DHUnplugged #794: It’s A Drone World After-All

Summary

Exploring Bogus oil prices Hold cow – look at what Gemini and JSD can do… Markets needed good news – Correlation high Fed …

Transcript

Hello and welcome to D'vorak Horowits 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. [music] This conversation is casual and unrehearsed. Let's join John and Andrew now. [music] >> Hi, I'm John Esavorak, the understudy. I'm still here. [laughter] >> The understudy? I'm Andrew Horowitz. I don't think so. You got your right rightful place here. Uh I'm Andrew Horowitz. How are you, man? It's uh Tuesday at 3:17. It is St. Patty's Day in most of the world. Most people are enjoying their uh hopefully a little bit of corn beef cabbage, a little bit of vibrer, and what is it? Killian's Red or something delicious. Maybe a a Guinness and a Jameson. You know what? I John, have you been to um Ireland? >> I I've never been to Ireland. I I I'm very uh I admire their corporate taxes. >> Yeah. Well, the lack of [laughter] and that's why we saw those reverse mergers over the years and people going over there and doing some amazing things particularly the healthc care companies back what was it like 20 years ago >> and Ireland did an amazing job at um creating a haven for corporations which of course brought in a terrific economy right yeah that was great smart of them we get pissed off like look what they're doing come on great great job applaud They've they've also had some good companies like the Square, which did start here, is uh the uh at heart an Irish company >> now called Block. >> Block. >> That's Square. Um I'm thinking of Stripe. >> Stripe. Yes, Stripe is great. >> Stripe is an amazing >> Yeah, they're great. Everything about them, even technically >> cool stuff. Uh let's talk about what's going on tonight. I'll give you a little bit of a rundown of some of the things we're talking about. We're going to talk about the bogus oil prices. We're going to look at Gemini and what uh John S. Dorak JC can do with it. And it's pretty amazing stuff. We have some links in the show notes that we'll talk about as well as the table and the what we're calling that the the the dashboard. I guess the work it's a toy. It's a it's a model. It lets us see uh how how unlucky and unfortunate Singapore is. >> Yeah. No kidding. Uh markets needed good news and they got it. Correlations are high. They got some okay news, which is good enough for markets to believe there was actually good news. The Fed out with their rate decision tomorrow on Wednesday, the 18th of March, just by the way, two days away from my birthday. Thank you very much. >> Happy birthday. >> Yeah, I'll be turning another year. And uh you cannot let me forget because I forgot last time. We for we forgot. I have a limmerick. You know, if you listen, John, you've listened to the show for years. We do limicks. We do fed limicks. We have some fun with it. We grade it. Your [clears throat] dad would um come on and and we'd read it and I would step over myself all the time. Somehow I could read long paragraphs without flaw. A limmerick. Not good. Not good. Um and he would rate them and usually give them a pretty piss poor rating. But speaking about your dad, John C. D'vor, give us the latest update. >> Well, he's uh probably coming back on the show next Tuesday. He's uh finally being uh uh dispatched, what is it called? Released >> uh tomorrow. >> Um which is a nice change of pace because he is very tired of the food at that hospital as well as the the television options. >> I talked to him last week last on Saturday I think it was. >> Yeah. >> He called from an unknown first of all my phone didn't respond because it was silenced as it was an unknown phone number. So I don't know where he called from. Maybe he picked up the phone. >> It was a bunker. It was a bunker deep underground. >> Yeah, I think so. Safe. >> He called me and he and he apologized to me and I'm like, "What? What? What are you apologizing?" It was kind of like, it's funny, you know, he was I get it. I get it. You know, you get ill and all that and you don't want people around you to feel the pain, >> but uh that was pretty close to the most emotional attachment and closeness I've ever felt for John. >> Oh, yeah. I think it's >> So does vulnerability. >> Uh yeah, it does exist. [laughter] We just have to take out a couple of aortas and >> yeah, I just had to just mix it around a little bit. Just uh scramble them up. [laughter] >> We're also going to talk about uh the markets, did we just correct? That's a question I was thinking about because >> in the new markets, a correction is like 3%. Historically, the >> what do I got? 10% is the real number. The whoever made this up, uh they wanted a round number. So 10% is considered a correction. 20% is considered a bare market. But that was the numbers we saw for years. Maybe this 3, four, 5% dip of small caps down seven, internationals down nine from the peak. Uh came back up a little bit from there last few days as uh the dollar weakened a bit. Oil just kind of hovered. Didn't move move that much higher. Clipped 102 over the weekend. came back down to about 95 then 94 uh with with no real palpable change in what's going on in in uh the the Straits of Hormuz which by the way the Straits of Hormuz not straight at all. >> Oh no no it's uh uh but it's in the closet. >> It's like a boomerang. It's like the boomerang. >> Yeah. Uh did you see the jet fuel prices? >> Oh my. Talk about that. That unbelievable, right? >> Yeah. uh it certainly doesn't uh tell the same story as crude. >> So so tell is is it >> so one big difference is like so we got like three weirdnesses going on. One is uh the price of oil over in the straight is a fair deal higher than it is on paper, >> right? >> Um last I checked it was like 140 versus what is it? 90 right now. >> 95 something like that. >> Well WTI Brent was still like 102. >> Yeah. Uh but the in the price in in the straight is was north of 140 when I checked yesterday I believe. >> Um and it's probably higher today. Um or maybe a little bit lower because Iran is sending tankers out. >> Um and then and then also uh uh we have tankers coming through now but only if the deal was not done with the petro dollar. Uh so there was a couple Chinese tankers that got through specifically because they said, "Hey, hey, we're doing the with the >> What are they doing? flying a flag or something saying, "Hey, we're paying what the they put a big, you know, yuan flag up or something." >> It goes all through radio conversations. >> Oh, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. >> And then China is heavily dependent on Iran's oil. So, they may have worked out a deal by just commun, you know, just chatting. They already have uh sort of trade agreements and they are also working on a pipeline together. So, it would make sense that they could say, "Hey, uh we won't we're not helping the US. just let us we'll we'll we'll we'll settle this with Dwan. Uh let's just let's just get this thing through. Um the Chinese uh social media is full of videos right now of uh uh people crews that are just complaining. Like there's if you look through um I mean you're going to have to use like a translator. you translate to like straight up for moves to Chinese and then search that for video content and you'll have a lot of people complaining about how they're stuck there and they want to go on the other side and they weren't planning to be on a ship this long cuz the conversations are going on that it might be months. So, uh, if they can just get this get around it by not going via petrod dollar, then that would help the like Iranian strategy, um, and certainly piss off America. >> But, you know, it's interesting. Think about that for a second. So, this is people who are feeling like that COVID shut in when they were stuck on the bush. Remember all the people? We had people here. I would fish off the coast of Fort Lauderdale and we'd see all the Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Lines and the Princess. They're all sitting out there anchored. All these people are stuck on the boat, mostly crew. And we would go around and they'd be the shouting at us and, you know, asking us to somehow I don't know what what do you do? Jump in the water, we'll pick you up. I don't know. You know, it's a long way down. But if you think about that and and the the the post-traumatic stress disorder that you'll get from being shut in, trapped, are you going to want to get back on for another ride on the other side? Well, there was um uh there was talk of trying to maybe fly them out, but that won't work either because you still need to man these ships. You can't just let them go. So, these companies are in a situation where they can't really let them, you know, you can't be like, "All right, everybody, you got shore leave for the next 6 months, >> right?" No, but I think this is going to cause a problem for the crew or crew in general that would be like shell shock. They don't want to get on, first of all, they don't want to get on a boat because they're afraid that maybe they're going to get killed. Number one, >> they don't want to get on a boat because maybe they're afraid that they're going to have to be stuck. And that bears another good question. These are big ships, of course, with incredible galleys and and storage facilities. But if they didn't plan on going this long, what are they doing for food and things of that nature? Water. Water's not a problem. >> They have reverse osmosis. They have water makers. That's not a problem. electricity probably not a problem. They have uh limited use of electricity for basic uh things. They're charging batteries. They have generators. Obviously, the generators need fuel. Hopefully, they won't run out of that. They probably won't because they store a good amount of that. So, it's really the food issue now. Maybe they can fish. They could do but probably not. >> And probably not. >> Probably not. So, so they're bored as hell. They're, you know, they're they're stuck on this this boat with a bunch of people that, you know, may or may not be friends and they miss their family. They're probably still getting paid. The ships, of course, are having to bear the brunt of the cost. It's it's a real It's a disaster. >> It does make me wonder, are there any cruise ships in the area? >> I mean, no, they're not. No, >> I mean, there are Dubai has a like the There is I believe cruise cruises that do go through that region. There are, but uh the cruise ships are having a bigger problem. They'd rather stay off right now because the fuel costs are killing them. >> Right. Right. Yeah. >> That's a real problem. I mean, the airlines came in now, American Airlines came out today with a good uh outlook, which I thought I thought No, excuse me, it was Delta. Delta came out with a good outlook today, which I thought was really fascinating because the airlines have been down anywhere from 15 to 20% this year. Most of that happened over the last month and a half. There's concern about a slowing economy. There's concern about slowing business. And now this situation where people are going to be reluctant to travel >> because that's what happens especially into certain areas. Like who's flying into Dubai right now for a quick jaunt of a week vacation? Probably limited. >> The prices are amazing though. It's like $20 a night. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> But you know, and and of course $20 a night and that's in either your room or in the underground basement for the the the bomb shelter. Either one, they'll charge you the same. But now it's an experience. >> But yeah, experience a war like you've never seen it before in the luxury of Dubai. >> If their tourist uh board understands, they should definitely pitch that. >> So, let's talk about this. You you let's get back to the oil issue because you're talking about oil prices. You're using one of your father's favorite words is bogus >> and and family word. Um and and there's this active conversation that you were telling me about and this warning about manipulation of oil futures to manage the situation. All right. So uh they uh we have a couple interesting rumors that showed up in the news. One was uh the statement that they will not manipulate the futures which is uh it's odd to be told that. Um and the second one is is that the uh the futures are very strange. Like December was coming in at $70 right now. Um and when we look at the if we use a simple model that was devised back in like 2011 by CNA CNA which is the link the Gemini link where I just was like hey I just want this model printed out. Uh so this model is very is is very simple. So it is based on uh what's known as input output analysis which is um the assumption that the uh essentially production technologies are fixed in a short run of 90 days uh which means companies can't immediately switch over to an input and so the oil industry in particular has this specific input which is the crude and then from that we can assume a simple multiplier effect from like Keynesian ideas here where there's some sort of propensity to consume and that there's a knock-on effect to a slowdown of a given sector and then lastly that unemployment can be interpreted by something known as the Oakland's law which is that about 3% decrease in GDP leads to a 1% increase in unemployment and then last element to the whole ma magic of the math is that energy modeling form rule which is that oil prices rise by about5 to $6 for every million barrels of disruption. And so we have um we have 20 million barrels per day disrupted right now. And so when you do put all those numbers in, you don't get 90, >> right? >> You get and and it depends on what your expectation of how long this event is. You only get 90 if you think the market's going to be it's going to be resolved in one week, but it's already been more than one week. So, uh, if we assume I think most people can assume maybe like this has got eight more weeks left in it, the price should be around 148, which is also the price that we're seeing over in the straight. And so, what's the delta? What's causing this this gap? Um, is it uh like we really expect it to be resolved really fast or that or is the market assuming that we're about to flood it with the SPR instead of let it, you know, like we instead of just going, hey, we're going to release, you know, 20 extra million every day, we're going to we're going to release 40 because f these people, we're just going to destroy the price. um or is what's happening is that they're selling futures uh on the market with the fact that they know it's backed by the SPR they can release. >> Yeah. I mean that that's an interesting thing. And then you also have the Russian tankers >> supposedly we you know I think this is fascinating the whole >> it's not the political discussion it's the war gamesmanship. >> Yes. >> Whereas we said hey UK Europe you guys you need to help us over in the Sea of Horus. you need this fuel also, you need this gas also, you need the oil. You get in there and help us and they're like, you know what? Uh, no. You know, you treated us badly with the ter maybe they're going to use this for this, I think, gives them a real up on the on the board for negotiation. You want us over there? >> Yeah. >> Okay. You know, remember those little tariffs that you put on us? Drop it. You know, we're not in the best bargaining position. and we pissed off a lot of people around the world. But the thing is that you talked about something very important. Then we're going to get to the model in a second. I want to talk about that and we're going to talk about manipulation. So there's a lot that we're going to unpack here. Current oil prices 95 bucks round number. Okay. December contract currently trading as you said in the 70s about $75. That is a term something we're going to teach right now called backwardation. >> Yep. >> Backquidation is the concept that the future price of the oil and that's what they call futures, right? You're buying the future something. The future could be higher, it could be lower. Often times the future of oil is that it's somewhat higher than it is today. That's the concept. That is the normality. That's what's called that the futures are what's called contango. I don't even know where they got these words from. But contango is the normalized way that futures work that somewhere in the future it's going to be somewhat more expensive. It could be just a small amount. And there's in lies where a lot of people lose money in commodities. By the way, John, >> they buy commodity funds. And most commodity funds are just buying futures back with treasuries, back with tips, treasury inflation, protected securities >> as the baseline because you always have to have collateral against the futures contract. And what they do is they buy and by the way, we did this for for many many years too because there was really no good way to get good futures exposure except for doing this. And what we [clears throat] did was we would buy the front contract, current contract. And when it rolled, what happened was you're paying usually a lower price for it hoping for it to, you know, you buy the price and the hope is for in the future it's worth more, right? But the fact is you roll it and you got to pay a higher price usually and then it comes down. It just never really worked, right? The contango model of that really benefits the old bid and ask concept. you know, you buy something lower, um, you hope to and you sell it higher. But the bid ask concept is you're usually buying at the ask. You're banging at the price that somebody else will sell it to you and then when you sell it, you're selling at the lower price. Same concept to a degree, a little bit warped. But with contango, backwardation is the opposite. You you're you're buying the future at a lower price. You're buying a $75 will be in December. Now, if it spikes up, of course, it's still the December contract. It's got to adjust. That's where we are now. The idea is just to put a fine cap on what you were saying. The most people think that not only will this be over in relatively short order, it will be orderly. It will be organized. It will be non It will be not lasting very long. And September is not that long away. It's going to go down to $75. Mind you, a $75 is still not a normal price. It's still elevated compared to where it was in the we'll say low 60s something like >> well we also like there's some arguments that can make this make sense I think like for instance there is demand destruction if we keep going up >> correct of course >> and we already see that with the uh with two different forces one is we have uh the the cost of jet fuel um and then we also have the fact that uh we might not release the uh strategic reserve as strongly like we can we can a little slower which will keep the price up too high and we'll have to start pulling it back with less shipping and less movement of goods. And we already see in Asia they're trying to switch over to a 4-day work week to try to and that's [clears throat] already demand destruction. They're already trying to switch down to using less electricity and less power for their just dayto-day. So a sort of uh a lockdown just like co >> you know the the the the problem we have here is that no one knows. I think the reason why and yes I think the SPR release is something uh the idea that we we have a war that is I x number of days to go is preposterous now but but that's what they're trying to that's what they're trying to say to us and I think that is tamping down the average person saying well you know what at any point really because we we know there's a lot of uncertainty when it comes to our particular uh government body these days that they may say you know what tired of the war. Let's move on, you know. Let's let's attack hot dogs. Let's let's tell hot dogs should be made with the much better with natural casing. Get all, you know, out presidential order to outlaw uh artificial casings. >> Yeah. And move on. >> Yeah. So, here's what's happening. Gas prices. Uh there's a table here. We're going to look at show notes for episode number 794 on dhunplug.com. and um gas prices on January 1st to March 16th in various cities. You see that link there? M we're talking about Chicago and from uh 295 on average on January 1st up to 365 a gain of about 23%. The highest is in your neck of the woods, 31%. >> Yep. >> And uh where's Miami? 24% right in the middle. So California of course up the most with Los Angeles lowest is what? Seattle of 21%. Uh but generally speaking, what of we'll call it what average 25 26%. >> Yeah, it's like 24 or something. >> So that that's a big problem because that's where the lasting issue comes in. The demand destruction that you talked about. >> Yeah. Which can uh which can cause all sorts of very funny shapes in the in the curves, >> right? But we also have a slowdown in business anyway by just increasing flight prices because uh businesses business runs on top of flights. That's where all the meetings are done. Is this actually a good thing, do you think, for a company like Zoom? From from an investor sentiment standpoint, looking for alternatives to higher prices, if they're not doing the meetings, they're not going to stop doing meetings. Yeah, it's true. It's just sales guys hate Zoom. Um uh it probably will be helpful for Zoom, but how much more how many more customers can Zoom get? like it they don't make more money from more calls. They actually their costs increase. What they the the ideal scenario for Zoom is that people every company has Zoom subscribe and they have the big expense of professional uh you know enterprise edition and then they never use it because that keeps the cost down. Uh having the cost usage go up is just it's going to nick into their into their model. >> So >> like who doesn't have Zoom like Good point good point good point. And and if you don't have Zoom, you have Teams. >> Yeah. Which means I mean Microsoft's always a good uh good sale. >> Yeah. Just to to put uh some some rubber on the road when it comes to what's happening on the start of the world war in March, give or take March 2nd, Zoom was $72.72. >> Mhm. >> Today it's $72.79. So not moving. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, it's not. It's not going to move anyway until we see I can see the masses think that Zoom is going to go up. Um but it's not going to happen until people start saying, "Oh yeah, we're not we're cancelling flights." So like uh at a lot of companies they uh during CO they actually just said no more no travel like we're just not traveling anymore, right? >> And then when we had uh certain um spikes right after CO that was also very common as a way to control costs. It's just like no nothing unless it's approved by like an L like high level ranking at uh leadership. [snorts] So, if we see the same thing happen because, you know, flight prices double again, then we could see Zoom go up because people will think, "Oh, I know they're going to zoom more." >> Yeah. >> Let's talk about and get through this because uh we can uh talk about this, but I want to talk about the Trump administration. You touched on this about the idea of potential manipulation of oil prices and particularly of selling the futures. We talked about that and when you said they, I think you were talking about the US administration. So the US would just sell future contracts and deliver those price at the end of the contract date. Maybe utilizing oil from the SPR, maybe Venezuela, but then you'd have to there's different oil there. But okay, so we do something like that. So the when I when when when we initially brought this up as a topic to talk about tonight, I was thinking about it. You know, it reminds me of first of all, the government has a very heavy hand. They leave a very large footprint on whatever they touch. And um do you remember back in 2008 >> when they decided to get involved in making sure the the financial system didn't just topple and and they did something. One of the things they did was for a short period of time they they banned short trading, short selling of financial uh firms. the City Banks back then it was the the the Meil Lynches uh Layman all the ones that were pretty much going out of business right and um Bear Sterns and markets said really they really I think that was a signal that things are a lot worse than is being presented stock prices continued to fall during the ban tended to only stabilize after the ban was lifted suggesting of course and that the ban didn't stop the decline So I guess government intervention in this level would just solidify that there are a lot of problems. What what do you think? >> Well, I think that they have almost certainly learned from showing their hand too early. Uh we saw um or we saw like a lot of activity happen around what was it right around um I feel like last Trump administration we ended up seeing a lot of funny business that was happening right in the beginning of COVID to try to like keep things from going to circuit breaker right >> I'm trying to remember what it was >> um >> there was a lot of things there was just a billion things they were they were talking about you know shutting things down not shutting things down they talked about stimulus in the beginning making sure that you only certain thing and then they just shut they said they weren't till the last second they said they weren't shutting down the country. >> Yeah. Yeah. So like there were so just recently there have been large whales that have been buying futures. Um is in very strange positions such as uh let me get it again. Um >> you're talking about you're talking about oil futures. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Uh let me get the gossip I found. Um so a few different things. One that one thing couple things we learned from 2007208 the government has more than the simple tool of using you know the big hand of changing the laws and like banning shortselling. They also have the ability to just call up large financial institutions and demand them to take certain actions. >> Oh the pledge protection team. >> Yeah. >> Oh yeah. I remember the PPP. >> Yeah. Exactly. And so you don't need to necessarily see the US government try to mess with the oil futures market directly. It can just simply say, "Hey, uh, how I hope you want to have a nice next few quarters because here's what you're going to do." >> Um, and this is what your desks need to do. And you could do that fairly cheaply first. You don't have to do any of the big heavy-handed stuff. And that is enough to move the market because you just ask demand the market makers to shift. We see um uh is it Citadel that's currently being investigated for uh >> everybody's being investigated. >> So there's a that's a pretty useful tool if you are, you know, uh inspired a little bit from mafia movies. You can go and say, "Oh yeah, it looks like you're being investigated. You know what you need to do? You need to buy a ton of oil futures, >> right? Little little little greasy leverage." >> Yeah. And so that >> buy You want to buy some protection? >> Yeah. This looks like you're going to have a pretty bad time with the courts. [laughter] You know, let's uh you know what would make it a lot easier? >> Yeah. >> Is if uh oil oil doesn't go up because if it goes up, it makes it look like Iran is winning and we need to not have them think this is working. >> I really I really hope listen I really hope that it doesn't get to the the point where you you see that right now because that kind of stuff backfires badly. >> Yes, it does. >> And it really >> there's a lot of things that would be bad. >> Yeah. But the fact that we see the oil price is so different means there's some thesis that I'm not familiar with which seems to be thinking and oil guys are not dumb. They don't generally seem to be a dumb crowd for like they're the ones who could sniff out the co thing really fast and we're like yeah that's zero do that's negative. We're not touching it. Um and they do that very fast. So they're either well aware that this does wrap up in a week um which is what the pricing seems to imply or that we don't have information right now and it's distorted and the only reason why we have the prices of we're only getting price information from cases where the material the actual molecule has to be delivered such as in jet fuel and in the actual tankers those prices matter and they you know you have to have the jet fuel to go into the airplane. >> Yeah. And and then we also know from like how much Asia will pay for it because they need it. >> Yeah. Yeah, and there's some talk about I was listening to some fascinating discussion about a new hub and smoke spoke model that's maybe having to be uh dealt with where India is going to actually export some of the oil they have coming in to place like Singapore to Vietnam and to other places that don't have any production and how this may be a new thing for diversification because a lot of players are like wait just like after co remember after co what the big thing was it was like wait wait wait wait wait >> where wait where are we getting our stuff China wait a second they're closed what do YOU MEAN THEY'RE CLOSED CLOSED. It's the same kind of thing. We're getting our oil from over. Oh, what do you mean they're closed? And all of a sudden, we shifted. What do we do? We started doing our production in place like Indonesia, in Vietnam, in Cambodia. We we started looking at other emerging market areas, particularly in Asia, other areas to diversify away from China because never again was it going to be allowed for this to happen, >> right? So, we can we can possibly see that happening right now as well. So the his what we were doing for the since the first Gulf War was the movement of a of a strategy of empire that was based on choke points. If we control all the choke points, it'll be fine. And then I think what we're learning since co is that the choke points are also Achilles heels and maybe we need to actually not have them. >> Exactly. Exactly. This reminds me though of uh how we're not allowed to take water bottles into the airports because well two things. one because they found somebody had a water bottle and had something in it on the plane. But of course, they decided it was also profit model that they could make you jump your water beforehand and then have to buy water once you get inside. >> Yeah. It's a trillion dollar industry, I'm sure. [laughter] >> But this is the same kind of thing. It's like we we only did this after the fact. After the fact, we decided that oh, look at this. Look at all these chips. Never. No. Nobody of all these smart guys and gals that are talking all this stuff, nobody said, you know, it looks like we could have a real problem if this happens. Whatever. >> What's happening also is we have some things going on with um economics right now. Inflation. We saw last Friday the PCE prices. >> This is I say this every time. You don't know I say this possibly or you do. This is the Fed's in uh preferred inflation, preferred uh index of inflation, their preferred guide, the preferred number. This is the uh the personal consumption expenditures by individuals basically was elevated, stayed about 3%. We can kind of go back and forth and look at it. It still is not inclusive of any of the oil. One of the interesting things is with this num this decision coming tomorrow, I don't think the Fed's going to move. I don't think until uh the next Fed chief takes over that the Fed is really inclined to do anything right now. They're just in lame duck territory. And I think uh I think it's important to recognize that there's no reason to do so right now. One of the things that may happen is that there's going to be a lot of hair raising moments over the next couple of months when inflation comes in much higher than anticipated due to the higher cost of fuel. People are going to start getting crazy. Oh my god, the Fed's behind the curve again. Here's the problem. You talked about the the word that I think is really important. Demand destruction. The way to get higher the best way to uh fight higher prices is with higher prices. >> Yeah. >> Higher prices, but gets lower prices because people won't pay. You get higher prices is going to slow down something. It's going to slow down the consumption of fuel or it's going to slow down consumption of goods. People can't afford it. They're going to make decisions on what to buy. And the Fed would be making an epic mistake if they looked at this and said, "Oh, we have inflation. We need to tighten right now. They need to start thinking about keeping things where they are and I'm reversing some of the things that I talked about before this. Before I thought they had to stay stay pat that inflation was going to move higher. Now, I think that the general concept of a war and higher prices as we've seen the spike in oil is actually a negative to the economy and the Fed needs to reverse any thought of of of of a tighter policy and go towards a more dovish stance. >> Can they >> can they they just don't do anything right now? I think they just don't do anything. No, I mean can I mean can they I don't know if they if they could like if they were to like there's a lot of danger if they were to just let's say just cut rates um especially if the war is about to end in a week, >> right? No, there's that's what I'm saying. And then and then we have inflation in there that's baked in. But I think that I we need to I hate to say what I'm about to say. Forgive me. Yeah, >> forgive me for this. I think potentially there's potentially this is a theory in motion. Okay. If oil prices are here comes the word transitory then you kind of have to look through that >> which I think that's what we're seeing and December prices and September prices. >> Yeah. And if that is the case you can't look at this as an inflationary predicament. I'm talking about the oil prices now. Forget about everything else. talking about just the oil, the component of inflation that is related to oil. You got to take that out of take this scrape that right out. >> Now people say, "What do you mean scrape it out? I pay for that." I get it. But the what that causes is is a slowdown in the economy more than the inflationary effect. Yeah. So, here's some economics that came out. There's a table again in the show notes. Episode number 794. By the way, when you're over in the show notes, while you're over on dhunplug.com, one of the things that you should be doing if you haven't done so already is the old slam that yellow button. And by the way, what happens this is pretty I don't know if you know this, this is pretty fascinating. When you hit that button, each time you hit it, it helps John C. D'vorah get better. The more you hit that button, I'm telling you, it like revives them. It's like blowing air into a balloon. It just it it just it gets stronger and stronger. It gets strength. So, go over there, hit the yellow button. It says donate. Donate to the show. If you want to have the the high quality product that we have that we haven't missed a beat, even though one of us is even out, go over to DH Unplugged right now. Donate to the show. Tell John how much you love him. And uh make it matter. Make it count. We thank you for your support. >> And for the gentle listeners, you don't need to slam it. You can just do a little light caress. >> Oh, the little O. Very nice. >> Little touch. >> It works just as well. >> Sometimes better. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Here's some of the notes. Uh the uh the the the notes on the economics that came out. We said durable goods orders actually at zero. Prior was down. So that's actually good. It probably blends out a little bit. Um personal income was up about 4/10en of a percent. Personal spending up 4/10en of a percent. Personal spending was actually a little bit higher than the forecast which was good. Prior was 4.4. Nothing's really changing here. If you look at all this, we go through all this. GDP second estimate was.7. The forecast was for 1.4. GDP is coming down a little bit. That's for the fourth quarter. Um and and um that's down more than it was anticipated. And the University of Michigan consumer sentiment, the preliminary for March, which is interesting, was 55.5. The prior was 56.6. not that far off with the fact that we've had this war. So, uh, economics still holding up, people are not feeling too bad. Uh, let's round out our oil discussion. Do you want to talk briefly about this link? There's a link also on the page right next to the caressing yellow button. Um, that uh it says JSD explains oil models. Very >> well. That was the model I just discussed. So, that was the um this is the model that's based on a paper from >> How did you do this? Can you tell me how you do this? Oh. Uh, so you can use Gemini if you pay for it and turn on its canvas. And the very simple trick is you go and grab something from like SRNN or any of the other nice papers on finance. Go grab one of them. They somebody's made some model some quant. This guy was, you know, giant glasses. Uh, and he wrote like, you know, 20 pages and it's got a bunch of, uh, equations in it and he back tested it and it's profitable or whatever. You go and grab that. You copy and paste it. You just copy and paste it and you throw it at Gemini and you say, "Hey, Gemini, can you make me a little can you make me a visualizer for this? Make me a little toy. Let me plug in variables and just make this." And you turn on the canvas which allows it to code and make stuff. And then you let her rip. Uh you wait a little bit and you come back uh have a nice little tea and it'll walk. You look into the sky, watch at the clouds. It takes a few minutes. You come back and you'll have some little custom bit of code that will let you play with that equation. And it saves you, if you can program, it saves you like seven hours of fudging finicky work with it. Um, and if you can't code, well, now you have a superpower. >> No, that's the point. That's what I'm trying to talk about here is I mean, seriously, you take what you take like say to you you could almost take like uh the black shores model and say, "Hey, make me a dashboard for this or something." >> Yeah, absolutely. That's a pretty common one. And you also can improve upon it because there are modifications to black shs. So for instance, uh there's a nice one which is uh one that identifies regimes. So the black trolls doesn't hold up when you're in a uh sort of when you have high synchronization of the buyer when the markets synchronizing. So when it starts oscillating together that people are starting to like uh think cult stocks or like GameStop uh or how crypto usually works the cult stocks they are no black trolls starts to uh misbehave because it assumes a more normal movement and doesn't assume correlation between the buyers so strongly but uh you can there's a black trolls extension that supports the idea of a different regime and that regime is like dragon king regime or also known as like stampede uh and you can basically improve the model. So you can get you can get models that you know you would pay a million dollars a year on some salaried quant to do and you can just uh spin it up and that's the uh that's the bare case for the professional uh class with AI. >> So this is again whether or not this is just very cool. I I lack a lack of better way to describe this. I'm sorry but basically you know I shared this is okay that I shared the link. >> Oh it's totally fine. Yeah it's fine. And I it's a shared public link. Uh there's two modes. I fixed it. So it's based on the CNA 2011 paper that's 88 pages long. By the way, it's the economic implications of disruption to maritime oil checkpoints. And we can thank uh the good William Komas and Lavar Hunzinger at at CNA analytics and solutions back in March of 2011. Uh and this was done for the US Navy. >> And what does the dynamic adaption do? I don't think it changes anything when it comes. So I fixed dynamic adaption is the fact that so if you turn on static it'll just you'll look at like unemployment will go to like 20% and GDP loss will just go down to like 60%. It's ridiculous. Dynamic adaption is based on another model which is that when you remove oil uh alternatives end up being developed. the market reacts and finds alternatives and so it doesn't so every additional week that you don't have access to this this oil uh the people reroute reroute around it we find new sources so like if this was about helium it would be about the fact that there's other helium sources they're not going to just buy stuff from the straight anymore they're going to try to get more American helium or African helium and so the the losses will stop off it'll stop the the the culture the the the national economy will stop being damaged by this loss and it will stop bleeding so hard if you don't have dynamic adaption we're assuming that it'll just keep getting worse forever. >> So how many of these things not to get off on a tangent here but how many of these kinds of canvases have you built? Oh. Uh, whenever I come across like a research paper and it seems interesting and I just want to see how it works, uh, I pro I just spin one up because it only takes a few minutes, >> right? Because you basically have it read it for you. >> Well, I read it first. I >> No, I get that. I get that part. I'm just saying but you have Gemini read it and say you you pull out the calculations, >> pull out the calculations in the model and let me play with the model to see if it makes sense because some of them don't. Some of them only make sense if you read it because they have very persuasive, you know, they're good writers, but if you actually put it up and you start putting in numbers and you play with it a little bit, you're like, this is ridiculous. Like for instance, uh why I added dynamic um adaptation to the model was just because there's no way you do not get 60% GDP loss in 16 weeks in Singapore. That doesn't make any sense. >> Mhm. Right. Interesting. >> Cool stuff. >> 14% maybe. >> This this I was blown away when I saw I thought it was really cool. By the way, I just thought there again, there's a lot of little Look, every time you push a button, things go a little wacko. >> Yeah, it's uh it's not it's uh this is the era where we all have McDonald's quality software. It's just uh it's fast food, but it works. >> It works. And I like how the charts smoothly adjust, by the way. >> Yeah, it's very smooth. You know, >> I didn't do any of that. I just I just I just complained to it and had it adaptable. >> No, I'm sure you could put say, you know what, do this and said, I want a bar chart. I want a 3D. You can probably say that in the background. I haven't seen what the actual canvas back looks like, you know, in the background. Um, but pretty cool. Very cool. And what's it what's what is Gemini canvas cost? Let's see. I'm going to bring this up right here. I guess it's free. >> No, it's uh you want the Gemini AI Pro subscription. >> Plus, upgrade to J Google AI. >> Yeah, it's um it's actually a steal. Um I think it's coming in at $20 or so. >> There's the code. Look at that code. Yeah, AI Pros. Uh $0 for one month and then $20 every month after that or 1999 if you believe in pennies. >> Very cool. Cool stuff. All right, let's move on. Uh Department of Defense uh Department of War. >> Yeah, >> it's not the or maybe No. Well, >> maybe it's the Department of these days. >> I think I think it's the Department of identity crisis. [laughter] >> So, they're hiring out a financial uh defense unit. Um they are uh reaching out p uh posting on different uh forums full of quants and trying to pick up people from Jane Street, pick up people from Citadel and just hire out um a financial warfare unit or rather something like that. It's it's some sort of defense unit. It does sound like the plunge protection team quite a bit. But in this case, the fact that it's going to be under the Department of Defense makes me think that we're starting to adapt the idea that warfare is not about like territorial control. It's about disrupting the other side's existence in the sense of its whole the whole body of a society. It's social uh physical economic every every level needs to be approached as part of warfare including finance which um there's a pretty famous paper uh position paper from China from 1999 that's called unrestricted warfare how it translates and it is the their essentially their position on what warfare looks like. Well, what's interesting about that is that you look at the social engineering, the illicit trade, the finance. Isn't this already in play in in in in a very crude the straight to muse where we're where Iran is throwing that right? They're using a unrestricted warfare. Tariffs, >> that's financial warfare. >> Um asset seizure >> that absolutely, but I don't think it's ever been done um in a coherent manner. Like >> you're talking about more of a digital manner. That's no I'm I'm I'm saying that I think this is done as a uh how it's been happening is not as a as a unified strategy. It's been a bunch of different agencies with certain mandates that have been doing this in a nonunified fashion. >> For instance, the uh the sort of economic warfare with Russia was uh all over the place. They were we were seizing assets but then we were also letting through oil via India and then we weren't and then we were getting them off of Swift and then we realized we shouldn't and it was not like a coherent basis. So to have the Pentagon say okay we're going to set up a defense unit that specializes a a a an entire team or division that specialized just in the finance aspect and put it under the Department of Defense. That's very different than the sort of uh somewhat half-assed approach that we've done historically which is just sort of like we just hurt them but there's no bigger scheme I don't think like I think it's been it's just been well what else can we do like oh we could do that let's do that >> well I mean it's it's everything is changing right everything is modernizing look at war war used to be pick up the musketss and let's go you know get our swords our gear or bow and arrows let's do it we get on the thing stand there and when somebody blows the the the the sand stand uh uhh uh front to front and when the somebody blows a whistle just starts shooting at each other, right? And they drop the front line. The next guy pops up. Now we have It's a drone world after all. It's a drone world after all. We have like Enders Game. You ever see Enders Game? >> Yeah. Yeah. But I think the craziest part is you see these videos, they're just glowing orbs in the sky and that's now what it looks like. It's frightening orbs. Glowing orbs. They're moving around. You don't know if it's going to fly into your hotel or not. >> Right. These are these drones that are actually being used as kamicazis or as well kamicazi second possibly or carrying a small payload. I looked it up to find out. I was kind of curious about like what size what are we dealing with here? They're like 3 and 1/2 mters long about 11 and 1/2 ft. >> They have a wingspan of about 8 and 1/2 ft. Their takeoff weight, their mass about uh 440 lbs. And they typically have about a payload of uh anywhere from 50 to 60 kg of explosive. Some even have um about 90. Now, of course, those heavier ones cause more problems for travel, for distance, right? 2,000 drones per day used at the peak so far in the Iranian war, 10,000 per day in the peak of the Ukraine and Russia war. Yeah. If we if we chart this, we can kind of see where this is headed. We're going to see like we're going to see a conflict where it's a 100,000 a day because the they're also getting cheaper to make and they're getting we're getting more refined in terms of what these actually require. They aren't they're just essentially very smart missiles at this point. >> Yeah. very smart, controlled and and almost in a way the idea of missiles I think numbs the concept of war and that's why we're not seeing as much you don't see bloodshed you just see a truck blowing up you know you don't see people you know with with shrapnel in their legs and being amputated what you see you see drones flying into a building >> well we there there's a logical continuation that we see in Ukraine though where it starts with uh these sorts of you know these explosive loitering weapons and then over time we end up having those flyby wires using the fiber optics to get like with a camera so you can actually have a human drive them because notably these ones that are flying around blowing up in Iran outside of Iran and going into buildings these are not these are not flown remotely they are not like the drones we were thinking about like during Iraq war where you had some guy in a trailer in Nevada who was routing through a satellites to control a drone out there and then had post-traumatic stress from destroying so many weddings. Uh we have instead uh they are programmed for a location and and course and then they uh self-correct and they just go straight and finish their business. Um they are uh so it's a very different sort of much lower tech sort of drone than what we were doing originally with these multi-million dollar reapers and stuff. Well, um, the gaming industry, which is like an extension of what I think this Enders game concept of warfare. You were taking a look at this recently and I and I think you know, uh, probably one of the reasons is the gaming industry has come to IRL, you know, I mean, we we is that why it's DOA? >> I think it's DOA because the change in fashion. Um, so a couple different things. one, the big AAA companies like EA uh and Ubisoft have not had a lot of great sales recently. Their their games have been >> they've had the same thing that we've seen in Hollywood, which is just like the lack of new franchises and uh a lot of these games are being sold with a nostalgia factor because millennials go, "Oh, I remember the first Call of Duty. I guess I'll play the next one." Um, meanwhile, younger generations like Jenz and Alpha, they have grown up playing Roblox and Minecraft and Fortnite and don't have much interest in buying something new. Uh, and they just keep going back to that and they've already spent who knows how much money on various skins and custom stuff. Uh, so they already have a lot of sunk cost already. And we can see that in the Dow the daily active users. So, Roblox daily active users is obscene. It's 144 million. So to compare, Steam, the Valve's marketplace that sells all digital games has bounced around uh I think 70 million right now. >> It's down heavily, which means that's the entire game market. The uh 80% of all PC games are sold on Steam, and it has uh it has less than half of what Roblox's daily is right now. And then they also have an entire industry built inside of Roblox where the games are made inside of Roblox because Roblox is not just a game. It's also a platform for games to be made by children to sell inside their game. Inside of >> By the way, what happened to Roblox is going to go extinct because pedophiles are preying on people inside the various games and the games that are being built. What happened to that whole thing? >> Well, I I don't know. Like there's also this there's guy some guy called Epstein. there was going to be like maybe arrests or something around the people who assisted him. I don't know. Well, I don't know what's going on. [laughter] Um the they have Roblox uh the children are out of control and they're not being stopped from playing this this Roblox. Uh they're doing age verification on Roblox much like they are on Discord. And that's to attempt to try to like alleviate this concern. Um, but it doesn't make much sense because the joke is all these age verification services, if you don't verify your age, you're trapped there with the children. >> Oh, >> so it does the opposite of what most people think. So in Discord, they're they're doing this age verification. You have to verify your age or else you're trapped in the children section. You can't go to the adult section. [laughter] >> And on Roblox, it's the same thing. So if you don't verify your age, you're trapped with the children. >> Uh go Yeah. So it's sort of the opposite of what you'd think should happen. >> It is the opposite of what you think should happen. And uh the there's also a movement by California to try to mandate that computers do this too, which is uh uh I I don't we don't have time for my rant, >> but Roblox being still being one of the killers in this industry and in this area killing the other gaming still down 28.6% year to date. RBLX is the stock symbol. One year down, actually one year it's up 1%. Now 5 years it's uh down 18%. So, you have this stock over the last five years. >> Yep. Doesn't look great. >> Not doesn't look great. It's awful. Down 18%. >> Uh, so Roblox has a lot of uh reputation damage and a lot of people don't even know it exists or the size and scale of its monthly active user count. uh like let's just like just to compare uh to well it's Instagram's Dow right now in so they are coming in at a little under a third the size of Instagram in terms of their capture of users >> and if we compare that or let's just use let's use a more comparable one what's a uh >> what's a publicly traded so >> uh what's snap >> snap is small >> is not small >> well there's still a lot of users but I I have Snap. I'm I'm there. But >> uh Oh, wait. What about the one that you like, Dolingo's Dow? That is 52 million active users. So, Dolingo comes in at 52 million users that are using it daily. And then we have uh Roblox coming in at 144. >> That's double. >> Yep. And then they are just announcing that they they have a big initiative to try to encourage AI vibe coding to allow more children to make games to chase million millionaire status because there are couple uh I think a thousand children >> I'm saying children people under the age of 16 who have made more than a million dollars on Roblox now >> and they're trying to encourage this and make a full jump start program and try to incubate more more uh applications because they're they viewing the CEO their biggest competitor is the is the Unreal Engine. >> The Unreal Engine >> which is the uh which is the game the engine that underlies most modern AAA games. So they think Unity and Unreal are the competitors and that the entire game industry is the competitor to Roblox and they're still moving in such a way like they're still gathering. Children are still getting on this thing. It's they're still growing, >> right? >> So I think that they're actually I'm very bullish on Roblox even though I think they're an evil evil company. Um, >> Facebook's [clears throat] evil. >> Not as evil. >> Not as evil. >> Well, because they focus on children. >> Yeah. Like, uh, yeah, Facebook focuses on monetizing the dead and stuff. Um, it's very different. [laughter] >> Very different different age, uh, geographic, >> different target. Yeah, they they target they No. So, uh, Facebook is, um, been investigating a product that would be using all of the messages and private messages of the deceased and then selling to the morning a AI copy of them. >> Um, so I don't know, maybe they're equal equally gross. All I'm talking too much. >> No, no, no, not at all. Let's talk about I want to shift gears, though. I want to talk about target earnings. one of your dad's most hated stores. Uh Target posted another quarter of falling revenue and customer traffic in stores. By the way, stock doing very well. Uh we bought this for the game bought of some client or bought for all clients in the strategy. Um though it shares rose after the retailers earnings beat estimates instead of posted um probably going to be towards the end of its sales slump. Earnings per share came out at $244 versus $216 expected. Revenues 30.45 billion versus 30.48 billion. Target said expect full year adjusted earnings per share to range from 750 to 850 which is a very wide range. Shares were up 7% in a piss poor trading tape the day that they actually came out with that number. Kind of interesting. >> Yeah, stock is uh stock is up uh let's see where that one now. We saw that Roblox was down 28% for the year to date. Target up 16% year-to date. >> So, how did Target do in the last uh oil spike? >> I don't know. It's a good question. >> Uh I I would venture to say that that demographic that goes to Target uh probably had problems with with with uh expenditures, abilities to pay. >> Yeah. Uh because like consumer spending generally shifts in uh dist in like proportion um and ratio. >> Yeah. Exactly. Even though the economist say that doesn't change anything but they're full of So that's a whole >> Yeah. Yeah. Like uh I mean usually this means this is like when Hormell does really well. >> Hormel. Yes. Spam. >> Spam does well. Camp Well, you know what's not doing well which really interesting. You would think that it using that um you would think that uh Campbell soup, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. That that did really well last time. The oil prices are up too. >> Year-to date. Campbell soup uh down 22%. >> Huh. >> Last month up down 22%. So that's pretty much 5 days down 9%. >> One year >> what the >> one year down 44.68%. >> What What garbage are people eating now? >> They're eating stuff that's worse than that. I would think >> I had my first soup in a can. >> I had uh about two weeks ago I felt I don't know what was going on. I felt this like weird hunger, like low blood sugar was something was weird, right? And there was like no I I grabbed a can of like canned chicken noodle soup that was in the and it wasn't terrible by the way that I must have been not feeling very well. But um you know who eats this stuff anymore? And with the GLP1s >> Oh yeah. Well, that that's hitting a lot of different areas. Um there's even there's even hedge funds that are uh banning people from using them because they're not hungry enough for profit. >> Oh god, that's ridiculous. I mean the the beverage industry is dying. >> Yeah. But that is um that follows a very large cycle. I would expect there's uh so um Gen Z don't know how to drink. They they missed out on it because of COVID timing. Uh a lot of people were basically locked in when they would have learned how to drink because you learn how to drink in college. That's uh it's it's a it's a standard >> train [laughter] is a training uh training training place. >> Yeah. It's where it's where alcoholics are born. And so uh that didn't happen for them. So they end up being this big gap in the the alcohol consumption, but they uh and they're very concerned about alcohol generally speaking. Uh any Gen Z in the audience? Um you correct me by sending hate mail to uh to Horowits here. Um >> [laughter] >> uh and no, the big detail though is that you the phone is around everywhere and they're very concerned about destroying the reputation so they can't drink. But Gen Alpha is a wild card and they are uh raised by very different parents and so I don't think the alcohol industry is is out for the next it's the demise is is uh is not uh quite there yet. Let's uh kind of move quickly. Two other things. Uh Blackstone um approved redemptions of a record 7.9% from its flagship private credit fund totaling about 3.8 billion. One of the things that's really interesting I have been fetching and complaining and and just out of my mind about private credit. I've been talking about this for months and months. People say, "Haro, you full of shit." I am telling you, there's a problem in this area. And the reason we don't see it is because private. You and I talked about that last week. >> We are seeing today, last week, a number like 7.9% um uh uh uh all of a sudden we're seeing uh delinquencies rise dramatically, foreclosures remind in in in inside of private credit. I think we hit um a number of like 8.5% or something like that. Higher than it was in 2008 and banks own almost a trillion of this crap. >> Yeah. And it's important to know that over 20% of their holdings are all software. >> That that's a good point. And that happens that that happened from the huge amount of oh my god let's get our hands on the buildout of the blah blah blah blah blah. >> No no this is separate. So they they are heavily invested in SAS. So 20% when they say software about this, they're referring to the fact that they ended up a lot of these companies like Octa and Zenesk, they are uh they took a bunch of private private credit. So private credits holding the bag on large software such as um the ones I know of are uh Zenesk and um oh man, I don't have the the list here, but uh yeah, you need to dig into this aspect. So there's a second story which is the story about their insane data center buildouts which is an entirely different seen as a stronger collateral because it's collateralized on chips but not on the real estate which is a a new one. Um but the software no it's 20%. Blue is the biggest holder of software and they're holding a ton of uh the SAS companies that are under threat by AI. >> That's crazy. Did we talk about the uh close to the pin that did we talk about the winner from two weeks ago? No, we did. Not from two weeks ago. I We talked about Yes, we did. We didn't. >> All right, then let's just go right to the um the crypto the Fred and crypto limmericks, but this one is for John C. D'vorak. Let's see how bad I can butcher this. How's that? >> All right, >> you got to get into your you got to get into your limmerick kind of mode, right? You got to get into that limmerick kind of rhythm. So, here we go. There is a tech pundit whose name be John whose sharp takes wait. >> Okay, here we go. There is a tech pundit whose name be John whose sharp takes went late into dawn. He had paused for some time but with grit and repair soon he'll go back oh so steady and so strong. That sucks. Ah, >> it's it's it's okay. He'd give your dad give it a D. Uh, >> and I talk about it and then you make, okay, D+ make he would he would talk about the the last line didn't really match well all this. Oh, hang on a second. Hold on. We're going to let's get 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 Cavorak 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. Um so let's take a look at this. Let me kind of look at the the list that we got here, which I need to find and open up because I didn't open up yet because I've been listening to my own voice right there. Here we go. Uh, basically not a lot of changes since last week. Still holding on to the L3 Harris that your dad picked uh back in June of 2025 at 48% up. Eli Liy up 26% although down 6% today on a downgrade and some concern about, you know, how long is this going to last with the GLP1s. Um, I picked up Fizer back in September as a hated stock. It's up 11 and a half%. Christmas Therapeutics, still the suffering, not going anywhere. Target, that's the one I was talking about. Bought that back in rec, let's see, that was uh recorded that on 12 three of 2025 up 28%. And BU uh we got to look at that actually. BU is down 4%. They came out with I think the earnings tonight. We'll see what happens. And Alibaba come maybe it's Alibaba into it uh up 31%. short by JCD and Tesla short up 7 and a2%. Um, might I say, sir, might I just call you out on something, my friend? >> Duolingo, which you on. >> Yeah. >> You pooped all over that last week hard. Do you remember that? >> Yeah. No, I I >> I can play you. You want the clips? I could play you the clips. >> I I'll stand by it still. I've uh I didn't I wasn't planning to like drop it and finish the trade in this week. >> Yep. But still up 10%. That's a year's worth of return right there in one week. >> Yeah. >> Just letting you know that sometimes the markets have different ideas than the rest of us. >> Yeah. >> So, I do not have another pick for this week. Um I enjoyed our discussions. Hopefully, we can continue this in the future on the sidebar into uh other other areas. Uh maybe if your dad is healthy enough to come back next week, that will be great. And if not, well, you're going to be in the hot seat again. >> Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, I get to find out how Dolingo is continuing to rise up. And that's why I'm not I'm not in finance. I am I am an AI and in business, not uh >> I hear you. I hear you. >> Stock market is a crazy crazy uh >> two-headed monster. >> At least two. >> All right. I'll see you again soon, my >> All right. Thanks. See you. >> All right. Bye. Hi, >> you've [music] been listening in on a conversation with John C. D'vorak and Andrew Horowitz. Hope to be with you again soon. Bye-bye. >> Now, I'm not broke, but badly bent. I'm not down to my last scent cuz I got a dollar, but it's my last dollar bill. Yes, sir. In my pocket there's a debt. All my dough is nearly spent, but I got a dollar. And it's my last dollar bill. [music] Oh, I'd love just one more buck. Fortune left me by chance. Now, here's a hint. I feel [music] like a men. You can hardly tell by a glance. I don't care. No millionaire can give me the Isis [music] stack. Cuz I got a dollar. My last dollar bill. [music] >> [music] >> This podcast is intended forformational purposes only and does not constitute personalized investment advice. Investing involves risk including the possible loss of principle and past performance is not indicative of future results. The views and opinions expressed are those of the hosts and the guests and may not necessarily reflect those of Horowis Company Inc. an investment advisor registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. 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