10 Reasons to be Bullish (EP. 472)

Summary

Animal Spirits Podcast – Episode 472: "10 Reasons to be Bullish"

Hosts: Michael Batnick & Ben Carlson
Date: July 8, 2026
Theme: Exploring the changing market “vibes,” data-driven reasons for optimism (“bullishness”) in equities, retail investor behavior, economic trends, the evolution of prediction markets and gambling, challenges in affordability for Americans, and more. The tone is upbeat but self-aware, with humor, personal anecdotes, and banter layered throughout.

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Episode Overview

The hosts kick off this mid-summer episode declaring that the “vibe session is over” and optimism has returned—much like the Roaring Twenties—citing cultural moments and improved public sentiment. They discuss a popular blog, "10 Reasons to be Bullish," digging into recent market trends that defy widespread bearish expectations. From earnings growth to shifting investor behavior, the episode weaves data analysis, listener questions, and cultural commentary, all underpinned by a message: Maybe things aren’t as bad as prevailing sentiment and headlines imply.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Vibe Shift: From Bearish to Bullish

Timestamps: 01:34–07:29

• Post-pandemic mood shift: The hosts observe increased happiness and enthusiasm in real-life interactions, as opposed to persistent online negativity and “doom” narratives.
• Comparison to Roaring Twenties: Ben draws historical parallels: “People lived through a horrible period of time... and people were just looking for a reason to celebrate. And it seems like this summer is a summer of celebration.” (Ben, 01:39)
• Cultural undercurrents: Events like the World Cup, movie releases, and personal anecdotes about July 4th are cited as evidence of the upbeat sentiment.

2. 10 Reasons to Be Bullish: Market Data & Trends

Timestamps: 06:33–12:39

• Youthful optimism in markets: Reference to Matt ("Chart Kid")'s blog listing 10 data-driven bullish factors, contrasting with the often-jaded outlook of older, more experienced investors.
• Data Highlights:
  • S&P 500 12-month earnings up 32% vs. market up 22%: “Earnings are up 32%. The market itself is up 22%. That's pretty nuts.” (Ben, 08:18)
  • Profit margins remain resilient despite multiple headwinds (tariffs, inflation, etc.), partly thanks to technological advancements and AI.
  • Market valuations: S&P 500 annualized 24% gains since October 2022 lows, yet valuations have not ballooned disproportionately—indicating fundamentals have kept pace.
  • Profit margin commentary: “Why would margins improve, go lower? I think margins improve for the rest of the S&P.” (Ben, 10:29)
• Market concentration and the “Mag 7”: The Mag 7 (Mega-cap US tech stocks) appear less dominant than headlines suggest; their index weighting is falling as they underperform.

3. Wider Market Trends & Surprising Stats

Timestamps: 13:06–18:07

• Long-term market returns aren’t as “overblown” as perceived: Over the last 5, 10, 20 years, S&P returns percentile ranks are strong but “lower than most people would assume.” (Ben, 13:31)
• Small-caps Rally: Unusually strong year-to-date outperformance by small-caps, defying conventional wisdom about rate cycles and capital costs.
• Global equity concentration: The US is actually less concentrated at the top end than many other countries. The Mag 7 alone would be the world’s second-biggest “country” by market cap.

4. AI, Earnings, and Market Surprises

Timestamps: 17:17–19:27

• Samsung’s staggering AI windfall: “This year's profit for Samsung will exceed the cumulative profit generated over the past 40 years since we entered the semiconductor business.” (Ben, 18:07)
• Market’s lag in pricing in AI-driven change: Despite the clear upward trajectory, investors were slow to anticipate chip shortages and the scale of profits, suggesting limits to market efficiency.

5. Retail Investor Behavior: Buying the Dip and Beyond

Timestamps: 20:02–24:37

• Retail flows surge: Citadel Securities data shows retail investors are buying at record pace, especially on market down days: “Retail investors purchased nearly three and a half times the average daily amount on S&P 500 down days during the first half of 2026.” (Ben, 21:24)
• Rotation out of Mag 7: Retail enthusiasm is shifting away from the biggest tech names toward broader market segments.
• Skepticism about “buy the dip” warnings: Both hosts challenge the perennial narrative that retail investors’ exuberance will end in disaster; in reality, the true pain in crises is job loss, not stocks going down.

6. Passive Investing, Portfolio Construction, and Market Data

Timestamps: 24:38–27:25

• New Bessembinder research: Even simply holding the S&P 500’s biggest stock doesn’t wildly underperform—an outcome influenced by Apple's extraordinary run.
• Financial media’s tendency to overemphasize personal anecdotes and extremes: The hosts rail against stories of well-off tech workers complaining about $180K salaries not sufficing in San Francisco, advocating greater empathy for true middle-/working-class challenges.

7. Cost of Living: Affordability, Housing, and Consumption

Timestamps: 27:25–32:27; 51:36–54:53

• Personal finance conundrums: Can high-income professionals claim hardship in expensive cities? Anecdotes and data about million-dollar home sale price overages.
• Listener question: Parental anxieties about the future for “common man jobs” and the American Dream, with the hosts emphasizing perspective and historical mobility data.
• Car payments hit new highs ($777 avg, Q2 2026): Is it inflation, consumer choice, or bull market psychology? “A lot of this is consumer choice… No one is changing their behavior despite this, despite the fact that there's huge sticker shock.” (Ben, 51:36)

8. AI in Everyday Life & Changing Media

Timestamps: 30:50–32:37; 57:56–58:27

• Listeners share how AI tools increasingly manage financial lives and correspondences.
• Both hosts muse on the growing sophistication of AI-written content and speculate on detection methods.

9. Gambling & Prediction Markets: Booming or Bubble?

Timestamps: 32:42–41:47

• Record gambling losses ($250 billion annually): Framed as a bull-market phenomenon, but with social costs.
• Prediction market “sharps” beating institutions: Anecdote of a screenwriter profiting from modeling inflation better than Wall Street. “They can't beat an acting major in a garage with Excel.” (Ben quoting article, 36:11)
• Zero-sum dynamics: As pros clean up, the sustainability of these new platforms is questioned.
• Manipulation risks: Betting markets can incentivize efforts to change outcomes in the real world (ex: gaming Spotify song streams to win bets).

10. Market Speculation, Leverage, and Flows

Timestamps: 45:02–47:34

• Private equity plunges into tech: Software deals now account for half of new private equity and VC activity, up from 25% a decade ago.
• Leveraged ETFs and recent carnage: Market volatility quickly hits aggressive products and their investors.
• Institutional money entering private credit as retail exits.

11. Credit Card “Rewards” Are a Transfer From the Poor to the Rich

Timestamps: 47:42–49:35

• Economic research reveals that people who use cash or debit are subsidizing wealthy credit card users via higher prices.
• “Consumers who use cash or debit cards effectively help finance the rewards enjoyed by credit card users.” (Ben, 48:43)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the New Optimism:
  “People in the real world seem happier to me and want to celebrate stuff. And it's a great thing.” (Ben, 06:33)

• On Retail Momentum:
  “Retail investors are deploying capital at a record pace. June is on track to become the strongest month in our history, with daily purchases running nearly four times last year's average.” (Ben, 21:23)

• On the Illusion of Tech Worker Hardship:
  “I'm sick of these stories about that are trying to make upper middle class or rich people feel bad about their situation and allow them to complain.” (Ben, 28:16)

• On the Active vs. Passive Debate:
  “Most of the strategists on Wall Street are not quants like this guy... They're marketers.” (Ben, 37:57)

• On College Town Firework Mishaps & Feeling Old:
  “I feel like such an old man. Cause in my 20s I would have been doing this too, right?... You have to be the bad guy sometimes. Good for you, right? Am I a jerk for saying something?” (Ben, 69:55)

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Recommendations & Media

Timestamps: 65:01–68:42

• Zendaya/Robert Pattinson film ("Worst Thing"): Entertaining, creative, though Ben didn’t buy Zendaya's character’s actions.
• Dazed and Confused/Superbad/nostalgic movies: Discussion of generational “coming of age” films and their impact.
• TV: Netflix shows experience sharp audience drop-offs between seasons; more streaming/TV commentary.

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Additional Insights

• Cultural references: World Cup, Fourth of July, pizza (Domino’s vs. Pizza Hut), fireworks, social media addiction, and AI in media—tying market observations to broader American life.
• Self-deprecating humor: Frequent “brain breaks,” misused clichés, and references to aging.
• Listener engagement: Emails and comments from listeners spur topics on life satisfaction, financial decisions, and AI.

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Conclusion

Despite endless cycles of worry and a media obsession with bad news, the hosts make a compelling case—grounded in data and lived experience—that there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about both the markets and broader quality of life. They combine humor, humility, personal stories, and market analysis, making this episode both accessible and insightful for investors and armchair economists alike.

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For questions or feedback, email: [e-mail]
(Next week: "10 Reasons to Be Bearish")

Transcript

[Ben Carlson]

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[Michael Batnick]

Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life and investing. Join Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

[Ben Felix]

Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Michael, I'm officially declaring it. The vibe session is over.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Ben Felix]

Okay. Now it's not going to show up in a sentiment surveys because as we've talked about, sentiment surveys are broken. You can't trust those anymore. But I just get this sense and this is very early, reminiscent of the Roaring Twenties. The reason the one of the reasons the Roaring Twenties happened was not just because there was all these new consumer products. It was in consumer credit. And it was people lived through a horrible period of time, right? You had World War I, then you had the Spanish flu pandemic, you know, the Depression and all these things. And people were just looking for a reason to celebrate. And it seems like this summer is a summer of celebration. And I think that the Knicks thing kind of started it. And you saw all the people, you were part of this. You saw all the people who were just like, oh, thank God we get to celebrate something, right? It was just people want to celebrate something. The World cup is a huge celebration. It's not just Americans, it's all these people from other countries coming over here and you see these huge crowds of people in these American cities going nuts, doing celebration. Everyone has a smile on their face, cheering loudly. I think the. The Fourth of July felt a little extra. What was. What do they call it? The semi quincentennial, which is the weirdest name ever.

[Ben Carlson]

Ben, you missed Obsession and back rooms.

[Ben Felix]

Okay. Yeah. You're celebrating movies being back again because. Because you're not celebrating the World cup. But it just seems like out in the world there, obviously there are. There are still doomer people who are too online, who are never going to be happy, and we're never going to get that out of the system. If you're too online, you're just. You're not. And you're too political. You're never going to be happy again. So take those people out of the equation. People in the real world want something to celebrate. And I'm saying it now. It's over. The vibe session is done.

[Ben Carlson]

Love it.

[Ben Felix]

Right?

[Ben Carlson]

Rest in peace. You know, I had a very American patriotic weekend myself. I had some people over for. For the fireworks. You could see them from. From my backyard. And a friend of mine

[Michael Batnick]

brought over

[Ben Carlson]

like a. I don't know how to describe it. A gun that shoots fireworks, I suppose. Sure, there's a name for it. And I'm like, dude, I'm. What do you do? I'm Jewish. I don't want to shoot these.

[Ben Felix]

You sent me the. You sent me the video. It looked to me like a souped up Roman candle.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, sure. Anyway, I got my Roman candle on. I. I sacked up and I let it rip. That was fun. And then what?

[Ben Felix]

I still can't believe the size of the fireworks that they sell to individual people now where all you need is one little thing to go wrong and this thing blows your face off. I can't believe that these. That they give these to people. I went to this fireworks tent with my son, and we could. In our neighborhood, we could only do sparklers. They outlawed fireworks. Those people were getting too crazy with them. Like, sorry, we're not doing them anymore by houses. And the guy goes, hey, you want to buy a kaboom box? He points over in this thing. It was like, I don't know, 900 or something. It was this huge box of all these fireworks. And he's like, if you light that thing, the ground underneath your feet will shake. Like, you know what? I'm good. Appreciate that. I'm gonna let someone else do the kaboom box.

[Ben Carlson]

The thing, the. The Roman candle shooter. It was no big deal. I Scanned the QR code and I saw somebody doing. On YouTube. I'm like, oh, this is. I could. I think I could do this. And then as we were preparing for the party, I ordered. We ordered food that never showed up. Delivery just didn't make it. So I'm like, oh, great. People are gonna be over in five minutes. You know what? Let's give Domino's one more shot. Let's give Domino's one more shot. It's July 4th. Gosh dang it. Let's give it one more shot. What I did this time, I got the thin crust. And I gotta tell you, 10 out of 10. Well, not quite 10 out of 10, but compared to the. The doughy. The doughy pie that truly was not really that awesome. Trying to be kind. The thin crust Domino's that rips, that's edible.

[Ben Felix]

The beauty of the thin crust is. So let's say you're. You eat the hand husk. You probably have three pieces, let's say.

[Ben Carlson]

Hold on, hang on. Somebody emailed us to get the hand toss. He said it's a little bit extra, but it's way better.

[Ben Felix]

What's but thin crust? You can eat 10 pieces and feel like you can keep going.

[Ben Carlson]

What's a hand tossed Domino's Pizza?

[Ben Felix]

I thought that was just a regular pizza.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, either way. Did you know. Do I have this later in the doc? Did you know that Yum Brands sold Pizza Hut? Apparently Domino's Pizza has been ringing their bell, cleaning their clock. Somebody emailed us that. I'm butchering all sorts of phrases. Is ringing their bell a phrase? No, there's a phrase I'm looking for.

[Ben Felix]

I don't know. You can say you got your bell wrong.

[Ben Carlson]

That. That was it. That was it. Anyway, I hope everybody else had a bell ringing of a weekend.

[Ben Felix]

All right. But don't you get the sense that the vibes are changing? People are happier out in the real world again, not online. The online people are never going to be happy. The people who make everything political, they're never going to be happy.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm having a great time.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah. People in the real world seem happier to me and want to celebrate stuff. And it's a great thing. All right. Speaking of celebration chart, kid, Matt had this blog last week, 10 reasons to be bullish. Now, Matt is a younger Fellow, right. He's 20, mid 20s. Mid to late 20s. Right. I think there's this difference between. And Michael Maubouson, I remember did a post on this once. The difference between expertise and experience. Right. And I Feel like people with a lot of experience in the markets. If you're an old gray haired guy right now, you have to be bearish about everything. That's just, that's what happens when you get older. I guess when you get older, you turn 70, you walk around the locker room at the gym naked and you're permanently bearish about everything. Okay, that's just what happens. But Matt being younger, I feel like allows him to not see the world through that lens. And he says, Here's 10 good reasons based on the data to be bullish. No one is saying this right now. No one is saying you should be bullish. Correct. Very few people.

[Ben Carlson]

Very few people. You know what? Because you and I, we've been working together since 2015, and I think for much of that entire time we were waiting for the other shoe to drop in the market. Because that's just what it was, right?

[Ben Felix]

Low returns. This is the end. All these things.

[Ben Carlson]

And Matt, and Matt's like, I don't even know what shoes are. What are you talking about? Stocks go up.

[Ben Felix]

So he, he did this in charts, which he's prone to doing. And I, I think his charts are worth going through. And I, I pulled out some of my favorites. This is the most surprising one to me. So he looks at 12 month total return for the S&P versus 1012 month earnings growth. And a lot of these charts are on exhibit A. Remember, if you're an advisor, you can take for a spin. Also coming out today, which recorded this Tuesday morning, another economic and market update from me, yours truly. I'm having fun writing these.

[Ben Carlson]

Wait, so if you're an exhibit A advisor, subscriber Ben Ghost writes a monthly report every month.

[Ben Felix]

Not even ghost writing. My name's on there. Ghost writing would be like if I was good under management. But here's the reason that I want to run. And I heard Taylor Sheridan on Bill Simmons recently and he talked about Bill Simmons. Asked him like, how do you, what do you do differently when you make a movie or a TV show that someone else doesn't? And he said when I first started, don't have the characters in the movie, tell them, tell you something in dialogue if you can show it with a camera. And that's charts to me. That's why I think it's helpful. And that's why I included so many charts in my book. I would rather show you than tell you. Anyway, good interview. Earnings growth over the last 12 months has been higher than stock market returns by quite a wide margin. Earnings are up 32%. The market itself is up 22%. That's pretty nuts. Earnings themselves are accelerating and it's going up for not only the S and P, which is going up considerably mid caps as well, small caps. So s&P400, s&P600 forward. That means obviously we take a leap there. Earnings is growing higher than the market. Valuations are falling for the S&P 500, which is kind of insane to think about. I just posted on Slack this morning, since the bottom in 2022 of the bear market lows, the S&P 500 was up 24% annualized. Hmm, 24% per year since 20October 2022. And in that time valuations really aren't up that much because fundamentals have kept up. All right, here's another one. Profit margins continue to rise in the face of everything that's going on this decade. Tariffs war, higher energy prices, supply chain issues, higher inflation. Margins just continue to go higher. And with AI coming, why would this go be lower? I don't see why this has to, why this has to stop.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, the obvious way it stops is if the hyperscalers pull back because all of the, not all of a lot of the earnings are coming from their spending.

[Ben Felix]

Well, that's the earning part. I'm talking about the margin part. As technology improves. Why would margins improve, go lower? I think margins improve for the rest of the S and P. Well, it's

[Ben Carlson]

just a half technology stocks, I guess, competition.

[Ben Felix]

Okay, maybe that hasn't worked in the last 15 years. No, the Mag 7 weight in the S and P is dropping considerably because the Mag 7 is underperforming by a wide margin. I think this is good news that this is happening. Concentration is getting lower.

[Ben Carlson]

It is great. Can I say one more? So these are all, these are all wonderful charts from that. You mentioned the Ter Sheridan interview. One of the things that he said, because everybody's like, how the hell are you making all these shows? It doesn't seem possible that you are pumping out this volume right between Landman and Yellowstone and all the spin offs and Lioness and Madison, whatever and you know, mayor of Kingstown and a Tulsa king. And I'm sure there's a few others that I'm thinking of. And he said something along the lines of ideas are easy. But I just, I'm on my ranch, I lock my door and I don't come out until I'm done.

[Ben Felix]

Right.

[Ben Carlson]

Effort.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah. And he was saying that like I probably don't work as hard as some other people do, but no one messes with me.

[Ben Carlson]

So know what? Know what Char kid did last week and he said, man, it feels good to send these out. He sent a copy of Risk and Reward to all several hundred subscribers that are on the Exhibit A platform. And he was jacked up to do it.

[Ben Felix]

Signed copies, too.

[Ben Carlson]

The little things go the long way.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah. Anyway, obviously there are plenty of other counterbalances to what Matt posted about being bullish there. There's plenty of other stuff you could and. And you've heard it, though. Everyone knows what the bearish arguments are, I think.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. All right. This is an awesome chart from this.

[Ben Felix]

Wait, sorry. And maybe the. The most bearish one is just I. The returns have been so good. I think that's the most bearish thing you could say is that we've pulled forward a lot. Ah, right. It's priced. It's returns have to be lower because they've been higher. That's the. That's the only thing I could say.

[Ben Carlson]

But not as high as you might have thought. So Bespoke has a chart showing the S and P returns on a percentile rank basis for 1 year, 2 year, 5 year, 10 year, 20 year. And over the last five years, we're in the 59th percentile. Not nearly as high as I would have thought. Now there's 20, 22 in there, which I think.

[Ben Felix]

Right.

[Ben Carlson]

You know, I keep saying that we. Forget about.

[Ben Felix]

Once that one falls off, it's going to go up a lot higher.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. 10 years, 78th percentile. Probably lower than I would have guessed. Sure. I would have guessed 90th and 20 years. Now we have the GFC in here. So once this rolls off, it's going to shoot up, but 54th percentile.

[Ben Felix]

But you're right, these are still lower than most people would assume.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Ben Felix]

That's fair. That's pretty good. How about this? Another one from exhibit A, Matt. Small caps had since 2005, small caps had their biggest spread over large caps in that time and by a wide, wide margin. The last time we had a small caps outperforming this much in the first six months of the year 2018, you'd have to go back to like 2006 before this happened. Small caps outperformed by 12%.

[Ben Carlson]

I still don't have an awesome answer as to why this is happening. We were talking with Belsky that it's not just like a market cap thing. It's got to be a sector thing. I think that's where I've landed, although I don't really evidence there. Because if you look at the S, P500 and you break it down by decile and you look at year to date returns, the mega cap are winning. And it's not like bucket 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 are doing well. They're not. So the larger stocks in The S&P 500 are outperforming. Equal weight is not really outperforming and yet the Russell 2000 is outperforming by a wide margin.

[Ben Felix]

So I, I told you last week, I put this in, I took all the Russell 1000 holdings from Y charts and year to date returns and I put it into Claude and I said where is, where are these returns coming from? And it wasn't one sector one, it was biotech. And of course there's like the semis and AI part of the small cap where it's, it's happening, but it's all over the place. Like I said, it's like 2/3 of the returns, 2/3 of the names are up year to date. It's, it's a. Why it's a lot of small caps.

[Ben Carlson]

Well then, then also on the narrative part of it, I think conventional wisdom says that small caps tend to do better when the cost of capital is coming down, which is not even close to happening.

[Ben Felix]

Right.

[Ben Carlson]

When Main street is outperforming Wall Street. I don't know if that's really, maybe I just made that up.

[Ben Felix]

So how about this? Is it, is it, is it, is it a flows thing? Do we, if money just finally flowing in there to where they find some value? I don't think, I don't have a good answer either.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, getting back to the large stuff,

[Ben Felix]

although I think when there, when you don't know a good answer about the market flows, the market, but the market is usually right about these. Like this is the market getting, getting ahead of something. Could it also be an AI thing where people are going, you know what we're going to go to the, we're trying to look forward to the, where the next winners from AI are going to come from?

[Ben Carlson]

No.

[Ben Felix]

You don't think that's it?

[Ben Carlson]

No.

[Ben Felix]

You don't think that smaller companies are going to benefit from A.I.

[Ben Carlson]

that's like that, that's, that's not the, what you just said. They may benefit from AI, but you think enough investors are like saying we're going to buy small caps because they. No, I don't think so. That's, that's, you're reaching for trust.

[Ben Felix]

All right, I am reaching because I don't know.

[Ben Carlson]

So symbolist is a chart showing equity market concentration. We've spoken about this a lot that the U.S. but this is an incredible visual. The U.S. is actually at the lower end. So the top 10 companies as a share of the index, India and Japan are smaller than us. Everything else is more concentrated significantly.

[Ben Felix]

So yeah, it's not even close in most cases. There's a handful of countries, it looks like, I don't know, a dozen countries where the top 10 make up almost 100%, probably 99.

[Ben Carlson]

The massive difference that sort of makes that chart totally garbage or perhaps useless is the size.

[Ben Felix]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

So seven US companies have a similar weight to the next seven biggest countries in the msci. All country world in the next combined. Tesla, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, that Apple, Nvidia are as big as France, China, Korea, Canada, uk, Taiwan and Japan.

[Ben Felix]

Look at this next one from Deutsche bank. They had this America 250 report and they show that the US accounts for half of the world's public market capitalization. But they also show the Mag 7 on here. And yeah, the Mag 7 would be as a country, the second biggest to the US if you just stripped out the Mag seven way ahead of China, way ahead of Japan, Total world market cap. I don't know. I think this is through June 30th. $167 trillion kind of a lot of money. Okay, this is a crazy stat on AI stuff. Someone flagged this. I saw this on Twitter. Samsung had had a big meeting, internal meeting, and somehow the quotes leaked or something or they put out to a press conference. This year's profit for Samsung will exceed the cumulative profit generated over the past 40 years since we entered the semiconductor business.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh my God.

[Ben Felix]

One year of profits is more than the 40 years previously combined. It's kind of funny talking about the market knowing and not knowing things. So over the past year, Samsung is up over 400%. In the past five years, the company is only up 300%. Okay, so all of that return has essentially come in the last year. So you had, you had a few years there where chat TPT came out and then you had AI stuff going on in 2023, 2024, 2025, it dipped a little bit and then it took off. Why was the market so slow to understand that there would be a memory shortage?

[Ben Carlson]

Can't answer that.

[Ben Felix]

This seems like one of those things where the market really was. Everyone was behind on this. Was it just. People thought like, there's no way this is going to happen this quickly. There's no way Yeah, I.

[Ben Carlson]

Out of my. Out of my depth.

[Ben Felix]

Samsung a lot of stuff we don't know today.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ben Felix]

Well, markets make. Markets do that to people.

[Ben Carlson]

Can't know everything. Samsung fell 7% last night.

[Ben Felix]

Hang on. That's a huge red flag though. If you are talking to someone in the. That a. A pundit, a wealth manager, hedge fund manager. If they know everything, they're full of. No one knows everything when it comes to the markets.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. So Samsung reported 7. I'm sorry, the stock. The stock is down 7%. Micron pre market down 6% or so. Micron is in a 25% drawdown. It's all priced in Western digital looks significantly worse.

[Ben Felix]

Wait, you've been. You've been championing this 30% micron drawdown, saying it was going to happen?

[Ben Carlson]

I'm not rooting for it. I just. Sand. Not Sandis. Western Dig.

[Ben Felix]

You got a vacuum going on there or something?

[Ben Carlson]

I do.

[Ben Felix]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

I'll close my door.

[Ben Felix]

Let's just pretend it's not happening.

[Ben Carlson]

Western Dig down 34 at the Open peak to trough or current prices from peak. One sec. Anyway, is, is. Was that. Is this the top for these names? Who the hell knows? But money is definitely rotating out of the AI names and back into some of the software names.

[Ben Felix]

But that was the easiest call to make that we've been saying for a few weeks. Eventually these stocks are going to get slaughtered. Course.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, that was, that was. That was not a brave. I don't think I was going out on a Lim.

[Ben Felix]

Didn't go out on a Lima. That one. Hey, out on a Lim. You got that one.

[Ben Carlson]

Boom. You know, somebody emailed us. I was talking with a friend actually at the beach over the weekend about how sometimes your brain breaks. He was looking for a phrase and I said, dude, I give him like the. The Leo gif. I said, this happens to me five times a show on. On the podcast. I can't, you know, once a. Once the camera's recording, the mic is on, you know, lights get bright.

[Ben Felix]

Yep.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. Retail has become the structural bid. This is from Citadel. Retail investors are deploying capital at a record pace. June is on track to become the strongest month in our history, with daily purchases running nearly four times last year's average. There's another one showing that retail investors are buying the dip heavily, aggressively. Retail investors purchased nearly three and a half times the average daily amount on S&P 500 down days during the first half of 2026. The strongest buy the dip behavior in our data set, unbelievable. Even on rallies they continue to buy nearly one half times the daily average.

[Ben Felix]

Wow. By the way, someone from Citadel emailed me, said, hey, Citadel is the hedge fund. Citadel securities is the market maker. There's a difference.

[Ben Carlson]

We know.

[Ben Felix]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

We know that you know that I know.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah. Apparently I didn't, didn't say it called them Citadel and Citadel. Citadel securities.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, well, I believe this comes from

[Ben Felix]

Citadel securities setting the record straight.

[Ben Carlson]

It says, well, says Scott Rubner.

[Ben Felix]

Rubner, Rubner. Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

But then the source of C securities,

[Ben Felix]

those are really good. Those are really good reports that they put out.

[Ben Carlson]

I like, you know what I thought, you know when this happens, speaking of like not knowing everything, when you think something where you're reading something, you're like, oh, that's because of this. And then you scroll down and then like immediately you get refuted.

[Ben Felix]

Right.

[Ben Carlson]

That happened to me with these charts.

[Ben Felix]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

So I thought, well, yeah, the Mag 7, like the favorite retail names have been underperforming for all year. They just, they just keep doubling down and you know, putting more, more and more and more and more on Mag 7. Literally. By the next chart, retail investors in the past week showed less interest in MAG7 stocks than on roughly 85% of trading days since 2022 rotation. So they have, they have no interest.

[Ben Felix]

Right.

[Ben Carlson]

So my first, my instinct was completely wrong.

[Ben Felix]

So part of the reason Mag7 is selling off is obvious. People are not interested as much anymore

[Ben Carlson]

and people are not interested. The question is, are they not interested for the right reasons?

[Ben Felix]

I don't know. They're not interested because they're not performing. How's that? Yeah, it's all momentum play. Right. The returns slowed so they went and found momentum elsewhere.

[Ben Carlson]

The market is interesting how like sometimes it will and I'm, I'm using like Apple in this case. Last week, two weeks ago, I said on the show when Apple fell 6% after that it was going to pass through price increases. I thought, I was like, hi, I would, thought it would be the Stock would rally 5% on the day because they're obviously taking something to the bottom line. Right. They're going to like, they're going to raise more than they need to. And is that going to slow people down from buying Apple? I highly doubt it. Stock fell 6% and the next three sessions it's back at an all time high.

[Ben Felix]

Oh, okay. So that was an algo driven style then, I suppose.

[Ben Carlson]

Here's another good one from Lukawa at Sherwood securities. Just kidding, Just Sherwood. The correlation between the daily change in the S&P 500 and net purchases of single stocks in Robinhood is negative 0.54. This so far this year. A testament to the eagerness to buy dips and dial down purchases during big updates. So I guess Robin and you know, probably routes a lot of their orders through security, through Citadel securities, but the

[Ben Felix]

finger waggers will say this is going to end badly. Just wait.

[Ben Carlson]

You know what people who pucker up, Buttercup. Remember that guy, that email that came in years ago to us?

[Ben Felix]

Oh, yeah. Yep.

[Ben Carlson]

Pucker up, Buttercup. Yeah. People have been saying this forever.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah, I, I, and I, I will take the other side of this.

[Michael Batnick]

Sure.

[Ben Felix]

When there's a financial crisis, it's going to be painful, but it's not going to be painful because people buy stocks and they keep going down. Like, that's not going to be the painful part. The painful part is going to be people losing their jobs. Their jobs and not having savings to, to invest. That's going to be the painful part.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Ben Felix]

All right. Hendrik Bessembinder. New, new, new report already.

[Ben Carlson]

You know, I saw, I saw somebody, you got to say it. I saw somebody refer to him as Hank.

[Ben Felix]

Hank Bestenbinder. Okay. All right. I like it.

[Ben Carlson]

Do you know, you know, Henry's my middle name. Did you know that?

[Ben Felix]

I did not know that.

[Ben Carlson]

And growing up, I was embarrassed about two things. Well, more than two things, but K. Batnik, I was embarrassed about my, my middle name. Henry. Not a kid's name. And I have a, and I have a large big toe that embarrassed me when I was a kid. Now you know my deepest, darkest secrets been.

[Ben Felix]

You do have a freakishly large big toe, don't you?

[Ben Carlson]

You've seen my big toe.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

I mean, I wouldn't say it's freakish. It's dominant.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah. It's long. I like Henry as a name. That, that's a good name.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, it's, it came around in 1992. Henry was not, you know, Henry was embarrassing.

[Ben Felix]

So he has a paper on do nothing. He, he looked at like the s and P500. And if you just bought these 500 stocks and let them go and didn't rebalance. And he, he's saying, like, a lot of the just buy and hold portfolios work better anyway. That wasn't the interesting part of his paper to me. The interesting part of his paper with me, he looked at different size portfolios. He looked at like 500 stocks, 300, 110, and then one. And he looked at what if you just bought the biggest stock every year? In the S&P 500 going back to 1971, it's not that many stocks. IBM for a long time, AT&T there for a little bit. Exxon, GE for a very long time, and then Apple, Microsoft a little bit. So it's like seven names or something. And by the way, look at GE's run from 94 to, to 99. It was up 45% per year or more. 40% or more per year every single year. Up 45, up 40, up 51, up 41, up 68 in consecutive years. Unbelievable. No wonder this thing crashed. But it's kind of crazy if you look at it because the idea is I've seen studies before that say like, hey, if you buy the biggest 10 names or something, you're going to underperform. The average return for just buying the biggest name is 11.3% per year. I think the, I think it slightly underperforms the S and P which was, I don't know, 12% per year or something like that or 12.5. But it's not like the returns are terrible.

[Ben Carlson]

So I saw this stat back in probably 2016 for the first time, I'm guessing, and this was a Ned Davis chart and it showed that if you only own the largest stock, you significantly underperformed the index. Which does make intuitive sense. Right? Like trees don't grow to the scry mean version, etc. So there was, there used to be a big gap.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah. I wonder if Apple being so well and Apple changed this.

[Ben Carlson]

Apple broke the data series.

[Ben Felix]

I think so. Because Apple has done so well. You're right. That it's, I think it's kind of increased the average.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Ben Felix]

Anyway, I thought that was, that was interesting. All right, here's something that I'm sick of. I want, I just want it to stop like forever. I want to stop pandering to people who are doing well off complaining about their financial situation. They're people who legitimately have a gripe against the economy, against how much things cost, but not these people. In San Francisco, even $180,000 tech salaries are no longer enough. Okay? And they talk about how OpenAI and anthropic and all these, the rich AI money coming in is hurting people. And they, they interview people and they talk about this, this 27 year old who is earning $180,000 and her partner earns $185,000. And it says these days, even though six figure salaries are no longer enough in San Francisco, Boo Frickin who I feel sorry for the Teachers and the firefighters and the police officers and the service workers. Those people, how do those people survive in places like San Francisco?

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Ben Felix]

If you're a tech person and you make six figure salary, I'm sorry, you're not as rich as the AI people. I'm sorry. Deal with it. I'm not going to feel sorry for you because I'm sick of these stories about that are trying to make upper middle class or rich people feel bad about their situation and allow them to complain. Am I being too harsh? No, I get it. They're saying, hey, a lot of people are going to have to. These people are going to move to Seattle or Austin or somewhere else. And there's a huge concentration of wealth in San Francisco. They don't build enough housing. I get it. It's gotta be super annoying. You work in technology, you can work remotely.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Ben Felix]

You make way more money than the vast majority of Americans.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, I guess I'm empathetic to that. But also, nobody's writing an article about the firefighters and the teachers.

[Ben Felix]

That's what I'm saying. We should.

[Ben Carlson]

You're right.

[Ben Felix]

Those are people that deserve sympathy.

[Ben Carlson]

You're right. San Francisco is a weird place. Especially right now. Now I haven't been to San Francisco in like 30 years. Not 30 years, when I went when I was 17. So I can't really comment on what goes on there, what doesn't. But from this, from this aspect alone, in June, So Mike Simonson tweeted this. In June, 44 transactions in San Francisco closed at at least $1 million above the final ask price. So they show, this, shows this data series going back to 2024. And obviously this, you know, 44, it's not a gigantic number, but this used to never happen. Why would a house go over a million dollars above the asking price? And now there is literally just not enough homes to, to house all these people. And there's way too much money. There's a huge imbalance here. So how do the, how do the firefighters and the teachers survive? Don't know. Matter of fact, how.

[Ben Felix]

How would Danny Tanner survive? What was he in, Was he a. He worked in a morning show for Full House. He had that great house on the hill in Full House. There's no way that. But listen, Danny Tanner took on roommates. Uncle Joey lived there, Uncle Jesse lived there. Uncle Jesse's family lived in the, in the top floor of their house. They made do in San Francisco. Right.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't think, I don't think you can make do anymore.

[Ben Felix]

No, I, I I get the frustration, but there. I'm just saying there's other people who deserve more sympathy than tech workers making $400,000 a year. Yeah, in their 20s. In their 20s. Move somewhere else. That's. That's the thing.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. This, I thought, was a mo. Moderately interesting email. Hey, guys. Weird little AI story, but I think you'll appreciate it. I connected my budgeting app to an AI tool, which meant that I had eyes on my brokerage account, most likely judging my position, sizing more than I'd like. I was in the middle of overthinking some portfolio moves and asked it for a podcast that could make me sound smarter as I convinced myself to buy SpaceX or the IPO. It said, animal spirits. Rude that an AI knows me better than I know myself, but it was right. And now I haven't missed an episode since. That's a genuinely useful AI use case, if a slightly humbling one. Also, I had AI write this entire email, including the subject line, with the explicit goal of getting you to click it. So, really, the AI recommended your podcast to me, that turned around and wrote an ad copy to get your attention. Did it work? It's basically running my financial life and my correspondence at this point. Send help. This did not sound like AI.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah, but do you think. You think. You don't think this is a person who went and changed a few things for AI or not.

[Ben Carlson]

Probably not. Well, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe could have. But the point is that you're able to have all of these tools go through your sent box, learn how you write, and this is just it.

[Ben Felix]

I was using Claude the other day for some sort of research piece, and then at the very end, I think it was when I was researching small caps or something, it said, tying back into what you've been writing on a wealth of common sense. And I didn't even. You know, it just. It tied it back into my stuff and it was. But it was pandering to me.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, right. Well, you know how the conversation was like, we're tired of this AI slop. It's so obvious when it's written by AI. Yeah, it's not going to be obvious anymore, which is. I guess I have mixed thoughts on that.

[Ben Felix]

I don't know. I still feel like I'm going to be able to. I'm going to be one of those people that can spot it.

[Ben Carlson]

Were you able to spot this one?

[Ben Felix]

That sounds like a good game show. Like, spot the AI.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Ben Felix]

Give me five pieces of writing and I'll tell you which one the AI Produced.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. People are gambling. Let's talk about it.

[Ben Felix]

Okay, Joe, Joey Politano wrote this for the argument. Americans are set to lose nearly $250 billion gambling this year. A record high up, more than 60% since 2019. And that's before counting unofficial betting via prediction markets or crypto. Can anything, anything stop America's gambling boom?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. A recession. Can I zag here?

[Ben Felix]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

This is a sign of. This is a sign of good times. This is a sign of a really healthy economy.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah, you're right. People have money to blow.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. Now, I understand that there is obviously an element of hopelessness in here, that there are obviously a cohort of these betters that are doing it because they see no light at the end of the tunnel and. Right. Like, obviously, there's a group of people

[Ben Felix]

that you find out who the real degenerates are in a recession because they're still gambling.

[Ben Carlson]

Right, Right.

[Ben Felix]

They're not using it as entertainment and for side money.

[Ben Carlson]

But he's saying that Americans are set to lose nearly $250 billion in gambling, a record high of more than 60% since 2019. What a sign of progress. Now, you might hate it, and I certainly don't. You know, I'm not.

[Ben Felix]

He's showing. I don't love credit. Credit delinquency soars in the years after gaining access to legalized sports betting.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, so this is. This is. This is the. The dark part that I was just talking about. Well, I just messed up the dot. This is the dark part of it. So it is. It's these. These are. These are small numbers. Right, Right.

[Ben Felix]

The relative scheme of the whole economy. You're right. $250 billion is a drop in the bucket.

[Ben Carlson]

So the change in the credit delinquencies, it's like. What is that, half a percent?

[Ben Felix]

Like what? I. I'm. Is it 10% of gamblers are problematic or 5%? It's. You're right. It's a. It's probably a small number, but there are. There are people who are getting their lives ruined, and it's easier. You and I have heard stories. People have their lives ruined by gambling just because it's easier to do, and that's unfortunate, but you're. It's. It's also a small number of people.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. So I. If I could set my fingers and. And make the shit go away, I would.

[Ben Felix]

Yes, I agree. There's no. There's no real use for it besides advertising for podcasts.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. The human Stories of people losing their lives is beyond, beyond, beyond tragic. Um, okay, so that's true. But it's also true that I think that you, you don't have $250 billion worth of gambling in anything other than a pretty healthy economy.

[Ben Felix]

I will take the other side of this and say that number is never going lower again, ever. Unless we have a prohibition on gambling, that that number is as low as it's ever going to be and it's only going to get higher because we're going to keep making it easier and having more platforms to gamble, and that number is never going lower.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, you might be right. I'm. I'm not like calling a top word. I have no idea. It'll dip. I think it'll dip during the next serious recession as people lose their jobs. But maybe, maybe it gets really dark and then people really start gambling.

[Ben Felix]

That's. What if people decide, like, I need to do something, I'm going to keep gambling.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, you know what, you know why they're not going to do that? Because I think people are smart enough to understand in general that the more you gamble, the more you lose. So there was an episode on the Odd Lots podcast. There was a. An article in the Times written by Adam Isco, and he was talking about the Sharps. That's what they're called. Sharks with a P. These are like the intelligent betters on these platforms, Poly Market and Kalashi, that are actually winning a lot of money and making.

[Ben Felix]

I thought these guys were very interesting, the guys who are doing this. And they're, they're just kind of. They're not like Wall street people. They're just kind of regular people who have figured out that there are still some common sense loopholes in the prediction markets and they know where they are.

[Ben Carlson]

So Prince Hal, a struggling screenwriter turned full time Cali trader, has been trading for about a decade. He showed me how he builds inflation forecasting models that consistently outperform major financial institutions to the tune of $3.7 million in lifetime profits. He said me and the banks are doing the same thing. I think it says more about the market than it does about me. They can't beat an acting major in a garage with Excel. The author said he asked a macroeconomist who forecasts inflation for a prominent Wall street hedge fund to review Prince House trades and methodology. And he said, quote, I'm actually dumbfounded. He told me this guy might literally be Nostradamus.

[Ben Felix]

So him, this guy explaining how he built his inflation model, I thought was Fascinating. He talked about how, listen, inflation is stuff. That's the inflation number has already happened. So he says, I got on the phone with BLS and I figured out how they calculate this stuff. And I created a model which just looks. And he said, listen, gas prices are kind of, there's a lot of prices that are known. The other stuff, you have to make some, some guesses and estimates. But he's like, I don't understand why the Wall street people don't do this. And the reason is I thought about this. He's like, how are these Wall street people so bad at forecasting? And I just literally built the same model that BLS uses and I'm really, really close. Why don't they do this? And you want to know why? Because most of the strategists on Wall street are not quants like this guy. They're not in the basement running numbers. They're marketers. That's it. They don't want, they don't care how accurate they are. They want to have a wide range of results. Right? You don't think that's fair?

[Ben Carlson]

They want to have a wide range of results. What do you mean?

[Ben Felix]

Well, you, you want to be in the headlines. No. 1, I mean obviously if you, if you have a. I'm saying like the reason that they don't have more sophisticated models like this is because the, most of the strategists, again, they're going on CNBC and they're going on Bloomberg and they're, they're marketing people. They're not maybe want people for the most part. Anyway. I thought his whole story was really interesting.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, me too. It was. What does that, what does that say about the way things are done? Is it, is it group think? Is it. I'm not sure exactly what it is but, but what you said that his point was, I'm not trying to forecast something that I think is going to happen that's obviously extremely difficult. I'm trying to model something that happened.

[Ben Felix]

Right. It already happened. The prices have already changed. But I thought their point, the whole thing about prediction markets though, and they were like, listen, we don't think that this is something that's going to like totally revolutionize and change the world because it's zero sum. And that's the thing. What happens when the, the suckers leave the poker table? How do you keep finding enough suckers to keep coming in?

[Ben Carlson]

Well, so this is the thing. There are a lot of suckers. But don't you eventually sort of run out of people? So they were saying like this, this happened in, in poker. And what was the other one that they used? The other example that they used? I.

[Ben Felix]

Fantasy football and. Yeah, the same thing. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Like there's, there's a. The, the sharks are waiting, and eventually the minnows just say, I'm not going to the sharks anymore.

[Ben Felix]

This is what happened in the fund industry. When people went passive, they left. We're not going to try to pick active management or we're just going to buy index funds.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Ben Felix]

The people who are left competing are the pros.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. I'm so curious to fast forward. I don't know how long it takes for that to happen. Is it. Is it in 10 years? Is it in 20 years where people are like, I don't gamble on calshi. What are we. What are you, the biggest moron on the planet? All you're doing is going against professionals.

[Ben Felix]

So do they have to change the way that they do? They have to become like, do they have to take the other side of some of these bets somehow?

[Ben Carlson]

Well, Susquehanna and these market makers, they're taking the other side of every bet at the right price. Here's an interesting story.

[Ben Felix]

Wait, so. So we keep saying this. So what would, why would we be wrong on this? What would cause us to be wrong on which. That. The, that they're the. Eventually this kind of runs out and peters out for these predictive markets.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, here's how. If people bucket this as entertainment spending money. If they say, Yeah, I lose 3% a year, or, or I'm making that up, whatever it is. I have. I have $1,000 a year that I use for entertainment purposes, and that's just what I lose every year. And I have a great time doing it.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah, like people who trade options and stock trade or. Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

But I've mentioned this before about my own gambling habits. Somebody emailed me and it's like, hey, I. This is fun. I'm just getting into it. I'm like, oh, boy. But they're like, asking for safety, you know, tips and whatever. I don't really have a great answer here, but for me Personally, my, my FanDuel app now shows my cumulative losses. And I lose. I've lost 7 cents on every dollar. That's where I'm at today. But guess what?

[Ben Felix]

You're essentially paying the vig. That's your, that's your losses.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. And it's. And I, I love gambling, but if I do a million dollars worth of bets over the next 10 years, do I. Am I comfortable losing $70,000 mean it's not that much fun, you know, so, you know, I don't know where the line is.

[Ben Felix]

All right, well, it's already probably bigger than we would have thought if you had asked us five years ago. So maybe we'll continue to be wrong on this.

[Ben Carlson]

They said like 40% of, of men between ages whatever, 18 and 40 have gambled. I think that's probably light and it'll

[Ben Felix]

obviously spike around political events. That stuff will still continue to be.

[Ben Carlson]

But that part was interesting to me. One of the reasons why they're, why they're consistently able to make money on elections is there's an emotional element to elections like there isn't with inflation.

[Ben Felix]

People are betting on who they want to win, not who they think will win.

[Ben Carlson]

So maybe there's some persistent alpha there. But if enough money comes in. All right, whatever. This story was interesting. Spotify deletes stream of chart topping song after suspicious Kalshee bets. So the platform removed more than 500,000 streams of Malcolm Todd track each earrings on concerned traders propelled it to number one. That was a FT story. So look at this chart.

[Ben Felix]

So they had bots. They had bots playing the song over and over again.

[Ben Carlson]

So I think it cost Matt living was writing about it like it takes a dollar to, to play a song 100 times or whatever it is. So somebody did this enough times, spent enough money to do this and bet on this to be the number one song and made like a 10,000% return or something like that. Weird shit is happening. So Matt wrote prediction markets are truth machines in the sense that they give people incentives to figure out what is true and bet on it. But they are also obviously and increasingly falsehood machines in the sense that they give people incentives to make bets and then distort reality to make those bets pay off. Because of prediction markets, it is now lucrative to figure out what song will be the most popular but it is even more lucrative to make a different song look most popular prediction markets can make it harder to know what is true. Joe had a good point, I thought an interesting point. So I think most people are like anything insider trading related should be punished and and criminalized and prosecuted. And I think we generally agree especially if you are in a position of if you're an elected official, straight to jail. But for everything else, Joe's point was like sort of who gives a. In the sense that you really want government resources being allocated to this of all things true.

[Ben Felix]

Well, I guess the counter to that would be the people who give a are the ones who bet on Olivia Rodrigo and go, hey, wait a minute, I got screwed. I was going to get a payoff on my bet and now some jerk did his Spotify thing and he won. So that you're, you're taking advantage.

[Ben Carlson]

Gambling. You're gambling. This is gambling.

[Ben Felix]

All right, that's fair. That's true. If you bet on which Spotify song is going to be number one with

[Ben Carlson]

your money, it's hard to have. We really want. We got government resources there. Buyer beware. Okay, two interesting nuggets in private markets. This from Bloomberg. The total amount of money in software investments held on the books of alternative asset managers is difficult to assess, but by some measures could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. In 2025, the value of software related private equity transactions reached $203 billion, according to a recent report by Pitchbook. So check this out. Money flowing into the software sector has gone from around 25% to half of new private equity and venture capital, more than double that share from 15 years ago. There's going to be some really, really bad numbers over the next decade that we find out about.

[Ben Felix]

It's kind of funny to think that private equity used to just be more hard asset kind of businesses. And now in the past 15 years, it looks like they've just made a huge, huge push into tech to try to keep up with vc. I guess you're right. The whole industry has kind of been transformed.

[Ben Carlson]

Is that wild?

[Ben Felix]

And you can't just cut your loser short when you're in private equity. You have to deal with it for a long time.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, so let's do a market check. It's 9:50 Tuesday morning and the AI names are getting smoked. SanDisk down nine, AMAT down ten. Western Ditch down eight. Intel seven. AMD seven micron, six and a half.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah, that's what happens in momentum names.

[Ben Carlson]

A couple of weeks ago, Josh and I were talking about roundtill launched dram, which is obviously, you know, explosive, explosive success credit to them. Then they launched ram. This is the business which is the double X lever which has now been cut in half. And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Is that nine trading days? But there's options on RAM.

[Ben Felix]

Geez.

[Ben Carlson]

So we spoke about leverage a couple of weeks ago. We're on the other side of it now.

[Ben Felix]

So, okay, yeah, so that, that ETF is down a quick 26%.

[Ben Carlson]

Which one?

[Ben Felix]

DRAM.

[Ben Carlson]

DRAM buyers will step in. But is it right now or is it 15% lower? We'll find out. Okay. One more. So we've spoken not as much in recent weeks. Some of the noise has died down about the private credit credit outflows. Well, that was mostly on the Wealth Channel. Large institutional investors are diving in. North American direct lending funds that seek to attract institutional clients raised at least $16 billion in the second quarter, the three months ending in June 25. This was the second strongest quarter in four years for fundraising by such close end funds, which raise money from investors only once and have a finite life. Isn't that interesting? So retail is running out and large money is diving in.

[Ben Felix]

I guess it makes sense that, yeah, if you have a longer time horizon and you see some disruption here, hey, we're going to hold for the long haul. That's the big. That's the biggest problem, is people who didn't hold these things didn't know that you had to hold these things for 10 years or whatever. All right. Really cool report in the National Bureau of Economic Research. Ember, we talked about a couple of weeks ago, I talked about the 0% credit cards. And I said, how is this possible? Who's paying for this? They kind of have an answer. Every time a consumer swipes a credit card, the merchant pays an interchange fee, typically 1.9% of the transaction value. That's the average, most of which funds the rewards that cardholders receive because merchants generally charge the same prices, regardless of how consumers pay. Consumers who use cash or debit cards effectively help finance the rewards enjoyed by credit card users. So the idea is if you're, if a Merchant is paying 2% more for this fee, everything goes up by 2%. Right. So if you're paying in cash or you're using a debit card, you're not getting that 2 to 3% back on your rewards.

[Michael Batnick]

You're not.

[Ben Felix]

You're the one who's paying this. You're paying higher prices because of it. You are the one who is subsidizing the rewards.

[Ben Carlson]

And sometimes, I mean, oftentimes a pizza spot will be like 850 cash 915 credit card.

[Ben Felix]

Right. That, that's pretty rare. So they say because credit card usage rises with income, the system generates an estimated $9.2 billion in annual transfer from households earning less than 150,000 to. To those earning more.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. Wait a minute. I think what. That's becoming standard around here. Standard might be a stretch, but I feel like I see that all the time. That's not uncommon.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah, maybe.

[Ben Carlson]

No. Well, you and I live in different places.

[Ben Felix]

Okay, that's true. But you're right. We, we said it's, it's these people, it's subsidized, it's getting subsidized. And that's effectively what's happening.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Ben Felix]

All right. From Bloomberg, U.S. car payments hit a record 770. Sorry, 777. I can't say this. $777.

[Ben Carlson]

That is tough.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah. Okay, how about we call it 780? With more than a quarter of US car buyers taking out loans of seven years or more, the average amount financed reached an all time high of more than $44,000. Average down payment fell 10% from a year ago. More than a fifth of new car buyers signed up for monthly car payments of $1,000 or more in the second quarter, leading more to owe. Leading people many to owe more on their car than it's worth and others default on the loans. I had Claude come up with this for me. They took Edmund's numbers. And so in 2019, at the end of 2019, the average car payment was $575 or something. So it's up $200 a month since, in this decade alone. And I, I keep kind of asking this, but how much of this is the type of car you drive versus people just paying more? It's obviously a little bit of both. But if everyone, we snapped our fingers at tomorrow, Everyone said they gave up their trucks and they gave up their SUVs. They're huge gas guzzlers. Although they don't guzzle as much gas anymore. My Telluride gets amazing gas mileage because it's hybrid. Anyway, they gave those up and everyone bought a sedan. Everyone buys a Camry or an Accord. How much do those, how much do those monthly payments go down?

[Ben Carlson]

A lot.

[Ben Felix]

A lot, right?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Ben Felix]

So a lot of this is consumer choice. And the point of the article was no one is changing their behavior despite this, despite the fact that there's huge sticker shock. And I said, when I bought a new SUV recently, I had massive sticker shock. Like, oh my gosh, I can't believe how expensive these car payments are, but no one is doing anything about it. And that to your point maybe, Earl, is that just bull market behavior? No one is. No one's, no one's reigning things in yet. Right. No one's pulling back. No one's making substitutions.

[Ben Carlson]

Great point. I found the email that I wanted to read before. So speaking about, like, teachers and firefighters, somebody said, I keep thinking about my future children entering the workforce 20 to 40 years from now. Not the future AI, engineers, surgeons or high income earners. Normal jobs, the common man jobs. Teachers, nurses, retail workers, bankers, firefighters. What does sense of achievement look like for them in 30 years? Price out of homes, Disney vacations, new cars, Chipotle. What if our kids grow up and turn out to be common? And most will. The goal when having children is to hopefully prepare them with a life better than mine. And I'm not sure that's true anymore. Easy to accomplish. This is the sad thought, in my opinion. Thoughts?

[Ben Felix]

That's every parent's worst nightmare. Obviously that their children will be worse off than they are. But the data shows most kids are better off than their parents. I understand the, the worry, but I think thinking that far out into the future, we, we have no idea what's going to happen.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I think that's, that's probably the right take. And also, I don't think that people that went into teaching 15 years ago were like, I'm going to go on a Disney vacation and another vacation a year and in 15 years I won't be able to afford it because of inflation. Like those things were never really attainable. Don't give me the 50s, whatever. Like, yeah, things are more expensive, I get it. But so, yeah, I don't know.

[Ben Felix]

So I have a friend recently who I hung out with from high school and he's, he's an elementary school teacher. His wife is a principal. He says we don't make a lot of money. Like he said, I would love to take my kids on more vacations. We can't afford it. If my kids want something. And his kids are teenagers now, they're older. I tell them to get a job. He admits we don't because we're teachers. This is the life we chose. He's a teacher and a football coach. He doesn't make a lot of money, relatively speaking. Right. I'd love to take more vacations. He's, I can't, we can't afford it. So like, he understands this, this trade. You're right. Unfortunately, everyone can't do that. And that's just the system we live in.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I just, I think it's, it's more pronounced today, but it's not, that's not, that's always been the case.

[Ben Felix]

What's more pronounced today is that you just see the other people taking the vacations and you didn't see that before. Yeah, it's just shoved down your throat. All right, I, I went through the comments last week. I haven't done this in a while, but I, I Pulled out a couple of them. One of them was fast forward six months. Michael says, my Range Rover has been in the shop for over three months over this check engine light. That's a pretty. If I could bet on the Kelshi, I'd put money on that. Here's another one. I think this guy was talking about leasing cars. I don't know. But he says these guys make tons of poor financial decisions. They must be overpaid, probably. I think that there is something of a personal finance graduation that when you make more money, you should make decisions that personal finance experts would say that's a bad decision. From the personal finance perspective. That's. That should be your goal in life. To do something that people, personal finance people say that's a bad idea because if you compounded it over 30 years. Right. I think that that should be your goal in life, to have lifestyle creep. It's not a bad thing. That's a good thing.

[Ben Carlson]

It's a great thing.

[Ben Felix]

Right?

[Ben Carlson]

I was, I was.

[Ben Felix]

You spend money on that. What do you. You're. That's, that's insane. You're wasting money. That should be your goal in life.

[Ben Carlson]

I was 25 years old, unemployed and unemployable. I had worked the previous six years full time because I was kicked out of college twice and I had nothing else to do except for work. So I had, I had a Kush bank account. I don't know how much it was. Let's say I had $30,000. I felt rich when I was like 19, right? That was. That mean I had all the money in the world. No prospects, but I had a decent amount of money for a kid. And then I was cold calling, trying to get people to buy life insurance policies. Not really. I stopped cold calling. I just went into work in 2009 because I had nowhere else to be. Where else was I going to go? I was paying 400amonth in rent for this job, for my office, swear to God. And the money was going to zero. My bank account was, was going to zero. And my eye was twitching for a year because I was so stressed. My mom was dying. That was part of the, part of the stress. But there was a lot of financial emotional stress and things were really not good for me financially. And then I get a job and I was making no money when I started for the first couple of years because we were starting from nothing and I had to be smart with my money and I had to budget and count every dollar and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now I'm on the other side of that. And it's awesome. Everybody should strive for that. To not have to make spreadsheet financial decisions for their entire life. And is rent. Is renting a car a suboptimal financial decision? Yeah, but I am not up optimizing for my spreadsheet anymore. And I think a lot of people would be surprised at some of the financial decisions I make because I'm not. I am not optimizing for, like, the biggest number.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't.

[Ben Carlson]

I really don't care about what my liquid net worth is because, a, I'm optimistic about my future earnings potential, but I'm 41 years old, and these are, like, probably gonna be some of the best years of my life. I'm spending money. That's what I choose to do.

[Ben Felix]

Right. When you're in your 20s, you do have to be the spreadsheet person. I was too. I was.

[Ben Carlson]

You have to be everybody.

[Ben Felix]

When my wife and I first got married, I had to have a conversation with her because she was going out every week with her friends like, PF Changs, like, we can't afford this.

[Ben Carlson]

Actually, you know what? The other. The other side of. Of my experience is the Ivy League investment banker kids who don't have to make any spreadsheet decisions in their. When they're 23 years old, they're making $110,000 a year.

[Ben Felix]

Right. I was not that person either. But I thought to myself when I gave. Had that talk with my wife about, like, hey, you're going out to eat too much. I thought, like, man, I got. I can't do. I have to make more money. I can't do this in penny pinch my whole life. Yeah, you do in your 20s, and then you hopefully graduate anyway. All right, Lucas Shaw, Great stat here. Netflix top shows have been losing 30 to 70% of their audience between seasons one and twos. Executives are trying to figure out why we talk about this a lot. So they talk about how season two of Beef suffered a 70% drop the night agent shed 50% of his audience for the second season.

[Ben Carlson]

I like the second season of Beef. Did you watch it?

[Ben Felix]

Yeah, it was. I thought it was just okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Not as good as first, but I liked it.

[Ben Felix]

But they show all these different shows. Four seasons is one of them too, which I like the second season too. But most shows these days should be one season. And I actually am more excited when I find out something is a miniseries and it's not gonna be more than, like, most shows aren't good enough because most Shows today would have been movies in the past and when they go to the second season, they're doing it for a money grab or they just shouldn't be two season shows.

[Ben Carlson]

I think it's hard for the, for the Netflixes of the world though, to just continue to pop out one season shows because when you have a hit, obviously you're gonna make more of it.

[Ben Felix]

No, of course. Yeah. You got to keep trying. And obviously there's just more shows today. This was a crazy one, though. Lucas says betting against Netflix has long been a fool's ear. And he talked about why the stock price is so bad. And it is in a 50% drawdown still. Ish. Which is kind of crazy. So 42% drawdown from the highs. Netflix still accounts for half of the most watched shows on streaming. So it's still a massive, massive winner in streaming. And the stock doesn't care.

[Ben Carlson]

I bought more Netflix last week. It's probably a poor decision. The stock looks, is not acting very well. This is an interesting story though.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah. But every time Netflix has fallen 50, 60%. It's been a wonderful buying opportunity. Until it isn't.

[Ben Carlson]

That is true. But yeah, you're right. Most seasons are not worth continuing. Like I, I'm. I know I'm saying this every week. Are you watching Cape Fear? I love that show.

[Ben Felix]

No, I'm not into Cape. I don't get any. I probably will eventually.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm having a rip roaring good time. I don't want to see a second season. Right.

[Ben Felix]

It'd be too much because guess what? That was originally a movie. They're stretching out.

[Ben Carlson]

For most shows, one season is enough. Except for Taylor Sheridan for the most part.

[Ben Felix]

I don't know about that. I mean, Yellowstone went down quickly, but that was a three season show.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, but he said, he said on the interview, why it went down like they wrote. They wrote it for three seasons and then they stretched it and yeah, four was garbage. All right. This is a good chart. Maxardi tweeted this. Somebody made a. Is this like a histogram?

[Ben Felix]

I don't know, like a distribution of.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, of distribution chart for every film by genre. And the takeaway is horrors up top. Very Fat Tales. Because there's a lot of really, really, really bad horror movies.

[Ben Felix]

Right. There's way more people that hate and way more people that like. There's a lot of ones and a lot of fives.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. I don't even think it's taste per se. It's just there's genuine garbage, which makes sense.

[Ben Felix]

Because there's so many of them.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. And it, it costs very little to make them. Whereas documentaries for the most part are generally pretty high quality. Same thing with like sport movies.

[Ben Felix]

Right.

[Ben Carlson]

There's not like a ton of like garbage sports movies. Like they're both. They're generally pretty.

[Ben Felix]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Ben Carlson]

So that is a tighter distribution documentary war. Tighter distribution. Animation. Animation.

[Ben Felix]

But you talked about the, the movies this year. Obsession. And was the other one called Back Rooms or whatever? There's so many. They're throwing stuff against the wand, hoping something sticks. And when it sticks, it really works.

[Ben Carlson]

I saw this on my TV and I. I just couldn't believe it. I mean, of course I could believe it, but Instagram is now on tv. That was a sponsored ad that popped up on my, on my TV and I just said, nope.

[Ben Felix]

So you can scroll through the reels on your tv.

[Ben Carlson]

It is so. I know I've mentioned this many times. I. I am so addicted. Everyone is so addicted to Instagram.

[Ben Felix]

Never have.

[Ben Carlson]

It is the most powerful narcotic planet.

[Ben Felix]

I check it like once a week maybe. I don't know why Instagram never did it for me. I'm still a Twitter guy.

[Ben Carlson]

You gotta get, you gotta get involved. I'm just gonna. Don't. It's terrible. All right, this is interesting. So star. So Constellation Brands Ticker is stz. Sure, there's an origin there, but Constellation Brands is doing terribly and a large part of this is the GLP1 story, I think. Shifting habits. So Beerus is 91% of their sales.

[Ben Felix]

I don't think it's Ozempic quite yet. I think this is just young people. There's a lot of young people not drinking as much and having fun and people having more gummies. And I think that's. It's been a longer term trend than that.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. The market cap peaked a couple of years ago at 50 billion, is now 22.

[Ben Felix]

And they're the ones who own Modelo and Corona and such. Right.

[Ben Carlson]

Sierra Nevada and. Yeah, Pacifica Corona. But you know what's interesting? Only in the United States. So AB InBev, Anheuser Busch owns it globally. Isn't that weird?

[Ben Felix]

Owns what globally?

[Ben Carlson]

Pacifico, Corona.

[Ben Felix]

Oh, so you say the only dropping off in the United States. I think that's something that we've learned in the World cup from people coming here. Like Scotland drank Boston out of beer or something. We can teach the Europeans about consumerism and Europeans can teach us about the joys of partying and drinking.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. So anyway, Anheuser Busch. The stock is rocking because globally people are drinking. So. So what's.

[Ben Felix]

It's just in the US that people are not fun anymore.

[Ben Carlson]

So what's driving, what's driving the sales at Constellation Brands to the extent than anything is, is something called Ponies. You know about ponies, Ben?

[Ben Felix]

No.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. The name Pony dates back to the 19th century according to Molson Cors and is commonly used as a synonym for small. So ponies are like the seven ounce beers, like these little tiny things.

[Ben Felix]

What's that?

[Ben Carlson]

Everything in moderation. Anyway, so I asked. I was talking to Claude, I said, so just so I understand. Corona is growing around the world but struggling in the US so outside the US which is Anheuser Busch, revenue grew 8.3% in 2025 with volume growth in 30 markets.

[Ben Felix]

Anheuser Busch stock looks great, but in

[Ben Carlson]

America it's not doing well. And this is pretty depressing. But this is what Claude said. The reason isn't the brand, it's the customer. Constellations US business is heavily dependent on Hispanic consumers, about half its sales, who have pulled back on spending amid immigration policy concerns and economic pressure. Fewer social gatherings, fewer store trips, less spent per trip. Add tariffs on the imported product and a generally soft US Beer market. And the US version of Kron is fighting uphill while the global version is putting up some of the best numbers in the industry.

[Ben Felix]

Very interesting. Yeah, we keep saying it. We'd be happier as a nation if we just drank more. Fertility rate would increase. Right? People were. How do you. How do we fix a fertility problem? Alcohol. That's how you fix it. That was a Jerry Seinfeld bit about how there. 90% of the population is ugly. And they said, how. How are people procreating and getting married? He said, alcohol.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I think, I think we could use a little bit more lubrication.

[Ben Felix]

There you go. Let's do recommendations. All right. My wife and I watched the drama this weekend. I believe you were the one who recommended originally Zendaya Robert Pattinson. And all I knew is the premise of the movie. Four friends are having dinner or drinks and they each share the worst thing they've ever done in their life. That's the only thing I knew.

[Ben Carlson]

Don't spoil it.

[Ben Felix]

Okay? I'm not gonna. I'm not. I won't spoil it. The only thing I will say. And I told my wife this. That's the only thing I know. I. I know that there's a twist coming. And that's it. I thought it was a. A really creative movie. I thought the premise was really good. I don't.

[Ben Carlson]

Come on, man. Just. Just have a good time.

[Ben Felix]

I'm not. My wife said I was being too nitpicky. I don't buy that Zendaya was the one who had. Did this thing. There's no that's movie. I know, but it would have been way more believable if it was Robert Pattinson and not her. And I know why they did it. She was more of the shock value. But I didn't for a second believe that she did this. Not for a second. There's no way you can believe that she. This person.

[Ben Carlson]

Take this stick out of your butt

[Ben Felix]

that looks and sounds like there's no way. No way. It just wasn't believable. Having said that, this is a new genre of movies, and I know why you like them. It's uncomfortable. The wedding scene at the end was so uncomfortable. It was like the most uncomfortable scene I've seen in a long time. And that's. That's a genre of movies now. So it was really well done. It was really creative. That was my biggest nitpick, is that I didn't buy for a second that she's the one who did this terrible. Would have done this terrible thing.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Ben Felix]

But the premise was. And I thought about, like, what would I say if. What's the worst thing I've ever done? I still gotta think about it more.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, me too. Credit to me. I've. I've done many, probably not awesome things.

[Ben Felix]

I don't. Yeah. I couldn't come up with something like, oh, my gosh, like the things that they said on this movie. Guess what?

[Ben Carlson]

If we'll do that reveal next week,

[Ben Felix]

I think I would have taken that one to the grave. I don't care how many glasses of wine I've had. I'd probably take that. All right. I did this tweet the other day. I rewatched Dazed and Confused every once in a while. When I was in college, my sophomore year, I lived in the dorm still, and one of my friends, Dazed and Confused was his favorite movie. And we'd go out to a party, and then sometimes we'd stumble back from the party and we'd put pizza rolls in the oven in the dorm. We'd bring pizza rolls back up and we'd put Dazed and Confused on until we passed out. It was like, I love that movie. I watch it all the time. I realized as I was rewatching it this time, first of all, they talk about the bicentennial in the Movie because it took place in 1976. It was supposed to, but this movie was released in 1993, okay? So I thought. I did the math and I said, if Days of Confused, if that happened today, it would be a movie in 2009. So 1976 to 1993 is the same as 2009 till today. And I put the tweet on, it went kind of viral, and a bunch of people said, yeah, that's super bad. Super bad is our days in Confused because it's the end of school. And I kind of felt like, wow, Superbad is the 2000s days. And confused. That's a really good analogy.

[Ben Carlson]

I do think that Superbad is, like, the movie that I saw that was just the best at the time. Like, where I was, I guess I was in high school. I was a senior or junior, and it was just perfect. It was absolutely perfect to be a senior in high school seeing that movie on screen with your friends for the first time.

[Ben Felix]

So American Pie came out the summer of my junior, senior of high school, and that the movie hit differently because of when it came out and when I saw it. But, yeah, I. I like the idea of Superbad being the days and confused of today.

[Ben Carlson]

Somebody sent me something on Instagram, a picture of all the. All the actors in American Pie, and it made me feel old. And you know what, Ben? We are not that young anymore.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah, we grew up with them. We're old. Wait, I have a story for you

[Ben Carlson]

that when Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are on the steps of the monument, like, what are we gonna say? Looking back, we were just a couple of kids, and Owen Wilson's like, we're not that.

[Ben Felix]

We don't have kids anymore. I have a. About being old. I got one story I'll share. So we're at our lake and we're having. It's Fourth of July night, right? The kids are doing sparklers in the backyard. We have friends over and little kids running. We're doing sparklers, and we're roasting marshmallows on the fire and waiting for it to get dark enough for the actual fireworks to come. And we have this backyard that kind of runs up the lake, and we have neighbors that kind of share the backyard area, right? And they decide, some of the guys, that their kids are older, like college age, right? They decided we're going to write some fireworks off before the show, right? So they're doing bottle rockets, and they moved the bottle rockets away from their group because they didn't want to light fireworks to them. But they came over very close to us, right? They went away from their group, they came to us. And it's these college kids who I've been drinking and they're not lighting bottle rockets out of a lot out of a bottle, which is why they're called bottle rockets. They're holding them with their hand and letting the bottle rocket and let it go up their hand. But as they're doing this, they're dropping them and they're, you know, falling, and the bottle rockets going everywhere and they're right next to us and we have little kids running around with sparklers. And these guys are cracking up because it's hilarious at how old wheels? 20s. You know, I probably would have been doing it back then too, but they're. And, and finally, like, everyone in our group is getting very uncomfortable because these bottle. These kids are like dropping these bottle rockets. And not. If you hold a bottle rocket wrong and it goes the wrong way. It's, you know, so I finally. It's. It's my house. I have to say something. I said, hey, guys, can you do that somewhere else? We have little kids here and they go, well, we're trying to have the bottle rockets go up, you know, And I feel like such an old man. Cause in my 20s I would have been doing this too, right? But they're holding and the bottle rocket's like blowing up on them almost, right? And they go, yeah, sorry, we were trying. And I'm like, yeah, you know, you're holding them, you're gonna shoot one in the wrong way. And you know, someone's gonna. Whatever. It's. There's kids, so they leave and my daughter is just mortified. My 12 year old is mortified that I said something and that's being it at all. You have to be the bad guy sometimes. Good for you, right? Am I a jerk for saying something?

[Ben Carlson]

Definitely not.

[Ben Felix]

Usually you give me crap for not saying anything when I call out my window.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Ben Felix]

So, yeah. To be. My daughter has never been more embarrassed of me that I said something to the college bros about holding bottle rockets and lighting them around little kids.

[Ben Carlson]

You had to.

[Ben Felix]

Yeah. Middle aged guy. I yelling at the cloud.

[Ben Carlson]

All right.

[Ben Felix]

And then you sent me a picture of you setting off a rolling candle two feet from your boat.

[Ben Carlson]

Just, you know, it was sort of anticlimactic. It wasn't kind of cool.

[Ben Felix]

Next week we'll do 1010 reasons to be bearish.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Ben Felix]

Just to balance things out.

[Ben Carlson]

Animalsprits@the compoundnews.com thank you for listening. Even the people commenting on us making stupid financial decisions. Personal emails, personal responses. We'll see you next time.

[Michael Batnick]

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