So Bearish It's Bullish (EP.409)

23:16But it's not just about the market. It's like people's, people planning, small businesses would be able to figure it out. All right. So Fed Woj says Trump is laying the groundwork to blame Powell for any downturn. Of course. The analogy I made on this is my son was going to pour himself a bowl of cereal. He's getting pretty self-sufficient about feeding himself, but he always spills the milk. And then he kind of spills the milk and looks at me and is like, hey, are you going to clean this up? And finally, hey, dude, no, you clean it up. It's your mess. Trump tweeted, with these costs trending so nicely downward, just what I predicted they would do, there can be almost no inflation.

23:55but there can be a slowing of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser lowers interest rates now. I'm sorry. This is beneath the office of the president, like tweeting, calling the Fed share a major loser, whatever. But Warren Paz was talking about this with Josh and I, the overnight rate should not be four and a half percent. They should be cutting. And I understand that Powell is probably not thrilled to do anything that might even look a little bit political. And he's certainly not looking to get bullied by the president. But Trump's not entirely wrong in terms of like where rates should be.

24:37They should be lower. Yes. And the Fed's in a tough spot because they're thinking about the tariffs being inflationary. But I agree with you that the risk to disinflation and deflation is way higher than inflation. Even if – like we could get a scenario where for three months or so it looks like stagflation when we get the initial price rise from tariffs. But I still think deflation is by far the bigger risk here. So we spoke last week. The one-year look at inflation expectations skyrocketed. So it's weird to be cutting in that sort of scenario. But they're probably going to be – probably. Might be short-lived.

25:11This was counterintuitive. I was listening to somebody on Derek's podcast talking about – I think they're a toy company. he said like what if the tariffs are so bad that they put businesses out of uh business and they have to just sell all inventory and just dump it on the market prices right and paradoxically that would lower prices yeah and the thing about paul too is that he's not been perfect but he's i think he's trust trump's best appointee he's made by far people forget people forget Powell is actually conservative. And so Tim Moros wrote, by Trump's account, Powell worked to help Biden during his term and is now unwilling to provide the same support in his own second term agenda.

25:53Does he not remember the fact that Powell raised rates from zero to 5 % and literally said he wanted to put people out of jobs? Powell is not a political person. He will do what he thinks is right. Sometimes that's not always right, but I think Powell was going to get some satisfaction being the one who comes in and saves the day, though. In terms of cutting rates? Like, just saying, like, this is not my fault, people. I'll come in and help you. Fine. He's not going to say that. He doesn't talk like that. No, but he's thinking that. Oh, yeah. Don't you? To him, he's got to be thinking, like, why are we doing this?

26:24You're ruining my soft landing. What are you doing? I had it. I bet he wishes he just retired. All right. Moving on to the stock market. This year feels like every other day or week we get a the worst blank since. So this is from the Wall Street Journal. Dow headed for the worst April since 1932. I don't know if you can really make anything out of like the worst month since. What do you mean headed for? Like, are they like extrapolating? Like if this continues? Well, no, it's down. So I looked, the S &P is down 8 % this month. So I think it's saying if that held. Right. That would be the worst since 1932?

27:00No way. Yeah, but the worst April. So part of this is just the month we're talking about, right? So, but 8 % down month is not great, but it's not like it's completely out of the realm of possibility. You know, the market's pretty smart. If you look at how individual companies are behaving, look at Delta, for example. The stock, was that an all-time high? Yeah, stock hit an all-time high, I believe, in January. Oh, my God. In January, was at$70. Four months later, it went to as low as under$35. Wow. So, like, oh, yeah. Look at that. That chart is straight down. The economy is going to slow. Airline travel is slowing.

27:44Amex mentioned that at their call. And so this is the thing. It's like, oh, I should probably avoid airline stocks. Well, they crashed in two seconds. 40 % drawdown, and it was almost 50%. Holy smokes. And again, it went from an all-time high. Like, the market moves so quickly and digests these things. Yeah, which is going to happen the other way out, too. So as of the close on Monday, recording this Tuesday, morning the S &P was down more than 16 percent the Nasdaq 100 was down almost 20 and the Russell 2000 was down 25 percent the thing is if you hold on are you talking year to date or from the highs this is from the highs okay if you zoom out a little bit this is over the last year it's kind of crazy so gold is up 42 percent crushing everything bitcoin is still up 36 percent over a one-year period IFA is up 10 percent the aggregate U.S.

28:35ag is up six percent over the past year. The only thing that's down is the Russell 2000, which is down 4 % over a year. Now, obviously you say, of course, Ben, in 2024, stocks were up 20%. Everything was good. My whole point is this is still relatively mild. Yes, it is. The pain has not been felt yet. So I don't know if this is good or bad. To all the worse since 1932, this is, that's my thinking. Because you're exactly right. We were up, I keep saying this, 20 plus percent back-to-back years. And we're down, I mean, all right, we're back to where we were in 2024. Yeah, we're just working off some of that.

29:08So this is relatively mild. But is that bullish or bearish? Ask me a year. It's got to be one of them. Lisa Bromix tweeted, the S &P is underperforming the MSCI All-Country World Index, World X-US Index, by the most in 32 years. Wild. So this is on a monthly, on a monthly performance spread. It's, wow. This is another one of those, we always wondered what the catalyst would be for international stocks. It's so bizarre that it was like the make America great again president. Yes, has made international stocks great again. But this is the whole asset allocation quilt that I always lean on, that you can never guess what the top performer is going to be.

29:56Who could have possibly foreseen something like this happening? That Trump would be bearish for America. Yes. And I, so there was a - Even, listen, half the country didn't vote for him. But I think even that group of people would say, I didn't expect him to tank the stock market. No. There was a story in The New Yorker yesterday. They were interviewing anonymously Wall Street people and how they've turned on him. And they're kind of like, I really did think we were going to get him from the first term. Like, not exactly the same performance, but that sort of thing. And if you're getting mad right now listening to us and you're like, what are you talking about?

30:33I knew he was going to crash the stock market. No, you didn't. Yeah. You're lying to yourself. Yeah. No one thought this. I don't know if this is worrisome or bullish. We are on the fence today, Ben, firmly on the fence. All right. So the flight out of dollars. Again, I'm so bearish, I'm bullish. The flight out of dollars, interest rates high, stocks down, international stocks up, gold flying as a losing faith in the dollar. but also for the first time really ever. And it's, you know, it's two days, whatever it's actually, it's a week. Bitcoin is actually decoupling. Yes. Like look at Bitcoin over the last five days compared to the market.

31:15I think I have a chart in here. It's even, it's even more pronounced now. So, all right, this was as of yesterday, it's even more pronounced now. Bitcoin up 5%. NASDAQ 100 down 5%. Gold also up 5%. The dollar down 1%. So Bitcoin is about at$90 ,000 this morning. Is it, so is Bitcoin following the gold? story in terms of people losing confidence and it's just maybe a chaos hedge? Or is Bitcoin the first to recover because it's like a flight to liquidity and the market's about to rip? So I thought this was a really interesting theory by Ben Eifert. I don't know if it's true. He says, because Joe Weisenthal had a tweet that showed Bitcoin and the NASDAQ 100 have decoupled.

31:54Because for a while, it was risk on risk off and that Bitcoin followed tech stocks, essentially. Now it's decoupled. And Ben Eifert says, Bitcoin is NASDAQ denominated in a basket of global currencies, not USD, and USD is collapsing. So he's saying it's a dollar thing. So he's saying that it's the gold story. Yes, because if this is a global asset and the dollar is going down, then yeah, Bitcoin. So it is having some gold tendencies, which is maybe the first time this has ever happened for Bitcoin. Yes, it is. It's a short-term thing, so we don't know, but... No, but it's pronounced. It's interesting.

32:26Because historically... Bitcoin would be, with the way the market's behaving, Bitcoin would be at$60 ,000 or lower. Right. Or maybe it's front-running the bounce that's going to come in the market. I hope so. I hope that's the case. Getting back to the market, a little more levity. Like, I looked at the ag this year. So people are worried about rates streaming higher, right? And TLT, I know, has come in. But the ag, the Barclays ag or Bloomberg ag or whatever is up 1.5 % this year. So most of that is probably yield, I guess, at this point. But it's not like bonds are getting crushed in this environment, even though yields have been going higher for the last month or so.

33:04In the grand scheme of things, like things are still OK. I think when people are saying that like the bonds aren't working as a hedge, they're zooming in way too much. Because on a day-to-day basis, there has been days where stocks and bonds got crushed together. But to your point, zoom a little bit out and it's not that bad. Yes. And back to the fence-sitting thing, is this a good thing or a bad thing? It could always get worse, but hey, it's actually not as bad as you think. We don't know. This is what makes it hard. Yeah. Good chart from Adam Parker. Median gross margin.

33:39Ex-financials and real estate through the end of March 2025.

33:4645%. Near an all-time high. Companies are going to be just fine. Companies have a margin of safety. corporations are going to be fine that's right large corporations small businesses are going to get unfortunately i mean i'm sure there's going to be a handful of small businesses who are going to be like the forest gump boat with the shrimp boat that are going to be fine like through all the wreckage they are the ones who there's going to be some places that'll do fine and i want to say do fine i mean like they're going to come out of this fine they might get crushed if margins go from 45 down to 38 like the stocks will get destroyed yeah but it's not going out of business They have a margin of safety.

34:25I continue to believe that. Corporations will figure this out eventually. All right. So this is going to either look really smart or really dumb. Record influx into leveraged long ETFs,$6.6 billion last week. Whoa. Everyone's buying the dip. We'll see. It's worked. That's the thing. People, every time the stock market has fallen like this, it's worked. so I understand it. Some people look at this and go, oh man, they're going to get killed. There's no signal here. I don't think so. Would you rather see people fleeing them? I don't know. These are also degenerate gamblers, right? I think it's also like hedge funds.

35:09It's$6.6 billion. It's not just degens. True. All right. Beltrunas has the Safety Dance Index, which is gold, treasuries, and low-vol stocks, showing one of the highest readings in April. First real sign of nerves in ETFs flows. Okay, that makes sense. I also think like, this is very hard because it's like, on the one hand, people are freaking out. On the other hand, like, you know, we're barely up. I mean, we're 20 % off the highs and we're still up so much. It could go so much lower. People are really worried. And like, I always think that, you know, the - Some people are really worried. How's that?

35:48Investors are really worried. who said this was it um oh my god i'm drawing a blank on his name come on you old idiot bill miller he was asked like what do you worry about and his answer is maybe too cute but i i i ascribe to it ascribe to it subscribe to it i like it he said uh like really nothing because the market does all the worrying for me Right. The market doesn't underreact. Although I guess you could say it was underreacting in February and March. But in general, I let the market do the worrying for me. What else can you do, right? So Yao Finance has one that's showing it's not just to leverage long ETFs.

36:30This is retail purchases of US-listed stocks and ETFs. This is from Van to Track. And it took off this month. Tons. And right when the market started falling, a ton more people started to buy the dip. and the buying has increased, like way higher than it was for the previous 12 months. So my question is, who's selling? So it has to be all institutional selling with the big money? Yeah, I think it's... Because retail's buying, institutions are selling. I think it's hedge funds. Well, or the big, huge endowments, foundations, like all the big, huge pools of capital, they're the ones selling. So who's going to look like the idiot?

37:03The people stepping into the pain to buy or the big behemoths who are selling? It's called the risk premium because you have to stomach the pain. It's not called the sell and you'll feel better and then you get back in at lower prices premium. It doesn't work that way. I know markets are moving faster than ever, but this whole ordeal really has been going on for a month now. This last week was weird for me because my kids were off and I worked. So it was a long week. I feel like time was weird last week for me. Well, that was me on spring break too. Yes, it's... I feel like our last podcast was like a year ago.

37:43A lot has happened. If you sell now, when do you buy back? You know what would suck? If like 2022 was not fun, particularly because of all the bear market rallies. Somebody emailed us like about how hard it's called bottom. And it's true. Especially when you went in a real bear market. Because look at like, we've made this chart before in the dot-com bubble. All the false hope that just gets crushed. Tons of dead cat bounces. Couldn't you see this year setting up like that, though? Sure, why not? Where we get five periods of false hope. Like, oh, yes, it's over. And then the market rolls over again.

38:18And then it comes back. That wouldn't shock me. That stuff wears you out. Yeah, I could certainly see that. And a lot of people would say, good. The stock market has been way too easy for people. You deserve this risk premium. Yeah. Right? You deserve a little bit of rough seas for a while. That part in a vacuum, I don't disagree with. I get that sentiment and I'm fine with me. Now, not to be too blase about it because it's coming. The stock market itself don't happen in a vacuum, but we have been spoiled. Let's be honest. Yeah. Right? Like, we don't deserve 20 % returns every year just because we get out of bed.

38:58All right. So, highest share of mortgage refinance rejection since the start of the series in 2013. All right. Can I give you the countertake on this, why this is not bad news? Sure. Who are the people who are refinancing right now from a 3 % mortgage to a 7 % mortgage? People who are in very dire financial straits. So this, the fact that this is increasing, and this is not my, Logan Motoshami was putting out truth on this, saying like this isn't as worrisome as it seems because the people who are refinancing now are in pain already. Okay, I'm glad you gave Logan credit because no offense, that seemed a little bit too clever for you.

39:34Hey, I paid into the housing market. All right, so this is from Fast Company. Zillow turns full-blown housing market bear. Just look at its new forecast. And so I read this headline. I go, ooh, this is interesting. Let's see how spicy it is. They project housing prices over the next year will fall 1.7%. That's where we're at for full-blown bear for housing? A 1.7 % drop? Come on. I actually do think that a 2 % to 3 % correction in housing is not out of the realm of possibilities with supply increasing and mortgage rates staying at 7%, that to me seems reasonable. Bitcoin is absolutely flying. It's at$90 ,500.

40:11And I just don't buy that you could have that in an environment, in like a mega risk-off environment. I think that makes sense to me. Like it just all of a sudden changed, right? So you're saying Bitcoin is going to lead us out of this thing, potentially. I don't know. I think so. Let's see what happens next week or tomorrow. So my thing that I've talked about for redoing your house too has been just if you want to do something you can afford to do it, don't wait because inflation. I actually think this is the kind of period if we do go into an economic slowdown that people are going to be hunkering down and like you could actually find better deals in like 12 to 18 months for housing renovations.

40:51You know what will not be happening? In an economic slowdown,$18 coffees. So Robin told me that, actually, one of my kids told me that mommy was listening to me in the car. I think she was on Instagram maybe. Hopefully she was parked. I think that's where my mother follows animal spirits. She watches the little clips Nicole makes for us for Instagram. Okay. My mother-in-law too. So anyway, I said to Robin, oh yeah, you were listening to my podcast? And she said, no, I was watching your reel. I said, which one? And she said, the DoorDash one. She's like, how much do you think my DoorDash coffee costs?

41:26And I was like, what do you mean? She goes, when you go on vacation or vacation, when you go on a work trip, like on the weekend when I'm with the kids, I door dash Starbucks. How much do you think it costs? And I said, don't tell me. She's like, she goes, it's like 13 to$15. And I said, are you kidding me? You're spending 15 bucks on a medium iced coffee. And she goes, don't go away. She kind of got you there. What are you supposed to do? Right. my kids actually love going to Starbucks because they get the little cake pops. My wife makes them go there. She gets the cake box. All right, I have a housing take for the year 2047.

42:05Okay, so bookmark this one. Come back to me in like 20 some years, okay? So I've been thinking about this a lot since we were in Florida. And I'm thinking like, gosh, I'm in my mid 40s already. Like, it's not that far to think about like the kids out of the house and, you know, empty nesters. And I think that the old Gen Z young millennials are going to be screwed their whole lives because the older millennials… Oh, stop it. No, no, no. Listen, listen. Of stuff being expensive. Like when I came into the housing market, you and I did, housing was way cheaper. And demographics and a lot of other things have made it more expensive.

42:39So I feel like the people who are on the losing end of that are going to constantly be experiencing higher priced things because of us. Are you setting yourself up for complaining in 30 years? No, no, no, no, no. I'm trying to get ahead of this trend. I'm trying to be forward thinking. Rejected. So here's what you do, because I think the transition from— and I don't know where millennials are going to retire someday. Are millennials going to just become their parents and retire in Florida, or are they going to go somewhere else? Of course I'm going to Florida. Dude, I'm eating cottage cheese with pineapples in it.

43:07I am going the route. So here's the plan. You don't wait until you're 65 to buy that house in Florida. By then, there's going to be too much competition. All the other millennials are going to be flocking to. You buy your house in Florida at age 55. You get ahead of the trend. Okay? I'm giving advice to older millennials. You get ahead of the trend so you don't have to fight with people for the house. And then it's going to be way cheaper and there's going to be less competition. So I'm setting a reminder to myself. Ben, we're going to talk about… Oh, wait. So you're going to retire on the ocean side.

43:38I'll be on the golf side. And then we'll come see each other every other week or something. I don't think I'm a retirement guy. I'm not either. I'm going to have to do something. Now, I've said this before. Human beings are very bad at predicting how they're going to feel in the future. But I just don't think permanent retirement is for me. I'm going to be giving personal finance lessons down at the community center. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Or the local community college. That's going to be me. Got to keep your mind stimulated. I agree. Speaking of middle age and life things, your friends and neighbors, which is a new show on Apple with Jon Hamm.

44:17He plays a hedge fund guy that loses his job. And he lives in this really vapid neighborhood. I guess it's like Connecticut or whatever. Looks like Connecticut to me. Where everybody's just got all the money in the world and they have nothing to talk about except their money and their this and their whatever. And there's a scene where there's a lot of monologue going on. Yeah, he does a lot of voiceover. He's very good in the show. So there's one scene. I think it's in the third episode, Ben. So not a spoiler. I'm one episode in. Where he talks about like the nature of life and getting older. And one of the, I forget exactly what he said, but it was like, when you get to a certain age and you're like, this is it, this is my life now.

45:03Like, and I've, and it's a little bit depressing. And I've, I've had that feeling. That's why people have a midlife crisis. Yeah. It's like, all right. So I like, this is, this is it for the next 40 years until I die. Now, our kids are still young, so it's still fun. But I don't know what that point is. It's when your kids are teenagers, maybe 30. I have no idea. But it felt like a very human reaction and something that I've thought about recently. Not in a dire, depressed way, but yeah, that's it. That's my life. I keep having thoughts of what happens when my kids leave the house. And I still have a long time, but my daughter is going on the other side of the hill.

45:43like down toward like I keep thinking of that like how when the chaos is gone what is it going to be like when that what's going to fill that vacuum I liked the part in that show where he kind of they bring us up to speed on his whole life and career and he talks about how I bought a house and we were broke again and then I bought another house we broke again but he's like but we had leverage so that's like an asset I'd like how they explained that that was interesting all right let's talk about a perfect storm headline this is from the Wall Street Journal private equity world engulfed by perfect storm.

46:15All right. Now they show this chart of all the private equity companies. You've been a private equity bull. How are you feeling on that thesis? Unperturbed. You're not, you're not wavering at all because I think I would be. No, I'm not. In fact, I think I want to add to my positions in Blackstone. I think that I think that the sell-off is justified. So I'm not saying like, oh, who's selling the stocks here? like, no, I get it. I was listening to the conference call,$270 billion in the wealth management channel, uh, record growth in Q1. It's just not slowing down. So was that for Blackstone? Yeah.

46:51Um, the next five to 10 years for this asset class, um, I am, I am un, unwavered. If they don't get the wealth management channel, then they are screwed. No, but they need the wealth. Are you sure? Yes. I listened to the conference call. All right. So the longer that this is from the wall street journal, the longer the deal logjam last, the harder it will be for firms to hand money back to clients such as pensions and endowments. The amount of unrealized value the funds owe to their investors has hit record levels. According to an analysis by Moody's that makes it tough, much tougher to raise new funds.

47:24So your point is like these endowments and foundations are going to go, no way. We're not putting into fund four. If you don't give us back money from fund three. Enter the wealth channel. I mean, this is not rocket science. We know exactly why they're doing what they're doing. The institutional investors say, no, we're full. We're not, we're not taking anymore. Is that all right? Does that make the wealth channel the bag holders though? I'm not commenting on whether or not the results for the end investors are going to be good. I'm talking about, I think Blackstone will be just fine. Now, again, the selling is justified.

47:58I'm not saying that people are dumb for selling. But I believe that the earnings per share is going up and to the right. So I'm just, do you think that advisors will be leaning on private assets as a diversification trend? Yes. Even throughout, even if we go into like a recession? Yes, more so. Okay, it's possible. I was thinking about this. So we've been having a lot of private credit conversations on our Tucker Book episodes. And we talked to Shiloh Bates from Flat Rock yesterday. And we were talking about how a lot of private credit is taking from high yield. And so I decided to look at this.

48:33And I looked at the two biggest high yield bond ETFs. So that's HYG and J &K. And you can see that their assets have slowly but surely been falling and haven't really gone anywhere for a very long time. Whereas if you look at TLT and IEF, the treasury assets, they've still been shooting higher, even in a bond bear market. Great poll, Ben. This is exactly emblematic of the conversations that we've been having. Right? This is private equity. Like high yield is going to get pushed to the side and go, wait, wait, wait. Why would we not? Let's get rid of the marks. We'll get a little bit extra yield.

49:08I completely understand why advisors are doing this. Yeah, it's like, wait a minute. I could like buy all these shitty energy companies and get marked daily and have stock like volatility. or I'd give money to Blackstone to make a loan to this company and they'll pay me every month or every quarter interest. And if there's some sort of a hiccup, I'll get 80 cents on the dollar, whatever, 70 cents on the dollar, whatever it is. And I don't have to see the marks on a daily basis. Yeah, that sounds better. I'll do that. I do wonder if I still, I agree with you that private equity is still coming hard for the wealth management channel in the 60, 2020 portfolio, Leo, that's probably going to be the future for a lot of advisors.

49:48I just wonder if we do have a prolonged slowdown period and the advisors finally wake up to the liquidity factor and like, wait, I can't rebalance into this or out of this. I can't take money from that. Is that going to like slow them a little to be like, whoa, this is a little more challenging than I expected? Yes and no. Yes, but also no. The amount of advisors that are going are not going to be deterred by that. Some will. Okay. Netflix. reported. They said we're paying close attention clearly to the consumer sentiment and where the broader economy is moving, but based on what we're seeing by actually operating the business right now, there's nothing really significant to note.

50:29So what are we looking at? Primary metrics and indicators would be our retention that's stable and strong. We haven't seen any significant changes in plan mix. Well, let me ask you a question. When's the last time Netflix had a good show? Feels like it's been a long time. Um... Because did anyone even watch Squid Game Season 2? We didn't even watch. The reviews were so bad, we just decided not to watch it. I loved Season 1. I saw the first two episodes. I was like, I'm okay with this. That's a good question. I can't remember the last time there was a good show on Netflix. I'm sure there was. Yeah.

51:04Good point. Does it even matter? No. I guess not. Like, Apple has way higher quality, better shows than Netflix, but it doesn't matter. Because people are just used to Netflix. All right, last one, IMAX. This past weekend, I own IMAX. This past weekend, the beginning of eight consecutive filmed for IMAX titles kicked off with Ryan Coogler's Sinners. It drove a$14 million overall box office weekend for IMAX with$9.1 million coming from Sinners in North America indexing at 20%. Just the eighth title in IMAX's history to reach a 20 % benchmark. How's this stock doing for you since you've owned it?

51:41Okay. Yeah. I'm very bullish on the company. I think it's going much higher and I could be wrong, but I hope I'm right. How much are IMAX tickets going to cost in a new world? $30 a piece? Yeah, worth it. Somebody sent us, somebody spent$145 ,000 on a mudroom. Did you see that in the Wall Street Journal? We got a few emails about that. Yes. It's a mudroom with a spot to clean their dog in. Yeah, it's ridiculous. So, all right. I saw, I did see Sinners in the theater. It's a vampire movie? So, All right. Sinners is a very important movie. Okay. Because we're just getting great reviews. Phenomenal reviews.

52:21Like over the top phenomenal. I think it's like 98 % on Ronald Tomatoes. Are you in line with those reviews? I'll tell you. So it's very important because it is an original film. It's not based on IP. It's not based on IP. Isn't it weird how that stands out these days when you have something like this? And we need more of these movies desperately. If you look at the slate for 25 and 26, it's nothing but sequels. It's like enough already. Sonic 19. You know what I mean? Like enough. Can we have some like original movies?

52:58So Michael B. Jordan plays a set of twins. It's in the 1930s in the South. That's interesting that he was able to pull that off because I feel like the same person playing a twin sometimes doesn't work. He was good. Okay. So objectively, it was a very good movie. By the way, highest box office for an original opening in like a decade. So a very important movie in that sense. We need more of these. And hopefully this convinces the studios to take more chances on things like this. Good. So it was two hours and 15 minutes. And there's a lot of things to love about the movie. Like it was original.

53:34There was great scenes, great sets, all that sort of stuff. For me, it was like a little bit too long. So I am like - Are you talking two hours? It was two hours and 15 minutes. So yes, it was an excellent movie that I didn't love. I enjoyed it. I had a good time. It was not a 98 for me, but besides the point, because I'm thrilled that he got to cook. You always say this. Is it a theater movie? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Have you ever seen a movie in a theater that's not a theater movie? Yeah, yeah. I love that they let him do this, even if I didn't love it as much as everybody else did. But I did like it.

54:11Objectively, great movie. Just not necessarily, not for me, but not a 98 for me. All right. I also saw Warfare in the theaters. Okay. Holy moly. So that is a theater movie times 100. That's Alex Karp, the guy that did Civil War. Oh, okay. I was Googling this. He also wrote The Beach. The book. The book. Oh, okay. oh the guy from Shogun's in this I like that guy he looks like a more put together Seth Rogen yeah warfare is a 90 minute call of duty scene like there's no fat it's a dozen guys wherever they are and they go to war it's just a fight scene it's a 90 minute fight scene brutal not rewatchable We'll never see that movie again.

55:08I could see that. It's kind of like, I tried to put Saving Private Ryan on a couple years ago again, and I'm like, I can't watch this again. No. But this is even more so. Like, this was hard. Okay. Good movie week for you. Very good movie week for me. It's been a while. I can't remember the last time I was at the theater. Let's talk about The Last of Us. So, this is spoiler free, because there are some spoilers. But after the first episode, it was kind of a dud, I thought. And I said, I think I'm shorting this show. And you said, just, okay, let's see. and the second episode was awesome. It was very good.

55:39It was like a series finale type show. So after watching the second episode and what happened, which I'm not going to spoil, I think I'm shorting the show still. What happened makes me not want to watch the show going forward. And I know it happened in the video game and all the video game people said, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stick with it. Dude, haven't the writers earned your faith at this point? I don't know. We'll see. If they can put, what happened, my wife and I both said, why'd they do that? I know it's in the, but why? It was such a good episode. It was very good. Now, but I'm, I'm putting a paper short and I'm, listen, I'll be willing to cover that short if they prove it to me.

56:18But as of now, I've got a paper short on this show. Hopefully I'm wrong. You're going to get run over. Okay. Someone, I think Sean had sent us in the Slack, a preview for the movie, the order it's on Hulu. I've never heard of this. And it was Jude law and Nicholas Holt. He's the guy in the menu. He's been in a bunch of stuff. He was in the X-Men movie, some of the newer ones. And it's based on a true story. And it's one of these ones that you're like, how did I never hear about this before? It's in the early 80s. It's got bank robberies. It's got heists of cash, you know, the big Brinks trucks.

56:49It's got an Aryan Nation brotherhood who's trying to start a war with the government. And it's got an FBI agent played by Jude Law. It's one of those movies that gets a premium for me because it's based on a true story. It's one of those ones afterwards, I looked it up, and I can't believe I've never heard of this. I thought it was very well done. And it felt a little bit like True Detective, like kind of gritty like that. It's on Hulu and 6.9, Borderline 7 for me. Was it like released on Hulu or was it a? I don't, I'm not sure. It just showed up and I'd never heard of it before, but it was better than I, and I'm glad that they made it into a movie and not a show because they could have strung out the story and tried to make it into a six episode miniseries, but I'm glad they didn't and made it into a movie instead.

57:30Oh, wow. It did$877 ,000 at its opening weekend. Nailed it. It was released in October, 2024. A movie that probably should have gone straight to streaming, but it was way better than I thought it was. And again, true story premium for me. All right. I'll watch it. All right. Going through the historical sports movies still with my daughter, this week we did Remember the Titans and Rudy. And a lot of these movies I haven't seen in probably 15 or 20 years. You know, you'd see the pieces of them on TBS and TNT, but straight through. I had just two thoughts on both movies. One, I forgot how bad Ryan Gosling gets cooked as a cornerback.

58:06He gets just beat all the time as a cornerback. I can't remember, but you never would have watched that movie and go, that guy's going to be one of the biggest movie stars in the world someday. No. Never. No. And then Rudy, maybe I knew this at the time, but I guess I didn't realize it. And some of the stuff is when you're younger, you don't notice the cheesiness as much, right? Who's the wild man now? But I really forgot how much of a loser Rudy is. Boy, is he a loser. Like, just a, you know, the guy was a loser. And I kind of just forgot that, like— Did you cry? I always cry at the movie. Oh, for Rudy?

58:42No, I never cried in Rudy. Never? I mean, goosebumps, maybe. I don't think I ever cried for Rudy. Nah. When he got the sack? Yeah, goosebumps. All right, I cried. You've also heard Joe Montana's interviews later talking about—because Joe Montana was the quarterback when the actual Rudy was there. and he's like, he kind of like shrugs him off a little bit like, yeah, this guy kind of was a loser. Anyway, it's a great movie. It's a great movie. Might be my favorite sports movie ever. Really? Okay. It is really good. When he does the speech, that's really good. Okay, I got one more. Wait, what speech?

59:10Like your 100-0? The Newt Rocking one, you know? Yeah. So Noah Wiley was on The Watch with Chris Ryan and Ian Greenwald talking about the show and I highly recommend it. I didn't realize how much he was involved in the show as a writer and executive producer. He was like a, he was very heavily involved with the story. He talked about how they wanted to get it right with the doctors and nurses. And he talked about some of the doctors they use. And he talked about some of the books because the show deals a lot with death. And he gave a book recommendation called The Four Things That Matter Most by Ira Biak.

59:36And it's a book by a doctor who had been in the ER and been a doctor for like 35 years. And he talked about how he had to deal with death like his whole life as a doctor and how he helped patients through that. And I kind of wish I would have read it before my brother died. But reading it after now, I think it's actually kind of, when your mom died, Did you get any books from people? Did you do any of that sort of, or did you not even do that? I did not. But when we were in Brooklyn, so this was 2015, I read When Breath Becomes Air. Okay. And Robin walked into our bedroom and I was like just bawling.

1:00:15And she goes, what the hell are you doing? She didn't see the books. I put the book down. But if you are looking for a good cry, When Breath Becomes Air is incredible. Speaking of, hold on one second. You mentioned that Rudy is a corny movie. I'm going to say something very corny. I love reading. And I have been in a deep book bear market. Here's the corny thing. Reading is like oxygen for the brain. And I forgot. I think I'm going brain dead from lack of oxygen. Well, I do it. I read at least for 15 or 20 minutes every night because that's my way of decompressing and get out of the screens and out of everything.

1:00:55I'd love to fall into a book. I took my kids to the library, and I saw this book, and I rented it. It is called The Last Action Heroes. Take a look at this. Okay. So it's the stories of the rise of Stallone and Schwarzenegger and Van Damme and Bruce Willis and Seagal and Chuck Norris. What's that? It's like an older book. No, it's new. Oh, okay. So I opened it up to read it. Anyway, point is I want to get back into reading. But I opened it up to read it. And the first page, okay? You know, there's like the little whatever. If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. Napoleon Bonaparte.

1:01:37Okay. All right, the second line. I'm going to hit you with so many rights, you're going to beg for a left. Chuck Norris. I kind of love how they put Chuck Norris in with those other people too. He certainly belongs. You think so? Yeah, absolutely. What iconic movie does Chuck Norris have? He was in the same era, but what iconic movie. He has Walker, Texas Ranger. My stepdad used to love that show. Hours and hours and hours. No, he did have one big movie, I believe. Can't remember what it was called. Okay. No, he's not on the level of Schwarzenegger. Plus, Chuck Norris could eat soup with a fork.

1:02:11Exactly. All right. Stock market's up today. That's something. We'll take it. All right. I hate being so negative, but I feel like we're not. We're being very undued. But I also feel like we're just telling it like it is. And when it's not negative anymore, we won't stay negative. Here's the other thing. I've been thinking a lot about how I've been talking about this current environment. I'm never going to be the guy that's like panic. Right. I agree. I just don't want to give those vibes. I'd rather be embarrassed and be like, all right, things got worse than I thought they would. Like, I'm not looking for, like, a victory lap calling the top or anything like that.

1:02:55I don't think it's helpful for anyone. There's enough of that out there. You're not going to get it from me. I agree. And the weird thing is, is that the people doing the scare tactics now have shifted. It's almost like the zero-hedge crowd kind of is, like, slinking away because it's like, this is what they wanted, but not in this way, right? Like, they wanted this stuff to all deflate, but not from one of their own. Like, I feel like Trump is kind of a zero-hedge kind of guy, in a way. So it's almost like they're like, like, wait a minute, we did this. This wasn't supposed to be us. This was supposed to be someone else who did this.

1:03:24Weird times. Weird times. The 2020s have been, if nothing else, very interesting and exciting to follow financial markets. We started a podcast at the right time, my friend. Never a dull moment. All right. So bearish, it's bullish. That's what I'm going to leave you with. Why? That's me looking at glasses half full. Okay. animalspiritsathecompoundnews.com personal emails, personal responses thank you for tuning in, we'll see you next week