estimating a cut of 25 basis points in the next meeting. We talked about it last week. A little bit of the vibe shift to looking more towards

the employment numbers. Alex, you want to talk a little bit about ⁓ consumer sentiment that came out this morning?

Alex Hebner (: 10:16

Yeah, consumer sentiment was weaker than expected. showing, ⁓ as I explained on the Monday podcast, consumer sentiment can be thought of as CPI being the hard number of what has been observed on the shelf. Consumer sentiment is a little bit more murky. It's a little bit more asking someone, what do you expect your spending to look like? What do you expect inflation to look like? And aggregating that information and attempting to put a number on it. ⁓ So putting numbers on opinions in a way.

⁓ But it was, again, it showed low sentiment, which indicates that the consumer is either one, worried about inflation, two, worried about their spending capacity, even if inflation isn't a factor, or a combination of the two thereof. ⁓ Either way, they expect to be putting less dollars out into the economy and tighten their belts, so to say.

James Cahill (: 10:44

But it was, again, it showed low sensitivity. It indicates that the consumer is either, worried about inflation, two, worried about their spending capacity even if inflation isn't a factor, or...

So it's all good news around here, huh? It's just, it seems, it seems potential inflation, potential lower jobs, right? Unemployment, little, if you run where it is, consumer sentiment is negative. It's definitely a bit of a bleak outlook and it's generally traditionally a better part of the year with a warmer weather, the rainy seasons over, people getting out and spending more.

Alex Hebner (: 11:09

Just wait till we get to the foreign affairs segment.

Jeff (: 11:14

You

James Cahill (: 11:36

So it's definitely a stark

Jeff (: 11:39

Yeah,

Yeah, mean, I agree. are doing all right. ⁓ You know, we had Barkin, a non voting member of the Fed, comment, I think this week, you know, credit card data suggesting consumer resilience. So it's like everybody has a bleak outlook, but there are some portions that say things are holding on. It's really hard to get a read on this entire thing.

Alex Hebner (: 12:00

A tale of three economies in a way that I've noticed. seems to be housing. we know and love is on the downs. Consumer spending is iffy, maybe trending downward. And then tech is absolutely booming to the extent that it's propping up the headline numbers to the point that things look fine and dandy.

Jeff (: 12:03

Yeah.

James Cahill (: 12:23

There is, within all of this, is, the bottom is still holding, right? is, do still have, ⁓ inflation is not out of control. There is fair employment. ⁓ So it's just a testament to how resilient America is, how strong our jobs market has been, what a good position we were in, and how we're kind of still pushing through it. We've got all this kind of negative news, but.

it really, it shows how strong our system is and our potential to, you if we can steady these waters, really kind of turn it around. So that's maybe a good way to look at it.

Jeff (: 13:05

All right, so looking ahead to next week and even the coming two weeks, I read something that really the next two weeks are kind of super quiet, which is traditionally the case, you know, kind of into summer, we have this quiet lull, although, you know, in this environment, I'm sure something will pop up. ⁓ but you know, no huge economic data points. We do have meetings going on in Jackson Hole. ⁓ so, you know, there could be kind of some fed talk and fed, fed implications coming out of that next week.

I'm sure plenty of talk on Fed independence and ⁓ the implications about ⁓ how much sway ⁓ the administration has over the Fed right now. Anything else interesting to look forward to?

Alex Hebner (: 13:44

Absolutely.

Yeah. The media cycle always, ⁓ since, since, since a couple of folks, lucky folks from their, New York crew up to Jackson hole to, ⁓ to see the festivities. And I would expect there to be an additional spotlight on that event this year, just given the recent drama between the executive and, ⁓ the fed, ⁓ but yeah, looking at next week, it's relatively quiet week, third week of the month. we get some housing specific indicators, ⁓ home builder confidence, always a good one. See if there's any pullback there.

That is one of the first spots we see that there and home building employment are two early signs that they're home builders at the very least are expecting a downturn. So far that has held pretty strong. And then new builds and new permitting. ⁓ just getting engaged again of how well we are filling that hole ⁓ of the housing deficit. yeah, headline numbers for the general economy. The next big one's going to be PCE ⁓ the week

Jeff (: 14:41

All right, let's end this on, let's create the Hebner-Kahill sentiment index. Let's look ahead a little bit. So we've got the Fed, next Fed announcement right about a month from now. We've got the 10-year right now sitting at 4.3, OBMMI sitting at 6.55-ish, over or under on each of those numbers being where they are today a month from now.

Alex Hebner (: 14:46

You

Jeff (: 15:08

going into the Fed announcement, pre-Fed

Alex Hebner (: 15:11

I'll go with the case of lower. feels as if the market, ⁓ know, the bond market in general has given a vote of confidence to the idea of lowering rates. We saw rumors of a quote unquote bond market revolt ⁓ back a month or two ago when Trump was first calling for these lowering of rates. I think the data picture has improved to convince enough that these rates are justified. ⁓ So I'm not going to say that they're going to be radically lower.

⁓ But ⁓ I'll take the under.

Jeff (: 15:43

Alright.

James Cahill (: 15:45

I would go with the under as well. think the market sentiment is that the rate cut is coming. We would need some relatively surprising inflation data over the next month to come in to stop that from happening. And so with those lower rates should be lower treasury. It should be lower OB-MMI. It should all be trending downward. So outside of some sort of black swan or tail risk event, I think we are looking at lower across the board.

Jeff (: 16:13

I'm gonna take the over. If market sentiment is that rate cuts are coming, I'm gonna say a lot of that is already priced in. that, I think we're still gonna be in this general range. We've been in this range for so long, even with all the things going on, we have not gotten outside of a range. So I don't think it would be significantly over or under in either direction to reiterate your point, Alex,

just to be a contrarian, we'll be slightly above where we are today. Great discussion, Alex and James. Thanks for being on today. And yeah, we'll pass it off to Jim and Sarah. Thanks.

Alex Hebner (: 16:51

Thank

you as always, Jeff.

James Cahill (: 16:52

Thank you.

Jim (: 16:54

Okay, as promised, we have Sara Holtz, Chief Marketing Officer of Optimal Blue. worked with Sara for about 18 months now and it's just been an absolute pleasure. welcome. Excited to have you here. Thanks for being on.

Sara (: 17:07

Thank you so much. feel honored to be part of this podcast when we talked about doing it almost a year ago now together. It was an amazing thing for us to get started and you and the team have just knocked it out of the park in terms of what you're bringing to our audience and the market. And it's just a real pleasure to be on it today to talk about what I bring to the market.

Jim (: 17:32

Agreed. You're too kind. Thank you for saying that. Yeah. So wanted to have you on it. I think this is a timely interview. last week, We introduced a full rebranding of Optimal Blue. So I'm certainly excited about it. I think we're all pretty jazzed and getting familiar with the changes that are happening. to back up a little bit, know, Optimal Blue has always been top of the industry, right? And we're always innovating to stay there.

But we felt it was time to explore this rebrand, right? Which we'll get into some details here in a sec, but basically this rebrand revolves around a new logo, a new tagline, just looking to underscore our new and evolving technology, but also to retain what we have, right? Just what's always made OB so special over the last 20 years. So I look at this and, know, Joe, you know, we had a good discussion with Joe the other day too. He looks at this as a launching point for the next 10 years of growth of our company.

Sara (: 18:28

Yeah.

Jim (: 18:29

So as the driver, you know, the architect of this initiative, we wanted to have you on the podcast to go a bit deeper and to just to drop some wisdom on us about all of So I mean, first, like why now? Why was now the right time to do this rebrand?

Sara (: 18:43

Yeah, what a great question. Well, It kind of starts a year and a half ago where we started expanding how we brought the proven expertise that Optimal Blue has and has had for decades that only we can provide to the market. And we started with the thought leadership effort here through things like this podcast where how can we actually help our clients better, perform better,

protect their margins better. And so we've been really working over the last year to bring more of that expertise to market. On top of that, you have Joe T. coming in, you have all the things that the team was already working on, and you realize that where we were already innovative in our infrastructure, we have just shot our innovation out of the park. We are solving real challenges with the AI we're bringing to the table. We've got modern technology.

others just can't touch when it comes to our unrivaled accuracy with that technology and how we're truly helping people protect their margins and profitability the lending process. And so it seemed like the perfect time to really take how Optimal Blue talks about itself in the market to that next level. And that's where you look at you know, how we're going to signal this new era of not only

continuing to provide the proven expertise, results, performance, things you've just come to count on us for with the modern technology that we are accelerating to change this industry.

Jim (: 20:23

great. I mean, you've keyed in on a couple, know, buzzwords for us or ⁓ now branded words for us, modern and proven is our new tagline, right? Modern period, proven period. I mean, what does that mean? What does that mean exactly? What does that mean to you? What does it mean for us at Optimal Blue?

Sara (: 20:36

That's right.

Yeah, I can feel myself getting excited, so I'm going to make sure I don't talk with my hands here. I want to take us back that Our mission remains unchanged. are focused on helping lenders maximize profitability on every loan transaction and getting more people into homeownership. That's what drives us. So really, the team internally calls that, you know, we're the engine for lender profitability.

And it wasn't your question, so I won't go down the rabbit hole of explaining why what we do is actually the foundation or fundamental of bringing people profitability. But that's also a really fun conversation that that soup to nuts like end to end capital markets overview is really what for lenders who then can turn and relend that money to other borrowers.

So you take the mission that we have that has remained unchanged. Now, there's some talk in the market by our competitors that we are legacy. And we went to our clients and really asked the question, like, what do you think of when you think of Optimal Blue? And the results that came back were really strong, and that what we bring to the table is value. We are known

for our performance, we're known for our accuracy, we're known for our expertise. To me, that's just proven. So where other people might say legacy, you know what you're getting with us, it's proven. So that kind of explains where proven comes in that I think it's just a really powerful way of describing what you know you're gonna get with us. The modern aspect is such an interesting one because we've been modern since we were created. So I mentioned earlier that infrastructure is modern.

That's the truth. We were built for scale. We were built for agility. We were built to accommodate different shifts in the market. So there have been times in our history where we've had to kind of catch up, you know, in the past, but that has not been true in the last two years. And it isn't true going forward. We are as modern as they come. And why modern is so critical in a market like this is because you can't predict the future the same way you can predict

other things, right? Like even now we've talked about rates and they haven't rebounded the way we thought and like the year isn't going how we thought. So how do you create true technology that solves real problems in a market like that? Well, you have to create it as a modern infrastructure. And that's what we are. We're cloud-based, cloud-native, API first.

so really we are the definition of modern. And so when you combine those two concepts, it just made sense that our mission remains the same. We're the engine that powers lender profitability, but we're modern and we're proven. And that's what we're leaning into.

Jim (: 23:33

Well said, and it's concise. I like that, the proven modern just period. think you're right. We certainly have competitors out there and in any business, you're to have competitors that come after you for whatever they can key in on and whatever they might be able to convince people is going on. But I obviously would agree. I've been with Optimal Blue for 13 years and all we've done is continue moving the finish line forward on what we have. And we've been around for 20 plus and that's hard to catch up with.

Sara (: 23:58

Yes.

You can't, I mean, look, our industry is cyclical. You can't beat proven expertise in a market that's cyclical. It rises and it falls and it goes a little again and we rebound and we go through things. So that part is just unmatched plus we deliver. We deliver the innovation and have from the beginning. So where other companies might say, hey, we're going to do something, we've done it. And those are really

So

Jim (: 24:30

All right, can we check this thing out? you like just walk us through the new logo, just the components of it and what kind of the thought process was recreating the Optimal Blue logo?

Sara (: 24:40

great thing to talk about, great question, pretty excited to share. If you know me at all, you know nothing is ever a single dimension. So there was a lot of thought put into what now represents Optimal Blue, both by way of color choice and icon. So let's start with the icon. the exciting part about what we've done with this multi-dimensional icon is that it really brings

two things together. It's two component aspect of a single image. And that represents obviously the concept of modern improvement, which we just introduced. So it's bringing together that modern infrastructure, modern technology with what expertise we can bring for our clients. So into the ecosystem of capital markets. And then it also connects that end to end concept.

where we start with our pricing and our unrivaled accuracy there, and we go into true pipeline risk management with all of our hedging and trading and how we help post close on that end. And so the icon is really that ⁓ two dimensional aspect coming together in a complete ecosystem.

Jim (: 25:49

I see.

Sara (: 25:49

Plus it's bold and it's exciting

and it moves great in animation. So it was a win-win all the way around.

Jim (: 25:56

It's new. Yeah.

The animation is very cool that that'll, that will show itself in a lot of our different, you our systems and obviously in our advertising and, and, ⁓ just our presence out in the market.

Sara (: 26:06

Yeah. And you know, I'm into the colors. So obviously we've, ⁓ we've moved on from orange, which has been a staple. ⁓ Okay. Moment of silence for the orange. I had some people ask me why blue? Well, we're optimal blue. So we leaned into the blue for the actual logo colors. Now this is where I'll get into marketing speak.

Jim (: 26:13

I know that.

Hahaha

Sara (: 26:33

We do have competitors, actually many of them, who leverage blue as well. So the question was, you know, do we go in a different direction? And I feel like we're the goat there, so we should lean into the blue. So we did stay with one blue in honor of our proven message that we had in our And then a lighter blue to talk really about that optimization and modern piece of it.

But our brand has a lot of pops of color now. So that was the fun part for our team and how we bring that to life. that's really that fresh, exhilarating, exciting, just way to tell the story differently. So for those who think color is just color, I hear you, I'm with you. But for those of us on the back end who are really trying to pick the right optimized colors to help reinforce the brand we were bringing to market.

there was thought into that and we're excited about what that might be and do.

Jim (: 27:28

that's a great rundown of just kind of everything surrounding this new brand, the new tagline, the new logo. So what is next? What happens next for Optimal Blue as this continues to evolve?

Sara (: 27:39

We're just getting started. Last week we made the announcement that all this was going to happen and we expect the changes to take place over the next six months to nine months. So more to come there. But I do want to double down in that the real key behind the visual and the messaging and the strong words is really what we're bringing to the industry and our clients. I mean, at the foundation of it all, we are focused on our clients success. We're focused on our clients.

finding that maximized profitability on every loan transaction. And that isn't gonna change. And this rebrand allows us to tell more stories. It allows us to carry that through in more ways as we move forward ⁓ in live events, such as your forum coming up, our Optimal Insights Forum in September coming up. We'll now tell different stories related to how we're launching this brand, which we're excited about.

Actually, today we made the public announcement for our sophomore client conference, the Optimal Blue Summit, which will be in February in Scottsdale. And then of course, continuing with the thought leadership initiatives that we've brought to life over the last year, but we want to continue pushing the accelerator on and really helping our clients understand the foundation of how we can help them be more successful and that success.

in turn becomes giving more homes, getting more people into homes and home ownership.

Jim (: 29:10

Well said, bringing it back to the mission, hopefully the mission of everybody our industry, bringing it back to affordability and just making sure that we bring the accuracy and the optimization to make it even easier and faster and better for clients to put borrowers and homes and in new mortgages. I mean, going forward, for the hedging and trading team, our...

part of the business, obviously, practically speaking, you'll start seeing this logo come up in things like reports and on our website. But we're also looking forward to bringing, you know, bringing the new tagline and the logo to some of our events coming up, as you said, you know, our capital markets forum, which is coming up here in September, where we'll meet with a ton of our clients to talk through what's going on currently in the market. And then of course, the summit, the larger Optimal Blue Summit coming up here in February. And just in general, I think we all kind of rally behind the

You know, the maximizing profitability, the just kind of proven tactics techniques and systems that we use to get there. So I appreciate you thinking through this and pioneering it.

Sara (: 30:12

Yep. Yep.

You know, you mentioned reports, so I must do a plug for all the different ways that listening can get connected with us. so in addition to this podcast, we have our Market Advantage podcast and our monthly report, Free to the Market, has a lot of insight into what's going on in the market. So people should subscribe to get that as well as this ⁓ amazing weekly podcast.

And then follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe to us on YouTube. So those are the ways to kind of keep up with all the excitement that we are bringing over the next year. And 10 years as per Jyoti said. Yeah.

Jim (: 30:49

Wonderful. The next decade, that's right.

Now, good reminders there for our sister podcast, The Market Advantage, but also just that, yeah, we have a huge presence on LinkedIn these days. So that's a good place to just make sure you know what's going on. So yeah, Sara thank you so much for being here. This has been super enlightening for me and hopefully it is for others out there. And we hope to have you on again sometime in the future.

Sara (: 31:12

Thank you so much, Jim. Take care.

Jim (: 31:14

All right, take care, sir.

Jeff (: 31:16

That's it for today. Another great episode. Thank you, Jim and Sarah, Alex, James, fun conversations all around. Join us next week for another episode of Optimal Insights, where we'll continue to provide you with the latest market analyses and insights to help you stay ahead. Check out our full videos on YouTube. You can also find each episode on all major podcast platforms. Thank you for tuning in to Optimal Insights.