Shownotes Transcript
Today's show is brought to you by Y charts. Ben last week, I mentioned that my screen time has been elevated in a significant way and breakout confirmed this week was even higher than the last week. I'm not going to tell you how many hours a day I spend on my phone because it's embarrassing at this point. But if I had the same, for me, it's like my portfolio. I don't look at the time. So it didn't happen. Okay. If I had that same feature on my screen, it would say you spent seven hours last week on Y charts, probably more actually.
Probably way more. Who am I kidding? First thing I check in the day. So everything's in the headlines these days and, uh,
We've talked about that. You and Josh talked about this last week on what are your thoughts about ignoring the noise is basically impossible, right? It sounds like good advice. Tune out the noise. Yeah, just tune it out. The thing in your pocket that's constantly alerting you. So YCharts created a brand new deck. Tariffs through the long-term lens. It's packed with charts showing how markets have actually responded to past events and why short-term noise really tells a story. I like this line from them in their deck. Corrections are loud. Recoveries are quiet. Oh, that's great.
That's well said, right? All right, listen, we know that volatility is part of the ride. Is it not, Ben? It is, regardless of the reason, right? So stay invested. Historically been a winner. Yeah, and I think for, especially for advisors, the big thing is context in concert with a plan. So that's the kind of thing where you need to have confidence. Click the link in the show notes, download the deck for free. Tons of good charts.
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Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.
Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Is that a twinkle in your eye? A twinkle in my eye? I doubt it. It's possible. I'm just happy to see you. You look like you're feeling better. When have I been feeling bad? I'm just, I'm doing... I don't like seeing you like this. The last couple of weeks you've been despondent. I don't think I've been despondent.
Listen, I've had a bad year. Let's put it that way. Maybe my personal life is bleeding into my market views. How's that? I just want to talk about the ridiculousness of the current environment, okay? I just want to, just for a minute, take a step back. So I listened to The Compound and Friends with you and Josh and Warren Pies. And the first 10 minutes of the show is you guys talking about the potential end of the American economic empire and the end of American exceptionalism. And then there's this transition and it's like,
Okay, let's talk about earnings season. I just love the going from, listen, this might be the end of the empire to, all right, what's on deck for earnings? No, but hold on, hold on, hold on. More context is necessary. No, I know. It's just, I just think it's funny how we have to compartmentalize like that. Like you have to. But hold on. To be very clear, I am hard rejecting the idea that this is the end of an empire. Like could not emphasize that hard enough.
completely reject that idea. Things are crazy right now. Not minimizing it. This is not the end of an empire. Stop it. Okay. Someone did. Someone asked me yesterday. Okay. Let's say the dollar does lose its, its global currency reserve status. Yeah. To who? That was my question is to fill the void. So
All right, let's start out with some hysterical stuff and then bring it back to some levity. Can we do that? Like I want to start off with some, some worrying stuff, some, some of the craziness again, and then get back to levity. So this story from the wall street journal, you know, it's, it's funny. My one takeaway from reading a lot of these stories, and we're going to get into this. Is my neck getting old? Am I getting old man neck? I don't know how you, how you get rid of that. Is it coming for me? I mean, obviously it is.
It doesn't look too bad yet. You're still pretty good. Okay. Sorry, sorry. One more interruption. Did you see George Clooney? With the hair? I hope it's got to be for a role, right? Okay. What in the world? He looked like a Sharpie marker. Yeah. You know what? You're right. That can't be a choice. All right. Back to you, Ben. Let's get nuts. Let's get hysterical. See, I got the little skunk spot right there. My kids keep giving me crap because I got some grays. And I'm never going to dye it. I'm going to be at Silver Fox someday. I'm just going to let it go.
Deal? You're going to be like Elvira. Remember her? Oh, yeah. That was a good song, by the way. Remember that song? Nope. Don't know what you're talking about. Back to the show. Let's go. All right. From the Wall Street Journal. Trump advisors took advantage of Navarro's absence to push for tariff pause. So this is from the Wall Street Journal last week, and they talk about how that tariff pause ever came. So they said Navarro was scheduled for a meeting—
And then when he was scheduled for a meeting, Scott Besson and Howard Lutnick made their move. According to multiple people familiar with the intervention, they rushed to the Oval Office to see Trump and propose a pause on the tariffs without Navarro there to agree to push back. I have a question on this reporting. How did this get leaked to them?
Like, how do we know this is accurate? Because obviously, do you think the Wall Street Journal would print this if they didn't have a good source? No. I'm just saying, like, how did they get, who leaked? Obviously, someone saw this and wants the world to know. So here's the thing. So they say the two men convinced Trump of the strategy to pause some of the tariffs and announce it immediately to calm the markets. They stayed until he tapped out the Truth Social post, which surprised Navarro, according to one person, one of the people familiar with the episode. And then they immediately went out the cameras outside the White House to make a public announcement.
Now, maybe this is a little embellished, right? And maybe it's not completely true, but obviously someone in the White House wants the people of the world to know that this is happening. Here's my main takeaway from this, because obviously when Biden was in office towards the end, he completely was gone, right? He was losing it. He was too old. Trump is on the verge. I think he's 78 or 79. This is a take grandpa's keys away situation. My biggest takeaway from this is
Baby boomers are going to have a very hard time relinquishing their power. Oh, you think? How's that? I just think this is going to be a very awkward transition. It's going to be a very awkward transition, but I'm serious. The last two presidents we had obviously were too over their skis. When you read a story like this, that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Okay, one more from the New York Times.
Mr. Trump has privately fretted about the prospect of a Great Depression-scale event happening on his watch, a scenario he shorthands in conversations as 1929. But the events of the last few weeks have so alarmed some of Mr. Trump's closest advisors, including Scott Besant, that Mr. Trump himself seems to absorb how close they came to a financial meltdown. I don't know if this is supposed to make me feel better or worse, that they're actually considering that this stuff could happen. I know you keep saying, well, listen, they can't let this happen. And I feel like
This kind of talk is so bearish. It makes me bullish because we can't possibly let this happen. I mean, that's where, that's where I'm at and that's where I've been. And maybe I'm, but we keep going and I keep coming back to your thing saying that like, listen, it's a binary thing. And one group is going to feel really dumb. And one group is going to feel really smart depending on what happens with deals and back offs. How about this? If, if the worst comes to pass, I won't feel dumb for being wrong because
And watching him intentionally nuke the economy. So what's the thing? Like, oh, he told you he was going to do it. Why didn't you listen? He's a liar. Like, why would, okay. He's told you that he's going to nuke the economy. Sorry. I don't believe him. No one would think that's the baseline scenario of the president is going to try to crash the economy. I think this is him. I think this is him negotiating now. It's ridiculous and chaotic and I hate it, but I think this is him negotiating.
So that's where I've fallen. It sounds so bearish, you have to be bullish. Now, here's the thing. In the meantime, if we don't get stuff figured out, he could actually cause not a financial crisis, but a definite slowdown. So Ryan, all the supply chain people, I thought I was done following them after COVID, but apparently not. So Ryan Peterson started a thread, and it says thousands and then millions of American small businesses, including many iconic brands, will go bankrupt this year if tariff policies in China don't change. And he goes through this whole thing, and then at the end,
He says, and when they die, it may actually be the final victory for Chinese manufacturers. They scoop up brands that took decades to build through blood, sweat, and tears. That's one of the most creative and entrepreneurial people in the world. American brand builders are the second to none in the worldwide. Um, thoughts. I don't think it's going to happen. Okay. I, because so Torsten Slock said, like, if the tariffs stay in place, 90% chance of a recession, excuse me, if the tariffs stay in place, 145% chance of a recession. True.
No, they are not going to stay in place. And forgive me for speaking so confidently about something that I have no insight into and no control over. I just don't believe it. So, I mean, the public backlash is going to be insane. And so here's another one from Craig Fuller, who's another freight supply chain guy. He said, many truckers I've spoken with don't realize how quickly container volumes have collapsed. Starting in May, port freight out of California will almost be eliminated. It's going to be a bloodbath.
And then a collapse in trucking. And so I do think like people keep thinking, well, it's just the stock market. People can handle a down stock market, but I don't think people do realize how much pain could be exhibited on. I think the stock market would actually do better than small businesses in this scenario. I think we're setting up for a scenario where if something doesn't happen in the next month or two by back to school shopping, we're going to start seeing empty shelves like that. That's a real possibility. To me, the more interesting question is not,
What are the tariffs look like? Or what are the negotiations? Where do they end up landing? It's how much damage is being done between now and then. That's what I'm saying. And part of that could be like, you could, you could, you could legitimately start seeing a supply chain that just totally tenses up and empty shelves because companies completely can't plan their inventory out. I think we spoke about, we pointed out some of this stuff two weeks ago, social media, very nasty place in general, but
It's pretty depressing scrolling through some people's comments about like small business activity and how they're going to go on there. And just the inhumanity in the comment section, well, why are they buying from China? Why aren't they buying? It's like, people are just ruthless. People are such assholes on the internet. And it's just, it's, it's weird because it's not, I mean, obviously it's not this way in real life. It's like road rage. Right. I was walking through New York city. Uh, I took my kids to like a slime museum and New York city is not representative of
literally any other place. So I'm not saying that this translates or it's meaningful at all, but just an observation. It is weird to see or to live in this environment as we are very close to the noise. And then just see millions of people on the street shopping, spending, you know, like
Right. You feel like you need to be wearing one of those boards on the front and back and ringing a bell, being like, hey! But again, it could get to the point where people never even realize. So Matthew Klein has a little levity here. He says, take a deep breath on the overshoot. He said, despite the apparent best efforts of policymakers in both countries, trade between the U.S. and China is likely to persist.
So he's saying that like there'll probably be trade with third countries, which will reroute the goods through Mexico, Singapore and Vietnam. He said this would have little to no impact on the size of China's overall trade surplus, nor on the size of the aggregate U.S. trade deficit. So he said like the stuff that the White House is trying to do, if people if corporations just rerouted through another country to avoid the tariffs, that could help. It's going to just cost some more and it's going to be another step. But
He said the good news is that should reduce the impact on prices and shortages relative to a literalist interpretation. The bad news is that those aiming for a conscious uncoupling of the two world's largest economies will probably only succeed in making existing transactions marginally more inconvenient. So that's like the, okay, take a deep breath here. Corporations will figure this out. Again, and back to your point, the small businesses probably won't be able to. That's the hard part. Big corporations, they'll be fine. The stock market will be
Again, I'm making this up. I don't can't see the future relatively fine. Like even if the stock market falls 35%, you know, bad, we've been there before. Corporations will figure this out. Yeah. They'll be fine. But yeah, there will be people that like, what, what do, what do you do when your margins are, you know, 15% and like, you just don't have the resources to reroute and you go to business. Yeah. Yeah.
So he also says, like, zooming out, he's saying that, like, the decline in the dollar in the context of a larger uptrend is, like, it's not that bad. And the uptick in bond yields, he said, yeah, it's alarming in light of falling stock prices, but not large given, like, the change in inflation outlook. And he's basically saying a lot of this unwind that we've seen could be positioning. And I kind of agree with that, that we have to see the follow through. Now, the dollar keeps falling.
So if we keep seeing the dollar falling and rates rising, then you have to, but I do think some of this market movement, the, the, Hey, people are just taking money and getting out of the U S like, I think we have to see some follow through before we assume this is going to be a trend that persists. If it does keep happening, then, then yes, I do agree. Hit the panic button. Yeah. Oh yeah. If this persists for another five months, my tune will change for sure. Like obviously I'm not going to, you know? Yeah. So yeah, you're right. I, the Torsten Slack one about what did he call it? Like a,
Tariff induced something. I can't remember. Let me skip ahead just for a minute. So it's earnings season. I love earnings season. I really do. See, that was the transition again. What's that? You just did it again. What did I do? Transitioning from the end of the world into earnings season. Well, it's relevant. But is it though? I think it's all useless. No, no, no. I don't think these earnings reports are helpful at all.
Listen for a sec. All right. Interesting nugget coming first, helpful nugget on deck. Okay. Here's, this is the interesting one. Amex, obviously an affluent customer base. Millennials and Gen Z are 35% of spending, corporate spend, up 14% year over year. Interesting, huh? We're not, 35%, we're not babies anymore. The millennials have grown up.
Entering prime earning years, right? Okay. This is the thing that I thought was interesting. They said, while it's still very early in the second quarter, through the first week and a half in April, overall spending levels have remained consistent with what we saw in the first quarter in both goods and services and T&E across all customer segments. Because there hasn't been an impact on the economy yet.
Yes, but this does, and I know it's very, very early. You're saying this goes against sentiment, basically. It's interesting, especially in context of the wealth shock that Josh and I have been talking a lot about, that people pull back their spending. They also said, while the level of macroeconomic uncertainty has increased, the activity that we saw across our customer base is consistent with, and in many cases,
better than what we saw in 2024. I think the wealth effect is overstated because people kept spending in 2022. I keep coming back to that. The stock market crashed and no one stopped spending. I think the wealth effect has been vastly overstated. I kind of, uh,
Yeah, it's complicated, but I think I agree. I think people are at least, I think people are poo-pooing the stock market crash as listen, the stock market crashed in 2020 came back. It was fine. The stock market crashed in 2022 came back. It was fine. Stock market crash in 2025 is going to come back. It's all about labor. If you have your job, you're going to keep spending regardless of what your portfolio is something like, all right. So there's two other things.
Um, they spoke about the delinquency rate that you could throw out, right? Like delinquency rate. It's way too early to look at that. Who cares? We haven't seen any sort of saloon in there. Um, they, there was a question about like pull forward right now. And I've been speaking about like, it's like, is this like an apple upgrade cycle? Because people just like got it in front of this. You know, I tried to do this this week. I called my dealership and I said, Hey, I'm 18 months into my lease. And I saw you're offering employee pricing for Ford.
run some numbers for me. The numbers didn't work very good because they said, well, we're not doing it for leases. Like the commercial said, we're giving employee pricing to everyone. Dot, dot, dot. Except people in the leases who already have a lease. So they didn't do it. So, all right. A question about pull forward. But I tried. They said, look, we haven't really, we really haven't seen any pull forward at all. I think when you look at the entire first quarter,
Um, there's really been no pull forward at all. We see a little bit in small business, a little bit in wholesale pull forward, but you're talking a couple of points here. Not, not anything significant. The other two points I'll make, and then I'll get to the revenue one is that one thing that has been, that has not been associated with our card member spending has either been what's happened with the stock market or what's happened with consumer confidence. Interesting. Um, our card members say, may say they don't have any confidence in the economy, but they still continue to spend. Right. It's what we do.
So, all right, let's get back to the hellscape. No, but in all seriousness, as long as people have their jobs, it doesn't matter how worried they are. I mean, it doesn't matter is overstating it. Watch what they do, not what they say. Yeah, and I think it's also not only...
people losing their jobs. If you see someone else at your company losing their job and you keep yours, that's going to impact you too. Like there's the old, there's the old study that the people who live in the same block as those who win the lottery have a higher chance of like overspending and going bankrupt and going into debt. Like I think seeing what happens to your neighbors and your peers, that impacts you too. It's not just the people who lose their jobs. So you always talk about how you're one of your favorite movies to quote is awesome. There's a
Wayne's World. So my favorite Mike Myers one is Austin Powers. My friends and I, I think it came out when I was a sophomore in high school. It was like 1997-ish. So my friends and I— What's your favorite quote from Austin Powers? I can't even—but I put a meme in here. I also like to live dangerously. I did a meme in here. Well, who throws a shoe? Honestly, really hurt. So there's the part where he's driving the—what do you even call this thing?
Bulldozer. Yeah, he's driving the steamroller. Steamroller. Yeah. And there's the cop saying, no! Wait, where's the meme? I don't see it. Oh, it's right below the Torsten Slag thing. So Austin Powers in the video, he's saying, get out of the way because the steamroller is going super duper slow. And the cop's saying, no! And he ends up rolling him over. And that, to me, is the recession coming for terror policies. If the terror policies would just step out of the way, I think we could be okay. But so Neil Dutta on CNBC yesterday said-
We're jumping into recession. He said, I think we're already in the worst case. He looks giddy at this picture. He does. He looks way too happy. He says, they really did him dirty here. He says, I think we're already in the worst case scenario for the economy. I think we're jumping into a recession. And he's basically saying like, this is happening quickly. And again, this is not like a doomer kind of guy. He's been one of the more constructive people in the economy throughout this entire decade. And so he's saying like, it's happening. And I wonder if the consumer thing would
be to take the jumping analogy, if it just falls off a cliff, if it really happens, or is it possible that it's like a business led? I know consumers make up 70% of the economy. Is it possible the other 30% could bring us into a recession? It's going to be a small business recession if the tariffs don't
get lifted or adjusted. Is it also possible that like the headlines of this recession could feel worse than it actually, than the actual recession itself is like from, if you just look at the economic data, like if GDP slows one and a half percent, it feels awful because it's so dumb. Well, you're right. Like the reason for the recession being caused by economically illiterate thinking is the part that really makes it hard to digest.
Yes. I also sometimes I feel bad saying, well, it's just going to be a mild recession because a mild recession to the whole economy could still be a really bad depression like for certain businesses or people. That's I almost feel like it's too flippant to to say. All right. One of the things that we've heard from pushback from people that have emailed us and a bunch of people have asked is like, hey, how can you guys never address the fact that other countries already have tariffs on us?
Right? Isn't this just... So, Alison Schrager... These are the poorest countries that have very little source of tax revenue. So, Alison Schrager had a good answer to this. And she wrote about this. And I think it's worth answering because, again, a lot of people are asking. So, she says...
It's true. Trump is right that there are other countries, especially in the EU and Africa, that have done this. But she said, the unintuitive thing about trade is that when you erect a barrier, you are the one who suffers, not the country that's shut out. Europe is an economic basket case because of these barriers. India's economic development has never taken off the way it should have, largely due to its protectionist history. Retaliation only hurts the country that fights back. So she's saying, sure, these other countries have had some tariffs on us, but it's to their detriment, not ours. Yeah, they want it.
Yes, and that's the point. So I actually think a lot of people have said, well, why doesn't Congress just do its job and step in and bring back their power? Because they used to have the power to set tariffs. That's what happened in the 30s. I guess Hoover, Derek Thompson did a whole history thing on this. Hoover might get a bad rap because it was Congress that enacted the Smoot-Hawley tariffs back in the 30s. And Hoover just had to go along because Congress was the one who had the power.
And then they took it away from Congress and gave it to the president. A lot of people are saying, hey, listen, we need to Congress needs to take its role for tariffs back. And in the long term, I think that would be a very good thing. In the short term, I think if it got to that point, it would probably be a very bad thing because that would mean things have gotten way out of control. Tariffs are attacks. They're negative some. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that's even up for debate anymore. Yeah. Tariffs are not a political or a partisan issue. They're they're bad.
Yes. It's almost like every generation has to figure it out itself. If, if they were targeted, if it was rolled out in a more cohesive manner, I think we could have digested it just fine. Right? Like we would have, the market would have wobbled, whatever, but it's not just about the market. It's like people's people planning small businesses would be able to figure it out. All right. So Fed woes says Trump is laying the groundwork to blame Powell for any downturn.
Of course. I, I, the analogy I made on this is my son was going to pour himself a bowl of cereal. He's pretty getting pretty self-sufficient about feeding himself, but he always spills the milk. And then he kind of spills the milk and looks at me and he's like, Hey, are you going to clean this up? And finally, Hey dude, no, you clean it up. It's your mess. Trump tweeted with these costs trending so nicely downward, just what I predicted they would do. There can be almost no inflation, but there can be a slowing of the economy unless Mr. Too late, a major loser.
lowers interest rates now. I'm sorry, this is beneath the office of the president, like tweeting, calling the Fed share a major loser, whatever. But Warren Paz is talking about this with Josh and I, the overnight rate should not be 4.5%. Like they should be cutting. And I understand that Powell is probably not thrilled to do anything that might even look a little bit political. And he's certainly not looking to get bullied by the president.
But Trump's not entirely wrong in terms of like where rates should be. They should be lower. Yes. And the Fed's in a tough spot because they're thinking about the tariffs being inflationary. But I agree with you that the risk to disinflation and deflation is way higher than inflation. Even if like we could get a scenario where for three months or so, it looks like stagflation when we get the initial price rise from tariffs.
But I still think deflation is by far the bigger risk here. So we spoke last week, though, the one-year look at inflation expectations skyrocketed. So it's weird to be cutting in that sort of scenario, but they're probably going to be probably might be short-lived. This is counterintuitive. I was listening to somebody on Derek's podcast talking about, I think they're a toy toy company. He said, like, what if the tariffs are so bad that they put businesses out of business and
And they have to just sell all inventory and just dump it on the market. Cut prices, right. And paradoxically, that would lower prices. Yeah. And the thing about Powell, too, is that he's not been perfect, but I think he's Trump's best appointee he's made by far. People forget Powell is actually a conservative. And so Timoros wrote, by Trump's account, Powell worked to help Biden during his term and is now unwilling to provide the same support in his own second term agenda.
Does he not remember the fact that Powell raised rates from zero to 5% and literally said he wanted to put people out of jobs? Powell is not a political person. He will do what he thinks is right. Sometimes that's not always right, but I think Powell is going to get some satisfaction being the one who comes in and saves the day, though.
In terms of cutting rates? Like, just saying, like, this is not my fault, people. I'll come in and help you. Fine. He's not going to say that. He doesn't talk like that. No, but he's thinking that. Oh, yeah. Don't you? To him, he's got to be thinking, like, why are we doing this? You're ruining my soft landing. What are you doing? I had it. I bet he wishes he just retired. All right. Moving on to the stock market. This year feels like every other day or week we get a the worst blank since. Yeah.
So this is from the Wall Street Journal. Dow headed for the worst April since 1932. I don't know if you can really make anything out of like the worst month since. What do you mean headed for? Like, are they like extrapolating? Like if this continues? Well, no, it's down. So I looked, the S&P is down 8% this month. So I think it's saying if that held, right. That would be the worst since 1932? No way. Yeah, but the worst April. So part of this is just the month we're talking about, right? So-
But 8% down months is not great, but it's not like it's completely out of the realm of possibility. You know, the market's pretty smart. If you look at how individual companies are behaving, look at Delta, for example. The stock, was that an all-time high? Yeah. Stock hit an all-time high, I believe, in January. Oh, my God. In January. Was at $70. Four months later, it went to as low as under $35.
So like, oh yeah. Look at that. That chart is straight down. The economy is going to slow. Airline travel is slowing. Amex mentioned that at their call. And so this is the thing. It's like, oh, I should probably avoid airline stocks. Well, they crashed in two seconds. 40% drawdown. And it was 50. Holy smokes. And again, it went from an all-time high. Like the market moves so quickly and digest these things.
Yeah, which is going to happen the other way out too. So as of the close on Monday, recording this Tuesday morning, the S&P was down more than 16%. The NASDAQ 100 was down almost 20. And the Russell 2000 was down 25%. The thing is, if you- Hold on, are you talking year to date or from the highs? This is from the highs. If you zoom out a little bit, this is over the last year. It's kind of crazy. So gold is up 42%, crushing everything. Bitcoin is still up 36% over a one-year period. EFA is up 10%.
The aggregate U S ag is up 6% over the past year. The only thing that's down is the Russell 2000, which is down 4% over a year. Now, obviously you say, of course, Ben in 2024 stocks are up 20%. Everything was good. My whole point is this is still relatively mild. Yes, it is. The pain has not been felt yet. So I don't know if this is good or bad. This is, that's my thinking. Because you're exactly right. We were up. I keep saying this 20 plus percent back-to-back years.
And we're down, I mean, all right, we're back to where we were in 2024. Yeah, we're just working off some of that. So this is relatively mild. But is that bullish or bearish? Ask me in a year. It's got to be one of them. Lisa Bromwicks tweeted, the S&P is underperforming the MSCI All-Country World Index, World XUS Index, by the most in 32 years. Wild. So this is on a monthly, on the monthly performance spread. It's, wow. This is another one of those,
We always wondered what the catalyst would be for international stocks. It's so bizarre that it was like the make America great again president. Yes, has made international stocks great again. But this is the whole asset allocation quilt that I always lean on, that you can never guess what the top performer is going to be. Who could have possibly foreseen something like this happening? That Trump would be bearish for America. Yes, absolutely.
And I, so there was even, even listen, half the country didn't vote for him, but I think even, and I think even that group of people would say, I didn't expect him to tank the stock market. Like, no, there was a story in the New Yorker yesterday. They were interviewing anonymously wall street people and how they've turned on him. And they're kind of like, I really did think we were going to get him from the first term.
Like not exactly the same performance, but that sort of thing. And if you're getting mad right now, listening to us and you're like, what are you talking about? I knew he was going to crash the stock market. No, you didn't. Yeah. You're lying to yourself. Yeah. No one thought this. I don't know if this is worse and we're bullish. We are on the fence today, Ben firmly on the fence. Um, all right. So the flight out of dollars, I'm so bearish. I'm bullish. The flight out of dollars, um, interest rates, high stocks down international stocks up.
gold flying as a losing faith in the dollar, but also for the first time really ever. And it's, you know, it's two days, whatever it's actually, it's a week. Bitcoin is actually decoupling.
Yes. Look at Bitcoin over the last five days compared to the market. I think I have a chart in here. It's even more pronounced now. All right. This was as of yesterday. It's even more pronounced now. Bitcoin up 5%. NASDAQ 100 down 5%. Gold also up 5%. The dollar down 1%. So Bitcoin is about at $90,000 this morning. So is Bitcoin following the gold story in terms of people losing confidence and it's just maybe a chaos hedge? Or is Bitcoin the first to recover because it's like a
you know, flight to liquidity. We're about to, and the market's about to rip. So I thought this was a really interesting theory by Ben Eifert. I don't know if it's true. He says, cause Joe Weisenthal had a, had a tweet that showed Bitcoin and the NASDAQ 100 have decoupled because for a while it was, it was risk on risk off and that Bitcoin followed tech stocks essentially. Yeah. And now it's decoupled. And Ben Eifert says, Bitcoin is NASDAQ denominated in a basket of global currencies, not USD and USD is collapsing. So he's saying it's a dollar thing.
So he's saying that it's the gold story. Yes, because if this is a global asset and the dollar is going down, then yeah, Bitcoin. So it is having some gold tendencies, which is maybe the first time this has ever happened for Bitcoin. Yes, it is. It's a short-term thing, so we don't know. No, but it's pronounced. It's interesting. Because historically, Bitcoin would be, with the way the market's behaving, Bitcoin would be at $60,000 or lower.
Right. Or maybe, maybe it's front running the bounce that's going to come in, in the market. I hope, I hope so. I hope that's the case. Getting back to the market a little more levity. Like I looked at the ag this year. It's so people are worried about rates streaming higher, right? And TLT I know has come in, but the ag, the Barclays ag or Bloomberg ag or whatever is up one and a half percent this year. Um, so most of that is probably yield, I guess at this point, but it's not like bonds are getting crushed in this environment, even though yields have been going higher for the last month or so.
In the grand scheme of things, like things are still okay. I think when people are saying that like the bonds aren't working as a hedge, they're, they're zooming in way too much because on a day-to-day basis, there has been days where, where stocks and bonds got crushed together. But to your point, zoom a little bit out and it's not that bad. Yes. And back to the fence sitting thing is just a good thing or a bad thing. It could always get worse, but Hey, it's actually not as bad as you think. We don't know. This is what makes it hard. Yeah. Good chart from Adam Parker, median gross margin.
Um, X financials and real estate through the end of March, 2025, 45% near an all time high companies are going to be just fine. Companies have a margin of safety. Corporations are going to be fine. That's right. Large corporations, small businesses are going to get, unfortunately,
I mean, I'm sure there's going to be a handful of small businesses who are going to be like the Forrest Gump boat, the shrimp boat that are going to be fine. Like through all the wreckage, they are the ones who, there's going to be some places that'll do fine. And I want to say do fine. I mean, like,
They're going to come out of this fine. They might get crushed. If margins go from 45% down to 38%, like the stocks will get destroyed. Yeah. But it's not going out of business. They have a margin of safety. I continue to believe that corporations will figure this out eventually. All right. So this is going to either look really smart or really dumb record influx into leveraged long ETFs, $6.6 billion last week. Whoa. Everyone's buying the dip. We'll say.
It's, it's worked. That's the thing. People, every time the stock market has fallen like this, it's worked. So I, I understand it. Some people look at this and go, oh man, they're going to get killed. Would it be, would you rather, I don't think so. Would you rather see people fleeing them? I don't know. These are also degenerate gamblers, right? It's also, I think it's also like hedge funds. It's $6.6 billion. It's not just, it's not just DJs. Um, all right. Balchunas has, uh, the safety dance index.
which is gold, treasuries, and low vol stocks, showing one of the highest readings in April. First real sign of nerves in ETFs flows. Okay. That makes sense. I also think this is very hard because on the one hand, people are freaking out. On the other hand, we're 20% off the highs and we're still up so much. It could go so much lower. People are really worried. And I always think that
You know, the, the, some people are really worried. How's that? Investors are really worried. Who said this? Was it, um, oh my God, I'm drawing a blank on his name. Come on, you old idiot. Bill Miller. He was asked like, what are you worried about? And his answer is maybe too cute, but I, I, I ascribe to it, ascribe to it, subscribe to it. I like it. He said, uh, like really nothing because the market does all the worrying for me. Right. The market doesn't underreact.
Although I guess you could say it was underreacting in February and March, but in general, I let the market do the worrying for me.
What else can you do? Right? So Yao Finance has one that's showing it's not just a leveraged long ETFs. This is retail purchases of US listed stocks and ETFs. So this is from Vandatrack. And it took off this month. Tons. And right when the market started falling, a ton more people started to buy the dip. And the buying has increased like way higher than it was for the previous 12 months. So my question is, who's selling? So it has to be all institutional selling with the big money? Yeah, I think it's... Because retail's buying, institutions are selling. I think it's hedge funds.
Well, or the big, huge endowments, foundations, like all the big, huge pools of capital. They're the ones selling. So who's going to look like the idiot? The people stepping into the pain to buy or the big behemoths who are selling? It's called the risk premium because you have to stomach the pain. It's not called the sell and you'll feel better and then you got back in at lower prices premium. It doesn't work that way. I know markets are moving faster than ever, but this whole ordeal really has been going on for...
A month now? This last week was weird for me because my kids were off and I worked. So it was a long week. I feel like time was weird last week for me. Well, that was me on spring break too. Yes. I feel like our last podcast was like a year ago. A lot has happened. If you sell now, when do you buy back? You know what would suck? 2022 was not fun, particularly because of all the bear market rallies. Somebody emailed us about how hard it is to call the bottom. And it's true, especially when in a real bear market,
Because look at, like, we've made this chart before in the dot-com bubble. All the false hope that just gets crushed. Tons of dead cat bounces. Couldn't you see this year setting up like that, though? Sure, why not? Where we get five periods of false hope. Like, oh, yes, it's over. And then the market rolls over again. And then it comes back. That wouldn't shock me. That stuff wears you out. Yeah. I could certainly see that. Yeah.
A lot of people would say, good. The stock market has been way too easy for people. You deserve this risk premium. Yeah. Right? You deserve a little bit of rough seas for a while. That part in a vacuum, I don't disagree with. I get that sentiment and I'm fine with me. Now, not to be too blasé about it because it's coming. Stock market solves don't happen in a vacuum.
But we have been spoiled. Let's be honest. Yeah. Right? Like we don't deserve 20% returns every year just because we get out of bed. All right. So highest share of mortgage refinance rejection since the start of the series in 2013. All right. Can I give you the counter take on this? Why this is not bad news? Sure.
Who are the people who are refinancing right now from a 3% mortgage to a 7% mortgage? People who are in very dire financial straits. So this, the fact that this is increasing and I, this is not my Logan. What a shami was putting out truth on this saying like this, this isn't as worrisome as it seems because the people who are refinancing now are in pain already. Okay. I'm glad you gave Logan credit because no offense, that seems a little bit too clever for you. Uh, uh,
Hey, I paid them to the housing market. All right, so this is from Fast Company. Zillow turns full-blown housing market bear. Just look at its new forecast. And so I read this headline. I go, ooh, this is interesting. Let's see how spicy it is. They project housing prices over the next year will fall 1.7%. That's where we're at for full-blown bear for housing? A 1.7% drop? Come on. I actually do think that, like, a 2% to 3% correction in housing is not out of the realm of possibilities with supply increasing and mortgage rates staying at 7%. That...
to me, seems reasonable. Bitcoin is absolutely flying. It's at $90,500. And I just don't buy that you could have that in an environment, in like a mega risk-off environment. I think that makes sense to me. Like it just all of a sudden changed, right? So you're saying Bitcoin is going to lead us out of this potentially? I don't know. I think so. Let's see what happens next week or tomorrow. So my thing that I've talked about for redoing your house too has been just…
If you want to do something, you can afford to do it. Don't wait because inflation. I actually think this is the kind of period if we do go into an economic slowdown that people are going to be hunkering down and like you could actually find better deals in like 12 to 18 months to for housing renovations. You know what will not be happening in an economic slowdown? $18 coffees. So Robin told me that actually one of my kids told me that mommy was listening to me in the car. I think she was on Instagram, maybe.
Hopefully she was parked. And that's where, that's where my mother follows animal spirits is she watches the little clips Nicole makes for us for Instagram. Okay. Uh, my mother-in-law too. So anyway, I said to Robin, Oh yeah, you were listening to my podcast. And she said, no, I was watching your reel. I said, which one? And she said, uh, the door dash one. She's like, how much do you think my door dash coffee costs? And I was like, what do you mean? She goes, when you go on vacation or vacation, when you go on a work trip,
Like on the weekend when I'm with the kids, I door dash Starbucks. And how much do you think it costs? And I said, don't tell me. She's like, she goes, it's like $13 to $15. And I said, are you kidding me? You're spending 15 bucks on a medium iced coffee. And she goes, don't go away. She kind of got you there. What are you supposed to do? Right? My kids actually love going to Starbucks because they get the little cake pops. My wife makes them go there. She gets the cake box. All right. I have a housing take for the year 2047.
Okay, so bookmark this one. Come back to me in like 20-some years, okay? So I've been thinking about this a lot since we were in Florida. And I'm thinking like, gosh, I'm in my mid-40s already. It's not that far to think about the kids out of the house and empty nesters. I think that the old Gen Z young millennials are going to be screwed their whole lives because the older— Oh, stop it. No, no, no, listen, listen. Of stuff being expensive. Like when I came into the housing market, you and I did, housing was way cheaper.
And demographics and a lot of other things have made it more expensive. So I feel like the people who are on the losing end of that are going to constantly be experiencing higher-priced things because of us. Are you setting yourself up for complaining in 30 years? No, no, no, no, no. I'm trying to get ahead of this trend. I'm trying to be forward-thinking. Rejected.
So here's what you do, because I think the transition from, and I don't know where millennials are going to retire someday. Are millennials going to just become their parents and retire in Florida? Or are they going to go somewhere else? Of course I'm going to Florida. Dude, I'm eating cottage cheese with pineapples in it. I am-
Going throughout. So here's the plan. You don't wait until you're 65 to buy that house in Florida. By then, there's going to be too much competition. All the other millennials are going to be flocking too. You buy your house in Florida at age 55. You get ahead of the trend. Yeah. Okay? I'm giving advice to older millennials. You get ahead of the trend so you don't have to fight with people for the house.
And then it's going to be way cheaper and there's going to be less competition. So I'm, I'm putting, I'm setting a reminder to myself, Ben, we're going to talk about, uh, Oh wait, so you're going to retire on the ocean side. I'll be on the golf side and then we'll come see each other every other week or something. I don't think I'm retired. I don't think I'm a retirement guy. I'm not, I'm not either. I'm going to have to do something. Um, now I've said this before. I'm human beings are very bad at predicting how they're going to feel in the future, but I just don't think, uh,
I don't think permanent retirement is for me. I'm going to be given personal finance lessons down at the community center. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Or the local community college. That's going to be me. Gotta keep your mind stimulated. I agree. Speaking of middle age and life things, your friends and neighbors, which is a new show on Apple with Jon Hamm. He plays a hedge fund guy that loses his job. And he lives in this really vapid neighborhood. I guess it's like a...
Connecticut or whatever. Looks like Connecticut to me. Where everybody's just got all the money in the world and they have nothing to talk about except their money and their this and their whatever. And there's a scene where there's a lot of monologue going on of John Hammond. Yeah, he does a lot of voiceover. He's very good in the show. So there's one scene, I think it's in the third episode, Ben. So not a spoiler. I'm one episode in. Where he talks about the nature of life and getting older.
And one of the, I forget exactly what he said, but it was like, when you get to a certain age and you're like, this is it, this is my life now. Like, and I've, and it's a little bit depressing and I've, I've had that feeling. Um, that's why people have a midlife crisis. Yeah. It's like, all right. So I like, this is, this is it for the next, uh, 40 years until I die now.
Our kids are still young, so it's like, you know, still fun. But like, I don't know what that point is. It's, you know, when your kids are teenagers, maybe 30, I have no idea, but it felt like a very human reaction and something that I've, I've thought about recently, like not in a dire depressed way, but like, yeah, that's it. It's my life. I keep, I keep having thoughts of what happens when my kids leave the house and I still have a long time, but
My daughter is going on the other side of the hill, like down toward, like I keep thinking of that. Like how, when the chaos is gone, what is it going to be like? What's going to fill that vacuum? I liked the part in that show where he kind of, they bring us up to speed on his whole life and career. And he talks about how I bought a house and we were broke again. And then I bought another house and we were broke again. But he's like, but we had leverage. So that's like an asset. I liked how they explained that. That was interesting. All right, let's talk about a Perfect Storm headline.
This is from the Wall Street Journal, private equity world engulfed by perfect storm. All right. Now they show this chart of all the private equity companies. You've been a private equity bull. How are you feeling on that thesis? I'm unperturbed. You're not, you're not wavering at all because I think I would be. No, I'm not. In fact, I think I want to add to my positions in Blackstone. I think that I didn't have the self is justified.
So I'm not saying like, oh, who's selling the stocks here? Like, no, I get it. I was listening to the conference call, $270 billion in the wealth management channel, record growth in Q1. It's just not slowing down. So- Was that for Blackstone? Yeah. The next five to 10 years for this asset class, I am unwavered. If they don't get the wealth management channel, then they are screwed. No, but they need the wealth management. Are you sure?
Yes, I listened to the conference call. All right. So the longer that... This is from the Wall Street Journal. The longer the deal logjam lasts, the harder it will be for firms to hand money back to clients such as pensions and endowments. The amount of unrealized value the funds owe to their investors has hit record levels, according to an analysis by Moody's. That makes it much tougher to raise new funds. So your point is, these endowments and foundations are going to go no way. We're not putting into fund four if you don't give us back money from fund three. Enter the wealth channel. I mean, this is not...
rocket science. We know exactly why they're doing what they're doing. The institutional investors say, no, we're full. We're not, we're not taking anymore. And I said, all right. Does that make the wealth channel of the bag holders though? And so I'm not commenting on whether or not the results for the end investors are going to be good. I'm talking about, I think Blackstone will be just fine. Now, again, the selling is justified. I'm not saying that people are dumb for selling, but I believe that the earnings per share
is going up and to the right. So I'm just, do you think that advisors will be leaning on private assets as a diversification trend? Yes. Even throughout, even if we go into like a recession? Yes, more so. Okay, it's possible.
I was thinking about this. So we've been having a lot of private credit conversations on our Talk Your Book episodes. And we talked to Shiloh Bates from Flat Rock yesterday. And we talked about how a lot of private credit is taking from high yield. And so I decided to look at this. And I looked at the two biggest high yield bond ETFs. So that's HYG and JNK.
And you can see that their assets have slowly but surely been falling and haven't really gone anywhere for a very long time. Whereas if you look at like TLT and IEF, the treasury assets, they've still been shooting higher, even in a bond bear market. Great poll, Ben. This is exactly emblematic of the conversations that we've been having. Right? This is private equity. Like high yield is going to get pushed to the side and go, wait, wait, wait. Why would we not? Let's get rid of the marks. We'll get a little bit extra yield. Mm-hmm.
I completely understand why advisors are doing this. Yeah, it's like, wait a minute. I could buy all these shitty energy companies and get marked daily and have stock-like volatility, or I'd give money to Blackstone to make a loan to this company, and they'll pay me
every month or every quarter interest. And if there's some sort of a hiccup, I'll get 80 cents on the dollar, whatever, 70 cents on the dollar, whatever it is. And I don't have to see the marks on a daily basis. Yeah, that sounds better. I'll do that. I do wonder if I still, I agree with you that private equity is still coming hard for the wealth management channel in the 60, 20, 20 portfolio. That that's probably going to be the future for a lot of advisors. I just wonder if we do have a prolonged slowdown period in the advisor's
finally wake up to the liquidity factor and like, wait, I can't rebalance into this or out of this. I can't, I can't take money from life. Is that going to like slow them a little to be like, whoa, this is a little more challenging than I expected. Yes. And no, yes, but also no, the amount of advisors that are going are not going to be deterred by that. Some will. Okay. Uh, Netflix reported, uh,
They said, we're paying close attention clearly to the consumer sentiment and where the broader economy is moving. But based on what we're seeing by actually operating the business right now, there's nothing really significant to note. So what are we looking at? Primary metrics and indicators would be our retention that's stable and strong. We haven't seen any significant changes in plan mix. Well, let me ask you a question. When's the last time Netflix had a good show? Feels like it's been a long time. Um...
Because I, did anyone even watch squid game season two? We didn't even, we just kind of, the reviews were so bad. We just decided not to watch it. I love season one. I saw the first two episodes. I was like, I'm okay with this. Uh, that's a good question. I can't remember the last time there was a good show on Netflix. I'm sure. Yeah. Good point. Does it, does it even matter? No, I guess, I guess not. Uh, like Apple has way higher quality, better shows than Netflix, but it doesn't matter because people are just used to Netflix. All right. Last one. IMAX.
This past weekend, I own IMAX. This past weekend, the beginning of eight consecutive filmed for IMAX titles kicked off with Ryan Coogler's Sinners. It drove a $14 million overall box office weekend for IMAX with 9.1 million coming from Sinners in North America indexing at 20%. Just the eighth title in IMAX's history to reach a 20% benchmark. How's the stock doing for you since you owned it? Okay. Yeah, I'm very bullish on the company.
I think it's going much higher, and I could be wrong, but I hope I'm right. How much are IMAX tickets going to cost in the new world? $30 a piece? Yeah, worth it. Somebody spent $145,000 on a mudroom. Did you see that in the Wall Street Journal? We got a few emails about that. Yes. It's a mudroom with a spot to clean their dog in. Yeah, it's ridiculous. So, all right. I did see Sinners in the theater. It's a vampire movie? So...
All right. Sinners is a very important movie. Okay. Because we're just getting great reviews. Phenomenal reviews. Like over the top phenomenal. I think it's like 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. Are you in line with those reviews? I'll tell you. So it's very important because it is an original film. It's not based on IP. It's not based on IP.
Isn't it weird how that, that stands out these days when you have something like this? And we need more of these movies desperately. If you look at the slate for 25 and 26, it's nothing but sequels. It's like enough already. Sonic 19. You know what I mean? Like enough. Can we have some like original movies? Um, so Michael B. Jordan plays a set of twins. It's in the 1930s in the South.
And that's interesting that he was able to pull that off. Cause I feel like the same person playing a twin sometimes doesn't work. He was good. Okay. So objectively it was a very good movie, by the way, highest, uh, highest box office for an original opening in like a decade. So a very important movie in that sense, we need more of these and hopefully this convinces the studios to take more chances on things like this. Good. So it was two hours and 15 minutes.
And there's a lot of things to love about the movie. Like it was original. There was great scenes, great sets, all that sort of stuff. For me, it was like a little bit too long. So I am like- Are we talking two hours? It was two hours and 15 minutes. So yes, it was an excellent movie that I didn't love. I enjoyed it. I had a good time. It was not a 98 for me, but besides the point, because I'm thrilled that he got to cook. You always say this. Is it a theater movie? Oh yeah. Yeah.
So I love that. Have you ever seen a movie in theater that's not a theater movie? Yeah. Yeah. I love that they let him do this. Even if I didn't love it as much as everybody else did. But I did like it. Objectively great movie. Just not necessarily, not not for me, but not a 98 for me. All right. I also saw Warfare in the theaters. Okay. Holy moly. So that is a theater movie times 100. That's Alex Karp, the guy that did Civil War. Oh, okay. Yep. I saw that one. I was Googling this. He also wrote The Beach.
Leo one, the book. Oh, okay. Um, Oh, the guy from show guns in this. I like that guy. So he looks like, he looks like a more put together Seth Rogen. Yeah. Warfare is a 90 minute call of duty scene. Like there's no fat. It's a dozen guys wherever they are and they go to war and there's just, it's just a fight scene. It's a 90 minute fight scene. Brutal.
Not rewatchable. We'll never see that movie again. I could see that. It's kind of like, like I tried to put saving private Ryan on a couple of years ago again. And I'm like, I can't watch this again. No, but this is even more so like this was hard. Uh, good movie week for you. Very good movie week for me. I haven't, it's been, it's been a while. I can't remember the last time I was at the theater.
Let's talk about The Last of Us. So this is spoiler free because there are some spoilers. But after the first episode, it was kind of a dud, I thought. And I said, I think I'm shorting this show. And you said, just OK, let's see. And the second episode was awesome. It was very good. It was like a series finale type show. So after watching the second episode and what happened, which I'm not going to spoil, I think I'm shorting the show still. What happened makes me not want to watch the show going forward. And I know it happened in the video game. And all the video game people said, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Stick with it. It's having the, having the writers like earned your faith at this point. I don't know. We'll see if they can put what happened. My wife and I both said, why'd they do that? I know it's in the, but why? It was such a good episode. It was very good. Not, but I'm, I'm, I'm putting a paper short and I'm, listen, I'll be willing to cover that short if they prove it to me. But as of now, I've got a paper short on this show.
Hopefully I'm wrong. You're going to get run over. Okay. Someone, I think Sean had sent us in the Slack a preview for the movie The Order. It's on Hulu. I've never heard of this. And it was Jude Law and Nicholas Holt. He's the guy in The Menu. He's been in a bunch of stuff. He was in the X-Men movie, some of the newer ones.
And it's based on a true story. And it's one of these ones that you're like, how did I never hear about this before? It's an early 80s. It's got bank robberies. It's got heists of cash, you know, the big Brinks trucks. It's got an Aryan Nation brotherhood who's trying to start a war with the government. And it's got an FBI agent played by Jude Law. It's one of those movies that gets a premium for me because it's based on a true story. It's one of those ones afterwards I looked it up and I can't believe I've never heard of this.
I thought it was very well done, and it felt a little bit like True Detective, kind of gritty like that. It's on Hulu, and...
six nine borderline seven for me was it was it uh like released on hulu or was it a i don't i'm not sure it just showed up and i'd never heard of before but it was better than i and i'm glad that they made it into a movie and not a show because they could have strung out the story and tried to make it into a in a six episode miniseries but i'm glad they didn't and made it into a movie instead oh wow it did 877 000 and uh at its opening weekend nailed it it was released uh
In October. Okay. A movie that probably should have gone straight to streaming, but it was way better than I thought it was. And again, true story premium for me. All right. I'll watch it. All right. Going through the historical...
Sports movies still with my daughter this week. We did a rumor that remember the Titans and Rudy and a lot of these movies I haven't good I haven't seen in probably 15 or 20 years, you know You'd see the pieces of them on TBS and TNT but straight through and I had just two thoughts on both movies one I forgot how bad Ryan Gosling gets cooked as a cornerback. He gets just beat all the time as a movie I remember but you never would have watched that movie and go that guy is gonna be one of the biggest movie stars in the world someday No, never no and then Rudy
Maybe I knew this at the time, but I guess I didn't realize it. And some of the stuff is when you're younger, you don't notice the cheesiness as much, right? Who's the wild man now? But I really forgot how much of a loser Rudy is. Boy, is he a loser. Like, just, you know, the guy was a loser. And I kind of just forgot. Did you cry? I always cry at the movie. Oh, for Rudy? No, I never cried in Rudy. Never? In Goosebumps, maybe. I don't think I ever cried for Rudy, no. When he got the sack?
Yeah, goosebumps. All right, I cried. You've also heard Joe Montana's interviews later talking about because Joe Montana was the quarterback when the actual Rudy was there. And he's like, he kind of like shrugs him off a little bit like, yeah, this guy kind of was a loser. Anyway, it's a great movie. It's a great movie. Might be my favorite sports movie ever. Really? Okay. It is really good. When he does the speech, that's really good. Okay, I got one more. Wait, what speech?
Like your hunter and nothing? The Newt Rockne one, you know, yeah. So Noah Wiley was on The Watch with Chris Ryan and Ian Greenwald talking about the show. And I highly recommend it. I didn't realize how much he was involved in the show as a writer and executive producer. He was very heavily involved with the story. He talked about how they wanted to get it right with the doctors and nurses. And he talked about some of the doctors they use. And he talked about some of the books because the show deals a lot with death. And he gave a book recommendation called The Four Things That Matter Most by Ira Bayak. And it's a book by a doctor.
who had been in the ER and been a doctor for like 35 years. And he talked about how he had to deal with death, like his whole life as a doctor and how he helped patients through that. And I kind of wish I would have read it before my brother died, but reading it after now, I think is actually kind of, when your mom died, did you get any books from people? Did you do any of that sort of, or did you not even do that? I did not. But when we were in Brooklyn, so this was 2015, I read When Breath Becomes Air.
Okay. And Robin walked into our bedroom and I was like, just bawling. And she goes, what the hell are you doing? She didn't see the books. I put the book down. But if you are looking for a good cry, when breath becomes air is incredible. Yeah. Speaking of, hold on one second. You mentioned that Rudy is a corny movie. I'm going to say something very corny. I love reading and I have been in a deep book bear market.
Here's the corny thing. Reading is like oxygen for the brain. And I forgot, I think I'm going brain dead from lack of oxygen. Well, I do it. I read at least for 15 or 20 minutes every night because that's my way of like decompressing and get out of the screens and out of everything. I love to fall into a book. I took my kids to the library and I saw this book and I rented it. It is called The Last Action Heroes. Take a look at this.
Okay. So it's the stories of the rise of Stallone and Schwarzenegger and Van Damme and Bruce Willis and Seagal and Chuck Norris. What's that? It's like an older book. No, it's new. Oh, okay. So I opened it up to read it. Anyway, point is I want to get back into reading, but I opened it up to read it. And the first page, okay, there's like the little whatever. If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. Napoleon Bonaparte. Okay. All right. The second line.
I'm going to hit you with so many rights, you're going to beg for a left. Chuck Norris. I kind of love how they put Chuck Norris in with those other people too. He certainly belongs. You think so? Yeah, absolutely. What iconic movie does Chuck Norris have? He was in the same era, but what iconic movie? He has Walker, Texas Ranger. My stepdad used to love that show. Hours and hours and hours. No, he did have one big movie, I believe. Can't remember what it was called. Okay. No, he's not on the level of Schwarzenegger. Plus, Chuck Norris could eat soup with a fork. Exactly. Exactly.
All right. Stock market's up today. That's something. We'll take it. All right. I hate being so negative, but I feel like we're not. We're being very undued. But I also feel like we're just telling it like it is. And when it's not negative anymore, we won't stay negative. Here's the other thing. I've been thinking a lot about how I've been talking about this current environment. I'm never going to be the guy that's like panic. Right.
I just don't want to, I just don't want to give those vibes. I'd rather be embarrassed and being like, all right, things got worse than I thought they would. Like, I'm not looking for like a victory lap calling the top or anything like that. I don't think that's helpful for anyone. There's enough of that out there.
You're not going to get it from me. I agree. And the weird thing is, is that the people doing the scare tactics now have shifted. It's almost like the zero hedge crowd kind of is like slinking away because it's like this is what they wanted, but not in this way. Right. Like they wanted this stuff to all deflate, but not from one of their own. Like I feel like Trump is kind of a zero hedge kind of guy in a way. So it's almost like they're like, wait a minute, we did this. This wasn't supposed to be us. This was supposed to be someone else who did this. Weird times. Weird times. Weird times.
The 2020s have been, if nothing else, very interesting and exciting to follow financial markets. We started a podcast at the right time, my friend. Never a dull moment. All right. So bearish, it's bullish. Stop saying that. Why? That's me looking at glasses half full. Okay. AnimalSpirits at TheCompoundNews.com. Personal emails, personal responses. Thank you for tuning in. See you next week.