Buy the Porsche (EP. 426)

Summary

Animal Spirits Podcast: "Buy the Porsche" (EP. 426)

Date: August 20, 2025
Hosts: Michael Batnick & Ben Carlson
Podcast Theme: Markets, Life, and Investing

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Animal Spirits, Michael and Ben explore the challenges of covering markets during a “boring” but surreal post-COVID period where everything seems to be running on autopilot, especially with AI-driven hype, lopsided stock returns, and an unrelenting housing problem. They dig into the cyclical market narratives, real-world economic adjustments, the pressures and opportunities created by AI—both for investments and jobs—and the philosophy of personal money decisions, humorously captured in the "should I buy a Porsche?" discussion. The episode delivers candid takes, playful banter, and solid data with a mix of actionable insights and self-aware skepticism.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Market Malaise & Cycles: Boredom and Uncertainty

Timestamps: 01:29 – 04:51

• Ben confesses market boredom, noting “it’s been like a slow, steady grind higher,” and laments the repetition in market narratives, wishing they could “fast forward and just like check back in three years” to see what played out (02:05).
• The AI boom is identified as the dominant “kernel of truth” that has investors overexcited; Michael references Sam Altman's quote:

  “When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth.” (04:51)

• They consider that all discussions—AI, housing, big tech—seem stuck on repeat, with little true resolution.

2. AI, Market Hype, and Investor Behavior

Timestamps: 04:51 – 08:38

• A candid assessment: the AI excitement is warranted but probably overdone ("Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? ...yes. Are people overexcited? Yes," Michael at 04:51).
• Referencing Howard Marks’ memo and the dot-com bubble, they stress it’s pointless to try and time market shifts or short a bull market (“...do not short a bull market ever if we're using the dot com analog…” Ben at 07:09).
• Contemplate outcomes: AI could change the world even if stock prices crash; the “hilarious” possibility is if AI delivers economically, but tech stocks run flat or lose value for years.

3. Market Structure, Earnings, Buybacks, and Small Caps

Timestamps: 08:44 – 18:24

• Discuss why the stock market continues rising: strong earnings, reduced tariff uncertainty, contained inflation, the Fed poised to cut (08:44–09:08).
• Record S&P 500 earnings and revenue beats, substantial buybacks led by Apple, and whether buyback cash should flow into new investments instead (10:39).
• The Mag 7 stocks cycle in and out: now outperforming again after lagging earlier in 2025 (12:09–12:37).
• Small caps are declared “not dead,” with discussions about cyclical outperformance and the challenge of being a contrarian in a TINA (There Is No Alternative) market (14:13–16:18).

4. Healthcare, Contrarianism, and Risk Appetite

Timestamps: 16:18 – 18:49

• Healthcare stocks underperformance is explored: once on par with tech but now shunned, presenting potential for contrarians (“...this sector is pricing in a lot of bad news,” Michael at 16:18).
• Question whether the rise of “perma-contrarians” is over—most have been burned out by the persistent bull market and high risk appetite, which likely takes more than a 30% drop to break.

5. K-Shaped Economy and Consumption Splits

Timestamps: 20:08 – 24:21

• Fast food vs. sit-down restaurant sales signal bifurcated consumer health; higher earners keep spending while lower-income groups cut back (“...top 20% are still spending way more and the bottom 20 or 40% are cutting back,” Michael at 20:56).
• Wage growth data normalized: pandemic-driven wage spikes are stabilizing, but a higher base remains for lower earners (“...it’s just things normalizing,” Michael at 24:16).

6. Tariffs and Business Absorption

Timestamps: 24:21 – 25:54

• Most tariff costs so far have been absorbed by US businesses rather than passed directly to consumers (24:50), but this is expected to shift soon. Speculate on carve-outs for companies like Nvidia and Apple.

7. AI, Entry-Level Jobs, and Job Displacement

Timestamps: 25:56 – 29:15

• Share an email from a young analyst let go as AI outpaces his value, reflecting anxiety about white-collar job replacement.
• Ben:

  “I can't go to the place where AI is going to take all your jobs. I don't think it's productive. ...But...the entry level jobs, that does worry me.” (27:46)

• Advice for newcomers: avoid grunt work—AI will replace it. Focus on creativity, communication, and value-added skills:

  “If you're going into a role that you know can be replaced by a computer, then it will. And don't do that.” (28:59)

8. Crypto Brief: Selling & Emotional Management

Timestamps: 29:15 – 35:37

• Michael and Ben trimmed their crypto positions, citing both the need to rebalance portfolios and discomfort with outsized allocations (31:47–32:27).
• The Michael Saylor/MicroStrategy play is discussed—Saylor’s massive Bitcoin buy-ins, funded by smart money, are not as leveraged as some think (34:24–35:32).
• Reminder: Bitcoin and crypto are still risk assets correlated with tech, not safe havens—“If the AI trade unwinds…Bitcoin will get hit too.” (35:32)

9. Housing & Real Estate Perplexity

Timestamps: 35:37 – 41:59

• Housing affordability crisis continues, with rent rising and home buying stagnating; no end in sight to the “every week, same story” fatigue (36:16–36:35).
• Surging “million-dollar homes” now more common, even in Midwest markets, altering expectations permanently:

  “$1 million is starting to become more normal for the price of a house. Even in an area like west Michigan, which is crazy.” (39:45)

• Housing compared to Bitcoin: both are supply-constrained assets in demand, now “just the new level”—get used to it (40:21–41:09).

10. Generational Mindset: Money, Spending, and Life Decisions

Timestamps: 42:01 – 43:42

• Debating whether to “buy the Porsche”—a listener question sparks a philosophical discussion about spending on life’s pleasures vs. sticking to frugality:

  “You're gonna die. Enjoy yourself.” (Ben, 42:28) “But those are the two extremes…I'm on your side. Trust me.” (Michael, 42:52)

11. Younger Generation Realities: Depression & Social Media

Timestamps: 43:43 – 45:30

• Question the “data” that today’s youth are universally lonely/depressed, observing contradictory evidence in their own families and gyms.

  “I choose to focus on, no, the world isn’t ending. Everybody’s depressed. I just don’t buy that…” (Ben, 45:28)

• Stress young people’s dual online/in-person identities and how social media distorts perceptions.

12. Too Much Money Everywhere

Timestamps: 45:30 – 46:25

• Explosive IRA asset growth to $17 trillion since the pandemic, teeing up future regulatory issues and the “Wild West” of investing post-retirement (45:30–46:22).

13. Cultural & Fun Segments

Timestamps: 46:25 – end

• Quick hits on streaming (YouTube bidding for the Oscars, “Happy Gilmore 2” on Netflix), bucket hats and Crocs, the deep disappointment with uncomfortable Jordans, sports nostalgia, and the enduring value of old-school coaches and role models.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Stock Market Boredom:

  “I wish we could fast forward and just like check back in three years...we know it's all riding on AI.”
  — Ben Carlson (02:24)

• On AI Excitement:

  “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes.”
  — Michael Batnick (04:51)

• On Market and Bubble Timing:

  “Do not short a bull market ever if we're using the dot com analog.”
  — Ben Carlson (07:09)

• On the Porsche Dilemma:

  “You're gonna die. Enjoy yourself.”
  — Ben Carlson (42:28)

• On Entry-Level Job Survival in the Age of AI:

  “If you're going into a role that you know can be replaced by a computer, then it will. And don't do that.”
  — Ben Carlson (28:59)

• On Entry-Level Crypto Profit-taking:

  “...as a percentage of net worth it was just getting too high and I needed to rebalance my personal balance sheet.”
  — Michael Batnick (32:20)

• On Housing-Affordability Fatigue:

  “Aren't you over it? Yeah, we know people aren't moving. Houses are too expensive...I have nothing else to say.”
  — Ben Carlson (36:17)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Market boredom & AI cycle: 01:29 – 08:38
• Stock performance, buybacks, small caps: 08:44 – 18:24
• Healthcare stocks & contrarianism: 16:18 – 18:49
• K-shaped economy / wage normalization: 20:08 – 24:21
• AI threatens analyst jobs: 25:56 – 29:15
• Crypto position rebalancing: 29:15 – 35:37
• Housing crisis & million-dollar homes: 35:37 – 41:59
• Buy the Porsche debate: 42:01 – 43:42
• Younger generation and mood: 43:43 – 45:30

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Closing Thoughts

The episode captures the spirit of the present investing landscape: lots of questions, not enough satisfying answers, and a sense that “normal” has shifted permanently in ways that have both freed and haunted investors. Realism, humor, skepticism, and practicality blend in the hosts’ conversations, making this an engaging listen for investors and market watchers—especially those torn between “save and grind” and “enjoy it while you’ve got it.”

Contact: [e-mail]
Learn More: Animal Spirits Podcast

Transcript

[Michael Batnik]

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[Ben Carlson]

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[Michael Batnik]

Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben.

[Ben Carlson]

Are solely their own opinion and do.

[Michael Batnik]

Not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management.

[Ben Carlson]

This podcast is for informational purposes only.

[Michael Batnik]

And should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain.

[Ben Carlson]

Positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Welcome to Animal Sports with Michael and Ben. Ben, I had a realization on Thursday when I was recording with Shannon and Todd. Now, maybe this is because I'm doing three podcasts a week talking about the markets, but I think it has more to do with the market itself and certainly a lack of, like, the market's been fairly boring this summer, right? It's been like a slow, steady grind. Higher.

[Michael Batnik]

People are trying to make stuff stick, but it's not. No, there's nothing happening.

[Ben Carlson]

There's nothing. There's nothing happening. So large. Largely a function of that, but also of the market itself. All right, what am I talking about? I'm blabbering. Say it already. Speak. I feel like we're saying the same shit for a long time and I'm getting bored and I hope I. I suspect the listeners might be getting bored. I don't know what to tell you, but I kind of wish that we could fast forward and just like check back in three years. Like we just take like a three year hiatus, come back and just see what happened. And in particular, I'm talking, I'm talking mostly about the stock market because we know, we know it's all, it's all riding on AI. Is it going to deliver? Is it going to disappoint? How much? And then of course, there's the real estate thing, which we've been talking about. It's just same stories every freaking week.

[Michael Batnik]

So I had not to like take a victory lap here, but someone tagged me in an old tweet of mine from 2021 and I said, people keep calling for a housing market crash or a housing market bubble, and I feel like in five or 10 years they're still going to be saying that same thing. And that was my take back then, and it sure does. That is the stock market too. You're right. We've been having this discussion every year for seven or eight years now.

[Ben Carlson]

And so, but, but, but, but it's like, I feel like it's just relentless. It's, it's so much more than it ever has been because what else is there to talk About? Nvidia is $4 trillion. On, on, on Thursday we were talking with, with Todd and he has this great chart showing Nvidia and Microsoft together are about to be worth more than all the healthcare stocks, all the utilities, all the staples, and all the energy stocks. It's like, all right, get on with it already. What? You know, I just, I want to see what happens. I want to see the resolution to this.

[Michael Batnik]

Are you just hoping for a new cycle?

[Ben Carlson]

I'm not hoping for anything. I just, until something happens and I don't know what I'm waiting for. It just. And I certainly. Listen, I don't want to be, I definitely don't want to be the guy who is telling people to relax and sober up. I don't be like the dude at the party who's like, bro, you're, you're really drunk. You know, like, maybe slow down, stop drinking. Like, I don't want to be that guy. It's annoying.

[Michael Batnik]

Don't be the. Yeah, we had a guy in college who used to always say, hey, have you guys ever thought of drinking in moderation before?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, shut up, dork.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, so.

[Ben Carlson]

But I really. But I also do feel like this is. And it, I don't know why. I'm just sort of feeling this feelings. But that whole like, New generation of investors. I feel like I'm only first now. Like, yeah, this really is a, a new generation of investors. And I'm not saying that like this is going to end badly and wagging my finger at them, but there, you know, there's a lot of, so it's a lot of.

[Michael Batnik]

Sam Altman got quoted in a story last week and he said, when bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth. Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes. I feel like, though, this is the kind of thing that he has to say because people now I, one of the things that I feel for young people on is the fact that they have camera phones and videos in their faces all the time and they probably have to act a certain way because they're worried people are going to videotape them or something. Right? Or put them on something, call them out. And I, So I feel like the same thing with CEOs sometimes where they have to, they know the stuff that they have to say so they don't look like an idiot in the future. So of course he has to say that. But I don't know what does he really believe?

[Ben Carlson]

He doesn't have to say anything. I mean, look.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, no, he, he doesn't.

[Ben Carlson]

Look what Elon says on his conference calls. Listen to what Alex.

[Michael Batnik]

But no one wants conference calls. But no one wants to be a cheerleader in a dot com bubble like, and be. Have it thrown in their face like Henry Blodget every year for the rest of their career. Right? Like you were cheering the dot com bubble, but secretly you were. No one wants to.

[Ben Carlson]

Nobody wants to. I just told you, Elon, Look, Elon and Carp, and they're not. I mean, I'm sure we could think of a lot of others that are very much galvanizing their shareholder base.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, but what do you, what do you think about his statements though? Like that, that is the, that has to be the baseline opinion right now.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, yeah, yeah. To me that's, that's very fair. And I, I read a Howard Marks memo, which it's been a minute since I've read one of those. But it was, it was, it was great. As they always are. Like, what do you. So, so what? Right? Like we know none of this is, none of this are, are none of these talking points are new insights.

[Michael Batnik]

Let's get it over. But the the weird thing is, is though, that, like, there might not be a get over it thing because some of these stocks could crash, but then AI still could transform the world. And then you get like a little bit of both for everyone wins.

[Ben Carlson]

The most hilarious outcome would be if we do get a crash. Wouldn't be hilarious. But if we do get like, maybe a loss, five years for Nvidia, which seems fairly reasonable at $4 trillion, maybe go to 10. Why not? But if we do actually get the efficiency gains and the productivity gains in the rest of the world, and margins of the. Of the market go from 11 to 13 to. To 16 to 17, and it's just a baton handing off to the 493.

[Michael Batnik]

Right.

[Ben Carlson]

Not inconceivable. Anyway, the point that, the point that I was. The reason why I brought up Howard Marksy was is he did this whole thing and he's like, all right, well, so what, like, what do you do? What's the conclusion here? And he, he had like five things that you could do all the way from get defensive to short the market. And he's like, this seems sensible. This seems ridiculous. Like, do not short a bull market ever if we're using the dot com analog. Because it's just, you know, it's easy. What if this is 1996? Who's to say?

[Michael Batnik]

So the New York Times had a story, and the headline is scarier than the actual meat of the article, which is typically true. I wrote, written for a couple of financial publications, Bloomberg and Fortune, and if you were a writer, I would always give them an idea what I want the headline to be. And they would never take it, of course. Like, they always make up. But it says, the stock market is getting scary. Here's what you should do. It's Burton Malkiel actually still going strong. We interviewed him a couple of years ago, and he's in his 90s, I think, right. He's been going strong for a while, but he was like, listen, the valuations seem high. AI is. Everyone's getting overly excited. What do you do? He's like, I don't know. Can you time the market? No.

[Ben Carlson]

So maybe just relax and just, you know. Yeah, default.

[Michael Batnik]

You asked about the most hilarious outcome. I still think the most hilarious outcome is we, we create AGI, right? And we, we create this super computer being that's smarter than all of us. And it just like her, it just says, I don't want you guys anymore. Scram. I'm keeping it all to myself. Leave me alone. And then we're Stuck with nothing.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, that was.

[Michael Batnik]

How's that?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. No.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, let's talk about the actual stock market. What did you put in here?

[Ben Carlson]

Can't think.

[Michael Batnik]

Revenue. So you, you put out a. Wait, you put out a take, I think to me and Josh on slack a couple weeks ago and, or last weekend, people were saying, like, why is the stock market going up? And what was your. You gave like four bullet points about, okay, tariff uncertainty is behind us, earnings are coming in strong, inflation is okay, and the Fed's about to cut. Like, if you just looked at it through that lens, this is why the stock market is still booming.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, that's the case I made on Thursday. What do you, what do you. If you just knew that, what would you expect the stock market to do?

[Michael Batnik]

Right?

[Ben Carlson]

Would you. You think it be. It would be. We be in a bare market. Why? Because there are some shenanigans going on. Because there's some things that you don't like that are happening. And in particularly, we are in earnings season. And also I, I should, I should not that everybody doesn't necessarily know this. It's not as if the stock market is going straight up. It's not like it's. We're going up. I mean, yes, we're going, we're sort of going nowhere fast.

[Michael Batnik]

Like, it feels like it, though.

[Ben Carlson]

I mean, like, we, we are at all time highs, but it's. And yes, we have had a ridiculous move off of the April lows, but in recent weeks, we're going sideways. We're at all time high, but we're going sideways. So I don't want, like, be all hysterical like, oh, we're going straight up. We're not going straight up. But we are in earnings season. We're wrapping it up and people got too bearish. People were way off sides, Analysts in particular, and not just them, everyone, really. All right, so Kevin Gordon tweeted for the second quarter, S P 500, earning beat rates above 80%. Revenue beat rate right under 80% and the earnings beat rate. The, the band, like, the range is not that wide because earnings are fairly predictable quarter to quarter, right? Not like that much. You don't get shocked quarter to quarter on the earnings, but revenue could be all over the place. And you can't fake revenue. And companies smashed revenue expectations.

[Michael Batnik]

You also can't fake cash flows. So this is from the Wall Street Journal. American companies are buying their own stocks at a record pace. Buybacks are expected to top 1.1 trillion in 2025. So let's see that's the highest on record obviously. And they show completed and announced. And it's funny, a lot of times you think these CEOs like they can backtrack on buybacks. If they want like dividends. They, when they say they're gonna just pay a dividend, they pay it. But the actual like announced versus completed is closer than you think. Like companies, this is part of their, their thing now. They show the largest buybacks and it's Apple is the biggest one at 100 billion. J.P. morgan's up there. It's all the biggest names. But this is from Sherwood. This is really interesting. Apple has bought back billions of shares in the last 12 years. Their shares outstanding have dropped 44% since the mid 2010s. It's kind of nuts, but it also tells you how mature of a company that they are. And so I wonder how many people would say, okay great, maybe use that money to buy some AI company instead. Like it's time to do a. Time to do a deal. You've been paper bearish on Apple for a while.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, good one from exhibit A. Chart of the week S&P 500 versus the 493 versus the Mag 7 in 2025. It is kind of crazy that the. The market's up 10% this year essentially. So I mean we're on track for another 20% year, right? The average up year stock market, we are. It's up 10% that when you're not.

[Ben Carlson]

On track for anything. We have, we have, you know, several.

[Michael Batnik]

Months left when the stock market is up in a given year, it's up an average of 21%. When it's down, it's down an average of 13%. History says we're likely to see an up 20% a year again. Where we are could be. Who knows. But this is kind of crazy that the Mag 7 was getting smoked through April and now is outperforming again. It was down 25%. Ish.

[Ben Carlson]

This has been, this has been a hell of a year. I also feel like just getting back to the comments made earlier, like this post Covid world that we're living in, it's. Does it still feel like a dream to you? It doesn't feel like real life. I feel like I'm still.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, there are definitely parts of it that are. The information age totally screws up your perception of reality. I think I have a take later about how screwed up we are. I'll save it. This is interesting though. Josh was talking about this yesterday and I had to look it up from the bottom. I looked at the Russell 2000 VTI, which is a total market, and then the IFA to see how markets have performed since the bottom in April, right before that big, like up 10% day or whatever. And all the gains are essentially the same. They're all up 27, 28% ish. And follow each other pretty darn closely. International stocks, small caps, and the Russell 3000. And that's why these like, exogenous events are so weird. Just like, just like Covid and just like Liberation Day that everything just kind of goes down and then everything comes back up. And it's almost like a, like, you know, the yield curve never shifts one to one. Like the different parts of the yield curve move differently. But with a stock market, when you have these types of event LED crashes, they tend to like fall and rise at the same magnitude. It's bizarre. Yeah, it's just like it wasn't, look at, it was a total RE rating and then that rerating got unrated, I guess you could say. Yeah, all right there. So another one from exhibit A. Remember, check out exhibit A.com for advisors. Did you do your webinar yet?

[Ben Carlson]

No, it's exhibit A4advice.com what did I say? Exhibit A.com?

[Michael Batnik]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Exhibit A4advice.com. Yeah, we did. We did. The webinars went great.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, so this one is good because I've seen for years people talking about small caps are dead. Amazon went public at $400 million and that doesn't happen anymore. Companies staying private longer, small caps are dead. And this chart shows the cycles of small and large cap outperformance. Now, sometimes these things totally flip, but I don't think looking at this chart would have you would lead you to believe. Yeah, it's it, it's over. Small caps are dead.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't believe that.

[Michael Batnik]

I think the. I still think, like, look at how long the cycle of outperformance was for small caps. It was a very long time following the dot com bubble.

[Ben Carlson]

I do think though, is it, is it more brave to say that this is permanent? I feel like it's easy to say like, yeah, diversification still works.

[Michael Batnik]

I don't know. I think, I don't think it's brave to use recency bias.

[Ben Carlson]

Fair.

[Michael Batnik]

I think recency bias is way easier than like going against the herd now. It was, it was easy to be a contrarian coming out of 2008. It is not easy to be a contrarian right now. Don't you think? If You've been a contrarian for a long time. You've been proven wrong over and over and over again.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, there are, that's a really good point. There have been contrarian trades that have worked great over the years in narrow windows. Maybe solar stocks are having a moment right now, maybe weed stocks are having a moment right now where these things that have just been absolutely left for dead, they could have a year run or two year run. But this thing where everybody was wrong about the big themes in the market, is that, is that a thing of the past? That seems ridiculous, right? Because maybe actually, I mean. Oh my God, Michael. Hello. We're just talking about AI. That is the biggest thing market. Maybe everybody's wrong about that or maybe they're not. Maybe goes to 10 trillion.

[Michael Batnik]

You're right. There's so many opinions now. It's hard to find something that someone is on every corner now. Yeah, we're in the past. That might not have been the case. Okay, so last week I talked about health care stocks and I said, are they cheaper? Are they the next energy? And then Michael Semblance from JP Morgan did a huge report, 30 page report on what's going on with healthcare stocks, which I thought was interesting. So he shows from essentially 1990 through Covid, healthcare stocks performed identically with technology stocks. They had the same exact returns, except healthcare stocks had way less volatility. So in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, all the way through 2020, you would have been better off on a risk adjusted return going with healthcare than technology, which is kind of crazy to think about. And ever since then, technology has destroyed and healthcare has essentially almost gone nowhere this decade. He's showing the valuations are dropping. He went through all this stuff in the report about why this is happening. A lot of it is regulation and drug prices. But his bottom line is like this sector is pricing in a lot of bad news. So that's your point about, are you going to take Nvidia and Microsoft for the next 10 years or like, what are those sectors? Healthcare and utilities. And I mean it doesn't mean it.

[Ben Carlson]

Doesn'T have to be either or. But for the sake of this exercise, yeah, I'd rather own healthcare.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. But I'm saying, yeah, if you're going to take that contrarian bet and you're still going to be a contrarian, it does. It's funny, it doesn't seem like there are as many contrarians out there as there used to be, or at least there's not as many contrarians pounding the table, I feel like because they've, they've gotten their, they've touched the hot stove so many times, you can't really pound the table anymore.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. So things are very different today. Like market structure is very different. Risk appetite, which this is not. Risk appetite is not permanent because that could disappear in a second. But certainly this muscle memory of this generation of investors, it, it's not going to break with the bare market like a, a two year bare market. It's, it would have to take something catastrophic.

[Michael Batnik]

The thing is it the dot com bubble didn't really break people's risk appetite. They, they held onto their stocks pretty good. It was the dot com bubble and then six years later, the great financial crisis, that's what finally broke people. It was two 50% crashes. So you're right, even, even a, a big washout, a 30% bare market or.

[Ben Carlson]

Something which we just had in the first quarter.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I don't think that's going to cause people to like all of a sudden give up.

[Ben Carlson]

Neither do I. So anyway, there's a chart from Goldman that shows retail flows as a percent of aggregate market cap. And this chart is, it's, it's a one year chart. And look how much technology stocks they're buying. So it compares the NASDAQ 100 versus the S&P 500. And retail flows as a percent of aggregate market cap and it's a quarter percent, which might sound small, but when you consider how many billions and billions and billions of dollars it is, but.

[Michael Batnik]

It'S up five times this year from what it was, that's pretty crazy. It's the magnitude of the move, not the relative because.

[Ben Carlson]

No, no, no, it's, it's five Xing the S and P 500. Is that what you mean? Because it's, it's starting at zero.

[Michael Batnik]

Right. But it was five basis points of market cap and now it's 25.

[Ben Carlson]

But it's index. The index starts at zero. It's okay, it's a one year period. So it's showing that in the last year they've bought a quarter of a percent of the entire market cap of the NASDAQ 100.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I get it.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

It's a quality chart. Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

And so like this I. The amount of money in the system. I guess you could quantify that. It's so different. It's so different than in the past.

[Michael Batnik]

I got some charts too about the money in the system. Later last week we talked about the K shaped economy and this is interesting because there was a Few people who tweeted, oh, fast food companies were. They were one of the ones that had finally some revenue slowdown. I think it was Chipotle. It was a lot of the fast food. But then Bespoke did this chart where they looked at fast food versus sit down restaurants. And fast food is seeing a big drop off. Sit down restaurants saw a huge uptick in sales growth. So this is the K shaped thing too, where people are cutting back on fast food but more people are buying at sit down restaurants. Does that make sense?

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know why that would be the case. So there's a quote because this is.

[Michael Batnik]

Like, this is people, people who can afford to go out are still spending money and other people who can't are cutting. This is the same thing last week with the top 20% are still spending way more and the bottom 20 or 40% are cutting back.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, so let's read this quote and then let's talk about it. This is from the transcript. A quote from the middle B. What's the middle B? It's a company.

[Michael Batnik]

I don't know.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, anyway, you know what, let me look this up. What is this company? Midd is the ticker. What do they do? The middleby engages in the design, Matt. And why charts in the design, manufacture, marketing and distribution of food service equipment. Okay, so there you go. All right, so they would know. All right, number one, really all this year traffic through the QSR segment has been down predominantly pretty much the entire year they've been down in some cases double digits over prior year periods. I think just continued cost pressures that the QSRs are facing, whether it's labor, whether it's food construction of opening new locations. And then you have the backdrop of uncertainty from tariffs.

[Michael Batnik]

So I don't know is quick service restaurant. I don't have.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know how that's so much different than like the other ones. So the ones, so this from Bespoke, the ones that are growing are Cava, Burger King, Shake Shack, Chipotle, McDonald's, Pot Belly, Domino's Noodles and Co Taco Bell Dust.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, look at the one on the right. It's. It's Olive Garden, Longhorn and Texas Roadhouse and Applebees. Those ones are seeing strong growth. But yeah, the, the trade down. So the point is.

[Ben Carlson]

My bad, my bad, my bad. The ones, the ones that I just read are the ones that, that are in the QSR that are growing.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

So jeez. All right, I apologize. So this chart is showing that there's Way more companies in that segment, not the ones I just mentioned that are shrinking in sales versus the sit down restaurants.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

But to me, is this, is this also like a, an office city thing?

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I'm sure that you could say this is, this is one quarter. Let's see if there's a trend. I thought it is kind of interesting in the.

[Ben Carlson]

Why is Olive Garden scorching hot free breadsticks?

[Michael Batnik]

You know, their salads are overrated there though at Olive Garden the dressing's too runny.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. I haven't been to an Olive Garden in a long time. There's only one around us.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, so one of the things that I've been thinking about with this K shaped stuff is like how much of this is just a normalization of like ketchup. Because bank of America has this chart that shows a growing gap between higher and lower income households. And this is just wage growth. But it was so much higher for the lower end. You can't expect to see the lower end outperform and have that wages go up that much because the jump was so high. So even a smaller year over year increase on a larger base is going to be good for that cohort. Right. So a lot of this I think is normalization. The Wall Street Journal had a bunch of good charts on it. They just show the top and bottom quartile of wage earners and wage growth. And again this, I think this is the one, this next one, it's the information sector, which is technology, then leisure and hospitality. Leisure and hospitality in 2021 or 2022 was growing at 14% on a year over year basis. So they got that huge bump up. So now even though they're only growing at 3 and change now, on top of that 14%, that's still. Those are good wages.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

Right. So I think this is just some sort of normalization. It's like the compounding thing.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, right.

[Michael Batnik]

You're compounding on a bigger base. So it's. I think a lot of this is just things normalizing.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, yeah. All right. Tariffs appear to be a non story, but it might be early. So says Goldman Sachs. They have a chart showing that Our preliminary estimates suggest that more than half of tariff costs have been absorbed by US businesses so far. But this share may decline to 8% over the next several months as consumers and foreign exporters gradually absorb more of the cost.

[Michael Batnik]

This is really surprising to me. So 2/3 of the cost of tariffs have been eaten by the businesses themselves, which I, I wouldn't have guessed at all. You wonder if they just decided to do that and not rock the boat because they've already raised prices enough and like, okay, let's see how this stuff actually shakes out. And you know there's going to be a lot of companies that get their deals and they don't have them. And like so not, let's not raise prices and get crazy until we know exactly what this looks like. But obviously now that they know what they look like, then it'll be like, okay, fine, so the point is that like consumers should expect prices to rise from here. That. I don't know. That kind of makes sense to me. Unless we get. Here's the thing that I don't get. When they calculate these tariff rates, but then you have Nvidia getting a carve out and Apple getting a carve out because they go to the king and they give them a gold plated watch or whatever. How do those factor into the overall rates? This is like, how do you factor in those carve outs in the. Because there's a lot of companies who are just skirting around them.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know. I don't know how all this gets measured.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. And obviously that's part of the reason that the stock market, it doesn't care as much because guess what? If Nvidia and Apple and Microsoft aren't going to be subject to these tariffs because they say they're going to invest more in the US then why should we care? Right? All right. This email we got stinks and it was kind of painful to read. I appreciate the person for sending it. You read this one. All right. I was hired in February of this year and before I joined there was just six people at the firm. They brought me on as their first analyst hire. They're trying to institutionalize the equity research side of the business and remove the advisors from needing to place trades. I was the only analyst on a team of five advisors. Today one of the owners brought me into a meeting. We were discussing my role given I was hired six months ago. They said that while nothing was wrong with my work or performance, they can't justify paying me when AI can do everything I can do much, much faster. The thing is, they didn't say anything about AI explicitly. They kept saying that with new tools that are available, advisors are able to do a lot more with less. Essentially. I feel bad, he says, I'm disappointed. Listening to you guys and others, I was all too aware this could happen. I've been mentally preparing for this eventuality. I never thought it would come so quick. That stinks. Is it possible that these companies will realize that they're making errors by doing this? Or do you think that this is just. Nope, there's no going back.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, this was a real shitty email. I don't want to be like a downer because people are listening to us for entertainment, for fun. They could be doing anything else. But I also don't want to pretend like, like this isn't scary.

[Michael Batnik]

Right. That was my first read of this. This is this kind of scary stuff.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

Now who knows what the extending and he said. Like, listen, I, maybe there was something wrong with my performance, they didn't want to get into it, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I, I, the way that this email is presented makes sure, makes it seem like AI stole this guy's job.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. But I really, I really and truly am optimistic about like our ability to adapt and our resiliency as people and as Americans. Like, we figure out, we, you know, we get things done. So I think that the economy will evolve and there will be more of this, unfortunately. But I think, you know, there will be other thing, other jobs created. Not that that helps this person, but like, I can't, I just, I can't go to the men, to the place where like AI is going to take all your jobs. I don't think it's productive. I don't think it's healthy. I don't think it's helpful. Yeah, I think, I think it's, I think that's like hysterical thinking and, but like the, the entry level jobs, that, that, that's the one area that I'll hone in on. That, that, that does worry me.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I, I agree. You've kind of been harping at this for a while that like, what if the AI is going to replace the entry level CFA essentially? And a lot of people have said.

[Ben Carlson]

Like it, it kind of is Power planner, paralegal. All of the grunt work jobs. Don't do any of that. That's all, that's all going away.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're. Unfortunately, you have to get more creative and it's tough for to young. Like, what's the advice to give young people here? Just avoid.

[Ben Carlson]

The advice is don't let your first job be grunt work. And I know that's like really difficult because by definition almost most entry level jobs are do something, do something else. If you're going into a role that you know can be replaced by a computer, then it will. And don't do that.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. Disappointing though. All right, let's talk about crypto.

[Ben Carlson]

Hard to hear though, as, as I picked up Kobe from camp this, this weekend, I drove by my alma mater, Nassau Community College. What the hell did I know? What do kids know as, as 22 year olds? Like, it's, it sucks.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. No, and, and I, I, I told you I've been having more conversations with students lately. I think they're all kind of reaching out to kind of like PE People see this coming, the young people see this coming, obviously.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

And one of the, one of the kids was asking me like, you know, you talk about how like, being creative and communicating is so such an important skill, and I think I, I think you kind of, it's, it's hard to overrate confidence too, in a lot of areas, whether it's, it's real or, or you're faking it. But this kid was like, how do I learn this stuff, though? And unfortunately, some of it is you learn by experience. That's the hard part. Like some, some, some of the stuff, you just have to, you can't read it in a textbook and understand it.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

You have to go through stuff and trial by fire.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, let's talk crypto. Ben, I, I sold a third of my crypto position, okay. And I started buying bitcoin and ether in the middle of 2020. But Bitcoin was like 10,000 a coin maybe. I don't remember what ether was at. And there was a lot of silliness going on in my estimation in the market and certainly in crypto. Eth Zilla, for example, all the treasury companies that we've been talking about.

[Michael Batnik]

Who was Eth Zilla? I don't know that.

[Ben Carlson]

It doesn't matter. Eth Zilla is a biotech company that is now a Treasury, an ether. Treasury company. This is much less of a bearish call on these assets because on the one hand, you see this behavior, you're like, this is so dumb. For the people that don't like crypto, they see this, like, this makes no sense. What do you mean? Companies only purpose for existing is to buy eth. Like, that's, that's what we're doing now. At the same time, there is a race to purchase these assets. And it's bizarre. It is a bizarre thing where there is a finite number of these things, of these tokens. Now, I know there's a bazillion other ones, but for the ones that people want, at least for now, there is a race. There is a small number of sellers relative to the number of people that are buying it hence the run up in price. But for me I. It just became too big. Became it outgrew my comfort level of how much of my liquid net worth.

[Michael Batnik]

The rebalancing thing. Right. That was the same exact thought process I had. How do you feel about now that you've done it?

[Ben Carlson]

Good. Yeah. No. No re regrets. What was that? Bad tattoo.

[Michael Batnik]

So a few people asked me if. If I regretted. I think I sold it a hundred. If I regretted it. I really don't like oh, I could have squeezed out a little more juice and maybe it goes to 150 and I'm. But I still have a decent sized and from what I started at to where it is now, like you said as a percentage of net worth it was just getting too high and I needed. I needed to rebalance my personal balance sheet.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. No, wherever it goes from here, whether it goes back down to 60 or up to. Or an idea. No, I'm good, I'm good. I feel good. I feel good about.

[Michael Batnik]

I was looking at. So from the. From the peak in 2021 whenever that was like the meme stock stuff and then crypto crashed and bitcoin fell 80% and eth. I think bitcoin by default 77% whatever. And eth fell 80% since then bitcoin is essentially a double even after if you start from the peak of the last time. Right. Bitcoin is doubled. Ethereum essentially went nowhere and it's just now coming back to those levels again.

[Ben Carlson]

What a run. By the way. I mentioned this early on the podcast a couple months ago at the bottom in April. I remember being on the baseball field and I said this at the time that I had to unfollow a guy that I respect whose opinion I respect because he almost scared me out of selling my some like a decent amount of my crypto. I almost sold half of it.

[Michael Batnik]

Then he say he was going to go to 5,000.

[Ben Carlson]

He said Bitcoin is going to go to 10,000 and I don't know what I would. That that would. I would have been feeling lots of regrets if I sold the lows in April. Here's the question was 70,000 and ether was 1500. Whatever.

[Michael Batnik]

What are you going to do with the proceeds of your sale?

[Ben Carlson]

I'm sitting in cash right now. I mean I'm buying a house and.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, yes, I don't mind.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm very comfortable in 4% anyway. So this week's Michael Saylor.

[Michael Batnik]

Wait. I think if you have obviously rebalancing into Other assets is easy to do, but if you have an actual physical world thing that you can take the money and do something with, that's the stuff you never regret. Yeah, right. If you said, I'm going to take some of these proceeds and I'm going to use it to do whatever to my house and make the move easier. And that's something that you. Okay, fine.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. That's incredible.

[Michael Batnik]

Financial life easier.

[Ben Carlson]

The. The most money that I've ever made on any asset is something that I honestly don't believe in. Bitcoin. But, like, that's. I'm not like a crypto dude. Like. Yes, but it's. I guess it's ironic. So a seller tweeted that they own. They bought. They bought 629,000 bitcoin that they bought for $46 billion. They bought it for $46 billion. That's how much they spent. Investors with all the convertible offerings have given them $46 billion that they've spent. That's my interpretation of this.

[Michael Batnik]

Maybe it's been written about before, but I would love to hear who are the people who are investing in the convertible notes? Like, who's who. Who's funding it?

[Ben Carlson]

Well, last week, when. So we have. We have Tom on TCAF this week. So we're going to talk about this. Some of his early investors. It's. It's Peter and Bit. And Bit. Mine. Emerging technology. It's Peter Thiel. It's Druckenmiller. It is the smart money. Like, these are not dummies. They're the opposite of dummies.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

And I don't. I don't think that this is, like, leverage. I. My. I. My interpretation could be wrong. So, like, the. The idea that, like, sailor's gonna get a margin call, I think it would have to go, like, way, way, way, way, way lower. Oh, here's what I was gonna say. All right, so again, the. The limited demand, I mean, the limited supply, the ton of demand, all of that is well and good and true. And, you know, who knows when that's going to end? It seems to be true for the foreseeable future, but it's still a risk asset. And the Vix is at 14, and there's been no. Nothing in the market. Right. And, like, bitcoin is still a risk asset. I don't care what anyone says. It will go down.

[Michael Batnik]

If. If the AI trade unwinds and tech stocks fall, Bitcoin will get hit too.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. More.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes, Right. Exactly. All right. Bloomberg had this big piece about how Americans are getting priced out of real estate and home ownership. And they looked at this all a lot of these big metro areas in the costs of rent or buy in 2021 versus now.

[Ben Carlson]

So this is, this is part of the story that like I'm just how many. We do this every single week. Can the Fed please cut already so we can get on with it? And we've got Jackson Hole this week and people are like, oh, we've got stocks at all time highs, valuations at all time highs. Chamath is back, we've got crypto and we're going to cut rates. The only thing that matters is the housing market.

[Michael Batnik]

Right.

[Ben Carlson]

And this is, we're about to talk about it. But like, aren't you sick of. We do this, we do this every single week. We've been doing this for the last three years. Aren't you over it? Yeah, we know people aren't moving. Houses are too expensive. The amount of money that you're spending as percent of your income. I, I can't do it anymore. I, I have nothing else to say.

[Michael Batnik]

Here's the dichotomy that's interesting to me though. So this is from John Burns and they show that since 2023, rentering rent households have surged by 1.6 million. So you had like zero rent growth from 2017 to early 2023. And now the increase in rental units has been gone vertical, which makes sense. People are looking at these numbers and going, why would I buy when it's so much cheaper to rent? But the thing that people aren't doing is moving. So this charter chart shows that the total number percentages of American moving in the mid-90s was 17 18% and now it's 8% and it keeps going down. So this is the interesting part of it that there are obviously places where it doesn't make sense to buy a home and it's way too expensive and some people are never going to be able for to do it, but people aren't, they're not moving away to find cheaper housing. So people care about housing, it's a huge issue, but they don't care enough to move and find cheaper housing somewhere else. That's an interesting dichotomy to me that it hasn't caused more people to move yet. They've just said, ah, fine, I'll just rent instead of move. And I understand why, but it's interesting that I don't understand why the total percentage of moving people, why is that going down?

[Ben Carlson]

Well, it's because the, it's Because I think it's because remote work is a huge part of this.

[Michael Batnik]

That's part of that makes sense.

[Ben Carlson]

And moving.

[Michael Batnik]

This trend was already like just. This trend was already, well, in motion.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, it was, it was. I think moving is, is there anything more disruptive? Now listen, if you're a young person and you have the ability to hop around and experience the world or the country, amazing. But uprooting your family, moving away, moving with. And another, another part of this is the dual income households. Right? Like now that both people work, you are much more reliant on friends and family to help.

[Michael Batnik]

You can't. It's harder to uproot for a job because you can't do it. It's.

[Ben Carlson]

It's impossible.

[Michael Batnik]

It's just interesting to me that, that that hasn't been an outcome of this. People have decided, listen, I'm moving. I screw New York, it's too expensive for San Francisco. I'm moving to Iowa. Cheaper there.

[Ben Carlson]

Imagine you had to move out of state.

[Michael Batnik]

It be, it'd be impossible, right? Yeah, yeah, it'll be tough. All right. I want to talk about million dollar houses. This is one of the things you said. We keep talking about this. This is one of the things I still can't wrap my head around. So we had two houses listed in our neighborhood. You, you've been in my neighborhood before. There's 20, 25 houses, two houses listed last week. For some reason, I don't know why, one of the houses, the people moved in in 2023, they fixed up the house and now they're moving out already, which sounds awful to me. You go through this whole rent and I don't know why. I don't. Didn't know them, but both of these houses are listed for more than $1 million in my neighborhood. Okay. Like a decent amount over a million. And when this neighborhood was built in the 2010 ish, mid 2010s, and these houses were nowhere close to $1 million when they were, they were built. Right. My house wasn't anywhere close to that number when we bought it. I just think it's, it's, it's weird wrapping your head around the fact that $1 million is starting to become more normal for the price of a house. Even in an area like west Michigan, which is craz.

[Ben Carlson]

Is there some. Does this bleed into the stock market a little bit like the median stock used to trade for 16 times. Well, okay, well, guess what? Now there's too much money. There's too much money and now it's 20 times. Get over it.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, I had a, I had a friend tell me this week, he said the price of a new boat is now what a starter home used to cost, like seven years ago.

[Ben Carlson]

And I thought about it and that's just what it is.

[Michael Batnik]

It's true. And, and the funny thing is, is when these houses listed, my wife is like, well, they're listening for that. But I'm like, listen, no, this is the new level now, right? You're in, you're right. Maybe cape. The average cape was 18 in the past. Now it's 25.

[Ben Carlson]

Get used to it.

[Michael Batnik]

But Redfin had this report where they.

[Ben Carlson]

Looked at the, the only, only one of the zillion differences is that stocks should be, they should be tethered to like their cash flows and their fundamentals. If you're buying a business, I'll pay, yeah, I'll pay 13 times for this business. I won't pay 20 times. I won't make any money. But in the world today where everybody is a millionaire, and I know not everybody's a millionaire, so that sounds ridiculous, but you know, more people are when there are, how, how many million millionaires are there? There's like competition for stocks. It sounds like the dumbest thing ever.

[Michael Batnik]

So I.

[Ben Carlson]

But it's true.

[Michael Batnik]

The number I found, I think From Redfin said 9 to 10% of homes are now worth a million dollars or more. So one out of every ten houses is worth a million dollars or more in the country. And so you just have to get used to it.

[Ben Carlson]

So this is the inflation.

[Michael Batnik]

But wait, how about this? Housing is just like bitcoin with a supply. There's a constrained supply, there's more demand. Like housing is just like bitcoin. Yeah, in a lot of ways, right to the moon. All right, this is interesting. One more from Yardeni. He looked at the value of household real estate and then the equity and then how much people have borrowed. And look at the bottom line. That red line is home mortgages has essentially gone nowhere as the prices of an equity have gotten. Gone crazy because everyone was able. It's gone up a little bit, but wow. That this will never happen again ever. This is a one, one time thing through all of human history. Never going to happen again where we see something like this. Wow.

[Ben Carlson]

Wow, Ben.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, let's talk about things that people have very strong opinions on with no nuance whatsoever. Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnik]

I did a few things on social media this week and here's one of them. A guy last week on Acid Compound asked if he should buy a Porsche.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. The answer is yes.

[Michael Batnik]

I'm a millionaire next door. My wife and kids think we're middle class. But I'm sick. I've saved my whole life. I want to buy a Porsche. And I put this out on Twitter. And I said, what, What. What should this guy do?

[Ben Carlson]

You're gonna die. Enjoy yourself.

[Michael Batnik]

That was. That was one extreme answer. The other extreme.

[Ben Carlson]

How is that extreme? Is it. That is a fact. At some point, you will no longer be on this planet and it could be tomorrow, and you should enjoy yourself. That is not extreme.

[Michael Batnik]

And that, that, that's where I fall, too. A lot of people say. And a lot of people said, no, this is a depreciating asset.

[Ben Carlson]

You.

[Michael Batnik]

It's ridiculous.

[Ben Carlson]

God.

[Michael Batnik]

But those are the two extremes. Listen, I'm on your side. Trust me.

[Ben Carlson]

Some people have that mindset every. Everybody, that you're not going to change anybody's opinion. If you think that, That a Porsche is a depreciating asset, then you are living with a different worldview than I am. And that's fine. That's what makes us. That's what makes the world go around. I suppose.

[Michael Batnik]

One more thing. And this is. This is maybe like the availability bias or something, but we, we talked last week about how we're. We're so. We're also so over. Maybe this whole podcast now is just over stuff we keep talking about, but we're so over. The young people are so depressed. And not, not that we're like poo pooing it, because obviously these things are real. Social media and the Internet, like young people didn't have a chance in a lot of ways. But I was listening to. I think it was Derek Thompson at a podcast and he interviewed the author of those charts. And they were talking about how lonely and miserable all these young people are. And all the data shows this and it backs it up.

[Ben Carlson]

And I don't, I don't. I don't believe it. I'm sorry. Everybody's depressed.

[Michael Batnik]

So I go to the gym and the Planet Fitness. I work out.

[Ben Carlson]

Surveys are broken. We keep saying this. It's a. Surveys. Is everybody miserable?

[Michael Batnik]

At the gym I work out at right by my office. It's in the summer. I think it's free memberships for high school and college students, which is kind of cool. And every time I go in there, I see three or four bros over here lifting weights with each other and three or four bros over here. Then three ladies on the treadmill, on the incline. That's the. Everyone does the incline walk. Now that's the, that's the hot exercise these days. Like, if you walk on a trail, you can't just walk. It has to be on an incline.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

And they're talking and they're laughing and they're working out together. And maybe this is, well, the people who go to the gym are different, but I just think it's okay to hold two opinions in your. Like, social media is having an impact on the way people perceive themselves. I also think young people now are almost all bipolar. They have an online Persona and a physical world Persona, and they're two completely different people. We, we've mentioned this before. There's lots.

[Ben Carlson]

We've met people like this, where people on the Internet that have an int, that have a personality and then you meet them physically and you're like, wait, what?

[Michael Batnik]

Yes. You're nothing like I thought you would be in real life.

[Ben Carlson]

So which is the real you? I think it's easier to fake who you are in person. But maybe it's both. Maybe it's, maybe it's a Jekyll and Hyde type of thing. Howard Stern plays a character on the, on the radio. Like, that's not his real personality off air. But, but I think I, I do think that the social media, dual personalities has broken everything. And I choose to focus on, no, the world isn't like ending. Everybody's depressed. I just don't buy that. I, I, I'm, you know, obviously there's some of that for sure, but it's exhausting. It's enough.

[Michael Batnik]

It is. All right, one more. There's too much money chart for you. Ed Yardeni has assets held in IRAs. And this thing is going to the moon. It's at $17 trillion now. I think it was at 11 heading into the pandemic. And this thing is just going to keep going up because of baby boomers rolling over 401ks and IRAs. But this is where the deregulation stuff is going to come in big time, where I think people were at least a little boxed in with their 401 assets in terms of what you could invest in. Right. It was just pretty run of the mill mutual funds. Sure. Some of them were overcharged. Actively managed mutual funds that had high fees and such. But once this money gets into the IRAs, then it's kind of like it's wild, wild west. Obviously, most of this money is going to Financial Advisor, let's be honest.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

But a lot of this is going to be, you're right. The Trump for The Sharks, essentially.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

It's a lot of money, though.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. Another big week for streaming. Apparently YouTube is trying to get the rights to host the Academy Awards.

[Michael Batnik]

Like YouTube TV?

[Ben Carlson]

Like YouTube?

[Michael Batnik]

Really? Okay, YouTube.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know if it's YouTube TV. I assume it's just YouTube.

[Michael Batnik]

I guess that. I guess it wouldn't. It makes sense. Why not, right? My kids watch more YouTube than T. I have to tell them, stop watching YouTube. Watch.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

Watch a streamer. Yes. Watch Disney.

[Ben Carlson]

It's the only thing I say no to. Like, no YouTube.

[Michael Batnik]

Watch them. To them, YouTube is TV, though. Bizarre.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, so this is from Lucas Shaw over at Bloomberg. Happy Gilmore 2 delivered the biggest opening weekend ever for a streaming movie, which I guess is not that surprising. Quality notwithstanding it generally, the number of.

[Michael Batnik]

People continue to grow. These numbers are gonna get bigger.

[Ben Carlson]

But also, like, who didn't watch at least a little bit? I watched. I contributed 15 minutes of the 2.9 billion minutes of viewing the week it debuted.

[Michael Batnik]

I would love to see how many people went. Will. Will ever go back for more?

[Ben Carlson]

0. So 24 million people watched it.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. And how many subscribers does Netflix have?

[Ben Carlson]

Is it.

[Michael Batnik]

Do we know?

[Ben Carlson]

3, 50, 400 million? I don't know. I'm sure you could Google that very quickly.

[Michael Batnik]

I don't go to Google anymore, man. I use chatgpt. 300. Look, 300 million, okay. It's a decent amount. All right. We do have to mention future proof signups. They keep giving us updates on Slack for future proof. The signups are happening. Like, if you don't sign up soon, you're not gonna go all time high.

[Ben Carlson]

It's interesting how many of the attendees end up signing up last minute. And. Yeah, we're at all time highs. It's gonna be. It's gonna be.

[Michael Batnik]

I think last week was like, we. We're like breaking records, the number of people signing up. So, like, we're already. Yes, we're already close.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, we've got some exhibit A swag. I'm excited. I'm going to be rocking the exhibit A bucket hat. I think we made a hundred of them.

[Michael Batnik]

All right. I had a friend wearing a bucket hat this weekend, and I can never tell if people are doing it ironically.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm not doing. I'm not doing it ironically.

[Michael Batnik]

You're doing. You're doing it just for sun. I understand that you're a bald, but.

[Ben Carlson]

I also, I also. I don't. Why do you think they look bad?

[Michael Batnik]

I think if you're. If you're wearing a bucket Hat and Crocs. You've given up on life. Let's just be honest.

[Ben Carlson]

I do wear a bucket hat with sandals with socks on.

[Michael Batnik]

Not Crocs, but my kids wear sandals and socks. Apparently, that's. That used to be like that. That was a sign of, like, you're a dork, and now it's like, it's a thing.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, let me tell you why I wear my sandals in my socks, and it's not for a fashion statement. Actually, this brings me to another point. Glad you mentioned this. So the sandals that I wear, they're like one of those ones with, like, the big sole at the bottom, so they kind of. You feel like sneakers. It doesn't feel like you're hitting the ground, but they. They sort of cut my foot when I'm walking with them. That's why I wear socks. I don't do it because I think it's, like, looks good or anything. It just.

[Michael Batnik]

Time to buy a new pair of sandals, man.

[Ben Carlson]

No, but they're very comfortable with socks on. All right. I think I. I think my feet are broken. Speaking of, like, getting cut by my sandals. Unless. All right, growing up, I can never.

[Michael Batnik]

Because your second toe is as big as a middle finger.

[Ben Carlson]

I do have. I do have a very large toe. Growing up, I was never able to have a pair of Jordans. They were too expensive. I had a 60 hard cap on.

[Michael Batnik]

What I was in the same boat.

[Ben Carlson]

On what I was able to buy. So now that I am an adult and I'm able to buy Jordans, I buy Jordans, and I hate all of them. And I just bought another pair.

[Michael Batnik]

Why do you hate them?

[Ben Carlson]

Because they all cut my feet. They all cut my heels, and they. And not only do they cut my heels, they're not comfortable. Jordans suck. I probably have eight pairs of them, and they all suck. I love how they look. I love that I'm able to buy them.

[Michael Batnik]

Now that you mention it, I. I have a. I have a handful of pair of Jordans, too. You're right. They're really not that comfortable.

[Ben Carlson]

No, no. They're worse than not that comfortable. They are actively uncomfortable. Every time I come home, either my heels are cut or they're squeezing my feet and I have to, like, rip them off. I'm like, oh, am I gonna stop wearing them? Probably not.

[Michael Batnik]

So you might need to, like, hang them on your wall or something as a piece of art.

[Ben Carlson]

But I. I think. I think I. I think I've bought my last pair.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. I bought a pair of Jordans. This week, my wife's gonna.

[Ben Carlson]

Which ones she makes.

[Michael Batnik]

She makes fun. I don't know. Like, she makes fun of me. The. I like all the ones that look like they're from the 90s, essentially.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnik]

But I guess they mostly do. Okay. I have to give a tribute here really quick. When I was growing up, I never had, like, you know, people tell those stories of, like, I had a teacher who changed my life or a professor in college who changed my life. I never had that once. I never had a teacher who, like, no offense to any of my teachers growing up, but no one, like, had a big impact on me that I had, like, a close relationship with or that, like, changed my life. It was all, for me. It was always coaches. And so I think last week or two weeks ago, my high school football coach passed away. He was 85. RIP Larry Sellers is the name. Same name as the guy from Big Lebowski. Right. But he was one of the.

[Ben Carlson]

Larry.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. He was one of the winningest coaches in Michigan high school football history. And he was. He was. He wouldn't make it today in today's world as a coach. He was a throwback. Like, he. He broke a clipboard over someone's head. He. He. He was one of the. There was a. In our school, remember in school when someone, a visitor would come into school, you'd have to sign into the office. Like, if you're a visitor coming to see someone, like, you know, you can't just come into a school. And some kid came to our school to visit a friend, and in the cafeteria, and we had a small school. So he goes, hey, who are you? Did you sign in at the office? Where's your pat? You know, and the kid said, oh, scram, old man. And he grabbed the kid by the throat and threw him against the wall. This is the kind of guy he was. He wouldn't. But he was, like, hard in all the good ways and, like, pushed you. Like, I think there's so many good things I learned from sports, and he was one of the reasons why. And he always said that, like, character is who you are when no one else is looking. I still remember all the stuff that he said, and he would say, like, practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect. Practice makes perfect. And so I learned so much from him in terms of hard work and stuff. So he was, like, the teacher that changed my life. So. RIP Larry Sellers.

[Ben Carlson]

Kids need role models, and in the future, it's gonna be chat. Should be too.

[Michael Batnik]

Jk Probably, Yes. But he. Yes, Larry would get Canceled today, unfortunately.

[Ben Carlson]

Can I say one thing about getting canceled?

[Michael Batnik]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

So I told you this. I told you this yesterday. I called you. I'm listening to another audiobook, actually. All right. So I. I got this app that somebody recommended. The app is called Libby, and I downloaded the Stand. I'm a big Stephen King fan. I've read a lot of his books.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, Libby is the one where you can rent. Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

From the library. One of the books, his books that I never read was the Stand. And I had the physical copy and I think I had the original one, which is 800 pages. I've rented the longer one. He, like, redid it. It's 1200 pages. And I gotta be honest, I listened to, I don't know, 11 hours. I was a quarter of the way done with. Was very difficult to keep up with. There are so many different. You ever read the Stand?

[Michael Batnik]

No, for some reason, I've never read any Stephen King, which is probably a real. My reading material. I don't know why.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. Anyway, there are like 15 different main characters and it is so confusing. Maybe that's.

[Michael Batnik]

I remember watching the TV miniseries back in the day.

[Ben Carlson]

I watched it and then it got ripped away from me because, like, I guess you only have it for a little bit of time. So I. I rented it again, but I have to, like, wait for it to be delivered.

[Michael Batnik]

I don't listen to it on, like, two times speed.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

So anyway, I feel like I'm pot committed at this point. So in the meantime, while I wait for it to get, like, delivered back to me, I don't know how white audiobooks can't just be delivered automatically. But I don't have it right now. So I did. I downloaded another book, Jailblazers. Listen to this one on Spotify. And Jailblazers is about the Portland Trailblazers. And if you're a sports fan, you remember this team very well. And it starts early.

[Michael Batnik]

They should have beat the Lakers that one year.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, they were up. Yeah, they were. They were that. So that the lob, the Kobe to the Shaq lob. That was game seven. They were down 13. The Lakers were down 13 going to the fourth. And that team had Scotty Pippen and Bony Wells. But the earlier team had, like, Isaiah Ryder and Rashid Wallace and Kenny Anderson and Gary Trent and like, a lot of guys that had a long rap sheet of arrest.

[Michael Batnik]

Big personalities.

[Ben Carlson]

And anyway, this would not happen today. This is pre cancel culture where the person who's narrating the book, whoever's reading the book, when he gives quotes from the players. He puts on a certain affect to do each of their voices and it's absolutely wild. I can't believe that he's talking with their affect and each one is different.

[Michael Batnik]

Do you think he like studied the players voices?

[Ben Carlson]

I do. Because when he does P.J. carlissimo, who has like a gruff or like a barky sort of voice, that's what he sounds like. But it's still. It's. It sounds. It took me aback.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, I. Good call on the best movie or ever. I started reading that one. It's very good.

[Ben Carlson]

That's a great. That was a fun, fun, fun one.

[Michael Batnik]

All right. My recommendation this week is platonic on net or on hp? No, what is it? What is on Apple?

[Ben Carlson]

Sounds like a.

[Michael Batnik]

So it's the Seth Rogen Rose Byrne show. It came back. I thought it was just a one season show. It's about. It's a perfect middle aged show. So it's two. They were best friends in college. They never had a romantic interest. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne, they have great chemistry because of neighbors that they did together. And it's so funny. It's about parenting and it's about trying to still have friendships in middle age when you have a job and you have kids and you have all these responsibilities. And the season two just started and.

[Ben Carlson]

It'S hilarious that I will watch with my wife.

[Michael Batnik]

I never said that that's a perfect wife. My wife cracks up at everything Rose Byrne does and she's really, really funny. And I just thank them for keeping. I thank Seth Rogen for keeping comedies going.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, I'll watch it.

[Michael Batnik]

It's very good and it's a very easy light show, you know. So I watched Jurassic World. My son saw it in the theater with my wife a couple weeks ago and then we bought it on demand order on Apple. And I lost interest like immediately. It's just like they're trying to make it like Jaws, I guess because they're chasing these animals. Here's my idea for how they can continue.

[Ben Carlson]

Hold on. Did you finish the movie?

[Michael Batnik]

I didn't yet. I'm halfway through. It's like, well, I'll finish it. But I wasn't like really into it. Here's my idea for how they can save this series if they want to keep it going. The one thing that they haven't. And I thought the thing they nailed it was after dinosaurs have been here for 30 years, people kind of lost interest like, eh, whatever. I thought that was pretty good. But what they didn't get is, you know how they, they have all the stories now about Disney adults like Michael Antonella. Like, Disney adults are like this crazy group of people.

[Ben Carlson]

Do you mean, do you mean, do you mean dad in the Bay?

[Michael Batnik]

They, but they, they. The thing they haven't leaned into is the comedy aspect. They could make Jurassic the next Jurassic World a dark comedy about, like, the adults who are way too into dinosaurs.

[Ben Carlson]

They'll never do that, though, because they.

[Michael Batnik]

Can do it like Shaun of the Dead.

[Ben Carlson]

They need a general audience.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I know. They need, like a show, but they need to, they need to spruce it up. All right, finally.

[Ben Carlson]

Wait, wait, hold on. I have something. Jurassic World. So I rented it for Kobe because he's been dying to see it. I watched it two nights ago, and it was much more palatable the second time because my heart was already broken in the theaters when I saw it. Kobe loved it, not surprisingly. But last night we went to watch. We went to rent Superman and I think Jurassic World. I went there for 20 bucks and Superman was 25. And I asked him for some to contribute as a Kobe.

[Michael Batnik]

It's.

[Ben Carlson]

I spent $20 last night. Jurassic World. Superman is 25. Do you want to spend 25 on Superman or do you want to wait until it comes out on HBO Max? And Robert goes, what are you doing? She's like, would you make him give you money? Take him to the theater? She's like. And. And then she. I was like, get butt out. It's not none of your business. And then she found out that I only rented because Logan wanted to watch Jurassic World.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh. Instead of buying it.

[Ben Carlson]

So I got not renting it again. And she goes, hold on. You rented it for $20? You didn't buy it for 25?

[Michael Batnik]

That's what I did. I bought it because it was 25.

[Ben Carlson]

But I didn't want to buy it. It didn't even occur to me.

[Michael Batnik]

How many times have you ever watched it again? Right.

[Ben Carlson]

Anyway. Yeah. All right.

[Michael Batnik]

What else? It is funny. I always do that with my kids, too. Like, every once in a while, you have to make them feel the pain of opening up that piggy bar. Piggy bank.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. I'm like trying to teach them about money.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

Meanwhile, Robin gave him 150 when he got home because she said that he was going to. She said she was going to give him money for every picture that he smiled at at camp. So when he came home, there was like toys and stuff on his bed and 100 and 350 bills. And when I saw. I Said, what are you doing? That is a hundred fifty. Are you kidding?

[Michael Batnik]

That is a boy's rite of passage. Not smiling in pictures. That's just something almost all boys do. Yeah, I was served up Road Trip on Netflix last weekend and I watched it and man, do we really miss 90 minutes.

[Ben Carlson]

That's a great movie.

[Michael Batnik]

I forgot it was Todd Phillips too. And so he, I look at this. So Sean Williams Scott, the stiffer guy, he did American Pie in 1999 and he immediately did A Road Trip the next year. And then American Pie 2 was in 2001 and he essentially plays the same character, just a lighter version of Stifler and whatever. It's an over top raunchy comedy. But this kind of movie we don't have anymore. But he had, he had a pretty good movie career, actually, Stifler. So he had the American Pie movies. He did Road Trip.

[Ben Carlson]

He was in the one with the rock stunk.

[Michael Batnik]

I like that one. The Rundown. Yeah, I like that one.

[Ben Carlson]

That's okay.

[Michael Batnik]

He was in Final Destination. He was an old school.

[Ben Carlson]

You have a dart in your neck.

[Michael Batnik]

Role Models with Paul Rudd wasn't bad.

[Ben Carlson]

Hold on. Role Models was. Role Models was great.

[Michael Batnik]

I, I like that movie. Goon, the hockey one. I don't know if you ever saw that where he plays a, an enforcer in like a IHL hockey league. So he actually had a pretty good movie career, surprisingly, from just that one role. Anyway, yeah, good stuff. Road Trip. We. I mean, in the late 90s, early 2000s, which is right when I was in high school college years, it was the greatest run ever of teen stuff in movies. It was amazing. We just don't have that anymore.

[Ben Carlson]

We, we got, we got it.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, sign up for future proof. If you don't now, it's, it's. You're never going to be able. We had a. We had one friend who said, listen, Blues Traveler put me over the top. I'm coming. Right. Exhibit a for advice.com for all your charting needs. What else are you on Talking wealth this week?

[Ben Carlson]

I'm talking wealth. Yeah, we're talking to Caleb Y charts, actually.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, good. And I have Carl Richards on Thursday.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, hell yeah. Oh, you know what? You know what? You know what? Somebody emailed us asking, getting back to like us not mentioning the other shows enough. Somebody emailed us about if we could talk to Wes gray about the 351 exchange. And I wrote back, I spoke to him last week. So if you're an advisor, we are doing these shows. We'll put the link in the show notes. But, yeah, we're doing. We're doing industry stuff, so check it out.

[Michael Batnik]

Animal spirits@the compoundnews.com See you next time.