Will Stocks Crash? Hottest Sectors, Top Companies Not on the Market & Best 2025 Stocks ft Josh Brown

Summary

Market Mondays Podcast Summary

Title: Will Stocks Crash? Hottest Sectors, Top Companies Not on the Market & Best 2025 Stocks ft Josh Brown
Host/Author: EYL Network
Guest: Josh Brown, CNBC Contributor and Wall Street Veteran
Release Date: January 7, 2025

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1. Market Highlights and Performance

The episode kicks off with Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings discussing the robust performance of key stocks on the day, notably Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM), ASML, Bitcoin, Nvidia, Meta, and Microsoft.

• TSM and ASML: Rashad highlights TSM's consistent gains and ASML's significant recovery.

  “[05:03] Rashad Bilal: ...TSM was up. [07:14] Rashad Bilal: ...ASML is a good company that had a big drop and we always talk about that.”

• Bitcoin and Nvidia: Despite volatility, Bitcoin remains a pivotal asset, with Nvidia maintaining steady growth.

  “[05:38] Rashad Bilal: Bitcoin. Over a hundred thousand dollars.”

2. Geopolitical Risks and the Semiconductor Industry

The conversation shifts to the geopolitical tensions between China and Taiwan, emphasizing the critical role of TSM and the semiconductor industry.

• Geopolitical Impact: Josh Brown discusses the potential repercussions of China's intentions toward Taiwan and the strategic moves by companies to mitigate risks.

  “[09:13] Josh Brown: ...foundries are starting to get online in Arizona... reducing reliance on Taiwan.”

3. Energy Sector’s Growth Linked to AI and Data Centers

The hosts explore the symbiotic relationship between the energy sector and the AI-driven data centers, highlighting companies like Vistra and EQT.

• Energy Demand: Josh elaborates on how hyperscalers like Microsoft and Amazon drive energy consumption due to their extensive data center operations.

  “[30:13] Josh Brown: ...energy needs that you're referencing, a lot of this is being held up by just a few companies doing almost all the spending.”

4. VIX and Market Volatility Indicators

A detailed explanation of the Volatility Index (VIX) is provided, discussing its current levels and indicators for potential buying opportunities.

• VIX Insights: Ian Dunlap advises on using VIX levels to time market entries.

  “[19:40] Ian Dunlap: ...if the VIX breaks above 25, that's when you want to look for a buying opportunity.”

5. Guest Insights: Josh Brown’s Perspectives

a. Chip Stocks and AI

Josh Brown delves into the chip sector, emphasizing the importance of companies like Nvidia and the challenges they face.

“[25:12] Josh Brown: ...chip stocks in general, yes, but really it's the Nvidia show and all the other chip stocks are like the opening acts.”

b. Energy and AI Relationship

He highlights how the energy sector supports the burgeoning AI infrastructure.

“[30:13] Josh Brown: ...energy needs that you're referencing... hyperscalers and the cloud companies need more energy...”

c. Presidential Cycle and Market Impacts

Discussion on how historical presidential cycles may influence market performance in 2025, though Josh cautions against overreliance on past patterns.

“[39:27] Rashad Bilal: One time in history that it's ever done that. And then presidential cycles...”

d. MicroStrategy and Bitcoin

An in-depth analysis of MicroStrategy’s strategy of leveraging Bitcoin holdings, including risks associated with their debt levels.

“[73:10] Josh Brown: ...publicly traded stock of the year... taking capital and plowing it into Bitcoin.”

e. Top Stock Picks for 2025

Josh recommends several stocks poised for growth in 2025, including Amazon, Toast, and AMD.

• Amazon: For its AI investments and cloud services.

  “[58:28] Josh Brown: Amazon's anthropic investment...…”

• Toast: A leader in restaurant technology with expansive market adoption.

  “[61:30] Josh Brown: ...Toast is able to cross sell all of these other services...”

• AMD: Positioned strongly in the CPU market.

  “[105:24] Troy Millings: ...I'm really big on AMD this year, man. I really am.”

6. Trading Strategies and Risk Management

The hosts and Josh Brown discuss options trading, emphasizing disciplined approaches to mitigate risks.

• Options Trading Tips:

  “[119:07] Josh Brown: ...identify those best stocks and then use that as a jumping off point...”

• Risk Management: Importance of setting appropriate stop-loss orders and avoiding over-leveraging.

  “[114:43] Ian Dunlap: ...commit us Hutspa, though.”

7. Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

The episode wraps up with discussions on upcoming book tours, future topics, and light-hearted interactions about personal experiences and sports analogies.

• Book Tour Announcement: Brief mention of upcoming events and tours.

  “...book tour takes off next week. Brooklyn, we will see you on Monday.”

---

Notable Quotes

• Josh Brown on Chip Stocks:

  “[25:12] Josh Brown: They are a really big part of the market now...”

• Ian Dunlap on VIX as a Buying Indicator:

  “[19:40] Ian Dunlap: ...if the VIX breaks above 25, that's when you want to look for a buying opportunity.”

• Josh Brown on MicroStrategy:

  “[73:10] Josh Brown: ...they keep buying it down to the NAV and then it kept on going.”

• Josh Brown on Options Trading:

  “[119:07] Josh Brown: ...identify those best stocks and then use that as a jumping off point...”

Key Takeaways

• Chip and Energy Sectors Dominance: Companies like TSM, ASML, Nvidia, and energy firms supporting AI infrastructure are central to current market growth.
• Geopolitical Tensions: Ongoing issues between China and Taiwan pose risks yet drive strategic industry shifts.
• Market Indicators: VIX levels serve as crucial indicators for market volatility and buying opportunities.
• Investment Strategies: Emphasis on disciplined options trading, focusing on profitable and trending stocks, and understanding sector-specific dynamics.
• Future Outlook: Optimism for sectors tied to AI and data centers, cautious monitoring of geopolitical developments, and strategic investment in top-performing stocks for 2025.

Conclusion

In this episode of Market Mondays, Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings, alongside guest Josh Brown, provide a comprehensive analysis of the current stock market landscape, highlighting key sectors poised for growth, the impact of geopolitical risks, and strategic investment opportunities for 2025. With insightful discussions on chip stocks, energy dependencies, market volatility, and disciplined trading strategies, listeners are equipped with valuable knowledge to navigate the evolving financial markets effectively.

Transcript

[Rashad Bilal]

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[Ian Dunlap]

Have the card that works just as.

[Rashad Bilal]

Hard as you do. You give 150% to your business and so does your card. With 1.5 times Membership Rewards points. On select purchases, you earn rewards that can take your business further. And with complimentary access to more than 1,400 lounges globally, including the Centurion Lounge, you can stay up to speed no matter where your business takes you. That's the powerful backing of American Express terms and points cap applied. Learn [e-mail] AmExBusiness Some things you wouldn't.

[Troy Millings]

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[Josh Brown]

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[Troy Millings]

Your old phone up to $800 via.

[Josh Brown]

Prepaid MasterCard for a new one.

[Troy Millings]

On us, just trade in any phone.

[Josh Brown]

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[Troy Millings]

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[Rashad Bilal]

Trade in Terms apply.

[Troy Millings]

Payoff Phone requires smartphone purchase important with new smartphone line on select plan must provide most recent bill showing payoff amount available Phone additional terms apply.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yes, sir.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, yeah. Happy New Year.

[Ian Dunlap]

Happy New Year.

[Troy Millings]

That's a fact, man. 2025, we back.

[Ian Dunlap]

Weird not doing the show.

[Troy Millings]

I ain't know what to do Monday, man. I was like, no clue.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact, man. But no, we back, man. Happy New Year to everybody.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, shout out to everybody that's here with us.

[Rashad Bilal]

I don't know at what point you stopped saying Happy New Year, but I.

[Troy Millings]

Think by the 10th, I think officially.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, by the 10th, we got to cut it off.

[Troy Millings]

No longer say Happy new year. It's 2025, and for most of you, hopefully you've made some changes in your life. But if you haven't, this is a good time.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact. So, yeah, happy Happy New Year to everybody. We're gonna start the year off right. You know, we got a special guest, Josh Brown, CNBC contributor, somebody that we've done a lot of stuff with, but we haven't show in a while. Bring him on a little bit. Talk about stocks. We got a lot of stuff to talk about. Crypto stocks. We're gonna talk about a bunch of stuff. So before we start Blackout this Wednesday, we back. We back with Blackout.

[Ian Dunlap]

Also Yeah, a lot to talk about.

[Troy Millings]

Oh man, the chat just kept going.

[Ian Dunlap]

Topic. I'm like Troy gotta be tired of me messaging. It's like 40 messages. Oh my Lord.

[Troy Millings]

This is gonna be a three hour episode, man with all these topics.

[Rashad Bilal]

So we can be. We're gonna be back with Blackout and we got some couple other announcements but we'll make that later on in the show. Ian, anything you would like to say?

[Ian Dunlap]

If you. Oh, Stock club will be Friday at 5pm we go back to Monday next week but this call will be Friday at 5pm Some market calendars. Check. Telegram. If you want to get rich from the market, go to ianvest.com over 120 different prices of where to get in 45 stocks. I believe I put in for this past month. Insights on what IPOs are going to be the most impactful and which companies are going to dominate 2025. So if you want to get rich from the market, go to Ian invest.com join Panda. Join repander.com and shout out to my guy, Jacoby Myers. I'm gonna rated shots to the fan. My red Panda sports fan. My guy got a thousand yards on the year, did he?

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, yeah, man. Hopefully I had an incentive. There was a bunch of guys who had incentives going into yesterday's games. So it was dope to watch. Mike Evans, he got 3 million. He went over a thousand yards for the 11th time, made 3 million.

[Ian Dunlap]

Tyreek Hill, I love you but maybe less babies next season. Shout out to the Dolphins. I love y'all.

[Troy Millings]

Opening the door and I'm walking out of it.

[Ian Dunlap]

Hey, you better call Patrick. I'm sorry.

[Troy Millings]

Been real.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay. Disclaimer.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, man. Shout out to everybody in Red Panda. Shout out to all the earners in Eyl University. Y'all know what it is. This is the disclaimer. Do your own research. As always, our content is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based on your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a professional in connection with or independently research and verify any information that you find on our show and and wish to rely upon whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise. As always, do the research. Share the research. When it's good research, give credit to the people and if you've done the research and you've been watching Market Mondays for the past five and a half years.

[Ian Dunlap]

Crazy, man.

[Troy Millings]

Man, we getting random text messages from portfolios, man. Shout out to everybody that's executing on information, as always, man. The information is on us executions on y'all. And y'all really executing.

[Ian Dunlap]

So before y'all get started, you deserve to be rich. Y'all ain't gonna talk about the book?

[Rashad Bilal]

Well, we gonna talk.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, we gonna get there.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, okay.

[Ian Dunlap]

My bad. My bad.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's almost that time.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Start first and then make sure, you know, we let the beat build.

[Ian Dunlap]

Let it build up. Got you.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Let the beat build.

[Ian Dunlap]

Broadcasters. Okay. Got you.

[Rashad Bilal]

Sure. So sweet.

[Ian Dunlap]

Sweet.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact. So, okay, let's talk about. Let's just talk about generally, just the market in general today. It was a great day in the market. A lot of stocks soar gains. Microstrategy was up. What you call it? Tsm.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Tsm.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

What's up?

[Troy Millings]

Shout out to everybody that every time TSM goes up, they send me an applause text. Yeah, every time.

[Ian Dunlap]

Easily. Yeah, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

As. Asml. Another one. Asml.

[Troy Millings]

Keep going. Shoddy.

[Rashad Bilal]

What's up? Big.

[Troy Millings]

Keep going.

[Rashad Bilal]

Bitcoin. Over a hundred thousand dollars.

[Troy Millings]

Keep going.

[Rashad Bilal]

So that's good for ibit. Nvidia. Steady game Meta.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

Microsoft was up. SMH was up. A lot of stuff. A lot of stuff was up. A lot of stuff was up. You know, the usual suspect.

[Troy Millings]

Nvidia.

[Rashad Bilal]

Nvidia.

[Troy Millings]

Sure. MU Micron might have heard some of these things. If you watch vst, we'll talk about that a little bit later.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, for sure.

[Troy Millings]

So. Okay.

[Rashad Bilal]

So, yeah, so it's a. I want to just, you know, give everybody an opportunity to talk about today. Today was a good day for me. I, you know, watching.

[Troy Millings]

I saw that.

[Rashad Bilal]

The trading.

[Ian Dunlap]

What you doing?

[Troy Millings]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I told him stay low key. Firing this guy.

[Rashad Bilal]

Just the options class. EYO University options class for sure. But now all of those stocks. Mu. Yeah, we was down big on mu. But what I text you climbing back.

[Troy Millings]

Well, now what I tell when I.

[Rashad Bilal]

Text you climbing back out the hole?

[Troy Millings]

I. Power of patience.

[Rashad Bilal]

Climbing back.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah. Patient space.

[Troy Millings]

Patience.

[Ian Dunlap]

Especially with all the new money flowing in.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

And then all the other stuff that we talked about before, like tsm, something that we've been talking about for a long time.

[Ian Dunlap]

Forever.

[Rashad Bilal]

Nvidia, obviously. Asml, that was another one that worked out for me personally. Asml, it was moving sideways for a long time. So hopefully we can start to see some. Some breakout in. In. In 2025. Because as. ASML is an interesting stuff we talked about before. With his high was $1100 and then it dropped to $645.

[Ian Dunlap]

So good buying opportunity. Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, almost like a 55 drop. But they do have a monopoly in, in the space that they, that they hold in the chip ecosystem. So ASML is a good company that had a big drop and we always talk about that. And then MicroStrategy had a big drop. It did last week.

[Troy Millings]

Right. Right before the end of the year. Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

It went to 2 90, I think maybe even a little bit lower. And then they had a nice recovery based off of, like I said, the bitcoin, the bitcoin bounce. So there's a lot of stuff happening these days.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I mean, again, it's the power, patience. And in fact, right here on Market Mondays, we went over the importance of asml. I sent this article. I don't know if anybody read it, but in the Wall Street Journal there's this article about the most indispensable machine in the world. And it's about ASML and the one woman who actually is powering that machine. And it goes into the deep, deep depths of the semiconductor economy and how it all comes back to this company. And so you see that there's another company too, a private material. So people are watching how. But they're moving as well because they actually are helping the parts that actually make those machines. And so if you understand the economy, you understand that asml, we can't make ships without them. Right. And then we know from the manufacturing standpoint, tsm, which we saw, I think we've been saying this for a while now. Like, I always feel like it's undervalued. When it was at 95, I felt like it was undervalued at 105. When I did that call, I felt like it was undervalued even at 200 now, like, I know it got up to 218 today. It still feels undervalued for what it means to the economy, for how valuable it is. Right. It's still. Yeah, tsm. I still feel like it's an undervalued.

[Rashad Bilal]

What about the geopolitical risk? Because. So President Ping.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

He said on New Year's Day, well, it was either New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. I think it might have been New Year's Eve. He said that no one can stop the reunification of, of China and Taiwan.

[Troy Millings]

So that, that is a lingering issue. That would only be the thing. And I think that's why it's trades where it trades. But the fact that those foundries are starting to get online in Arizona. And there's a, there's a great video of what they, how they're actually running. They actually are probably going to be up by 2026. Late 2026.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

And they're building more. Right. Initially started with a $40 billion investment. Then they realized, hey, we need probably another foundry. So now that they've got three foundries out in Arizona, those are going to be online. That takes away some of the reliance that they have in Taiwan. It won't replace Taiwan. Hopefully they never have to replace it. Right. But in the event, from a supply and demand situation. Right. So we don't have a shortage having that on U S soil.

[Ian Dunlap]

I mean make all the difference in the world. And the underlying factor, of course the geopolitical threat is really big. But over the holidays I had a chance to talk to a few people and I asked them what did they think about Taiwan potentially being taken over. And these were like fund managers who were Democratic leaning, but their sentiment was we have a president that probably will be more aggressive in protecting Taiwan. Thank the current administration while they're still in office. So I think the thought is if China does try and evade Taiwan, we, they will be met with a force that I think maybe the current administration would not have met them with. So still have to put on your SWAT analysis upset. And he, he feels that Taiwan is theirs. But I think we'll step in and intervene because that company is too important, way too important to let go to our competitors.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. And, and you take into account and anybody that's in the tech world, the, the consumer Electronics show that is happening in Vegas. This is big time. This is, this is, this is Christmas now. Like, like we wait for earnings report for Nvidia at ces and if you're not familiar, check it out. At conference hours every year, this is where the leaders in technology come to talk about the announcements for the future. AMD spoke today, Jensing is going to be speaking later tonight, which I'm sure that's, that's Rockstar status they're going to be talking about. I'm sure Blackwell, I'm sure they're gonna be talking about Reuben and I'm sure they're gonna be talking about the future of GPUs and CPUs plus the new clients. So this is exciting, man. So when you see the market move like it did, especially the NASDAQ today, when we talk about catalyst events, CES is one of those catalyst events because the leaders in technology will be there speaking, talking about the future of their companies. Exciting Times, man. It's exciting times.

[Ian Dunlap]

And I'll say if you refuse to hold some of these chip companies for the next five years, it's going to be one of the biggest mistakes you make in the next five or six years. Do whatever you want to. If you choose to be broke, that is on you. I am begging you. Pick one, hold it. I love Nvidia but whole one for the next five years. No matter what anybody else says.

[Troy Millings]

Please, please. The growth that you we've seen in this, in this sector, what would it even be comparable to right? Like to see all these companies move like, like we talked about a micron. We talk about asml. We can, we can talk about applied material. There's a bunch of them that are moving. I don't know if I've seen a sector move like this over this duration of time. This is like since 2020. Really?

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, it's been a long time. I really maybe pharma in the 90s but they didn't have the fanfare from the public the way that these companies do. Like and like gents is the new Steve Jobs. Crazy to say but AMD probably will have a breakout year. They're lying low. TSM is one of the most valuable companies, the most important companies in the world. So it's definitely going to going to be interesting. But you haven't seen anything like it for sure.

[Rashad Bilal]

All right. We gotta monitor the situation. So. Okay. Speaking of, you deserve to be rich. We have the book comes out next week. Big moment Tuesday debut the 14th. That's the day. So it's a lot, it's a lot going on. Thank you for everybody that pre ordered. We might have some special situation but we have a book tour. This is vitally important.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Book tour Monday through Friday next week the admission is like $35. Like you pay for a book. So your ticket gets you a book and then you get access. So we're not just going to do a traditional book tour where we just gonna go and talk about the book. You know we're gonna make this into many events in every city that we go to. So I'll give you some sneak preview. New York, let's not worry about New York. We'll see you, we'll see you on Monday. Tuesday we'll be in Atlanta. Yes, we will be in Atlanta. Got some people with our good friends Ash Cash will be talking to us and then we're going to be bringing in Pinky Cole.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

Hey. In the game. Whose list is she not on $100 million valuation. Brilliant entrepreneur. One of the greatest ever to do it. Pinky Cole will be joining us Wednesday. We will be in D.C. yep. And we're gonna be bringing some political friends.

[Troy Millings]

Only fitting right in D.C. yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

It only makes sense, you know why?

[Troy Millings]

Whether what side. Everybody deserves to be rich.

[Ian Dunlap]

True.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact. We're gonna be bringing some political friends. Senators and Congress. And Congress.

[Troy Millings]

And pundits.

[Rashad Bilal]

And pundits.

[Troy Millings]

And pundits.

[Rashad Bilal]

Senator. We will bring a Senator, we'll bring a congressperson on. And we will bring a political part of it. Very rare moment. That's a very rare moment. Republican, Democrat. We got it all covered. Thursday will be in New Orleans, our good friend, Larry Morrow.

[Ian Dunlap]

Dr. Larry.

[Rashad Bilal]

He runs the city. It's his city. And. And Dave Shands. Dave Shand is hosting our book tour.

[Troy Millings]

Shout out to Dave.

[Rashad Bilal]

He'll be. He's hosting a book tour. He'll be at three stops with us. And then Houston is the last stop. Oh, this is important. Houston is the last stop. And we're gonna have Larry again because he's going. It's actually his birthday weekend.

[Troy Millings]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

So we're gonna have Larry. We're gonna have Dave Shands again. Back to back. And drum roll.

[Troy Millings]

Drum roll, please.

[Rashad Bilal]

So we will be joined. Special guest, Houston, Texas. Save the best for last. We have. Ian Dunlap will be in the building.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

You're gonna be outside after. I thought y'all was gonna announce Drea shot Dre.

[Troy Millings]

Special guest appearance, friend of the show.

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh, we definitely gonna be outside, though. Shout out to Larry. It's his birthday weekend.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So can't wait.

[Ian Dunlap]

What a time.

[Troy Millings]

A lot of people be in town.

[Rashad Bilal]

What a coincidence, man. Houston's gonna be on fire.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

So get your tickets. Brooklyn's already sold out. Shout out to. But I'm trying. I'm trying to get some more tickets for Brooklyn. They give me a hard time, but I'm trying.

[Ian Dunlap]

Brooklyn crazy. They were saying, like, you're gonna be out here.

[Rashad Bilal]

I'll try to get some more tickets, but get your tickets to D.C. get your tickets to New Orleans, get your tickets to Houston, and get your tickets to Atlanta. It's 30, 35. It's gonna be jam packed. That's affordable. This is going to be interactive. We got you get a book. It's gonna. We. This is gonna be memorable. We're gonna be documenting this too. So.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, it's gonna be memorable. This is. It's a moment, man. I feel like two and a half years in the making to Debut, like your first album. It's. It's like your first. It's our first album. Really?

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

So I'm excited to meet the people, sign some books, take some pictures. I really want people to really, like, start reading the book, though. So by the time we get to Houston, people are gonna have digest a little bit of piece of the book. I want to hear their feedback. There's some personal stories in there. I got a little. I got a little sit down for my parents the other day about it, so it's gonna be interesting to see.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Troy Millings]

They're like, why are you sharing those personal stories? I'm like, because they. They need to know. They need to know how far.

[Ian Dunlap]

How did you guys enjoy recording the book, though, reading it?

[Rashad Bilal]

I hated it.

[Josh Brown]

Yo.

[Troy Millings]

I said, well, I was gonna keep it real.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Troy Millings]

I went first. And I was like, shy. You're gonna hate this. I call Al. I'm like, yo, bro, is there anything else you want me to just do? He's like, not a city has to do. I'm like, he's gonna hate this, bro.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

And then every day I would go in after. I'm like, yo, how was he? He was like, he's all right, man. He just got a little frustrated with this. I'm like, sitting still like this. He's not. He ain't gonna do this.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, we got through it, though. Shout out to the. To that. Listen. It's a tedious process, reading. You gotta read. Stop, go back. You know, it's very, very fun. Yeah, we got. We got it done, man. I was trying to see if there was an AI option, actually.

[Troy Millings]

It's a fact. I. I loved it. You know why? Because. Interesting life you have. Obviously, you listen to earn your leisure. If you ever hear an ad, like, I read the ad, so it's always like a voice for the ad. And then obviously, being in education, I'm always. I would used to read to kids. And so I was like, oh, this is. This is the moment. I've been preparing for this moment my whole life. So it was dope, man. The best part is that it's our authentic voices. A lot of times you get audiobooks and you're like, who. Who is this person reading? Yeah, and so, like, we gotta. Yeah, like, one chapter is him, one chapter it's me. So we go back and forth with it. So it's dope, man. I hope everybody gets it, enjoys it.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's dope, for sure. So. All right. Yeah, get your tickets, get your tickets. And get your books, you deserve to be richbook.com that's where you can get your tickets for the events. And that's also where you can pre order the book still stills. Okay, so let's talk about the vix.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay. What, what's the deal with the vix? Maybe we can explain the VIX for people that just have joined for the first time and.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

What is the outlook for a market buying opportunity?

[Ian Dunlap]

The VIX is just a measuring tool for volatility in the market. I have some key levels I gave out at Invest Fest, so if you know those, keep those private. But like VIX right now is currently at 1583. I mean, if it breaks above 25, that's when you want to look for a buying opportunity for sure. Right now the market is pretty smooth. And part of the reason why the market is doing so well because the new money's in, everyone's over the holiday rush. Like the Christmas rally's dead. But so now we're going to see the money coming from January through April. We have a runoff run up. Excuse me, August and September, the market will settle and come down and they will take back off around October. So the VIX is smooth now, but if it breaks 25, that's when you want to look to buy. I know there's going to be a lot of noise on the Internet and it's going to tell you the market's going to fall apart and Bitcoin is going to go to $7. It's not gonna happen. Like a great measuring stick of when to buy is if The Vix breaks 25 or 42.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

And then, and to help people who have never looked at the vix, there's an inverse relationship with the fix in the market. Right. So as the, the VIX goes down, you're the market going up, meaning that there's less volatility. When the VIX goes up, you're going to see the market come down, meaning there's more volatility. So you, the key number you said is like 25. Right. So it's at 15. Now if you start to see it going over 20, you're going to see some red days coming through through the market. If it gets over 25, you're gonna see some more. And if you see it past 30. All right, let's, let's play the sideline until this, this kind of settles out. So like when we, we settle in the teens, anywhere between, I would say 12 to 6, 12 to 16.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, yeah.

[Troy Millings]

I feel like it's a safe number. Anything below that or ab, we just got to be a little bit more mindful. But it's important to know January is an important month. And I kind of shared this with Eylu and this is not me. Right. This is the Stock Market Almanac. Every January on the s P since 1950. Right. Without exception, preceded a new or extended bear market, a flat market or a 10 correction. So if we see a down January, that should be an indicator historically of what to look for for the rest of the year. Either we're going to be straight in sideways, we're going to down, or there's going to be a 10 correction. Right. Also, this is important too, and I found this very interesting. I think we spoke about this a couple years ago. The first five trading days of the year. Like they have this first five trading day theory where if the S P trades positive over the first five trading days. So today would mark day three. If it's pot 83 of the time the S P has been positive for that year. That has been true in 2023. That has been true in 2024. In 2022, the S P traded I think negative 2% for the first five days and we saw a pullback in s P by 22. It was a bloodbath. Right. So right now, if we count today, S p on the three day average is at about 2.5. So it'll be interesting to watch Tuesday and watch Wednesday to see if we fall positive S P to see if again, 83 of the time. Not 100, but 83 of the time it has shown to be positive for the year. Important indicator just to try and a sidebar.

[Ian Dunlap]

If you go look at the, the donors list from the tech companies. That's the anti VIX list. Shout out to Trump, making everybody go to Mar a Lago and kiss that ring. The bigger the contribution, the safer the returns will be over the next four years. If you're playing a long game as well.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, this is a different type of vix. We know a VIX just like yo. That's the universal healing. Different things.

[Ian Dunlap]

VIX is the ticker.

[Troy Millings]

That's the ticket, y'all.

[Rashad Bilal]

Let's bring our guest up. We have Josh Brown and he will. Yes, Josh. What's going on?

[Josh Brown]

My guys? Miss you guys. What's going on?

[Ian Dunlap]

How are you?

[Josh Brown]

I'm. I'm. Thank God everything's okay. Nothing to complain. I'd complain, but who'd listen?

[Troy Millings]

Very few. Yeah, we, I think we saw each other in Passing. A few months ago, we were down at the exchange.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. How is, how, how's your New Year's? Everybody all good?

[Troy Millings]

Everything good, man. I gotta sing your praises a little bit later on as we get into the segment.

[Josh Brown]

Okay.

[Troy Millings]

Just because obviously we watch and we're students of the game, but you gave a great stock tip. I'm gonna give you flowers in a little bit.

[Josh Brown]

Okay. That'll make up for all the ones that didn't work out.

[Troy Millings]

Exactly.

[Rashad Bilal]

So, yeah. So Josh is somebody who's a Wall street veteran, money manager, contributor on cnbc, and extremely knowledgeable when it comes to stocks and has been at Invest Fest, has been on Market Mondays in the past, so. Yes. And has his own festival as well. So we'll talk about a variety of different things. But first, first I want to start with chip stocks. So we talked about chip stocks early on in the show. Amd, Nvidia, all of these different stocks that, you know, a lot of people say they call for a chip bubble. Last year they said that it was artificial intelligence was overrated, it was hyped up. But we're still seeing gains going into 2025 and people are still optimistic. ASML up big this year. A big so far this year. So what is your take on chip stocks?

[Josh Brown]

Well, they're a really big part of the market now. These are some of the largest publicly traded companies by market cap. So for your viewers who are broadly invested in stocks, whether they're in mutual funds or ETFs, if they have any kind of growth weightings in those ETFs or any kind of tech weightings, they have tons of exposure to these stocks one way or the other. And then of course, they're very popular trading stocks, so a lot of people own them on their own. I think a couple of things are worth being said here. People could be right about the long term of AI and how important it becomes to the economy and society and the world. But that doesn't mean the companies that are at the forefront of AI technology are going to have share prices that go up every day. It's just if it were that easy, then, you know, any, anybody could be, you know, a professional money manager, just, oh, AI, I'll just buy all the chip stock. So I think there'll be rallies and I think there'll be sell offs just like last year. People forget there was a moment in August and September last year where Nvidia was in a 24 drawdown from a tie. It didn't last long, but let's not act like it didn't happen. That certainly could happen this year. And if you're in that stock for as long as I've been, which 2015. So if you're in the stock as long as I've been, you've sat through 30% declines on a fairly regular basis. Not. And, and it's, it's not that. It's not that Nvidia is not everything they say it is. It is the leader. It is the best company in the market. Last year, I think the full year return was like 178. That's incredible when you consider that it's a multitrillion dollar company. So I'm a bull. I will tell you one of the big landmines for this coming year that I'm thinking about is the possibility that at some point hasn't happened in a while. At some point they have an earnings report where people get nervous that we've seen the best that you could possibly see. They're going to report on February either 25th or 26th, 25th, my birthday. So let's hope if it's a disappointment, it's not. It's not on February 25th. But this is a really big report. This is what Wall street is focused on. Nvidia is not only an important weighting in all these indices. The earnings growth coming from Nvidia is a large portion of the Overall S&P 500's earnings growth that we expect for this year. So we need this company to continue to perform. There's a phenomenon though on the street that, and this is, this is actually universally important, guys. There's no such thing as good news or bad news. There's no good or bad on Wall Street. There's only better than expected or worse than expected. So there's a scenario where in video grows 40, 50% earning by, in earnings this year. But the street wanted 50, 60% and that's not good enough. And you get a huge sell off in the stock. It doesn't mean anything's wrong with the company because all this is is an expectations game. And what's different about this game versus betting on sports. If you, if you watch the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Viking games, Vikings game last night with sports, you know what the odds are. The market, they don't tell you the odds. So we know that there are expectations embedded for Nvidia to have a great report. We sort of have a rough idea of what those expectations are in the form of an earnings estimate from the consensus of Wall street analysts who cover the stock. But we don't know where sentiment is. We don't know how badly people need that number to be materially higher. We can assume. So that's to me, if you ask me, like, what are some of the biggest things coming up in the next couple of months that we really need to be focused on and then are going to have a big impact. Chip stocks in general, yes, but really it's the Nvidia show and all the other chip stocks are like the opening acts.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I, I'm with you. I'm bull. And when it comes to the sector, for sure, it's interesting as we talk about Nvidia and we know, right, this is like the Super Bowl. Every quarter it's the super bowl. Everybody's anticipating it. We sit and we watch. More people are waiting to read that report and hear from him speak more and more every quarter.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, I'm sorry. Please go ahead.

[Troy Millings]

I'll say as that's happening. There's another sector that I think that we should be mindful of and it revolves around the data center revolution that I like to call it, but it's an energy sector. What are your thoughts around energy? Right, because Nvidia works because it has the AI capability, but that capability needs to be housed somewhere. Right. And all these, when we see Constellation, when we see Microsoft putting large billion dollar investments into energy, specifically nuclear, to power this, what are your thoughts around that sector in 25?

[Josh Brown]

Look, I think that sector can continue to work and the AI software providers and the AI cybersecurity providers, I think there are all of these kind of related trades that are, they're in bull markets right now. They can stay in bull markets so long as the demand to continue to spend holds up. So the thing to keep in mind with Nvidia and with these energy needs that you're referencing, a lot of this is being held up by just a few companies doing almost all the spending. Now they're doing that spending on behalf of millions of customers. But like Microsoft is the biggest buyer of Nvidia chips. OpenAI might be second or third biggest and they are virtually funded by Microsoft. So you've got this situation where the hyperscalers and the cloud companies need more energy in order to keep up with the demand for all this complex compute power that's necessary for these apps that people are creating to work. So you saw last year the number one performing stock in the S P 500. Does anyone know it? Ian, do you know it?

[Ian Dunlap]

Right off top of my head. Nope.

[Troy Millings]

Okay, volunteer. But it Got added.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

But VST was the number one prior to that.

[Josh Brown]

That's right. So that's an energy company. It's the first time since 2001 that we've had that we've had a utility as the number one performing S&P 500 stock. It would have been Palantir, but it wasn't in the index the whole year. That's right, yeah. Yeah. So Vistra is up on, on electricity demand from, from the hyperscalers. There's another really hot stock, eqt. This is a natural gas company, not a utility. But they are very strategically, it's coincidental, but they ended up very strategically placed in the Appalachian region, very close to where all of these hyperscaler cloud data centers are geographically located. And if you look at a chart of that stock, it's one of the biggest beasts in the market right now. So it's a really interesting trade. I think it can continue to work. But again, all of that rests on the willingness of like seven companies to continue to plow capex dollars into this build out. So It's Microsoft, it's OpenAI, it's Alphabet, it's Amazon. We really need those companies to be willing to continue to underwrite this build out. And the way that they will. The reason they'll be willing to do that is continued usage by their customers, which is basically everyone. So that's. Now they also need an roi. They have to make money from this. Like, yes, it's great to build and it's great to have a forecast for demand that's three years from now. It's great to get ahead of that. But we've seen tech cycles before where they've temporarily overbuilt. And then all of a sudden, and this is my worry about this year, and then all of a sudden the CFO says to the CEO, you know, we don't really, we don't have the revenue to justify continuing this capex spend. We might want to pull back the reins. No one has done that yet. And when they talk to like Sundar Pichai from Alphabet, for him this spending is as much defensive as it is offensive. They can't afford to let perplexity and OpenAI and meta search continue to make inroads against their core search business. They spend. Can you say the same for Microsoft? And Microsoft's interesting. They sit literally at the center of all of this activity. Their stock price only went up 12% last year. That is less than one third of the performance of the nasdaq. And it's Less than half of the performance of the S&P 500. If that trend continues, at a certain point somebody sitting at Microsoft says maybe we're not really getting the payoff here to justify the amount of money that we keep plowing into this stuff. Let's slow down. And if that happens, Nvidia will be the last to know. Nvidia is the caboose. They're not driving the train, so they won't see the cliff coming. If you're sitting in the front of the train, if you're Microsoft or open AI and you see there's a slowdown in demand or there's a lack of monetization, you're going to see it coming. Nvidia will be the last, the last thing I want to say on this though and the really good news is that while Nvidia Troy, you're right. Videos earnings are the super bowl every quarter. The good news is they report last. So by the time we get to late February, we will have already gotten the Q4 earnings reports from Amazon, from Microsoft, from Apple. If there's any sort of slowdown apparent in the spending on this stuff, we'll know. And Nvidia's share price will have already adjusted accordingly. So we're going to get some really great reads into all of this spending and whether or not there's a monetization in the next four weeks, we're gonna, we're gonna learn an awful lot.

[Ian Dunlap]

I have to ask you the million dollar question. Did it well billion dollar question did every once know after you said that how much more of a run window or run rate do we have for these seven companies to pour all of this money into this tech before we'll see a slowing down? It's. You scared the hell out of everybody tonight.

[Josh Brown]

Well, it's tricky because Microsoft was the first with an enterprise scale product copilot which effectively it's a ride along AI service that is supposed to make your software coders more efficient and give them more assistance as they work so that they can churn out, they can be more productive and they can churn out more work product and do it more and do it quickly. It's a great product, it's not the best product on earth and of course it'll get better. But they didn't really have much to say in terms of like how well they're monetizing that. It doesn't mean that they're going to give up or they're going to slow their spending but like we don't want to hear anecdotes like that start to really pile up. Another great example will be what we hear from Apple about Apple Intelligence, which is their native AI. It's built on the chassis of, of of ChatGPT. But basically everyone that upgraded their phones to the iPhone 16 now has the use of Apple Intelligence if they want to use it. We don't really know to what extent that's being used and we don't know how profitable that activity is for Apple. So like we're going to learn a lot now that there are enterprise class products in the marketplace and it's not just people experimenting, it's large corporations that have made an investment. We're going to start to hear what that investment is doing and that could be really bullish. That doesn't have to be a negative catalyst. One last thing I want to put on your radar, guys. It's not clear that Nvidia is going to be able to maintain its level of dominance thus far. By the end of this year, all of their competitors are building their own chips. Now Amazon is building its own chips. Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, they've been, but now they're building AI chips and they can't exactly build Blackwell GPUs the way that Nvidia can. But they don't necessarily need a Blackwell GPU which is, you know, very powerful, highly flexible. What we're starting to see now is some of these companies are building what we call ASICs or application specific integrated circuits. ASICS are nowhere near as powerful as GPUs, but they get the job done for certain narrower tasks. If there's a shortage of GPUs which Nvidia says they're sold out 12 months in advance. It's not like you're going to see these companies sit there and wait. They're either going to turn to the AMDs of the world and be more open minded about using a competing product, or they're going to develop their own silicon in house, have it made by Taiwan semi and just plug that in while they wait for more compute power to come along from Nvidia. So there are some interesting cross currents happening within tech where some of these companies that are the biggest customers of Nvidia are also starting to sort of look like they also want to compete.

[Rashad Bilal]

So historically the S and P last year did 25%. In 2023 it did 26%. So back to back 25% years. Now, you know how many times in history the S and P has done over 20% three years in a row?

[Josh Brown]

Very rare, the late 90s, which is my start in the business. I can't think of another example.

[Rashad Bilal]

One. Yeah, exactly. One time. 95, 96, 97. One. One time in history that it's ever done that. And then presidential cycles. The first year of a presidential cycle usually is a weak market. The second year is a bad market. Third year is a great market. In the fourth year is a good market. Okay, so that those two things that I just named are not good for the market in 2025. But we also have a historical presidential cycle, a historical presidential candidate that's been elected. It's a lot of things that traditionally might, might not have happened that can happen this year, but history would point that this would be a down year in the market or at least a down year compared to the last two years. What, what are your thoughts on that?

[Josh Brown]

So I, I think, I think it's, it's too complex to take, you know, three or four historical examples that we have. Because guys, keep in mind, like we're not playing with a thousand years worth of data. We're playing with, we use crisp database. So we have like 100 years, we have 99 years worth of stock market data that we would consider to be reliable. When you see people do studies on stock market performance, most of those studies start in 1926 because that's like where the reliable data that we have on stocks really starts. You'll see a lot of studies begin in 1950, which is the earliest that we can really take, like S&P 500. So we, I just, I would say we don't have a big enough sample set to know that the presidential cycle or the amount of years with back to back double digit returns are enough to make a definitive statement. But I don't ignore it and I'm with you guys. It's definitely something to be aware of. There's a couple of distinctions here though. The first is the Fed is easing. We're in the first bull market that's ever started while the Fed was raising rates. I don't know if you know, I don't know if you know that. So like, it's a really unique situation that we're in. And we don't know how many Fed rate cuts there will be this coming year. I think the market is forecasting 2 or 3. Let's assume it's just 2. They're not raising rates. We don't think they're going to have to raise rates. The labor market slack that we know now have the amount of people who are Having difficulty finding a job, credit card delinquency rates, all of these things are ticking higher, which I think keeps the Fed from scaring the market about, you know, staying high or raising. So now we know we're getting cuts. We just don't know how many, and we don't know what the timing will be. So that throws a wrinkle in that. The second thing is that earnings are growing. We should see 8% earnings growth this year. It would be pretty rare to find ourselves in a bear market so long as the Fed is cutting and earnings are growing. So I think it's. I think it's not going to be simple. This particular president wants to make a lot of noise about tariffs. He kind of wants to have a clean slate with all of our trading partners and start over as though there are no precedents and just, like, see what he can get so that he can tweet about it like it's a. It's a whole different world. I think the tariff announcements are going to introduce more volatility in the first quarter of this year. So I use the term landmine potential landmine before about Nvidia's earnings call. Another potential landmine is how vocal Trump wants to be about tariffs, even if they don't start implementing them in the first couple of months. Just talking about it, I think if you look at 2018, could definitely introduce some volatility.

[Rashad Bilal]

So you think it's gonna be a good year for the market?

[Josh Brown]

I do.

[Rashad Bilal]

I. Look, I, I mean, I'm with you. I just, I just, I just like to just have, you know, play devil's advocate on this situation.

[Troy Millings]

God's advocate.

[Josh Brown]

I. Yeah, I'm with you guys. And, and, you know, for the last 15 years, I've been reading about the recession that's coming. We've. We've been in recession two months out of the last 15 years. I don't know if most of the viewers even realize that, but it's also.

[Rashad Bilal]

Been unprecedented amount of money that's been printed.

[Josh Brown]

100. 100. But that's not the whole time. I'm saying 15 years. So look, if, if, if we say, if we say right now, here are the big pieces to the puzzle. S P earnings growth that we think is coming. We think about 8% tech. It'll be a huge contribution to that. But so what? And then we think the Fed is probably cutting twice, maybe even three times. By the way, if the economy gets materially worse, that number could be seven times. You got 10 Fed meetings this year, nine Fed meetings this year. So, like, those things are in our favor. What's working against us is a very volatile administration that likes to throw out a lot of ideas. Some of them they don't even follow through with. So I think, like, the right way to phrase how I feel about this year is I'm bullish with the expectation of these bouts of volatility. Now, I also reserve the right to change my mind. If these technology companies start warning and lowering guidance, all bets are off. We're at 21 times earnings. The only way you stay at 21 times earnings, which is substantially elevated relative to history, is if the news flow stays good. You ain't, you ain't keeping that multiple. If the biggest companies in the index start telling you, okay, things are still good, they're just not great. So there you could have a situation where earnings grow, but the stock market is flat or down because we get multiple contraction and people are just less willing to pay up for the earnings that actually materialize. So I try to give people both sides and, and not just present here are all the reasons to be invested and not worry. I think you should be invested, but also you could worry a little bit. That's okay, too. That's healthy.

[Ian Dunlap]

Also, really quick, can we tell them that 25 should not be the expectation for any index?

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, if we do 14, I think we're happy.

[Ian Dunlap]

You know, 7 to 12 is a norm.

[Josh Brown]

If I sat you down at the end of 2021, and I said, I'll make a deal with you for the next three years, one year, the S and P will be. Will close down 20%. One year up 27, one year, up 25. I can't tell you the order. Would you sign up for that? You probably would sign up for that.

[Troy Millings]

Most people 100%.

[Josh Brown]

Well, that's what we just lived through. So, I mean, it's that. That's how averages are formed. One of the most interesting things about the research that we do here, just to back up, we're doing financial planning work for people, which means we have to bake in expectations for future returns of asset classes in order to give them guidance about where they should invest, what proportion should be in what asset class, what their expectations should be relative to their goals. We have to do all of that work, and it's probabilistic work, but we have to put some sort of an average into the formula to come up with the right portfolio. So you have to give people like, all right, s and P500 large cap US stock exposure. We could bake in like an 8% return assumption, which is a really healthy return assumption. The thing is, over the last 10 years it's been more like 15%. So all of our plans undershot on how much the market would go up, which means people's retirements are even more fully funded than they expected. Which means my financial planners have to go back to people and say, great news, you have way more money than we thought you would. By this time you have two choices. You could up your goals and we'll maintain this allocation, or you could take less risk. And we don't have a problem here, but we probably shouldn't do nothing, right? Okay. So thinking about market returns, one of the most interesting things that we come up with when we look at that average 8%, it's that the market almost never does 8% on the nose. That's where you get those average returns from is negative 20 plus 25 plus 27. That's where you get an 8%. And if only it were something that you could schedule like, like a, like a, like a train station. You just can't. You don't know which train is coming in, which one's going out. But you have to be able to bet on that longer term assumption. And where does that assumption come from? Earnings growth, margin growth, interest rates and productivity. The efficiency of companies. You have to make that bet that companies are going to be better versions of themselves 10 years from now, 20 years from now, in order to hit that average annual return of 8%.

[Troy Millings]

That's interesting, man. I was, it made me think of the, the customer that you had or the client that you had that wrote you the letter that they had made a million dollars in Nvidia shares and it was the first. They never thought they could do it. Yeah, I want to talk about, I want to go back to the semi thing because I think you said something very interesting, right? You said that all the max 7 are starting to make their own chips, which is interesting and true. The issue is that they still are going to get manufactured, most likely by tsm. Last week there was some important news from this American company, the granddaddy in the semic space, intel, that they're going to be partnering with Amazon, who's trying to design their own chip as well. I want to know your insight, Josh, because when I look at Intel, I think dinosaur, I think they haven't been innovative. They can't catch up to the nanometers of, of in the fabs of all the other semis. But they got the largest Allocation in the chips act. So they're going to stay alive. I want to know what, what is it about intel, why we keep saying it's a dead company, that company, but it doesn't go anywhere it tells.

[Josh Brown]

Had a lot of problems. And the irony here is Andy Grove, who's the founder of intel, famously titled his book Only the Paranoid Survive. Intel wasn't paranoid enough. They allowed for this massive shift in computing, this, this, this, this revolution in computing to happen around them without them. So intel was the most important semiconductor stock in the world, certainly in America. It was the largest weighting in the semiconductor index. It was a Dow component, it was about, quote, unquote, bellwether. The Pentium chip was the most important chip in the world during the PC revolution of the 80s and 90s. And one of the things about Intel's dominance is their core cpu. So, so the CPU is basically like the, the chip that carries out the most important functions of the, of the PC, of the machine, of the server. That's a linear processing unit. So what that means is it does one operation, then it does the next operation, then it does the next operation. And that was fine for the way that we built Internet 1.0, Internet 2.0, all the PCs, all the servers. Here's what's changed all of a sudden when you're talking about things like augmented reality, virtual reality, the metaverse, blockchain, machine learning, AI, you cannot have linear computing and get these workloads processed in time for it to be useful to anyone. So the venture capitalists who are funding some of these early virtual reality companies and AI companies, they had to find a different version where it was not linear one operation after another, but it was parallel processing. They needed chips that can do multiple things all at the same time. And interestingly enough, they found those chips in the most unlikely of places. Video games.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yep.

[Josh Brown]

Nvidia's business up until 2017, 2018 was like, I don't know, 90% supplying graphics chips to computers and video game consoles. So Xbox and PlayStation and Nintendo and all the computer games. Parallel processing is how these video games render their graphics in real time based on moves that you're making as a player. Jensen Wang realized really early that there was something special about parallel processing that put it in a pole position for these next generation technologies in a way that intel did not arrive at. They didn't figure this out and as a result they have just gone on this absolute rampage at being the chip company that every modern data center needs to build around. It's not that you don't need CPUs, of course you still do. The CPUs are less valuable, margins are lower and they're less important to the future of computing. You can't do anything now without GPUs. So what you, when you hear about hundreds of billions of dollars worth of investment in, in cloud, data center, all of that build out is, is utilizing GPUs at the core. And Nvidia has like 80 something percent market share. So that's the thing that came out of nowhere that put intel into this position of trying to play catch up. But they're, they have so many other issues. They pivoted the business where they said we're going to get heavy into the fab business. So that's like, that's like almost like being like a blacksmith. That's what Taiwan semi does. They're going to build clean rooms and manufacture chips. They're going to be like this industrial powerhouse that produces chips. Okay. Sounded good at the time. Not that sexy. It's not a high margin business. And that's the pivot that I think really set them down the wrong road. So while the whole world was focused on parallel processing, Intel's like, oh, we're going to build a smokestack and we're going to borrow money from the government to do it or we're going to get a government grant in the CHIPS Act. It just was not a great strategy. They had a CEO state step down. I think there was like a sexual harassment thing. They just, they've made so many missteps, it's not clear what the road back will be. And it's not that there's no opportunity in the stock at all. It's that there are too many other exciting things happening at companies like Broadcom and you guys mentioned asml, Micron, amd. There's just like nobody's even looking at intel right now. They might turn themselves around somehow. I just don't know technologically how that's going to happen and what the timeline is on that. So it's not really on my radar as an opportunity. Even though the stock's in a substantial.

[Ian Dunlap]

Drawdown, what surprised you most about 2024 and looking into 2025, what asset classes and sectors are you most excited about?

[Josh Brown]

So, well, let's do the surprises. I was surprised by the strength in the consumer and the labor market. We had 525 basis points worth of interest rate hikes and the consumer didn't even blink. One of the things that we've learned about the wealth of this country and about the middle to high end consumer is that it turns out higher interest rates do not slow down the economy. If anything, they might have accelerated it. Think about all the people you know that have millions of dollars in cash. Now all of a sudden that cash is earning its own cash. Right? So now you say to yourself, well, somebody that has no mortgage and has no credit card debt and has excess cash in their bank account doesn't have to be millions of dollars when they're getting 5% on money market funds or CD rates or whatever. Yeah, that seems more like stimulus than it seems like slowing the economy down. There's a wealth effect that's created when your cash is spitting out more cash into the account each month. So I think the Fed was surprised by that. I think it explains the power of the stock market. I think it explains the travel and leisure stocks, why they keep going up, why Live Nation is at record highs, why Marriott and Delta and United Airlines acted so well. Because the middle to upper households that are sitting in that position without a lot of debt were just like making more money than ever passively in their sleep. You guys talk a lot about passive income. This is something the Fed did, trying to slow things down and it might have actually had the opposite effect. So for me, that's my biggest surprise of 2024. What am I looking forward to this year? My colleague Callie Cox, who is our chief investment strategist at the firm, wrote about productivity over the weekend. We have just had four quarters of two and a half percent annualized productivity growth, which is one of the fastest annualized rates of productivity we've seen in a really long time. Productivity is a fancy way of saying the employees of companies are more efficient and they're producing more for the same amount of compensation. I think AI is part of that story and will increasingly be. I also think companies just got better at figuring out who they needed to keep and how to make them as efficient as possible. And as a result, US corporations actually are seeing profit margin expansion last year and we're seeing productivity growth all over the economy. This is one of the things I think could be really great about 2025. So we still have a healthy labor market. It's definitely cooled off. Wage growth for workers is more like 4%. Prior year it was 6%. So we're able to employ people, but not having to keep give everyone raises every every month, which is really disruptive to the economy. I know it sounds good, but in practice it's a mess. And so we're just in this really good place where profitability is high and productivity is expanding. So that's one of the things that I think is worth looking forward to next year.

[Rashad Bilal]

So let me. All right, so let's get to it. What are your top stocks for 2025?

[Josh Brown]

Oh, I think Amazon is my favorite of the mega caps. Okay, touchdown. Yeah. Amazon's anthropic investment is, that's their, their AI push. Amazon is very uniquely positioned to move AI from the realm of something people talk about into the realm of something people actually utilize in their day to day lives. Amazon Web Services is the largest cloud and they have the most customers and they are going to be pushing AI through the cloud to the end user and actually earning a return on that investment. And I think that that part of the story is not quite as well understood as it could be. Amazon has not been a top performing stock over the last couple of years. It certainly trailed the returns of many of the other mega caps. But I think they're really hitting their stride. They didn't have Jeff Bezos as the CEO. They have Andy Jassy. And Andy Jassy was kind of known to Wall street because he's been in Amazon since the 90s. He was Jeff Bezos's right hand man. So Andy Jassy was the guy that every meeting Jeff went into, Andy walked into the room with him and just sat there listening. And then the meeting would end and Jeff would walk out into the hall or into the parking lot and he would say, Andy, what did you hear? What do you think? Like that's the level Jassy's involvement in Amazon since the 90s. People are underestimating how, how sharp this guy is, but that's starting to change. Amazon ripped in the second half of last year, but if it, if it just, it just recently eclipsed the 2021 high, it's got a lot of room to run and a lot of levers to pull to increase profitability and, and create shareholder wealth. So of the, of the seven, that's the one that I am counting on for the most upside surprises possible. Doesn't mean it'll work. Doesn't mean it'll happen. Just my, just my opinion.

[Troy Millings]

All right, this is where I give you your flowers. This is the moment so early in 2024, obviously watching you every afternoon giving your feedback on some of the stocks. One that you talked about is in an industry that I wasn't even looking at. And that's the restaurant business. And it came in restaurant tech I want to talk about Toast.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

What you saw in it in 2024, obviously it had 100. The stock itself appreciated 100. We had some option calls on it did much more than that. What do you see for toast in 2025? For those who are not familiar, this is think of Squire. If you ever had men's hair grooming where you can get your appointment from your phone. It's kind of like that and QuickBooks together. For the restaurant business. What are your thoughts for, for the restaurant tech and specifically Toast?

[Josh Brown]

So I'm not in the stock currently. It had a huge run. I put in a stop loss to protect my profit. It recently fell through that stop loss in the, in the recent selling that we've had in the market. So my current position in the stock is, is flat. But it is a name that's on my radar. It's probably a name that I'll revisit. I'm still following the company very closely and I think there's a couple of reasons why it worked last year. The first is the expectations were non existent. It kind of came public at the wrong time into that like bubbly time of 2020 and 2021. And a lot of those stocks got left for dead. And I think Toast got lumped in with like this whole Cathie Wood, you know, unprofitable tech companies and people just lost interest and this stock fell into the teens. And that's when I first started getting interested in it because I see it everywhere I go. Like every coffee shop, bakery, restaurant, they hand you the thing to pay the check. It's toast, toast, toast, toast. So I was like, why does this have a, why does this have a teenager stock price but it has this massive presence, like stadiums everywhere. Like what is the disconnect? The disconnect was that they weren't profitable yet. And if you listened to what the company was saying, it was deliberate. So they didn't want to earn money. It's that they're in a land grab moment right now. And land grabs don't last forever because there's other payment processors this clover and you know, there are non restaurant companies that are also want to be in the restaurant space. So Toast decided we're going to pursue customer growth. We're gonna pull out all the stops until we get to like, until we get like a certain market share in some of these key markets and then we'll worry about profitability. That was the wrong playbook for 2022 and 2023. People didn't want to Hear, hear. That shit they want. Like that. We had this year of efficiency and Zuckerberg cut all these jobs and, like, everybody was focused on, all right, we're profitable. And Toast was going in the wrong direction. It ended up paying off, though, if you got into the stock in 23 or in early 24, because they had gotten to almost a million businesses as customers during this period of time. And then all of a sudden, when they hit a certain market share in a given geographic area, the rest takes care of itself. It's a flywheel effect. The restaurant owners see their competitor using it, so then they make a call and they start using it. Once Toasts become. Once Toast becomes your payment processor as a restaurateur, the next thing that happens is they have a meeting with you and they say, there's a hundred other things we could do to help your business become more profitable. Yeah, it's a shitty industry. No, like everybody, everybody struggles in the restaurant business. Even the most successful people struggle with costs, with labor costs, with food costs, with marketing, with customer loyalty, on and on and on and on. What Toast is able to do is cross sell all of these other services and bundle these things together. And once they have a restaurant using six or seven of their different software services, that's it. It's like, it's like Salesforce. You can't get them out if you tried. So I really love that aspect where they're using payments as a Trojan horse to really become like a CRM for. And you know, these are mom and pop restaurants. But then there's also like, they did an enterprise level deal with Marriott. Every restaurant in every Marriott is running Toast now. So, like, I just, I love that story. The stock worked doubled. So I did. Well, there's. I'm out of it currently, but I still think it's a great story. And if it falls back into the low 30s, I'll probably reload.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, that, that's not really quickly when you're talking about doing the research. So listening to you talk about it, I did the research and that stock led me to Kava. Right?

[Josh Brown]

Oh, sweet.

[Troy Millings]

Okay.

[Josh Brown]

They were, I missed that one.

[Troy Millings]

They were using it exclusively. So it's like that's the payment process that they're using inside their business. And obviously we talked about it a couple weeks ago about the debt structure there. I mean, that, that's how sometimes research can lead you to new opportunities as well.

[Josh Brown]

I missed the Kava's, like the Chipotle of like Spanish food or something. Okay. I. Dude, I, I spaced on that. I don't.

[Rashad Bilal]

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[Ian Dunlap]

Hey, you saw that car yet? Yeah, sold it to Carvana.

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh, I thought you were selling to that guy. The guy who wanted to pay me in foreign currency, no interest over 36 months.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, no.

[Rashad Bilal]

Carvana gave me an offer in minutes, picked it up and paid me on the spot. It was so convenient.

[Josh Brown]

Just like that.

[Troy Millings]

Yep. No hassle?

[Ian Dunlap]

None.

[Troy Millings]

That is super convenient.

[Ian Dunlap]

Sell your car to Carvana and swap.

[Troy Millings]

Hassle for convenience.

[Rashad Bilal]

Pickup fees may apply.

[Josh Brown]

Well, I didn't even look at it and then I watched it, Ron and I just. Oops. Can't own them all.

[Ian Dunlap]

You can't own them all. After I caught in video, the number one question I got for 18 months is what's the next Nvidia? That's not my question for you, but same when you're, when you're looking at the, the new sector or new company, what's your process to do the research to find what sector could be the one that takes off next?

[Josh Brown]

All right, so we have, we have this list that we keep internally called the best stocks in the market. And what we're looking for are the stocks that are working right now. And it, it's not that we don't care about the fundamentals of course, like everybody does. So we're looking for profitable companies. They've got to be a certain size. It's not that there aren't small good stocks to own. It's just this is not what we're doing right with this particular effort. So they've got to be a certain size, they've got to be profitable. And we want to see the distance from a 52 week high. We want to see whether or not they're in a defined uptrend. Not like my opinion, but like mathematically is a stock trending higher over a certain period of time and we're looking at all these things and we come up with a list of what are currently the best stocks in the market. Now I can't say these will be the best stocks in the market for the rest of the year because things change. So what? All we can really do is take a snapshot of this moment in time. Where are people making money right now? For me, that's not the end of the process. That's the beginning. This is the number one problem that people have when they get into the stock market. They don't know where to begin. So they turn on tv. Maybe they see me, maybe they're not so lucky, they see somebody else. But whatever ticker symbols are being talked about that day on the air, like they think those are the stocks they're supposed to trade. There's no context. So what we do with best stocks, the market list, it's a start. It's to say, all right, if you're gonna go fishing and you want to catch something, shouldn't you start in a pond that you know is stocked with fish? There's the, it's. The problem with people is it's not their fault. Nobody teaches anybody this. Why would you start. Why would you start with a random list of stocks that people were talking about on TV or in a magazine that day or people on Twitter? Like, that's your starting point. So I'm starting with the best stocks in the market. They're profitable, they're big, they're going higher, they're in uptrends, they're in proximity to a 52 week high. They're in the S&P 500, the best every week. Every Friday, I look at the close. I don't want to get whipsawed every day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, because the list changes. Stocks fall in, stocks fall back on. If I look every week, 52 times a year, on Friday, market closes. Okay, what are the best stocks this week? That's a great starting point for me to spend that weekend, not for a million hours, just like, oh, I never heard of this. Let me find out why it's going up. Think about how many people have the opposite approach. They're looking at the 52 week low list. That's a really tough way to make a living. They look at the worst stocks or one of the stocks that are the most controversial and they're being talked about all day. That's not a great starting point either. Right? That's how you end up owning Boeing. So what I'm trying to. Or Intel. What I'm trying to do is identify those best stocks and then use that as a jumping off point to try to figure out what's going on. And I'll tell you guys a couple things. The first is, let's say the list has 65 names on it. On a random Friday, it could be 10 names, it could be a hundred. This is a function of how the stocks themselves are behaving. Let's say 65 names. If 10 of those 65 names are all consumer staples, there's a lot of information in there. Number one, it tells me defensive names are rallying more than most of the market. Number two, I might stumble upon a company within that sector that people are excited about, and I might learn that catalyst for myself and have a new trade. So that's my starting point. I'm not saying there aren't other ways to do this. I'm saying this is what I know works for me. Here's what I'm saying definitively that I'm not doing. I'm not looking for the cheapest stocks. I'm not looking for what are the lowest valuations. That's just list that there are people that play that game and they're really good at it, and it's nothing wrong with it. I'm not doing that. I'm saying, where are investors being rewarded right now? Let me find out why. And then I got to figure out, can this continue? This is how I ended up in the trade desk this year. Ttd Sick, sick chart. This is how I ended up in Reddit, one of the best performing recent IPOs. All of these things, I wasn't focused on them until my list said, josh, look at this stock. Find out what's going on here. And so that's my approach to investing. And look, it's taken me, I don't know, 15, 16 years to, you know, figure that part out to the extent that I have. But I've been doing that for the last few years and I don't want to go back to any other version of what I was doing now that I'm doing it this way.

[Rashad Bilal]

So before we leave, I gotta ask you about everything that you just said. Just gonna throw it out the window and we're gonna ride the hype train, right? Oh, respectfully so, Michael Saylor.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, you guys like it? You guys like, like MicroStrategy or. No, here's the thing.

[Rashad Bilal]

I think that MicroStrategy is, is at least for now, tied to Bitcoin success. And I think Bitcoin is going to have a successful year. That's just my personal opinion. So I hadn't, I put an option call on MicroStrategy. Last week, because it was down like 30%. Once again, not what you would recommend. Highly unrecommendable in this whole scenario, but it's an interesting case study. So it was down three. I'm like, I think this is a good buy. And then it went down another 20. And so I was down 40 on my option call.

[Josh Brown]

On the call.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay, Friday. And, you know, just learning math. Like, when I became a financial Advis, I realized that if you have like a hundred dollars, right, and you drop to 50, that's a 50 loss. Right? But it's going to take a hundred percent gain to get back up to a hundred dollars. Right. Because a 50 gain on that only gets you to 75.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So I'm like, I'm down 40%. I got. This is pretty heavy.

[Josh Brown]

And you want to know, should you sell the coal?

[Rashad Bilal]

Well, no, I bought. I bought more.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, you did all right.

[Rashad Bilal]

I doubled down.

[Josh Brown]

I didn't know you were gully like that.

[Troy Millings]

Unadvisable.

[Rashad Bilal]

Highly unadvisable. Highly.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Josh Brown]

Averaging down in options trades is. I mean, it takes this.

[Ian Dunlap]

But I'm praying for you.

[Rashad Bilal]

But. No, but. So I gotta finish the story. So now. And I gained 80 in two days. So now I'm up. I get 80 in one day, actually. So now I'm up 10. Highly unrecommendable. But I just had a feeling. It's just the eye test.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So, okay. Right.

[Ian Dunlap]

Can we tell the truth about Michael one day? It won't be today. But, Josh, we.

[Josh Brown]

We have. We have a saying on Wall street that if you don't know who you are, the stock market is a really expensive place to find out. Rashad, what little I know about you is that you have nerves of steel. I know you're an iceman. I know you've. You've not. It's not just that you cultivate that Persona on social media. I know that is what you. What you really are. And I know that from your friends who. Who. Yo, Rashad is different, okay? Most people can't do what you're doing.

[Rashad Bilal]

Unrecommendable. That's for sure.

[Josh Brown]

Most people will lose their. Will lose their shit. Down 40%. So I. Broadly speaking, though, Mike. So I'm not a. I don't trade. I don't trade options. So I. I don't. I don't really have a comment on that strategy, Michael Saylor. I will tell anyone who wants to listen that I don't fully understand how these transactions work or I understand how they work mechanically. I don't Understand why they keep working so effectively what he's done. And it's brilliant whether I don't know how, where it ends, but like right now, it's brilliant. What he's effectively done is he's found a way for people to lay off their, their volatility risk on him in exchange for dollars. So Bitcoin is inherently volatile and he's basically saying, I will eat that volatility and in exchange for your capital, I'll pay you an interest rate. So he's got big institutions and these are sophisticated buyers buying the debt that his company is issuing. As of last week, I think they just launched a perpetual preferred, which is a class of stock. It's not common stock, it's got capped upside, but it pays a yield as though it's a bond. And it's perpetual, meaning there's no maturity date. So it just lives forever. Publicly traded. You could buy or sell it in the, in the secondary market. So he's found buyers for instruments tied to his Bitcoin treasury publicly traded security. And they keep buying it. And every time they buy more stock from him or more bonds from him, he gets capital and he, and of course it's dilutive what he's doing to the shareholders, but they don't care about the dilution because he's taking that money and plowing it into Bitcoin. And I think he has half a million Bitcoin now. I think he's 450,000 bitcoins.

[Troy Millings]

He just passed Blackrock.

[Josh Brown]

Okay, so it's extraordinary because you do have a lot of institutions that are looking for yield from non traditional sources. Well, this definitely qualifies as non traditional. And then you have a lot of people who want to have exposure, leveraged exposure to Bitcoin in their brokerage accounts. Here's where I truly can tell you, I don't know anything. My assumption was that when the ETFs came out a year ago, there would be no more demand for microstrategy stock because now you could just buy BlackRock or any one of 11 publicly traded spot Bitcoin ETFs in your brokerage account. You don't need to buy MicroStrategy anymore. You don't need that exposure coming from a corporation that's hoarding Bitcoin.

[Rashad Bilal]

The volatility.

[Josh Brown]

I could not have been more wrong in that assumption. Look at what the stock price has done over the last year. It's, it's now in the S P500. So I don't know anything. So I'M guys, I'm like you. I'm reading the news, I'm trying to like, mentally understand what's going on. And I'm talking to people. I'm listening to other people talk as it pertains to most things. Bitcoin. I'm a student, not a teacher. I'm not ashamed to say that out loud. I know a lot of people are. And I'm still learning. I don't fully understand why people are willing to pay a premium for the value of the Bitcoin that MicroStrategy owns. But they are. They are. Most of these types of vehicles end up with the ticker with the price being a discount. So I come from the 1900s. I don't know if you know that about me. That's how long I'm doing that. Okay. I'm from the 1900s. We used to sell closed end bond funds to investors and those traded at a discount to the nav 99% of the time. We used to sell municipal bond closed end funds, they traded at a discount to the value of the bonds themselves.

[Rashad Bilal]

Because I think that's what, that's what he's selling. His thing as is that bitcoin is extremely volatile asset, which is good if you want outsized returns. And his thing is it tracks bitcoin, but it's even more volatile.

[Josh Brown]

No, I get that. I still don't understand why it's trading at a premium. So Grayscale went. Grayscale had the first publicly traded bitcoin trust vehicle. But GBTC, other than MicroStrategy and Riot Blockchains and Mara, there was like no other way for traditional financial people in a brokerage account to get bitcoin exposure. So they bought Grayscale, which was trading at first at a huge premium to the value of the bitcoins it held in the trust. And then as Coinbase became more popular and Robinhood started trading crypto people didn't need Grayscale's product anymore. So they sold it down to its nav and then it kept on going. It dropped through the nav and then there was one point where it was a 30% discount, which is when the hedge funds bought it up. And then when they got approval to convert to an etf, it shot right back up to par value or right back up to nav. That was a brilliant.

[Ian Dunlap]

Navy is really quick if they don't.

[Josh Brown]

Know net asset value. So literally, Ian, if you tell me my publicly traded company holds $100 million worth of Bitcoin, if your, if your Stock were to trade at that NAV, it would have 100 million dollar market cap straight up. If it trades above that, it's a premium to the nav. And if it trades below that, it's a discount to nav. My point that I'm trying to make to you guys is that every product I've ever seen on Wall street that looks like a closed end fund where it just holds assets but it has its own ticker symbol, every single one of them ends up trading at a discount to NAV. Somehow MicroStrategy is at a massive 2 or 3x premium to its holdings. And I think that speaks to the army of people who just have so much belief in Michael Saylor's ability to continue to expand the strategy and maybe they'll be right. I've just, I'm telling you, I'm a student, not a teacher because I never would have seen that coming. And I still don't understand it to this day. So I'm fascinated by MicroStrategy and Michael Saylor and I'm following it every bit as closely as, as you guys are. I just don't have anything, anything worth saying about its future price because I already don't get it.

[Troy Millings]

So safe to say you're not recommending it to the portfolios.

[Josh Brown]

No, I don't own, I don't own any microstrategy, but I own the S P, so I guess I do, right?

[Troy Millings]

Yes. I mean, let's just stick in, in the realm of things that kind of don't make sense from a fundamental standpoint. And let's talk about Tesla, I guess. Right. When we talk about a company that has performed volatile since 2018, it fits the characteristics. We saw it run up after the election. We saw that they reported last week that they actually sold less cars last quarter last year for the first time. So as you're looking at it, how do we even try to make sense of this?

[Josh Brown]

You can't. It's a call option on Elon Musk. Yes, it might as well, you might as well call it Musk Coin because the shareholder base is not here for the car sales figures. They don't, they really don't give a shit. Honestly, nobody that owns the stock thinks this is a car company. What they think it is is this like innovation incubator that's going, going to continue to produce world changing technology and monetize it. And that bet has been right. So I never made that bet, but that bet has been right. I have a regular guest on my YouTube channel the Compound. Nick Colis. Nick Colis, an auto analyst at the early stages of his career and he knows more about the stuff than I could even dream of. And Nick's comment is there's probably only two car companies in the world that are going to have any value in the future and it's Toyota and Tesla. He just, you look at Ford and GM and those stocks trade based on how many cars they sold last month. And the feature that all publicly traded car companies around the world have in common, whether we're talking about the Germans or the Japanese or United States or the Europeans, all of their. Or anywhere really, all of the multiples on these stocks are single digit. That's investors saying we don't expect any, any growth to come out of these companies ever again. Tesla is the only one that has a tech stock multiple. And the reason why is the cars are just a vehicle, pun intended, to introduce all these other technologies along the way that are going to be so much more valuable. So full self driving is an example. The humanoid robots that you're starting to see. I think Kim Kardashian is dating one that's an example. Solar, the solar charging, all this stuff. Like if you own Tesla, the last thing you give a shit about is how many Model S's they sold last month. And that's so evident in the way it trades. So I call it must coin. And that's what I really think Tesla is about. It's the cult of Elon and they believe in him now more than ever. He just elected a president. Like, what are you gonna say? What are you gonna.

[Ian Dunlap]

What do you even, even if you.

[Josh Brown]

Dislike him and a lot of people do. Yeah, what are you gonna say? He's an idiot. Like he doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing. Which if you think about it, is even scarier than the idea that he's bumbled his way into all this.

[Ian Dunlap]

And before Starlink IPOs, which is even scarier.

[Josh Brown]

SpaceX, Starlink, the chip that goes in your brain. Can't wait for one of those. The tunnels. It's, it's. Yeah, that's what people, that's why people want to bet on Elon. It's hard to get access to SpaceX stock. You could buy Tesla right now.

[Ian Dunlap]

It's 2025. I know it's a lot of people who want to break into the industry. If someone wants to break into the hedge fund or wealth management space, what advice would you give them? And can you give us like one or two tips for how you've grown your business over the last four or five years.

[Josh Brown]

So I don't know anything about how to break into hedge funds, but I'll speak to wealth management. I think the most important skills that you can possess entering the wealth management business, even if you don't fully possess them, what you need to be focused on is you've got to learn to do financial planning. This is not a business where you go into. If you want to be a stock picker or if you want to analyze companies, that's not wealth management. You've got to know how to help people take their financial assets and turn them into a plan for living out the rest of their life in ease and comfort. There's a lot of empathy involved, there's a lot of math, there's a lot of software, there's a lot of conversations. Got to get people to tell you the truth. You've got to elicit truth from these conversations and then you've got to be there for people in some really tough moments. Some of those will be stock market related like 2022. Some of those have nothing to do with investing. You have to take calls from people who are going through trauma. That's got, that's got to have an impact on their financial situation. My company went under, my father died, my wife is leaving me, my husband is sick, we lost a child and then the good times. I got a promotion, I'm selling a business, I just inherited money. Whatever it is, you've got to be there for those people in all of those moments and be able to incorporate the things that are happening to them into the financial planning work and the calculations that you're doing. And that is what wealth management is about. I think the skills that you need to possess, being on track to become a certified financial planner would probably be number one, having an accounting background. Probably number two, we've built a tax practice internally. Last year we filed taxes for 536 families all over the country. These are wealth management clients who have come to us and said yes, we also want you to help us do our taxes. And if you think about it, the wealth management firm knows more about the tax situation of their clients than anyone else. So it's a really natural symbiosis. So like those are the things that if you want to work on things like that, wealth management is for you. If you're like looking to be somebody that's trading Nvidia, that's not a wealth management job. Although you might end up investing in things like Nvidia, you're probably looking for more like sell side, buy side, you know, something more trading oriented or more analysis oriented. So I think it's. I guess to answer your question, Ian, you really have to understand what you want and then work backwards and ask yourself, the people who are in the seat I want to be in, what do they do? What did, what have they learned? What licenses have they obtained? What did they study?

[Rashad Bilal]

Josh, appreciate your time.

[Josh Brown]

Love you guys. Thank you so much for having me on.

[Rashad Bilal]

How can the people follow your show? And yeah, all the information, no doubt.

[Josh Brown]

You guys are. You guys are the best. We're the compound channel on YouTube. We do about, I think four podcasts a week, most of which also end up on YouTube, but you can download and listen and we all write. So I've got 11 people here putting out market insights on a daily basis. We have something coming out. So if you go to ritholtswealth.com you could learn about the firm. We manage money for people putting in their first 504 billionaires and everyone in between. We've got different service tiers for all different types of investors. So if you want our help, don't be shy. Come say hello and tell us what's going on and we'll, we'll have solutions for you.

[Troy Millings]

Wealth of knowledge. Appreciate you as always.

[Josh Brown]

Be good boys. Wish you. Wishing you all the best in 25. Thank you so much for having me.

[Ian Dunlap]

Love you dearly.

[Rashad Bilal]

Thank you. Always good commentary when we get Josh on.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes, my guy, man.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Ian Dunlap]

How long to microstrategy blows up?

[Rashad Bilal]

Ticking time bomb next week and maybe.

[Troy Millings]

We will reveal the national smart guy. And he's around a lot of smart people.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

And yeah, well, you know, Michael Saylor had this situation happen to him before in the early 2000s with the dot com. His company dropped like 90 in value. But ride the wave until you. Until it's time to get off.

[Ian Dunlap]

The interesting part though, if I'm gonna play God's advocate, if he finds a way for that actual core business to go up in value while implementing this bitcoin strategy, he's going to be Elon 3.0, I think.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, I think it's a. I think it's a year. I think you gotta just be careful because I think we're gonna have a down year probably in 2020 at some point 6 or 2027. So for sure you gotta just be careful. But you can make money.

[Ian Dunlap]

But he wants to go see Trump. He's Smart like the hedging the other, the anti vix play, the Mar a lago boost.

[Troy Millings]

He's going everywhere. I mean he's like, he's everywhere.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

And he's like I said, if, if it goes down, then he's out side even more. Because now I need you to invest because this is the perfect time when it's on a rise like it is now. Everybody wants to talk to you because you're the genius he's positioned.

[Ian Dunlap]

Can we talk about. Because you guys are media masters. I love Josh answer about. I'm a student, not a teacher. Got to implement that one. But when you have your moment, can you talk about how important it is to put your foot on the gas and be everywhere?

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh, you got to.

[Troy Millings]

To this day you got to.

[Rashad Bilal]

And that's, that's important. As far as some people, some people have to have the strategy of less is more. And they don't, they don't. You don't want to over expose yourself. And sometimes it's like the mystique of never showing your face, never talking. And that could work for some people. So it kind of depends. But that's harder, that's a harder feat to pull up like a top dog, for instance. Right. Like you never seen him speak, you never seen him give an interview, see.

[Troy Millings]

Him at the league again.

[Rashad Bilal]

So that's, that's harder as opposed to, you know, somebody like a Michael Saylor who's doing everything right and he's staying relevant. And in hip hop you have two different type of people. You have the Snoop Dogg who's always out doing everything. Like, you know, yeah, you got a bowl game, he's with Martha Stewart, he's at the Olympics, he's doing all of this stuff. Right. Then you got the Jay Z that just comes out in spots and moments and then hibernates for six months at a time. So you could do both. But for us, our strategy has always been forward facing because that's how we came in was on.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Social media was through. You know, we didn't come in like as just like a mythical figure. So I think it's important to do as much press as possible. Yeah, strategically that makes sense. And get your name out there and then create viral moments too. That's important to like just create different things. That's going to be viral. That's going to, you know, have legend attached to it. So that, that's think that that's important. But he's doing a great, great job right now. I personally think that microstrategy is going to do well this year. That's just my opinion.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, I think that my concern is 26.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah. I think bitcoin is going to well this year. I think microstrategy is going to well this year. Now, once bitcoin pulls back, microstrategy might be screwed because they are. They are heavily. They have a lot of debt. They're taking out a lot of debt to buy bitcoin. So as long as it keeps going up, it's not a problem. When it starts going down, that's when it's the biggest squeeze.

[Troy Millings]

Even. Even if it. It consolidates a little bit, he's okay.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's been consolidating. I was waiting for the past couple of days waiting for it to hit 86, and now it's back up.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, like 86.85. Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

That was back up above 100. So.

[Troy Millings]

So it's still in that range. It's still. That technically can be the range of consolidation.

[Rashad Bilal]

So it hasn't gone crazy yet, but you got to like it under. But once it starts to get past 110.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, good. He's. That's a good night.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's going to keep going. Once it gets past 110, it's going to keep going and then it's going to hit 120, 150, 122.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

When it starts hitting that, he's going through good. When it starts to pull back, that's unprecedented territory for him, I think, as far as publicly facing and the amount of debt that he's taking, that's gonna be. That's gonna be difficult waters for him to navigate. But he probably has the exit strategy already in place, so.

[Troy Millings]

But he's outside. He's outside. He ain't running. He's not running. Whether it shoots up and appreciates or depreciates, he's still outside. We. We. Like I said, we. We are always outside. The other night. No, this is no joke. Got a call. So he's like, yo, you want to do this interview? It's like 6:00. I'm like, what time? 9:00. All right, let's do it. You know, you know what time we got home for that interview?

[Rashad Bilal]

Gotta do it.

[Troy Millings]

4:00Am I can believe it. Back outside, boys.

[Rashad Bilal]

Gotta do it.

[Troy Millings]

And wait till you see that one viral moment. Back outside, boys.

[Ian Dunlap]

Gotta keep working. And if you're gonna be in Houston when they on a book tour, don't ask to come out to the outside festivities. And you ain't Came to the book.

[Troy Millings]

Not just for the book. Just for the books, y'all. I can't help you with anything else but the book.

[Ian Dunlap]

A good homework assignment though is if bitcoin draws, let's say down 24, how much will MicroStrategy draw? Because it's not a one for one correlation. That's the thing I would do my homework on. I'm not anti sailor. I'm not anti the strategy, but I do want you guys to be aware if Bitcoin pulls down 15 to 26%, how much micro strategy we draw down as a result.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, micro strategy, man. It's one of these things, man, where.

[Ian Dunlap]

You got to commit us Hutspa, though.

[Troy Millings]

No, I mean, think about that. You're talking about even like a guy like John who's never seen anything like this before. This is a guy who's been 30 years plus. Never. Yeah, you got unprecedented time.

[Rashad Bilal]

Sometimes in life you gotta roll a dice.

[Ian Dunlap]

Go all in.

[Rashad Bilal]

What's the. Oh, sorry for cursing. Let's. I've seen a parent that was like, you know, it's difficult for market Mondays if we curse because they do have children that watch the show. So let's try to.

[Ian Dunlap]

Can I get my commentary or. We're gonna keep it peace. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. And thank you for having your child watch our amazing and esteemed broadcast.

[Troy Millings]

We appreciate you wholeheartedly.

[Rashad Bilal]

Appreciate it.

[Troy Millings]

Thank you. No, I'm in Ian's words. I love you daily.

[Rashad Bilal]

But what's interesting is that Microsoft is. Has kind of underperformed. So we got to see a Microsoft when they have a breakout year or if they, in his words, are kind of like the indicator of what could potentially happen in the future, even with companies like Nvidia.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, I think. And he kind of mentioned it, but we're going to see that across the Max 7 and that's that Capex. So, yes. They haven't traded with extreme growth like an Nvidia because they're spending money with Nvidia. Right. So we got to see if it pans out. Like you said, Microsoft is the number one customer for buying those GPUs. CO pilot is number three. So, I mean, you're really one in three in buying them. And. And Sam's saying that he needs more. So the Capex we're gonna see, man, they're gonna keep spending until the point where it's like, when are we going to make profit? I'd love to see when they report, I think in late January how Co Pilot performed because Co pilot, they add that into Microsoft Office. Now the AI integration, we'll see how it performed. But like that, that caboose strategy that he said, it's pretty interesting, right? When you think in terms of earnings, they are the last one every time. So by the time everybody else is reported, we already know what's going to happen. They already know what's going to happen with them. Interesting.

[Ian Dunlap]

I mean but if I could have took you back to when we first started to show and I said invest in Microsoft, which I did. And around that time I was at 165. I told you in five years it would be a 426. You would have said I took whatever sleeping pill Joe Button did at Edgewater. Shout out to my guy, love you. Dealing. You can go make it through this real quick. But Microsoft has outperformed every expectation that was set. And if we're going to. And Josh said it. I never wanted to say it like this, but he said it. They are the controlling interest between Open AI and Nvidia. They are the market maker for the AI space. Going back to set an expectation to go from 165 to 423 in five years. That was not expected, not even by me. I didn't think they would have this control of Open AI and be the puppeteer if they had an ambassador like Sailor or Elon. And don't get me wrong, their CEO is absolutely amazing. But if they had a celebrity CEO, the stock should be a 750 based off actual performance. Like they own 49 open AI. They have a controlling interest in Nvidia and dictates how far they will go. The stock is overperformed. So even though it's underperformed in comparisons to some of the stocks that are there, for them to be a multi trillion dollar company, you have to be honest, like 130 gain in four or five years.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

Is not real. This is your expectation for like a nine or ten year period.

[Troy Millings]

We're jaded though, right? It does 134 in five years and then Nvidia comes around and do does 170 this year in 2024. So it's like we, we're just so jaded by these outperforming numbers. That is like the expectation great isn't even great enough anymore.

[Ian Dunlap]

And going back to your point Rashad, of maybe having three years of 25, that's fine. You better tuck some money away for when we have our generation's version of that 2000 crash.

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh, it's coming. Well, yeah. Maybe not that bad.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

Is coming. 20, 2026, 2027.

[Ian Dunlap]

Correction, the drought is coming.

[Troy Millings]

If you, if you've played the last three years.

[Ian Dunlap]

Right. Yep. You should be. You should be rich and you deserve to be deserving.

[Troy Millings]

You deserve it.

[Ian Dunlap]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

You know what I'm saying?

[Ian Dunlap]

Like 2027. Come, baby.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. But you, you've made it to a point where it's like, I'm on a sideline and now I'm finding even more entry points. Like, that's just. That could. That's the strategy. You got to be ready for it. The opposite. So, like, if people miss the pandemic, like how we always talk about, we missed 2008 and then the pandemic came like this. That moment is going to. It's a cycle. It's a cycle. And so you got to be ready for the moment.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

What companies are you guys most excited about in 2025? Either. Either private. Publicly traded.

[Rashad Bilal]

Well, the private companies, I mean, you got, you know, open AI, you got.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

SpaceX, you got all of those companies for sure. Public. I said, well, it's not a company, but Bitcoin I think is going through well. And as a result, I think MicroStrategy is going to do well for sure.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

And I mean, TSM company that I'm invested in, ASML company that I'm invested in. So hopefully those do well. And then, you know, hopefully, I think that you gotta still like Nvidia. We'll see.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

We'll see what happens. But I think you got to be optimistic about. About that situation at the very least. And then, you know, CrowdStrike was a company that I sold too early. That's an unfortunate situation.

[Troy Millings]

That time Patience didn't pay.

[Rashad Bilal]

And Microsoft, I think you got. I think you got. Think you got like Microsoft for sure.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Troy, Troy. Troy was mu. So hopefully that goes well.

[Troy Millings]

You gotta say, you gotta put my name on the other ones in too, man.

[Rashad Bilal]

Not just that one, but that's the one that I solely got because of you.

[Troy Millings]

Nothing. That's the only one.

[Rashad Bilal]

Like, solely.

[Troy Millings]

There's a couple other ones.

[Rashad Bilal]

Like what?

[Troy Millings]

Tsm.

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh, tsm. I mean, yeah, but you. You champion TSM for sure. I'm just saying.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

MU was a company that.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, you didn't know about before.

[Rashad Bilal]

It wasn't on my radar.

[Troy Millings]

Okay. Yeah, I, I'm TSM for sure. And if you listen to what Josh just said, and that's why I brought it up, so he could reiterate it, Even if every max 7 decides to make their own chip, guess who's going to manufacture it? I mean it has to go through them, right? So like for sure. And we talked about it as the stock of the year. I'm. And we might talk about this, but I'm really big on AMD this year, man. I really am.

[Ian Dunlap]

Andy should have a hell of a year.

[Troy Millings]

And again, if you listen to Josh speak, and again I use him as one of the guys that I'm like, I'm watching him, right. As a student learning. If you listen to what he just said about them Nvidia being sold out and exactly what gpus and cpu's do. Okay, well intel we know out of here, AMD has passed it in the CPU market. Right? It's passed it, surpassed it. If we talk about the GPU market, everybody is not going to need the high powered Blackwell or the high powered Reuben. There will be that next tier. And again, if you look at sectors, this is very similar what we said inside the CRM space. Right. When everybody was talking Salesforce. Yeah. For a corporate account, that makes sense. Right? You're going to have your max sevens when it comes to Nvidia, but you're also going to have these in between mid scale businesses, right. Smaller cap businesses that are going to say, I think this A and D product is sufficient enough for us. You're going to see a capex spend start going to them because hey, I may not need that. That high price point.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Blackwell is $35,000.

[Rashad Bilal]

We spoke to some people.

[Ian Dunlap]

What you say, Rashad?

[Rashad Bilal]

No, we spoke to some. We did, we spoke to some.

[Ian Dunlap]

Oh, okay.

[Troy Millings]

And we spoke to somebody and we also spoke to some people.

[Ian Dunlap]

But it helps market research.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, exactly. And now it's my relationship. And now you, now y'all know. But yeah, I'm, I'm big on amd. Outside of the, the ones we spoke about on the last show, 2024. Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

What are you big on? What's your. We never really got to this.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, wait, you know what? You know what? You know what? You know what, Ian? You know what? I'll talk about the energy one while you think about this. Yeah, so. And he brought up Easter and we saw what Constellation Energy has been doing, obviously the Microsoft deal. But this, I think $8 billion like crazy. Right? But that's the type of power that's going to be needed to power them. But we talked about Vistra last year and Shout out. I do read some comments, not too many, but somebody was like, yo, Troy, you was kind of wrong because Palantir was the number one performing S P. And I'm glad that Josh corrected that today. Right. So you have to all hear it. Palantir wasn't added till December 23rd of 2024. So technically it wasn't even in the S P all year. Bishop was the number one performer with over 270. And that story is all around energy powering data centers. The RT is another good one, and that deals with again, inside of that space. But the cooling agent, right? Because these chips, high energy, high energy, high energy, high heat consumption, you have to keep them at a certain temperature. So looking at the companies that are using cooling agents, liquid cooling, to help combat that, I mean, this isn't going anywhere. They're not spending hundreds of billions of dollars for this industry to go anywhere. It's gonna be here. You should be involved in it.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

But, Ian, I'll pass it to you.

[Ian Dunlap]

The gatekeeping play. I will give you two. One company that I think is going to be incredibly important, and two products that I think are going to be important. So, like, of course, autonomous systems are going to be super important, but autonomous robotic soldiers, I think for this year may be product of the year even. And even though they're not publicly traded, I will give you guys my publicly traded stock of the year next year, I promise you. Cliffhanger. But my company of the year for sure. I've talked about this on stock club for the last six months. But, Andrew, I want to make a bold prediction now. And if I'm wrong, I'm fine with being wrong. Cool. But Anderillas are going to overtake Boeing and is going to give Lockheed Martin a run for their money in that military space. For those of you who don't know Google, Lucky Palmer, he was the guy who was behind Oculus, who sold it to Facebook or Meta at the time. Him and Mark had a little kerfuffle intellectually about how things should be used. But if you love Palantir and think Palantir would be incredibly important to me, Palantir is the AMD of the defense space and the real is Nvidia. So I don't know if they will debut or IPO in 2026 or 27. I've talked to some people, they're saying late 26. So I would say keep your eyes on them. But I think autonomous robotic soldiers will be the product of the year and Anderil is going to lead that charge. And also the reason why we got the Metaverse and it got such of everybody at Meta and everybody hq, I love y'all. Y'all mean the world to me. Shout tomorrow. And everyone there love, love the new updates and platform. Go download the new version of IG and get all my capes out. But the reason we got the the metaverse was because of Lucky's brain and Oculus and then he took that apply intellectual capability and applied it to the military. So to me they are the Nvidia of that military defense space and I think they'll have the greatest impact over the next decade.

[Troy Millings]

So that's a company that might IPO in 2025.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, 25 or 26. So for me, open AI, Starlink and Anderil are like my big three for IPOs for the rest of this decade.

[Troy Millings]

I was waiting to hear that because I figured that that might be the, the route definitely with some of the choices that you were going to make. I added a different three. I had those, but I chose a different three. I think Stripe still I pray for our own sake.

[Ian Dunlap]

Just sidebar. I pray. Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Please. I think Stripe is an interesting one. Hopefully it IPO's this year the valuation has come down substantially. I know at one point it was valued at over 134 billion and now we're down to like 68 billion dollar valuation pre IPO. So we'll see. If you don't know what Stripe is Payment process Center. A lot of, I mean a lot of entrepreneurs use it for sure, but a lot of businesses use it too.

[Ian Dunlap]

So how do Toast be able to go public and they didn't?

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

Maybe we can interview somebody.

[Troy Millings]

Basically we're going to be nice to everybody over there. Stripe. Another one in the fintech space. Chime. So if you're not familiar with Chime, they have no fee mobile banking services. And this is a. I keep hearing about this company. We've, we've done some stuff with them, would like to do more things with them. So if you had time reach out to us. I like them fundamentally and so we're going to keep an eye on them. But there was an interesting one and I think so StubHub potentially could go public and obviously StubHub is the secondary market for tickets and events we've seen and I was huge on Live Nation. Nobody has like giving me my credit for that, but it's all good.

[Ian Dunlap]

No, no, we'll give you all praise.

[Troy Millings]

You know, we're trading at 130 now. Shout out to everybody but that. So Live Nation has a monopoly when it comes to ticketing and venue space. But Stubhub really just lives off the second day market of these tickets. As tickets become concert goers are becoming more and more popular. We're seeing more events, we're seeing people actually attending at record numbers. I think Taylor Swift hit, she broke the record. Right. For highest grossing tour in history.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

I don't see that slowing down. And a lot of times the second tier market is where people are getting their tickets. It'd be interesting to see what, what StubHub does if they IPO. And then I'll save the other one because you gave some. I gave. Those are three. But Chime, Stripe and Stop Hub potentially for 2025.

[Ian Dunlap]

Tune in next week while I reveal my stock of 2025. Rashad is going to have a stock of 2025 and some advice on how to grow your brand. And Troy is going to give you another pick. I got another one.

[Troy Millings]

I got another one. I got another one.

[Rashad Bilal]

Okay, before we leave, let's talk about some, some trading. Just tips I know a lot of people are interested in at the start of the year. So let's talk about some trading. I know, you know, options still, still big, getting even bigger. More money getting piled into options. So yeah, how can people be safe as far as short term options, long term options? 25, 26, 27, far out of the money calls. Like with some couple of minutes on option education.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. I think you broke one of the rules that we put down and that was when you don't double down. Don't, don't. Yeah. So again, the first thing I'd like to see is, and I know Josh said the 52 week low, but that's not what we're looking at when we're trying to find a good option call. Right. The first thing I'm always looking at is, is the asset at a 30 pullback. Right. So that talks to AMD would be a perfect one. Right. If we look at this 52 week high, has it pulled back 30 from that check? Yes. Right. So now I go inside the actual call numbers. Right. I'm looking for a strike price that is near the money. So today is at 129. So I'm looking for a strike price if, if I see volume and a couple other things, open interest, I'll look close to the money, maybe 135. The next thing I always do is add time. Like time is one of that.

[Ian Dunlap]

Your time is the most.

[Troy Millings]

It's one of the most valuable metrics when I'm trading options. Right. I want to have enough time. I don't do them on a daily basis. I know some people are trying to do them on an hourly basis. I don't recommend that.

[Rashad Bilal]

The more time, the slower return.

[Ian Dunlap]

But a guaranteed slow return is better.

[Rashad Bilal]

I'm just. I'm just prepping.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, well, it's got a couple of things. When you go off a little bit further, right. Number one, it's going to be more expensive, Right. Because the likelihood of it actually reaching that strike price increases with time. I'm okay with that. Is the growth a little bit slower? It can be, right. Because again, the, The. The. The amount of time that you have in between that strike price in the present day is vast. So a lot of people. And you'll see people that'll do two, three months out. That's cool, right? You can do that, and you stay close to the money, and you can make money, but you could also lose a lot of money. You can lose your shirt.

[Ian Dunlap]

Right?

[Troy Millings]

Shout out to my man Lou Tuck, who said, yo, a lot of people lost their shirts trading options. This is true. So we want to make sure that, number one, we're defensive with it, but we're also having a very disciplined approach to it to make sure that we make money. So you got to be comfortable.

[Rashad Bilal]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

If we. Starting now, I'm looking out to late 2026. I'm looking out to. I know they got some January 27th calls. I'm looking out further, right? So, like, I'm just going to multiply that over and over. That TSM call that everybody was like, oh, my gosh, that's great. Yeah. Well, I bought that in. In 2022. Yeah. The fact that it went up 1300% was because I use time as one of those metrics to help me gain that. We got a couple other calls that are about to go up to a thousand. The Broadcom Club we talked about here is already over 400%. Right. There's a few Nvidia calls that we have that over 600%. Time over and again, has proven to be one of the best tools that I've used to. To trade. So number one is the asset trading at a depreciated rate is the option call that you're looking at. Trading at depreciated rate. Take those two things in account. And if you're down, if you're down, this is not like, doubt. I don't want you to dollar cost average into the call. Yeah, right. It might be an opportunity to say, okay. And we've done this plenty of times. Hey, I had a 150 call at AMD. AMD's pulled back. I still like the metrics on it. Every, all the research match. This might be opportunity to say, hey, I might go at a lower strike price now I might go down to the 130 call right out to December 26th. Because again, I believe in the company and if it appreciates, not only am I making on the 26 call, but I'm making on the 150 call as well. So we're gonna make money going up both ways.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, I've done this a few times though. Like I said, it's not recommended, but it is actually some level of thought that I put into this. I'm not just randomly throwing it. Yeah. Because what happens sometimes is that you put all of like whatever amount of money you put in and you might put it in at the wrong time, then it drops drastically. So yeah, what I do sometimes is if I'm not 100% sure, I'll, I'll, I'll put like 50 in with the anticipation that it could potentially go down. So it's like even that, that call, like, yeah, I was down 40, but then when I put, put money in it automatically I automatically became down 25. Because now I brought it at a lower price. Right, Lower price. And then of course it went up now to help me and now I'm back in the green. I've done this with tsm. I've done this a few times. I'm not recommending it, but there you.

[Ian Dunlap]

Got to do a high quality.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, exactly. Stuff that you feel comfortable about. Yeah, I'm not putting everything in all at once because I know that it could potentially go down and then if it does go down, then I bought at a lower price and then we'll ride the wave back up. But there is some, there is some level of thought process in it, but it is risky for sure. But like you said, Ian, it's things that I'm kind of confident about. Like not just something that I'm just completely winging out, out of left field somewhere.

[Troy Millings]

Trading has considerable risk.

[Ian Dunlap]

Please consult your advisor. On the future side, I put this on Twitter earlier. Set a target that is impossible to miss to build momentum. So like on the future side, say hypothetical, if you do 33 contracts, go for 200 points on NASDAQ, 200 points on, on the futures is very achievable. That'll put you at a 33, 000 win. If you do that five or six times in 40 day period, let it make for a great quarter. Number two, I haven't talked about this a lot but on the future side, find a way to do carry trades. So if you can find a way to hold the ES or Nasdaq from the Open to the close or from the 5pm Japanese session through the American Open because you can still use your intraday margin. So hypothetically, if I trade at 5pm today and I find a trade while I find a London, I can actually run it through the American Open and get the most gain out of it. So I'm getting like a multi hour trade out of a intraday trade. Those are two things I would add to your trading bag to be able to get bigger wins in the market. And also don't put your stop loss in places where you'll get whips out because it sucks to get the direction right but your stop was too tight and you got knocked out and it goes exactly to where you thought it would be.

[Troy Millings]

Do you alternate the stop loss depending on on the company or is it specific?

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, about a future. Yeah, all my stop loss are based by the instrument. So I have a stop for ZB, which is the bond market, one for NASDAQ, one for ES. Because you, if you have a 20 tick stop on NASDAQ that's incredibly. You go 20 points in 8 seconds sometimes. So but for traders, a good tip if you're shorting, put your stop at the top of the market or if you're going long, put it at the bottom of the market and then let it automatically adjust after you get up A certain if you get up 15, have it automatically move up maybe like 3 to 5% and you'll be good and let it run.

[Rashad Bilal]

And also it's important to for long term holes especially put substantial amount of money in a few as opposed to small. Like the compounding interest is not going to mean anything if it's only a little bit amount of money on.

[Ian Dunlap]

It's a small amount of money. Yes. So the more money that you winners.

[Rashad Bilal]

And concentrate it even if it's a safer thing. So if it's like okay, Apple and Microsoft and if you have a hundred thousand dollars in Microsoft, that's gonna be better than like $10,000 in Coinbase and then $10,000 in Ford Motor Co. $10,000 and then just like you know, one goes up 40%, you made $4,000, right?

[Ian Dunlap]

Yep.

[Rashad Bilal]

And then another one goes down. So it's like all right, you got you know, $100,000 in Apple and it goes up. I mean you made $20,000, that's, you.

[Ian Dunlap]

Know, compound confidence is higher too. Yep.

[Troy Millings]

Or you can make a thousand percent.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, I'm just saying as far as long term holds.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

You're probably not gonna make a thousand in a long term hold unless you're holding it for 30 years. 20 years?

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, no, an aggregate.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, no, no.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

To get a thousand percent in a long term hold, that, that's not just.

[Troy Millings]

The stock he's in.

[Rashad Bilal]

Just the stock. Yeah. No options, no trading, nothing. Just the stock.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's not, that's, that's not normal.

[Troy Millings]

I want the people to understand that. So like if you have Nvidia stock and you bought it in 2020 or.

[Ian Dunlap]

21, or maybe I bought in 2018, this is not typical, it's not usual.

[Troy Millings]

But in this time frame. Right, because we could say, hey, if I bought Microsoft in 2010.

[Rashad Bilal]

Well, I get it. It's the risk reward ratio too. If you bought Nvidia at that, you had some level of foresight. But I'm saying like right now, today, if you want to play safe, if you buy Apple, Microsoft, you're not going to get a thousand % return in five years, but it's a safer play. Now you can go down the chart and find some startup AI company that nobody knows about right now that you, that you could potentially invest in and get a thousand percent rate of return because it still has a lot more upside, but that's a little bit more risk. What's a lot more risk? And it's more, it's more, you know, skill involved. You gotta look, you gotta know, you know, you gotta have insight. Like, you know, to Invest in Nvidia 10 years ago took insight, right. Like, or everybody would have done it. No, I'm just saying, I'm just saying the average person was not investing in Nvidia 10 years ago.

[Ian Dunlap]

We're on the same page, brother, same chapter. Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

No, for, for, for realistic expectations. It's just, you know, but like I said, I mean, 20, 30, you could start compounding that if you got, you know, some real money in there, then I mean, if you get a hundred thousand, now you get 30,000. Now, you know, before, you know, you get 200,000, now you get $60,000. Like you know, you start to. Without doing any work, without doing too much work.

[Troy Millings]

The work's already done. Once you execute it, you hopefully have done the work.

[Ian Dunlap]

And the most important part, that we're leaving out the confidence factor that allows you to keep investing. How many people do we know they tried to find a company that was 57th best. They put 20 grand into it. They blew their account and never went back. Betting bigger amounts and getting these small consistent gains. You did like, ish. Call me. It's like, yo, I did this. I'm up 20 now. One of his friends is up 80%. Like, man, I should have listened to you three years ago. I'm like, you listen now. It's all good. The correct decisions gives you compound returns as well to now allocate more money to companies that rule the world. So you're absolutely right. Like, sometimes the, the bigger investment into a safer investment is much smoother.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Like, put a lot of money into something that's. It's a risk reward ratio. Put a lot of money into something that is relatively safe and as opposed to, you know, you could, you could. It's like a chart diagram. You could put a lot of money into something that's very risky and make a lot of money, but you can also lose a lot of money, and that's very dangerous. You can put a lot of money into something that's safe and make money. You could put small amounts of money into things that are extremely risky and that could potentially win. But then you got to think, okay, is it better to put $500,000 into Apple or 20,000 into different option calls? Okay, either one could potentially work. But it's like, okay, if you make, if you make 200% on that 20,000. Right? So now you add, what, $80,000 as opposed to. If you put $500,000 into Apple and Apple goes up 30%. Right. Well, now you made $150,000. So it's just like, you just gotta, you gotta calculate everything. Like, you know, as far as risk reward ratio, compound interest. You just gotta take all those things into consideration when, when you, when you're thinking about investing. But you should have, you shouldn't. You shouldn't be risky with all your, all your money.

[Ian Dunlap]

You can't. I mean, if we look at it, that's how NBA and NFL owners invest. There's a reason why Steph gets. With 37 million out. The probability of him hitting a certain amount of points per game and pushing tickets and merch is higher than if they drafted somebody else who is a good shooter as well. You got to put the heaviest amounts into the things that are guaranteed.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. And that's why it's how we started the show, actually. Right. Like, they put metrics to see if you hit those measures.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah, right.

[Troy Millings]

So if you hit Those measures, then that probably means that the team performed well.

[Rashad Bilal]

Right.

[Troy Millings]

So when Mike Evans is like, yo, if you have a thousand yards and you have 11 touchdowns, then the team probably will perform well. Yeah. And they did. They made the playoffs.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah. Once again, shout out to Kobe. How far do you think Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson are gonna go?

[Rashad Bilal]

Same place they always go, shopping champion. There's only one champion and that's in Kansas City.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, well, they gotta go through Casey this year. So they got home field.

[Rashad Bilal]

They'll go. They'll go as far as they always go. They'll, they'll. Nobody's beating Kansas City.

[Ian Dunlap]

Especially with your D hop boy cheat code.

[Rashad Bilal]

I mean, we've seen this happen. Three. They lost three years. This is. Happens every year almost.

[Troy Millings]

They only look, but I mean, that's. They didn't count. They lost one game. Really. But yesterday they. No, I'm saying they didn't play.

[Rashad Bilal]

They lose to Kansas City. They. Kansas City is dead.

[Ian Dunlap]

They lost.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, you talking about in the playoffs?

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Last year was the first time they lost him in the playoffs. The year before that, the boats. I mean, Bengals beat them. He hasn't put the, the, the reality is that he hasn't performed well. In the playoffs.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah. In the playoffs. Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah. It's just one of those things, man. You know, Kansas City until, until dethroned. They're the new dynasty. They're. They're the Patriots. They're the new Patriots.

[Troy Millings]

They got a chance to do something the Patriots never did, man. Three in a row. Three in a row.

[Ian Dunlap]

That would be crazy.

[Troy Millings]

I don't think I saw. No, I've never seen three in a row in my lifetime.

[Rashad Bilal]

They're the new Patriots, man. You know, they got the best quarterback, they got the best coach. They got the, like, they got. They, they actually modeled the Patriot system. They got the, they got the, they got like, they got the Titan. Oh, Travis Kelsey, best tight end ever. They got best quarterback ever. They got best coach ever. I'm just saying like debatable.

[Troy Millings]

Debatable. I said this three years ago, four years ago to Deion Sanders face and he argued with me, I think. So if you look at every metric he's passed, I mean Tony Gonzalez probably has more catches, but he'll finish with more than him. He's gonna have more touchdowns than all those guys.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Nobody's had more thousand yard receiving years than him. He's won three Super Bowls. Two. Three.

[Ian Dunlap]

It's tough to argue again.

[Troy Millings]

Tony Gazelle's never made it to a Super bowl.

[Rashad Bilal]

So you got, you got, you got. I mean, they, they're the new Patriots. They got the coach, the tight end, the quarterback. They, they, they. The culture, the system. Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

And leadership.

[Troy Millings]

He is. He's the most clutch player we've seen since. Well, obviously Brady. I'm just saying because somebody will say he didn't have the best year as a quarterback. True. He didn't. He wasn't the best. He didn't play the quarterback's position the best. But he still is the best player.

[Rashad Bilal]

The goal is to win.

[Troy Millings]

And they did that 15. And.

[Ian Dunlap]

And the thing that you got to give Patty over time. I love Tom Dilly, but man like Patties. When he makes that decision that they're going to win. Jordan ask. Jordan ask. Man.

[Troy Millings]

That's the same feeling that you. When you. We can't give Brady the ball with two minutes left, bro. We know what's gonna happen If Pat.

[Ian Dunlap]

Got 45 seconds left. It's too much time. It's over with.

[Troy Millings]

I think his biggest challenger this year won't be Baltimore, it'll be Buffalo. And I. I'd. I'd be interested to see when those. I think those two teams will meet. I think it'll be.

[Rashad Bilal]

Call Andy come back home.

[Ian Dunlap]

Sorry.

[Troy Millings]

They ain't got no spot for him back home.

[Ian Dunlap]

Was in Brickle having a blast, ain't it? Go back. Sometimes it's best to stay with the winning team that you're cool with than to try and just be out on your own. It's not the same.

[Rashad Bilal]

I seen always greener.

[Ian Dunlap]

Everybody is not an mvp. Especially if you got five kids in one season.

[Rashad Bilal]

That's a fact.

[Troy Millings]

Five in a season is ill, man.

[Ian Dunlap]

Crazy touchdowns.

[Rashad Bilal]

The Miami lifestyle. You deserve to be rich. Book tour takes off next week. Brooklyn, we will see you on Monday.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Rashad Bilal]

And then we will be going to District of Columbia and we're bringing some high power political friends. We're bringing a senator, we're bringing a congress.

[Ian Dunlap]

Are you not, Officer? Potentially, that's next year.

[Troy Millings]

17Th.

[Rashad Bilal]

Potentially 21st.

[Troy Millings]

21St. 21st.

[Rashad Bilal]

We're bringing a senator, we're bringing a congresswoman. We bring in a political pundit. Dave Shands is hosting the book tour.

[Ian Dunlap]

It's gonna be great.

[Rashad Bilal]

He's going on tour with us.

[Troy Millings]

Fresh off a legendary episode.

[Rashad Bilal]

Right? He's going on tour with us. Atlanta, we go. We got. We got Pinky Cole, we got Ash Cash, a slew of others. Houston, we got Larry Morrow and of course Dave. And then. And no.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. Houston. And then we got Ian.

[Rashad Bilal]

New Orleans, we got Larry Yeah. And we got. Then Houston, we got Larry Dave, and we got Ian Gun. Lap will be in the building.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

So we got.

[Ian Dunlap]

We got.

[Rashad Bilal]

It's gonna be. It's gonna be.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, man, it's gonna be dope. And New Orleans we had. All the information is on the website. I think we have Baldwin Book Company. I still remember the coffee that they gave me, man. Top. The top of the line. So I'm looking forward to being back in there.

[Rashad Bilal]

So go to. You deserve the richbook.com. you deserve to be richbook.com and get your tickets to the tour. Looking forward to it. It's gonna be exciting.

[Troy Millings]

That's a fact. Hey, this Wednesday, man, it is my son's birthday, so I want to wish him a happy birthday. Christian. Happy birthday. He's 11 years old. It has been an absolute joy. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy.

[Ian Dunlap]

Where's the time of gone? Like a grown kid. Like, oh, my God.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah. The. The adults went go karting over the weekend. I'm not really sure how that became a physical activity, but it definitely felt like it was. Man, we got beat up.

[Ian Dunlap]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Ian Dunlap]

I took Xander to the K1. That was right.

[Troy Millings]

You ever done it like, yo, beat up bruises. I'm like, yo, I thought this was just fun.

[Ian Dunlap]

Yes.

[Troy Millings]

Somebody crashed into my daughter. I'll leave his name. Anonymous.

[Ian Dunlap]

Book coming out.

[Troy Millings]

Got you playing bumper cars.

[Ian Dunlap]

To the mom with the parent. Can I have the last 20 minutes of the show to curse, please? I'm asking kindly or whatever you say.

[Troy Millings]

We'll go now. It's bedtime.

[Rashad Bilal]

Shout out to 19 keys too. Chicken is a new episode with Dr. Savy's daughter.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rashad Bilal]

Dope episode. So check that out. High level. High level conversation. I think he got a show coming up in The Gramercy Theater February 17, 7 7. So shout out to Keys. You want to pop out for that?

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, yeah. Blackout Wednesday.

[Ian Dunlap]

Spicy. It's a lot going on.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Troy Millings]

Y'all be ready. Y'all get ready.

[Ian Dunlap]

Don't bring your kids to this one.

[Troy Millings]

Oh, yeah. Hey, the cursing thing don't apply to that. That.

[Ian Dunlap]

That's just not at all. Sorry.

[Troy Millings]

Be good to each other. Peace.

[Ian Dunlap]

Love y'all.

[Rashad Bilal]

Yeah, sure thing.

[Ian Dunlap]

Hey, you sold that car yet? Yeah, sold it to Carvana.

[Rashad Bilal]

Oh, I thought you were selling to that guy. The guy who wanted to pay me in foreign currency, no interest, over 36 months.

[Troy Millings]

Yeah, no.

[Rashad Bilal]

Carvana gave me an offer in minutes, picked it up and paid me on the spot. It was so convenient.

[Josh Brown]

Just like that.

[Troy Millings]

Yep. No hassle.

[Ian Dunlap]

None.

[Troy Millings]

That is super convenient. Sell your car to Carvana and swap hassle for convenience. Pickup fees may apply.

[Rashad Bilal]

Thanks to tax reform, American businesses have opened doors across our communities, investing in manufacturing workers and equipment, spurring millions of new jobs with higher wages and better training, and setting a new record high in corporate taxes paid to the US Government. America's businesses open doors. Tell Congress to keep the door of opportunity open, Protect and strengthen tax reform paid for by Business Roundtable.