Home Buyer's Remorse (EP. 458)

Summary

Animal Spirits Podcast – "Home Buyer's Remorse" (EP. 458)

Date: April 1, 2026
Hosts: Michael Batnick & Ben Carlson

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Overview

In this episode, Michael and Ben discuss the current market correction, bear market anxieties, and the practical realities of homeownership—especially the emotional and financial challenges many newer buyers face. Beyond the headline topic of “Home Buyer’s Remorse,” the hosts dive into sector-specific stock behavior, the AI impact on inequality and labor, private credit market dysfunction, generational wealth gaps, and the evolving landscape of investing. The episode also includes their signature mix of personal anecdotes, humor, and pop culture asides.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Current Market Correction & Bear Market Psychology

• Market Behavior and Sentiment:

  • Michael notes that the recent market downturn has been "orderly", lacking the signature panic spikes (VIX remains subdued, and there's been no dramatic single-day drops).

    "Right now it is just…a very orderly sell off." (Michael, 04:04)

  • Ben emphasizes that despite periodic corrections, true recessions have been rare since 2009.

    "There have been exactly two down calendar years in the S&P 500 [since 2009]." (Ben, 18:26)

• Distinguishing Correction from Recession:

  • The hosts agree most corrections aren’t followed by recessions and highlight the tendency for markets to overpredict economic downturns.
  • Michael underscores the need for strong evidence before assuming a true bear market or recession is imminent, citing ongoing economic resilience from leading CEOs (Arthur J. Gallagher and Paychex).

    "We’re just not seeing signs of economic weakness." (Michael, 05:49)

2. Stock and Sector Dynamics – Valuation Compression & Tech

• Valuation Contraction:

  • Price/Earnings ratios have fallen despite strong earnings, especially in tech, as markets price in uncertainty about future terminal values.

    “Technology earnings are up 18% and yet technology stocks are down 12%…That’s 25% multiple compression.” (Michael, 12:10)

  • Ben points out the unprecedented spending by tech giants on tangible assets (AI, data centers), changing profit margin dynamics and justifying valuation pullbacks.

    "They're becoming more asset heavy…and the valuation compression there makes a lot of sense to me." (Ben, 12:59; 29:28)

• Stock Picker’s Market?

  • In 2026, equal-weighted indexes are outperforming cap-weighted, which theoretically signals a "stock picker’s year," though the high hurdle for actively beating the market remains.

    "2025, it turns out, was a really, really bad year for stock pickers. 79%" (Michael, 32:08)

3. Long-Term Perspective – Volatility and Optimism

• Market Drawdowns as Opportunity:

  • Ben leans on historical analysis (helped by AI, like Claude) showing that buying after 10-30% drawdowns has historically yielded strong forward returns (high 90% win rates).

    “The win rates are all in the 90%…If you just buy down 10%, your average returns going forward…are pretty good.” (Ben, 16:31)

• Narrative vs. Reality:

  • The constant social/media narrative of impending doom contrasts with robust underlying economic and market performance.

    “As much anxiety about the market and the economy with AI as people have, and the market's only down 9%.” (Michael, 19:48)

4. Wealth Inequality and AI

• Rich Households – A New Era:

  • Citing Wall Street Journal data, Ben notes the explosion in the number of ultra-wealthy Americans ($30M+, $100M+ net worth), which is creating “rich person anxiety” among the upper middle class.

    “There are 430,000 U.S. households worth $30 million or more.” (Ben, 34:08)

  • Ben predicts inequality will intensify in the AI era, possibly prompting a political backlash:

    “In the next 12 years, we’re going to elect a socialist president…AI is going to make inequality worse.” (Ben, 36:15)

• Counterpoint – AI as a Leveler?

  • Michael shares a listener email arguing AI could empower workers with lower cognitive skill levels, much like earlier tech boosts (barcode scanners, spell check).

5. Housing Affordability and Homeownership Realities

• Escalating Costs & “Remorse”:
  • A detailed email from a recent Long Island homebuyer captures the relentless and unexpected costs of homeownership: repairs, upgrades, and emergencies, all layered on top of inflated purchase prices.

    "While my wife and I don’t have full-blown buyer’s remorse. Holy. Is this home a money pit?" (Listener email, 55:11)

• Generational Divide & Pop Culture Tie-ins:
  • Ben pitches a "body swap" movie idea: a boomer and Gen Z trading places to confront the new reality of affordability, tech, and lifestyle differences.
  • Discussion of how earlier generations often forget to account for decades of maintenance and compounding costs when boasting about their home “investments”.

6. Private Markets, Alternative Investments, and Risks

• Private Credit Fund Warnings:
  • The hosts highlight the illiquidity risks and redemption issues in popular private credit funds, warning of possible mark-downs and adverse selection as the most impatient investors flee.

    “The industry could have done a better job explaining these dynamics in terms of illiquidity... I can't believe they said this out loud.” (Ben, 59:08)

  • Concerns about the U.S. Dept. of Labor’s move to “democratize” alternatives in retirement plans, forecasting disaster if illiquid assets are made available to less sophisticated investors.

7. Energy, Geopolitics, and Inflation

• Energy Shocks & Regional Disparities:
  • The show touches on the role of U.S. energy independence (vs. Europe’s vulnerability), energy stock correlations with oil prices, and the political/economic consequence of new wars in the Middle East.
  • They express skepticism at claims that current volatility or major geopolitical actions will bring lasting energy stability.

    “I don’t buy that at all. No way.” (Ben, 22:16)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Correction vs. Crisis:
  "Stick with the courtroom analogy, the stock market has to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." (Michael, 04:53)

• On Perceived Market Fear:
  "I just don’t buy that we’re whistling past the graveyard. Sorry…Not my base case." (Michael, 20:01)

• On Tech Stock Compression:
  “…These companies are going more from intangible to tangible because of all the investments in AI. And it will be very interesting to think…is this the thing that finally changes this cycle of the tech premium?” (Ben, 28:11)

• On Homeownership:
  "Anytime our parents bought a house for $200,000…and then 30 years later, it's like, hey, buddy…it’s not an investment." (Michael, 57:39)

• On Private Credit Products:
  "You have to talk to your clients about what illiquidity risk means…That's the number one thing with these products." (Ben, 59:45)

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Pop Culture, Personal, and Lighthearted Asides

• Discussion about “word clouding” Michael’s overuse of the word “ostensibly” and the power of big words in conversation. (03:01)
• Nostalgic takes on moviegoing (the superiority of basketball in-person, Project Hail Mary, Van Damme films); witty riffs on 90s action stars. (17:37, 70:02)
• Amusing email stories from listeners, including tales of “the cable guy in my toilet.” (64:36)
• Ben’s candid reflection on “being wrong” about live experiences as a parent, after a memorable trip to watch Michigan’s NCAA run. (65:50)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Market Correction vs. Bear Market Proof — 04:04 to 08:45
• Sector Dynamics and Valuation Compression — 09:25 to 14:16
• Long-Term Market Stats & Drawdown Analysis — 16:31 to 19:48
• Wealth Inequality & AI's Future — 34:08 to 38:26
• Homeowner’s “Money Pit” Email & Generational Divide — 55:10 to 58:37
• Private Credit Market Caution — 59:08 to 63:41
• Pop Culture and Movie Recap — 70:00 to 74:01

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Summary Takeaways

• The market is turbulent but far from crisis mode—corrections, volatility, and drawdowns are normal features, not bugs, of investing.
• Underlying economic fundamentals appear stronger than media doom narratives suggest; recession fears may be overblown.
• Housing affordability and homeownership maintenance are real sources of financial and emotional strain, feeding into broader generational anxieties.
• Wealth inequality trends continue to mount, with AI potentially supercharging the richest slice of society but opinions split on whether AI will further divide or help lift all boats.
• Private markets and alternatives require much greater transparency and investor education. There are major risks brewing with liquidity mismatches.

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For questions or feedback, contact: [e-mail]
Interested in meeting the team in San Francisco (week of April 14)? [e-mail]

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Note: Advertisements, show intros, outros, and sponsor messages have been omitted for this summary.

Transcript

[Michael Batnik]

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[Ben Carlson]

show notes for more at Janus Henderson Investors we believe working together is the way to work better. Like combining your portfolio plans and our in depth strategy. Your valued assets and our valuable insights. Your mission and our vision always working in perfect harmony to find the right investment opportunities. Janice Henderson Investors Investing in a brighter Future Together visit Janashenderson.com. 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 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.

[Michael Batnik]

Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Ben, it's good to see you.

[Ben Carlson]

You too. As always.

[Michael Batnik]

You got a big profile in Barron's dropped this morning. Congrats.

[Ben Carlson]

Thank you. It was the first of probably many media appearances for my book that's coming out soon. I was talking to Barry about this how the book tour is now the podcast tour. There's still some legacy financial media, but I'll be doing a lot of podcasts in the weeks and months ahead.

[Michael Batnik]

When does the book come out?

[Ben Carlson]

May 12th.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. All right. Soon. All right. Speaking of Barry, Barry and the team are going to San Francisco the week of April 14th. My partner Chris will be out there. We'll have a bunch of financial advisors out there. If you are a prospective client. If you want to learn about how we work with with clients here, or if you are a financial advisor out there who is looking to learn more about how we onboard advisors here reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you. Infoitholswealth.com See, you did it for my roast. What's that you said?

[Ben Carlson]

My partner Chris.

[Michael Batnik]

Wait, I forgot. What did you say? Did I say that again? I said that. Well, because nobody, well, nobody knows who Chris is.

[Ben Carlson]

I know, but it's funny that you call him your partner. That's the funny part.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, well, there's an audience, Ben. I'm not just talking to you. When I'm talking to you, I don't call him my partner, Chris. But when there's an audience of people who don't know who Chris is, I have to.

[Ben Carlson]

I think it's funny when you call him your partner. That's all I'm saying.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, what should I call him?

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know. My colleague, Chris.

[Michael Batnik]

He's more than my colleague. We started this business together. He's my partner. Anyway, anyhow, I've been.

[Ben Carlson]

I've been waiting to drop it, ostensibly, and I can't figure out how to do it.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, you know what? I got. I forgot to. I forgot to go back to the tape. I. I meant to ask Rob to. I want to tape check you and find out how often I actually use that word that I'm now self conscious about. I won't be using it.

[Ben Carlson]

I bet we could word cloud that. How often do you say it ostensibly?

[Michael Batnik]

Well, you. What does all the time mean? I feel like that's gotta be at least once an episode. No.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, Pretty close. It's just for a. For a big word. I feel like, hey, I'm.

[Michael Batnik]

How about this? How about this?

[Ben Carlson]

I'm jealous. I wish I could use a big word like that.

[Michael Batnik]

I will set the over under. So less than 1. I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say 0.5. I'm gonna say every other episode, tops. And I would even still take the under.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnik]

You sure about that? You sure about that? Every episode.

[Ben Carlson]

No, I said not. I said every other episode.

[Michael Batnik]

No, you didn't. You just said every. All right, I said every other.

[Ben Carlson]

I would.

[Michael Batnik]

I would even. I would even go as far to say as one out of three.

[Ben Carlson]

You use that word way more than the average person. How's that? Because I've never used it. I've never used it.

[Michael Batnik]

Keep moving the goalpost. Keep moving the goalposts.

[Ben Carlson]

All right.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. So a couple of weeks ago, I said into this here camera that the burden of proof is on you. Meaning if you think that we are about to enter an actual bear market, then the burden of proof is on you. Because the market generally overreacts. So right now it is just. It's just not overreacting. It is a. It is a very orderly sell off.

[Ben Carlson]

That's a good way to put it.

[Michael Batnik]

The vix has not really spiked at all.

[Ben Carlson]

Joe Wise as well, tweeted the other day. We haven't had a 2% down day during this war.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

So I. I Pulled all the returns. And if you look at them, there's nothing like the worst return is like a negative 1.7% on a daily basis. You, we haven't even had one like day that's like, oh geez, here it is. Not even close.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, so all of this leads me to believe, to stick with the courtroom analogy, the stock market has to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And when I say stock market, I'm talking about things that actually drive the stock market on a, on a longer term basis. Inflation, interest rates, and most especially earnings. And last week was anecdotally the first time that I started to hear the R word recession. And I suspect, and I could be wrong, but I suspect more than a little that this is a classic case of the stock market predicting nine of the last five recessions. And let me just introduce to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, two pieces of evidence.

[Ben Carlson]

The.

[Michael Batnik]

I pulled this from our friends at the transcript. This is, this quote is from the chairman and CEO of Arthur J. Gallagher, which is a, I believe, an insurance brokerage type of thingy. Majiggy. Through mid March, our daily revenue indications from audits, endorsements and cancellations are still in positive territory, indicating continued solid business activity. And no signs of a broad slowdown. We're just not seeing signs of economic weakness. And I'll give you one more, maybe more relevant, more relevant to the broader economy. Paychecks, CEO and paychecks. Processes, Processes, paychecks, accounts, all that stuff.

[Ben Carlson]

Ostensibly they process paychecks for people.

[Michael Batnik]

I looked this up. Over 700,000 small and mid sized businesses in the United States. Okay, so they've got the fake on the pulse, so to speak. What we're seeing, this from the CEO, what we're seeing is a stable macro environment. No signs of recession in any of our data or indicators, nothing that would indicate that we would change what we're thinking in terms of pace on any of our segments at this point in time. Now of course, as always, you could point to the housing market weakness, you could point to the hiring weakness, you could point to AI fears and private credit fears, and of course oil. And I'm not saying there's nothing to worry about, so don't misunderstand me, but I think this is a wonderful long term opportunity for investors. I think that assuming that this ends at some point in time and I don't know when it's going to end, and I'm not suggesting a V shaped rally, and in fact, let me be very clear, the sellers are clearly, obviously in control right now.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnik]

So I'm not saying like throw caution to the wind. I respect, I respect trend and right now the trend is lower, the path of least resistance is lower. But that can and will change in my opinion. And I think once this, once all of these headwinds subside, assuming that the economy doesn't roll over, assuming that earnings stay positive, I think that this will in the second half of the year, maybe next year, who knows, will be looked back on as. I can't believe I didn't buy. That's how I feel.

[Ben Carlson]

I think it's important that you're distinguishing between a recession and a correction because listen, most corrections lead to a recession or you're right, the stock market predicts them because guess what? We haven't had one, a real one in 17 years. So all the corrections we've had along the way that thought the economy was slowing, they were wrong.

[Michael Batnik]

And every time we do this every time. So we show the chart every year of the average of the, of the max entry year drawdown and the average of, of overtime and what is it? 14% depending on when you look at

[Ben Carlson]

it, 14 or 16%.

[Michael Batnik]

So every year on average has an intra year 14% decline. And right now we're at 9%.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. So I pulled this, I feel like.

[Michael Batnik]

But every year we forget that this happens every year.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. And I, my take on the economy would be it's proven to be so strong. I totally agree with you that like it's got to be lawyer speak beyond a reasonable doubt. This would have to. The whole energy crisis would have to last a lot longer for it to have an impact on the economy. That's my general feeling now. Now there is, there are. So again we're just normal correction charity. You mentioned that the S and P from the highs is down 9. The Russell 2000 is down 11. So is the IFA. Emerging markets are down 13. Nasdaq 100 is down 12. Gold is down 16%. There are some areas, software is down 34%. Silver is down 40% from the highs. Bitcoin is almost in a 50% drawdown. Ethereum is down almost 60%. So there are places you can look at that. Okay, these are pretty bombed up things.

[Michael Batnik]

40% of the index, last I checked of the S and p was down 20% or more to your point. There's names that are getting absolutely destroyed. Let's look at a company like Micron for example. So Micron reported next week and this is one of the best performing stocks. Right. So it it went straight up. So the fact that it's giving some back is whatever, pretty normal. But micron fell 30% in a few weeks after reporting earnings. And these are, this is what the CFO said on the call. Micron set new records across revenue, gross margins, EPS and free cash flow. Fiscal Q2 DRAM revenue was a record $18.8 billion up. Listen to this Ben. 207% year over year up 207% year over year and the stock is in a 30% decline. For all the talk that we had in 2025 about the inevitability of a bubble forming like it's coming, just wait for it. The fact that the market has rejected it with, with both hands I think is awesome for long term returns.

[Ben Carlson]

So your point about this being a potential good opportunity Chart kid Matt and he's got a blog too by the way people chart kidmat.com subscribe there first charts he shows. So I think you could make the case that if, if this is just a blip and there's no big economy wide like tail on this, then there's a lot of stocks that are probably pretty cheap because he shows that the forward price to earnings is now at new all time highs while the index is rolling over. And if you look at the he shows how equity and this is on exhibit A as well. If you go there, exhibit A for advice.com he's showing that this year's fundamentals earnings growth is strong 5% dividends are kicking in a little and PEs have contracted by 10%. So the reason that stocks are down is because valuations have fallen. Now you could say, hey wait a minute, that does kind of make sense. Inflation might be higher. Like you know these things do happen where earnings and stock prices don't always exist in the same, they don't always follow each other. So that could make sense. But I, I think that if this is a blip, this is a taco liberation day kind of thing. You're going to go, man, there are some cheap stocks out there that were getting bombed out that I could have bought.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. So the sell off makes sense. I'm not saying like people are being stupid for selling their stocks. I understand why the stock market is falling. We had a bunch of emails about the taco stuff and this is a, this is a very fair point. It takes two sides to taco in this case it's like, it's like what if Trump is like all right, mission accomplished, we're done. And, and then Iran's like, well, we're not done. Like we're not done.

[Ben Carlson]

This is not as easy as the tariff thing. I totally agree with that. There's a lot more going on here.

[Michael Batnik]

So Duality Research has a similar chart that Matt did where he breaks down the sector returns of the S and P into the price return, the EPS growth and the PE multiple. And every sector has positive earnings growth. Every single one. And the only three sectors with multiple expansion, obviously energy stocks and utilities and staples. But where it really matters, technology earnings are up 18%. 18% and yet technology stocks are down 12%. That's 25% multiple compression.

[Ben Carlson]

I actually think that some multiple compression is warranted in tech stocks.

[Michael Batnik]

Of course it is.

[Ben Carlson]

With all the money that they're spending and they're becoming more asset heavy and less asset light and less intangible like it, the valuation compression there makes a lot of sense to me.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, so. So two things can be true.

[Ben Carlson]

Too far.

[Michael Batnik]

Two things can be true. The market is, the market is sniffing something out that doesn't smell too good. Redpoint did a big report on what's going on in software and they estimate that 95% of the current price action is by terminal value. So that's why all of these companies, Adobe du Lingo, where you see their earnings per share at an all time high and the stocks are down 70%.

[Ben Carlson]

Right. Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

The market's not dumb. It doesn't matter. It could, it could put up record earnings for the next six quarters. But if the market believes that ultimately Adobe's business will be a fraction of what it is today in 10 years, that's all that matters.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. And that, that's why stock picking is hard because you could, you could probably buy a basket of companies right now and be okay. But if you try to buy a few stocks that you think, well, the market is wrong because I got the P and I got the E, I can calculate that. It's not as easy as that.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. So anyway, interesting market as always. Carl K tweeted. This is from Goldman. Since the start of the war, long only trading activity on our desk has essentially been non existent. It is eerie. I worry that we are now approaching the point of this conflict where the long only community will become unfrozen and start cutting some real risk. I think every day investors are like looking at the screen and you know we were. Market fell, market fell yesterday, tried to open higher, sold intraday. But where is like the, where's the trapdoor down 3% day where the Vix gets to 45. And people like now, there's always a camp in a. In a bear market. In a. In a. Correction, there's always a camp that says unique capitulation. I don't know where that comes from. I mean, I get it. You know, you need people to like, really, like, throw in the towel. I understand where that's coming from.

[Ben Carlson]

You don't know. No offense to the vampire squid, though, but are we really. I can't really put Goldman in the same bucket as like the long term Vanguard target date investors. Like, those are real long term investors. I don't put Goldman in that bucket. No offense.

[Michael Batnik]

It didn't say long term. It didn't say long term. It said long.

[Ben Carlson]

Long only. Sorry. Long. Okay. Sorry. Long only.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

So you mentioned the volatility being normal thing. I just had to. I've been totally clawed. Pilled. I just want to go on record saying this took me. Probably took me too long.

[Michael Batnik]

Dude, wait till you discover coffee.

[Ben Carlson]

It's. But it's by far the. The. It's by. It's by far the best financial analyst of all of the LLMs. It's not even close. Is that fair from. From our perspective and what we use it for?

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

So I did this thing where Chart. Could Matt help me create this chart that showed just volatility is normal. Right. And the number of drawdowns since 1928. We looked at 10%. Worse. 15. And someone said, okay, Ben, what's the forward return from there? I said, all right, yeah, you know, I've probably done this in the past with me. And so I just said, at the end of a month, the S and p finishes down 10%, 20% or 30%. What are your forward returns look like? Okay, so I still had to do some calculations because I'm. I want to make sure I get these numbers right. I don't quite trust it 100% yet. So I did some calculations really quick. It takes me five minutes. And then I upload that spreadsheet to Claude. I say, I need you to figure out from these dates, mix and match with these returns that I calculated with these specific drawdown points. Right? And it does it immediately. Now, this probably would have taken me if I did this five years ago, like I would have by hand. It would take me two hours, probably. It did it in 30 seconds. And oh, by the way, it said, hey, just so you know, I color coded these drawdowns for you and I color coded the gains as well. And I calculated the average returns and the win rates. Okay. So I Still have to go and check these because I want to make sure. But it just shows. Look at the win rates. If you buy at the. Again, this is the end of the month, and the reason I did end of the month is because I like total returns, right? I'm not a price return guy. I'm a total return guy. But the win rates are all in the 90%. If. If you just buy down 10%, your average returns going forward are, like, for the next 12, 36, and 60 months are 15, 42, and 72. Like, it's pretty good. They're. They're all pretty close. If you buy down these 10, 20, or 30%, and the win rates are all 93, 94, 90, 99. Like, it's really, really high win rates if you buy stocks and they're down.

[Michael Batnik]

But when. When you don't win, you lose bigly.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, obviously.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

I thought this was kind of interesting too. Now some people will say, like, why does it matter how often. How long it takes the earth to rotate around the sun? Right? Why do we. Why do we care about calendar years? I don't know. This is kind of fun. So since 2009, and I knew this, you're already.

[Michael Batnik]

Wait, hold on. You think calendar years are kind of fun, but birthdays aren't. And to be clear, I am not a birthday guy. So even though Ben is a birthday Grinch, it's not like I'm like, oh, everybody text me, celebrate my birthday. Like, I don't like to celebrate my birthday. In fact, I hate to celebrate my birthday for my apartment. So I am not a. I'm not a spotlight guy. I don't like. I get, like, social anxiety in large crowds.

[Ben Carlson]

Like that last year in Miami. You did that.

[Michael Batnik]

I did what?

[Ben Carlson]

You got socially anxious when everyone was celebrating you in the steakhouse with the

[Michael Batnik]

oh, yeah, oh, yeah, Fireworks in. Yes, yes. So that I don't get anxious about a lot of things, but it makes me sweat. I just. I really feel uncomfortable in those situations. For my bar mitzvah, I get so uncomfortable that I had, like, a sports party, because my nightmare was for bar mitzvahs. They bring the boys and girls out, and, like, all the people look at them and they dance with the dancers, and, like, that's. That's the worst thing for me. So, anyway, back to calendar years, Ben. Let's. Let's hear why you like calendar years.

[Ben Carlson]

Since 2009, there have been exactly two down calendar years in the S&P 500. Okay, so we're like 17 years there's been two down years. 2018 was negative 4%. 2022 was negative 18%. Okay, that's it. Those are the only down years that we've had since 2009. So far. 2026, as of the close Monday, was down 7%. The point is, down years don't happen that on now you could say, well, this has been an extremely great run. So from 2000, who cares?

[Michael Batnik]

Give us a down year. I mean, I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to fall 30%. But if we fall, if the S and p closes down 7% this year, is that, is that the end of the world?

[Ben Carlson]

No, that's what's funny. If the S and p closed down 7%, it would be the worst year. It'd be the second worst year since 2008. Essentially. It's. It's just crazy to think about that. Like right now. That's how good investors have had it because. Yeah, the market fell at 4 out of 10 years from 2000, 2009. So my point is that, like, this is.

[Michael Batnik]

And to be clear, investors have had it so good. And they have, because companies have delivered so good.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. And now obviously, two down years, but there's been plenty of corrections along the way. That's what I'm saying. Going on the sun. Okay. To. I just think it's fascinating to think that the, the as much worry as there's been, there's been literally two down years in almost two decades.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, so this is my whole point. About as much anxiety about the market and the economy with AI as people have, and the market's only down 9%.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnik]

I just don't buy that we're whistling past the graveyard. Sorry. I mean, it's. You know, maybe there's a lot of egg on my face coming if there's a financial crisis that I missed, but I don't know. Not my base case.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, so Torsten Slok says the same thing. Markets are too focused on the near term challenges from higher oil prices. The real tradeoff for investors is four to six weeks of instability paying off 50 years of stability in oil market supply chains and geopolitics. The Gulf region will be more stable and even more closely integrated with the global economy. And I put the Tobias Fumeque thing in here. Did it work for those people? No, it never does. But these people somehow dude themselves. I think it might, but it might work for us.

[Michael Batnik]

What's this meme from?

[Ben Carlson]

It's an Arrested Development 1. I mean, you really. I might have to rewatch the whole first three seasons of the show. It's one of the great sitcoms of all time, and it's full of memes that you don't understand. And the thing is, it wasn't a popular show and it was not.

[Michael Batnik]

But wait, hold on. Is that Bateman and Will Arnett?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, it was like, that was Bateman's comeback, essentially from being in non existent forever. That was his and Will Arnett's.

[Michael Batnik]

Did you watch the Madison?

[Ben Carlson]

I did not yet.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. Will Arnett makes a very interesting appearance in that show. Not exactly the person I thought would be on screen.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. All right. I feel like there's too many Taylor Sheridan shows. I can't. I can't keep up with all the shows.

[Michael Batnik]

We'll get to that later. What about. What about. What about dtf? The Bateman show?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, I'm still into that one. I like it. I can see how a lot of. I can see how some people would be turned off by it and wouldn't like it and go, ooh, I love this. I think the guy from Stranger Things, his name is escaping me. I think when he does the sign language interpretation, interpretive dance, I think he's hilarious in this show.

[Michael Batnik]

It's very funny.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. But anyway, my point is the idea that this is. All of a sudden, things in the Middle east are gonna be fixed. I feel like every president has said, I'm gonna go in and fix the Middle east. And I just don't think it's fixable for us. I don't think we can fix it.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, yeah, there's. There's been thousands of years of conflict. I. I think you're probably right, Ben.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, so my worry is like, okay, Iran goes, oh, this trait of Hormuz is more important than ever. Like, we're going to use this as a choke point. This is going to be a worry for the next 20 years of them using it as a choke point. Like, I can't imagine this is the last we're going to hear about this. Even if we say, all right, we're done, we're out of here. Like, this is more important than it was before this. 50 years of stability. I don't buy that at all. No way.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I don't think anybody buys that. I mean, hello, were you born yesterday? The Bloomberg made a chart of the difference between European gas prices, natural gas specifically, and us. And look what the fracking revolution did to our country and our energy independence, which was, like, very much a Political issue in the 2000 and tens. Right. Like that was a very heated argument. And it turns out energy independence is a good thing.

[Ben Carlson]

So I'm, my new audible is. I'm, I'm listening to how the world really Works. Baklov Smeal is his name. I think I can pronounce that right. And it was one that I tried to read and I just couldn't get through it. But I put on audiobooks and the whole point of the book is everyone, a lot of people think that fossil fuels are bad and they're really bad for the, for the world and they destroying the world. But he says like we would not have gotten to where we are as a society without fossil fuels. And it's looking at kind of both sides of this and saying like how much more energy efficient we've gotten over time. And it's kind of like the leaps forward are insane. But it's an interesting look at just like, listen, the world is not the way it is. If we didn't have fossil fuels. You can hate them if you want, but it's anyway interesting, look at it.

[Michael Batnik]

So what this chart is showing is that our natural gas prices are basically unchanged over the last four years. There was a, there was a blip, short term spike that came back down. But look at what it's doing to European gas prices.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm really interested to see what, how much bigger the European response is going to be because they have to think, listen, we didn't do anything. We didn't start the Ukraine, Russia war and we got hope. Our energy prices spiked. We didn't start the Iran war, our energy prices spiked. Like what is their response going to be? They're not just going to sit there and take this, are they? Forever? I mean, I just wonder if their, if their fiscal defense spend is just going to go through the roof. Because they can't just sit there and take this every time something happens that their energy prices spike and ours don't.

[Michael Batnik]

I just asked Claude, okay. Roughly 40% of European homes use natural gas as their primary heating source and it's higher in other countries. So yeah, this sucks for them a lot.

[Ben Carlson]

Right?

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, like this really hurts. I guess the good thing is that it's not the winter, but still they

[Ben Carlson]

don't use air conditioning in Europe. So in the summer they're gonna be okay. Everyone just walks around sweaty with bo. It's like medieval times. All right, so I put this price of, I put the long term chart of US retail gas prices in here. This spike is insane. How quickly it went from three to $4 a gallon. I continue to think that if we, it's just a temporary spike. I don't think gas prices matter anymore. Like, I know people see the big signs and they get angry with them, but I don't think for the economy gas prices matter all that much. Is that, is that a dumb statement?

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, it's pretty dumb. A short elitist.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't think a short term spike. I'm saying for the economy. I'm not talking about people's pocketbooks.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I, I, for the overall economy. Does a short term, does a short term rising gas prices matter? I don't know. Probably very, very, very much on the margin. I don't think you'll see this in the data.

[Ben Carlson]

That's what I think. It's going to be marginal if it's just this short term spike. All right. DFA had a cool chart. They looked at the correlation between oil price changes and energy sector returns from 1964 to 2025 and the correlation was 0.29, which is kind of shocking. You would have think oil and energy would move in lockstep.

[Michael Batnik]

I don't even, I don't believe this.

[Ben Carlson]

Look at the chart. You don't believe it?

[Michael Batnik]

Nope. If this is trying to show that energy stocks don't react to the, the direction of, of, of oil prices, then I reject this chart.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, so they show, for example, oil

[Michael Batnik]

was, they might be saying like over the, over the long term it might not matter as much as you think. Fine. Nobody, not Everybody lives in 10 year periods.

[Ben Carlson]

But they're, they're showing annual returns. They're showing 12 month periods. Okay. Then they say, for example, oil is up more than 150% in 1974. Energy stocks fell. On the other hand, energy stocks were up in 2025 despite a market drop in oil prices.

[Michael Batnik]

So what? Every stock fell in 1974 and every stock rose in 2025. This chart doesn't do it for me. Sorry, not impressed.

[Ben Carlson]

I think the point is there's a lot of people who think energy stocks are a perfect. Like why buy oil when you can just buy energy stocks? And the point is it's not always a one to one hedge. That's the point.

[Michael Batnik]

Have you seen energy stocks?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, they're doing well this year. But the point is it's not always like that.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, okay.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, you're right.

[Michael Batnik]

Rejected.

[Ben Carlson]

Recency bias wins. Reject the historical data.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, what, because in 1974 energy stocks fell. This chart is crap.

[Ben Carlson]

They show every year since 1960.

[Michael Batnik]

How about this? Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

There's no rhyme or reason to this chart.

[Michael Batnik]

Show it, show a chart showed this data presented differently. Show me rolling 30 day returns of energy stocks and I bet you this looks a lot different. Yeah, you're zooming out. I'm zooming in.

[Ben Carlson]

The Zoom out is 12 month period. I think that's not like a totally, like takes away all the little.

[Michael Batnik]

It's a, it's, it's a zoom out. Okay, agree to disagree.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. No, you just agree to not trust the data. Sometimes. You're, you're, you're a data truther at times.

[Michael Batnik]

Nope. You can manipulate the charts to show what you want.

[Ben Carlson]

That's fair.

[Michael Batnik]

I'm not a data truther. The data is the data and I, I don't like the way that this data is presented.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. I think it's interesting the correlation being that low is, it's surprising is all. There's no, I think the whole point

[Michael Batnik]

is energy shocks don't last 12 months all the time. This is, you're measuring the wrong thing.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, so I mentioned before, like tech valuations probably should be compressed and this chart from the ft, this is the reason why. So it shows revenue generated per dollar of fixed assets. And for Facebook and Google and Microsoft and Amazon, it's going down, down, down. And for Apple it's continued to rise a little bit because they're not spending money. All this means is that there's just much. These companies are going more from intangible to tangible because of all the investments in AI. And it will be very interesting to think like, listen, we had to do this, but is this the thing that finally changes this cycle of the tech premium? But it's more than a short term blip. This changes it maybe forever, like this whole 15 year cycle or whatever we've been on. The AI thing is the thing that finally changes it. The cost of data centers and the cost of compute. It's going to finally change this.

[Michael Batnik]

This is a very, this is a very plausible story. I could buy this. So if these companies were out, were, were. We're living in a world of 40 to 70% operating margins with high cash flow. And now this is, we have reached an inflection point.

[Ben Carlson]

And that's the thing. And people go, wait a minute, earnings are still growing 15% per year. Why is my stock going down? Or why is the valuation compressing? I think that's going to be a thing that people are saying about a lot of these stocks going forward. I don't get it. That's what happened to Microsoft after the dot com bubble. Earnings were growing like crazy and the stock did nothing. People are going, this doesn't make any sense. Why isn't it matching the fundamentals?

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, the difference is the stocks were, the valuations were absurd back then. So like Facebook is trading at 16 times forward earnings. So yes, obviously, obviously investors are saying timeout, this is not 2021 anymore. But I would also argue that at 16 times forward earnings for Facebook and 20 for Microsoft or whatever, the, the, the re rating has sufficiently de risk to these stocks. I'm not saying like Microsoft is a, is a screaming buy today, but like I think if you could, if you could put the stock away for a couple years, I think you're going to make money.

[Ben Carlson]

Duncan asked me the other day, like all these stocks that have gotten crushed, where would you look? And I said my boring answer and we talk about this on Ask the compound I get. I could go through a lot of different charts is just, I think you'd probably say if I wanted to go bottom fishing right now, these stocks that are down 30% or more every time Meta and Microsoft fall like this, if

[Michael Batnik]

you're gonna bottom fish, bottom fish in a mega cap name, you, you.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. And guess what? One of these times maybe you're wrong and it takes a lot longer to come back, but that's where I would do it, that, that's like the safe answer. I would say.

[Michael Batnik]

We had a really good po. Josh and I did a really good podcast with this guy Jonathan Boyar who's a value investor. And I said to him like, there's no extra points for difficulty with investing. And if you are a value investor and you're buying stocks because you think the market is wrong, the burden of proof is really high. And guess what? Most of the time, most of the time the market's not wrong. And buying 52 week lows is a really, really, really, really, really bad long term strategy. So I asked him like, why not just wait until these stocks stop crashing? I'm not saying that you could know when the bottom is, who can? But why at least like wait for some sort of signs that okay, the selling has stopped, right? Like it's not, the stock's not crashing anymore. It bottomed, it rallied, it fell, it failed. Like it's gone sideways, some consolidation. And he basically, he had a good, he had a good answer. He said, I do, I, I, I buy over time. And that's as good of answer as any. So just for the listeners like if you, you know, I wouldn't say, don't go all in on a stock that's in freefall. That's not a great. That usually doesn't work out.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, you don't blow your whole wad on the first dip. Right. Because probably going to keep dipping.

[Michael Batnik]

All right. 2025, it turns out, was a really, really bad year for stock pickers. 79%.

[Ben Carlson]

Man, I thought it was gonna be a stock pickers year. Shoot.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, 2026 is.

[Ben Carlson]

Should be.

[Michael Batnik]

No, it is.

[Ben Carlson]

No, yeah, first I'm saying it should be. I don't know that. We don't know this, how the stock pickers are doing.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, that's a good point. So yesterday the equal weighted index was flat. It was down 1% in the year and the S&P was down 7%. So by definition it is a stock picker's ear. I hope they picked the right stocks or I hope they avoided the meg. I hope, I hope they were underweight.

[Ben Carlson]

Listen, if you're not a closet indexer, that's the point.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure.

[Ben Carlson]

How many are you? A closet indexer? That's what you figure out.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

The crazy thing to me is that I wrote about this a little bit after we talked about last week. If you look at the, for this Spiva report, if you look at the 10, 15, 20 year numbers and it's across, it's not just large cap, it's small cap, mid cap, REITs, it's all these different categories. International. It's something like 90 to 95% of active managers underperform the index. And my baseline was always for index funds. And I don't even make fun of you about index funds, but I assumed it would be 70, 75%. That seemed like a good baseline to me. That's how many active managers you outperform just because of costs and fees and all that stuff. Usually the fact that it's been 90 to 95% is kind of insane to me. I didn't think it would be that high. Yeah, you could say this is the hardest period ever for stock pickers. And I wouldn't argue with you, but the fact that it's that high is pretty crazy to me. The fact that like indexing became so, so popular and people were talking about it being a bubble and it's going to lead to all these things and guess what? It worked better than it's ever worked in history for indexing. That's the crazy part. All right, this story from the Wall Street Journal was flying around. People love to share these charts. They're rich but not famous. And they're suddenly everywhere. Everywhere. The number of Americans worth eight or nine figures is up markedly. It's transforming now. They show this chart and they show there are 430,000 U.S. households worth $30 million or more.

[Michael Batnik]

Hold on, timeout. 430,000.

[Ben Carlson]

Isn't that crazy? And this is as of 2022, so this number is definitely higher. 74,000 people that are worth $100 million or more. Okay. Even adjusted for inflation, the wealth of the top 1% of households has grown more than 13 fold over the past 50 years. Again, adjusted for inflation.

[Michael Batnik]

That is a face blowing stat. That's hard to believe.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. So they show, they break this down. They show the number of households by 30 million and up, 50 million and up and 100 million up. And again, they're adjusting for inflation for these figures. And the 100 million one just keeps going up. Even 50 and 30 is kind of a little more volatile. But there are so, so many rich people these days. And this is why there's, there's like rich person anxiety too. You, you saw that viral story from the New York Times last week about the couple in New York who makes $500,000 a year. And they say they're middle class.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, that shit really pisses people off.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, yeah. Rich people claiming that they're working class people for good reason. That's if you have make a half a million dollars a year in the top 1%. But this is why those people feel that way, because they go, yeah, sure, I make half a million dollars a year, but I'm not worth $30 million. Like my neighbor is Park Avenue or whatever, like, and I just.

[Michael Batnik]

430,000 households over 30 million or more. You sure that says of 2022?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, it's insane, right? Yes, as of 2022, because that's the last day of the Fed. Fed data for this.

[Michael Batnik]

All right. And think about how much more the stock market is up, which is where all the wealth is since then. So what is it now? 700,000. That's the thing that is, that is honestly like a. That is hard to believe. Wow.

[Ben Carlson]

2022 was also a bear market. So think about that. There's. So, yeah, it's, it's probably now 600,000. So a couple things here. One, I think if you take this and the fact that it's not just like the top 10% of the top 5%, it's really, it's not even the top 1%. It's like the. No, it's not 1.1%.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

I may be even short here in the next 12 years. We're going to elect a socialist president in this country. No, stamp it rubbers with AI. AI is going to make inequality worse. Okay? Think about what happened in New York. This is going to happen on a national basis.

[Michael Batnik]

I hope the rich people collude and have as much power as we think they do to make sure that we don't get a socialist president.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm just saying if, if this trend keeps being replaced and AI is going to make it worse and we see all the corruption going on in the government right now, okay, we are going to elect a socialist president.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, So I don't know it down right now. Anything about.

[Ben Carlson]

Obviously, I'm not saying I want that. I'm saying this is going to happen. This is where the country is going.

[Michael Batnik]

But isn't it, but, but isn't it really expensive to put somebody in office?

[Ben Carlson]

It is.

[Michael Batnik]

So where does, where, so where does the money come from to get a socialist person to the top?

[Ben Carlson]

How did the guy get elected in New York? I don't know. You don't think that's.

[Michael Batnik]

I think it's different at the national level.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. I just, I think that's. I think we're going down a bad path here is all I'm saying. I think that's where we're heading.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, yes, this is, this is tough

[Ben Carlson]

because again, AI is going to make this worse. AI is not going to make inequality better. It's going to make it worse.

[Michael Batnik]

But why?

[Ben Carlson]

Why? You're going to be able to start a business with far fewer people. Guess what? That's more, that's more money in the hands of fewer people.

[Michael Batnik]

Let me ask you a question. I'm being serious. So when we say wealth inequality is going to go get worse, let's just assume that the bottom, I don't know, 10% will see no improvement from AI. The bottom. Bottom of the K. What if AI impact. What if AI lifts the, the lifts 70 of the economy?

[Ben Carlson]

Then it would be a miracle technology if it did that.

[Michael Batnik]

I don't think it's like, I don't think it's been decided that this is going to make things a lot worse. Now, I'm not like, I'm not saying that it's. That it's going to make things better. So, like that. That's not what I'm saying. But I don't know. I don't know. That we can say that.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm more sure about this than anything right now. I am.

[Michael Batnik]

Really?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. AI is going to make inequality way worse. Think about starting a company with fewer people and you can you keep all that equity yourself?

[Michael Batnik]

All right, let me, okay, let me, let me read an email that we got.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. This is a, this is actually exactly what we're talking about. I own a manufacturing firm in the rural Midwest. Cutting to the chase, my production people employees are generally lower quarter in iq. Now this sounds mean. I don't, I don't, I don't think this person's trying to be mean. It's hard for many people to imagine, but if I asked them to pick a half gallon 1% organic milk out at a grocery store shelf, they would be flummoxed. Too many ideas to hold at one time. Let's remember what AI is artificial intelligence. In the same way the barcode scanner allowed a new cohort of people to be checkout people versus keying in all groceries. Or how spellcheck helped some people communicate by fixing almost every word. The adoption of AI actually extends the Runway of employment for lots of people that graduated high school with a fourth grade reading level, which is a sixth of the population. He said, he said one sixth of the population can't qualify to be in the military due to low iq. So this is a real issue. That's, that's wild. But whatever, different topic, I suppose. In short, the AI Dumor ism about it spreading the gap among haves and have nots forgets that a lot of have nots can use even the simplest AI to extend their skills in the workforce. That's a, that's a good alternative.

[Ben Carlson]

I, I, yes, I hope so. I, I, yes, I agree. The, the ability to do it will

[Michael Batnik]

be there a lot of these discussions because obviously the same thing with every discussion. It either it's either all good or all bad.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, right. The, the barriers to entry have been completely flattened. If you want to learn about something. Right. You can ask as many questions as. Yeah, you're right. If you want to learn about a specific topic, it can give you step by step, it's yes, it's there. The ability is there if people take it.

[Michael Batnik]

Wow, 430,030 people. $30 million net worth. That's just, it's just unbelievable. All right, here's another one. So Delta speaking of the upper, upper end of the K. So Delta Airlines, they said our consumer is really healthy. We live at the top end of the K that people talk about. The premium end of the K. And that's where over 90% of our revenue is sourced from the group of folks that want to travel, they're investing in themselves. They're investing in the experience economy. We've seen eight of the top 10 sales days in our history this quarter and five of those within just the last two weeks. Within just the last week of this past March. Even with fuel prices, even with the war going on, our bookings are up 25% year over year. So I'm sorry, I'm not sorry. I just think that the stock market is leading a lot of the discussion right now. And assuming that we don't get a recession, that earnings don't contract from the point of view of the stock market.

[Ben Carlson]

No, it's not even the stock market. It's the oil market that's leading the discussion.

[Michael Batnik]

Right. This is good. This is good stuff.

[Ben Carlson]

For years we talked about when will the travel boom stop? Remember? We thought it was okay. This is just people are going to take a couple trips after the COVID and then it's going to stop. And it hasn't stopped at all.

[Michael Batnik]

30. 30 million. I mean for. Okay, I keep hopping on the 30 million, go down like two steps. How many people are $5 million?

[Ben Carlson]

Right. And what stops them? All right, back to my socialist stuff here. This is from Alison Schrager. Bloomberg posted this. Financial nihilism is generational and it's saying that more young Americans say they feel behind financial and believe speculative investments will help them reach their goals. Now it says 80% of Gen Z feels this way and 75% of millennials. I understand the zeitgeist behind these kind of things, but these, I think if you look at the difference between people online and people in the real world, it's never been starker because the whole thing that preach people think that this financial nihilism exists. And the only way you can do it is by speculating on crypto and prediction markets. And what percentage of the population is that really? It's people online who talk about it. You go in the real world, most people are happy, most people are doing fine. When you talk to regular people, they're

[Michael Batnik]

not like, I don't think, I don't think most people are happy. I wouldn't go that far, but I would say most people aren't miserable.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. Most people you interact with on a regular basis, when you go to your kids games and when you go to the school events and when you go out to dinner at restaurants, do you see people who are Moping and unhappy. No, most of the time you see people smiling and having fun and laughing. And I think this idea that everyone is, is miserable and everyone wants to just speculate because their life is horrible. That's. That's supremely 100 online people and that's it. The real world is not like that.

[Michael Batnik]

I could not agree more. Okay, so, yes, Colonel, like more than a kernel of truth as to why people are doing this. And there is a segment of the population that's doing this, obviously it's not all nonsense, but this idea that it's like an epidemic, I think the number

[Ben Carlson]

is something like 2 to 4% of people who gamble on sports become totally addicted and it ruins their life. That's a way higher number than it should be.

[Michael Batnik]

And it's not everyone. And 2 to 4% of people that are doing it, unfortunately, is probably hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are ruined, whose family's lives are ruined. So it's tragic, obviously, but let's not, let's not conflate that with the idea that everybody is like that.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, so you started out with a recession stuff. I use Claude again. And I said, hey, so the National Bureau of Economic Research, they're the ones who say it's a recession. And usually they tell us like six months later, they have to wait for confirmation. They have these six different indicators they look at to determine are we in a recession or not. And they have. If you look at the weight of the evidence, right. They look at payrolls and personal income and consumption and industrial production and households employment and then manufacturing and trade sales. And I did this. I said, claude, make me a. Make me a dashboard of this. And they show, is it weakening? Is it positive, is it slowing? It's. So right now it basically says elevated watchfulness. That's what Claude tells me. My, my little French buddy Claude. This is certainly the, I'd say like the worst state. The economy's been going into one of these conflicts. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I think that's where. I think that's why people are wondering.

[Michael Batnik]

The economy is flat. Flat to weak.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. I think that's. If you look at this data, you'd go, yeah, it's, it's flat. It's not, not doing great. It's not doing horrible. It's just, eh. It's okay.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. Speaking of Claude, how do you feel. We haven't spoken about this. How do you feel about the A20, the. The A24 remake of. Of Bloodsport?

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, really? I don't know, man, can they find a guy with a chest as big as him that could make a dance like that? What was the guy's name? Chun Li or something? The bad guy.

[Michael Batnik]

What's Chung Lee's name in real life? That guy was terrifying.

[Ben Carlson]

I had to introduce my son to Van Damme the other day because he's watching Expendables 3 and he goes, wait, who's this guy? The new bad guy is Van Damme. I said, ah, we'll have to get through his catalog too, I guess.

[Michael Batnik]

I love Van Damme. George will love Sudden Death.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, you're right. He will like that one. So good he knows all these guys now because every single cheesy action star is in Expendables at some point.

[Michael Batnik]

So for the younger audience, Jean Claude Van Damme was this really handsome, amazing kickboxer. Martial artist, I suppose. He's not a kickboxer.

[Ben Carlson]

The kind of guy who would never be in movies today because there'd be too much unintentional comedy.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, it was just the movies are hilarious.

[Ben Carlson]

So he's an artifact of the 90s.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. So in sudden death, there's a bomb in a hockey stadium. Is it Pittsburgh? Is he a penguin? I can't remember.

[Ben Carlson]

And he becomes the goalie. I saw that in the theater with a friend and we were just like, I don't know.

[Michael Batnik]

And no, no, in the 90s, you did not question it, at least. I mean, I was too young to question it. I probably thought that could happen.

[Ben Carlson]

But he made it. He made. He made a save because he was like, yeah, it was so good. The 90s were a simpler time. Much simpler time. A lot less self awareness back then.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, Torsten Slack. No signs of AI replacing offshore workers. So they're looking at this chart. Super blurry. But he said, we are monitoring the unemployment rate in the Philippines and India for any signs that AI is reducing the need for outsourced workers in corporate America. So far, there are no signs of AI replacing offshore workers.

[Ben Carlson]

So I feel like my AI thing is inequality. Your AI thing is labor replacement. Right. We both have our sort of like, doomerism. We're dabbling in doomerism for AI at what year would you have to say, okay, I was wrong about this. What year would the unemployment rate have to spike enough to be like, okay, fine, maybe this isn't going to happen? Would it be like 2028, 2030? At one point, if the unemployment rate was still like 5 or 6%, would you go, okay, AI is just not having material impact Like I thought it would.

[Michael Batnik]

That's a good question.

[Ben Carlson]

I would love to know what the end date is. Like end of this decade if we haven't had a huge spike in unemployment, then we're in productivity. Like then maybe it's just not going to happen.

[Michael Batnik]

I don't even think you need to go that far. I would say if, if by the end of next year the labor market looks similar as it does today, then yeah, we should be okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Right. Because again we're still not seeing mass layoffs. We're not seeing, it's just people have kind of stopped hiring and it's.

[Michael Batnik]

But, but it's, it's hard because it's never just one thing because what if there's a recession? Are we going to blame AI for that?

[Ben Carlson]

I do think the recession will be the thing that like do people get hired back? That's when you'll really know because in a recession people don't, they, the companies don't mind link, they'll lay off. They don't care. Will they hire people back? That'll be the tell.

[Michael Batnik]

Check this out. So I mentioned Redpoint earlier, the Lincoln bio, what do we call it? Lincoln, Lincoln show notes. If you, if you want to see this report, they have a chart showing. So it's a 2026 market update. They go deep into software and venture and what's going on and all that sort of stuff. Comparing public markets to private market and valuations and all that good stuff. All right, so I thought this chart was, was, was fascinating. They're showing the top 20 largest VC deals as a percentage of total enterprise software funding. And it was 8, 6 and 7% in 2020 through 2022 that it spiked to 23% in 2023, 31 to 24 and 44, 2020, 25 and OpenAI and anthropic and XAI are sucking up all of the funding.

[Ben Carlson]

So just like the public markets, private markets are extremely concentrated. Yeah, everything is, it's concentration all the way down. Right? That's right. Then that is interesting.

[Michael Batnik]

I also, I saw a chart from Baltunas. I didn't put in the show notes about people complaining about how concentrated the US stock market is. And then he showed it compared to the rest of the world.

[Ben Carlson]

If you look at South Korea which has been extremely volatile market lately, huge run up and now it's, I think it's down 20% now two stocks make up like 45% of the index. It's way more concentrated elsewhere. Yeah, I think Japan is really the only One that's more diversified than us. All right, Mike Duda said this tweet. Let's talk about crypto. Total crypto market cap is flat over the past five years, despite significant inflation from existing protocols and plenty of new protocol launches. You don't need to look particularly far beyond this chart to understand why crypto sentiment isn't great right now. So this is going from another peak, obviously, a little bit. So. But still, this is kind of crazy. All the. I guess all the VC dollars are poured into crypto, all the different protocols, all the different layers. It is pretty surprising at this point that more hasn't come out of it. Besides bitcoin essentially being, well, stable coins

[Michael Batnik]

is a huge, huge industry, I would say. Also one of the. One of the other problems with crypto is that I'm don't. This is not my world. But I'm just assuming that a lot of the talent is gone and is now in doing cooler shit in AI. Probably not going back.

[Ben Carlson]

That was a thing where it was like, everyone is going to work in crypto now. This is the new cool thing. Obviously, AI is. Is probably that now. I tend to agree. So what's going to be the. Are we ever going to get the thing for crypto? Is it just stablecoins? That's it. I think if that's the outcome, most people in crypto would call it a failure from what they, from what they laid out at the beginning of this. I think if stablecoins are the thing that would be looked at as like, we didn't do what we set out to do. Is that fair?

[Michael Batnik]

I would agree. I would agree. But it's still a $2 trillion asset class.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. That was effectively created out from thin air.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. So market check S and p is up 1.5%. The Nasdaq is finally bouncing. Nasdaq is up 1.7%. I don't know if there's news or not, but.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, the news was last night, basically. Basically Trump said, like, even if we don't take back the straight of Hormuz, I'm willing to end the war. He's ready to. He's ready to call it like, okay,

[Michael Batnik]

so I said, what happened last night, actually? And in any other day, but I would have known what happened. But guess what? I finally blocked Twitter on my phone.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. I do wonder.

[Michael Batnik]

I got. I got this thing called Brick and I installed it yesterday.

[Ben Carlson]

What does it do?

[Michael Batnik]

And so I, I blocked Twitter on my phone. I can't go on Twitter.

[Ben Carlson]

I do think about that. Like last 24 hours because of Twitter. I, I see all these headlines, I see these stories and there's all these stories people are talking about. And I, I, I often wonder, like there's obviously people who aren't on it, who have no, who never have any idea these things are happening. Because most of the stuff like this reported on Twitter, like it rarely jumps into actual news lexicon or like the big, you know, sometimes Twitter moves the news. But all the stories that people pay attention to all the time, that's just online people paying attention to them.

[Michael Batnik]

So I, I mean I didn't, it's, it's on my computer. So I'm still, I'm still here. But the reason why I did it, I feel like mo, most of the time that I'm on, that I'm on Twitter on my phone is when I'm home with my kids.

[Ben Carlson]

And like that's not a good feeling.

[Michael Batnik]

So I don't need to be on Twitter and laying in bed with them, obviously. All right, let's keep it moving.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. Torsten Slack had the head his housing update and he shows the average monthly mortgage payment on a new 30 year mortgage. Okay. And it goes back to January 2000. And this thing is remarkably stable from January 2000 to January 2020. Obviously housing prices crashed, mortgage rates came down. But it's kind of crazy that the price, the monthly mortgage payment wasn't that much higher in January of 2020 than it was in January of 2000. I think this, this period they're going to look back on and go, that was a historical anomaly that will never happen again.

[Michael Batnik]

So this is also obviously, obviously a huge part of why people are pissed off. So we mentioned 20 minutes ago that a lot of it is social media. And true, yes, social media is amplifying it, but the spike in inflation that we're still living with, the unaffordability of home prices has nothing to do with social media. And everything to do with this just genuinely sucks.

[Ben Carlson]

I have a movie idea I'm gonna pitch you.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnik]

You wanna now or.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, right now. So I think there's two premises in movies that always work for me. Body swap and time travel. Those two premises always work. So here's what I'm gonna do. Okay, Movie producers, feel free to call me, I'll help you with the script.

[Michael Batnik]

Hold on. The last body swap movie on Netflix was awesome.

[Ben Carlson]

Which one is that? Is that the one that you, me and you watch together where they sit in a circle and swap bodies?

[Michael Batnik]

Body swap, Netflix. That was Called it's what's Inside.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, you gave me.

[Michael Batnik]

That was awesome.

[Ben Carlson]

That was a very good movie. I watched it and I made my wife watch it with me. I like that one too. That's a very good movie. So here's what I want to do. My body swap movie is going to be a baby boomer. Okay. Has to be a young person now with housing costs where they are and a young personnel. So a Gen Z person has to go back to 1980. Okay. When housing costs were way lower, but there was no technology.

[Michael Batnik]

Send. Send Ramp Capital back. So Ramp loves to hate on the boomers.

[Ben Carlson]

It's going to be a person who's a boomer swaps into a young person today to see what it's like. And a young person today has to be a young person back in 1980 when housing prices were lower. But there's a lot less to do. There's a lot less technology. So that's. That's my body spot movie.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, so if Ramp goes back to 1980, immediately, he does the Jack from Lost. I. We need to go back.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. So there's got to be nobody. Nobody wants to go social media.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, yeah, come on. Nobody wants to go backwards. That's. That's a good premise. All right, so last week we were talking about people potentially regretting buying a house.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes.

[Michael Batnik]

And speaking of, of socialism and housing, there was a line in the book the Prize, which I finished, which was. That was a long ass book. Good. Listen. It was the history of Oil, which is obviously the history of economics and policy and the world. And that was a great book. So there was a line in there from this guy, Bill Levitt, who started Levittown, one of the first suburbs on Long Island. And he said, no, man who owns his house and a lot can be a communist. He has too much to do.

[Ben Carlson]

We could use more Levitt towns in this country.

[Michael Batnik]

So I thought that was a nice segue into this email that we got in June 2024. So this is a person who's like, yeah, guys, man buying a house in June 2024, we closed on a three bed, two bath ranch in Long Island. You may recall I reached out about two years ago. Okay. Oh, this is the guy who reached out about how his friends became competitors. Remember that?

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

Like buying a house.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

So he said, while my wife and I don't have full blown buyers remorse. Holy. Is this home a money pit? All right, so here's how it's gone so far. June 2024, he closed on the house. June in July, new water heater, 2500 bucks. We knew it was old, but didn't realize the prior owners were living with lukewarm water. By the way, I'm living through that. Not. Not great. My. I run out of hot water at like, nine.

[Ben Carlson]

Wait, isn't that on the. Can't you. Isn't that in the inspector. The inspector missed that. Oh, I'd go back to the inspector, say, hey, I want a refund. You miss this. Isn't that one of the things you're supposed to inspect?

[Michael Batnik]

Love it, Ben. Thank you. Good idea. All right. August 2024, one week after our daughter was born. Rain coming through the ceiling, new roof, 12K. January 25, basement renovation. All right. Self inflicted, he said. Fair enough. June 2025, two AC units died, and it would have been 6K to replace all of them. So we went central air, which he said was the best decision they made. 14 grand. December 2025, new dining room, table and couch.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm like, adding up these things in my head.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, that's a choice. But nevertheless, like, yeah, you know, table and a couch. April 2026, winter destroyed our old front porch. Bricks falling off beyond patching. 10k, not including the landscaping we'll need now. So. And this, you know, this is like. This happens. This is what. This is what it's. This is what owning a house is.

[Ben Carlson]

It is. Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

This is a particularly shitty experience. But, so, yeah, I mean, needless to say, anytime, oh, our parents bought a house for $200,000, and then 30 years later, it's like, hey, buddy, first of all, That's. That's. That's 2.4. Compounding over 30 years, you know, compound interest. But what about taxes? What about all this stuff? Like, don't tell me that a residential home is. Your primary home, is not an investment.

[Ben Carlson]

So my parents bought their home. My parents have lived in the same home since 1991, still live there. And the house is probably built in like, the 1970s, and they've spent more on renovations, I'm sure, than they paid for the house. Between. New siding, new deck, new hot tub,

[Michael Batnik]

probably two times over.

[Ben Carlson]

New floor. Yeah, exactly. They. New windows. They had to. They've replaced the whole house, essentially.

[Michael Batnik]

Are you a hot tub guy? I think we've done this on the show.

[Ben Carlson]

I do. Like, my wife has been pushing my. My parents have had them for years. My mom goes in it every single day she's home, she's in the hole at least once a day. She brings a book and A beer and she goes in it. That's her thing. Every day she relaxes in the hot tub.

[Michael Batnik]

A book at a beer. I love it.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I could. I mean, I could go for a hot tub. Yes. My wife has been pushing for one for a while.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, when you come.

[Ben Carlson]

Not a hot tub person. Guess what? I would much rather have a hot tub than a cold tub.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, so when, when, when you come here, we're going to go to Chris's house. We'll. We're going to Schwitz and we're going to sauna and we're gonna. We're gonna cold plunge. Although I. I don't want to cold plunge. I'm not. Not for me.

[Ben Carlson]

No. How about this? I prefer a hot tub to a sauna.

[Michael Batnik]

I like both.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. I. Yeah, I don't mind. Don't mind. But yeah, cold plunger. You're not gonna pay me to do that. Okay. Let's talk private markets a little bit. This is from the Blue Owl CEO or Blue Owl something. There was a big story in Bloomberg about this. The industry could have done a better job explaining these dynamics in terms of illiquidity, how the targets get out between us and the advisors who sell our products. I don't think we made it clear enough. I can't believe they said this out loud. I don't know who has the worst PR team, people in private credit or AI people. Because they say a lot of stuff that they probably shouldn't be saying out loud. Like that's the whole thing. Like you, you have to talk to your clients about what illiquidity risk means, how hard it is to get your money out. That's the number one thing with these products.

[Michael Batnik]

Hotel California it is.

[Ben Carlson]

Do you want to get into all this other stuff but like, what stops these redemptions? And I don't know if that. I don't know if there's anything new to say on private credit at this point.

[Michael Batnik]

So, yeah, it's a. I guess just there's so much to say. But I do want to say this. One of the, One of the problems that is not discussed enough is if you can get your money out. Now. I don't think anybody's actually doing this, so maybe this is sort of hypothetical, but if you could take your money out of private credit at out of one of these intervals at nav. Right. Which is basically at an all time high. If you can get a dollar out for a dollar and then you could turn around and buy a publicly traded BTC, that's trading at a 25% discount. Why wouldn't you do that?

[Ben Carlson]

Right. I'm sure that people are doing that. That's what Matt Levine said. Like what if the underlying assets are really worth 80 cents, not 100, but you have to pay out nav, so you're getting more money than you probably should right now.

[Michael Batnik]

So what stops us, paradoxically what stops us is if these private Funds, the private BDCs and the interval funds, if they say, all right, you got us, we're going to mark it down by 15%, then maybe investors say, ah, you know what, we'll just ride it out.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm not selling for a loss. Right.

[Michael Batnik]

Problem is I don't think they can afford to mark these things down because of the leverage requirements because then they're even more upside down on the leverage. And then do banks start pulling some of these financings? So that's a bit beyond my pay grade. But it's not that simple.

[Ben Carlson]

So their hope right now is just that these redemptions slow down and it's

[Michael Batnik]

more, they will slow down, but, but it might take, but it might take six quarters.

[Ben Carlson]

But I think we're learning way more hot money in this space than that people thought.

[Michael Batnik]

One of the big, big problems here is that the media is all over this and it's not their fault. I mean some of it is, but it's not like, like this is their job to report on this stuff. And the real problem is in terms of like strong redemptions is that guess what if 20, 25% of these portfolios are in names that are, that are going to be impacted by AI and these, these companies will be impacted by AI and there's more bankruptcies and there's more reporting on the bankruptcies. There will be more redemptions and I don't know what slows that down. So this could be, this could be a minute now. You would think it's, you would think at some point after, I don't know, 10/4 of 5% redemptions, if you were going to sell, if you were going to sell, you probably would have at that point. But I don't know, man, this is going to be, this is not going away overnight.

[Ben Carlson]

No, it's not the thing like the public markets where if something comes back, you go, okay, I'm not going to sell it now like this, this is, these are long held assets. It's not like this all of a sudden rectifies itself quickly. I can't believe that they're still thinking about that. They're still rubber stamping and green lighting the putting alternative assets in 401k plans. This is going to be a disaster.

[Michael Batnik]

So great timing here from the U.S. department of Labor. They released this yesterday. U.S. department of labor proposes landmark rule to democratize access to alternative investments in 401k plans. It's just wonderful. Great. Chef's kiss. Nailed it.

[Ben Carlson]

Think if advisors and their clients aren't able to stick with this stuff, people in 401k plans. This is going to be an utter disaster. Most foreign K plans don't do.

[Michael Batnik]

It is. Is a target date fund that I

[Ben Carlson]

kind of agree with. Yeah. That. That makes the most sense to me.

[Michael Batnik]

And I would trust. I would trust Vanguard to steward that process if they want to. If. If they want to have an option. But it's got to be an option. It's got to be opt in. It can't be forced into these target date funds. It's got to be like a different share class or not. Whatever. A different. Like a different fund that people opt into.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I. I don't know. I just. There's no way that's gonna work.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, so. So, Ben, I teased earlier about. About you discovering coffee after Claude. You. You got into seltzer. How did this even happen? Like, how does one get into seltzer at the ripe young age of 40, however old you are.

[Ben Carlson]

I never was big enough. I think my wife probably had more of a pop addiction than I did for like Diet Pepsis. And she said, you know, I have to stop drinking so much, so I'm going to start drinking these seltzers. And I started drinking too and found some. I like the Whole Foods brand. One is really good. Just. I like simple sparkling water. That's it. I don't like the flavors. Yeah, I don't like the flavors very much.

[Michael Batnik]

Although, let me ask you a question. So I call it seltzer, but I think some parts of the country called club soda.

[Ben Carlson]

What do. I'm trying to think what I call says sparkling water on the case. That's what I call it, I guess.

[Michael Batnik]

Sparkling water.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

That works.

[Ben Carlson]

Sure.

[Michael Batnik]

Awesome.

[Ben Carlson]

Sounds cuter, right?

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, this made me laugh. So, subject line. The cable guy in my toilet.

[Ben Carlson]

That's pretty.

[Michael Batnik]

I had to laugh this morning when listening to the most recent episode where Michael brought up the repair guy shitting his bathroom. The cable guy was at my house two weeks ago to repair spotty Internet service. He was in a completely different part of the house and proceeded to my bathroom without asking. I would have had no idea. But he Decides to help me on his way out. I'm curious. He was flexing on me or just being polite? I live in Milwaukee, so I'm guessing it was the Midwest polite thing to do.

[Ben Carlson]

So sneaking one in, that's. That's, that's a move.

[Michael Batnik]

So when he said, I would have had no idea, but he decided to tell me, I. I emailed him back and said, what did he say? Something along of, hey, man, I had to use your bathroom. Had a colonoscopy yesterday and my stomach hasn't been the. And then the emailer chef kissed this and said, I guess it could have been worse. At least he did an upper deck. Me.

[Ben Carlson]

Wow. That's basically, I. I totally blew out your toilet. You should have it clean. All right, before we get to recommendations, my wife used my own advice against me. So kids got really into Michigan basketball this year. They're one of the best teams, and they were playing their regional matchup this weekend in Chicago. Not that far from us, right? Less than a three hour drive. They won their game on Friday. They play again on Sunday afternoon. My wife said, let's surprise the kids with tickets to the Michigan game. Michigan, Tennessee, Michigan's favored. Let's go watch the game. And I was like, no, it's kind of expensive and you have to drive down there. You have to park, drive back. You have all these crowds of people. You're more of a live sporting person than me. You go to way more live sporting events than I do. My thing. My thing is like, like movies. The experience at home is way better watching sporting events than watching it live.

[Michael Batnik]

That's my wife. That's not. That's not true. It's true. It's true in some. It's true for football. It's 100 true. To be watching at home is better experience.

[Ben Carlson]

That's true, that's true. But you're a. Basketball is different. And so we got pretty good seats. My wife said, listen, our kids are only gonna be young ones. Isn't this kind of stuff we want to spend our money on? I said, you know what she got me? She used my own stuff against me. We got tickets like the day before. Surprised the kids that night, said, hey, lay out all your Michigan gear. And drove down to Chicago, went to the United Center. It was awesome. It was so much fun. The energy in the building for like a March Madness game was spectacular. Michigan destroyed them. They looked awesome. We had these really drunk, obnoxious Tennessee fans sitting behind us who were just going crazy. They were using, like, Karate Kid. Lines like put them in a body bag. Johnny, like with the Southern accent, which was actually kind of funny. But so, so my kids, like, my daughter Katie's the cutest little thing. She has Michigan jersey on, Michigan hat. She's got Michigan socks pulled all the way up. She's got. They, they, they said they wanted to make signs and like, no, you can't make big poster boards because the people behind you, they can't see. So they made little signs like with paper, like construction paper. And they, they made little signs. My, my son George has his foam finger, you know, and they both got on the Jumbotron with their signs.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, no way.

[Ben Carlson]

Michigan's best player is Yaksel Lendeborg. He's from Puerto Rico and they call him Dominican lebron. And my daughter made a sign that said, Go Dominican LeBron. And they put it up on the, on the Jumbotron and her whole face turns red. And then George got on later and so, and we say it afterwards for them to cutting the nets down and stuff and man, it was fun. It was just a, an awesome, awesome experience. So my wife is right. I was wrong.

[Michael Batnik]

Great.

[Ben Carlson]

And you're right. Basketball is better in person.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Anyway, fun time. Now we're on to the Final Four, which we're going to spring break because people keep asking me like, hey, you're going to the Indianapolis one. The Final Four is in Indianapolis. And I probably would have thought about it if not for the fact that we're on spring break. But also, I don't want to go to a Final Four game and see if they potentially lose because them in Arizona is like the teams. It's a toss up. Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

I'm so unplugged. I don't watch college sports. Who are they? Michigan's playing who you said? Arizona.

[Ben Carlson]

Michigan, Arizona. They're the two best teams by far. And it's going to be a, it's going to be, it's, it's a toss up. I think the spread's like a point, point and a half. It's. They're both the. Played the best all year. They had the best records. Essentially they're the best two teams and they're playing the first game, the Final Four or the second game of the Final Four and it's going to be an epic game. I can't wait. It's kind of game where like if they lose, it's like, okay, it's a really good team and I'm not going to be upset.

[Michael Batnik]

My sports consumption has, has crashed and I think it's a permanent bear market. And I'm not upset about it. It just is. This is life, right? We're getting older.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I've been like that too.

[Michael Batnik]

So I stopped completely listening to. So I. From 2015 until, like, I said, listen, you grow up. I stopped listening to Howard Stern. That was like. It was like a massive part of my life. Like a massive, massive, massive part of my life. Like, part of my identity was listening to Howard. I stopped listening to Simmons or solo. Like, because all this too now is audiobooks. I don't have time for anything else. So between that and yeah, listening to

[Ben Carlson]

podcasts just around big events. I listen to them now.

[Michael Batnik]

So that was. That was how I was plugged into a lot of the NBA. And like, I'm even like, I've. I've like missed Nick. Nick's games, which I never, ever, ever did.

[Ben Carlson]

But actually I've gotten more into it now. I had a lull too. Big bear market now that my kids are into it again. Now I'm watching more. Like, I gave up on college basketball essentially, but my kids get back into it because we got a good team. So I watched them anyway. So. Okay. Speaking of experiences.

[Michael Batnik]

Never thought it would happen to me, Ben.

[Ben Carlson]

It's crazy, right? Stuff happens. So I took George to see Project Hail Mirror. You said take him. It was unbelievable. Just the kind of movie that makes you realize why you love going to movies. Smile on your face all the time. People keep saying it's 20 minutes too long. They're probably right, but I didn't really care. That's an 8.5 movie. It's just. Should have been a summer blockbuster probably. I don't know if it matters. Gosling has the movie star belt. I think there's. There's only a few people who could have handled that role. It's a Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Cruise kind of thing like that. Not only is the performance good, but it's. That's a movie star person that does it, you know. And I think he has that belt right now over anyone. And it's not even close question for you. So you, you. There's this whole idea of insidification going on that, like things are getting worse and quality is worse. And I go in a movie theater and I think, this is crazy. When I grew up, I had a little fold down seat. It was so uncomfortable. My movie theater stunk growing up. Now you can recline, lay back, you have a heater on your seat, you know, huge recliner. And I'm thinking about this. But the people next to me, the whole row, it's all these young teenagers. They take their shoes off at the movie theater. That's straight to jail, right?

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, are you kidding me?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. Multiple kids, shoes off underneath their seat socks. And I'm thinking new. No. Not getting that comfortable. Teenagers. High school, probably. And my son absolutely loved it.

[Michael Batnik]

I took Kobe to say it, and I cried. Not like. Not like. I mean, I had two little tears. I got emotional. Not even over something in the movie, but just seeing the movie with him. So like your kids. He's 9 years old, and I just. I got emotional. Making, like, a lifelong experience for him. Like, he will 100% remember seeing that the way that we do remember seeing movies. We were kids.

[Ben Carlson]

Yep.

[Michael Batnik]

It was. It was. Well, it was better the second time for mixing saw with him. But I just. It's just different when you see a movie. Second time. First. First. Second move that I've seen in the theater. And I can't even tell you how long. Probably since I was a child.

[Ben Carlson]

My wife's gonna make me go back with her. His. There was many points where my son's jaw was open, like. Like he was just blown away. But he loved it so much.

[Michael Batnik]

And how funny was it?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. The whole Rocky thing. He. He loved the Alien, for sure.

[Michael Batnik]

It was such a great movie. Made me very, very, very happy. Anyway, it's.

[Ben Carlson]

I was impressed with how well they did it, like, from the book. And I. I, like, I. I had to go. I'm reading the book again because. And I've never done it with a piece of fiction because I want to get more of the. Because the movie didn't go into the science as much as the book, obviously. I thought that was one of the cool parts of the book, but, yeah, very well done.

[Michael Batnik]

So $54 million in its second weekend. That's a bigger second weekend than sinners, Oppenheimer and Dune. But think about. And Dune too. Think about how massive, massive Oppenheimer was.

[Ben Carlson]

So this movie is getting tons of word of mouth.

[Michael Batnik]

Obviously bigger than Oppenheimer. Holy. It was so phenomenal. It just. Just made me happy.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, based on your lead. I watched Anaconda with Kobe. He loved it. It was terrible.

[Ben Carlson]

Really bad movie. But it made me laugh like, four or five times. Like actual. Actual laugh. It was kind of. There was some. Really. Is a really dumb movie. It was way too meta, like with the original Anaconda.

[Michael Batnik]

But George is like Ice Cube at the end.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes.

[Michael Batnik]

Ridiculous.

[Ben Carlson]

One more wreck for me. I listened to the Amy Amy Poehler's got a new podcast. I can't remember what it's called. She's been out for a year now. So she interviewed Steve Carell. I don't think I've ever heard Carell on a podcast before. But listening to them, having been a huge watcher of the Office and Parks and Rec and I was immediate for both those shows, I was out immediately, like, I don't want to watch Office. That looks dumb. And I got into it and I'm like, oh, Parks and Rec is just a, it's a female version of Michael from the Office. Like that's, that looks dumb. But Parks like both of those shows. I love both of them. And hearing them talk about the shows together was awesome. It was really well done. Really well done.

[Michael Batnik]

He was on Howard years ago. He is just a regular, regular guy.

[Ben Carlson]

That's what it's. It does seem like that he is kind of down to earth. Yes. What you see is what you get kind of deal.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, so watch the Madison with your wife.

[Ben Carlson]

All right.

[Michael Batnik]

This is a borderline table. It's a table pounder.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. I'm a Michelle Pfeiffer fan. I'll watch it.

[Michael Batnik]

She looks incredible.

[Ben Carlson]

And who, wait, who's the lead in it with her?

[Michael Batnik]

So here's, here's the plot.

[Ben Carlson]

Kurt Russell, right?

[Michael Batnik]

It's a six episode show.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. I can handle that.

[Michael Batnik]

And it is not anything like Taylor Sheridan's other stuff. So the premises. And I can't not spoil it, but can I, can I reveal a spoiler if it happens 10 minutes into the show or should I just not do it?

[Ben Carlson]

Hit me with it.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, so this is a spoiler for the Madison. The spoiler happens in the first 10 minutes. We got a few emails about spoiling that. There was an alien in Project Hail Mary, even though that was in the trailer. So I'm sensitive to spoil this too. Okay. So fast forward if you want. So Kurt Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer are a very wealthy couple that live in Manhattan. They have two stuck up spoiled daughters that are grownups, 27 and 36. The 36 year old has two kids and divorced. And the 26 year old is married. Kurt Russell goes to a lake, a hunting cabin in Montana with his brother. He's been going there his whole life, his whole adult life. And they go fly fishing and they just, they do what dudes and bros do. And he's begged his, his wife and his family come out there. They won't come out there. There's no, there's no indoor plumbing. So in the first 10 minutes of the episode of the show, maybe his first 20 minutes, he goes out there fly fishing and he dies in a plane crash. And so the rest of the show is about Michelle Pfeiffer and the family going out there and just experiencing it. And. And so I watched the first episode. Robin comes in, she's like, what, what, what is this? Oh, Michelle Pfeiffer. And so she. So she took ahead and she went ahead without me, and then I caught up. But probably not a show that I would have liked, that you would think I would liked, but it was just awesome. It was just. It was just a good show.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, talk me into it.

[Michael Batnik]

Really enjoyed it. All right. And that is about that. So, market check. All right, holding gain so far, but 4 o' clock is a long way away. You got to start somewhere.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, we get a 2% update maybe, but not a 2% down day.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. All right, we'll see. Anyhow, thank you as always for all of the. The emails. Animalspirits@the compoundnews.com Remember, if you want to see us in San Francisco, infoetholzwealth.com We'll see next time.