Did the Market Just Top? | Animal Spirits 434

Summary

• Market Outlook: Hosts debate top-calling and emphasize earnings as the key driver of market direction, with valuations and concentration elevated but not at historic bubble extremes.
• AI: Extensive discussion on AI-driven capex by hyperscalers and comparisons to past bubbles, concluding today’s mega-caps are larger, more profitable, and structurally stronger.
• Gold: Bullish price action attributed mainly to central bank buying and uncertainty; hosts criticize the practice of pricing assets in gold and argue for keeping returns in fiat terms.
• Crypto: A massive deleveraging event wiped out overlevered positions, especially in altcoins; leverage increases on derivatives platforms exacerbated liquidations.
• Private Credit: Strong fundraising (e.g., from large asset managers) with a view that the space isn’t a systemic bubble; returns likely to compress as capital floods in, but opportunity set persists.
• Airlines (DAL): Positive view on Delta after earnings call—dominant industry profit share, corporate travel back above 2019, and premium cabin mix rising; touted as best-in-class operator.
• Cash & Flows: Despite risk-on activity, significant ETF flows into T-bills show abundant liquidity and conservative positioning among investors.
• ETF Highlight (CANQ): Sponsored segment spotlights CANQ’s options-based Nasdaq exposure targeting growth with income and downside management, noting strong up/down capture since inception.

Transcript

Today's episode is sponsored by Calamos. Looking for NASDAQ exposure, monthly income, and built-in risk management all-in-one ETF? Check out the Calamos Nasdaq Equity and Income ETF, ticker CNQ. That's CANQ. Ben. >> Yeah, they spell it out for you, which is good. >> CANQ taps into decades of expertise in options and alternatives to pursue upside from the NASDAQ 100 stocks while actively managing downside risk with fixed income. It's a smart mix of growth potential, monthly income and riskadjusted returns. Since its February 13th, 2024 inception through June 30th, 2025, CAN Q has captured 96% of NASDAQ 100's upside with only 65% of the downside across all market cycles. Ready to rethink your portfolio? Explore CANQ today and visit calamos.com/canq to learn more. >> Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Uh, you wrote a post last week. Some bubble questions. Did I grab the right post? Is this the top? Okay, maybe it is >> the right one. >> Um, when did you write this? Was this Was this uh prior to Friday? >> I think I wrote this Friday. And you know, you have one bad day in the stock market and you feel like, oh, I need to change my whole thesis. But uh I think it's still We talked last week about the meltup and I just my whole thesis here is I don't think anyone's people are going to try to call the top. I don't think anyone's going to be able to do it. That's that's the where I stand on this. And if they do, they're just going to be lucky. >> Well, yeah, somebody will call the top, but >> Right. But I Everyone keeps trying to do it over and over again. And I don't think you can. If you've been saying it for 24 months, then get out of here. >> Well, counterpoint. I I generally agree, but people were bearish in 0506. Michael Bur famously was very early and very right. >> Yeah. But I think that's a little different. That was like calling the the housing market to crash. And I think if you're saying, "Listen, AI bubble is going to crash someday." Like everyone has been saying that. No one can take credit for that anymore. Everyone said everyone said it. So it's no one said it. >> Well, how about this? We discussed this last week and we'll do it later in the show. >> Calling your shot. Who cares, right? Like it it's very easy to say this is the top without any repercussions, >> right? >> Say it over again, >> right? But the but like making money, that's what we're talking about here. Is anybody going to successfully nail the top and actually >> Okay, that's the good point. Yes, that's the Are you going to pull the John Pollson and actually profit from this? >> Right. So, I don't think the market I don't think the market will allow that for for too many people. Again, get to that later in the show. >> But the chart that I pulled out, Ben, why didn't you choose the forward PE ratio? Because I guess you're saying like if valuation is your thesis, things are overvalued. That's >> so chart Matt did this for me. I said, "Hey, I'm thinking about writing a post on picking the top." And he said, "How about this?" He said, "Look at how many times it looked like valuations that peaked during the com bubble cuz they rolled over and they came back up. Then they rolled." And part of this is just the market rolling over. Right. But the point is, how many people thought that that was the top every time valuations rolled over? >> Yeah. >> Then they kept moving higher. >> Yeah. Okay. So, here's here's what I took away from this. I'm looking at you have a table in here showing the bare market since 1990 and at the peak in 2000 at the March peak the forward PE was only 22 times got me thinking well yeah the forward PE was a bit elevated but it was wrong because the E fell out through the basement so I had chart kid make me a chart uh which showed what is the forward 12 month EPS EPS versus the actual EPS. And you could see the bare markets happen when the earnings are way higher, when the projected earnings are way higher than it actually happens. You saw this obviously in the do-com bubble. You saw this in the GFC. You saw this in 2020 quick as it was. And that's all that matters here. So I don't I don't care how high the forward PE gets. Now at some point it matters when it matters. And the higher you get, the less margin you have, the worse the downside is, but it doesn't matter until earnings actually disappoint, >> right? So, this is a good chart because it it shows that most of the time, >> estimated earnings and actual earnings are right in line with one another >> and and you're right, it's when people get ahead of each other. And as we talked about last week, the earnings are going to roll over almost concurrently with the stock market. So, to your point, you have to almost wait for the earnings to roll over before you start getting bearish. The stock market will will will go first. >> Oh, remember our chart last week showing that they basically happen within days of each other. >> Really? >> Yes. I'll I'll put the chart in for you. Chart Kid. Matt made this for me. >> No, no, no. But but the point is, but you get earning You only get earnings four times a year, >> right? There's four seasons. >> So, I'm saying that whatever um that by the time the earnings rear rear their ugly head, the stock market will have rolled over. Not always. But anyway, the point is the point is this. Where a lot of talk about is this a top, is this a top? And again, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But earnings, that's it. That's all that matters. If I give me one indicator for the future, it is where do earnings come in relative to where do people think earnings are going to be? >> Um, look at the chart I just put in there. Remember this from last week. You must have not been paying attention. It shows that earnings in price essentially top at the same time. They were within >> Wait, hold on. This is This is There's two examples here. This is 2007 and 2019. >> Yeah, the these are examples, but it but every time in history it's like this where the earnings and we we did an aggregate as well, but these are just examples to show it's within like 12 and 20 days for the last two big crashes that earnings and >> I need to I need to I need to zoom in >> because >> the point is that the stock market is not going to frontun this. >> Well, how about this? I agree with you. >> It's going to it's going to wait until it sees earnings goes down like you you're saying. I'm not I'm not saying that it's going to frontr run it by 180 days. I'm just saying let's say that the market rolls over in February and we start to get earnings in April. That's all I'm talking about. You're going to have like a 50-day window. Close enough. Close enough. >> I'm saying history shows the stock market is not very good at predicting tops in earnings. >> Okay. >> That's what the data shows. >> I know. No, I'm just My point is I wonder how this EPS is calculated because you're using a daily series for the price. This EPS is not a daily series, Ben. That's what I'm saying. The the EPS is smoothed out, >> right? There's a time mismatch. That's all I'm saying. But close enough. >> Close enough. >> Um I had this in the dock for our conversation with Scott Nations that we didn't get to. And it's not to suggest that like I was uh calling for Friday by any stretch of the imagination, but the chart was this. The market has been very calm. >> And so Friday's hiccup, which obviously we're to get to in a second, um you know, thing the things come out of nowhere happen all happens all the time. >> Yeah, it's been it's been frankly way too easy since April. We hadn't we hadn't even had a 3% down uh cycle. We had a 3% down day on Friday. We had a 3% draw down at all since April. So Matt made a chart the number of days in a row where the S&P 500 has stayed within a 1% trading range. So just really boring stuff. It's been 33 straight days. The last time we had a stretch like that was 2020. Huh? >> Oh yeah, probably after the crash. >> Yeah, but those are wild times. No, but if you remember after it once the summer hit and started going, we didn't have it was just a slow methodical move higher. Wasn't a big chunk. >> Okay. Um anyway, to your point about the 3% decline. So, Warren Pies, this is just delicious for the eyeballs, the market was stretched only the seventh 119day stretch without a 3% pullback. So he plots all the previous ones and the strongest ever. So what what was the market up? Uh I I can't say it doesn't matter. 119 days without a 3% pullback. So people got complacent. Whatever. Whatever. Friday Trump tweeted um something about 100% tariffs on China. Bespoke has a chart showing >> sometimes sometimes the stock market and investors are looking for an excuse to sell. >> Yeah, >> that's what Friday felt like to me. Yeah. >> Like, okay, this time let's let's sell a little bit. >> Yeah. Maybe maybe take some risk off the table. >> NASDAQ hits a 52- week high and then finishes the day down more than 2% from that high. So, it's happened plenty times. I don't know, looks like around 20 over the past 35 years. Um, was at the top. I don't know. It's happened. It happened a million times in the run-up to the dotcom bubble. It happened in the recovery. It did happen at the peak of the GFC, but then over the last 10 years, which has been, you know, pretty much up and to the right. Few obviously few bare markets in between. >> Throw these words in my face. There's no way that was the top. >> Well, how about this? Although it's going to it's going to get crazier. I'm it >> I agree. It looks like there was there was there was 10 of these, give or take, just eyeballing this in the last 10 years. One of them happened at the top. I mean, even in the 90s, there was a few corrections along the way, but >> so everything fell on on Friday. Um, we had 424 stocks in the S&P that were down. Most decliners since July. Um, what happens next week, next month, next quarter? Who the hell knows? But little slap on the wrist. >> It was necessary. Even if a little seven 10% flush here would be perfectly within the realm of like reasonable. We we deserve it after >> I love that we even have to say that out loud. A 7% decline would be normal. Yeah, obviously >> it just seemed pretty easy there for a while. Uh can we talk about the AI bubble now? >> Sure. Let's do it. It's been uh it's been 13 minutes. >> There's nothing else to say about it though at this point. So let's let's move on. We don't need to talk about it. Let's talk about quality. >> There's still some new stuff. >> Okay. >> All right. All right. Where did we get this chart from about market cap weights? Because to me, this this shows >> this is great. I had never seen it like this. >> It goes all the way to the 30s. >> Augur infinity. I can't remember who tweeted it, but they're showing. So, the charts that you usually show to to demonstrate market concentration are like the top five stocks, the top 10 stocks, whatever. This is showing the market cap weight of the top 10% of largest US stocks. And credit to them. This is really great. Um, >> I read this wrong. Okay, I see. >> Okay, going back to I guess this must be the Dow some sort of combination because it goes back to the beginning of time and it's the highest ever. It looks like it's like almost 80%. Um, now Mobson wrote a piece a year or two ago where he said actually concentration generally is what you see in bull markets. It's like be careful what you wish for because look at look when concentration bottomed. It bottomed and it declined dramatically in one of the worst bare markets ever. The 66 to 82 bare market got as low as 50% or below 50%. That was treacherous. >> So that yeah that period in the early 80s and early 90s was that's the outlier historically. >> Early 80s. Yeah, that's that was the bottom 82. >> All right. So, we >> which which begs the question, let me just skip ahead a little bit. There's been um I got like maybe half a dozen emails last week. Michael, why do you keep saying the stock market, the bare market in 2022 lasted for two years? Like, what are you talking about, dude? And fair enough. I think when I when I say it, I mean uh like two yearsish. It was like almost two years. But if I must defend my honor >> Yeah, that's from peak to peak, right? I I'm with you. >> Okay. But no, but a lot of people are like, "What are you talking about, dude?" So, the stock market peaked in on the first day of 2022. >> No, 2022. >> Oh, sorry. 2022. Yes. The first day of 2022 >> and then it bottomed in October of 23. Now, the question is this, and I know this is semantics and >> No, it bottomed in October 2022. We're bunch of couple old middle-aged guys here. It bottomed in October 2022. >> Okay. All right. Fair enough. My bad. I have the chart right here. What am I doing? Apologies. Top top January 2022, bottom October 2022. Question is, when does the bare market end? And now listen, I'm I'm sort of teasing here. I'm open-minded, different opinions, all good. Um, and I think that this is more of an art than a science because is the bottom of the bare market, and we've had this debate a million times, so forgive us for rehashing this, but is the bottom of the bare market the beginning of the bull market? I would argue no because in March of 2009, nobody was like, "Hey, look, it's a bull market." And even fast forward to like 2010 when you were already doubled off the lowest still, nobody was like, "Oh, it's a bull market." Now, I'm sure JC was like, "It's a bull market, bro." But does a bull does a bull market start when the bare market ends? Does the bull market start when you're 20% off the lows? Right? Cuz like, oh, I guess if you're just using the inverse, does the bull market start when you're in a when you're back within 20% of the previous highs? Does that reset the bull market? >> Does it reset? Does it reset? >> It dep It depends. >> Okay. So, it it depends. You're right. So, does it reset like let's say you have a 50% bare market. Is the reset when you've recaptured half of the losses or does the bull market officially begin when you've retaken the new highs? >> Okay, so here's the thing. >> So that was my posture in 2013. The bare the bull market officially started in 2013 for there's a lot of room for debate here. >> Yes, sir. It like the bull market didn't start till the 1980s, but the stock market bottomed in 1974. >> Exactly. >> Choppy period after. >> And nobody says 1974 was the start of the bull market, >> but anyway. market. The market bottomed in 2009 of March and then shot off like a cannon from there. That's the start of the bull market. So, it's different. That one for real was the start of the bull market. It's a 16-year bull market. >> Okay. >> My definition, other people disagree with me. My definition, this is a 16-year bull market, just like it was like a 20-year bull market in the 80s. Uh, the reason why I'm even getting close to saying it was a two-year bare market is because if you let's first of all the the which market are we talking about? Let's just use the S&P and we could use the equal weight. >> So, the S&P 500 made a new all-time high two years after the first peak, right? It was like January to January. Okay? It was January 2022 to January 24. That was the round trip. So that's why I say two years. If you look at the equal weight January 2022 by October 2022 when the equal weight bottomed I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm using 2023 the so everything bottomed on October 2022 but by October 2023 which is 22 months after the peak almost two years the equal weight was still in an 18% draw down so That's 20 months. 22 months. Close to two years. >> I feel like you're making a case to judge Judy here in court. >> That would be a good show. Actually, there should be a CBC should have a judge show where like we hash these debates out. >> But two years later, the average stock, the equal weight was in an 18% draw down from two years prior. Is that not a two-year bare market? I mean, it's close enough. Listen, I get it. There's plenty of room for different >> How about this? Josh can give me royalties on this. We'll have Judge Josh on CNBC. He can wear the the robe. he'll have his gavvel. Um, and then people because because if somebody says, "Listen, the bare market ends when you make a new alltime high period." >> Well, that's just their gray area. It's uh Yes. But I'm glad you laid out your case there. Uh, okay. Chart from charter. Uh, I feel like there's a lot of stuff in America that we get wrong, that we're really bad at, and people are very good. You mentioned last week all the negativity. I'm trying to be positive here. There's a lot of things that you can point out that we're bad at. The education system is not great and we do this wrong. We're not good at this. We're really good at producing the world's best companies. So, this is they have the world's 100 largest public companies. We have 60 of them, okay? In North America, uh there's two in the Middle East, 17 in Europe, and 21 in Asia Pacific. The rest of the world has not figured out how to make gigantic corporations like we have, right? We're we're really good at that. For all our faults, we're very very good at this. >> Very, very good. >> And I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. Um, all right. One thing in AI, sorry, too. Look, this is the updated chart. Um, >> you did this, not me. >> From Goldman on >> I tried to keep this an AI free podcast because you complained last week. >> Hyperscaler capex for AWS, Microsoft, Google Meta, and who's that new symbol? Is that is that Oracle? >> I think people are running out of ways to show this chart differently. >> Look at this. We've we've shown a variation of this chart once a week for two years now. >> Yeah. >> Right. I'm starting to come around to your side. I can't believe you put this in here. Shame on you, sir. >> I know. My bad. Um, so, uh, another one from Goldman, and we've done this in the past, but sorry. valuations today compared to the tech bubble, the Japan bubble, the Nifty50, and if we're just looking at the um the 24 month forward PE, 27 times today versus 52 for the tech bubble versus 67 for the Japan bubble versus 35 for the Nifty50. Here's the thing, as we mentioned earlier, 24 months, I mean, we don't know what's happened. 24 months is number one. Although it just shows you that the expectations were way higher were way higher in those previous periods. But the big obvious thing that is so different today than the prior episodes is the size of these companies. These companies the the Giants today dwarf the size of the previous bubbles. Dwarf. >> So did you catch did you catch Howard Marks on CNBC yesterday? >> Nope. >> He he came on and he said, "Listen, I don't see signs of a mania. Obviously, there's overvaluation and and he's like, "These companies are just bigger and better than companies in the past." That's it. That's my whole that's that was his whole thing is like they're just better companies. >> Yeah, that's what I mean. I agree. >> I'm looking at the NIT 250 here. I just have to say, who do you think came up with the name Xerox? Do you think that someone said, "Hey, I bet you can't come up with a a company that has two X's in it." And someone, oh yeah, >> like who would who would come up with that name today? That that was that was a winner in in Scrabble. Although were there two X's in the Scrabble board game? I don't know. But speaking of board games, Kobe is obsessed with Monopoly. >> Okay. Did you get the kids version or the real version? >> No, the real version. And we play we we've we've played it for four straight days and he he he's going to be the Monopoly man for Halloween and I see no signs of it slowing down. This is my new >> I got my kids cuz I think real Monopoly is it's so tedious and long. So we we had the kids version which is way faster and way easier. >> All right. I love Monopoly. Uh so I have no problem. It's it's not that long. I think >> how many times have you got started a game of Monopoly and not finished it? I feel like that's 75% of Monopoly games is like, "Ah, screw it. We're you're going to win. Let's not finish." I've never finished a Monopoly game. >> Not me. Big Monopoly guy. Uh the game's usually Well, it's just for the two of us. It's 30 minutes or less. >> Okay. If you want to bring Logan in, get the kids version. It's The kids version is actually kind of fun. I We play that all the time, too. >> Okay. Uh All right. Here's another good one. The top 500 median stock free cash flow yield. This is from uh Morgan Stanley Research talking about like debate about whether we're in a 1990s style bubble and the free cash flow yield would suggest would suggest uh not at least compared to 2000 where the free cash got as low as 1.2%. >> Now it's 3.4%. But >> well that's the difference back then those companies they didn't produce enough profits and earnings. >> This is the chart. This is the chart. the S&P 500 forward PE normalized by profit margin and this is the key part in 2000 this thing was double where it is today and it's actually about at the average over the last 20 years so the forward PE normalized by the outsiz margins and when you look at that to Howard's point to Howard Marks' point about like these are great businesses it looks reasonable >> all right at this point Judge Josh bangs his gavl and says all right it's not a bubble right you made your case I feel like you you just went through and made your case. This is not a bubble. >> It's not a bubble. It doesn't mean that stocks can't fall 50%. That they they always can, right? Like, but this idea that there's going to be an 80% wash out and these stocks won't recover, I view that as highly unlikely, >> actually. Okay. So, this guy I just So, this guy, Robert Kaisaki, I can't I can't quit him. He sold 33 million personal finance books. 33 million. Barry told me this this morning. He says, "Reminder, I predicted the biggest crash in world history was coming in my rich book, Rich Dad's Prophecy. That crash will happen this year. Baby boomer retirements are going to be wiped out. Many boomers will be homeless or living in their kids' basement." Sad. And he goes through all this other stuff about silver and seeing. >> By reminder, this guy this guy's been saying this for the last 10 years. >> Oh, yeah. I just >> Are we sure this is not Are we sure this is a real person? >> Yeah. We So, there's been videos of him like berating people in the audience. Remember that? Uh, so I just How is he How is he one of the bestselling personal finance authors of all time? >> I don't I don't get it. >> It does. It Something can't be explained. >> I came cuz you said we were being too negative last week. I came with the positive. So, here's the two negatives people always say. Um, >> to be clear, I'm not pointing fingers at you or I. >> I know. >> I'm just saying society. And there is a lot of negatives. Tons. >> But here's the thing. There there's two different ways you can you can There's ways that you can make good news look bad. Um, and so, so one of the things is, well, the stock market is going up and that just means the rich are getting richer, right? But contr, that's true, but more, this is from the Wall Street Journal, more working-class Americans than ever are investing in the stock market. For the first time, a majority of low earners have an investment account, and more than half of those new investors have entered the markets in the past 5 years. So, Americans with incomes between 30 and $80,000. 54% of them now have taxable investment accounts. half of those investors have entered the market in the last five years. And this is from a survey from Black Rockck. Um, so yes, the rich are getting richer, but the stock market is the tide is lifting a lot more boats now. There's way more people invested in the stock market. Among newer investors, 45% has put 5,000 or more into their accounts. Um, 40% of the new investors plan since January 2020 plan to hold their investments for at least a decade for long-term goals, including retirement. This is great news. Yeah, >> the stock market is going up and yes, rich people are getting richer, but that's always going to be the case. Now, there are way more people invested in the stock market and people always say, "Yeah, the top 10% own most of it." But it's close to twothirds of all American households own stocks now. So, this boom in the 2020s has been phenomenal for I think Robin Hood has 26 million customers and I think they said something like half of those it's their first ever brokerage account. >> JP Morgan said something similar their earnings this morning. >> Okay, so listen to this. This is this is from JP. So the Wall Street Journal had another piece now people have been saying like listen this this stinks the fact that young people are being boxed out of the housing market and I agree a lot of them are really angry and probably have a right to be but they say where have all the young home buyers gone check the stock market a JP Morgan Chase report found that 37% of 25year-olds used investment accounts in 2024 up from 6% of the age group in 2015 a six-fold increase in the number of people investing in the stock market over the past decade suggests a shift in the way people think about building wealth so they're saying, "Listen, most of the Gen Z people who are boxed out of the stock market or the housing market are using those down payments to invest in the stock market as we have been saying." So, the numbers now bear this out. There's way more young people invested in the stock market and there's way more lowincome people invested in the stock market. Both fantastic leaps forward in how in household wealth, right? This is very good news. >> You mentioned earlier how good we are at producing these giant corporations. One of the side effects of those giant corporations is wealth inequality. And it is a real issue and it is a political issue and it is a societal issue. Obviously, the way that these rich people can impact the conversation, the elections, it sucks and I think we all agree it sucks. Um, but there is the other side of it which is the rising tide lifts all boats. Not every boat. Uh, but somebody had a good email on this topic. They said, "I don't think wealth inequality matters." I don't think wealth inequality matters. Um, okay. Well, did they really mean that? I would think it does matter. All right, whatever. They said, or maybe I'm misquoting that. I don't think wealth inequality matters. Okay. But the absolute level of wealth for the bottom x% does. If Elon Musk sold all of his stock, withdrew all of it in cash, and set it on fire, inequality would go down. But it wouldn't make anyone's life better. Conversely, if Elon's wealth goes up by $10 billion tomorrow, it makes no one else's life any worse because we are not in a zero sum game economy. Wealth inequality will never be better than it is today. Oh, this I wrote this. Wait, did he write this? I'm sorry. This is a horrible red email. One of the worst. Put this in the Lou. Wealth inequality will never be better than it is today because of compound interest. Sure, a bare market will make it better, but who gets hurt worse in a real bad recession, Elon or the bottom 10%? That sounds like him, not me. Um, fair points in there. >> Are you arguing with yourself and Chad G? >> I don't know. I don't even know. Did I make this up? Did I write this? Did I write this myself? >> Here's the great thing about the corporations. You can now invest in the entire all the corporations for pennies on the dollar in an ETF or a mutual fund or whatever and own these corporations and take part in their profits of their growth. That's that's the beauty of the stock market. It's a miracle. >> And it's funny. People don't make a lot of money have the ability to invest in multi-trillion dollar corporations and all their growth and earnings. >> It's amazing. We could literally own Nvidia, >> right? >> And for all the for all the hoopla over private over alternatives, which we're going to get to later, >> I'm in the penalty box. >> How many times which we're going to get to later in the show? I think this is my third time. >> But why would you want an al why would you want an alternative to Apple or Amazon or Nvidia? >> That's a good qu that's a good question. How what what percentage of investors can pronounce Nvidia correctly? >> I think most do. >> Sometimes you still get the Nvidia, but I'd say most. >> Yes. When you catch one of those, it's like Chipotle Chipotle. When people can't say Chipotle. >> Chipotle. >> I went to Chipotle today. >> That grinds my gears. Did I say that I went to Chipotle? Chipotle recently. And I think my bowl is 1265. Is are they back? >> You You did say that. You're You said you're back. >> Deflation. stock feel like the stock might be bottoming this piece of garbage. >> Where are we next, Ben? We've been jumping around. >> Uh, you got this one. You said >> fiscal stimulus with a hell of a drug. >> Now, we're not going to fix wealth inequality, but the the the the baby fund stuff is great news. It's great stuff. And it really is. You got to be in the investor class, right? That's it. And no, I think nobody likes the K-shaped economy. Like obviously we we we wish for more people participating in the upside of the economy and the way to do it it's through assets because the people that are investors have so much money because of the bull market. >> Yeah. And that that money is going to keep growing because those people don't aren't forced sellers. Most of most of those people who have the assets are not forced sellers. >> So anyway, >> this is this is why Robert Kiosaki is not going to be right about baby boomers being homeless. the the ones who own all the stocks, they're not just because of bare market hits does not mean they're going to be forced to sell their assets. >> By the way, we we didn't even read the rest of the tweet, which is whatever. We'll put in the show notes if you really care. But like it was it was crazy. >> That's what buy silver and Ethereum because everything's going to crash. Uh what do you think is going to happen to ETH in a in a global depression? >> Good question. >> What's this? What's this flows one? Because this Treasury ETFs have the biggest flows this year. There was a lot of throat clearing. My point was there is so much money in the system that the year-to- date category ETF lows the top four. It's not everything we're talking about. It's treasure bill ETFs. Okay, crypto isn't there. It's precious metals. It's the value factor and it's thematic funds. >> I would have never guessed T bills are the top category in a million years. I never would have guessed that >> by a lot. Um, all right. Uh, >> it is funny the the value stuff. So, we have a talker book coming out next week uh with victory shares and they have these value momentum ETFs and we talked about how how momentum has been outperforming by a wide margin over the value factor but there's way way more money in value and look at it I can't so value is the fourth biggest people cannot quit value investing >> money just keeps flowing in there regardless >> how much 36 billion where is momentum 12 So yeah, check this out. Uh, all right. This is weird. Not sure what to make of this exactly from Deutsche Bank via the daily chart book, which is just a go-to every day, all day. The key story for September was not rising positioning, but booming fund inflows, not just into equities, 122 billion, but also bonds, 98 billion. Indeed, the combined inflow in September was the largest monthly inflow since early 2021. >> So, the bond thing is I still think baby boomers repositioning and rebalancing. >> Yeah, that that's explainable. It's just so much money. >> Everyone has money. >> All right, let's let's let's get crazy. >> Also from Todd, he has the ETF asset class launches as a percentage of the total on a rolling six-month period. I don't know if it's an underappreciated story in the stock market. Um, but if you're not like online and and really into it, you might be missing the plot here. The leverage and the DGEN economy, as Lindsen calls it, just continues to plow ahead. So, over the last six months, one out of every four new ETFs involves using leverage. >> People really want this stuff, huh? See, this is this is why people need a slap on the wrist. Like this this kind of stuff getting out of control is like that this is why we need a little more than a Friday flush eventually. And it sounds like crypto. I'll do a we're going to talk about that soon. I I think that this is it's such a small par p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p piece of the market even though the numbers are gigantic in terms of the market caps of a lot of these companies and the call options are and like in a on a relative basis does it matter? >> No, I I guess not. Um but it it's an interesting trend that there's just way more leverage in the system and there's a lot of people who like Cory Hoffstein has been pounding the table in this for a while. Like there's ways to use leverage very intelligently, >> right? And I'm obviously a lot of pe most people aren't probably >> they they are being degenerates with this but people are obviously more comfortable with it and they want this stuff otherwise there wouldn't be all these new ETFs. All right I want to talk about um one of the beautiful things about markets like you can still I've talked about this with Bitcoin before almost everything that Bitcoin and crypto people have told us have predicted about the world and what will happen has been wrong but they all stayed long and they still made money. And I think a similar thing is happening with gold. Okay? Everything the gold bug said would happen. The dollar is going to crash and the Fed is going to ruin everything and the financial system is going under. Everything they said was wrong for most of them. Um and they're still being wrong about why gold is going up right now, which we get to in a minute. But they they stayed long and they made money, right? Gold's up 50% this year. So, um I I showed this chart last week on Ask Compound. Do you see this one? It's it's golden S&P by decade. And in every other decade, one has been up really big and the other one's been down or like the relative spread has been wide. The 2020s are the first decade in modern economic history that gold and and stocks are both booming at the same time. Never happened before. >> H >> it's kind of surprising, right? >> Yeah, that's good. It was good stuff. Um, but then all these people I I tweeted this and some guy said, um, measured in gold, not dollar terms, isn't the S&P down 16% or something since 2020? And I then I see a chart from Bloomberg denominated in gold. Equities have been falling since 2000. Uh, a chart from gold mark chart. ounces of gold to buy a new house. Median new single family home priced in gold is now at all-time lows. This is the dumbest thing I've ever This is so dumb. You cannot >> You cannot price speculative assets in speculative assets. What if we price gold in S&P 500 points? Guess what? Gold is not up 50%. In S&P 500, it's this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. >> Price gold, >> people, stop this. This is dumb. >> Price gold in Olo. What are we doing here? >> Exactly. >> Gold's Gold's crashing when you're pricing price it in a low. I just like listen take the win if you own gold you're long you've made a ton of money but the reason gold is going up is not because of fiat dollars or something someone tweeted the other day that like gold makes up like 3% of the world's like currencies or whatever >> people just take it too far like central banks are buying a lot of gold >> that's the thing central banks are buying gold that's why it's going up >> and there is it >> there is uncertainty political uncertainty economic uncertainty dollar uncertainty that is leading gold higher but you don't have to then price the S&P in gold, right? Like you're most like the a lot of the thesis has is it's not it's not all wrong. A lot of it has played out, but then you go crazy when you're pricing. Why not price cattle in gold? I mean, what do we Yes. Just take the win. Take the win. You don't have to make it crazier. >> If you want to sell your S&P 500 index fund and take that money to the bank, you're going to get dollars. Like your your bank will take dollars. You could pay your mortgage with dollars. You can't pay your mortgage with gold. You price it in dollars because that's that's the unit of of >> You don't go to your local brewery and say, "Here's a gold coin, sir." >> Yeah. >> Fill my beer mug. No. >> Wait. What do you mean? My gold coin used to buy me three beers, and now my gold coin only buys me one beer. What do we What's going on here? >> And the bartender is going to go, "I don't care. Get out of here, weirdo." >> It's bizarre. It's bizarre. >> Uh here. All right. Here's this This is also bizarre. We we we've spoken a lot about like measuring sentiment um and having conflicting reports which is why I think like a lot of the work that JC and his crew do about like building a composite sentiment reading is the best way to do it. I don't know what's in here p exactly but Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research uh US has a US equity sentiment indicator. Now, again, I don't know exactly how they're measuring it, but like based on this, it looks like nothing to see here. I mean, if anything, people are like not excited at all. >> If it's based on surveys, then let's throw it out the window because then then it doesn't matter anymore. I've said sentiment is broken. The vibes are broken forever. That's my case. All right. Uh Eric Soda at uh Spilled Coffee has a good one about the cash on the sidelines fallacy. Did you see any of this? So, this is uh one from Charles Schwab and it shows >> we've showed we've we've made this chart in the past, >> have we? Okay. But this is the whole thing about all the money. I think the the 0% interest rates in the 2010s kind of broke people's mind brains on money markets because no money was going in there at all for the whole 2010s because rates were zero. But he shows it as a as a total net assets as a percentage of the S&P and then there's not so much cash on the sidelines because stocks are going up. So, cash should be moving with it. and then US money market funds as a percentage of S&P as well. Um his whole thing is saying yes there's seven or eight trillion dollars in money market funds but if you look at it with where the stock market is that actually makes sense because the percentage is actually going down because stocks are going up. >> So if you hold cash constant it's not like that money is all of a sudden going to come rushing in. And I think we mentioned a couple weeks ago like if a richer society there should be more cash on hand. It makes s Yeah. So it makes more sense than people are saying. And you were, credit to you, you were early on that one saying that this this money is not coming out of money market funds. That's that's staying put. I think you're right. >> Is this an extra Dan Greenhouse the same thing? >> Yes, that's Yeah, that was in his piece as well. >> Yeah. >> Um, all right. Here's a good one for you. Households have a dollar in cash for every dollar of debt. The most deleveraged since the early 1990s. This is from Bank of America. um hustles are still in good shape and have the ability to borrow even more money if and when the next downturn hits. I continue to believe that that whatever whatever downturn is unless the AI bubble totally inflates to like epic proportions and then it just pops and but even the the dot bubble popped in the 2001 recession was very mild, extremely mild. Um it helps that we had a housing bubble to prop people back up, but that could that's probably what'll happen this time again. We'll probably get a housing boom the next time that the the economy slows anyway. I I think whatever happens, as long as it's not some crazy exogenous shock, households will be able to weather it by borrowing more money. >> You know what's coming around the corner, Ben? We got earning season, which is my favorite season because, as I keep pounding the table on, I care a lot more about what companies have to say than what journalists have to say. A lot more. Companies are have no reason to >> That's your new tagline. Listen to the companies, not the not the investors, right? >> I'm not saying they're not going to lie to you because, you know, there's some companies that do some shenanigans, of course, but on balance, companies are not incentivized to not tell you the truth. Now, again, sometimes they cover stuff up is what it is. But they're not going to paint a rosy scenario in the aggregate when the facts don't warrant that. >> They're going to call it like it is. This is also why as someone who's a long-term person, a lot of people email me and ask for my thoughts on the should if if we shouldn't have them report quarterly anymore because I'm a more long-term person. But I actually totally disagree with that idea. I think we we need to have them report quarterly because I think o opening it out longer opens up the possibility of shenanigans. >> Me too. >> That's I think that's my problem with that idea anyway. >> Me too. >> Um I actually listened to the Delta I listened to the Delta call this morning. Um, and a few things in there stood out. Delta is now 60% of the industry's profits. Kind of wild. They're killing it. >> I mean, they're by far the best airline. It's not even close, right? >> Not even close. I only fly. >> The the last time that I do, too. And I I have one of the Platinum Delta credit cards and I it's the only one I fly usually. Um, and I was on a flight with my kids. Where were we? I can't remember. the last time we we flew as a as a family and the flight attendant came up to me and I felt kind of like George Clooney on uh up in the air and they said, "Hi, Mr. Carlson. Just want to thank you for being a Delta Platinum blah blah blah blah blah and and and being so loyal to us as a as a my kids are like, "What was that about? Are you like a celebrity?" They they thank me for being a on my flight member >> Austin, not to brag, the flight attendant came up and shook my hand and said he's a big fan. So, I've I forgot his name, but if you're listening, thank you, sir. That made me feel pretty good. >> You sneak a free drink? >> Uh, I've been drinking on flights. >> Okay. >> Credit to me cuz I Who doesn't love drinking on flights? >> Getting a drink on I I feel like what percentage of people in first class get a get a drink when asked when you get 80%. >> I almost always do, but I haven't been doing it because uh you know, busy >> responsibility. responsibility growing up. Uh all right, what else was Wait, what? Hold on one sec. There was they also said that uh corporate travel is all the way back higher than 2019 levels. >> See, that's the one I never would have thought I when people were predicting how the pandemic is going to change the world forever. I would have said, yeah, with Zoom meetings and such, corporate travel is never going to get back to the same levels. >> Same. All right. So, this chart shows >> I think there's some people in some businesses that just they like the face to face interaction, but they just I think some people just love that lifestyle being on the road. The guys in the in the polo shirts and the jeans in the boots, right? Those guys have to be on the road drinking their Miller lights at the bar and >> you know talking about the Astros or something. So, the premium cabin revenue is about to pass main cabin, which is pretty wild. And Glenn Howenstein, who's the president, said, um, I've equated it to this. The car that you drive today, is it better than the first car you had? The answer is probably yes. And you don't see many people going back to cars that are worse. Once people get used to traveling in certain product, whether it's Comfort Plus, Delta, Premium Select, whatever, they tend to not go back. Their retention rates are in the mid 80s there. So, >> yeah, that's true. They didn't they didn't have comfort plus and stuff in the past. That that's a relatively new thing. >> Luxuries become necessities. >> But they I I'm sure that they're also able to jack the prices up on those and people will still pay them. People who have more money, right? I'm guessing that's that's part of it. >> Yeah. Experience. >> Somebody emailed us uh about going to Disney and they said that Disney's charging 200 bucks to meet Santa. Something like that. Listen, people will pay it. whatever it is. But I did say my wife, we're not doing the meet and greet with the characters this time. What a what a piece of [ __ ] sham that was. You get this crappy buffet. No, we're really not. My We're really not. I'm That's it. We You get this crappy buffet uh for $130 ahead. >> That That is one of the worst things about Disney. The food is awful. I don't think they care really. Uh but the food is not good at Disney, right? >> No. Also, my wife got after me a little cuz I said I didn't want to go to Disney on a podcast a couple weeks ago. Apparently, she used to listen to the show occasionally. >> I stand by I stand by my take. Yeah, we're going in Thanksgiving. She every every week she calls me, "Hey, you want to do this?" I'm like, "I don't know. You take care of it." >> Wait, Thanksgiving at Disney. That's a great idea. >> Yeah, I thought we thought so. >> All right, let's talk Let's talk Let's talk gambling. This is a great tweet from Dolly Valley 2. Uh so on Friday as the market was having a not so great afternoon was Aqua positive on the day? I think it was. Yeah, it was. Uh this guy tweeted, "I was wrong. Alo is the perfect stock. No revenue, no product, hence no exposure to anything. >> If I'm being honest, I have no idea what Alo does. >> They're trying to build a nuclear energy something something." >> Oh, that's what they're doing. I should >> uh all right so uh this was making the rounds the Goldman Sachs basket breakdown year-to- date report uh performance and they also break it down by the April 8th to today. All right, drone stocks are up 370%. Quantum computing stocks are up 315%. Memes are up 123%. Nonprofitable tech is up 111%. Most short are up 98%. So retail is kicking the [ __ ] out of professionals. And I got to say like >> using all degenerate themes for the most part. >> I'm not mad. I I you know I'm not wagging my finger. Yeah. But I think I think most most people understand that like um >> you don't think there's a lot of hedge fun in these trades now too though. Just >> probably the stuff ones are >> all the momentum traders are in these in these stocks. >> And you know what? If people get wrecked, they get wrecked. This is this is the market, right? Like no crying in the casino. And also if I was a younger man, I'd be >> balls deep in these names. Come on now. >> Okay. I I wouldn't, but uh I know you would people who are. Yeah. >> All right. So, last week, I believe last week I said or maybe two weeks ago, I said the market is cruel. Like, even if we know that a lot of these names, and I guess we can't know, but even if we strongly suspect minus 900 that the odds are against most of these companies sustaining their valuation, um it doesn't mean that the shorts are going to make money. It's just not that easy. So, credit for this. >> I can't imagine wanting to short this stuff and like get in front of the train and and time it perfectly. No way. >> I mean, I can imagine it if you really understand the businesses here and you genuinely know that these are pieces of [ __ ] Now, I don't know that, but if you are one of these people that have domain expertise, >> yeah, but using a fundamental thesis in a mania is Come on. >> No, no, >> the timing is all that matters there. And you >> I get it 100% right. Anyway, my point is I want to shout out this one guy. Credit to this guy at Common Sense Play tweeted, "I'm closing my short on Ionic and Regetti. Market makes no sense. They will drop 90%. But taking the L on this trade, that's a pro move." >> Yeah. Good for him. Good on him for admitting it, right? >> Yeah. The market the market just it just won't let you make money this way. And maybe the longs will get liquidated, but the shorts definitely will, too. That's just the way it goes. >> All right, let's talk about crypto. I am a a tourist here, but it sounds like on Friday people were like brought out in body bags from crypto. And it's weird because Bitcoin was down, I don't know, 5 to 10%. Ethereum, it wasn't like a huge >> Hold on, hold on, hold on. The the Ethereum and Solana were down at one point. I think each more than 20%. The altcoins fell, some of them fell like 90%. >> That's what it sounds like. It was the altcoins and stuff, but it says the biggest cryp crypto liquidation ever from CoinDesk uh amid market chaos. And they talked about all this stuff and people were trying to figure out and they they say it was 20 billion but it was probably way higher than that because of Binance and all this stuff. And a lot of people were pointing to this old post from Brian Armstrong from Coinbase on at the beginning of September. He said we just bumped up the max leverage from 20 times to 50 times on international perpetual futures. A bunch of traders asked us for this update. Let us know what else we can add. I don't know if that was the reason, but it sounds like a lot of people were just extremely overlevered and it didn't take much of a fall. >> Yeah, that was the reason. It was leverage. So, it was just an insane amount of leverage and people got taken out and bought it again. It just there was literally one down day in the stock market and it it it evaporated crypto. But I guess and a lot of people are saying a lot of these altcoins like literally went to zero. >> Yeah. >> Um Bitcoin Bitcoin at 110,000. I mean, it's still a healthy healthy healthy number. Um and yet look at this chart from Wall Street Journal. They show the total liquidations on crypto derivative exchanges. It makes the FTA I mean you can't even see it. This was 19 billion. FTX was two. >> So there must have just been an insane insane amount of leverage in the system. And and these this is a good thing. No one you talk about no crying in the casino. No one should feel sorry for these people. But it sounds like people were up millions and millions of dollars and probably lost millions. >> Okay. I I you could simultaneously feel bad for people like it sucks that this happens while all like just being a human being like I'm I'm sorry that happened to you while also saying what did you think was going >> Come on. Yeah, exactly. >> If you if you make millions of dollars going 50 times leverage, you can go to zero on the same thing. I think that's just >> Could you imagine being >> I I I'm not laughing because this is it's not funny. um being one of those people that got wiped out from the Trump tweet and then 24 hours later Trump says, "Don't worry, it's all good with China. We're going to make it, you know, it's going to be fine." I mean, >> yeah, Taco Sunday. I um I don't know. It's the whole thing Warren Buffett said before, you don't want to get rich twice. If you got rich once and you made five or 10 million bucks in crypto, uh >> I don't know, cash some of it out. >> Hopefully, there are people that that saw this, younger people, because it's always younger people. you know, eventually you do this long enough as you know, you get burned. Hopefully, young people saw this and said, "Okay, I maybe I should uh re >> But it's it's insane to me that people were able to put 20, 30, 40, 50 times leverage on and make that much money." And at that point, it's just a game. It's not even real life. >> Yeah. Well, you know what? Somebody tweeted um somebody tweeted long-term capital management was using I think 25 times leverage and they got wiped out doing fixed income arbitrage, >> right? >> They're talking basis points. You're using 50x leverage on crypto. I mean, come on. The use your head. >> Um all right, let's talk private markets for a second. Black Rockck reported this morning, I think they brought in eight billion dollars in private credit. It was the largest private asset private uh investment gatherer that they reported. Um lots of demand. So they they they had a report a week ago. Uh today's private credit opportunity and um I I think I I'm on the record at least I'll go on the record. I don't think private credit is a bubble. I don't think that First Brand's blowup is indicative of everything. I I'm sure that there are, you know, that it's not the only one, but I don't think it's like a systemic all private credit is a fraud. It's going to blow up the system. just I just don't don't >> as the space gets bigger there's going to be more blowups like there there has to be because it's it's it's casting a wider net and there's more businesses and there's more loans and of course so the these the stories about private credit are going to be amplified because people have been warning about it. >> Yep. No doubt. And there's a lot of journalists that are dying for this dying for this to be a juicy salacious story. And the first brand's one is and I'm going to talk about it tonight with Josh. But uh this shirt made me laugh. Um, private credit assets offer a unique correlation to the public markets and they show the correlation of the Prequin private credit versus the Bloomberg A and they show it at negative0 uh 02. Come on. How is this negative? >> If you don't report the NAV, the correlation is zero. >> How is this negatively correlated to bonds? What are you talking about? >> Well, it's essentially a zero correlation. meaning like there's Yeah, that's uh >> Oh, by the way, I think I I I said this last week on the show. Um I tried bottom fishing in the Aries private credit BDC. Um and I got stopped out for a 5% loss because I'm not that brave, but I I think I should be I think I'm going to get back in. I I I don't believe that this is going to be like the unwind of the century. >> Okay, good luck with that. I I I my whole thing is just I think people need to just temper their expectations with private credit. The returns have to go down. But even if they if if they go down, let's say returns go down 20% and they go from 11 or 12 to eight or nine, is that still is that the worst thing in the world? >> No, that's that's I think that's probably my base case if I had to guess what's going to happen. Yeah, returns going to be compressed because more money coming in and that's the story of capitalism. Uh all right, this is a great chart. So we've mentioned this data point. 90% of companies in the US that generate $100 million are privately held. >> Mhm. >> Right. I've never seen it put this way. Kind of a face blower here. I would have thought that like the 90 or the 8020 rule applies that even though most of the companies are private, you still have more revenues with public companies because Nvidia and Walmart, you know. No, not true. $40 trillion in annual revenue for private companies in the US. Damn, that's a lot of money. And 35 trillion uh for public companies. So that includes like all small businesses. So like my my tailor at the mall right next to my office sue alterations. Small business. >> I'm sorry. Hold on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. >> This is the US, the EU, and the UK. >> Okay. It's still surprising, >> right? >> I feel like that private number has to be very hard to get, though. How How do you How do you come up with those numbers? I'm sure there's a way to back into it. Anyway, yeah, you're right. That's that's surprising. >> All right. Bloomberg has a great piece on what I think is house called house rich. America is minting lots of cashstrap millionaires. So they say millionaires on the rise but much of their wealth is in hard-to-reach assets. Um this is funny. In the guilded age there were 4,047 millionaires in the US and each one is listed by name in a special edition of the New York Tribune. Can you imagine that? Like they listed just all the millionaires because that's how in the in the paper. Um today the millionaire households more than 24 million one in five US households. Um, and a third of those modern millionaires have been minted since 2017, but they're saying it's mostly in houses, right? Um, for the barely millionaires, people with a million to 2 million, 66% of their wealth is tied up in their primary home or retirement accounts, meaning they it's illquid. They can't access it. Households with 5 million or more had 24% in easy to access bank accounts compared to 17% for those closer to the millionaire mark. So basically it's saying a lot of people have a million dollars but they're probably house rich retirement account rich and they can't really it's not liquid net worth which I mean play the world's smallest violin for these people. Obviously you're still a millionaire but obviously that makes sense since housing is up so much. There's probably a lot of hous millionaires and housing really is one of the hardest assets to unlock the the wealth, right? you have to borrow against it for a heliloc or cash out refinance if you want to take some of it out or sell and then you have to live somewhere so you have to either downsize or buy a place that's just as expensive potentially it is the hardest one to actually unlock the wealth anyway being house rich first world problems but that's a thing >> house millionaires >> right um they said Gen X added the most millionaire household this is funny um they look look at all these increases than millionaires. Gen X added a ton. Millennials added almost like 3 million millionaires. This is since 2017. So, a huge leap forward, right? Um, but then they show being a millionaire isn't the same as it used to be. And they show the cost of a fourbedroom home in the New York suburbs, driving two Mercedes E350 sedans, which I don't know what that is. Which knows what those are. A four-year Harvard education for two children, and a two-bedroom upstate New York cottage, and a 19T Cray boat. They show the difference in the cost. I'm sorry. This is not being a millionaire. is being like a deca millionaire or >> Yeah. What? >> So, you own a house and you own two Mercedes and you send your children to Harvard and you own a two-bedroom cottage in upstate New York and a boat. >> Dude, this is what this is the thing. This is the news that they're giving us because we we're outraged, right? We're outraged. This is this makes people mad because it's nonsense. It's pure [ __ ] >> right? This is the top I don't know 5% 2%. Yeah. This is not this is not a thing that just being a millionaire did not used to it and never got >> a Mercedes, a vacation house, a CRA, Harvard, >> right? Sorry, that's not being a millionaire, right? >> That's that's being in the top that that's like top 1%. >> Yes, exactly. >> Um, all right. There was a long article >> and that's why even rich people are a millionaire because they look at that and they go, why I'm rich. Why am I not doing this stuff? because that's very few people do that. >> Um, there was a long article in the journal about how not great Hollywood is doing. They said at the end of 2024, 100,000 people were employed in the motion picture industry in LA. Two years earlier was 142,000. um 30% fewer movies and TV shows with budgets of at least $40 million began shooting in the US in 2024 than in 2022. >> This is surprising to me because there's there's so many more streaming networks now. I would have thought it would have risen for sure. >> And yet and yet Hollywood still seems so um not great at giving the audience what they want. Like for example, Tron opened over the weekend and it bombed. I'm not surprised. It cost $180 million to make. It did $33 million at the box office over the weekend. >> My son wants to see that really bad. >> He He watched both the first two TR. >> He did. Okay, fine. So, George is an outlier, but I should be a consultant. This is so easy for an outsider now. Easy when easy in the cheap seats, but >> no one no one no one wanted that one. Michael, are you going to see Tron? Nope. And nobody else is either. Good. Done. >> That should have been a straight to Disney Plus streaming movie. >> Who? Tron is not a This is not IP that anybody gives a [ __ ] about. Give people more weapons and sinners. Like, get the memo. It's over. >> You will be going on the Tron ride at Disney, though. Mark my words. Supposedly, they have a good Tron ride. But the the problem is the problem is when these things bomb Scott Mendelson was writing about this. They they blame uh the audience doesn't want to see movies. No, we do want to see we want to see good movies. We want to see this [ __ ] Right. Again, that that should be a straight to Disney Plus movie. Like they should have more of those as opposed to trying to be in the theater with that >> absolute junk. Uh, I got a lot of emails last week about spending less time on your phone. Um, and I a lot of it was like, uh, delete the app. Come on, guys. I don't have the app. Think I'm that big of a dodo? What I do is I go through the internet. >> See, that's even worse than the app. >> Um, but I did, somebody did send me something. >> That's That's an addict move right there >> to go through the internet. But I only >> hiding the drugs in your ceiling or something. Um, I bought something called a brick. I haven't used it yet, but I think what this thing is is I think it like restricts websites, so you have to like physically hold your phone to the device to unlock it. So, I'm I'm going to literally cut my phone off from Twitter. >> You know what? You know what I finally did? >> And again, I was thinking about this week because after reflecting on the show last week, I really I'm only on it during my downtime. But the problem is my downtime is when I should be with my kids. So, I'm on the couch at like 7 o'clock or 7:30 scrolling Twitter when they're like, you know, on their iPad or whatever. It's horrible. It's like the worst thing ever. >> You know what I did that helped me a lot in Twitter? And obviously, to your point, willpower alone is not enough in these instances. You need to have >> I don't have willpower. >> Like I like one of the things I still use it for is I'm catching up on uh sports, college football or NFL, cuz I'm out and about doing stuff all Saturday and Sunday with my kids and I'm watching highlights. But then you have the auto video feed and it goes from like a sports highlight to like two dudes fighting in an alley. Yeah. And it's like I don't need to see this. So you can turn off the auto video play so it just it loops your video so it doesn't show you these other insane videos that you don't want to see and you get caught on the loop. Um >> that's helped me stay off of Twitter more. Like I'm just watching it for sports highlights and and nothing else. >> Well, you do have willpower. I don't need to be off Twitter completely. I just need to be off it from like the hours of 6 to 10 >> cuz during the day I whatever. All right. Anyway, >> you're too busy. Yeah, you're too busy to do it during the day. >> All right, here's a good one. Talking about like the news and what we see and what causes all of the anxiety. Max Roser showed >> Oh, this is a good chart. It >> is great. All right. What Americans die from and the causes of death the media, the US media specifically reports on. So, for example, heart disease and cancer are the number one and number two killers. They're over they're almost 60% of deaths. Almost 60%. And yet they are 6% of coverage at the times, the Post and Fox News, give or take 60% of deaths and only 6% of coverage. On the other hand, um the biggest by far because it's salacious is uh homicide 42 46 and 52% on the number. >> It is kind of crazy the causes of death homicide you can barely even see on the chart. >> I don't where does it what is it? Is that 1%? I can't I can't read it. It's so small. >> Terrorism% >> 18 12 and 11. And that's >> to be to be fair the news networks it would be kind of weird if they're like Jerry Smith died of a heart attack today at age 73. He was >> sure >> 250 pounds and >> 100%. Um, drug overdose. >> You're right. This is a very good put it in context kind of thing. >> Even on like uh local news, it's and even like Good Morning America that Robin watches, it's always just like oh my god. It's like >> Yes, I Yes. I can't >> death hit by car. >> It is. It's too much. I pretty much just avoiding cable news has been probably better for my mental health than even Twitter. I I I I stay away from it at all cost. Want to give a shout out to our colleague Tata Saskant celebrated his 20th anniversary at Abnormal Returns which is absolutely amazing. >> Amazing. >> The best curator in all of finance. >> Uh I still like every Sunday he does the top 10 posts of the week. He he he has personal finance posts. He has um an advisor newsletter. Every day he's putting out the best links from everything. Like if you people ask me like how do you have a filter in place to read the best stuff and stay up on this stuff? And I said, "Whatever you do, just read abnormal returns every day." Because he's he doesn't miss anything. >> Congrats, Thomas. That is impressive. Wow. >> 20 20 years of doing anything is amazing. But think about how many people that we when we started blogging back in like the early to mid 2010s. There was all these other people who had blogs. Think about how many of them have fallen by the wayside and just stopped doing their blogs. And like the fact like survival is a big key big piece of it. Just keep doing it. Um, all right. Recommendations. I will start. You got me going on um Audible books and now I'm hooked. And it's got me to the point where I don't listen to podcasts as like I'm like why do I need this stupid pop culture sports podcast? So I listen to Breakneck by Dan Wang. He's been in a podcast. Yes. >> Wait, I thought I put this in here. >> Oh, you did? No, I put this in here. Did you listen to it, too? >> Dude, it's soing good. >> Okay. It's very good. >> Um I finished. >> Look at us. Look at us. How old are we? We're listening to the same audio book and we don't even know it. I um I listened to it in a week. I finished it. I just thought his whole thing about when he first said the lawyers versus engineers thing, I thought like, "Oh, that's clever. It's cute." But he really like point by point kind of broke it down like, "Okay, so did >> that was wait hold on just just for the audience because you're right that hit so hard." Explain what he meant by that. >> So the whole idea is that the United States is run by lawyers, right? Almost all the politicians, like two-thirds of them, went to Yale Law School or Harvard Law School. And all of our politicians are lawyers and they put rules in place to make things like protect people and make sure things don't happen. >> Yeah. You can't do anything. >> And yeah, you can't get anything done. China is is run by engineers. They build stuff. And I thought the greatest thing about this book is that I thought he did a wonderful job of looking at the cost and benefit of the pros and cons of each system. And he looked at the great things China can do and how they can build stuff, these bridges, and like the infrastructure and everything is clean, all these parks. and it's amazing, but they have like they seem to lack common sense. I think that was what he was getting >> and a bit of humanity. >> Yes. And he and I thought that I don't think enough maybe in the 80s and 90s they talked about this more. I don't think enough has been made about how batshit crazy the one child policy was. Like are you kidding me? >> Um and the fact that I didn't realize they literally have a department called the propaganda department. I thought he was joking but that's literally the name of a department. So anyway, so did you come away reading that book or listening to it feeling better or worse about like US versus China in the years ahead? Cuz I don't I still I'm I'm not done with the book, but I feel like I've I'm in it enough that I can conclude that uh it's going to be tough to beat them. Those those >> people are >> they seem to they can build stuff like if we went to war with them their production they would they would probably crush us unfortunately. But I feel like they're they have a very they have a lot of blind spots. We do too, obviously. >> Yeah. >> But I feel like they have common sense about >> we we can learn a lot from each other. >> Yes. I think that was the point that like there's but we're mere images of each other kind of like the fact that like we need us and they need they we need us and they need I can't even say it. we both need each other and because they like to build so much and manufacturing is such a big part of it like that the fact that we're consumers like we're kind of a yin and a yang with each other. >> Yeah. >> It's it's a very very good book. It's it's the best and I'm admittedly a macro tourist on China but man it was a good book. >> Yeah. It's really really >> the best book I've listened to in a long time or read whatever. >> Yeah. No, >> can you say you're reading the book if you're listening to an Audible? >> They're tough. They're a tough competitor. >> What do you think? >> I don't know what else you I'm listening to a book. I know it sounds weird to say, but listen, I think you've come you've come to come to terms with uh with where we are in life. That's so funny. >> I got a show for Yeah, it's very good. I listened to the whole thing. I got a show um the lowdown on Hulu with Ethan Hawk. It's a good not a great show, but it's B they basically just said Ethan Hawk, we're going to let you cook. And he he's like way out there. He's he's doing all sorts of Ethan Hawk thing. He he's he plays an investigative journalist who gets caught up in these this crazy scheme and mystery and it's not like a a prestige kind of show. It's a little silly at times, but it's if you're an Ethan Hawk fan, um that's all that matters. It's just Ethan Hawk cooking. >> I get Ethan Hawk and Jude Law confused. The names, not the faces. I'm not sure why, but >> they both the same. You've seen Gatka with both of them in it, right? >> I've never seen Gatka. I know you like that movie. Oh, really? You have to watch. That's a fantastic movie. >> Okay. Uh, I really I enjoyed the [ __ ] out of Black Rabbit. I finally wrapped it up. >> I really enjoyed it. >> Yeah, >> but it's just a lot of bad stuff happens, right? >> Yeah. I think I thrive on Misery >> for my entertainment purposes. >> Um, >> and we're one episode away from finishing Task and that show has gotten better as it's g along. The last two episodes of Task have been fantastic. >> Okay, I'm a little bit behind there. I'm gonna catch up. Speaking of misery, somebody said, "Uh, how come I've never done a favorite horror movie list?" I'll do it next week for the Halloween season, but I'm going to >> I thought you did this before. >> Have I? I can't remember. I'm going to But I'm going to exclude like Halloween and Scream. I'm going to do stuff that's a little bit more off the beaten path. >> Well, that is what you do. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> How about this? I have a theory, though. I think horror movies are the new superhero movies. I think Hollywood Hollywood is getting lazy and all they do is do these horror movies at a low budget. I think that's the new like, eh, let's just do another horror movie. >> But you're late though because that trend has been in place for the last 5 years and I think it's finally peaking because A24, not A24. Um, oh my god, who's the dude? Oh, uh, was it Jason Blum who was on Bellan's podcast a couple months ago? Oh, Megan too bombed. >> Okay. I just I just want more comedies. I don't know why we don't have comedies anymore. It It's really depressing that we don't have more comedy movies. It's like no one wants to laugh. I I don't get why there's not more comedies. >> That's it. >> I I can't imagine that people won't want to go see good comedies again. There there's a new one coming out with Seth Rogan and Kiana Ryu and Aiz and Sari and it looks hilarious. It looks dumb but very funny. I can't wait. I just want more dumb funny movies again. That's that's what I grew up on in the 80s and 90s and 2000s. What happened? Hollywood is letting me down. >> All right, so we mentioned break neck, which was a very easy listen cuz my speed was like four to five hours. It's a 20. >> Wait, what speed do you go? You go >> Well, it depends. If I'm in the shower, I slow it down to one times because it's hard to hear. But if I'm on the move, I am 1.7. >> Okay, I'm at a two now. >> Okay, >> I'm comfortable with a two. And I just every time I take I take my dog for a walk every day, you know, and put him in on that and listen to it and and I can't believe how quickly it's you're able to get through a book. I I listen to the whole thing in a week. >> All right. Um on the flip side though, this book took me two weeks. I listened to I've always wanted to read this book uh Team of Rivals by to Doris Karns Goodwin. One of the best historian authors ever. >> Uh my dad is like the biggest Lincoln fan ever. He's read all the books and that's his favorite one. Uh, you know, it's funny as I'm cleaning out unpacking my my office. I This was in in a box. I brought the time wh the time an illustrated history of his life and times. Abraham Lincoln. Obviously, I never thumped this. It's a huge magazine, but I will. But anyway, I read the I listened to the book. >> The kind of person who just doesn't exist anymore, right? >> No. Um, it was too long. I mean, it was it was tough. It was It was It took me I mean, that took me like 20 hours, I think. It took me two weeks to listen to. Uh I'm glad I listened to it cuz I never in a million years would would have read it. But on the flight home, I mentioned last week that it's been a while since I saw a movie on an airplane. Uh I I I said, "You know what? I want to watch I want to watch Lincoln. See what Daniel Doo is all about. All this Daniel Du Hubbaloo Halaloo." And it's not streaming. You have to like pay for it, which I would have done, whatever. But it was on it was on Delta. So I watched Lincoln perfect airplane movie because it's a slow drama and you watch >> I remember not it's kind of a tough watch. Not wasn't that great. I didn't think ex >> exactly you're not going to watch it on your couch because it's boring but on the airplane especially after reading team of rivals and having all these characters being brought to life. Uh holy [ __ ] Daniel Lewis I mean hot take he's good. >> He won uh he won best actor that year. >> Um and perform is not a great movie. You're not going to watch this at home, but I really enjoyed it given the context of uh of the book. Did I learn anything? Yeah. Am I going to forget it all in about a week? Probably. >> Biographers, just cut 50% of the junk you put in your books, right? A lot of it's just unnecessary. A >> lot of fat as usual. All right. Uh, a lot of fat in the show, you might say. We went an hour 15. Read some bad. >> I didn't talk about AI at all. You were the only one who brought it up today. >> It was pretty light. Pretty light. Uh, what else is going on, Ben? Uh, anything else? That's about it. >> Thanks to the production team as always. Itemshop.com. Do we have any new hats yet in yet or not? >> Oh, I don't know. >> Okay, we'll look. Uh, animal spirits compoundnews.com and we'll see you next time. [Music]