Netflix vs. Paramount (EP. 442)

Summary

Animal Spirits Podcast — EP. 442: Netflix vs. Paramount

Date: December 10, 2025
Hosts: Michael Batnick & Ben Carlson
Theme: Finance meets culture as the hosts dig into recent market trends, predictions, bubbles, personal finance, and the bombshell news of Netflix’s bid for Warner Bros.—and what it could mean for Paramount, movie theaters, and streaming.

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles major themes in investing and culture, starting with sweeping trends in U.S. tech stocks, annual prediction reviews, and the changing nature of inflation and wealth. The core of the episode is an in-depth, spirited discussion analyzing the business, creative, and consumer implications of Netflix’s stunning move to acquire Warner Bros., and how this may reshape Hollywood as well as the streaming wars.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Market Concentration & Tech’s Dominance

Timestamps: 02:53–07:17

• Chartkid Matt’s Sector Driver Chart: Tech and communications services (Meta, Google, etc.) now make up ~80% of S&P 500 return this decade.
  • "If you put those two together, tech and comm services account for nearly 80% of the total return this decade in the 2000s." — Ben (03:43)
• Bessembinder Effect: A handful of stocks drive market gains.
• NASDAQ Returns Analysis: Since 1995, only 5 down years for NASDAQ 100—a down year always means a massive 30%+ loss.
  • "Literally, there's five down years since 1995. Every single down year is 30% or worse." — Ben (05:41)
  • "This is a face blower and a melter as well, both at the same time." — Michael (06:21)
• S&P 500's comparable drawdown only in 2008, highlighting unique tech volatility.

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2. Predictions for 2025: Hits and Misses

Timestamps: 08:01–13:38

• Michael walks through his bold 2025 predictions—graded in real time.
  • Private investment surge: Check (Blackstone record flows).
  • Degenerate stocks (“mjunk stocks”) surge: Correct again.
  • Money markets swelling to $8T: Nailed it.
  • Mortgage rates/housing market frozen: Right again.
  • Equal-weight S&P outperforming: Miss—market cap won.
  • Nvidia to disappoint: Half right—stock fell but not on earnings.
  • VIX spiking to 50: After debate, possibly correct intraday.
  • MicroStrategy Levered ETF “blowing up”: Did not happen (yet).
  • Worst 2024 performer rebounds in 2025: Some picks worked (Dollar Tree), some didn’t (Moderna).
  • “Obligatory surprise”: Correct—Liberation Day came out of nowhere.
• "All right, this was a high degree of difficulty here...Momentum keeps going in the first half, but we have a double digit correction in the back half...Gave myself a 1% chance. So absolutely wrong." — Michael (13:11)
• Overall, Michael estimates about 4-5 out of 10 predictions were correct.

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3. OpenAI, Tech Bubbles & Spending

Timestamps: 13:55–19:41

• Joe Weisenthal’s chart: OpenAI’s projected cash burn dwarfs historical losses by Amazon, Uber, Tesla, Spotify.
  • "If OpenAI is...not able to meet its financial obligations. That is...the eye of the storm. That's the epicenter. If we're in a bubble, that's the bubble." — Michael (14:44)
• Unmatched scale of current AI investment could signal a bubble, but must weigh Microsoft’s deep pockets.
• Extensive debate on whether these losses are sustainable, or just creative accounting and hype.
• Commentary on social media personas vs. reality—Michael Burry, “supervillain” perceptions, and authenticity in finance Twitter.

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4. International Stocks, Wealth, and Inflation

Timestamps: 19:47–29:54

• Fidelity’s outlook: International stocks (ex-U.S. ACWI) massively outperformed U.S. in 2025.
  • "International stocks are crushing US stocks right now." — Ben (21:23)
• Predictions that 2026 could see international outperformance break through into mainstream attention.
• 401(k) “millionaire” stats: Only 3.2% of balances over $1M—surprisingly low at first glance.
• Discussion on "moderate millionaires” and how wealth doesn't always equate to changes in spending habits or perceived status.
• Inflation and wage growth: Wages up ~25% this decade, keeping pace with headline inflation, but creates a persistent feeling of "falling behind."
  • "I got a 25% raise and I’m still in the same spot." — Michael (29:54)

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5. Money Flows, Labor Market, and Consumer Behavior

Timestamps: 29:56–33:52

• Robinhood’s surging net deposits raise the perennial question: “Where is all the money coming from?”
• Disposable income and employee compensation outpacing inflation on average, according to Ryan Detrick.
• Labor market cracks: Small businesses (20-49 employees) shed jobs for the 6th time in 7 months—first signs of weakness not yet felt by most consumers.
• "Even if the labor market on the edges...is slowing, people keep spending money." — Ben (33:33)

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6. Wealth, Happiness, and Nostalgia

Timestamps: 33:37–35:28

• Why aren’t Americans happier despite being “wealthier than ever”? Chris Arnade’s thesis: Community and meaning have been sacrificed to consumerism.
  • "We're a material society. It's all hollow." — Michael (34:47)
• Revisiting perennial debates—what class you’re in, how happiness relates to wealth, and whether minds ever truly change (“you’re never changing anyone’s mind on this stuff”).

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7. Consumer Inflation Oddities: Why Are TVs Cheaper?

Timestamps: 35:41–39:14

• Ben marvels at 65” TVs for $250 at Target: Why do TVs always get cheaper, unlike other consumer tech?
• Michael weighs in: TV market is hyper-competitive, people replace TVs less often, and Apple/phones live on planned obsolescence.
• Riff on generational “leaps” in TV tech and kitchen gadgets—material purchases (sometimes) can make you happy.

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8. AI Bubble Check: IBM CEO on Data Center CapEx

Timestamps: 40:24–42:00

• IBM CEO claims it will take $8 trillion in global capex for the coming wave of AI data centers—numbers are “so bananas, it’s hard to wrap your head around.” (40:28)
• Hosts doubt these eye-popping investment projections will hold up or be profitable to fund.

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Main Segment: Netflix’s Blockbuster Warner Bros. Bid

Timestamps: 49:30–59:45

a. The Deal(s), The Stakes

• Netflix has an accepted $72 billion equity (plus $10B debt) offer for Warner Bros.—Paramount was the presumed winner.
• Warner Bros.’ legendary movie/studio roster: Clint Eastwood, Kubrick, Nolan; IPs: Harry Potter, Barbie, Batman, etc.
• Streaming assets: HBO Max/Max, but deal excludes legacy networks (CNN, TNT, etc.).

b. Implications for Hollywood, Movie Theaters, & Consumers

• Netflix reiterates it will keep theatrical releases for now, but Ben is deeply skeptical:
  • "I don't believe you. I think...the writing's on the wall, man. These things are gonna be going straight to streamers for the most part." — Ben (51:33)
• Michael pushes back; the decline of movie theaters is old news, but shorter exclusivity windows will accelerate this trend.
• Most observers (smart money, Belloni, etc.) think a Netflix buy is better for Hollywood labor, but worse for theaters.
• HBO's identity and quality is a major concern for Ben:
  • "My biggest worry is HBO...that’s the crown jewel." — Ben (53:56)
• All agree: The directors/creators matter most, and “IPs won’t guarantee success.”

c. Will the Deal Work? (Spoiler: Probably Not)

• Virtually no big media/entertainment merger of this scale has ever worked.
  • "In our lifetimes, there’s never been an entertainment merger like this that has worked." — Ben (56:52)
• Netflix may see this as a last, desperate land grab against YouTube—increasingly its fiercest competitor.
  • "It does reek of desperation a little bit." — Michael (56:14)
• Is the deal even economically sound? Michael is skeptical about profit/cost synergies.

d. Speculation on Bid War’s Outcome

• Polymarket odds: Paramount 43%, Netflix 38%. Michael leans Paramount—wonders if Netflix is running up the price.
• Breakup fees are costly; shareholder/CEO tension could tip the outcome.
  • "Now Paramount needs Warner. Like if Netflix gets Warner Bros for real and Paramount is just Paramount they're dead." — Michael (58:23)
• Industry faces likely further consolidation; smaller streamers (Peacock, Paramount) likely to merge for survival.

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Quotes & Notable Moments

• "This is the Disruptor buying Hollywood. I mean, Warner Bros. is Hollywood." — Michael (59:15)
• "I just think it’ll be a blessing in disguise if Netflix doesn’t get this, because these deals barely ever work out. That would be my baseline." — Ben (59:22)
• Both hosts agree: If Netflix loses, it's probably a stock-buying opportunity.

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Culture & Recommendations Segment

Timestamps: 61:42–end

• Light, nostalgic banter about classic '90s movies like "Blank Check" and "Brewster's Millions."
• Recommendations for recent movies ("Caught Stealing" with Austin Butler, directed by Darren Aronofsky) and nonfiction audiobooks like “Unscripted.”
• Commentary on 1990s video quality nostalgia: "The video quality was just better back then..." — Ben (67:44)

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Structure by Segment (w/ Key Timestamps)

• Market & Tech Recap: 02:53–07:17
• Prediction Review: 08:01–13:38
• OpenAI & Tech Bubble: 13:55–19:41
• Global Equities & Inflation: 19:47–29:54
• Consumer & Labor Markets: 29:56–33:52
• Wealth & Happiness: 33:37–35:28
• TV Pricing Discussion: 35:41–39:14
• AI Bubble & IBM: 40:24–42:00
• Netflix/Warner Acquisition: 49:30–59:45
• Pop Culture Recs: 61:42–end

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Tone and Style

Conversational, irreverent, and analytical—Michael and Ben maintain a casual and often witty banter, balancing deep dives into data and industry commentary with relatable personal anecdotes and pop culture references.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode centers around the increasingly narrow drivers of market returns, irrational exuberance in AI funding, and the seismic shift Netflix’s proposed Warner Bros. acquisition would mean for the business of entertainment. Both hosts bring a skeptical edge: tech bubbles don’t last forever, most streaming/media mergers flop, and the next phase of Hollywood may not look as glory-filled as yesteryear—but for investors and consumers, it’s a story worth watching play out.

Transcript

[Michael Batnick]

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[Ben Carlson]

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[Michael Batnick]

You're exactly right Ben. Chart Kid Matt has already done the analyst work for you. Just drop in your logo, your headshot, brand colors and kaboom. You get instant access to over 140 of the industry's best charts, all updated daily with expert key talking points. Build your decks, quarterly reports and marketing material all branded, clean, compliance, friendly and client ready. Plus we drop a brand new Chart of the Week every Friday so you've always got fresh, timely charts to share. It's like having a full research team behind you for 95% less of the cost. Book a demo with Chart Kid Matt right now by scanning the QR code on the screen. And for advisors that are listening, head to exhibit a for advice.com to learn more.

[Ben Carlson]

Hey listen, every week I'm giving Matt ideas. Hey Matt, how about this chart for Chart of the Week? How about this one? And we're building them together so that's like up to date charts too. You're not going to get that anywhere else, Matt.

[Michael Batnick]

Gbt that's Right.

[Ben Carlson]

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

[Michael Batnick]

All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do.

[Ben Carlson]

Not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management.

[Michael Batnick]

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

[Ben Carlson]

Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Let's get it out of the way quickly here. Every week, people ask, ben, what are you wearing? It's like, I feel like I'm on the red carpet. This is a Marine Lair sweatshirt again. Okay, I'm just gonna put it out there so I don't have to answer question. All right. We spoke about Chart kid Matt a second ago. He had a great chart on his blog. I told him so. He has got. It's chartkidmat.com. i said, hey, man, you need to do a chart of the day. I. I don't want to, like, give you too much homework. Chart of the day, Chart of the day. We give him a ton of homework. I said, all the charts that we ask you to do is put it on your blog. You can do a chart of the day. He said that maybe that's too much, but. So he's got this chart that shows us sector drivers in the 2020s. Okay. Sector contributions for the S&P 500. And no surprise, tech is a big, huge weight. And of course, comm services. Put those together. Because Comm services is what, Meta?

[Michael Batnick]

Google.

[Ben Carlson]

What else? Google. Okay, so that's basically tech. So if you put those two together, tech and comm services account for nearly 80% of the total return this decade in the 2000s. Not hugely surprising, but still a gigantic number.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, massive, massive, massive. All right, this was.

[Ben Carlson]

Sorry. My point here is. This is the Bessem Binder study. Though the history of the stock market is a handful of winners drive the majority of the gains. And that's what we're seeing in the 2000 and twenties.

[Michael Batnick]

For Exhibit A, chart of the week. Matt compared the tech bubble peaking now. I took a little bit of umbrage with this chart. I said, hey, I don't get it. Why are you using. Why are you using?

Gosh dang, my eyes are bad.

[Ben Carlson]

It's from June of 2024.

[Michael Batnick]

No, I said, why did you use June 2010 as the start date? And his point was, if the market were to peak today, Comparing that with the previous run up to the tech bubble peak, that's where he got June 10th from. But whatever the. The starting point aside, the point remains. Obviously, this looks nothing, nothing like the run up to the peak from 98 to 2000 when the NASDAQ, like at that point, the Nasdaq, we should probably have these numbers handy, but whatever. From 95 to 98, the NASDAQ went 100 or the NASDAQ composite was up. How much was it up? 300%, whatever it was. And then the final, like, year and a half to the run up, it doubled again.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, it was like 500%. That tripled last five years. But here's the thing. Those returns were more compressed. You could say these returns are way more spread out. But the magnet, it's a. It's just not as compressed. The magnitude is still pretty great when you look at it over a longer period of time.

[Michael Batnick]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

So I had Matt create this chart with me. I gave him the data, he created the chart. That's kind of how it works here. And I had never looked at this before. I know The S&P 500 returns pretty good. Like, I can. They're all up here. The NASDAQ 100, I don't know as well. So I looked at all the NASDAQ 100 annual.

[Michael Batnick]

They're not all up there.

[Ben Carlson]

They're pretty up there.

[Michael Batnick]

I'm not going to quiz you right now, but come on, give me a.

[Ben Carlson]

Year in the last 20 years. All right, that's my party favorite trick. So I looked at the NASDAQ 100 returns to show how random they are going back to 1995. And we ran these numbers and Matt and I looked at this and go, huh, this is really weird. So first of all, the thing that stands out is, well, there's way more gains and losses out of the last 31 years. And this includes the dot com bubble, obviously, popping 26 out of the 31 are positive, including this year. But then we looked at the negative returns and we go, holy cow, this is crazy. Literally, there's five down years since 1995. Every single down year is 30% or worse. Is that not like. I had no idea that was the case.

[Michael Batnick]

This is a face blower and a melter as well, both at the same time. Look how bad the dot com bubble bust was. Down 36%, down 33%, down 37%. Imagine losing more than a third of the value every year for three years.

[Ben Carlson]

Back to back to back. Yeah, that's. That's Insane, I guess.

[Michael Batnick]

I gotta be honest. I would have stayed away from stocks for a decade at least.

[Ben Carlson]

It is kind of crazy that tech people kept so optimistic. Obviously there was a 10 year period.

[Michael Batnick]

Like a winter says they stayed optimistic.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, I mean they kept, they got back in somehow. But yes. So 2022 is the last one before that was 2008. So every single down year has been a of 30% or worse in the last 30 years, which is just absolutely insane when you think about it.

[Michael Batnick]

That is insane. And I, I.

[Ben Carlson]

So the S and P in the same time, the S and P had one down 30% year more and that was 2008.

[Michael Batnick]

Good golly miss Molly. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this won't hold forever. Not every time the NASDAQ 100 falls, will it? Will it fall by 30% or more. But this is a hell of a chart. Why I did not know this.

[Ben Carlson]

So the since 1995, the NASDAQ 100 has compounded at 15% per year. The S&P is 11%. And this is inclusive obviously of two. I guess if you call this a bubble. It's two bubbles and then one huge bursting, which I think the NASDAQ fell 83% peak to trough after the dot com bubble. And so inclusive of an 80% crash, you still got 15% per year annually, which is just insane. Plus five different face rippers of calendar returns and three back to back to back. Anyway, this is one of those. Huh, I did not know that.

[Michael Batnick]

All right. I don't know if 2025 was a particularly strange year, but for me personally.

[Ben Carlson]

Every year in the 2020s has been strange.

[Michael Batnick]

That's true.

[Ben Carlson]

There is. There to me is a pre Covid post. Covid. Everything in my life now I almost look through that lens like it's almost impossible not to.

[Michael Batnick]

20. No 100% watershed moment for civilization. 2020 today is a bit of a blur.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, for sure. The. The world just feels totally different after Covid happened.

[Michael Batnick]

Although anecdote coming in. The train station in my town is back to normal. I know office occupancy isn't. Subway turnstiles aren't, but it feels like everybody's back to work.

[Ben Carlson]

And what do you think it was?

[Michael Batnick]

It's not, it's not five days a week, of course, but I go in on Thursday, it's packed. The. The parking lots are full again.

[Ben Carlson]

But a couple years ago it was what, 50% full? 75%.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. All right. Anyway, I say that because I was Looking at, I was revisiting my 2025 predictions, which I haven't looked at since I made them. And I honestly, like, I remember writing this, but if you asked me to name one of my 10 predictions, I don't think I could have done it. Like, I totally forgot what I wrote.

[Ben Carlson]

Bitcoin's going to crash. There's gonna be a correction. What did you say? Oh, here they are.

[Michael Batnick]

You know, they're right. Anyway, these are all news to me. So let's see how I did. You know what I did this year? I, I did it in gambling odds. Right. I like, because I think a couple years ago, I, I said a few things that were like, outlandish, obviously, like, it was a long shot. So I wanted to make sure that I still, I staked my claim.

[Ben Carlson]

Right. If you call them surprises, no one can call you out on them when they don't happen. I like, I like the odds thing.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. Okay. All right. So private investment surge was number one. That was my, my table pounder. I probably should brought data to this conversation. So. Forgive me, but I'm pretty sure I got this one right. The, the little hiccup a couple of weeks notwithstanding. A couple of weeks ago.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, some, some might take umbrage with that because of the blue owl thing, but that doesn't mean the money stopped flowing.

[Michael Batnick]

That doesn't do with any. With my prediction. So I remember I listened to Blackstone last quarter, as I always do, and they did have record flows in the, in the third quarter. So I feel like I, I need data to, to make sure that this is accurate. But I feel like green check here.

[Ben Carlson]

I feel like with all things the headlines versus the data will tell you two completely different. Sure.

[Michael Batnick]

All right. Degens aren't leaving. They're not, I think leaving. Yeah, sure. The DJ Dow had a hell of a year actually. In fact, this was a great year for degenerate stocks. Iran, Oklo, rigatoni, all the stocks. Absolutely. So that was.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnick]

Money, money stays in money market funds. 75% chance. Nailed it up. It's almost up to 8 trillion.

[Ben Carlson]

I would tell you that this is a, this is an easy pick, but you were on this way before anyone else. You were saying two years ago.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, yeah, I was early here.

[Ben Carlson]

You were saying it before and it was cool. Yes, I agree.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

It seems like an easy one now, but you did nail that one early.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, so that. So. All right, so here's next one is a 71% chance. So these, these four, I was very confident in 70% chance are better. Mortgage rates remain high. The housing market stays frozen. Check for sure. Okay.

This was a Grand Rapids hedge if there ever was one. Equal weight outperforms cap weight. 52 chance. That's right down the middle. That's a coin toss. That did not happen. Correct. Equal weight is lagging.

[Ben Carlson]

No. Yeah, definitely. Market cap is beating.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay. Nvidia to disappoint on an earnings release. Stock closes down 10 on the day. Half right.

[Ben Carlson]

Should have said. You should have said closes on 20 then half right.

[Michael Batnick]

So it did fall 10 on a day, but that was during back in Deep seek. Remember that?

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

But it did not disappoint on earnings. Vix.

[Ben Carlson]

Wait, hang on. So S P is up 18. Equal weights up 11.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, so big miss.

Okay. Nvidia. Okay, I said that already. Vic spiked to 50. 41 chance. Nope. Vic. Nope.

[Ben Carlson]

We didn't get to 50 during Liberation Day. What did we get to?

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, you know what?

[Ben Carlson]

We might have.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't. Okay, you know what? Maybe, Maybe we did. So I actually looked at this. A Vic spike to 50 does not happen that often. You think it happens every year? It doesn't. Wait a minute.

[Ben Carlson]

Like 40.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, no.

[Ben Carlson]

37.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, no.

[Ben Carlson]

We did it.

[Michael Batnick]

No, we did get there. Okay, Chuck, we did get there.

[Ben Carlson]

Intraday. All right. Yeah, it was. That makes sense.

[Michael Batnick]

All right. MicroStrategy Levered ETF blows up.

That was.

[Ben Carlson]

So I got a couple weeks for that one to happen.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, that didn't happen. That was a 3% chance. What I meant was, like, literally go kabooy. Like, go Haywire and fall 90 in a day. Now the, the MicroStrategy levered ETFs are down like, 99 or what? What? I mean, they're down a lot. But in, in fairness and in the spirit of what I was writing, I meant that literally. Like, the swaps that they were using were going to go haywire and the whole thing was going to unravel in a day. That did not happen.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnick]

The worst performance at 24 will be the best in 25. Know what? I apologize. I should, I should have looked at this before I put these in here. I do remember writing about Dollar General and Dollar Tree specifically. And that did happen. In fact, I, I, I know what I mentioned. I mentioned Dollar Dollar Tree or General as some of the best, and Moderna as well. I, I did buy both of these stocks. I cut my loss on Moderna because that was a crap stock. That did not.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm gonna, I'm gonna Say that one's wrong. I'm gonna be wrong on that one. That's, that's a red X.

[Michael Batnick]

Fine. But, but specifically I mentioned dollar tree, and that stock is one of the best stocks of the year.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, this was, this was a high degree of difficulty here. I, I really called my shot with this one. This was getting very cute. Momentum keeps going in the first half, but we have a double digit correction in the back half. And, and down on the air, I gave myself a 1% chance. So absolutely wrong.

[Ben Carlson]

And then correction was a first half story.

[Michael Batnick]

It was, it really was. And then the obligatory something comes out of nowhere that makes at least half these predictions look very dumb. 90 chance of getting that one right. And I did. Liberation Day came out of nowhere. So those are my predictions. Not bad. Pretty good, actually. Four out of ten. Five out of ten.

[Ben Carlson]

We're on course to have an average up year. My average up year is 20 to 21% gain. We're right on track for that.

[Michael Batnick]

Very business as usual.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, like always. Okay, so this chart was making the rounds. This is from Joe Weisenthal. So Jim Reed via Joe Weisenthal.

[Michael Batnick]

Wait, can I show. Yeah, Joe and Tracy are coming on TCAT this week.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, nice. Yeah, we're crossing worlds here, huh? Okay, showing how much OpenAI is expected to burn before turning a profit. And this shows Amazon and Spotify and Tesla and Uber as they're ramping up. Right. And it shows, obviously the OpenAI is burning way, way more money before turning a profit. And obviously it seems to me like if OpenAI was a public company, it would be down 40% right now. Right? Easily. This, this seems to be the poster child. And I'm not sure it matters because they have Microsoft behind them and all these other companies. But like, isn't that the thing? Like if, if this was a public company, you think, man, this thing would get me smoked. But I don't know. I don't know if it really matters because all these other companies, they have to succeed for these other companies to succeed.

[Michael Batnick]

Here's where it matters. If OpenAI is, is if open AI fails and like literally is not able to meet its financial obligations. That, that is, that's the eye of the storm. That's the epicenter. If we're in a bubble, that's the bubble. It's right there. It's a, a trillion dollar market cap. If they fail, we're in, we're in deep duty.

[Ben Carlson]

Because then these companies will have to divert some of their cash flows to help them as opposed to continuing to invest. Right.

[Michael Batnick]

It's just all of the belief. If the belief goes where, that's it. Kaput. By the way, did you. You listen. Oh, you told me that you listen to Michael Barry with Michael Lewis. I listen to him as well.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes.

[Michael Batnick]

He sounds. His voice and his manner of speaking did sound a bit like Sam Altman to me. And I'm not making the criminal connection at all. I'm just saying, like, I do genuinely believe. I mean, he said it twice on the podcast that he's on the spectrum. It's so wild, the disconnect between social media personality. On social media, you could be anyone. He's like. I think he's like, sort of playing a super villain. I don't know if he. If he views himself that way. I would imagine that he.

[Ben Carlson]

You know, sometimes it's also the. The picture you use on social media. His picture looks kind of mean.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

And it's. It's. I look. I look at it when I. I'm a big okay guy on texts. When I. My wife will text me this long thing and I'll say, okay, and she'll mean. She'll. She'll be. She'll take offense to it. What do you mean, okay? Just okay. That's all. And she takes offense. So I think that's the disconnect you have in your mind. Also, this thing on social media, plus the Christian Bale thing. You're right. When I view the Christian Bale character on the movie versus listening to him with Michael Lewis, that's two completely different people. But they completely embellished him for the movie, which, duh. It's a movie.

He.

[Michael Batnick]

He is the guy, though, whenever his 13F comes out, every major media outlet. Ha. Like, because he's the big short guy. Right? And we know how this works. But if he were to. If he were to tweet in voice instead of in text, like, people would.

[Ben Carlson]

Be like, oh, yeah, it's not as scary. Yeah, I agree. His voice doesn't sound nearly as imposing as his, like, presence that you have built up in your mind from reading about him in a book and seeing him on a movie played by Christian Bale.

[Michael Batnick]

And this is. This is the thing with social media. You could be anyone who you. You want to be. Everything is taken out of context.

[Ben Carlson]

We always talk about this. We've met a lot of people on social media that are like, the biggest, hugest doomers in the world. And you meet them in real life and you go, oh, he's like a little Puppy dog. He's not really like this. He's playing a character for social media.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. Which, by the way, that drives me nuts. Drives me nuts. I can't. To me, it's like.

Which is the real person?

[Ben Carlson]

Right?

[Michael Batnick]

Is social media the act or is the in person the act? And I don't know. In some cases, it's social.

[Ben Carlson]

It's like, when.

[Michael Batnick]

But if you're. If you're a dick, just at least be that way.

[Ben Carlson]

I remember we had. We went to. When I went to college, there was a guy who. It was another. I became friends with a. With a group of guys and they said, hey, this. That guy over there. He went to our high school. And they said he wasn't like this in high school. He's trying to change his personality for college, which, hey, more power to you. But they're like, that's not really what he's like. He's doing this as a show for college. And that's what social media is. You try to become a different person between high school and college.

[Michael Batnick]

Credit to me. I'm pretty sure when I was active on Twitter that my online personality was more or less in line with my real life personality.

[Ben Carlson]

I try as well. I'm very sarcastic on Twitter and people on social media do not get sarcasm.

[Michael Batnick]

Although you are more. You're not like that in real life, so maybe. Maybe you're part of the problem. Now that I think about it, I'm.

[Ben Carlson]

Not sarcastic in real life.

[Michael Batnick]

You're not a jerk?

[Ben Carlson]

Seriously?

[Michael Batnick]

Seriously. No.

[Ben Carlson]

Huh? Oh, I'm not a jerk on social media. What are you talking about?

[Michael Batnick]

But sarcasm is like a jerk. Equality.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, what? No. Not if it's in jest.

[Michael Batnick]

On. On social media, sarcasm is jerky.

[Ben Carlson]

Get out of here. That's just because people don't understand it.

[Michael Batnick]

You think sarcasm is highbrow. You're talking over people's heads.

[Ben Carlson]

I think sarcasm is funny. That's my favorite kind of humor. Could I be any more sarcastic? Chandler. Right? That's a great character.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, anyway, back to this chart. This is a projection. Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

To 2029. You're right.

[Michael Batnick]

It's not like these are the losses to data. And it's like, oh, my God, like, recalibrate everything. This is not gonna be right.

[Ben Carlson]

You could say, listen, this is way bigger than Amazon in 94 to 2002. That means OpenAI is gonna be way bigger than Amazon too, because they're taking way more losses. They're just piling it up now so they can make more down the line.

[Michael Batnick]

If this does come true, who's funding all these losses?

[Ben Carlson]

All the big tech firms. Right? Yeah, you're right. You're right. This chart's never gonna come true. No way. The ROI has to happen way before 2029.

[Michael Batnick]

I just don't think that there's $140 billion worth of losses to be funded. At some point, people will be like, hey, you know what? Probably not a great use of capital, right?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. Microsoft CEO is going to say, no, this is not. We're doing anymore. Sorry.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

End of story.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay. This next segment is brought to you by Fidelity. Ben.

[Ben Carlson]

It is.

[Michael Batnick]

It's earnings season. It's outlook season. Excuse me, Are you an outlook guy? You probably.

[Ben Carlson]

I like to follow the outlooks. You're talking about your own outlook, right? Predictions. It is. It is funny because I think we all agree that there's a folly of making predictions and forecasts, but I think everyone has to do it. It's entertaining, right? It's fun.

[Michael Batnick]

I love it. All right. Anyway, go to fidelity.com to learn more. Link in show notes for what we're talking about here. All right, so they've got their outlook and they've got like, six different, like, tiles. So I clicked on this one. International stocks reignite. We've shared this chart before, many times. I don't know why I just did this. Like, I'm like a weather person. Global stock market PE ratios. US of course, way above emerging and developed. But here's the thing. Ben, did you know, I think you probably did. The degree to which international stocks are outperforming US stocks, I feel like this is way under reported. Granted, it's only one year, but it's like massive acqui x US is up 30%. 30. And the US the Russell 3700, a great year, up 17%. That's a giant spread.

[Ben Carlson]

And the. The giant leap, the fall in the dollar already happened. The dollar has more or less kind of stabilized, right? It fell 10% and then it kind of stabilized the rest of the year. So it's not like this is just a continuation of the dollar falling. International stocks have just continued to go up and there's. There's been something of a rerating in not only the dollar, but valuations have come up a little bit, which is good. Investors are actually interested in these stocks Again, sir, I think that we're not talking about this nearly enough that, hey, in the midst of this huge AI bubble everyone's talking about, international stocks are crushing US Stocks right now.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, early peak at my predictions for 2026, this is gonna be on the list. Not only are international stocks going to outperform again next year, but it is going to be the year where finally the media pays attention, not fine. I mean, it's only been. It's only been one year, but it's going to be. It's going to be headline stuff because you know what reality is? You zoom out. Who cares? It's a blip, right? Like, if you look at the ratio chart, this is. Doesn't really register. Give it. Give it another year. It'll start to register.

[Ben Carlson]

Do you also think the dollar will continue to fall or is this just a rerating of the stocks then? That a currency play or a stock play?

[Michael Batnick]

Stay tuned.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, you have to do A, like a 7A and 7B for that prediction.

[Michael Batnick]

All right. Fidelity's brokerage, they are. I don't know if they're the largest 401k provider, record keeper, whatever it is, in the world. They probably are.

[Ben Carlson]

I think they are.

[Michael Batnick]

And then Vanguard's point next, 654,401 K millionaires. That's 3.2% of balances.

[Ben Carlson]

Now, that sounds like a low.

[Michael Batnick]

That's lower than I would have thought.

[Ben Carlson]

But think about it, though. How many people have all of their money in a 401k? Plus people change jobs. And so a 401k stays over here and maybe you don't roll it over. So the fact that there are even that many hundreds of thousands of 401k millionaires, I think that's impressive.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, good point. I guess I just would have guessed it was higher.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, you're not impressed. All right, so this, this.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, no, I'm not impressed. I'm surprised. I would have thought it was higher. But I think you make a valid point too.

[Ben Carlson]

Right? So 654,000 sounds like a lot. 3.2% doesn't sound like a lot. So this. In this Wall Street Journal article, they also talk about how there's this. Someone gives the phrase moderate millionaires, and it says if you're worth one to five million dollars, you're a moderate millionaire. Which sounds kind of degrading, but. So UBS estimates that the number of such millionaires around the world has quadrupled since 2000. 52 million this year. There were a thousand of these moderate millionaires added every single day in the US last year.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, so that's the number. Hold on. 52 million around the world.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes.

[Michael Batnick]

And a thousand million a day in the U.S. okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Wow. So so then they talk to the chief economist, ebs, and he says popular culture still thinks of millionaires in terms of Scrooge McDuck or the top hatted icon of Monopoly. The new dollar millionaires have a broken psychological wealth threshold, but their income and spending is that of a middle class household. He said spending like a stereotypical millionaire probably requires at least $5 million. He said, so this is another one of those things like you think you're rich. Yeah. You're not rich. But guess what? This is just the millionaire next door. This is nothing new. So it says that, like, they have this psychological wealth threshold, but their income and spending doesn't match it. That's a good thing. How do you think these people became wealthy? Because they have a middle class household spending an income. This is how they did it. It's like they're trying to reverse, you know, if they spent like a typical millionaire, they wouldn't be millionaires. Duh. That's the thing. This is millionaire Next door stuff. Come on, people.

[Michael Batnick]

This morning.

I showed Kobe a movie that you might be shocked to learn that I saw this movie in the theater.

[Ben Carlson]

No way. When you were six. Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

What's that?

[Ben Carlson]

When you were six?

[Michael Batnick]

I was nine.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

About his age. All right. 1994. I'm sure you saw this movie, Blank Check.

[Ben Carlson]

Ah, yes.

[Michael Batnick]

So blank. Right. You saw that movie? Blank Check is. I'm positive. I saw that at somebody's birthday party. Black check is on Disney.

James Reborn. The ultimate. That guy. Right. The dad. So he was the dad in Blank check. He was 45 in that movie. I guess maybe that looks about right. But he was. He was your age in that movie, Right? How.

[Ben Carlson]

And he looked that way his whole life pretty much seems like. Right.

[Michael Batnick]

So the story of that movie, this kid gets a blank check and he. He has like. He's like, oh, no, it's my boss's money. It's Mr. McIntosh. Remember that?

[Ben Carlson]

Because a car hits him or something. The guy just gives him a check. Does he write it for a million dollars?

[Michael Batnick]

Great recall, Ben. Wow. Credit to you.

[Ben Carlson]

I remember that. Does he write it for a million dollars? I don't remember.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

So his dad. So he gets a blank check from his grandma. His dad asks, how much did he get last year? 10 bucks. And the kid goes, yeah, but what about inflation? So he gives him $11. He plugs into his computer. This kid was very savvy. He plugs into his computer. I forget what the interest rate was. How much would it. How many years would it Take to go from $11 to a million. It said like 340,000 years. Kobe lost it. He thought it was the funniest thing ever. Anyway, great movie for kids, Stunt Disney.

[Ben Carlson]

Did you ever see the movie from the 80s, Brewster's Millions?

[Michael Batnick]

No.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. It's a John Candy classic. So it's, it's John Candy and Richard Pryor. And he has 30 days to spend $30 million. But he can't just give it away. And if he does gives away 30 million, he inherits 300 million. It's a good one. And he has a hard time spending that much money in the 80s today. I think that would be very easy. Okay. We didn't mention this last week, but Goldman Sachs bought integrated ETFs. We had our first talk, your book interview with Bruce Bond, I think in 2018.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

And we did it. We were in Chicago visiting our office there and we were in like the basement.

[Michael Batnick]

Where were we?

[Ben Carlson]

We were in the basement of a WeWork building. Okay, right. So we interviewed Bruce Bond there and he told us the idea and the light bulb immediate went on for both of us and go, oh my gosh, this is going to be huge. And we've been saying this like we could just tell for advisors and clients and retirees, this idea is going to be massive. And every time we talk to Bruce, we talked to him, I don't know, half dozen times over the years, maybe more. And every time we talk to him, the assets would get bigger and bigger and bigger. And, and last week, Goldman Sachs is going to buy them for $2 billion. Now a lot of people looked at it, said, Geez, $2 billion. And they, they managed 28 billion. Right. That seems like a lot in terms.

[Michael Batnick]

Of like a multiple, it's going to be 100 billion.

[Ben Carlson]

But also a lot of, a lot of other people said also Goldman Sachs can do the option flow, right? So they, these are option strategies. So they can make money there somehow too. But there's a lot of people in the industry who, who don't like these kind of strategies and don't get them and they say they're suboptimal. And if you did, if you use this optimization strategy, you could do this and make the same return stream. And I think it just totally misses, that's a total spreadsheet mindset that misses the psychological component of these strategies. And I think that's the thing you and I latched onto immediately. It's a psychological thing, not a number spreadsheet thing. And that's why this thing was such a success and garnered so much money. And it's an interesting pairing, I think, for Goldman, but obviously they wanted to increase their ETF business.

[Michael Batnick]

Shout to Bruce and the whole team. Very happy for them. What a. What an exit. It's awesome.

[Ben Carlson]

Great guy, too, in his second huge exit because he was a powershares as well. And they bought out.

[Michael Batnick]

Was it. I was a power pro.

[Ben Carlson]

What did I say? Okay. One of the P's, One of the things you and I have been talking about for years now is where does this money keep coming from? People, you know, putting more money into stocks and more money in the money markets and bitcoin and everything. Ryan Dietrich from Carson Group, also with the Facts and Feeling podcast, which is great. He says disposable income and employee compensation continue to grow faster than inflation. And he looks at it over the past three, six and one year periods and he's looking at disposable income and employee compensation. Then PCE inflation, which is the Fed's inflation rate that they look at.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, no. You have to say their preferred gauge.

[Ben Carlson]

Sorry, preferred gauge. True. And disposable income and compensation continues to grow at a pace that's faster than inflation. And this is the piece that we never talk about. When people complain about inflation, it's also bringing up this. And I know because we know why this is. When people get a raise, they think it's them. When inflation happens, they think it's the government. But this people just have more. I don't think people realize with inflation rising 25% this decade, that also means pretty much a commensurate 25% increase in wages and salaries on a nominal. Right. A nominal basis. And I think it's actually been a little bit more. That's where a lot of this money is coming from. People have more money to spend now.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. You know what I think if you poll a hundred people with the benefit of hindsight, I think most people would say, you know what? I'd rather like 1 1/2% wage gains and 1.8% inflation. I'd rather lose to inflation than. And have normal price increases than this.

[Ben Carlson]

I agree.

[Michael Batnick]

People would rather inflation be a invisible tax than this.

[Ben Carlson]

It is.

[Michael Batnick]

With this, it feels like I can't get ahead. I got a 25% raise and I'm still in the same spot.

[Ben Carlson]

It is funny, people. Yeah. The people prefer the 2010s, which was that situation. But it's funny back then. Remember, all the policy wonks were going, we need to get inflation higher. This is too low. Well, but yes, exactly.

[Michael Batnick]

Speaking of, like, where does he want to keep coming from? We had Vlad on tcaf. Did you listen to that?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. Yeah, he's, I mean, they're, gonna, they think they're gonna rule the world.

[Michael Batnick]

I guess I really enjoyed spending time with him, frankly, more than I thought. I, I, I, I enjoyed his company.

[Ben Carlson]

Did you really like his hair? Is that what, that, what it was?

[Michael Batnick]

D I really like his hair. Are you kidding me?

[Ben Carlson]

He's got some nice hair.

[Michael Batnick]

It's incredible. In the third quarter, their net deposits was like, I can't remember if it was 20 billion or 28 billion. Where's all the money coming from? This is, I mean, it's just wages. Right. Where else could be coming from?

[Ben Carlson]

Right. And yeah, and obviously the thing that they've done with the breaking down the barriers is you have the automatic deposits on. Right. And that money just keeps coming and coming and coming. And every time you get new customers, their money keeps coming and coming. It's compounding on top of compounding. So not only is the market up, but more money is coming in on top of that.

[Michael Batnick]

We spoke briefly about what it was like for him in the aftermath of the Gamestop stuff. Like, I can't imagine how many death threats he got. Right. People are, he was, he, he went from relatively unknown character to front page of every magazine.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnick]

Like overnight, global villain like that must have been a wild personal experience.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. Sometimes people do separate the. That there's people involved in these things too. Yes.

[Michael Batnick]

It's all right. The labor market is not doing very well. I think the stock market has probably overshadowed this. We'd be talking a lot more about the, the, the cooling economy if the stock market wasn't doing what it was doing. So Kevin Gordon tweeted last week. Oof. Businesses with 20 to 49 employees shed 74,000 payrolls in November. That was the sixth decline out of the past seven months and the largest drop since October 2020. That's really bad. These are pretty small businesses.

Six declines in the last seven months.

[Ben Carlson]

So you said that the stock market doesn't seem to care yet. Consumers don't care yet either. So this is from our friends at the Transcript. They always have good stuff. I feel like I'm, I'm pulling a Michael Badnik here, but they pulled stuff from the MasterCard CEO, the Visa CEO, and then Travel and Leisure Company. I don't know that one. TNL. And they talk about the difference between sentiment and actual behavior again. So this is what we keep Coming back to. So the labor market is not impacting consumer behavior yet, According to these CEOs, he says there's a divergence between the soft and hard data. We read all the headlines and some of the survey results around the consumer sentiment. It seems inclusive and groomy, gloomy. But what we see in the hard data continues to be very supportive of consistent spend metrics. Through October into the first two weeks of November, we've seen spending metrics across all our key drivers remain generally in line. And so we're encouraged by that. That's MasterCard. Same thing with Visa. Right. If I had to use one word, it would be stable. If I had two, it'd be stable. And strong people continue to spend. And then this travel and leisure person says one thread for us has been super consistent. Has been the performance of our consumer. Our consumer has held up very nicely and looking forward to stepping into 2026. People keep spending money. So even if the labor market on the edges, because I think that's what it is. Labor market is slowing on the edges. It's not. The unemployment rate is still below 5%. Right. So I know when people lose jobs, that's. That's tough. It's hardship. If the unemployment rate goes from 4.5% right now to five and a half percent. Right. That's a lot. That's millions of people losing their jobs. There's still hundreds of millions of people are still working and spending. So doesn't it seem like it could be a while before this labor market actually translates into a bad economy? It's going to have to get way worse, I think, before it really translates. That's my theory.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, I think that's. I mean, that's right.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. For a while, at least. Remember, I think there's. You've pulled a Brett Favre a few times on the Cape ratio and said like, hey, I'm retiring from talking about the Cape ratio ever again. And then it comes back. I think I want to talk about this wealth and happiness thing one more time, then put it to bed for a little while. Not forever, obviously.

[Michael Batnick]

Can you not compare me to Brett Favre? Maybe use somebody else?

[Ben Carlson]

Not the one that comes. Comes to mind. Yeah, that's true. So I thought that Chris Arnott. Chris. How do you say his last name? Chris Arnade. Chris Arnotti. I've never. He has this Chris or not. He walks the world. So he's the guy who used to be a Wall street trader and now he just. He goes around the world and he Travels and he walks and he talks to people. And he basically says, like, I want to kind of give my theory on this. Like, why, even if, even if we're the wealthiest we've ever been in this country in the history of the world, why are there so many people are still unhappy? And why do we keep having these debates about what is wealth? And are you rich or are they rich, or why aren't rich people happier? And he says, Americans are materially wealthy and unfulfilled. The primary problem is cultural. We've sacrificed community and meaning to emphasize an archetype built on acquiring as much stuff as possible. But then we have made that unnecessarily hard to do. And his whole thing is like.

You can have all the money in the world, but without meaning, it doesn't matter. And there's a community and there's no.

[Michael Batnick]

We're a material society. And it's. It's all. It's all hollow.

[Ben Carlson]

So, yeah, that's the, that's the thing. That's why all the material, you can say, hey, we have iPhones now. We have this and we have this and we have that, and everyone have two cars and three car garages. And that stuff doesn't bring happiness. And that's his whole point. If there's no meaning behind the money, it doesn't matter. And that I thought that the good, like, stamp on this thing and.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, let's revisit.

[Ben Carlson]

Also, we've realized we're never changing anyone's mind on this stuff, right? You should feel wealthier. You shouldn't feel you're in this class, you're in that class. Literally, no one's changing their mind on that. That's never going to happen. Okay, let's move on. Okay, I've got a question for you on inflation. So I tweeted this out. We were at Target last week. We actually went to Target and made our kids because, like, I'm trying the hardest we can to not raise spoiled kids because they're talking about all the stuff they want for Christmas. And so I found my wife and they said, all right, we're going to Target and we're picking out toys for tots stuff for other kids, right? You guys have to learn and you're not getting anything.

[Michael Batnick]

Good for you. I love that.

[Ben Carlson]

So we got a big Toys for Tots box at my Planet Fitness that I go to, and I dropped them all off. So I said, I tweeted this, I saw a 65 inch TV at Target for $250 and I said, it feels like someday Netflix is just gonna give us all TVs and say, hey, here's a TV for you. It comes preloaded with Netflix. That's part of your subscription. So phones are more expensive, computers are more expensive, automobiles are more expensive. Why do TVs keep getting so much cheaper every single year? TVs get better in quality and they go down in price. I do not get it. Why is it everything else is exp. More expensive besides TVs? Please explain it to me.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay. I would say the business model and the economics, that's like my knee jerk reaction. Apple knows that you're going to replace the phone. Like they just know you're going to. The phone's gonna slow down, technology's gonna get better and they can raise the price. I think the TV market is hyper competitive. People don't replace our TVs every day, except for me. And they need to compete on. And so that's why prices are cheaper.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't get. And so I've, my new theory for TVs is we have a really decently nice TV in like the main family room, right? We have one of those frame Samsung ones and then all the other TVs we have. Cause I love TVs all over the place is a really like I get the cheaper versions now because I know in three or four years I'm gonna just replace it because there's gonna be a nicer, faster, better picture. And I just, I don't understand. Someone's gotta give me explainer why they keep getting cheaper. Like there has to be a technological component to it. Like what's the inflation piece that this technology is getting cheaper?

[Michael Batnick]

Well, do you think, do you think the cost to manufacture the iPhone keeps going up? I doubt it. I mean, maybe it does. I don't know.

[Ben Carlson]

I mean there's more stuff. I just. Someone who knows this stuff.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, how about this? You know what? The. The technology of the iPhone is incredible. I know that they're spending gazillions of dollars in capex, so I, I take that back. I'm sure it is going up, but is it going up commensurate with the price increases? That part I doubt.

[Ben Carlson]

I, I think obviously phones are an amazing leap forward, but I think just TVs from what we grew up with, the tube TV, the box, remember the Zenith Brown stuff all around it. It was huge. In the back we had antennas. You'd put the phone the, you know, tin foil on them and hope the antenna would work for a Channel. I just think the leap forward we've had in TVs in my lifetime has just been one of the great.

[Michael Batnick]

Remember our parents saying, get away from the TV because you were. Because you had to sit two feet in front of it, otherwise you couldn't see.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

Like, it was so blurry. It's like, wait, is that. That John Starks? I can't.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, you have to hit the side of the tv. I just think the. I think this is just one of the great leaps forward we've had in our lifetime in HD quality and size. And it's.

[Michael Batnick]

Can I. Can I give another. I think I plugged this a couple of weeks ago. The Amazon. What is it called? Is it like the Echo Show? I'm not even sure what it's called. Did I say this on the podcast? I can't remember.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, yeah. Where it's got the screen and.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, so it's like 15 inches. So in my. We don't have a TV in my kitchen area.

But we've got like this 15 inch thing. You pick it up, you can move it. It's a wire. But like the, The. The screen swivels. It has all of the apps. It has Netflix, Disney prime, whatever. There's Amazon TV now, but there's like, channels on there, which I, I only saw briefly. I haven't really looked into it, but my favorite part of this device is I synced it to my photo app to my photos on my phone, and.

[Ben Carlson]

So it runs through your phone.

[Michael Batnick]

So it gives us memories. And every day I walk past it and I see a picture from 2019 or when Kobe was born in 2017 or whatever. Like, I love it. It's a so highly recommend that I don't. I don't think it was that expensive, but great purchase. Phenomenal.

[Ben Carlson]

It's nice to have a little TV in your kitchen, too.

[Michael Batnick]

A material purchase that made me happier.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. I. I told you, I'm on board. I've completely changed my tune on this. I think material purchases can make you happier. When I wear a nice new sweater, it brings joy to my life.

[Michael Batnick]

That is a very nice sweater. One other material purchase that I've been plugging that I feel bad about is the Tommy John stuff, which, by the way, life changer. And I've had a lot of emails. Michael, these are really expensive. Yeah, they are really expensive. Guess what? They're like, what, 35, 40 bucks for an undershirt. I will wear these undershirts. How many times will I wear these before I throw them? Out, let's be honest. 15, 20 at least. So it'll be $2 a wear. My life is so much better with these undershirts. Not sweating. However, I. Here's, here's where I apologize. There's two versions. One of them is like a very skinny one that's like. It like hugs your body.

[Ben Carlson]

I got that. It felt really uncomfortable.

[Michael Batnick]

You got. Did you return it or you just wear it?

[Ben Carlson]

I get. I asked my wife if she wanted because it was like, it was so tight.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not that one.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

Make sure you don't get that one. Okay, here's a quote. Ben, back to the transcript.

Here's a quote from the CEO of IBM.

So let's ground this in today's cost. This is on a podcast. I know which podcast. So let's ground this in today's cost because anything in the future is speculative. It takes about $80 billion to fill up a 1 gigawatt data center. That's today's number. If one company is going to commit 20 to 30 gigawatts, that's $1.5 trillion of CapEx. To the point we just made. You've got to use it all in five years because at that point you've got to throw it away and refill it then. If I look at the total commits in the world in this space, in chasing AGI, it seems to be like 100 gigawatts with these announcements. That's $8 trillion of capex. It's my view that there's no way you're going to get a return on that because $8 trillion of capex means you need roughly $800 billion of profits just to pay for the interest. These numbers are so bananas, it's hard to wrap your head around. Okay, that doesn't make sense.

[Ben Carlson]

The first ever computer that we had in our house was an IBM PC BB gun to your head. What does IBM do? Because if you look at their chart, their stock chart, they're going crazy. They're up like 100% of the last two years. What does IBM even do anymore? I have no idea. Like, I used to use IBM for a word processor.

[Michael Batnick]

What do you mean, what do they do there? It's the mainframes.

[Ben Carlson]

It's just impressive that this company is still around.

[Michael Batnick]

They were enterprise. Enterprise software up in the cloud.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, the Nifty 50 back in the 70s.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't know. I couldn't explain to you what IBM does.

[Ben Carlson]

Going bonkers. But yes. Okay, yes. These numbers are insane. And I guess the Whole point is that like, I think just like the OpenAI stuff, all of these estimates are. No way any of them are going to be true. Right? They're there. Something. Something has to give. It can't be. There can't be that much spend on this stuff. It can't. It won't happen.

[Michael Batnick]

If you knew that there would be $8 trillion of capex, what would you do?

[Ben Carlson]

Nothing. I don't know. What, what am I supposed to do? What would you do?

[Michael Batnick]

Get gig along.

[Ben Carlson]

I. I guess before the.

[Michael Batnick]

And then get out when it. Before the top. Hello? Come on, Ben. All right, here's a chart. Last week, I don't think, I think we, we skipped this last week by accident. Vanguard announced that they're allowing their customers to buy crypto.

[Ben Carlson]

Did that really put a bottom into bitcoin prices?

[Michael Batnick]

I think it did.

[Ben Carlson]

It seemed to coincide with.

[Michael Batnick]

No, it. No, it definitely did because the day before crypto had a really disgusting candle, like really ugly. And then that morning when this was announced, it was the bottom. So, yes, I, I do think it put a bottom.

[Ben Carlson]

Do you think Vanguard customers will buy Bitcoin ETFs? No, because I bet if you looked at the percentage of clients who buy it at different, you know, Tribe and Fidelity and all these different places, Robinhood, of course it's going to be a tiny, tiny percentage of Vanguard.

[Michael Batnick]

I totally agree with you. So I don't think that it matters. I think for sentiment it mattered. But will Vanguard investors buy a meaningful amount of bitcoin at Vanguard's brokerage? No. If they really wanted to, they would have just done it already. They would have gone somewhere else.

[Ben Carlson]

Somewhere else? Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

It's not like it's hard to do it anyway. It wasn't just them. Bank of America also announced that they're going to be letting their advisors at Merrill lynch buy it. But flows have been pretty, pretty ugly going back to January 2024. This is the second worst Tatasa chart showing. This is the second worst 20 day flow for crypto.

[Ben Carlson]

So it's like a chicken in the egg thing. Did the flows cause the price to fall or did the flows fall because the price is falling?

[Michael Batnick]

Both.

[Ben Carlson]

There you go. Yeah. Good chart here, though. Real estate. I said earlier that sometimes you have to separate the headlines from the data. So the Wall Street Journal had this article. When home sellers set prices too high, they're paying for it. It says more than half of homes sold in 2025 through October had at least one price cut. You look at that and you go, geez, the housing market must be getting killed. And they looked at this and yeah, it's, I think it's almost 60% of houses that. But the average difference between the list price and the sale price is 3.7%. That's pretty tiny. Okay, that's not that.

[Michael Batnick]

No, it's not. No, it's not percentage wise. It's tiny. But like on a million dollars it's not nothing.

[Ben Carlson]

But, but it also says that. So 57% of homes sold this year have had a price cut, but between 2020 and 2024 it was 47% of home. So don't you think almost all of these negotiations there is a price cut involved when someone comes in? I think that that's just how this selling process works. I just think the. Yeah, you're right. 3.7% on a big. But if you look at this, look at this chart here. Share of active listing homes with a price reduction by month. It looks like we're just back to 2010 levels. It just was way, way lower in 2021 and 2022 when you had all these bidding wars and it was 5% of them because people weren't going to lower prices because the supply wasn't there. But now it's back up to 20, which looks to me like about what it was at the peaks in 2017, 2018. So it's not that much different.

[Michael Batnick]

Let me ask you this. What's your outlook on 2026 housing? Because we're, we're going to get another rate cut tomorrow, I think, I think that's the expectation.

[Ben Carlson]

I think we muddle through again. It's like housing prices are up 2%. And even if, what about, what about activity?

[Michael Batnick]

Are we going to see a significant uptick in activity?

[Ben Carlson]

I'd say it's more of a normalization. How about that? Is that a cop out?

[Michael Batnick]

I mean, it didn't answer my question.

[Ben Carlson]

I think this year was a normalization type of year.

[Michael Batnick]

I asked if we're going to get a significant uptick in activity.

[Ben Carlson]

You're saying, I don't think activity is going to go bonkers, especially if the labor market continues to soften. I don't think that the housing market is going to go crazy. How about you?

[Michael Batnick]

I agree. I own Rocket. I think I might sell it.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, here's one more from Logan Motashami. Just to put this one to bed again. On the first time home buyers, remember, NAR said, hey, the median age of first time homebuyer is now 40 years old and people lost Their minds. And if you compare this chart, it looks at all these other surveys and databases and those numbers have not increased, barely at all. They're still around 31, 32 years old, and the NAR is the only one that's going higher. So this was a survey problem, not a housing market problem. So the median first time homebuyer is still around the same age as they've been for the last 10, 11, 12 years.

[Michael Batnick]

Hmm.

[Ben Carlson]

Survey of the week. We haven't done on these in a while.

Almost half, 46% of Americans say the cost of living in the US is.

[Michael Batnick]

The worst noise that you just made was like werewolves of London. Daniel should do a music over.

[Ben Carlson]

Good song. Say the cost of living in the US Is the worst they can ever remember it being. And they say the. They're talking about who's probably whose responsibility is, and they say it's Trump's responsibility or whatever. I think that this is obviously like Trump and Biden have done themselves no favor on inflation. Like Biden spent more money. Trump has put tariffs on. Like, they didn't do anything. But I don't really think there's anything they could have done to lower inflation that much beyond putting the economy into recession. Like, I think whoever is in office is going to get blamed for inflation. And I think people who say, I'm going to come in and save us all from inflation, there's no way they can ever deliver on their promises. Trump, I think it's way beyond their control.

[Michael Batnick]

I saw a great quote yesterday about inflation from Trump.

I know it's perfect. It was like, I don't know if he said, it's beautiful, it's perfect. There's basically no inflation. It was so good.

[Ben Carlson]

But politicians, I know, they have to say, hey, we're going to come in and fix prices, but they can't. They literally can't. There. There's nothing they can do. Yeah, they can make it worse. They can't make it better. How's that? Yeah, unless they send us into recession, I don't think there's anything they can do to really make it better.

So people are always just gonna be mad about it.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. If they send us into a recession, if, if the liberation, if the tariffs stayed on, like the Liberation Day tariff announcements, that would have put us into a recession and prices would have come down.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, yes, exactly. All right, so the Washington Post had this story about how baby boomers got so rich and why their kids are unlucky to catch up. And they say baby boomers have $85 trillion in assets. They're the richest benefit generation by far. I keep seeing all these charts showing people over 70 have steadily increased their grip on wealth. And it's like people who are 60 or 70 or over have more wealth than they've ever had in history. By contrast, people in their 40s are losing ground comparatively, on a relative basis, relative to history. But this is just. Here's the thing. Millennials are going to be the richest generation someday, because we. We know baby boomers are not going to spend all of their wealth. We've seen this. We've had these conversations. Wealthy people are not going to spend all their money, but they're going to pass it down. And guess what? Then millennials will be the richest generation.

[Michael Batnick]

Dude, this is like Brewster's Millions. Is it Brewster's? What's the name of the movie?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, Brewster's Millions.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. And Real Life.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. So that's what's going to happen. And the fact that there's so many more people over 70 that are richer because the baby boomers didn't have an offsetting generation. Millennials have the baby boomers. Baby boomers had no one as big as them then. So, like, there wasn't a huge generation that could live so long and be so wealthy. So this is just a compounding thing. This is not like a crisis.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

That money is going to be passed down. It's not. That's not. I absolutely think young people are going to be just as rich or richer than their parents.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. All right. Big news last week, this week, Netflix has an offer accepted from Warner Brothers to buy the stock for $72 billion in equity. It's another $10 billion in debt. I can't believe it. I mean, I guess I can believe it, but, like, my. My initial reaction was, oh, my God. I really thought that Paramount was going to take it. I think everybody did. Polymarket reflected that.

So I don't want to take for granted that everybody knows what Warner Brothers does. I mean, everybody knows it's a big studio, but these are the directors that they've worked with, like, exclusively for the most part. So Clint Eastwood, his entire career, only did movies with. With Warner Brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Todd Phillips, the Wachowskis, Nolan minus Oppenheimer. These are. These are some things.

[Ben Carlson]

Like, Todd Phillips has some good stuff. I think it's funny you put Todd Phillips in this group. Well, that's kind of like Bigberg sitting at the chat.

[Michael Batnick]

GPT gave me Todd Phillips.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

Well, no, he does, because Joker was another huge one. Like, he deserves to be there. No hangover.

[Ben Carlson]

Hangover, dude, those are fine.

[Michael Batnick]

Anyway. Harry Potter, Barbie, Dark Knight, Lord of the Rings, Matrix, Casablanca, the Exorcist, Superman, all the President's Men, Batman, the Shining, Twist of the Fugitive, Dune, it. Which, by the way, there's a new show. Welcome to some. Something. Something. I watched the first episode. I haven't heard anything about it. I saw this morning on Twitter, like, it's the finale. I have literally not seen anybody talk about it. All right. There's obviously the studio. I'm sorry, the streamer, hbo. Max, you walked by the studio when.

[Ben Carlson]

We were in California earlier.

[Michael Batnick]

That was so sick. So sick. Walking by the. The water tower. They are. So the deal does not include the network. So no cnn, tnt, that's going to.

[Ben Carlson]

Be spongebob, Discovery, all that stuff. So the big freak out from people was, oh, my gosh, this is going to be the end of movies. Right? And so Lucas Schaub said Netflix reiterates it will release Warner Brothers movies in theaters. It'll produce their shows. It sounds like they still don't know what HBO and I. I get the Ron Burgundy. I don't believe you. I think for what say this net. Huh?

[Michael Batnick]

What don't you believe that they're going.

[Ben Carlson]

To keep releasing these movies in. They're. They're gonna play out their contracts that they have now if they acquire them. But then all those movies are going straight to Netflix from there on. Like. No, I see. I think you have, like, you're. As a movie theater person. I think this is the beginning of the end for movie theater like this. I think that, like, they're still gonna be there, but the writing's on the wall, man. These things are gonna be going straight to streamers for the most part. There's gonna be. It's gonna be really huge blockbusters at the theater. And not as like, these are going straight to Netflix, man. This is going to happen. This is the future we're living in.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't. I don't think this is the beginning of the end.

[Ben Carlson]

I. I definitely do.

[Michael Batnick]

No, I think it's maybe the end of the beginning. Like, this was already emotion. It's not like, it's not like, I don't think that you're going to see in the. In the data. And I'm going to save this data because Josh and I are having a Hollywood guy on TCAF next week. So I had. I had Matt crank out some incredible charts that I'm very excited to talk through. Mo. The movie theater has been in secular decline, obviously. So I don't think that there's going to be in 10 years now a. I don't think you're going to be able to look at the before and after. I don't it's going to change the data. I think it's already, it already happened. So what, what, what Sarandos and Peter said because they did a, they did a call on Friday.

After the announcement. What they're going to do, at least what they say they're going to do now, they've said a lot of things that they then changed their mind on is that they want to shorten the exclusivity. So if a movie was going to be in the theaters for 45 days, they want to shorten that window, which in effect is going to continue to maybe be the final nail on the coffin for movie theaters. To your point. Because if a movie only has a two week release, like Dune 3 for example, obviously I'm going to see that in IMAX. But for most people, if it's only going to be in the theater for two weeks, they're just going to wait.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

So I think that this is, this is bad for movie theaters, but this is better for Hollywood than Paramount buying it. At least this is what like Bellamy and the smart people are saying because Paramount already has a movie studio. So there would be a lot of cost cutting because there would be a lot of overlap between the two studios. Netflix obviously does not have a movie studio, so it's not like they're going to buy Warner and just gut the place because they need these people to produce a movie.

[Ben Carlson]

So my, my biggest worry about your biggest worry should be movie theaters. My biggest worry is hbo. Like I'm worried about how HBO is going to be handled here because I feel like that's like the best to me that's the top echelon of shows.

[Michael Batnick]

It is, that's the crown jewel.

[Ben Carlson]

So that's my worry here. I, if I'm having to choose between Netflix and Paramount, like Paramount plus is kind of garbage as a streamer. Like the just the interface. Like I would much rather have Netflix take this over and make it better because honestly, HBO Max too is so glitchy. Like if they put it on Netflix, I just, I hope they keep the HBO people. The thing is, you mentioned like all the directors and movies that have been made. The thing is people aren't tied to these studios forever now. Like they'll just, if they're not treated well because we, this, this studio, this company Bought Warner Brothers and they're not doing it as well. They're going to go somewhere else. Like the people are the thing that matter. Yeah, obviously Netflix wants the IP and the library and all this stuff. So you would rather have Netflix take it over, it sounds like.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't. I don't know. I think for. For labor, Netflix is way better for theaters. It's. It's way worse.

[Ben Carlson]

I think for consumers, this is a. It's a better ideal of. Netflix gets it.

[Michael Batnick]

That's why Paramount came over the top with a hostile bid. They offered more. Who knows where this is going to shake out? Kushner is involved with the Ellisons now, so it's not like it's. The deal is far from done.

[Ben Carlson]

I just. I don't know much about David Ellison, but I think that he should probably step back because Larry Ellison needs to save his money because Michigan needs some new wide receivers and new DBs. He's got to save his money for Michigan's nil program. Stop getting into this bidding war. Let Netflix have it. That's my. That's my theory.

[Michael Batnick]

They're not gonna let Netflix have it. So what does this do for.

[Ben Carlson]

So wait, does Netflix come back on and try to go over top and try to just keep running the price up then?

[Michael Batnick]

I don't think so. So the question is like, why did Netflix do this? Because they. They already won. And I. What people are saying is they're just competing with YouTube. They just. They just need. It's a land grab. It's Netflix versus YouTube. That's it.

[Ben Carlson]

That's what Ben Thompson at Sir Tretury said. He. Sir Checkery said. He said, like, Netflix is worried about YouTube. That's like their biggest competitor. Now there's this chart in the Wall Street Journal that shows share of US TV viewing time by distributor. YouTube is going up into the right. Netflix has sort of flattened out. Warner Brothers and Discovery have fallen. This makes a lot of sense to me that Netflix is. It's almost. It's because it seems like a little bit of a desperate move on their part, I don't think. Why would they need to do this?

[Michael Batnick]

It doesn't make sense to me if I'm like, listen, they're. They're great executives and they obviously know more about their business in the industry than I do. It. It does reek of desperation a little bit.

There's off.

[Ben Carlson]

They. But here's the thing.

[Michael Batnick]

They have 300 million subscribers. Max is 130. There's obviously a lot. They said this on the Call. I don't know what the overlap is. I'm gonna guess 75%. Right.

[Ben Carlson]

They're not huge.

[Michael Batnick]

They're not adding a lot of new subscribers. And this their streamer. It's not like it's not that profitable. Most of, most of Warner Brothers discoveries profits from, are from the, the, the legacy cable channels. Now they're obviously in secular decline. But I don't, I don't see the cost synergies, the profits. Like they said, there's going to be 2 to 3 billion dollars of cost savings that's going to flow through. I don't think that this is economically a good deal for them.

[Ben Carlson]

Here's the thing. In our lifetimes, there's never been an entertainment merger like this that has worked every single time. None of these big acquisitions or mergers and entertainment like this have ever worked.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, but like, but, but this is so different. Yes, that's true. And also there has never been this sort of content plus distribution strategy. Those are two separate businesses. There was never a Netflix type of thing.

[Ben Carlson]

I would, the thing is I would have way more confidence that Netflix could pull this off. And still I would be a little hesitant that like again, we've never seen this work out very good for these companies to do this. HBO has been passed around to so many different companies at this point. That's, that's my biggest concern. Don't ruin White Lotus for us. Okay? Keep that stuff going. But I think that, I think the bidding war is going to be entertaining though.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

And Polymarket has it pretty much dead even. They have Paramount at 43%, Netflix at 38%.

[Michael Batnick]

I think Paramount steals it if I had to guess on the outcome. And in fact, I wonder if Netflix is counting on that.

[Ben Carlson]

Could be that they. Do you think they'd really go through this whole thing just to drive up the price?

[Michael Batnick]

Well, no, because the, the breakup fee is $5.8 billion. So if Netflix. No, that's stupid. If Netflix doesn't get the deal.

Because it either falls through for regulatory purposes. So if, if Paramount steals it, then I believe Warner has to pay Netflix a 2 point something billion dollar breakup fee. But if the deal doesn't go through. Well, maybe that is a strategy. I have no idea.

[Ben Carlson]

So the question is, what matters more to the decision making? Is it the CEO who seems like he wants to get in bed with Netflix or is it the shareholders who've now been offered a much better deal?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, now Paramount needs Warner. Like if Paramount, if Netflix gets Warner Brothers for real and Paramount is just Paramount they're dead.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, then Paramount will just buy Peacock, right? There needs to be consolidation. That's what we know.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't know if Peacock is for sale.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, it's going to be like, if it's Netflix and Warner Brothers and then Disney, Hulu, and then it's gotta be Paramount, Peacock, like, there needs to be consolidation just for me, because I don't have any passwords. That's all I'm asking.

[Michael Batnick]

Anyway, this is obviously the. The most fascinating story.

[Ben Carlson]

It really is. It's very.

[Michael Batnick]

It's great stuff.

[Ben Carlson]

I mean, a company like Netflix, who's never done a big acquisition like this, just freaking all in.

[Michael Batnick]

Were you shocked? Like, I. I couldn't believe it.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I guess I didn't. I did not expect that. It does reek of desperation, but it's also like, well, maybe they're going on the offensive. So I could see it both ways. I just think so.

[Michael Batnick]

They're. They're like, this is just. This is game over. It's like the Disruptor bought Hollywood. I mean, Warner Brothers is Hollywood.

[Ben Carlson]

I just think it'll be a blessing in disguise if Netflix doesn't get this, because these deals barely ever work out. That would be my. That'd be my baseline.

[Michael Batnick]

If I knew. How about this? If I knew that Paramount was not going to. If I knew that Paramount was going to steal Netflix, I would buy the stock handover Fist today.

[Ben Carlson]

You would buy what?

[Michael Batnick]

Netflix.

[Ben Carlson]

Netflix, yeah. Okay. And it's been falling a lot, too, right?

[Michael Batnick]

If I knew the deal wasn't going to go through, I would buy Netflix. I'd back up the truck.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. I'm looking for a positive spin on Gen Z being so unhappy, and I hope that will mean we get better creativity from them. So there was two things I saw this week that people just love nostalgia, but they don't really know what was going on at the time. So I think people. I've been saying this for a while. People are going to be nostalgic for the 2000s in, like, 10 years. So there's a story in the New.

[Michael Batnick]

York Times saying, I won't let that happen. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be the nostalgic wrench.

[Ben Carlson]

Listen, so is Gen X actually the Greatest Generation? And they say how one era changed everything about the culture and why we're so nostalgic for its creators. And they talk about the. Everything that came out of the 90s and how great it was. And there was Kurt Cobain and there was reality bites and all this stuff. And they went through all this list of stuff that Gen X created. And it's a. It's a great list. Right? And then I saw this tweet going around saying apparently there is a Gen Z TikTok trend where they were romanticizing being a millennial in 2012. And it's saying, like, I want to be in Brookly 2012. Because millennials were so happy and optimistic. I'm here to tell you, millennials were not optimistic about anything in 2012.

[Michael Batnick]

We couldn't get jobs. What?

[Ben Carlson]

No. This is a totally rewriting of history. But the thing is, they talk about how one of the reasons that Gen X produced so much great content is because they were all unhappy. Even in the 90s. People think about the stuff that came out in 1999 at the height of the dot com bubble. Fight Club and American Beauty and all these movies. It was in that movie book that.

[Michael Batnick]

We read the Matrix.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. All this stuff. People were so unhappy. And they're saying that's what led to them being so creative and making good stuff. So Gen Z, I get it. You guys are all sad and depressed and you hate your lives and everything is bad. Make some good art for us, then that's going to be the positive.

[Michael Batnick]

They can't.

[Ben Carlson]

There's AI make good stuff, Jen. Okay, one thing from last week. I said my heater broke and we couldn't come with the word. And a million people said, hey, it's a furnace. Idiots. We couldn't come up with the word furnace. Okay, fair enough. That's a middle aged thing for me, though.

[Michael Batnick]

I. I can't come up with any words.

[Ben Carlson]

Having a word at the tip of my tongue and not me will come up with it. All right, let's do recommendations. You got anything?

[Michael Batnick]

I do. You. You're not a Wayne's World guy.

[Ben Carlson]

I rewatched it again last year, actually.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay. I don't know if I have mono. There's a line where Wayne goes, I thought I. I thought I had mono for a month. Turns out I was just really bored. I. I'm so tired all the time, especially when I get into bed. I can't. I cannot watch anything in bed. Now maybe. Maybe it's because J. Kelly is just really boring, but I'm. I'm actually a nobody guy. That might surprise you about me. About you? Surprise you?

[Ben Carlson]

Squid in the Whale. You liked, well, your family. You're a child of divorce. You had to watch. You had to like the squid of the whale.

[Michael Batnick]

Love squid in the whale. And I liked marriage Game Marriage story. Marriage story.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, I didn't, I didn't care for that one.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay. Jay Kelly, what did you think? I. Did you like it?

[Ben Carlson]

I was, I was going to get on here and tell you. Don't watch it. Here's the funny thing. It was not a good movie. Like, it was, it was surprising that it was a Noah Bombach movie because it was like, it's kind of cheesy. It's very sentimental. But I enjoyed hanging out with Clooney and Sandler. It was the first time Sandler played a normal guy and Laura crazy. I thought, I actually thought. I didn't like how he called everyone puppy. That was a little weird. But I thought Sandler was really good. I liked seeing Sandler and Clooney together. Yeah. And because I thought Sandler actually played just a normal guy for once, even though the movie itself was not good. I give one have.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, that's right. Have they ever worked together?

[Ben Carlson]

I know that I could figure. But I, I had this thing for you because Clooney is best when he just plays himself in a movie. He's obviously playing himself in this movie.

[Michael Batnick]

I thought he was great. Like, I thought he did a really good job. It was just boring.

[Ben Carlson]

Their performance was good. The movie itself, I thought it got worse as it went on. I'm trying to think of who's the. I think Clooney might be the best actor who just plays himself. Like, his best role is playing himself. So I thought, like, Ben Stiller plays himself a lot in movies. Seth Rogan plays himself. There are actors who are just. They're better when they just play a version of themselves. The best at that. Owen Wilson. Yes.

[Michael Batnick]

Wait, so let. So the reason why I brought this up, I was just very bored. I think I watched it three times, four times. I just kept falling asleep. This was one of those movies, and this happens to me sometimes where I watch a movie and I'm like, it. And I could go either way. Like, if the first person told me, yeah, that was a good movie. Like, yeah, it was pretty good. Or if you were like, dude, that stunk, I would be like, yeah, right. It did stink. Like, I was.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I actually, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed. I enjoyed watching it. I was entertained, but I didn't think it was a good movie. How's that?

[Michael Batnick]

You were entertained? It was not entertaining. It was pretty boring.

[Ben Carlson]

I, I, I liked spending time with Clooney and Sam. It was in Tuscany. So, like that. So I was entertained.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. Anyway, that's not going to the theater ever no, that's.

[Ben Carlson]

That's a movie that will never be in a theater. I know. I think it played for two weeks, maybe. But you're right, that's the kind of movie that will never be in the theater ever again.

[Michael Batnick]

Nor did it need to be.

[Ben Carlson]

No, but in the. In the 90s, there was a lot of star power in that. And they're even like the people who played the side characters. Patrick Wilson was in it, and Laura Dern was in it.

[Michael Batnick]

And Billy Crudup.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. I love him. He should have been a way bigger star.

[Michael Batnick]

I had to Google it. Is that. Is that him?

[Ben Carlson]

I actually thought that was the best part of the movie, that whole conversation with him. I thought the first half movie was bad anyway. Yeah. It didn't feel like a Noah Baumbach movie. I got one for you because you're always looking for great airplane flicks. Caught Stealing is on Netflix. It's a movie with Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz and Regina King.

[Michael Batnick]

Was that good?

[Ben Carlson]

And honestly. So I give it a 6.5. I feel it's a trashy action movie. Like, hey, there's a crime going on and this guy gets pulled. It would have been like a Paul Walker movie in the 2010s or a Nicholas Cage movie in the 90s.

[Michael Batnick]

I'm in.

[Ben Carlson]

And then I watched it, and it was. It was entertaining and a little over the top. And then at the end of the movie, it's a directed by Darren Arnofsky. I thought. I went, whoa.

[Michael Batnick]

What? Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

I couldn't believe it. He's like an artsy. Right. Black Swan. Isn't that him?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

And I thought I. I underestimated. I did the Shaq meme of I did not know your game. Austin Butler. I thought he was like a guy who takes himself way too seriously. This is. I love when actors will do movies that they don't take themselves too seriously in. That was the best part about Nicolas Cage. And I feel like I give Austin Butler credit for doing just a trashy action movie.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, I will definitely watch that.

[Ben Carlson]

Finally, you talked me into listening to Unscripted, and I think that's how I'm going to consume all of my nonfiction reading now. I'm going to read fiction. I'm going to listen to nonfiction.

[Michael Batnick]

Did you finish it?

[Ben Carlson]

I'm three quarters of the way done. And I thought about it through the lens of succession. And I told you this is. It's even crazier than the stories in succession. It's. I think people with that much money and that much power. Never say never. I don't think I'd ever want to be a billionaire with that much power. It does not sound like a good life to me. Everyone around them is just an enabler. The two women who were with him in his house were probably in the top 10 gold diggers of all time.

[Michael Batnick]

Did you google each of these characters to see what they looked like?

[Ben Carlson]

I'm waiting till I finish reading and then I'm going to.

[Michael Batnick]

Interesting strategy. Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

But I really like the story of the guy who came in and he was kind of a low life. The Palmer guy or whatever. Pilgrim. It's. It probably should be a movie, but they won't because it's succession and we obviously just missed that the first. When it came around. I just didn't follow the story of Summer Redstone, but I think just money and power and how it can consume you and make you and just an evil person is. I would never want that.

[Michael Batnick]

He was. He was. He was an evil person. The way that he treated his daughter and his family. Just a despicable human being. So I'm glad that you enjoyed the book I listened to. I finished Disney War, also by James B. Stewart, I think. Is his name phenomenal? Eisner and Ovitz and Katzenberg and great stuff.

[Ben Carlson]

Doesn't it just make you never want to have that much ambition in your life? I mean, we're ambitious people, but the amount of ambition those people have is. It's like.

[Michael Batnick]

Well, it's power. It's too much power. Because when you get. When you get the mantle, everybody is. Is gunning for you and trying to stab you in the back and it's no way to live. Like I. Yeah, I don't. I don't want that. Right.

[Ben Carlson]

So. Yes. Good. Good. Wreck there. Anything else?

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, did he doc?

[Ben Carlson]

No, thanks. Nope, not for me.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

I did. I did watch the Jeff Buckley doc on HBO because I was a child of the 90s and liked his music. And one thing about the 90s that I think is probably going to make a comeback is the video quality was just better back then. Like when you see a video recording of the 1990s, like a handheld camera or whatever, and it has that grainy quality, it just looks better on a documentary than like the HD stuff we have today.

Doesn't that kind of make you nostalgic for that time period? Seeing the grainy quality like the stuff you'd seen in America's 20 some videos or something? The date is in the bottom left corner.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't know that I loved. I don't know that I love being 14 years old, but I like, I like memories of that time, even if I didn't enjoy it at the time.

[Ben Carlson]

See all this? This is what being a human being is. We're looking for moments that we can have be nostalgic about. All right, thanks to the production crew, as always, Duncan and team member. If you are listening to this, check it out on YouTube occasionally because all the charts and stuff are there and they do a great job making us look like idiots sometimes, making us look funny. Check out exhibit a for advice.com for all your charting needs. If you're an Advisor, email us animalspiritscompoundnews.com Also check out Talking Wealth. I think Josh is on this week.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, we got a banger. I'm glad you I'm glad you plugged it. I almost forgot. The headline stat is something like 90% of REAs are shrinking net of the market. Compound Insights has a new research report out and Josh spoke with the author, Mark Bruno and it is a banger. So check out Talking wealth on YouTube or Spotify.

[Ben Carlson]

See you next time.