Never Go All in on Stocks (EP. 437)

Summary

Animal Spirits Podcast – Episode 437: Never Go All In on Stocks

Hosts: Michael Batnick & Ben Carlson
Date: November 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Animal Spirits centers on the current dominance and risks of large-cap technology stocks, historical market melt-ups, and practical investing wisdom—particularly the dangers of concentrating portfolios in a single sector or asset class. Hosts Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson unpack the implications of today’s market structure, discuss whether the current tech rally is a bubble, and stress the necessity of diversification for investors, especially those approaching retirement age. The episode also touches on macroeconomic themes, generational divides, AI’s real-world impacts, investing psychology, and lighter pop culture notes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tech Stock Dominance and Market Breadth

• Concentration Distortion:
  • The S&P 500 is increasingly concentrated in its top names, with the top 10 making up about 40% (03:14).
  • Days with a majority of stocks declining can still result in a positive index due to heavyweight tech companies like Nvidia and Apple.
  • Michael: "The concentration of the index is having all sorts of really gnarly impacts." [02:17]
  • Ben: "This isn’t going to magically disappear all of a sudden." [04:18]
• Debate about Breadth:
  • Hosts riff on the awkwardness of the word “breadth” and relate a humorous listener suggestion to call it "bread crust" instead. [04:22]
  • Equal-weighted indices such as the equal-weight S&P, NASDAQ, and Russell 2000 are all near all-time highs, challenging the “everything but big tech is suffering” narrative. [05:51]

2. Historical “Melt-Ups” Compared to Today

• Comparing Rallies Across Eras:
  • The past 10 years saw the NASDAQ 100 rise over 500%, paralleling Japan’s 1980s melt-up and the Dow during the 1920s.
  • Only the 1990s tech bubble outpaced today’s rally.
  • Ben: "We can't continue to see gains this big. It'll swallow everything. These companies will solve it. It's impossible." [10:23]
• Market Physics:
  • The hosts reference the book "Scale" to illustrate limits on natural and market growth. [11:06]
  • Michael: "At some point you're setting yourself up for just major disappointment. The numbers become too big." [11:17]

3. Is AI and Big Tech a Bubble?

• Bubble Debate:
  • Ben and Michael discuss whether current valuations are justified or if a crash is imminent.
  • Ben, citing Jason Zweig and Cliff Asness, leans toward overvaluation driven by excessive expectations, while Michael believes today's situation doesn't meet the true “bubble” definition.
  • Michael: "That is what a bubble is. It is an environment in which the future cash flow… in no plausible outcome can match the hype of today. And that is not this." [17:24]
  • Ben: "I'm signaling at a capex level. I don't think the amount of spending that we're doing can match what the returns are going to be." [18:15]

4. The Necessity of Diversification

• Risk of "All-In" Investing:
  • Inspired by a Jason Zweig article, the hosts compare retirement outcomes for hypothetical investors who retired in different years, underlining the crucial role of sequence of returns risk.
  • Michael: "Your life can't depend on the stock market, for God's sakes. Especially after this run that we've been on." [22:08]
  • Ben: "It's at this time in the market when some people need that reminder." [20:39]
• Retirement Tactics:
  • Ben retells a reader's “Four Year Rule”: holding four years’ expenses in cash to rebalance during market downturns. [20:39]
  • They stress that relying on luck is not financial planning, especially for retirees or pre-retirees.

5. Generational Divides & Economic Luck

• Boomers vs. Younger Generations:
  • The podcast explores economic disparity between older Americans who built equity through real estate and stocks, and younger generations struggling with higher education costs, housing, and delayed milestones.
  • Ben: "Young people have way less optimism than they did in the past. They're way more cynical." [25:00]
  • Michael and Ben remark on how much adult milestones—like home ownership or having a family—are being postponed, and foresee intensifying “generational warfare.” [27:10]

6. Wealth, Consumption, and Credit Risk

• Wealth Distribution & Consumption:
  • Only 35-40% of consumption comes from the top 10%, not the widely circulated "50%" stat. However, the trend toward inequality is real. [30:19]
  • Michael: "The top 10%, the top whatever percentage. Their ability to get alternative financing at lower interest rates and not have to slow down their spending is a structural change in the market." [31:15]
• Credit Scores:
  • 25% of the U.S. population has a subprime credit score, with Michael sharing his own early-career struggles due to poor credit. [31:38]

7. Tariffs and the Real Economy

• Tariffs Are Overhyped:
  • Despite headlines, real tariff costs as shown in business invoices are low (~3%), and firms or consumers often skirt around the tariffs. [34:17]

8. AI, Data Centers, and Economic Knock-On Effects

• Capex Boom:
  • Immense infrastructure buildout (e.g., Meta’s $7T in data centers) is compared to past corporate expansions, with Apple’s segment revenues highlighted as being larger than Meta’s total sales. [38:34]
• AI as Job Creator & Displacer:
  • Chart “crimes” are called out regarding dramatic attribution of job losses to AI; context matters, and the total churn in employment is always massive. [44:01]
  • Ben: "Is AI going to have an impact on jobs? Yes. Is it already? I'm not so sure." [45:01]
• Deepfakes & Security:
  • A Neil deGrasse Tyson deepfake video leads to a broader conversation about cybersecurity and future A.I. scams. [41:01]

9. Crypto and MicroStrategy Discussion

• MicroStrategy’s "Bitcoin as Treasury" Model:
  • Michael details the evolution and recent struggles of MicroStrategy, which is highly leveraged to Bitcoin. He plays CEO Michael Saylor’s remarks on “digital” vs. “traditional” risk and points out the practical disconnect between crypto maximalism and the need for TradFi validation (e.g., S&P ratings). [49:07]
  • Michael: "Michael Saylor has generated a lot of buzz... Had a lot of success up until, I guess, the peak at the end of 2024. It’s been certainly a rough 2025. Can he get his mojo back?" [52:11]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Market Structure
  Michael: "The concentration of the index is having all sorts of really gnarly impacts." [02:17]

• On Crash Risks
  Ben: "The Nasdaq is up 20% per year over the past 10 years... We can't continue to see gains this big. It'll swallow everything." [10:23]

• On Diversification
  Michael: "Your life can't depend on the stock market, for God's sakes. Especially after this run that we've been on." [22:08]

• On the Bubble Definition
  Michael: "That is what a bubble is... there is no plausible outcome can match the hype of today. And that is not this." [17:24]

• On Generational Gaps
  Ben: "Young people have way less optimism than they did in the past. They're way more cynical." [25:00]

• On Data Center Construction
  Michael: "McKinsey projects that these data centers are projected to require almost $7 trillion to keep pace with the demand for compute power." [37:32]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• S&P 500 Concentration and Breadth: [02:17]–[06:45]
• Historical Market Melt-Ups: [09:13]–[13:06]
• Tech Bubble Debate: [14:28]–[18:33]
• Why Not Go All-In on Stocks? (Sequence of Returns): [18:55]–[22:49]
• Generational Wealth & Demographics: [22:52]–[28:13]
• Wealth/Consumption Divide: [29:47]–[31:25]
• Tariffs Real-World Impact: [34:17]–[36:01]
• AI/Data Center Capex Boom: [36:01]–[40:00]
• Deepfakes & Security Risks: [41:01]–[42:33]
• AI and Labor Market "Chart Crime": [44:00]–[46:01]
• MicroStrategy/Bitcoin Deep Dive: [46:04]–[54:54]
• Crypto Prices and Gold Outperformance: [54:55]–[56:07]
• Real Estate/Housing Trends: [56:24]–[57:22]
• Regulatory Entrepreneurship and Business: [57:49]–[60:27]

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Tone & Style

The classic Animal Spirits style—conversational, lightly humorous, and self-deprecating. Ben is skeptical yet pragmatic ("I think people need that reminder"), while Michael is frank, a bit irreverent, and analytical. Both hosts frequently reference pop culture and their personal experiences, making complex topics accessible and relatable.

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Closing Thoughts

Ben and Michael’s main message: Don’t be seduced by the returns of a market concentrated in just a few big names, and never go all-in—especially with retirement on the line. Diversification may seem unrewarding during a tech boom, but history and probability argue for prudence. While tech and AI promise real transformation, risk never disappears—and the structure of markets and economies is always evolving.

Additional Recommendations & Topics

• The episode wraps with lively recommendations for horror movies, responses to listener questions, and a quick look at cultural phenomena (from ketchup consumption to home robots).
• Key takeaway: Balance excitement for innovation with enduring investment discipline.

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For further resources and links, check the show notes at: Wealth of Common Sense and The Irrelevant Investor.

Transcript

[Michael Batnick]

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[Ben Carlson]

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[Michael Batnick]

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[Ben Carlson]

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[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 secure discussed in this podcast. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. One of the conversations in the market over the past couple of weeks but really reaching a crescendo last week I think has been the dominance of technology stocks. Particularly like in the last couple of sessions you see like the RSP spy ratio which just keeps hitting new all time lows. Really nose diving off of a cliff. So I had chart can make this chart showing the past two days and this was I don't know if this was Tuesday or Wednesday. Once Or Thursday, whatever. What doesn't really matter so much. You had 227 stocks over a two day period that were advancing. Said differently, the remaining 730 or 20, whatever it is, fell on the day and in that type of environment over a two day period when you've got that many decliners versus advancers, meaning stocks going up versus stocks going down over a two day period, the average return of the S and P is negative 2% on those type of days and yet the S and P was barely positive on that over that two day period, which is bizarre. And it just goes to show that the concentration of the index is having all sorts of really gnarly impacts.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, I guess having Nvidia B, what's the percentage now? Is it up to 10%? Almost.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, it's getting there. So it cuts both ways. So Duality Research, who we've mentioned before, but their work is absolutely top notch. Worth signing up for their sub stack if you haven't, if you're not familiar with them. So they hit on this too. I read this this morning on the way in. They say this unprecedented concentration that we're seeing is going to keep producing these very weird mismatches between returns and internals. And as interesting as they may appear because they created the same chart that I had. Matthew, as interesting as they may appear, these short term divergences don't really signal much anymore. They mostly just reflect today's index composition. Their coincidence indicators, not bearish. So if you were using the chart that I just have on screen, you'd be like, whoa, timeout, timeout. Not healthy. Not healthy. But they, but they also showed that if you look at the other side of the coin, like the days where you have a lot of stocks going up and yet the index isn't. That's just the nature of a market where the top 10 names are 40% of it. It's going to keep happening.

[Ben Carlson]

Right. This isn't going to like go magically disappear all of a sudden.

[Michael Batnick]

Right, Right.

[Ben Carlson]

You know what else though? I have a problem with this. The word breadth. Just, it's hard to say. It doesn't look right.

[Michael Batnick]

Well, you saw that. I mean, did you see. I think that was subliminally planted in the, in the, in the inbox. You saw that email?

[Ben Carlson]

No.

[Michael Batnick]

So somebody emailed us and said stop saying breadth, thrust. It is really unnatural off the tongue. And I would agree. Problem is that's, that's the term. He suggested calling it a bread crust, I think, which is easier to say. But you Can't. It's Marty Zweig's breadth. It's not a bread crust.

[Ben Carlson]

So I'm looking at the returns right now and we're recording this Monday because you and I are going to Vegas tomorrow and we'll be there for the annual FBA conference. So if you're out there, say hi. Even though this will record it, by the time we're out there, the Russell 2000 is up 13% year to date or so 12% equal weight is only up 9% and then mid caps are only up 5% this year. So there is still this pretty wide divergence. I think this is why international diversification is shining this year. This is the time that it matters the most because emerging markets are up 34% and if was up 28% or whatever it is like that. That's why like the currency piece is such a big deal with that type of diversification as far as I'm concerned. But you're right, even if like a million other stocks do well in the S and P, it's not going to matter. Right. Because the. It's these big stocks, right or wrong. And it's going to be like this for a while.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. They also have another chart showing. Listen, you can't say, you can't use that data that we opened the show with to say that breadth sucks. Because if you look at the equal weight version of the S and P, the NASDAQ and the Russell 2000. So within those indexes you equate all the names, they're all within 3% of an all time high. So yes, there are a lot of names that are in the AI crosshairs that are getting smoked. That is true. But a lot of stocks are doing just fine.

[Ben Carlson]

So the, the way the stock market acts and if my CNBC thing here is that it's not a stock market, it's a market of stocks. Right. If you look at the market of stocks, it's just going to seem the, it's going to seem weird for a while because of the way the market's structured now.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, the concentration is having, is having weird impacts on both, both sides of the bread coin.

[Ben Carlson]

So Nvidia eventually has its bad earnings report. It's going to happen at some point. It's only it is funny how, I mean there was a little bit of movement in some of the big tech companies for earnings last week, but I mean there still hasn't been this like whoa kind of moment. Right. Like one of them. Not kidding, just what.

[Michael Batnick]

So see, you're not a market of stocks, guy. I am.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm sorry, but Facebook down 10% to me. That's not a. Whoa. I need like a down 20 or 30% to go. Oh my God.

[Michael Batnick]

Hold on, hang on. Facebook's not gonna fall 30% in a day. What are you talking about?

[Ben Carlson]

It's done that many times in the past. Yes, it is. That's gonna happen. One of these AI stock.

[Michael Batnick]

Facebook is not gonna fall 30% in a day unless there's a massive accounting fraud.

[Ben Carlson]

Stock one. No one of these stocks is going to hit, get hit 20 or 30% on some AI news. It's going to happen. That's going to be the end of this thing.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, Perhaps. But Nvidia, let's move the goalposts back to where you originally moved them from. Meta had a pretty bad week. Google went vertical and Amazon was up 10% to an all time high. It's been a while.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm saying there hasn't. There hasn't been one that's gone. Oh my gosh. This is all like, to me that's going to be the signal one.

[Michael Batnick]

No, I know you said something. You moved the goalpost. I tried to move it back. You tried to take it back. Were big moves last week. Let's leave it at that.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm pretty sure MET has been down 20% in a day before. That's not out of the realm of possibility that maybe when it was.

[Michael Batnick]

Maybe when it was a $300 billion market cap. It's, it's. They would have.

[Ben Carlson]

Can't you think it can happen? I. I think it's absolutely.

[Michael Batnick]

Can I said it. I. Okay. Don't say 20 or 30 because those are very different numbers.

[Ben Carlson]

I think 20 to 30 in that range. I think that's on the table.

[Michael Batnick]

30 is very different than 20. Can it fall 20? Yeah, sure. Perhaps it would have to be really gnarly. But, but to fall 30 in a day would have to be either an accounting scandal or Mark Zuckerberg. I don't even want to say like, you know, something bad happening to him.

[Ben Carlson]

What if he pivoted the company to the Metaverse and changed the name from Facebook to Meta? Would that do it? Okay. I think it's possible. You don't. But I. Because of the gains these companies have had. If there is, if there's a really bad. Oh my gosh, we spent $300 billion too much from up in flames.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. I think maybe, maybe over a week it could lose.

[Ben Carlson]

But I'm saying if. Let's Say that happens to Nvidia. Nvidia is down 15% in a day. Like it's going to do weird things to the market.

[Michael Batnick]

Interesting. Daniel, see how he's, he keeps moving it lower and lower. Yeah. Can Nvidia fall 15% in a day? Sure.

[Ben Carlson]

That was the point I was trying to make is one of these companies is probably. Nvidia is going to have a bad earnings report at some point and it's going to cause weird things to happen to the overall market.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, let's move past this. We all, we agree 15%. I'll give you that.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, 20 is going to happen. Just mark it up.

[Michael Batnick]

You said 30.

[Ben Carlson]

I can't wait to revisit this in the future because I said 20 to 30. I'm putting bookends on it. All right. I wanted to see where this thing stacked up. So one of the great things about chart kid Matt is that I give him an idea and I say, hey, this is the chart I want to look at. And he makes it look better than I had it in my mind. Right. That's why he's so good for us. So I said, I want to compare this to past melt ups. I want to look at the Dow in the roaring twenties. I want to look at Japan in the eighties. I want to look at the NASDAQ in the nineties. Compare the last ten years to this. Okay. He does this. I gotta be honest, these were way closer than I ever imagined they would be. And so the past 10 years, the NASDAQ 100 is up more than 500% in the roaring 20s. And I measured this from 1921 because there was like a depression in 1921. So from there and through the end of the, through the peak in 1929, the Dow was up almost 500%. In the 1980s, Japan was up 510%. The only one it really is not close to is Nasdaq in the 1990s, which was up 800%.

[Michael Batnick]

Does it get there?

[Ben Carlson]

I guess that's the thing. A lot of people were. When I posted the chart, I knew it would kind of go crazy. And it did. And a lot of people said, hey, we got 2 or 300% left to go.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, yeah, that's how it works.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't see how you could look at this chart and not say, okay, I'm a little concerned. And now my Grand Rapids hedge here is, listen, all of these other periods resulted in a huge crash, like a mind numbing crash. I would be way more comfortable and Again, I'm putting this on the table. Grand Rapids Hedge. So don't even call me on it. I'd be way more comfortable saying the returns are going to be far lower in the future than they are going to crash. I'd have way more confidence in that because the Nasdaq is up 20% per year over the past 10 years from the bottom in 2009 of March of 2009. Cherry picking fair. It's up 22% per year. The Nasdaq 100. We can't continue to see gains this big. It'll swallow everything. These companies will solve it. It's impossible.

[Michael Batnick]

Remember the book scale?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes.

[Michael Batnick]

Where it spoke about the law of nature and why elephants can only get to a certain size before their bones would just crumble.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. I think we mentioned this like a couple months ago.

[Michael Batnick]

Did we? But yeah, well that sort of dynamic does, does exist. Like I don't and I think you would agree. Who wants us to go to 700% the higher it goes within a shorter window. Now if we could go up 700% over the next like six years where it's up you know, 11% a year, not 22%. Yeah. All day long. But you should not be rooting for this to look like the previous ones because at some point you're setting yourself up for just major disappointment. The numbers become too big. That all growth prospects in the future. You just discount them too much, too far, too fast.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, we, we sh. I would love to see just a. Let's take a breather here. We don't need get. See this thing get crazy. You'll notice on this chart there's a huge gap. He did it by years between the 1930s and the 1980s. There's, there's no melt ups here. There actually was one in that time. So a lot of people said why didn't include the nifty 50? The returns weren't nearly as close. I thought about maybe putting gold in here in the 70s, but that would kind of defeat the narrative of the chart. There was one that was in this same ballpark and it didn't end in tears in the 1950s. The whole decade of the 1950s, the S&P was up 491%. On par with the roaring twenties, on par with Japan in the eighties, on par with the NASDAQ over the past ten years.

[Michael Batnick]

So why didn't you put that in here?

[Ben Carlson]

I thought about it after the fact. I'm not gonna lie. But, but I put the corrections in here. I have. I Have a whole table in one of my Excel charts that's historical corrections. You can see in 1959 the S P fell 14. In the 1961 and 62 it fell 28%. 1966 fell 22. So it didn't it this. There was no bone earth shattering crash here that caused the 1950s bull market. It kind of ended with a whimper. And now that one, to be fair wasn't like this innovation driven thing. That was a middle class thing, World War II, sigh of relief, Great Depression's over kind of thing. But that was one if you want to point to an instance where you had a melt up and it didn't end in a meltdown.

[Michael Batnick]

So I would say that if it doesn't have to end badly this time, but if you get another 25% year in 26 and another 25% year in 27, then I see no way out it will.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I, I just. So I'm a broken record here but there diversification hasn't helped you at all in the past 10, 12 years. I if you're not diversified now because of this, I think now is the time.

[Michael Batnick]

Well maybe, maybe that's the conclusion. If you are all in on the, on the NASDAQ or the S and P right now, certainly if you're near retirement, I mean, what are you thinking exactly?

[Ben Carlson]

And there are people, you know, there are, I'm sure there are people who are all in and keep pushing the foot down on the gas. But we have these conversations all the time with people who have made insane wealth off of these names going I need to do. I know, I need to diversify. Please help me. It's not like people are saying, no, no, no, keep me on, I want to keep pressing. That's not happening. All right, take him who wrote the book on Nvidia. He works for Barons now. Where else has he been before? Cnbc. Great reporter. He wrote this thing about why AI is underhyped and it isn't a bubble yet. And he did this whole really long thing but then he did a tldr so it's worth reading if you want to click through. He did this on Twitter. Here's his bullet points. And I actually think it's easier right now to make the case and more believable to make the case. AI is a bubble versus it isn't. Don't you think that it's more believable to say it is a bubble versus people who say no, no, it's not a bubble.

[Michael Batnick]

Depends if you're just Talking about like quick, quick sound bites, then, yes, easier to make the case that it's a bubble. But I think it's very easy to make the case that it's not a bubble. So back to you.

[Ben Carlson]

No, I think if you did the deep. A deep dive analysis and charts like, it's way easier to make the case that it's a bubble than.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, really?

[Ben Carlson]

I.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, I, I disagree, but go ahead.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. All right, we're disagreeing today. Here's his bullet points. Big tech valuations are reasonable and leverage is low. We're the beginning of a multiple AI super product cycles in years ahead. We are in the early innings of a technology computing shift to AI, the largest in decades. Think 94 versus 99. Every credible source reports overwhelming demand for AI computing capacity. Where is the over capacity glut? Nowhere. That's. This is the. And again, he has way more that goes into each of these.

[Michael Batnick]

So I mean, that, that, that's a great, that's a great mic drop, I think there's obviously a lot of different shades of black and white here. Maybe you could even call it gray. For example, over the weekend, Sam Altman.

[Ben Carlson]

My, My mother who only, who only consumes our podcasts through the Instagram reels or whatever that we do. You know, the short sound bite.

[Michael Batnick]

Did she watch my horror movies yet?

[Ben Carlson]

I don't think. No. She, she's notorious for messing up sayings. And she said, I just want to thank Michael for being in the same boat as Meek for messing up sayings all the time. Because we replayed your thing about messing up your broken arrow or broken.

[Michael Batnick]

You know, first of all, the great. Actually, the great, the terrible Jared Allen once said, the lights are brighter than I expected when he came to Madison Square Garden. Something happens to your brain, at least to my brain, when the light goes on. I don't know what it is. It scrambles the signals. Things get twisted. So the, the, the part about them still being behind capacity. Now, again, on the flip side. All right, well, Nvidia has a $5 trillion market cap, like so. So, so what? Who cares about capacity? We're talking about bubbles and valuations and expectations, to which I would say duality, research, throw the baton back to them. They say, for us, it all comes down to profitability. So if you're comparing today's 22.8 times multiple to the 10 year average, you're also comparing it to a period when margins averaged about 12.3%. Right now they're closer to 14.5%. In that context, Matters. So he did this thing where you, you margin adjust the P. E Because why wouldn't you margin. It's the biggest driver of valuations. Higher margins deserve a higher multiple counterpoint. All right, well how do you explain OpenAI? $13 billion in revenue, $1 trillion market cap. Now could you tell me that OpenAI could be a trillion dollar market cap in 20 years from now and that could be it and it could just be horrible returns for shareholders. Yeah, I buy that hook, line and sinker. Absolutely. But to say that it's a bubble again, getting back to my definition of a bubble in which there's no inconceivable world in which this doesn't fall 70%, 60% and stay down, I don't think we're there.

[Ben Carlson]

I think you're hung up too much in the definition here. The falling words matter.

[Michael Batnick]

Words matter.

[Ben Carlson]

I think you're falling, you're, you're too hung up on the. It has to fall and never come back. Like.

[Michael Batnick]

But that's what a bubble is. That is what a bubble is. It is an environment in which the future cash flow is no definition, in no outcome, in no plausible outcome can match the hype of today. And that is not this. That's not this.

[Ben Carlson]

So that's the cliff asness said. Like the definition of a bubble is there's no future potential that can match what the fundamentals are saying right now. You're right. There is a world where that can happen.

[Michael Batnick]

So of course there is. So that's why I don't feel comfortable saying yes, this is a bubble. Now if we're up 25% in the next two years and it's mostly multiple expansion, then I will probably say something different.

[Ben Carlson]

So you're saying, listen, these stocks can crash and doesn't necessarily mean it's a bubble.

[Michael Batnick]

No, that proves Nothing. Amazon fell 50% along with Google in 2022. Was that a bubble?

[Ben Carlson]

All right, I'm signaling like it's a capex level. I don't think the amount of spending that we're doing can match what the returns are going to be. That's kind of where I land. And I don't think that necessarily means that it's a system wide crash and it's never coming back. But I think that the spending is. The expectations are too high for the level of spending.

[Michael Batnick]

Expectations on whose part, the investors or the companies?

[Ben Carlson]

Everyone. The companies. The companies especially, I think they're way too on and they don't really care. I don't think that they care. If this is a bubble or not. They're just trying to win. That's it. All right. Speaking of diversification, before Jason Zweig, should you just buy stocks until you die? This is a very good piece. Did you read this one?

[Michael Batnick]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. So he talks about the luck of the draw when it comes to being in stocks. He said, consider two hypothetical investors, each with a million dollars invested in the S&P 500. They both withdraw 4% a year in equal monthly installments for the next 20 years. One retires on December 31, 1999, the other on December 31, 2002. Of course, between 2000, 2002, there was a bear market. The market crashed. He said the first investor would have a little more than 890,000 left after 20 years. The second would have a little more than $4 million. Obviously don't include fees, taxes, inflation, all that stuff. And then a really good chart here. Just kind of. This is the sequence of return risk that if you happen to retire at the wrong moment, if you happen to invest at the wrong moment, there can be two diametrically opposed outcomes. Through no fault of your own, you could follow the same exact script. The process is perfect, the investment process is sound, and you could get much different results. And his whole point is, he says, that's why I still own some bonds in my case tips. And I think you should too. The historical odds and current government policy are against them. But stocks are also far from a sure thing.

[Michael Batnick]

Of course. Yeah. This is, I mean, to, to us, this is obvious, right? I think obviously not to everybody. Nobody's gonna be mad if you went from 70, 30 to 50, 50 now, you know, depending on your situation, and the market does go up 25% over the next two years or three years, you're not gonna be like, oh my God, I miss it. How could I be such an idiot? But secrets of return risk is real. And just because stocks have higher long term expected returns. By the way, the fact that we're even having this conversation makes me, like, cringe. Or it makes me a bit like, why are we even talking about this? Obviously, you shouldn't be all in on the market.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, but it's at this time in the market when some people need that reminder. I think, like, I've seen a lot of comments like, why would everyone bond? What's the point of cash? I think there are, there is some of that. It's not. It's not everyone, but there's some of that going on. I actually, one of my readers, I heard from A lot. Early in my blog days, he sent me this whole thing. He retired in 2000, I think he said March of 2000, which was actually the top. And he gave me this whole thing about how him and his wife survived it. He's like, I retired early. It was in March of 2000. Literally the worst. That's the worst entry point in stock market history. You could say the Great Depression, but no one really invested in stocks back then, which. That's my one problem with the 1929 book from Andrew Russell Sorkin. Great book. He makes it sound like everyone is invested in stocks. 60% of households are invested in stocks now. 2% were back then. It wasn't. No one invested in stocks back then anyway. So this guy says, how did we do it? We kept four years in cash and we rebalanced. And if stocks were down, we took from cash. If stocks were up, we took from stocks. And he's like, it was really, really difficult. And this guy, like, he managed his money to a T. He actually. I get emails about it all the time. He created this thing called the Four Year Rule. And I did a write up about it, like, I don't know, 10 years ago. And I still get emails about it this day because people ask for his, like, longer version of it anyway. But if you don't have some sort of plan like that, like a backup plan just in case, because guess what? You don't get to do the Monte Carlo thing when you retire. You don't get to try it 10,000 ways and see which one's the best. You have one shot at this.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, maybe I take this for granted that because our advisors are doing this all day with our clients, but my God, this is so obvious. Hello, Risk management. You can't. Your life can't depend on the stock market, for God's sakes. Especially after this run that we've been on. It's treated you very well. May continue to do so. Who cares? Plan for it not. Plan for this not to continue.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. And again, I think most baby boomers, investors recognize this, that they're retiring. Like they know, and they've lived through enough crashes to understand, like, this is not going to last forever. And I'm probably far richer than I ever would have been otherwise right now. But I think. I think this is the kind of thing that it's worth a reminder.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, no, you're right.

[Ben Carlson]

There was a really good story in the Wall Street Journal about kids versus adults and basically saying things are way better. So it's the economy that's great for parents, lousy for their grown up kids. And they go through all of these different stories about the parents who are doing well. They have home equity that's up a ton, their stock portfolios are up a ton of. They have kids who are graduating with PhDs and these different jobs and it's hard for them to find a job. And they look the survey result and they looked at people like themselves, the baby boomer parents versus their children and like, can keep up with expenses, have enough money to buy a car, pay an unexpected medical expense, buy a home, find a good job. And obviously all the older people, the parents have way higher responses than the kids. Right? It's way lower for the kids.

[Michael Batnick]

Do you think it's ever not like this?

[Ben Carlson]

I, that's, I wanted to have two things here. One, it's a tough job market for some people, especially college graduates. Two, suck it up, right? I had a terrible job experience when I first came out of college. I think the difference between now and like any time in history before this, today people want others to feel sorry for them. It's not just like, recognize the fact that there's a tough whatever. It's tough to buy a house, it's tough to find a job. I need everyone collectively to agree that they should feel sorry for me. I don't think we had that. When we came out of a tough job market in 2008, there was, what.

[Michael Batnick]

Was unemployment in the GFC? Did it hit almost 10%?

[Ben Carlson]

It was 10%. That was the high. Yeah. The unemployment rate is 4% right now. So, yeah, there's, there's pockets of like, where things are starting to get bad.

[Michael Batnick]

But imagine millennials complaint and not imagine we did a millennial. I mean, I had no right to complain because I was an idiot, but millennials that did the right thing in college complaining about not having a job when grown adults were getting laid off in their 40s. It's like, shut up, kid. I have kids.

[Ben Carlson]

That's the thing. We didn't get in. No one gave any sympathy to young people back then. That's all I'm saying.

[Michael Batnick]

So I think that, of course, listen, of course, like, I am a sympathetic person. I don't like to see this. It is weird though, because on the one hand, like, younger people tend to be more optimistic than older people.

[Ben Carlson]

I made this comment to you and Josh last week. I feel like it's always been younger people have this optimism and today I feel like it's getting, it's getting broken. All the young People, they are, they're way more pessimistic and cynical. And I think it's just because they grew up with the Internet and social media, I don't think they had a chance. So young people have way less optimism than they did in the past. They're way more cynical.

[Michael Batnick]

Are young people, this is a dumb question. Are young people on Twitter?

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know. They're on TikTok and I don't know, I feel like it is more of a middle age, Gen X, late millennial thing for most people. But I, I do think you, you hate talking about demographics. But I do think the demographic stuff in the years ahead is going to be the, the divide between the demographics is going to be worse than ever. So Eric Finnegan from John Burns sent me every six to 12 months, he sends me his demographic presentation that he does. And I pulled some charts here. And the thing is, part of the, the difference now between young and old people is, part of it is things are just, you know, they're, they are harder in some instances, but some of it is just life choices. So you look at annual birth by mother's age and it's under 30 versus 30 plus. And for the first time ever, more people are having a child plus 30 than below 30. It's never happened. Right. So it was, it was way different back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Of course, this one, this is probably the one that gets people the most, is that the first time home buyers, 38 years old, it really hasn't budged off of like 30, 31 since the last few years. But you have the largest population group this year is turning 33 to 37. If you break down the demographics into these, these cohorts of like four or five years. And I think that's part of the reason that it's causing this. There's so many more of these 30 year old people than ever before. This is like the rabbit going through the snake right now. It's young people. And this one gets people too. So this is Americans reaching other typical adult milestones later in life. So this is Percentage of 30 year olds Living on their own, married with a child, own a home, or have a bachelor's degree. And bachelor's degree is obviously the only one going up. And that's part of it too, why people are putting off this stuff till later in life because they're getting more education. And how many young people these days want to even settle down? I think a lot of it, this is life choices too.

[Michael Batnick]

You think this Is like a structural thing, not just a real estate thing.

[Ben Carlson]

I think this is, I think part, most of this is structural. Obviously this is the worst time ever to be a first time home buyer. But I think a lot of this is life choices too. People are going to school longer, they're waiting to settle down longer. They don't. A lot of people don't want kids till later in life. They want to enjoy it. Whereas in the past it was like, eh, let's just do it. Everyone else is doing it. So anyway, I just think the demographic like divide though is. And it's also. We talked about the luck of the draw thing with Jason Zweig and when you retire a lot of the luck of the draw thing is going to be do I have rich baby boomer parents or not? Can they help me with a down payment? Will they give me some money or will I get an inheritance from them someday? I think that's going to be luck of the draw too. Did your parents say were they fiscally responsible or not? Does that. Some of the people that's. That's their retirement plan. We've talked about this. Anyway, you hate generational warfare. I think it's going to be worse than ever in the years ahead. Not going to get better. It's going to get way worse.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. Not my favorite topic.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. I shared with this with you on Slack this morning.

[Michael Batnick]

No, you know why? Because it's just like, it's just like a bummer. I don't like that stuff.

[Ben Carlson]

It is a bummer. I totally agree. And I just don't see it getting better anytime soon because I was. You and I probably are in a similar boat here. I was so naive to the world around me when I was younger in high school and college. I knew nothing besides what was going on in like I had the blinders on. I didn't pay attention. I still remember when we had the Bush Gore election. Me and five or six friends went to a house of our friends that had a party house. Cause we were, I think we were freshmen in college. We watched the election. I don't even think people talked about who they wanted to win. No one really cared. We stayed up till 3 or 4 in the morning. They still didn't name a winner. You know, we all went home and guess what? We never talked about it again after that. Once we didn't. It never once came up in conversation.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. If you asked me, I mean I was a little bit younger, but whose policies do you like better? I would say yeah, sure.

[Ben Carlson]

But now if You're a young person, you know everything down to a T about these politicians, and you're paying attention to this race in Iowa and this race in New York. And like, that stuff just didn't. Wasn't on our. Maybe that says more about me, my friends, than anything back then, but I think that was. That was more people, right? We didn't have to care as much. And today, young people feel like they have to know everything that's going on. All right, so there's this viral thing going around lately saying from Moody's, the top 10% of earners account for 50% of consumption. We've talked about this a lot. This guy from University of California, this economist. What's his name?

[Michael Batnick]

Anton Levy.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, Levy. He says this. This isn't. This stat isn't right. It can't be right. And he says the biggest reason is rich people pay higher taxes. They have higher savings rates. So he kind of backed into this and said, if you look at just the fact that people pay higher, rich people pay higher taxes. He's saying, I think some of the numbers are kind of. It's not like Moody's is fudging these numbers, but they're not exactly accurate. He said the number is probably more like 35 to 40% of disposal of consumption.

[Michael Batnick]

I mean, does that change anything? I think the terms perceive the data.

[Ben Carlson]

The trend is going higher. But the funny thing is that the 50% number, no one even batted an eye because it just seems like that's what it should be. You're right. And maybe that the point is the trend is moving higher. And even if it's not 50%, the thing is, the top 10% does account for like 50% of the income in this country.

[Michael Batnick]

We were talking with Stephanie Roth last week on TCAF about why a lot of the spending wasn't impacted by higher interest rates. And it is the top 10%, the top whatever percentage. Their ability to get alternative financing at lower interest rates and not have to slow down their spending is a structural change in the market. And I don't know what slows that other than something, a credit event or something with the labor market. But even then, a lot of these people are. I mean, certainly the retirees are insulated from the labor market. Now, if there's a big labor market impact, the stock market will come down. And it's circular logic, but the stuff.

[Ben Carlson]

That we're seeing, the wealthy people have never had more options than they do today in terms of trying to manage their taxes or borrow money against financial Assets.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

There are so many other strategies. Yes. That wealthy people have that. You're right. They were kind of like the Mag 7 companies that. That didn't get impacted by higher rates. It was the same thing.

[Michael Batnick]

Here's the other side of the equation from Apollo. 25% of the US population has a subprime credit score. That's pretty gnarly.

[Ben Carlson]

So what's the number on that? I guess 680, I think 25%.

[Michael Batnick]

That's kind of nuts, right?

[Ben Carlson]

No, that sounds right to me, honestly. I mean, if you think about it, not everyone is in a mature financial position. Think of how many young. I said the biggest cohort in the country right now is 33 to 37. How many people come out of college and their finances are awful?

[Michael Batnick]

Is there a way to see your credit score score over time? I would love to chart mine.

[Ben Carlson]

That's a good question. I don't know how that works. So you think that when you first graduated from college and you're working as a waiter, your credit score was negative? Essentially. If that was.

[Michael Batnick]

I know it was. So the first job opportunity, the first real one that I had. I've told this story before, but it was at E Trade in Garden City. And the guy gave me an interview and was like, yeah, you're going to take over a book of whatever it was, $100 million, and you're going to talk to these people and you're going to try and upsell them and you have a base salary of $60,000 with some opportunity to make more. And I was over the moon, excited at that point. I had been unemployed, this is probably 2010, 11, so I was unemployed for like two and a half years. Like literally unemployed. My eye was twitching. I didn't eye spasm for two years because I was so upset. And anyway, where am I going with this credit score? Right? So I didn't get the job because when they were doing their background check on me, they found a ding in my credit report. And in the interim, the guy that hired me left and the new guy who replaced him brought in somebody else. So, yeah, my credit score sucked and impacted my job, my life, in a serious way.

[Ben Carlson]

It is. It can. Tens of thousands of dollars over the course of your life, maybe hundreds of thousands if you had a good credit.

[Michael Batnick]

Score, by the way. Well, for me, in the opposite direction, because my career trajectory would have been.

[Ben Carlson]

That's what I'm saying. It can. It can totally change your.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, but thank. But thank God my credits suck because otherwise, who knows? Where I'd be not here. Not talking to you, Ben.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. There are those forks in the road, right?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. That was a major one.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, it is. This is something I would also tell young people. There are times in your life when you don't get a job or things seem really bad. I had many of those and I thought, the world is over. This is it, the end of the world. And you look back at those and you go, gosh, that I. I was so lucky that that thing didn't work out for me.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, yeah. Did you. Did you ever apply to the Bermuda Monetary Authority? Things that bad for you?

[Ben Carlson]

I. I lost a job once because I was trying to move to Chicago. My brother had a condo in Chicago, and I used his address and they were sending all the correspondence to him, and somehow he never got it. And I found the email. Then I said, I haven't heard back from you. They said, hey, we offered you the job, but he never responded. Yeah, that was a low point. That wasn't great. I think I went straight to the bar from there. Anyway, guess what? It worked out. I would have been miserable. It was like a real estate analyst job. It would have been awful. Wouldn't have worked out good. All right, let's talk tariffs for a minute. We've had lots of conversations about why aren't tariffs having a bigger impact from the Ramp economics lab? Our Kharazian has this great substack and he said, why are tariffs so confusing? This is the big thing. So Ramp is this company that helps people pay invoices and automates a lot of the financial decisions. So they have a ton of data to come from. So he said ramp data from manufacturing retail sector invoices shows a slow and gradual increase in tariff costs. The share of bills and invoices showing a tariff charge has doubled from 1.4% in 2024 to nearly 3% as of 2025, September. So basically saying it's still a very tiny number. It's way. So he. He goes through this whole thing in this and it's worth reading the article, but he basically says if you just looked at the announcements, you'd think, oh, my gosh, this is unbelievable. But if you look at the actual numbers and how many companies are actually paying tariffs or consumers, it's way smaller than the announcements. So companies are finding ways to skirt around these are not paying them. It's not having an impact because people aren't. The tariffs aren't being paid as much as one would think. And we actually have a podcast when is it coming out? Saturday, maybe Saturday. Okay. All right. So we have a podcast coming out with him talking about this and AI and it's really interesting stuff, so should be out soon.

[Michael Batnick]

All right. On the AI front, we talk as stock market people, we talk a lot about the market cap, the tweets, the charts, whatever. And I don't think we spend enough time talking about the underlying fundamentals, about what's actually happening. So our friend Michael Sidmore has a great substack and podcast called Altgoes Mainstream. And in the most recent edition, he wrote about what Meta is building in Louisiana. The Hyperion thing, that they're doing this interesting financing with Blue Owl and Pimp Gun, everything else. It's 4 million square feet. It's a 4 million square foot data center that's being built in Louisiana that will deliver over 2 GW of compute capacity to train future open source large language models. So for, for context, 5 gigawatts would be enough to power the entire city of Miami. So when you talk about the infrastructure, the Data center, the CapEx bubble, this is where it is.

[Ben Carlson]

You know, it is kind of funny. This is kind of a gotcha thing, but you could say, like, there's people who have been pounding the table and screaming for years like, why don't we build anything in the US Anymore? And they're probably the same people going, why are we building so many data centers now? You probably say, like, why can't we just build more houses and stuff? But this is one of those things that you're right, we're. We're actually building stuff here. And these, this isn't just. This is, this is actual, actual stuff that's going to matter in the future.

[Michael Batnick]

So they say, McKinsey projects that these data centers are projected to require almost $7 trillion to keep pace with the demand for compute power. So if that is even remotely within the realm of what happens, where you're seeing 6, $7 trillion being spent over a given time frame, and ostensibly the spend is because there's revenue tied to it such that the investment makes sense. If you get those sort of numbers, then looking at it today, it's not outlandish. I mean, it's, it's hard to, it's hard to think about numbers of that size, like, of that scale. So, for example. All right, let me put this in the dock. I had Chart kid make this. So we looked at Apple reported last week, we looked at all of their different segments and Apple, I think. Did Apple cost 4 trillion?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, okay, which is funny because Apple didn't get into the AI stuff at all. And they're still at all time highs and still $4 trillion.

[Michael Batnick]

All right. The iPhone over the last 12 months has done more in revenue than bank of America. The iPhone has done more revenue in the last 12 months than meta. All of meta.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, that one surprises me. And I do kind of get it though because my wife and I have both lost phones in the last year and it's not cheap to replace.

[Michael Batnick]

I will say that services, which is the bell of the ball, this is the highest margin business. This is pushing their margins to an all time high. Services business did more revenue than target $109 billion. If you look at the wearables, okay, the fricking wearables, dude. It did almost as much money, 36 billion as Starbucks, which did 37 billion. Starbucks has 80, 40,000 stores globally. I mean Starbucks, it's Starbucks. Salesforce did 39 billion. Okay, turning to the Mac, the computer. The Mac did more revenue 34 billion than Schwab. And lastly, the frickin iPad. The iPad. I know I'm saying It's not for three times the iPad, which in my mind, I don't know what I would have guessed iPad is. I would have guessed 5 billion, $10 billion. The iPad did more revenue in the last 12 months. And AMD.

[Ben Carlson]

That'S a good chart right there.

[Michael Batnick]

And they're buying back $100 billion of stock A year.

[Ben Carlson]

So I guess that I was going to get to this in a minute, but there was a chart.

[Michael Batnick]

My point is we, we're not even, we're not even pretending to zoom in oftentimes when we're having these conversations. And when you do, when you look at some of the numbers, it's like, all right, give me a guess.

[Ben Carlson]

So there's this number, this subset called Understanding AI and they, they show that the cash. Operating cash flow versus capital expenditures. And it's. So this is for Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle. And the operating cash flow is still. There's a huge wide gap between there. There's more than enough cash flow to cover all these capital expenditures. That into your point with Apple, it's because they make so much darn money, these companies, and they're not even listed on this obviously because they're not getting into it. Okay, that's good stuff, I'll give you that.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, I want to, I want to play this video. Let me share my screen.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

Somebody tweeted this from Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Did you see this, Ben?

[Ben Carlson]

No.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, here we go.

[Ben Carlson]

I've been doing calculations as well as looking back at old NASA footage and raw data from satellites hovering above Earth, and I just can't escape the conclusion that the Earth might actually be flat. That's not me. It was never me. Those aren't my words. That's what's called a deep fake.

[Michael Batnick]

How wild is that?

[Ben Carlson]

So wait, the Earth really is flat?

[Michael Batnick]

Yes, that's what I'm trying to. So boomers are going to get scammed into the Stone Age? And not just boomers. I got a call a couple of weeks ago. I was with Chris, actually. Somebody from Germany was trying to log into my Google account. I got. I got a push notification on my phone. I hit no, obviously, 10 seconds later I got a call from Google, right? It says Google on my phone. Now Google doesn't call you. Okay, so. But I, But I was like, wait a minute, what. So I was. I was getting scammed. Thank God I hung up the phone. But that doesn't even scratch the surface. Like that Neil DeGrasse Tyson video. And what's coming is going to make the crypto scams look like what? Look like my brain is breaking. What does it look like? A walk in the park?

[Ben Carlson]

Sure, let's go with that one. Isn't this. Can't there be a whole industry that crops up because of this though? Like, we're going to be the ones that tell you what's real and what's fake.

[Michael Batnick]

Well, I guess that's flack or whatever by CrowdStrike, for example. Like, these cyber security companies are the obvious secular winners for the next. For the next decade. But it's, it's, it's wild what's coming.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, I got a data 701 for here. This is awesome. Understanding AI. It shows data centers are catching up to offices. So it shows annual construction spending for data centers and other offices and data centers is almost closing the gap to be bigger. Here's what I want to see from the Wall Street Journal. There has to be a story of which construction companies are getting rich off of this. There has to be some. Someone who is. Other ancillary benefits to people who are working on these data centers and, and making money. Right. There has to be other outside impacts besides just the tech companies.

[Michael Batnick]

Well, yeah, this is helping someone who's getting these contracts.

[Ben Carlson]

That's. Yeah, that's a good question. And I mentioned this to you and Josh last week. We talked to a farmland manager who said because farmlands are tend to be by Resources that have a lot of water, farmland investments are now getting bid up and farmers are making money because they're trying to buy these data centers or build the data centers on farmland because it's so close to water, because they need the water. There's going to be so many knock on effects like that now Again, people are probably mad, like what? Wait, the build out of the data centers is taking away construction workers from building other offices and building houses and blah, blah, blah. But I still think like the fact that we're building this stuff in the states, that's, that's a net positive for us.

[Michael Batnick]

Yep, lots of jobs.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, I want to talk about AI and jobs. So this is from Wall Street Journal. Tens of thousands of white collar jobs are disappearing as AI starts to bite.

[Michael Batnick]

By the way, Derek Thompson tweeted, Derek Thompson made this chart like 2 weeks ago and everybody's stealing it.

[Ben Carlson]

Which one?

[Michael Batnick]

This one.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, so this is the S&P 500 versus total job openings. And it shows. When Chat GPT launched, job openings crashed. I'm sorry, this is a massive chart crime. Massive. This, this. If you're trying to say that Chat GPT coming out is causing job openings to fall that quickly. This is the. Nick, this is the Nicholas Cage thing. The number of people who drown in falling in a pool versus films Nicholas Cage appeared in. You could. This is total correlation causation. And this is a massive chart crime. You cannot tell me. Okay, AI is going to have an impact on white collar jobs. Yes. It did it immediately when Chat GPT launched. Come on, give me a break. This is, this is a chart crime to the nth degree. Correct. Straight to jail.

[Michael Batnick]

Well, two things in this chart. Number one, the blue line artificially got inflated during COVID Right. Jolts.

[Ben Carlson]

Like. That's the thing. It was, it was. This is part of the 2021 job market slowing down.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. And then also, you know what else happened when Chachi BT launched or I guess before when this, when the blue line actually peaks? Hmm. Was there a tightening cycle?

[Ben Carlson]

I can't remember exactly. Everyone, the company is over hired, they raise rates, all this stuff.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, nonsense.

[Ben Carlson]

Is AI going to have an impact on jobs? Yes. Is it already. So John Leteri put this thing out and there's these things like Amazon, what did they. They let go 35,000 people and you say, oh my gosh. But he looked at just in the fourth quarter alone, 7.5 million private sector jobs were destroyed in the fourth quarter alone of 2024. Okay. Job gains 7.7 million like there's so much churn in the US job market because there's so many people and so many workers that like these numbers. You have to put them into context sometimes. For sure, the unemployment rate is still 4.3%. Although I guess if we don't report it anymore, maybe it doesn't count. I know AI is going to have an impact. I don't see how you can say that it's having this big of an impact yet. That's my whole point. I think people need to calm down a little bit.

[Michael Batnick]

It's a chart crime.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, where are we at?

[Michael Batnick]

All right, let's. Let me, if you, if you would allow me to take five minutes on, on strategy. All right, so the, the company formerly known as Micro Strategy reported earnings this week. Chart kid made this looking at the ratio of strategy to bitcoin. And this peaked, this peaked a year ago actually in November 2024. And it has been straight down for the last really since July. It's been acting really funky in a bad way. The next chart shows the value of their bitcoin holdings compared to the market cap. And people are hemming and hang a year ago, why are they getting such a premium? Well, guess what? That premium collapsed. Matt also showed the market cap value divided by the bitcoin holdings value and it peaked at like 3.5 times. It's now 1.2 times now. There's a lot of different reasons for this. I think the primary one would be that if you wanted exposure to crypto in a brokerage account, particularly levered exposure before all the ETFs before all the other treasury companies, this was the only game in town. So the, the earnings call itself, it's an. It was an hour and 50 minutes. There's 92 slides. Now to me, I know a lot of people don't care about this but to me listening.

[Ben Carlson]

You listen to this whole call?

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, no, I, I listen to a lot of it, but I. Not all of it. It was Friday at 4 o'.

[Ben Carlson]

Clock.

[Michael Batnick]

I said I think, I think I'm done. 92 slides hour, 50 minutes. I've never seen such a thing. And one of the things that they talk about was them getting a credit rating. All right, so this is Fong Le. He is the president and CEO. I'm going to play this at 1.5 times speed. So if you're already jacked up to two, this might sound like a mouse so you might want to slow it down. All right, here he is talking about the S and P Rating or pools of capital.

[Ben Carlson]

So what does the B, S and P assign? That's a B minus issue a credit rating to strategy. And we think this is a big milestone not just for strategy and for bitcoin treasury companies, but a big milestone for bitcoin in and of itself. There's been a lot of discussion around whether we think this is a good rating or rating.

[Michael Batnick]

I think it's a solid starting rating.

[Ben Carlson]

And I think even more importantly to have a rating, it gives us access to more pools of capital. So what does a B minus rating mean? By definition, that we'll continue to manage our capital structure prudently, aim that we maintain market access. That's a framework that's called non bank financial institutions. That's a framework the S P uses to rate us. And importantly, at this point in time, Bitcoin is. We don't get any credit for the bitcoin on our balance sheet when it.

[Michael Batnick]

Comes to our ratings deducted from our. They think so, but. All right, all right. So here is Michael Saylor himself. Now I will preface this by this man is extraordinarily intelligent, IQ off the wazoo. And also there's a fine line between genius and crazy. Respectfully, I mean, this sounds, this sounds nuts and maybe I don't get it, maybe I just don't. But here's Michael. Listen up and well tell yourself what you think. Here we go.

[Michael Saylor]

The second innovation is where we're replacing traditional risk with digital risk. Traditional risk, it's opaque, it's heterogeneous, it's discrete. You own 8,700 houses or you own, you know, you're exposed to a portfolio of 47 junk bond issuers and maybe they're fine, but then there's a tariff or there's a trade war or there's a competitive change or maybe there's a strike or maybe an airplane crashes, you know, or there's a COVID lockdown. Whenever you have these kind of conventional real world issues, you have a discrete explosion.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't know how that wouldn't impact heterogeneous or not, and I'm not quite exactly sure what that means, but I'm not sure why Bitcoin wouldn't be impacted by any of those risks that he highlights. But who am I?

[Michael Saylor]

Or changing customs duties. So traditional risk is opaque, it's heterogeneous, it's discrete. On the other hand, digital risk is transparent, it's homogeneous, it's continuous. You can go to our website and we update the risk model every 15 seconds and so it is completely continuous. We update the price of Bitcoin, we update the volatility of Bitcoin on a continuous basis. We update the BTC ratings. You can plug in your statistical models into them. And of course, all the risk is based upon your outlook of BTC ARR, BTC volume, BTC price and BTC rating. So digital risk is, is something where you don't have to wait for a year for a credit rating agency to publish a new report to tell you whether your favorite airline or your favorite, you know, restaurant chain is riskier or less risky. With digital risk, you can literally plug into the right and you can recount.

[Michael Batnick]

Now there's seven innovations that was merely about one of seven. Uh, I know a lot of people that are listening, like Michael, please, enough. I don't care. Well, I care. I think this is one of the most fascinating stories in the financial markets. Michael Saylor has generated a lot of buzz, raised a lot of capital to power this perpetual money machine. Had a lot of success up until, I guess the peak at the end of 2024. It's been certainly a rough 2025. Can he get his mojo back? Are buyers buying what he's selling? Is raising capital a business model? The FT did a, did a good piece on the credit rating rating age, the credit ratings of strategy and what it means. And they said what makes this episode remarkable, this is the FT is the company's craving for validation from the very tradfi establishment it claims to reject. Strategy presents itself as a bulwark against the debasement of fiat currency, yet it seeks legitimacy from two of the oldest and arguably most discredited pillars of the ancient regime, sell side equity research analysts and credit rating agencies. And that's not even mentioning the palpable desire to gain membership in the S&P 500. The company's pursuit of conventional approval betrays more than a little self doubt about its own purportedly disruptive project. So one of the interesting things on the call is what they're doing, and I mentioned this last time, with their four different preferreds, where they're trying to strip out the volatility risk and like somehow shift all of it into the dividends of the preferreds or the interest payments, whatever. And he talks so fast and it's just like it's hard. Honestly, he's, because he's, he's so much more, he's so much smarter than I am.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm, I'm picturing you in your mudroom as Charlie Day from It's Always sunny with and the pictures.

[Michael Batnick]

I can't. I honestly can't.

[Ben Carlson]

Daniel, make that one happen for me. Make Michael as the. That guy.

[Michael Batnick]

I can't keep up. So then the FT goes on and last thing and then I'll stop here. Actually, that's not true. One more thing. The FT says the company argues that it's $71 billion Treas of Bitcoin offers a massive buffer of collateral to service its obligations. But this exposes what S and P calls a currency mismatch between Strategy's dollar denominated liabilities and its Bitcoin denominated assets. Fixed income investors take on the risk of this mismatch without sharing in the. In the bitcoin upside, receiving only a dividend while being exposed to potentially ruinous losses. And as S and P notes of Strategy were forced to sell Bitcoin to meet its obligations, it would likely occur during a downturn precisely when the collateral is losing value. I did forget one last quote that I wanted to highlight. An analyst asked him about price action. Now, this was last week. Bitcoin had been in a pullback, but things have accelerated to the downside this week. But he didn't really answer the question. At least I had trouble finding an answer in here. But let me know what you think or again, let yourself know.

[Michael Saylor]

I think Fong highlighted some of them in the discussion of S and P credit ratings issues. Right. The fact that Bitcoin is not viewed as capital by the traditional credit ratings industry. So I think the view of Bitcoin and the collateral value of Bitcoin and the traditional views under the Basel rules, under the rules that govern our banking system, our insurance companies and our credit rating agencies. I think that that's a structural thing. You know, like when, when FASB didn't allow you to recognize gains, but they made you recognize losses, you didn't. And you had indefinite intangible accounting, that was pretty crippling. I think that we fixed that. And I think that fixing capital risk rules, you know, will be a big one. I think the second is banking acceptance, custody and credit banks issuing credit on Bitcoin. So we're hearing rumors and we've heard, you know, that a number of major banks in the US in the first half of 2026 will Bitcoin sell Bitcoin custody Bitcoin and issue credit and margin lines against the native Bitcoin asset. That will be great for them, that will be great for bitcoin, that will be great for us. That will accelerate adoption. And, and so I I would say that neither of these are things that I would ask for government help for.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, So I didn't really hear an answer there. I think it's, it's, it's as simple as the market for now is no longer buying what strategy is selling. Maybe they can get their mojo back. We'll see. Time will tell. And forgive me if this is of absolute no interest to you. I can't take my eyes off of it.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm not gonna lie. I tuned out a little bit ago.

[Michael Batnick]

I know. It's okay. It's okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Let me ask you a question, though. Are you saying. So Bitcoin is 108,000 now. It's up 15% year to date in a very risk on environment when the dollar is getting crushed. Right. If I'm a macro person, here's the Winnie the Pooh meme. I just put it in the doc for you. This is a new macro thing. Stocks are an inflation hedge. First, Winnie the Pooh second, Winnie the Pooh stocks are a debasement hedge. That's how you macro right there.

[Michael Batnick]

That is good.

[Ben Carlson]

Are you a little surprised Bitcoin's only up 15% year to date? Because I kind of thought once it hits 100, like, oh, boy, who knows? I'm kind of surprised that now it's. To be fair, it's up 60% over.

[Michael Batnick]

The past year, while sentiment in cryptoland is, like, in the toilet.

[Ben Carlson]

So, I mean, do you think gold is a big part of that? The fact that gold is going nuts? I feel like there has to be some envy from the crypto people this year going, oh, man, gold is doing what we thought we were going to do this year.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't think any, I don't think any crypto person would say that. They're like, now there's like, there's very. There's hyper rational, logical, sensible people who are like, guys, calm down. Zoom out. 110,000. Like, chill. It's not going to go up 70% a year. It's a major asset class at this point. Like, everybody needs to pump their expectations.

[Ben Carlson]

Like I said, it's up 60% last year, just this year, 2025. If you're looking at it in a vacuum, bitcoin is kind of just middling.

[Michael Batnick]

No, it is middling. Absolutely. So given, given the backdrop, given gold, given max seven names and a lot of the speculative names, like the oclos of the world and the quantum stuff. Absolutely. You wouldn't, you would think that bitcoin should be doing much Better for sure.

[Ben Carlson]

That was ye. Yeoman's work there. How do you say that word? Yeoman.

[Michael Batnick]

Sorry. Yeah, I know for a lot of people they're like, they're fast voting or.

[Ben Carlson]

Just ending the episode. It was an interesting story. All right, you've been on it too. So the K shaped stuff, this is from nar. Let's get to housing. They look at the. They do this on an annual basis. Change in sale by price range year over year. This is a number of sales, not like how much it went up. The biggest cohort that's getting more sales is the million dollar houses. 20% of the total now. Whereas under 250k is 8% of the total. More houses are selling for a million dollars or more than any, any price right now. Which is kind of insane when you think about it, but that's kind of our new reality.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, I bet it also. It's insane when you think about it, but then it makes a ton of sense when you think about it.

[Ben Carlson]

The people who are able to buy houses, like you said, don't have to worry about much about traditional financing. They have portfolios that they can use. They are buying the higher priced houses. Yeah. They're not, they're not worried about mortgage rates. They have home equity they can use. I don't know. I just, I don't think a lot of people look at this and go, oh, this is great. Awesome.

[Michael Batnick]

Ben. You know, you know the line in, in Naked Gun, the late Leslie Nielsen says something like, he's driving with, with Ed, the big guy. And he goes, everywhere I look, I'm reminded of her. You know what I'm talking about? Yes. So there's a phenomenon.

[Ben Carlson]

I watched the new one I'm going to talk about in my recommendations.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay. There's a phenomenon. It has a name. I can't remember what it's called where like you buy a car or you get a dog and then you like, you see them like you've never seen them before.

[Ben Carlson]

Right, right. Yep.

[Michael Batnick]

So that's happening with me now for the, for the Dan Wang book that we keep talking about like the lawyers versus engineers. Now it's so obvious in this article because it literally. This is what the article was about. But this guy, Michael Riley does. He covers, he covers dc. That's his beat for Bloomberg. And he wrote a really good profile on Oklo and the history of nuclear and funding and the mismatch between venture and the industry and all that. It was really well done. So they spoke about this guy who is an early Investor in Oklo. And his whole strategy was basically to replicate the Uber playbook.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, like go into a place, just do it. Ask for, don't ask for permission.

[Michael Batnick]

Just, just, just regulatory change.

[Ben Carlson]

Forgiveness.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, like just, just make it happen. So the article said Uber deployed lawsuits and regulatory assaults so regularly that the serial entrepreneur Michael bertoff said in 2023 that hailing an Uber account amounts to law firm that just happens to have an independent contractor driver nearby. Its army of lobbyists and aggressive political maneuvering cowed politicians from New York City to New Delhi. The company's playbook inspired a new term, regulatory entrepreneurship in trying to apply that model across industries. Cherry, who was the original investor, the original venture guy, and I forget his first name. And to Oklo, he built a company that has little in common with a traditional VC operation. Here's a coup de gras. Rather than hiring mainly MBAs, Trust Ventures is stacked with lawyers. Cherry and his team devote much of their time to dissecting regulations, looking for loopholes. So I have no opinion on like, you know, is this dirty? Is this good? Is this necessary? Is this what you need to enact change, whatever. Like that's a whole other nuanced debate. But this is the world that we live in in the United States where everything, I feel like the, the, the default answer to everything can we do this is no. Because of legislation.

[Ben Carlson]

So now you know why so many business leaders and entrepreneurs and venture capital people were Trump supporters. Because it was the promises were deregulation. We're going to cut the red tape and let you do whatever you want. Right?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. And that's say what you say what you want. If you're, you know, obviously a lot of people are not supporters but like there is a lot of over regulation and is there the risk, the not so little risk that we cut too much fat to the bone and we, we over deregulate. Sure.

[Ben Carlson]

Of course there is, we, we definitely will. I, I would, I imagine there's stuff that's going to happen because of this, but we got here. Yeah, we obviously went too far in the other direction.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, this, this, this headline stuck out to me immediately. Kraft Heinz CEO warrants of worst consumer sentiment in decades. That's from Bloomberg. So they reported the CEO said we now have one of the worst consumer sentiment. Okay, I just read that part. The company expects full year organic net sales to be down three to three and a half percent. He cited slower growth in emerging markets and pressure on the US retail. They cut their outlook. All right, so obviously my thinking Is. Hey, wait a minute. Maybe there's just other things happening that in the industry, more so than just like, yeah, the consumer doesn't buy ketchup anymore because they can't afford ketchup. So Bloomberg says other ketchup. Right. Other big packaged food companies have. Yeah. How bad do things have to be without being insensitive for you to say, no, I can't get ketchup. Right.

[Ben Carlson]

We. We buy. Listen, we buy a lot of ketchup in the Carlson household because my son, he'll fill up half his plate with ketchup when he has a burger and fries. I got him a T shirt last time I traveled somewhere that says, I put ketchup on my ketchup in the Heinz logo, you know? Um, so it's not. It's not our problem. Sorry, Kraft, we're doing our part.

[Michael Batnick]

Same Kobe dips, apple slices, and ketchup.

[Ben Carlson]

Which is everything, right? Kids use ketchup forever. Yeah, it's gross.

[Michael Batnick]

All right. Analysts have said that these companies make the kinds of processed foods Americans are moving away from. Now, obviously, Heinz makes a lot more than just ketchup. So the. So how's this for a nonsense quote from Mondelez, CEO, the government shutdown going forward will not help with the confidence of the consumer, bro. People, your company's not struggling because the consumer is worried about the government shutdown. Get out of here. Ben, did you watch the show Ridiculousness? Are you even, like, familiar with it?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. Rob Dyrdek, okay, He. He. He stole the show from Tosh. Daniel. Tosh. Do you remember Tosh? Oh, yeah. Okay, so we used to watch that one, and Rob Dyrdek stole the idea of ridiculousness from Tosh. Point zero.

[Michael Batnick]

Got it. Okay. I never. I never saw Tosh 2.0 with Tosh. Point. I'm sorry, but I was familiar with it being a thing. I didn't know that. Anyway, so apparently there's, like, a new shit has come to light. There's a lawsuit, and this was unearthed.

[Ben Carlson]

And it was literally the only thing. They plan MTV for, like, 24 hours a day.

[Michael Batnick]

So this dude is making 32 and a half million dollars a year. They do 336 episodes a year. Isn't that wild?

[Ben Carlson]

Did you ever watch Robin Big back in the day?

[Michael Batnick]

No, I know what. It was a thing. He was his bodyguard or something.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I like that show. Rip like that. He passed away.

[Michael Batnick]

All right. Anyway, I just thought it was wild that he makes that much money content and business. And obviously MTV is a Paramount. Paramount studio thing. Anyway, that Was a face blower for me. All right, a lot of people shared this, this meme with us with two dads run into each other at Costco dad. Oh, here comes trouble. Other dad. I guess they let anyone in here. Both dads. And it's Tom Cruise with just cackling. So good.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, that's, that's. That one got me.

[Michael Batnick]

Here's another good one. Somebody said, hey, what was that AI podcast that Ben mentioned last week?

[Ben Carlson]

A million people ask me. Just so you know people, in the future, we do show notes on our [e-mail] or relevant investor.com that has links to everything we talk about. So if you need. Because people ask me and I shared. But if you need to know, we have shownotes on our websites.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, well, get this. No longer will you need to go to the show notes or email Ben directly because this person asked Google which said it gave him the answer. He said the Animal spirits AI podcast and it gave him the answer.

[Ben Carlson]

Wow, that's pretty good.

[Michael Batnick]

That's pretty cool right there.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, there was this robot thing on Twitter that went nuts called Neo the home robot. And there was a video and they showed it and it says, it can do your laundry. It can clean for you. See, the person that folds your laundry that they're robots are going to take their job now. And it says you can, I think you can buy this thing for 20 grand or pay like $500 a month for it. And this had like 67 million views on Twitter. And I just have to say, and it sounds like there are some caveats. Like, I guess there's going to be like someone watching the robot through a screen for certain tasks and like controlling it for you. So it sounds a little sketchy and I'm sure it's not ready for prime time, but I am not usually an early adopter of technology and I don't know how this thing's gonna do. Who knows?

[Michael Batnick]

That's true.

[Ben Carlson]

You.

[Michael Batnick]

You just discovered Apple Pay.

[Ben Carlson]

But I will be one of the last people, though. I'm gonna wait like five years to buy a robot. I'm not gonna be the one who buys the robot and have the robot come put it in, like choke me or something. Like, I've seen enough movies. I'm not gonna be a first adopter of a robot. Here's the thing. I don't want a robot to look like a human. Why can't it just look? Why can't it be a box with tentacles that come out? I Don't want it to look like a person. That. That's way too creepy. If you walk in your house in a dark room and the robots just sitting there, how creepy is that going to be? I don't want to have. I'm not going to be the first doctor of the robot. And listen, if you buy a robot in. The robot kills you, no one can feel sorry for you. If you buy the first version of the robot and it turns on you like iRobot style, you can't. It's like going skydiving and you die. Like, sorry. No one feels sorry for you.

[Michael Batnick]

Fair Daniel's getting uncomfortable. He's moving in a seat.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm sorry, but if you buy the first version of a robot and it turns on you and it kills you, I'll go to your funeral. But I'm not going to, like. I'm not going to shed a tear. Sorry.

[Michael Batnick]

Robots are coming.

[Ben Carlson]

They definitely are, but I'm not. I'm going to wait. Right?

[Michael Batnick]

Well, of course you are. So am I. I mean, listen, I think. I think by definition, most people are going to wait for a $20,000 robot purchase.

[Ben Carlson]

True. All right. But yeah, they're coming. All right. So I got into the. I gave up on baseball like 15 years ago. I just don't. Didn't care anymore. It's too long, too slow, too boring. I had other stuff going on. I got really into the playoffs this year. I watched the Tigers play. They barely lost the Mariners. And I kept watching and I watched and I got really invested in the Blue Jays and Dodgers. I watched most of the series. I really wanted the Blue Jays to win because I hate the evil M players that spend too much money. And John Smoltz was the announcer. So I stayed up and watched the whole game seven the other night, one in the morning or something. Awesome game. I felt so bad for Blue Jays fans, our fellow Canadians that always listen to us. But John Smoltz is the announcer for Fox and he's really, really good. And it's got me thinking. I forgot the very first boss I had in this business. John Smoltz has some Detroit ties because he started out his life at the Tiger. I don't know if he's from Detroit, but he started off with the Tigers and the Tigers traded into the Braves, where he got all good. My boss had had a professional athlete as a. As a. As a client. He had some family office clients, but mostly we worked with institutions and had a really bad experience. And someone said, hey, John Smoltz was Recommended as a client to you, and he'd like to talk to you because your other clients had such a good experience. And my boss said, no, not talking to him. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, we got to take this meeting. This is John Smoltz. And he said, I have a hard and fast rule I never work with. I will never work with a professional athlete again. The demands are too much. The. It's. It's. They were divas. I don't know this guy from anyone else, but I'm not going to even take this call with him. And I was flabbergasted. But looking back on it now, I love that he had that hard and fast rule. Like, these are the clients I'm going to work with. These are the ones I won't. Anyway, that's my John Smoltz story.

[Michael Batnick]

Wow.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, recommendations. Can I go first? Because I got a handful here. First of all, I have a horror movie that got me the heebie jeebies. You know, the I. You say I'm a robot because I don't have those feelings. I got it.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Which one? This is because my son, he now likes our chat GPT to say, hey, we like this movie. Type it in. Other movies like Tremors, Other movies like Beetlejuice. So we've been using that a lot. So yesterday we watched Arachnophobia, and that movie makes my skin crawl. Absolutely. Because it feels real. It's not one of these weird that I hate spiders. I do, too. And so that movie, I mean, if you lived in the house, I don't know if you've seen it in a while, but you would literally burn that house to the ground before you stayed in it. Correct. The whole house was swarmed with spiders.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. Disgusting. I did rewatch, like an hour of it a couple years ago.

[Ben Carlson]

I mean, John Goodman as the exterminator.

[Michael Batnick]

He was. He was. He. Was that his breakout role? Probably not, but it could have been. That's my earliest memory of him.

[Ben Carlson]

He was in Raising Arizona, was probably his breakout one. Okay, so I did watch Naked Gun. It's on Paramount right now. And I love the originals. We've talked about this, and obviously Leslie Nielsen. Wait, what's his. No, Liam Neeson.

[Michael Batnick]

Let me ask you this. Was it better or worse than you thought it was going to be?

[Ben Carlson]

I belly laughed probably five times, like, hearty laughs. And so he's. Obviously, it wasn't quite the same as the originals, but there was enough good jokes in there that I really laughed hard. And that Was.

[Michael Batnick]

And that's all you could ask for?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, it was like an hour and 20 minutes.

[Michael Batnick]

It was great.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, so the House of Dynamite was literally the one of the endings of all time, right? For a movie that tried to be good, it was one of the worst movie endings ever. It really was.

[Michael Batnick]

That was the. That was the horse meme. The. The whatever. The crap in the back. I'm. I'm usually like, I can forgive a bad ending because I know sometimes the planes are hard to land. But that ending completely invalidated the entire thing. And not just the ending. Idris Elba's entire existence in that movie. I'm not saying it was his fault. As soon as he came into the movie, it went to shit. There was so. And no spoilers. Do not watch this movie. Okay, you're welcome.

[Ben Carlson]

Don't waste your time. It was a waste of time.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, my God. Did you. Did you rewind as soon as it ended? Did I skip a part?

[Ben Carlson]

That's what I thought. Wait, did I miss something here?

[Michael Batnick]

What were they doing? Who thought that was good?

[Ben Carlson]

All right, speaking of the horse meme, I watched Weapons on hbo. Max. Now, I know this. This movie had a little buzz. I think you kind of. You liked it. Weapons. I know you saw theater, right? Okay, this movie was the horse meme. Okay? And I know this movie got some buzz. I thought the first hour of the movie was, like, riveting. It was, oh, my gosh, what's going on with these kids? And Julia Garner, who was in Ozark, I think she is fantastic. But then they went, and her storyline was great, and Josh Brolin was pretty, and they did all these different. The same story from different points of view. I thought it was really good. In the last hour of the movie, I thought just it was a car careening off of a cliff, that it was the lady from Uncle Buck. Shanice from Uncle Buck, or not Shanice, I can't remember. The Uncle Buck's girlfriend. And she's also in Field of Dreams. Just the payoff I thought was so, so bad. And the fact that it was like 2 hours and 15 minutes. This should have been an hour and 30 minute movie. I thought this was the total horse meme. So here's. Here's my. My analogy for movies this year. I feel like 20, 25.

[Michael Batnick]

Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Before. Before we get off weapons, you having a strong take on weapons would be like me telling you that Uncle Buck doesn't work. You're not allowed to have an opinion on horror Movies because you're not a horror movie guy. And the last, the part that you didn't like about weapons, when it got silly, that was like obviously intentional. It was comedy. And I did see it in the theater and the entire theater was cackling because that was the intended purpose. It wasn't supposed to be like, huh, that's a weird ending. So you, you don't get to. You don't get to weigh in. Sorry, no offense.

[Ben Carlson]

It was an unintentional horror comedy.

[Michael Batnick]

That's what I'm supposed to say. No, no, no, no, no. It was very intentional. It was intentionally hilarious. You were supposed to laugh at the end.

[Ben Carlson]

The whole last. Just. I'm sorry. It was awful. Terrible. Didn't work at all. It was really.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, well, guess what? Transplants and automobiles. Stupid. You have these two 40. You have these two middle aged guys are crying with each. Come on. My point is, it's not. That's not a you. It's not. No, no, no. I love transplant.

[Ben Carlson]

You're getting upset about my weapons review.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, no. My point is this is not for you to weigh in.

[Ben Carlson]

Here's my theory about movies in 2025, because we've done this a lot. Sinners, I thought was a good movie, not a great movie. The PTA one. You said everyone's saying this is a classic, but it's, it's just a good movie. I thought Weapons is kind of the same thing. So here it is. So Michael Mobison had this piece about Ted Williams and why he at 400. And the reason is, is because the level of competition was wider back then. There weren't nearly as many good people. So now, like there's a higher average overall, but it's the, you know, people are just better. And I think that was a Ted Williams thing. So in the 2000s, I'm gonna go land this plane. Kanye west, everyone called him a genius in the 2010s ring rapper. I think if he was in the 1990s, he would have just been another rapper. He would've been good. He would add some hit songs. He. People never would have called him a genius. And it's because there was no other good rappers at the time. And so my point here is there are so few good movies anymore. Anytime that there is a good movie, a decent movie, people have to say it's the greatest thing ever.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, I totally agree with that take. But also, if it's a relative thing, if you asked me, should I watch Weapons, I would say no, it's not for you because it's genuinely not for you. Like, I'm not surprised that you didn't like the ending because it's not for you.

[Ben Carlson]

But I. The first hour of the movie I thought was really good. It was really interesting.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. And I. And I, I did. I. I enjoyed the Shadow Weapons. I had a great time. But like, I agree with movie. Is it a. No, stop. Is it a classic? No, it was good. It was good horror movie. It was fun. I had a good time.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, any re.

[Michael Batnick]

Did you watch Weapons? Did you love it? Yeah, See, Daniel loved it. He gets it. Any other recommendations? No, I just do recommend House of Dynamite. I'm pretty dry right now. Oh, you know what's annoying? I really want to watch the Scorsese doc. It's like six episodes on Apple tv. Come on. That's a two hour movie at most. I don't have time for six episodes of Marty.

[Ben Carlson]

That is a lot. See, they should have audible for documentaries.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, I would two times the shit out of that. I really want to watch it.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, so you should just be able to like. Do you need to see a documentary? I guess you want to see some movies scenes, but. Okay. Okay, let's do some plugs. Let's plug Talking Wealth.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, so. So we have a podcast channel called called Talking wealth and we talk about stuff in our day job, stuff going on around the industry, who's making noise, what should advisors be looking for? So you can find that on our YouTube channel, Talking Wealth.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, it's a YouTube Talking Wealth. We also have a podcast version now. It's you, me and Josh talking to people about what's going on in the industry and new exciting products and services and strategies and. Yes, take a look.

[Michael Batnick]

What else? All right, that's enough. We went long. Sorry, Daniel. Doesn't even take a minute.

[Ben Carlson]

Is our FBA conference going to be a podcast or not?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. I don't know.

[Michael Batnick]

Animal Spirits of the compound News. Thank you everybody for the listens, for the emails. Love hearing from our audience. Have a great week. We'll see you next time.