45 Million Rich Households (EP. 475)

11:13Michael Batnick:Anyway, I'll share more in the show later, but I did get food poisoning or some sort of stomach bug, so I threw up five times yesterday morning. It was horrendous. Projectile vomiting.

11:22Ben Carlson:Well, this 4p ratio looks like it's projectile.

11:25Michael Batnick:I didn't tell you, let me just finish why I even went on this tangent. You said, I said the word sober. So there's a scene in the Westies where they're drinking. And this is the Irish, you know, they drink a lot. And I was almost nausea. I almost had to fast forward. That's how sick I was. Like the look of the, watching them take shots at Jameson almost made me throw up again.

11:48Ben Carlson:Ah, that's a shot that never goes down smooth, Irish whiskey.

11:53Michael Batnick:Oh, come on. You and I have had plenty of shots of Jameson together, have we not?

11:55Ben Carlson:Yeah, but it never goes down smooth. That's what I'm saying. I love drinking it, but it never goes down smooth.

11:59Michael Batnick:Peg and Wessel before our next playoff game always goes down smooth. All right. All right, anyway, sorry. Back to the 4P.

12:05Ben Carlson:I was saying the 4P is also puking. It just keeps going down. And it's not like you can say, oh, stocks are so cheap. But I don't know. The 4P ratio is not that much higher today than it was on the Liberation Day lows. Then it was trading at 18 times forward earnings. Today it's 19 and a half. It's kind of unbelievable because the stock market is up how much since then? Quite a bit. Quite a bit. A lot, right?

12:29Michael Batnick:So Liberation Day lows as well as the war sell-off. Right.

12:35Ben Carlson:That was a thing that happened, right? For like a week?

12:38Michael Batnick:I don't know if this is more bullish or like, I think this is interesting. I don't know if there's like signal in here. For the, for PE falling? Yeah, I'm not going to look at this chart and pound the table on like further upside because the PE is coming down. I think the PE is coming down because the market is saying we don't believe the E. We don't believe that.

12:56Ben Carlson:Yeah, well, obviously, that's part of it with the memory stocks. I just think it's hilarious that for years and years and years, people have been saying the stock market is overvalued and now valuations are falling. It's just kind of interesting to me. Although I subscribe to the notion that for the market as a whole, valuations really don't matter. Unless we get to like a 50 PE, I don't think valuations matter anymore. They don't. They really don't. I know that sounds like heresy.

13:21Michael Batnick:Yeah, they don't though. They don't. Yeah.

13:24Ben Carlson:All right. IPOs. This is from Torsten Slock. IPOs have underperformed the market since 2019. This is a three-year buy and hold market adjusted IPO. So it takes the IPO and then compares it to what the market did. And every year, the IPOs are getting just slaughtered this decade. Just massacred. And I know people keep talking about the reason that we're not having more IPOs. I know we're having some big ones this year. But the reason all these companies are staying private longer is because of regulations and rules and there's so much private capital, blah, blah, blah. I think one of the other reasons is they know they're all overvalued.

13:58Ben Carlson:100%. And if they go public, it's just going to, oh my gosh.

14:03Michael Batnick:I'm so glad you said that. What a great point. This chart is an indictment on private market investors. It is.

14:09Ben Carlson:There was too much money that flowed in and valuations got taken way too high. And the public market said, uh-uh, nope. it's kind of crazy. Tartkid Matt and the team at Exhibit A they did this, the average IPO and I think they did this, how far back did they go? Oh, 99. The average IPO, it's kind of funny. It has a little pop, falls a little, then it comes up and then it just falls and then 12 months after the IPO, the average IPO is down 30%. 12 months after the IPO, which is kind of crazy. And he put SpaceX chart on here. And that huge pop immediately is up 50 percent now it's down 15 percent in total but it's down how much from the highs 45 or so and this thing's getting killed every day i looked at this it's down 14 out of the 18 trading days in july so almost every day spacex goes down wow this month it's pretty wild because everyone who said this thing is obviously overvalued was right almost immediately but now Not what happens.

15:10Ben Carlson:I don't know.

15:11Michael Batnick:Did you happen to listen to our episode with Ron Barron on TCAF?

15:15Ben Carlson:No, you know, my podcast consumption is in a bear market because on the weekends, I'm just outside the whole time. And I have to catch up during the week. Okay. So he's a Tesla guy. So he's obviously bullish on SpaceX. Is that fair?

15:29Michael Batnick:So he's an Elon Musk fan. He's a Musk guy. To say the least. Elon Musk made him$30 billion or him and his investors,$30 billion. I think I'd be a fan too. So what Ron Barron has been able to do, I think he has the number one performing mutual fund since 2003 or something like that. And like 95 % of his funds are in the top decile or something crazy. And a lot of it is due to his investments in Tesla. He's made 27 different investments in SpaceX. Anytime people wanted to cash out, he's like, great, I'll take it. So this guy's been along for the ride. He's a long, long-term investor. Right. He invested in Wynn for 27 years.

16:05Michael Batnick:like he is an unusual cat that he's able to stay invested in these companies for so long. He did say that he thinks SpaceX could 20 to 30 X over the next 10 to 15 years, which is a 30. So I, so all right, 20 X over the next 10 years is a 35 % CAGR at one and a half trillion dollars. It seems highly unlikely. So he's saying it's like in 30 years,

16:26Ben Carlson:it's as big as the economy is today. I mean, whatever.

16:29Michael Batnick:Crazy. Uh, yeah. Anyway, that was, an interesting conversation.

16:34Ben Carlson:Does he also think that Tesla and SpaceX are for sure going to merge? Because that seems to be the... He doesn't think so? I don't even think we asked him that.

16:41Michael Batnick:83 years old, sharpest attack. And you know what? You know what? One of my big takeaways from Ron Barron? He's 83? 83. Super sharp. The recall that he had, telling us stories about him growing up. He, like I, I don't know if you know this about me, huge eye contact guy.

16:57Ben Carlson:Okay. I can see that. I'm not a big eye contact guy.

17:00Michael Batnick:No, you're the anti. guy. When I am staring, when I am having a conversation, I am looking into somebody's soul. No, but I mean, that's, you have my attention. I look at, and he, he, uh, he challenged me. He was a, he, he was right in the center of my.

17:15Ben Carlson:You guys had a stare off. Okay.

17:16Michael Batnick:Yeah, no, it was just, I feel like we got to know each other from the eyeballs.

17:20Ben Carlson:And then you uncomfortably looked away. You had, someone has to look away.

17:22Michael Batnick:I think, I think he blinked actually. I gotta be honest. I think he blinked.

17:26Ben Carlson:All right. Uh, let's talk about something that everyone is bearish on, I think. And this is, when I say everyone, I know you always give me crap for that. But I had two, I think the consensus take now, you can correct me if I'm wrong here, from the pundit class, from the investor class, everyone is bearish on bonds right now. Is that fair to say? You would know better than I would. Okay. I'm in everyone. Okay. So I'm going to point out two conversations I had in the past week. And I've been hearing this same story everywhere. And I'm not saying these people are wrong. I'm just saying, I always feel a little uncomfortable when everyone is so consensus on something like this.

17:59Ben Carlson:So I talked to Urien Timmer last week for Asset Compound, and he says, listen, the biggest risks to the market right now, one of them is rising yields, bond yields. And that could, because inflation is high, and because the Fed could have to raise rates and all these things. And he's saying we're in an age of fiscal dominance. This whole idea of the rates falling for 40 years is over. Now it's inflation is going to be higher because of higher deficits, higher government debt, all these things, right? I went on this other local podcast last week,

18:27Michael Batnick:caveat emptor i think i said that right emptor uh mitch staple he's a guy he used to be the chief investment officer at fifth third bank now he works at this place in grand up it's called the

18:35Ben Carlson:red cedar uh investments and he kind of made a similar case as urian he's a bond guy he made the he's like listen inflation higher uh high you know anything long duration is gonna get smoked like this is not a great environment for that you have to keep your duration low and again i'm not saying these people are wrong i think they probably i would lean more towards them being right in terms of the higher inflation thing sticking and all this. But I just feel like with bond yields being so much higher, it would really surprise me five years ago if you said, or 10 years ago, if you said, listen, bond yields are finally going to be at 5 % and everyone's going to still hate bonds.

19:12Ben Carlson:Like what, that would have been surprising to telling someone that in the zero interest rate world that we lived in. Like, hey, yields are finally going to be juicy enough where people want to like, you know, get something finally and now everyone still hates bonds. That's surprising to me. Yeah. So what, in what, under what's it, what would have to happen for these people to be wrong? Just a recession? Is that it? That would do it.

19:35Michael Batnick:Well, I think, listen, you have to be an idiot to just completely dismiss those fears. I guess my question to them. I agree. My question to them would be rates have been high for a while, at least high by, by, uh, recent historical standards. what would it take for the risks to emerge because of higher yields? Is it the 10-year going to 5.5 % or is it just higher for longer is ultimately going to impair X, Y, or Z?

20:04Ben Carlson:The question I ask is, are you surprised that yields aren't higher given all the spending that's happening? And the answer was yes. It takes the market sometimes a while to adjust to the new environment and maybe the new yields should be higher, which obviously is not great for things like mortgage rates.

20:19Michael Batnick:Does it take the market a while to adjust? Or is this like the economy to adjust?

20:24Ben Carlson:Yeah, well, that's a good point too. But if you look at the bond market for the past five years, and I put this chart in here, I understand one of the reasons why people hate bonds is because they've just been so horrible. So I looked at the last five-year returns for bonds, total returns for the ag, which is a benchmark for almost everyone. And then that'll be a total index fund for most people in bonds. The three to seven year treasury bond, 20 plus year, then seven to 10 year. Right. And so over the past five years, the ag has essentially given you nothing. Same thing with three to seven year treasuries.

20:58Ben Carlson:Ten year treasury, seven to ten year treasuries, you've lost 8 % of your money in five years. Long term bonds, you got smoked. It's like 33 % down. And add inflation on top of that, it's even worse, obviously. So the fact that the, you know, the sentiment around bonds is bad, that makes sense. If you were looking at a lost five years for stocks, everyone would hate them too. So that part makes sense to me.

21:19Michael Batnick:Can I pull a bank Carlson here? Yep. Nobody just owns stocks. I mean, nobody just owns bonds. So if you look at returns of a 60-40 portfolio, probably still above average.

21:30Ben Carlson:Yes. Yeah, you're right. Stocks have done the heavy lifting. And I just think the fact that yields are so much higher just gives you a built-in margin of safety that you just didn't. We already took the biggest part of the pain. zero to five was an enormous amount of pain for bonds. So now it feels like if it's going to be painful, it's a death by a thousand cuts. Whereas before you got pushed off of a cliff.

21:52Michael Batnick:Yes.

21:53Ben Carlson:With no parachute. Yeah.

21:55Michael Batnick:Yeah.

21:56Ben Carlson:Yeah. The worst is behind us. Again, I'm not saying I disagree with these people. I'm just saying like, where could they, where could this consensus now opinion, it seems like consensus by a lot of very smart people. Where could that be wrong? All right.

22:07Michael Batnick:Let's talk about South Korea. This is, this is why. Let me just read this. Did you read this piece? This is really good. From Reuters. Lee Sung-ho watched the nearly 300 million won, which is around 200 grand fortune he built with a 500 % margin loan evaporated in just four weeks in May. But he plans to borrow again and return to the market the moment he has enough capital. Attaboy, Lee Sung. Attaboy. The 24-year-old South Korean university student in Seoul briefly turned the 20 million won he saved during the mandatory military service into a 15-fold windfall, all by tapping, quote, a tiny circle button on his trading app that instantly unlocked five times leverage.

22:46Michael Batnick:Violent swings in South Korean stocks triggered a cascade of forced liquidations by his brokerage, wiping out the gains. Within weeks, his account had fallen below his initial investment, leaving him under such strain that he said, I literally could not breathe. But I'm sticking to margin loans, Lee said from his studio apartment, barely larger than a parking space next to an empty Hibiki whiskey and unboxed electric fan gifted by his brokerage after he qualified as a VIP client. This is really good. What? Okay. Lee said, since stocks are volatile assets, that volatility, if it moves upward, allows for rapid wealth creation.

23:25Michael Batnick:If I add five times leverage, I can build wealth five times faster than the others. This guy, he's not the only person doing this. No.

23:34Ben Carlson:Legend. I love how they had to put him down by talking about how big his apartment was.

23:40Michael Batnick:Yeah, come on. Low blow, Reuters. Five times leverage? There was a data point going around a couple of weeks ago that there was 500 ,000 South Korean accounts that were liquidated. Do you remember what the number was?

23:54Ben Carlson:I don't remember the number, but they had to put some curbs on this stuff in South Korea in terms of the leveraged ETFs. And it sounds to me, this feels like crypto to me, where the crypto accounts just get taken out because the leverage is so high. I can't believe that they're allowing five times leverage for an account that size. for any kind of any, just by hitting a, that's crazy, right? Why not six times? But here's the thing, 10x that shit, why stop there? As these other countries learn about the stock market, and a lot of these other countries, I talked about this with Josh today, actually, where a lot of these other countries don't have nearly the ownership we have or like the institutional knowledge of the stock market because there's been just more time here to gain that knowledge.

24:34Ben Carlson:I think they're going to supercharge these cycles. Kind of like crypto, the crypto cycles all happen faster, right? the boom in the winter and the boom in the winter. I think that's going to happen with a lot of these individual countries as their young people learn the stock market. And I think eventually it's going to be a good thing for them. As long as they don't get totally blown out and are broke and have to declare bankruptcy.

24:56Michael Batnick:I don't know if I share your optimism with Lee Seung-ho.

24:59Ben Carlson:No? Okay. Well, the fact that he's going back for more leverage, obviously, that's not a great sign. But I do think that these other countries, because all the barriers to entry have been knocked down, getting involved in the stock market, that's going to be a huge tailwind for global stocks in the years ahead. Because if you look at the ownership ranking, like Japan, 15 % of the households own stocks versus 65 % here. That's a tailwind for global equities in the years ahead. And it's a tailwind for US equities too if they put money here. Don't do it five times 11, maybe. That'd be my only note.

25:33Ben Carlson:Great story, though. I really liked it. Okay, story in the Wall Street Journal. know, Blackstone rolls out new private market funds this time with Vanguard. I guess this is another. So this is new offerings for individual investors follow Exodus from private credit funds earlier this year. I guess this is another case of Jack Bogle rolling over in his grave, although people say that and he was against ETFs and ETFs are a massive part of Vanguard's business now. Yeah. Right. So they're going to do this through Wellington, which is actually where Bogle started. That's where he got his start. Remember, the Wellington funds have gone gone back forever.

26:06Ben Carlson:I'll be curious to see how this does with Vanguard. Do you think this is mostly institutions that will be doing it through Vanguard? Do you think this will actually be individuals?

26:15Michael Batnick:This is going to be offered through, I think the article said, for Merrill Lynch investors to start. Okay. So the story is, Vanguard will manage the indexed equity and indexed and active fixed income sleeves in the new all-markets fund. Wellington will provide active equity and liquidity management while Blackstone is managing all of the private assets. So a Vanguard spokesperson said, the reality is markets have changed. Because obviously they were asked about what Jack Bogle would think, who famously said, don't try and find the needle in the haystack, just own the haystack. So they said, the reality is the markets have changed.

26:54Michael Batnick:The haystack now includes private markets, which our clients today just don't have much access to. By getting involved, we aspire to lower the cost and complexity of investing in private assets over time.

27:05Ben Carlson:So this is like the first, this is the precursor to having target date funds eventually hold these, right?

27:10Michael Batnick:Yeah. Yeah. I think that's inevitable. And I think, I think it did say that Vanguard investors will eventually have access to this.

27:17Ben Carlson:Yeah. That makes, I don't know. I guess if you're going to do this, doing it so in a diversified manner like this makes sense. I don't know how they handle like rebalancing and such, but. I understand the argument that private markets are so much bigger now.

27:30Michael Batnick:Forget about just like the growth equity stuff. But private credit, infrastructure, there's a lot of, you know, the world doesn't look the way it did 40 years ago. All right.

27:43Ben Carlson:Let's talk the economy. I like this one from Carlisle Group. They talk about what the World Cup revealed about America. And they talk about people learning about the consumption habits here. There's some really interesting patterns here. Now, we talked in recent weeks about the fact that low mortgage rates for people really help their disposable income and their spending. 135 million U.S. households, 50 million own a mortgaged home, virtually all of which have been financed by long-term fixed rates. And so they're saying, like, that's a big hedge. And if you want to think about this in investment terms, I explained this to someone recently.

28:15Ben Carlson:Having a fixed-rate mortgage is like you're shorting the dollar. For all the people who say the dollar is going to decline forever and it's toast and you know what you want to do in that situation? you want to have a fixed rate mortgage for as long as you can because that's short the dollar. So they say measured by the current distance between rates on new mortgages, which is almost 6.5%, which is over 6.5%, and the effective rate paid on the outstanding stock of mortgages, so that's 4.3%. So you take everyone who has a mortgage right now and what's their average rate is 4.3%. You would be paying 6.5%, 6.6%.

28:44Ben Carlson:Disposable income among these households is$300 billion higher than it would have been if mortgage rates automatically reset to market levels as is common in other economies. So that savings, that's why so many people have been able to spend so much money. You locked in a low rate. Now, here's another one. This is really interesting.

28:59Michael Batnick:Speaking of World Cup, somebody sent us a video showing what people spent at the World Cup. And what you just mentioned, an excess, what,$300 billion? It all went to FIFA. By the way, I have no idea. Is FIFA the organization that gets the money? I don't know how that works.

29:16Ben Carlson:Well, yeah, they run the World Cup.

29:17Michael Batnick:Okay. That's where all the money went. Can I share this video with you? Did you watch this video, Ben? No, I did not. It's unbelievable. How much did you spend on your ticket? $50 ,000. $20 ,000. What do you do for a living? I'm a model. $30 ,000. What do you do for a living? I retired. Made a lot of money. $200 ,000. What do you do for a living? A PE. $30 ,000. $30 ,000. What do you do for a living?

29:39Ben Carlson:I'm a streamer.

29:40Michael Batnick:I've been to this since 2011. Not enough. There's no experience like the World Cup final. And what do you do for a living? I'm chairman CEO of the Kansas City Chiefs. I don't know. Friend gave it to me. What do you do for a living? We're philanthropists. What did you do? We used to own auto-trader. We bought SAP software to the tune of millions of dollars, and they invited us to the game. What do you do for a living? We make Welch's fruit snacks, which they're selling all over the place.

29:58Ben Carlson:No way. You're the owner of Welch's?

30:00Michael Batnick:Yes. What is your net worth? You can Google me. Got hooked up with a good friend. Do you know how much they would have cost? $30 ,000. What do you do for a living? You're an organic tick control. I'm a guest today. I didn't spend$1. What do you do for a living? Eight mile. Spend anything. I am. You invited me. What do you do for a living? I'm a consultant. Consultant. That's Chris Christie. We're really lucky. We're guest-in-for-living.

30:19Ben Carlson:What do you do for a living? I work for Google. $96 ,000. What do you do for a living? I'm a painter of houses. $73 ,000.

30:26Michael Batnick:All right, you get the point. Jeez. There are levels to this. There's people that make a good living. There's people that have assets. And then there's people that spend$96 ,000 and$200 ,000 to go to the World Cup. Jeez. Well, Ben, all from a fixed mortgage.

30:44Ben Carlson:That's right.

30:45Michael Batnick:That's where it came from. They locked in their mortgage, and they spent the difference on the World Cup finals. All right, listen to this one.

30:51Ben Carlson:The total outlays of 45 million U.S. households is equal to nearly 70 % of the entire Chinese economy. So they compare just the 45 million richest households in the USA.

31:01Michael Batnick:No, 45 ,000, you said?

31:03Ben Carlson:45 million households. That account to combine for nearly$15 trillion in annual outlays. it's equal to three times the size of the entire German economy, 70 % of GDP of China this is a third of the population and has not only been insulated from the inflation shock but also because of its prosperity to spend out of wealth and income it's showing how much we love to spend in this country essentially 45 million households is such a big amount it's not like the top 10 % it's the top third or something it's basically an economy unto itself it's a massive massive number think about how much bigger china is than us and this these 45 million households are almost as big as a chinese gdp

31:47Michael Batnick:it's pretty insane unbelievable all right so google reported earnings last week and i want to read you something that the cfo said which is emblematic of everything happening in hyperscaler ai world uh by the way my my um anchorman

32:07Ben Carlson:meme from last week or two weeks ago was kind of spot on. They're all turning on each other. I don't believe you. Open source versus closed source versus a fighting meme, right? They are all turning on each other. Yeah. And I have no, you always make fun of me for not taking a stance, but the whole open source versus closed source versus, I don't care. Okay? I really don't care. Is that okay to have a stance?

32:31Michael Batnick:Considering that you just discovered Apple Pay, I'm not surprised you don't have a stance on this.

32:35Ben Carlson:I don't care.

32:36Michael Batnick:Okay, she was asked about their CapEx because they raised it again. They just reported a negative free cash flow for the first quarter, I don't know if ever, but.

32:45Ben Carlson:I think it was the first time ever a negative free cash flow, yes.

32:48Michael Batnick:She said, we're still in a supply constrained environment. I think we've said this now for multiple quarters in a row. We are seeing very strong demand, both from external cloud customers as well as across the business. Our goal is to invest as long as we've seen an attractive return on that investment. As Sundar mentioned earlier, we do take a long-term view, So we take multi-year view at what the needs are, as well as focus on next year and the near term and building aggressively to meet those demands. As you've seen, while we have increased our capacity quite significantly over the past three years, the demand still outpaces that investment.

33:18Michael Batnick:We are, just like the rest of the industry, working in a supply-constrained environment.

33:24Ben Carlson:Stock's down almost 20%. Google is? It's down 18 % drawdown right now.

33:29Michael Batnick:They had a monster quarter. I was surprised at the degree of the sell-off. I think the cloud was up 82 % year over year. Revenue was up, what was it, 14%. YouTube was up 24%. Whatever. Maybe I'm getting the numbers a little bit wrong. But investors are starting to push back against all the spend. And the hyperscales are saying, we're still going. Right.

33:55Ben Carlson:We're not slowing down. How long does this game of chicken last? I don't know. Stock market dependent.

34:01Michael Batnick:I think we have a long way to go. I don't think that Sundar is going to say, oh, shit, our stock is down 25%. We have to completely change everything. I think if it's down 45%, yeah, that's different. But we have a long way to go. Yeah.

34:13Ben Carlson:I think 40 % is kind of line in the sand when you start going, okay, what are we doing here? I don't know.

34:19Michael Batnick:All right. Speaking of earnings, Blackstone was asked about B-Cred, obviously. They have$324 billion in the private wealth channel. Okay.

34:33Ben Carlson:That's a lot of money.

34:33Michael Batnick:A lot of money. And they said that redemptions were elevated in April and May and they're starting to slow down. We really haven't heard much about private credit in a while. Once the time Blue Owl has been in the news.

34:47Ben Carlson:This was bound to blow over just because it doesn't happen all at once. That's the thing with private markets. If it's going to be a train wreck, it's going to be a boring one.

34:56Michael Batnick:The only reason why I push back against that is because there's always defaults happening. And the media is so thirsty to report on this that you know things have blown over like when there hasn't been any reporting about it.

35:13Ben Carlson:Crazy thing is Blue Owl is still down 64 % from the all-time highs. Yeah, the stock hasn't bounced at all. Blackstone has bounced quite a bit.

35:21Michael Batnick:Do you still own any of these names? No. Because for a while you did, okay. No. You blew out. You know, it's funny. I was thinking about buying Blackstone back again today, but I do not. I do not, and I did not. All right, so -

35:31Ben Carlson:There are a lot of opportunities if you wanted to buy a blown out stock right now that it seems bizarre during a bull market. The amount of companies you can buy, they're down 30, 40, 50%. Pretty wild.

35:44Michael Batnick:Yes, and if you line item, the companies are getting blown up, there's all great reasons. Right, as usual. Right, like you wouldn't look at the stock and be like, well, why is Nike down 55 %? Right. Oh, we heard about that from people, which I had to represent a little.

36:01Ben Carlson:I got a Nike t-shirt on today. And credit to me, my kids are going to camp this week, so that's why we're recording early. Recorded Ask the Compound early, too. This is what a pro I am. I change shirts because I don't want to be wearing the same shirt in two videos as we got in the compound, right? Is that a pro or is that a pro? That's standard. That's a standard Tuesday for me, my friend. But I put an email in here. We don't have to read it. But everyone, a bunch of people told us and said, listen, Nike is not a thing for young people anymore. Young people have so many more options that it's just not the brand it once was.

36:31Ben Carlson:And that explanation, so many people made that point. Like it's just Gen Z, younger millennial people, Nike doesn't have a hold on them like it did older generations.

36:39Michael Batnick:Well, you know what? You and I, my friend, will be buying Nikes to the grave.

36:43Ben Carlson:It's still my favorite brand, I think. I love Nike. So I'm still representing and I just can't believe the stock's down 75%.

36:51Michael Batnick:Are you going to buy it?

36:54Ben Carlson:I did once and I blew out of it. I, no.

36:56Michael Batnick:Yeah, me either. Not interested. All right. This is good news. More executives are raising their estimates than maintaining or cutting them. So we're looking at something called the S &P 500 EPS guidance momentum score. And it is at the highest levels in as long as this chart goes back. It's been a great earning season.

37:13Ben Carlson:So this is why valuations are falling. But the funny thing is when valuations are rising, no one ever questions it. When valuations are falling, everyone questions it. Of course, valuations are falling, but that's because we can't trust the earnings. But when valuations are rising, people say, oh, or value the stock market is, people don't question it. Yep, they're right. Stocks are valued. Right, right, right, right.

37:36Michael Batnick:Here's another great chart from Exhibit A. We're looking at the quarterly earnings revision tracker for Q2, Q3, and Q4. And Q3 and Q4, these are estimates. Q2 is actual and estimates.

37:48Ben Carlson:This chart looks like Matt fat-fingered in an accident.

37:51Michael Batnick:Well, this is Google.

37:53Ben Carlson:it's all Google because, wow, that's crazy.

37:59Michael Batnick:So now in fairness, a lot of the EPS in Google is other investments and stuff, but still.

38:05Ben Carlson:So they took the estimated EPS up 10 % or so on their own, essentially. I don't know, whatever. That's a, it's a, it's a lot. Cause it went from 80 to 90 or something. Yeah.

38:15Michael Batnick:Wow. All right. More of the same in terms of what financial companies are saying about their customer. This is from Capital One. Shout out to the transcript for pulling this. The U.S. consumer and the overall economy will remain resilient despite the high energy prices and everything. When you pick up the news every day, one would think the world is falling apart. Unless if you listen to Animal Spirits. Did you say the world's falling apart? What?

38:37Ben Carlson:Oh, I got you.

38:38Michael Batnick:I got you. Took me a sec. Actually, the portfolio that the consumer continues to perform remarkably well. The unemployment rate in June was lower than in February before the tariff conflict began. Jobless claims remain low. Job creation has rebounded over the past few months. Here, here. Here's American Express. U.S. consumer spending was up 11%, the highest level of growth since Q1 2018. U.S. consumer spending was up 11%. Now, this is the upper end of the K. Right? You definitely put, the World Cup is definitely going on the Amex card.

39:12Ben Carlson:Oh, yeah, for sure.

39:13Michael Batnick:We continue to see good engagement from our younger customers, millennials and Gen Z, which make up the largest share of U.S. consumer spending, remained our fastest-growing cohorts this quarter. So check this out. So travel and entertainment was up 30 % year-over-year. No kidding. The World Cup is in here.

39:27Ben Carlson:Wait, did all those credit card companies bounce back? Remember the, it's been so long now, the Citrini report that software was going to end credit card companies? Is that a thing anymore? They didn't say it was going to end credit card companies. Remember, credit card companies got dinged on those. You don't remember that? That was part of it.

39:42Michael Batnick:I think credit card companies got dinged because everybody was going to be out of a job and credit quality was going to deteriorate. Okay. Anyway, yes, they have. Visa is ripping, so is MasterCard. But I thought this was interesting, and I want to ask you a question, Ben. So I love how American Express always breaks this down in terms of the year-over-year growth. So baby boomers are up 5%. They're not spending that much anymore. Gen X, 10 % growth. Millennials, 14%. Gen Z, up 40%. They're now 7 % of card spending. millennials and gen X are 31 to 36 % of the total pie baby boomers are 27%. Is income inequality even more pronounced for younger people?

40:29Michael Batnick:You see all these people, all these, all these videos, like the younger people at the world cup, and you see these 20 year olds spending$60 ,000. It feels like the have and the have nots are even more pronounced. Now I'm not a young person, so I'm making this up, but it seems like the, the, the haves and the have nots are even more pronounced for you, for people 25.

40:44Ben Carlson:It does feel like in the 2010s, coming out of the great financial crisis, it felt like everyone was on the same playing field.

40:50Michael Batnick:None of us had money.

40:51Ben Carlson:Everyone was on the same level. No one had money. Yeah, no one was bragging about how rich they got or that makes sense. I wonder, too, if part of this is just a low base effect of 40 % year over year where people start out low on their credit cards and they ratchet it up pretty quickly. But, yes, I do think that it seems like anecdotally, at least, I don't have the evidence behind this, that young people, there's never been a wider range of outcomes. where people down here are like, oh my gosh, I'm never going to be able to buy a house. And other people are making more money they ever thought possible at 25 or something.

41:20Michael Batnick:And obviously, Amex has broken through into this cohort of younger Gen Zers with money. 65 % of new accounts were acquired from millennials and Gen Zs.

41:31Ben Carlson:Jeez. So it's because they like all the credit card points. And Amex has a pretty decent card. And the lounge? Not me.

41:39Michael Batnick:You're an anti-lounge guy.

41:41Ben Carlson:Famous. Anti-lounge. Yes.

41:43Michael Batnick:All right. Well, hold on. In fairness, no offense to Grand Rapids, but do you guys have a lounge?

41:49Ben Carlson:Brand new. We're putting brand new terminals in. They put a brand new lounge in. A brand new terminal? Well, they're like extending these brand new. Yeah, they're like redoing the whole airport. New terminals are extending. Hope we get more flights because I'm sick of having all the layovers everywhere. But they put a new lounge in. Will I go use it? No. Oh, come on. No, because I live 10 minutes from the airport. I get up and I walk through. and I'm not going to wait at the airport forever. All right, speaking of, I'll go down to this. Visa did this report about the great wealth transfer. And we've seen this chart before, but Gen X and millennials are ahead of boomers on a per capita wealth basis at the same age.

42:24Ben Carlson:This is real inflation adjusted, net worth per capita by age. And this is just, it's hard to believe that we got to this place, especially coming out of the 2010s. So they show, people talk about this great wealth transfer. It's like$90 trillion or$100 trillion or whatever. it's just going to all go to rich kids. That's the thing. They show that 75 % of it or so is going to go to people in the top 10%. So all that wealth is getting, and they said, they looked at, and they said, if the$36 trillion being passed down, like take away charitable goods and taxes and all this stuff, it's going to be$36 trillion over the next 20 years.

43:02Ben Carlson:It said 28 of that$36 trillion will be saved, $8 trillion will be spent. So most of it is just going to go back right into portfolios and such. It's not going to be spent even. You know the meme like, there will be signs?

43:15Michael Batnick:As the boomers start to pass away, and the kids, the 50, 60-year-old hour periods that inherit the money, all of a sudden start buying cars and houses and boats. That's the thing.

43:29Ben Carlson:Or just that's their retirement plan. Well, that too. I asked my wife this about some friends recently. I said, do you think, we talk about finances. I think, do you think the life that they're living, Do you think their whole plan is that they're going to get money from their parents for retirement? Because that's my thought.

43:43Michael Batnick:My wife's like, why do you ask me this question? You mean because they're - What do you think about this stuff? The amount of money they're spending they can't be saving?

43:48Ben Carlson:Yes. Yeah. I'm like, do you think that their plan is like mom and dad dying when you reserve their money?

43:53Michael Batnick:Well, it's ironclad.

43:54Ben Carlson:People die. It's true. It's true. What's a better retirement plan than that? It's a really morbid, but it's like, when do you get the money? 50 or 70? Right? That changes things.

44:06Michael Batnick:that's no joke it could be a really ugly life for some people when they thought they were gonna you know when they have to like they're like my parents are still alive yes die already that's grim

44:18Ben Carlson:that's gonna be a Netflix movie someday yeah right killed my parents alright Lucas Shaw probably one of my favorite entertainment newsletters by far people still watch a lot of Netflix so he said people spend more time watching original series from Netflix than those of every other major streaming service combined. So Netflix for original programming still gets 57 % of streaming. The next highest is Prime Video at 11. It's kind of crazy because I think everyone agrees the quality of Netflix's original stuff just kind of is not great. It's in a major lull. They haven't had anything good in, really, really good in a long time, it feels like.

44:55Michael Batnick:The last decent thing I think I watched and I can remember was, what was the Rabbit Show? Was it Black Rabbit?

45:00Ben Carlson:Oh yeah, the Jason Bateman. And that was just fine.

45:02Michael Batnick:Beef season two was aight. It's been a minute since they produced anything remotely resembling quality.

45:08Ben Carlson:So listen, people spend a lot more time watching old shows and new ones. Viewers spend more time on reruns of TV shows than watching original TV, original film and old movies combined. Which I guess is like that was the old TBS and TNT strategy. Like in USA, you'd watch reruns of old. I watch Seinfeld every day. Netflix accounted for seven of the 10 most streamed films. And they were all originals. It's kind of crazy. This is interesting. The podcasts are off to a slow start for Netflix. shows are getting a few thousand viewers. That's not surprising. I feel like YouTube for podcasts is just a habit and it's tough to make new habits.

45:41What do you mean?

45:43Ben Carlson:So. Oh, because Spotify does video. Spotify does video now. Oh, so you're saying for a lot of people going to Netflix, it just doesn't, it's not a thing. It's not a thing. You don't have to. Who has Netflix that doesn't also have Spotify? But there's a lot of people who watch podcasts on YouTube though. And I don't think the audience is translating from YouTube to Netflix because it's an extra step. YouTube, I think, is easier.

46:06Michael Batnick:Is that fair? I think that's right. I was on the train the other night It still might work. I don't know. With Chris. And I spent 45 minutes just scrolling through Instagram. Unbricked, of course. And I said to Chris, this is why Netflix stock is down 50%. He said, what? I said, never mind.

46:23Ben Carlson:Because he was looking at his Instagram too? Well, he's not a stock market guy.

46:26Michael Batnick:But yeah, so the number of hours, viewed hours for Netflix is growing 1 % to 2 % a year. I'm telling you, man, Instagram, obviously TikTok too, just killing, just ruining our society. Just, it's a magnet for your, for your eyeballs. There's nothing more, there's nothing more fun than scrolling through the reels on Instagram.

46:50Ben Carlson:It is. There's never been more options to do stuff to keep your attention than today. There's, it's just so many options, but you're right. You do that for like 10 minutes and you go, you kind of like snap out of it. Like, what did I do?

47:02Michael Batnick:What

47:03Ben Carlson:All right.

47:04Michael Batnick:IMAX. Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey has broken the algorithm, notching our highest grossing second weekend in IMAX history with$48 million in global box office and only a mere 8 % drop from opening weekend. This standup performance propelled IMAX to a $54 million weekend, our third highest of all time, and takes the to-date QM on The Odyssey to$140 million, 22 % global indexing, which is 73 % ahead of Oppenheimer, which was at$81 million does at the same point. That's wild. Think about how big Oppenheimer was. This is 73 % ahead of Oppenheimer.

47:34Ben Carlson:Yeah, and Oppenheimer had the whole Barbieheimer thing behind it. The word of mouth, every person I've talked to that's seen is like, oh my gosh, you have to. The word of mouth on it is undefeated. I'm going to see it tonight.

47:46Michael Batnick:Okay.

47:47Ben Carlson:I'm excited for you. I'm going to see it this evening. I can't wait. I'm not seeing it at IMAX because there was no tickets.

47:54Michael Batnick:Dude, in New York City, they're doing a showtime at 2 a.m.

47:59Ben Carlson:That they're doing it. There was a 1.45 showtime and the only seats available were the very two in the very front. How?

48:04Michael Batnick:Who's going there?

48:06Ben Carlson:And it's still sold out for the next month or two. So look at this. So the market cap for IMAX is roughly two and a half billion dollars. It's still a relatively small firm. Like you could have a long runway on this stock.

48:16Michael Batnick:Well, I think they're going to get bought. Okay. By the way, that is not inside information or a hunch. Like there's been reporting. I think Bellino was reporting on this that they are, they are.

48:25Ben Carlson:Why would you have inside information on IMAX? Because you wear the hat? Or? where did you get that information from?

48:32Michael Batnick:Yeah, the hat comes with a little fortune cookie inside.

48:35Ben Carlson:All right. So Variety had, last week I said, why don't they just build more Amex theaters? Because it's impossible to get into. And a number of people have said, like, why don't they just charge more for these? Like, have it be a market. And people are spending$1 ,000 to see the Odyssey or something. But there's only 25, 70, what do you call it? Millimeter screens? What do you call it? 70 whatever screens that he shot on. And that's when they say you have to watch it. There is one in Grand Rapids. Oh, wait, hold on. Because that's what he shot the movie with. Okay. But there's like 25 of them in the US.

49:04Ben Carlson:I think there's 45 globally. One of them is in Grand Rapids. And it was built in 2001. And so it's like, why don't they have more? And here's what they say. Sources at IMAX confirmed a variety that many of the parts needed to build these specialized film projectors were simply no longer exist. The original design files were created roughly half a century ago, but they were never properly maintained. As a result, IMAX no longer has complete manufacturing blueprint. And much like the lost tribal knowledge of the Apollo Aero spacecraft, very few engineers working today fully understand the systems.

49:32Ben Carlson:If AI can't figure this out, what are we building it for? AI, start working on this now. Give us more IMAX screens. Come on, Claude. What are you doing? Right? How can this honestly be the case?

49:47Michael Batnick:They lost the blueprints? Yeah, this technology from the 1990s, we can't... What? You can't reverse engineer this? Yeah, yeah, that's what I was looking for. Thank you, man. What the heck? Unbelievable. I'm going to see it in a nice lounge.

50:02Ben Carlson:I got the Dolby at least where I could feel the, you know, whatever. I might, they might cut off this much of the screen. I'll be okay with that.

50:08Michael Batnick:Yeah. Now listen, I haven't seen IMAX. I had a great time. But I really want to see it in the IMAX, but I have to wait till September, I suppose. Yeah. Okay. So we had a retirement party at RWM on Friday. Tony and Dina Isola. so Tony and Dina joined us in, were they here before you or did they come right after you?

50:34Ben Carlson:It was not long after me. There was like a cascade of people that happened in the next six months after me or something.

50:38Michael Batnick:So 2015.

50:39Ben Carlson:Yeah. Great advisors, even better people. What was the name of Tony's original blog that we had to be like, you have to change it. It was like malice for all. Yeah, malice for all.

50:48Michael Batnick:So Tony and Dina joined us. We were, they were here. I don't know what they were, the 11th, the 12th employee, whatever it was. They were first 15. We're now 90 people, something like that. And they have an incredible story. So Tony was a social studies teacher. Is that right? Yeah, he was a history teacher for, I don't know, 20 years. So I think Tony started on Wall Street, hated it, said these are not my -

51:14Ben Carlson:He was a commodities trader, yeah.

51:15Michael Batnick:Yeah, these are not my people. I want to go do something meaningful in this world. So he went to be a history teacher. And I think he did that for 15 or 20 years. In the city too. Okay.

51:26Ben Carlson:Yeah, New York City was a teacher.

51:28Michael Batnick:And Tony could not believe the rampant abuses being heaped on the teachers, the unsuspecting teachers buying all of these high-priced, horrible financial products for their retirement accounts. And at one point in time, Tony said, I got to do something about this. I found my second calling. So him and Dina, and they had been advising people casually about common sense investing, index funds, buy and hold, that type of stuff. He said, I got to make a difference in this world. I got to do it again. And so Tony and Dina started an official business and they started taking on clients and their mission was to save the teachers.

52:09Michael Batnick:So Tony's blog, Malice for All, which is obviously insane, came from a good place where he said, I will not let this shit stand. Not on my watch. Over my dead body. Are you going to sell these people variable annuities?

52:20Ben Carlson:I think for a while, they were running a financial advisor firm at night while he worked during the day. And then finally, had enough people come over to be like, all right, we can do this as an actual business. So yeah, right. It was a total labor of love. It's a really cool story.

52:33Michael Batnick:So anyway, we threw this party for Tony and Dina, and it was really lovely. They're just incredibly wonderful people. And Tony, in his wise words, said to me, your money is growing and your time is shrinking in terms of why he wants to move on to the next chapter of his life. And I just love that. Your money is growing. Your time is shrinking. Yeah, he said he wants to enjoy his time now.

52:56Ben Carlson:They're in their 60s. He wants to enjoy retirement and do it now while he's healthy. And yeah, great people. Crazy that we have people at our firm that are retiring, though.

53:04Michael Batnick:Yeah. Yeah. Been doing this for a minute, Ben.

53:08Ben Carlson:I guess so. All right, story time. My kids went to, there's a place in town here called Michigan's Adventure. It's like a, it's not Cedar Point size. it's like half of that. So they got some roller coasters. They actually have the biggest, largest wooden roller coaster in America.

53:25Michael Batnick:Get out. Which is not very confidence inspiring.

53:29Ben Carlson:Like you look at all these old boards and you're like, how is this thing staying together? So anyway, my wife took them there. I worked during the day and she said, hey, the park stays open until eight o 'clock. Meet us there at five and surprise the kids. So I surprised the kids at the half roller coasters and stuff, half water park. So I met them at the water park and then I'm going to go, oh, we'll go ride some roller coasters with them at the end of the day. And so did that. And one of the things you learn about water parks is that I swear at water parks, 50 % of the parents have tattoos now.

53:56Ben Carlson:On their legs. This was not a thing when we grew up. Parents did not have tattoos. Maybe like someone had a dad who was in the Navy who had like the anchor on his arm or something. Right? And it was like really faded. But this is the thing now that you notice that like all the parents have tattoos. It's kind of shocking how many there are. I guess it's just a way to express yourself now. Interesting. Anyway, we go on this big roller coaster. Again, it's the biggest wooden roller coaster in the world. And it doesn't look like it would be that hard, but it's like big drops, you know? And it's straight.

54:25Ben Carlson:It's all it is is up and down. It's way faster than it looks. It's called like Shiver My Timbers or something. And my son George and my daughter Libby. No. Get it, Tim? Yeah, that's great. My son George and my daughter Libby are sitting in front of me. And you've seen the videos of people on rides where they pass out and their whole body goes limp. Like this, you know? Every drop, George passed out. and he'd go to the drop, he'd pass out and then he'd wake up and he'd put his hands in the air and he'd pass out and he'd put his hands in the air. Wait, are you saying like literally?

54:56Michael Batnick:I don't know what you're talking about.

54:57Ben Carlson:You've never seen those videos of someone passing out on a ride before? Like the ones that shoot you up in the air and like the adrenaline or the blood flow to your head or something makes you pass out. His whole body went limp and he passed out. This happens to people. Holy shit.

55:10Michael Batnick:I thought you were like, I thought it was a metaphor. Were you freaking out? No, it was hilarious.

55:14Ben Carlson:This happens to people. Okay, I've never seen that before. And I'm like, Libby, grab it. And she thought he was kidding. I'm like, no, his body was literally limp. But then he'd wake up and he'd put his hands back in the air and smile. He had no idea this was happening. No clue.

55:26Michael Batnick:Unbelievable.

55:27Ben Carlson:Yeah. So after every ride now, he's like, you have to make sure I don't pass out. All right, I'll watch it. All right, recommendations.

55:34Michael Batnick:I had no idea. All right, so as I mentioned at the top of the show, I'm like about 80 % better. I'll be 100 % better tomorrow. We had visiting day on Sunday. um woke up at five in the morning was on the road at six visiting day started at uh 10 which is

55:49Ben Carlson:totally not visiting day one time of summer is it multiple times one time of summer okay all right

55:54Michael Batnick:so it's a it's a seven week camp and you visit them i guess it's four four weeks into it and it was it was great it was uh it was really really nice uh had a great time i uh kobe told robin And then he wants, oh, actually, let me ask your opinion on this. He told Robin in confidence. There was a secret I couldn't hear. Right. He wants cologne.

56:18Okay.

56:19Michael Batnick:So we are actually going up again next weekend, which I'm annoyed. He's nine years old? He's nine years old. I'm going up next weekend for rookie day for Logan. So I said to the director, I said, dude, come on. You have my kid for seven weeks. You're going to ruin two of my weekends? You're taking two of my weekends? Right. So we're going up next week for Logan. What is a starter cologne? I have no idea. I've been out of the game for a while.

56:43Ben Carlson:I'm not a... I stopped wearing cologne probably after college. I don't know. I don't know.

56:53Michael Batnick:I knew you were the wrong person to ask.

56:54Ben Carlson:Can I tell you something? Like an Acco Dujo or something, or maybe even like an Abercrombie one for him or something just to get him started.

57:01Michael Batnick:I love cologne. And I don't mind... I like when people smell good. I don't really wear cologne myself. I do it once in a while. I don't mind it either.

57:06Ben Carlson:I feel like that's the kind of thing you stop once you get married, right? No more clowns if you get married.

57:10Michael Batnick:I wear it like here and there from going out maybe. Anyway, I have to buy my clowns.

57:14Ben Carlson:So do you think he ran into other kids who, Duncan says, get him some brute. That'll put hair on his chest.

57:21Michael Batnick:So Bobbin told me, and I asked him a few minutes, I said, hey, Kobe, you have any girlfriends? He said, he's like, no. He said, but I'm going to prom. I said, oh, who are you going with? He goes, I don't know. I don't know her name. I said, what do you mean you don't know her? He was, I don't know. She just, I said one word to her. I said, what word did he say to her? And she asked if he wanted to go to prom with her. And he said, I said, sure. And I said to her.

57:45Ben Carlson:This is a camp thing. They have prom at camp? Camp thing. Okay. He doesn't know where to do it. So that's why he wants his cologne. Yeah. I don't know. Start him off with deodorant first, maybe? Then cologne? He doesn't need deodorant. He's. But I'm saying if you.

57:58Michael Batnick:Anyway. Yeah. So that was Sunday. Drove home. Went to sleep. On Monday, I woke up at 5.50. My brain just woke up, and I walked to Starbucks. And I was actually happy I woke up early because I had a lot of work to catch up on. Friday was a retirement party. Saturday, I was out all day. So I felt like I had some things to catch up on. One, spent a couple hours before we went to the beach doing some work. So I was happy. Took a walk to Starbucks and got outside, and I just felt my stomach turn. And I ran into the bathroom. Projectile vomited. Now I made it into the toilet. but it was really weird and I felt better.

58:35Michael Batnick:I didn't really think anything of it. I just thought maybe I just ate something funny. Came home, laid in a lounge chair, and I took my AirPods out. I did my case with me. I just put my AirPods on the top of my phone. Rue, my one and a half year old boxer, went to get my AirPods. And before I could react, she hit one of them, bounced onto the ground right into the bottom of the pool. Oh. So that's my 11th pair of AirPods, I suppose. Could be 15 at this point. Just chewing through AirPods. And at that moment, I felt my stomach turn again, ran inside, and more projectile vomiting. And at that point, I said, I don't feel good.

59:17Michael Batnick:I'm going to go lie down. So over the next hour or two, I threw up two more times. So I threw up four times between 6, 30, and I guess around 11.

59:26Ben Carlson:I thought you were looking a little more slender there.

59:28Michael Batnick:You know what's funny you should say that? This has been a really poor diet summer for Michael, like all other summers. And I went on the scale yesterday, or today, and I had to lose some weight, right? I didn't really eat anything. Just been throwing up. Nothing. How is it possible? Not even a single pound. It's impressive. Anyway, why am I oversharing all of this? Because I was in bed yesterday and I got to do some watching. Now, I was so tired yesterday. Just drained. and I didn't even feel sick. I feel okay. I'm just tired. I slept like 20 hours in bed yesterday, but I did watch a few things.

1:00:05Michael Batnick:I tried to throw on, I tried to throw on Masters of the Universe, the He-Man movie.

1:00:11Ben Carlson:I watched it with my kids this weekend. My kids loved it.

1:00:14Michael Batnick:Okay.

1:00:16Ben Carlson:Loved it. I couldn't make,

1:00:18Michael Batnick:four minutes into it,

1:00:19Ben Carlson:I said, no. It's, yeah. I was in and I probably watched half of it with them because I grew up on He-Man. Of course. I have the power. It felt to me like it was one of those Thor movies. It felt like a Thor movie. They kind of like poked fun, but it was also out in some other dimension. My son, he loved it. Can't wait for number two. Loved it. All right.

1:00:40Michael Batnick:Well, anyway, I got four minutes in and I said this is definitely for George.

1:00:43Ben Carlson:It's a kid movie.

1:00:44Michael Batnick:This is for George, not for me. I also made it about 25 minutes into Mortal Kombat 2. Also just really bad. Not quite as bad as... Not surprisingly. All right. I did watch a full movie. I watched Pressure. Pressure is with Brendan Fraser, plays Ike Eisenhower.

1:01:03Ben Carlson:Oh, it's a D-Day one, right?

1:01:04Michael Batnick:Yeah. So this is a true story. Apparently, we won the war because we had better meteorologists. At least that's what legend, that's what they say in the movie. So the movie is about the 72 hours leading up to D-Day, and one meteorologist is battling another meteorologist. Should we or should we go? Because weather conditions have a lot to do about, you know, when you're storming the beach. And this is a great sick in bed movie.

1:01:31Ben Carlson:That, to me, sounds like they've run out of World War II ideas.

1:01:34Michael Batnick:No, dude, this is very good. Okay. It's a very good movie. A great sick in bed movie. Maybe an airplane movie, but might be too boring for that. Under no other circumstances of what I watch this, because it's not exactly the most riveting concept, but it was effective. They did great. And that was about it. Other than that, I just slept all day. But I forgot to mention this. Last week, I watched... Tuner. You're familiar with this? No. So Tuner is sort of, it felt like a Safdie Brothers movie because it was sort of chaotic, like Uncut Gems a little bit. Okay. And it was sort of like, it reminded me of Panic Room a little bit.

1:02:13Michael Batnick:Not quite sure why. Okay. Maybe because there was break-ins. Anyway, Dustin Hoffman is in it. Very random. It's about a guy that has like this special supersonic hearing. And so he could break into safes because he could hear like the click, click, clicks.

1:02:29Ben Carlson:I'm interested.

1:02:30Michael Batnick:Pretty good.

1:02:31Ben Carlson:Yeah, pretty fun. What's it on?

1:02:32Michael Batnick:Pretty fun. I think I rented it on Prime.

1:02:34Ben Carlson:Okay. All right. My wife and I watched Disclosure Day this week. Did you see it at the theater? No, because Josh ruined it for me. Josh said it was terrible. It's the kind of movie that you'd be glad you didn't see it in the theater. So it's got a 6.6 on IMDb, and I think that's being generous. and I didn't hear a lot of, the preview made it look awesome. Like if you just watch the preview, you'd go, oh, this is very interesting. It was just, the movie was kind of a mess. Like it starts out and it's just like it feels you're in the middle of a movie and then there are some parts where you go like, oh, that's interesting because it's an alien movie and it's just, it has a great cast.

1:03:11Ben Carlson:It's got Emily Blunt, who I love. It's got the guy who plays Prince Philip or Prince Charles in the, I can't remember his name. it's got Colin Firth and all these different people. Great cast. And it felt like a Netflix movie. Like, it felt, it was just very, yes, that's the best I can say. It was very disjointed and it got done. My wife and I were like, phew.

1:03:33Michael Batnick:Wait, hold on. Let's not gloss over the fact that this is not a Netflix movie. It was actually done by quite a famous director.

1:03:41Ben Carlson:Yes. And you know what? I think I'm going to give, this is his Jordan on the Wizards. I'm going to pretend like it didn't happen. All right? This is Michael Jordan on the Wizards. Didn't happen. Oh, man.

1:03:50Michael Batnick:I'm not even going to watch it.

1:03:53Ben Carlson:Nah, it was quite bad. I just, even like the... Yeah, I was really... Again, there's parts where like, oh, that's kind of interesting, but it was all over the place, and it just hit with... Five minutes into the movie, I go, oh, no. Oh, no. You can just tell. Oh, no. I had to watch the whole thing. Listen, he gave us Jaws and Indiana Jones. I'm not going to fault him. And I think that's why there wasn't a lot of critical pushback on the movie. Because he gets a free pass. And I'm okay with that. The guy gave us Jaws. E.T. E.T. He gave us E.T. Close encounters. Jurassic. This was probably like a 5.9 in Ben's scale.

1:04:38Ben Carlson:Just poof. This one you'd go, man, I'm so glad I didn't see that one at the theater. Some movies you have to see at the theater. This one you did not. You know who I am seeing tomorrow? What's that?

1:04:47Michael Batnick:I'm very excited. If for nothing else, because of my love for I Love You, man. Going to see Rush. Wait, what's that? The band.

1:04:57Ben Carlson:Oh.

1:04:59Michael Batnick:Oh, okay. The scene where they go to the concert. Yeah. And he's licking his bass or whatever. Yeah.

1:05:09Ben Carlson:I didn't know Rush was still... Is it the deal where half the band's really dead and they've replaced them?

1:05:14Michael Batnick:The drummer's dead.

1:05:15Ben Carlson:Who knows? Okay. I don't know.

1:05:17Michael Batnick:But I'm very excited. All right.

1:05:20Ben Carlson:Good stuff. All right. You did it.

1:05:22Michael Batnick:Credit to me. We don't miss shows. That's just not what we do here. We show up.

1:05:28Ben Carlson:And every three months, Michael has a flu game.

1:05:31Michael Batnick:Stop it. I'm relatively healthy for a pretty unhealthy person.

1:05:35Ben Carlson:Every time this happens to you, you say you never get sick. Duncan's going to back me up here. You had this three months ago where you were in bed for 24 hours again. I did have the flu this winter. I did. All right. It happens to the best of us. I think we need to ask for cologne recommendations for your son. I think like an Acqua Di Gio. You know what's a really good one? I believe it's pronounced Acqua Di Gio. Maybe. You know what's a really good one that you wouldn't think? Is that the Johnny Depp one, whatever his one is. Sauvage or something. It smells really good. Okay.

1:06:11Michael Batnick:You said you haven't worn a cologne since college.

1:06:14Ben Carlson:Get back into the game. I'm telling you, try it. The truth comes out. Do it.

1:06:19Michael Batnick:All right. Out of the spirits at the compound news.com. Personal emails, personal responses. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.