The Perfect Price of Oil (EP. 456)

14:29Ben Carlson:What's the Six-Day War? Not going to lie. Don't know what that is. That's Israel. It's one of those history things I should know. I think it's a Middle East thing. Gulf War, 9-11, and all these different geopolitical attacks or events. And it shows that the majority of the time, a year later, I think on an average it's over 14 % a year later, stocks are up. And is this knowledge, everyone knows this now. Hey, you don't overreact to geopolitical events. is it is this part of it too that just listen the market's knowledge we've updated this yeah we're not going to overreact to this stuff anymore because we know historically the probability is things are going to be fine a year from now so why overreact now in the short term is that part of it i don't know you know am i giving the market are we giving the market too much credit here

15:12Michael Batnick:i think so because nobody's thinking about one year later i mean literally nobody who's who's who's calculating whether it's like literally calculating or mental calculus is thinking that because we did that in covid we people we looked over the valley for covid the average the average holding period for stocks is like seven minutes nobody's thinking about a year later except for

15:36Ben Carlson:that's algos we for this whole decade we've looked over the valley for a lot of different things in covid the market bottomed way before the vaccine ever got here we looked over the valley of like a huge economic crash in a month and stocks move forward. I think I'm just saying, I don't know, maybe. All right. So it's interesting. So energy stocks, you said are going crazy. I looked at this from the bottom in COVID, which was March, was it March 23rd?

16:03Michael Batnick:Yeah, my birthday.

16:04Ben Carlson:Okay. Energy stocks are destroying the S &P. They're up over 500 % versus a 300. Oh, sorry. Destroying tech stocks, my bad, I put this in, by over 200 % from the bottom in COVID. Hard to believe. So energy makes up 3.7 % of the S &P. I think it got down to as low as 2 % in 2020. Now, this is a little bit playing game. If you went one year earlier, or if you went to 2019, then it flips because energy actually got completely smoked. But it's obviously one of the best performing sectors this decade, and it's a very tiny allocation. And so my question to you is, we're seeing all this broadening out.

16:45Ben Carlson:What does this do for career risk for portfolio managers? Do they have to go chasing this other stuff now? Even though it's a tiny percentage of the... It's making a huge bet if you're going all in on these stocks versus just staying in the MAG-7.

16:58Michael Batnick:The 493. Well, the MAG-7 have been super laggy.

17:05Ben Carlson:Yeah, what are they at now? What's the day?

17:09Michael Batnick:the mag seven where they at for the year um i'm guessing they're down let's see i don't have to guess i think every mag seven stock was down yeah i don't know what i think i think your question is like too it's one of those questions that i reject from you from time to time it's just too broad do portfolio managers go chasing other stocks like so i'm just i'm just i'm thinking

17:32Ben Carlson:about this through a career risk lens so portfolio managers had no choice but to invest in the mag seven If you didn't invest in them, you got left behind and you had to make excuses for why you're lagging the benchmark. And now let's say you did that and you're all in. Now what do you do?

17:49Michael Batnick:Well, I guess, but there's mandates. It's not like, right?

17:54Ben Carlson:Well, if your mandate is Russell 1000 or the S &P 500. I've got to know in these portfolio managers over the years from like all the active manager searches I used to do. And I know how they think. and they can only for so long avoid the hot stocks that everyone's talking about.

18:09Michael Batnick:Don't you think that, all right, so I'll play ball then. Don't you think that these people are doing backflips, that finally there's things that are working that aren't the biggest stocks in the index? They should be, yeah. That's fair.

18:23Ben Carlson:So the MAG7 is in a 12 % drawdown. That's it? Yeah, MAG7 ETF. All right, what's John Bevis up to? Oh, okay. I love this stuff. So the Wall Street Journal had a piece, how the oil trade rippled across Wall Street in a chaotic week. And of course, they found a guy who trades this stuff. John Bevis, a 33-year-old day trader, spent long hours at his desk in his living room in Clemson, South Carolina. His morning routine is to check the markets from the phone on his bed. Do you do that? First thing you wake up, do you check the futures?

18:57Michael Batnick:What do you think?

18:58Ben Carlson:Of course you do. Then he heads straight to his computer at 7.30, scans the news. He's got a 49-inch monitor. Okay? I'm surprised this guy doesn't have multiple monitors, actually. He's buying the dip in energy stocks when oil prices drop. He says, listen, it's been a good year. And it's funny because oil is now becoming a meme stock. So this guy, he's decided, like, all right, I'm an energy trader now. Okay? I don't know. Maybe he's doing good. He says, personally, I love the volatility. See, this is the complacent stuff. Like, anytime there's a little bit of – there hasn't even been much volatility this year.

19:32Ben Carlson:Just a little bit. people are like puffing their chest out, you know, and like I rush into the volatility. Look at me, you know. How is this complacent? Just because a 4 % decline in the market, it's like I'm taking advantage of blood in the streets. I love it. Come on, this is nothing. Okay. At online brokerage Webull, trading volume for U.S. crude futures surged more than 1 ,100 % month over month, while volume for gasoline futures exploded 1 ,200 % higher.

20:00Michael Batnick:All right. So you think people like this, and retail trading is now 25 % of the market. You think that they're thinking about what happens in 365 days?

20:09Ben Carlson:Okay, that's fair. Good point. Look at the options bets on USO, which is an ETF that supposedly tracks the price of oil, but actually doesn't. It's crazy. It is crazy to me that this keeps happening.

20:24Michael Batnick:It will never not happen. This is the new market.

20:28Ben Carlson:Forever. You know, I heard someone, I can't remember who said this on a podcast that said crypto is for boomers now. It's almost like the people just want more of a hit, that dopamine rush, serotonin blast, whatever it is in your brain that makes you find something else. It is pretty crazy. So crypto is actually doing all right? You've been using that as a reason not to worry. Yeah, Bitcoin's back above$75 ,000.

20:57Michael Batnick:ETH is up 13 % of the last week, 12 % of the last month. If Bitcoin is for boomers, then my God, Ben world.

21:07Ben Carlson:My only thesis continues to be for crypto that every time it doesn't die, that's the best thing that happens to it.

21:14Michael Batnick:Bitcoin is up 5%, 6 % of the last month. All right. Where's my duck? I keep losing my duck. Here we go. This is interesting though. So I've said it a million times just a second ago, and maintain that these retail traders are never leaving. Their enthusiasm will ebb and wane, obviously. But there will always be something that's working. Ebb and Wayne. Ebb and Flo? What's Ebb and Wayne? Bruce Wayne?

21:43Ben Carlson:Speaking of which, we watched... You ever see Thumb Wars? I have no idea what that is.

21:49Michael Batnick:I think Thumb Wars was made by a dude on acid. And when did I watch it? Was that in camp or in college? And there was a but Roos Bane was, I think, Batthumb. It was hilarious. At least at the time it was.

22:00Ben Carlson:So I showed George The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, and it still kind of boggles my mind that Christopher Nolan made Batman movies. It's kind of hard to believe. He's like, I don't want to watch, he hates superhero movies. He won't do them, which is great. He doesn't like Marvel, he won't watch them. Which I'm like, yes, I appreciate that. But he's like, I don't want to watch Batman, it's a superhero movie. He said, no, this is a Christopher Nolan movie. It's not a superhero movie. And boy, did he like it.

22:24Michael Batnick:The Dark Knight Rises was very silly. The ending made literally no sense. Was it a dream? Did he die? What do you mean? No, he jumped out of the plane. He jumped out of the plane?

22:38Ben Carlson:Yeah, when he dropped the nuke, everyone thought he died. He made it out of the plane. Where'd he go? He's on autopilot. Then he took off and he's living his life and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is going to take over as Batman. Come on, keep up. All right, what's the retail trader stuff?

22:54Michael Batnick:All right. So ebbing and waning. This is from JP Morgan via Sherwin News. For the first time this year, retail investors are showing persistent signs of weakness with weekly purchases decelerating by 30%. Monday, so I guess this is a week ago, Monday marked the largest net selling day in single stocks in a month. okay short term pretty noisy chart noisy stuff um i i sold all my stocks that i bought a couple weeks ago so uh how you like that peter in the chat made 11 made 11 percent of my uh count not bad tax adjusted basis i've got the long short offset come on i've got plenty of losses okay Taxes.

23:45Michael Batnick:By the way, actually, can I just say one thing on that? This is important. I think it's important anyway. So you care zero about this, Ben, but I think some of the listeners might anyway. I was talking to JC and Strasse yesterday on Stock Trader TV.

24:02And one of the things that I did wrong a million times,

24:06Michael Batnick:and I think this is very common, for market participants who are not, and not talking about like your 401k, like buying and selling stocks, okay? Not knowing what you're doing, not knowing your time horizon. So I bought those stocks because I felt it was capitulation and I was buying for a minimum version balance, right? I wasn't buying service now because I think they're going to be around in a year, getting back to the, what could be a year thing now. I have no idea. How the hell would I know? I don't even know what that company does. But I knew, I know capitulation when I see it. And so what I did was, I sold it last week when the bounce started to stall, because I'm not looking out a month or two months or three months.

24:46Michael Batnick:That to me was a short-term trade. And I think that's where traders get into trouble.

24:52Ben Carlson:That's fair. The difference between an investment and a trade.

24:55Michael Batnick:Happens all the time. I've done it a million times. All right.

24:58Ben Carlson:But the funny thing is, is that usually it's the percentage decline or increase after you buy it that changes it from an investment to a trade.

25:05Michael Batnick:All the time. And I don't care. By the way, I guess I didn't sell this bottom in Blackstone. Or maybe I did. I don't care if Salesforce doubles from here. Like genuinely, I don't have a fundamental long-term view on Salesforce.

25:18Ben Carlson:I was buying NVIDIA during the Liberation Day stuff. When it was down, the market was down 5 % one day and 5 % the next day I was buying NVIDIA and going, listen, if there's going to be an AI bubble, I want to own NVIDIA down to 40%. And then the stock doubled off the lows and I sold it. We said that here on this show, right? Yeah.

25:35Michael Batnick:We bought because we were scared. Liberation Day lows.

25:37Ben Carlson:Yes. I was, yes. It was a nerve-wracking time. And I said, whatever. All right. Let's talk about AI. So there was some good productivity data from the economy. And everyone says, oh, look, AI is working already. And Daryl Perkins says, no, not yet. Because I said, listen, show me the data, and then I'll believe that AI is having a huge impact on the economy. And he says, which bid is AI for productivity? He said, clue, none of it. And it's basically still on trend line from where we were before.

26:06Michael Batnick:I don't believe any of this stuff. I think productivity metrics are messy as hell.

26:13Ben Carlson:You're true because it's a filler number, right? Yeah, I just… You're not going to know for like 10 years probably. I don't believe any of this stuff. Sorry. Okay. All right. That's fair. It is one of those numbers that it's like, well, how do you calculate productivity? Well, you calculate all this other stuff, then whatever's left over, that's productivity.

26:32Michael Batnick:Yeah. I put this in the doc two weeks ago. This is a real face blower, Ben. Did you know soft data is ahead of hard data? Again, this is a bit stale.

26:47Ben Carlson:I'm sure this has since dropped, but. You know, the people that they reach out to for these surveys, it's business owners, right? They're more volatile with their emotions than retail traders are.

26:58Michael Batnick:I don't know. I don't know who's answering these questions, but isn't that really surprising? That is.

27:06Ben Carlson:It just keeps fluctuating back and forth. That's why you got to trust what they do, not what they say. I don't think this sentiment data is worth anything. Soft data is useless now. Yeah, mostly agree. All right. So remember, I think this is good to circle back on because remember, I don't know, six months ago, we were pulling up GDP now and going, holy cow, GDP now is showing 4%, 5 % growth. The economy is just rocking. This is nuts. Like nothing can stop this. And then the updated data for GDP came in. At first it was 1.4%. Remember it was a 5 % estimate. Now it says after, after, uh, they, uh, updated it, it's 0.7 % for the fourth quarter.

27:48Ben Carlson:So that 5 % estimate, I guess the point is just figuring out what the economy is doing in real time is very hard to do. It's merely impossible.

27:58Michael Batnick:Do you know what drove the gap? That's wild, right?

28:02Ben Carlson:That's a huge difference, right? Yeah. That's a good question. Maybe we should ask AI. Speaking of which, Brad Gerstner, AI is deeply unpopular. According to Pew, sadly, only 17 % of Americans think AI will have a positive impact. In China, 83 % believe AI will be positive. a token tax and political backlash is coming unless the narrative changes. So I pulled up this Pew Research, and they said 50 % of Americans are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life. Is this the worst technological innovation rollout in history? Yes. It has to be, right? No one is excited about this.

28:43And I still don't blame people because of the way that the AI,

28:48Ben Carlson:I've said there's just no self-awareness in the tech industry, I guess. for rolling this out. There's a 20 % chance this thing is going to turn into Skynet and blow up the world, or we're going to put a bunch of white-collar jobs out. Which one do you want? Is there option C? The thing is, if you were a politician, because politicians are good at doing narratives and getting people fired up, if you came out as, listen, I'm the anti-AI politician. I want to save white-collar jobs. I'd like to tax the crap out of these companies. I want to tax them back to wherever they came from. You'd get a lot of votes right now.

29:28Ben Carlson:I don't want to destroy jobs. I would imagine that's coming. That's got to be coming. Okay, I have a thing to bring up with you because the one thing that everyone kind of agrees on now is, listen, AI is never going to be worse than it is today. It's only going to get better, right? That's the thing people say. True. Of course, you're not. Yes, of course. and there's Moore's law and all this stuff and the scaling. And of course it is getting better. AI is getting better. What if it just does plateau though? No. With no knowledge of this. Okay. When, when is the last time the iPhone got better?

30:05Ben Carlson:Five years ago, six years ago, Siri and Alexa have been out for, I don't know, 10 years. Have they ever gotten better? I don't see. I mean, literally what does one have to do with the other? I'm just saying there are technologies that plateau. It isn't, People think that AI is just going to keep scaling and scaling and scaling until it's this sentient being that's like God.

30:25Michael Batnick:$600 billion is not being spent annually on the iPhone. All right.

30:28Ben Carlson:I'm just questioning that AI is eventually going to be this perfect thing that's a sentient being, and it's always going to only get better. And I'm just saying, what if it doesn't?

30:39Michael Batnick:We could leave a thing.

30:40Ben Carlson:What if AI makes… Bad take. What if AI makes us all so much dumber collectively because we're not thinking anymore? No. It's the opposite.

30:48Michael Batnick:It's the opposite. AI is making me so much smarter.

30:52Ben Carlson:I'm sorry, but I think AI is going to make more people dumber than smarter. I think if you pull like why people hate AI, I don't know, 5 % to 10 % of the population right now is using it to really expand themselves and broaden their horizons. And the rest of the population, most of them are going to use it to answer questions and not think anymore.

31:10Michael Batnick:I disagree. I think finding the answers to things that you didn't know about before, it's like, huh, I had no idea. I don't think it's going to be like, oh, my brain is shut off.

31:18Ben Carlson:Listen, it's great. It is a great tool for education. I don't think many people are going to use it for that. I think people are going to use it as a shortcut.

31:25Michael Batnick:What, like Google? But better? Yeah. I reject everything you just said. And I think you do too, deep down. Search your soul, Ben.

31:34Ben Carlson:I don't. I know people love looking for shortcuts. It's just the way, it's human nature. Shortcuts to learning faster and more efficiently. Okay. How many people do you know that like to learn and read and no, people that use AI for slop.

31:51Michael Batnick:People love to learn when they're interested in the topic that they're learning about. Yeah. How many people are going to do that? That's what I'm asking. I think a lot of people.

32:00Ben Carlson:I really do. I'm optimistic about this. All right. I'm not. I think it's going to make us dumber as a society, potentially. Just like social media did.

32:08Michael Batnick:I think it's a lazy take. Sorry to call you out, but I do.

32:10Ben Carlson:All right. I'm usually glasses half full. I'm becoming more glasses half empty on AI for society.

32:16Michael Batnick:Okay. Well, all right. Austin Reeve tweeted, we are in the golden age of AI. Go thank a VC near you. A$200 monthly subscription to Claude can consume$5 ,000 in compute. This reminds me of when I was in college when Ubers were$3.

32:34Ben Carlson:So Ben Thompson had a take on this. And I think I said this at Future Proof in one of my introductions, which I didn't use as many jokes as you did. You were better with other jokes than me, I think, doing the MC gigs and introducing people onto the stage. but agentic is the word of 2026. When, when Merriam Webster does the word dictionary word of the year, agentic is going to be that in 2026 or 2027. Because honestly, if you say agentic AI, it makes you sound smart. Of course. Right. If you, if you say that word, boy, this person knows what they're talking about.

33:03Michael Batnick:Can I hand up? I've never said the word agentic AI and I'm not saying I never will, but I, I, I've never said it. So Ben, uh, I already said any who wants on this show. I caught myself saying it.

33:17Ben Carlson:I didn't even.

33:18Michael Batnick:For those that skipped the live show, listen, Ben and I roasted each other. And the idea came from a listener who sent us an email saying, Michael says anywho a lot. So I appreciate the email. Ben, I just got a text from my Uber driver. So a week before Future Proof, I lost my AirPod case. Got these little thingies, but I've got no case. hoping the case shows up. So I took Robin's AirPods to Miami. And before I got to the airport, my gosh, shit. I, I packed, I packed my fanny pack in my suitcase and Robin's AirPods were in the fanny pack. So I go into the store. I got to the airport several hours early because I was worried about TSA stuff.

34:10Michael Batnick:So I got to the airport three hours before my flight, bought another pair of AirPods.

34:15Ben Carlson:Three hours?

34:16Michael Batnick:I don't know. Two and a half hours, maybe not three hours.

34:18Ben Carlson:You just wanted to go into the lounge. I'm exaggerating, I think.

34:22Michael Batnick:I bought a pair of AirPods from the store. I get home, doing whatever I'm doing, looking around, I'm like, you got to be kidding me. Did I just lose another AirPod case? I did. We're looking at the ring. Robin says, yeah, you walked into the house with your AirPods on. I left the AirPods in an Uber. I left the case in an Uber that I had just bought five hours prior. So Robin says, how many pairs of AirPods have you bought? I'm like, 15? She goes, all right, that's it. No more AirPods for you. That's it. No more AirPods for you. You have to buy the knockoff brands. Wear your Bose headphones. You're not going to lose those.

35:04Michael Batnick:Um, my Uber driver just texted me. I sent him a package, an envelope in an envelope so that he could send the AirPod case back. My AirPod case is in the mail. No harm, no foul.

35:16Ben Carlson:I think you just need to start buying the knockoffs if you're losing them that like, it's like expensive sunglasses. If you sit on two expensive sunglasses, stop buying expensive sunglasses.

35:24Michael Batnick:The reality is I probably, I, it, it, it, uh, it ebbs and flows. Ebbs and wanes. I'll have a pair for 18 months and I'll lose two in six weeks. All right.

35:36Ben Carlson:So back to the golden age of AI. AI is not going to help you find your AirPod cases. So Austin Reeves talked about this, how much cloud can consume. So Ben Thompson had a piece yesterday saying, listen, I've changed my mind. AI is not a bubble anymore. And it's because of the cost of this compute. So he's saying, listen, we don't need mass adoption. If only a small number of people use all these agents, it's going to cost so much to use them. And that's the thing that I think people forget. At our talk with Michael Kitsis last week, he said, listen, Orion now costs more than the lady we used to have working in the room opening envelopes, right?

36:11Ben Carlson:So that's going to be the thing with AI, I think, that people don't realize is that if you want to have all these agents running all the time, the cost is going to be enormous. And companies are going to have to figure out, are we willing to pay that cost to have these agents running 24-7? Or are we just going to hire three people to do that work? Can I give you an example of this? when we were in Miami, I met a friend of mine whose personality is that of a hater.

36:39Michael Batnick:And he was like, you're not going to believe this. I'm super bullish on AI and what it's going to do for us. I'm all ears, please. This does not sound like you. He said, I've been talking to a lot of people and hear a lot of different real world use cases. And then I got home and he sent me this tweet from Compound248, who's a good follower on Twitter. Bear with me for a sec. He said, yesterday, I called a local upholstery cleaning business to get a quote on having some furniture and a rug cleaned. Given it was a Sunday, I assumed I'd leave a voicemail. Instead, an AI agent answered the phone.

37:15I would soon discover, quote, she had access to CRM,

37:18Michael Batnick:appointment scheduling, price quoting, and contact tools. She perfectly and fully handled my call. After answering hello with a natural voice, she asked me my name and why I was calling. She didn't say she was AI and took me a beat to figure it out. I explained I needed five chairs and a rug clean. She asked guided follow-ups about sizes and stains. Once I answered, she said it back to me and instantly quoted me a price. I then said I wanted a change, updating the rug size. She quickly accommodated and confirmed the new request and gave me a new quote, asking me if I wanted to book the service.

37:45Michael Batnick:I agreed and she went right to booking, asking my zip code. The first available appointment was too soon. It was today. So I asked if she had any time Thursday. she offered me the first available slot on Thursday, which worked. She took my home address and email. She read back the email address. I corrected one mistake. She fixed it reading that back. My appointment was confirmed. And as soon as I hung up, I received both a text and an email outlining everything we talked about. It was a perfect interaction that only took a few minutes and I left with an appointment booked. In the past, maybe I'd leave a message.

38:10Michael Batnick:Maybe they'd call me back. Maybe I'd call a competitor in the meantime. Instead, a patient, easy to interact with AI, listened to my issue, quoted me a price, made it justice to my request, booked an appointment and sent the follow-up email and text, confirm the details. Anyway, amazing.

38:26Ben Carlson:See what this means, though? That's more work for the upholstery company, not less. It's more work for them because they can outsource this. More business. Yes, it's more business. That's the thing people don't understand is that in a lot of businesses, it's going to lead to more stuff for people to do.

38:42Michael Batnick:So the conclusion was, I'm not sure what this AI agent is worth to the SMB upholstery cleaning franchisee, but it's meaningful. huge personnel savings, and she's revenue generating.

38:53Ben Carlson:Right. These people don't have to waste time going on the phone and scheduling. Now they can work. They can do the actual upholstery work and plan other stuff.

39:00Michael Batnick:So that is the giga-optimistic take. Yeah. And it's not to say that, like, yes, displacement, a thing. But what it's going to do for the pie, it's going to grow it.

39:13Ben Carlson:Yeah. So anyway, the Ben Thompson take that this isn't a bubble, and I feel like a lot more people are coming around to the idea that this is not a bubble is that, listen, he says, in this context, is it any wonder that every single hyperscaler says that demand for compute exceeds supply and that every single hyperscaler is, in the face of stock market skepticism, announcing CapEx plans that blow away expectations? He's saying it's not going to take many people using this, these agents, many businesses, that there's so much demand for compute and that compute is so expensive that it doesn't have to be everyone right away for this to not have to be a bubble.

39:47Michael Batnick:so given given this mega mega mega theme getting back to how we opened the show like how bearish are you going to possibly get and maybe that's the point too that the market says

39:59Ben Carlson:no no no ai is still the only thing that matters even if oil is uncomfortable for six months or 12 months or however long it is is that the case yeah okay but the question is all right why are these stocks selling off then it is are people coming to realize i know this is a minor sell-off from Mag7? Are people coming to realize, listen, the beneficiary is this upholstery company, and it's these small cap stocks, and it's these mid cap stocks, and it's these value stocks. Is that going to be the leap someday that like, listen, these tech companies are spending so much money, maybe they don't get as much in the returns.

40:31Ben Carlson:You know what? I'll tell you in six

40:33Michael Batnick:months because this could very easily be a blip. Good. It's very possible that in the second half of the year, Mag7 resumes leadership. So they're out of favor right now. And it's not hard to paint the story as to why it's too much spending, free cashflow is going to decline. Like we all, we all know the story.

40:51Ben Carlson:So Anthropic is a public company. Let's say it is. How much is that up this year? 140%. Probably right.

40:59Michael Batnick:All right. Ara from Ramp, the economist we've had on the show said, I've seen enough. Anthropic is the new default for businesses.

41:08Ben Carlson:His newsletter is fantastic by the way.

41:10Michael Batnick:Okay. So yes, it is. There's a chart from the information showing Anthropic and OpenAI's revenue. And Anthropic went from like a billion to 14 to 19 in...

41:23Ben Carlson:Their revenue growth is staggering.

41:26Michael Batnick:So I didn't have a time to read it this morning, but there was a headline in the journal that OpenAI is refocusing. They're going to prioritize coding and enterprise and business. They're toast. I mean, it's very early.

41:41Ben Carlson:I just feel like admitting that is admitting defeat. You're right. It's early. Come on. It feels like they're toast to me. If they're saying, they're already pivoting their business, like, okay, we screwed up.

41:54Michael Batnick:It's a natural obvious pivot. This is, of course, what they should be doing.

41:58Ben Carlson:Yes. Is it already too late?

42:01Michael Batnick:No.

42:02Ben Carlson:No way. Okay. All right. This is crazy. From Joey Politano at Apricitas Economics. He looked at what AI is doing in the Taiwan economy. And this is crazy. Taiwanese GDP rose at a mammoth 23.6 % annualized rate in the last quarter of 2025. Overall, the economy has grown more than 12 % in the last year, the fastest annual growth in 50 years. GDP has increased almost 23 % since the launch of Chad GPT in late 2022. Look at this graph of their GDP growth. It's absolutely insane. For one country, and this is all AI, obviously, from Taiwanese sound conductor.

42:42Michael Batnick:I listened to a book called Chip Wars because this is an area, speaking of like learning more, the Chip Wars, who wrote this book? Chris Miller.

42:52Ben Carlson:Wait a minute. Don't you think audio books are almost like a life hack in terms of learning? Yes. Enormous life hack.

42:58Michael Batnick:But is that a bad thing? Is it a shortcut to use your words? Yeah, in a good way.

43:03Ben Carlson:Okay, fine. I knew nothing about semiconductors

43:08Michael Batnick:because I was curious. Why is, so it was the week that, I guess, Taiwanese stocks and South Korean stocks were getting killed. I said, like, why are they, why is that, I don't know if that's like an energy story, but how did they become the hub for chip manufacturing? And I knew nothing about it. And now I know a little bit more than zero because I don't think this is unique to me. I am really bad at retaining information.

43:33Ben Carlson:No, there's too much information now. Your brain's only processing.

43:35Michael Batnick:There's too much. So I asked Chad, like, I was like, hey, remind me, like, which of the companies that do like the fabulous and the foundry and the lithography.

43:42Ben Carlson:That's a tough word to say. But then I hear a song from like 1992 and I remember every single word. Why is that?

43:48Michael Batnick:It's funny you should say that. So I used to have that experience where I was listening to, when I listened to Howard, there was a segment that I would hear on the radio and I remember exactly like what street light I was at when I heard this in 2011. So shit like that sticks in your brain and the information, I don't know.

44:09Ben Carlson:I just want to talk a little bit about FutureProof since it was all AI based. And you and I, we emcee like 10 stages and we, hey, this person is building this tool. They're going to talk about it. This person is building that tool. And this is not going to be an easy transition. Understanding which tools you actually need and trying them out and maybe letting other people try them out first and understanding what agents are going to be helpful and what processes to automate. it's going to be a, there's so many companies trying to do this right now. It is not going to be an easy transition. Agree.

44:42Ben Carlson:And understanding like, I'm going to implement this new tool from this place, but wait a minute, someone else does it way better or way easier. Now I have to integrate it in all my different tech stack and it's going to be messy.

44:52Michael Batnick:Yeah.

44:53Ben Carlson:I know people are going to go, do I need this? Is someone else already using it? I feel like there's going to be a lot of companies that are going to be just dipping their toe in the water, waiting until someone else bigger than them does it first to show actual results.

45:05Michael Batnick:But doesn't this favor the incumbents?

45:09Ben Carlson:Probably, yeah.

45:10Michael Batnick:Because they have the resources, they have the human capital to help train your staff. You have the relationship with these companies. But I completely agree with you. Knowing what to adopt and it's going to be messy, for sure.

45:27Ben Carlson:I heard so many pitches of this company is going to take all your different tech providers, and they're going to make them communicate together and make your processes easier. And it sounds amazing. We've been hearing this for how many years, that someone is going to come in and do this. And no one has been able to do it. And it's going to be very enticing, but I also think it's going to be messy. This is interesting. The one thing people thought a few years ago was, listen, housing has to crash to make it more affordable. That's the only way. Like, prices have to come down. And of course, they didn't.

45:57They've more or less, they've gone up a little bit.

45:59Ben Carlson:They've stagnated. And I guess if we did an inflation adjustment on this and housing prices, they probably are lower or gone nowhere. Julian Hebron. Is it Hebron or Hebron? I don't know. Okay. I'm going to guess Hebron. Okay. Julian Hebron, at the basis point, writes on real estate. This is interesting. He says, February home affordability hit its best level in four years, with median earners spending 27.4 % of their incomes on median price homes. and that's way down because wages have continued to increase while prices have more or less stagnated. So that's what had to happen to make housing more affordable.

46:36Ben Carlson:And if you, you know, BB gun to my head, what happens from here over the next like five years, that I don't know how long that period takes. Like that's probably what's going to have to happen to make it more affordable from here too. If we want more affordability, it's just going to have to be prices not going up very much and incomes going up more.

46:53Michael Batnick:The housing market is deader than dead.

46:56Ben Carlson:why do you say that um because there's no homes that are selling but i feel like that's anecdotal because every time someone says that logan modashami dunks on them and says look it there's still four million homes that were sold it's like there's a million less homes being sold than usual but look look at look at the stock look at the stock chart of lennar okay but look at u.s existing home sales that's actual sales look at home keepa you're right the graph is way lower so over the last 12 months look at charwin williams 4.1 million homes existing homes have been sold homes are not way lower homes are not selling that's way lower than the average you know it's kind of crazy this year alone there have been two houses for sale on my block you know my help my block has like 20 houses on it and they both sold the very first day there was one house that never even got listed and it had a sale pending sign in front of the house already like i just feel like using anecdotes is a little too easy here.

47:49Michael Batnick:I'm using data. Put that chart, put that chart in there. Existing home sales are zero, dude. They're like at a floor.

47:59Ben Carlson:Okay. So going back to 1999, the average over 12 months, the average U.S. home sales for existing homes is 5.2 million. We are at 4.1 million. So it's way lower. I agree. It's 20 % lower.

48:13Michael Batnick:What does the line of the chart look like? Does it look like it's on the average or does it look like it's on the floor? It looks like it's on the floor. Okay. It's lower. But that 4 million… There's no but. There's no but. Dude, it's on the floor. It's 20 % lower.

48:24Ben Carlson:I'm not using attic data. You can't say no one is buying a house. It's on the floor. It's low. Over the past 30 years, it is.

48:32Michael Batnick:Yeah. It is about as low as it's ever been.

48:37Ben Carlson:Over the past 30 years. I bet it was lower. I bet it was way lower in the 80s. All right. Do you remember when all the robo-advisors came out when rates were really low and said, hey, we're going to pay a higher rate. Rates are like 2 % on cash or 1%. We're going to pay 3 % or 4%. And it was a way to get customers. Listen, we're going to eat that and we're going to give that higher. And I think that's, to me, as a business, that's a red flag. So a bunch of people were really excited because Opendoor CEO said, hey, listen, we're offering 4.99 % mortgages. And he said, because we're taking out all these costs.

49:13Ben Carlson:And to me, this is just a way to try to get cut. this is the same thing. Is it not?

49:18Michael Batnick:Is Open Door still an iBuying business? I don't follow them.

49:22Ben Carlson:Well, I think they're trying to expand into doing other things, but the, so the stock, it's kind of, it fell. I would say, yeah,

49:30Michael Batnick:generally subsidies don't work, but sometimes they do. Right? Like Uber was a great example of a company that worked really well. Yeah.

49:38Ben Carlson:So I'm just saying, usually to me in finance, this is a red flag. We're going to finance it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's just, Maybe I'm wrong.

49:47Michael Batnick:Private credit talk? Oh, boy. You know what? All right. Cliffwater's$33 billion private credit funds redemptions reached 14%. 14%. And let's just say that of that 14%, 80 % came in over the last three years?

50:10Ben Carlson:Probably a lot. So they got 14 % redemption requests. Release the list. release the list. So you're right.

50:16Michael Batnick:If you put your clients into a private vehicle, a semi-liquid vehicle, and are redeeming in under eight quarters, you go on the naughty list. Publicly.

50:29Ben Carlson:Your clients should not be happy with you. If you said, I'm going to put you in this illiquid long-term investment 18 months ago and now we're pulling it because I'm worried about it, that you're right. It's not the industry that gets blamed here. It should be the advisor.

50:42Michael Batnick:The advisor. Now, I do empathize a little bit with the advisor here because they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If the client says to them, now there is so much smoke out there, and I'm not saying that there's not reason for the redemptions, but I genuinely believe that the media is, and I'm not like a media pointing finger sort of guy, I don't think I am. I don't think they're helping at all. um okay so if you're an advisor and a client says to you hey i'm seeing headlines in the wall street journal like every day it seems like another company is gating or whatever should we take our money out if you say yeah we probably should then the client is probably thinking well but i've only you put me in this like a year and a that.

51:36Michael Batnick:Counterpoint. If you say to the client, listen, there are legitimate reasons for why the asset class is under pressure. Let's give it time. Let's let this cycle play out. We saw something similar with B-Reit, right? Like we've seen this before in a different asset class. Let's let the paper hands leave. The loans are fine. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's just stay the course. And then things continue to get worse because they're probably not going to get better on the headline front, right? We haven't even gone through a credit cycle yet. Right. So, um, and then, and then, so the headlines get worse and the client's like, well, I asked you if we should leave.

52:11Michael Batnick:And you said, no. So then the advisors sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place here.

52:14Ben Carlson:Aren't we learning that private markets are just not a great fit for this space for most of this space? I know some advisors use private markets responsibly, but if we're talking everyone in Larry Fink's 50, 30, 20 portfolio, most advisors and clients cannot understand the difference between the liquidity and the time horizon for these things. These things are obviously way, way, way oversold

52:40Michael Batnick:from the advisor to the client.

52:41Ben Carlson:And have we learned that this is the worst idea you could possibly come up with to put this stuff in 401ks? They'll be 10 times worse jumping in and out.

52:50Michael Batnick:That's a whole other can of worms. But I'm glad that some of these warts are out in the open before legislation.

52:55Ben Carlson:I think we're learning. But isn't this a something's got to give scenario? So high yield spreads are still very low, right? Haven't blown out at all. So if high yield spreads are still so tight and private credit is seemingly in trouble or people are predicting they're in trouble, like one of these two things has to be wrong. Fair? Wait, say that one more time. High yield spreads have not blown out at all. People are very worried about private credit. One of those two things has to be wrong. One of them has to play catch up. Either private credit fears are overblown or high yield spreads need to blow out more to catch up with private credit?

53:32Ben Carlson:Is that fair or not? Or can they be two separate things? I don't think they can.

53:39Michael Batnick:So my knee-jerk reaction is that these are different. The composition of the portfolios are very different. And I think one of the big reasons, not I think, one of the primary reasons why people are rightly, I want to say rightly panicking, why people are panicking is because 25 % of the loans and private credit are to SaaS names. That makes sense. So HYG, for example, technology is 9%. Okay, that's fair.

54:23Ben Carlson:Yeah, no, that's fair. And so you have this chart in here from Torsen Slock saying that 2028 maturity wall is approaching for these software loans. And here's the thing. My general rule of thumb, any time in my career I've heard about a maturity wall, it hasn't mattered at all. I heard about this every single year coming out of the great financial crisis, and it never mattered once. Guess what? People roll their debt over. They pay it off, and life moves on. There's never been a moment where I've seen, you know what caused this financial crisis? Maturity wall. that did it. I don't want to be too flippant here, but the maturity wall has never, ever mattered once in my career.

55:00Ben Carlson:That is a good take. Ever.

55:01Michael Batnick:Let me ask you this. So the ultimate bullshit, and we called this out when Lipschulz at Blue Owl was saying, we don't see red flags, we see green flags.

55:09Ben Carlson:Yeah.

55:10Michael Batnick:Yeah, dude. There's no distress yet. Everybody knows that AI will cause disruption. Nobody knows the extent of it. Okay. That's what the market is trying to sort through, but everybody knows that there will be disruption. And if Salesforce, a company with seven and a half billion dollars in net income, if Salesforce equity is down 50 plus percent, what do you think the equity of a company that's doing$200 million in EBITDA is down? 90 %? So do you think that the loans might be impaired at some point in the next couple of years? Obviously, obviously.

55:58Ben Carlson:But don't you think that having liquidity in these fund structures, if clients and investors are constantly trying to get ahead of the next credit event and always blowing out every time that happens, that's not a good business model for the long term. If people are constantly blowing out of these funds because they're worried.

56:15Michael Batnick:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, what's interesting is that -

56:18Ben Carlson:Maybe some of these funds should be gated, even though investors would hate it. Maybe they should be. You know what? We're not giving your money back.

56:24Michael Batnick:So how long do we see the 5 % withdrawal limit hit? Is it six quarters? Because guess what? I think very little money is coming into the, there's no more retail money coming in for the next quarter or two, at least. What I think is possible is you see maybe some of the giant pensions, like CalPERS. Actually, I think CalPERS did a deal with B-Weed. I don't want to speak out of turn, But I think they got preferential treatment or sweetheart deal back in the day when B-Weat needed some additional liquidity in their coffers.

56:54Ben Carlson:So you tried to buy Blackstone a couple weeks ago. Didn't work out. I mean. Credit to me. Credit to me. Morningstar has this graph and they show the different types of funds that all these private equity, private market companies have. and it's private equity and venture capital and private debt and real assets and real estate and secondary funds and fund of funds and co-investment. It's all these different, it's a diversified, it's not just one fund structure. Some have more than others, obviously. Isn't this graph the reason that eventually these PE stocks are a buy? Screaming buy, Ben. Eventually, the business model and the fact that they're so diversified and they're still going to be making fees on all this stuff, even if private credit is hurt.

57:36Ben Carlson:I know maybe one of the reasons these stocks are selling off is because there's no way to bet against private credit. Like these stocks are the way that they're betting against it. But eventually you're right. These stocks are a screaming buy down 50 % or something.

57:46Michael Batnick:So I think it also depends on the stock. Like I don't think that you could group them all together. Apollo, for example, that's like all private credit. But yeah. So again, getting back to like what I said earlier about it, trading, not investing. Yeah. I think these things are probably screaming buy, but I'm not investing in these stocks right now. I was trading it. It didn't work. That's it. Um, all right. So I said, advisors are stuck between a rock and a hard place. So are these companies. This is from pitch book fund managers essentially face a dilemma. They can relax liquidity caps to satisfy individual investors, which may compromise the longer-term value of their portfolio, or they can hold the line and gate redemptions, which may alienate investors and send a worrying signal about the fund's underlying strength.

58:21I agree.

58:22Ben Carlson:Here's what I know.

58:23Michael Batnick:These headlines are going to persist. It's not going to get better.

58:25Ben Carlson:If they keep having 5 % redemptions every single quarter, doesn't that eventually mess with the asset class as a whole? It's got to. At some point, the liquidity facilities that these companies have get tapped. Right.

58:37Michael Batnick:Where the big banks are like, dude, sell some of your loans. I don't care. Well, they're only traded at$6 million. Sell your loans. Yeah.

58:46Ben Carlson:All right.

58:47Michael Batnick:This is interesting. Rex Salisbury.

58:48Ben Carlson:But this is the whole asset liability mismatch. That's the problem. These are long-term loans you're supposed to hold for the long term until they're mature. Correct. That's the point of it.

58:58Michael Batnick:Correct. Rex Salisbury tweeted, VC IRR decay for 2017 and 2018 has been bad. And this is before the Sasspocalypse. flips. IRRs driven by big positions held at last round valuations. What would they look like at true fair market value?

59:13Dude.

59:14Ben Carlson:And these are probably actually still on the high side because there's just been no exits. Way high, dude.

59:21Michael Batnick:I'm telling you, I think in aggregate, these portfolios are just nuked. Yeah.

59:26Ben Carlson:Just because SpaceX and OpenAI go public, that's not going to help this space either.

59:31Michael Batnick:Yeah. All right, I got some good news. The Bloomberg chart, earnings calls flag broad-based economic recovery. So they show ISM manufacturing new orders alongside transcript-based economic recovery. And they move directionally together and they're turning higher. Love to see it.

59:51Ben Carlson:Yeah, but this was way lower in 2023 and 2024 and the economy was doing fine.

59:56Michael Batnick:Yeah, I forget everything I just said. All right. All right.

1:00:02Ben Carlson:Good story in the Wall Street Journal about Dick's. This is one of those Peter Lynch stocks that you go, oh, come on, why didn't I buy this thing? Families are now shelling out more than$40 billion every year on children's sports activities. And they show this for baseball, soccer, basketball, like the average spending from 2019 to 2024. And it's, I don't know, 50 % higher for each sport. And they show Dick's revenue is just up and to the right. And it's since 2020, it's been crushing the S &P. I don't know if you have this at your through the school or through whoever but it's like a week before sports start or two weeks before you go to Dick's you prove that your kids go to school and you get 20 % off of your whole purchase there and they are the place to go we had to buy my son all his shoulder pads and helmets for football, the girls need soccer stuff anything you need you go to Dick's and Dick's has become the place for that and so this is a way to play on parents being psychotic about their kids in sports, in travel sports and such.

1:01:00Michael Batnick:Dix is underperforming the S &P by 20 % over the last year. Is it? Yeah. Okay.

1:01:07Ben Carlson:But look at longer term. This thing is going nuts. Zoom out. How long

1:01:11Michael Batnick:are we going to zoom out? Three years. Five years. Three years, Dix is up 30. S &P is up 70. Go five. Alright, five years. Five years looks better.

1:01:23Ben Carlson:Alright, but they showed that the top downloaded apps, and this was kind of flying around social media, it was Claude, Chad GPT, Dick's Sporting Goods, Google Gemini. And I guess they found out that if you connect a fitness tracker to the app, you get like$10 off of Dick's, which is hilarious that that many people would download it for$10 off.

1:01:44Michael Batnick:Okay.

1:01:45Ben Carlson:All right, real quick. So you don't buy the thesis that Dick's is like a play on youth sports? Now, when I grew up, listen, when I first played tackle football in seventh grade, We got the equipment from like the 1980s. Right. Like these old pads, like we had the square shoulder pads and the helmets barely fit. And I'm sure they were not safe at all. We didn't have to buy our own stuff. We just use hand-me-downs. That's not a thing anymore. No one does hand-me-downs anymore.

1:02:09Michael Batnick:So I buy new stuff. I buy the thesis. The story that you're saying is accurate. I'm just saying stop picking is hard. Fair. Yeah. All right. I think this is an interesting way. So there was an article, not an article. Yeah, there was an article in Bloomberg. Matt Levine wrote about shares in SpaceX. All of these, there's so much demand in all these SPVs. I was like, could you imagine if you thought you invested in a company and it turns out that it was a fraud? Meaning not that the company was a fraud, your investment, that you don't even own the shares. It was a Russian doll of SPVs, special purpose vehicles, that you don't even own the shares.

1:02:47Michael Batnick:So you imagine you were expecting a liquidity event and like, sorry, dude, you've been ripped off. Okay. So that's a thing? Oh, that's a thing. Here's another way that prediction markets can add value to the real world. You can't buy Anthropic. You can't buy SpaceX. But what if you can predict what the valuation would be at the IPO or whatever, or what the valuation will be in 2026 or 2027? That's a neat concept, no?

1:03:15Ben Carlson:Okay, not bad. It's just the upside probably is less cap because it says, will it be$500 billion plus?

1:03:22Michael Batnick:Well, yeah, it's yes or no. but if you're dying to get exposure you can do it that's on Polymarket guess what I want to bet not as much fun as dunking on Michael for losing the Seahawks bet but I bet on one battle

1:03:39Ben Carlson:what was your payout

1:03:42Michael Batnick:unfortunately I bet 8 times more in the Superbowl but hey a win's a win

1:03:49Ben Carlson:no one is ever watching that movie more than once that's my thesis It's going to be a movie that comes and goes.

1:03:55Michael Batnick:So I enjoyed the Oscars. I thought it was nice that Sinners and One Battle, like nobody got trounced. Even though I thought, I thought Sinners was wildly overrated. I said it when I saw it in theaters. I enjoyed it and I'm happy that it exists. Okay. But like best picture. All right. And One Battle just kind of wild that that was PTA's first Oscar win.

1:04:18Ben Carlson:Even though I'm on the record, not a PTA guy. All right. The argument had a post about who orders all that DoorDash. And this is obviously, this chart was meant to go viral, but it's interesting. The biggest delivery consumers are broke millennials. And they break this out by demographics, so it's age range, and income. And they show the most transactions happen people age 30 to 44 who make less than 50K.

1:04:46Michael Batnick:I can't prove this. Is this broke millennials whose parents are paying their DoorDash bill?

1:04:51Ben Carlson:oh that's a good

1:04:52Michael Batnick:otherwise come on if you are truly broke with no backstop you're going downstairs and you're picking up your food

1:05:01Ben Carlson:you'd think that's the point people are saying like but isn't it also just people in the 30 to 44 age range probably use their phones more and their technology more like can you I cannot picture my parents ever completing a DoorDash order no offense mom and dad I can't picture them doing that and figuring it out right Right? So that, I think that's part of it. Is it also true? And I don't want to like, is it true that people who, who do this more just don't have good financial habits and they do it more because they don't realize like this is not good for you financially.

1:05:34Michael Batnick:I just, it's so expensive. How do you not realize?

1:05:38Ben Carlson:That's a good question. You know, someone pointed out, I think I said something along the lines of financial education could help get more people invested in the stock market. And someone said that I was poverty shaming. so I don't that there's some people who just can't afford to invest in the stock market which is obviously true and there are some people who just but listen if this is a thing you're right if you're spending this much of your income on DoorDash it's a bad financial decision if you don't make that much money and you're hurting financially it really is

1:06:08Michael Batnick:no poverty shaming cancel this man yes

1:06:11Ben Carlson:that's what happened alright Allison Schrager I love this because for years we heard there was a retirement crisis and she says no, there is no retirement crisis. Americans are saving enough for retirement. The 401k going from defined contribution to defined benefit or sorry, defined benefit to defined contribution. It worked. She looks at an inflation adjusted basis. Older Americans are doing better than ever. The median net worth of Americans 16 over is far higher than it was three decades ago. Adjusted for inflation. It's more than doubled. People are, she's like, people are doing just fine.

1:06:45Ben Carlson:love it she says americans 60 and older and this is in 2022 so it's even higher now had a median net worth of like 450 grand that may not sound like a lot to retire with but it was 210 grand in 1989 right now some people look at this and go that's not enough money to retire of course it isn't some people have to supplement with social security maybe they work longer whatever it is the point is older americans are in a much better shape there was many many words written

1:07:12Michael Batnick:about the coming retirement crisis.

1:07:14Ben Carlson:Yes. My point has always been, do we see retirees in bread lines and stuff? People figure it out, and most of them, if they have to just rely on Social Security, obviously that's not a grand lifestyle, but that's what happens to most people is they supplement some financial assets with home equity, with Social Security, and that's how they manage retirement. All right. Oh, one thing we didn't mention about, now we're up to travel. One thing we didn't mention about Future Proof. one of the greatest mergers. I think more 90s bands should merge together. Totally. So we had Sugar Ray, Better Than Ezra, and Tonic all came together.

1:07:51Ben Carlson:The three lead singers from those bands came together and formed their own band. What'd they call it? Better Ray Hart. Better Ray Hart. Okay. And each of those bands have three to four bangers. And all they did was play the hits. And man, was that a great way If you could merge some bands,

1:08:07Michael Batnick:what would it be?

1:08:08Ben Carlson:I thought about this. Okay. So we got like, so first I would do Toadies and Toad the Wet Sprocket. Gin Blossoms. I don't know the first two bands. Boogadolls. Toadies? Toadies? Look them up. Actually, it's like a hard rock band. You'd like Toadies. They had a great one-hit wonder album. But I thought about this though. How much of a head, and this is like a musician thing. How much of a head game does it play with you? If you had a one-hit wonder or even like a three-hit wonder album. 20 years ago, whatever.

1:08:37Michael Batnick:How much does that mess with you? Yeah. Josh and I saw, and I think we were with Nick. We saw Jim Blossoms at like a tiny little place, I don't know, five years ago.

1:08:46Ben Carlson:So I saw one a few years ago. It was Counting Crows, Collective Soul, and Live. Ooh. That's a good 90s matchup, right?

1:08:53Michael Batnick:Yeah.

1:08:54Ben Carlson:That's really good. Yeah. So anyway, and they were saying, like they were having, Mark McGrath was, I thought he was hilarious. You know, they were gabbing in between songs and telling 90s. It was great.

1:09:05Michael Batnick:All right, Ben, I can't let this go. Okay. Today, Ben, there's an email. Today, Ben stated that people could file free with TurboTax or file online with the IRS. But the IRS free file was shut down this year by Elon. So please correct us. Boom.

1:09:18Ben Carlson:I didn't realize that.

1:09:19Michael Batnick:Corrected. Thanks a lot, Doge. Yeah. All right. I got an email. Congrats, Michael. You've been selected for a pre-approval offer of up to$60 ,000 toward a new Subaru. And I thought, how much do Subarus cost?

1:09:37Michael Batnick:How much are they? I don't know. I didn't. Up to$60 ,000. What in the hell? Now, lest anyone try and poverty shame me like they do to Ben, I'm not car shaming. I drove a Subaru. And I loved my Subaru.

1:09:53Ben Carlson:Like an Outback?

1:09:54Michael Batnick:I drove. Oh, my God.

1:09:58Ben Carlson:My brain. I thought that was the only kind.

1:10:00Michael Batnick:No, no, no, no, no. I drove the Impreza.

1:10:04Ben Carlson:Oh, geez. Just the regular. An Outback runs 35 to 49. No, I did not drive the price. $49 is the top, top end. $35 ,000 is MSRP for a Super Routeback.

1:10:13Michael Batnick:So what are they trying to sell me? I drove the Super Sedan.

1:10:16Ben Carlson:Oh, the Legacy. You take the difference and you invest it in stocks.

1:10:20Michael Batnick:Yeah, I guess.

1:10:21Ben Carlson:Bizarre.

1:10:23Michael Batnick:All right. I got a lot of recommendations. It's been a couple of weeks. I don't have many. Okay. I watched Sisu 2 on the airplane. Sounds like a kid's movie. Sisu, Sisu. I don't know how you pronounce it. Is it Finnish? The second one was hilarious. It's just an over-the-top action movie. This old guy, the Nazis take his land or something like that, and he's just a badass.

1:10:54Ben Carlson:Okay, I guess I did see the movie for that.

1:10:56Michael Batnick:Yeah, can't be killed type of guy. And the first one's awesome, and the second one is even more awesome. Just way -

1:11:01Ben Carlson:It was like the Finnish Liam Neeson?

1:11:03Michael Batnick:Yeah, but yeah, just totally over-the-top. Like, hilarious. Laugh out loud. gore and action and, you know. All right, I mentioned Chris Ryan's Rewatchables Month earlier on the show, and they finally did Fargo, and I rewatched Fargo for the first time in 15 years at least.

1:11:21Ben Carlson:It's funny, I rewatched it like a month ago, not knowing they're going to do it on Rewatchables. I rewatched it probably once over two years.

1:11:25Michael Batnick:That's a lot. So, Fargo is literally my favorite movie of all time. Like, actually, it is my number one Michael's favorite movie of all time.

1:11:35Ben Carlson:the accents just make me smile when there's the accents

1:11:38Michael Batnick:and that's not a new thing that's been my number one for a long time

1:11:41Ben Carlson:you have said that before

1:11:42Michael Batnick:it really is the perfect movie it's like an hour 35

1:11:47Ben Carlson:or something like that I must just be getting older because I find myself watching way more old movies now than new movies I just I can't I don't know what it is like I watched I rewatched Little Miss Sunshine and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind recently and I showed George Armageddon as well and I just find myself being attracted more to older movies instead of new movies. Man, Armageddon was good. Oh my, I just, so he did a double. He did a Deep Impact followed by Armageddon. That was the same year, both 98, right? Yeah, they both come out in the same year. It's so funny how, but Armageddon just pulls at the heartstrings way more than, Deep Impact gave me nothing.

1:12:22Ben Carlson:Did George cry?

1:12:23Michael Batnick:No feels.

1:12:24Ben Carlson:No, he doesn't get emotional about the movies. But it's so funny. He has action movies figured out. My daughter will be like, oh no, is he going to make it? And he always goes, that's the main character. He's not going to die.

1:12:36Ben Carlson:but then he goes no spoilers here but he goes Harry's gonna die at the end isn't he Bruce Willis he called it so he's got these movies figured out keep going

1:12:45Michael Batnick:I caught a matinee it's been a long time since that happened I was able to drop Logan off at a thing and it just worked out pristinely I said to Robin I said you know what you told me to go to the movies tonight I want to hang out tonight with you guys I don't want to go to the movies I want to be home so let me just do a matinee real quick this movie's an hour and a half I saw Undertone and Undertone is one of those indie horror movies. Great concept. Podcaster. They do, it's like a supernatural, evil, whatever podcast.

1:13:12Ben Carlson:There's literally a new horror movie every week for you. That's like, how do you not get sick of these?

1:13:16Michael Batnick:This was scary. This was genuinely scary. But there was only one other weirdo in the theater, which took the experience way down. Because had I seen this at night in a crowded theater, like I was scared. And this is, you know why I say you have to go to the movies for some, you have to go to the theater for some movies. Ben, this is the type of thing where there's noises in the theater behind you when the speakers are behind you. And the whole point of the movie was like the sound and where the noise is coming from. And it was super effective, but I was so scared that I was like looking down at my phone, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I saw the movie at night, like a normal person with people around me.

1:13:54Michael Batnick:Scary movie. Good movie.

1:13:55Ben Carlson:okay all right any else what else you got lastly lastly tv shows are ramping we are ramping up and i'm going to tell you right now

1:14:07Michael Batnick:paradise loved season one i that is a that is a an analyst hold for me on season two i saw one episode not thrilled i'm gonna wait for reviews i don't mind my wife is really into

1:14:19Ben Carlson:that show she's more into it than me and we're worth three episodes in and it's actually it's Better than I thought it would be. I thought it was a one-season show. I'm still going to wait.

1:14:27Michael Batnick:Same thing with Monarch, the Godzilla show. That's a wait for me. There's just too much on right now. So I dove into two new shows. DTF St. Louis, that is with Jason Bateman, an actress who is a very familiar face.

1:14:41Ben Carlson:And the guy from Stranger Things.

1:14:43Michael Batnick:And Dr. Dobak. Now, that show is flames. Three episodes in. Are you watching it? I haven't yet. Okay. It's on my list. Quite good. It's a love triangle, a murder. Very good. And I watched, and Rooster is a new show on HBO with Steve Carell. So it's light. That's coming of age, right?

1:15:02Ben Carlson:That's right up your alley, Ben. Okay. I'm definitely into that. All right. A couple weeks ago, I complained about history books and said, I need something that grabs my attention. And two separate people said, Ben, you have to listen to The Gales of November by John Bacon. So this is a book, and it's one of those audio books that immediately sucks you in. Okay. And it plays the hits for me because this guy is based in Detroit, and he writes a book about the Edmund Fitzgerald. Now, the only knowledge I had of the Edmund Fitzgerald was the Gordon Lightfoot song. Have you heard this before?

1:15:29Michael Batnick:No.

1:15:30Ben Carlson:There's a song called the— I don't know Gordon Lightfoot. And I had a friend in high school who was like his favorite song, so we listen to it all the time. There's a song. So the Edmund Fitzgerald is the biggest ship that's ever sunk on the Great Lakes. Okay? And this book is not only about this ship, but it's a history of the business of the Great Lakes. And so like how much business has been… Oh, of course. Yeah. Are you kidding me? At the Edmund Fitzgerald. Yeah. Classic. Classic. So I never knew much about the story. I'm surprised they didn't teach it to us. So it's a history of the Great Lakes.

1:16:05Ben Carlson:And it talks about like being a captain on the ocean versus being a captain on the Great Lakes. And all the people, the guys who are in the ocean, like you Great Lakes guys, and then they ride on the Great Lakes and like, oh, this is serious. but so it also talks about the guy who created the Edmund Fitzgerald was the president of Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company and at first he didn't want his name on there because like what if it sinks and of course it did sink um but it also talks about like the growth of Detroit and the growth of like they found these copper mines in Michigan and that made the Great Lakes you know this big business thing and talked about how like more efficient the ship so it's a business book too but the most interesting thing to me from a risk investing standpoint was you know what the Sue locks are?

1:16:44Ben Carlson:No. So you have one piece, you have one body of water, Lake Superior, is like 20 feet higher than the river, right? And they used to have to, back in the day, they had to like carry stuff down and like do it a ship. So they built these locks that would even out the water. You remember, like people go to them to watch. It's like, it's fantastic. It's this crazy, actually Da Vinci was the one who created these. Sorry, I'm just, I've never heard of the concept, but that's interesting. It literally evens out the water that they move it over and the water goes back like this. It's an insane thing that it was ever created.

1:17:16Ben Carlson:But what they did is because the ship captains were, they got their profits from how much stuff they moved. They built the ship to be exactly as big as the locks. So it had like six inches on each side. And guess what that meant? It wasn't very good during a storm because they just built it for the locks to haul as much crap as they could and not the storm. And that's why it's saying. Fantastic book. Whoever recommended that to me, those two dudes, way to go. I love that. And I have more of a Great Lakes love than you do, but I think you'd like it. It's really, really good.

1:17:51Michael Batnick:Okay.

1:17:52Ben Carlson:Sounds great.

1:17:54Michael Batnick:What's it called?

1:17:55Ben Carlson:The Gales of November.

1:17:56Michael Batnick:The Gales of November. Good title. Yeah. All right. We went long. We had to. We missed a week. Yeah. Good to be back in our home turf. Wait, two plugs.

1:18:06Ben Carlson:I talked with Big Joe, Joseph Wang from Synthetic Fire last week about box spread loans. On what show? On Talking Wealth. So go on Talking Wealth. Check that out. It's a concept that Bill and I brought up in Asset Compound, and everyone was so flummoxed, our audience. They were like, wait, what? It was way over people's heads. So I wanted to do a deeper dive. It's a way to borrow against your portfolio, and it'll kind of blow your mind how low you can borrow. It's like you're the US government, essentially. Also, we mentioned it last week, but new Exhibit A feature. I'm doing a monthly summary of all the favorite charts from ChartKid.

1:18:41Ben Carlson:So it's going to be like white-labeled for advisors.

1:18:43Michael Batnick:Ben is going to be a ghostwriter.

1:18:46Ben Carlson:Yes.

1:18:47Michael Batnick:For advisors.

1:18:47Ben Carlson:I've had people reach out to me before. Hey, can you ghostwrite for us? No, write your own stuff. But I'm going to do it now.

1:18:51Michael Batnick:Now you can?

1:18:52Ben Carlson:Yeah. So go to exhibit A for advice.com. Yeah. Anything else?

1:18:57Michael Batnick:Except for me.

1:18:58Ben Carlson:All right. Animal Spirits. The compoundnews.com. Personal emails. Personal responses. Anywho. Someone just emailed us and said, hey, the roast was... Because we had a lot of people say, you guys are real stunk. this guy said this guy said I was laughing out loud at the ropes you guys nailed it so alright see you next time