Federal Reserve Decision: The podcast discusses the anticipation of a 25 basis point cut in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, with market predictions also considering the possibility of a 50 basis point cut.
AI and Legal Concerns: Meta's practices of using AI without proper credit are highlighted, alongside a lawsuit against Google for using journalism content in AI summaries without consent.
Cash on the Sidelines: There's a significant amount of cash, approximately $7 trillion, sitting in money market funds due to high interest rates, which could move into stocks if rates drop.
Investment in Precious Metals: Gold and silver are discussed as strong performers, with gold reaching an all-time high and silver also experiencing significant gains.
Economic Indicators: Retail sales have increased, driven by higher-income consumers, despite a rise in unemployment claims, suggesting a mixed economic outlook.
Google's Market Position: Google joins the trillion-dollar market cap club, overcoming concerns about AI competition and legal challenges related to its search business.
IPO and Market Dynamics: The upcoming IPO of StubHub and the performance of Gemini's IPO are discussed, highlighting the dynamics and challenges in the current market environment.
Investment Strategies: The podcast explores the idea of investing in companies with controversial practices, like StubHub, and discusses the potential impact of Nvidia's issues with China on its stock.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to D'vorak Horowitz Unplugged, an hour-long discussion of activity in the financial markets around the world featuring columnist John C. D'vorak and money manager Andrew Horowitz. This conversation is casual and unrehearsed. Let's join John and Andrew now. >> I'm John Cavarak >> and I'm Andrew Horowitz >> and it's the 16th of September, 2025. >> Yeah. So pretty good making it through. Tomorrow's a big day. We have uh the the well today and and tomorrow were big days. Today was the meeting. Tomorrow is the rest of the meeting and then the two o'clock announcement by the Fed about interest rates. >> Yes. Which will be dropped by a quarter of a percent. >> That's what the market says. And do we have the actual numbers of the Fed funds futures prediction model of not only that, but what is the prediction for a 50 basis point cut and what are the markets thinking about the rest of the year? that we're going to talk about tonight as well. >> Good. >> Yep. We're going to talk about AI, the promise, and the theft, the thievery, the taking stuff that's not yours, and not giving anybody credit, which is the hallmark of a company that you love called Meta. They they've they perfected that. Well, they did it in a in a in a way though that made it legal for them to do it. Right. They figured out >> you sign your rights away when you when you become a member of the of the club. >> Send the ula. >> Yeah. And they also created and found ways to skirt the law about responsibility and liability about what is said on their platform. >> Yes. Which is their which is their claim to fame. >> So basically they have really >> why it's a $1.8 trillion company. They have good lawyers. Let's be honest. It's not like they create anything new. They just created some way that they can basically do what they want and collect money and nobody's they have no liability. They're untouchable. They're teflon. That should be the name of the company. Teflon book. >> Yeah. Well, it's and they probably steal the name which is copyrighted. >> We need to find a And we need to come up before the end of the evening. what would be the next close to the pin stock. So, I want you to think about that for a little while. Uh, we're going to talk about the most hated stocks. There's more hate on them. And of course, what's really exciting right now, it is football season. You've been watching. You've been It's been >> Yeah, of course. I've been checking it out. >> A lot of disappointing games. We got >> there's some there's some Well, what's interesting is the emergence of San Diego or now the LA Chargers >> and you think they have a shot? You're not just saying that because it's your state. >> No, I'm saying that because it just seems that uh this is what this guy Harbo tend Harbaugh tends to do. He comes in he when he came into the 49ers the second year he was there, he took him to the Super Bowl. So, he has a a knack for turn he's a turnaround specialist. There's only so much he could work with, though. So, let's see if it actually happens and comes to fruition. One can only hope. >> Well, I don't hope one way or the other. It's not my team. >> What's your team? >> Uh, what team am I rooting for? Actually, the 49ers would be the logical choice. the Raiders would be a second backup choice. But I, you know, I I pretty much just root for whoever's whoever thinks going to win >> so that you could be on the winning team at all times. >> Yes, that's the idea. >> Yeah. This way, this way you're like, "Yeah, I knew it all along." Well, I will tell you who's not going to win, and that would be Miami. >> No, Miami is terri. Something happened to them. Oh, so >> they had the boy wonder as coach, you know, who everyone was just yak up yakking up a storm about this guy, this kid, and he was doing very well and all of a sudden the bottom fell out. What happened? You must know you're there. >> It's it's I don't think it's just the coaching. Um I think it was the the fact that we have um you know, McDaniel was he was I actually saw him recently. He was at the club. He was at the other end of the bar. Um >> he's at the club. He goes to the club you go to. >> Yes. Did you ever say hello to him or give them to autograph a football? >> Not my kind of thing. >> That's not my I There's certain people I would go for doing that with. Like there's uh I think in my day there was a few people here and there that I was like, "Oh, I got to get either his autograph, talk to him or something like that or picture. I've gotten a bunch of pictures with people." But uh the sports guys don't do it for me. >> So >> So if you saw Joe Montana, you wouldn't want to get his autograph? >> No. Joe Montana maybe. I mean, you know, uh, well, I wouldn't do it. For example, I've I've I've I've been to dinners and things with Dan Marino, Jason Taylor. I was at Jason Taylor's house. I don't ask him for a autograph. >> Well, yeah, you don't have to. You can always get one on the spur of the moment. >> Yeah. >> You needed one. >> Yeah. It doesn't do it for me. Like, what am I going to do with it? Like, what do you actually do with it? >> Well, I don't know. I have a bunch of autographed baseballs. I do have a Joe Montana autograph football and uh you you could use it as a little display if you have a bar in your house. I don't have a bar in the house but so they're in a closet but if I ever had a bar in the house they would be displayed prominently. I think that if they asked me for my autograph being the prominent podcaster that I am that I would ask them for theirs. I think it's only fair. It's only fair. I think what happened was when um when when when our quarterback, you know, Tua, >> yeah, that whole thing with his concussions and the hope I think we got really excited because they was playing really well for just a little while there and then it just like I think that's what I mean really seriously it was a major deflated bowl. So, I think that's what happened there. And we just And we have no patience in Florida for losing. Like, if you're winning, we may go to see you. We may root for you. You lose, you know, you're you're you're you're dead to us. >> Seriously, who has time for it when you got the beach? >> Yeah, exactly. That's exactly the problem with Florida. There's so many other things that you could be doing, boating, golfing, all year round that nobody needs to do it. And we're not the kind of we >> not even to mention the outrageous number of strip clubs down there. >> Yeah. It's always always a choice. Always something that Do you want to listen? Do you want to go fishing? You want to go play shooting some guns? You want to go out to dinner? You want to go to a strip club? You want to go bowling? What do you want to do? It's always in the top five. Uh markets alltime high right about Fed cut coming up AI earnings buyback sentiment things are pretty good. Even though we see things like Nvidia under China's microscope and the big thing that's happening now once again there's this discussion you know these discussions they they they happen every so often and we hear them and the narrative changes and what is it now? Now it's 7 trillion of cash on the sidelines. Money that has been accumulated over the last number of years due to the high interest rates that were there. The four and 5%s for a while that were in the money markets. all this money sitting there and when and her majesty Tina remember Tina there is no alternative when she returns well uh people are going to start moving money back into stocks there's always a good reason to move money into stocks right there's always a good bullish argument it's um interest rates are high and people are looking for um you know inflation protection stocks are great inflation protection and earnings are going to move up because of this interest rates are low well people going start moving out of bonds and they're going to move into stocks because there's no alternative and you can make um you know 3% or 2 and a half% let's say on a on a CD you can make two and a half% on a stock dividend. >> Yeah. Some a lot of stock dividends even floating around three. >> So I think the average S&P 500 is about just shy of 2% now because the price is so high. >> Yeah. Most of them don't. I mean, that's that's an unbalanced uh calculation because there's just too many companies that refuse to give out dividends. >> And some who have a they're serial dividend hikers that they just have a thing about every year they increase their dividend by X amount. There's several companies that have been increasing their dividend like every year for the last I don't know like five 50 70 80 years. >> Yeah. >> Crazy. So that's that's something that because you remember something one of the big things about dividends and a lot of people like what I want a dividends for I don't want dividends I want to I want the stock to grow. One of the ways that companies are able to get into certain indices and in certain portfolios is by having a dividend. So by the very nature of having a dividend you can be included in certain indices like a dividend yield indicy. Now you may say what would I need that for? Well, you may not, but the stock itself is bought up dramatically in certain pension plans, in certain endowments. >> Yeah. So, you want it to have a dividend. >> Yeah. So, you want to have the dividend so that you can have, you know, utilize that in the future for the benefit of the stock valuation and return and the dividend. In fact, if you look at the S&P 500 and you look at the last 50 years, the performance, let's just say for example that the total return on it, I'm just going to pick a number. You know, 8% per year on average of the S&P 500 of the last 50 years, I think it's like 2% of that or so is is dividends. It's like a freebie. So, it's a big big big part. So, that's a big thing. Cash on the sidelines. I want you to think about that and uh remember that because you're going to be hearing a lot about that, especially if interest rates come down a bit. They're going to talk about, you know, the next phase of this bull cycle, which may be true. They're talking about a lot of it. We'll talk more about that in a minute. And lastly, you know that things are getting crazy when uh one of the thievery companies of of the world, probably next to Live Nation in the same exact industry, StubHub. Have you Their IPO is coming soon. Have you Have you done any business with StubHub? >> Never. You sell something on StubHub, the buyer and the seller get nicked for the purchase and sale of the ticket. StubHub takes from both sides. That's like that's like being uh I don't know. How do we compare this? That's like uh putting two people together and somehow it's like getting an extra commission on a commission. >> Yeah. I I don't know anything about StubHub. I mean, I know I know the company. I know what they do, but I don't know how their what their business model is. And I just find it be part of a giant up, you know, this and all these other companies that Ticket Master was one uh let's say Live Nation, all these companies that essentially are in business to gouge the customer. >> Yeah. Clearly. So the good news is >> make up the price. >> If that is their business and they're not being challenged by any kind of government agency, then actually it may not be the worst company to invest in. If they're nobody's going to do anything about it, they're smart money, >> right? Exactly. So one of those things it's back to that. Oh, I'm not invest I'm not investing my money in that rig company. Well, why not? I mean, if that's what it is, why not just take advantage of it? So StubHub IPO is coming very soon. I'll tell you a quick StubHub story if I may. Uh, a number of years ago, my wife decided that she was going to buy some tickets to to Bruce Springsteen's new show on Broadway in New York. And it was always a a bucket list item of mine to go to see Bruce Springsteen in concert, an actual concert. She bought these and I'm like, well, I don't really want to do that, but okay, if I'm not seeing Bruce Springsteen, if I don't have a concert to go to, I might as well do this. So, I think she spent like $1,100 per ticket sometime in the December month on a Saturday evening. And I said, "You did how much?" She said, "Like a thousand." I said, "Really? Why would you do such a thing?" I mean, I've never paid that kind of money to go see a um a concert of any or a show for that matter. >> No, it's going to be good. Okay. And then I said, "And I got to fly up to New York." Okay. All right. During during holiday season in New York. Okay. Everything is getting worse and worse and worse in this conversation. Meanwhile, a few months into before this happens, >> I thought she was the the coupon clipper. >> Wait, wait till you hear the rest. Wait till you hear, as Steve Harvey would say, the rest of the story. Okay. So now, a couple months before, she's like, "You know what? I don't think we're going to New York. It's just, you know what? It's holiday season expensive and this and that. What should we do?" And I said, she says, "I'm going to try to sell the tickets." I said, 'Okay. She put them on StubHub. We netted $5,000 on the sale of those tickets. >> No way. >> I'm telling you. Unbelievable. Well, netted 5,000 after StubHub, but netted I think I think or we made like $4,000 on the deal. I remember that. >> So, we walked away with $4,000. >> Yep. >> You should have your wife do more of these. >> Well, it's funny you mentioned that. Funny you mentioned that. She decided to do it again, not at the same level, but with another show. And I think we broke even on the next one. And she decided, well, that was just luck the first time. We're not doing this anymore. I said, "Good idea." >> Yeah, it could be. You could get lucky. >> Good idea. Well, it was it was it was it was a hot show. It was New York December. >> Yeah, you probably could have done the same thing with Hamilton tickets. >> Probably. Probably. Uh once again, the house house is putting forth a stop gap bill that would fund government through November 21st. The expected vote is on Friday. So once again, we can't even with the Republicans fully in charge. We still can't get a deal, you know, a budget done. or not even a budget. We can't >> This has been baffling to me since the first day they announced this because I thought the big beautiful bill which they liked which is phrased uh I thought that covered all this. I thought the big beautiful bill was all about this. >> They raised >> it raised it raised this debt ceiling. I thought all the stuff that was in there. I thought it was I thought that was the budget. >> It is. But the problem is and you could pretty much put whatever you want into a spending bill to keep you have to always renew it. That's the way these budget not not the budget but the the funding runs out and then it has to be renewed. And you would think that they pretty much have an unlimited top side. They can just put something together and throw all sorts of crap in there. Or not. Or not. They still can't get to that point because by the way, Congress is really busy right now. Not Trump is Trump is doing all this stuff and basically what are they doing? They have one confirmation hearing. They got a list. They got to yell at RFK Jr. They got a What are they doing? What is Congress doing? Do you do do you recall any significant legislation that's being even discussed much less passed? >> No. Well, no. And they're not doing If they If there is, then they're not publicizing it for some reason, which doesn't make any sense. I don't know what they're doing. >> They're not doing much. President Trump has basically taken over government, all the decision-m and then fighting everybody in court single-handedly. Clearly not sleeping ever. David, there's a big scandal cuz he fell as he nodded off at some event, I guess, at the US at the US Open. >> He fell asleep really >> like Biden used to do all the time. So, you know, they keep an eye on Trump and so he he I guess at the US Open he dozed off like, you know, he's in his he's 79 years old and he dozed off at the at a tennis match. Um and they took a picture of it. Now it's a big scandal. >> He needs to get those He needs to get those glasses that have just open eyes on them all the time. >> Yeah. No, that I was thinking the same thing or some at least some sunglasses. He >> never wears sunglasses if you haven't noticed. >> He doesn't. And he's fair skinned. Well, I think he's fair skinned. We don't really know. >> I think he is. That's why he wears so much uh bronzer. >> Who else wears bronzer? >> Do you know anybody that wears bronzer? >> I I wear bronzer when I have to. >> Do you really? And >> if I'm going to do TV stuff, >> what qualifi? Well, so you saying you're wearing television pancake and makeup. >> It's not television p I I have worn that on when I when I worked at TechTV. television pancake makeup because, you know, we had makeup artists that would would make everybody up. Uh, and so you just put up with it. You'd look kind of weird. Uh, and there were guys that would come on the show I always thought was fascinating because you would get made up for the TV and then you would go immediately after the show was over, you go wash it off with micro beads is what I always made a joke about. So you wash it off and there's always about I'd say once a week or so one of the guests would say you know what you want to wash that off the bathroom's right over there and they say nah I'm going to I like it they go home with these guys I'm talking about guys let me ask you this though speaking about makeup and pancake and and television uh last night I was thumbming through the channels once again and I and and all of a sudden I saw a ghost. It was Anderson Cooper. What is that? Is that makeup or is he is he like a vampire without any blood? I mean, he looks really white. I don't mean white as in Caucasian. I mean white. Yeah, he's he's very uh he's they I think it's possible that they actually make him up to look white. I mean, it's the only thing I can think of. either that or they don't have makeup people there anymore because one of the things I noticed is when you're working in these in these cable companies they uh and when they start doing cutbacks and I think CNN's been doing this the first thing they do the first people that first they fire the wardrobe people they're the first to go because they're not needed according to every everybody so then people can't you see people they they dress funny and then the second group to go is the makeup artist which is really a loss because there's a lot of women in broadcasting I can assure assure you that are just homely, but they look terrific after they were sitting in a chair for an hour and and they look good on television and then but they're out. So, the girls have to do their own makeup and it's a nightmare and then the the third then they start screwing around with like uh sound and some of the other guys, but they they it's harder to get rid of the lighting guy, for example. You really need them >> and the cameramen women. >> So, it's possible CNN don't doesn't have makeup people anymore. >> I don't know. But they always put it against a black a blue background. He has a certain look to him, right? >> He looks he's way too pale. >> Yeah. >> All right, let's talk about CPI and jobs. The consumer price index post a seasonally adjusted point4 increase 4% for the month. The biggest gain since January, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.9%. Again, nowhere near well closer, but really not at that 2% magic number that was put in. Uh already the Fed did change one of their calculation methodologies again. this time, you know, they they changed when inflation was up and they wanted to make sure it didn't look like it was really hot. They used something Bernanki put in called inflation averaging. They average it over time to make it look like it wasn't necessarily as high so they could balance it. Now, when they want to make it look like um you know the opposite, they took it away. They're taking it away now. it it's they the inflation averaging mandate's gone. >> So they'll put that on when they need it and take it off when they need it just like a company. >> This is the convenient. >> Yep. Always the case. Well, >> this is this is basically cooking the books. >> Always cooking the books. Yep. The vital core reading uh of CPI, which excludes food and energy in August 3%. Putting the 12-month figure at 3.1% which was what the forecast number was. The labor department though reported a surprise increase in weekly unemployment compensation filings to a seasonally adjusted 263 263 people thousand people went for unemployment benefits. That's the highest since October 2021. So it seems to me that the jobs numbers are a questionable situation. And we saw clearly that there was a revision of 900,000 last week. But that 900,000 revision, it's not like, oh my god, look at all the losses. It's it's something that accumulated over time and it was wrongly uh estimated by all accounts throughout a year's period. We're not looking at the seasonally adjusted 263,000 now, which is higher than the 220 230 that we've been seeing as this. Oh yeah, that's confirmation that really is a big up. I just still think that this possibly this was a little bit of an aberration, but we'll have to see. That though is going to give a lot of cover and that's what was really the final nail in the okay, you know, are we or are we not going to drop rates? That is going to give the Fed cover because the employment situation has deteriorated so dramatically with the revisions with a 4.3% unemployment rate, the highest we've seen in some time. And now confirming out with the more recent stat of increase of about 10% from the week before and from the longer term average in the unemployment compensation filings. So that's where we go. Now on the other hand, can't count out the consumer because all these people that supposedly don't have jobs seem to be spending anyway. Retail sales increased 6% in August, beating expectations. Core retail sales rose.7%. And they didn't even revise July. So these are clean numbers. >> Yeah, everybody's noticing this >> that they didn't revise it or this is good. know that the retail sales are showing indicating that everybody's, you know, happy as a clam. Well, part of the reason is they there was some talk I was listening to some conversation about some research that was done on who is spending and they came back with uh it used to be that 30% of the spending in the retail sales numbers were from your highly higher income high the affluent the the the high earners and the high uh net worth uh quadrant. And now it's only, excuse me, it used to be 30%, now it's 50%. So the people with money that have their accounts that are blooming from the stock market going up are the ones spending. >> They're going nuts. >> Yeah. The lower income quadrant or or even more than that, right? The masses are having problems. Now, you don't see that in the Walmart numbers or the Costco numbers, maybe in the Target numbers. And some of the retail sales are you you could say that and it's it's inside the report you could see this that some of the increase in sales is because of the uh rise in prices right that's a big issue >> yeah that well yeah it would yeah because this you still have to buy one quarter of milk and you bring in another nickel or a dime >> right so I mean they should do inflation adjusted numbers on all this to see >> that's never going to happen. >> You could you could bring this down, but you know if if core retail sales rose.7 for the month and let's go back to our number we talked about a second ago that core was.3 we're still talking about a4% increase excluding the increase in pricing which is 4.8% 8% year-over-year, which does not look like it's not it's not, you know, a crazy number like, you know, a 10% increase, but it's still not showing that consumers are are massively pulling back >> yet. Yet, no, I clearly when is it, but when if not now, when? I mean, when is this going to happen already? When are we going to see the inflation numbers that we should have seen from the tariffs? When are we going to see the slowdown because of the unemployment situation really? It could be years because there's so much stimulus still in the economy from the Biden inflation reduction act to the OBA, the one big beautiful bill that everybody knows and if you don't know, I'm going to tell you now. You love it. Great. You You say government cut back on things. Okay, not really. Taxes has not changed. The spending is is higher by $3 trillion over 10 years. three trillion. By the way, we've turned to Japan. I remember when I used to see prices of a stock in Japan, it was like uh price of uh ABC Inc. is trading at 285,000 yen. I'm like, wow, how many shares of that can you buy at once? >> Yeah. >> They devalue their money as we have been doing to ours. Stock prices go up is what happened in Venezuela. From the outside, you would look at it and say, "Oh my gosh, look at that. The Venezuelan stock market is up, you know, 800% this year." Meanwhile, their inflation rate is up, uh, you know, uh, some crazy number and their dollar is, you know, their their currency is down by 40%. So, all those gains get uh, squashed if you're an investor from outside the country. If you're inside the country, you're making a lot of money, but you can't do anything with it because your currency is worthless unless you're doing it inside the country. >> That's why people flocked to the USA to put their money, >> right? In the past. No, >> they still are. >> Yeah. >> That meanwhile, that's why that's why uh gold is doing what it's doing. Gold is an alltime high. I think it what it hit 3,700. Let's take a look at shall we look at gold for a moment? It touched 38, didn't it? >> Let's take a look. I got it coming up. Gold's at 36.84 right now. >> Oh, it dropped. Good. >> Uh, let's do the five >> buying opportunity for you people out there. >> It here's the high 3698. I thought it hit 3,700, but okay. >> And then you got also don't let's let's not count out silver at 42 and change hitting a high recently. >> Silver is really really rocking. >> Really rocking. Silver is up. Let's see. 1 month 11.23 23 16% 3 months 24% in 6 months 37% in one year 37% one year gold is up 42% one year >> how about platinum how's that been doing I have I don't have platinum on this here let's see I could probably find that uh let's see markets and we go to commodities I guess let's see most commodities. Here we go. Uh, metals, platinum. Let's see what we have for platinum. If I have any numbers on platinum. So, platinum on a one-year basis, it went from uh it's about 40%. Not bad. You don't like platinum? >> I don't like it. >> I do like it. No, I like platinum. >> 1,400 bucks. I like it because it's it's actually used extensively in industry and it and it gets uh degraded. It it actually has a flow. Uh so there's always going to be a shortage. I think is a valuable commodity that should be invested in. >> It hit a high an all-time high back in uh 200 uh what is that 12? Oh no no 2008. 2008 2100. So you got another 600 bucks to go. It looks like it could could actually get there from the chart over time. Uh tomorrow the odds are 100%. Wow. 100%. That there is going to be a 25 basis point cut and 3.9% odds in favor of a 50 basis point cut tomorrow >> for a total of 103.9% somehow. No, no. It's there's a 100% odd for there's two different things. One's a 25 basis point cut. They're saying there's a 100% chance of that. Oh, >> okay. So, in other words, the 50 isn't counted. It would be counted in within that. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's 100% that something's going to happen. >> Yeah. Well, something's going to happen. >> There's lots of talk about three rate cuts for 2025, September, October, and December. And we talked about gold, we talked about silver, we talked about all this with you know who we had on the discipline investor podcast this week. >> Who? >> Peter Schiff. >> Oh, your buddy. >> Well, he's I haven't had him on for a couple years. And uh >> he said I bet you said the same thing. >> He said the same thing. >> Yeah. >> The dollar is going to zero. >> He's consistent. >> Yeah, he does not change. >> I forget that the dollar is going to zero. Yeah, that's a good one. >> Dollar is going to zero. Collapse. Collapse is the word. >> No. Well, he's he's going to be right. It's been collapsing. It's just in slow motion. It's like a glacier. >> Well, it's not collapsing so much. I mean, I I remember when it was a buck 25 within my lifetime, it's only a buck 16, buck 18 right now. >> Yeah, good point. When you look at it against certain currencies, the fact is all the currencies are coming down. So, the whole thing is that's why everything is inflating so much in in in the in the global entirety. >> Well, yeah. And if you're a gold bug like he is, this all makes sense. And gold is going up, by the way. >> Yeah, he's got that right. >> And he says it's going to go up even more. >> Yeah. What is What is his high mark? 5,000. >> He's got a high mark. So, silver, too. Looks like silver. Actually, he likes that better. >> Yeah. I've heard this from a lot of people. >> So, we talked about that. We talked about Bitcoin and his thesis on that and where it's going and what it's all about. Talked about a million. >> Uh, he doesn't like Bitcoin. >> Oh, he doesn't like Bitcoin. Bitcoin does not have value. He has some. I think he owns some, but he just bought it for the fun of it and the speculative nature of it. >> Kind of like what I did. >> Uh so we talked about that and we talked about the Fed governors, talked about the government, we talked about the policies. So anyway, it was a really good show that was uh running right now. This discipline investor on your favorite podcast network. Not to forget about uh another great show, wonderful show called No Agenda, which stars Adam Curry and John C. D'vorak as the host was the mostess. Uh Thursdays and Sundays. They're live at 2 p.m. Eastern, but also you can find it all the time on uh where is it not? >> No agenda.net. >> Yeah, that's the great place to get it, but also on your podcast uh platforms. But I I really encourage people to to listen to that. Now, a lot of people I know because we get little emails every once in a while. People send in a thing or something like that, a donation at, you know, $8.33 a month. Well, you know what? You know, they you know, we get that from, you know, the magic number. Um, you know, or you know, somebody writes and it's ITM. And if you don't know what I'm talking about right now, listen to >> code. It's all the no agenda codes. >> A whole lot of code. So, uh, go listen to No Agenda. You'll be happy that you did. Um, Google, let's, uh, a warm welcome, a warm round of applause. That's not it, is it? Yes. A warm round of applause. I don't know where my buttons are. A warm round of applause for Google. Uh, finally getting to the trillion dollar market cap club. >> Yeah, I'm surprised it took him that long. Well, one of the reasons was there was this whole overhang with the, you know, the the devestature of the the search and with Chrome. >> Yeah. Right. With the with the law case, the case. >> Now, I also thought there was overhang with the idea that oh my uh Google's going to be done for with all this AI >> with a search. >> Yeah. >> Yes. A lot of people have pointed out that Google's real money doesn't come so much from search anymore and it comes from services and data mostly data and some of the stuff they've done. And it's also believed that at some point people will be able to they hope monetize the modern search which is a search using AI. Uh I don't know how they're going to do it. Nobody knew how to monetize search and to begin with until Google came along. They actually bought a company that would that did it beforehand and they just bought them up and said this is the way to go and they started doing it and there was going to be a breakthrough similarly with AI searches and I don't know how that's going to go but I can just imagine some funny stuff. >> Yeah. And and remember >> like you search for something and starts off by saying, "Oh, that's a great idea for a search. You should have a CocaCola." And then it gives you the answer. Something like that. I mean, it's got to be something wacky. >> Yep. I mean, a lot of the other reason is that they're getting again, most like all these other companies, free data to the LLMs, but now they're being once again sued. But, you know, it's it's like anything else. We see this time and time and again. companies are doing things and they're they're doing it and they know they're probably wrong, but it's better off doing it because it's benefits them. There's a great story coming up that we have to talk about with regard to Nova Nordisk and Oprah Winfrey and the idea that you do things and it's better to ask for forgiveness later. >> And this is what's going on. >> Or pay people off after a lawsuit, you lose a lawsuit. >> Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. So the owner of Rolling Stone, Bill Borg, and Variety has sued Google last week alleging that the technology giant's AI summaries used in journalism used its journalism without consent and reduced traffic to its websites. So the lawsuit by >> I believe I I believe that I if I was uh Yeah, I believe that to be true. >> Yeah, I don't think there's any nobody doesn't. But but it it's better off doing it this way getting sued maybe coming up with a couple >> you've made a trillion dollars. >> Right. >> So the lawsuit by Pensa in the Federal Court of Washington DC marks the first time a major US publisher has taken Alphabet Google to court over the AI generated summaries that now appear on top of it search results. again, they're going to take him to court for copyright infringement, maybe possibly, you know, uh, IP theft, things of that nature. But after they built the whole thing with the idea and the the basic understanding that what's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is they could somehow do a cease and desist that that holds on the entirety of the LLM and then it's out of business. Okay, fine. But that's not going to happen. Let's be honest >> now with now with good lawyers, >> right? It's not going to happen and they'll tie you up forever and they'll keep making money. There won't be an injunction on the deal. There won't be a stay that it'll just business as usual. So the AI overview, >> welcome to the world of tech. This is what the tech has been founded on since day one. >> Yeah. Using stealing everybody else's chip designs, they would do that and then they have to go back and forth in court for forever. It was hilarious. still going on. >> So Pensky, who is a family-owned media conglomerate led by Jay Penske and whose contact attracts about 120 million online visitors a month, said Google only includes publishers websites in its search results if it could also use their articles in AI summaries. And without the leverage, Google would have to pay publishers for the right to republish their work or use the train as AI systems. So again, stealing data. >> Yeah. >> Uh Nvidia, China says Nvidia violated anti- monopoly law after preliminary probe. China's market regulator Monday said that Nvidia violated um the law according to this probe. They're saying that Beijing will continue its investigation into the US chip giant. Now surely not to take the other side. I got a few of these. We try to take and and look at things and dig deep into stuff on the show, don't we, John? >> Absolutely. >> What would be the cure for this? Well, I say >> you have to give them the better chips. >> You get the chips. Fine. We're good. That's the cure. Yeah. Give us the H2O and all this nonsense goes away about the anti- monopoly laws, right? >> I think Nvidia could also say, "Hey, you guys can make your own damn chips. We're out of here. >> Yeah. And and right now Nvidia is not making much money on those chips. They don't need to. Why has the stock not really budged? I mean, it maybe went down a percent or so, but you know, you talk about the wow China. Oh no. You know what video say thank you very much. You do this to us, you're not definitely getting you're definitely not getting chips from us. They they wield that much power. You have to look behind the curtain sometimes to see, you know, pull it back a little bit to see really what's going on like the next thing Tesla. >> Well, you know, one of the things, another one of the rules and and and foibless of Silicon Valley that has always been a consideration is uh and and every company does this which is uh monopolize a uh a strong position unless there's second sourcing. And it's always believed that if you can't get a second source for something, you shouldn't buy the chip in the first place. And there's no second sourcing for these chips, >> right? >> So that puts them in a cat bird seat. >> Yep. Exactly. Now, again, when you're pulling back the curtain, understanding what's going on and really and the reason for this is to help you make good investment decisions, right? the idea that if we see something that happens that maybe a company's going to be hurt, but maybe there's a company that benefits or maybe the company is being hurt, really it's a temporary situation that's just being uh exacerbated by some drama that's going on, but maybe it's a great idea to invest in it. I can tell you time and time again, look at what happened with, for example, Surrepta when they were forced to pull their drug off the market and they said, "Hey, here's the big finger up the tus of the FDA saying, hey, you know what? Uh, we're not pulling it." And then the FDA actually came back and said after a while, "Yes, you will." And then they said, "You know what? H we're not dealing with this. We got we're going to we're going to do some more investigation." Stock popped like 50%. >> Yeah. >> Well, let's look at Tesla. What's the reasoning? Why >> your buddy? >> Well, I'm going to talk about that company's not doing well. Uh sales are down dramatically all over the world. >> No, but but but Elon loves to stick it to the shorts. >> Loves to stick it to the shorts. He loves sticking it right in the shorts. Uh stock is performing well. As a matter of fact, it hit that magic number and surpassed 420 today. >> Yeah, this is a I see you're going to put it on the game. >> But but I'm going to I'm going to test you actually. So Elon announced just a few days ago that he invested a billion dollars in Tesla shares, the first time since 2020. Now the news on Tesla is that things aren't going well. We know that. The news also is that uh you know they may look to buy Tesla may buy XAI or put an investment in it. There's also news that um that that there's going to be a new deal, a new compensation deal with Tesla where Elon could possibly make up to a trillion dollars. All that we know, right? And oh maybe robo taxes must be near, right? Why is he in fact doing this at this point? Is it to create the interpretation that the CEO is putting a lot of money to work here and it's a strong vote of confidence in Tesla's long-term prospects? Possibly, but I think >> yeah, it would be possible if this wasn't chump change for him, >> right? But my thought is a lot more simple. Any other ideas that you have, by the way? Why? Well, you know, there is there is the notion that they're going to slowly transition from these cars to robots. >> Yep. Yep. >> And that's supposed to be a big deal because all the robots are going to take over. Of course, we've heard that for >> I probably heard first heard that in >> probably in the 60s actually. >> Since the movie Woody Allen, >> the wood the robots. So, you had the robots and then you have uh and I guess they they rolled out a driverless car in Austin or was it some sort of car that's a little buggy uh driving around and we already have Whimo here which is Google's product in the San Francisco Bay area and I guess they're in LA and so there's the robot taxis and the robots and all that's going to be so obviously the future that Elon must be must know something because there's Something's breaking you. He's He's looking at the books. He says, "Ah, there's money. We see the money is going to start coming in. I better get in. I don't buy any of it." >> I'll give you my thought. You want this? >> Obviously, >> three letters. Ego. Larry Ellison vulted to be the richest man in the world last week after Oracle popped 39% after that amazing earnings report and guidance. >> Yeah. >> Elon goes in maybe shorts Oracle puts a billion dollars in and guess who is on top again? >> Yeah. >> Elon Musk. Now >> these guys uh these guys are funny. I mean, I've talked about this before, which is I know for a fact that Ellis in 20 15 20 years ago, probably more than that, uh was always jealous of Bill Gates for being the richest man in the world when Bill was. Uh he hasn't been for a while, but he was for a long period of time, probably a decade. >> And Ellison always believed he should have been. and he would just, you know, he was a uh just that was Ellison and wanted to be the richest guy in the world. I think once he achieved it for even the short period of time, uh I think that's enough for him. He doesn't I don't think he's going to care anymore because he was the richest man in the world. But Elon, I guess it bugged him. I I don't I'm not sure. Whatever the case, I know you're going to short uh Tesla for the game. I'm going to short Oracle. >> Yeah, Oracle short was an interesting idea. I thought about it. Uh there's so many things that can go wrong with that whole deal that they proposed going out five years and trying to talk up what the opportunity. >> Yeah. That a Open AI doesn't even OpenAI is losing hundred billion dollars a year and they're professing that they're going to fund 500 billion or whatever the number was some ridiculous number to Oracle over the next five years. >> Three I think it was 350 or to 500 something like that. So, I mean, I guess if you have all the players around that are keep funding you, but it seemed like a real >> Where's the check? >> Yeah, there's something wrong with that whole deal. >> Like the publishers clearing house. >> So, there's my thesis on that. I think that uh uh first of all, he did it to pop the stock and he may have actually shorted Oracle or told his peeps to short Oracle to bring it down. Oracle to bring it down. I think that was a possibility. There was a deal. There was a good deal with Oracle today. Uh and but Tesla was up again today. So I think it I think there's a a good chunk of ego involved in that. So something uh nuclear I keep on talking about this really interesting discussions about what's going on about the US Secretary Chris Wright um talking about that um the US should look to boost its strategic uranium reserves because they want a buffer against Russian supply. So again, going back to those rare earths that we're trying to figure out how to do here versus grab for China because it's in our national best interest and security issues to make sure we have that. And if in fact I think there's something like 30% of the power generated in the United States is nuclear. Do you know that? >> That seems kind of high. >> There's 94 reactors. Um it's actually 20 20 something%. I'm sorry. Did I say 30? 20 something% of of uh US electricity 94 nuclear reactors. >> Yeah, we need more. >> Yeah, we are getting more. >> So 94 produces 20%. >> So we need like we need to triple this. Triple quadruple. >> And also is um let's see. Oh, and Robert Redford died today by the way. Terrible. >> How many nuke reactors in USA? I think there was 94. But how many are operational? Oh, yeah. 20% of the power, 54 nuclear power plants, 28 states, 94 operational. Yep, I was right about that. 94 uh 20% of the US electricity. I I think most people didn't I I I would bet that most people didn't think that. I would bet. >> Yeah, probably not. >> Most people thought it was just like a smidgen. So, this is a real thing. You got to look at the stock chart of like um like let's see uh it's UR is uh the uranium um ETF 6 months is up 80% year to date up 57%. >> Five years up 278%. top holding is like uh Kamiko, >> let's see, down 7% today, but year to date up 53%. A fiveyear. It's funny because I had this a few years ago and it kind of didn't do anything, so I dumped it. Five years up 665%. >> Wow. Six beggar. >> It's unbelievable. It really didn't start moving until let's 2020 is where it really March. Well, the low was March 6, 2020. Let's take that out of the equation, shall we? Because that was the the co low. >> Yeah, that doesn't count. >> Let's let's go to I don't know. Pick any other date. I don't care. Uh 2022 was still 20 bucks. It's a forbeggger since then. >> It's a beautiful thing. IPO Gemini, the Winklevos's Winklevi crypto exchange pops more than 14% in the NASDAQ debut. I I saw an interview with him the other day and I just one of them looks like he was beat up or something like that he was in a fight. His head is all knocked in a little bit. >> Maybe he was. >> Well, maybe he always looks a little bit you know you know they're identical twins but yet a little bit off. I think they're identical twins, right? >> Yeah, as far as I know. >> Yeah, one of them is you could tell the difference. Maybe because I have twins myself. I could tell differences between twins. I don't know. Um, it got to 44 on the open, then faded. >> Most people can tell the difference between twins. There's always some idiosyncrasy one of them has. >> So, like a scar. >> Yeah. Little something. Uh, open uh, excuse me. Gemini got to $44 on the open. Faded currently was trading at 33 and then, oops, it's 28 now. So, I think it's I think if I'm not mistaken, uh, let's see. I think it was Gemini. What was it? What was the IPO price? Um, it was I think it was trade at 28. So, price of 28 and it's right back at 28. >> So, rugpull. uh cash and cash alternatives over $7 trillion in cash equivalent investments offered as an attractive yield for a long time you know and if all that it's on the sideline so if you look at this there's a chart there these charts are available on dhplugged episode number 769 now by the way when you're on there at dhunplug.com uh it's very important if you want to see this chart >> the onsideline chart >> yeah the on sideline chart yeah you don't you don't have to do this. However, if you donate, we could probably do more charts in the future. If you donate, the show goes on. If you donate, things are better. And, you know, it's it's kind of like uh doing a uh pass along, you know, a a a uh what's the word I'm looking for? You know, you do for one person and something happens. You don't know that if you you save a >> good deed. >> It's a good deed. If you save a life in this area, it's like a butterfly effect. you save a life over here, you give a donation there, maybe something comes back to you in spades. So, it's a very helpful thing and we really appreciate your support. For all of you that do so, thank you so much. For all of you that don't and have not done so at this part, uh the show is now ending. Thank you for coming along. Go over to DH Unplugged and uh please uh donate. This is a chart that shows a total money market fund asset in the US. this whole idea that cash on the sidelines and which you know when rates come down they're going to be re you know it's going to be released in massive amount you know rates >> well this would probably happen if they dropped at 50 points but they're not going to >> if you look at this though rates have come down dramatically um after let's call it 2022 would you agree with that >> 2021 >> sure >> and what happened to the cash on the sidelines >> went up >> and by the way by a significant amount Yeah, this is really a lot >> more than you really saw historic. There was a little drip little but boom boom. >> Yeah. I wish you I wish these charts went out further. Hint. >> You mean backwards? Long longer >> longer period of time. >> Longer tale. Yeah. >> I mean you're talking about from 2006 there was two trillion on the sidelines. Now there's like seven. >> In 2022 it was like five. There's two almost a 50% increase. almost maybe 40% 40% increase in cash on the sidelines. First of all, question, where the hell did the money come from? $2 trillion that's not being invested. And number two, if interest rates have come down during that period, clearly we know that. Why is there still cash on the sidelines? And why has it grown? I sound like Jerry Seinfeld. Didn't uh Yeah, almost. Didn't uh uh Buffett go on about having a lot of cash? >> Buffett has a tremendous amount of cash. He he found there was no place to actually he he found no inclus including his own company uh to do buybacks or to buy shares in companies that have a reasonable value. He found no compelling notion. Sold a bunch of Apple added to his cash on the sideline. Sold a bunch of other stuff added. Did not reinvest in his own company because he felt that the valuation wasn't there. But nobody cares. Terafund Swiss Swiss watch maker Swatch has begun selling a special edition watch with the numbers three and nine reversed on his face in a play on the 39% tariff President Donald Trump has imposed costing 139 Swiss Franks $1775. The watch named what if tariffs went on sale Wednesday and is only available in Switzerland. Got to appreciate >> confuse all the generation Z's. They can't read a clock already. >> Well, they can't read it anyway, but >> a bad idea. >> How much fun is this? Well, you could probably do the same thing with an Apple Watch design that you can customize. >> You probably could. Yeah. >> You know. Yeah. Uh we have a lot more going on here. Oh, so much. We're going to have to hold some of this to our next show. What are we going to talk about here? Uh, fishing. Uh, Reuters and Harvard University researchers used a chatbot to plot a simulated fishing scam, a PH fishing scam. from composing emails to tips on timing and tested it on 180 elderly volunteers. The bot's persuasive performance show how AI is aiming arming criminals for industrial scale fraud. We believe and I quote, they say, "We believe every senior deserve dignity and joy in their golden years." Is it read? By clicking here, you'll discover heartwarming stories of seniors we've helped and learn how you can join our mission. But the charity was fake and the email's purpose was defraud seniors out of large sums of money. Its author, Grock, that's the uh >> Grock warned a reporter that the malicious email, if created, should not be used in real real world scenarios. The bot nonetheless produced the fishing attempt as requested and dialed it up with the click now line. Overall about 11% of the seniors clicked on the email sent. Five of the nine scammed email test drew clicks. Two generated by Meta, two by Grock, and one by Claude. None clicked on the emails generated by Chat GBT or Deepseek. >> I wonder what that tells us. >> I don't know. You're telling Is it that tells us nothing or you tells us that the guard rails are probably off on Grock? >> I'm getting a lot of I'm getting some pretty good results from Grock when I use it. >> Have you noticed an incredible amount of spam phone calls lately? >> Uh I I yesterday I had a bunch. I had a couple today, but my experience with these and I have some blocking going on because I go through a a digital um an IP phone company and uh they block a lot of stuff which gets into there. There's some systems that block it. But I I've always noticed that it's cyclical. So you get a bunch of spam calls for a couple of days and you won't get any for a couple weeks. I would like to that to happen because all day I get spam calls and >> every day, all day, every day. You should document the numbers and when they come in. >> I got one good one last week that I answered and there was a guy that came on and said, "Hey, uh, Andrew, how are you? I'm just following up on uh some discussion that I want to have with you about whatever topic was." I'm like, "Uh-huh." He says, "You know, do you have any time to talk?" I'm like, "Well, I'm not sure." He says, "Well, I understand that, but if you give me a couple of minutes." I'm like, "All right, let me ask you a question." Because I wasn't sure. It had just this weird pausing going on. >> Yeah, there was a bot >> which could have been a bot or it could have been one of those weird connections you don't talk about, right? That sometimes happens. >> Yeah, but it's United. Well, yeah, but just flip a coin and probably >> I said, "Are you a bot?" They said, "No." I said, "What's your name again?" "Aaron." I said, "Okay, Aaron, where are you from?" "Uh, Michigan." Aaron, where'd you go to school? And he said something. I'm like, oh, Miami. I said, is that the University of Miami or is that Miami of Ohio? Miami. I'm like, uhhuh. And uh where was your high school? And it just I tried to wrap it up a little bit, you know, in weird questions. It did a pretty good job, though. I finally figured out it was a bot, but it would did a pretty good job up to then. I was impressed. Well, Mimi ran into a bot that was a woman and she's run into it two or three times and the same company called again without the bot. They canceled the bot because the bot was was costing too much to operate. But the bot would ref she'd ask it if it was a robot and the woman and the bot would say, "Yeah, I'm a I'm a a special assistant. That's what I do. I'm Yeah, I am. So, is it is that bad? Nothing wrong with it if it does the job. Uh, last thing I want to talk about tonight, the Senate has confirmed Steen Mirren, President Donald Trump's pick to join the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. So, he's going to participate in Fed Policy Committee's upcoming meeting where the board will consider whether to cut interest rates. And he's also going to keep his White House position at the helm of the Council of Economic Advisor, but take an unpaid leave to serve on the central bank board. If you ever watched uh Austin Powers, does the word moly mole m come into your thought process? >> I mean, he's pretty much going to be on both sides. So much for the independence. Nobody cares about this, though, by the way. Nobody Nobody >> Yeah, but that's a it's a farce. >> What? The independence? >> Yeah. I mean, let's let's you can look back and when Elizabeth Warren like got a bunch of people fired because they weren't Democrat enough and they put she's the one also responsible for getting that Cook woman in. It's bull crap. >> It is running out of time. Let's get to the game, shall we? This is a game that we play. It's not a solicitation to buy or sell any security. It's not a recommendation of any kind. Nothing on the show should be considered investment advice or a recommendation. If you choose to invest in any of the stocks mentioned, you should know that it may carry risk along with the risk of a loss of principle. You should also seek out professional financial advice for your particular situation. We assume no risk as these are not to be considered recommendations. Horowitz company, myself or John Cavoric may invest in any of the securities mentioned and will disclose that on the website under the weekly stock pick section. You can go to dhunplug.com and see all the names we discussed in the segment along with the performance information from the date discussed as well as any additional important disclosures. A lot of red on here, including an anomaly. At least one anomaly. >> Which one? >> When did I short IBM at $13 a share? >> Yeah, that's not right. That's not right. It's definitely not right. It's I got I got to look at that number. It's It's not right. >> And curiously, it's down 1,800% and still not kicked off the game. >> First of all, how could something be down 1,800%. Oh, because it's a short on the other side. It's not right. There's something wrong with it. that I have to look up the number. Can we just pass that one by? >> Well, once you take it off. >> No, it's just I have to just update the number. >> It's just something something went wrong. Actually, >> wonder if I could do this. >> I have another one. My my Chevron long wouldn't come up with the right now. How's that work? That's a major corporation. >> Chevron. What do you mean it's not? It's 17%. >> No, not in my sheet that you sent to me. Chevron. >> Yeah. Something came wrong. Something was wrong with some of this stuff. They'll update this, but everything else is right. >> Yeah, right. >> Um, Chevron is up 17 and a half%. What's coming off is Dell at uh recently which uh disclosed uh the gold trust well with that. >> Yeah, gold trust. Not >> you didn't do well with gold trust or wayfair. Your your friends at >> Wayfair. No good. That was just a lesson there. Uh, Constellation Energy is all is is done. Starbucks is done. The buys on that. Um, let's see. Uh, Narta is done. Apple is done. Anything else? Did I miss something? >> No, it looks like everything is done. >> Our picks last week. Fizer still hated. Uh, Lyft up 9%. That was up 10% yesterday. Definite breakout. That's exactly the squeeze and breakout. Uh, alumis up down a little bit. And this week I'm shorting Tesla. And what are you doing? >> Shorting Oracle. >> Oh yeah. Let me find that for you. Where's your shorts? You have a short. >> What a and bull story that is. >> Yeah. Where's it? JC. Do you have any other shorts on this list? >> I have Well, the ones I had have all been kicked. >> Apple shorted. IBM is shorted. >> We It's not the right numbers, but we had to put it in there. >> So, this is Oracle OC put in there. And what is your thesis on Oracle? The story that when you you elucidated in the last show you went on and on about the details of the nonsense of predictive, you know, income for the next five years until 2029 or something like that. It just seems like a pie in the sky pronounce pronouncements. And so Larry could get to his spot in in life where he wanted to be, which was the richest man in the world for even a moment. And uh shorten it. I I like the company. >> BS numbers is your thesis. >> BS predictions. >> Predictions. Okay, you got it. All right. Well, that does that. We'll fix the IBM. Everything else should be running just fine. So I >> All right. We'll talk to you next Tuesday. >> I think we'll do that. Thank you. Bye. >> Great. Bye. >> You've been listening in on a conversation with John C. D'vorak and Andrew Horowitz. Hope to be with you again soon. Bye-bye. >> Now, I'm not broke, but badly bent. I'm not down to my last scent cuz I got a dollar, but it's my last dollar bill. Yes, sir. In my pocket there's a debt. All my dough is nearly spent, but I got a dollar and it's my last dollar bill. Oh, I'd love just one more buck. Fortune left me by chance. Now, here's a hint. I feel like a men. You can hardly tell by a glance. I don't care. No millionaire can give me the Isis stack cuz I got a dollar. My last dollar bill. [Music] This podcast is intended forformational purposes only and does not constitute personalized investment advice. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principle and past performance, is not indicative of future results. The views and opinions expressed are those of the hosts and the guests and may not necessarily reflect those of Horowitis Company, Inc., an investment advisor registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. 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DHUnplugged #769: Sideline Ca$h
Summary
Transcript
Hello and welcome to D'vorak Horowitz Unplugged, an hour-long discussion of activity in the financial markets around the world featuring columnist John C. D'vorak and money manager Andrew Horowitz. This conversation is casual and unrehearsed. Let's join John and Andrew now. >> I'm John Cavarak >> and I'm Andrew Horowitz >> and it's the 16th of September, 2025. >> Yeah. So pretty good making it through. Tomorrow's a big day. We have uh the the well today and and tomorrow were big days. Today was the meeting. Tomorrow is the rest of the meeting and then the two o'clock announcement by the Fed about interest rates. >> Yes. Which will be dropped by a quarter of a percent. >> That's what the market says. And do we have the actual numbers of the Fed funds futures prediction model of not only that, but what is the prediction for a 50 basis point cut and what are the markets thinking about the rest of the year? that we're going to talk about tonight as well. >> Good. >> Yep. We're going to talk about AI, the promise, and the theft, the thievery, the taking stuff that's not yours, and not giving anybody credit, which is the hallmark of a company that you love called Meta. They they've they perfected that. Well, they did it in a in a in a way though that made it legal for them to do it. Right. They figured out >> you sign your rights away when you when you become a member of the of the club. >> Send the ula. >> Yeah. And they also created and found ways to skirt the law about responsibility and liability about what is said on their platform. >> Yes. Which is their which is their claim to fame. >> So basically they have really >> why it's a $1.8 trillion company. They have good lawyers. Let's be honest. It's not like they create anything new. They just created some way that they can basically do what they want and collect money and nobody's they have no liability. They're untouchable. They're teflon. That should be the name of the company. Teflon book. >> Yeah. Well, it's and they probably steal the name which is copyrighted. >> We need to find a And we need to come up before the end of the evening. what would be the next close to the pin stock. So, I want you to think about that for a little while. Uh, we're going to talk about the most hated stocks. There's more hate on them. And of course, what's really exciting right now, it is football season. You've been watching. You've been It's been >> Yeah, of course. I've been checking it out. >> A lot of disappointing games. We got >> there's some there's some Well, what's interesting is the emergence of San Diego or now the LA Chargers >> and you think they have a shot? You're not just saying that because it's your state. >> No, I'm saying that because it just seems that uh this is what this guy Harbo tend Harbaugh tends to do. He comes in he when he came into the 49ers the second year he was there, he took him to the Super Bowl. So, he has a a knack for turn he's a turnaround specialist. There's only so much he could work with, though. So, let's see if it actually happens and comes to fruition. One can only hope. >> Well, I don't hope one way or the other. It's not my team. >> What's your team? >> Uh, what team am I rooting for? Actually, the 49ers would be the logical choice. the Raiders would be a second backup choice. But I, you know, I I pretty much just root for whoever's whoever thinks going to win >> so that you could be on the winning team at all times. >> Yes, that's the idea. >> Yeah. This way, this way you're like, "Yeah, I knew it all along." Well, I will tell you who's not going to win, and that would be Miami. >> No, Miami is terri. Something happened to them. Oh, so >> they had the boy wonder as coach, you know, who everyone was just yak up yakking up a storm about this guy, this kid, and he was doing very well and all of a sudden the bottom fell out. What happened? You must know you're there. >> It's it's I don't think it's just the coaching. Um I think it was the the fact that we have um you know, McDaniel was he was I actually saw him recently. He was at the club. He was at the other end of the bar. Um >> he's at the club. He goes to the club you go to. >> Yes. Did you ever say hello to him or give them to autograph a football? >> Not my kind of thing. >> That's not my I There's certain people I would go for doing that with. Like there's uh I think in my day there was a few people here and there that I was like, "Oh, I got to get either his autograph, talk to him or something like that or picture. I've gotten a bunch of pictures with people." But uh the sports guys don't do it for me. >> So >> So if you saw Joe Montana, you wouldn't want to get his autograph? >> No. Joe Montana maybe. I mean, you know, uh, well, I wouldn't do it. For example, I've I've I've I've been to dinners and things with Dan Marino, Jason Taylor. I was at Jason Taylor's house. I don't ask him for a autograph. >> Well, yeah, you don't have to. You can always get one on the spur of the moment. >> Yeah. >> You needed one. >> Yeah. It doesn't do it for me. Like, what am I going to do with it? Like, what do you actually do with it? >> Well, I don't know. I have a bunch of autographed baseballs. I do have a Joe Montana autograph football and uh you you could use it as a little display if you have a bar in your house. I don't have a bar in the house but so they're in a closet but if I ever had a bar in the house they would be displayed prominently. I think that if they asked me for my autograph being the prominent podcaster that I am that I would ask them for theirs. I think it's only fair. It's only fair. I think what happened was when um when when when our quarterback, you know, Tua, >> yeah, that whole thing with his concussions and the hope I think we got really excited because they was playing really well for just a little while there and then it just like I think that's what I mean really seriously it was a major deflated bowl. So, I think that's what happened there. And we just And we have no patience in Florida for losing. Like, if you're winning, we may go to see you. We may root for you. You lose, you know, you're you're you're you're dead to us. >> Seriously, who has time for it when you got the beach? >> Yeah, exactly. That's exactly the problem with Florida. There's so many other things that you could be doing, boating, golfing, all year round that nobody needs to do it. And we're not the kind of we >> not even to mention the outrageous number of strip clubs down there. >> Yeah. It's always always a choice. Always something that Do you want to listen? Do you want to go fishing? You want to go play shooting some guns? You want to go out to dinner? You want to go to a strip club? You want to go bowling? What do you want to do? It's always in the top five. Uh markets alltime high right about Fed cut coming up AI earnings buyback sentiment things are pretty good. Even though we see things like Nvidia under China's microscope and the big thing that's happening now once again there's this discussion you know these discussions they they they happen every so often and we hear them and the narrative changes and what is it now? Now it's 7 trillion of cash on the sidelines. Money that has been accumulated over the last number of years due to the high interest rates that were there. The four and 5%s for a while that were in the money markets. all this money sitting there and when and her majesty Tina remember Tina there is no alternative when she returns well uh people are going to start moving money back into stocks there's always a good reason to move money into stocks right there's always a good bullish argument it's um interest rates are high and people are looking for um you know inflation protection stocks are great inflation protection and earnings are going to move up because of this interest rates are low well people going start moving out of bonds and they're going to move into stocks because there's no alternative and you can make um you know 3% or 2 and a half% let's say on a on a CD you can make two and a half% on a stock dividend. >> Yeah. Some a lot of stock dividends even floating around three. >> So I think the average S&P 500 is about just shy of 2% now because the price is so high. >> Yeah. Most of them don't. I mean, that's that's an unbalanced uh calculation because there's just too many companies that refuse to give out dividends. >> And some who have a they're serial dividend hikers that they just have a thing about every year they increase their dividend by X amount. There's several companies that have been increasing their dividend like every year for the last I don't know like five 50 70 80 years. >> Yeah. >> Crazy. So that's that's something that because you remember something one of the big things about dividends and a lot of people like what I want a dividends for I don't want dividends I want to I want the stock to grow. One of the ways that companies are able to get into certain indices and in certain portfolios is by having a dividend. So by the very nature of having a dividend you can be included in certain indices like a dividend yield indicy. Now you may say what would I need that for? Well, you may not, but the stock itself is bought up dramatically in certain pension plans, in certain endowments. >> Yeah. So, you want it to have a dividend. >> Yeah. So, you want to have the dividend so that you can have, you know, utilize that in the future for the benefit of the stock valuation and return and the dividend. In fact, if you look at the S&P 500 and you look at the last 50 years, the performance, let's just say for example that the total return on it, I'm just going to pick a number. You know, 8% per year on average of the S&P 500 of the last 50 years, I think it's like 2% of that or so is is dividends. It's like a freebie. So, it's a big big big part. So, that's a big thing. Cash on the sidelines. I want you to think about that and uh remember that because you're going to be hearing a lot about that, especially if interest rates come down a bit. They're going to talk about, you know, the next phase of this bull cycle, which may be true. They're talking about a lot of it. We'll talk more about that in a minute. And lastly, you know that things are getting crazy when uh one of the thievery companies of of the world, probably next to Live Nation in the same exact industry, StubHub. Have you Their IPO is coming soon. Have you Have you done any business with StubHub? >> Never. You sell something on StubHub, the buyer and the seller get nicked for the purchase and sale of the ticket. StubHub takes from both sides. That's like that's like being uh I don't know. How do we compare this? That's like uh putting two people together and somehow it's like getting an extra commission on a commission. >> Yeah. I I don't know anything about StubHub. I mean, I know I know the company. I know what they do, but I don't know how their what their business model is. And I just find it be part of a giant up, you know, this and all these other companies that Ticket Master was one uh let's say Live Nation, all these companies that essentially are in business to gouge the customer. >> Yeah. Clearly. So the good news is >> make up the price. >> If that is their business and they're not being challenged by any kind of government agency, then actually it may not be the worst company to invest in. If they're nobody's going to do anything about it, they're smart money, >> right? Exactly. So one of those things it's back to that. Oh, I'm not invest I'm not investing my money in that rig company. Well, why not? I mean, if that's what it is, why not just take advantage of it? So StubHub IPO is coming very soon. I'll tell you a quick StubHub story if I may. Uh, a number of years ago, my wife decided that she was going to buy some tickets to to Bruce Springsteen's new show on Broadway in New York. And it was always a a bucket list item of mine to go to see Bruce Springsteen in concert, an actual concert. She bought these and I'm like, well, I don't really want to do that, but okay, if I'm not seeing Bruce Springsteen, if I don't have a concert to go to, I might as well do this. So, I think she spent like $1,100 per ticket sometime in the December month on a Saturday evening. And I said, "You did how much?" She said, "Like a thousand." I said, "Really? Why would you do such a thing?" I mean, I've never paid that kind of money to go see a um a concert of any or a show for that matter. >> No, it's going to be good. Okay. And then I said, "And I got to fly up to New York." Okay. All right. During during holiday season in New York. Okay. Everything is getting worse and worse and worse in this conversation. Meanwhile, a few months into before this happens, >> I thought she was the the coupon clipper. >> Wait, wait till you hear the rest. Wait till you hear, as Steve Harvey would say, the rest of the story. Okay. So now, a couple months before, she's like, "You know what? I don't think we're going to New York. It's just, you know what? It's holiday season expensive and this and that. What should we do?" And I said, she says, "I'm going to try to sell the tickets." I said, 'Okay. She put them on StubHub. We netted $5,000 on the sale of those tickets. >> No way. >> I'm telling you. Unbelievable. Well, netted 5,000 after StubHub, but netted I think I think or we made like $4,000 on the deal. I remember that. >> So, we walked away with $4,000. >> Yep. >> You should have your wife do more of these. >> Well, it's funny you mentioned that. Funny you mentioned that. She decided to do it again, not at the same level, but with another show. And I think we broke even on the next one. And she decided, well, that was just luck the first time. We're not doing this anymore. I said, "Good idea." >> Yeah, it could be. You could get lucky. >> Good idea. Well, it was it was it was it was a hot show. It was New York December. >> Yeah, you probably could have done the same thing with Hamilton tickets. >> Probably. Probably. Uh once again, the house house is putting forth a stop gap bill that would fund government through November 21st. The expected vote is on Friday. So once again, we can't even with the Republicans fully in charge. We still can't get a deal, you know, a budget done. or not even a budget. We can't >> This has been baffling to me since the first day they announced this because I thought the big beautiful bill which they liked which is phrased uh I thought that covered all this. I thought the big beautiful bill was all about this. >> They raised >> it raised it raised this debt ceiling. I thought all the stuff that was in there. I thought it was I thought that was the budget. >> It is. But the problem is and you could pretty much put whatever you want into a spending bill to keep you have to always renew it. That's the way these budget not not the budget but the the funding runs out and then it has to be renewed. And you would think that they pretty much have an unlimited top side. They can just put something together and throw all sorts of crap in there. Or not. Or not. They still can't get to that point because by the way, Congress is really busy right now. Not Trump is Trump is doing all this stuff and basically what are they doing? They have one confirmation hearing. They got a list. They got to yell at RFK Jr. They got a What are they doing? What is Congress doing? Do you do do you recall any significant legislation that's being even discussed much less passed? >> No. Well, no. And they're not doing If they If there is, then they're not publicizing it for some reason, which doesn't make any sense. I don't know what they're doing. >> They're not doing much. President Trump has basically taken over government, all the decision-m and then fighting everybody in court single-handedly. Clearly not sleeping ever. David, there's a big scandal cuz he fell as he nodded off at some event, I guess, at the US at the US Open. >> He fell asleep really >> like Biden used to do all the time. So, you know, they keep an eye on Trump and so he he I guess at the US Open he dozed off like, you know, he's in his he's 79 years old and he dozed off at the at a tennis match. Um and they took a picture of it. Now it's a big scandal. >> He needs to get those He needs to get those glasses that have just open eyes on them all the time. >> Yeah. No, that I was thinking the same thing or some at least some sunglasses. He >> never wears sunglasses if you haven't noticed. >> He doesn't. And he's fair skinned. Well, I think he's fair skinned. We don't really know. >> I think he is. That's why he wears so much uh bronzer. >> Who else wears bronzer? >> Do you know anybody that wears bronzer? >> I I wear bronzer when I have to. >> Do you really? And >> if I'm going to do TV stuff, >> what qualifi? Well, so you saying you're wearing television pancake and makeup. >> It's not television p I I have worn that on when I when I worked at TechTV. television pancake makeup because, you know, we had makeup artists that would would make everybody up. Uh, and so you just put up with it. You'd look kind of weird. Uh, and there were guys that would come on the show I always thought was fascinating because you would get made up for the TV and then you would go immediately after the show was over, you go wash it off with micro beads is what I always made a joke about. So you wash it off and there's always about I'd say once a week or so one of the guests would say you know what you want to wash that off the bathroom's right over there and they say nah I'm going to I like it they go home with these guys I'm talking about guys let me ask you this though speaking about makeup and pancake and and television uh last night I was thumbming through the channels once again and I and and all of a sudden I saw a ghost. It was Anderson Cooper. What is that? Is that makeup or is he is he like a vampire without any blood? I mean, he looks really white. I don't mean white as in Caucasian. I mean white. Yeah, he's he's very uh he's they I think it's possible that they actually make him up to look white. I mean, it's the only thing I can think of. either that or they don't have makeup people there anymore because one of the things I noticed is when you're working in these in these cable companies they uh and when they start doing cutbacks and I think CNN's been doing this the first thing they do the first people that first they fire the wardrobe people they're the first to go because they're not needed according to every everybody so then people can't you see people they they dress funny and then the second group to go is the makeup artist which is really a loss because there's a lot of women in broadcasting I can assure assure you that are just homely, but they look terrific after they were sitting in a chair for an hour and and they look good on television and then but they're out. So, the girls have to do their own makeup and it's a nightmare and then the the third then they start screwing around with like uh sound and some of the other guys, but they they it's harder to get rid of the lighting guy, for example. You really need them >> and the cameramen women. >> So, it's possible CNN don't doesn't have makeup people anymore. >> I don't know. But they always put it against a black a blue background. He has a certain look to him, right? >> He looks he's way too pale. >> Yeah. >> All right, let's talk about CPI and jobs. The consumer price index post a seasonally adjusted point4 increase 4% for the month. The biggest gain since January, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.9%. Again, nowhere near well closer, but really not at that 2% magic number that was put in. Uh already the Fed did change one of their calculation methodologies again. this time, you know, they they changed when inflation was up and they wanted to make sure it didn't look like it was really hot. They used something Bernanki put in called inflation averaging. They average it over time to make it look like it wasn't necessarily as high so they could balance it. Now, when they want to make it look like um you know the opposite, they took it away. They're taking it away now. it it's they the inflation averaging mandate's gone. >> So they'll put that on when they need it and take it off when they need it just like a company. >> This is the convenient. >> Yep. Always the case. Well, >> this is this is basically cooking the books. >> Always cooking the books. Yep. The vital core reading uh of CPI, which excludes food and energy in August 3%. Putting the 12-month figure at 3.1% which was what the forecast number was. The labor department though reported a surprise increase in weekly unemployment compensation filings to a seasonally adjusted 263 263 people thousand people went for unemployment benefits. That's the highest since October 2021. So it seems to me that the jobs numbers are a questionable situation. And we saw clearly that there was a revision of 900,000 last week. But that 900,000 revision, it's not like, oh my god, look at all the losses. It's it's something that accumulated over time and it was wrongly uh estimated by all accounts throughout a year's period. We're not looking at the seasonally adjusted 263,000 now, which is higher than the 220 230 that we've been seeing as this. Oh yeah, that's confirmation that really is a big up. I just still think that this possibly this was a little bit of an aberration, but we'll have to see. That though is going to give a lot of cover and that's what was really the final nail in the okay, you know, are we or are we not going to drop rates? That is going to give the Fed cover because the employment situation has deteriorated so dramatically with the revisions with a 4.3% unemployment rate, the highest we've seen in some time. And now confirming out with the more recent stat of increase of about 10% from the week before and from the longer term average in the unemployment compensation filings. So that's where we go. Now on the other hand, can't count out the consumer because all these people that supposedly don't have jobs seem to be spending anyway. Retail sales increased 6% in August, beating expectations. Core retail sales rose.7%. And they didn't even revise July. So these are clean numbers. >> Yeah, everybody's noticing this >> that they didn't revise it or this is good. know that the retail sales are showing indicating that everybody's, you know, happy as a clam. Well, part of the reason is they there was some talk I was listening to some conversation about some research that was done on who is spending and they came back with uh it used to be that 30% of the spending in the retail sales numbers were from your highly higher income high the affluent the the the high earners and the high uh net worth uh quadrant. And now it's only, excuse me, it used to be 30%, now it's 50%. So the people with money that have their accounts that are blooming from the stock market going up are the ones spending. >> They're going nuts. >> Yeah. The lower income quadrant or or even more than that, right? The masses are having problems. Now, you don't see that in the Walmart numbers or the Costco numbers, maybe in the Target numbers. And some of the retail sales are you you could say that and it's it's inside the report you could see this that some of the increase in sales is because of the uh rise in prices right that's a big issue >> yeah that well yeah it would yeah because this you still have to buy one quarter of milk and you bring in another nickel or a dime >> right so I mean they should do inflation adjusted numbers on all this to see >> that's never going to happen. >> You could you could bring this down, but you know if if core retail sales rose.7 for the month and let's go back to our number we talked about a second ago that core was.3 we're still talking about a4% increase excluding the increase in pricing which is 4.8% 8% year-over-year, which does not look like it's not it's not, you know, a crazy number like, you know, a 10% increase, but it's still not showing that consumers are are massively pulling back >> yet. Yet, no, I clearly when is it, but when if not now, when? I mean, when is this going to happen already? When are we going to see the inflation numbers that we should have seen from the tariffs? When are we going to see the slowdown because of the unemployment situation really? It could be years because there's so much stimulus still in the economy from the Biden inflation reduction act to the OBA, the one big beautiful bill that everybody knows and if you don't know, I'm going to tell you now. You love it. Great. You You say government cut back on things. Okay, not really. Taxes has not changed. The spending is is higher by $3 trillion over 10 years. three trillion. By the way, we've turned to Japan. I remember when I used to see prices of a stock in Japan, it was like uh price of uh ABC Inc. is trading at 285,000 yen. I'm like, wow, how many shares of that can you buy at once? >> Yeah. >> They devalue their money as we have been doing to ours. Stock prices go up is what happened in Venezuela. From the outside, you would look at it and say, "Oh my gosh, look at that. The Venezuelan stock market is up, you know, 800% this year." Meanwhile, their inflation rate is up, uh, you know, uh, some crazy number and their dollar is, you know, their their currency is down by 40%. So, all those gains get uh, squashed if you're an investor from outside the country. If you're inside the country, you're making a lot of money, but you can't do anything with it because your currency is worthless unless you're doing it inside the country. >> That's why people flocked to the USA to put their money, >> right? In the past. No, >> they still are. >> Yeah. >> That meanwhile, that's why that's why uh gold is doing what it's doing. Gold is an alltime high. I think it what it hit 3,700. Let's take a look at shall we look at gold for a moment? It touched 38, didn't it? >> Let's take a look. I got it coming up. Gold's at 36.84 right now. >> Oh, it dropped. Good. >> Uh, let's do the five >> buying opportunity for you people out there. >> It here's the high 3698. I thought it hit 3,700, but okay. >> And then you got also don't let's let's not count out silver at 42 and change hitting a high recently. >> Silver is really really rocking. >> Really rocking. Silver is up. Let's see. 1 month 11.23 23 16% 3 months 24% in 6 months 37% in one year 37% one year gold is up 42% one year >> how about platinum how's that been doing I have I don't have platinum on this here let's see I could probably find that uh let's see markets and we go to commodities I guess let's see most commodities. Here we go. Uh, metals, platinum. Let's see what we have for platinum. If I have any numbers on platinum. So, platinum on a one-year basis, it went from uh it's about 40%. Not bad. You don't like platinum? >> I don't like it. >> I do like it. No, I like platinum. >> 1,400 bucks. I like it because it's it's actually used extensively in industry and it and it gets uh degraded. It it actually has a flow. Uh so there's always going to be a shortage. I think is a valuable commodity that should be invested in. >> It hit a high an all-time high back in uh 200 uh what is that 12? Oh no no 2008. 2008 2100. So you got another 600 bucks to go. It looks like it could could actually get there from the chart over time. Uh tomorrow the odds are 100%. Wow. 100%. That there is going to be a 25 basis point cut and 3.9% odds in favor of a 50 basis point cut tomorrow >> for a total of 103.9% somehow. No, no. It's there's a 100% odd for there's two different things. One's a 25 basis point cut. They're saying there's a 100% chance of that. Oh, >> okay. So, in other words, the 50 isn't counted. It would be counted in within that. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's 100% that something's going to happen. >> Yeah. Well, something's going to happen. >> There's lots of talk about three rate cuts for 2025, September, October, and December. And we talked about gold, we talked about silver, we talked about all this with you know who we had on the discipline investor podcast this week. >> Who? >> Peter Schiff. >> Oh, your buddy. >> Well, he's I haven't had him on for a couple years. And uh >> he said I bet you said the same thing. >> He said the same thing. >> Yeah. >> The dollar is going to zero. >> He's consistent. >> Yeah, he does not change. >> I forget that the dollar is going to zero. Yeah, that's a good one. >> Dollar is going to zero. Collapse. Collapse is the word. >> No. Well, he's he's going to be right. It's been collapsing. It's just in slow motion. It's like a glacier. >> Well, it's not collapsing so much. I mean, I I remember when it was a buck 25 within my lifetime, it's only a buck 16, buck 18 right now. >> Yeah, good point. When you look at it against certain currencies, the fact is all the currencies are coming down. So, the whole thing is that's why everything is inflating so much in in in the in the global entirety. >> Well, yeah. And if you're a gold bug like he is, this all makes sense. And gold is going up, by the way. >> Yeah, he's got that right. >> And he says it's going to go up even more. >> Yeah. What is What is his high mark? 5,000. >> He's got a high mark. So, silver, too. Looks like silver. Actually, he likes that better. >> Yeah. I've heard this from a lot of people. >> So, we talked about that. We talked about Bitcoin and his thesis on that and where it's going and what it's all about. Talked about a million. >> Uh, he doesn't like Bitcoin. >> Oh, he doesn't like Bitcoin. Bitcoin does not have value. He has some. I think he owns some, but he just bought it for the fun of it and the speculative nature of it. >> Kind of like what I did. >> Uh so we talked about that and we talked about the Fed governors, talked about the government, we talked about the policies. So anyway, it was a really good show that was uh running right now. This discipline investor on your favorite podcast network. Not to forget about uh another great show, wonderful show called No Agenda, which stars Adam Curry and John C. D'vorak as the host was the mostess. Uh Thursdays and Sundays. They're live at 2 p.m. Eastern, but also you can find it all the time on uh where is it not? >> No agenda.net. >> Yeah, that's the great place to get it, but also on your podcast uh platforms. But I I really encourage people to to listen to that. Now, a lot of people I know because we get little emails every once in a while. People send in a thing or something like that, a donation at, you know, $8.33 a month. Well, you know what? You know, they you know, we get that from, you know, the magic number. Um, you know, or you know, somebody writes and it's ITM. And if you don't know what I'm talking about right now, listen to >> code. It's all the no agenda codes. >> A whole lot of code. So, uh, go listen to No Agenda. You'll be happy that you did. Um, Google, let's, uh, a warm welcome, a warm round of applause. That's not it, is it? Yes. A warm round of applause. I don't know where my buttons are. A warm round of applause for Google. Uh, finally getting to the trillion dollar market cap club. >> Yeah, I'm surprised it took him that long. Well, one of the reasons was there was this whole overhang with the, you know, the the devestature of the the search and with Chrome. >> Yeah. Right. With the with the law case, the case. >> Now, I also thought there was overhang with the idea that oh my uh Google's going to be done for with all this AI >> with a search. >> Yeah. >> Yes. A lot of people have pointed out that Google's real money doesn't come so much from search anymore and it comes from services and data mostly data and some of the stuff they've done. And it's also believed that at some point people will be able to they hope monetize the modern search which is a search using AI. Uh I don't know how they're going to do it. Nobody knew how to monetize search and to begin with until Google came along. They actually bought a company that would that did it beforehand and they just bought them up and said this is the way to go and they started doing it and there was going to be a breakthrough similarly with AI searches and I don't know how that's going to go but I can just imagine some funny stuff. >> Yeah. And and remember >> like you search for something and starts off by saying, "Oh, that's a great idea for a search. You should have a CocaCola." And then it gives you the answer. Something like that. I mean, it's got to be something wacky. >> Yep. I mean, a lot of the other reason is that they're getting again, most like all these other companies, free data to the LLMs, but now they're being once again sued. But, you know, it's it's like anything else. We see this time and time and again. companies are doing things and they're they're doing it and they know they're probably wrong, but it's better off doing it because it's benefits them. There's a great story coming up that we have to talk about with regard to Nova Nordisk and Oprah Winfrey and the idea that you do things and it's better to ask for forgiveness later. >> And this is what's going on. >> Or pay people off after a lawsuit, you lose a lawsuit. >> Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. So the owner of Rolling Stone, Bill Borg, and Variety has sued Google last week alleging that the technology giant's AI summaries used in journalism used its journalism without consent and reduced traffic to its websites. So the lawsuit by >> I believe I I believe that I if I was uh Yeah, I believe that to be true. >> Yeah, I don't think there's any nobody doesn't. But but it it's better off doing it this way getting sued maybe coming up with a couple >> you've made a trillion dollars. >> Right. >> So the lawsuit by Pensa in the Federal Court of Washington DC marks the first time a major US publisher has taken Alphabet Google to court over the AI generated summaries that now appear on top of it search results. again, they're going to take him to court for copyright infringement, maybe possibly, you know, uh, IP theft, things of that nature. But after they built the whole thing with the idea and the the basic understanding that what's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is they could somehow do a cease and desist that that holds on the entirety of the LLM and then it's out of business. Okay, fine. But that's not going to happen. Let's be honest >> now with now with good lawyers, >> right? It's not going to happen and they'll tie you up forever and they'll keep making money. There won't be an injunction on the deal. There won't be a stay that it'll just business as usual. So the AI overview, >> welcome to the world of tech. This is what the tech has been founded on since day one. >> Yeah. Using stealing everybody else's chip designs, they would do that and then they have to go back and forth in court for forever. It was hilarious. still going on. >> So Pensky, who is a family-owned media conglomerate led by Jay Penske and whose contact attracts about 120 million online visitors a month, said Google only includes publishers websites in its search results if it could also use their articles in AI summaries. And without the leverage, Google would have to pay publishers for the right to republish their work or use the train as AI systems. So again, stealing data. >> Yeah. >> Uh Nvidia, China says Nvidia violated anti- monopoly law after preliminary probe. China's market regulator Monday said that Nvidia violated um the law according to this probe. They're saying that Beijing will continue its investigation into the US chip giant. Now surely not to take the other side. I got a few of these. We try to take and and look at things and dig deep into stuff on the show, don't we, John? >> Absolutely. >> What would be the cure for this? Well, I say >> you have to give them the better chips. >> You get the chips. Fine. We're good. That's the cure. Yeah. Give us the H2O and all this nonsense goes away about the anti- monopoly laws, right? >> I think Nvidia could also say, "Hey, you guys can make your own damn chips. We're out of here. >> Yeah. And and right now Nvidia is not making much money on those chips. They don't need to. Why has the stock not really budged? I mean, it maybe went down a percent or so, but you know, you talk about the wow China. Oh no. You know what video say thank you very much. You do this to us, you're not definitely getting you're definitely not getting chips from us. They they wield that much power. You have to look behind the curtain sometimes to see, you know, pull it back a little bit to see really what's going on like the next thing Tesla. >> Well, you know, one of the things, another one of the rules and and and foibless of Silicon Valley that has always been a consideration is uh and and every company does this which is uh monopolize a uh a strong position unless there's second sourcing. And it's always believed that if you can't get a second source for something, you shouldn't buy the chip in the first place. And there's no second sourcing for these chips, >> right? >> So that puts them in a cat bird seat. >> Yep. Exactly. Now, again, when you're pulling back the curtain, understanding what's going on and really and the reason for this is to help you make good investment decisions, right? the idea that if we see something that happens that maybe a company's going to be hurt, but maybe there's a company that benefits or maybe the company is being hurt, really it's a temporary situation that's just being uh exacerbated by some drama that's going on, but maybe it's a great idea to invest in it. I can tell you time and time again, look at what happened with, for example, Surrepta when they were forced to pull their drug off the market and they said, "Hey, here's the big finger up the tus of the FDA saying, hey, you know what? Uh, we're not pulling it." And then the FDA actually came back and said after a while, "Yes, you will." And then they said, "You know what? H we're not dealing with this. We got we're going to we're going to do some more investigation." Stock popped like 50%. >> Yeah. >> Well, let's look at Tesla. What's the reasoning? Why >> your buddy? >> Well, I'm going to talk about that company's not doing well. Uh sales are down dramatically all over the world. >> No, but but but Elon loves to stick it to the shorts. >> Loves to stick it to the shorts. He loves sticking it right in the shorts. Uh stock is performing well. As a matter of fact, it hit that magic number and surpassed 420 today. >> Yeah, this is a I see you're going to put it on the game. >> But but I'm going to I'm going to test you actually. So Elon announced just a few days ago that he invested a billion dollars in Tesla shares, the first time since 2020. Now the news on Tesla is that things aren't going well. We know that. The news also is that uh you know they may look to buy Tesla may buy XAI or put an investment in it. There's also news that um that that there's going to be a new deal, a new compensation deal with Tesla where Elon could possibly make up to a trillion dollars. All that we know, right? And oh maybe robo taxes must be near, right? Why is he in fact doing this at this point? Is it to create the interpretation that the CEO is putting a lot of money to work here and it's a strong vote of confidence in Tesla's long-term prospects? Possibly, but I think >> yeah, it would be possible if this wasn't chump change for him, >> right? But my thought is a lot more simple. Any other ideas that you have, by the way? Why? Well, you know, there is there is the notion that they're going to slowly transition from these cars to robots. >> Yep. Yep. >> And that's supposed to be a big deal because all the robots are going to take over. Of course, we've heard that for >> I probably heard first heard that in >> probably in the 60s actually. >> Since the movie Woody Allen, >> the wood the robots. So, you had the robots and then you have uh and I guess they they rolled out a driverless car in Austin or was it some sort of car that's a little buggy uh driving around and we already have Whimo here which is Google's product in the San Francisco Bay area and I guess they're in LA and so there's the robot taxis and the robots and all that's going to be so obviously the future that Elon must be must know something because there's Something's breaking you. He's He's looking at the books. He says, "Ah, there's money. We see the money is going to start coming in. I better get in. I don't buy any of it." >> I'll give you my thought. You want this? >> Obviously, >> three letters. Ego. Larry Ellison vulted to be the richest man in the world last week after Oracle popped 39% after that amazing earnings report and guidance. >> Yeah. >> Elon goes in maybe shorts Oracle puts a billion dollars in and guess who is on top again? >> Yeah. >> Elon Musk. Now >> these guys uh these guys are funny. I mean, I've talked about this before, which is I know for a fact that Ellis in 20 15 20 years ago, probably more than that, uh was always jealous of Bill Gates for being the richest man in the world when Bill was. Uh he hasn't been for a while, but he was for a long period of time, probably a decade. >> And Ellison always believed he should have been. and he would just, you know, he was a uh just that was Ellison and wanted to be the richest guy in the world. I think once he achieved it for even the short period of time, uh I think that's enough for him. He doesn't I don't think he's going to care anymore because he was the richest man in the world. But Elon, I guess it bugged him. I I don't I'm not sure. Whatever the case, I know you're going to short uh Tesla for the game. I'm going to short Oracle. >> Yeah, Oracle short was an interesting idea. I thought about it. Uh there's so many things that can go wrong with that whole deal that they proposed going out five years and trying to talk up what the opportunity. >> Yeah. That a Open AI doesn't even OpenAI is losing hundred billion dollars a year and they're professing that they're going to fund 500 billion or whatever the number was some ridiculous number to Oracle over the next five years. >> Three I think it was 350 or to 500 something like that. So, I mean, I guess if you have all the players around that are keep funding you, but it seemed like a real >> Where's the check? >> Yeah, there's something wrong with that whole deal. >> Like the publishers clearing house. >> So, there's my thesis on that. I think that uh uh first of all, he did it to pop the stock and he may have actually shorted Oracle or told his peeps to short Oracle to bring it down. Oracle to bring it down. I think that was a possibility. There was a deal. There was a good deal with Oracle today. Uh and but Tesla was up again today. So I think it I think there's a a good chunk of ego involved in that. So something uh nuclear I keep on talking about this really interesting discussions about what's going on about the US Secretary Chris Wright um talking about that um the US should look to boost its strategic uranium reserves because they want a buffer against Russian supply. So again, going back to those rare earths that we're trying to figure out how to do here versus grab for China because it's in our national best interest and security issues to make sure we have that. And if in fact I think there's something like 30% of the power generated in the United States is nuclear. Do you know that? >> That seems kind of high. >> There's 94 reactors. Um it's actually 20 20 something%. I'm sorry. Did I say 30? 20 something% of of uh US electricity 94 nuclear reactors. >> Yeah, we need more. >> Yeah, we are getting more. >> So 94 produces 20%. >> So we need like we need to triple this. Triple quadruple. >> And also is um let's see. Oh, and Robert Redford died today by the way. Terrible. >> How many nuke reactors in USA? I think there was 94. But how many are operational? Oh, yeah. 20% of the power, 54 nuclear power plants, 28 states, 94 operational. Yep, I was right about that. 94 uh 20% of the US electricity. I I think most people didn't I I I would bet that most people didn't think that. I would bet. >> Yeah, probably not. >> Most people thought it was just like a smidgen. So, this is a real thing. You got to look at the stock chart of like um like let's see uh it's UR is uh the uranium um ETF 6 months is up 80% year to date up 57%. >> Five years up 278%. top holding is like uh Kamiko, >> let's see, down 7% today, but year to date up 53%. A fiveyear. It's funny because I had this a few years ago and it kind of didn't do anything, so I dumped it. Five years up 665%. >> Wow. Six beggar. >> It's unbelievable. It really didn't start moving until let's 2020 is where it really March. Well, the low was March 6, 2020. Let's take that out of the equation, shall we? Because that was the the co low. >> Yeah, that doesn't count. >> Let's let's go to I don't know. Pick any other date. I don't care. Uh 2022 was still 20 bucks. It's a forbeggger since then. >> It's a beautiful thing. IPO Gemini, the Winklevos's Winklevi crypto exchange pops more than 14% in the NASDAQ debut. I I saw an interview with him the other day and I just one of them looks like he was beat up or something like that he was in a fight. His head is all knocked in a little bit. >> Maybe he was. >> Well, maybe he always looks a little bit you know you know they're identical twins but yet a little bit off. I think they're identical twins, right? >> Yeah, as far as I know. >> Yeah, one of them is you could tell the difference. Maybe because I have twins myself. I could tell differences between twins. I don't know. Um, it got to 44 on the open, then faded. >> Most people can tell the difference between twins. There's always some idiosyncrasy one of them has. >> So, like a scar. >> Yeah. Little something. Uh, open uh, excuse me. Gemini got to $44 on the open. Faded currently was trading at 33 and then, oops, it's 28 now. So, I think it's I think if I'm not mistaken, uh, let's see. I think it was Gemini. What was it? What was the IPO price? Um, it was I think it was trade at 28. So, price of 28 and it's right back at 28. >> So, rugpull. uh cash and cash alternatives over $7 trillion in cash equivalent investments offered as an attractive yield for a long time you know and if all that it's on the sideline so if you look at this there's a chart there these charts are available on dhplugged episode number 769 now by the way when you're on there at dhunplug.com uh it's very important if you want to see this chart >> the onsideline chart >> yeah the on sideline chart yeah you don't you don't have to do this. However, if you donate, we could probably do more charts in the future. If you donate, the show goes on. If you donate, things are better. And, you know, it's it's kind of like uh doing a uh pass along, you know, a a a uh what's the word I'm looking for? You know, you do for one person and something happens. You don't know that if you you save a >> good deed. >> It's a good deed. If you save a life in this area, it's like a butterfly effect. you save a life over here, you give a donation there, maybe something comes back to you in spades. So, it's a very helpful thing and we really appreciate your support. For all of you that do so, thank you so much. For all of you that don't and have not done so at this part, uh the show is now ending. Thank you for coming along. Go over to DH Unplugged and uh please uh donate. This is a chart that shows a total money market fund asset in the US. this whole idea that cash on the sidelines and which you know when rates come down they're going to be re you know it's going to be released in massive amount you know rates >> well this would probably happen if they dropped at 50 points but they're not going to >> if you look at this though rates have come down dramatically um after let's call it 2022 would you agree with that >> 2021 >> sure >> and what happened to the cash on the sidelines >> went up >> and by the way by a significant amount Yeah, this is really a lot >> more than you really saw historic. There was a little drip little but boom boom. >> Yeah. I wish you I wish these charts went out further. Hint. >> You mean backwards? Long longer >> longer period of time. >> Longer tale. Yeah. >> I mean you're talking about from 2006 there was two trillion on the sidelines. Now there's like seven. >> In 2022 it was like five. There's two almost a 50% increase. almost maybe 40% 40% increase in cash on the sidelines. First of all, question, where the hell did the money come from? $2 trillion that's not being invested. And number two, if interest rates have come down during that period, clearly we know that. Why is there still cash on the sidelines? And why has it grown? I sound like Jerry Seinfeld. Didn't uh Yeah, almost. Didn't uh uh Buffett go on about having a lot of cash? >> Buffett has a tremendous amount of cash. He he found there was no place to actually he he found no inclus including his own company uh to do buybacks or to buy shares in companies that have a reasonable value. He found no compelling notion. Sold a bunch of Apple added to his cash on the sideline. Sold a bunch of other stuff added. Did not reinvest in his own company because he felt that the valuation wasn't there. But nobody cares. Terafund Swiss Swiss watch maker Swatch has begun selling a special edition watch with the numbers three and nine reversed on his face in a play on the 39% tariff President Donald Trump has imposed costing 139 Swiss Franks $1775. The watch named what if tariffs went on sale Wednesday and is only available in Switzerland. Got to appreciate >> confuse all the generation Z's. They can't read a clock already. >> Well, they can't read it anyway, but >> a bad idea. >> How much fun is this? Well, you could probably do the same thing with an Apple Watch design that you can customize. >> You probably could. Yeah. >> You know. Yeah. Uh we have a lot more going on here. Oh, so much. We're going to have to hold some of this to our next show. What are we going to talk about here? Uh, fishing. Uh, Reuters and Harvard University researchers used a chatbot to plot a simulated fishing scam, a PH fishing scam. from composing emails to tips on timing and tested it on 180 elderly volunteers. The bot's persuasive performance show how AI is aiming arming criminals for industrial scale fraud. We believe and I quote, they say, "We believe every senior deserve dignity and joy in their golden years." Is it read? By clicking here, you'll discover heartwarming stories of seniors we've helped and learn how you can join our mission. But the charity was fake and the email's purpose was defraud seniors out of large sums of money. Its author, Grock, that's the uh >> Grock warned a reporter that the malicious email, if created, should not be used in real real world scenarios. The bot nonetheless produced the fishing attempt as requested and dialed it up with the click now line. Overall about 11% of the seniors clicked on the email sent. Five of the nine scammed email test drew clicks. Two generated by Meta, two by Grock, and one by Claude. None clicked on the emails generated by Chat GBT or Deepseek. >> I wonder what that tells us. >> I don't know. You're telling Is it that tells us nothing or you tells us that the guard rails are probably off on Grock? >> I'm getting a lot of I'm getting some pretty good results from Grock when I use it. >> Have you noticed an incredible amount of spam phone calls lately? >> Uh I I yesterday I had a bunch. I had a couple today, but my experience with these and I have some blocking going on because I go through a a digital um an IP phone company and uh they block a lot of stuff which gets into there. There's some systems that block it. But I I've always noticed that it's cyclical. So you get a bunch of spam calls for a couple of days and you won't get any for a couple weeks. I would like to that to happen because all day I get spam calls and >> every day, all day, every day. You should document the numbers and when they come in. >> I got one good one last week that I answered and there was a guy that came on and said, "Hey, uh, Andrew, how are you? I'm just following up on uh some discussion that I want to have with you about whatever topic was." I'm like, "Uh-huh." He says, "You know, do you have any time to talk?" I'm like, "Well, I'm not sure." He says, "Well, I understand that, but if you give me a couple of minutes." I'm like, "All right, let me ask you a question." Because I wasn't sure. It had just this weird pausing going on. >> Yeah, there was a bot >> which could have been a bot or it could have been one of those weird connections you don't talk about, right? That sometimes happens. >> Yeah, but it's United. Well, yeah, but just flip a coin and probably >> I said, "Are you a bot?" They said, "No." I said, "What's your name again?" "Aaron." I said, "Okay, Aaron, where are you from?" "Uh, Michigan." Aaron, where'd you go to school? And he said something. I'm like, oh, Miami. I said, is that the University of Miami or is that Miami of Ohio? Miami. I'm like, uhhuh. And uh where was your high school? And it just I tried to wrap it up a little bit, you know, in weird questions. It did a pretty good job, though. I finally figured out it was a bot, but it would did a pretty good job up to then. I was impressed. Well, Mimi ran into a bot that was a woman and she's run into it two or three times and the same company called again without the bot. They canceled the bot because the bot was was costing too much to operate. But the bot would ref she'd ask it if it was a robot and the woman and the bot would say, "Yeah, I'm a I'm a a special assistant. That's what I do. I'm Yeah, I am. So, is it is that bad? Nothing wrong with it if it does the job. Uh, last thing I want to talk about tonight, the Senate has confirmed Steen Mirren, President Donald Trump's pick to join the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. So, he's going to participate in Fed Policy Committee's upcoming meeting where the board will consider whether to cut interest rates. And he's also going to keep his White House position at the helm of the Council of Economic Advisor, but take an unpaid leave to serve on the central bank board. If you ever watched uh Austin Powers, does the word moly mole m come into your thought process? >> I mean, he's pretty much going to be on both sides. So much for the independence. Nobody cares about this, though, by the way. Nobody Nobody >> Yeah, but that's a it's a farce. >> What? The independence? >> Yeah. I mean, let's let's you can look back and when Elizabeth Warren like got a bunch of people fired because they weren't Democrat enough and they put she's the one also responsible for getting that Cook woman in. It's bull crap. >> It is running out of time. Let's get to the game, shall we? This is a game that we play. It's not a solicitation to buy or sell any security. It's not a recommendation of any kind. Nothing on the show should be considered investment advice or a recommendation. If you choose to invest in any of the stocks mentioned, you should know that it may carry risk along with the risk of a loss of principle. You should also seek out professional financial advice for your particular situation. We assume no risk as these are not to be considered recommendations. Horowitz company, myself or John Cavoric may invest in any of the securities mentioned and will disclose that on the website under the weekly stock pick section. You can go to dhunplug.com and see all the names we discussed in the segment along with the performance information from the date discussed as well as any additional important disclosures. A lot of red on here, including an anomaly. At least one anomaly. >> Which one? >> When did I short IBM at $13 a share? >> Yeah, that's not right. That's not right. It's definitely not right. It's I got I got to look at that number. It's It's not right. >> And curiously, it's down 1,800% and still not kicked off the game. >> First of all, how could something be down 1,800%. Oh, because it's a short on the other side. It's not right. There's something wrong with it. that I have to look up the number. Can we just pass that one by? >> Well, once you take it off. >> No, it's just I have to just update the number. >> It's just something something went wrong. Actually, >> wonder if I could do this. >> I have another one. My my Chevron long wouldn't come up with the right now. How's that work? That's a major corporation. >> Chevron. What do you mean it's not? It's 17%. >> No, not in my sheet that you sent to me. Chevron. >> Yeah. Something came wrong. Something was wrong with some of this stuff. They'll update this, but everything else is right. >> Yeah, right. >> Um, Chevron is up 17 and a half%. What's coming off is Dell at uh recently which uh disclosed uh the gold trust well with that. >> Yeah, gold trust. Not >> you didn't do well with gold trust or wayfair. Your your friends at >> Wayfair. No good. That was just a lesson there. Uh, Constellation Energy is all is is done. Starbucks is done. The buys on that. Um, let's see. Uh, Narta is done. Apple is done. Anything else? Did I miss something? >> No, it looks like everything is done. >> Our picks last week. Fizer still hated. Uh, Lyft up 9%. That was up 10% yesterday. Definite breakout. That's exactly the squeeze and breakout. Uh, alumis up down a little bit. And this week I'm shorting Tesla. And what are you doing? >> Shorting Oracle. >> Oh yeah. Let me find that for you. Where's your shorts? You have a short. >> What a and bull story that is. >> Yeah. Where's it? JC. Do you have any other shorts on this list? >> I have Well, the ones I had have all been kicked. >> Apple shorted. IBM is shorted. >> We It's not the right numbers, but we had to put it in there. >> So, this is Oracle OC put in there. And what is your thesis on Oracle? The story that when you you elucidated in the last show you went on and on about the details of the nonsense of predictive, you know, income for the next five years until 2029 or something like that. It just seems like a pie in the sky pronounce pronouncements. And so Larry could get to his spot in in life where he wanted to be, which was the richest man in the world for even a moment. And uh shorten it. I I like the company. >> BS numbers is your thesis. >> BS predictions. >> Predictions. Okay, you got it. All right. Well, that does that. We'll fix the IBM. Everything else should be running just fine. So I >> All right. We'll talk to you next Tuesday. >> I think we'll do that. Thank you. Bye. >> Great. Bye. >> You've been listening in on a conversation with John C. D'vorak and Andrew Horowitz. Hope to be with you again soon. Bye-bye. >> Now, I'm not broke, but badly bent. I'm not down to my last scent cuz I got a dollar, but it's my last dollar bill. Yes, sir. In my pocket there's a debt. All my dough is nearly spent, but I got a dollar and it's my last dollar bill. Oh, I'd love just one more buck. Fortune left me by chance. Now, here's a hint. I feel like a men. You can hardly tell by a glance. I don't care. No millionaire can give me the Isis stack cuz I got a dollar. My last dollar bill. [Music] This podcast is intended forformational purposes only and does not constitute personalized investment advice. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principle and past performance, is not indicative of future results. The views and opinions expressed are those of the hosts and the guests and may not necessarily reflect those of Horowitis Company, Inc., an investment advisor registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. 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