Oh The Humanity!
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On the Tape.

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77 trillion and 33 trillion in assets, respectively. iConnections is also the driving force behind the alternative investment industry's most renowned in-person events. We invite you to join iConnections at their upcoming flagship events, Global Alts Miami, January 27th through the 30th, and Global Alts New York, June 9th and 10th. These events are packed with one-on-one meetings, thought leadership sessions,

and unparalleled networking opportunities. To explore more about iConnections events and gain access to their members-only platform, visit iConnections.io. A warm welcome to the On The Tape podcast. Guy Adami here. I'm joined by the very handsome, debonair, intelligent Danny Moses. Dimo, how are you?

You like me? I wear pink every once in a while. Some people think it's a good color on me. On Wednesdays, we wear pink. Do you know what that is from, Danny Moses?

I do not, but I'm going to be upset when you tell me and I don't remember. Mean Girls. Apparently it's from the movie Mean Girls. The new one or the old one? No, no, no. The original one, although I'm sure they use that saying in the new one as well. Now, I didn't know that, but I was made familiar with it recently because on a Wednesday recently, I actually wore pink.

And then somebody said to me on Wednesdays, we wear pink. And I didn't know what she was talking about, but now I do. So you learn. See, people like I, people like you, we learn. We learn as we go. So I've learned a lot of different things. That is a beautiful nugget of information. I have that now forever. You have to constantly evolve. You constantly have to adapt. So let's start there.

You know, on November 6th, which I believe that was that election day, November 6th? First day of trading post-election was November 6th. The S&P 500 was trading approximately 5920. We subsequently rallied up to 609997, 6100 if we're rounding up.

And as we sit here today, we're basically trading back to the levels that we were right after the election. So we've round tripped it. So in other words, I bring that up because what the market got excited about is seemingly giving it back. So let's start there. Does it have any meaning whatsoever or is it just one of those anomalies that typically takes place?

Well, we definitely pulled forward some of the optimism related to tax cuts and so forth. And I think the reality is setting in that how much can that really accomplish? Can you really cut taxes with this debt deficit and so forth? And so I think people realize it'll take a little bit longer to play out. The tariff scare on the other side, maybe won't be as bad as people think. But the one underwriting factor which affected the small cap stocks even more are bond yields.

And so if you ask me, you say, okay, well, what does the election mean or the inauguration mean potentially for bond yields, which have been, continue to be and have been the driver for stocks, right? And there's a level that we've seen now over the last several years where you get towards that 5% on the 10-year and you get this volcanic kind of activity going on in the markets. And then nine times out of 10, it has obviously come back. And so

I guess I would say from a policy implementation perspective, and we'll talk about inflation rates and so forth, that's the drive here. So is it a coincidence that, you know, rates went up because that will, you know, remains to be seen, but a lot of push and pull on the economic and inflation front. All right. So let's drill down here a little bit, because I do think yields are interesting and I've thought this for a while. You have as well. Now in September, right before the federal reserve began cutting rates, I think 10 year yields got below 3.6%. Earlier this week, we,

We traded up to about 4.8%. Now, we had a PPI that came out that in terms of the bond market was somewhat benign. Yields didn't move. And then CPI came out on Wednesday and the market in terms of yields took a leg lower. Yields traded down in a pretty significant fashion. We've had some comments out of Treasury today, today being Thursday, that have seemingly take us the next little leg lower. I want to be crystal freaking clear here.

I still am of the belief that 10-year yields will go to 5% in the very near future. And when I say very near future, I mean, I think you could see it by the Super Bowl. We'll see if that plays out. Now, the optimist, Danny, will say yields are going higher because the economy is better than people thought, which may be true. However, if that were the case...

One would think that the most economically sensitive stocks in the form of the small caps that you mentioned, and I look at it through the lens of the IWM, and we can debate as to whether or not it's a well-constructed ETF, but that's what people look at. It's not really trading all that well. So there's some disconnect here, and I think you sort of addressed it a little bit in your earlier comments. Yeah.

Listen, I go back again to 2007 and 8 when the government started to intervene in our markets, especially in the bond market and quantitative easing took place. We live in this kind of world where no one likes to talk about it.

I think we all kind of agree that this economy hasn't really been tested. It won't get tested when you're running high rates, higher for longer, like a 5%. We have relied on the Federal Reserve for quantitative easing. They've cut back on the quantitative tightening and so forth. So I think the kind of thing is, can we get enough growth in the economy to justify 5% tenure? Maybe. And that's where this game is right now. It's the game with valuations in the market. It's a game with

kind of the earnings that we're seeing now. Can you keep supporting this? And I think we've had actually, you know, I would call it, Guy, a soft landing. I've been talking about that for six months. I think we're kind of through the kind of

the gauntlet, so to speak of the Fed having finished hiking rates that have now cut four times or a hundred basis points. Everyone will look at it that we're kind of okay right here. Equilibrium, I would call a guy in terms of where rates are. So here's the key point that you just made. Why would rates, why would the 10 year yields go North of 5%? And I have a theory that is not as much fundamental as it is complete, you know, possibly because of policy.

I believe, again, I know this sounds dramatic, that on January 29th, when the Fed has their press conference and they come out and do nothing, which they won't do anything, whether they're dovish or hawkish, I don't know, but let's just call it neutral. Tesla reports earnings that night. I don't care about Tesla's earnings. I don't think they're going to be great. I'm not going to trade Tesla stock, but Elon Musk

will be the first time he is speaking to investors since the election. He railed against Powell two years ago relative to high rates because it was hurting his auto sales. He's railed against the Fed recently because of his dozing, saying it's overstaffed. Fine, whoever you want to look at it. I believe that the stock market is still kind of volatile then, or even down, or yields are still higher, or the Fed indicates a little bit of hawkishness. He'll spend that hour about the Fed ranting, to which then Trump could accommodate him, make a comment, and short-term rates could drop

under the belief that Powell will not finish his term out, which is May 2026. And Guy, that will make long-term rates go higher because what will happen will be people will believe if you actually do that and you have a bleeding finger and you cut off your hand as opposed to putting a bandaid on it, that that could cause rates. So I don't know that that's going to happen, but those are the type of example of things. Guy, when you have bond yields on the 10-year, the most liquid instrument in the world go from 4.8 to 4.6.

On a CPI, which is, okay, 0.1 core, maybe a little bit less than expected, in line to slightly higher on an overall, that's scary. And a two-year yield that goes from 4.39 to 4.24, I don't care if you're bearish or bullish, that just scares the hell out of everybody because I'll go back to this, the most important inputs.

into the market overall for equity risk premium is the bond market right now. So it's the leader guy. Listen, Hunter, I could not agree with you more. And it's interesting you mentioned, and again, I don't have any view whatsoever on Elon Musk. I really don't. Doesn't matter what I think of him. Your point is well taken that when rates were going higher in the fall of 2023-

He came out and said that higher rates were absolutely hurting his business. Now that he has theoretically the ear of the president, clearly, one would have to think that if rates would continue to go higher, to your point, is he going to start to rail against that and what it potentially could mean? I'll say this as well. I don't think Jerome Powell is going anywhere. My sense is, and if you listen to him, watch the body language,

He's here for the duration of his term and the only way a Fed official, and by the way, the governor, the Fed governor is part of this, they can only be fired by the president for cause.

Cause to me would be not that I disagree with your views on rates. Cause is like I was drunk driving and I killed somebody. Something like that. That is cause. So cause isn't because we have differing views on where interest rates should be. So I'm going to throw that out there as well. And I think he's going to be steadfast. But to your point...

2025 is a year where I think almost $15 trillion worth of treasuries have to be repriced or rolled, whatever term you want to use. So I've thought rates are going to go higher for just the supply-demand fundamentals. And

As you have said over the years, the incremental buyer of our debt, they may still be there. However, they're going to demand a higher rate of interest to buy said debt. And that comes in the form of a number of different players. One of those players, though, in the form of Japan, has their own issues. I mean, the dollar got up to about 159 versus the yen. So we're back to levels that we saw in July.

By the way, the yen has been weakening while interest rates in Japan have been going higher, which is somewhat counterintuitive. There's a powder keg there that, you know, for whatever reason, the market continues to sort of

I don't know, just ignore. I mentioned all of that in the context, though, of where I think rates are going. If you get rates right in 2025, I think you're going to get the equity market right as well. I agree. That is the $64, well, probably trillion-dollar question at this point, but not the $64,000 question. But yes, and a lot goes into it. So again, if it's the economy driving rates higher, I believe that's healthy. If it's supply-demand or something else going on, it's not healthy.

as it occurs naturally. But my point is, and close it with this,

We haven't had a natural yield curve or natural bonds for quite some time because of the Fed intervention over the last 15 to 17 years. And maybe that keeps going on, guy. And who knows? I'm not going to try to predict it, but stick to the fundamentals. But whether or not you just want to ignore it, it's a big input for a lot of companies and a lot of investors and how they look at things. Early last year, you will recall that I watched the big short, the movie. I did about a 10-minute soliloquy as to why I hadn't watched it

and the impact it had on me when I did watch it. One of the reasons I didn't want to watch it is because sort of I understood intuitively what you guys all went through, and you were predominantly men. That's why I use the term guys. And you had it in terms of your rigor and in terms of the things you were looking at and basically the work you did around the market, you came to a conclusion that things were going to happen.

But typically, as the saying goes, the market could say, what's the old phrase? The market could stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. That proved to be the case then. So as you were watching your thesis play out in terms of the data, you were looking at things in terms of the market that were going counter to that. And that had to be extraordinarily frustrating.

And I think to a certain extent we're seeing it now. Now I mentioned that in the context of a number of different things. The S&P 500 trading probably close to 22 times forward earnings, historically very expensive. The fact that Warren Buffett now has $325 billion on his balance sheet for a reason. The Buffett indicator, which is again the Wilshire 5000 divided by GDP, has traded up to almost 210% for context

He gets concerned, he being Warren Buffett, at about 130%. And then the thing that nobody wants to talk about for whatever reason, and maybe it's too wonky, but there's something called the Shiller P/E ratio or the CAPE index. And that is basically the cyclically adjusted P/E ratio. It's price to earnings ratio based on the average inflation rate adjusted earnings from the prior 10 years. That is a thing.

It is currently trading Danny either side of 38, which is meaningless without context. For context, the highest that we ever saw in recorded history was 4420 in December of 1999. December of 1999. For further context, in case anybody playing our home game cares,

In the summer of 1929, it traded up to 32. So we are basically the highest levels we've ever seen X 1999. The median, by the way, not that it matters, is about 16. The mean is 17 or so.

Market doesn't care, clearly. And one of the reasons that I've come to the conclusion it doesn't care is because of something we will talk about in a second. The amount of passive money that flowed into the market in 2024 in the ETFs and mutual funds were north of a trillion dollars a record. Passive money doesn't care about these things. P.E. ratios don't matter. CAPE ratios don't matter. The Buffett indicator doesn't matter. What I think that this has done, though, is just...

pushed off the inevitable in a way that actually sort of scares me. And when I look at things like these, again, they're not timing mechanisms. I want to be crystal clear. Pardon my French. But what it is is market has less and less room for error. Thoughts? You remind me of the movie My Cousin Vinny. Great movie. It is a great movie. I'm a big Marisa Tomei fan, as you know. And the scene where...

goes through this whole argument, who's the Herman Munster who played the judge. Fred Gwynn. That was a very lucid argument. Overruled. So you're overruled because the market's telling you that you're wrong. Right. Right. And so I was watching you and Liz today on Market Call, and I saw the little box you guys built with the S&P and if the earnings and the multiple and what you could be at ranging. And I looked at it, I'm like,

There's nothing below 19 times, even on the box that you're using for forward multiple. I mean, I'm just saying like we've moved the range up. Real quickly, I mean, for context, I think the norm is about a 17-ish. So you're right to point that out. So I'm just saying I was looking for the next scene, which never happened. But anyway, it is what it is. The market's been expensive for a while. It's not a reason to quote short it.

The reason to short it, and you go back to talk about the big short, big short time period was just math.

You don't count on government intervention to come in and put in a towel, fin a tarp. You are using math. Home prices will drop. Homeowners, God forbid, will lose their homes. They'll clear in foreclosure. We'll come back to the market and naturally build this thing back up. Quote, teach everybody a lesson. This, that, and the other. Moral hazard, this, that, and the other. Didn't happen. So my point is you have to adjust to this. Your point about passive flows in both the equity and fixed income market, and there's a great article out today on fixed income,

Active fixed income investors are massively outperforming passive fixed income. We talk about passive fixed income all the time, how we don't think it's a great product because the nuances in fixed income, which guy was the driver during the mortgage crisis, because you have to compute the duration of time and rates and so forth. So to answer your question in a nutshell,

It's been a great bond pickers market that is paying attention to certain factors that are out there that do matter because you can't meme a bond. You can't meme returns. You can't enhance something that actually fixes to pay something out. So you bring up a great point. And so if you want to

The brain damage that's occurred here from trying to time the market of 30p versus 40 versus 50 and to try to figure out when a secular story becomes a cyclical story, I'm not saying it's a fool's errand. I'm saying you're gaining knowledge on it. And at some point, that will all matter. But the wealth effect in this market has increased.

has basically fed on itself, fine, great, good way. I fear the day that it unwinds on itself, Guy, where fundamentals do matter again. So not answering your question, but answering your question, you just got to play the sign of the times. You got to play the game we have here, and that's the game. And you try to figure out what's going to be the catalyst for that unwind. And if I'm being honest, over the last couple of years, there have been a couple different times where I thought, here is in fact

The catalyst, and it proved right for a day, two days, a few days, but what we've learned, and we saw it, by the way, on December 18th. We saw it again on December 27th. You go back to August 5th. I mean, the sell-offs are literally one- to two-day events.

And then the market sort of picks up where it left off and volatility, which has recently spiked, although right back down again, a one or two day event, which I find fascinating. And I think the more times this happens, the level of complacency and the beer muscles that become associated with that, complacency grows as do the beer muscles because you know what?

I don't care. The markets, the sell-off, we've seen this movie before. It's not going to last. And, you know, you've been right to have that view. Obviously, the concern is there's going to be a time and place where

It does not correct itself, and it does not then just sort of get back onto the rails and once again go lower left, upper right. And I wish I could think of what the catalyst is going to be, but I will tell you in 2025— You know what the catalyst is going to be, Guy. Guy, you know what the catalyst is going to be. Well, tell me.

It's going to be the bond market. Yes. It will be the yield. What's going to see. That's right. I agree with that. That's what it'll be. If there's a God forbid a failed auction, if there's a policy mistake, if there's, if there's a thought that the fed actually move, if they actually start to price and the fed's going to be raising rates, then guy, you know, I don't know what to tell you because so much has been predicated on

But listen, there could be policy adjustments. QE can come back, right? We had QE for years. It went to QT. We've slowed down QT. You could stop that in reverse course and you could ebb and flow that. You can change the risk requirements, the risk-weighted assets judgment at the bank so they can own treasuries. These SLR leverage ratios can be lowered so that the banks can own more treasuries and not get penalized for doing so. So let's not kid ourselves. There's ways to mitigate that and things will happen. But the answer to your question, Guy,

Every single one, almost every single one of those one to two day sell-offs has been started with some unrest in the bond market period. You're 100% right. And I do think, again, that's what I continue to be laser focused on.

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We've had some banks report this week, and I think on the margins, people were pretty excited about it. But here's my two cents. And again, you know, you can say what you want. But I sent this note to a friend earlier this week. I think it was on Tuesday. Citibank reports they said their tangible book was $89.34, just to throw it out there.

JP Morgan reported on the same day their tangible book was $97.30. So at the current stock price that day, and it really hasn't moved all that much, JP Morgan, Danny, was trading 254%.

of Tangible Book. Citi, by contrast, was trading 85.5% of Tangible Book. So almost a three-turn higher premium the market was putting on J.P. Morgan. Now, I'm not here to tell you that they don't deserve a premium. They don't deserve that kind of premium. And by the way, at 250%-ish, J.P. Morgan is trading at levels we last saw pre-financial crisis. So once again, the market finds itself sort of paying up

in a passive way potentially for names that don't, in my opinion, don't make a lot of sense. Now, I have been constructive on Citi. That's one that I've gotten right. And for that reason alone, a valuation reason, but people getting themselves all geeked up in banks here with the steepening yield curve

But I think they're missing sort of the other end of the spectrum, which potentially be some credit issues that we're inevitably going to run into. So those two banks obviously are very different in terms of their complexion. 100%. From the assets. And C has been kind of a, quote, turnaround story for a while. But let's just talk about J.P. Morgan for a second.

put book value to the side for a moment. Earnings wise, it's not expensive. You have to believe that they're going to keep growing earnings. There's a reason that Jamie Dimon didn't want to buy back stock around two times book. Over a long period of time, you will have a cycle of some kind. And the thing about all the earnings, so we've seen mostly from the Wall Street banks, not a lot of the consumer banks, although Wells has a big consumer part, M&T Bank reported, you know what the deal flow was in Q4. There are AI-driven models that can tell you to the

penny what the fees were that they were achieving. You know, for the most part, equity trading is a little bit harder, but you know the large M&A deals that have occurred fees. So yes, certain companies, you know, Morgan Stanley's beating on equity trading. Obviously, Bank of America is beating on banking fees.

But you're not getting a full picture to your point of kind of what's going on in credit land. Credit was fine, but there were reserves that were going up. But it's such a small portion of the business for those banks that, you know, it kind of gets overlooked. And so the true economic stuff going on in bank land, again, Guy, I think there's a lot of hope or optimism that there'll be a ton of M&A

occurring in the regional banks. So you might go through this quarter reporting of the regions of the world and the key banks, and they may get a pass because, oh, they're M&A targets. So no one wants to sell those or get in front of that. So a lot of moving parts here, Guy. And the private equity firms, which have grown their lending books and they're moving into mortgages now, they're literally taking over. You look five, 10 years from now, they'll have as big a balance sheet as

as the banks, and they've been kind of replacing that activity. So you talk to me now, what's the next crisis? I don't know if it's a crisis because it's not going to be leveraged on the bank's balance sheet where you're risking customer deposits. And if that fails, the whole system goes down. However, it's not as transparent and not intentionally non-transparent. It's not as transparent because the Treasury and the Fed can't see all this activity. So you have just huge books of business now replacing what banks used to do. So I guess what I'm ending is this.

book value and all these other things may not be historically what people are looking for anymore because they're just different animals than they are. But certainly something to watch, always a rate indicator, always enjoy Jamie Dimon. People should always listen to him, whether you agree with him or not, whether you thought he was a little too pessimistic last year, worried that doom was coming and so forth. This guy's been around the block a long time and most of these bankers have, but

Again, not surprising. We talked about this last year. You're going to have regulatory relief, M&A pickup and all those things occurring. And after the election, a lot of equity trading activity went on. So let's just see what happens. But I would wrap it up with this guy. Rising tide lifts all ships. And if the market were to somehow turn down, you and I know we worked on Wall Street for years. We know how that works.

It's interesting you mentioned Jamie Dimon. There was a CBS morning news, I think it was on Sunday he did, with a longer form interview and Bitcoin came up and he doubles and triples down on his view. He's a skeptic now.

People say, well, JP Morgan's in the business. Yeah, I think he's obviously smart enough to understand that there's an appetite and a market for crypto. So if there is, they're going to be in the business. But it doesn't mean necessarily he has to sort of believe it. I mean, if they're investors that believe it, you know, people are big boys and girls. They can make their own decisions. But yet again, he continues to double down. As we're sitting here, you know, obviously Bitcoin traded up to about 108,000. I think it traded down to 90,000.

As we're sitting here today, it's either side of 100,000. I'm trying to figure out what the catalyst is or what it's trading on the back of. Now, I think the overriding hope is this incoming administration is going to be extraordinarily crypto Bitcoin friendly, and perhaps they create some sort of Bitcoin reserve, which would require the United States to buy tens of thousands, I would imagine, of Bitcoin. I think we're light years away from that.

That's the bull case, I think. The bear case, I believe, is interest rates continue to go higher, and maybe that sort of puts a kibosh on things. I'm not sure. But what does that lead to? It goes back to gold because, Danny, as you've talked about it, gold has gone up while the dollar has been going up. Gold has been going up while bond yields have been going up, which historically have been tremendous headwinds.

Gold's been working in an environment where it typically does not. So as I'm sitting here today, you know, watching gold continue to do its thing, you know, north of 2700 and within a whisper of that prior all time high, I'm like, you know what? Gold's working, man. And it's working in a meaningful way.

So since the advent of Bitcoin ETFs have come in, you get added a little volatility on the retail front became it became easier to buy and easier to sell. So you're going to see some type of basically correlation to stock market when there's big sell offs. I think you'll have big sell offs in Bitcoin. And when it comes back, I think you'll have. So that's a little bit on the margin. People that are excited about the new administration and how they're going to view crypto. I would just say one thing. I think that's right. Let me say one thing as a public service announcement.

the positive of this is that they're pro-crypto. The bad side of this, I don't see them enforcing any of these shit coins and meme coins which come out to protect you. So please, if you're doing this, stay pure, stay in your Bitcoin, however you want to trade it, but do not delve in because no one's going to be there to save you and protect you. And I'm not saying that Gensler had the right attitude necessarily at the SEC and people said it was old school, didn't want it. I get it. But be wary of kind of the other side of approving everything. Now, I'm going to stop you for a second. You said stay pure.

And I'm going to say stay gold, Ponyboy. Ponyboy, I love it. To give you a little SE hinting. So let's go stay gold for me. Give me some gold. You know how much you and I, especially the dip, we haven't gotten scared out of this trade since you and I have met each other. And the times that it's come down, you know, it historically has been an inflation hedge and then there was no inflation, but it didn't work. And Bitcoin sold its thunder a little bit here and there. You've been pointing out and rightfully so that global central banks have been buying it. Let me give you this little piece of information.

Being down in Florida, I happen to encounter a lot of my friends who are private wealth managers, right? And they manage, if you look at the Barron's top 100 of advisors, I probably have seen 12 of those 100 in the last three months. Not one, not one single one of them has gold for themselves or a client. And I'm talking, they're at Morgan Stanley, they're at Stiefel, they're at JP Morgan, they're all these places. So the answer to your question, Guy, is

People own Bitcoin. Retail does not own gold. So away from kind of the fundamental or just kind of the shoeshine test or your taxi driver test where you're asking, hey, what do you want? Nobody has it. So that part, Guy, makes me very bullish right now. And if it is a hedge against policy mistakes, it is a hedge against geopolitics, it is a hedge against potentially inflation rearing its head back. And rest assured, if inflation comes back again, gold will work this time.

as opposed to kind of the time people said, oh, it didn't work. And by the way, it's up 35% in the last year. It's not like it hasn't been going up. It's been a great store of value. And more than that, it's been gross. So still very positive on gold guy. All right. So let me ask you this question. I don't know the I sort of know the answer to this. Not entirely so. So here we are gold. I think we both would suggest we're at an all time high. Right.

We look at a name like Newmont Mining, for example, and I'm cherry picking here. In April of 2022, Newmont Mining was north of $84. For context, at that time, gold was probably, I don't know, $1,700 or $1,000 lower than it is now. And the S&P was probably, I don't know, $4,700, which is about 1,300 handles today.

Newmont has been cut in half effectively while gold has only gone up and the S&P 500 has only gone up. Are they that shitty an operator? Is it that awful a business or is something else going on here? Because last year I thought gold miners would rip and I will tell you for a period of time I looked like a genius, but they've all sort of given it all back.

I guess there's equity allocations and then there's commodity allocations, I would say. But they're not capital light companies, Guy, right? We all know what goes into them. Energy prices is a big input. So until recently, when oil has started to come down, I know now it's gone back up again. You could argue, let me look at it versus oil, where it's gone, because that's a big input for them to get it out of the ground. I'm not saying that those aren't good trades. I think directionally, if you want to play a minor ETF, to your point, they're all under-owned.

So if a fund manager decides they want to own the equities versus the commodity, and maybe that'll be the way that people do it, these stocks will have their day and they will have a catch-up time for sure. Same way we see oil trade certain levels and the energy stocks kind of not correlate. They end up correlating over a longer period of time. So I hear it. It's just not as capital efficient to me. So I've been pure, as you know, I've been playing it kind of the pure way, which is through PHYS that way. It's equivalent to liking crypto,

and playing one of the crypto miners or maybe something else versus just owning Bitcoin directly. You have to worry about management. You have to worry about operations. You got to worry about, right? And so here you don't have to worry about anything. You own gold. So no one can mess that up for you. So I guess that's the way I would look at it. No, that's fair. You know, I just look at this and say, you know, maybe it shouldn't be trading in lockstep, but the discount is significant, which leads me to this. Were you a fan of the Adams family by any chance?

Yeah, of course. Gomez Adams. Morticia. Uncle Fesker. Sure. Wasn't he Adam? Wednesday, Pugsley, Lurch. Yeah, great. Amazing. You know this whole thing. Grandmama. I loved it, by the way. I thought it was a great show. Gomez played with model trains. I think part of my fascination with model trains started with that. But when Morticia-

would speak French, that would just do it for Gomez Adams. Trish, that's... I don't like Peter Scalwanda when Kevin Kline spoke Italian to Jamie Lee Curtis. I get it. Keep going. Tish, that's French. Yeah. Well, something happened this week in a French luxury brand. Rijmant. Did I say that properly? Rijmant. So please. Said like Peter Sellers and Pink Panther, by the way. That was pretty good. Yeah. So luxury brands, they own...

Obviously, that's their big brand. And the fear had been and has been and will continue to be that China is a big part of their luxury market. And their business was so strong in the fourth quarter, guy. And that was with China being horrible. And so unexpectedly, they beat by a lot and the stock reflected it. So all the luxury brands kind of in Europe have obviously gone up. I also wonder.

If the dollar strength has helped some of these companies, obviously a little bit there too. So there was kind of a relief rally just post-election. People felt a little bit more confident. We've seen that already in earnings from in the business community confident, I think that the high end, but let's be clear.

This is a high-end play. This is not a reflection on 95% of people. That being said, they had a good quarter in spite of China, which is pretty impressive. Flip side of that is a name like Target, for example, which had some commentary out today, today being Thursday. You know what I find? Listen, and I'm the first to say this. I don't want to say that the entirety of Target's move low over the last couple of years is on the consumer. I think a lot of it has been Target-specific.

But for context, this was a stock in the summer of 2021 that was trading north of $260. That's important because as we're sitting here today, we're basically trading either side of $130. I can do that math. The stock has been cut in half. There's clearly something going on here. So Target's problems, again, mostly Target specific, but the flip side of that coin is Walmart. The flip side of that coin are the dollar stores, which have been disastrous since

There's clearly something going on in brick and mortar retail that at some point you can start connecting dots and say, wait a second, maybe it is a consumer thing. Well, this really goes back to COVID. Walmart completely dismantled them because one, Target wasn't known for food and grocery. Walmart had it. It was a lead for consumers to come in. So you could stop right there with what happened to Target. A lot of it's Walmart and they lost customers.

customer base. And Target, granted, had a little bit of a higher-end

than Walmart. I think they've dropped down. We've talked about that. We don't have to go into it. The average income of Walmart customers grown, et cetera, et cetera. So that's part of it. And the point you just made, yes, target beat their comps, but their earnings didn't go. Their earnings aren't going to go up because they're discounting to get it. So it's merchandising is getting at some point, maybe they get it right, but they've never really gotten their footing back kind of post COVID. And because they didn't have food and groceries as kind of a leader to get people in, they were unable to basically grow any share and Walmart has destroyed them. Yeah.

them. Danny Moses, you're a student of history. May 6, 1937, do you recall?

An explosion of some kind? Hindenburg. Good job by you. Now, all the humanity. Now, I mention that because the short seller, Hindenburg, decided or just announced that they're going to close their doors, which, by the way, I don't want to say it's catastrophic, but I think it's a testament to all the things we talk about. It's very difficult right now in this environment.

to do the rigorous work, to try to play things from the short side of the spectrum because the market just works against you. But I think this is important quickly to talk about the potential impact and the meaning behind it and what are your thoughts because obviously you're one of the storied short sellers out there in the landscape. I've met Nate Anderson at Hindenburg, quiet guy, very thoughtful, and he does good work. And listen, you can't argue with the stuff that he's put out over the last several years.

Icon, Adani, right? Most recently Carvana, which obviously I kind of agree with given the history of that stock. And we've talked about that stock on the show for some time. So he does his work.

I think there's two things here. One is, to your point, a lot of these short sellers have been vilified, kicked out of the business. You think about Andrew Left at Citron. I mean, he has a settlement pending. I don't know what's happening with that. So there are the same way that there's pump and dumpers on the long side of things where people write long. People do write short reports. Not him, not Hindenburg, not Nate. They buy puts ahead of it. They put out a call, whatever. Here's where I think, Guy. He has spent his years. He started basically giving tips to the SEC before he started publishing research, right? So you can get...

to get whistleblower awards. He's connected there. He's connected to the DOJ. It's not hard to figure out that he was the one that probably prompted some of these investigations, right? That went on with the Donnie, et cetera. New administration guy, he probably thinks to himself, I can't rebuild these relationships.

I don't need to be on anybody's radar. The risk award of me doing it, you know what? I'll probably trade his personal account from time to time and still do the same type of rigor and research. He wants to give out his process to people. He wants to help his employees get jobs. He's a very smart guy. So there's nothing nefarious here, nothing. I think it's a smart move by him. He's going to be an uphill battle to basically, at this point, how does he get someone in this new administration potentially to look when a lot of the people that may be involved are the ones that are going to be pulling the strings that he would want to go after?

So I think it's as simple as that guy. I just think it's an opportunity and an emotional decision for him. It's going to be interesting to see. I mean, again, this gap that is created and people basically, I don't want to say throwing in the towel because that might be a little melodramatic, but understanding it's a tough operating environment right now. But you also wonder if announcements like this portend something, does it speak to a potential market top? We will see. Which leads us to the following.

I believe as a football fan that this is the best weekend of football. This is where we have four games, two on Saturday, two on Sunday. The winners of said game go to the NFC Championship and the AFC Championship game. Obviously, moving on from there to the Super Bowl, which I think I'm still allowed to say. So let's go down these games one by one quickly. Let's go back.

through December when you know he stopped giving picks after week three whatever but I've historically had a really good playoff run yes I'm pretty hot right now I'm not giving them out I'm keeping to myself but whatever I told you in December when you were high on Minnesota I said two things I go Sam Darnold Sam Darnold at some point he could joke and the second thing is because Daniel Jones has donned the uniform even standing anywhere near the sidelines I believe right curse them which I

I also told you that be aware of the Rams, and it so happened the Rams ended up playing Minnesota, best coach that there is. So I don't think the Rams are going to go much further than here, but let's go to this week. Here's the first game, 4.30 on Saturday. The Texans of Houston travel to Kansas City to play a Chiefs team that finish the season 4-0.

15-2, but I would say a lot of it was smoke and mirrors. Thoughts? Let's just say the Chargers were a little bit smoke and mirrors. Therefore, Houston's getting too much credit for probably beating them. They were mediocre all year. Patrick Mahomes is 15-3 in his career in the playoffs, which...

That's an unbelievable number. Coming off basically three bye weeks, they're going to have... Kansas City has the best coach in football in Andy Reid. They're going to blow him out of the water. I don't love laying nine points. That game's not going to be close, Guy. It's going to be over, I think, at halftime. And that's a disappointing game, which leads us then to the 8 o'clock game. The Commanders of Washington...

They're flying under everybody's radar screen against the Lions of Detroit. Obviously, everybody's All-American, everybody's prohibitive favorite in the NFC.

I love this Jaden Daniels. I mean, it's like you don't want to bet against this guy. He's just a winner. You know, they're outmatched here. I think the Lions are a better, more talented team. I think that Washington can hang with them for a little while. I don't see a blowout. I'm laying off that game entirely because that could be one of those, you know, 14-point games, backdoor to seven or vice versa, seven to 14. Lions will win that game. I don't think Daniels is ready yet to have a win like this, but I'm staying off that game, but I like Detroit to win it. The

The aforementioned Rams of LA take on the aforementioned Eagles of Philadelphia in the three o'clock game on Sunday in Philadelphia. And this McVay guy is, is just a tremendous coach and he's a better coach than Sirianni. And,

And the Eagles, again, I think have a little bit more talent. The line is six. If I was forced to pick it, which I'm not going to gamble on, I would take the Rams catching the points. Eagles have had these periods of time where they go through two, three, four drives where they go three and out, three and out, three and out. If they get into a kind of a knockdown drag out with the Rams and it's a low scoring game,

which I could see. They have a pretty good defense and it's underrated. I like the Rams are playing good football here, but again, laying off, I think the Eagles sweep by it though, Guy. Theoretically, the best game of the weekend takes place as the last game of the weekend, the Ravens in Buffalo. Buffalo undefeated at home. Josh Allen has put this team on his back. He will continue to do so. Everyone is giving way too much, basically, thought to the earlier defense

earlier in the season when they played and the Ravens beat them 35 to 10, the Bills had a lot of injuries that game. They're not losing at home to Bills and they're getting a point here. Take the point, take the money line, whatever. Buffalo should win that game. And just like the Eagles guy, the Ravens, they could win the game, but the Ravens go through these periods of time, three, four drives at a time where they just disappear. You can't do that against these good teams, guy. I too love the Bills. I'd love to see a Bills linebacker

Lions Super Bowl the Ravens something about that Raven team I know defensively they're challenged Danny but I don't know it just gives me I don't know if the Bills are ready we shall see but you know what I'm ready for more of you Danny Moses and I hope to speak to you again next week so thank you for joining us folks on the tape see you again