What Would You Do With $3 Million? (EP. 451)

Summary

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Animal Spirits Podcast Episode 451 Summary

Title: What Would You Do With $3 Million?
Date: February 11, 2026
Hosts: Michael Batnick & Ben Carlson

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Michael and Ben delve into a rapidly shifting market landscape: the unwind in big tech and software stocks amid the ongoing AI revolution, the broadening of the stock market beyond the "Mag 7," massive sector rotations, and the implications for asset allocators and individual investors. The discussion balances market data with personal investing tales, explores the behavioral and real-life questions like the value of a $3M house vs. a $3M portfolio, and ends with lighter banter about parenting, travel, and streaming recommendations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Market’s Rapid Shift: Tech Stumble, Everything Else Rises

• Market Recap & Stock Dispersion

  • S&P 500 was flat last week, but “the average stock was up almost 2%. 337 stocks outperformed the index.” (Ben, 05:03)
  • Huge dispersion: “107 stocks fell 4% on an individual day,” which historically aligns with bear markets, but “the index was just 1.5% off its highs.” (Michael, 06:02)
  • “This really is, seems to be the year where it’s turning—the other stuff is working.” (Ben, 05:26)

• Sector Standouts

  • Materials, energy, consumer staples, industrials, and utilities are all outperforming (“Every material stock is outperforming the S&P 500... 96% of energy stocks, 92% of staples... 86% of industrials... 77% of utilities.” - Michael, 06:56)
  • Consumer staples stocks are especially strong, driven by a sentiment switch and flight to safety, but also “a fundamental re-rating in some of these areas.” (Michael, 07:25)
  • “Consumer staples are going nuts too.” (Ben, 07:00)

• Valuations Gone Wild

  • “Walmart’s PE is 46x, Costco 54x... forward PE of tech and staples are basically at parity, which is wild.” (Ben/Michael, 08:09–08:16)

• Mega Cap Unwind

  • Equal-weight indices and small caps are hitting all-time highs as “the Mag 7 has gone nowhere for like six months.” (Ben, 06:34)
  • “It's the software/momentum unwind—software stocks got crushed, like Microsoft down 25%... Adobe down 50%.” (Michael, 09:48, 18:49)

2. Software’s Reckoning: Is AI Killing Moats?

• AI Disrupts Software

  • "Anthropic came out with Claude, Claude code, cloud, agents... is this totally changing what is going to happen in the software stock market?" (Ben, 17:11)
  • Overreaction or justified? “There’s going to be huge layoffs in these companies. They can’t continue to give stock options.” (Ben, 21:55)
  • PitchBook perspective: “Replacing a core SaaS platform effectively is open heart surgery...” but trend toward “AI copilots” layered on top is likelier than wholesale replacement. (Michael quoting PitchBook, 22:28)

• Ben Thompson on AI’s Real Impact

  • “[AI code writing] is only a matter of time before the vast majority of software is written by AI...” but support, maintenance, integration, and compliance mean “companies don’t want code, they want a product.” (Michael reading Ben Thompson, 23:23–25:40)
  • Short-term: overreaction is understandable. Long-term: “the moats are damaged, growth story slowed, a re-rating seems justified.” (Michael, 26:05)

3. Private Credit & Financial Knock-on Effects

• Risks to Private Credit:
  • “A lot of the businesses [private credit] lend to are SaaS businesses... within private credit, 17% of borrowers are software companies representing 22% of $1 trillion+ debt.” (Michael, 27:41)
  • Several BDCs and PE managers tanked: “Blue Owl down 50%, Blackstone/KKR/Apollo down 30%.” (Ben, 29:25)

4. Hyperscaler CapEx and The AI Arms Race

• CapEx Explosion
  • “Hyperscalers' CapEx was 65% of cash flow in '25, expected up to 90% in '26... that's 1.1pp of US GDP.” (Ben, 32:26, 33:19)
  • Reluctance: “There’s no way investors will allow 90% of op cash flow on CapEx, stocks will crash.” (Michael, 32:26)
  • “The output of all of this spend is going to be so insane... it’s hard to get too bearish on the stock market overall.” (Michael, 34:45)

5. Market Structure, Rotation, and Flows

• Broadening Market & Inflows

  • “Sector funds excluding tech had record $62B inflows in the first 5 weeks of the year—more than all of 2025.” (Ben, 36:56)
  • “The market is broadening out... you don't see that at market tops.” (Michael, 36:37)

• International & EM Rotation

  • “EM and international stocks continue to outperform... dollar could be in a cycle, which is bullish for EM.” (Ben, 38:01)
  • “This looks like a real bottom... my mind is blown.” (Michael, 39:15)

6. AI ROI: Real or Vapor?

• Are Companies Realizing AI Gains?
  • Kai Wu’s research: “Only 7% of companies mention AI-driven ROI, but those that do are outperforming by 5pp/year.” (Michael/Ben, 41:54–42:17)
  • Specific example: “C.H. Robinson, a logistics co, is using AI for more efficient matching—parabolic move.” (Ben, 41:56)
  • Claude (AI) analysis: “Aggressive rotation from high-multiple growth into capital-intensive businesses... classic late-cycle value rotation.” (Ben quoting Claude, 45:15)

7. Behavioral Investing: Catching Knives & Personal Capital Allocation

• Knife-catching in Practice

  • Michael bought IGV and Bitcoin after “panic, physical get-me-out liquidations,” noting he’ll cut losses if no bounce. (Michael, 15:29, 48:22, 51:00)
  • Ben: “Dollar-cost averaging into a losing name feels better than averaging into a winner. It's backwards.” (Ben, 15:55)

• Concentration Risks

  • “Concentration works both ways... more concentrated investors now than ever.” (Ben, 10:10)

8. What Would You Do with $3 Million?

• Debate: $3M House vs $3M Portfolio
  • “Why is a $3 million home a status symbol, but a $3 million portfolio isn’t?” (Nick Maggiulli, 58:51)
  • Ben would pick the home for utility at his life stage: “I’d get more joy out of the house.”
  • Michael counters: “You are an idiot. You could take a million dollars...” but ultimately relates to Ben’s logic. (59:55–60:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Software Panic:
  “The market is usually right. When a stock is down 50% and you’re blindly trying to buy it, you’re probably going to be wrong.” — Michael (19:48)

• On The Sea Change:
  “Last year was the start... now it’s small caps and mid caps and micro caps and value stocks... all this stuff is finally working.” — Ben (14:16)

• AI and Company Moats:
  “The moat has been damaged here... companies will spring up that don’t need as many employees that can write AI code...” — Ben (25:49)

• Parental Involvement:
  “We are totally the helicopter generation... I don’t know what the ramifications are.” — Ben (64:12)

• On Market Structure:
  “When you just look at portfolios, people are much more concentrated than they were before.” — Ben (10:17)

• Bitcoin/Tech Correlation:
  “IGV and Bitcoin look like twins... they are moving in lockstep. This chart is a tough look for Bitcoin.” — Michael & Ben (47:52–47:54)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:52] Market update: S&P flat but massive dispersion
• [06:34] Sector outperformers and “sea change” in market leadership
• [09:05] Household names down 40–70% vs. S&P highs
• [15:29] Discussion of knife-catching and software panic
• [17:11] Why software is crashing: AI panic, Anthropic’s Claude
• [23:23] Ben Thompson on AI’s impact on the software sector
• [27:36] Private credit’s exposure to SaaS, risks for PE
• [32:26] Hyperscaler CapEx: Is it too much?
• [36:56] Record inflows into non-tech sector funds
• [38:01] International/EM bullish case
• [41:54] Kai Wu’s research: AI ROI mention = outperformance
• [45:15] Claude AI-generated market summary
• [48:22] Bitcoin trades like tech, knife-catching recap
• [59:10] The $3 million question: house or portfolio?

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Additional Segments & Highlights

Personal Finance & Lifestyle

• Market concentration and behavioral biases: Real-world implications for individuals owning outsized positions in stocks or company RSUs/options.
• Parenting & Changing Family Dynamics: Modern dads are far more involved; discussion about “helicopter parenting” and parental competition.
• Homeownership & Housing Affordability: “Owning-to-income ratios in big cities are way higher than before... unless you have rich parents or hit the lotto, you’re out of luck.” (Ben, 53:40)
• Travel and national parks banter: Ben and Michael reminisce about past hikes and the cultural value of parks.

Media & Pop Culture

• Streaming & Books:
  • “Tetris” film on Apple TV gets a thumbs up (Ben, 73:00)
  • “Kitchen Confidential” (Anthony Bourdain memoir) and “Hits, Flops & Other Illusions” (Ed Zwick) as recommended Audible listens

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Listener Takeaways

• Don’t obsess over top-performing sectors—market leadership can change swiftly.
• AI may threaten incumbents, but panic and market overreactions are common.
• Diversification is working again—concentration works both ways!
• Flows matter: Watch sector ETFs and international funds for clues to sentiment.
• It’s a great time to check portfolio exposures and assumptions.”

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For more detailed charts and visual references, check out Michael and Ben’s blog show notes.

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Contact: [e-mail]
Further Reading: See episode show notes for referenced research and charts

Transcript

[Michael Batnick]

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[Ben Carlson]

Today's Animal Spirits is brought to you by Y Charts Markets may feel messy right now. Leadership is shifting, narratives are breaking and a lot of what worked over the last few years isn't as clear anymore. Why? Charts put together a new visual deck that helps advisors step back and see what the data is actually saying across history, valuations and current market trends. Covers why markets don't move in straight lines, how leadership evolves over time, where parts of the market look stretched or underpriced and highlights the charts advisors turn to when diversification comes back into the conversation. No predictions, no hot takes, just clean client ready visuals you can use right away when clients start asking what's changed and why? Download the deck for free with the link in the show notes and get 20% off your initial YCharts Professional subscription when you start your free Y Charts trial through Animal Spirits. New customers only. Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about.

[Michael Batnick]

Markets, life and investing.

[Ben Carlson]

Join Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson as.

[Michael Batnick]

They talk about what they're reading, writing and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. It is Tuesday, February 10th. We're recording at nine in the morning. All right, Future proof is coming up. I am Excited to get the hell out of Dodge. It is cold. It's cold here. It's cold where you are, Ben. You excited for some sun?

[Ben Carlson]

I can't wait. The timing of Future Proof conferences are great because September is like the end of the summer. We extend the summer a week or so. Miami in March is great timing because I'm so sick of the weather.

[Michael Batnick]

I said at the opening remarks in Huntington beach that the September event is the start of my fiscal year. That's like, that's how I think about. I'm trying to come up with something from Miami. Don't have anything quite yet, but here's what I want to say. The CMO of you have two fiscal years.

[Ben Carlson]

Listen, two fiscal years in one year, double that, you're living like three days in one.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, I like it. I like it, bud. All right. Nile, the CMO of Future proof tweeted or LinkedIn or whatever. We've seen more registrations in the past two weeks than any two week stretch for any future proof event ever. Okay? 47% of registered advisors have never attended a Future Proof event before. Not a festival, no retreat. It's amazing. So if you want to sign up, hang out with us. Fun in the sun. The dates are March 8th to the 11th. Come hang out. It's gonna be a great time.

[Ben Carlson]

And you have to sign up if you want to be part of the breakthrough meetings, which a lot of people say that's their best thing. They get out of it. That's the sauce is the one on one breakthrough. So you have to sign up for that. The deadline is Friday, November 13th. Friday the 13th, this week.

[Michael Batnick]

November 13th.

[Ben Carlson]

Sorry.

[Michael Batnick]

So Ben is. Ben is under the weather. So him completely going to the other side of the calendar. You just, you're. You're forgiven.

[Ben Carlson]

Ben, my brain is broken. Sign up by Friday if you want to get the breakthroughs.

[Michael Batnick]

I am talking with Matt Middleton, founder and CEO of Future Proof, on Wednesday on the Talking wealth feed, where we go all over the RIA spectrum, the wealth management spectrum. So we're going to peel back the curtain, so to speak. So That's Wednesday at 11. All right. We have another busy show as a result of what we opened the show with last week. Man, things are changing. News is news and we've got 46 pages to get to. So let's get right to it. All right. Tale of the tape of the stock market from last week. This comes from Duality Research. The S and P basically unchanged boring week fell 10 basis points.

[Ben Carlson]

Nothing you didn't Pay attention to the headlines or the underneath underlying what's going on with the stocks or the precious metals or the crypto. You looked at that and you go ah, nothing happened this week.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, I'm sure there was memes made about index investors yawning.

[Ben Carlson]

This is the crazy thing though. The average stock last week was up almost 2%. 337 stocks outperformed the index last week. Wild and because all we hear about is oh this, this is crashing, that's crashing. This is going nuts. And this really is, seems to be the year where it's like, it's, it's turning, the other stuff is working, it's turning everything.

[Michael Batnick]

I had Matt go into the lab last week. I said hey dude, this feels weird. Like there's, there's a lot of bright red on the screen and yet the index is near an all time high. So let's like, let's like look at some of the data. How often does this happen? And what we came away with was on Thursday at the close, there were 107 stocks over the previous two day period that fell 4% on an individual day. Okay, so not, not they fell 4% over a two day period. There was 107 stocks that fell 4% over a single session. That's a lot.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

When that has happened historically the index was in a 28% drawdown. Jeez, right now, or when that happened, the index was 1 1/2% off its size.

[Ben Carlson]

We're basically within spitting distance of an all time high. Again. The very bizarre equal weight hit all time highs last week. Small caps are at all time highs. The S and P is basically there. This is another one from duality. Every year I feel like someone says it's going to be a stock pickers market this year. This actually is 66% of S&P 500 companies are outperforming this year. Whatever, we're one month in.

[Michael Batnick]

It's great.

[Ben Carlson]

But still this, this is a total sea change from what it's been like the Mag 7 has gone nowhere for like six months basically since September.

[Michael Batnick]

Wait, hold on. People can't see this chart. So within the s and P500, duality research broke it down by sector and asked how many stocks are outperforming within each sector. Every material stock is outperforming the s and P500.

[Ben Carlson]

That's pretty nuts.

[Michael Batnick]

96% of energy stocks, 92% of staples.

[Ben Carlson]

Consumer staples are going nuts too. Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

86% of industrials and 77% of utilities. So finally there was a bit of a reprieve from the. My God. With the max seven. Just let me in. Give me a chance.

[Ben Carlson]

So explain to me the staples thing, because this, this is to me the one that like sticks out the most for. Doesn't make sense. Why are consumer staple stocks going so nuts?

[Michael Batnick]

That's a great question. I would, I mean, I would make up two reasons. Number one, it's sentiment. Like the rush out of previous leaders into previous laggards, some of the high flyers into some state safety. It's the, I guess staples of the anti AI trade would be number one. And then number two, there has been a fundamental RE rating in some of these areas. Some of these names that are maybe the beneficiary. I don't want to say that Coca Cola is benefiting from AI. That sounds kind of absurd, but I don't know, maybe those are. Maybe I'm just making that up.

[Ben Carlson]

I just put this in here. Ed Elson tweeted this yesterday. Walmart's PE is 46 times. Costco 54 times. This is, this is kind of crazy that we're seeing these valuations for these stocks in this market.

[Michael Batnick]

So those valuations on Cox Scones particular, that's not, that's, that's not new news. But what is new news?

[Ben Carlson]

Walmart. Right.

[Michael Batnick]

What is the news is the forward PE off Tech and Staples are basically at parity, which is wild.

[Ben Carlson]

Whoa. That is crazy.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, so yeah, the Mag 7. I pulled this out. This is the mag Round hill has a Mag 7 ETF and it's, it's gone nowhere. I mean, whatever, it's six months or something, but still in the midst of the supposed AI bubble, it's just, it's not going anywhere. Here's the Mike Zuccardi one that kind of lines up the duality. So 60% of stocks are outpacing the index, but it's been 35% in the previous three years. So this really is a totally different market environment we're in right now. Like a lot of other stocks are doing well. What does J.C. like to say? It's not a stock market. It's a market.

[Michael Batnick]

Stock market. Stocks. That's right.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, so I pulled out. I had chart. Can Matt make this for me? I just picked a bunch of household names. How are they doing? And this is through Friday. Netflix and Robinhood and Disney and UPS and Target and Coinbase and Nike and all these stocks are down anywhere from 40 to 70%. Estee Lauder is on 73%.

[Michael Batnick]

Can I make a chart? Gestion. Yes, this is beautiful but would really bring it to life. What would really tie the chart together is if instead of the names you had the logos.

[Ben Carlson]

Ah, I like that.

[Michael Batnick]

Right, that just like it just pops given Matt more.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. So the S and P again is almost at all time highs. It was, it was 66 basis points off on Friday and all these other stocks are down 40, 50, 60, sometimes 70% in some cases.

[Michael Batnick]

I think we buried the lead. We'll get to this in a minute. But it's, it's the software unwind, it's the software slash momentum unwind. We'll get to that in a second.

[Ben Carlson]

But it's, it's also a lot of brand names and I think sometimes it feels like you feel like you're kicking people when they're down if they are in some of these stocks. But I think you have to remind people of the concentration risk because when these things are going crazy and going up, we talk about that too. So I think it's just worth reminding people how concentration works both ways because I think there's a lot more concentrated investors now than ever. Would you say that's accurate?

[Michael Batnick]

Well, when you say concentrated, are you talking about concentration within the index or meaning like people that own outsized positions.

[Ben Carlson]

In the name own a handful of stocks.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

2, 3, 5 stocks and that's it because they've worked so well. And why would I own anything else but these?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, but this, yes, it's probably in.

[Ben Carlson]

A brokerage account, maybe not the whole portfolio.

[Michael Batnick]

The only stock that people own in size that is crashing is Microsoft. There are not a lot of people that are loaded up on workday or servicenow except if you're an employer employee there. And even Microsoft just anecdotally I would say is the, from what we see, the least owned Mag7 name.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, how about this? So I've talked to Joey Fishman is our sort of in house expert at Ritholtz on employee stock shopping plans and RSUs. And he's saying like the conversations are so much different these days because in the past it was why would I ever sell out of my company stock? So people who are with these companies and have these stocks, they're the ones who are having challenging conversations and decisions of holy crap, my stock options now.

[Michael Batnick]

Correct, Correct. All right. So for the last 10 years the s and P has been the, the winner right above everything else. And the Dow has just been like the Dow has taken a backseat. Nobody cares about the Dow Jones, the sleepy industrials. I thought this was a great chart from S and P, Dow Jones, showing the constituents average tenure, meaning how long is a company in the index before it's booted. And this peaked in the mid-80s at 45 years. And it's come down steadily since then. But still the average tenure is 25 years. Okay, so once you're in, you're basically in. Unless you're Exxon. You get kicked out when oil goes negative. Which by the way, Josh traded with us. Ooh, that was a rough swap. They kicked out. They kicked out Exxon for Salesforce.

[Ben Carlson]

That was I think three or four years ago.

[Michael Batnick]

Probably mackerel. I think that was 2020. All right, whatever point is this. Last week on Friday, dia, which is an ETF that we almost never talk about, Lead all flows. This is from Baltunas.

[Ben Carlson]

Wow.

[Michael Batnick]

This index is equivalent of a rotary phone price weighted, invented when GROVER Cleveland was POTUS. But it could be perfectly situated for 2026 equity rotations. So to that point last week, that's.

[Ben Carlson]

This is. This boggles my mind. I had no idea this was the case. People are still allocating to the Dow.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to guess, I'm going to guess there's $40 billion in that thing.

[Ben Carlson]

So this, it's 44 billion. I was just looking. Credit to me, that was pretty good.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, so Alex summoned as a percentage.

[Ben Carlson]

Of the total A1. That's a massive number going into this fund because all these other funds are way bigger, probably V and such.

[Michael Batnick]

Wow. Yeah. Okay. Alex Seva tweeted today, value over growth posted the third largest one day outperformance ever. And then bespoke zoomed out a little bit. Value versus growth was in the 99th percentile of outperformance. Over the last six days we've been.

[Ben Carlson]

Asking like, when is this go. When is this whole thing going to change? What we've been talking about for. Feels like forever now we're in the midst of a seat change.

[Michael Batnick]

It feels like credit to chart kid. I don't know if I asked to make this or, or whatever. Maybe it was my idea. Maybe it was his idea. Who knows? We share ideas. 4 weeks ago on what are your thoughts? I had a chart of the Russell 2000 divided by spy on the bottom pane breaking out. And we had the Mag 7 divided by the 493 breaking down. And that has since severely accelerated, which is exciting, right? The last couple years have been kind of boring. It's like been the same talking point over and over. Again.

[Ben Carlson]

So last year was the start of it with international stocks, but now it's, it's small caps and mid caps and micro caps and value stocks and consumer staples and high quality. All this stuff is finally working.

[Michael Batnick]

This is all Matt. He made a chart on Friday showing the spread in the equal weight versus the cap weight S and P through February, whatever is like the largest spread maybe in history. I forget what the exact stat was, but it's extreme. All right. On Friday, we got a big bounce back in the most shorted stocks. They jumped 8.8%. On Friday, Kevin Gordon tweeted, Best day since April 2025.

[Ben Carlson]

Because I'm sure they were getting killed before then in the few days leading up to that.

[Michael Batnick]

So Josh and I have spoken a lot lately. A lot, a lot, a lot about not catching falling knives. Although let me be very, let me be very clear with my words. I have tried a million times and beat my head against the wall about trying to buy stocks that are in. Not falling knives per se, but downtrends, like severe downtrends. And thinking that, you know, you let it stabilize, not just guessing, but like, let it. Even. Even when you let it stabilize, it's still difficult.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm a knife catcher. You always want to wait for it to turn back up.

[Michael Batnick]

Well, so you could have an asset class or a stock that's trending lower and then it just sort of bottoms, right? And it goes sideways for four, for three months. And to me, that is an indication of sellers drying up. I use intel as an example. Last year I didn't buy it, but I said to Joshua, what are your thoughts? Like there's no more sellers, right? Like the stock is down 70% and it's gone sideways for the last four months. It's stabilized.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know what it is about psychologically. For me, dollar cost averaging into a losing name feels better than dollar cost averaging into a winning name. It's, it's the, it's backwards of what you should do.

[Michael Batnick]

It's backwards what you should do. So anyway, I don't do it. I don't do that. I do not dollar cost average into a falling off. I just, I don't. Into a stock that's going down. Excuse me. All right. But when there is a stock like Microsoft or a basket of stocks like software stocks that are going down, right? And then there is a puke, a panic, a liquidation, where you see it in the volume, that's the type of thing that I buy. And it's not to say that like Software stocks bottom last Thursday. So I bought IGV last Thursday and initially I bought it for a trade. So my intention was think about like a buoy, right? Something that like floats, where it's just been held underwater for so long and just pushed all the way down, it's going to pop back up. All that you need. You don't even need buyers to step in. You just need sellers to chill out. And when there was a panic like there was on Thursday in a basket of stocks like that, that's the type of thing that I buy, no question.

[Ben Carlson]

You're time to prove it.

[Michael Batnick]

So I'm not thinking of Victory Lab. It's not, it's not always right. But when I see like a panic like that, I have to buy.

[Ben Carlson]

It was down 33% over the course of, I don't know, four months. So we got to talk about why this is happening. So Wall Street Journal had an article basically saying like anthropic tanked the stuff software market. Like Anthropic came out with Claude, Claude code, cloud, agents, all this stuff. And people go, whoa, is this totally changing what is going to happen in the software stock market? And my, my take on this is this is people finally waking up to the potential of what if the AI bubble doesn't pop? Like, what if AI just works right away and we get more productivity and yeah, sure, there's losers, right? Remember at first it was Microsoft and OpenAI are the winners. Now it feels like Google and Anthropic are the winners. I don't know if that'll change or not, but there's going to be losers, of course. But what if like this AI stuff is working and it actually disrupts this technology field and so Salesforce sold off and all these other software companies and IGV, yeah, was down 33%, Microsoft was down 25% or so. And obviously it, it feels like there is an, a huge overreaction here. But I would not want to try to jump in and make like a pounding the table on this because what if I, I said this to you and Josh this morning. What if it's just these software. Yes. People aren't going to just code in their own stuff on AI and totally get rid of their CRM system like that? That to me seems like a stretch, but yes. Could these, could these stocks be rerated forever because of this? I think that's a possibility, like because their moat has been damaged in some ways. That's what would worry me about diving into these names for being a long term Investor.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, so, so just to, just to return to the, to the trading example for the few of you who are interested in this. So Adobe, the stock was already down 50%. 60, whatever it was, Adobe, Adobe peaked at 6:30. Okay. Or 640 in February 2024. And the stock got as low as 315. All right, so the stock was cut in half. So Josh and I were talking about the stock. It had gone sideways. Buyers were stepping in at 3:30. We tried to take a stab at it. The stock bounce and then rolled over violently and we both sold. I took a 3 or 4% loss. No big deal. The stock sold off violently from 330 down to 263. So when you're fighting the tide, the market is usually right. The market is not 100% right, 100% of the time. But when a stock is down 50% and you're blindly trying to buy it, you're probably going to be wrong.

[Ben Carlson]

And this stock hasn't bounced at all. A lot of stuff bounced on Friday.

[Michael Batnick]

Adobe has not, Adobe has not bounced. So just. So that's why like my working assumption when I buy names like this is I'm wrong and I keep a tight stop. Right? Maybe you get a maybe you're right. But like, anyway, last week we were so busy, not to belabor the point with news that we forgot to mention a huge piece of news. So yes, last week was the story morphed from the claw, the anthropic law program to oh my God, like this is vibe coding is serious. All of these enterprise SaaS names are like in deep trouble. Maybe not today, but in three years their margins are dead. Like the growth is gone and we're just, we're just going to kill the stocks and we're overreacting. Fine. Okay, but prior to that, the week before when Microsoft reported, which I don't even. Do we even talk about Microsoft last episode?

[Ben Carlson]

No, so much stuff is crashing. We, we missed it.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, so from Bloomberg, Microsoft shares got caught up in a sell off Thursday that wiped out $357 billion in value, the second largest for a single session in stock market history. The software giant Stock closed down 10%, its biggest plunge since March 2020. The only bigger market cap loss was Nvidia, the deep SE sell off. So this has been going on for, for months and weeks. And, and yeah, last week it was like, okay, what's happening with software? What's the future of software? And investors don't know. The people at these companies don't know the venture people don't know. The, the futurists don't know. Like nobody knows.

[Ben Carlson]

No, but it's, but I think the, the overreaction to me makes sense.

[Michael Batnick]

Totally.

[Ben Carlson]

It, I, I, but here's the thing that's going to happen though. Whether this, like, whether these companies are impacted forever like I imagine these companies, most of them will probably be okay.

[Michael Batnick]

Well, it depends which companies you're talking about.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, true, I'm blumping them in, but even if they are like there's going to be, there's going to be huge layoffs in these companies. They can't continue to give stock options. Their employees, like there's gonna, if you worked in one of these companies, you would have to be very nervous right now. There's going to be huge layoff. And this is one of those things where there, there are going to be layoffs because of AI that people are going to think this is a recessionary indicator and it's not, it's going to be a, this, this AI is going to break economic indicators of the past. There's going to be software layoffs because of this productivity tool and people are.

[Michael Batnick]

Gonna go right square now called Block. Jack Dorsey's company is laying off 10% of their workforce. All right, so PitchBook had a really good take, I think, on, on these names. Replacing a core SaaS platform effectively is open heart surgery for an enterprise entailing immense operational friction. It's far easier to add an AI copilot to existing operations than to fully migrate to an AI startup. I think that's totally true.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

And I also, and I also think that the overreaction makes sense too. So here's Ben Thompson. Ben, I'll read this since you're on the.

[Ben Carlson]

He's been all over this. His, his podcast on Friday was all about software and was excellent. Totally worth a listen if you're a subscriber.

[Michael Batnick]

So Ben Thompson writes a substack called Stra Teary. I think you and I have been known to say tet. I'm not quite sure why. That's like when babui said Makine, which you're not a Howard Stern fan, but for those of you who are listening, you'll understand. All right, here's what Ben Thompson said. The beauty of AI writing code is that it is a nearly perfect match of probabilistic inputs and deterministic outputs. The code needs to actually run and that running code can be tested and debugged. Given this match, I do think it is only a Matter of time before the vast majority of software is written by AI, even if the role of the software architect remains important for a bit longer. That then raises the most obvious bear case for any software company. Why pay for software when you could just ask AI to write your own application perfectly suited to your needs? Is software going to be a total commodity and a non viable business model in the future? That's what investors are asking today. All right, back to Ben. I'm skeptical for a number of reasons. First, companies, particularly American ones, are very good at focusing on their core competency. And for most companies in the world, that isn't software. There is a reason most companies pay other companies for software and the most fundamental reason to do so won't change with AI. Second, writing the original app is just the beginning. There's maintenance, there are security patches, there are new features. These are changing standards. Writing an app is a commitment to a never ending journey, A journey to return to point one that has nothing to do with the company's core competency. And third, selling software isn't just about selling code. There is support, there are integrations with other software, there's compliance. The list of what is actually valuable goes far beyond code. This is why companies don't run purely open source source software. They don't want code, they want a product with, with everything that entails. Still, that doesn't mean the code isn't being written by AI. It's the software companies themselves that will be the biggest beneficiaries of end users of AI writing for code. In other words, on this narrow question of AI written code, I would contend that software companies are not losers, but rather winners. They will be able to write more code more efficiently and quickly.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, I mean, do you think, do you think we would give up on our CRM system and let like say some vibe coding, 25 year old write it for us?

[Michael Batnick]

No, we're a regulated company.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, the compliance. But I, I think the point is that the moat has been damaged here. And like there's going to be software companies that spring up that don't need as many employees that can write, have AI write the code and have someone oversee it. And that's the big thing, is the moat has taken a massive hit.

[Michael Batnick]

Exactly, exactly. So that's so. And then Ben concludes with the problem. Not this Ben. Ben Thompson. The problem now however, is that while businesses may not give up on software, they don't necessarily want to buy more. If anything, they need to cut their spending so they have more money for their own tokens that means the growth story for all of these companies and serious question, the industry wide RE rating seems completely justified to me and I could not agree more. So for example, a company like Salesforce that we work with and we have worked with for, for a decade, guess what they do every year? They raise their fees and they can't imagine that we're a one off. We're not a very unique business that's over.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnick]

How about we just say you know what? No. Right. And we negotiate like right. But like we only have so much leverage and so yeah, the RE rating both makes sense in the long term and simultaneously can be overdone in the short term. Yes, I think that's where I'm at.

[Ben Carlson]

And whatever, one or two of these stocks is going to look like an amazing long term deal after all this and a bunch of them are going to look like dogs. That'd be my takeaway.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, so I have been, I have been a relative defender I would say to some of the private credit stuff. I think I've been pretty fair.

[Ben Carlson]

You've been trying to get people off of like the just going crazy because they hate it and it's going to.

[Michael Batnick]

Be a crash and yes like so a lot of the cockroach stuff, my take was like listen, sometimes loans go bad, sometimes there's fraud. It's not. And it's not just in private markets. Okay. This, this is, this is tricky for private credit because a lot of the businesses that they lend money to are SaaS businesses. Why? These are recurring revenue. This is predictable. It's easy to model. Oh okay. Wall Street Journal. Private investment firms have piled into the software industry in recent years. At the end of Last year almost 9% of private equity backed companies were in the software space. The exposure is even more significant on the loan side. Within the private credit universe. The firm classifies, this is KBRA. About 17% of borrowers as software companies representing about 22% of the 1 trillion plus debt exposure in that universe overall. Yikes. So I spoke to one company yesterday in this universe and I said what's the, what's the duration of these loans? And they said for us it's four to five years. And I went so like all right, so all the publicly traded BDCs just murdered last week absolutely destroyed ARCC which is the Aries BD Business Development Corp. And this is basically liquid private credit and it's the biggest one, I think it's 15 billion, something like that. So right on their website, software and services. Now I Don't know how much of this is horizontal. SAS companies, which is really in the eye of the storm. How much is vertical, which I suspect will fare a little bit better, but it's 24% of the portfolio. Yikes.

[Ben Carlson]

So investors are obviously selling down the, not just the BDCs, but like the private equity managers. So Blue owl is down 50%. That's not a surprise. But Blackstone, KKR, Apollo are all down, I don't know, 30%. These are getting hammered too.

[Michael Batnick]

So to me, like, Blackstone is a screaming buy. I don't own it. But I think, like, that is way overdone.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. Because just because they're bigger and more.

[Michael Batnick]

Diverse than I had to say, not investment advice. So Blackstone getting caught up in the software stuff. I mean, like, I get it, I get why investors are doing that, but come on, this is, this is the biggest winner and what my estimation is going to be a secular trend. All right.

[Ben Carlson]

I know it's not fun to see things crash because that people own these things and especially people who work at these companies like they're. That's got to be a lot of turmoil. I think the most interesting thing about the AI from a market's perspective is this reshuffling of deck chairs. And every month, every couple months, it's like, oh my gosh, over here, now wait over here.

[Michael Batnick]

It's very exciting.

[Ben Carlson]

It's, it's, it's one of the more fun parts about this market, I would say, watching this stuff happen in real time.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, so we mentioned, like, there's horizontal software companies where there's a piece of software that serves a lot of different industries. So they don't. There's no real special specialization software. I mean, Salesforce, for example, right? Like, they work with financial services, and I'm sure they work with every other industry in the world as opposed to a company that only works in one vertical. So I pulled this. Where did I pull this from? I think this is a pitchbook. Again. Pitchbook is doing, is all over this, this trend, by the way. So they were talking about investor salon software, private credit loans. All right. A spokesman for a New York City parking garage company, gmc, explained that the company had recently ended a multi year contract with a parking garage management software provider after it stopped providing certain features. Instead, GMC hired a programmer to develop a bespoke system that will organize the company's New York City Valley parking garages more efficiently. Quote, now we won't be subject to another company's price hikes. They have all the leverage that they know the customers really rely on it. Pitchfork goes on to say, but it's, but it certainly won't, certainly won't work for all. A media company executive said there was, quote, no chance of canceling the content management software system it used, adding that alarms about the death of software were overblown.

[Ben Carlson]

That's a good both sides thing, right?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. Last week I asked like, what stops this train? What stops the margins from rising so much? And it seems like the hyperscalers are going to try to test this theory. So another Mike Zuccardi tweet via bank of America hyperscalers. Capex as a percentage of operating cash flow was 65% in 2025, expected to be as high as 90% in 2026. It was 40% from 2017 to 2023. So they are really going for it and maybe the market pushes back. But you don't think, you don't believe this.

[Michael Batnick]

There's no way, there is no way that investors will allow 90% of the operating cash flow to be spent on CapEx.

[Ben Carlson]

That would be my thinking too.

[Michael Batnick]

The stocks will crash.

[Ben Carlson]

But they're saying this is in 2026. This is right now, this is going to happen this year. So look at, look at the numbers that they've, and they've said in their, like, listen, their expectations. But this is from Matt Vinson on Twitter. He said 314 billion of incremental capex spend in 2026 on top of what they've already done from the big five. And that's Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle. That's 1.1 percentage point of GDP growth and more than 2% of total US GDP from five companies. In spending, these numbers are astronomically high. So to your point, when do investors say enough? No, enough.

[Michael Batnick]

I mean, I guess they're kind of already saying that Microsoft's down 25%.

[Ben Carlson]

So this is like a, a quick like snap your fingers, 10% correction in the market when one of these companies goes, all right, you got us, we're pulling back, right? Isn't, isn't that it, isn't that the fastest correction ever?

[Michael Batnick]

You know, you know the Cranston meme. Yeah, but I don't know how the market will respond to a pullback of capex.

[Ben Carlson]

Or do you think they would look at, be looked at positively like, okay, great, I really don't know.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't know either.

[Ben Carlson]

But these numbers just, this is, this is why the AI bubble stuff is so hard to wrap your head around. Like because these numbers just seem so ridiculous. But then you see this stuff that's happening and you go, well, maybe it's not ridiculous because this productivity is going to, it's going to happen. I don't know.

[Michael Batnick]

This is, this is a great tweet from Buco Capital. Jassy was too slow to invest in Capex and got a wedgie from investors who said, more Capex, you loser. So he said, fine, want to see Capex? I'll show you Capex. But now everyone hates it. So. All right, capex for Amazon 2025 was 130 billion. They're guiding to 200 billion, by far the highest of the MAG7. 200 billion? What? How, how do you spend $200 billion?

[Ben Carlson]

It is kind of crazy that they're, they're even higher than Meta and Microsoft.

[Michael Batnick]

And Google and okay, now think about it from this point of view. The output of all of the spend is going to be so insane. Remember the video we showed last week of Henry the Bot? Like, think about what's coming. I think we're like so deep in the stock price and the numbers that we're like, think about what's coming. And this is why. All right, zooming out. Like, I think it's hard to get too bearish on the stock market overall, but.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, the question is, but what is all these cool tools? How does it actually help the bottom line that I get it, Meta is, I don't know, more ads. But that's, that's the thing. Like how does it actually give. Make more money for these companies? That's.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, well, I'm sure they know what they're doing.

[Ben Carlson]

Do they?

[Michael Batnick]

Famous last words. I'm. Yeah, dude, I'm sure there is a plan. They're not idiots. They're not spending the most money in the history of the world because they, because they just like lighting money on fire. These are not dumb people. And if you're making a face like they are, come on.

[Ben Carlson]

Zuckerberg did the Metaverse. They literally changed the name of the company. These people are not always right.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, that was pretty dumb. You do have me there. But they're all.

[Ben Carlson]

No, you're right. We're going to get some cool stuff out of this. I just want Scarlett Johansson in my ear. That's all I want. Make it happen. Hey, sorry, but all my emails, my.

[Michael Batnick]

Bigger picture amongst the software crash, amongst the rerating of the momentum trade and whatever, whatever. We've got a new Fed chair coming in who's going to cut. The consumer is fine. There is Giga, Gaga, capex money being spent like the market's going to be just fine. And I hate to say that out loud because I'm making this up just like everybody else is, but I guess I would just say like, if you're like nervous right now and like, oh, like this, the market's about to fall out of bed. I don't see it could be wrong.

[Ben Carlson]

Of course the market is broadening out.

[Michael Batnick]

Well, there's that. I mean, thank you. That's the key point, right?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, like that's if, if this.

[Michael Batnick]

You don't, you don't see that. You don't see that at market tops.

[Ben Carlson]

If you saw all this stuff not working still, then I think you'd have a, you'd be rightful to worry about stuff.

[Michael Batnick]

If the rest of the market was rolling. I've said this a million times. If the rest of the market was rolling over before the AI stocks did, I would not be saying this. I would be getting nervous.

[Ben Carlson]

And this, this is the money thing too. So Gungeon from the Wall Street Journal. Wild inflows to sectors outside of tech this year. Sector funds, excluding tech, have seen a record $62 billion in inflows in the first five weeks of the year. To put that into context, that's more than they saw all of 2025.

[Michael Batnick]

Are you kidding me?

[Ben Carlson]

So the money is also. It's not just the performance of these things. Like, hey, they're bouncing, investors are taking notice and they're diversifying.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. So when you asked me earlier in the show, like, why are staples mooning. It's flows.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. Money is going into them.

[Michael Batnick]

I thought this is kind of interesting. The, the, there's an ETF X mag which by the way credits them for being early. There will be more popping up. This is the only 493 ETF that I could find. And assets are, I mean it's not a lot. It's 125 million. But it was like nothing until the flows have only really just started to come in.

[Ben Carlson]

They've taken off like a rocket ship in the last three months. Holy cow.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, all right.

[Ben Carlson]

Another one.

[Michael Batnick]

Market check, Ben. It's 945 on the east coast. Oh, S and P is flat equal wheats up 23 basis points. The beat goes on, Ben.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. Small caps up a little bit. All right, so last week I talked about like, what is the case for em? Like why would em and international stocks keep outperforming? And this is from the Economist. Why the dollar may have further to fall. And it talks a lot about like the safe haven status. And I think the dollar is down 12% from the highs or something. It says 17 years ago debt securities held by foreign governments and central banks counter 38% of all portfolios investment into America. Today it's 13%, the lowest level in modern history. So like the overseas are not owning as many treasury bonds like that. And that impacts the dollar. And it says like, there's no rival asset that looks ready to supplant the dollar's reserve currency. Like, and I totally agree with that. But demand for greenbacks can add meaningful meaning through flow, ebb and flow without any serious challenger emerging. So it says the ongoing erosion of America's safe haven status, together with uncertainty over policy and independence of a central bank mean the dollar's appeal increasingly rests on the ability of American assets to outperform the rest of the world. That is a precarious base on which to build investor loyalty. So it's saying like the dollar could just cyclically doesn't mean the dollar has to crash and go away forever and lose its global reserve currency status. But we could be in a cycle of that. And that's the bull case for emerging markets last week that we didn't talk about.

[Michael Batnick]

I'm looking at a ratio chart of EA divided by vti. So international developed divided by us. Oh man, this looks like a bottom. Like, it looks like a real bottom. And there's been a lot of false starts over the years.

[Ben Carlson]

Could be the one be happening. It could be happening and, or two, two years. This is, this is a blip. But yeah, who knows?

[Michael Batnick]

My mind is, I mean my mind is blown.

[Ben Carlson]

We asked for years what would be the catalyst for this? What could possibly make this happen?

[Michael Batnick]

And it wasn't like a rhetorical, like we were serious. It was like, I can't. What could. What how.

[Ben Carlson]

And so we have a talker book coming up in the coming weeks with Invesco about real assets. And the point made on that show was, listen, part of the AI buildout means we need more stuff. We need more energy, we need more physical labor, we need more data set. Like we're building all this stuff that's like bullish for all these other countries still with the materials and industrials. And it's interesting. All right, let's talk about AI.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, Ben, look at this chart that I just dropped in that I was just talking over at the end of before tariffs.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, okay. So it, like you said, it flatlined for a number of months there and then now it's taken off. Is that what you're looking at?

[Michael Batnick]

It puked, recovered, went sideways and is now accelerating very hard. This looks real.

[Ben Carlson]

It does. Okay. Kai Wu had a new piece out. You read it, I assume? I read it.

[Michael Batnick]

I did. Kai Woo is one of the most interesting white paper writers. Now he's more than that. He manages an ETF company. He's a very smart guy, but he does white papers.

[Ben Carlson]

He's usually at our future proof conferences too. He might be there.

[Michael Batnick]

He'll be there. He does like two or three a year and every time they're just. He looks at things differently because he's like a machine learning smart dork who puts all this stuff together. So he has a chart showing companies mentioning AI driven ROI, which has gone from nowhere up to 7%. And he's pulling this from, from earnings transcripts. And then he's also got a chart showing companies mentioning AI driven economic gains, which has gone to 32%. So, but think about it like this. Only 7% of companies are talking about an ROI that they're getting from all of these. The, the capex spending that on the hyperscalers.

[Ben Carlson]

So it's coming.

[Michael Batnick]

Do you think that's going to 30%?

[Ben Carlson]

That's probably. He also looks at like a lot of the winners here. Like what, what are the companies that are benefiting from this? And I pull out one he didn't mention. Look at the chart for C.H. robinson. I mentioned this one on the, on the show a couple months ago. I put it in here, right below his charts here.

[Michael Batnick]

Look at what does this company do?

[Ben Carlson]

This is the logistics company I think I mentioned on the show. Unless I mentioned to you just a phone call. I had a friend who worked here and so I know about it. And it's a trucking logistics company that is using AI to make it faster to match drivers with trucks. Look at this chart. Parabolic. It looks like the silver chart.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

They're using AI to make their company more efficient to match drivers and trucks and shipments around the country.

[Michael Batnick]

This is so good.

[Ben Carlson]

Right?

[Michael Batnick]

What a great example. So in the previous lines that I mentioned in the previous chart, he has another one that shows. All right, so those companies that are talking about AI driven ROIs have beaten the market by 5 percentage points a year. The companies that I've mentioned in AI driven economic gains are beating the market by 4.8% a year.

[Ben Carlson]

That's a great, that's a great chart because a lot of times you say, okay, sure, they'll say anything in their earnings calls. But does it actually translate? So this is showing like what people are saying actually is translating into economic gains. Not like they're not just, it's not just fluff from company management.

[Michael Batnick]

It's hitting the bottom lines.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnick]

And I don't have this chart in here but there's a chart of S&P 600 earnings estimates and they're skyrocketing. There is a reason why small caps are catching a bit. And I don't know that it's all productivity but I'm sure it's a part of it all right, here's one part of artificial intelligence that I don't love. Google now has suggested responses built into Gmail. I don't like them either and they're good enough that, and they're, I'm sure that they're, they're going to get better. I just don't like the idea of this. So for example, this is a suggested response in our inbox. Hey Joe, Nick's win was huge for three plus years. I probably, oh it was somebody asking about like what do, what do I do with my, my house money? Right. I'm buying a house in three years. I don't know if I just want to sit in cash but what do I do? Hey Joe, next one was huge for three plus years. I probably lean short duration bond funds or just keep it in a high yield savings account. Volatility is the enemy for a known future expense, Michael. Now I would hope that somebody's going to know that that's a fake email by the way. I did not send that email. I just don't like this idea.

[Ben Carlson]

What you wouldn't, you wouldn't send the cookie? The Chinese fortune cookie at the end there?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Volatility of a known future. That's so bad.

[Michael Batnick]

If you ever see me doing that, that, that's not me, that's. I accidentally hit send by accident on this. On the suggested.

[Ben Carlson]

So you talked me into Claude a little bit last week and I took SO Y charts has the ability to do these comp tables where you can take an index or a group of stocks or a fund and break them out into all these different categories and variables. So I just took year to date gains in every S&P 500 company. I downloaded the spreadsheet so it takes what has it done so far this year and I put it into Claude and I said tell me what's going on in the market and it spit this out in I don't know, 60 seconds it says industrials are on fire, chemicals are having a moment. Consumer staples rotation. HERShey is up 27%. Food names, even airlines showing surprising strength. Defensive characteristics plus pricing power equals working. And then it talks about the tech carnage deep end. And we'll show this in the YouTube if anyone wants to see it. Fintech collapse it. Like, here's the bottom line, which I thought was really good. The market is experiencing an aggressive rotation from high multiple growth into tangible capital intensive businesses. And it says that's equipment, logistics, chemicals, semiconductors, consumer staples. This looks like a classic late cycle value rotation. Investors fleeing expensive momentum driven names for businesses with physical assets, pricing power and operating leverage. Like, this is really good.

[Michael Batnick]

That part that you just mentioned, this looks like a late cycle thing. If I was to like have one thing that's like how did I miss it? Right. Earlier in the show I said like I like to set up. If there was one thing that I would point to that said, oh you dumb bald idiot, it would be this dynamic.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. Yep. It's kind of funny that Claude pulled.

[Michael Batnick]

That out, but I just think, I don't know, late cycle, it hasn't even started.

[Ben Carlson]

That's the hard part. But the dot com stuff, I know this is different than that. We had to go through the dot com blow up to get everything that the Internet promised.

[Michael Batnick]

Maybe it's exactly the same, I don't know.

[Ben Carlson]

So I thought this was pretty good. I think one of the most ironic things that we're talking about is the fact that the AI boom so far is probably going to disrupt tech more than anything at the beginning. Right from the start, tech is the biggest industry. They're disrupting themselves.

[Michael Batnick]

They like accidentally like turned the gun on their face.

[Ben Carlson]

So Adam Ozemek has a substack and he wrote about, he wrote this really long piece about like the how the human touch stays through all these technological developments. And I thought this was. He said there's still 67,000 travel agents despite the. Which is crazy to me. Despite the fact that there's widespread leisure hospitality and stuff online, self checkout has failed to replace 3.2 million cashiers and 4.2 million retail sales workers. I remember Scott Galloway when he came to speak at one of our very first conferences, said, what's gonna happen when you don't need cashiers anymore than 3 million people displaced. They're still working. And he's saying part of it is just people want a human touch when they have an interaction for a transaction. Not always, but that's the thing that's going to be hard to map out with all this is how much. How much are people going to still require the human touch?

[Michael Batnick]

This is the topic for the next 10 years of our career.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, yeah, this isn't going away quickly. You're right.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, crypto. Last week, bitcoin was at 78,000. I can't remember in what context, but I said I have no interest in buying it right now. Right. It's just, like, bleeding and there's no.

[Ben Carlson]

And then just a massive puke.

[Michael Batnick]

So I bought it on Thursday. I actually bought ibit. I've never bought the ETF before. Again, this is not investment advice. And it's acting like dog. It's barely bouncing. I'm probably gonna dump it.

[Ben Carlson]

Bitcoin's getting smoked again today.

[Michael Batnick]

It's at. I. I bought at 66. It went down to 60. It's at 68. Here's what's going on in Bitcoin. Alexandra Se Nova tweeted, IGV and Bitcoin look like twins. I mean, they are moving in lockstep.

[Ben Carlson]

This chart is a tough look for bitcoin.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, it's acting like. It's acting like the broader tech world. All right, somebody tweeted. When I said, things will get ugly, this is what I feared. Maybe the worst sentiment I've ever seen. To bh the good news, this means opportunities are near and the Taurus are whatever. Okay, so Nick quote Nick Magili quote tweeted it and said, I've now seen multiple big crypto accounts saying this is the worst sentiment they've ever seen. And we aren't even in a recession. Can't imagine what would be happening if stocks were crashing too. Very good point. My God, Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

That's like the Homer Simpson meme. No, this is the worst sentiment yet.

[Michael Batnick]

Correct. So last week, again, when I said I wasn't interested in buying it, I really wasn't, but then it crashed. And look at this chart. So you see, put volume spiking. You see volume number of shares spiking. So, like, you saw a physical, get me out liquidation, and I buy that all day long. I just do. Right? I like, that's. That's right in my wheelhouse. It hasn't worked yet. And if it rolls over, I'll just sell it. And if it bounces to 72, I'll probably sell it, too.

[Ben Carlson]

So this is. You remember the player haters ball from Chappelle Show? I don't know if you're a big Chappelle Show Watcher. Oh, man. We went on spring break one year in college, my senior year of college, we went to somewhere in Mexico, and there was a big bus to pick us up from the airport. All these college kids at one resort. And Chappelle's show, like, was just huge at that point. And people were doing the little John the whole way there.

[Michael Batnick]

Which one?

[Ben Carlson]

Just. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty bad. But anyway, remember the player haters ball? They had iced tea in there like this. The last couple weeks has been the player haters ball for crypto. If you were a person who wanted to dunk on crypto, you've been doing it incessantly. I've been seeing a lot of people on. And this is like. I feel like more crypto, more than anywhere else, is dunking when things are up if you're owning it, and dunking when things are down if you don't own it. You hate it. Like, it is more than any other asset class.

[Michael Batnick]

It is the lightning rod. So last week on. On tcaf, which was awesome, by the way, we had a new guest on John Maury, who's phenomenal. He asked me because we were talking about crypto. I said, I just bought it today. And I think he asked me how much of it I owned. And I don't know why I didn't divulge, but I guess it was just, like, live, and I was, whatever. So before the recent sell off, I sold it down to 5% of my liquid net worth. All right? So whatever that I. That's. That's where I was. It's now smaller, obviously, since it's gone down so much, but I bought again. The. The. The. The. The 66, 000 that I bought. That's not like, I'm not adding to my holdings. Like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna sell the.

[Ben Carlson]

That's probably where I am too. I'm probably like 4 to 5%. And for me, it was up to, like, 10%. And that's what got me nervous and why I sold some because it was way too high of percentage.

[Michael Batnick]

I was significantly. I mean, I was significantly higher. And I said, like, whoa. Um. You know the scene in. On. On. In old school, when Will Ferrell is on stage? He's like, I blacked out. What did I say? Yeah, that's sort of what I had with my. With my crypto stuff. I was like, wait, because. Because when. When it went to 120, it grew to an outsized portion of my liquid net worth. I was like, what am I. What. This doesn't this doesn't make sense. So better to be lucky. I've always timing there.

[Ben Carlson]

A hugely volatile asset like this is great if for portfolio management, if you're rebalancing around it, but it's really hard to do.

[Michael Batnick]

So here's my game plan for my short term trade. Again, I'm sure nobody cares, but here's what I'm thinking.

[Ben Carlson]

You're catching knives, you're just, you're just catching knives all over the place here.

[Michael Batnick]

I'm allowed to change my mind. No, I caught two knives, I caught two pukes. I caught bitcoin and software. That's it. If it bounces like 72, I'll sell it. If it goes down to 63, I'll probably sell it. And if it pukes again to like down to 50, I will buy and hold more. So.

[Ben Carlson]

By the way, we didn't even mention this because so much other stuff is going on. Ed Bradford on Twitter is a good follow, said he showed a chart of silver and it's, you know, spikes and then it crashes. And he says, this is the craziest market I've ever seen in my life in 40 years of trading or whatever. And I responded to him, I said, I didn't even realize silver crashed again today because so much other stuff is crashing. Sean, our research analyst, shared this with me. The two worst days in history for silver have both happened in the last 10 days in history going back to like 1970. This is the two worst days. And it's everything is a cane's beauty contest now. Like everything is a derivative of a derivative. And people getting ahead of and ahead of and ahead of and it just takes things too far. Right?

[Michael Batnick]

I will say with all this trade talk, 90, I guess 95% of my liquid net worth is in strategies that we want for clients that would hold management. So it's not like I'm day trading my butt off over here. All right, I. Ben, yes, all right.

[Ben Carlson]

I told you. I've taken my hands off the steering wheel more and more as time has gone on for me. I don't like having the brain damage of constantly checking my stocks in crypto. And it's not.

[Michael Batnick]

I can't help it. I'm a maniac.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. This chart from Goldman Sachs has been flying around a little bit. They show the cost of home ownership in LA, San Francisco, New York, Boston, DC, Atlanta, and then the rest of the US in 2000 and 2024. Okay. Owning the income ratio in the initial year of homeownership. Okay. When you're a first time home buyer, how expensive is it? What's the ratio of the price to your income? And they've all gone up way, way higher. Right. The rest of the US is not that much higher. But some of These big cities, L.A. and San Fran and New York, and obviously they're not building enough. And these places are still very, you know, people want to be there. Right. Here's how I equate this. So my wife's talking about wanting to do a summer trip somewhere this year. I said, why do we have to go anywhere in the summer? Michigan. We have to stay here because it's finally nice.

[Michael Batnick]

You had to hunker down.

[Ben Carlson]

But she wants to go to like a national park or something. And we looked at a bunch of places and it's February right now and everywhere is already sold out. All these places. You can't find a place to stay in June by booking in February because these places are known now, like the. That's what big cities are. I feel like they're not building more national parks. They're not building more. Apparently they're not building more housing in big cities. So I think if you're wanting to buy in a big city and you're a first time home buyer, unless you have rich parents or you strike the lotto, you're out of luck.

[Michael Batnick]

Huge national park guy over here.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, what kind of national parks are we talking?

[Michael Batnick]

The national parks. I love all of them. Have I been to more than four? Probably not love them. Okay, here's where I've been. I've been to Bryce and Zion. I've been to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone. Is that a national park?

[Ben Carlson]

So what was your. What's the best one? You've been to all of them?

[Michael Batnick]

Okay. Just love America.

[Ben Carlson]

All national parks. Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

Although my wife is very much not a national park person. Like, there's no way. I mean. And I can't do it solo. You want to go to the national park with me? Let's do a little boys trip.

[Ben Carlson]

I would love it.

[Michael Batnick]

Lace, lace up the boots. Let's go hiking. What do you say?

[Ben Carlson]

All right, I'm in. We. We did have a nice hike together in San Diego last year.

[Michael Batnick]

We had a great hike. Are you kidding me? Anyway, all kidding aside, I really do love the outdoors, but probably not in my near future, unfortunately. So, Ben, I don't know if you know this, the Seahawks won the Super Bowl.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know how many people in our inbox reminded us of that fact. Michael was wrong.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. You know What? It's. It was all in good fun. I. I think everybody that texted me, DM me, emailed me. It's all. It's all good, clean, wholesome, family fun. I put myself out there. That's what we do in the show. I can get ducked on. It's all good. Here's. But here's. Here's an interesting thought that I had. I mean, the most obvious one is, hey, wait a minute. Markets are efficient because when this happened, the Seahawks were the. The reason why I bet against them.

[Ben Carlson]

They were the favorite, right?

[Michael Batnick]

They were the favorite. Okay?

[Ben Carlson]

The market was right.

[Michael Batnick]

They were the favorite in week 15. I said, wait a minute. This doesn't make sense. Why are the Seahawks the favorite? Sam Darnold is not a good football player. I mean, that's a stretch. I said, sam Darl's not winning a Super Bowl. And the market was right because the market usually is right. Which goes back to the point I made earlier this week. I understand that people feel a certain way about the prediction markets because it's like all speculation and DJ behavior and nonsense. And I'm. I'm with that. Okay? Like, I don't love that aspect of it, but we need more markets in places where markets don't exist. Because when people are just giving their opinion, who cares? There's no skin in the game, right? When. When think tanks are writing about the demand for this or the price of that, of real giant pools of capital, right? If we made markets and things like that and money could be allocated more efficiently. That gets me excited.

[Ben Carlson]

I get it. I mean, that. The financialization of everything, like, we're there already. Like, this is. This is just our society now because markets price discovery.

[Michael Batnick]

It's a thing. Markets work. Markets.

[Ben Carlson]

Put your money where your mouth is, right? Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

Put your money where your mouth is. So chart Kit had an awesome chart showing the net income percentages of the S&P 500 by sector versus the market cap. And wouldn't you know it, Ben? They're not exactly the same, but directionally, they all move together. The market.

[Ben Carlson]

That's a really great chart.

[Michael Batnick]

The market is usually right.

[Ben Carlson]

So you sent me this poly market thing for what price will bitcoin hit in February? And this is interesting because you talked about, like, is stuff priced right or not? This is a really interesting way to play it. So it says you basically pick the price of bitcoin, you. And it goes from 35,000 to 150,000 in February. Okay? So if you think bitcoin is going to take off from. What did you say it's at now? 65.

[Michael Batnick]

68.

[Ben Carlson]

68. If you think it's 68. If you thought it was going to go to 80,000, it's going to take off again. You can buy. Yes. For 20 cents. Right. Meaning your upside is 80. 80%. Right. It's a huge upside. It's a bigger upside than buying the price.

[Michael Batnick]

Here's another thing that I. That I have come around to, and I did say this to Vlad. Think about what? Think about people that are speculating on Bitcoin, using options or some sort of leverage. Hey, guess what? No offense, average degenerate, myself formally included. When I was buying options on stocks, did I really understand the Greeks? Of course I didn't.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnick]

Of course I did it. I was like, wait a minute, I bought this, this call option. Why AM I down 16% as soon as I hit Enter?

[Ben Carlson]

So that's the thing. If you're an options trader, you'd be looking at these markets as well to see where the mispricings are.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. Yes. I'm thinking more of it from the person that does want to speculate on the future price of an asset. Isn't this a better way to do it if you're going to do it at all?

[Ben Carlson]

Right. Because you're putting a little amount up for. Yeah. You're getting implied leverage there.

[Michael Batnick]

But it's just. It's crystal clear what you're doing.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnick]

You either think the price will be above this or not at a certain date and time.

[Ben Carlson]

It is interesting.

[Michael Batnick]

It's Options for Dummies. And I don't mean that disrespectfully, because I was a dummy.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, I have a question for you. So Nick Magiulli posted this tweet, and he says, why is a $3 million home a status symbol, but a $3 million portfolio isn't? How can someone value looking wealthy over having more financial freedom? Makes zero sense. Obviously. That's correct. I was thinking about this, though. Let's say you.

[Michael Batnick]

I love Nick. I think this is a dumb take.

[Ben Carlson]

So where I'm in my life, here's. I was thinking about this. Let's say I'm in the Price Is Right and I'm in the Showcase Showdown, and I win both Showcase Showdowns. Right. One Showcase Showdown is you get a $3 million portfolio in a brokerage account, free and clear, Vanguard Funds. Whatever. Whatever you want. The other Showcase Showdown you win is a $3 million home. And in Michigan, where I live, a $3 million home. Get you very far. I don't own a 3 million dollar home. Obviously, at my stage in life, what would I rather have? A $3 million house or $3 million portfolio?

[Michael Batnick]

Wait, Duncan pulled the audience? Duncan pulled the audience. Doesn't everybody pick the portfolio?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, I personally, I would pick the house. If you gave me. Oh, I would pick the house where I am today. I would pick the house. I would rather have a. Wow. Now, a lot of people would say, you're an idiot.

[Michael Batnick]

You are an idiot. You could take a million dollars.

[Ben Carlson]

The house has insurance, it has upkeep, it has maintenance, it has property taxes. At this stage of my life, I. And this is not a. This is not a looking wealthy status symbol thing. I would rather have a very nice home than a. The looking at a three million dollar portfolio. Seeing my portfolio go up in value brings me no joy at all. I don't get anything from that. I would get way more utility out of a $3 million house. So what would you do? You would take the portfolio?

[Michael Batnick]

That's a very. That's a. You're right. Like your opinion of that assessment. I understand. I want to say you're right. I understand it completely.

[Ben Carlson]

But I know 90% of people would say you're an idiot, but that's what. At this stage of my life, I would take the house.

[Michael Batnick]

I think Ben is secretly trying to tell us he has a $3 million portfolio.

[Ben Carlson]

No, but I'm saying you get these two things. Wave a magic wand. Which one do you want?

[Michael Batnick]

No, I think your point is because you are at a level of success that a $3 million portfolio doesn't do anything more for you than what you already have.

[Ben Carlson]

No, no, no, no, no. This is like my stage in life with kids and like.

[Michael Batnick]

No, I'm not. That's okay. That's. That's. That's right. That's. I understand what you're saying.

[Ben Carlson]

That's like. Like when. When you see rich people buying up all these properties and stuff, like, why would this person need three more houses? I totally understand it. There's. I think you get a lot of utility from a very nice house. How's that?

[Michael Batnick]

Of course you do. Yeah. If money's no object. Like if you can. If. If the people that are buying all those houses can legitimately afford them. And some can, some can't. Yeah, it sounds awesome.

[Ben Carlson]

So, Duncan, that. That is a good. That's a good survey for our channel. I'd like to.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, hold up. But let me understand Nick's tweet. Why is a $3 million home, a status symbol. How could someone value looking wealthy over have. Oh, I think he's like talking about like an internal. Okay, I understand what you're saying there.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. But it's also because no one shows off. No one walks around saying, hey, I got a $3 million portfolio. Check it out. Remember that Mike statements.

[Michael Batnick]

Remember? Was it. Was it a crypto person that had their net worth? In their Twitter bio that we spoke about this person, it had to be a crypto.

[Ben Carlson]

Might have been a Tesla. Tesla investor or something.

[Michael Batnick]

Wall Street Journal ranked nine major US Airlines on seven equally weighted operations metrics. To. To. To parse out which is the best airline and number one, Southwest. I've never flown Southwest.

[Ben Carlson]

I did it for the first time this year when you and I went to Vegas a few months ago. Wasn't the greatest experience of my life. I mean, I feel so. Southwest and Allegiant are 1 and 2, and they're talking about. A lot of it is like lost bags and timing. And those are two of the more uncomfortable airlines as far as I'm concerned. I'm surprised Delta's not first on this list, and they were last year. And here's the thing. Southwest and Allegiant are supposed to be like the. The budget carriers now. I feel like after you add all the fees and stuff, they're not cheap anymore. It used to be like Allegiant. The flights used to be so cheap. They would. They would say like, hey, $150 for a flight. Like if you add on because you have to pay for your luggage, you have to pay for an overhead, and you have to pay for a seat. Like, if you add all the stuff, the add ons, it's just as expensive as any other flight, but it's not as comfortable. Like, it's like you feel like you're sitting on a piece of cardboard on these flights because they really pack people in.

[Michael Batnick]

I'm a big Delta guy. I only fly Delta if I can help it.

[Ben Carlson]

I put everything that's my favorite one.

[Michael Batnick]

On my Delta Amex card. So you don't pay for bags on time arrivals. It's number one. And it has been for the last five years. I've had like two bad flight experiences with Delta, which happens. I fly a lot anyway. This is probably deeply boring for most people, but anyway, I thought that was interesting. Southwest number one.

[Ben Carlson]

They say on time arrivals, Delta is best for. I think that that makes sense to me. Okay, interesting here. This is from the Economist. One study found that between 1965 and 2012, the amount of time parents in rich countries spent with their children doubled. Now look at this. This shows millennials, Gen X baby boomers and silent generation between how many minutes per day they spend with their child on child care. And we are totally the helicopter generation because we spend way more time with our kids than any other generation. And this tracks with me, with every other parent I know. The dads are so much more involved than they were in previous generations. You think about the silent generation, even the baby boomers, like a lot of times it was like the kids just go do what you want. This. And I don't know what the ramifications of this are. Like the fact that parents are so much more involved in the kids lives now.

[Michael Batnick]

So for our six year olds there was baseball, not evaluations. Okay. For little League and a bunch of.

[Ben Carlson]

An insane thing to do at that age.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, six.

[Ben Carlson]

What we, we've had that too with football. Like a football, like camp that you. They're taking notes.

[Michael Batnick]

How about the evaluation is just evaluate them during the season like they're babies if you have to evaluate them at all. So anyway, there's a lot of like back channeling and make my kid rank a three and not a two. Like, and I'm just thinking like, come on guys, are you serious? They're right. They're six. So even like to what end you want to win a Little League World Series for six year olds? Who gives a shit? Like, literally, who cares? What is wrong with you?

[Ben Carlson]

Right?

[Michael Batnick]

I get it. If like, fine, they're, they're 10, they're 13. You're, you know, you want your, it's fun, it's competitive. You want to win six.

[Ben Carlson]

This is where I mean, my, my parents went to every single one of my games, but they never, ever put themselves in and like, they never talked to me about my performance. They never like, it was, hey, good job, great. You did awesome or whatever. You know, we're excited for you. They didn't try to like guide my sporting life in some way. And I feel like that is the thing that's changed more than anything is like the parents are so in uber involved in this stuff now than they were before. And I'm, I'm more than, I'm way more than my parents were. So I, I'm a hypocrite here. But I, I try to like, back off. I, I try to like not just not. I try to not ever criticize my kids about what they do in sports and just, I always say like, do your best and have fun. And that's all I care about.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, it is. It is so much, isn't it? I. I had the boys over the weekend, so Robin left me. Robin went with her friends to Vegas to see the Backstreet Boys at the Sphere, which is. This is probably the first time.

[Ben Carlson]

That actually sounds like a pretty fun girls weekend.

[Michael Batnick]

This is probably the first time she left me with the boys. But look. Look at. Look at these notes. So she left me, like, full notes of where I need to be hour by hour with clothes lined up on the counter with post it notes. And boy, did I crush the assignment. You should have seen me. Not only did I do that, she came home to a clean house.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, it sounds like she made it easy for you to crush the assignment.

[Michael Batnick]

Clean sink. Yeah, no, she did. She made it completely Michael proof because I am not the best with these things, but. Yeah, I wonder if we're like, sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough with my kids, but I'm with them. I take them to school every single day. I'm here when they get home. I go to their practices because, like, I work, so I work. Obviously I work a lot. Kobe said to me the other day, randomly, like, daddy, if the Knicks were in the finals, but you had a work call, what would you do? And, like, part of me felt sad that he asked that.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

And I was like, the next. Of course I would never schedule a work call during the Knicks game. He's like, but what if it was like, a really important call? Like a really one you couldn't cancel? And I was like, well, I care about you guys and provided for you guys more than I care about the Knicks. So, like, obviously I would choose that. But the fact that he said that he's noticing that I'm like, working all the time, but fine, I'm still with them. I live in the house with them. I'm with them every single day, all time, of all days. And our parents weren't like this. Now, I grew up in, like, a divorced household, so it's a little bit different for me, I suppose, maybe, but I think my mom was gone in the morning and, like, not home when I came home. And I didn't feel not loved. I was, like, showered in love growing up.

[Ben Carlson]

It was just. It was just normal. It was more normal. And this is. This is more normal.

[Michael Batnick]

This feels. This feels abnormal, but this is the.

[Ben Carlson]

Way it is now.

[Michael Batnick]

I was about to say I feel like I'm roommates with my kids. Yeah, I Guess that's what being a dad is.

[Ben Carlson]

But I feel weird about the fact that we can now track them on the phone all the time. Like, I know it's helpful. Like, hey, you can see where they are and you can follow them and you can see the stuff they're doing and. But to me, like, that almost feels, like, invasive, right? But you can't. Because when I was in high school, whenever we wanted to go out and, like, get in trouble, I would. I would say, hey, Mom, I'm staying at Chris's house. And Chris calls mom and say, hey, Mom, I'm staying at Ben's house. And that's all we needed to do. We're. We were free for the night to do whatever we wanted. They can't. Kids can't do that anymore.

[Michael Batnick]

Well, tell me if this is. If this was true to you again. I. My growing up situation was a little bit different with divorced parents, but I feel like all parents and friends are, like, friends with each other's parents.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes.

[Michael Batnick]

Was that like that growing up? I don't think it was, but maybe that was just my experience.

[Ben Carlson]

Not as much. There's way more competition among the parents. Like, the parents feel competitive with each other about the kids. Stuff the kids don't even care about. That's the hardest part, is that, like, oh, that parent cares, so I have to care.

[Michael Batnick]

It's like, why there a bunch of tryhards? Am I right?

[Ben Carlson]

Yes. All right.

[Michael Batnick]

I. It's been. It's been a minute. It's been a minute since I've spoken on this pod about email etiquette. Right.

[Ben Carlson]

You're being.

[Michael Batnick]

No infractions, which I think that cements my standing as. I'm not an email snob. I'm really not. It's been 18 months. Find me. The last time I brought up, I said anything about somebody's email, but there's been.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm gonna need the AI to get on this. But you've. You've said a lot of stuff over.

[Michael Batnick]

The years, but it's been. But it's been a while.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

Are they people? Maybe. Maybe people have respected my etiquette.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, maybe. Maybe I've trained them through this podcast. All right, so I got an email from somebody that I was maybe doing a favor for. Maybe it was somebody on LinkedIn that I. I said that I would be happy to speak with them. I'm a. Because I'm a giver backer. Right. You know this. I speak to a lot of people that email me. Tell. Give me my Number, Give me a call. This person sent me a red receipt.

[Ben Carlson]

O. That's the worst. I hate that. Hate it with a passion. I. Oh, if I see that. I. I'm like, I'm not responding to you, to me.

[Michael Batnick]

And I hate to be so black and white about this because like last week we did a people I people that suck type of list. And I know that there's people that do shitty things that aren't shitty people. I'm sorry. And I don't want to call this person a shitty person. I don't know them. But I kind of did want to say this.

[Ben Carlson]

That's desperate.

[Michael Batnick]

If you. So it doesn't make you a bad person, but if you. It makes you somebody that I don't want to be around. Okay. It makes you somebody that I don't, don't, don't. I'm having trouble putting into words what a weird personality trait that is. Somebody that sends a red receipt that's. Hey, hey. Did you see that? Hey. So you said that why? Dude, come on, get out of here. All right, somebody respond. Somebody emailed us. Michael doesn't know what he's talking about. There's as much caffeine in a Diet Pepsi as there is an espresso. Okay, first of all, true. I, I was making it up. Talking on the fly. That's what we do here. I've said this over the years, many times where I will listen to a podcast like this one tomorrow when it comes out when you're listening and I will say I will violently disagree with something that I said 24 hours ago. Why I'm off the cuff, okay? I'm wrong all the time. I'm making most of this up. We're having a good time. We're talking. All right? But I wasn't talking about espresso emailer. I was comparing Diet Pepsi to Starbucks. And here's what Chachi BT said. A 20 ounce bottle of Diet Pepsi contains about 59 milligrams of caffeine. A standard Starbucks grande brewed coffee, which is what I drink, typically has around 310 to 360 milligrams of coffee. So that's 1/5. So, Ben in Miami, I want to see you drink a Starbucks coffee. You will be, you'll be shaking. You'll be so hopped up.

[Ben Carlson]

Can I just have a Red Bull instead? Isn't that easier? A monster.

[Michael Batnick]

Drink a Starbucks. I won't make you drink Starbucks.

[Ben Carlson]

You know the thing they, they. Hell, these studies that like drinking one cup of coffee a Day can, like, help you live longer. Like, there's no way that's healthy. That much caffeine in your system. There's no way. I don't know.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, all right. So I had, I had the boys for the weekend, and I thought to myself, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get after it.

[Ben Carlson]

Did you take him to the movies?

[Michael Batnick]

What am I watching Friday? What am I watching Saturday? No, but I did. Kobe won't stop talking about the goat movie.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, my kids are, My kids are going to because we have a midwinter break. They have so many stupid days off of school. So they have Friday and Monday off of school. I think my wife's taking them to see it on one of those days.

[Michael Batnick]

So Kobe keeps saying this is going to be his favorite movie ever. And I, I, I trying to teach him a lesson about lowering your expectations.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

He goes, I can't help it. It looks so good. All right, so anyway, so I thought that I would. So, no, no. No movies this weekend. I don't really think there was much playing, but I thought I was going to have myself a movie fiesta. And Ben, I was sleeping by 10 o' clock both nights.

[Ben Carlson]

You're tired.

[Michael Batnick]

But here's what I did watch. I plowed through the HBO movies. The shows, the Pit, the new Game of Thrones show and industry are just.

[Ben Carlson]

Is the Game of Thrones any good? Is it?

[Michael Batnick]

Well, the first two episodes were pretty slow, and I was about to throw in the towel, but I heard the third was good. Stick around. So I did. And the fourth was amazing.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, I'll give it a try. I watched. I think someone actually told us about this in the inbox a few months ago. I told you I was looking through all the Apple movies. There's a Tetris movie. There's a movie on Apple called Tetris. It's about the story of how they got the rights to Tetris to go worldwide. Okay. And that sounds like the most boring movie ever. It was actually pretty good. It's got Taron Edgerton in it. And basically, I didn't realize this. So here's one thing I learned. Tetris, if I've played it a million times, you know, and my, my, my wife actually got for Christmas, my son, a mini. It looks like a mini video game console of Tetris. You can play Tetris. So my kids are playing it. I never knew Tet means four. And so each of the pieces. If you had asked me how many pieces are in each, each Tetris piece because they're built by blocks. Each one is built of four squares. If you would have told me, like, the long one, I would have said for sure. That's five squares. It's got to be five. They're all built on four squares. Okay. I didn't realize this. So they showed the guy who made it built it in Communist Russia in the 1980s. And it was about these video game developers who was going into Russia and having to deal with the KGB to get the rights out of Russia to bring the game worldwide. It's actually. It's kind of like a spy thing. And at the end, they kind of ramped it up, and it was a little unrealistic. But the first hour of the movie or so, just the negotiations with the KGB and the Russian diplomats about trying to get this game out of Russia. It's actually really good. One of the better business movies I've seen in a while. You mentioned the show his and Hers. My wife watched it. Did you finish this show, his and.

[Michael Batnick]

Hers, which was this again?

[Ben Carlson]

That's the Jon Bernthal show on Netflix. It's six episodes. It's a murder mystery.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, yeah, I finished.

[Ben Carlson]

So the fun. One of the fun things about these shows is you try to guess the twist, because you know there's a twist coming. This show had the most ridiculous twist I've ever. Was it. Me and my wife were. We were. We couldn't. We were speechless.

[Michael Batnick]

It was so dumb.

[Ben Carlson]

The twist was so dumb. So bad. Like, the first twist, like, oh, oh, the first was that it's the girl and she lost weight and. But then, anyway, it was the worst twist I've ever seen, maybe ever. It was so bad.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, it was so bad. It was borderline comical. Right? Like, it was like, funny.

[Ben Carlson]

Like, come on, are you kidding me?

[Michael Batnick]

But I. So for me, it didn't upset me because, A, I'm very understanding that these planes are hard to land, B, it's Netflix, and C, it was only six episodes, so I wasn't, like, fully invested.

[Ben Carlson]

I think it was. It was based on a book. Maybe the book. It was a better translation.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

But if it was.

[Michael Batnick]

If it was 10 episodes, I probably would have been upset. Did it bother you? Like, were you. Like, that was a waste of time.

[Ben Carlson]

My wife said, I can't believe we put so much time into that. I.

[Michael Batnick]

There's only six episodes. Yeah, I get it. Was. It was. It was comically bad.

[Ben Carlson]

So I've been having a hard time getting into new Audible books lately. Like, you start one and you're not immediately taken in. You kind of. I'm not into this. I'll come back to it later. But then I started catching Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. And I was never a Bourdain person. I never watched. I don't watch cooking shows. Really. That's not my thing. My wife always loved cooking the cooking channel, not me. My brother gave me the Bourdain book a long time ago and I just never read it. So I said, you know what? I'm listening to this. And he narrates the book and it felt a little bit like the Cameron Crow book, where just them telling their own story makes it 10 times better. And I flew through this book. It's just the whole his. Him coming up in the restaurant world and how restaurants work and it's. I feel like they could have used him as a consultant on the Bear because the Bear, like the chef, takes himself. Carmody takes himself way too seriously. Bourdain takes. He took cooking seriously, but he didn't take himself seriously. Like he was very self aware. And it's just, it's. It's so good on the. If you ever worked at a restaurant, like the stuff that they. He explains about working in a restaurant and the people you encounter in the shady business deals and it's just, it's really, really good. I can see why he was so good at his. At his shows.

[Michael Batnick]

How. Because you know why you like me? Love a memoir.

[Ben Carlson]

Yes, I do.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay. So I just started listening to this one.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, I read that one.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, you did?

[Ben Carlson]

I read that book last year. Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no shit. How?

[Ben Carlson]

I don't care where it came from. I heard him on a podcast somewhere. It's really good, right? A lot of good stories. Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, so hits Flops and Other Illusions. This was served up to me by Audible. So Ed Zwick. And he narrated it, so that's why I bought it. So he directed Glory. He did Legends of the Fall, the Last Samurai, Blood Diamond. Love that movie. Defiance.

[Ben Carlson]

He had some Julie Roberts stories in there that do not pit her in the greatest light. I'll put it that way.

[Michael Batnick]

I can't wait to listen.

[Ben Carlson]

It's a good one, though.

[Michael Batnick]

An hour 20. Is the news going to be slower this week than it was last week? I think so.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know, man. It just keeps coming. Hits just keep coming. Thanks to the production team, as always. Daniel, John, Duncan, Nicole, Rob, Graham. Who else? Travis, we appreciate it. We have show notes every week on our blogs. Wealthofcommonsense.com, relevantinvestor.com, if you want to see all the charts. If you don't watch it on YouTube, check out Talking Wealth. What else we need to plug Remember, by Friday if you want those networking things for future proof, sign up. That's right, animals [e-mail] See you next time.