The Craziest Week Ever (EP.187)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Compound and Friends – "The Craziest Week Ever" (EP.187)

Release Date: April 11, 2025

Hosts: Downtown Josh Brown, Michael Batnick, and Special Guest Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington

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1. Opening Reflections on Time and Growth

The episode opens with Josh Brown reminiscing about an early show from 2021, highlighting the rapid passage of time and personal growth. Michael Batnick echoes this sentiment, discussing changes in family dynamics and personal milestones over the past four years.

Josh Brown [00:16]: "I can't believe Michael's even like four years ago. It's crazy. We were so young."

2. The Role of AI in Financial Analysis

The conversation shifts to the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their workflows. Michael Batnick discusses using various AI tools like Grok, ChatGPT, Claude Grok, and Gemini for tasks ranging from research to client communications.

Michael Batnick [02:04]: "AI is fabulous. You know, you ask Grok, how many executive orders have there been in the last two months and 10 days? 102. Here they are if you want to read about it."

They highlight both the efficiencies and limitations of AI, emphasizing the necessity of human oversight to ensure accuracy.

Josh Brown [04:09]: "And you feel confident that it's right?"

Michael Batnick [04:10]: "Ah, interestingly, not 100%."

3. Tariffs, Donald Trump, and Market Volatility

A significant portion of the episode delves into a tumultuous week marked by Donald Trump's tariff announcements. The hosts analyze the immediate and long-term impacts on the bond market, stock market crashes, and investor anxiety.

Josh Brown [09:35]: "We have the third biggest one day return for the S&P 500 since 1990. Second biggest Nasdaq day since the invention of the Nasdaq."

Michael Batnick draws an analogy comparing Trump's behavior to that of a threatening parent, suggesting that Trump's decisions are driven more by instinct than strategic planning.

Michael Batnick [14:28]: "I think survival instinct kicked in. So, like, I don't think it was just Besant, you know, I think it was a whole bunch of stuff..."

Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington adds that Trump's tariff strategy appears more like fear-mongering intended to manipulate market sentiment rather than achieve economic goals.

Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington [21:38]: "This was to your point. Like, at what point do you just say, I know that's right, versus, hey, let's give it a double check?"

4. Economic Polls and Investor Sentiment

The hosts discuss various polls and sentiment indicators that reflect growing unease among investors and the general public about the economy. They cite a poll from Navigator Research showing a significant drop in Trump's economic approval ratings and increased financial anxiety among different voter groups.

Josh Brown [25:00]: "Trump has never had a lower rating from the electorate on his handling of the economy."

Michael Batnick references polymarket data, pointing out a rising expectation of a recession, which peaked during market volatility.

Michael Batnick [29:00]: "It's pretty wild to see it follow the market right here where you saw it jump, plunge yesterday..."

5. Investment Strategies Amid Market Chaos

The conversation transitions to investment strategies during volatile markets. The hosts emphasize the importance of maintaining discipline, avoiding panic selling, and focusing on long-term growth rather than short-term market fluctuations.

Josh Brown [57:30]: "You have to survive, right? Like, you have to be able to survive."

Michael Batnick shares a personal anecdote about a client who panicked and sold during the 2020 downturn, resulting in significantly lower long-term returns compared to a disciplined investor.

Michael Batnick [63:03]: "That's how long five years later you have an annualized 8 and change percent difference. That is huge money."

6. Dividend Investing as a Behavioral Hedge

Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington introduces the concept of dividend investing as a behavioral tool to help investors stay committed during market downturns. She argues that consistent dividend payouts provide emotional comfort and a sense of security.

Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington [77:39]: "Especially in difficult markets like today. I think behaviorally dividend stocks are wonderful because you know that that piece of shit Verizon will pay you your dividend."

Michael Batnick discusses his dividend income strategy, highlighting the benefits of high-yield stocks that offer dependable income.

Michael Batnick [70:15]: "So, you have to stay disciplined. The math favors equities."

Despite some playful tension between the hosts, they agree on the critical role of behavior in successful investing, emphasizing that emotional resilience often trumps asset allocation and market timing.

Josh Brown [84:23]: "All the great things that come from being able to do that. You and I both believe in asset allocation."

7. Closing Thoughts and Recommendations

In their concluding remarks, the hosts reiterate the importance of staying invested, maintaining discipline, and leveraging dividend income strategies to navigate uncertain markets. They also promote Jenny’s book on dividend investing, encouraging listeners to explore dependable income strategies.

Michael Batnick [85:43]: "Charlie has an extraordinary ability to analogize... you want to set up your portfolio to be the ocean liner."

Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington [84:47]: Promotes her book, "Dividend Investing: Dependable Income to Navigate All Market Environments."

8. Final Remarks and Personal Anecdotes

The episode wraps up with light-hearted conversations about pop culture, personal experiences, and future expectations. The hosts share their anticipation for upcoming TV shows and reflect on their mutual respect despite occasional disagreements.

Josh Brown [86:41]: "Philosophies aside, if you watch influencers on Instagram and TikTok, the restaurant influencers, it's the greatest slice of pizza in the world."

Michael Batnick [88:07]: "I'm looking forward to 2028."

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Notable Quotes:

• Josh Brown [04:10]: "Ah, interestingly, not 100%."

• Michael Batnick [14:28]: "I think survival instinct kicked in."

• Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington [21:38]: "This was to your point. Like, at what point do you just say, I know that's right, versus, hey, let's give it a double check?"

• Michael Batnick [63:03]: "That's how long five years later you have an annualized 8 and change percent difference. That is huge money."

• Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington [77:39]: "Especially in difficult markets like today. I think behaviorally dividend stocks are wonderful because you know that that piece of shit Verizon will pay you your dividend."

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Conclusion:

Episode 187 of "The Compound and Friends" captures a rollercoaster week marked by political maneuvers, market volatility, and heated discussions on investment strategies. The hosts leverage their expertise to provide nuanced insights into navigating tumultuous economic landscapes, emphasizing the importance of disciplined investing and behavioral resilience. Special guest Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington enriches the conversation with her expertise in dividend investing, offering listeners practical strategies to maintain financial stability amid uncertainty.

Transcript

[Josh Brown]

You were on one of the first shows we ever did in 2021. It was you and Caleb Silver. You remember?

[Michael Batnick]

Absolutely. Can you wait?

[Josh Brown]

Does it blow your mind that it was that long ago?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, it does.

[Josh Brown]

I can't believe Michael's even like four years ago.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Josh Brown]

It's crazy. We were so young.

[Michael Batnick]

I know, I know.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I honestly thought it had been a year, like, ish.

[Josh Brown]

We were just watching. We were just watching the footage and it feels like it's a million years ago, but it's not. It's hard to describe. The passage of time is one of these crazy things. I don't really know where I'm going with that, but four years is a long time. A lot. You know how I measure time, how old my kids are? So whenever somebody says a year, I immediately flash to how old was Tara, how old was Justin? And that's like the way that I process. Like, oh my God, that was so long ago.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, Yeah. I think all parents do that, don't you?

[Josh Brown]

So in 2021, I had a 15 year old daughter and a 12 year old son. Now my son's a sophomore in high school. My daughter's already gone. She's in college.

[Michael Batnick]

That's so sad.

[Josh Brown]

So, wow.

[Michael Batnick]

You know what I was telling a friend this morning, you know how I measure my level of anxiety around the market is by if I'm playing spelling bee online or not.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, if you're like actively looking for distractions.

[Michael Batnick]

No, quite the opposite. When I have any mental capacity, I play spelling bee. So I haven't played spelling bee since January 20th.

[Josh Brown]

What's spelling bee?

[Michael Batnick]

It's that little thing on the New York Times app.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

Where it's kind of like Boggle. You know, they give you a bunch of letters. But I, for the better part of a year, played spelling bee religiously. Didn't play it from probably October through Christmas.

[Josh Brown]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

Around Christmas, started playing it again. And then I realized recently I've ceased playing spelling bee. At least since the inauguration. There's just been so much.

[Josh Brown]

There's no time.

[Michael Batnick]

There's no time and there's no mental.

[Josh Brown]

Bandwidth left to do anything after this.

[Michael Batnick]

No, I was writing our quarterly client letter. And by the way, AI is fabulous. You know, you ask Grok, how many executive orders have there been in the last two months and 10 days? 102. Here they are if you want to read about it.

[Josh Brown]

Is that the AI that you. That's your go to Grok?

[Michael Batnick]

Interestingly, no. We're toggling between a lot of different ones. We're using Claude Grok, chatgpt, and shoot. What's the other? Oh, and Gemini. And then my analyst is using one of the. I think it's called deep research.

[Josh Brown]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

So we're playing around and seeing what's best for what, but 102 executive orders in two months and 10 days and 21 cabinet appointments. Like there's no room for spelling bee. It's so sad.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Josh, yesterday when I was telling you how much money that person made, I just googled or googled. I chatgpt. Excuse me. How many shares of XYZ does this person own?

[Josh Brown]

Yeah, immediately, right? Because if you Google it, you'll get a link. You'll get a link and then you get to click the link and maybe it has the answer, maybe it doesn't. Yeah, that's over.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah, it's over.

[Josh Brown]

It's so over.

[Michael Batnick]

You know what I used Brock for last week? It was amazing. So I started researching microchip, right? Microchip showed up on my screen for the first time. Mchp, I owned this way back, showed up last week with a foreign change yield because it got the wind knocked out of it. And I'm like, look, I need to do research on this. Right off the bat. We find out that the week before they did a convertible preferred. And I'm always rusty on my convertible preferred mass. Like I can go back, I can recreate it, but it takes me a while to get back into the groove. So I put into Grok, you know, with the shares trading at with microchip at 40 and microchip preferred P at 43. Remind me of the convert math. Is this a good buy here? Unbelievable. And a full explanation. You know, there's the summary, there's the bottom line.

[Josh Brown]

Wait, what is that? So what is that calculation telling you as an investor?

[Michael Batnick]

It's basically telling you like, yeah, you're getting a decent price right now. At this point, it's got close to one for one upside ratio with if.

[Josh Brown]

You were to buy the convertible preferred versus buying the common, and it reminds.

[Michael Batnick]

You of things like on the common you have risk to the dividend. On the convertible preferred, you don't. So if you hold it until this convert matures, I think that was in 2029, you'll get at least this much from the income and you have equity, like upside. But it was amazing. It was like having a $450,000 a year analyst sitting at the ready for me to use to do this math. And I didn't need to do it myself.

[Josh Brown]

And you feel confident that it's right?

[Michael Batnick]

Ah, interestingly, not 100%. So then I asked my analyst, can you double check Grok's work? He said, hey, they're using the. It's using the wrong conversion ratio here. He went back and said, put in the correct conversion ratio, you know, bam, it's done.

[Josh Brown]

So someday you won't have to double check because you'll just know. But we're not there yet.

[Michael Batnick]

You know, that's a bigger question. Do you think there's ever a time.

[Josh Brown]

Where we shouldn't double check, shouldn't or need or. Or not feel the need to is probably two different things.

[Michael Batnick]

I think that's right, because.

[Josh Brown]

Cause there will come a time where you will have run the same search or the same calculation. There will come a time where you've done it so many times, and the answer's been right so many times.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

They go, I'm sending physical notes to Josh.

[Michael Batnick]

Yes. Because they didn't want to interrupt the show and say, can I get the WI FI password?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

That's amazing.

[Michael Batnick]

Wait, Josh knows?

[Josh Brown]

Are you good? We're not in a rush. You have the WI FI password?

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, I just got it.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I was like, in middle school.

[Michael Batnick]

I'm sorry. But Josh knows by the way I write him notes during the.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah, no, it's not distracting at all. I love it. Yeah, I wish you would do that more.

[Michael Batnick]

I meant to say, sometimes if he doesn't respond fast and I email him and elbow him, but, yeah, I'm a big note passer during the show, aren't I?

[Josh Brown]

You are. That's okay.

[Michael Batnick]

Doesn't seem like Scott's distracted, But you know what? On. On that question, here's a good point in prepping for this show. All right, I'll jump to the end, but one of the points that I wanted to make was that we've been in such a distorted time for the past five and 10 years with the Mag 7 that it makes it look like there's only one investable index. Right? So I asked Rock, I said, can you please tell me, from 1950 until 2015, what did the S&P 500 return? What did small cap return? What did value return? What did mid cap return? And all three came back at just about 12%. Like 11.2 for S&P. I think it was 12.5 for mid cap for value. And then I sent it to my team and said, can you please sanity check this? And even with Grok saying, here are the sources we used, they went, I Always say his name wrong. But they went to Damodaran's site on nyu.

[Josh Brown]

Aswatz Motoring.

[Michael Batnick]

Thank you. So they went to his data on nyu, and they're like, we can't double check this, but it feels right to all of us.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Close enough.

[Josh Brown]

Good enough.

[Michael Batnick]

Close enough. But it's to your point. Like, at what point do you just say, I know that's right, versus, hey, let's give it a double check?

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. We're all reliant on the CRISP database or S and P data or whatever. And I don't know, I feel like it's not gonna be that long before we just say, this is probably right.

[Michael Batnick]

You know what? And it's the same as having a colleague, right. When you have a new colleague, you double check their work for a year, and then you start to say, hey, they're right. Now you have to pass the time.

[Josh Brown]

I think that's it.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. But it's pretty extraordinary, I mean, the amount of time it's saving. And, Josh, you know I'm pretty long winded, right?

[Josh Brown]

Yes.

[Michael Batnick]

So. So you're like, we both are. That's why we love each other.

[Josh Brown]

That's right.

[Michael Batnick]

So birds of a feather. So I've been using it for client writing, and I'll say things like, can you help me explain the midstream energy space in three sentences or less? Because I can explain the midstream energy space in three.

[Josh Brown]

Not in three sentences.

[Michael Batnick]

Not in three sentences.

[Josh Brown]

That's a good point. You're not outsourcing your thinking to it. You're using it for a more concise way to say things.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Josh Brown]

And I think that's appreciated on the part of the reader, like, obviously.

[Michael Batnick]

Totally.

[Josh Brown]

I agree.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Josh Brown]

How we doing? Looking good. Yeah.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

All right. We've got 35 pages and a million charts to get to, so let's get the show started.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah, let's. Let's get this thing going.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Words of Roddy Munn. Let's get this shit started coming in. Friends, episode 187. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop the clock. Here's a word from our sponsor. Today's show is brought to you by innovator ETFs. One of the better calls of my career, Josh, was in 2018, I believe it was. Ben and I had Bruce Bond on Animal Spirits to talk about these new buffered ETFs. I remember we immediately identified. Whoa. This is going to be a new category unto itself.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. And it turned out that way. So if you're worried about things like tariffs right now, Political uncertainty Doge Market volatility. This company, Innovator, has this suite of ETFs that gives you a little bit, I don't want to say more certainty about what will happen, but a little bit more of a defined risk versus return profile.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Find the range of outcomes and it's super transparent because there are a lot of moving parts. But you go to the website, you see the dates, you see the buffers, you see the levels. Go to innovator etf.com to learn more.

[Josh Brown]

Innovator etf's.com.

[Michael Batnick]

Welcome to the compound and friends. All opinions expressed by Josh Brown, Michael Batnick and their castmates are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, 187. Like Snoop Dogg, Johnny, you get that reference or not really? No. You didn't grow up in the hip hop community the way that I did, I don't think.

[Michael Batnick]

No, I just think I'm pop. Culturally illiterate and always have been.

[Josh Brown]

That's all right. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the best invest podcast in the world. My name is Downtown Josh Brown. For first time listeners, viewers, with me today, as always, the co host of the show, Mr. Michael Batnik.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Hello. Hello.

[Josh Brown]

Nicole's here, John's here, Duncan's here. Shout out to everybody listening. We appreciate you. We have royalty in the house today. This is a repeat guest on the compound and friends. One of the smartest people in all of financial media. One of my favorite people I've ever met on Wall Street. Someone who just absolutely lights it up every time we appear on television together. And in person, I would add.

[Michael Batnick]

Thank you.

[Josh Brown]

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington. Jenny is the Chief Executive Officer of Gilman Hill Asset Management, an income focused boutique investment management firm. Jenny serves as Portfolio manager of the firm's flagship equity income strategy which she created and has managed since inception. Prior to joining gilman hill in 2006, she was a Vice President at Neuberger Berman and an associate and analyst in the equities and investment management divisions at Goldman Sachs. She is also the heiress to the Van Leeuwen ice cream fortune. Right. I mean, it's sort of true.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't think so.

[Josh Brown]

You're not technically an heiress.

[Michael Batnick]

No.

[Josh Brown]

And it's not yet a fortune. But it will be.

[Michael Batnick]

It could be, yeah.

[Josh Brown]

Why are you working so hard?

[Michael Batnick]

Because it's my brother.

[Josh Brown]

I know, but still, that's why I brought you guys.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

18.

[Josh Brown]

I met you brother. You guys are. You guys are tight.

[Michael Batnick]

He's the best.

[Josh Brown]

What if you just said, you know what? This is too stressful. I've been doing it too long. What can I do with the ice cream company? He would probably be thrilled.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't know. He's so creative. I'm so uncreative. I'd probably be like, I don't know, some.

[Josh Brown]

No, but you could be analytic, analyzing stuff.

[Michael Batnick]

I hate those people.

[Josh Brown]

I know, but it's. You know, I'm just saying.

[Michael Batnick]

I know, it'd be fun. You know what I'd like to be.

[Josh Brown]

But stop torturing yourself.

[Michael Batnick]

I'd like to be a taste tester.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, well, that's my job. Don't muscle in on my turf. We love Van Leeuwen ice cream, and whenever I see it, I take a picture of it for you. Right?

[Michael Batnick]

Yep.

[Josh Brown]

I love it. It's the best. All right, let's start off with Donald Trump. Because every conversation everywhere on earth, every subject, every topic inevitably leads to Donald Trump these days. Kind of unavoidable. This was. This was quite a week for. For Donald Trump, this is something special. So just to back up, the tariffs went on for 13 hours. As the tariffs were going on Tuesday night, they're gonna go on Wednesday, 12am so as they're about to go on, the bond market literally starts to blow up overnight. There's talk that the Fed might have to intervene, and there's talk that maybe Japan is selling Treasuries, maybe China, maybe both. Who else is selling? How much higher will the yield go? How disorderly is fixed income about to get? Everyone's completely freaked out. The market had just crashed, the stock market just crashed. So the tariffs go on at midnight, and by 1:00 the next day, they're taking off. So it's 13 hours now. The Chinese tariffs did not come off. So the. This is the reciprocal tariffs, and they're not off their baseline to 10%, versus significantly more severe. But the narrative, Jenny, is now Trump blinked. And, I mean, no one's even other than, like, Trump people. Everyone kind of agrees, like it was some combination. And we'll talk about what you think went on. Some combination of the bond market and commentary from CEOs and maybe some, like, gentle nudging from Scott Besant and whatever ended up happening, he came out and said, all right, we're gonna lower the reciprocal rate. We're gonna add more tariffs to China, but we're going to make 75 deals with 75 countries. I would point out the USMCA was renegotiated over the course of two years. So making 75 deals with 75 countries sounds like it could take, I don't know, a century, five years, but it's fine. But. So that's where we are and what ended up happening. And we're recording this on Thursday afternoon. We had the third biggest one day return for the S&P 500 since 1990. Second biggest Nasdaq day since the invention of the Nasdaq. And I guess the first question is, what do you think happened?

[Michael Batnick]

Why'd he reverse course?

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. Like, what do you think went on? What was like? Or was it just this confluence of things where he just realized this is better for me to pull it back?

[Michael Batnick]

So if you think back, you and I were on this show together on Tuesday. Right. And on Tuesday, we were talking. You said, is anyone gonna look Trump? You know, is anyone gonna play chicken with Trump on this?

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

And remember, I jokingly said, I will.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

You know, I feel like when people threaten, it almost felt like a parent threatening. Right.

[Josh Brown]

And you're very feisty.

[Michael Batnick]

Right, Right. But, you know, I'm gonna take your car away, you're gonna be grounded. How many times do parents actually make good on that? And it feels like that this doesn't feel like a professional, grown up, serious negotiation. It felt very much to me like it was a threat. And so my odds were on that something was going to change because he behaves, frankly, I think, like an out of control parent more than, you know, a strategic tactic.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, he's the parent. In your metaphor, he's not the child.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no. He's the parent who's threatening, who's not getting there.

[Josh Brown]

Who's the child? Us or the kids? Oh, I see. Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

So that's why I was like, you know, I'm betting on that threat not being there, but I think so here's what he saw. He saw that the longer the carnage went on, the more collateral damage was going to be done. He knows as well as we do that in a year from now, we're gonna be heating up on midterm campaigns and the Republicans are gonna lose the House and Senate if we're anywhere near where we are today. And that collateral damage was piling up fast. And then there was this mosaic of noise from people out there. And I think when we look at Trump, probably the, the strongest thing there is his Survival instinct. Like the dude knows how to survive. Yeah, right. And I think survival instinct kicked in. So, like, I don't think it was just Besant, you know, I think it was a whole bunch of stuff where he's, you know, something in him said, if I'm going to survive, this moment has to change.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I totally agree with you. I don't, I don't think that it's one thing, I don't think it was just Besant. I don't think it was just the bottom market. I don't think it was just Jamie Dimon. But to, to extend your analogy, I think he said to the child, all right, no more food. Yeah, no more food. You're not eating anymore. And the child in the market said, well, you have to feed me.

[Josh Brown]

What are you talking about? Empty. It's an empty.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So I said, okay, but fine, now maybe you're gonna skip lunch. And so there's still gonna be damage from the threat. But it's obviously not as ridiculous as no food forever.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. And I could take that just a little bit more too, which is, you know, as a parent, Josh. Right. How we, how we start off talking, it's easy to threaten. It's a real pain in the neck to have your kid grounded at home for two weeks.

[Josh Brown]

It's a punishment for the parent.

[Michael Batnick]

It's a total punishment for the parent. So enacting those tariffs would have been Wednesday or whatever day it was. It's hard to keep track of to our conversation, Michael. It's hard to keep track of the year, much less the date lately. So I think it was just going to be harder to keep track of all those tariffs, harder to manage the noise, harder to manage the criticism. And like, apparently he's like, yeah, right, forget it, you're not grounded.

[Josh Brown]

Also harder to negotiate when your own stock market and bond market are both tanking and the dollar is falling.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Josh Brown]

You're like, each day you're negotiating from a weaker place, which like, like very obviously. John, can we do this rolling three day basis point change in the ten year Treasury?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah. So Trump doesn't care necessarily about the stock market. He's, he's made that pretty clear. But he is a real estate guy. He understands borrowing costs. He knows that credit and liquidity are the backbone to an entire functioning system. And when you see something like this, a three day gain that is almost off the charts, that is not healthy.

[Michael Batnick]

Right?

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. I mean this is just eyeballing it. Look at other instances of the ten year smashing through these levels. But hold on.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

But, Josh, in 2022, like, when we did this, we went from, like, half a percent up to 100 basis points. This is bad. We went from 4 to 4, 5. And so this idea that, like, Besson said, he and I had a long talk. This was a strategy all along. He. To your point, Jenny, he goes on instincts. He said to the Wall Street Journal, he said he had been thinking about pausing tariffs over the last few days, adding, it probably came, quote, it probably came together early this morning, fairly early this morning. He said he didn't consult with lawyers for the wording of his announcement and instead relied on input from President Lutnick. Quote, we wrote it up from our hearts. We don't want to hurt countries that don't need to be hurt, and they. They all want to negotiate. So I don't know that it was, like, a master plan, but I do believe that this was his, like, for lack.

[Josh Brown]

Here's the timeline. Besson flew down on Sunday, flew down to Mar A Lago, and Besson's probably really good at this. Be like, all right, you've accomplished so much. Now let's not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Here's how you can really hammer home the point that you made. So that was probably compelling to Trump. It's like, oh, I won already. All right, I like that. And then this disaster happens Monday and Tuesday. And then I think on Wednesday, you kind of had this sequence of things that, you know, got the president's attention. You have Jamie Dimon chooses to do an interview with Maria Bartiromo. Now, this interview supposedly was set a long time in advance, and I'm sure it was. I don't think Jamie Dimon, like, spur of the moment, like, get me into makeup. But Trump definitely watches Maria every morning, and that's definitely hit, like, where he gets his stock market news from. Okay, so Jamie basically is not screaming and yelling about tariffs. He's just like, look, there are some legitimate trade issues, and the president's right, but this is gonna lead to a recession. And Maria nods. So, okay, that's definitely striking a chord. Then he has a meeting with Gretchen Whitmer, who is the mayor of Carrtown. Right. The governor of Michigan. You know, those people are in her ear, screaming. And then he sits with Charles Schwab, who is the face of the everyday American investor from a corporate sense, like, the biggest American brokerage firm. And I think, like, that that sequence of conversations probably puts him over the edge. And in the meanwhile, he's got Besson telling him, dude, this will be a huge victory for you. The other funny part about the Wall Street Journal piece is Susan Wiles phone is blowing up. So you know who's on that phone? That's Chamath, that's Bill Ackman, that's Brad Gerstner, that's probably a handful of Wall street people, people that have donated to his campaigns, people that truly want him to succeed. But you know, that phone is ringing off the hook. So I think it all was just enough. And then I think he loved the stock market reaction. Like I think he wants to do it again.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Well, I think he saw Walter Bloomberg's tweet, honestly, and said wait a minute, if I just go back, the market will rally 7% in 15 minutes. And it did better than that.

[Michael Batnick]

Nine and a half.

[Josh Brown]

So but to extend the parent child analogy, I think he loved the feeling of seeing the stock market up, the Dow up 3,000 points because of something that he announced.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. And then if we get it, and.

[Josh Brown]

That'S why it's hard to get too bearish here, cuz he's gonna wanna do it again.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. And if we get into a demented child parent analogy, you know, it's like all right, you're grounded, blah blah blah, I'm gonna save the day. I'm your favorite parent, you know, particularly like go to the divorced parents.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Well he's saying that with G yesterday he's talking nice. Like now he's talking nice. They wann we want to make a deal, they don't know how to make a deal. I'm going to save them.

[Michael Batnick]

Right.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

But the execution of this was an unmitigated disaster.

[Michael Batnick]

Absolutely.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I think that a lot of normal people would say like yes, there are national security interests at heart and there are probably things that we should do to protect ourselves. This was not it.

[Josh Brown]

We have some audio clips, right? John, do you personally expect a recession?

[Michael Batnick]

I am going to defer to my economist at this point, but I think.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Probably that's a likely outcome.

[Josh Brown]

Okay. Bond market is very tricky. I was watching it, but if you look at it now, it's, it's beautiful. The bond market right now is beautiful. It's very tricky, but also beautiful. We have one more. Yes, the stock market might be crashing.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

You know what else crashed? The Titanic. And that became one of the highest grossing films of all time. The President is announcing tariffs now, but pretty soon he'll be announcing that those tariffs have been paused and then he'll do the same thing again and again. It's called fear mongering and it's something that this administration uses as a tool very often.

[Josh Brown]

Enough with the dumb question.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Let me tell you something about President Xi. If we allowed pronouns.

[Josh Brown]

All right, all right. We're good on Fat Carrie Bradshaw. Everyone seems now to. I guess everyone's cool with this whole thing being a game show. And I feel like that's kind of what's starting to sink in, is like.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

What do you mean everybody's cool?

[Michael Batnick]

Wait, yeah, I was gonna say who's cool?

[Josh Brown]

No, I don't think they want it. I think that's. Now the understanding is like, oh, okay, I got it. So today is a bad day, but tomorrow might be a great day because it's all a big game and it's all about optics, and it's not really about the economy. It's more about, like, everybody dancing to the. To the tune that the Piper plays.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I don't like it.

[Josh Brown]

I'm not saying you should like it.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

We just had the fourth most volatile week in 60 years. Looking at the average true range, this is from Sentiment Trader, which measures each day's range, divides it by the closing price, and averages it over a given number of days. So it's quantifying all of the ups and the downs. Intraday. And we've got Black Monday, global financial crisis, Covid. And the trade war. Awesome.

[Josh Brown]

You mentioned on air on Tuesday that your clientele is like half and half, which I think is probably true for all of us. I don't think there's a such thing as a Democratic asset manager or Republican asset manager. Somebody might have a skewed balance in one direction or the other.

[Michael Batnick]

Maybe geographically, cuz wherever they live.

[Josh Brown]

But okay, so when you talk to your clients this week. What did you just say? The most volatile week in 60 years, Covid.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Black Monday. Great financial credit right here. Look at this.

[Josh Brown]

Let me say it.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Who likes this?

[Michael Batnick]

Nobody likes this.

[Josh Brown]

So even the people who agree about trade and Trump's point, they're not enjoying this either, obviously.

[Michael Batnick]

No. But to the people who agree with Trump and think that this is the way to make America great again, they're in the camp of, I will endure some short term pain for long term gain.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

What a joke.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

This idea that it's Main Street's turn and Wall street had their fun banks. If we are in a recession and a stock market crash, they're not gonna be lending to Main Street.

[Josh Brown]

It's so comical, but, like, you're still hearing people say, this is what we have to take our medicine. This is what we have to go through.

[Michael Batnick]

Right? And then on the other side, you've got like, this is disastrous. My portfolio is derailed. So you really have the two. But nobody likes it, right? Nobody likes seeing their portfolio down 10% in a week. I mean, it's horrible.

[Josh Brown]

So I wanna show you something. Navigator Research put out a poll on Tuesday. It's a very highly regarded pollster. And the thing that jumped out at me, John, we're gonna slide through a couple of these. Trump has never had a lower rating from the electorate on his handling of the economy. Even during the darkest times for Trump in the first term, he still always had this imprimatur of like, well, I'm the guy that understands business. And that's the part that. I think that's the part here. Let's go back. After last week's tariff announcement, Trump's economic approval has dropped precipitously now, tied for his worst ever since 2018. So overall approval down, obviously amongst independents and Democrats more than amongst gop. But, like, the economic approval rating was really interesting. Let's just go through a couple more of these. This is too much for me to read next. All right, so this is his economic approval rating. It's negative 13. It was plus one. And this is not just among Republicans as recently as February 3rd and falling fast. Let's go to the next. And then here's the thing. They asked the question, are you confident or uneasy about your personal financial situation? And the growth from the middle of March is.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Oh, my God.

[Josh Brown]

Like, look. I mean, it's. So even Republicans, 42%, are now uneasy about their own financial situation. Independent, 68%.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

But wait, Josh, listen. So for independence, it was negative 25 on December 8th.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

It's now negative 41. So it's measuring the difference between uneasy and confident. And that's going the wrong direction big time.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. And one of the biggest. One of the biggest aspects of his victory last fall was amongst independents. So I think that this poll is probably the most substantial political calculus or the most substantial piece of evidence that from a political standpoint, what he's doing is not helping him at all.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Wait, this is economic, not political? Because, I mean, of course it's political, but it's economic in the sense that when people feel uneasy and not confident, they pull back. They wait. They're not gonna do the spending. Corporate CFO, CEOs, how do they plan with such uncertainty? And, of course. So, yeah, we can get these resolutions, but there will be a slowdown.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. And we will see it. We will See the manifestation of that in the upcoming earnings calls.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, I agree.

[Michael Batnick]

I can't wait to get it over with. But I can't wait because I don't think there's a CEO in America who has this spine or probably the stupidity right now to go out and offer a rosy view. And I don't know politically where all the CEOs stand, but I'm gonna bet that's pretty mixed too. So that's where you're gonna see the confluence of like the real economy part. Right? Hitting just the businesses.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah, but they also won't go hard the other way.

[Michael Batnick]

No one will hit his attention. Right. But there's no. No, I don't think that at all. I just think they'll say we can't offer future guidance. You know, we can't offer forward guidance. We're in a very uncertain time.

[Josh Brown]

I think there was finger pointing, but I think there were CEOs who were really happy to criticize Biden era policies.

[Michael Batnick]

Publicly on their calls.

[Josh Brown]

I think, yeah, who cares? It's just Joe Biden. Nobody wants to do that with Trump.

[Michael Batnick]

Fair enough, but I don't think you need to. My point is only I don't think we're gonna see, regardless of party, any CEO, regardless of geography, regardless of business, I don't think any CEO is gonna have the guts right now to go out and offer a Rosie view. There's simply too much uncertainty. And you know how the market it's been for the past what year. The actual numbers from the current quarterly report don't matter. It's all about the forward guidance. It's all about the forward guidance. We're about to get Jack, in terms of forward guidance.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah, I agree. I think that's the next big risk to the market is pulled forecasts. John, put up Jenny's poly market chart. So this stuff's really interesting to me because this, these prediction markets weren't meaningful up until the last year or so. And I think since the election, we're giving them way more credence than we used to. So according to polymarket, and this is not a ton of money, but it's also not $0,61% chance now of a recession. And notably that's up 42% from the start of the year.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. But more importantly, what's so interesting is seeing it spike basically on April 3rd. Yeah, right. Which we knew because we're sitting out there and, and I was about to once again go to AI and say, hey, can you remind me of which strategists increase their recession expectations yesterday. And then I thought, no, this might actually be more interesting because this is going to encapsulate that. So rather than, rather than saying, and Goldman increased it to 60% and JP Morgan increased it to 60%. So it's pretty wild to see it follow the market right here where you saw it jump, plunge yesterday for that, those few minutes when the market was up 10% and then go, right.

[Josh Brown]

Well, let me ask you, is this basically an inverse mood ring for the stock market? Is that like, what are these people making bets on if not just watching the markets? I don't think it's sophisticated. Look how small the dollar amount is.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I just think directionally it's interesting. Even in the, like, even in the presidential election, like, the numbers weren't huge at all. You know, there was that one French trader who traded this. But directionally you could watch it and kind of see, see it mimic what we were hearing in terms of ebbs and flows. To me, it just consolidates what we're hearing. So I could have given you a really boring chart of Goldman was at 25% a week and a half ago, now they're at 60. Goldman was at 25. Or J.P. morgan was at 25% a week and A half ago, now they're At 60. Or you can just look at this and this is just reflective of what we're hearing.

[Josh Brown]

I had this thought that the bond market is really powerful, and that's not an original thought. I think everyone, there's a famous James Carville quote about how much more powerful the bond market is than anybody else. Do you believe in that?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, I think so.

[Josh Brown]

Like, after this week, you kind of have to. Right?

[Michael Batnick]

You kind of have to. I think what's been hard is that for what, a decade, the bond market's been kind of quiet and in the background, it hasn't had a heavy impact. Rates have been so low. And so now we're adjusting again to just what that power is and how it works. Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Brown]

Especially the treasury market, like, in particular, and the fact that it's so globalized and when you're taking on opponents from other countries, they have levers to pull.

[Michael Batnick]

Right.

[Josh Brown]

Because one of the things that Besant was saying is we're not worried about the stock market. Stock market's had a good run. Watch the bond market, see us making progress on things like cutting costs and lowering deficits. Well, the bond market stuck up the middle finger to all of that and it got everyone's attention.

[Michael Batnick]

And I thought it was interesting because the rhetoric that I heard today was, oh, we had this wildly successful bond auction yesterday. All these people showed up, it was so successful. And I'm thinking to myself, well, yesterday wasn't the tenure at 440. Wouldn't you have wanted to do that auction on Friday when the 10 year actually touched 390? I wouldn't consider selling debt at 440 when you could have sold it 10/ percent less 5 days ago, successful. You know, there's, there's research that shows that every. What is it? I might mess this up. But like every basis point in bond yields is equivalent to $5 billion of additional interest payments.

[Josh Brown]

That year.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, that year. Right.

[Josh Brown]

Crazy.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. So if you can cut the 10 year by 50 basis points, you save 500 billion. I think these are the numbers, or maybe I've got it a little bit messed up, but. But what it was, was basically if you could cut 50 basis points out of the 10 year and you're issuing debt there, you're saving 500 billion a year in interest payments.

[Josh Brown]

So what happened this, we went the other way.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. And then we're, and then we're calling it a victory because, like foreigners.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. We just added 500 billion of interest payments by that last year.

[Michael Batnick]

So successful would have been, you know, sell the debt on Friday.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah. Let's talk about yesterday's reaction. Where were you when, when LinkedIn stopped?

[Josh Brown]

Were you in front of this screen?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. No, I was on a call and I looked up and I'm like, what just happened?

[Josh Brown]

Oh, my God. Who are you on? Who are you on the phone with? A client.

[Michael Batnick]

Just a client. But it was like down three. A call's like half an hour.

[Josh Brown]

I gotta go put on some hedging trades.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. I mean, what do you do? What do you do?

[Josh Brown]

All right, so you just.

[Michael Batnick]

Did you believe it?

[Josh Brown]

So you see it go crazy and then what do you do? You go to Twitter immediately.

[Michael Batnick]

I went to Twitter immediately.

[Josh Brown]

That's what everyone did.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. And do you know what I wrote?

[Josh Brown]

Oh, you had a tweet ready?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. No, ready. This is what I wrote. Can I swear on the show or do I need to bleep it myself?

[Josh Brown]

I don't give a. You say whatever you want.

[Michael Batnick]

I just wrote on Twitter, batshit cray cray.

[Josh Brown]

That's your big. That's your big swear?

[Michael Batnick]

What could you say? I don't know. I thought you couldn't swear you were.

[Josh Brown]

About to drop an mf. No.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

All right, so like, I think there was like seven stocks that were down on the day. John, throw this chart.

[Michael Batnick]

I think I had all seven of them in my portfolio. No, just kidding.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So the biggest winners on the day were Microchip, which spoke.

[Michael Batnick]

Which I was looking at. Right. Which was up 27.

[Josh Brown]

Wait, what?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Josh Brown]

Why did it go up 27%? Why is that the biggest winner of the day?

[Michael Batnick]

Was it down? It was down a ton. Probably 40 or 50% in the past few days because it has both recession risk and tariff risk.

[Josh Brown]

Hold on. It's both. You were buying it that morning.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, no, I wasn't. I was researching it. I've been researching it for three years.

[Josh Brown]

Too late now.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, it's down 15 or 16% today. It's exactly to where it was when I told you. I first put the information into GROK and said, you know, the preferred or the committed preferred trading at 43ish and the stocks at 40.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So United, United and Delta were both up a billion points.

[Josh Brown]

Look at Warner Brothers. So Warner Brothers is interesting. Warner Brothers was the 10th biggest gain, up 20% on the day. I think today it's down like a lot. 20% again, it's down 13. It's down 13%.

[Michael Batnick]

I wonder why on that.

[Josh Brown]

Well, I'll tell you why. Because China just announced that they are going to stop a certain number of films being shown there. Warner Brothers need Superman to open big in China to justify the level of expense of making some of their 10 poll films for this year. So that's the answer why.

[Michael Batnick]

But that's the interesting and hard thing about this. So what we did right off the bat, right, was go back through the entire portfolio starting on Thursday and Friday and reassessing where the risk is. So in the equity income strategy, for example, there's 36 stocks and we carve them into three buckets. High tariff risk, high recession risk, resilient. And one of the challenges is all the knock ons, right? The third and fourth derivatives, which is Warner Brothers, wouldn't you innately say, oh, there's no tariff risk there?

[Josh Brown]

Oh, there's right. Well I think the only way to assess tariff risk at this point is to say what percentage of this company's revenues come from China.

[Michael Batnick]

But in that case, yes, but for example, I own Western Union in the portfolio too. Only 37% of those revenues are here in the U.S. but it's very, very low.

[Josh Brown]

No, but I think China specific.

[Michael Batnick]

Yes, not the whole world. Fair enough. I'm just saying, like there's still some cross border transactions that aren't you know, if that aren't going to be.

[Josh Brown]

Jenny. If we keep 145% tariff on China for two, two more weeks, some of the stocks become uninvestable for sure. Okay. And microchip because US casino operators with properties in Macao. Good luck.

[Michael Batnick]

Yep.

[Josh Brown]

When that Nike will roll back over Apple. Apple be awful. Like Tesla, huge China risk. Actually maybe the most other than Nike and Apple. Tesla might have the most acute China risk on the board. So I think it's like at this point, oh, he's gonna negotiate with all these countries. Australia, Europe. That's great. But like I think it's now zeroing in on US versus China.

[Michael Batnick]

I think you're right.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So let me say a few more things about yesterday's rally. So just green everywhere. John throw this up. Just. I mean honestly a day like we like we've seen once or twice before. Josh, you said it was what, the 10th, the 10th largest S&P day ever. The second largest NASDAQ day ever. You had from Bespoke. The 14 day RSI had its biggest one day jump ever.

[Josh Brown]

I mean these look fake so.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

But, but here's the thing. Needless to say. Needless to say this is not good. This does not have happen in a healthy market. You got the best days after the worst days. So Grant Hawkridge from all star charts has a great table showing well what happens after some of the best days. And it's not great. Like it's really not. John, chart 112 please. If you go out, let's say if you go out one month, it's positive 68% of the time. You got three months, it's 52%.

[Josh Brown]

Wait, can I ask you a question? Positive 68% of the time sounds like just the regular average of any day.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

But, but so my point, it's not, it's not an all clear signal.

[Josh Brown]

Right, Right.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So. So you have a. The worst loss was 20%. Like there's been massive losses after massive updates. It is not necessarily marked the bottom by any stretch of the imagination.

[Josh Brown]

So. Right. So it's not a, it's not a particularly high hit rate buying after a huge one day rally.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

It's not. There's all sorts of technical data that you could look at. Like well, anytime the VIX has been over 50 for a week, it's always up a year later. Like you can pick and choose what you want to look at. But in the short term this is not good.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, in the short term. And that's always an interesting conversation too. Right. Which Is what term should people be focusing on? And you know, should. Should we be focusing on? Because if you look at this chart one year out, it's all green except for September 2008.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So that's the point, Jenny, you're right. It's 95% positive one year later, which is a very high hit rate because the normal is 75%. But the point. The point that I'm making is there has been historically, on average, a lot of pain between now and a year. So you have to survive, right? Like, you have to be able to survive.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. I don't think anyone. I don't think anyone would say this is not a good buying opportunity. I think the debate, and I had this debate on air with Stephanie today is just like, is this the. Is this the bottom?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Nobody. Nobody thinks so.

[Josh Brown]

Nobody knows, but nobody thinks so.

[Michael Batnick]

But I also think that's a harder assessment today than it has been in past times. And I'll tell you why. Because there's such a wild divergence right now, more than there ever has been, I think, between where different stocks stand relative to their highs. And this goes to the concentration of the Mag 7. Last year you had, what was it? Mag 7. I'm going to totally screw this up. But Mag 7 up 40%. Balance of the S and P, essentially flat for the year. Right.

[Josh Brown]

And Josh, you said, big AI, Big AI rally.

[Michael Batnick]

But you said this on air the other day. You're like, there is an unprecedented number of companies that are already down 50% from their highs. And because beneath the surface, there's such incredible distortion and dispersion, I don't think if we're looking at that chart, all you can talk about is buying the market. There's so much else to buy.

[Josh Brown]

Well, this year the Mag 7s look worse than the market.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. Yesterday was an arbitrary time period. This year is three months and 10 days. It's such a short period. What are we really looking at?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah, you're right. You're 100% right. Yesterday was the best day ever for the Mag 7 because so much of their revenue comes from abroad. But to the board, to the point that Josh just made, it was at the bottom. Ramp Capital did a. Did a post a poll yesterday. 6369 votes.

[Josh Brown]

Nice.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So quite a bit of votes. 70% of the people said no.

[Josh Brown]

Well, though, I mean, it's a lot of people. It's a lot of people. But, like, when would that ever be? When would that ever be? Everyone saying it's the bottom. It would never. It Would never happen.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I'll never forget when we were with Dan Guy and Danny.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

In December 2020. Or maybe it was October. It was right near the bottom.

[Josh Brown]

It was. It was December of 21.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So the market had bottomed five weeks prior.

[Josh Brown]

2222.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

The market had bottomed five or six weeks prior. And I said, show of hands. Who thinks that was the bottom?

[Josh Brown]

Nobody.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Nobody.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, but that's, that's right. The buy sign. When I. When I worked for Laszlo Barini. Do you guys remember him?

[Josh Brown]

Yeah, of course.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, so I worked for Laszlo Burini as an intern in 1996. And. And one of the things he taught us interns was the biggest contrary indicator where the sentiment of aaii. American association of Independent Investors. So, Michael, I put up a Twitter poll too. It only got 660 respons something. But I put it up on Tuesday night and I said, it looks like we're down 18.9% futures. Make it look like we'll hit an official bear market tomorrow morning. What do you think the next move is from here? Plus 10%. Minus 10%.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Everyone said minus.

[Michael Batnick]

66% said minus. And I was going to say that's surprisingly encouraging to me. So I think we look at these things and I take them as a contrary indicator. But again, this is a weird time.

[Josh Brown]

We'Re in, I think. So. I think the, the problem with those sentiment polls is that like, like every. It mirrors everything else in society. Everything has just gone parabolic. And sentiment around everything has like, the White Lotus just ended. People are like, like, like ripping their clothes off. It's like, all right, it was just okay. It was not a great season. But if you're a fan of the White Lotus and you're not disappointed, then it's the greatest thing that ever happened. And there's like very few people that are down, down the middle that are just like, all right, it was good. It was. It wasn't the greatest thing I've ever seen. We like where if you watch influencers on Instagram and TikTok, the restaurant influencers, it's the greatest slice of pizza in the world. Of course, it's the best steak I've ever had.

[Michael Batnick]

Because are you gonna get eyeballs or.

[Josh Brown]

Saying like, okay, but so my. What I'm. I think. What I think is that that's what sentiment is now, Period. And so stock market sentiment is extreme all the time. There is no down the middle. It's just like, oh, my God, I'm so bearish. It's about to crash. Or this is the best time ever to be invested. And I just don't, I don't know if it's as useful is when people in general were more calm and measured with their takes.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

That's a good take.

[Michael Batnick]

I think that's right.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

But I think that one of the things that you can measure is our flows. So people are like, oh, we need to see retail capitulate. Guess what? The vanguard investors will never capitulate. So if you're looking for them, you're looking at the wrong place. They will never capitulate. This is the shit that we need to see cool off before you could say okay, it's over. This sort of things, this is from Tom Sarah figures. Seven straight weeks of inflows into leveraged long ETFs that people crazy. That needs to get cooked.

[Michael Batnick]

Right?

[Josh Brown]

You want to see that go? You want to see that go Decidedly negative. Stay there.

[Michael Batnick]

Right? That needs to be like 2022 when you saw Ark just finally flush out the riffraff.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So the excess speculation, that sort of stuff you need to see cool off.

[Josh Brown]

All right, so wait, can we just do some couple of stock charts real quick?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Where do you want to go?

[Josh Brown]

Tesla? So that huge rally, quote unquote, huge rally. I think the stock went up 50 points.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Dude, it was like 20 something percent. What do you mean quote unquote? It was rally.

[Josh Brown]

But what's, but like what's so crazy is it's still contained. I'm showing you five day chart. It's still contained within this band of. That's how, that's how like wild the market overall is that that huge rally is still relatively contained. Let's do Apple. You see what I mean? Because it's a huge comeback for Apple. Yesterday I think it was up 16% on the day which is, it's the biggest market cap stock in the world going up 16%. I don't know how much money it went up in market cap, but it's a enormous number. But it's still like relatively contained within the context of the sell off that we're in. So I thought that was, I thought that was interesting.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

All right, Jenny, I know that you are a bottom up investor. You do your research, you're an earnings person and I think one of the, one of the. Actually you know what?

[Josh Brown]

No, we're going to do this insider trading question.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah, let's put a. Sorry.

[Josh Brown]

All right, go ahead, put a pin in. That was yesterday. The super bowl of insider trading in Washington.

[Michael Batnick]

Sure felt like it, didn't it? It was Pretty disappointing.

[Josh Brown]

He did something so brilliant. I'm not gonna assume the worst. I'm not gonna assume he set people up to do an insider trade, but I acknowledge that it's conceivable. And by the way, both sides do this shit and everyone hates it.

[Michael Batnick]

Yesterday was really extreme.

[Josh Brown]

Like, nobody wants to see Pelosi racking up gains either. All right, so let me just say that and get that out of the way. However, he did something really brilliant just in case somebody was gonna trade on what he was about to do. He tweeted it. Bye. So now everyone has plausible, deniable what the president said to buy stocks. Look, he said it at 9:00am I bought it at 11. Right. All right, so let's put that aside. I'm assuming there's gonna be a congressional investigation. I don't know if the sec.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Why are you assuming that?

[Josh Brown]

Because they said it.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Brown]

So I don't know if the SEC will cooperate or. I have no idea. I'm not a legal expert here, but I think that's like part of the problem also is just the fact that everyone is like, yeah, that probably happened.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Josh Brown]

I don't know if we would have been like that. Like, I think if this had happened under Obama. And Obama did famously say on Twitter, by the stock market, by America in 2009, nobody immediately jumped to the conclusion that he knew something or he did something or his cronies got rich because the market then shot up 40%.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, but then Obama at the point, at that time, wasn't in the position to move the market single, handedly, solely, you know, with a tweet later in the day.

[Josh Brown]

That's correct.

[Michael Batnick]

I think the reality is it's probably not technically insider trading, but it sure feels bad, you know, and there's that famous quote. How do you define porn?

[Josh Brown]

You know you can't when I see it.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, I know it when I see it.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

But there was a spike in option volume. Like somebody literally. Somebody knew.

[Josh Brown]

John, do we have that?

[Michael Batnick]

Somebody knew. But you could have guessed. I hear you could have guessed too, as soon as you saw that tweet. You could have speculated the same way I speculated the day before. He wasn't going to.

[Josh Brown]

Look what this looks like. Michael, what are we looking at?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I have no idea.

[Josh Brown]

Okay.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

A line chart going vertical. I don't know what's in there.

[Josh Brown]

Okay, this is call. This is call options on the triple cues. Yeah.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So the average fill. What is that? The price?

[Josh Brown]

So look at the green candle.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah.

[Josh Brown]

All I want you to do is look at the volume.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah.

[Josh Brown]

You understand?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Well there was another one, there was another one hours earlier. That makes that.

[Michael Batnick]

Look at, yeah, look at the one earlier in the day, about 9:00am so.

[Josh Brown]

That'S, that's accumulation right after the market and then that is just as it's happening. Nobody's that fast. I don't think so maybe this one's algorithms but the one at 9:30 in the morning, I don't know, do we? Unless somebody shows me that every day looks just like this. There's a huge burst of call buying at the open.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I don't know, I don't know enough about this but I know people were up in arms.

[Michael Batnick]

I think the problem is, is that it breeds distrust in the market and this is not a health, it is not healthy.

[Josh Brown]

Unusual. Unusual. Whale said. You can see before Trump Posted by On Truth Social traders opened triple Qs, the T triple Qs, which is hilarious. Hilarious. So the, the triple levered ETF calls, NSPY calls and right before the news somebody opened 509 calls expiring the same day. Those calls all went up 2100% in one hour. So people don't, people don't do that unless they know something. So I think, I think like that's part of, that's part of the problem of this becoming a game show is people not only see it that way but they see it as a rigged game show on top of it, which is not great.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

All right, so let's talk about how the stock market affects the economy. So Warren Pies is a chart showing that the wealth shock is now equivalent to 23% of GDP, which is the fourth worst since 1950. There was a quote in the New York Times, somebody said, a friend stopped by my office today and said, well I won't be redoing my kitchen because my entire kitchen budget was wiped out in the stock market in the past three days. It's not just, it's not just Wall Street.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh no. One of my clients who I love retired this year. You know, she's got a really great nest egg that she saved up, but she's freaking out. It's down 10%. It's down a little more than 10%.

[Josh Brown]

And that will affect how she spends her money?

[Michael Batnick]

Absolutely.

[Josh Brown]

That's the point.

[Michael Batnick]

Absolutely. She won't travel, she won't buy stuff. She's freaking out. And so when we look at this too, what are we going to do? Collect, let's say tariffs are 23% right now we import $3.3 trillion of goods from overseas, let's call it about 700 billion, theoretically that we collect on tariffs. What does that do? That more than offsets? The best case there, including capital gains. And by the way, you know what I'm going to do for my clients soon? I'm going to Capital Loss harvest and I'm going to do that soon to offset taxes.

[Josh Brown]

Well, the tax gain collection thing was always nonsense because then they're saying we're gonna make deals. Well, why are we making deals? If it's so great to collect the tariffs, then we shouldn't want deals. We should wanna just.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

You don't get tariffs.

[Josh Brown]

I guess I don't understand it.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, but. So you've deteriorated wealth, you've given people an opportunity to offset capital gains.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

But at least rates are going up and the dollar's going down. Have you thought about that as well?

[Michael Batnick]

Are you being sucky?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yes, I am.

[Josh Brown]

Okay, put up the Scott Bessant Tile Chart 14. So this is his tweet. For the last four decades, Wall street has grown wealthier than ever before. True, and it can continue to grow and do well. But for the next four years, it's Main Street's turn. It's Main Street's turn to hire workers. It's Main Street's turn to drive investment. And it's Main Street's turn to restore the American dream. Okay, let me help. The employers who employ the people who live and work on Main street have exposure to the stock market either because they own. Have their own portfolio and they're small business owners and it affects their mood and therefore the knock on effects are, hey, I'm watching the stock market crash. I don't think now is the best time to expand what I'm doing.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I thought Besson was smart. Is he like, I don't remember the exact details, but Professor Snape in Harry Potter was like pretending to sort of be bad, but like was. Was like doing it really for, for good purposes. Is that what Besson is doing?

[Michael Batnick]

I have no idea. I've been trying to find it, figure out his M.O. all day.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

The shit that he says is so dumb and he's not dumb, so.

[Josh Brown]

Right. He has to be playing dumb because he's not dumb. So he can't.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

But I see, like, I have to.

[Michael Batnick]

Say, what's his M.O.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Is he like, I have to.

[Michael Batnick]

What does he want?

[Josh Brown]

I think he wants to stay in the job and I think he wants to be the hero. I think he wants to be the hero who oversees a situation where the economy is growing but with more manufacturing and with better middle class outcomes. My point is, I think he believes that he can do it.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Let me give him the extreme benefit of the doubt and say he is an extreme patriot and is willing to humiliate himself and tank his reputation because he needs for the betterment of the country. He feels like he's the one that can sort of make the President be quasi rational. Is that at all possible?

[Michael Batnick]

I mean anything is possible. What if he's just a power monger and he's power tripping and he just wants maximum power because that's what makes the guy happy.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Well, that's another interpretation.

[Josh Brown]

I don't get that from him.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't get any of it.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

He does not give him those.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't get any of it.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah, like I get that from, I get that from Howard Lotnick. I don't get that from Scott.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So what does this do to earnings, John? Throw this chart up. In fact, set, we're looking at s and P, 520, 25 bottom up EPS and it was 280 bucks earlier last year. Consensus for this year now it's $269, which is definitely not nice. And going lower.

[Josh Brown]

Such a shame that this happened from an all time record high for S and P earnings, isn't it?

[Michael Batnick]

Yes.

[Josh Brown]

Like we were there, we were there.

[Michael Batnick]

We didn't need to screw it up. So Goldman's got an estimate out there that it might be 248 to 250. I just wrote my quarterly client letter. I said, you know, it's still at 11.5% growth year over year. Our guess is that it'll be flat.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

There's no way, right?

[Michael Batnick]

There's no way.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

There's no way.

[Michael Batnick]

Because don't forget this is forecast. Right. And we just talked about how everyone's gonna pull their forecast. So people are gonna go back to baseline, which is gonna bring us back to flat.

[Josh Brown]

So like what's 17 times frog?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Don't, don't, don't tell us. I don't want to.

[Josh Brown]

17 times.

[Michael Batnick]

Me going for my nerd calculator.

[Josh Brown]

250 times. No, I understand. It's lower than I want to do. Yeah, I just want to do it. Just a mental exercise. So in other words, right now the multiple is 18. The multiple will come lower as lower.

[Michael Batnick]

It's 4250.

[Josh Brown]

4250. And where are we on the S and P as? As of right now, 5000ish.

[Michael Batnick]

Right.

[Josh Brown]

It's gross. Like it's not good. It's not good for.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

That's not bad. I can take a thousand more S.

[Josh Brown]

And P points, but it's 20% from here.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah, it's a flesh wound.

[Michael Batnick]

I don't think nearly a flesh more.

[Josh Brown]

Than a flesh wound, sir.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I know it's bad.

[Josh Brown]

Historically that's very, very bad. Let's do this. S and P bottoms before the trough in earnings during recessions.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Michael, Hang on. Before we do that, I want to give Dan. Dan a quote because this is a good one. Dan Ives. Dan Ives said we have talked over the last week that unleashing this tariff Armageddon was always a negotiation tactic for Trump. But the impacts and gamble of the real economy are a snowball that once it starts rolling downhill, it cannot be just stopped. Investors will see that during EPS season. So all right, what, what happens during recessions to earnings less AI. Yeah, way less. So, all right, the Average is down 18% if you take out the Great Depression and the GFC.

[Josh Brown]

Did we debate this the other day?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah, you.

[Josh Brown]

So you were, you said 15, I said 20 to 30.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So if you take out the GFC and the Great Depression. So take the two worst out.

[Josh Brown]

Okay.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

And it drops from down 18 to down nine, then that's where we are.

[Josh Brown]

I know, but we're still forecasting 7% for the quarter that we're in. Like the reality has no, I agree. Hit. That's the dangerous part about this moment.

[Michael Batnick]

I think that's right and I think that's why you can look at this. But I don't think any of these went in to into that period with a multiple trading at an all time high. You know, we went into this stretched, we went in into this with no room for error.

[Josh Brown]

So we've corrected a lot of that already though. So we started the year 21 times earnings. Now you're 18, you're not 27, it's not 1999, but you're not at 40.

[Michael Batnick]

Times earnings, 18 times forward earnings, which you and I just agreed are total baloney.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah, no, I agree it's problematic. So if you factor in, what are we saying? An 18% average decline, pulling out the two worst case scenarios. No, no, no, eight.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Eight pulling out eight. Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, I thought you were saying 18. Yeah, 18.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So X the GFC and X the Great Depression, it's eight. So that seems, that seems reasonable. There's another great chart from bmo. This shows the year over year change in quarterly profits and it's, we're looking at red circles and green circles and the bottom line is that when you get a recession, the earnings decline is way more significant on average, basically, than a non recessionary downdrift. And it seems like most people agree if we have a drop in earnings, it will be accompanied by a recession.

[Josh Brown]

What are the green circles are when earnings fall but you're not in recession.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Exactly.

[Josh Brown]

I see. So I don't know. They look sort of identical to me. What am I missing?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

The red.

[Michael Batnick]

The red or lower?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

No, the green or Charlotte.

[Josh Brown]

The red or lower.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

The red or lower. So here's the bottom line. Like this is. This is what I would consider the coup de gras.

[Michael Batnick]

Jenny, let's hear it.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Think back to. Let's leave with chart 21, please. Jon. All right. So people would say, how could you guys even begin to talk positively about stocks when the tariffs went on last night? We have not seen any material damage in the economy in the earnings per share.

[Josh Brown]

Why buy now?

[Michael Batnick]

I'll tell you exactly why.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Well, go ahead.

[Josh Brown]

Let's get Jenny's answer.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, so I was debating this with my partner Greg on the, on the trip in and he's like, I knew we should have had more bonds, you know, And I'm, and I said to him, okay, which would you rather own? The 10 year at 430 or Uber? I'm sorry I didn't say Uber. Or Docusign. Yeah, you rather own Docusign.

[Josh Brown]

Why?

[Michael Batnick]

Because I can't remember off the top of my head exactly, but it's like something like 16, 17 times earnings. Unbelievable growth ahead. You know, high teens growth, little to no tariff risk, little to no recession risk. Like, which would you rather own?

[Josh Brown]

Well, it'll be more volatile than the.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Bond and little to no growth.

[Michael Batnick]

Fine. We hope, Fine. But when you fast forward five years from now, where do you think you're going to have a higher return?

[Josh Brown]

Yes, but see, this is, but so this is Greg's a time period. But Greg's point is.

[Michael Batnick]

Yes, yes.

[Josh Brown]

I can't fast forward five years.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Wait, Gary.

[Josh Brown]

Greg, you have to live.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, my partner, Greg.

[Josh Brown]

I have to live through those five years.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. And if you set up your portfolio in advance and you've got the wherewithal, you are better off to just stick with it. Which is why, you know, Josh, after we were.

[Josh Brown]

We all know that intellectually is true.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. And I think that's our job as advisors. Right.

[Josh Brown]

We all agree with that.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Everybody has a pain point where they cry uncle.

[Michael Batnick]

I disagree.

[Josh Brown]

So wait, so you don't think so.

[Michael Batnick]

Everybody has a pain point where they cry. Not everyone Cries uncle.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Fine. Not everyone. A lot of people.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. And they shouldn't. And it's our job to get them through it. And someone put up on Twitter the other day after the show, they're like. And none of these four told us to sell. Like, of course we wouldn't tell you to sell. What do you do with the bear market? You get through it.

[Josh Brown]

Selling what?

[Michael Batnick]

And let's get back. Okay.

[Josh Brown]

And by the way, I did.

[Michael Batnick]

But, yeah, sell them.

[Josh Brown]

I don't tell people to sell. But.

[Michael Batnick]

But let's talk about something else. Like, what happens if you miss the ten best days? Right?

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. Well, they're always. They're always the day after the 10 worst days.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Getting back in is impossible.

[Michael Batnick]

Getting back in is impossible, which is why you're better off staying in. I mean, what would happen? When was the last time we had one of those ten?

[Josh Brown]

Wait, that's not the debate, though. Here's the debate. You meet somebody. Well, like, you're. You're in Connecticut. So you meet somebody on the equestrian circuit.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Brown]

Okay. On horseback.

[Michael Batnick]

And I say, buffy, how is your ride?

[Josh Brown]

So, Jenny, you had a croquet match. You meet somebody. They're like, all right, here's a deal. I have $5 million. I want to send it to you. You're the only person I trust. But, like, just don't put it in the market now.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, so here's.

[Josh Brown]

So what do you want me to do with it?

[Michael Batnick]

Literally, this is what I do. So. And this is. This is true in this moment, like today. So I have a client who sent in about $7 million a couple weeks ago. And it's interesting.

[Josh Brown]

They sent it to you, not me.

[Michael Batnick]

I know. I'm so sorry.

[Josh Brown]

We could debate that.

[Michael Batnick]

So this is self directed, right? And as we said before, some of my clients are through advisors. Some are just very self directed people. So they sent it and they've got another part outside of me, but they sent in $7 million. And so the plan all along was we'll leg in slowly if the market's.

[Josh Brown]

Terrible, which is rational.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. But I'll give you the caveat on it. If the market's terrible, it'll probably go faster. If the market's great, it's going to go slower. And we're just going to pick off stocks one by one. But on the train ride, I had a very busy train ride into the city, by the way, Greg, this conversation. And so they hit that point where they're kind of crying, right? And they're just, they're scared So I said, let's do this. Let's carve out $2 million and we're going to put it in Treasuries that mature in 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months. Ladder, ladder. And we're going to do one of two things. When it matures, we have a conversation. We say, hey, let's be disciplined and go in. Or if the market tanks down 30% or treasuries. Right. Or if the market tanks 30%, we've got treasuries, short term Treasuries sitting there that we can use as a source of cash. Because what you have to do is stay disciplined. And like we all know the math on this. The math favors equities. However you cut it, if you can just stay in. The math favors equities.

[Josh Brown]

Well, this is relevant. How old is this particular person?

[Michael Batnick]

This one? They just retired. They're probably like 69.

[Josh Brown]

69.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I kind of knew you were gonna say that.

[Michael Batnick]

Oh, interesting.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

All right, so let me. Can I throw some math at you? I think you'd like these charts. John, chart 22. Okay, so to the point of. You haven't even seen stocks start to deteriorate in terms of earnings, what we're looking at are all of the bear market lows since 1957. And on average, what happens with earnings per share. And what you can clearly see for those of you who are listening, is that on average, the price of stocks bottom nine months before earnings.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. If you're waiting for the earnings to. First of all, here's why you can't wait for earnings to bottom. You won't know it's the bottom until a quarter later. Right, that's number one. But number two, stocks are looking through the falling earnings and they're already starting to price the recovery.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Things are going to get bad. Oh, you think that's why Nvidia is down 40%. Genius. Thanks. We know the stock. We know. So rewind. This is such a great rewind back to 2020. Do you guys remember? I know you do. In 2020 when we bottomed in like 23 days and we skyrocketed and we said, this makes no sense.

[Josh Brown]

Earnings are still falling.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

How is this happening in Q3, Carnival reported a 99% decline in reven from 10 billion to 30 million or whatever. And the stock was flat on the day how? Because it was down 90% already. So look, chart 2020, please. So in 2020, EPS bottomed 13 months after the stock market did 13.

[Josh Brown]

Crazy. Imagine waiting 13 months to buy back. And you Missed the entire run back.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So even worse, gdp, which of course is backward looking, we don't have the data in real time. GDP bottomed three months after, in 2020 and normally it bottoms five months after the stock market does. And we only get that with the benefit of hindsight. So this idea that you are going to wait for the dust to settle before you buy stocks, it doesn't work that way.

[Michael Batnick]

Nobody gets it right. Yeah, you just stay in.

[Josh Brown]

Right. You cannot possibly know that you're at trough earnings if you can't endure the until the following earnings quarter where they start to grow again and then by then there's no way you're buying lower.

[Michael Batnick]

Can I tell you guys something that I did recently? I taught a class, just one class at Baruch College on behavioral finance. My friend teaches it and asked me to come guest teach and it's really fun. It's for their master's program. The students are really sophisticated and I gave them a bit of forensic analysis and I showed them. Oh actually. And as you know, I wrote a book on dividend investing and there's a chapter in the book that describes this. In the chapter, it's fake names, but their names are Henry and Marianne in the chapter. But it's the same thing that I showed for Baruch. And I showed the Baruch students these two client portfolios and they're actual portfolios that I showed them. And both of these clients started on the same time. I adjusted it so that, you know, one started with one amount, the other, but I adjusted it so it was even. And I showed them everything, you know, here's the starting value, here's the cash flows in and out. Here's the investment gain, here's the income, here's the management fees, here's the, here's the ending value. Okay, here's the total return. One had a total return, by the way, they started in late 18. One has a total return of 1% annualized. The other has a return of 9 and change percent annualized. And I said to the students, why do you think this happened? You know, and it took them a ton of guesses. Oh, one took more money out. One did this, one did that. No. You know what happened? One of them cried uncle and gave me the cash. Freaked out.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

And he was the only client who in March of 2020, when we're talking about that day, I couldn't keep in, you know, and I have in my notebook me saying don't do this, this is the worst idea. Like you can't sell at a bottom and him saying, I know, sell anyway. I can't take it. And that's how long five years later you have an annualized 8 and change percent difference. That is huge money.

[Josh Brown]

That's a really important message for people to hear right now because that's the question on everyone's mind is saying like, wait a minute, you guys are all describing how chaotic everything is in the bond market and the president, but hold. So then why are you saying don't do anything when I could get myself out of this jam right now?

[Michael Batnick]

Because you won't get back in at the right time. And the client who I call Henry.

[Josh Brown]

In the book, and it's your long term returns that will suffer as a consequence, not just this year.

[Michael Batnick]

And that's why I asked you, what timeframe should people be looking at? You know, should they be looking at the one week out or two weeks out, which is debate with Stephanie?

[Josh Brown]

Three weeks. Three weeks minimum.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, but that's like, you know, that's just tactical and am I gonna be buying. But when you look at that one year out, every one of those time periods is favorable. When you look at three years and five years. And the reality is, I know your guys client base is a lot younger than mine. All of our clients, including my older clients, have at least a five year time period ahead. Yeah, and that's why Josh, you know on Twitter when the guy's like, oh, and none of you guys told me to sell, like, no, idiot, of course we didn't tell you to sell because we're not that stupid.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, I was going to say because you're not paying me and I don't give advice on Twitter like a.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, he was talking about.

[Josh Brown]

He was talking about like those outer space.

[Michael Batnick]

He was talking about like those of us on the show, like, why didn't you tell me to talk about.

[Josh Brown]

I also don't give advice on tv.

[Michael Batnick]

Yes, you do. That's all we do.

[Josh Brown]

You know what, Jenny? If you actually pay attention to me, which now I know you don't, you're.

[Michael Batnick]

Stating facts while you're.

[Josh Brown]

No, while you're busy scribbling notes to people. You know what I'm saying. I am doing this, not you should. I don't give a shit what anyone does.

[Michael Batnick]

Listen, that's leading by default.

[Josh Brown]

I know it sounds semantic to you, but I go out of my way. Jim Cramer says I want you to buy Harley Davidson. You will never hear me say that. I say this is what I am doing because I don't care what Anyone else does, especially if you're not a client of the firm. The hell do I care?

[Michael Batnick]

But you've got to know that people are looking at all of us.

[Josh Brown]

That's their problem.

[Michael Batnick]

I agree with you. I agree with you.

[Josh Brown]

If you're taking advice, if you literally, like, from him, you're taking advice primarily from people on TV that don't know you, you're not getting financial advice.

[Michael Batnick]

I hear it.

[Josh Brown]

They don't know you.

[Michael Batnick]

I think it's a nuance. But I, but I get your point. And I, and this is my opinion.

[Josh Brown]

This is what I think. This is what I am doing. Not. This is what everybody listening should do. How could I do that? I don't know anybody.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah. And I think I give advice. But I'll say, like, look, this doesn't make sense for everyone. But if you.

[Josh Brown]

Here's where I cross over. I give behavioral advice.

[Michael Batnick]

Right.

[Josh Brown]

I think what I do is I tell people how they should think about things or what aspects of the markets maybe they haven't considered. I definitely don't look into a camera and say, go out there and buy Nvidia today. You'll never hear it because I don't do it.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Let me ask you guys this. I tell you to buy on this point, you.

[Josh Brown]

I could give advice to.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Rob Anderson from Ned Davis Research tweeted, The S&P 500 is off 17% from the high versus an average drawdown 25% for bear markets with no recession and 35% for bears that overlap with the recession. So if you know that and a listener's like, guys, I know recession's coming. You know a recession's coming. If we still have 25% or 35% more downside and we're only off 18%, I still have time to sell. Why shouldn't I sell?

[Michael Batnick]

Because I don't know that we know a recession is coming.

[Josh Brown]

Well, that's a really important point. And after a day like yesterday with the deus ex machina of the president, removing the proximate cause of everyone's pain, you see what could happen. If you're, like, waiting for the all clear, it's gonna take place while you're on the phone with somebody, Right?

[Michael Batnick]

And it's also. There's such a wide, a wide divide right now between the underlying economy and the stock market. Imagine if, for example, 2023, the market had been up 12% and 2024, the market had been up 12 percent and went into this trading at 17 times earnings. We'd have a very different Drawdown right now.

[Josh Brown]

Jenny, I want to share something that you wrote, and then we're going to talk about the book, and then we're going to get some stock ideas from you. So we're going to try to do. We're going to try to do a lot in a few minutes here. But you said. What's the commonality between all of the best investment quotes of all time? Behavior. They're not about asset allocation. They're not about strategy. They're not about stock picking. They're all about behavior. You and I are 100% on the same page in that regard. All of those other things are important, strategy and allocation. But, like, none of them will trump a poorly behaved investor. They won't save you. But you made this list, and I'll let you read it. What do Josh and I agree most on? I love that because people think that we fight like cats and dogs or like brother and sister on the air. And we sort of do.

[Michael Batnick]

We debate.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

But we get confused with fighting and debating.

[Josh Brown]

And you and I, on the big things that really matter, we're of the same mind 100%. So run down this little mini list that you wrote, because I think it's great.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay. So this is what Josh and I agree on most. Behavior is paramount. We both believe in the value of good communication.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, yeah, this.

[Michael Batnick]

I think you are the best of anyone I've ever met, Josh. The value of being a market historian and the ability to analogize. And when people say to me, you.

[Josh Brown]

Call me Investopedia Brown.

[Michael Batnick]

I know. I love that so much. But your ability to analogize is above and beyond. And there's this really great book called Range by this guy, David Epstein, and he talks about if you can analogize. Whatever. I won't get distracted on that. But all the great things that come from being able to do that. You and I both believe in asset allocation.

[Josh Brown]

Yes.

[Michael Batnick]

We both believe that markets trend up over time.

[Josh Brown]

That's right.

[Michael Batnick]

We both believe that when we're negative on the market, it doesn't mean we're selling out. Tell them you can be negative and not cash out a portfolio. And lastly, testify. We agree that it's fun to disagree. It is fun to disagree when you disagree. And when you get a stock wrong, that's when you actually learn. I was thinking about coming into this and writing that we enjoy disagreeing. If you don't agree, you end up like that Saturday Night Live skit with those ladies on NPR who are like, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Brown]

Well, also, there are people on the show that you can't disagree with because they get really upset. They take it personal. I might sometimes be one of those people. Like, I might sometimes get personally angry when somebody disagrees with me if I don't like the way they disagreed with me. So it's tough. But I think you and I, our back and forth is as good as there is anywhere on financial tv. I personally enjoy it. You do too. I think the viewers end up enlightened no matter which one of us they agree with. And you're coming along. I feel like you're. You're getting there.

[Michael Batnick]

Thank you, Obi Wan.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Jenny, what's the best dividend stock to buy for next week?

[Josh Brown]

No, I asked you for five dividend stocks.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, I'm going to give you five. I actually think I came up with a list of seven for you. All right, so here we go. So the five that I think are appropriate for now.

[Josh Brown]

We have a table here.

[Michael Batnick]

All right, we've got.

[Josh Brown]

This will help you.

[Michael Batnick]

Bristol Myers, ConAgra, Clearway Energy, Dominion Energy, Ryman Hospitality, Sauber Healthcare, and Verizon. And what these all have in common.

[Josh Brown]

Time out. How many stocks in your dividend strategy do you currently own?

[Michael Batnick]

36.

[Josh Brown]

Okay, so these are the seven that you think right now or for the.

[Michael Batnick]

Longest term, for the period that we're in right now.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I mean, the theme here is US revenue 100%.

[Michael Batnick]

And so remember how before I said we segmented the portfolio and we said these eight companies have high tariff risk. These three companies have high recession risk. These 22 companies in the portfolio have. Are very, very resilient. I pulled out seven that I thought were very risky.

[Josh Brown]

Let me go one by one with you. Okay? I'm going to give you the superlatives and then you tell me why to buy the stock. Okay?

[Michael Batnick]

Okay.

[Josh Brown]

All right. We ready for this? You guys excited for this? Okay. Who wouldn't be? Bristol Myers is a 4.7% dividend yield. They've been paying for 92 years, eight times forward earnings.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, so if you look at this, it looks like really crummy earnings growth ahead. And that's true. But what they have is a huge legacy drug pipeline. About half of their drugs are still in a growth phase. About half.

[Josh Brown]

Oncology. Big. Like big cancer.

[Michael Batnick]

Big cancer.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

But a lot are coming off patent. Blah, blah, blah. But they are pumping out 10 billion plus of free cash flow a year for the next three years. With that, they'll be like AbbVie circa 2018, where they should be able to buy their way back to growth by the end of the next five years.

[Josh Brown]

Acquisitions.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. Whatever it is. Or internal development. But by the next five years, they should. Oh, this goes to your point about buying the market before earnings change. You want to buy the stock before earnings inflect. Also, by the next five years, earnings should inflect and you'll have collected 4.7% from a company that's paid a dividend for 92 years and is just minting free cash.

[Josh Brown]

Conagra Brands, they own like what, Hebrew National. What do they own?

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, they have a lot of frozen, a lot of healthy. But what you saw over the last nine. And then again when, when RFK Jr. Was nominated to HHS and we're going to make America healthy again, you saw the consumer staples plunge. Right, because there's me. Less calorie consumption. They have a healthier, on average, a healthier portfolio of food brands than their peers.

[Josh Brown]

What are the brands?

[Michael Batnick]

Duncan Hines. I always.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

I'll tell you right now.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, thank you.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Slim Jim. Duncan Hines. Ready Whip Hunt Snack. Ooh, Snack Pack. Or for Redenbacher.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, but go to frozen. There's a lot of like healthier frozen PAM spray.

[Josh Brown]

Pam.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Boom.

[Josh Brown]

Bird's eye is vegetable. Frozen vegetables.

[Michael Batnick]

Right, right, right.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

David, is that sunflower soup?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, I think so. It's like the healthy choice.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah.

[Josh Brown]

All right, so 5049 years of paying a dividend 10 times earnings, 5.6% yield by right now?

[Michael Batnick]

I think so.

[Josh Brown]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

And you know what it's going to do? It's going to give you a 5.6% yield. And you can see the earnings will grow 4,5%. So if the share price appreciates at the rate of earnings, you're going to get 4 or 5% capital appreciation plus 5.6%. This goes back to do you want to own a bond or do you want to own a stock?

[Josh Brown]

Clearway Energy.

[Michael Batnick]

I'd rather own this. Okay. Clear Way Energy. They are.

[Josh Brown]

And this is interesting because home gamers.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, and so this has a 7% yield trades at 12 and a half times limited earnings growth. But they basically have clean, you know, the clean energy. Right. They have wind, solar, battery. If you believe that the world, that America in particular needs more energy production to feed AI, to feed the data centers, whatever it is, we need everything we can get. We need coal, we need solar, we need nuclear, we need wind, we need geothermal.

[Josh Brown]

What is this? This is wind?

[Michael Batnick]

No, it's solar, wind battery energy storage. And they just create power and sell it to the grid.

[Josh Brown]

Okay, I like it.

[Michael Batnick]

It's so boring.

[Josh Brown]

Dominion is.

[Michael Batnick]

Sorry, but go back to that. Zero tariff exposure, zero economic exposure. Everyone's. Everyone's using every bit of power that we can.

[Josh Brown]

Okay, Dominion is utility, right?

[Michael Batnick]

Dominion is a utility. 75% in Virginia, a lot in South Carolina. 7 to 9% earnings growth ahead 5 and change yield. 92 years of paying that dividend, trading at 14 times.

[Josh Brown]

Okay, Ryman, you explained to me on Tuesday on the air, but this is like the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, which I love, right? Grand Ole Opry. They have a bunch of other properties.

[Michael Batnick]

Like the national in D.C. the palms.

[Josh Brown]

And you went out of your way to point out that these are non casino conference centers. Why is that? Why is that meaningful, that distinction?

[Michael Batnick]

I think because it doesn't. Because when they're not like they really are conference centers for business. So they don't. When we were talking about the Las Vegas risk before.

[Josh Brown]

So it's not tourism.

[Michael Batnick]

No, something like. I've got it down here somewhere. But something like 67% of the revenues are corporate. Are corporate sales. And they book out two to five years in advance. It's pretty cool. On this one, you can look back to the GFC and say, okay, let's say we did have a huge, long, sustained recession. What would happen to their earnings? And if the earnings collapse to the same point they did in the gfc, guess what, they can still cover that dividend end yield. Because what happens is they have severance fees, right? So if you cancel your conference, you still owe them 21 million bucks.

[Josh Brown]

All right, Sabra Health. This is 7.3% yield. Must be a real piece of shit. 11 times forward earnings.

[Michael Batnick]

No, it's actually a great company. All right, what is 11 times forward earnings? But it's FFO because it's a REIT.

[Josh Brown]

So it's around and find out.

[Michael Batnick]

So they've got 364 properties. It's a lot of retirement skilled nursing. Again, very. Zero tariffs.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

Some economic risk. If there was a huge recession, people like, oh, I need to keep government.

[Josh Brown]

Doge risk or.

[Michael Batnick]

No, not really. No, zero Doge risk. Zero. Because it's skilled nursing homes. So it's like, Josh, you know, when you want to check your parents into a home, you're going to go use one of their properties.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

Really?

[Josh Brown]

Sabra is an Israeli word. Why are all the nursing home. Why are all the skilled nursing homes owned by Israelis?

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, I have no idea.

[Josh Brown]

But it's true though, right?

[Michael Batnick]

But the CEO, you know, is wonderful and wears his hostage tags proudly and it's really great. So I have no idea what.

[Josh Brown]

They're all stuff. Verizon, 6.4%. So I have never made money in this stock as long as I've been alive. This is my take on Verizon. Tell me why I'm wrong. 6.4% yield, which looks super juicy. Nine times forward, they have a CEO who's one of the highest paid people in the world. The stock price only goes in one direction, which is down. Nobody ever makes money in the stock other than clipping the coupon. And I'm not gonna say AT and T is materially better, but T Mobile is better than both of those.

[Michael Batnick]

T Mobile is better than both of those.

[Josh Brown]

Why would I buy this piece of shit?

[Michael Batnick]

Because this goes back to what time period are we looking at? And your time period is 30 years.

[Josh Brown]

The stock has not gone up.

[Michael Batnick]

Fine.

[Josh Brown]

What time period are you looking at?

[Michael Batnick]

I'm looking at now to say the next three years. And this goes back to all of.

[Josh Brown]

A sudden something's gonna materially change that makes the stock perform.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

No, I don't like how he's talking to you, Josh.

[Josh Brown]

No, but do you see what I mean?

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, no.

[Josh Brown]

Can you pull up a chart of horizon just like.

[Michael Batnick]

No, don't waste your time with the chart.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Total return.

[Michael Batnick]

Total return.

[Josh Brown]

Close my eyes like Luke Skywalker and just fire. I gotta look at the chart.

[Michael Batnick]

Josh, listen. What. Would you rather own a 10 year treasury where you get 4.3% and pay ordinary income tax or would for the next three years, Would you rather own Verizon where you're gonna get 6.5%?

[Josh Brown]

I would rather own literally herpes simplex 9 than own this stock. I've lost money with it three times. It never works.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay, I think you probably are going. No, I'm trying to come up with a comeback.

[Josh Brown]

I'd rather own anything.

[Michael Batnick]

I feel like it's not worth a risk.

[Josh Brown]

I said I was very skilled in analogies. I analogized the stock to literally portfolio disease.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

All right, so, Jenny, you wrote a book.

[Michael Batnick]

Yes. Thank you.

[Josh Brown]

I love you.

[Michael Batnick]

What a billion segue.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

So can I tell you what I love about dividends and then we'll hand.

[Josh Brown]

It back to you?

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, please do.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Especially in difficult markets like today. I think behaviorally dividend stocks are wonderful because you know that that piece of shit Verizon will pay you your dividend.

[Michael Batnick]

Thank you.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Thank you.

[Josh Brown]

All the way down.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

It helps you.

[Michael Batnick]

It's going to be flat.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

It helps you stay invested. So I think it's a great behavioral.

[Michael Batnick]

Hedge that's exactly right.

[Josh Brown]

I might buy Verizon, actually.

[Michael Batnick]

I think you should, but just only if you would rather own a box.

[Josh Brown]

I love your conviction levels.

[Michael Batnick]

Thank you.

[Josh Brown]

I love your conviction. All right, wait. I think Michael makes a really good point. Look, we all struggle with talking clients through moments like these, but I do think the part where they get dividends into their account each month is probably something that you are able to point to and be like, yeah, I know this sucks, but look, you got paid on Monday, you got paid on Wednesday, you got paid and you're getting income. So you have something to show for the pain that you're living through.

[Michael Batnick]

Right? But let's just start off and say, first of all, there's a difference between dividend growth investing and dividend income investors. So when we're having this part of the conversation, it's very specific to dividend income investing. Dividend.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, that's interesting because we had this conversation with Belsky. He's the opposite of you, right? He's looking for dividend growers. You have a certain target current yield and that's what you're building your portfolio on, right? Is it 5%?

[Michael Batnick]

Yes. That's your hurdle for the whole portfolio, 5% or better dividend yield.

[Josh Brown]

So if you buy something much lower than 5%, you have to offset it with a much higher yielder.

[Michael Batnick]

Exactly. Okay, and so then let's just. So now that we're talking about dividend income, let's just acknowledge that it doesn't make sense for everybody. It makes sense for people who need the emotional comfort of knowing your point exactly. That if they put a million dollars in and they've come to me and they. And I say, I'm going to give you a minimum of 5% or better yield, they're getting 50 grand a year paying out over and over. Some people say, well, why wouldn't I just invest in growth or dividend growth or whatever it is and just sell off? You can absolutely do that.

[Josh Brown]

Is it true that dividend income strategies are lower volatility than dividend growth or not necessarily.

[Michael Batnick]

Historically, yes. No, no.

[Josh Brown]

Historically, huge blow ups in the high yielders.

[Michael Batnick]

No, no, hold on, hold on.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

No, wait. Historically growth is more volatile.

[Michael Batnick]

No, it was. Sorry, it was. There was this brief period around the pandemic. You know, I've managed the strategy since 2001. It was always like a point.

[Josh Brown]

Do you remember how volatile the mlp, they were so popular with high income strategies.

[Michael Batnick]

So, so Michael, we're back down to below, you know, like below a one Beta to the S and P. But there was this brief period where it actually spiked up around the. Between the energy crisis of 2015-2016 through the pandemic. It was terrible because for all these years I said to people, oh, yeah, and if the market's.

[Josh Brown]

What about the REITs? What about the REITs during the. The GFC, they were some of the highest yielding stocks in the S and P. Some.

[Michael Batnick]

But if you, if you held the big great ones, you know, you didn't have that kind of.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

The underlying answers. Generally, yes, the underlying businesses that we're talking about are way less volatile.

[Michael Batnick]

Utilities, real estate, investment trust companies like conagra and Verizon. And you can pick on Verizon, but it just doesn't have the volatility.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah, it doesn't.

[Michael Batnick]

You know, it just doesn't. So over the long run of history, you're correct. But over the past 10 years, there's been a divergence from that.

[Josh Brown]

What I like about your strategy is that you have the guts to own 36 stocks and not 360 stocks. You don't look anything like an ETF that is just gonna be like, all right, it's rules based. We buy the 200 highest yielding stocks in the S and P. You're doing something that is. It's unique, is diverting itself deliberately from what the benchmarks do. And I have a lot of respect for that.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Is it a little start?

[Michael Batnick]

That's a good question. I don't know. And I'll tell you why I say I don't know. Because when I started this strategy in 2001, there were no other. I came up with the name equity income. Now it's prolific, but nobody use the word equity income before that.

[Josh Brown]

Really?

[Michael Batnick]

And here's why you didn't need to. Because prior to the dot com boom.

[Josh Brown]

Everything paid a dividend, right?

[Michael Batnick]

The average dividend yield of the s and P500 was 3.4. Then the dot com boom happened. Do you guys remember the term old economy and new economy? Right. When stocks are old economy, they were paying dividends.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, I remember that.

[Michael Batnick]

And that was so lame. Like, why would you own an old economy?

[Josh Brown]

75% of S& P names currently pay a dividend.

[Michael Batnick]

Yes, but they're not high. The dividend of the S and P.

[Josh Brown]

On average, there are a lot of nominal payouts.

[Michael Batnick]

Right. The dividend on the S and P is 1.4%. Microsoft was the biggest dividend payer last year, is $19 billion. But it has a very, very low yield, which goes Back to growth versus income. But to your point about the emotional comfort, in the beginning of my book, I tell this story, and I've told it a million times, but it, to me, was like my aha moment where I have this client who, you know, in 2009, when everything was terrible, you're just calling and saying, like, hey, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen now. Mark is down 60%. You know, we were down, I think, 28 or 30%. I don't know what's gonna happen next. Everything's terrible. And this one client said to me, he's like, hey, Jen, is my income safe? And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, your income's fine, but I don't know what's gonna. And he goes, then I'm fine. Like, chill out. Take a chill. And in that moment, I realized that. And so if we think about that.

[Josh Brown]

You put him on the phone with the rest of your clients.

[Michael Batnick]

I always offer him great attitude, less smart investor.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

You really invented Equity Inc. As a phrase.

[Michael Batnick]

I think I did. I should have patented it. I remember coming up with it. What, you think this is almost as.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Ludicrous as Josh saying he invented Blues Travelers?

[Josh Brown]

I did. No, I literally did.

[Michael Batnick]

How so?

[Josh Brown]

First of all, it's Blues Traveler.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

All right, Whatever. He discovered them.

[Josh Brown]

No, it's Blues Traveler.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

You invented Blues Traveler.

[Josh Brown]

And actually, it comes. That comes from a line.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

He's doubling down.

[Josh Brown]

That comes from a line in Ghostbusters. Yeah, I invented them. They were, like, playing dive bars on Second Avenue. Playing Place called Nightingale.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

You tweeted about them?

[Josh Brown]

No, I got their first. I bought their first. I bought their first album as a cd, and I made it go viral in upstate New York at all the Jewish sleepaway camps.

[Michael Batnick]

Are you serious?

[Josh Brown]

I did. And I'm telling you right now, I literally invented Blues Traveler. There was no Internet. How did you find out about new music?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Does Mr. Popper know about this?

[Josh Brown]

I actually. I met him, but I didn't get a chance to tell him this story. But they played a show at the Paramount a few years ago, maybe seven. Seven years ago. And then at the Paramount in Huntington after the show, downstairs, there's a lounge for members of the Paramount, my friends who are members with pool tables and bars and waitress service. Those guys were cool. They came down and played pool. I was so nervous to talk to them that I said a few words while they were shooting pool. I didn't want to be that guy. I was, like, 39 years old at the time, but I should have told Them. I basically invented you guys.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Oh, my God.

[Josh Brown]

Like, way before you had a number one hit on the radio, you should.

[Michael Batnick]

Have told them you own them, too. You should have said, I.

[Josh Brown]

No, I don't feel that way. I don't feel that way. I don't feel that way.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Wow. Very.

[Josh Brown]

How do we get here?

[Michael Batnick]

I just want to say my husband believes he invented upside down ketchup, too.

[Josh Brown]

What the hell is upside down ketchup?

[Michael Batnick]

How do you do the ketchup bottle's upside down now, so it squeezes right out. John Harrington invented that.

[Josh Brown]

Compared to what I believe, that's just crazy. All right, Jenny, you're again, one of our favorite people. I want to promote your book really quick. And we'll link to it, of course. What is the name of the book?

[Michael Batnick]

It is called Dividend.

[Josh Brown]

Fifty Shades of Dividends.

[Michael Batnick]

Yes. Dividend Investing dependable income to navigate all market environments.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Harriman House.

[Josh Brown]

I like the. Yeah. Shout out to Harriman House.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Charlie Ellis.

[Michael Batnick]

Yeah, Charlie Ellis. So, do you want to know what.

[Josh Brown]

How'd you get Charlie Ellis to write the forward?

[Michael Batnick]

Charlie Ellis is a close friend and a mentor of mine. Living legend, a long time.

[Josh Brown]

Very cool.

[Michael Batnick]

He's an amazing person.

[Josh Brown]

Okay.

[Michael Batnick]

But can I tell you what the graphic is on the front? This will go well with this.

[Josh Brown]

I think I figured it out. It's a $100 bill folded into the shape of a boat.

[Michael Batnick]

Okay. But here's why. So Charlie has an extraordinary ability to analogize also, and it's really his genius.

[Josh Brown]

He's the best.

[Michael Batnick]

He's the best.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. The tennis winning the losers game, Right? Yeah.

[Michael Batnick]

But one of the analogies that's always resonated with me that he gives is, he says, look, if, you know, if you're in a little dinghy fishing off of Long Island Sound for the day, it really matters if the tide is coming in or out. Right. You better be back to the dock before the tide's out or you're going to get stuck in the mud. He said, if you're an ocean liner and you're sailing across the ocean and someone says, oh, be careful. The tide's out.

[Josh Brown]

Not relevant.

[Michael Batnick]

It doesn't matter at all. And he said, you want to construct a portfolio so that you're the ocean liner. So it doesn't matter if there's a bear market or a bull market, doesn't matter if the tide's in or out. You're fine either way. And I've always thought that that's such a brilliant analogy. And then when I tell that people say, what amount do I need? And it doesn't. It doesn't. It's different for everyone. If you're spending $100,000 a year and you're going to get 60 grand a year from Social Security, you don't need that big an ocean liner. If you live beyond your means and you're spending half a million dollars a year and you have a swanky house in the Hamptons every summer, you're going to need a much bigger portfolio. So there's not a set number. Your ocean liner, it's not one size fits all on the ocean liner. But psychologically, I love that idea that you want to set up your portfolio to be the ocean liner. So whether the tide's in or out, you don't care.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Really good.

[Josh Brown]

Love that. That's a great place to leave it. So we're gonna tell people that. What's the name of the book again?

[Michael Batnick]

Dividend Investing Dependable Income to Navigate all Markets.

[Josh Brown]

Guys, go to Amazon, buy that book immediately, and of course, we will link to it. I want to end the show the way we usually do, which is find out what you're looking forward to. And you have a. You have a spicy answer here. So let's hear it. What are you looking forward to?

[Michael Batnick]

It's actually not political, even though it sounds like it is.

[Josh Brown]

That's what I was going to guess.

[Michael Batnick]

I'm looking forward to 2028.

[Josh Brown]

What happened? What happens?

[Michael Batnick]

I just want to be done with. I don't want this level of noise. I want to play spell.

[Josh Brown]

Oh, it's gonna be so much worse.

[Michael Batnick]

You think in 2028 it's gonna be worse? Oh, at the end of 2020, Katie.

[Josh Brown]

Vance versus Gavin Newsom. You think that's gonna be a walk in the park?

[Michael Batnick]

It's gonna be worse, all right.

[Josh Brown]

It's gonna be all insane from here on out. Both parties, all day long.

[Michael Batnick]

How many more executive actions do you think there are going to be between now and 2028?

[Josh Brown]

I don't know. One a day? Does that sound about right? Michael, what are you looking forward to?

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Funny. Should I ask? Not sure I'm looking forward. You know what? You were right. I'm looking forward to Daredevil ending. It wasn't a good season.

[Josh Brown]

Yeah. So you. But you got to finish it.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

The last episode was good, but it was trash.

[Josh Brown]

You said you were culturally pop. Culturally illiterate.

[Michael Batnick]

Completely. I have no idea what Daredevil is.

[Josh Brown]

Can you just take my word for it? If I give you a TV show to Watch.

[Michael Batnick]

Yes.

[Josh Brown]

Okay, Last of Us, Season two is starting on Sunday. There. No, seriously, I want you to do this. I want you to do this for yourself, not for me. I am.

[Michael Batnick]

I'm writing it down so I don't forget.

[Josh Brown]

Ok. This is where I am giving advice. I just rewatched season one, which aired in 2023. I'm telling you that it was the best pilot episode of any HBO show I can think of. And I've seen them all. That's number one. So it immediately sucks you in. It's not one of these things where people say to you, no, no, no, give it like six more weeks, you're gonna love it. I'm telling you, if you watch the first episode and you don't like it, that's it, you're done, you're out. We shall never speak of it again. But I rewatched nine episodes in the first season, and the next season comes out, starts this Sunday. I honestly think it's, like one of the best shows of the decade that we're now halfway through. Like, it could be top five, like.

[Michael Batnick]

As good as the Wire, because at.

[Josh Brown]

Its core, it looks like sci fi on the surface, but that's not what it is. At its core, it's about people who decide that their mission in life is to defend someone else or take care of someone else. That's what the story is really about. And interestingly, the official HBO podcast for the Last of Us is actually done by the showrunners, so it's not just like some fans geeking out. The guys come on immediately following the episode and they explain why they made the creative choices they made. So it's just a. It's a great overall user experience, viewer experience from start to finish. And I don't know if season two will be as good as season one, but, like, it's worth catching up and giving it a shot. So you gonna do that for me?

[Michael Batnick]

Yes.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

All right.

[Michael Batnick]

Thank you.

[Josh Brown]

I see you nodding. It's gotta be a top five show of this decade, right? Duncan, do we have you in? I never watched it, but.

[Michael Batnick]

But you will now.

[Josh Brown]

But hold on. As a vegetarian, it's about the vegetables taking over the earth. I feel like it's like, thematically, it's very on brand for you.

[Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington]

Yeah, it's not for you.

[Josh Brown]

It's not zombies. It's not fatal. It's fungus. Yeah, but the fungus controls the minds of the people, and that's how we get into the situation that we get into. So it's like a vegetarian feel. Good story, like, for all of us, a horror story. For you, it's a rom com. So all I'm saying is give it a. Check it out. Nicole. Last of us. Last of us. Can I tell you one other thing? One of the best soundtracks of any show on tv.

[Michael Batnick]

I can agree.

[Josh Brown]

Like, how sick is that Spotify playlist?

[Michael Batnick]

So good.

[Josh Brown]

It's like, all modern interpolations of, like, your favorite songs from the 80s. It's just. It's endlessly good. All right, that's it from us. I want to thank our special guest, Jenny Van Leeuwen Harrington of Gilman Hill and the new book Dividend Investing. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me catch her on cnbc. How many days a week are you doing?

[Michael Batnick]

Just one.

[Josh Brown]

Just one day a week. Okay. You and I should cross paths more.

[Michael Batnick]

I know.

[Josh Brown]

I'm gonna talk to Kevin about that. All right. Special thanks to the whole Compound crew. Thank you, Michael Batnik. Thank you to all the listeners. Thank you to all the viewers. We'll talk to you soon.

[Michael Batnick]

Thank you. That was so fun. I could do this every day with.