Is the Stock Market Invincible? (EP. 447)

Summary

Animal Spirits Podcast (The Compound)

Episode 447: "Is the Stock Market Invincible?"

Release Date: January 14, 2026
Hosts: Michael Batnick & Ben Carlson

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Episode Overview

In this week’s episode, Michael and Ben dive into a packed slate of market and financial headlines, debating the resiliency—and invincibility—of the stock market in the face of political turmoil, housing crises, credit card interest policies, and market euphoria. They parse through the latest data on jobs, inflation, housing, and the rapid evolution of AI, with their trademark mix of skepticism, stats, self-deprecating humor and perspective on what actually matters for investors. The episode is anchored in practicality, cutting through doomsaying and hype to highlight actionable takeaways for investors in today's complicated environment.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Political News Bleeding into Markets

• Credit Card Rate Cap Proposal

  • The hosts break down proposals to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, emphasizing the negative repercussions on credit availability and access for consumers:
    • Michael Batnick: "A hard cap at 10% if implemented would crash the economy in two weeks…that will not happen." (03:16)
    • Consumers with revolving credit are already subsidizing the rewards for users who pay in full every month.
    • Restricting rates would drive riskier borrowers to predatory lenders or "buy now, pay later" schemes (04:08).

• Jerome Powell Indictment Controversy

  • Debate around the politicization of the Federal Reserve, including the Powell indictment news, is seen as destabilizing:
    • Ben Carlson: “Powell is probably one of the most upstanding citizens…probably the last actual independent Fed chair that we will have in our lifetime.” (05:04–06:02)
  • Commodities market reactions (e.g., gold rallying as a hedge), but surprise that bitcoin isn’t benefiting more (07:18–07:23).
  • Long-term risk: Undermining Fed independence could eventually require higher rates on US government debt.

• Populist Myths about Housing

  • RFK Jr.'s comments about Blackrock, State Street, and Vanguard “wanting to own every single family home” called out as grossly misleading (09:16):
    • Institutions own about 1-3% of homes, with much greater concentration in some local markets (10:31–12:34).

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2. Housing: Policy, Supply, and Local Nuances

• Institutional Homeownership Ban Proposal

  • Trump plan to ban institutions from buying homes appeals superficially, but Ben and Michael find the market impact overstated—institutions are only about 3% of homes, though local effects can be substantial.
  • Underlying issue: The real solution is to build more homes, but this faces entrenched local opposition (“NIMBYism”) (13:09–13:38).
    • Michael Batnick: “Housing is local and there are communities…in which it does feel like institutional landlords own everything.” (12:31)

• Mortgage Spreads and Builder Incentives

  • Discussion of whether government could compress mortgage spreads by buying MBS; partial progress already showing (14:26).
  • Potential next step: Incentivize home builders and slash red tape (15:41).

• Housing Data & Affordability

  • Median home prices by county show a highly fractured, localized market; national debates miss these nuances (47:34–48:14).
  • Signs of relief: Affordability indices bottoming out, and average mortgage payments easing as rates fall (49:17).
  • Ben Carlson: “This map is an advertisement for remote work. Move to Arkansas or Iowa, somewhere in the middle of the country. Cheaper housing.” (48:14)

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3. Labor Market and Productivity Paradox

• Weak Job Growth Despite Low Unemployment
  • Using a chart from their research, Michael highlights how job additions are far below historical average for current unemployment rates (16:39–17:57).
  • Question: Could rising unemployment be less predictive of recession this cycle?
    • Ben Carlson: “This is the cycle that could break the spell…would it shock you if that happened this time around?” (18:40–18:52)
• Productivity Boom via Experienced Workforce
  • Firms aren’t hiring, so the workforce is unusually experienced, boosting measured productivity—a potential illusion masking underlying weakness (19:21–20:36).

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4. Stock Market Sentiment

• Is the Market "Invincible"?

  • Every major Wall Street strategist is bullish on 2026—an unusual consensus (25:32).
    • Michael Batnick: “A broadening of the rally…with more and more stocks participating, if that worries you, you will never make money in the stock market.” (27:38)
  • Meme stocks, high yield, and small caps are all rallying—a sign of broad risk appetite, not necessarily a sign to run for the exits.

• International Flows & Emerging Markets

  • After decades of underperformance, EM (EEM) is finally having its moment; past 10-year returns jump from 3% to 9% annualized after a huge year (29:07–29:53).

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5. Inflation & Consumer Spending in the Modern Era

• 2025 Average Inflation: 2.7%
  • Long-term inflation averages ignored as consumers focus on pandemic-era price jumps (31:56–32:33).
  • New theory: It’s nearly impossible to curb spending when technology makes purchases frictionless—Amazon, algorithmic ads, online shopping, etc. (33:25–34:42).

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6. AI Mania—Valuations, Startups, and Use Cases

• Rapid Valuations

  • AI start-ups like OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI valued at $200B+; startup LM Arena raises $1.7B in funding, shockingly tripling its valuation in less than a year (37:20–38:37).

• AI’s Endgame: Google vs. OpenAI

  • Ben predicts Google (Gemini) may eventually win the “AI wars,” but Michael doubts it’s settled yet (38:41–39:18).

• Personal Anecdotes

  • Michael and Ben describe struggling through using new AI code tools, underscoring generational divides in tech adoption (21:17–22:25).

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7. Crypto, Gambling, and Financial Risks

• Gambling Surges

  • Gambling is now the US’s second-fastest growing sector by GDP since 2019, concerning both hosts (39:37–42:35).
    • Michael Batnick: “I would wager…that the amount of people that are ruining their lives financially…is 50 times greater than people that were day trading yoloing on Robin Hood.” (41:14)

• Crypto Rug Pulls—NYC Mayor Edition

  • Former NYC Mayor Eric Adams launches a new token, then is quickly accused of a “rug pull” theft of $1M—hosts have zero sympathy for speculators (43:41–46:19).

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8. Private Markets and Structural Risks

• Private Equity’s "Rot"

  • Secondary funds and circular deals are on the rise, as private markets wrestle with illiquidity and markdowns (52:38–54:24).
    • Michael Batnick: “Why is this [private market secondaries] happening so frequently? How much money is stuck?…I am looking skeptically, I am looking sideways at these deals.”
  • Direct lending spreads offer 200 bps over syndicated loans—but with big risks (55:09–56:01).

• Venture Funding Snapbacks

  • SVB analysis shows VC companies going public are now much larger but growing slower and facing higher costs (57:04–58:44).

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9. Earnings Season—Corporate Health Check

• JP Morgan & Delta
  • Jamie Dimon strikes a bullish tone: “These conditions could persist for some time. This is basically Jamie Dimon saying, holy things are amazing.” (58:44–59:34)
  • Delta registers record revenue and expects 20% margin and earnings growth in 2026.

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10. Lifestyle, Movies, Recommendations

• Box Office and Movie-going

  • Debate whether theatrical moviegoing is cyclical vs. secularly declining; Michael argues for a rebound in 2026 with pent-up supply, Ben is skeptical (61:05–65:33).

• Streaming and Technology

  • TV prices have plummeted due to technological advances in LCD manufacturing, not just competition.

• Reading & Watching

  • Rounds of recommendations:
    • Audiobook: Cameron Crowe’s “The Uncool.”
    • Hollywood Business History: “Powerhouse” by James Andrew Miller.
    • Movies: Ben’s top pick—“Sentimental Value” (2025).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Credit Card Rate Caps:
  Michael Batnick (03:16):
  “A hard cap at 10% if implemented would crash the economy in two weeks…that will not happen.”

• On Powell Indictment and Fed Independence:
  Ben Carlson (05:04):
  “Powell is probably one of the most upstanding citizens…probably the last actual independent Fed chair that we will have in our lifetime.”

• On Wall Street Bullishness:
  Michael Batnick (27:38):
  “A broadening of the rally…with more and more stocks participating, if that worries you, you will never make money in the stock market.”

• On Housing Myths and Reality:
  Michael Batnick (12:31):
  “Housing is local and there are communities…in which it does feel like institutional landlords own everything.”

• On Broadening Bull Markets:
  Michael Batnick (27:38):
  “If your knee jerk reaction is to be bearish when things are going well, that’s a personality type…and that’s not how you make money.”

• On Financial Addictions:
  Michael Batnick (41:14):
  “I would wager…that the amount of people that are ruining their lives financially…is 50 times greater than people that were day trading yoloing on Robin Hood.”

• On Spending Tech:
  Ben Carlson (33:25):
  “It’s so much easier to spend money now. It’s harder for people to slow their spending because you can click a button…there’s no friction.”

• On “Fake Wealth” Home Equity Debate:
  Ben Carlson (51:30):
  “Just because you can’t spend your house doesn’t mean it’s not, you’re not building an asset and it’s building wealth.”

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 02:31 – Cap on Credit Card Interest & Market Consequences
• 05:04 – Powell Indictment and the Threat to Fed Independence
• 09:16 – RFK Jr. and "Institutional Buying" Populism
• 13:09 – Why Building More Homes Is So Hard
• 16:39 – Labor Market: Low Unemployment, Weak Job Growth
• 25:32 – Wall Street Strategists’ Bullish Consensus for 2026
• 29:07 – Emerging Markets Finally Outperforming
• 33:25 – Frictionless Spending and Inflation Psychology
• 37:20 – AI Start-Up Valuations Rocket Higher
• 39:37 – Gambling’s Rapid GDP Growth
• 43:41 – Crypto “Rug Pull”: The NYC Token Debacle
• 52:38 – The Private Equity Secondary Market Problem
• 58:44 – JP Morgan & Delta: Earnings and Economic Health
• 61:05 – The Secular vs. Cyclical Movie Debate
• 66:40 – Why TV Prices Have Stayed So Low

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Tone & Style

As always, hosts keep things conversational, witty, and accessible—quickly swapping between data-rich market insights and tongue-in-cheek personal anecdotes. They speak directly to a smart, market-savvy audience, taking clear sides on policy pitfalls, market psychology, and investor behavior, but with room for self-deprecation and humor.

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For New Listeners

This episode is a can’t-miss for investors seeking both skepticism and perspective in a world mired in hype and headline risk. Michael and Ben serve up actionable analysis alongside hard-earned lessons on when to tune out the noise. If you want a weekly navigation of complex markets with nuance and levity, "Animal Spirits" is your podcast.

Transcript

[Michael Batnik]

Today's episode is sponsored by Innovator. On January 2nd, Innovator ETFs launched something brand new, the industry's first quarterly dual directional ETFs ticker symbols DDSQ and DDNQ. These funds expand Innovator's dual directional ETF lineup by offering shorter tactical three month outcome periods designed for today's fast moving markets. What makes them different is how they're built. Each quarter these ETFs reset and are designed to pursue positive returns whether the market goes up or down.

[Ben Carlson]

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[Michael Batnik]

All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben.

[Ben Carlson]

Are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholz Wealth Management.

[Michael Batnik]

This podcast is for informational purposes only.

[Ben Carlson]

And should not be relied upon for.

[Michael Batnik]

Any investment decisions of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

[Ben Carlson]

Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Michael, fool me once. What's the saying?

[Michael Batnik]

Can't conform the gun.

[Ben Carlson]

Two things that aren't going to happen. Throw this in my face if I'm wrong. Credit card rates are not getting capped to 10%. This Jerome Powell indictment is not going Any further thoughts? This is my knee jerk reaction on.

[Michael Batnik]

The first matter, correct? The Trump Trump truth. Like any company that by January 20th is in violation of the law. I mean it's, it's pretty unbelievable what's happening right now. And sorry, if you're, if you're a Trump voter and you're about to, you're going to take offense to what we're about to say. I'm not mad at you. Right? Everybody is entitled to their own political opinions. We don't talk politics on the show. But we literally cannot not talk about this because this is impacting the financial lane market. This is, this is, this is our lane. Ok? So again, I'm not mad at anybody for who they vote for.

[Ben Carlson]

I will give him credit for trying to bring costs down the way he's going about it is probably not the best way. How's that?

[Michael Batnik]

Well, you, you have said, and I have agreed that the interest rates that credit card charge, that credit card companies charge are onerous. Now we all understand that a lot of the benefits, a lot of the rewards, all of that stuff unfortunately is what it is. It's subsidized by the people that make late payments that are paying the interest. That's where all of the money is coming from.

[Ben Carlson]

There's some of the way that credit cards work doesn't feel like it. It's fair because it is. People who carry revolving balance and pay these onerous rates 20 to 30% are effectively subsidizing people who get rewards points and pay off your credit card every month.

[Michael Batnik]

One of the points that we made or that you made over time is like why do, why is, why do credit card rates just continually go up all the time? Why do they have to go up? And especially you could say in a backdrop where like we see record earnings, the consumer is generally okay, like why does it need to be so punitive? And I agree. Let's just say that the intentions, the spirit of what is trying to happen is good. Credit card interest rates should probably not be 29% or wherever they are. Okay. And also a hard cap at 10% if implemented would crash the economy in two weeks. Part of the reason why we can't cap them at 10% is because that would dry up the amount of credit. The banks would just say, no, we're just 10%. Now maybe 29% is egregious, but at 10% the math doesn't work. We can't, the defaults like it just, we're not going to be underwater to loan money, no way. So it would tank the economy in two weeks. That will not happen. Will not happen. It's not going to happen.

[Ben Carlson]

We're not going to. Because the credit would be pulled back. Unfortunately these are loans like non recourse loans that aren't backed by anything. Right. And you can get them really quick. So if we did try to like fix this industry, the credit standards would be higher. People who use the credit the most and carry the revolving balances probably wouldn't get it. And people would say, hey, that's probably a good thing. They're not paying high rates anymore. Unfortunately. What that would do is push them out to payday lenders. It would push them out to buy now, pay later more. They would find the financing somewhere else and it probably would be a worse situation.

[Michael Batnik]

Unfortunately, it's not good on the Powell front. This is not an attack on Trump voters. Okay, but what is happening with this, with this is, is insane. You cannot indict the Federal Reserve, the chair, whatever is happening, based on nonsense. I think, I think, I think it's about some of the, some of the reports about the building of a, of a new building or whatever. Trump was asked yesterday about this and he said he didn't even know about.

[Ben Carlson]

It, which is honestly it does the stories sound like it was kind of pulte and what's the Fox News woman who's now in charge of something important? It sounds like they kind of went rogue on this. And so maybe this is one of the times where he does have deniability. But the point is you don't, you don't do this, I mean, unless there's really a smoking gun. And Powell is probably one of the most upstanding citizens we have in government these days. And I don't think a lot of people even realize he is actually a Republican.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, Trump appointed him, Trump appointed him.

[Ben Carlson]

So going after him and he's one of the most buttoned up people. It would shock me if there's anything going, that there's anything wrong in his administration. He's probably one of the last adults in the room in most government official capacity right now. So it's a bad look. And I also think this is, he's probably the last actual independent Fed chair that we will have in our lifetime.

[Michael Batnik]

I don't know about that. I just.

[Ben Carlson]

Come on. This is a, this is now a weaponized, going to be a weaponized tool.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, but a lot of people are pushing back on this and I think hopefully this galvanizes both, both parties to just say we don't do this. Like we do not set interest rates based on the will of the President. That is not how a lot of.

[Ben Carlson]

People are saying, function. A lot of people are saying, hey, wait a minute, the stock market hit an all time high yesterday. Obviously the markets don't care about this. The thing is, this is a long term thing. If this actually was something that like we're really going to tinker with the Federal Reserve in a big way. And some people will say, well, they've, you know, Nixon pushed back against his Fed chair in the past, but really Fed chairs have been, you know, Reagan let Volcker take rates to 20% which never would happen today. Right. But the thing is, if this is a long term thing, if we really mess with the Federal Reserve in a big way, like that at a certain point people start saying, all right, we need a premium on your US Government bonds. Yields are going to be higher going forward.

[Michael Batnik]

I think that the move in gold, both in the longer term, like what's been happening, but especially the reaction on Monday is a direct, you could draw a direct line to a lack of faith in what is happening. But. And also wouldn't you expect a dollar to be weakening if that were true?

[Ben Carlson]

Are you also surprised that bitcoin is not getting more of a bid here with this?

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I am, I am, I am.

[Ben Carlson]

I thought bitcoin was the anti system play and now. But gold and silver have seemingly supplanted it in the last 18, 24 months. It's very surprising to me.

[Michael Batnik]

I am surprised. And yeah, if you, if you're unable to see past your political affiliation that this is not great. Like, come on. And I think as somebody who is not a big fan of, of the president's policies, I also do think that I am able to see passes to this. So the Trump baby accounts or whatever we're calling them, I think it's an incredible thing. It's one of the best pieces of legislation that has been passed at least in my like recent memory. But this is, but you got to call balls and strikes. And this is, this is like, this is worse than a ball. This is a, this is thrown over the umpire's head. Like this is, we don't do it this year.

[Ben Carlson]

Two guys who are not political at all and hate talking politics like we'd rather not have. Like we're talking only purely the financial angle here. We care about the markets. I've always said my, my political party is the stock market. That's the political party that I'm a member of.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. Democrat, Republican or Independent, I vote for the NASDAQ 100 every election. Here's another one in politics. RFK Jr said, and these are quotes your kids are never going to buy. Oh, by the way, before we go on to the onto the RFK thing, just this was hilarious in Bill Ackman. I don't know what does back to me. What is the point of you money? Isn't it like to not be able to do this? So Bill Ackman tweeted capping credit card interest rates was a mistake and then he deleted that post and then put up another post saying it's a worthy goal. I mean, come on, dude, are you, are you, are you effing kidding me?

[Ben Carlson]

Haven't we Learned in the 2020s grow a pair that FU money doesn't really exist for the richest people on the planet because they have so many stakeholders.

[Michael Batnik]

And somebody doesn't.

[Ben Carlson]

Like, CEOs don't have FU money. If you're a CEO that makes $100 million a year, you don't have FU money because you have shareholders and stakeholders and people you have to appease.

[Michael Batnik]

I suppose that's right, Ben. All right. RFK Jr. Was on a podcast and he said, your kids are never going to buy a home. There's three big companies, BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard. They basically just own everything. And now they've decided. What they've decided is they want to own every single family home in our country. I guess it's one thing when conspiracy nutjobs on the Internet say this, but when somebody who is as prominent as he owned it was with Theo Von. What are you doing, dude? This populist nonsense is like destroying our country. And there are legitimate reasons to be annoyed. There are things that both parties do that piss everybody off. Not everything is perfect, but like, deliberately lying and making it worse. So I think everybody, we have a very smart audience. I think everybody in our audience understands that, that Vanguard doesn't own any single family homes. Okay? Vanguard, blackrock, and Street Sh. Would they own everything? That's us. It's we. It's the investing class, it's the index funds. It's like, I mean, what do we. What is this? And the, the comments, of course, people are like, yeah, like, let's get them. This is, this is. This is so dangerous.

[Ben Carlson]

Anger works, I guess. I think that's the. That's what we've learned. So obviously the other big thing was Trump decided that we're gonna ban institutions from buying homes. Right. And I think a lot of people like this because it seems like, yeah, this is a problem. These big private equity firms are buying homes. If you look at the numbers, Rick Palacios from John Burns shows the market share of home purchases by institutional landlords. That's people who own 100 plus properties. And it's 1% per year, essentially, or per quarter. So 1% of all home purchases in the US are done by institutions on 100 units or more. I think it's like 3% of the total homes. He said, yeah, there.

[Michael Batnik]

But there's a huge asteroid scare. And I would say that, like, maybe let's just give the President the benefit of the doubt and say there are good intentions behind maybe capping interest rates on credit cards. Obviously not. Maybe well thought out. Like, not thought through. The ramifications of. Well, actually, what would happen, you could say, fine, like, good intentions here. Do the private equity companies. Do these. Do these giant pools of capital need to be buying large blocks of houses? Probably not. I think this started after the gfc, where they were scooping up houses on the cheap, which obviously was great for them and their investors. Probably not so great for people that were trying.

[Ben Carlson]

The crazy thing is, is that that was. They were the buyer of last resort then, though no one else could buy a house back then. So actually the private equity.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, but weren't. But were stepping into what homes that were in default.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, they were what they were buying and then they were renting them out. So I think. I think. I'm not trying to defend private equity here. Don't put my name on that. But I think at that time it was.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. So anyway, my point is this. No, that. That was not good intention, dude. They were vultures. They were sharks. And I'm not mad. That's capitalism. That's the way it works. But this number of. They own 1% or 3% or whatever it is. I understand nationally it's a small number, but let's be real. Housing is local and there are communities.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. And Phoenix and some of these cities where it's a bigger amount.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. Blackstone's not in my neighborhood. Right. But like, there are a lot of communities in which it does feel like institutional. Landlords own everything. Prices are out of control, not their fault. But, yeah, them. Like, that's the prevailing attitude. And like, that part of it. I, I do understand.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. But obviously this isn't going to make housing cheaper because it's such a smaller. People say, hey, do anything you can for demand. But I think when are we going to get a politician who just says, listen, the thing is, we need to build more. We can do all these other things. But the thing is, we. It's got. It's going to have to be like a Gen Z or millennial candidate, because.

[Michael Batnik]

The problem is that's just deeply unpopular. Like, yeah, build more, but not in my neighborhood.

[Ben Carlson]

I know that's a. But if you really want to fix. I mean, the funny thing is if you just put, I don't know, 3 million homes on the Northeast and 3 million homes on the west coast, and we figured out a way to do that that would probably leave much of the housing issues that we have. Right.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I'm making this up. I'm out of my depth here. I feel like there's like, at least. Well, I live on long Island. There's no, there's no room to build houses. We're full.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, you're right. Where, where do you, I so, so.

[Michael Batnik]

Like I, yeah, I don't know the, the geography, topography of where there is available land to build, but let's do it.

[Ben Carlson]

So I think the day Trump got elected I slapped you and Josh and I said, or maybe a research channel on Slack and I said Trump is going to buy mortgage backed securities and he's going to bring the spreads down. I, I've been pounding the table on this and now he says he can do it. I guess with Fannie and Freddie he can buy like $200 billion which seems like kind of a drop in the bucket but I guess the spreads are already tightening and Logan Mortar Shami showed that. Yeah that from since 2024, 2025, 2026, the spreads are already lower and between the 30 year and the 10 year, which the 30 year tracks the 10 year basically because a 30 year mortgage, the, the average length of time someone keeps that mortgage is around 10 years.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, so is this a pol. I think this is a policy that we can both get behind.

[Ben Carlson]

Not, I've been, I've been saying we should do this for a while. I, I, I totally agree with this one. It, it makes a lot of sense to me. It's interesting that the, the rates are so low. It's funny though because a lot of people said, well if we, if we ban this homeownership stuff, won't this be bad for home builder stocks? And our research team, Sean and Matt put this, one of those guys put the chart together. Home builders had their best two day stretch since 2022.

[Michael Batnik]

Wait, why, why would, why would anybody think this would be bad for home builder stocks?

[Ben Carlson]

Well, because they build a lot of the homes that the private equity companies are buying. Someone has to build them. If private equity companies and institutional investors pull back, guess what, that's less demand for new homes to be built because they're doing a lot of build up. Right. So the thinking is actually this could be, if we did this institutional ban, this could be worse for supply of homes because maybe the people who are stepping in to buy, you know, but it's actually good for home. So this is the next step. So we have, we're going to do buy the mortgage backed securities the next step because this is what I would do. The next step is going to be we're going to incentivize home builders to build more homes somehow. That's the next step. That's what they're gonna.

[Michael Batnik]

I think the problem is at the local, at the state and local level, there's all sorts of red tape. And I just don't think you could snap your fingers.

[Ben Carlson]

So that's what I would. That if, if you gave me a magic wand and said fix the housing market, that's what I would do. If we're going to incentivize and we're gonna cut the red tape. And if anyone gives you, that's what you have to do. But you're right, it's so local. How do you. How do you do that?

[Michael Batnik]

That. Yeah. To me, that this is a national emergency. And if, and if they're able to pull something like that off, that would obviously be an enormously good, positive thing.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, can we talk about the job market?

[Michael Batnik]

Sure.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. But the funny thing is that was a lot of stuff. That was like a week's worth of stuff. Between the institutional ban, the mortgage backed securities, the credit cards and Powell, that's four things right in our lane that happened all on a week.

[Michael Batnik]

And Venezuela. Yeah, the oil stuff. Actually, you know what? Hold on. I have a great chart for the labor market. A chart could cook me up something.

[Ben Carlson]

But this is, this is why the takes game is not an old man's game, right?

[Michael Batnik]

No, you gotta be on top of this at some point. Yeah, you just. And it's not a bald man's game either, I gotta be honest. Okay, check out this chart. So we have a weird labor. We have a weird labor market where the unemployment rate is still pretty low, but there's not a new, not a lot of new jobs being created. Right.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnik]

So Matt put in buckets of unemployment every half a percent below 4 all the way in the left hand and 9.5 to 10 all the way in the right. And everything in between. Half a percent. Right. And then he showed the average number of jobs added over a seven month period per bucket. And I asked him why seven months? And he said that's because that's when the labor market started to weaken recently. So we're using a seventh month look back. And on average, on average we add 1.247 million jobs when the unemployment rate is between 4 and 4.5% over a seven month period. 1.247 million. Over the last seven months, we've added only 74,000 jobs. You see what he did here?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. This makes sense. Okay. Because we're obviously going in the wrong direction. So we look at the next one. I look at the unemployment rate Going back to late 1940s and you can see every time in history that the unemployment rate has started to rise a substantial amount. And I could say that we're getting close to being substantial now. It's led to a recession. So the big question is, is this another one of those times that we break the rule? Because the other rule was listen, anytime inflation goes over 5%, the only way it's been remedied is by a recession. That's it. Inflation doesn't go this high without being remedied by recession. This time was different. Is could we actually see the unemployment rate rise from 4 to 5% and not get, you know, I think we were sub 4 and not see a recession. Is that possible?

[Michael Batnik]

A nationwide recession? Yes, it is possible.

[Ben Carlson]

It doesn't it seem like this is the cycle for whatever reason that could break the spell? I'm not predicting this, but would it shock you if that happened this time around?

[Michael Batnik]

It's going to, it's going to continue to degrade the social fabric. Like it's going to continue with more pointing fingers, more blaming boogeymen. And I understand that comment makes it like people that are struggling don't have a legitimate gripe. They do. Okay, they do, but. And also just the blame game. Blame immigrants, blame corporations, blame the government, blame this person, blame that person. Like AI.

[Ben Carlson]

We got AI. We got a lot of blame too.

[Michael Batnik]

Blame AI. Sure.

[Ben Carlson]

I thought this was in. So this is Tim Dye who's at SGH Macro via Samro and Sam Rowe had this piece called the Ten Year Dividend Labor. So he said people are wondering why does productivity keep getting better and improving if the labor market is so weak? Right. And he said a key feature of this phase is a 10 year dividend. This is from Dai. With hiring and quit rates near post GFC lows, firms face minimal training and onboarding costs. Business survey responses to the Federal Reserve bank of Atlanta indicate it takes roughly six months for new hires to reach full productivity. But a meaningful tail of roughly 15 to 20% of firms report ramp up periods of 12 to 18 months. So that means it takes a long time to hire or train new people. The current workforce is therefore skewed toward fully onboarded experienced employees mechanically boosting output per hour work. So they're not hiring new people at most places. So the people who are still there have more experience that boosts productivity.

[Michael Batnik]

So it's like, it's like selection bias. I don't know if that's the right phrase, but obviously that it's not being Dragged down by newer, less productive employees.

[Ben Carlson]

So maybe it's like.

[Michael Batnik]

It's like. It's like an illusion that the average worker is getting more productive, kind of.

[Ben Carlson]

But I think it's also. It's just that a ton of new employees slows things down for everyone. Because you have to train someone new, right?

[Michael Batnik]

That too.

[Ben Carlson]

The question is, can I do this? And this. This is your point of where people get really mad and we're getting pitchforks and torches. Can I do this? Where we have. Unemployment is going from 4 to 6%, but AI productivity helps and corporations don't skip a beat. But we have this. That's the question.

[Michael Batnik]

This is the. This is the nightmare scenario. Nightmare might be a stretch, but this is the. This is. This is the not great outcome. I was last night during the. During the game, I was on my couch and I decided to fire up Claude code. This has been getting. This has, like, been all the rage, particularly this weekend. It seemed to heat like a fever pitch. Have you seen people talking about this?

[Ben Carlson]

A lot of people talk about this. Okay. I. I'm on the sidelines still.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, of course you are. I. And ordinarily, I would be on the sidelines, too. I don't know what compelled me to fire this up and say, you know what? Let's play around. But I feel like with this, it's, like, important to. I mean, for me, it just. I want to stay on top of what's happening. So I tried to install Claude code. Gotta be honest, not an old man's game. I had no idea what to do.

[Ben Carlson]

I couldn't even figure.

[Michael Batnik]

Dude, I couldn't even figure out how to download it.

[Ben Carlson]

I did some coding on my website recently. I said, I want to make it big. I want to make a bigger. I want to make it stand out more. It says to sign up for my email newsletter on my website. And I said, I think I did it through chat or Gemini. I can't remember. I said, help me do this. And then I said, no, make the line more bold and make this stand out more. And it. And then I. It tells. Put this code in. I say, where do I put the code in? I have no idea. And it walked me through every step. If you just say, I don't know, where does this go? It walks you through. And then, guess what? I did it. And it looks nice. It came out exactly how I wanted to.

[Michael Batnik]

There was a lot of me saying to Claude, I don't know what's happening here. Like, it's not working. Help me fix it you hit command space, there's a terminal on your, on your Apple. I have no idea what's happening.

[Ben Carlson]

I think instead of me doing Claude coding, I'll have an AI agent that does it for me.

[Michael Batnik]

I, well, the AI agent is Claude code, I believe, or something like that. So anyway, I had IT build an app, a website if you will, to locate the nearest toilet. That was the, that was the first thing that I can come up with. And it worked. It did. It. It took about six minutes.

[Ben Carlson]

So when I, when you're in college, everyone has a friend or group of friends who has an idea for, for a business. Like, hey man, we're gonna, we're gonna sell T shirts, we're gonna start a bar, we're gonna do like I had a friend who, we're gonna start a copy printing thing. And the ideas are always really dumb. But so when this people have the ability to try to build their own apps, everyone's going to be like, oh my gosh, I'm going to build the next great app and they're all going to be horrible ideas.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, that's what's happening right now, I believe. Like, so anyway, we got.

[Ben Carlson]

Let's talk about the stock market. All right, here's a kind of.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. Before we move on to the stock market, one last thing. So Apollo did their chart book on the housing situation and it was good.

[Ben Carlson]

I pulled some charts for later. But what do you got?

[Michael Batnik]

This one in particular, Freddie. This stood out. Freddie Mac. Serious delinquency rates for multifamily is the highest it's ever been. And this is, this is data that doesn't lie. So we could hem and haw about vibes and things aren't that bad. And I've certainly been guilty of this. This is bad.

[Ben Carlson]

So why are delinquency rates so much higher for multifamily units? Because.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, because these are lower income people.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. Yeah, I got nothing. It's higher than it was in 2000.

[Michael Batnik]

No, it just is a, this is a, this is a stark and sad and depressing state of the reality for these people.

[Ben Carlson]

So the counterpoint would be. This is 45 basis points of the total. It's a tiny, tiny, tiny.

[Michael Batnik]

That's not a counterpoint. Why is that not a counter? Well, because the micro element is. The reality of life for these people is horrendous. Now if you zoom out, I think your point is that on a macro level.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, that's. I'm looking at it from an analysis you're right.

[Michael Batnik]

One last thing. GDP growth has been actually not too bad, but this would be a major unlock. So if we, if, if we start buying mortgage bonds and spreads compress and housing activity picks up. Residential investment as a share of real GDP is close to an all time low. It's at 3, it's just over 3%. So if this gets going, could be good for the overall economy.

[Ben Carlson]

That's part of it.

[Michael Batnik]

It's kind of amazing that we've been in a decent, a decent economic situation, all things considered, without one of the largest portions of the economy contributing anything, really.

[Ben Carlson]

Right. We, we had a mini boom in apartment building when rates got really low, then rates went high and they pulled back on building. And so yeah, you think lower rates should, should hopefully help that. All right, here's the kind of headline that gets dunked down in the future, potentially depending on where things go. Every Wall street analyst now predicts a stock rally in 2026. This is from Bloomberg. So it says not a single One of the 21 prognosticators served by Bloomberg News is predicting a decline and the average gain next year is 9%. Can you blame them? That's my only question. Can you blame them for predicting this? I'm surprised there's not like one person that's like sticking the neck out a little bit.

[Michael Batnik]

But yeah, but also, let's just. So I hear what you're saying, but let's just assume that there were one of the 21 strategists who did have a negative outlook. Right. Who just was gonna say, you know what? I'm just shoot my shot. I'll be a contrarian. I'll be the one. Does that change the takeaway? You know what I mean? I know the headline is like, lol, every Wall street analyst. But if it was every Wall street analyst but one.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, didn't, didn't a lot of the bearish people kind of get pushed? Like there was a couple bearish people and they kind of just. You're. No, you're done for a while.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Sit over there.

[Michael Batnik]

I guess my point is like just focusing on the headline, like, yeah, fine. I mean, but, but it's always like this. Sometimes there's one or two or maybe three. They're always bullish.

[Ben Carlson]

Right. But history shows they probably should be. That's what I'm saying. You can't really blame them. How about this one? Wall Street's risk on fever shows no signs of abating in New Year. So how about this?

[Michael Batnik]

Let me, let me just be clear. If this turns out to be a very bad year, we can cut this clip and say that I did not see it coming. I am not taking this as a watch out indicator. They're always bullish.

[Ben Carlson]

So what, Hey, I said, I said the chances of a bear market are decently high last week in the show, didn't I? I still, I still kind of believe.

[Michael Batnik]

You know what's great about this show? We say different things every week. I forget what I said. I, I, what did I say 20 minutes ago? I have no idea.

[Ben Carlson]

No one hold us accountable. All right, so Bloomberg says there's a synchronized cross asset rally in 2026 from meme stocks to high yield bonds. Small cap company shares showing no signs of slowing down. So look at this. The round hill Meme stock ETF is going nuts now. Again, High yield is doing decently well. I, I got to take some umbrage with the, the access for the high yield here. This is, they show 80 twice and 81 three times. So but Russell 22000 is finally joining the party a little bit. That's taken off in the last few months. So it's just showing that the risk appetite is hitting other areas. And again, I, I think some people would look at this and go, oh no, I think you look at this and you go, the bull market is broadening out. Like from a, if we're looking at it from this, a technician perspective, which I'm not, I think you'd have to say the fact that things are broadening out, this is a good sign. Right?

[Michael Batnik]

It's a great sign. Come on. If you've, if you've been in the market long enough, you know that. No, of course there's no guarantees. Nobody knows what's going to happen. But a broadening of the rally, a relentless uptrend with more and more stocks participating, if that worries you, you will never make money in the stock market. I'm telling you right now.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnik]

If your knee jerk reaction is to be bearish when things are going well, that's a personality type. And sometimes getting cute works. But generally speaking, over the course of your career and your life as an investor, to be a knee jerk contrarian when things look really good, that's not how you make money.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, you can't say I'm worried because nothing else is going up except for seven stocks. And also worried when everything else is going up now too. You can't have both.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I get, I get the former. If you're worried because it's a really thin market, like, okay, yeah, that's legit. I get it. Right. Like it didn't work. But I could understand that mentality. If you think like this is as good as it gets because things are now working like the. Because the Russell 2000 is finally breaking out after four years of going sideways. This is super bullish. It just is. Deal with it. We've spent a decent amount of time talking about or wondering like what is going to happen with international flows. Like when are investors going to get excited. Todd just sent me his deck this morning and one of Todd so and at strategic. One of the charts that he shared was emerging markets. Another area that has been just dead money doesn't even begin to do it justice.

[Ben Carlson]

I think like a loss 10 or 12 years almost it's.

[Michael Batnik]

And it's, I honestly think it's, it's close to 20 of. Of sideways nothingness with lots of chop, lots of bare markets. Just disgusting behavior. And he shows the rolling 12 month sum and like it's picked up in a serious way. People are, people are getting involved. China's breaking out. Like things are, things are looking better for sure.

[Ben Carlson]

You'd be surprised. I looked this the other day. I'm doing my asset quilt the last. Because last year was up 35% or something. So in the last 10 years what is the 10 year return for EEM which is the iShares emerging market value or emerging Market Index. You're gonna, you're not, you're never gonna get this.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh really? Annual return because I would have guessed annualized is like four and a half percent.

[Ben Carlson]

Almost nine and a half percent in em.

[Michael Batnik]

Wow.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. 35% last year. That helped. It's, it's so that's, it's higher than you would assume. Right. So some of those bad years. The thing is. So here's the thing. If you look at the 10 years as of 20245 or 2024, the annual return is like 3% per year. One of the bad years dropped off. A good year comes on now we're at 9% so that it's one of the, it's kind of a game thing.

[Michael Batnik]

I'm looking, I'm looking at a monthly candlestick chart and yeah dude, this thing peaked in October 2007 and then it peaked at the same price in 2021. And we're basically like just now getting above those levels from 2007.

[Ben Carlson]

But guess what happens when investors see high 1 3, 5 year returns?

[Michael Batnik]

They start to get involved. Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh and then that's why money pours in and so people are paying attention a little bit. All right, let's talk inflation real quick. Which came out this morning. We're recording Tuesday. What is it? Market? Just open. What happened to your bell? You don't have a bell anymore?

[Michael Batnik]

I. That was, that was thinkorswim. I, yeah, I'm a wide charts guy now.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. You used to always have a bell that would ring at open and close. You should just pay someone to come do that for you. Now just come and ring a bell in your office and then walk out. So the inflation rate came in at 2.7% for all of 2025. That was the average annual inflation rate for 2025. All right.

[Michael Batnik]

If you believe the numbers.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. And guess what? People on Twitter, they don't believe the numbers. Anytime I post about inflation, comments aren't great. So Y Charts has inflation data in the US going back to 1914. So we're talking World War I, so 100 plus years, the average. I said that like a, that was a weird average. Chicago. Chicago. The average annual inflation rate in that time is 3.3%. That's like long term US average is right around there. 3, 3 and a half percent, something like that. We've been below that long term average for how many months now? I'm giving you a lot of quizzes.

[Michael Batnik]

Today sucks.

[Ben Carlson]

18 months going on now that we've been below the long term average. Now if you look at a chart.

[Michael Batnik]

A long term, I mean, I. Sorry, I'm not trying to jerk, but that is completely erroneous. I mean, after the worst inflation in 50 years, the fact that we're below average, I mean, who falls on deaf ears? Don't come to me with that. No offense.

[Ben Carlson]

I have a, I have a new theory on why. Because if you look at the historical chart of 100 years of inflation, this, this current period, I know we didn't have it for a long time. If you look back pre, like 1970 and before all the inflation increases, you'd look at this now and go, that's so tame. What is wrong with you people? Why are you so up in arms and mad? This is nothing. This peak of inflation.

[Michael Batnik]

You're kidding, right?

[Ben Carlson]

No, I'm just saying if you look at the historical record of all the inflation spikes before this, you look at this period and go, that's a drop in the bucket. What's wrong with you people? So listen to this, listen to this new theory I have.

[Michael Batnik]

I think what you just said is absurd.

[Ben Carlson]

If you look at the long term chart, you wouldn't Pick this one out of the. There's 10 peaks that are higher.

[Michael Batnik]

We're an alien to look at a chart and not understand human beings. Would they say. Would they make that conclusion? Perhaps.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm just. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Here's. Here's one of the. Here's one of the reasons why. Here's one of the reasons. And this is such a simple thing. I was just thinking about this the other day. Think about how hard it was to spend money in the past. It was impossible. You had the bank held your money for you, your head under your mattress, and it was cash. It's so much easier to spend money now. It's harder for people to slow their spending because you can click a button. You can.

[Michael Batnik]

There's no friction.

[Ben Carlson]

It's so easy. I was thinking about this. I buy way too many clothes and stuff because it's so easy. I go on a. I get an email from someone. Hey, Ben, come on. 30% off. Wait, you left this in your cart. Give it 30% off. Come on. Come back. And it's so easy to spend all.

[Michael Batnik]

The next gear that I have, like this here snazzy hoodie. Guess what? I never. Not never. I would go to Modell's twice a year. Maybe, like, Now I'm shopping 24 7. I can't stop.

[Ben Carlson]

Exactly. It's so much easier everywhere you look to shop, just the click of a button. Amazon, I don't need this, but I want it. It's so much easier to spend. And so I think slowing your spending has been so much harder this time.

[Michael Batnik]

You know what I bought on Instagram recently? I saw a video of, like, what would happen if you drowned in a car and, like, why you can't open your window or get out. And it was an advertisement for, like, this little thing where, like, you could, like, cut your seatbelt and, like, bash the window. And I bought two of them because obviously you can't just buy one. It's like a two pack. And Robin's like, what is this? And I said, if we're. You know, if we ever fall into a lake. And. And then I realized that I'm like.

[Ben Carlson]

If you're ever part of a Harrison Ford movie, you can get out of.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, there's no. There's no lakes around here. There's no. What a.

[Ben Carlson]

What am I doing off a bridge? What are you talking about? You're right by the ocean. You got bridges that go over the ocean. This could happen to you. True.

[Michael Batnik]

If the GW collapses While I'm on it and we happen to stick the landing, we could, we could listen, you're.

[Ben Carlson]

Looking, you're looking down at your phone. You don't realize. And you drive right off one of those bridges that we go under on your jet ski, like, this could save your life.

[Michael Batnik]

Actually, you know what? I stand corrected. Great purchase.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I'm on board. But then you, like, you land in the water, then you go, oh, no, where did I put it? Is it in the glove box? Is it in the middle?

[Michael Batnik]

It's at home.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. I can't find it.

[Michael Batnik]

You know what? This brings up another. So I've got a. I've got many character flaws. Way more time, way more time than we have available for this show to discuss. But one of them is like, I'll just a little nuisances not even pile up, but just repeat forever. Like for. For example, I have substack on my phone. I think I installed substack, the app on my phone. And so every time I get a new follower or new this or new whatever, like, my notifications are turned on. That's what I'm trying to say. My notifications are turned for substack. And for about six weeks, I would get 11 a day and I would just like, oh, look at my phone. Oh, that's a notification. And I would just like, you know, clear it. And then I had this, like, why do I have notifications on? Like, I can turn them off, right? This is a choice that I'm making. So I turn my notifications off for substack. And I also realized that, like, I've got notifications on for Amazon deliveries only because it's been on since the minute I downloaded the app for four years. I've never turned it off.

[Ben Carlson]

I hate notifications.

[Michael Batnik]

Anyway. I'm. I don't know what's wrong with me. I just, I just let little things.

[Ben Carlson]

You know, I did it mine build up to all my emails because every time I sign up for a new clothing thing or whatever, I get. So my email every morning is just full of all these different retailers trying to pitch me.

[Michael Batnik]

Do you have. So in my personal Gmail, I have my main inbox and I've got a promotions tab and an updates tab I use.

[Ben Carlson]

I use Yahoo because I signed up for it when I was 18 years old and I know my dude. But I went through and I unsubscribe.

[Michael Batnik]

You use Yahoo.

[Ben Carlson]

I know it was my very first email. I have a Gmail anyhow. But I. I went through and unsubscribed to every single email that came into me for a week. And now my email is so clean, like I just hit unsubscribe everything.

[Michael Batnik]

Use. Use cl. That's what you. This Claude code for, you know, you could do. But wait, hold on. What do you use your Yahoo email for on a personal level? Is that just like that? Your. Your email account that's linked to, like your. Your flights, your this or that?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I've just literally had it forever. I never changed it. And do I want to use Yahoo still? No, but I. I did it when I was 18 years old and I haven't been able to change it since because that was the one email address I signed up for.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, sign of the times. AI evaluation startup LM arena, valued at $1.7 billion in new funding round. $1.7 billion funding round is, you know, really sort of nothing with nothing. But that's not the good part. The good part is this. Ella Marina, a startup that operates a widely cited ranking of AI models based on their performance, has raised $150 million. That's nearly triple the valuation of its seed funding round, announced in May 2025.

[Ben Carlson]

Whoa.

[Michael Batnik]

Kind of nuts.

[Ben Carlson]

That's pretty quick.

[Michael Batnik]

And again, I know. I mean, obviously I know nothing about the product. I'm not saying it's not a good idea or whatever, whatever. It's just, you know, sign of the times I had. Speaking of sign of the times, I had, Matt and Sean make me this chart of AI platform valuations for, like, the big three. So check this out. I'm dropping in here right now. OpenAI, Anthropic and Xai are now all valued over $200 billion. Look at these different. So the dots on the chart, Ben, are when they raised money. I mean, you can't see this if you're listening, but it's just up and to the right, like, kind of wild. Not kind of wild, wild.

[Ben Carlson]

So when shouldn't. When does this gap close a little.

[Michael Batnik]

Bit between what and what?

[Ben Carlson]

I. I think it's kind of over for OpenAI and Google. I think Google is, like, in 18 months, we're going to go, wait, why do we think OpenAI was going to win? Like, you saw that Apple said Siri is going to use Gemini for their AI. Don't you think at this point, beyond the inertia of people just using chat, that, like, Google is clearly going to beat them?

[Michael Batnik]

I don't know. That's. You might be right.

[Ben Carlson]

Am I jumping the gun here by saying it? Sure, sure. Feels like that at this point, that it's. It's inevitable that Google is going to be the winner.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

And I'm going to feel like an idiot at some point if. If it all falls apart, but that's what it feels like today.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, I think, I think two things. I think you might be right. It sounds. That sounds like a premature call. Um, but. And also a $500 billion valuation for OpenAI, which was assumed. Premised on many different assumptions. One of them being that they were going to be like the dominant player. And they are. That sounds like a crazy high valuation.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, that's what I'm thinking. But. But I could be wrong because Chat just having the branding, that could be it. Right. It's kind of like Bitcoin being the first crypto like that had the branding. All right, I want to talk gambling for a minute. So Matt Stoller had this tweet where he says the second fastest growing sector in America in terms of GDP growth from 2019 to 2024 is gambling. So the BLS had this report that looked at different sectors and industries and looked at their GDP growth. So the highest GDP growth was for software publishers. That was like 9% per year. Gambling was 7.6%. Now you could say, like, what was the base? Right. It's coming off.

[Michael Batnik]

It's a new category.

[Ben Carlson]

But a lot of people looked at this and said, this is horrible. This is bad.

[Michael Batnik]

It is.

[Ben Carlson]

It is in some ways, but don't. So I feel like we have to segment this because we did this early on with Robinhood where we said, listen, is everyone on Robinhood a degenerate gambler who's just buying options and a segment of them? Yes. But are most other people using it relatively responsibly also? Yes. And I think you have to do it with gamblers. Are there.

[Michael Batnik]

So I disagree. Gambling, because gambling is negative sum.

[Ben Carlson]

Of course. But don't you think one of the biggest reasons is not just financial nihilism and, and young people who are giving up on the world? Don't you think a lot of it. If, if the GDP growth is that much for this segment, do you think most of it is disposable income from people who are using it as entertainment who have money? Yes.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

Guess what? All of this money is not coming from 20 year olds. They don't have a lot. They don't have any money. They're. They're betting $25 a game. The people who are betting the most are probably in their 30s and 40s and 50s. Who have disposable income. That's why this is such a growth arena.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes. And also I would, I would wager, get it that the amount of people that are ruining their lives financially and their family's lives is 50 times greater than people that were day trading yoloing on Robin Hood 50 times. Because you just. It's just different with trading. You smell the roses, you take a few beats, whatever. But like, gambling is an addiction. You get hooked, you lose, you double down you, you go.

[Ben Carlson]

But also it goes to zero immediately if you lose it. Like when you buy a stock, it doesn't go to zero the next day.

[Michael Batnik]

Correct.

[Ben Carlson]

Options can maybe, but.

[Michael Batnik]

So I think that, yes, are, are a lot of the people that are gambling doing it so responsibly with money that they can afford to lose. Yeah, but I think a lot of people are getting really up and I think a lot of, A lot of lives are genuinely being ruined that. I don't think it's like 2% of the people. I think it's much higher than that.

[Ben Carlson]

If I could, I would, I would get rid of sports gambling immediately. I would. If. If I like. I think it's going to ruin the leagues.

[Michael Batnik]

I think it's hard. I think it's horrible, especially for, for like, for the people that. It's just. It's too big of a price to pay. It's negative sum. And I love gambling. Like, Right. I enjoy the show.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't. I don't think it's a good thing. I would. If I had the. My drawers, I would get rid of it immediately. I don't think it needs to exist.

[Michael Batnik]

It's not, it's not. Society does not benefit from having DraftKings and FanDuel on our TV sponsor commercials every 30 seconds. It just, it doesn't. All right, let's talk about crypto. I. I feel like a weight has been lifted as too strong of a term, but I feel much better about my crypto exposure. I got, I got lucky with, sold into a little bounce. I sold a third of my Bitcoin at 93,000. I saw the third of my eth at 3250. And I'm good. I feel like. I feel okay. This is a number that I'm comfortable with. I've now sold. I've now sold twice. Last time I sold was at the peak. Not the brag. Got lucky, but. But I feel good. If bitcoin crashes, it won't feel good, but I'll be fine. I'll buy more if it, if it moons. For whatever reason. I'm good. I'm there. I just. I feel. I feel better about. About my. My personal position.

[Ben Carlson]

It's a rebalance. Right. You. Right size. That. Same thing. I did. And I. Yes. Even if bitcoin doubled tomorrow, I wouldn't. I wouldn't regret it.

[Michael Batnik]

No, no. I'd be there. I'd be thrilled. I still have. I still have a healthy position. I'd be thrilled if it doubled.

[Ben Carlson]

I still can't believe that it's below where I sold my first time. That it's so surprising to me.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, did mayor. Former mayor of New York City Eric Adams, like, literally do a rug pull? Like, what? Wtf. I sent you and Josh an image of Ed Helms. Wait, is that. Is that. Yeah, from. From. From the hangover in the back of the cop car. He's screaming. What is going on? Remember that scene?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes.

[Michael Batnik]

So. All right, here we go. The. For this from Yahoo. The former mayor announced the token at Times Square press conference on Monday, saying the project would address anti Semitism and anti Americanism, using revenue generated by the token while also teaching children, quote, how to embrace the blockchain technology. Dude, get right out of town. What? Even the FNF are you talking about? What the hell sort of bullshit nonsense you're making a token to fight anti Semitism and anti Americanism? Okay, so the premise is deeply nonsensical. In the most deeply nonsensical terms possible. I. I repeat myself. I just.

[Ben Carlson]

So I. I still don't quite understand the. Because I saw this stuff last night, people. And obviously, the crypto people can see it. Like, it's all on chain. They can see what happened. Hey, he rug pulled $3 million or something. I can't even tell if this stuff's illegal anymore because the Hawk Tour girl did it, and she went away, and then I guess she's just fine. She just, like, stole a bunch of money. But if you get rug. But if you get rug pulled on this, you deserve it.

[Michael Batnik]

Sure.

[Ben Carlson]

If you. If you invest in this. Something like this, all you're trying to do is, like, catch the. Like, if you get rugged.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

That's on you.

[Michael Batnik]

I'm. I. Okay. I have. I am. I.

[Ben Carlson]

And he's a scumbag. How's that?

[Michael Batnik]

I'm a sympathetic, empathetic person with many different things. I have no sympathy for people that lost money in this. None. Zero. I'm sorry. Negative sympathy. Okay. Also, this guy's a piece of. If this is true. So Yahoo says a wallet linked to to him, newly launched crypto token allegedly pocketed nearly $1 million through a suspicious manipulation of a liquidity pool. On Monday, the creator of the NYC token sent 80 million coins to an account that added the tokens as liquidity on a decentralized exchange. That account then removed $2.4 million $3 million in USDC before adding back 1.5 million, leaving approximately $932,000 in in unaccounted for USDC liquidity on chain analytics platform Bubble Maps confirmed to decrypt on Monday. Obviously more to come on this, but if this is true, like, what a scumbag piece of garbage.

[Ben Carlson]

But I can't even tell in crypto anymore what's legal and what's not legal.

[Michael Batnik]

So I don't know what the law is, but this is clearly. This is a pump and dump. This is a pump and a dump.

[Ben Carlson]

Immediately.

[Michael Batnik]

What an asshole.

[Ben Carlson]

Immediately. All right, so let's talk real estate a little bit. So I pulled this one from the Apollo chart book that you mentioned before. And this, this chart is kind of a face blower. So this looks at median home prices by county, okay. And it segments them to three different price points. Less than 250 for median house price, 250 to 350 and over $350,000. So in the west, the northeast, in the Southeast, most of the median home prices are over $350,000. Obviously, basically two thirds of the country, the median home price in these counties is less than 250k. How surprising is this to you? Now, obviously you go, well, yeah, of course no one wants to live there, or it's cheaper to live there. But looking at this, the visual of this is very. It's hard to. It's hard to reconcile with what's going on. And this is why I said if we just put 3 million houses out west and 3 million houses on the, on the east side, obviously I'm overgeneralizing. Would that not just fix the housing solution?

[Michael Batnik]

I don't know. That's a, that's a big question.

[Ben Carlson]

But are you surprised that there are so many areas with relatively cheap housing on here?

[Michael Batnik]

No. And this is just a great visual. This is, this is, this is the chart that you show people when people are yelling at each other about housing.

[Ben Carlson]

Right?

[Michael Batnik]

It's like we're talking past each other. My housing situation and your housing situation and that person's housing situation have nothing to do with one another. The only thing that we share in common is mortgage rates. And even that we don't necessarily have in common because people with money have access to better rates. But it is just such a fractured market.

[Ben Carlson]

This map is an advertisement for remote work. Move to Arkansas or Iowa, somewhere in the middle of the country. Cheaper housing. Okay. You asked me a couple weeks ago, how is the Grand Rapids housing market doing in your area? And I get an email from like my mortgage broker through the bank like once a week and update. Hey, Ben. And I always kind of forget about it. But this one said, hey, Grand Rapids housing market update. So I looked at it and we're one of these places obviously. Median sale price $345,000, up about 5% from last year. Total home sold in Grand Rapids, 887, which is down 15%. Median days on market is 19. And the supply of inventory is 1.9 months. So things. There's no supply. So that I think the average right now nationwide is like 4 months or something.

[Michael Batnik]

Median days on market is wild.

[Ben Carlson]

19 days is not nuts. No change from last year. So obviously the housing market here is still pretty strong to quite strong. Like it's.

[Michael Batnik]

The housing market in my neighborhood is very soft. Like there's even a couple of decent homes. They're just not selling.

[Ben Carlson]

These numbers surprise me how quick things are still going. It's pretty nuts.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. This is a little bit of green Shoot. A little bit of good news. Housing affordability index still as low as it's been. If this is a stock chart and I know it's not, I'd buy this. Not out of this. It looks like it's bottoming. And then if you turn it over, you look at the average. This is, this is objectively good news. Average monthly mortgage payment out. A new 30 year mortgage is rolling.

[Ben Carlson]

Over because rates are coming down.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

And housing prices have more or less stagnated. I think housing prices might end the year up like 1% or something for 20, 25. It takes a while for them to totally update. Remember a few years ago when we kind of thought the conventional wisdom was just buy a house now and refinance in a few years. It'll be fine. And you still haven't been able to. How are those people feeling? Because they probably got a little bit of equity from housing prices rising a tad. But that, that has to be a pain point.

[Michael Batnik]

That's such a good point.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnik]

How are those people? Which people? Which houses? Where do they live? What does their job look like? What does their family situation look like? Right. You can't just bucket how to.

[Ben Carlson]

You're doing that way too much today.

[Michael Batnik]

No, I'm not. No, I'm not.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm doing way too micro. I'm doing macro.

[Michael Batnik]

No, you can't say how people, Larry.

[Ben Carlson]

Down the street and see, oh, he's can't do that.

[Michael Batnik]

How do people who bought a house in 2022 felt? I mean, you can't. That's, I'm sorry, that's, that's not as.

[Ben Carlson]

The median person feel probably not great because they thought they were going to refinance. You can do it.

[Michael Batnik]

You can't median. You can't median that. I'm just. Sorry, you can't. I'm, I'm a stickler.

[Ben Carlson]

I got way too much nitpicking today.

[Michael Batnik]

Sorry, sorry. Okay, what I didn't read Nick's post today is home equity fake wealth.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, I've got strong thoughts about this. So he, he did a post about is home equity fake? Because people say you can't do anything with it. And Nick, Nick was saying like his whole take was, listen, you can rent, okay? And he's saying like where, he lives in Jersey City, which is where right across the water or what? Okay, he's saying like, listen, it's so much cheaper for me to rent if you, if I bought a million dollar home and I paid the mortgage and I paid the insurance, the property taxes, I'd be paying double my monthly payment as I am to rent. So he's saying like, if you want to sell and rent, like that's how you lock in gains. But I think this whole idea that home equity is fake wealth is such a dumb idea that people say, look, well, you can't do anything with, you can't touch it. So it's not real wealth.

[Michael Batnik]

Did Nick say that it's fake wealth?

[Ben Carlson]

No, no. Nick is saying that's what a lot of people are saying. He, he kind of said like, here's what you can do about it.

[Michael Batnik]

How is that fake wealth? It's an asset.

[Ben Carlson]

A lot of people are saying, well, you can't really do anything because you have to borrow against your home or you have to downsize or whatever. And I think that this is just, I think a lot of people assume that spending is wealth. And guess what? The lack of spending, that's the wealth. Okay? Just because you can't spend your house doesn't mean it's not, you're not building an asset and it's building wealth. Here's what you can do with it. You can use it to trade up to a new home because it'll make a new home way Cheaper because you use your equity as the down payment. You don't have to save for a down payment because you have equity in your home. That's a huge asset. Borrowing against it. If you have a big project coming due. So you don't have to sell your investments in the stock market or get out of high yield bonds or cash or whatever. Like, you can use a home equity line as a bridge loan. Like, there are so many things you can do with home equity. It's a huge asset.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, that's. That's crazy time.

[Ben Carlson]

Calling it fake wealth. And it's also the fact that you can't get out of it quickly is one of the reasons it is an asset. Like, it's a long. It's long term wealth.

[Michael Batnik]

Amen.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. It's not fake wealth. All right.

[Michael Batnik]

All right. Let's do private markets for a minute. I had a. I did a conversation on Talking wealth, which is a podcast that we do for advisors on GP Stakes with Todd Owens McCantilever, which was an awesome conversation. What are GP Stakes? GP Stakes are investment pools. They take minority investments in alternative asset managers. It's a great business. All else equal, you are buying a piece of a business. You basically you're. But you're being the gp. In other words, you're buying the fees. Instead of paying 2 and 20, you're buying a piece of the revenue stream. You can model the hell out of it. These are illiquid investments. You have an, you have an upside call option if there's performance fees. Like, this is a very attractive area of alternative markets.

[Ben Carlson]

Guess what? The GPS usually beat the lps. Yeah, almost all. Almost always.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. There was an article in the Times towards the end of 2025, investors warn of rot in private equity as funds strike circular deals. So you and I, I think we're fairly early in identifying this private equity thing. I'm seeing a lot of activity in my inbox. What is happening? It's secondary to the new private credit. There are so many emails of secondary funds that are taking investors out of their original investments. Now, there is nuance here. It's not all bad. It's certainly not all good. I would say that this is definitely, definitely something that has my attention. I am looking skeptically, I am looking sideways at these deals. Why is this happening so frequently? How much money is stuck? So we will be talking about this a lot.

[Ben Carlson]

What kind of discounts are these sales happening? So when I was in, back in my endowment days, we owned a couple secondary funds and they Would buy them for like 40 to 50 cents on the dollar. It was a huge, huge discount because there weren't that many that happened. Private equity was so much smaller back then.

[Michael Batnik]

This is, I'm sure those, I'm sure those secondary funds did phenomenally well, generally.

[Ben Carlson]

Speaking because you immediately write it up, back up to a dollar, right? You buy it for 50 cents, you write it up to a dollar. You have an IRR already just based on the nav, right? Yes, but by the way, that behavior.

[Michael Batnik]

That behavior is obviously bullshit. You buy something for $0.50, market to a dollar, take fees on a dollar. If you're able to buy something for 50 cents, I'm sorry, it's not worth a dollar. Don't bullshit a bullshitter.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I'd be curious to hear what the, the discounts are these days. I don't know.

[Michael Batnik]

All right. Junk bond investor shared a chart. I believe this is from, I've seen this chart. This is from hps. It's I think direct lending spreads versus broadly syndicated loan spreads. So it's basically Apple trying to make an apples to apples comparison in terms of the, the credit quality of the underlying borrower, private versus public. Okay, so at junk bond invest wrote 200 basis points, excess spread versus syndicated loans. Here's what that 200 basis points is paying you for. Can't sell it, can't price it. Borrower can stop paying cash and switch to payment in kind and you market yourself.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, so that's the risk premium, right?

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, there it is. Fair summary. So then obviously it's up to the investor.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, obviously the person with the junk bond investor handle is probably a little. Yes, has some skin in the game there in terms of.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes. Probably doesn't think that the 200 basis points spread is worth it.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, so Silicon Valley bank member them did a post on state of the markets and venture backed companies have been in a deep, brutal bear market, like an epic bear market for the better part of three years. I don't want to say nobody talks about it. That's absurd. I don't think we speak about it a ton on this show because it's outside of our purview. It's outside of the public light for the most part. But a lot of the mega growth funds that came in in 2021 and wrecked the markets and wrecked valuations and just turned the, the market upside down like this, this, this market has been completely frozen and it's starting to heal in a, in a, in a good way. Like genuinely in a good way.

[Ben Carlson]

So yeah, the pendulum swung really wide in both directions.

[Michael Batnik]

So they have a couple of charts that I wanted to highlight. One is the speed from a series A, from A C to series A, series A to series B, B to C was happening so fast. Like that was.

[Ben Carlson]

Think about how spoiled those founders got and like probably assuming this is just the way it is.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. Found that you have 24 hours.

[Ben Carlson]

Right. You want to give me your money? I don't care. I don't. I got someone else on the street will give it to me anyway.

[Michael Batnik]

So here's a great chart. The companies. So they're looking at the average revenue growth, the average revenue and growth for US VC backed tech IPOs. And the takeaway is companies are bigger but they're slower. So it shows how much revenue on average from, from, from 2010, 2013, 14 to 19, 2021, 22 and 25. And it's up and to the right. So these companies are much bigger when they ipo like significantly. So in terms of revenue and market cap. And the average annual revenue has slowed pretty dramatically. Like pretty dramatically. 9%. Not great. Not great. And then they have a great, they have a great chart showing the underwriting fees and ongoing compliance costs. The underwriting fees as a percent of float for larger companies, obviously it's smaller. Right. With scale. But like if you're raising 250 to $500 million, it's 6%. And the annual cost, I mean the annual costs are not nothing. 50 basis points, give or take a little bit more. It's expensive. Going public is very expensive.

[Ben Carlson]

Isn't it crazy? Silicon Valley bank still exists. I'm just looking at these reports.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

How is that still a thing?

[Michael Batnik]

Well, they were, who bought them? Citizens. Citizens Bank. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We had, we had two. So it's earning season. I love it. Very excited we get to hear from the companies. Do you know I'm all about that. Jamie diamond this morning. Let's see what he said. The US economy, this is from the transcript, has remained resilient. While labor markets have softened, conditions do not appear to be worsening. Meanwhile, consumers continue to spend and businesses generally remain healthy. These conditions could persist for some time. This is basically Jamie Dimon saying, holy things are amazing.

[Ben Carlson]

He's like me and Josh said this is a top.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. I mean obviously I was thinking about.

[Ben Carlson]

He hasn't sounded this positive in years.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, he's like, fine, things are awesome. I can't, I can't even lie.

[Ben Carlson]

I guess he can't, can't shake it anymore. Maybe this is where things finally turn down.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, Delta, this is pretty remarkable. So record revenue, record performance for the fourth quarter. Record year in 2025, even with a dramatic slowdown in. In foreign travel. I haven't seen the numbers yet, but pretty incredible the consumer. All right, so they say 2026 is off to a strong start with top line growth accelerating on consumer and corporate demand for the full year. We expect to deliver margin expansion and earnings growth of 20% year over year. How about that?

[Ben Carlson]

So Delta's breaking out again. You see this chart?

[Michael Batnik]

Those are big boy numbers. 20% margin expansion and earnings growth. Yeah, I see Delta.

[Ben Carlson]

So these stocks were down what, 6, 70, 80% in the pandemic?

[Michael Batnik]

I would guess 80% now Delta has separated itself from the competition.

[Ben Carlson]

They are Delta. So much better than every other airline. Like it's not even close anymore.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, so? So it is so much better than every other airline. And why is it. I can't tell you. Like why are they out executing everybody else? Don't know.

[Ben Carlson]

The planes are better, the seats are more comfortable. They have screenshots.

[Michael Batnik]

That's great. It's fantastic. All right, let's talk the box office 2025 was only 350 million below the previous year for a kind of underwhelming year. That's not so bad.

[Ben Carlson]

Really? I thought people said this was like a banner year for the for movies.

[Michael Batnik]

No, it wasn't.

[Ben Carlson]

We had Avatar, we had Zootopia, we had Minecraft. Think so. Sinners and one battle after, like there was a lot of movies. People talk.

[Michael Batnik]

No, it was. It was. It wasn't. I'm telling you, it was down $350 million.

[Ben Carlson]

Secular decline. I'm totally selling your theory that 2026 will be higher. Every year is going to be lower from now on. This is it, man. It's over.

[Michael Batnik]

2026 will be higher than 2025.

[Ben Carlson]

No way. Sorry, man. It's done. Movies are done. I don't think you've realized this yet. They're done. Unless they double the ticket prices. Movies like as a thing, it's just. It's slow sec. It's. It's not cyclical. It's secular.

[Michael Batnik]

I have more experience than you do on this topic that you're blinded.

[Ben Carlson]

You have blinders on because you go to the movie all the time.

[Michael Batnik]

How do I that? Dude, the opposite. You have no idea because you have never been to the movies. I go frequently. So for numbers, you look.

[Ben Carlson]

People would rather watch a movie at home than go to the theater. It's true. It's easy.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, of course, of course it's true. Of course that's true. And that is already reflected in the revenue. That's not go. That's not going to happen in 2026. That's been happening. Right? 2026 is not the year that people decide to watch movies at home. That's been happening for the last decade.

[Ben Carlson]

It's just slowly but surely eating away. So is it going to continue to get worse?

[Michael Batnik]

So, okay, I'm on the other side of that. I went to, I took Robin to see the Housemaid. So Robin and I haven't been to a movie together since, since what's it called? A Star Is Born. What year was that? 2018.

[Ben Carlson]

I've never heard of the Housemaid. It sounds like a Jennifer Lopez.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, with all respect, you can't say I've never heard of the Houseman and have an opinion on the movies. The house.

[Ben Carlson]

Sydney Sweeney comes out with a new movie once a month and no one cares.

[Michael Batnik]

How wrong you are, Ben. So we went to the movie theater and we, so we, we saw, we, we, we did movie and a dinner. So I said, you know what? Let's go see the four o' clock show. Nobody's going to be there. We'll do dinner at, at 7. We'll have a, we'll have a fun little night. And she read the book. So she was like, fine. She was actually excited to see this movie. Dude, the theater was packed. I couldn't believe it. I thought at 4 o' clock showing was going to be empty. There was at least 100 people in the theater. I was, I was genuinely shocked. I thought it was going to be empty. Housemaid box office mojo.

[Ben Carlson]

It's got a 7 out of 10 on IMDb. That's not bad.

[Michael Batnik]

So like the movie, it's, it's, it's, it's done $100 million at the domestic box office.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, that's not bad.

[Michael Batnik]

That ain't Nothing. It's done 150 global. All right, so the movie. I had a great time. I had a good time. It was fun. It was a terrible movie. Terrible might be a stretch, but like, it wasn't.

[Ben Carlson]

The reading was pretty good.

[Michael Batnik]

I can't believe the critics. The critics gave it a 72%. The audience loved it. You know, it was fun. I had, I was fully entertained. Money well spent. Anyway. Yeah, listen, I'm not like, I'm not, I'm not an idiot in the box office. I understand numbers have been down every single year. I'M just saying, I think 2026 is the year that it comes out. One of the reasons why it was as bad as it was is because some of the movies that were supposed to come out in 2025 didn't. The Michael Jackson movie, for example, is probably going to do decent that that was punted to 2026.

[Ben Carlson]

No. Any of those biographies about musicians, now they're dead money. No one cares.

[Michael Batnik]

I don't think the mic. I think the Michael Jackson one is going to make money.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, if you're hanging your hat on Michael Jackson biopic for 2026, I'm going to be the winner here on this bet. We'll check back in in a year.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, this is last thing, last thing, last thing on streaming. So this will kill the theater. Netflix. Somebody tweeted that Netflix is reportedly interested in giving a 17 day theatrical window for Warner Brothers films once they acquired the studio. That will nuke. That will be the end. Like that will that. That's. That will be horrifically bad for.

[Ben Carlson]

For Hollywood writings on the wall, my friend. All right, this is the blog post I've been waiting for. Why are TVs so cheap? Construction physics. Pretty good subsec I've looked at a few times. They do a detailed breakdown of LED stuff in a lot of it I didn't understand. But it shows the cost of price per area pixel has fallen 90% since 2000. Okay, so this is not just all the streamers coming in. Okay. It says since 2000 the story of TVs falling in price is largely the story of liquid crystal display. TVs going from niche expensive technology to mass produce an inexpensive one. It's basically Moore's Law. It says they followed a similar path of semiconductor manufacturing. And this, this blog post is actually worth reading. But it says an important driver of cost reduction has been manufacturers using larger and larger silicon wafers over time. In fact, sheets of Mother Glass have grown in size much faster than silicon wafers for semiconductor manufacturing. It's showing that the technology has gotten cheaper and easier to make. So it's not just. Everyone said no, Ben, it's just, it's just the streamers. They're. They're subsidizing. It's not that it's so I. But my thinking was, well, why it has to be a cost thing. It has. So that's what it is. The technology has gotten cheaper to make and that's why TVs are cheaper. Great blog post. Check it out.

[Michael Batnik]

Mother Glass. I never knew.

[Ben Carlson]

I never heard the term before I did. It's basically just. It sounds like it's just a Moore's Law kind of thing where this technology has been easier to make good stuff.

[Michael Batnik]

But I haven't. I haven't. I haven't stepped on. I haven't stepped on a scale in a while. I'm afraid to see what the numbers, which would show back at me. Okay, I've been eating. Not terrible. I mean, I've been better recently, but, like, the fourth quarter was bad. I was just through. Caution to the wind, whatever. Yeah, I'll eat it. Cares. I haven't started my diet yet, but I'm. I'm mentally gearing up for it. And I asked Robin if the scale was broken because I was only £176, which I was. But you know what? This is a case of the scale lying. I. I don't. I don't look good. Like, my. My. I'm flabby. My belly looks terrible. I'm fat, but I. I'm fat but light. That's not really where you want to be.

[Ben Carlson]

Are you looking for a pep talk here? What are you looking for?

[Michael Batnik]

No, I'm just. I'm merely sharing.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. Call your. Call your trainer again.

[Michael Batnik]

I can't. It's been too long. I'm embarrassed.

[Ben Carlson]

You know what you need to do? You can't do it in your house. You have to go to the. Get a trainer at a gym. Okay?

[Michael Batnik]

I can't go to the gym. I don't have time for that.

[Ben Carlson]

You can make it happen. You get up early. All right. This is a sign of progress from flowing data. Number of restaurants by cuisine type. Since 2018, pizzas are in a huge decline. Mexican's up. Coffee and bakery's way up. American is up. But I see this as a sign of progress. Every city you go to now has way better, better restaurants. They're more niche. There's breweries. There's all these different things. And in the past, everyone just had a pizza place to go to. And this is a sign of progress in America. It's true that pizza's our. When we were younger, we'd go with my dad's family in Ludington, Michigan. Where would we go? Pizza Hut. That was our place to go out for dinner with family. Aunts, uncles, cousins. Everyone get together? Yeah, let's go to Pizza Hut. The red cups, the lunch buffet.

[Michael Batnik]

You know, I mentioned earlier, one of my bad qualities, you know, one of my good qualities. I. I love cities. I love everywhere I go. I'm not one of these people. Like, oh, yeah, Hole every city. I'm like, I like it here. It's nice.

[Ben Carlson]

People who argue about my city's better than yours. Like, there's so many different places. I feel like I could live if I had to. Like, we were in Arizona. I'm like, I could live here. You and I went to, like, Arkansas. We went to Oklahoma. Like, I could live there.

[Michael Batnik]

Like, I love our cities.

[Ben Carlson]

Everywhere has nice stores and restaurants now. People. These places have all figured it out.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Let's do some recommendations.

[Michael Batnik]

Nice. Nice little country we got. All right. So I mentioned Begonia last week, but I didn't. I think I glossed over as I was giving 12 recommendations or 12 reviews. Jesse Plemons. My God. Now, Emma Stone was good, but he is, first of all, oic. I'm. I'm guessing he. He.

[Ben Carlson]

No, no, no. He gained a bunch of weight for a role. Maybe he used it to lose it. But it's hard for me to believe you. I don't think you ever watched Friday Night Lights, which is in the top five of my best favorite shows of all time.

[Michael Batnik]

Was it a good movie, too?

[Ben Carlson]

I like the show better than the movie. The movie was good, but I. You would never watch the show and say, this guy is going to be the star that's going to come out of the show. He was pretty good. But there was so many people who were such better actors and characters in the show. You never said, this guy's going to have a great movie career. Never.

[Michael Batnik]

It's really hard when. When Rob and I walked out of the theater after. After housemate, I said to her first, I said was I was dumber than Begonia. All right. Another thing that we glossed over. So, like, the Cameron Crow book. What was it called?

[Ben Carlson]

The Uncool. It's the best audiobook I've. I've ever listened to. It was so, so good.

[Michael Batnik]

So the story of how he did what he did, like, still doesn't really make sense. Like, it can never happen today about being, like, a kid writer for rock and roll. So, like, one of the stories that he told was, like, when Lynyrd Skynyrd opened for the who. Like, could you imagine being at that concert? I mean, him interviewing the. The Allman Brothers.

[Ben Carlson]

So if you're a fan of Almost Famous, you have to listen to this because it's like an extended version of Almost Famous. I think the. The book is better than the movie. I love that movie. It's one of my favorite movies this century. The book is it, like, adds an element of mystique. And you're right. The stories he has about interviewing Kris Kristofferson in the Allman Brothers.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

And David Bowie and Zeppelin. He became friends with all these people at a time when, you know, the Internet and social media didn't exist. And these were like the cool. These were like the coolest people alive back then. And, oh, man, it's so good.

[Michael Batnik]

And so then also after that, after he was done with that, he wrote Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Sean Penn's first role. And Sean Penn happened to be wearing vans. And that put vans on the map.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnik]

And then also basically that was that he invented the teenage movie.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. He went undercover in a high school to write Fast Times from Ridgemont High. It was actually based on a real high school.

[Michael Batnik]

And then he did Jerry Maguire.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. I mean, that's the best audiobook I've ever heard. His. And him telling the stories himself in, like, using inflections and accents for voices. And it's so, so good.

[Michael Batnik]

All right. The other. The other book that I just finished, and this was. This was a. This was a thick book. Can I say this was a thick. Listen, how about.

[Ben Carlson]

You can say it was a long book.

[Michael Batnik]

So James Andrew Miller, he wrote the book about espn. These guys have all the fun. I didn't read that book, but I asked you, I love that book. Is this book in the same format? So I just thought that this was, you know, a book. And it was technically a book, but it was all interviews.

[Ben Carlson]

Like books in that format.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, the entire book was interviews. And the book. What is it even called? Hold on. CIA. James Andrew Miller. So the book was called Powerhouse, the Untold Story of Hollywood's Creators, Creative Artists Agency. So it was a story of Mike Ovitz and his partners who created CIA. He was the most powerful man in Hollywood. And what a personality. What a. What an unbelievable. What an unbelievable personality. I don't want us to say. But this, this was like the book. This was the story of Hollywood through interviews. And it was. It was. Dude, it was everybody from Barbra Streisand to Magic Johnson, all of the partners and everybody involved. Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, like Stallone, De Niro, Scorsese. Everybody was interviewed for the story. And it was unbelievable. Like, cannot.

[Ben Carlson]

I love Hollywood stories.

[Michael Batnik]

I mean, can, cannot, cannot, cannot possibly recommend this highly enough. The personalities, the business. This. I mean, just un. Unbelievable. So two what ifs from. From that book that came out. They wanted. Stallone got the script for Beverly Hills Cop. And he, he hated it. And he wanted to make changes to it. He wanted to rewrite it. And they're like, all right, dude, this.

[Ben Carlson]

This is not a way worse movie.

[Michael Batnik]

With Sly Stallone, of course, but what a crazy what if.

[Ben Carlson]

Can you imagine Sly Stone in that Detroit Lions jacket? Like Murphy?

[Michael Batnik]

No, just. It's not, it's not. Doesn't work. Here's another one that totally, totally doesn't work. This just sounds so weird. Lovitz. John Lovitz. His name is John, right? John Lovitz.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, John Lovitz.

[Michael Batnik]

John Lovitz and Dana Carvey, they wrote Bad Boys for them.

[Ben Carlson]

That's kind of funny.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, you go, what?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, that's a different movie. That's a very forgettable.

[Michael Batnik]

I mentioned this to you, like the story about, about Farley and his last days. And just an unbelievable. This is a lesson, I'm going to say. If you ever wanted to, like listen to a book and just see what it was about, you're not reading this book. It's absurd. I don't know how many pages it was, but it took. It's a 15 hour book.

[Ben Carlson]

This audible section is just you and I giving each other recommendations now.

[Michael Batnik]

Pretty much nobody else is listening. All right, last thing. Oh, industry is back. I freaking love that show. You watch Industry. Did you fall off?

[Ben Carlson]

I fell off. It just, it got too much too, it was too over the top for me.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, it is, it is highly, highly over the top.

[Ben Carlson]

I liked it. The over the top stuff, it's, I feel like just, if they just calm down a little bit, I could, I can't handle it.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. The over the top stuff is gratuitous, but hey, I'm a sick puppy. I like it. Is Landman the best, worst show on tv?

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, I had a, I had a Landman. I talked. It's. If it didn't have Billy Bob Thornton in it, it would be unwatchable because it feels like everyone is in their own TV show. The mom and the daughter are in a different TV show. Like they're in a sitcom. The, the son and his girlfriend who had the guy died and they got a baby like that. That's a totally different show. If it didn't have Billy Bob as the glue, holding all together. He's so good.

[Michael Batnik]

And because this season sucks. I mean, I, I, I'm not enjoying it any less, but objectively, nothing is happening. It's, it should be boring. And yet, and yet, Ben, every time the credits come up, I'm like, that was 50 minutes yeah, it's.

[Ben Carlson]

It's just. And Sam Elliott too. But the Demi Moore plastic surgery totally takes me out of every scene. It's. It's hard. Anyway, my sister sent me this thing. Billy Bob lost his brother at an early age. And he talked about grief and how he channels it in his acting. And he said if I ever seem like sad or melancholy, it's cuz I am. He's like. And I. But he's like. I use that to like, like remember my brother. But I also use it in my acting. He's like a very thoughtful guy. I really like him. Okay, I have my best picture of the year nomination. This is Ben Carlson.

[Michael Batnik]

Only for 2025.

[Ben Carlson]

For 2025. Sentimental value.

[Michael Batnik]

Train Dreams.

[Ben Carlson]

No, Train Dreams was. It got displaced. That's number two.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. As we know, the Leo movie, bottom of the list, Sentimental value. So this is the same people who made the worst person in the world. This is a Norwegian filmmaker, okay. They made this movie and it's the same writers, same directors, they use the same star. This person.

[Michael Batnik]

You're not the worst person in the world.

[Ben Carlson]

I really like that movie. That's kind of. It stuck with me. I really liked it.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, I feel like that's not a you movie.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, so you watched that one. So this is the same. The same girl actress as the lead. Stellan Skarsgard, who you've seen in A million things, is in it. And then Elle Fanning is also in it.

[Michael Batnik]

Is this nominated or this is a personal Ben Carlson nomination?

[Ben Carlson]

It should be, I would imagine. It's nominated. I can't believe it. Wouldn't. I got really good critic reviews, but it's very good. And here's the thing. So half of it's in English, half of it is in Norwegian or I don't know what. And so most of it's subtitles. And I used to hate subtitles, but now it makes you lock into the movie. I can't be on my phone. It makes you watch it. And it's just a very. It's a story about a daughter and a dad. And the dad kind of. He divorced the mom and kind of wasn't in the girls lives and it's them working through the relationship and it just feels real. The whole. It's really well done. And the funny thing is even with a different language most of the time I can still tell that this actress is so good at what she does, even though I can't, you know, understand everything she does except her subtitles. It's very good that's the Ben Carlson Film of the Year. Best picture.

[Michael Batnik]

Wow. Okay, this is dumb question. I assume that should you all like.

[Ben Carlson]

It, you won't like it.

[Michael Batnik]

So, like, I won't like it. I shouldn't watch it?

[Ben Carlson]

Did you like Worst Person in the World?

[Michael Batnik]

If I'm thinking of the movie, yeah, I like that movie. I mean, I didn't love it.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, if you like that movie, give this a try. I think this is better than that. I like this more.

[Michael Batnik]

Wait a minute.

[Ben Carlson]

But it's called sentimental value.

[Michael Batnik]

I did not see this movie. Nope.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnik]

I was thinking of something else.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, I. I wouldn't imagine you've seen. I really like that one. I think this one's better.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, I'm out. Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Not a Michael movie.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Anything else?

[Michael Batnik]

What a crazy week, huh?

[Ben Carlson]

It was.

[Michael Batnik]

And yet the market seems to.

[Ben Carlson]

Yesterday. The stock market is invincible. Oh, boy. Sure seems like it. Yeah. And then we're gonna get a fair.

[Michael Batnik]

Market will never go down, ever.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, how about this? The stock market will go down. It will always come back. Heard it here first, folks. Guaranteed animal spirits@the compoundnews.com. check out Talking wealth. Or other people say, hey, you guys don't plug it. Enough Talking Wealth. Subscribe to the newsletter. If you're an advisor, watch the shows. It's good stuff. See you next week.