Animal Spirits Podcast - Live From Miami (EP.404)

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

On episode 404 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: a bear market in Mag 7 stocks, one of the fastest corrections ever, surveys gaslighting investors, a possible consumer slowdown, more travel stories and email etiquette advice, the best movie cities, and much more! This episode is sponsored by YCharts. Sign up today at: https://go.ycharts.com/animal-spirits Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: thecompoundnews.com/subscribe Find complete show notes on our blogs: Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense Michael Batnick’s The Irrelevant Investor Feel free to shoot us an email at [e-mail] with any feedback, questions, recommendations, or ideas for future topics of conversation.   Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's episode, live from Futureproof Citywide, is brought to you by Y Charts. Who else? The new YCharts AI tool is now live and it's going to change the way you work as a financial advisor. It's not putting people out of jobs yet, but it's making you more efficient. What are some of the features? So it takes SEC filings, financial news, economic data, and just allows you to find them much quicker, integrated into your presentations and your practice. So for advisors, that's talking quicker proposals, quicker proposals, quicker. feedback for clients.

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with Michael and Ben. We did one live show already today. How to go? Let's set the scene. Should we rewind? Yes, let's rewind. And so last night, we celebrated your 40th birthday party. And Josh went out of his way to pick one of the cooler steakhouses in Miami.

Poppy? Poppy. Poppy steaks. And it was an experience. Yes. What was your experience with it? So there was about 20 of us. And at one point, like, lights come on.

and loud music. Dinner was over, and it was time for a cake, right? And all the lights start flashing, the music picks up. And everybody starts looking at me and taking out their cameras, and I wanted to die. So you initially, I think, were very embarrassed, turned a little red. Well, it's just everybody looking at you. It was taking forever, and I'm just like, I grabbed you. I'm like, here, save me.

So I sat down and not, it wasn't just our whole group of 20. The entire restaurant kind of stood up. people were filming and there's sparklers going and the people who work there are going crazy and it's this whole big thing and it's it the music was bumping and the lights were flashing and it's like oh there's smoke and and then the surprise the reveal was that it was a stake for another table that was next to ours it wasn't for you so you went from embarrassed to actually like being the center of attention it's kind of cool to it's not for me actually

and it went to some other table and we kept thinking like what was they thinking as we yeah they're like why are they celebrating yes everyone thought it was coming to you but then 10 minutes later they did do a birthday thing which it's kind of funny because at that point we'd already celebrated enough

and they did do the sparklers and the big sign that said happy birthday Michael it was cool but remember Mr. Deeds we wasted the good surprise on you it was sort of like that it was the yes total rugpole for you It was just, it was perfect. So we were moving a little slow this morning.

We were lucky enough to draw the 8.30 slot at future proof, which I'm told is actually a good thing. Because it's not an, you're a draw, you're a get. We want people up and out early. So it's actually a compliment. So we were the very first ones on stage. It was a little chilly. I'd say our brains were operating at 40% speed.

40%? I was going to say 60, but maybe 40. So how would you grade this podcast that our audience is about to listen to or turn off? Was it a Like, okay, real talk, it was probably like a D plus But I think we We acknowledged it that it was a slow motion train wreck So which elevated it to maybe a B minus A strong C plus

I think the YouTube viewers are going to like it better Because we did a lot of charts And we couldn't have them on the screen That's true. That did slowest down But the other thing is, it's interesting When you're in front of an audience And if I say a bad joke to you, we just move on, right? Like, there's nothing like just blank stairs

Especially with if people the audience don't know us. And they're like, who are these assholes? Who gave him a mic? What are they? What's happening right now? So during the episode, so here's what happened. You know what?

I'm going to take the L on this one. My bad. We were a bit underprepared. Would you say? The doc was light. We've been busy for the past few days at the conference. So yeah, we didn't have as much as we usually have. The document was light.

So about 15 minutes into the show, I'm like, uh-oh. We're almost done. We're almost done. fucking text at us. Do your 100 favorite movies on an airplane. So, anyway, one thing that we didn't get to, I think because I was, I think I'm going to, I'm going to blame the 40% capacity thing, the 40% speed that we were operating on. We spoke very quickly about my feelings on the future of the market. And I said this on the show. I have opinions on where the market's going to go. I think everybody has opinions. Like, I don't think I would like, you know, they might

happen, they might not. So I said, I don't think we're going to have a bare market. market. Obviously, that might be wrong in a week. Who knows? But what I didn't say, which I want to say now, is that I'm definitely not like stamping a clawing a bottom. Because I think that when you get a sharp rally off the loads like we had, not always. There's Vs, but it's pretty common to roll and retest the loads. Right. So not a, not a prediction. Just a more of a, hey, this is a grand rapist's hedge. That's what this is. Put a probability on it, right? Probability on what? market because you like to do you like to think in those terms. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So probably

have a no bear market. Let's go. I really do believe no bear markets. I'm going to say 74%. All right. That's pretty good. That's like, right? Yes. I just, I don't know how anyone can think that they have this market handicap. I know exactly what's going to happen. Okay, so enjoy our live show from Miami. Now it's time for us to get a Miami place. Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael 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 Ridholt's wealth management.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ridholt's wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Thank you guys for showing up. I'm hungover too. Listen, any time you can lock down the 8.30 a.m. time slot at a conference, the day after St. Patty's Day, and the day after you celebrate Michael's 40th birthday, you have to do it. Yep. So, Matt said you guys won the 8.30 spot. We said, we said, no, we need the 8.30 spot. We have to have it.

Let's set off with some banter. On the way here, we walked through the pool, and I told you, I want to talk about this today. And I pointed to the water with the cucumbers in. Okay, do we, uh... So I go for a run yesterday, not to brag, and I come back and I'm at the pool and I need some water because it's very hot here in Miami. And the only thing I see is the water with the cucumbers in it. Who is this for? Me. I think it looks better than it...

There's no purpose of putting fruit in the water. No one actually likes the water. If you put a regular water next to the cucumber water, which one gets drank more? The regular water. Nine times out of ten. I think you're right. It's usually a charade just for show. But the water at Lowe's hotel actually was delightful.

There was like a mint and a pink tasting thing. So I'm going to take the other side of that one. A couple of weeks ago, Ben was on the podcast talking about how there should be a standard hotel room. I think you're on to something. And I forgot to mention this last week, but I was in Chicago at a hotel last week. And I couldn't find the light switch. Like, there was, like, I'm looking around. There's no lights on the ceiling,

but there's just like a fluorescent light coming out from, like, the wall area. And I'm looking around, and I just slept with the lights on. I was going to call to the hotel lobby, but I, uh, a lot of blank stairs. That's okay. A lot of blank stairs. See, it's better when we're 101.

Ben always laughs in my jokes. Let's talk about the stock market. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I got one more travel thing. How many people are like, like Josh, chronic Purell users? That's actually me. Are you?

Well, since I had kids because kids are just germ factory, so I use, yeah, I'm constantly using that stuff on my hand. I guess with germs, I'm like a, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger type of guy. I'm not afraid of germs. Germs don't scare me. Until now. So I'm in the airport. yesterday and we're going to the baggage claim and I see a guy I'm walking into the bathroom

I see a guy running towards me so he runs into the bathroom with me and I'm thinking all right this guy's about to have diarrhea um he doesn't he just pears up the urinal next to me leaves without washing his hands and then he runs back to the carousel to get his bag the whole thing is bizarre but I can't think my eyes off of him And as the bag start to come out, nope, that's not my bag. And I'm like, oh, Pee-B hands. This guy is touching multiple

and he's touching like the handle. Like, nope. So now I think I'm a, I think I'm a Pural guy. All right, now let's talk about the stock market. What do you got, Ben? Well, you were concerned that the market was going to be crashing this week

as we're doing the podcast. No, no, no, no. No, I wasn't. I didn't want that to happen. It's not like I thought it was going to. to happen. I was like, oh, guys, I'm telling you, but it would have sucked. Listen, we all serve our clients, and it would have just been shitty to be here. We had that at the first year of future proof. It wasn't fun. We had that, was it a 9% inflation print? Like one of the highs.

And so I, yes, I was not concerned as in I thought it was going to happen, but I didn't, it would have been a bummer. If we're here smiling, having a good time, and the market's just tanking, who wants that? Someone reminded me, so the day after the election, I said, here's what the market is doing. And it was, remember, it was a big move. And I tweeted this and someone said, hey, Ben, I'm reminding of this. And I, so the initial market move right after the election, S&P 500 was up big, small caps were up big, the dollar was up, foreign stocks got crushed, gold went down, and rates went up and bonds went down. And I tweet, wait for that one more time? I'm just kidding. And so I said something here is an overreaction. I'm just not quite sure yet.

But it seems like everything was based on what happened now. All of that reversed. The S&P's down, the small caps are getting crushed, the dollar is down, foreign stocks are going crazy, gold is at all-time highs, and rates have come down for bonds. So literally everything that happened the day after the election was an overreaction. So the Mag 7 is down, was down 20% at its worst. Severance is down 24% from season one to season two. I'm still holding out hope that it's going to come back. What's the Ryan Dietrich's story here? All right, so... We've got charts in the dock, not on the screen, so I'll walk you through him. Ryan tweeted one of the fastest corrections ever.

And he looked at what happens 136, 12 months after. And three and six months, higher 100% of the time, 12 months, 83% of time. Again, it's only happened five times. But Ben, what's your, I feel like you've been banging this Trump for a while, that everything just happens quicker now. Are we ever going to get like a 10% correction that just sort of, you know, takes its time? I think investors just, it's the structure of the market now. The information moves faster, the algorithms move faster. And I think if it's like people just want to take

their medicine and get it over with and rip the band it off. I think the market is biased to move higher in this current, I don't know, the last 15 years just with the lentless bid and corporate earnings going to hire. Like the market has a higher bit. It always does. But when something knocks it off its axis, it happens really quickly. And I think a lot of that has to do a structural issues. Josh and I were talking with Joe Taranova yesterday about the news, I don't know, news. Greg Zuckerman wrote an article about the hedge funds, Millennium, Citadel, blowing up a little bit, and blowing up. They were down 1.1% for the month. But relatively speaking, for them, that was their worst month in, I think, six years.

So the derisking, the degrossing, the whatever happens just really quickly. Yeah, the leverage comes out. I looked at the every S&P 500 drawdown since 1950. And I got this cute little table here. Everyone in the audience should see it at some point. So there's 39 corrections, so that's one every two years or so. But the last time we had three bare markets in a decade was the 1960s. Before that, it happened in the 40s. It happened in the 30s, depending on how you count these things. But so people are saying, well, could we actually get our third bear market in five or six years in the 2020s?

And because the speed of this stuff, it wouldn't shock me at all if we just, again, have a big overreaction. And I think that's the thing is the pendulum is just swinging wider and wider these days. So this would be, like I said, this would be the first time we would have three bare markets since the 1960s. Not saying it's going to happen, but of course, we're going to have one by the end of the decade for sure, right? Are we using like rolling 10 years or what are we talking about? Fiscal decades? Yeah, just the numbers. All right.

So we got a bit of a snapback, which is nice for now. We'll take it. The XRT, which is the retail ETF equally weighted. ish, has put together its two best day rally of the year. That's in Mike Sikardi. After the horrific U-Mish and disappointing February repel sales report.

We're going to talk about sentiment later in the show, but we also had a very nice bounce yesterday. Best day for the advanced decline line since December 2003. Any explanation for the bounce? I mean, we just went down too quick and people had to come back, right?

There it is. European equities, sorry we don't have this chart on the stage, but nothing but just relentless outflows for the last three years. Who's this chart from? EPFR and Barclays Research. And investors are, in fact, piling in. I think this has legs for the first time. I think for the first time this just, and this is another one of those, no one ever could

have guessed this in a million years. Even after the election, no one said, oh, foreign stocks are going to go crazy. everyone thought the opposite. So for the past 15 years, it was U.S. stocks go up, international stocks are either flat or go up less. And this idea that like, what could happen where U.S. stocks would go down and European stocks would go up? Could you give me a scenario, genius?

And it was completely unimaginable. So one of the things that happens during almost every market correction is either the 60-40 portfolio is dead, although right now it seems to be alive. again because bonds are doing okay. And buy and hold is dead. And so the Wall Street Journal has this article. The title is The Days of Set It and Forget It, Investing, just ended for many Americans. And to be fair, this article is about two Americans that this happened for.

But they go through these two, one's an older gentleman and basically said, I'm getting out of everything. Hang on, don't paraphrase Yon, Arieli. Okay. So for people in the audience at a nude hour show, this really tickles our funny bone. whenever there is an article talking about like this, the days have said it and forget investing just ended. They get two quotes from random people.

So, for example, the foremost authority on investing, Yoram Ariely, hadn't touched most of his investments, preferring to ride the stock market ups and downs, and no offense to Yoram. Last Tuesday, he decided he had had enough. The 82-year-old unloaded almost half of his stock investments, fearful of the effect of President Trump's economic agenda and tariffs in particular, but get this, he may get rid of more still.

He might not be done. He might not be done. One of the times we knew we made it as a podcast is when we were making fun of one of these people in one of these articles and the guy actually emailed us and said, hey, that was me. I was the one they were talking about. But Ben, it's not just your Marielli. It's also Patton Price. So Patton Price said he expected geopolitical chaos in Trump's second term back when equity

were still flying high. So he sold all the stocks in his retirement accounts around the time of the presidential inauguration on January 20th. And so let me just quote Patton because there's some golden here. It's not like I have some fancy thesis and I think I know what's going to happen,

said Price, a 46-year-old musician and former political consultant. I just don't think anybody knows what's going to happen. I could not have said it better myself. So this is the worst part of it, though. It says he doesn't know when he will get the money back into the market. And that's why market timing is so hard because you go into it with no plan and you're screwed. So unfortunately, Yoram and Patton say that set it and forget it

is over. It died. We'll see. Do you remember coming out of the 2010's crisis? I don't know what you're doing. Were you still a waiter back then, insurance industry? Like coming out of the GMC. Funny you should ask, Ben. What year are we talking here? 2008? I'd say 2010, 2011-ish was the big push for there's going to be a double-dip recession. Remember that? That was every, everyone's parlay was just going to be a double-dict session. I was, I was at the library, studying for the CFA, emailing strangers, and day-trading the triple-leveraged inverse financial ETF, ticker F-A-Z, shout out to direction. Okay, so you weren't really up on the European debt crisis at the time. What do you know?

I had my trading journal. I was all up on it. So my take is right now, we're positioning ourselves for a double-dip vibe session. The economy is slowing a little bit, but it seems like all the charts just say the vibe session is back. So we have a bunch of charts from Torsten Slack who does a good job at this,

and he shows there's a sharp reversal in spending plans for CAPEX by corporations. And consumers are getting more worried about their jobs being lost. But, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. To me, this is, I don't want to hand-wave this away. No, no, so I got a point here. Give me a second.

Okay. Let me cook. Consumer sentiment is falling. Jobs cuts have risen, so that's a real thing. This is the one that got me, though. Record high share of consumers think business conditions are worsening. And this thing shot up, like this is like the stock market going crazy. I just think these sentiment overreactions are happening faster too.

And that's where it's hard to know, does this actually mean anything? And are we going to see it in the data? And we have to wait for the data still. Yeah, I completely agree with you. So we were waiting for retail sales on what day is today? Monday, did Monday we have retail sales? And we were like anxious that it was going to finally show up in the data. Now, again, like, this just started so it's early. But I totally agree with you that the sentiment shift and people spending plans, I think matters. But you got to, the data has

to confirm it. Because it didn't confirm in 2022. Everyone was so negative on the economy, but they kept spending money. Is that going to happen this time around as well? We will find out. But to me, that's, that's it. Like if people pull back, If corporate Cappex pulls back, we will get a recession. So here's the difference. This is from Neil Dutta at Redmac. He said, expected change in unemployment is the worst since 2008. No one is asking for a raise in this environment.

And I think that's good for inflation. Unless it turns into deflation, I guess. But people could ask for a raise in 2021 and 2022. The labor market was scorching hot. That's not the case anymore. And so I think that is where the self-fulfilling prophecy thing starts to happen. So if we do go into a recession, Tors and Slock has another chart showing U.S. household balance sheets are in excellent shape. A mild recession?

Yeah, it doesn't seem like we're setting ourselves up for a financial crisis. And the good news is a lot of the wounds right now are self-inflicted. Right? One of the reasons for the slowdown is government policy. And so can't they reverse it and help if need be? You, uh, who knows? But when I say mild recession, I guess what I'm talking about is all recessions suck. But like, if when history looks back on whatever we're going to experience, I think it will

have been, if anything, a mild recession. 40% chance of a recession? Always. Okay. Where we go on the next, Ben? All right. Oh, here's one. Mike Sicardi.

This is from Golden Sacks. Number of IPOs. So it was 140 in 2020, which is kind of bonkers to think about in 2020. that there was that many IPOs. 260 in 2021, and then just falls off of a cliff. And there was 50 last year. There's been a dozen so far this year. This seems like one of those things that for sure is a sign of never going to happen

or not happening for a while. What do you mean? That the IPO window is going to all of a sudden open and the floodgates are going to go crazy. Like in this environment, I can't imagine that IPOs are going to go crazy. Plano just filed. So we have a lot of private investment managers here. Does this ever trickle down to where the investors in these funds start getting worried? Like, when am I going to get my money back?

I don't know. Don't you think it's happening? I mean, there's been a lot of articles about end investors. A lot more money has gone into the private markets than has come out. I guess there's just so much more money there these days that it doesn't matter until it does. I don't know. I gotta be honest Ben I'm getting a little bit nervous

not about the market but about this podcast here I feel like we're underprepared the doc is a little bit light ladies and gentlemen so we're gonna do our best to film the time we're not done yet

we're not done just yet but let's slow it down we're on cruise control let's all right okay so I think I put you on this Here's one okay

what do you got No, but like, we look back at this in five years and does this turn into a bare market or recession? Or is this just the freak out de jour and we move on? I told you when this started that I don't think we're going to get a bare market. My opinion hasn't changed. But I'm also like really afraid to say that out loud in front of all you people because I don't really think. I mean, I think that, but I don't believe it. You know what I mean?

Like I actually think that, but I don't really believe my own feelings. I'm always wrong. Take you literally not seriously? Yeah. No, but no, I don't think that we're going to have a bare market, and I don't know, we'll find out. All right. Switching gears here. We've been talking a lot about the inheritance thing, and last week I made the point

that millennials shouldn't count on the inheritance because they're not going to get it until they're like 65 years old. People are just living longer, and they're probably not going to get it when they need it to help them. Here's a new report from Bank of America showing that women will be the big benefits of the wealth transfer. So this is, I feel like the estimated number is different every time you read it. They say $124 trillion by 2048, 80% of which is going to go to women.

How do they figure that? Because women live longer than men. So most of that money is going to trickle on to women. So they say that could drive growth in women's sports, refashion the travel industry, and narrow long-term gaps in health care provisions. This is from a Bank of America report saying women will control more money than ever before. Is this something that the wealth management industry is ready for, prepared for? The wealth transfer?

No, not the wealth transfer, just the fact that women households are going to be controlling more money. I'm saying from a relationship advice side of things, you don't know what I'm going at here? I don't know if I'm qualified to talk about. Is the wealth management industry handled equipped to handle the wealth transfer to that might go, yeah, I think so. I don't see genders. I think we're equipped. I don't know. Can we talk about your hat real quick?

Please. So I've told this joke already before, but my kids heard that we were coming to this event, and they said, well, what are you doing? And I said, we're doing a live podcast, and we're doing all this stuff. And Monday night, we're going out to celebrate Michael's birthday, which we did last night, which was a great family affair for everyone. And they said, how old is he? I saw it was 40.

And they said, Michael's older than you? When you put that hat on, you look like you're 80 years old, my friend. You look like you've already, I mean, you might as well just go on the beach and get the leather tan and start looking for get the metal detector on the beach. That's a retiree hat right there. I'll take it. Thank you. Okay. Hang on, I have a real estate thing.

Okay. So we were in the hotel bar yesterday having lunch, maybe sipping. on Miami Vice, as one is one to do in Miami. And there was a mortgage industry, the top 50 mortgage brokers in Miami. They all posed for a picture. And I was just kind of thinking, how is that even, how are they even celebrating in this environment? Like, there's no activity. There's nothing to do. I talked to a friend recently who has been a realtor for a dozen years and said he finally just had to take a job in sales for something else because there's literally no activity anywhere going on in the industry.

Does that actually, if there's a slowdown and mortgage rates go from seven to five, does that help the real estate industry at all? Yes. Don't you think? There has to be a lot of pent up demand. Well, it's like a push and pull. I guess what you're saying is if there's a recession that drags rates lower, is that also going to kill housing activity because people are not spending money,

afraid of losing their jobs? I don't think so. I think there's such a backlog of people 35 to 30, whatever, 40, that need to get into a house. First-time homebuyers. There are still so many of them. So I don't think so. So this is also where the sentiment piece comes in because my whole thesis has been,

there's $35 trillion in home equity just sitting there. And people can't use all of that, obviously. But I think the number is like 15 to 20 of it is money that people could take out and use for something if they wanted to, for home equity line of credit or cash out refinance. And will the sentiment of the environment allow that if it's happening because of a slowdown? Will people tap that equity and use it or not? Why wouldn't they? Because it would be harder to pay back?

I guess, yeah, worried about taking on debt in a slowing economy. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Good question. I do think that the consumer balance sheet and the potential for the real estate industry to be like the counterbalance actually is another reason why, to your point, if we got a recession, it would probably be a mild one. Yeah.

All right. I want to talk about email etiquette for a second. I haven't done this in a while on the show but a couple of years ago I sent and this is filler by the way I sent an email what happened

I sent an email to somebody somebody sent me an email and I forgot to respond to them probably for about a week and I apologize because I do the right thing I said I'm sorry I dropped the ball on this would love to talk

next Thursday Friday at these times this person responded a week later and said now it's my turn to drop the ball dot dot dot can you talk whatever whatever and there was a debate amongst our audience I think you were in the nothing wrong with that right she's just being funny right

yeah she was not being funny she was being very rude and my suspicion was confirmed because on the call her body it just it didn't go well she was being very rude I did another run-in with a weird email etiquette last week. Here it is. Okay, I documented this. 844, I get a LinkedIn message. At 914, I promptly respond.

That's how you do it. Less than 30 minutes? Come on. Sure, shoot me an email. 1122. Awesome. We'll have my assistant email you. Ooh.

1133. So 10 minutes after that, email sent, check your inbox. I'm out. Right? Right? You don't think so? Wait, I'm missing something here. What are you so mad about?

I'm not mad. I'm just out. It's overly aggressive. This guy says, I'll have my assistant email you. Now, I'm out of an assistant shamer. Fine. A lot of people have assistants. I do their email.

But then she sent me an email. By the way, the email was absurd. I didn't grab her email, but it was completely absurd. validating my suspicions here. But then 10 minutes later, he says, like, don't confirm that the email was sent, 10 minutes after you tell me this could be sent. And how dare you tell me to check my inbox?

You're the Jerry Seinfeld of email etiquette. Remember on sign, you didn't watch much Seinfeld, but the running joke was always that his standards were always too high. He'd find something wrong with every girlfriend or person that he wanted to date with. That's you with email. You look for something that's wrong with these people. Nope, the exact opposite.

Your standards are, it's a good thing you're not dating anymore. Your standards are way too high. The exact opposite is true. Could not be further from the truth. I answer so many emails that I know what's proper and what's not. And it's one in a thousand. I haven't had a bad email I could story in three years. This one got the flag.

All right. I feel like you need to write a blog post of Michael's 20 rules for emailing me. All right. I got a survey of the week here. Okay. Back to our sentiment stuff. This is from CNBC poll. Would you say the current state of the economy is excellent or good?

Number of people, and they break it out by Democrats, independents, and Republicans. And this is going from October 24 to March 2025. The only options are excellent or good? Yes. The number of people that say the economy is excellent or good. So in October, right before the election, 50% of Democrats said it was good or excellent. Now that's down to 10%. For Republicans, it was like 3% before.

now it's up to 25%. But independence went down from 20% to 10%. And so I think that's the one that you look for, I guess. I think you throw out the two left or right because that's obviously telling you nothing. It's just who's in office. But the independent now is down from 20% to 10%, saying the economy is in worse shape.

I don't know. This is why the sentiment stuff to me is just so hard to use as a gauge of anything anymore because it changes so fast. I said yesterday with Josh and Joe that tune out the noise is like the dumbest thing a financial professional could say,

especially to their clients. I don't think many people do, but like, but this is the noise. This survey stuff is the noise because it is 100% political and it's really hard to unscramble it.

But like, I don't, I just, it's all political. That's it. So tune that out. Complete garbage. Tune out the surveys. The thing to me is that only 20% of the people

said the economy was good back then and now it's 10%, shouldn't that number have been higher or shouldn't be higher now, like, that it's that low is just, is the negativity of the world just that we're never going to have been in a period where people are happy about the economy? We showed a bunch of charts from a survey that people like, the opinions were so extreme that people thought that like the job market was worse in 2022 than it wasn't 2008. I think people are like more naive than ever, and it's not their fault. They're just overloaded with bullshit information at all. times. So I just disregard all of it. I think that's, that's kind of where I'm starting to get

is, you have to watch what they do, not what they say. And that's why we have to wait for the economic data to kind of prove this sentiment out. The algorithms that control the dialogue, they reward negativity. And so there's never going to be a period in time where everybody's like smiling and we feel like the mood is good. It will never return that to that. Now, I don't know if that it was ever a thing that happened anyway, or if we just make believe that it was, but that will never, ever happen. It will never not be like it is today, unfortunately. I think it'll ebb and flow, and sometimes it'll get, like, more loud and violent, but it's never going to be like kumbaya. But if you, but I feel like if you look at the responses to these surveys and how negative

they are, and then you go and talk to actual people, it's completely different. Right. People are, people at this conference in a pretty good mood. Yeah. They should be, obviously. Yeah. But anyway. Um, all right, so, we're in Miami. Ben and I are big movie fans. we do some recommendations at the end of every show. We have different tastes, I would say. Would you say? Yes, we have completely opposite movie tastes. So is Miami an underrated movie city?

Because you think about, like, so you went to chat GPT for this, what are the best movies in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and mile long. But Miami, not a bad city. You were very excited when we saw this something about Mary restaurant the other day. Oh, yeah, yeah, right over there.

Yeah. All right. So Miami has produced Ace Ventura. Not bad. Scarface, bad boys. The Birdcage. There's something about Mary, out of sight, and Miami Vice. Not bad. Not a bad list. Okay. That's it. Okay. Ben, as we come to a close, what have you been reading, listening, and watching? So the entertainment options on my flight were down, so I brought my Kinda with me. and I've been reading the new Lauren Michaels book by Susan Morrison.

And I've always been a big S&L guy. And the structure of the book, it almost reads like a management book. So I think that there's a lot of business implications from the way Lauren Michaels manages. And they talk about how he manages talent. And he's dealing with, you know, very volatile talent, obviously, people who want to be stars. But they all look to him. And so it's actually a pretty good business book for how he, manages through the chaos of these big personalities and a lot of stuff going on and things

never working out and it's it's really good book i highly recommend it's just called lorn that's it that's all i got has anybody i know we've been in the comments but has anybody seen the newest episode of white lotus show hands this guy okay a couple amazing right all right everybody else is in for a treat when they get to it uh this uh dare dare dare devil Nah, I won't say they're, though. There's a new show on Apple TV. Dope Thief. Here's the premise.

Let me see head nods or just blank responses. We'll gauge this one out. Two guys. They pretend to be DEA agents, but they're not. They do some drug busts until they bust the wrong guys. What do we think? It's really good. Thumbs up, Big John.

Thank you. All right. So you put this thing in here of the best movies in the city. So what was, you asked me, what's the best movie city? And you never gave me an answer. Uh, Los Angeles. Okay. Is that, wait, hold on.

Uh, what was that? Atlanta. Well, that's where they film a lot of movies. No, no, no, no. It wasn't like, but what movies take place in the city of Atlanta that, like, you know it's in Atlanta? Well, no, the real answer is movies are better in Europe than they are in America. because the car chases are better over there, the sights are better, right?

It's European. Better's a stretch, but shout to Europe, good movies. Okay, that's it for the show. Thank you, everybody, for coming to Miami and watching us. We appreciate it. 8.30 showing up after St. Patty's Day. Let's go. Thank you, everybody.

Animal spirits at thecompanetnews.com. Personal emails, personal responses. You know,