In short
Earnings-season preview and market positioning ahead of major reports (MSFT, META, AAPL, AMZN), plus discussion of why “cheap” stocks with weak momentum get punished on misses, the unwind in AI/semi trades, and the political/financial backlash around Nvidia–OpenAI data-center financing.
Guest backgrounds
No named guests in this transcript; hosts Michael Batnick and Josh (and occasional references to analysts like Mark Mahaney, Adam Parker, Neil Duda, Bernstein, Evercore ISI). Sponsor DBMF is mentioned.
Key claims
Microsoft’s Azure growth and huge 2026 CapEx (about $190B) will be judged versus free cash flow and Copilot seat growth; investors also want clarity after Microsoft ended Azure exclusivity for OpenAI models. Meta’s stock reaction will hinge on CapEx/free cash flow despite strong ad/reels monetization; likely negative reaction if CapEx stays high. Amazon’s AWS AI-driven cloud growth is the focus; Apple’s “AI on-device” narrative and China AI approval are key. Market is “Teflon”: Mag 7 and semis are weak, but other sectors/halo trades hold up. Cheap + bad momentum stocks get “slaughtered” on earnings misses.
Notable examples
Microsoft commercial backlog ($627B); Meta CapEx guidance ($125B to $145B) and potential compute-capacity monetization; Amazon AWS growth expectations (32–33%); Apple China approval for on-device AI models; Nvidia–OpenAI reported $250B financing backstop; Corning drawdown ($255 to ~$126) and memory valuation collapse (Micron/SK Hynix/Samsung).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOEarnings Season Overview
1:25 to 2:08
Discussion on the significance of upcoming earnings reports from major companies.
“Alternatives should do two things, be uncorrelated to traditional asset classes and deliver strong performance.”
Earnings Season Overview
2:20 to 3:20
Discussion on the significance of upcoming earnings reports from major companies.
“And every time we say it, it's always true.”
Microsoft Earnings Preview
3:21 to 8:06
Insights and expectations for Microsoft's upcoming earnings report.
“And here's what you actually need to take away.”
Meta's Earnings Forecast
8:19 to 12:29
Analysis of Meta's upcoming earnings and key metrics to watch.
“Consensus,$7.23 on 60 billion in revenue.”
Amazon and Apple Earnings Outlook
12:47 to 14:01
Expectations surrounding Amazon and Apple's earnings reports.
“Let's do Amazon and Apple, which report the following night.”
Amazon's Earnings Expectations
14:01 to 15:04
Discussion around Amazon's stock performance and earnings predictions.
“So the street thinks Amazon's gonna do something similar.”
Apple's Potential and Market Position
15:07 to 15:33
Analysis of Apple's stock trends and factors influencing its market position.
“The one thing on a stock basis that I would say, getting away from the company itself, this has really been running in place for a long time.”
Tim Cook's Final Earnings Call
15:37 to 16:45
Insights into what to expect from Tim Cook's last earnings call and its significance.
“So there'll be a lot of questions about the transition itself.”
Apple's AI Strategy and Market Perception
16:46 to 20:20
Exploration of Apple's integration of AI and market perceptions changing over time.
“It was a big question mark hanging over the stock.”
Impact of Earnings on Stock Prices
20:21 to 23:02
Discussion about the relationship between stock momentum and earnings reports.
“People clearly like the capital light version of benefiting from AI versus that.”
Show all 22 chapters
Missed Earnings and Market Reactions
23:03 to 23:43
Analysis of how stocks are affected when companies miss earnings expectations.
“chart off, please, Daniel, is that, listen, most stocks don't miss earnings, right?”
Stock Performance vs. Market Highs
23:44 to 25:05
Examination of stock drawdowns and overall market performance amidst earnings.
“All right, let's talk about the market because, Josh, I am – Well, wait.”
Current Market Dynamics and Sector Trends
25:06 to 28:00
Insight into the current market dynamics, sector performance, and investor behavior.
“Out of all of these stocks, and there's maybe 20 on this list that are getting smoked, there's really only three that are expensive.”
Market Trends and AI Impact
28:00 to 29:22
Discussion on current market trends, the performance of ETFs, and the decline of AI-related stocks.
“It's companies nobody's ever heard of, like TFI.”
Berkshire Hathaway's Success
29:22 to 31:22
Exploring the strong performance of Berkshire Hathaway and its diverse investments.
“So Expedia, uh, why would you need this website when you have AI?”
Semiconductor Market Dynamics
31:22 to 33:56
Analyzing the significant unwind in semiconductor stocks and the implications of NVIDIA's financing deal with OpenAI.
“Staples gapped higher by, I don't know, three or 4 % and closed on the deadlows of the day.”
Political Ties in Tech Investments
33:56 to 35:49
Discussion on the potential political implications of OpenAI granting shares to the government and investor concerns.
“People do not, I understand the purpose of that guarantee to make sure the project actually goes forward.”
Corning's Market Performance
35:49 to 39:51
Evaluation of Corning's stock performance and its impact on the optical sector amidst AI capital expenditure.
“I mean, I'm exaggerating, but the rates are a lot better with NVIDIA at your back.”
Earnings Forecasts and Market Sentiment
39:51 to 42:01
Discussion on earnings forecasts for semiconductor companies and the market's perception of their valuations.
“You can see it was some really tough days in the 2000 to 2002.com bubble burst because Corning was a player back then as well.”
Market Analysis and Memory Chip Trends
42:01 to 44:30
Explore the current state of semiconductor companies and market perceptions.
“So this is the first time I've seen something like this.”
Federal Reserve Speculations and Market Reactions
44:30 to 46:02
Discuss the implications of potential rate hikes and market volatility.
“I don't know what the probability is in the futures market.”
Earnings Previews and Market Confidence
46:02 to 47:16
Understand the importance of upcoming earnings reports on market confidence.
“even within 5 % of a high, it's very hard to be bearish.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:13Downtown Josh Brown:All right. What up? What up? It is Tuesday, 5 p.m. We're back with an all new edition of What Are Your Thoughts? We have a jammed packed show. A lot to say, not a lot of time to say it in. I do want to give a couple of quick shout outs in the chat Mostly because people are saying nice things about my hair First, the nice thing about Michael Leave the gene pool said Batnick predicted that this broadening out Would create a weird environment months ago It's a great call by Michael, I agree See Paul Breezy, JB got that John Gruden hair school for men look working I guess Josh looked like a
0:52Michael Batnick:You could use a visor Yeah
0:55Downtown Josh Brown:It's Vazor season. Josh looked like a golden rooster on CNBC today. You're damn right I did. All right. Who else is here? Sam F. is in the house. Cliff Peebles is back. Noah Turner says, what up? Magnus is here. Jacobs 2001. Bloom Energy. Blooming after hours like Josh's hair. All right. It's enough of that. Who's the sponsor tonight, Michael?
1:21Michael Batnick:It is DBMF. This podcast is brought to you by them. the world's largest managed futures ETF. Alternatives should do two things, be uncorrelated to traditional asset classes and deliver strong performance. But many alternatives don't do those things very well. That's where DBMF comes in. With its revolutionary low-cost approach, DBMF has quickly become the world's largest managed futures ETF, delivering both alpha generating returns and genuine diversification to portfolios. Find out why managed futures should be a foundational part of any alternatives allocation at www.dbmf.com. The fund's investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses must be considered carefully before investing.
2:02Michael Batnick:The statutory and summary prospectuses contain this and other important information about the investment company. It may be obtained by visiting www.imgp.com. The IMGP DBI Managed Future Strategy ETF is distributed by Alps Distributors, Inc.
2:19Downtown Josh Brown:All right, gangsters. This is, we say this every quarter. And every time we say it, it's always true. We are in the most important week, statistically, and perhaps emotionally for earnings season. We are going to hear in the next two nights from four of the biggest companies in the world. And arguably the comments, not just the numbers from those companies matter just as much for the rest of the overall market, or do they? Microsoft and Meta are tomorrow after the close. And the following night on Thursday, we're going to get Apple and Amazon. Quick programming note, I want to let you guys know, we're going to finish out the week with the compound and friends, and we're bringing our friend and perhaps the world's foremost authority on big tech, Alex Kantruitz back on the show.
3:11Downtown Josh Brown:So tonight we're going to do a preview of the big storylines going into these reports. And then on Friday, we're going to give you like the postmortem. Here's what happens. The reveal. And here's what you actually need to take away. So we have you covered front and back. I guess let's start with Microsoft. Michael, you said before, this is the one that you pay the most attention to or you look forward to the most. Is that still true? Did I say that? Yeah.
3:41Michael Batnick:I take it back. I don't remember saying, I don't remember thinking that, but go on. What did I say? I say a lot of things.
3:47Downtown Josh Brown:I don't know specifically, but I think you were just talking about it in terms of its importance to the ecosystem and maybe because it's in the biggest drawdown of, of, of the whole group and all that open AI exposure. And I just, I think you said last time they reported, like this is the one that you're looking most forward to. I don't know. I guess it's not still the case now.
4:10Michael Batnick:I feel like you might be misquoting me. I don't know.
4:13Downtown Josh Brown:Well, that definitely.
4:14Michael Batnick:Well, listen, here's the, I mean, Microsoft is the biggest software stock in the world. And so, yeah, you're damn right. I'm interested to hear what they have to say. Absolutely.
4:23Downtown Josh Brown:All right. We'll roll the tape back. We'll see if you ever said that or if my own internal AI hallucinated it. I'm going to give you the expectations. and then, Michael, you can react to it. $4.24 on earnings, revenue of$87.7 billion. The entire conversation around Microsoft is not about the software business these days. It's about Azure. Azure grew 40 % last quarter. Investors want to hear 39 % to 40 % this quarter. The other big number, the CapEx number, $190 billion is what the company said they're on pace to spend for calendar 2026, which is an insane number. So we're going to watch for that growth rate.
5:05Downtown Josh Brown:CapEx versus free cash flow is really the big part of the story. We know that the hyperscalers with cloud data businesses are very happy to see that free cash flow squashed to zero and continue to spend. I do think co-pilot monetization is going to matter here. So I guess that's sort of their software business. paid co-pilot seats broke 20 million last quarter. That was over 250 % over the prior year. So any update on seat growth could be taken positively. The other thing that's happened is that Microsoft recently gave up Azure's exclusivity serving open AI models. And so now that exclusivity is gone.
5:53Downtown Josh Brown:And I think people are going to want some clarity. Well, what is going to be the AI strategy on the software side? The last thing here, we talked about this earlier, Michael, the commercial backlog. The number right now is$627 billion, which is so big, like so unbelievably gigantic. I think it partially explains the patience that investors have with all this CapEx spending. Think about how big that number is. I wasn't sure exactly what gets considered commercial backlog. And Michael, I think you and I didn't know the answer, like what really goes in there. So I thought I'd share what it's actually made up of.
6:36It's multi-year Azure consumption commitments.
6:40Downtown Josh Brown:So these are enterprises that have signed deals to spend a certain amount over the coming years. but it's backlog until they actually book it. It's Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscription contracts. Again, these are multi-year. It's server and cloud enterprise agreements, and it's large AI infrastructure commitments, including the opening I deal. So it's almost like whatever revenue they're not booking immediately just gets added onto that pile. And so the quarterly revenue only reflects what's actually been delivered and recognized. We want to see, I think if we're long, we want to see upside to that$627 billion because it's evidence that the return for all this CapEx is actually on its way in the form of signed commitments from enterprise customers.
7:31Downtown Josh Brown:Did I explain that well? You did. It's funny, Josh.
7:34Michael Batnick:You and I think alike. After the show last week, I did the exact same thing. Made sure I was educated on what the backlog is. And it's exactly what you think it is. It's exactly how you described it.
7:42Downtown Josh Brown:Okay. anything else on Microsoft here? Do you think it's going to be eventful?
7:50Michael Batnick:So I actually took a shot in the stock a couple of weeks ago. I bought some software names. I bought Microsoft Workday and ServiceNow three weeks ago or so. What's that? You still long? Yeah, modest positions. I burned my hand a couple times on those stoves. I'm probably going to whack it off at the open and that's a teaser for later in the show. I don't love the setup going to the call. and all those things.
8:12Downtown Josh Brown:It's limping into the report.
8:15Michael Batnick:Yes, it's uninspiring.
8:16Downtown Josh Brown:Okay, meta. So I thought we would steal some commentary from Mark Mahaney for this one. We're borrowing it. We're not stealing it. Consensus,$7.23 on 60 billion in revenue. Almost the entirety of that is advertising. It's almost the whole business. the big question here is if AI driven ad targeting is still moving the needle enough to justify the massive capex and how do margins look the growth will be there this is like of all the problems Meta has growth is not one of them so this is Mark Mahaney points to five specific things to watch out for and I'll just list them and I'll get your reaction one Meta should be able to print revenue near the top end of its guidance range,$61 billion, that would be a 28 % year-over-year revenue growth number, which is fantastic.
9:17Downtown Josh Brown:Yeah. And he's saying that given the perceived strength in the ad market. And they've done all these checks, and I won't bore you with it, but it doesn't look like there's any sort of pullback in ad spending generally. And of course, Meta is one of the biggest platforms in the world for advertising. So the environment is good. The operating margins will be down materially, but will be in a robust mid-30 percentage range, given the inherent leverage on the Meta model. Three, updated commentary on 26 CapEx and OpEx, early reads into 27. He points out, in the wake of Google, the market will be expecting Meta to raise its 26 CapEx outlook as well from the current$125 billion to$145 billion guidance.
10:06Downtown Josh Brown:So do they go to 150, in other words? Do they go much higher? Four, any indications of new capital allocation plans. And then five, any management plans to sell excess compute capacity. And he thinks, as Mark Mahaney at Evercore ISI, confirmation of this would likely be perceived positively by the market. The market likes that story of them taking some of the capacity they've built and monetizing it right now. So that's the read from Mahaney. What do you think about Meta going into the print?
10:44Michael Batnick:At the risk of getting too cute, I think you could do something very similar to Google. Google fell 6 % after its earnings. And you and I spoke briefly. I said, this is a really good quarter. Like if you were just looking at the fundamentals, it was really good. And the street hated it. And it gapped on 6%. It has been up in the next three training sessions. I think you're going to see something similar out of Meta. I think the reels monetization is going to be insane, up 30 % year over year. I think it's going to be a monster number. But I don't think it's going to matter right now because the only thing that investors seem to be focused on right now is CapEx and free cash flow.
11:17Michael Batnick:And one's going higher. The other's going lower. So I think they're going to punish the stock at the open.
11:23Downtown Josh Brown:So I know this is like a counterfactual that's not really possible because it's too late. They're already in the spending mode. and once you've spent some, you have to spend the rest. Otherwise, all that investment you've already made is worthless. So they're not going to pull back on spending until and unless they literally have to, which I don't see coming. But I wonder, what do you think the stock price reaction would be if they kept CapEx spend exactly where it is and said we're very comfortable with the rate? Does the stock add 10 % the wake of that news? Or do people get nervous? and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
12:01Downtown Josh Brown:Wait, they're like pulling back? Even though they're not pulling back.
12:05Michael Batnick:I suppose you could have it both ways where they hate it either way. But I think if they said they're just maintaining, I think the stock goes up 10%, maybe more.
12:12Downtown Josh Brown:Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked. Because dude, the business is on fire
12:17Michael Batnick:and it's trading at 16 times forward earnings. I don't think it would take a lot to get investors very excited.
12:25Downtown Josh Brown:I would almost, I would buy on that news if I didn't miss the 10 % gap that it's like, no, we're very comfortable with our CapEx for the year. No change to guidance. We're sticking to our plan. Listen, nobody wants that.
12:38Michael Batnick:Nobody is saying that. I suppose somebody would have to be the first by definition. I don't see that happening. Okay.
12:46Downtown Josh Brown:Let's do. All right. So that's tomorrow. Let's do Amazon and Apple, which report the following night. I'm more excited for these two than I am for the other two. I own both. So it makes sense that I'm more excited. but I also think that, well, maybe Amazon's not going to be that interesting. All right. $1.82 in earnings,$196 to$197 billion in revenue. That would be 17 % growth over the prior year on the top line. Again, similar to Microsoft, the most important thing is AWS, which is their cloud business. And analysts are actually expecting acceleration. They think they're going to see 32 % to 33 % cloud growth driven by surging AI workload demand.
13:30Downtown Josh Brown:Google did 82%.
13:32Michael Batnick:I know it's a smaller base, but 82%.
13:34Downtown Josh Brown:Right. Google's number three behind Amazon and Azure. But what else? Oh, CapEx guidance is the swing factor. Amazon is already currently guiding to$200 billion for full year 2026. that's versus 125 billion that they spent in 2025. These are almost adding up to real numbers. So Alphabet went from 180 to 195 to 205. So the street thinks Amazon's gonna do something similar. If they hold the line at 200 billion, again, it could be read as a relief. If they meaningfully hike above that, like they go to 220, I feel like that's a negative for the stock. Even if it's the right thing for the business, I think the investors just want like a status quo announcement.
14:31Downtown Josh Brown:I just don't think people want to wrap their head around more. But, you know, they're not going to worry about what the street thinks this week. It's just not the culture at Amazon. There's some weird shit with Prime Day, but I almost think it doesn't matter. The retail business is very steady. It's not a big needle mover. You can kind of set your watch by it. I don't think it's a swing factor for the stock. There's a distortion where Prime Day fell in Q2 this year versus Q3, which pulled sales forward. No one gives a shit.
Read the full transcript
15:04Downtown Josh Brown:Yeah, I don't think there's anything left really to say on Amazon. The one thing on a stock basis that I would say, getting away from the company itself, this has really been running in place for a long time. A long time. It doesn't look as bad as the pullbacks in Tesla, Microsoft, and Meta, but it also is literally going nowhere. And I really don't know what actually changes that dynamic, but that's the read on Amazon going in. Apple. We did a show two weeks ago, Why Apple's Going to 400. everything that I've read and thought about since I'm absolutely convinced this is still going to be the one to own for the second half of the year the stock went out at an all time record high today it is literally pennies from closing above a 5 trillion dollar market cap I think it did it might have gotten there but I don't know if it closed there whatever it's right there Tim Cook's last earnings call as CEO This is his final earnings print before the transition.
16:13Downtown Josh Brown:So there'll be a lot of questions about the transition itself. And we're going to start hearing from new CEO John Ternus on the next earnings call. We'll hear from him before that because remember, it's a big September 1st event coming up.
16:27Michael Batnick:Tim Cook has never said anything interesting on the earnings calls. I don't know about never. I haven't listened to all of them, but he's pretty boring.
16:33Downtown Josh Brown:He's very buttoned up. They did get a major, we talked about this already, so we won't say a lot, but they did have a major victory during the course of the quarter with their China business. They got approval from Beijing to include AI, obviously homegrown AI models on Apple phones in China. It's a big deal. It's their second biggest market. It was a big question mark hanging over the stock. The Capital Light AI narrative is gaining traction. so it's here's the here's the the here's the phrase to watch for they're calling it ai on device as opposed to ai that's being carried out at the data center so apple silicon is enabling these next generation of phones to do more on device and then thinking about the frontier models almost as like feeders into the iOS services ecosystem.
17:30Downtown Josh Brown:And the market, I mean, I've been pounding the table on that thesis. The market has really come around and I think they like it a lot. So this is almost the biggest company in the world, very close to NVIDIA. iPhone stuff, is it normalizing or is it slowing? So they got a big burst of enthusiasm when they launched the iPhone 17 is their follow through in the quarter. Very important. Tariff and component costs. Apple very famously came out and said they were going to be raising prices across a lot of their most popular devices because of the price of memory chips, among other components that go into the products.
18:12Downtown Josh Brown:So they've got those price hikes in the market now. And we'll see if that is offsetting demand.
18:18Michael Batnick:No, it's interesting how it's, the narratives on these stocks is changing so fast. It was Thursday, June 25th. I forget who we were on the air with, but they were raising prices as a result of memory costs. And of course it was going to come to margin. And they whacked the stock. It was down 6 % of the day. And I think we were like, that doesn't really make sense to me. Like demand is not going to change. The stock closed.
18:43Downtown Josh Brown:We're going to find out, right? Like this is the quarter where they're going to have to answer for what happened to demand in the wake of price hikes.
18:51Michael Batnick:I don't know if there's enough time because that was only a month ago. But on that day, the stock closed at 270. And now it's a low. And in the blink of an eye, it ran up to 340. So even on the biggest stock in the world, people are so wrong, us included, all of the time. And the narratives follow the price, obviously, always. Yeah.
19:11Downtown Josh Brown:So the narrative now is, if you want to own large cap tech and you want to invest in AI, Apple is the company that is not spending a trillion dollars over the next five years in CapEx, but is poised to become a toll booth for consumer AI use on device. People really have come around to that story. That was not the story with the stock six months ago, to your point. The story was Apple is literally nowhere in AI. All of their best AI scientists are running off to join the circus. They lost 400 employees to open AI. They lost Johnny Ive to his own design studio. And it was like, well, what are we doing about AI?
19:55Downtown Josh Brown:Why aren't we building data centers and blah, blah, blah? Why doesn't Apple have its own LLM? Why doesn't Siri work? Nobody's speaking that way anymore. People are now speaking about this being sort of a covert way to see earnings come in from AI without Apple having had to make these types of investments that are making people nervous. Like at Oracle, they cut the stock to one notch above junk. People clearly like the capital light version of benefiting from AI versus that. So Oracle down 70%. Dude, it looks like a f***ed company.
20:37Michael Batnick:Matter of fact, we have it here. All right. Why is this chart here? It seems sort of out of order, but whatever. Josh, you asked for this, some stocks that are getting whacked.
20:49Downtown Josh Brown:Oh, in the Teflon market. I don't need it right up top. Why don't you take over?
20:54Michael Batnick:All right. So this is a natural segue to what's happening with earnings season. I thought this was really interesting. There is this notion that some investors have, at least I did, and I think others share the same thing, that if a stock is performing really well going into earnings, you might say, or somebody might go on TV and say it's price for perfection, right? And that makes sense. I don't use that term. Buy the rumor, sell the news type of thing. Like that all checks out. But actually, there is a lot of wisdom in stock prices. So Adam Parker said, you better not miss earnings. He said, quote, cheap stocks with bad momentum are not de-risked into the print.
21:45Michael Batnick:They are anticipating the miss correctly. And the miss is a confirmation of the price action. Stocks with bad momentum that are cheap have never been punished more for missing. Let me read that one more time. Stocks with bad momentum that are cheap have never been punished more for missing. So that's what gives me pause about Microsoft. That's what gives me pause about Meta going to the print and whatever. I don't know if I'd be wrong, but I love this.
22:16Downtown Josh Brown:That makes me nervous. That makes me nervous on Uber, which is going to report on August 5th. It's a dirt cheap stock with horrendous momentum. You should. That is like exactly what he's talking about.
22:26Michael Batnick:So obviously, listen, I'd love for Meta and Microsoft to gap up. Who wouldn't like to see that? but Adam has run the data and he has this kick-ass chart that shows the mean industry relative return for missing EPS over time. And he's breaking it down by price to forward earnings quintile. So he's showing that stocks in the bottom quintile of 12-month momentum through the end of June, 2026. And what you're seeing is the cheap stocks, when they miss, holy shit, they get killed. Killed.
22:55Downtown Josh Brown:Cheap is not going to save you in this market. Killed.
22:57Michael Batnick:So the market is anticipating These stocks are cheap for a reason. Now, there is an important caveat, chart off, please, Daniel, is that, listen, most stocks don't miss earnings, right? Like there is a high beat rate. Matter of fact, you have 100%. The guidance comes from the company. Right, so they tell you - It would be crazy if most stocks missed earnings. So 100 % of financials, industrials, communications, and staples have beat through July 23rd, 100%. So the only place that you're getting any sort of misses is indiscretionary, 13%, 11 % materials, 4 % information tech, 8 % healthcare, 20 % real estate, 40 % energy.
23:39Michael Batnick:So most companies don't miss, but the ones that do and the cheap ones, they get slaughtered. All right? So that's because we paused about Microsoft and Meta. All right, let's talk about the market because, Josh, I am –
23:49Downtown Josh Brown:Well, wait. Before we move off this subject, I did want to show you this list of stocks. Give me the 52-week drawdown chart. There's a couple of points I want to make here, Michael That are germane to what you just said So we're at We're within a couple of percent of an all-time record high In the S &P 500 And look at the stocks in more than a 20 % drawdown And I'll just, for the people listening Oracle negative 65%, that's the worst Coinbase negative 59%, Sandisk negative 50 % Surprise! Guys, Nike's in a 46 % drawdown. ServiceNow, 45. Western Digital, 43. Netflix down 42%. Palantir down 40. And it gets less bad, but still pretty bad.
24:37Downtown Josh Brown:Tesla, Salesforce, Adobe, Uber. Josh, there's - Microsoft, Chipotle. These are cornerstones of corporate America. And they're down by a third or worse. every sector, it's unbelievable that the market is holding up as well as it is, given the names that are absent from the 52-week high list and just getting absolutely demolished. What do you think about that?
25:06Michael Batnick:I'll bet a one do you. Just throw that chart back up. Out of all of these stocks, and there's maybe 20 on this list that are getting smoked, there's really only three that are expensive. I would say two and a half because Tesla is its own animal. It doesn't trade on anything. It's Pound Tier and Robin Hood. everything else here is a market multiple or below stock. These are not, so when you think of, like I think people have this tendency to think expensive stocks get smoked. And yeah, sometimes. No. But it's the opposite. It's the cheap stocks that are getting smoked. So Adam's right. All right, so I want to talk about the stock market.
25:37Michael Batnick:Throw this chart up today, Daniel. This is what happened today. A lot of green and a lot of bright red. And the bright red was in the AI trade. It continues to unwind. And at the risk of sounding like an idiot in front of a Fed meeting and some big earnings reports where the market could change in a second and make this take age terribly, chart off. This market is Teflon. The Mag 7. How is it? How is it Teflon, though? No, it is. But how? The Mag 7, dead. Throw up this chart, Daniel. So year to date, there's one stock in the Mag 7 that's beating the index. apple that's it the market lost the mag 7 all of it all of it every one of them except for apple are underperforming trot off so we lost the mag 7 and the market marched higher so that was the leadership group and then we lost the ai trade semiconductors blown into the stone age the equal The equal weight index was up over 1 % today.
26:43Michael Batnick:The S &P 500 was green today. We lost the MAG-7 and we lost the semiconductors. What is it going to take for this market to give the bears what they want?
26:55Downtown Josh Brown:We're getting by with this bizarre combination of healthcare, financials, small caps, and Apple and NVIDIA holding up. Or Apple pushing to new highs. NVIDIA is not holding up. It is. It's hovering around 200. It's a little bit above, a little bit below. It's holding up. Dude, believe me, relative to the microns of the world, it's doing just fine.
27:16Michael Batnick:It's not helping the market.
27:19Downtown Josh Brown:It's stabilizing the market. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying it's contributing. The stock's doing nothing this year, but it's also not in a 40 % drawdown. I just showed you AMD down 22%, Sandisk down 54%. It's not doing that. So I think that helps. But it's really the financials, the healthcare names. Obviously, energy is leading the market year to date, although most of those gains happen in Q1, not Q2. But they're sort of hung in there. Like Exxon is hanging in there closer to highs than lows. So you have this really bizarre. Oh, the industrials. Bank of America, I don't have a chart, but Bank of America said last week was an all-time record for single stock buying by clients in industrial stocks.
28:04Downtown Josh Brown:like that's what's holding this market up um next chart the halo trades are holding the market up for sure um the halo etf is outperforming the s &p since inception loha full disclosure i'm i'm involved in that um it's up i think five and a half percent uh close to six percent since inception the s &p is down one percent since it launched like i know it's not that much time but it's just indicative what's in that ETF. Airlines, J.B. Hunt. It's companies nobody's ever heard of, like TFI. I couldn't even tell you. But these are the stocks that people are moving toward. They love the industrials.
28:49Michael Batnick:So Ryan Dietrich tweeted, most stocks in the S &P 500 above the 50-day moving average since February, 70 % above the 200-day moving average. so the leadership names, the biggest names are falling apart and the market is still at least the equal weight ripping to new all-time highs. I want to say, I want to, I want to give a rest in peace to the AI will kill everything trade. And I would present to you as exhibit a Expedia and Charles Schwab. Yeah.
29:22Downtown Josh Brown:Remember the,
29:23Michael Batnick:okay. So Expedia, uh, why would you need this website when you have AI? Okay. New all-time high. Uh, Remember when Hazel was going to kill Schwab? And we love Hazel. We use Hazel. We love Altress. We use Altress. But I think we all joked at the time. Just the wrong.
29:40Downtown Josh Brown:You know what this is, Michael? This is just people drawing, like connecting the dots. But it made no sense at the time.
29:46Michael Batnick:So that trade is now over. And we had a monster, monster two-day change in software outperforming semiconductors. And this is only IGV. And IGV includes Palantir and it includes Oracle and Microsoft. If you were to just isolate like the horizontal software names that were supposedly dead, like Salesforce and Workday and ServiceNow, again, two names that I own. They would – like if you were to just look at this, the two-day change looks even more extreme. Yeah.
30:23Downtown Josh Brown:You know what's having a moment? Berkshire Hathaway.
30:27Michael Batnick:Berkshire halfway.
30:28Downtown Josh Brown:So I've been pounding the table on the insurance stocks on TV and here. Like we've been talking about Travelers and Allstate. And these stocks are all making record highs. Berkshire is too. Berkshire owns a huge slug of Coca-Cola, which today gapped higher to an all-time record. So Berkshire is a big holder there. They obviously have all the utility exposure. They obviously have transportation exposure via the railroad. All of these things are firing on all cylinders. And Berkshire, of course, primarily an insurance company. So between the Coca-Cola position, the American Express position, catering to the top of the K, transports, industrials, utilities, it has like everything investors want right now.
31:16Downtown Josh Brown:Almost as if like it was premeditated for this moment. I know it's, of course, not. But I thought that was interesting.
31:22Michael Batnick:One thing that I thought was worth pointing out if you would like to be cautious on the market is staples ripping is not like awesome. You don't love to see that. Well, guess what? Staples gapped higher by, I don't know, three or 4 % and closed on the deadlows of the day. So the resilience of the market, it's just I am beyond impressed. All right, let's continue the semi-crash conversation. So there has been a monster unwind, just a disgusting unwind in SanDisk and our sweet Western Dij and Micron and all these things that we've been talking about that we own. So this was a necessary unwind. It's not fun for anybody involved, but look at this chart.
32:03Michael Batnick:$46 billion of inflows into semiconductor ETFs this year alone. Bananas. Just obviously unsustainable. And again, it feels shitty, but I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you. This puke was necessary. So obviously the story in the journal yesterday, two days ago about NVIDIA being in talks with OpenAI to guarantee$250 billion in financing for data center. Did not help the matter. I think investors are sort of done with the circular stuff. And I want to read you something. Josh, you got to get a load of this. So, Lutnick and the Trump administration also have a lot riding on the Ohio project. As part of its commitment to invest in the U.S.
32:40Michael Batnick:in return for lower tariffs, Japan agreed to invest$33 billion in a natural gas power project on federal land in Ohio that would be operated by SB Energy, which is effectively controlled by Masayoshi Son. SoftBank is involved in this, of course. So SB Energy has received an investment from OpenAI and SoftBank. I'm sorry. SB Energy has received an investment from OpenAI, and SoftBank itself is one of the largest investors in OpenAI. In March, of course, Lutnik, Sonen, Energy Secretary Chris Wright broke ground on the data center complex. there's just there's so much circular activity and in dealing happening that investors are sick
33:21Downtown Josh Brown:of it well uh nvidia so the the journal article that you're referencing which we're not going to do a deep dive into it's just more of the same but on a larger scale nvidia is in talks to provide a 250 billion dollar backstop for open ai as part of a massive data center project um so basically open AI is going to foot the bill for this. And NVIDIA is basically going to be one of the biggest tech vendors to the project. So they're almost like saying, you don't have to worry about money. Yeah, we'll give you money to pay us. We'll give you money to give it back to us. People do not, I understand the purpose of that guarantee to make sure the project actually goes forward.
34:03Downtown Josh Brown:And they're doing this out in the open. It's not like a lie or a hidden thing, but people do not like it. The stock fell 5%. Yeah. To your point, they also don't like the mixture of politics and business. I mean, look, I think we all know that OpenAI is going to grant 5 % of itself to the federal government before it goes public. They've floated that as a trial balloon. I think they're going to do it. I think it's strategically smart. I don't think it costs them anything. The next time we have a financial crisis, the government will sell it for cash on the open market. A new administration, they'll say, we don't want to be in the open AI business.
34:46Downtown Josh Brown:We'll get rid of that stake. But what that buys them is unlimited political cover. And we've seen this work with the gambling companies, Calci and Polymarket. Donald Trump Jr. owns a stake in both. No one's f***ing with these companies. That's it. That's checkmate. So the Trump administration being able to do a Rose Garden ceremony with Sam Altman and accept on behalf of the American people a 5 % stake in open AI, that buys him almost unlimited political cover for the next couple of years. And I think they're going to do it. I don't think people love it. But if you were Sam Altman, it's like, yeah, why wouldn't we do that?
35:34Downtown Josh Brown:Think about all the aggravation that saves us. to have at least half the country's political people on our side rather than both parties hating us.
35:44Michael Batnick:It's not just aggravation. It's financing costs. If NVIDIA has your back, all right, you're not sold for plus 15%. I mean, I'm exaggerating, but the rates are a lot better with NVIDIA at your back. All right, let's get back to the sell-off. Tech, hardware, and equipment stock drawdowns. The average is down 27 % from its 52-week high. Sandus is down 54%. Corning is down 55%. By the way, that corning, actually, we'll get to that in a sec. We have a chart on that later. Let's move to the semi-stocks. The average is in a 30 % drawdown. Marvell, which Jensen Wang said about a month or two ago was going to be the next trillion-dollar stock.
36:19Michael Batnick:Whoops. Just got cut in half. Yeah.
36:23Downtown Josh Brown:Well, George Jinx in the chat, MF or I bought the top again. Listen. You're not the only one. Tops are created by an excess of buying. So a lot of people contributed to the creation of that at least short-term top. I think this is on balance very healthy for the market because people aren't throwing in the towel on the rest of their stocks. This is sort of like it's a three-ring circus. This is one of the rings. In the other ring, you have people making money hand over fist in bank stocks and the investment banks. In another ring, you have people buying up industrials. and this isn't really shaking them out.
37:06Downtown Josh Brown:So I think like you had an X at it. The semis felt like a one-way trade. It was.
37:13Michael Batnick:Dude, Sandisk got cut in half. I don't know how many stocks you could say this about in the history of the market. Sandisk, a company, like a legitimate company of this size. The stock has been cut in half in 30 days. And it's still up like 200%. It's still up 100 % year over year. And if you look, if you zoom out a little bit, it still looks like it's in an uptrend. I know this doesn't give you a lot of confidence, but this had to happen. So Corning today.
37:38Downtown Josh Brown:We'll spend two seconds on Corning. The reason this matters is because Corning is in this small group of stocks that has become synonymous with the AI CapEx trade that are not in the tech index or not really thought of as like the way we think of semiconductor stocks. And they've become sort of a signal of sort about risk appetite around the AI CapEx build out. So those stocks include Comfort Systems, which is FIX, Corning, Caterpillar, believe it or not, Vertiv. There's this whole group of names. They actually beat earnings. Revenue grew 17%. They hit four spots, seven, four billion. Adjusted earnings were up 30%, which beat consensus.
38:24Downtown Josh Brown:Operating margins expanded as well. It's not a bad quarter. The guidance didn't hit the whisper number. We're back to that bullshit. So Q3 revenue guidance came in at 4.9 to 5 billion. And the whisper was they're going to do five for guidance. And that's it. It didn't, this is the point. The stock was up 30 % year to date going into this and had tripled off its lows. And all of a sudden what ends up happening is the same thing that happened to the memory stocks. it's no longer about the fundamentals being solid. Everybody agrees they're solid. It's mentality. It's like, well, I wanted more. The expectations catch up with the fundamentals and then outpace them and become unrealistic.
39:14Downtown Josh Brown:And then there's nothing you could do that's good enough. And the whole optical sector, because what Corning is doing in the data centers is fiber optics and glass for chips and all kinds of shit. But Coherent, Lumentum, Marvell, Sienna, AXT, this is this whole cohort of the optical stocks that are involved in data center cap. They crushed all of them, and they've all been going down. So the company actually – give me the Corning stock price one more time. Dude,$255 to$126 in less than eight weeks. No, no, no. In July.
39:55Michael Batnick:in July yeah it was at 255 at the end of last month yeah dude all of this decline is in July so I know this doesn't feel great and hearing me say this is healthy sucks but this was necessary the decks have been cleared expectations have reset and this happened
40:15Downtown Josh Brown:Chard Kid tells us this is the 23rd worst day for Corning since 1980 this is not a rock and roll stock. You can see it was some really tough days in the 2000 to 2002.com bubble burst because Corning was a player back then as well. Since then, this company for 20 years has been minding its own business, doing very boring industrial things with the exception of like supplying glass to Apple for iPhones. And now it's like right back into here. Third worst month for corning ever. Put this up. Third worst month ever, negative 50.7 % this month. Sick. Forward earnings per share. All right.
40:57Michael Batnick:So here we go. So the question is, what's going to happen with the earnings? And is the forward PE too cheap? So the forward 12 months earnings per share, I'll put to the right. I mean, unbelievable. There's a reason why these stocks went up 500%. And now you have Micron trading at five times forward 12-month earnings. Sandisk, same. Corning, I don't know what it's at, but way lower. And chart off, the market's not dumb. The market is not dumb. It doesn't give away free money. Micron at six times earnings, the market is telling you something very clear, very obviously. It doesn't believe it. not that the next 12 month earnings, because it might be trading at six times 2027 earnings, but what if it's trading at 30 times 2028 earnings?
41:48Michael Batnick:And that's what Bernstein is predicting. Next chart, check this out. So Sean Emery tweeted, Bernstein has earnings in memory going parabolic. Look at this chart. And then collapsing. So this is the first time I've seen something like this. We're looking at Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. And this is what the market believes to be happening because there's no other way a company that's tripling its revenue year over year would be trading at five times forward earnings. It doesn't make sense until you look at this. It doesn't make sense.
42:20Downtown Josh Brown:So if you want to make the case that what's going on this year is not a valuation bubble, but an earnings bubble, that's a great chart for you because that explains what, number one, it explains why today's quote unquote cheap multiples are not that cheap. And number two, you just think about what that's going to feel like for the longs who ride that over the cliff. And they're still in this stock two years from now. And they're like, I don't understand the company's going 30%. How come the stock is still going down? Because eventually, these companies revert back to what they are, which is commodity producers of a product.
42:59Downtown Josh Brown:And the users become more efficient at using it. New lanes of supply open up. It's some combination of those things all conspiring together to make it so something that looked like it was a new secular growth story. Oh, wait. Turns out it's cyclical.
43:14Michael Batnick:Well, Patrick asked Sam Altman, what could change the shortage of memory? And one of the things that Sam said was maybe the models just get more efficient and just figure out how to use it better.
43:27Downtown Josh Brown:That's what I've been saying. If that is so much of a pain point that it's forcing Apple to raise prices on all its laptops and phones, you better believe the buyers of these raw materials and commodity memory chips. This is what they're focused on, more efficiency for the dollars that we have to spend. There's a company in China, CMXT Which went public I think with an $85 billion initial valuation And went up 460 % Not a typo that I'm speaking Went up almost 500 % On its IPO day One day Became the largest Public company in mainland China A memory chip company That nobody's ever heard of until 10 minutes ago So this is sign of the time stuff The Korean retail traders And what they're doing with leverage On and on and on and on There's so much going on there Maybe easier to step aside Let's skip the Sam Altman stuff Because we're going to do this with Alex Good call We're going to do the Fed really quickly Do people honestly expect Put this Citadel Securities thing up This spooked the market Citadel came out and said they think there could be a surprise rate hike.
44:50Downtown Josh Brown:I don't know what the probability is in the futures market. I think I saw 40 % now. The market initially sold off on this and then came all the way back. Is that what happened?
45:01Michael Batnick:I don't know if that's what moved the market. I'm not sure. When was this? This was month. Was this yesterday?
45:08Downtown Josh Brown:I don't know. It all blends together yesterday and today. People were mad that Citadel did this. I think it spooked. I think it spooked the market and got people to sell some stuff. I don't know.
45:19Michael Batnick:Maybe it did.
45:20Downtown Josh Brown:And then the market ripped right in everyone's face.
45:22Michael Batnick:I was very sick yesterday. Neil Duda also thinks that the Fed is going to go. Okay.
45:30Downtown Josh Brown:I don't. So I'm on the other side of that. And I would assume Citadel and Neil are better informed than I do. Than I am. But I just don't picture Trump's appointee sitting down in the seat for three weeks. And the first thing he does is a rate hike. So, all right.
45:47Michael Batnick:So in conclusion, we lost the Mag-7. We lost semiconductors. The Fed may hike. Rates are as high as they've been in a long time. Inflation is sticky. Maybe tariffs, more war, and the market is at an all-time high. What else are you going to throw at it?
46:01Downtown Josh Brown:Listen, man, if this S &P can weather this semiconductor crash and not have six of seven Mag-7 names, even within 5 % of a high, it's very hard to be bearish. And I know people say, ah, you guys will be bearish either way. You guys will be bullish no matter what happens. You guys are always finding a reason to be bullish. Dude, look at the tape. I'm bearish when stocks start to go down. I listen to the market. Michael gets bearish one red day. Yeah, if the market's down today, I'll turn bearish. I don't care. This is one of those times where the tape is not speaking. It's whispering, specifically to me.
46:44Downtown Josh Brown:you know it really is I feel like I have a really good handle on on on the tape right now I'm hitting the clap button but it's not working it's gently it's gently whispering to me gently whispering to me this too shall pass grow more hair but again all those earnings previews we just did at the top of the show that's not for fun like this is the thing that everything else kind of relies on those have to be good reports and there has to be a lot of confidence in those Q &As. And the good news is we all get to find out together. So guys, that's the show for tonight. Thank you so much for watching and listening.
47:19Downtown Josh Brown:Remember, there's an all new Animal Spirits tomorrow. Spotify, Apple, and right here on YouTube. There'll be an Ask the Compound later in the week. And then we will finish with Alex Kantrowitz on an all new edition of the Compound and Friends. We appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Talk to you soon.
48:09Michael Batnick:Thank you. loss of principal capital. No advice may be rendered by Ritholtz Wealth Management unless a client service agreement is in place.
From the publisher
On this episode of What Are Your Thoughts, Downtown Josh Brown and Michael Batnick preview earnings from Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Apple, breaking down the biggest questions facing the market: Is Azure growth enough to justify Microsoft's AI spending? Can Meta's AI investments keep powering ad growth? Will AWS reaccelerate? And what does Apple's capital-light AI strategy mean as Tim Cook prepares for his final earnings call as CEO?
Plus:
- Why the market keeps shrugging off bad news
- The surprising relationship between stock momentum and earnings beats
- The brutal selloff in semiconductors and Corning
- Sam Altman's latest AI warnings and the Hugging Face controversy
- The Fed, market resilience, and what to expect from SpaceX's first earnings call next week.
This episode is sponsored by DBMF. To learn more about the alternative solution for the model revolution check out: https://www.DBMF.com/WAYT
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Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management.
The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information.
Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/
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