Rich Habits Podcast - Inflation Falls, Record Bank Profits & ProShares' Simeon Hyman on SpaceX

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

🚀 To learn more about ProShares' SPCF ETF, as well as their countless other ETFs, visit https://www.proshares.com/ !---🚀 Invest alongside Robert and Austin inside the Rich Habits Network, ��⁠⁠click here!⁠⁠⁠---🤖 VCX: the public ticker for private tech -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here or visit https://getvcx.com/ to learn more! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---⁠⁠⁠⁠🏆 Wall Street Favorites⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is LIVE! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to see what Wall Street is buying before everyone else. ---🧠 Ready to build your own investable index using AI? Generated Assets on Public makes it easy. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to try Generated Assets!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---⚡️ Sign up for the Rich Habits Newsletter and never miss a market-moving headline again, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---⭐ Download our FREE Financial Planner –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⭐ Download our FREE Budgeting Template –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⭐ Earn 3.8% on your savings with a High-Yield Cash Account –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⭐ Trade stocks, options, music royalties and crypto on Public –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---👤 Explore everything Austin does –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👤 Explore everything Robert does –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠❓ Ask us questions for our Q&A episodes – @richhabitspodcast on Instagram📬 Inquire about working together – [e-mail]---Disclosure: Paid endorsement. Brokerage services provided by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA & SIPC. Investing involves risk. Not investment advice. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool by Public Advisors. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. See disclosures at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠public.com/disclosures/ga⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and investment values may rise or fall. *Rate as of 11/6/25. APY is variable and subject to change.This content is sponsored by NEOS Investments. The creator is compensated by NEOS to discuss NEOS ETFs. This content is for informational purposes only, and is not personalized investment, tax, or legal advice, and does not constitute an offer to buy or sell any security. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Before investing, carefully review the NEOS ETFs prospectus at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠neosfunds.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

This episode is brought to you by FIFA World Cup, launch edition, on Netflix. It's a fast, fluid game where your phone is the controller and your TV is the stadium. You just launch it on your TV, scan the QR code with your phone, and boom, you're shooting and passing in seconds. Plus, it's included in your Netflix membership

with zero extra costs. Go to the games tab and play FIFA World Cup launch edition now, only on Netflix. My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat. That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor.

But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day in theaters, July 31st. You are tuning in to the rich habits radar, our Friday episode of the Rich Habits Podcast, where every Friday morning we're coming at you with the biggest headlines

impacting you and your money. This episode is brought to you by VCX, the public ticker for private tech. My name's Austin Hankwitz, and I'm joined by my co-host Robert Croke. And the three things sitting at the top of our Rich Habits Radar this week include inflation experiencing its best month since the pandemic. The biggest banks on Wall Street reporting their most profitable quarter ever. and OpenAI giving the U.S. government over $40 billion of stock in their company. Be sure to stick around to the end where we chat with Simeon Hyman,

global investment strategist and head of the Investment Strategy Group at ProShares about the SpaceX IPO and what investors could expect from the company for the back half of 2026. Robert, let's dig into our first story. Our first story, and you heard it correctly, is inflation just had its best month since 2020. On Tuesday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped a most, important data point of the summer, and it came in way better than anyone expected. The consumer price index fell 40 basis points in June, the biggest monthly decline since

April of 2020. That brought the annual inflation rate down to 3.5%, a sharp deceleration from May's 4.2%, well below the 3.8% of the Wall Street consensus. Core CPI, which strips out food and energy, was flat on the month, putting the 12th month rate at 2.6% down from 2.2.2.000. How cool is that? So CPI fell 0.4% in the month of June, the biggest monthly decline since April of 2020. The energy index fell by 5.7% in the month of June. The biggest monthly drop in over six years. This was largely driven by the U.S.-Iran ceasefire that was signed mid-June that sent oil prices down roughly 25% over the course of the following month. gasoline prices fell 9%. Fuel oil dropped by more than 9% energy relief rippled through the entire economy,

which is why we got such a great inflation report. And hours after the CPI print, Fed Chairman, Kevin Warsh walked into the House Financial Services Committee for his first ever congressional testimony and through cold water on the celebration. His exact words, there might be some that look at this morning's data and say, oh, mission accomplished, everything is swell, and that is not my view.

Yeah, Kevin Warsh made it very clear that the Fed's number one objective is to get monetary policy right. And the inflation surge of the last five years will be a thing of the past, according to him, but only if the Fed stays disciplined. He declined a signal of any rate cuts or rate hikes or things like that. The federal fund rate still sits between 3.5 to 3.75%. And the futures market is actually still pricing in a 63% chance of a rate hike in September. However, that is down from a 75% chance before this report. on inflation came out. And here's the number that should give everyone pause. The U.S. Iran's ceasefire that drove oil down 25% in June. It collapsed. On July 7th, Iran attacked three commercial vessels in the

Strait of Hamos, and on July 8th, Trump declared the ceasefire is over. So the U.S. has been striking Iranian command centers, air defense sites, and missile capabilities every day this week. Crude oil is back above $80. Brent spiked 5% on Monday alone when Trump reintrodued. stated the shipping blockade. Heather Long, who's a chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union, put it bluntly when she said, and I quote, June finally brought some relief on inflation. The concern is that this relief will be short-lived as the war in Iran restarts. It's too uncertain to know how the inflation story ends. So, Robert, we have seen a little bit of inflation relief. I think this is great. This is what the American people want. But what does it mean for them and their

money. On paper, the June CPI report is exactly what the Fed needed. Core inflation at 2.6 is within spitting distance of that 2% target, but the entire reason inflation came down was a geopolitical ceasefire that lasted only three weeks. Oil is already reversing, gasoline prices are climbing again, and every single month of elevated energy prices bleeds into food costs, shipping costs, and eventually shelter. So it's not all rainbows and unicorns right now. The market rallied on the CPI print and rightly so with cooler inflation is good for stocks. But don't reposition your entire portfolio around one month of data driven by a ceasefire that's already over.

The companies that win in this environment are the same ones we've been talking about for a while now. Pricing power, strong margins, a central demand. Think Costco. I pulled up Costco on Wall Street favorites this morning and 37 analysts still have an average target of $1121, up 21% from here right now. as we film. That's a company that thrives, whether inflation is at 2.6% or 4.2% because their customers aren't going anywhere. Yeah, and you got the Fed telling you rates aren't coming down

anytime soon, and the market's obviously pricing in, what was it, a 63% chance of a rate hike in September, right? So Warsh's testimony made that all very crystal clear. So plan accordingly. If you're waiting for mortgage rates to drop before you go buy a house, or you're waiting for rate cuts to boost up your growth stocks or whatever, like, just no. that that sort of expectation is flip-flopped, and the markets are not pricing in a rate cut. And even I think it's, I know we talked about this, Robert, Tuesday night inside the Rich Habits Network,

but I think there's, you know, some 80, 90% chance of a rate hike over the next 12 months, right? So as we think about 2007, right? Because the markets are forward-looking, Robert. They should not be thinking about their portfolio from one week to another. They should have that decade-long mentality. And that's how they should be structuring their portfolios.

So let's now head over to our sales. second story, which I think is an exciting one. We also talked about this inside the Rich Habits Network. I had a whole chart explaining how, you know, XLF, which is the financial sector ETF here, is hitting all-time highs because the difference between the short end and the long end of the curve and how banks are making and just printing money having that difference there. Wall Street's biggest banks just reported their best quarter ever. Tuesday, biggest day of earning season so far, five major banks reported before the open of the stock market that day. and every single one of them beat expectations.

The real story, though, is not the numbers. It's what the CEOs said about AI, the economy, and what they're doing about it next. So, Robert, let's dig into that. Yeah, let's start with J.P. Morgan Chase. Profits hit $21.2 billion for the quarter of 40% from a year ago, which is just insane to me. An EPS came in higher than expected, so that's good news.

Revenue was $58 billion against a $50.2 billion expectation. the largest beats in J.P. Morgan's quarterly history. Every single business line posted record revenue within their spreadsheet. Now, CEO Jamie Diamond of J.P. Morgan said, and I quote, the U.S. economy has demonstrated notable resiliency this year with stronger business investment in hiring. But then he also said J.P. Morgan has cut jobs by 30 to 40 percent in specific areas of the bank because of AI. So Diamond was direct about it. He said, we have had discrete areas where we did reduce jobs by 30% or 40%. Most of these people were offered jobs elsewhere.

J.P. Morgan has nearly $20 billion of annual spend that goes toward technology, and they quote, and are quoted to have over 1,000 AI use cases right now in their business spanning between fraud protection, marketing, and internal operations. So, Robert, it is obvious that J.P. Morgan is doubling down on AI. Yeah, let's talk about Goldman Sachs for a second because they had their best quarter in history. Bank of America beat across the board as well. And Wells Fargo beat, City Group beat. The pattern is unmistakable.

Elevated interest rates are printing money for the big banks. Volatile markets are driving trading revenue to records. And AI is starting to show up in real cost savings, not just conference call buzzwords. So, Austin, what does this mean for you and your money? GDP growth is still sluggish. Inflation is coming down a little bit, but obviously still elevated. Consumer spending, decelerating, Amazon Prime Day wasn't like the coolest. best thing in the world, right? So like corporate earnings, though, despite this reality, are still

exceptional, especially when the interest rates are in the favor of these types of earnings. Now, the stock market doesn't trade on GDP. It trades on profits, forward-looking profits. And this quarter's earning season is expected to be the most earnings per share jump, like, since the recovery out of the depths of the pandemic. Like, like, this earning season is so important. And we talked about this, Robert, again, I've said the Rich Habits Network three times now, it's so important as we go through i want all you all to listen up as we go through this earning season do not focus on did the company beat expectations how high did they beat those expectations like you know don't don't focus on that focus on how the market reacts to them beating those expectations think

about micron here for a second robert micron slam dunked their earnings last year right guided to 50 billion dollars i said last year i'm going to say last quarter here they guided to 50 billion dollars uh of of of of quarterly revenue with their guidance and their forecast. They signed like 16 strategic partnerships. Right. Microns earning was a slam dunk. Stock went down. Why is that? Right?

So like look around and say, okay, what sectors are having stellar earnings, but their stocks prices are beginning to come down like this? Maybe that is indicating that there's a little too much frothiness in these markets. Maybe that should be a more of a defensive posture you need to be taking. And if you're like, Austin, Robert, this is such great insight. I had no idea. Join the Rich Habits Network. We literally talk about this in our live streams.

And I got notes. Robert's got perspective. We got all the cool things every single Tuesday night inside the Rich Habits Network. So, Robert, give us the breakdown here a little bit further. I'd like to hear your opinion on Jamie Diamond's comments around AI and what that can mean for, maybe other companies. I mean, I think it's the biggest conversation we're having in the United States right now. I know we are in our DMs and in the podcast and everywhere else is people are just trying to figure it out. And that's why we are always talking to we're blue in the face.

People need to be investors and not just consumers. because meanwhile, why AI is cutting jobs everywhere, you know, there's still other opportunities to make money, and that's why we want people to get ahead of this and understand how the markets work and why the Rich Habits Network in this podcast is so important. But Jamie Diamond's comments about AI job cuts are the canary in the coal mine. If JP Morgan, the most important bank on the planet, is already cutting headcount by 30 to 40% in some areas because of AI, that's not a one-off. That's a structural shift in how corporate America is.

operating through these efficiencies. The companies deploying AI effectively are going to pull further ahead than the ones that aren't. That's bullish for mega cap stocks, bullish for the banks, that can afford the tech budgets and a warning for every mid-sized company that's still figuring out and sitting on the sidelines of whether or not AI is cool or it's a threat because they need to figure out which way they're going here if they're going to spend that money to build out their AI infrastructures to keep up or get left behind. And earning season, and is telling you that the economy might be slowing, but the best companies are getting more efficient and therefore more profitable. The gap between the winners and losers is widening, and AI is what

is accelerating that gap. So we're going to keep talking about this. We're going to keep getting you guys in line here to understand that AI is happening whether you like it or not. And whether you're a company or an individual, you have to get ahead of it, use it, understand it, and make yourself and your companies more efficient as well. Now, Robert, let's round off with our final story here, OpenAI offering the government a $42.5 billion stake in their business. So a few weeks ago, I know this isn't like breaking news right now, but we could not ignore it. Open AI proposed given the U.S. government a 5% equity stake in their company worth about $42.5 billion at its current $852 billion valuation. The Financial Times were the ones that broke the story, reporting that

Open AI is trying to clear political obstacles by securing a financial buy-in from the Trump administration. So let's think about what this actually means. Open AI, the most valuable startup in history, is offering to make every American household a de facto shareholder. And at the current valuation, that stake works out to be roughly $320 per American household. The framing is clever. It addresses the argument the AI companies are profiting from human generated work without compensating the creators of that work. But I would argue the real motivation is more so political. Open AI closed up $122 billion funding round.

at that $852 billion valuation back in March, committed to spending $600 billion in compute through the end of the decade. They need the federal government to stay out of the way specifically as it relates to regulation so they can keep export controls favorable and to maintain the deregulatory posture that's been rocket fuel for this AI buildout.

We just saw that New York State pass something around not blowing people build data centers. Like that type of regulation is here. It's real. It's like people are doing it. So open AI is like, yo, yo, yo, here's a couple Actually not a couple. Here's $40 billion. Like, let us build in peace.

Yeah, but if you look at it from the overall perspective and take out the dollar amount, they're giving up 5% to get this beautiful runway for the future. I think it's pretty smart. And this comes at a fascinating moment because Anthropic is taking the opposite approach. And we've talked about this on the show. Anthropics sided with the Vatican on AI regulation and has been publicly fighting the Trump administration over military AI use. Two of the most important AI companies in the world are pursuing diametrically opposed political strategies.

So, Austin, what does this mean for you and your money? The government's going to take equity in AI companies. I think it changes the relationship now between the regulators and the companies that they're trying to regulate. Because if I'm a regulator, elected official or something or someone in the government, I now don't have any incentive to regulate these companies because their stocks since on my balance sheet. I'm not going to do anything, right? So it's like, oh, no, man, this is wild. It's such an interesting, like, crossover because, like, of course there's going to be a time where

where something that impacts all of us at such an intimate level and is built upon everyone's collective knowledge and, you know, the internet, right? Like, like, that's how these LLMs are trained. It's all trained by scraping the internet. Well, the internet is a collective of everybody posting and sharing and doing what they can, right? Like, you know, we never signed up to have all of the stuff that we share on the internet to go be training some artificial intelligence thing, but that's been our reality. So in my opinion, though, for your portfolio, practical implication is that the deregulatory environment for AI just got a little bit more entrenched. Open AI is going to buy some goodwill with their equity.

Probably going to go, you know, work well for them. But when it comes to the infrastructure play, you know, I think that's the key. Open AI needs to spend more money on infrastructure. If Open AI can somehow convince the government to be less regulatory, have that regulatory risk kind of evaporate now, they have to spend this money with some people. If that regulatory risk was still an overhang, it couldn't. spend the money. The data centers wouldn't get built. And so the invidios, the broadcoms, hyper-scalers, right? Like, they wouldn't receive that money. So, like, I think this is great for those companies, because those companies are the customers of, of the

Open AIs of the world. If Open AIS, this is going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars with Oracle, right? Like, this, this is good for Oracle now as Open AIs giving their equity at the government as they stay out of my way. So I think if people really want to understand all of what we're talking about, all of this circular money economy that's happening, go back and watch the clip of the Three Stooges in 1939 where they keep passing $1 around in a circle over and over again trying to figure out who actually owns the dollar. I think that's probably a good economic lesson. But to be serious, the AI industry is entering its political phase for sure. The technology is too important, too profitable,

and too consequential for governments to stay on the sidelines. How each company navigates that reality through alignment like OpenAI, resistance like Anthropic or something else entirely will determine the winners and the losers for the next decade. Now, Robert, before we get to our radar points for this week, we've got a guest joining us that I'm really excited about because this conversation sits at the intersection of some of the biggest investment themes we've been covering all year long. SpaceX has become one of the most popular companies on the planet.

They're launching rockets at a pace that would have sounded impossible just a decade ago. Starlink has grown into a global communications network with millions of customers, and Starship continues pushing the boundaries of reusable spaceflight. And depending on the day, the company is now worth somewhere around $2 trillion. That's why we're so excited to welcome Simeon Hyman to the show. Simeon is the global investment strategist and head of the Investment Strategy Group at ProShares, where he leads the firm's investment professionals focused on portfolio strategy, product development, market research, and investor education.

Before joining ProShare, Simeon held senior investment leadership roles at Bloomberg, UBS wealth management, Lehman Brothers, and he holds both an MBA from Columbia Business School and a CFA designation. Today we're going to talk about why SpaceX has become such a popular company, how investors should fundamentally think about the commercialization of space, why investing in true innovation like space exploration, continues to evolve. Of course, the pro shares Ultra SpaceX ETF, ticker SPCF, which is designed to target two times the daily return of SpaceX before fees and expenses.

So, Simeon, we're super excited, and welcome to the Rich Havitts podcast. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we're super excited, and I want to start with SpaceX itself. I think a lot of investors appreciate the company without fully understanding why it has become so valuable, now worth around that $2 trillion mark compared to Jeff Bezos' blue origin, only worth roughly $130 billion. So when people hear SpaceX, they naturally think of rockets. But when you peel back the layers you've got,

launch services, Starlink, Starship, National Defense, NASA Partnership, satellite communications, it's almost becoming an entire infrastructure company rather than just an aerospace company. So can you walk our listeners through the business of SpaceX? And two, what do you think investors understand the least about the business? It's a fun day to be talking. about this because there is a test launch today of Starship. And it actually just kind of tells you

about the synergies of these different lines of business because they're testing this huge rocket. And, you know, by the way, while they're testing this huge rocket, they're going to throw some Starlink satellites up there, which is where they're making the money these days. So there are several synergistic related lines of business that not everybody appreciates, but clearly have synergies just like we're going to see today, hopefully everything goes nice and safely for them. But indeed, you know, you've got the rocket business that has substantially decreased the cost of getting payloads up to space. You have Starling providing that connectivity that a lot of people know about and is just amazing in the ability to deliver connectivity in places where the infrastructure

is not in place. And of course, you've got the nascent AI infrastructure piece as well. We don't, we don't know when the data centers will be in space, but there is a kind of a call option there, as well as their relationships with some of the government agencies and defense in those pieces. But they really are closely related and synergistic. And I think that's not, people don't 100% appreciate the opportunity there for those synergies and those multiple lines of businesses. And so that's your perspective as to what people think they know least about the businesses. They see the rockets in space. They see the satellites and they get the Wi-Fi on their phone from Starlink.

And they read the headlines about the Anthropic and the Google D. and the other things like that of Elon Web Services. But, and I would agree with you here, it's kind of hard for retail investors to see those moving parts and say, wait a second, they all kind of come together as one, which I guess was proven, right, by SpaceX acquiring X-A-I and some rumors online about,

you know, is Elon just going to merge Tesla with this SpaceX X-A-I business now? It's really interesting. Well, that could be the ultimate. We don't really know if that merger could happen, but it could. You know, this is a very interesting environment from an economy and a stock market perspective because there are disruptive technologies that have the opportunity just by themselves to create wealth.

And then there, of course, there's the, I don't even want to say it's a promise because it's starting to be delivered, but the impact on the broader economy and efficiencies that are driving broader economic growth. You know, this whole idea that Warsh is testifying in front of Congress and we're all trying to figure out, is there a productivity thing happening? Is it about to happen? Are we going to be able to get GDP growth a little bit of high? It's amazing how, you know, like a half a percent of GDP growth is massive compounding. So you don't need a lot to come from this for the whole economy to be dragged along with it. But in the meantime, some of these individual companies are going to have opportunities to really. capitalize on some disruption. Well, I want to double click on that because you mentioned like these individual companies. I mean, if we zoom out, call it 60-ish years, right? When we put a man on the moon back in, I think it was 1969, space is now entirely driven by these individual companies. It used to be driven by the government. What do you think fundamentally changed over the last decade, two decades, three decades that allowed SpaceX to become one of the most valuable private

companies in history? Do you think it was a lack of government funding for space-related activities? Do you think it was the Elon effect, maybe a little bit of both. Well, the bringing down the cost. So it was the willingness of the entrepreneurial spirit to look at this and say, hey, I can do this more efficiently than the government has been doing this. And that's what happened. I mean, the cost per payload is dramatically lower. Yeah, ultimately, there's, you can be a purist about this in kind of a libertarian and think that markets can achieve everything without any government involvement. and then you sit there and go, wait a minute,

they have to be police, they have to be firemen, they have to be roads. So, you know, could this have all gotten started without the government in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s and 80s? Probably not,

but we're at a point in evolution where absolutely, you know, the entrepreneurial spirit is achieving things in this space that government alone would not have. I completely agree. Yeah, and one thing we've talked about a lot on the Rich Habits podcast

and in the network is that every major technological revolution creates a picks and shovels effect. You think AI needs compute, compute needs data centers, data centers need power, and increasingly global connectivity depends on satellite infrastructure. So I want to ask how important do you think SpaceX and specifically Starlink becomes in enabling some of these broader trends

like AI, autonomous vehicles, robots, and global communications, you know, because obviously their product is stellar or they wouldn't be able to get away with increasing their business aviation pricing by 100% last week, if not. So walk our listeners through that because I want to better understand it from your bird's eye view of what you think of this. Yeah, I mean, look, we're nowhere without connectivity. And I think what we don't, what I should say U.S. investors may not appreciate is that this is the only technology that parts of the world know for connectivity. We were here with telephone lines that were laid 125 years ago, and then, you know, 50 years ago, we got cable, and then they said, we'll make it a little faster. Oh, it's fiber, but then carbon, copper in your house and all that stuff.

So every step of evolution is sort of known to those of us in the U.S., but, you know, you go to the developing world, and there was nothing there until Starlink was there. And I think that has a tremendous opportunity to, you know, we all talk about sort of the undoing of globalization, but that's not really true. I mean, that's just some negotiating stuff we're all trying to, you know, figure out. The truth is, we are getting much more connected as, as a global entity. I mean, if you just feel it, if you're a guy like me, you know, you spent your junior year abroad too many years ago to think of. And, you know, when you were out there and you had your backpack on and everybody looked a lot different than you did. And now we all kind of. to look really kind of a lot the same. Kind of started with the MTV thing. We all started to look the same in the 80s, but we're so connected. And the ability of Starlink is playing a very critical role in what I would submit is kind of the next round of globalization that can't be undone in that sense. Yeah, do we want a little bit of independence of supply chain? Sure. But that is not going to turn back the clock on this level of connectivity, of data. And, and information and AI being linking the world so tightly.

Yeah, I completely agree, right? Because as we think about some of these, the most important secular growth trends of our lifetimes right now include autonomous vehicles, autonomous things, right? We just saw Serronic. You know, they just did their thing over in Iran. That was all autonomous. We know of, you know, these humanoid robots, figure,

your optronics, you're like, you know, embodied AI. That's a massive secular growth trend. So, like, as we think of. about these things, it's only going to get bigger. It's only going to get more important. It's only going to be higher and higher demand. So is it your perspective that Starlink is going to continue to benefit from the rise of these secular growth trends? It's the profit engine right now. And there's certainly a strong growth trajectory. So I think that remains one of the key, you know, legs of the stool. But the opportunity for the AI infrastructure piece to, you know,

pick up the baton and continue and grow further, uh, the, the, the prospects for for the firm is very important as well. So it's not Starly. Well, so let's, let's linger on that longer. If you think about, let's call it, you know, SpaceX over the next two to three years, maybe, maybe four or five years. Obviously, who knows, it's so hard to predict whatever Elon's doing. But as you think of a long-term opportunity inside of SpaceX, what business segment excites you the most? Is it the launch services? Is it Starlink? Or is it this like Elon web services, 30 billion out of nowhere because they've got the extra compute with? Colossus. Like, what is the thing? For me personally, I think it's Starlink. I think there's a

clear path to 100 million, you know, subscribers to this Starlink business. And, but, you know, Starlink is only cool because you've got these rockets that can send them up in space. And if Starship is able to do that, it's such a cheap, you know, per kilogram payload, it's like, it's a new brainer there too. And, and what else can be, you know, sent up into space? So like, golly, there's just so much. But, but what should take them, I mean? I think it's so hard to try to pull them apart because they are so synergistic. And you sort of assume there's synergies there. And then you open up literally the paper this morning.

Yeah, they're going to test this starship thing. And then while they're at it, they're going to throw up a couple of massive Starlink satellites that are bigger than any of the ones they've already done. Oh, that's synergy right there, isn't it? And so I think it's almost impossible to pull these things apart. And that's, you could talk about the speculation of a merger with Tesla, you know, which would be perhaps. But even there, you could say, where?

Where is the connectivity there? Well, okay, autonomous cars need the same darn connectivity. So it really is pulling together a lot of threads that you had to be a little bit of a visionary to see the synergies 10 years ago, but they're already appearing in real time today. Yeah, I feel like Elon's playing chess while we're all playing checkers, where all along he's building this ecosystem, like you said, it's all synergistic because he knows he needs autonomous vehicles in space. going to build out the space ecosystem because vehicles with gas engines won't work in space. Then he's got the satellites for the connectivity. Then he's got the autonomous robots in space to do the work. So I feel like he's so far ahead of the curve in this synergistic build out of this ecosystem

that we will have to see how it all plays out. But to talk in the more near term, one of the challenges for investors has always been that SpaceX stayed private for so long. And we were able to offer SpaceX stock to the rich habits. network at a $210 billion valuation, which is another great reminder to join the rich habits network so you don't miss out on opportunities like this in the future. But there was an incredible excitement around the company, but very few ways for everyday investors to participate. And that brings us to SPCF. For someone hearing about it the very first time, explain to them

what SPCF is and what was pro shares trying to solve when it launched this ETF. Sure. So SPCF is our. Our pro-share is ultra-SpaceX ETF, and it allows investors to target two times the daily return of SpaceX, and you can do that right through the convenience and transparency of an ETF. Any other way that you want to get levered, you need a margin account, you might get called, all those complications. Here you have the ability to just one ticker in your brokerage account. You don't have to worry about margin calls and all that stuff.

And we found that opportunity to be a compelling one because we're pro-share's. We are actually the world's largest provider of leverage and inverse ETFs. We've got over $85 billion. We've been doing this for a really long time. Some of the folks who are listening in might be familiar with. As an example, T-T-T-T-T-Q, three times the daily performance of the NASDAQ, which is a very well-known ETF. So we know what the benefits of bringing that democratization of that opportunity to give people a convenient way to magnify a bullish view is.

And we've seen that opportunity in this. single-stock space. We have a suite of single-stock ETFs similar to SPCF, also S-K-Hinix, which we just launched on Coinbase and on Tesla and Nvidia and Circle. And these are really nice tools for folks because it's really a democratization of finance. As you noted, you want folks to have the opportunity to express their views and you want folks to have the tools in their toolkit to build the portfolios to achieve their investment objectives. that's sort of what we tried to emphasize, you know, here in the show, like in general, there's so many things, products, ideas that are out there that exist. And, you know, if you use a product,

believe in a product, don't use a product, whatever and however it fits in your portfolio, that's for you, you know, personal finance is personal. But it's our job as financial educators to make sure that you have all the information possible to make an educated decision with your money. And so that brings me to my question, which is like SPCF, isn't just simply buying more SpaceX. The ETF, to your point, is designed to target two times the daily return of SpaceX before your fees and expenses. And that's a really important distinction. So can you please explain why that daily investment objective matters so much for investors and what to expect if that fund SPCF is held by someone for days or maybe weeks on end. Sure. So first, you do it that way so every morning you know what you're going to get. So that's

really important because otherwise you could wake up and it would be the 1.23 fund and you wouldn't really know. So functionally, it's great because you know that target is two times a daily performance. So that's in effect a rebalance of the target of the fund every single day to that two times daily target performance. And, you know, that means that you want to watch it. Like It's like any other investment in your portfolio, you want to monitor its performance. You want to monitor your own view. Do I still have the same view that I had with regards to SpaceX when I made this investment? What is its size relative to the rest of the assets in my portfolio?

Am I properly diversified? How does it compare to the other things that I just load up on semiconductors or do I have a bunch of value stocks that I inherited from my grandmother? All these things come into play. but it is important to note that indeed this is rebalance to that target every single day. So the best thing that you can do is understand that, look at it and its performance can, we'll move around with regards to its performance relative to SpaceX over longer periods of time. But as long as you're monitoring it and understand its role in your portfolio,

you can hold it for a longer period of time. Just make sure that it's still fitting your investment perspective and its role in your portfolio. Yeah, and for me, historically, if someone wanted leveraged exposure to an investment, they would have to borrow on margin. And you touched on that a little bit earlier, but that kind of introduces an entirely different set of risks and complexities. So why do investors prefer using this ETF structure instead of using margin and just buying a stock individually? No, that's exactly why, because the ability to get that leverage without having to use a margin account without having to worry about margin calls and just to be able to do it with that ticker

in your brokerage account is a real element of simplicity and efficiency and transparency that has brought, again, a lot of utility for leverage ETFs for broader purposes and has driven a nice solution set for folks at the individual stock level as well. In fact, a rather sizable portion of ETFs launched in the last couple of years have actually been in this single-s stock use case. You mentioned $85 billion of assets under management, largest inverse and leverage ETF issuer. I'm curious, how do you decide what stock or theme or index like T-T-T-T-T Q deserves an ETF? I mean, you guys, again, have been one of the most innovative ETF issuers in the market, everything that I just mentioned. Is it purely investor demand? Or do you start

with identifying some sort of long-term investment trend first? Like, how do you guys, again, sort of build that and make the decision of, yes, this should be an ETF in our suite. We have a couple of different parts of the business. So with respect to, and T. Triple Q as an example, that's three times the daily performance of the NASDAQ 100. So sure, absolutely there. That is an instance of investor demand and a solution and a piece in the toolkit. We also innovate where we think we see innovative investment strategies, often in a index form. So some folks will be familiar with, as an example, our ETF ticker N-O-B-L. That's the S&P 500 dividend aristocrats. I love that, E-TF. I've got that one myself. Companies that have grown their dividends for 25 straight years. So that's kind of an old-school innovation. It's just a rules-based

approach to stock picking where we thought there was a real investment story. And by the way, we added to that aristocrat family. Recently, we launched ticker B-Y-B, by B. the buyback aristocrats to focus on companies who consistently buyback their shares, because buybacks can, like, if it's a one-off buyback, maybe it's good, maybe it's not, but consistent buybacks is kind of cool. So yes, we're looking for investor demand, absolutely, but also we are looking for innovative investment strategies as well. We do walk and chew gum at the same time. Walk and chew gum at the same time. I love it. No, I think it's awesome, right? Like, pro shares, you guys are an industry veteran. I mean, you are the most recognized.

recognizable ETF issuer, in my opinion. Like, you guys have got so many incredible products that are sitting in my portfolio, like Noble, that I didn't even realize that you guys made, but obviously also T-T-T-T-T-T-Ru, and now SPCF with SpaceX. I mean, it's obvious you all know what you're doing. We try. We try. And, you know, we have our wheel of values, and innovation is one of them. And we are always looking for opportunities that will solve things just a little bit better for investors. Well, let's meander for a second. Outside of SpaceX, what investment-themed theme has you the most excited over the next five, six, seven years? The opportunity that I think is important is a broadening one. So first, let's start with just the market as an example.

I think many folks would be surprised to hear that the biggest companies haven't been moving the market in 2026 for the first time in a few years. So as an example, the equal weight N. S&P 500 and the equal weight NASDAQ 100 have actually outperform their market cap weighted siblings. And the MAG 7 is flat. So there's a broadening in the equity markets. Now, a lot of times people will say, well, that's because markets are forward looking. What are they possibly looking forward to? And I would submit to answer your question, it's a broadening in the economy. And I think the big opportunity over the next several years is when we start to see the promise of the connectivity in the AI showing up in productivity, you know, just that little sliver, a half a percent of GDP would

be massive. And then also, of course, a broader set of companies that are starting to realize opportunity and efficiency that we all think is right around the corner. And it's not really that far around the corner. Just about everybody on this call has probably been sitting at work doing a little of their initial dabbling. Wow, I just saved three hours. How the heck did I do that? And calling their spouse and saying, we can have dinner tonight. So it's already starting. But as that promise gets, as that becomes realized, I think that's the opportunity, a broadening of company participants in the benefits of the technology and a broadening in the impact to the economy as well. So let me break that down in layman's for everyone listening right now. You're essentially saying, and I would agree with you, that S&P 500, which are the 500 largest, most profitable companies in the United States, that index for the last couple years has been dominated by seven names, the magnificent seven.

and their performance. But it's now your hunch in mind as well, which is why I've been talking about the broadening of earnings. That was one of our predictions for 2006. But it's your hunch that the S&P 493, which are all the other names outside of the Magnificent 7, they're going to begin to experience some earnings per sharelift, right? Their profits are going to begin to expand. And the market's going to begin to assign more value to them as well now here versus over the last couple of years where it's really just been a story of the mag seven because of these AI efficiencies. And so I guess as a follow up to that, what do you think about like the broadening, even just like outside of the United States, but more like international as well?

I mean, we've seen like, you know, VXUS, emerging markets, like things of that nature. Like, you know, they've been doing some interesting, you know, performance year to date. Like, do you think this broadening, you mentioned, you know, obviously the question was around like three, five, seven years? So it's your hunch that this broadening here now is as the equal weight essence. outperforms the normal S&P in 2006. You think the, we're still in the national anthem. You think this broadening is going to really continue over the coming years.

If you think about, think about it as kind of a, the U.S. is often going to leave. The first round of the MAG 7 stuff and things that drove the market over the last couple of years was clearly U.S.-centric. The broadening is to some extent being led a bit by the U.S. And interestingly, the earnings haven't shown up yet. Now, they look like the broadening is predicted almost across the board. If you look at earnings estimates on, you know, Bloomberg or Faxit or wherever, there is

anticipation of broadening. But the price action broadened in the first half, but the earnings didn't yet, but it should be coming. But if you're asking your question internationally, it's almost like the constant, they're catching up to where we were in the U.S. last year and the year before. Yeah, I said to a colleague the other day, what drives emerging? market stocks. And they said to me, commodity price is silly. And I said, when's the last time you look? Because all the two dominant emerging market indices are 22 percent semiconductors. Interesting.

Are you serious? Yes. And we know who it is. It's, it's, it's, it's TSM and it's Samsung and S.K. Hyde. We know who they are. Your brain has sort of said, no, emerging markets. Oh, isn't that, well, it's gold over there and diamonds over there and oil over there and palm oil over there. Okay. I think the broad, it's almost like the first leg of. the concentration might sort of happen first and then the broadening second, and we're ahead of that in the U.S. So I think the takeaway from that is in the very near term. It's worthwhile for investors to just take that extra look at their portfolio and make sure they're happy, you know, with their asset allocation and their diversification. Because if they thought they had emerging markets

to get diversification from commodity-centric exposure, actually that's not really what they have right now. Oh, so maybe they got to go back and think about that. thing because maybe that'll do it. You just got it. You got to look because this stuff is moving fairly quickly. You just blew my mind. I did not know this. Yeah, I'm looking at one of the most popular emerging market ETF holdings right now. 29% is in semiconductor stocks. 29. I said 22. Am I already off from like last week? It's, you know, it includes Taiwan semi-Samsong and SK Heinex now as well, right? If you throw that one in there, too, it's 29%. What a really interesting, um, addition there, Simeon. Let's round up the conversation. I know we'll only have you for so long here.

Are there any newer ETS of pro shares that you think investors aren't paying enough attention to? So I mentioned the couple. So just on the single stock front, we did launch SKHU. So the same exact thing, targets two times the day of performance of SK Heinex. I also mentioned Buy B, the S&P 500 buyback aristocrats, super cool because folks who try to use buybacks as a signal. Historically, if you just look at one buyback, you need to start scrutinizing the income statement and the balance sheet and the earning statement and the conference call. But if you consistently buyback shares, that's a great signal. And then the last one I'll close with is a very innovative one, ticker IQMM. And that's our genius money market ETF. So we have the first ETF that adheres to the Genius Act requirements for stable coin reserves.

Oh. This guy's pretty cool. and, you know, it's useful, of course, for the stable coin guys, because they don't have to, you know, stare at their holdings to make sure they're in compliance all the time, but also for individual investors and other applications, it's got no agencies, just treasuries and even shorter duration than the requirements of a money market. So I'll leave you with the, that is my last one. We got more, too, but people can't think of all the tickers off top of their head. So I thought I would just leave it there with our genius money market ETO. M.M. Very cool. No, I love that. Wow. Yeah, me too. And I'm going to really read up on that one, Simeon, because, you know, stable coins are here to stay.

We get the Clarity Act approved. We get some guidance. All of this is going to move forward. So this could be a really, really good one for our audience. But I want to pop in one last question before we sign off, Simeon. What's the next multi-trillion dollar innovation theme after AI that all of our listeners should be looking at? The next, I have no idea what the next multi-trillion one is, but I'll say, if I twist the question just slightly to what people ought to be thinking about, I'm just, I'm just, I'm going to go back to basics just a smidge. I know that we are all focused on looking at innovation and disruption and, you know, the next, the next thing. Do not forget about good old portfolio construction and diversification. It does work over the decades. Yes, you should have your sleeve of things that's looking to swing for the fences, but make sure that you got the rest of that regular stuff there because that's going to be important over it as the years go by. Okay, I'm going to follow back up with that. That was a great side step.

I love it. You like that? Yeah, I'd love it. And Austin does a tremendous job talking about portfolio construction to our audience. But here, here's the question then. You said that portion of the swing for the fences. And I just did a post about this in the Rich Habits Network about my sales. seven ETFs that I think are for that portion. What is that portion? Tell me a percentage of what you

think the average person out there that's building their portfolio should have in that swing for the fences part of their portfolio. Yeah, you know, it depends how far you are from retirement or any of the needs for liquidity. But, you know, you can have a nice five or ten percent in there if you have a nice well-constructed portfolio for the long term alongside it. It's like he listens to the podcast and knows that we like to stay diversified and take portfolio construction seriously. Simeon, thank you so much, man. What an incredible conversation. And, dude, come back on the show. Come talk about these ETFs and new things you're launching. I know our audience is going to love this type of stuff. I love learning about this type of stuff. I mean, that's the whole point of the show is to

connect the industry veterans like you. Obviously, you've been at UBS and Bloomberg and all these other awesome places here with pro shares for a long time now. Like, you are the guy on Wall Street. And we're just grateful that you're here on the show and in sharing your knowledge, both with us in real time and our audience as well. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. And for everyone listening, if you'd like to learn more about pro shares and SPCF, be sure to do your own research, understands the fund's daily investment objective, and make sure any investment you do aligns with your own financial goals and risk tolerance. Now let's jump into this week's Rich Habits Radar. What a fun conversation. I'm just so grateful that we have so many smart, intelligent human beings that join us.

on these episodes of the show. You know, we've had Ron Santella, Simeon, we've had Belal Little. We've had so many incredible people that are just veterans that are just incredible, can't even just find the words because they're so intelligent

and they have such great perspectives to share and remind me to always think bigger. I can get excited about the markets or think about sectors and things like that, but they always bring something that I had not thought of and I love that about the show. I do too because, you know,

we have a 30 year age gap. I've been doing this for a very, very long time. Some of these legends we have on the show I watched when I was your age, which is just incredible now in a full circle moment for me that when I was coming up as a day trader and a swing trader 30 years ago, now hear these people love our show and reach out to be on our show. So we're getting all this incredible insight from the front lines from so many of these Wall Street legends. It's just an incredible journey for me and I'm sure for you as well, Austin. So I just so. excited. So, Austin, before we jump into our radar points, support for this show comes from VCX, the public ticker for private tech. For generations, American companies have moved the world forward through their ingenuity and determination. And for generations,

everyday Americans could be a part of that journey through perhaps the greatest innovation of all, the U.S. stock market. It didn't matter whether you were a factory worker in Detroit or a farmer in Omaha. Anyone can own a piece of the great American companies. But now that's changed. Today, our most innovative companies are staying private rather than going public. And the

The result is that everyday Americans are excluded from investing in getting left further behind, while a select few reap all of the benefits. Until now. Introducing VCX, the public ticker for private tech. VCX by Fundrise gives everyone the opportunity to invest in the next generation of innovation, including the companies leading the AI revolution, space exploration, defense tech, and so much more. So visit getvcx.com for more information. That's getvcx.com. Carefully consider the investment material before investing,

including objectives, risk charges, and expenses. This and other information can be found in the funds prospectus at getvcx.com. This is a paid sponsorship. As a reminder, you know, VCX right now is trading a lot closer to that MNAV that we've been talking about here in that $50, $60 range. So if you're like me, you're looking at this and you're like, wait a second, if Anthropic really is a $1, $3 trillion company, if, you know, OpenAI is worth a trillion, if, you know, and drill is worth, I don't know, $100, $200,000, like,

you can start to back into some math here about the underlying holding, and figure out what is the true market net asset value for this closed-end fund, and then begin to put the pieces together. It's like, wait, is this overvalued or undervalued? And of course, bang on the table, do not chase this thing at $350 a share like it was back when it first launched because all these day traders bid it up to $300. But now around this $50-60 range, I'm doing a little bit of math, and I'm like, wait a second, this could get kind of interesting.

Yeah, it's definitely, definitely looking good at these prices. But Austin, I'm going to dig in. I've got three radar points. You've got three radar points. And I'm excited. The first one, I'm not going to be able to keep a straight face talking through it. But I'm excited to share it. And that is Trump Media just announced Truth API.

That's right. A paid licensed data feed launching August 1st that gives banks and algorithmic trading firms the fastest possible access to post from the 10 most influential truth social accounts, including President Trump's own account. We're talking low latency, machine readable delivery designed to plug. directly into trading systems, plus a searchable archive going all the way back to 2022. The play here is straightforward. Trump's true social post have repeatedly moved markets.

Tariff announcements, trade restrictions on China, policy signal, and TMTG is now saying, if you want the edge in milliseconds instead of waiting for an app notification, you're going to pay for it. They've already signed initial customers ahead of launch and plaid to crack down on firms scraping the platform. Crazy, crazy, crazy to think now. instead of trading his tweets in his Trump social post, you can get it ahead of time and have the edge on the market. I don't know if it's brilliant or crazy to me, but it is definitely something that I wanted to share with everyone.

The next one for me today is investor margin borrowing surges 40% in the last 12 months reaching historic peaks. Investing.com reported margin debt has increased by more than 40% over the past 12 months, reaching levels previously observed only at market peaks in 2000, 2007 and 2021. Crazy crazy because if you think about it, margin debt, which represents money investors borrow from brokers to purchase stocks using existing securities as collateral stood at $1.4 trillion in May,

the most recent month available, according to data from FINRAP. The borrowing mechanism increases buying power and potential gains, but can also increase losses if you're wrong, so be careful out there. It's so interesting to see how much margin is being used. used compared to these market peaks and the volatility we're seeing. And my third radar point today is one that I want to make sure everyone sees, and that is gold fell below $4,000 an ounce as oil-driven inflation fears keep Ed outlooks cautious.

Gold prices extended losses on Thursday and fell below that $4,000 an ounce mark as investors continued to look past softer U.S. inflation data and instead focused on the inflationary risks posted by higher oil prices, enforcing expectations that the Federal Reserve will remain cautious on these interest rates. I think the most interesting one that you'd shared here was the price of gold. I just pulled up my trading view account. And I remember back when GLD was trading around 400-ish, 4-10, right now it's trading closer to 365. But we were on, you know, call it a month and a half ago, two months ago, on the Rich Habits Network live stream. And I said, hey, everyone, precious metals are cool. You should have some

precious metals in your portfolio. I think precious metals are, I think precious metals are, are a great way to diversify your net worth, but it's now been obvious that gold is slipping below that 200-day moving average. If I were you, and you're up a ton on gold like you likely are, if you've been listening to us for a couple years, you should probably take some profits, probably move some money out of gold, and perhaps put it in a different type of asset class if you're up a ton,

because nothing good happens below that 200-day moving average. And just like I kind of drew a arbitrary line here, the price of gold continues to go down, and it has fallen. What is it here? about 12% since I had shared that and gave people that warning. So, yeah, gold. Oh, my goodness. That said, you know, I think gold's great.

It's cool to have gold. Gold's fine to be in your portfolio. It's just like, it's one of those things right now. It went vertical just like silver. Silver went vertical back in January and February. It's been the exact same reaction, right? And this has been like a lesson that we try and teach people. Oracle stock did this.

Quantum computing stocks did this. Like, like what goes vertical is not sustainable, right? if it goes absolutely vertical in a very short period of time, either it has to trade sideways for a while for that valuation, you know, to grow into its current stock price, or it has to come back down to reality because this doesn't make any sense. And this is emotional humans bidding up a price in a way that's irresponsible for long-term patient investors. But I think that's one of the most important things you talk about a lot is getting people to understand. Yes, the stock market goes up into the right over time. Yes, these stocks go parabolic, but you have to remember to take profits. along the way. That's the most important takeaway here from Austin's breakdown is understanding they're not going to go up forever. And until you learn that, you're going to have some trouble trying to figure out what to do. So always take profits along the way, book the win, and keep rocking and rolling. So my three radar points that I thought were interesting is Stripe trying to buy PayPal, Uber closing their acquisition of delivery hero, and pending home sales falling off a cliff

in the month of June. So let's start here with Stripe putting in a bid to buy PayPal for $53.4 billion. Now, under this deal, Stripe and their partner advent here would split ownership equally. Block is also chipping in as part of this $17 billion equity contribution, but this isn't new interest. Stripe was reportedly in early acquisition talks with PayPal back in February. No formal offer was published, though, until this one. PayPal's board is expected to meet as soon as July 20th to discuss. this offer. And the timing makes sense as their new CEO, Enrique Loris, just took over back in March after a massive profit warning was issued to investors. Company planning to cut $1.5 billion

of costs and reduce headcount by 20%. Investors have been skeptical about a turnaround actually working. I don't know about y'all, but I gave up on PayPal. I had PayPal stock in my portfolio for a while, but holy smokes, this has been like the slowest, most boring bleed ever. And it's just a great testament to remind people that a stock can always go lower. Now that brings me to my next radar point, which is Uber agreeing to acquire the Berlin-based delivery hero for $14.5 billion, giving it now control of brands like food panda across nine Asian markets, Talibat, across eight Middle Eastern countries, Badal Minjok in South Korea and Hunger Station in Saudi Arabia. The combined entity would span 99 countries with a pro forma gross merchandise value of over two.

$236 billion in 2025, making it one of the largest food delivery consolidation plays ever. Remember, Uber's got Uber Eats. I just ordered Uber Eats of the day. I like that triple dipper. Deliver me some triple dippers from Chili's, Robert, get it to my doorstop as soon as possible. They're so good. Comes as the delivery space is getting squeezed on margins across the board. Uber's bet is essentially scale is how this wins, and they're going all out for it. Now, my last point is pending home sales index dropping 5.5% back in the month of June to only 72.5. Oof. So economists were actually expecting this index to stay flat, but we got a significant miss here with a five and a half percent drop. Every single region had declined. Midwest got hit hardest here, about 9 percent of a decline. West hit about 4.5 percent. South fell by about 4 percent, northeast, about 3 percent. NAR's chief economist Lawrence Young pointed to the highest mortgage rates in nearly a year, combined with record high, medium home prices as the culprits for this pending home sales index. decline. So all that said, Robert, I think this Uber story is the one that's got my heart. I just,

I think Uber has been one of these names that you just can't go wrong with owning. I feel like they just figure it out every time. They're free cash flow positive, they're printing cash for their shareholders. They strategically purchased postmates during the pandemic when they saw the people loved having their stuff delivered. And I think it's genius that they bought now delivery hero, making them the largest, you know, food delivery platform likely in the world. Yeah, I have two. takeaways from your radar points. Number one, I think Stripe buying PayPal is genius because if you think PayPal has over 400 million active users of PayPal and Stripe is mostly for merchants. So when you combine the two, then you've got the small businesses and the everyday people together. And with the

efficiencies they've both been building to enter into the blockchain world and get everything on stable coins and all that, I think is going to be huge and create a lot more efficiencies, which hopefully get passed down to the everyday person using those processes. But the reason I cracked up when you were talking about Uber is because we flew one of the employees in that lives in Texas, put him in a nice hotel in downtown Toledo to work in the warehouse with us a couple weeks ago. The next day I pick him up and I get in the warehouse with him, I go, what did you have for dinner last night?

Which restaurant? I put him right in the heart of the restaurants. He goes, man, I Uber eated those triple dippers from chilies or wherever. I go, no way. I go, the chilies, the only chilies near here is like 20 minutes. away he goes, I had to have the triple dippers, bro. And I'm like, I don't even know what that is, but that sounds crazy to me. And then you reiterated the story. So I love the fact that you just told that story. It's so funny to me. All I'm saying is y'all at home, got to go try that Chili's triple dipper and get that Tennessee, Nashville hot mozzarella stick and dip in some ranch dressing, man. Everyone, thanks so much for hanging out with us here on this episode of the Rich Habits Radar. Our Friday episodes of the Rich Habits podcast where we talk about the biggest headlines impacting you and your mom. please consider joining the Rich Habits Network. We've talked about it.

We've alluded to it. We've said all the cool things as to what's happening in the network. And you could have been ahead of a lot of this information if you were on Tuesday's night's live stream. So please go join us, watch the replay. And once inside the network, join us for next Tuesday's live stream. And we'll see you in there. That's right.

And if you want another edge against everyone else out there that doesn't follow us, check out wall streetfavorites.com. It's an incredible, incredible platform that lets you figure out what Wall Street thinks. about your stocks, what you're holding, how things are looking for you long term. Wall Streetfavorits.com. Make sure you check it out. Thanks, everyone, and we'll see you on Monday.