Market Outlook: The hosts discuss the current market phase as one of consolidation and digestion, with investors waiting for the next catalyst to drive movement.
US Debt Concerns: The US national debt has surpassed $37 trillion, raising concerns about fiscal management and the sustainability of debt levels.
Jackson Hole Symposium: The upcoming economic forum in Jackson Hole is highlighted as a potential venue for significant policy announcements by US central bank officials.
Investment Trends: There is a focus on bottom fishing in the markets, with notable investments in companies like United Healthcare and Intel by prominent investors and institutions.
Fast Casual Dining Sector: Companies like Chipotle and Shake Shack are experiencing stock declines due to consumer slowdowns, while Wingstop shows positive performance.
Energy Infrastructure: Google and Keros Power are collaborating on deploying an advanced nuclear reactor to support data center energy needs, reflecting a push towards sustainable energy solutions.
Chip Trackers: The introduction of chip trackers is discussed as a measure to prevent theft and ensure supply chain security, though it raises concerns about potential backdoor vulnerabilities.
Sovereign Wealth Funds: The role of sovereign wealth funds, particularly from Saudi Arabia, is examined in the context of their impact on global stock markets and investment strategies.
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 Cedavarak >> and I'm Andrew Horowitz. >> It's the 19th of August, 2025. >> Ah, welcome to the summer. Very nice. What are you doing? What's new? What's happening? Do anything? Vacationing? Something? >> Still foggy. Still foggy around here. Although we did have sun today. >> So, what does that mean? Does that keep you Does that preclude you from going outside? Does that What What does it What does that mean? >> It's cold and windy. >> Oh, really? Huh? >> Usually that's just July, >> but it's doesn't usually snuck into August. >> Yeah. >> What's the nicest month there? October. >> Yeah, >> it used to be also May used to be pretty good, but this year it was crappy. So, >> we get this beautiful weather here from uh I would say October. I'll go with October. Maybe sneaking into a little bit November, but let's say November. I'll go November. November through February is glorious. >> Yeah, that's when people are the smart money goes to Florida. >> Yeah, that's just it's just beautiful. It's like summertime in the Hamptons, you know? It's like kind of 80° but not too um humid and the low is maybe well it can get cold. It definitely can get cold. We get in the 30s sometimes but normally you know 50s 60s 60s I'll say 60s to 80s. It's lovely. There you go with that. So uh warming up. What's going on tonight? We got the Lubus Labas Labubbas. Labubus. I don't know. We'll talk about what that beh means. Maybe it's the next Beanie Babies. I'm sure you're up on this. Um, >> yeah, a little bit. >> Uh, US debt, wretched looking numbers that we have currently and that are being projected these days. I had a pretty good fishing weekend if you're interested in hearing about that. If not, we'll just throw that away. Chip trackers are all the rage right now. And markets are also fishing. People are fishing. Fishing for bottoms. Fishing for, you know, it used to be called what do we call uh catching a f never catch a falling knife. If you've heard that adage, right? >> Right. >> Never catch. And what does that mean? That means stock is going down 20%. Because some news that the CEO had an affair with the CFO or whatever, or the audit team is pulling out or the uh drug trials they have were manipulated, right? any of those kinds of things drops a stock in a stock has got this folding knife because when you do catch a foing knife the reality is and probability you're not going to catch it on the handle are you >> you better be good >> yeah so uh we have all these falling knives and all of a sudden in these day and age it seems that everybody feels that they have on metal gloves and they're going to go after these positions because you know with the markets are wrong and there's a mispricing going on and why not? So we got a few of those to talk about. Um markets right now I think are in a consolidation slash digestion mode. Think about eating a very big dinner. You stuff it all in. Eat a minute. Need a second. Now in old Roman times, what did they do? >> They went to the vomitorium. But the vomitorium stuck a little feather down their throat and puked it up and went back for more. Right. >> Yeah, it's what you do. >> So, does that really work? >> I don't know. >> I know. When you're out on a boat, >> that's what bulimia is all about. So, I guess it works. >> Well, bulimia is just you don't absorb the fattening food. >> No, you're throwing up. These people have bulimics, they they purposely throw up their food, >> which is very ruinous to your esophagus. >> Well, it can't be good. >> Yeah. the acid from your stomach comes up and rots your esophagus. So, it can't be too good for your breath either. [Laughter] So, um right now we're in that digestion phase where they're looking at some of these things and saying, "Well, is it too much? Did it go too high?" We saw stocks like Palanteer get slam. Oh, the tech the tech stocks got hammered today. All the names that were going up up upside, oh, maybe we need to take a break today rotated in. NASDAQ was down 350 points. Dow was up. >> Yeah, that's classic rotation. >> Yep. So, I think what's happening right now is that the markets are waiting for the next catalyst. And we actually have some story about what that next catalyst is uh maybe at the end of this week. Very possible. Uh valuations to the moon. casual dining. Take it a hit. >> Oh, I missed that. >> Yeah. So, I guess there's fast casual is is there is there is it slow casual? Is that thing slow? I never heard of that. Slow casual is slow casual fine dining. Is that what that is? >> I don't know. But there's fast casual is casual. There's you know various places that you go to and we'll talk about how most of them are doing right now. I h I do want to tell you though, even though you don't want to hear about my fishing. >> Well, I never said that. You're the one that jumped the gun and just went off. >> Did you see the picture I sent you via text? >> The one about the rump roast? A rump roast? I I I don't ever think I've ever I do not recall texting anyone in my life anything about a a rump roast. You sent the whole butthole. >> Oh, that's funny. Come on. That was funny. >> That's a rum roast, wasn't it? >> Yeah, I guess so. That's a good point. It was This what he's talking about. There was This is a real picture. This was a picture. >> I tweeted it out for people who follow me on Twitter. >> I haven't been on Twitter in two days, so I must have missed it. Did you get a good response? >> Uh, yeah. Reasonable. >> I thought there was another picture I sent you of one of the bucket list fish that I caught this weekend. >> I didn't see that fish. I just saw the the whole butt. >> Yeah, this is uh the bone stuff butthole. Right above there is a picture of me holding a fish. >> Oh, I better go back and look at that again. >> Anyway, that was the first bucket list fish of this weekend. >> So, what fish was it? >> It was a rooster fish. >> I don't even know what that is. >> A rooster fish looks like a giant jackall. All muscle, but its back has one, two, maybe five. You know the rooster the top. I don't know what it's called. The crown on the rooster. >> Oh jeez. I see what that looks like. It's a horrible looking animal. >> It is a great fighter. And uh we caught that. And then the second fish I caught this weekend. Um >> so what does that rooster fish taste like? >> You don't eat it. The two fish I caught that were on my bucket list. You don't eat. >> Why? >> They're game fish. They're sport fish. They just I'm sure somebody's eating good. >> Yeah. This is this is not they probably all >> toss him back. >> Very tough meat. >> You take a picture of him and then toss him back dead. >> I know we we make sure he was revived and he was just fine. Went on on his may berry weight. He was just fine. >> The second fish we caught was 150 lb stripe Merlin. >> That was fun. So two bucket list trips and probably 300 lb of tuna which I did bring home. Yellofin tuna. Pacific yellow tuna. >> So >> delicious. >> Yeah. Very good. Uh the confab coming up this weekend. Big doings. This is something that started out years ago, but I thought I wanted to actually know some history about this because I I've always heard that one of the big things that happens at the this this this event. This is the um the Jackson Hole, Wyoming annual event for the >> Oh, yeah. that thing every year >> for the snoody polluties. >> You know, it's a few steps down from any of the uh the the the meetings out in in uh in um where is the in Switzerland? Is it? No. Is it where's the where's the meeting they do? You know, the annual meeting, not where the Bilderbergs and all those dudes go to that kind of thing. >> Yeah, the Bilderberg. >> Bill Gates is there's another one that Bill Gates goes to and you know, all these guys. Anyway, this is a little bit different because it's an economic forum. It's it's the it's the it's the Jackson Hill economic form and um this August 21st to the 23rd which if you mark your calendars right now at this exact moment um that's this weekend. So it's it's Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Now what they do is they guys get together, the economists, these powerhouses, these central bankers, these these these analysts from companies and what they do is they go out there and they do a little fly fishing. spend a little time shaking hands, winking, uh maybe a little bit of a a palming of some inside information, right? And having dinner, a little whiskey, a little cigars. Uh this has well known been a a a a potential period when the US central bank or Treasury official makes some kind of policy announcement or hint for whatever reason. it's it's this event. So, I went back and I wanted to find like what was the major things like what was some of the things and I know there was more than this but there was a couple of major ones back in ' 89. Uh Alan Greenspan was there and he became the first Fed chief to formally participate in this program this weekend program which has established a tradition of the Fed leadership using this event to signal policy direction. back in in 82, which was a full seven years earlier, uh Vulkar stopped by just to kind of hang out. Didn't nothing happened. Didn't say anything. Uh 2010, Bren Bernani used the symposium to signal QE2. So why they feel necessary to do this as at an international event is beyond my understanding versus some kind of official regularly scheduled deal. >> Mhm. >> But I guess it's for the sport of it, right? To get together. It's like me and you going and and we're real powerful and you and I on a Friday morning, we do a little hot totty up of the mountains or something, right? like, "Hey, John, >> let's see how much we can move markets today." >> You know, I think some of that goes on. >> Oh, it's like Mortimer and what was the guy's name on Trading Places? >> Yeah, I don't remember. >> It was Mortimer and uh in the in the uh um it was the movie with uh Eddie Eddie Murphy and and uh somebody and uh Dan Akroyd. Yeah, right. Dan Akroyd was the the really, you know, the guy that was thrown to this to the curb. Uh, and um, so maybe that's what's going on. In 19 in 2014, Mario Draghi, who was the ECB president at that time, hinted at aggressive stimulus to combat Europe's sluggish growth, which influenced the curren currency markets in a big way. That was in 14. And in 2020, Jerome Powell Powell announced the the Fed's new average inflation targeting framework allowing inflation to run above 2% temporarily to support employment growth. Right before that meeting, you know this story, but I'm going to repeat this for the for the record. Right before that meeting, uh I would say within two months before that meeting, I was at a lunch with Ben Bernani. Remember the story? Yeah. And Ben Bernani during that discussion talked about this idea of inflation averaging. And of course I'm the guy in the back with the I'm like the Arnold Horseshack. Remember Arnold Horschack? >> Yeah. Yeah. Mr. >> Carter. Oh, I'm in the back. >> All these old references. I remember all these old references. No one else does. >> Yeah. No, Right. Nobody else is going, "Who are these people? >> What are these guys talking about?" >> Uh, so I'm I'm on Who? Oh, pick me, Mr. Kata. Pick me, Mr. kind of I'm in the back saying, you know, Mr. Beni, pick me. I don't understand. Let me understand what you're talking about. So, now that we have no inflation going on right now, and you want to set the stage um to allow for higher inflation or to keep your interest rates down, you're going to go into this inflation averaging thing to here so you statistically could prove the point that inflation is not up when it really is. Is that the case, sir? you know, and >> so that's what they did, which set the stage in 2020, by the way, for the eventual inflation is transitory because they were using different metrics to to measure their inflation. You you could blame it all the way back to uh >> Yeah. Well, you would they keep changing the rules of what how they measure things. >> Yes. >> To make everything convenient. >> Yes, that's correct. >> We during this short period of this show uh over decade that's been on and we've been discussing this, this has happened two or three times >> and and and for the record, it will happen many more times again. >> This is Yeah. This is the Do you remember Jerry Lewis? Yeah, I remember Jerry Lewis. >> Ladies, uh, this is Jerry Lewis's movie. This is Jerry Lewis's movie in real time saying, "Don't raise the bridge. Lower the water, >> right?" >> So, I wonder how many more of these I can come up with tonight. >> I don't know. You're on a roll. >> Uh, more on Jackson Hole. Many are saying this is going to be the defining moment of Powell's career. How's that work? >> Well, he's the last unless there's something that I'm missing here. This is the last one he's going to be attending as as an important figure in US economics. Would you agree with that? I think >> I Yes, absolutely. This will be it. >> So, odds are >> he's not getting renewed. That's for sure. >> Not going to get renewed. So odds are that he will look to continue and really I think and and and I've seen some commentary about this press for the Fed's independence and their data dependency. That's going to be a big I think is really going to try to cement that as a not even subliminal but a but a like loud and clear. Do you get this a signal? Is this coming through? Is everybody understanding what I'm saying here? That kind of thing. >> Oh, that would be bold. I I think he has to talk about data dependency. I think he has to talk about this. >> Well, maybe. Okay. >> Uh let's see what else we got here. US debt. The federal government's gross national debt topped a whopping $ 37 trillion for the first time in history last week. >> So, we're putting a stop to this. >> Yeah. No, we are. So, what we're doing is we passed the OBA, right? The OB the one big beautiful bill act. And uh that's going to stop it because what that that does is it's very simple what it does. It actually raises the debt allowance by about $5 trillion. So this way we won't be so close to the upper end. Included five trillion seriously included a five trillion dollar debt limit increase. And the reason and rationale for that was to avoid these potential uh governments got to shut down. Oh my god, the national parks are going, you know, going to be dark. The >> library, >> right? It it it cuts out the theatrics, >> right? Oh no, the Washington Monument is closed because the government is shut down. How dare they? you know, and and and the theatrics of either of the sides saying, you see, the Democrats are all against this and they're to blame or or vice versa because they're just going to blame one side versus the other. >> Yeah. And then at the end of the day, everybody gets laid off for a couple of weeks and then they get back pay. >> Yep. The old furlow, the little furlow game. >> So that's a farce. It's a farce. The whole thing's a farce. They got a paid vacation is what they got. fully paid vacation with full job security. I like it. So, we can go up to 41 trillion 41 42 trillion dollars. Give a round number of that. >> Um, US debt to GDP right now is right at 100%. And for years, we always scoffed it. Greece and Italy, the pigs, right? Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, pigs. And it's horrible. It's terrible. Oh my god. My god, this how could they how could the government keep on running these deficits and this debt and and it's just going to collapse under the weight of itself and look at us, the United States, we would never have that. We're 60% 70% whatever the number was at the time that this was being said. And these other countries, oh, what poor fiscal management. Laughs, last laugh. So now we're at 100%. Every American, every Americans and that means you and you and you and you listeners, you owe $111,000 each, assuming it was spread evenly against uh all the kids and um everybody that's a US in America. I I I was we have what 300 and so million citizens. >> Yeah. So >> close to 350. >> Yeah. >> 25 years ago was 19,000 a person. >> That's pretty good inflation rate. >> Yeah. That's that's that's like as you got ripped off somehow. >> If you double every seven years at uh 11 or 10 10% approximately. If you double every 10 years at 7%. So if we doubled 19 to 40 that's one. Uh that's seven years. Uh we need to get how many sevens? We need to get three three and a half sevens. So we went to 40 to 80. So it's like 5% per year growth of our debt. Well, by the way, news flash, the objective of debt is not to go up over time. It's to have your debt and it could go up, but over 25, 30 years. If a company did that, that would people would look at it like, oh, that's maybe not so good there. The whole idea is to extinguish your debt unless you have a very low interest rates. So once again, very poor management. >> Well, that's why they want to have low interest rates and nobody's >> working on that. >> They're they're going to one way or another. But that is the whole goal is to is to bring down interest rates enough so that our dirt our debt service for this enormous debt is manageable. Otherwise, we're going to keep on. It's like it's like a snowball, right? Just running down a mountain. It just gets worse and worse. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Uh, lababoo. Laboo. You know about these lababoo dolls? >> They're not called lababoos. >> What are they called? >> They're labuboos. >> Laboos. Yeah. Yeah. Laboos. This is pretty fascinating. You know, I found you know when I found out about this? >> We talked about it on the uh the No Agenda show and Adam didn't know anything about him either. >> Yeah, this is this is news to me. Uh no agenda show by the way. >> It's not a new by the way. It's not a new phenomenon. This this was at least five years ago is when they really started to take off. >> These particular >> a little bit behind on your fads. Well, this is becoming this fat has become very uh reach a crescendo. I think then that's why it's >> it's just going to take another few years. The the Beanie Baby thing took almost a decade. >> What fun that was. How much fun was that? Nobody thought it would ever break either. >> Well, you the jumped the shark when it started showing up as a running gag on television shows on sitcoms. >> Did you have any media babies? I had a couple shipped to me as sou, you know, software companies would get some um they would have beanie babies developed for their companies and they send them out to uh writers and I have a couple of extremely rare Beanie Babies that are representative of couple of obscure software companies. That's about it. I never bought one. I was at a Chicago game, the uh baseball game, and they gave them out that night. They were red, white, and blue for some reason. I'm not sure what the reason. I don't know what it was that particular night that I went. >> Worth $10,000. >> I walked outside of that. I had two of them on me and people were like literally attacking me, paying me, you know, $1,000 each. I'm like, "No." I'm like, I don't know why I said no, but I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. There's mine." And uh >> now they're worth 10 cents, >> maybe. maybe at best. So, these these particular uh collectibles, these dolls, which you talked about with Adam Curry on the No Agenda show, which airs on Thursdays and Sundays. And just for clarification, it's 2 o'clock live, but just to be very clear, because we talk about this all the time, that doesn't mean the only time you can listen to this show is between 2 and 5 on Eastern time on on Thursdays and Sundays. You know what? You can get it on Apple Podcasts. You can get it on uh Amazon Music. You can get yours on Spotify, too, right? Can you get on Spotify? >> No, Spotify we've cut off. >> They cut off by that's why I asked Spotify, but there's plenty of other places. they have a value value network and there's all sorts of other apps that carry anywhere that has an RSS feed etc etc. So, just to let you know that um in the first half of 2025, these um labu how do you say it? Labu. >> Yeah, >> labubu. The labubu related products generated a staggering $418 million in global sales for the company called Pop Mart with nearly 40% of its revenue last year coming from outside mainland China because these were big in the Asian area. Now, the company says sales in the first six months of this year are on track to more than triple. So, the thrill of the hunt. Here's what's really interesting about this. If you haven't heard about this, these are little They look like gnomes or something. They're like little funky little gnome looking dolls, crazy hair and stuff. They're only available through online purchases and instore pickups. Um, if you can actually find one in stock. Now, adding to the scarcity factor >> is this is the best part. This is what I love >> is the blind box packaging. >> Yeah. You don't know what you're getting. >> You don't know what you're getting. How cool is that? >> Well, the fact that people are suckered into going along with the program, there's some that are reselling already for 20 or $30,000. The thing is with the with the I think there's a one in 72 chance odds on some of them in their secret elusive. Uh >> there's there's yeah there's a choice they show you on the box that there may be before one of four different dolls inside. You can't open it and uh and then there's an occasional super rare doll that only just like winning the lottery. You get one of these super rare purple dolls of some sort and that those are worth money. You can put them on the open market and trade them immediately. >> Now, what's brilliant about that is you have one and four and you have the three already in that collection, if you will. And then you're like, "All right, I'll buy it." didn't get it. All right, buy another one. All right, next one. It's brilliant. I love it. >> Yeah. Yeah. If you're an idiot. >> Well, some people like that whole They got to be a part of something. It's It's something special. It's the kids like it. And once your kids like it, you're done. You can't you can't go against that. It's It's like, "No, Johnny, you're the only kid on the block that can't do the Lubu, the labu, what the deal, you know, you can't do it." No, it's it's off limits because you're a better person than that, Johnny. How long does that last? >> No, that that doesn't work. >> No. The other way you could do things if you really want to get rich quick, if you don't think that maybe you'll find one of the great collector items in the thrill of the hunt in, you know, getting it from a box or whatever is Powerball. Powerball jackpot grows to $643 million. Nobody won on Monday, so it's on Wednesday. I'm letting you know this because in the event you think that maybe you could win, first of all, you're an idiot. But second of all, I mean, there's there's somebody's going to win, right? The next drawing is going to be on Wednesday night, new high for 2025. Do you know what the highest power pole Powerball jackpot ever was? >> I think it was uh three billion. >> So, from my understanding, it was 2.04 billion. >> Okay. >> One. So, you got a long way to go for that one on November 7th, 2022. by a single ticket holder sold in California. The winner, Edwin Castro, opted for the lumpsum payout of $997 million. That's after tax. >> Pay half of that half of that goes to taxes, >> right? Well, you had No, the 99 Oh, that's a good point. You think that You think that was the gross sum before taxes? >> Yeah, of course. >> Oh, that's terrible. That sucks. Who wants that? >> I mean, was it You're only going to get 600 million after after the deal. >> Well, less. >> Yeah, but you know, walking away with $400 million out of the blue. And if you do the math on that, it's astonishing odds. I mean, you're really getting jipped. Well, he's not obviously, but everybody else is. I've always said, you know, my chances of winning the lottery are about the same whether I play it or not. >> That's a truth there. I'm I'm pretty certain that Edwin Castro's life has not changed a bit. >> Yeah. Still goes to work. >> Still goes to work. Still drives the same car. Still has only one egg for breakfast because he feels that two would be just too much. Good for you, Edwin. So, anyway, go get a go get a power bowl. Uh energy needs. This is we we keep on talking about this because I think it's such an important topic and fascinating by the way the the whole idea of uh our our lack of infrastructure for the basic energy needs that we have. But on top of that, the lack of really the big lack of in infrastructure uh on the energy needs that we're going to need in the future, particularly when it comes to data warehousing, AI, um >> not to mention electric cars. electric cars as well, although sales are down pretty good. But if they continue on, so Google and Keros Power have now announced they're going to deploy an advanced new clear reactor to help power the tech company's data centers on the Tennessee Valley Authority grid. So there's something called the Hermes 2. The Hermes 2 reactor which is being developed or has been developed by Keros. It's going to dispatch 50 megawws of electricity. Enough to power about 36,000 homes. So that's pretty again I don't think people really >> 36,000 it'll power 36,000 homes or two Nvidia chips. because it's pretty much pretty much 36,000 homes. It's a lot of energy. And um the Tennessee Valley Authority is going to purchase the electricity from the reactor which is going to make it the first utility in the US to sign an offtake agreement with an advanced nuclear plant. So they're not owning it per se. They're just letting it flow through. they'll let it flow through and then they'll go into their main line so that they can push off directly for Google in this case to utilize. H. >> So, um, Google, Keros, and the Tennessee Valley Authority said the collabor collaboration will move the US a step closer to deploying advanced nuclear reactors, but making sure consumers are not on the hook for the cost of building the plant because there's a whole concern that you, by the way, this line is dumb. Just a point of reference. uh if they're trying to say that you and I because the utility is not building it, you and I won't have to repay it through higher utility costs. That that's I think what they're trying to get at. That's how we'd pay for it. >> Yeah. Sure. >> So by Google paying for it, Google's going to pay for the energy, right? The electricity. >> Isn't that supposedly Yeah. >> Well, somehow we're going to pay for it. Google is not just saying ah yeah we'll do this for free. They'll up the charge on something somewhere some something whether it's their it may not be you and I well it could be you no it may be you and I directly somehow it's going to trickle down for you and I to pay for it. Google's going to increase ad pricing. They're going to do something with uh AI. They're going to charge us for Google Sheets. I don't know. Or maybe that direct or maybe totally sheets. >> No, but it may be totally indirectly also. >> Yeah, you never know. >> So this whole private public private industry thing is footing the bill for their own utility infrastructure buildout. It is good, but I think the idea is taking a step too far saying that, you know, nobody's going to pay for it. Somebody's going to pay for it. Maybe just the shareholders of of Google. Who knows? Well, they're the ones that should be the beneficiaries. >> Yeah, but they're not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. Somehow it's going to be a benefit to them. >> All right. Well, onward >> onward and forward, shall we? Last week we talked about Nvidia chips. We talked about the idea of back doors. So, now they're talking about chip trackers this week. The idea >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. We talked about that a little bit last time. >> So, but these chip trackers are a little bit different. They're going to know. So, so what they're going to do is basically have a I don't know, find my chip, I guess, right? Find my iPhone. >> Yeah, it's b Yeah, it's basically find my chip. And I this I think this was implemented years and years ago because there was numerous uh and it's all of a sudden this stopped happening. uh uh criminal enterprises stealing semmit trucks full of chips and this used to be a common occurrence especially in Silicon Valley and then one day that that all that news just stopped and I never could figure out why and I think this might be the reason but if there are no back doors how is this not a back door per se >> it's a back door >> it's a back door right >> if there is any way for us to gather information about a chip that is not on prem. Therefore, it's a back door, right? I mean, because they who knows what else could be opened up. >> Yeah. Well, that's they're they're not going to tell you. >> There's a communication port is essentially what it is that is open to relay back upon request or maybe on a regular basis where this chip is. Isn't am I am I correct on this? You're the tech guy. Am I >> That's what I understand. I something like that. The chip shows up. Hey, that guy's got that our chip. Our stolen chip is that guy's computer. Let's go get him. Where'd you get that chip? >> Yeah, it went it ends up in R. It ends up in North Korea and they can have trackers where it started, where it was along the way. The little you right. >> That's my understanding. >> Which then leads me to the old back door again. Okay. Anyway, um, so I don't know. I don't know. It's supposed to help with the whole diversion, the diversion issue of where it's going. Let's talk about Cisco. Cisco came out with earnings last week. Management called for about 97 to 99 cents in fiscal first quarter earnings, adjusted adjusted earnings, uh, on about 14.5 to 14.85 85 billion in revenue. So when they reported last Wednesday, they exceeded analyst expectations um slightly. So they beat they issued quarterly guidance that was also better than expected. Earnings per share 99 cents versus 98. Revenue 1 point uh 14.67 billion versus 14.62. So it wasn't great. Everybody's looking another management knocking the cow hide off the ball again. That didn't seem to happen. So this is right in line with what we talked about last week about the number of earnings beats have a low margin above the expectations once again. >> Right. >> So I don't know if that's something that uh is here to stay. Uh, but it's not going to appease investors. I I don't think so. I I think when when you knock it off and you know, you have really good numbers like some of the banks did, some of the tech companies did. Um, and and then you just have, you know, okay, I mean, beating by one penny is pretty much that's that's even though it's a lot of money because if you calculate the number of shares times the revenue or or or net earnings, it's a lot of money. But beating by one penny in a market that's supposed to be unbelievable and Oracle that had, you know, just wow and the stock went vertical. That it's not going to hold up very well. Not going to hold water. Some bottom fishing. More fishing news. Lots of news. Intel and United Healthcare uh over the last week or over the last weeks both have been in the news. Lot of interesting things. You nature's been on the news. United Healthcare has been in the news since the unfortunate uh murder of the CEO, but that opened up a whole can of worms. Uh when that happened, um United Healthcare shares like soared though this weekend or not the weekend, before the weekend uh as Bergkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's company revealed a a five million share stake in the company worth about 1.6 billion. You also have the big short investor Michael Bur and uh Appaloosa Management's David Ter. He they they both uh they disclosed sizable stakes in the company as well. Stock was up pretty good. Uh I think on Friday the healthcare stock ended up today 12% best daily performance since March 2020. I believe if we roll the tape back, Johnny, uh, all the way back a few months ago, we talked about how UNH with its shares down, I don't know, something like 350 or 400 points from the high. >> Yeah. >> Was something like 2500 Dow Jones Industrial points. >> So, that really hurt it. That's pretty good day. That's why it was up hundreds of points on on Friday. The Dow was up what 400 points on Friday or Monday? Whatever the day was. Whatever. I forgot what day it was. >> It was Monday. >> It was Monday. Yeah. >> Was it Monday? >> Yeah, I think so. >> So, this is a vote of confidence for United Healthcare. You know, even though these, you know, you got a Buffett, you got a Michael Bur, and you got a a David Ter popping in. I mean, they're definitely bottom fishing. They're going to the the reason stocks move on something like that. You got a guy like David ter that people, you know, think is great. Bury. Wow. You know, he's a short guy. He's going to go into something long. That's wonderful. And Bergkshire, you know that. What does Bergkshire do? They They just buy a stock and what's the next thing they do? They >> They sit on it >> and then they buy more >> and they buy more >> if they if they feel like it. Yeah. >> And 20 years later, they're buying more. >> Yeah. >> So, it's not like they're trading. Temper may trade. Bur may trade a little bit more, but they have a lot of uh desire. And they and they do they they pop stuff. So this vote of confidence is pretty good. These these backers um oh here's some more bottom fishing getting busy. The first at first the US government teased about taking uh 10% stake in Intel. >> Yeah. >> After all the other that thought that was the deal. Now, Soft Bank is initiating a $2 billion investment. Soft Bank is not seeking board seed or committing to buying any Intel chips. This was a direct capital infusion. >> Yeah. That jacked the stock up today. >> Mhm. >> Along with the 10% in government buy in. Uh most people see that as um it's not going to help unless they know something we don't know, which is quite possible that Intel has a has a product. It's waiting in the wings finally. This would be a a surprise for everybody since they most people keep pretty careful tabs on Intel, but they could have a product waiting in the wings that could come out and you know be a AI product, which is where they dropped the ball. They dropped the ball on a lot of stuff and there's more of them. I think what this is is a clawback of the chips act because now all of a sudden >> the 10% is the 10% amount amounts to a clawback >> right because even what what Lutnik said today let you know uh >> you're not just giving money away >> the chips act yeah gave money away um you know what we're going to do for that money that we're giving them I think it was about10 billion $10 billion that'll give us about 10 give us 10% for the company that we'll continue on or else you So to continue on getting your chips act grants that were agreed to already by the way because I don't know about you contracts don't mean anything anymore. >> No >> meaningless that we shook hands signed in ink signed in blood agreed in front of the entire country and was originally presented and agreed to by lawmakers by the way but that doesn't mean anything meaningless. What means something is now we're going to tell you that that10 billion dollar grant that you had to build that factory to employ 10,000 people to have all these chips development and manufacturing in the United States. You know what that grant that we were going to give you to help with that whole thing? That's great. But you're going to give us 10% of the company. Could you imagine now all these other companies that shook hands to rebuild increase manufacturing and were given a a a helping hand by the government are going to be like uh what now I got to give up my company for that. Howard Lutnik also mentioned that this possibly this this this deal this this structure could possibly extend to other chips acts companies and recipients as well. >> Yep. He that's what he did. >> How what about if these companies say you know what thank you so much and they decide that they're not giving up their company. They're not giving up a piece of their stock for that. They could have easily gone to the secondary market. It's no longer a grant. Now they're paying for it. It's one thing when the government's giving away money. Imagine if if if I'm the government John, I want to let you know that uh you are the proud you know your podcast, John, is going to get $10,000 as long as you pay us back $10,000. Like there's no there's no grant there. >> Yeah. >> I think this is ex and it smells a lot like extortion. >> Well, where's the extortion? I mean, how does it smell like extortion? Sounds like a switcheroo. It sounds like bait and switch to me. >> Well, how would you define extortion? Is if you don't do this, you're not going to get that. If you if you do this, we're going to we're going to do something bad to you. >> Yeah. If you take the money, we're going to take a piece of your company. >> Well, if you gave them money and bought a piece of the company straight up, you would get a piece of the company that way. >> But that wasn't the deal that was cut. The deal was >> the deal actually cut. Do we know the details of the the quote unquote cut of the deal? My understanding when I looked it up was that the government uh provided specific grants through the chips act in order to build and help build and bring manufacturing back here for security purposes and for um the advancement of employment. That's my understanding. I mean chips is a thing. >> Yeah, it is a thing. But it doesn't mean that they uh they're giving away the store. I think they just they just it just it's like you got a new administration. They don't like the old chips act and they're going to uh change the rules. >> That's great. Was the chips act question. Was the chips act approved by Congress and ratified by the president? >> I'm assuming it was. Yes. >> So now you have a law that was put on the books, not a an executive order. You have a law that was put on the books, >> right, >> to reverse that law. >> But there has to be No. Yeah. But but the law the law itself probably has some uh control mechanism within the law as to how the money would be dispersed. It just this just doesn't show up as a check in the mail. Uh there has to be, you know, somebody who who's the check go to who's going to disperse the check, who's signing the check, and how much do they get all at once. There's all these rules that will be in the bill, which I'm sure was not a small bill cuz none of these things are anymore. And so they looked at the bill and they said, "Well, this is interesting. We can do it this way and this is how we're going to do it." >> Maybe I'd be hardressed to believe uh and I I I could be shot down on this. I >> Well, they can be sued. I mean, the law there'll be a suit over this, I'm sure. Uh will Intel sue them to get their money? >> I I don't know. >> Would you take a chance and do that if you were the CEO of Intel and you've already screwed up left and right? Now you're going to sue my concernation. It's not just Intel. Now they're talking about this kind of plan with other >> Yeah. No, that's what he said. He said, you know, just give money giveaway is no good. We want to if we're going to just give money away, why don't why don't we get some equity? That's basically what he said. The whole point was a basic sweetener to build prop to build >> uh manufacturing or whatever you want to call it design whatever whatever the particular thing they do at these places was to build it here. >> Yeah. >> Now you could so screw that. Let's just keep it over there and keep my company. There's no incent it's supposed to be incentive. It was supposed to be incentive. >> Well, Intel could refuse the offer and they they're not forced. >> No, I agree. I agree. They say, "Oh, screw it. We don't need that. We're not going to do it anyway." And they're not going to do it anyway. They can't They've already got some I could forget the name of the process. They have a They have a fab that they can't get any business for. They're losing money on their fabs. They They're They've gone from a the top chip company in the world to to a bunch of incompetent boobs. And, you know, so we're going to just start throwing money at them. And they've already shown that they can't do well with the money they have except make processors. I wonder if this is also Lutnik's uh way of essentially taking, you know, the rings off the finger of a dying man here. >> Well, there's that that that's Yeah, maybe. But the Soft Bank guys don't think so. >> So, I mean, you got to consider why why are they putting a couple of billion into the company out of the blue? Yeah, >> there may there's there's something there's a piece of this puzzle that's missing. The way I see it, something's up. >> Yeah. >> And that's why the government wants 10% of it there. That maybe Intel's about the on the verge of something major. >> I personally don't think so, but it's possible. >> Yeah, it's possible. Uh >> I mean, the last the last products they tried to do, they have ever since their 8080 or actually let's start with the 404 chip. They've tried to get out of the out of the rut they're in by with a 432 chip and then the Itanium if you remember that and all these different things they tried to do and every time they try to do something different uh away from the uh x86 instruction set processor chips they fail with consistency. >> Crazy. >> You know they had one of the first neuron network chips. This was back in the day. this in the early ' 80s. The neuron networks are what literally power the AI revolution. >> Neural or neuron? >> Neural. >> Neural. Yeah. Okay. >> Neural networks are in between the large language model and the user. And they're the ones that that's that in between middle used to be called middleware, but that's what it amounts to. Uh that says, well, let's see. We can take this data and put together a presentation for this guy who's asking for something. uh based on this huge pile of data we got in the back here and uh Intel was ahead of the game with neural networks and they made a chip which I coincidentally have a copy of. They which is in the drawer somewhere. Uh they made a neural network chip and then they dropped the ball on that and they never p proceeded. >> Yeah, not good. Should have stopped then. just just handed over everything to somebody else and said, "All right, you just just do this. We we can't obviously this is going to be bad for a long time." You know, uh let's talk about uh sovereign wealth fund Saudi Arabia 8% write down that they took recently biggest I think ever on a decline in investment in giga projects. Now these giga projects you have to understand in in these countries whether it's uh Qatar, Saudi Arabia, you know, you look around that region, they build these cities and uh these entertainment complexes and the urban parks and urban redevelop. We're not talking about a little something something. We're not talking about corner park with a couple of basketball hoops with no no nets. We're talking about big stuff. Indoor skiing, you know, indoor >> Yeah, they have indoor skiing in a couple >> stuff like that. So in Dubai and all um I guess they're slowing down on on some of that stuff has become a problem is uh the the even though their assets under management climbed 19% from the end of 23 to 93 billion which is making it one of this the sovereign wealth fund is is one of the largest and fastest growing sovereign wealth funds on the planet. the investment portion of the fund, which which explains a lot of why stocks keep going up. You have a sovereign wealth fund that's being fed with an unlimited money source and they have to go find investments out there. What are they doing? They're buying the Intels. And how much are they buying? As much as possible without blowing it up, right? >> On a daily basis. They're buying Microsoft. Same question, same answer. And the list goes on and on and on. And if that doesn't work, they're just going to buy the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100. So, if you're wondering, if anybody's wondering at all, why is the stock market going up, if they don't care what money value they use to buy a valued uh product, you know, if you if you have if you have $10 million in your pocket somehow and you go into a dollar store, are you going to quibble over something? You probably just buy whatever you want, right? Even if in a dollar store sore all of a sudden someone something's marked at $2. Are you going to be upset? No, you're going to buy it. Same thing goes here. So we got a PE forward of 23, you know, 100 on this stock, 85 on that stock. Historical norms going to pay 85 years worth of profits for that stock. Seems reasonable. Seems reasonable. They'll grow into it. So that's what's going on with regard to some of the reason why stocks keep going up. You got things like this, the Saudi, the Norwegian. That's also why well different reason break for a second. This is something that President Trump has talked about creating a sovereign wealth fund. If you think about that s uh for one m moment, what a great backs stop safety net just talking about that for the US stock market. >> Well, you think it's a ploy? >> Of course. And if it's not a ploy, it's just a good way to keep the markets up. Even just talking about it, >> I'm not sure how they fund it, what they do. >> He's done a pretty good job of keeping the markets up. >> Yep. No question about that. Uh, valuation evaluation. Open AI preparing to sell about $6 billion in stock as part of a secondary sale that would value the company at roughly 500 bill. The old 500B's company's preparing to sell um this from shareholders etc. So kind of a liquid liquidity event. Cool. Japan's stock market economy uh their economy expanded at.3% in the second quarter uh outpacing the forecast. Last quarter was a contraction so they are not in an official recession >> yet. >> Yet David Rosenfeld. Uh that's not him. You don't know him. Let's try that again. Cut. Take two. David Rosenberg. He is a guy that was very famous. a whining I believe Canadian uh during the financial crisis. He's one of the guys that called it and stayed on that train for a long time. How bad everything was, how awful it was, even though things are getting better. He is a negative Nelly and uh he tries every once in a while to be positive. But his latest I think I think this was a writing he put he says quote guess what the biggest driver of the stock market rally has been? leverage for the first time ever. He says margin debt has topped $1 trillion and has ballooned 25% over the last year, which forget about that he's negative. If that's true, that's a lot. So once again, where is the money coming from? People are now borrowing against their stocks to lever up to buy more of the stocks. one bad sign >> oneif of all the leverage supporting the stock market has been built up in just the past year alone almost half of the outstanding margin debt has come in the past five years alone I don't that that I don't that doesn't bother me as much I mean that you have all that debt is a lot but what what bothers me is the quick buildup because the quick buildup could turn into a quick build down you bother me >> what goes up fast comes down fast >> the other stuff takes a while to unload and unravel. But the M2 money supply has also been increasing dramatically lately. That's the money in in cash and in money markets and and certain savings accounts and things. Why is that? Where does that come from? Often that comes from um usually money that's being put in savings slash oftentimes government spending. >> That's what I see. Uh, quickly, fast casual. You want to talk about this? Uh, fast casual dining. >> Yeah. >> One of your favorites. >> McDonald's stock is up. >> Yep, it is. It's done a very good job. They came They brought back their their uh $5 meals. >> Yeah. Well, there still the food is I I used to do I say this on the show about once every six months because I used to do a uh quarterly analysis of their food for the No Agenda show. I'd have a, you know, I'd have the fries and a Big Mac, I think, generally. And I more recently, I can't eat, I can't finish a The food is not edible. >> If you had a choice, if you had a gun to your head, two questions. One, Big Mac or Whopper? >> Whopper for sure. >> Okay. McDonald's French fries or Burger King French fries? I if you haven't had Burger King French fries recently, you don't know what what's going on because Burger King has done something new, something different, and their French fries are absolutely dynamite. The the the McDonald's French fries have gone downhill about starting some decades ago when they stopped using the same cooking oils. They used to use tallow or something that made it crispy. They're they're just soggy and limp. They're no good. That's no good. >> I haven't had either in in a long long long time, so I couldn't >> try if you get a chance. I don't get them normally because they're too expensive, but Burger King has gotten for some reason a terrific French fry that they make. >> Is it a batter? Is it Is it semi- battered? >> No, it's just I don't know if if it's the potatoes they're using or the temperature they're cooking at or if they're double frying. I'm not sure, but they they're they're extremely crispy and uh and well done. They're just perfect. They're maybe a little harder than I like, but they're not they're good. >> Well, one of your favorite companies, one of your favorite food sources that is not really is Chipotle, >> right? I've never eaten there. >> Being hit by consumer slowdown on Cava. Have you been to Cava? >> I've never seen a Cava. >> Cava is a a fast casual Mediterranean. There's I don't I haven't seen any down here either. They came as an IPO not too long ago. Uh Kava stock pumped uh 16% uh last Wednesday, making it the latest fast casual chain to feel Wall Street's wrath after reporting disappointing quarterly sales so far in 2025. Shake Shack falling 16%. >> You're a favorite. >> Yeah, I'm not a big fan. Uh it's just it's just first of all, you want a greasy, disgusting, like put in your face burger. All right, I'm all over it. Pricing wise, I'm not. Although, Five Guys, have you been to a Five Guys lately? >> I haven't been to a Five Guys for decades. There's not none around here. >> I would highly recommend you go look in one. Just look at the prices before you're about to walk out the door because they're absurd. The cost of a burger is there. Absurd. >> It's like you're sitting in a fine restaurant ordering a burger. It's It's unbelievable. And people are buying. I'll take two of those. >> Give me an example of the price. >> I I I I I I we have to >> 15 bucks for a burger. >> Something like that. >> Five Guys burger prices. Yeah. Five Guys Burgers price value, but generally range from $9.50 to $15. The little burger. >> Wow. >> The little burger is like $9. Here. Here it is. Right here. I Here we go. Uh, the bacon cheeseburger is 1475. A cheeseburger. A cheeseburger. A cheeseburger. 1367. >> That's too high. >> You You order that from like a overeat or a GrubHub or something like that. You order uh uh Five Guys, let's just say a cheeseburger. Uh, the fries are $8 for a large fry and you get a drink that's $4. What do we got? 12. Uh, >> you get 12 25 32 bucks by the time it's delivered. >> For a bacon, fries, and a drink. >> For a burger, fries, and a drink. >> Yeah, >> that's just stupid. I literally walked in, I said, I was gonna actually get a burger. I'm like, there is not chance I'm buying this burger. And they're not big. They're not very And they're smashed. They're terrible. Anyway, Cava Stock dumped uh 60%. Uh there was a problem. So far in 2025, Shake Shack shares have fallen 16%. Chipotle down 28%. Cava 37 and Sweet Green down 70%. >> Wow. Yep. the one uh uh in this genre, not the McDonald's and Wingstop, Majesty in the Green with a gain of 20%. >> Huh. >> Pretty cool, huh? Pretty cool. Let's go to the game. 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 Cedavor may invest in any of the securities mentioned and we'll 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. All right, what do we got? Anything good? Run through it. Well, looks like uh you got locked out even before the thing showed up on the list. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Oh, that happened. >> Gone. >> Uh Southern Company's up. Uh we have a lot of insiders that Primo Brands is up. Dell, your pick, which is a killer pick. Good one, up 63%. That's the winner on this on the list. Uh and it's old. CVR Energy of course is up. Um, Chevron's up. That's That's good. Um, >> so many of your names compared to my names on this list. >> It was even dominating the whole thing. >> I don't know. It's your game. >> Well, it's just this is cyclical. What? And the next thing you know, these swap the other side the other way. >> Yeah. >> Uh, and more recently, my Apple's I'm surprised it didn't get kicked off. uh AP Mullet or that uh >> that's the the shippy one we put on last week. >> Yeah, that should hang in there, I hope. And then um then the one this Firefly thing just surprisingly >> gone. It's it's right now they're they attacked the uh high beta stocks in the last few days. >> So I have one for today. >> Yes. And this is based this is not a uh I don't know if you what was that stock that you had called that you know they they the FDA had said yeah you're no good and the company says well we're going to do it anyway and >> that was uh uh holy therap Oh no no that was SEPTA therapeutics. >> Yeah. Well I've got another one like similar. >> Uhhuh. >> Viking therapeutics. >> Yeah. Yeah. They got they got whacked. What is that? V >> VK I don't know what it is. VK >> NG >> VKTX I think. >> Yeah. Yep. That's it. It's uh currently trading at $2. >> So it was uh it's trying to do an and it's behind the it's behind the curve on this product because everyone else is doing this product which is the GLP1 oral uh uh medicines, >> right? >> Which I think are you have to have there's got to be money in the bank. Uh because everyone's gone nuts over this stuff until somebody figures out it's not really healthy. Um and they can't seem to come up with the right dosage. they failed a test and the stock got slammed as you noted and it's possible that the apologist for the company say well it's because the tests weren't done right and maybe had the wrong dosage and you you know so we got to start over there. So, I give it one of those I give it one of those bounceback. Um, >> it's down 42% today, right? >> It was down. >> Yeah, that's down. >> I've decided to kind of wrap the show around to catch a falling knife. >> Yes, you are definitely catching a falling knife. That's awesome. I like it. Well, hopefully you have one of those uh stainless steel shark gloves on. So, that's good stuff. >> All right. Go take a look at the picture that I sent. They'll send you another one of the uh stripe marlin. >> All right. >> All right. Have a good one. >> Sounds a good winner. All right, bye. >> See you. >> 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 pockets there's a dent. 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. 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 Horowis 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. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Horowits Company is properly registered or is excluded from registration requirements. Any mention of thirdparty companies, products, or services is provided forformational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement. 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DHUnplugged #765: Money Fishing
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 Cedavarak >> and I'm Andrew Horowitz. >> It's the 19th of August, 2025. >> Ah, welcome to the summer. Very nice. What are you doing? What's new? What's happening? Do anything? Vacationing? Something? >> Still foggy. Still foggy around here. Although we did have sun today. >> So, what does that mean? Does that keep you Does that preclude you from going outside? Does that What What does it What does that mean? >> It's cold and windy. >> Oh, really? Huh? >> Usually that's just July, >> but it's doesn't usually snuck into August. >> Yeah. >> What's the nicest month there? October. >> Yeah, >> it used to be also May used to be pretty good, but this year it was crappy. So, >> we get this beautiful weather here from uh I would say October. I'll go with October. Maybe sneaking into a little bit November, but let's say November. I'll go November. November through February is glorious. >> Yeah, that's when people are the smart money goes to Florida. >> Yeah, that's just it's just beautiful. It's like summertime in the Hamptons, you know? It's like kind of 80° but not too um humid and the low is maybe well it can get cold. It definitely can get cold. We get in the 30s sometimes but normally you know 50s 60s 60s I'll say 60s to 80s. It's lovely. There you go with that. So uh warming up. What's going on tonight? We got the Lubus Labas Labubbas. Labubus. I don't know. We'll talk about what that beh means. Maybe it's the next Beanie Babies. I'm sure you're up on this. Um, >> yeah, a little bit. >> Uh, US debt, wretched looking numbers that we have currently and that are being projected these days. I had a pretty good fishing weekend if you're interested in hearing about that. If not, we'll just throw that away. Chip trackers are all the rage right now. And markets are also fishing. People are fishing. Fishing for bottoms. Fishing for, you know, it used to be called what do we call uh catching a f never catch a falling knife. If you've heard that adage, right? >> Right. >> Never catch. And what does that mean? That means stock is going down 20%. Because some news that the CEO had an affair with the CFO or whatever, or the audit team is pulling out or the uh drug trials they have were manipulated, right? any of those kinds of things drops a stock in a stock has got this folding knife because when you do catch a foing knife the reality is and probability you're not going to catch it on the handle are you >> you better be good >> yeah so uh we have all these falling knives and all of a sudden in these day and age it seems that everybody feels that they have on metal gloves and they're going to go after these positions because you know with the markets are wrong and there's a mispricing going on and why not? So we got a few of those to talk about. Um markets right now I think are in a consolidation slash digestion mode. Think about eating a very big dinner. You stuff it all in. Eat a minute. Need a second. Now in old Roman times, what did they do? >> They went to the vomitorium. But the vomitorium stuck a little feather down their throat and puked it up and went back for more. Right. >> Yeah, it's what you do. >> So, does that really work? >> I don't know. >> I know. When you're out on a boat, >> that's what bulimia is all about. So, I guess it works. >> Well, bulimia is just you don't absorb the fattening food. >> No, you're throwing up. These people have bulimics, they they purposely throw up their food, >> which is very ruinous to your esophagus. >> Well, it can't be good. >> Yeah. the acid from your stomach comes up and rots your esophagus. So, it can't be too good for your breath either. [Laughter] So, um right now we're in that digestion phase where they're looking at some of these things and saying, "Well, is it too much? Did it go too high?" We saw stocks like Palanteer get slam. Oh, the tech the tech stocks got hammered today. All the names that were going up up upside, oh, maybe we need to take a break today rotated in. NASDAQ was down 350 points. Dow was up. >> Yeah, that's classic rotation. >> Yep. So, I think what's happening right now is that the markets are waiting for the next catalyst. And we actually have some story about what that next catalyst is uh maybe at the end of this week. Very possible. Uh valuations to the moon. casual dining. Take it a hit. >> Oh, I missed that. >> Yeah. So, I guess there's fast casual is is there is there is it slow casual? Is that thing slow? I never heard of that. Slow casual is slow casual fine dining. Is that what that is? >> I don't know. But there's fast casual is casual. There's you know various places that you go to and we'll talk about how most of them are doing right now. I h I do want to tell you though, even though you don't want to hear about my fishing. >> Well, I never said that. You're the one that jumped the gun and just went off. >> Did you see the picture I sent you via text? >> The one about the rump roast? A rump roast? I I I don't ever think I've ever I do not recall texting anyone in my life anything about a a rump roast. You sent the whole butthole. >> Oh, that's funny. Come on. That was funny. >> That's a rum roast, wasn't it? >> Yeah, I guess so. That's a good point. It was This what he's talking about. There was This is a real picture. This was a picture. >> I tweeted it out for people who follow me on Twitter. >> I haven't been on Twitter in two days, so I must have missed it. Did you get a good response? >> Uh, yeah. Reasonable. >> I thought there was another picture I sent you of one of the bucket list fish that I caught this weekend. >> I didn't see that fish. I just saw the the whole butt. >> Yeah, this is uh the bone stuff butthole. Right above there is a picture of me holding a fish. >> Oh, I better go back and look at that again. >> Anyway, that was the first bucket list fish of this weekend. >> So, what fish was it? >> It was a rooster fish. >> I don't even know what that is. >> A rooster fish looks like a giant jackall. All muscle, but its back has one, two, maybe five. You know the rooster the top. I don't know what it's called. The crown on the rooster. >> Oh jeez. I see what that looks like. It's a horrible looking animal. >> It is a great fighter. And uh we caught that. And then the second fish I caught this weekend. Um >> so what does that rooster fish taste like? >> You don't eat it. The two fish I caught that were on my bucket list. You don't eat. >> Why? >> They're game fish. They're sport fish. They just I'm sure somebody's eating good. >> Yeah. This is this is not they probably all >> toss him back. >> Very tough meat. >> You take a picture of him and then toss him back dead. >> I know we we make sure he was revived and he was just fine. Went on on his may berry weight. He was just fine. >> The second fish we caught was 150 lb stripe Merlin. >> That was fun. So two bucket list trips and probably 300 lb of tuna which I did bring home. Yellofin tuna. Pacific yellow tuna. >> So >> delicious. >> Yeah. Very good. Uh the confab coming up this weekend. Big doings. This is something that started out years ago, but I thought I wanted to actually know some history about this because I I've always heard that one of the big things that happens at the this this this event. This is the um the Jackson Hole, Wyoming annual event for the >> Oh, yeah. that thing every year >> for the snoody polluties. >> You know, it's a few steps down from any of the uh the the the meetings out in in uh in um where is the in Switzerland? Is it? No. Is it where's the where's the meeting they do? You know, the annual meeting, not where the Bilderbergs and all those dudes go to that kind of thing. >> Yeah, the Bilderberg. >> Bill Gates is there's another one that Bill Gates goes to and you know, all these guys. Anyway, this is a little bit different because it's an economic forum. It's it's the it's the it's the Jackson Hill economic form and um this August 21st to the 23rd which if you mark your calendars right now at this exact moment um that's this weekend. So it's it's Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Now what they do is they guys get together, the economists, these powerhouses, these central bankers, these these these analysts from companies and what they do is they go out there and they do a little fly fishing. spend a little time shaking hands, winking, uh maybe a little bit of a a palming of some inside information, right? And having dinner, a little whiskey, a little cigars. Uh this has well known been a a a a potential period when the US central bank or Treasury official makes some kind of policy announcement or hint for whatever reason. it's it's this event. So, I went back and I wanted to find like what was the major things like what was some of the things and I know there was more than this but there was a couple of major ones back in ' 89. Uh Alan Greenspan was there and he became the first Fed chief to formally participate in this program this weekend program which has established a tradition of the Fed leadership using this event to signal policy direction. back in in 82, which was a full seven years earlier, uh Vulkar stopped by just to kind of hang out. Didn't nothing happened. Didn't say anything. Uh 2010, Bren Bernani used the symposium to signal QE2. So why they feel necessary to do this as at an international event is beyond my understanding versus some kind of official regularly scheduled deal. >> Mhm. >> But I guess it's for the sport of it, right? To get together. It's like me and you going and and we're real powerful and you and I on a Friday morning, we do a little hot totty up of the mountains or something, right? like, "Hey, John, >> let's see how much we can move markets today." >> You know, I think some of that goes on. >> Oh, it's like Mortimer and what was the guy's name on Trading Places? >> Yeah, I don't remember. >> It was Mortimer and uh in the in the uh um it was the movie with uh Eddie Eddie Murphy and and uh somebody and uh Dan Akroyd. Yeah, right. Dan Akroyd was the the really, you know, the guy that was thrown to this to the curb. Uh, and um, so maybe that's what's going on. In 19 in 2014, Mario Draghi, who was the ECB president at that time, hinted at aggressive stimulus to combat Europe's sluggish growth, which influenced the curren currency markets in a big way. That was in 14. And in 2020, Jerome Powell Powell announced the the Fed's new average inflation targeting framework allowing inflation to run above 2% temporarily to support employment growth. Right before that meeting, you know this story, but I'm going to repeat this for the for the record. Right before that meeting, uh I would say within two months before that meeting, I was at a lunch with Ben Bernani. Remember the story? Yeah. And Ben Bernani during that discussion talked about this idea of inflation averaging. And of course I'm the guy in the back with the I'm like the Arnold Horseshack. Remember Arnold Horschack? >> Yeah. Yeah. Mr. >> Carter. Oh, I'm in the back. >> All these old references. I remember all these old references. No one else does. >> Yeah. No, Right. Nobody else is going, "Who are these people? >> What are these guys talking about?" >> Uh, so I'm I'm on Who? Oh, pick me, Mr. Kata. Pick me, Mr. kind of I'm in the back saying, you know, Mr. Beni, pick me. I don't understand. Let me understand what you're talking about. So, now that we have no inflation going on right now, and you want to set the stage um to allow for higher inflation or to keep your interest rates down, you're going to go into this inflation averaging thing to here so you statistically could prove the point that inflation is not up when it really is. Is that the case, sir? you know, and >> so that's what they did, which set the stage in 2020, by the way, for the eventual inflation is transitory because they were using different metrics to to measure their inflation. You you could blame it all the way back to uh >> Yeah. Well, you would they keep changing the rules of what how they measure things. >> Yes. >> To make everything convenient. >> Yes, that's correct. >> We during this short period of this show uh over decade that's been on and we've been discussing this, this has happened two or three times >> and and and for the record, it will happen many more times again. >> This is Yeah. This is the Do you remember Jerry Lewis? Yeah, I remember Jerry Lewis. >> Ladies, uh, this is Jerry Lewis's movie. This is Jerry Lewis's movie in real time saying, "Don't raise the bridge. Lower the water, >> right?" >> So, I wonder how many more of these I can come up with tonight. >> I don't know. You're on a roll. >> Uh, more on Jackson Hole. Many are saying this is going to be the defining moment of Powell's career. How's that work? >> Well, he's the last unless there's something that I'm missing here. This is the last one he's going to be attending as as an important figure in US economics. Would you agree with that? I think >> I Yes, absolutely. This will be it. >> So, odds are >> he's not getting renewed. That's for sure. >> Not going to get renewed. So odds are that he will look to continue and really I think and and and I've seen some commentary about this press for the Fed's independence and their data dependency. That's going to be a big I think is really going to try to cement that as a not even subliminal but a but a like loud and clear. Do you get this a signal? Is this coming through? Is everybody understanding what I'm saying here? That kind of thing. >> Oh, that would be bold. I I think he has to talk about data dependency. I think he has to talk about this. >> Well, maybe. Okay. >> Uh let's see what else we got here. US debt. The federal government's gross national debt topped a whopping $ 37 trillion for the first time in history last week. >> So, we're putting a stop to this. >> Yeah. No, we are. So, what we're doing is we passed the OBA, right? The OB the one big beautiful bill act. And uh that's going to stop it because what that that does is it's very simple what it does. It actually raises the debt allowance by about $5 trillion. So this way we won't be so close to the upper end. Included five trillion seriously included a five trillion dollar debt limit increase. And the reason and rationale for that was to avoid these potential uh governments got to shut down. Oh my god, the national parks are going, you know, going to be dark. The >> library, >> right? It it it cuts out the theatrics, >> right? Oh no, the Washington Monument is closed because the government is shut down. How dare they? you know, and and and the theatrics of either of the sides saying, you see, the Democrats are all against this and they're to blame or or vice versa because they're just going to blame one side versus the other. >> Yeah. And then at the end of the day, everybody gets laid off for a couple of weeks and then they get back pay. >> Yep. The old furlow, the little furlow game. >> So that's a farce. It's a farce. The whole thing's a farce. They got a paid vacation is what they got. fully paid vacation with full job security. I like it. So, we can go up to 41 trillion 41 42 trillion dollars. Give a round number of that. >> Um, US debt to GDP right now is right at 100%. And for years, we always scoffed it. Greece and Italy, the pigs, right? Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, pigs. And it's horrible. It's terrible. Oh my god. My god, this how could they how could the government keep on running these deficits and this debt and and it's just going to collapse under the weight of itself and look at us, the United States, we would never have that. We're 60% 70% whatever the number was at the time that this was being said. And these other countries, oh, what poor fiscal management. Laughs, last laugh. So now we're at 100%. Every American, every Americans and that means you and you and you and you listeners, you owe $111,000 each, assuming it was spread evenly against uh all the kids and um everybody that's a US in America. I I I was we have what 300 and so million citizens. >> Yeah. So >> close to 350. >> Yeah. >> 25 years ago was 19,000 a person. >> That's pretty good inflation rate. >> Yeah. That's that's that's like as you got ripped off somehow. >> If you double every seven years at uh 11 or 10 10% approximately. If you double every 10 years at 7%. So if we doubled 19 to 40 that's one. Uh that's seven years. Uh we need to get how many sevens? We need to get three three and a half sevens. So we went to 40 to 80. So it's like 5% per year growth of our debt. Well, by the way, news flash, the objective of debt is not to go up over time. It's to have your debt and it could go up, but over 25, 30 years. If a company did that, that would people would look at it like, oh, that's maybe not so good there. The whole idea is to extinguish your debt unless you have a very low interest rates. So once again, very poor management. >> Well, that's why they want to have low interest rates and nobody's >> working on that. >> They're they're going to one way or another. But that is the whole goal is to is to bring down interest rates enough so that our dirt our debt service for this enormous debt is manageable. Otherwise, we're going to keep on. It's like it's like a snowball, right? Just running down a mountain. It just gets worse and worse. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Uh, lababoo. Laboo. You know about these lababoo dolls? >> They're not called lababoos. >> What are they called? >> They're labuboos. >> Laboos. Yeah. Yeah. Laboos. This is pretty fascinating. You know, I found you know when I found out about this? >> We talked about it on the uh the No Agenda show and Adam didn't know anything about him either. >> Yeah, this is this is news to me. Uh no agenda show by the way. >> It's not a new by the way. It's not a new phenomenon. This this was at least five years ago is when they really started to take off. >> These particular >> a little bit behind on your fads. Well, this is becoming this fat has become very uh reach a crescendo. I think then that's why it's >> it's just going to take another few years. The the Beanie Baby thing took almost a decade. >> What fun that was. How much fun was that? Nobody thought it would ever break either. >> Well, you the jumped the shark when it started showing up as a running gag on television shows on sitcoms. >> Did you have any media babies? I had a couple shipped to me as sou, you know, software companies would get some um they would have beanie babies developed for their companies and they send them out to uh writers and I have a couple of extremely rare Beanie Babies that are representative of couple of obscure software companies. That's about it. I never bought one. I was at a Chicago game, the uh baseball game, and they gave them out that night. They were red, white, and blue for some reason. I'm not sure what the reason. I don't know what it was that particular night that I went. >> Worth $10,000. >> I walked outside of that. I had two of them on me and people were like literally attacking me, paying me, you know, $1,000 each. I'm like, "No." I'm like, I don't know why I said no, but I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. There's mine." And uh >> now they're worth 10 cents, >> maybe. maybe at best. So, these these particular uh collectibles, these dolls, which you talked about with Adam Curry on the No Agenda show, which airs on Thursdays and Sundays. And just for clarification, it's 2 o'clock live, but just to be very clear, because we talk about this all the time, that doesn't mean the only time you can listen to this show is between 2 and 5 on Eastern time on on Thursdays and Sundays. You know what? You can get it on Apple Podcasts. You can get it on uh Amazon Music. You can get yours on Spotify, too, right? Can you get on Spotify? >> No, Spotify we've cut off. >> They cut off by that's why I asked Spotify, but there's plenty of other places. they have a value value network and there's all sorts of other apps that carry anywhere that has an RSS feed etc etc. So, just to let you know that um in the first half of 2025, these um labu how do you say it? Labu. >> Yeah, >> labubu. The labubu related products generated a staggering $418 million in global sales for the company called Pop Mart with nearly 40% of its revenue last year coming from outside mainland China because these were big in the Asian area. Now, the company says sales in the first six months of this year are on track to more than triple. So, the thrill of the hunt. Here's what's really interesting about this. If you haven't heard about this, these are little They look like gnomes or something. They're like little funky little gnome looking dolls, crazy hair and stuff. They're only available through online purchases and instore pickups. Um, if you can actually find one in stock. Now, adding to the scarcity factor >> is this is the best part. This is what I love >> is the blind box packaging. >> Yeah. You don't know what you're getting. >> You don't know what you're getting. How cool is that? >> Well, the fact that people are suckered into going along with the program, there's some that are reselling already for 20 or $30,000. The thing is with the with the I think there's a one in 72 chance odds on some of them in their secret elusive. Uh >> there's there's yeah there's a choice they show you on the box that there may be before one of four different dolls inside. You can't open it and uh and then there's an occasional super rare doll that only just like winning the lottery. You get one of these super rare purple dolls of some sort and that those are worth money. You can put them on the open market and trade them immediately. >> Now, what's brilliant about that is you have one and four and you have the three already in that collection, if you will. And then you're like, "All right, I'll buy it." didn't get it. All right, buy another one. All right, next one. It's brilliant. I love it. >> Yeah. Yeah. If you're an idiot. >> Well, some people like that whole They got to be a part of something. It's It's something special. It's the kids like it. And once your kids like it, you're done. You can't you can't go against that. It's It's like, "No, Johnny, you're the only kid on the block that can't do the Lubu, the labu, what the deal, you know, you can't do it." No, it's it's off limits because you're a better person than that, Johnny. How long does that last? >> No, that that doesn't work. >> No. The other way you could do things if you really want to get rich quick, if you don't think that maybe you'll find one of the great collector items in the thrill of the hunt in, you know, getting it from a box or whatever is Powerball. Powerball jackpot grows to $643 million. Nobody won on Monday, so it's on Wednesday. I'm letting you know this because in the event you think that maybe you could win, first of all, you're an idiot. But second of all, I mean, there's there's somebody's going to win, right? The next drawing is going to be on Wednesday night, new high for 2025. Do you know what the highest power pole Powerball jackpot ever was? >> I think it was uh three billion. >> So, from my understanding, it was 2.04 billion. >> Okay. >> One. So, you got a long way to go for that one on November 7th, 2022. by a single ticket holder sold in California. The winner, Edwin Castro, opted for the lumpsum payout of $997 million. That's after tax. >> Pay half of that half of that goes to taxes, >> right? Well, you had No, the 99 Oh, that's a good point. You think that You think that was the gross sum before taxes? >> Yeah, of course. >> Oh, that's terrible. That sucks. Who wants that? >> I mean, was it You're only going to get 600 million after after the deal. >> Well, less. >> Yeah, but you know, walking away with $400 million out of the blue. And if you do the math on that, it's astonishing odds. I mean, you're really getting jipped. Well, he's not obviously, but everybody else is. I've always said, you know, my chances of winning the lottery are about the same whether I play it or not. >> That's a truth there. I'm I'm pretty certain that Edwin Castro's life has not changed a bit. >> Yeah. Still goes to work. >> Still goes to work. Still drives the same car. Still has only one egg for breakfast because he feels that two would be just too much. Good for you, Edwin. So, anyway, go get a go get a power bowl. Uh energy needs. This is we we keep on talking about this because I think it's such an important topic and fascinating by the way the the whole idea of uh our our lack of infrastructure for the basic energy needs that we have. But on top of that, the lack of really the big lack of in infrastructure uh on the energy needs that we're going to need in the future, particularly when it comes to data warehousing, AI, um >> not to mention electric cars. electric cars as well, although sales are down pretty good. But if they continue on, so Google and Keros Power have now announced they're going to deploy an advanced new clear reactor to help power the tech company's data centers on the Tennessee Valley Authority grid. So there's something called the Hermes 2. The Hermes 2 reactor which is being developed or has been developed by Keros. It's going to dispatch 50 megawws of electricity. Enough to power about 36,000 homes. So that's pretty again I don't think people really >> 36,000 it'll power 36,000 homes or two Nvidia chips. because it's pretty much pretty much 36,000 homes. It's a lot of energy. And um the Tennessee Valley Authority is going to purchase the electricity from the reactor which is going to make it the first utility in the US to sign an offtake agreement with an advanced nuclear plant. So they're not owning it per se. They're just letting it flow through. they'll let it flow through and then they'll go into their main line so that they can push off directly for Google in this case to utilize. H. >> So, um, Google, Keros, and the Tennessee Valley Authority said the collabor collaboration will move the US a step closer to deploying advanced nuclear reactors, but making sure consumers are not on the hook for the cost of building the plant because there's a whole concern that you, by the way, this line is dumb. Just a point of reference. uh if they're trying to say that you and I because the utility is not building it, you and I won't have to repay it through higher utility costs. That that's I think what they're trying to get at. That's how we'd pay for it. >> Yeah. Sure. >> So by Google paying for it, Google's going to pay for the energy, right? The electricity. >> Isn't that supposedly Yeah. >> Well, somehow we're going to pay for it. Google is not just saying ah yeah we'll do this for free. They'll up the charge on something somewhere some something whether it's their it may not be you and I well it could be you no it may be you and I directly somehow it's going to trickle down for you and I to pay for it. Google's going to increase ad pricing. They're going to do something with uh AI. They're going to charge us for Google Sheets. I don't know. Or maybe that direct or maybe totally sheets. >> No, but it may be totally indirectly also. >> Yeah, you never know. >> So this whole private public private industry thing is footing the bill for their own utility infrastructure buildout. It is good, but I think the idea is taking a step too far saying that, you know, nobody's going to pay for it. Somebody's going to pay for it. Maybe just the shareholders of of Google. Who knows? Well, they're the ones that should be the beneficiaries. >> Yeah, but they're not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. Somehow it's going to be a benefit to them. >> All right. Well, onward >> onward and forward, shall we? Last week we talked about Nvidia chips. We talked about the idea of back doors. So, now they're talking about chip trackers this week. The idea >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. We talked about that a little bit last time. >> So, but these chip trackers are a little bit different. They're going to know. So, so what they're going to do is basically have a I don't know, find my chip, I guess, right? Find my iPhone. >> Yeah, it's b Yeah, it's basically find my chip. And I this I think this was implemented years and years ago because there was numerous uh and it's all of a sudden this stopped happening. uh uh criminal enterprises stealing semmit trucks full of chips and this used to be a common occurrence especially in Silicon Valley and then one day that that all that news just stopped and I never could figure out why and I think this might be the reason but if there are no back doors how is this not a back door per se >> it's a back door >> it's a back door right >> if there is any way for us to gather information about a chip that is not on prem. Therefore, it's a back door, right? I mean, because they who knows what else could be opened up. >> Yeah. Well, that's they're they're not going to tell you. >> There's a communication port is essentially what it is that is open to relay back upon request or maybe on a regular basis where this chip is. Isn't am I am I correct on this? You're the tech guy. Am I >> That's what I understand. I something like that. The chip shows up. Hey, that guy's got that our chip. Our stolen chip is that guy's computer. Let's go get him. Where'd you get that chip? >> Yeah, it went it ends up in R. It ends up in North Korea and they can have trackers where it started, where it was along the way. The little you right. >> That's my understanding. >> Which then leads me to the old back door again. Okay. Anyway, um, so I don't know. I don't know. It's supposed to help with the whole diversion, the diversion issue of where it's going. Let's talk about Cisco. Cisco came out with earnings last week. Management called for about 97 to 99 cents in fiscal first quarter earnings, adjusted adjusted earnings, uh, on about 14.5 to 14.85 85 billion in revenue. So when they reported last Wednesday, they exceeded analyst expectations um slightly. So they beat they issued quarterly guidance that was also better than expected. Earnings per share 99 cents versus 98. Revenue 1 point uh 14.67 billion versus 14.62. So it wasn't great. Everybody's looking another management knocking the cow hide off the ball again. That didn't seem to happen. So this is right in line with what we talked about last week about the number of earnings beats have a low margin above the expectations once again. >> Right. >> So I don't know if that's something that uh is here to stay. Uh, but it's not going to appease investors. I I don't think so. I I think when when you knock it off and you know, you have really good numbers like some of the banks did, some of the tech companies did. Um, and and then you just have, you know, okay, I mean, beating by one penny is pretty much that's that's even though it's a lot of money because if you calculate the number of shares times the revenue or or or net earnings, it's a lot of money. But beating by one penny in a market that's supposed to be unbelievable and Oracle that had, you know, just wow and the stock went vertical. That it's not going to hold up very well. Not going to hold water. Some bottom fishing. More fishing news. Lots of news. Intel and United Healthcare uh over the last week or over the last weeks both have been in the news. Lot of interesting things. You nature's been on the news. United Healthcare has been in the news since the unfortunate uh murder of the CEO, but that opened up a whole can of worms. Uh when that happened, um United Healthcare shares like soared though this weekend or not the weekend, before the weekend uh as Bergkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's company revealed a a five million share stake in the company worth about 1.6 billion. You also have the big short investor Michael Bur and uh Appaloosa Management's David Ter. He they they both uh they disclosed sizable stakes in the company as well. Stock was up pretty good. Uh I think on Friday the healthcare stock ended up today 12% best daily performance since March 2020. I believe if we roll the tape back, Johnny, uh, all the way back a few months ago, we talked about how UNH with its shares down, I don't know, something like 350 or 400 points from the high. >> Yeah. >> Was something like 2500 Dow Jones Industrial points. >> So, that really hurt it. That's pretty good day. That's why it was up hundreds of points on on Friday. The Dow was up what 400 points on Friday or Monday? Whatever the day was. Whatever. I forgot what day it was. >> It was Monday. >> It was Monday. Yeah. >> Was it Monday? >> Yeah, I think so. >> So, this is a vote of confidence for United Healthcare. You know, even though these, you know, you got a Buffett, you got a Michael Bur, and you got a a David Ter popping in. I mean, they're definitely bottom fishing. They're going to the the reason stocks move on something like that. You got a guy like David ter that people, you know, think is great. Bury. Wow. You know, he's a short guy. He's going to go into something long. That's wonderful. And Bergkshire, you know that. What does Bergkshire do? They They just buy a stock and what's the next thing they do? They >> They sit on it >> and then they buy more >> and they buy more >> if they if they feel like it. Yeah. >> And 20 years later, they're buying more. >> Yeah. >> So, it's not like they're trading. Temper may trade. Bur may trade a little bit more, but they have a lot of uh desire. And they and they do they they pop stuff. So this vote of confidence is pretty good. These these backers um oh here's some more bottom fishing getting busy. The first at first the US government teased about taking uh 10% stake in Intel. >> Yeah. >> After all the other that thought that was the deal. Now, Soft Bank is initiating a $2 billion investment. Soft Bank is not seeking board seed or committing to buying any Intel chips. This was a direct capital infusion. >> Yeah. That jacked the stock up today. >> Mhm. >> Along with the 10% in government buy in. Uh most people see that as um it's not going to help unless they know something we don't know, which is quite possible that Intel has a has a product. It's waiting in the wings finally. This would be a a surprise for everybody since they most people keep pretty careful tabs on Intel, but they could have a product waiting in the wings that could come out and you know be a AI product, which is where they dropped the ball. They dropped the ball on a lot of stuff and there's more of them. I think what this is is a clawback of the chips act because now all of a sudden >> the 10% is the 10% amount amounts to a clawback >> right because even what what Lutnik said today let you know uh >> you're not just giving money away >> the chips act yeah gave money away um you know what we're going to do for that money that we're giving them I think it was about10 billion $10 billion that'll give us about 10 give us 10% for the company that we'll continue on or else you So to continue on getting your chips act grants that were agreed to already by the way because I don't know about you contracts don't mean anything anymore. >> No >> meaningless that we shook hands signed in ink signed in blood agreed in front of the entire country and was originally presented and agreed to by lawmakers by the way but that doesn't mean anything meaningless. What means something is now we're going to tell you that that10 billion dollar grant that you had to build that factory to employ 10,000 people to have all these chips development and manufacturing in the United States. You know what that grant that we were going to give you to help with that whole thing? That's great. But you're going to give us 10% of the company. Could you imagine now all these other companies that shook hands to rebuild increase manufacturing and were given a a a helping hand by the government are going to be like uh what now I got to give up my company for that. Howard Lutnik also mentioned that this possibly this this this deal this this structure could possibly extend to other chips acts companies and recipients as well. >> Yep. He that's what he did. >> How what about if these companies say you know what thank you so much and they decide that they're not giving up their company. They're not giving up a piece of their stock for that. They could have easily gone to the secondary market. It's no longer a grant. Now they're paying for it. It's one thing when the government's giving away money. Imagine if if if I'm the government John, I want to let you know that uh you are the proud you know your podcast, John, is going to get $10,000 as long as you pay us back $10,000. Like there's no there's no grant there. >> Yeah. >> I think this is ex and it smells a lot like extortion. >> Well, where's the extortion? I mean, how does it smell like extortion? Sounds like a switcheroo. It sounds like bait and switch to me. >> Well, how would you define extortion? Is if you don't do this, you're not going to get that. If you if you do this, we're going to we're going to do something bad to you. >> Yeah. If you take the money, we're going to take a piece of your company. >> Well, if you gave them money and bought a piece of the company straight up, you would get a piece of the company that way. >> But that wasn't the deal that was cut. The deal was >> the deal actually cut. Do we know the details of the the quote unquote cut of the deal? My understanding when I looked it up was that the government uh provided specific grants through the chips act in order to build and help build and bring manufacturing back here for security purposes and for um the advancement of employment. That's my understanding. I mean chips is a thing. >> Yeah, it is a thing. But it doesn't mean that they uh they're giving away the store. I think they just they just it just it's like you got a new administration. They don't like the old chips act and they're going to uh change the rules. >> That's great. Was the chips act question. Was the chips act approved by Congress and ratified by the president? >> I'm assuming it was. Yes. >> So now you have a law that was put on the books, not a an executive order. You have a law that was put on the books, >> right, >> to reverse that law. >> But there has to be No. Yeah. But but the law the law itself probably has some uh control mechanism within the law as to how the money would be dispersed. It just this just doesn't show up as a check in the mail. Uh there has to be, you know, somebody who who's the check go to who's going to disperse the check, who's signing the check, and how much do they get all at once. There's all these rules that will be in the bill, which I'm sure was not a small bill cuz none of these things are anymore. And so they looked at the bill and they said, "Well, this is interesting. We can do it this way and this is how we're going to do it." >> Maybe I'd be hardressed to believe uh and I I I could be shot down on this. I >> Well, they can be sued. I mean, the law there'll be a suit over this, I'm sure. Uh will Intel sue them to get their money? >> I I don't know. >> Would you take a chance and do that if you were the CEO of Intel and you've already screwed up left and right? Now you're going to sue my concernation. It's not just Intel. Now they're talking about this kind of plan with other >> Yeah. No, that's what he said. He said, you know, just give money giveaway is no good. We want to if we're going to just give money away, why don't why don't we get some equity? That's basically what he said. The whole point was a basic sweetener to build prop to build >> uh manufacturing or whatever you want to call it design whatever whatever the particular thing they do at these places was to build it here. >> Yeah. >> Now you could so screw that. Let's just keep it over there and keep my company. There's no incent it's supposed to be incentive. It was supposed to be incentive. >> Well, Intel could refuse the offer and they they're not forced. >> No, I agree. I agree. They say, "Oh, screw it. We don't need that. We're not going to do it anyway." And they're not going to do it anyway. They can't They've already got some I could forget the name of the process. They have a They have a fab that they can't get any business for. They're losing money on their fabs. They They're They've gone from a the top chip company in the world to to a bunch of incompetent boobs. And, you know, so we're going to just start throwing money at them. And they've already shown that they can't do well with the money they have except make processors. I wonder if this is also Lutnik's uh way of essentially taking, you know, the rings off the finger of a dying man here. >> Well, there's that that that's Yeah, maybe. But the Soft Bank guys don't think so. >> So, I mean, you got to consider why why are they putting a couple of billion into the company out of the blue? Yeah, >> there may there's there's something there's a piece of this puzzle that's missing. The way I see it, something's up. >> Yeah. >> And that's why the government wants 10% of it there. That maybe Intel's about the on the verge of something major. >> I personally don't think so, but it's possible. >> Yeah, it's possible. Uh >> I mean, the last the last products they tried to do, they have ever since their 8080 or actually let's start with the 404 chip. They've tried to get out of the out of the rut they're in by with a 432 chip and then the Itanium if you remember that and all these different things they tried to do and every time they try to do something different uh away from the uh x86 instruction set processor chips they fail with consistency. >> Crazy. >> You know they had one of the first neuron network chips. This was back in the day. this in the early ' 80s. The neuron networks are what literally power the AI revolution. >> Neural or neuron? >> Neural. >> Neural. Yeah. Okay. >> Neural networks are in between the large language model and the user. And they're the ones that that's that in between middle used to be called middleware, but that's what it amounts to. Uh that says, well, let's see. We can take this data and put together a presentation for this guy who's asking for something. uh based on this huge pile of data we got in the back here and uh Intel was ahead of the game with neural networks and they made a chip which I coincidentally have a copy of. They which is in the drawer somewhere. Uh they made a neural network chip and then they dropped the ball on that and they never p proceeded. >> Yeah, not good. Should have stopped then. just just handed over everything to somebody else and said, "All right, you just just do this. We we can't obviously this is going to be bad for a long time." You know, uh let's talk about uh sovereign wealth fund Saudi Arabia 8% write down that they took recently biggest I think ever on a decline in investment in giga projects. Now these giga projects you have to understand in in these countries whether it's uh Qatar, Saudi Arabia, you know, you look around that region, they build these cities and uh these entertainment complexes and the urban parks and urban redevelop. We're not talking about a little something something. We're not talking about corner park with a couple of basketball hoops with no no nets. We're talking about big stuff. Indoor skiing, you know, indoor >> Yeah, they have indoor skiing in a couple >> stuff like that. So in Dubai and all um I guess they're slowing down on on some of that stuff has become a problem is uh the the even though their assets under management climbed 19% from the end of 23 to 93 billion which is making it one of this the sovereign wealth fund is is one of the largest and fastest growing sovereign wealth funds on the planet. the investment portion of the fund, which which explains a lot of why stocks keep going up. You have a sovereign wealth fund that's being fed with an unlimited money source and they have to go find investments out there. What are they doing? They're buying the Intels. And how much are they buying? As much as possible without blowing it up, right? >> On a daily basis. They're buying Microsoft. Same question, same answer. And the list goes on and on and on. And if that doesn't work, they're just going to buy the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100. So, if you're wondering, if anybody's wondering at all, why is the stock market going up, if they don't care what money value they use to buy a valued uh product, you know, if you if you have if you have $10 million in your pocket somehow and you go into a dollar store, are you going to quibble over something? You probably just buy whatever you want, right? Even if in a dollar store sore all of a sudden someone something's marked at $2. Are you going to be upset? No, you're going to buy it. Same thing goes here. So we got a PE forward of 23, you know, 100 on this stock, 85 on that stock. Historical norms going to pay 85 years worth of profits for that stock. Seems reasonable. Seems reasonable. They'll grow into it. So that's what's going on with regard to some of the reason why stocks keep going up. You got things like this, the Saudi, the Norwegian. That's also why well different reason break for a second. This is something that President Trump has talked about creating a sovereign wealth fund. If you think about that s uh for one m moment, what a great backs stop safety net just talking about that for the US stock market. >> Well, you think it's a ploy? >> Of course. And if it's not a ploy, it's just a good way to keep the markets up. Even just talking about it, >> I'm not sure how they fund it, what they do. >> He's done a pretty good job of keeping the markets up. >> Yep. No question about that. Uh, valuation evaluation. Open AI preparing to sell about $6 billion in stock as part of a secondary sale that would value the company at roughly 500 bill. The old 500B's company's preparing to sell um this from shareholders etc. So kind of a liquid liquidity event. Cool. Japan's stock market economy uh their economy expanded at.3% in the second quarter uh outpacing the forecast. Last quarter was a contraction so they are not in an official recession >> yet. >> Yet David Rosenfeld. Uh that's not him. You don't know him. Let's try that again. Cut. Take two. David Rosenberg. He is a guy that was very famous. a whining I believe Canadian uh during the financial crisis. He's one of the guys that called it and stayed on that train for a long time. How bad everything was, how awful it was, even though things are getting better. He is a negative Nelly and uh he tries every once in a while to be positive. But his latest I think I think this was a writing he put he says quote guess what the biggest driver of the stock market rally has been? leverage for the first time ever. He says margin debt has topped $1 trillion and has ballooned 25% over the last year, which forget about that he's negative. If that's true, that's a lot. So once again, where is the money coming from? People are now borrowing against their stocks to lever up to buy more of the stocks. one bad sign >> oneif of all the leverage supporting the stock market has been built up in just the past year alone almost half of the outstanding margin debt has come in the past five years alone I don't that that I don't that doesn't bother me as much I mean that you have all that debt is a lot but what what bothers me is the quick buildup because the quick buildup could turn into a quick build down you bother me >> what goes up fast comes down fast >> the other stuff takes a while to unload and unravel. But the M2 money supply has also been increasing dramatically lately. That's the money in in cash and in money markets and and certain savings accounts and things. Why is that? Where does that come from? Often that comes from um usually money that's being put in savings slash oftentimes government spending. >> That's what I see. Uh, quickly, fast casual. You want to talk about this? Uh, fast casual dining. >> Yeah. >> One of your favorites. >> McDonald's stock is up. >> Yep, it is. It's done a very good job. They came They brought back their their uh $5 meals. >> Yeah. Well, there still the food is I I used to do I say this on the show about once every six months because I used to do a uh quarterly analysis of their food for the No Agenda show. I'd have a, you know, I'd have the fries and a Big Mac, I think, generally. And I more recently, I can't eat, I can't finish a The food is not edible. >> If you had a choice, if you had a gun to your head, two questions. One, Big Mac or Whopper? >> Whopper for sure. >> Okay. McDonald's French fries or Burger King French fries? I if you haven't had Burger King French fries recently, you don't know what what's going on because Burger King has done something new, something different, and their French fries are absolutely dynamite. The the the McDonald's French fries have gone downhill about starting some decades ago when they stopped using the same cooking oils. They used to use tallow or something that made it crispy. They're they're just soggy and limp. They're no good. That's no good. >> I haven't had either in in a long long long time, so I couldn't >> try if you get a chance. I don't get them normally because they're too expensive, but Burger King has gotten for some reason a terrific French fry that they make. >> Is it a batter? Is it Is it semi- battered? >> No, it's just I don't know if if it's the potatoes they're using or the temperature they're cooking at or if they're double frying. I'm not sure, but they they're they're extremely crispy and uh and well done. They're just perfect. They're maybe a little harder than I like, but they're not they're good. >> Well, one of your favorite companies, one of your favorite food sources that is not really is Chipotle, >> right? I've never eaten there. >> Being hit by consumer slowdown on Cava. Have you been to Cava? >> I've never seen a Cava. >> Cava is a a fast casual Mediterranean. There's I don't I haven't seen any down here either. They came as an IPO not too long ago. Uh Kava stock pumped uh 16% uh last Wednesday, making it the latest fast casual chain to feel Wall Street's wrath after reporting disappointing quarterly sales so far in 2025. Shake Shack falling 16%. >> You're a favorite. >> Yeah, I'm not a big fan. Uh it's just it's just first of all, you want a greasy, disgusting, like put in your face burger. All right, I'm all over it. Pricing wise, I'm not. Although, Five Guys, have you been to a Five Guys lately? >> I haven't been to a Five Guys for decades. There's not none around here. >> I would highly recommend you go look in one. Just look at the prices before you're about to walk out the door because they're absurd. The cost of a burger is there. Absurd. >> It's like you're sitting in a fine restaurant ordering a burger. It's It's unbelievable. And people are buying. I'll take two of those. >> Give me an example of the price. >> I I I I I I we have to >> 15 bucks for a burger. >> Something like that. >> Five Guys burger prices. Yeah. Five Guys Burgers price value, but generally range from $9.50 to $15. The little burger. >> Wow. >> The little burger is like $9. Here. Here it is. Right here. I Here we go. Uh, the bacon cheeseburger is 1475. A cheeseburger. A cheeseburger. A cheeseburger. 1367. >> That's too high. >> You You order that from like a overeat or a GrubHub or something like that. You order uh uh Five Guys, let's just say a cheeseburger. Uh, the fries are $8 for a large fry and you get a drink that's $4. What do we got? 12. Uh, >> you get 12 25 32 bucks by the time it's delivered. >> For a bacon, fries, and a drink. >> For a burger, fries, and a drink. >> Yeah, >> that's just stupid. I literally walked in, I said, I was gonna actually get a burger. I'm like, there is not chance I'm buying this burger. And they're not big. They're not very And they're smashed. They're terrible. Anyway, Cava Stock dumped uh 60%. Uh there was a problem. So far in 2025, Shake Shack shares have fallen 16%. Chipotle down 28%. Cava 37 and Sweet Green down 70%. >> Wow. Yep. the one uh uh in this genre, not the McDonald's and Wingstop, Majesty in the Green with a gain of 20%. >> Huh. >> Pretty cool, huh? Pretty cool. Let's go to the game. 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 Cedavor may invest in any of the securities mentioned and we'll 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. All right, what do we got? Anything good? Run through it. Well, looks like uh you got locked out even before the thing showed up on the list. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Oh, that happened. >> Gone. >> Uh Southern Company's up. Uh we have a lot of insiders that Primo Brands is up. Dell, your pick, which is a killer pick. Good one, up 63%. That's the winner on this on the list. Uh and it's old. CVR Energy of course is up. Um, Chevron's up. That's That's good. Um, >> so many of your names compared to my names on this list. >> It was even dominating the whole thing. >> I don't know. It's your game. >> Well, it's just this is cyclical. What? And the next thing you know, these swap the other side the other way. >> Yeah. >> Uh, and more recently, my Apple's I'm surprised it didn't get kicked off. uh AP Mullet or that uh >> that's the the shippy one we put on last week. >> Yeah, that should hang in there, I hope. And then um then the one this Firefly thing just surprisingly >> gone. It's it's right now they're they attacked the uh high beta stocks in the last few days. >> So I have one for today. >> Yes. And this is based this is not a uh I don't know if you what was that stock that you had called that you know they they the FDA had said yeah you're no good and the company says well we're going to do it anyway and >> that was uh uh holy therap Oh no no that was SEPTA therapeutics. >> Yeah. Well I've got another one like similar. >> Uhhuh. >> Viking therapeutics. >> Yeah. Yeah. They got they got whacked. What is that? V >> VK I don't know what it is. VK >> NG >> VKTX I think. >> Yeah. Yep. That's it. It's uh currently trading at $2. >> So it was uh it's trying to do an and it's behind the it's behind the curve on this product because everyone else is doing this product which is the GLP1 oral uh uh medicines, >> right? >> Which I think are you have to have there's got to be money in the bank. Uh because everyone's gone nuts over this stuff until somebody figures out it's not really healthy. Um and they can't seem to come up with the right dosage. they failed a test and the stock got slammed as you noted and it's possible that the apologist for the company say well it's because the tests weren't done right and maybe had the wrong dosage and you you know so we got to start over there. So, I give it one of those I give it one of those bounceback. Um, >> it's down 42% today, right? >> It was down. >> Yeah, that's down. >> I've decided to kind of wrap the show around to catch a falling knife. >> Yes, you are definitely catching a falling knife. That's awesome. I like it. Well, hopefully you have one of those uh stainless steel shark gloves on. So, that's good stuff. >> All right. Go take a look at the picture that I sent. They'll send you another one of the uh stripe marlin. >> All right. >> All right. Have a good one. >> Sounds a good winner. All right, bye. >> See you. >> 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 pockets there's a dent. 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. 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 Horowis 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. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Horowits Company is properly registered or is excluded from registration requirements. Any mention of thirdparty companies, products, or services is provided forformational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement. 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