The Compound and Friends - Catch a Falling Knife

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

On episode 83 of The Compound and Friends, Michael Batnick and Downtown Josh Brown are joined by Carleton English and Joe Fahmy to discuss moving averages, rate hikes, consumer spending, what Cathie Wood got right (and wrong), Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate, and much more! This episode is sponsored by Invesco QQQ. Learn more at invesco.com/qqq. Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. Wealthcast Media, 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

My friend Steve is Neil Diamond's second cousin. True story. No, true story. Okay. Has Steve been on the show? Yeah. No. You mentioned Bono. Are you going to see U2 or? No, he's doing, like, he's at the Beacon doing, like, his own show, Bono. So I was saying, should I go see that? I think they're doing a residency at the Sphere in Vegas, the new thing that's opening.

That's MSG's thing. Yeah, MSG's thing. When is that? Wait, is that actually opening? When they open. I don't know if he's doing it or U2's doing a residency. I think for something like that it would be U2.

Joe and I saw John Fogerty in Vegas. We saw everything. He did the halftime show. No. During the Raiders game. He did the halftime. He crammed in his four songs in 20 minutes. Guys, go ahead and put your headphones on for us. Do we have to? Yes. Okay. Headphones his four songs in 20 minutes. Guys, go ahead and put your headphones on for us. Do we have to... Yes. Okay. Headphones. So you can hear yourself.

So watch. Get close to the mic, then step away. You hear yourself. Testing. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Where do you keep the mic? Like this. Close. So KRA, which is the regional banks, it's down almost 8% today. This is going to be its worst day since the pandemic, I'm guessing.

Yeah, I know for the KBW, so the broader look, it's the worst day since June of 2020. Yeah. So the biggest holding in KRA is SVB. That'll do it. That'll do it. It's cut in half. It's only 2%. It's only 2%.

So theoretically, that should take 1% off of the ETF. It's down 8%. But let me ask you a question. If that's the biggest and most well-known regional bank and it's down 50% in one day, would you honestly expect the other stocks to not be down? Not down this much. But some of them are down. There's liquidation probably.

People are selling the ETF. Exactly. And then I think the other thing that's happening. Wait, did we start recording? Not yet. Yes. It's always on whenever we thing that's happening – Wait, did we start recording? Not yet. Yes. It's always on whenever we sit down in the room. I'm like, is this live?

It's always live. So I think the other thing that happens, especially on the regionals, because you have to look at who their deposit base is, right? So like in the case of Silicon Valley Bank, you're talking about a lot of venture capitalists, a lot of VC employees. They're spending down their deposits. That's a low-cost source of funding for the banks. So then they're forced to sell other things to meet capital. Banks are forced to sell other things to meet capital requirements. That's kind of what you saw happen with them.

But then people are saying, well, are there other Silicon Valley-based banks that have a similar deposit base that could be running into the same problem? Or are there other regional banks that are particularly exposed to certain industries? Do you remember the oil? Do you remember the mini oil crash in 2015-16? Yes. Cullen Frost and two other Texas banks were trading like penny stocks that month because those banks have substantial exposure to oil companies.

Exactly. And oil company deposits and exactly the same thing. And the employee base and, you know, the mortgages are the employees and all of that. Now, I don't think they took down the whole KRE, those regionals, the way this is. This is bigger. I think, well, you also have. Yes, it is. Look at this chart.

Yeah, you also had Jerome Powell. I know. He said it's better. You know, talking about more rate hikes happening. I mean, yes, banks like rate hikes, but until it causes a recession. So you have a bunch of things going on, and people have been saying, like, this is that recession that everyone's just been waiting for. You have the yield curve inverting more. I mean—

Oh, today is opening day. Yeah. Is it? It's opening day for the recession. Oh, yes, yes. I thought—I'm like, no, but we have another month of opening days. I was on CBC today and like somebody's like, well, why are the regional banks down? And I'm like, well, did you look at Silicon Valley Bank?

And somebody else said, yeah, but no, I think it's because initial jobless claims were higher than expected. It's like, oh, so the KRE is down 8% because there were 10,000 more people filing for unemployment than expected? Which is still within the realm of the normal filing. I mean, you know, more than expected, but still within like the general range. Okay. I'm not going to.

That's fair. We've got charts. I've been wrong plenty of times before, so I'm not going to be too mean. Are we almost Friday? Yeah, in a minute. Hurt my mic! Hurt my mic! Yeah.

Do you like my bear brick? I do. What is that? That's Andy Warhol art. Have you seen the Netflix series? On what? On Warhol. No.

I think it just launched, or maybe I'm just, like, slow to the... To do? You watch documentaries on Netflix, right? What'd you say? Nothing. Love you. No, I didn't say it. Is it good? It is good. I'm halfway through it, but I mean it takes you through the whole like factory era and just Warhol's

weirdness. It's the first thing that I saw that really explores his personality. Are you talking about Tiger King? No. Oh my god. There's a great documentary on Hulu called Too Funny to Fail. What is it? So you know Jen Rogers? Her husband created Dirty Rock, Bob Carlock.

No. You didn't know that? No. So I went to high school with him. It's the weirdest story ever. Oh, come on. You know everybody. You're the ultimate Kevin Bacon.

He went from like writing for SNL friend. He created Joey. You told me about this guy. I told you this story. And then I, when I ran into him in New York, I said, what else he worked on?

He said, we worked on the Dana Carvey show, which was him, Dana Carvey, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Louis CK. When was this?

I don't remember this. It was like, no, it was a little bit after that. It was like some of the most amazing comic writers in the history. The guy who created the bears on Saturday Night Live. That writer who Dana Carvey said is the greatest Saturday Night Live writer ever. They put it together and it did like seven episodes and then it went off the air.

Freeing them all up to become superstars. But the point is it was some of the most hilarious comic writers ever but they were writing jokes that were way over everyone's heads they were funny for them

and they put this thing and it was supposed to be the most amazing sitcom ever and after seven episodes they cancelled it so they did a Hulu documentary called

Too Funny to Fail I'd watch that and it's like I'm definitely gonna watch that it's actually pretty cool. It's pretty cool. And yeah, they all went on

to become amazing superstars. They did okay. I'd watch that. Yeah. So it's pretty cool. All right, Compendium of Friends. But I want to check out

that one that you mentioned. What's the name of it? It might just be called Warhol. I mean, I'm sure I'll find it. Just Google, or not Google, but like,

you know, on Netflix search. No, now we sayhol. I mean, just Google, or not Google, but like, you know, on Netflix search. Now we say Bing. Bing, oh. Nicole broke the law today. We had a fire drill, and she stood on a stool in front of the speaker that the fire marshal's voice comes out of and muffled it with a pillow because we had people talking to clients in here. I love that.

I'm on Portfolio Rescue. This is above. Oh, we were taping Portfolio Rescue. Yeah, we. I love that. This is above. Oh, we were taping Portfolio Rescue. Yeah, we were live. Okay. This is above and beyond the Call of Duty. It's very... For something called Portfolio Rescue, though,

that's actually kind of a perfect background sound to have. Oh, you have the fire marshal in the background. It's on Animal Planet. It's on Animal Planet. No, just let me ask when you're doing it. Because it shocks my ear. It's not predictable. It's not predictable.. It's on Animal Planet. No, just leave your hands up when you're doing it. Because it shocks my ear. It's unpredictable. It's unpredictable.

This is like a mate. I'm impressed with this operation here. It's an electric shock in my ear. It like f***ing hurts. What triggers it? Static electricity. Yeah. You don't get that?

It's unpredictable. It's static electricity. This is an amazing setup, by the way. I applaud you guys. Why does that not affect me? Because we share a headphone. They're connected. It hurts.

All right, good. I want to talk to the f***ing manager right now. I'm fine with it. Carry on. We good? Yeah, good to go. Let's do it. Let's do it.

What episode is it, John? It's episode eight. Uh-oh. Welcome to The Compound and Friends. All opinions expressed by me, Michael Batnick, and our castmates are solely our own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions.

Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Today's excellent episode of The Compendent of Friends is brought to you by Invesco's QQQ. You know the symbol. Duncan, look at me. What do all the greatest innovations have in common? Agents. That's the word you're looking for. People who help shape the future by supporting cutting edge ideas. Invesco's QQQ is a fund that allows you to access the innovators of the NASDAQ 100 all in one fund. So you don't have to be an innovator

to help create what's next to come. Anyone can become an agent of innovation with Invesco's QQQ. To learn more about the risks and opportunity of investing in the NASDAQ 100, please visit Invesco.com slash QQQ. The Compound and Friends is taped before a live studio audience. Yo.

Of Duncan, John, and Nicole. The whole gang is here today. Nicole is here. John is here. Duncan's here. Very good energy here in the studio today. Nicole is here. John is here. Duncan's here. Very good energy here in the studio today. Returning fan favorite

Carlton English is back. Carlton, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. You didn't notice what we did with the studio. I didn't.

And you're like a Broadway gal. I can't believe you weren't like, ooh, a new set. Yeah, I... It's all right. The paint color, I just didn't notice it. It's charcoal. Charcoal?

What is it called? What is it called? Gray flannel. Gray flannel. All right. Let me do your intro. Carlton is a financial journalist covering Wall Street at Barron's. Prior to Barron's, Carlton covered hedge funds at the New York Post, was a writer at thestreet.com,

and a producer at CNBC. Welcome back, Carlton. Thank you. Gray Flannel's a Neil Diamond song. Gray Flannel. Everything's a Neil Diamond song, apparently. One of his classics. We have a new friend here at the Compound and Friends,

but a very old friend of Michael's. He's very old. And mine, and he's extremely old. 108 years old. Joe Fahmy is one of my oldest friends in the industry. Joe is an advisor at Zora Capital, a New York-based investment advisory firm. Joe has 25-plus years of trading research experience and has appeared on CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Wall Street Weekly, and a lot more. Joe, welcome to the show.

We're so happy to have you. Thank you for having me. What took so long to get in here? Sorry, I interrupted you. You know what? Sometimes you save the best for last. Fair enough. And this is our final episode.

Let me tell you. This is the season finale. We're so excited to have you here. Thanks for having me. This is exciting. So tell people a little bit about, so you're kind of based in Boston. You've been in New York a lot. You're in Vegas all the time.

You know everybody. You've met everybody. What even are you? I don't even know what I am. Thanks for showing up on laundry day, by the way. This is my favorite part about Mike is that it's always laundry day for him. Is this shirt supposed to be yellow

or was it formerly? Stop it, it's cream. I love Mike. Mike's like my brother. It's cream. Can we color correct that in post? Can we fix that in post? Okay. All right. Guys, stock market is crashing today, but I want to start with not just like what's

going on today. Relax. It's having a bad day. It's just a bad day. I'm just kidding. Joe, you have a chart that very simply S&P 500 with the 200-day and the 50-day. John, have that up. Thank you. Chart on. All right, Joe, what do you want us to do here?

Long, short? Whenever I give talks, I like to keep it very, very simple for people who aren't technicians. Just plot the 50-day for medium-term timeframe on the S&P 500, which is the blue line on the chart. And if you're a longer-term time frame, plot the 200-day. And I like to think of it as a traffic light. When we're above those levels, it's a green light that the market's healthy. And when we're below it, it's a red light to get defensive. That's- When the 50-day is above the 200-day. I use the 50-day for medium-term timeday. I use the 50-day for a medium-term time frame.

Not when it's above, just in general, usually when we're in an uptrend. Above the 50-day, green light. For the most part, institutions are supporting the market. The market's healthy. Below the 50-day, get defensive. Longer term, as you can see, last year, every time we broke through the 200-day March of last year, roughly, when the rate hike started. And every time- It's a year ago, yeah.

Yeah, a year ago. And every time we tried to get to that, we broke through it. So now the big question is, fast forward to today, is this now that 200-day going to be support or is it going to break through it? But in general, that can keep you out of a lot of trouble. So when people say, I got killed last year, I had struggled last year, you're below the 200-day. So that's usually a sign. So the last test of the 200-day looks like was earlier this month? Yeah.

Okay. So like five days ago basically? Yeah. All right. But we're still above. Still above. You don't care about crossovers? The day's not over yet.

We're close. You don't care about crossovers? 50-day above or below? It doesn't matter to me. You don't do Golden Cross shit? No. Is that a Neil Diamond sign? Golden cross shit is off his 1970 EP.

So the environment changed dramatically in just the past like two weeks. Two days. So I wrote a post last week that there's an interesting thing happening where everybody seems the recession is coming. Everybody, you know, air quotes is bearish. Everybody seems the recession is coming. Everybody, you know, air quotes is bearish. But yet, small caps are outperforming large caps. Industrials, which are the most highly correlated to the economy, are doing well.

Banks are doing well. Semiconductors are doing well. Well, that changed really f***ing quickly. Banks are getting pummeled right now. Banks are down. The XLF is down 4%. And I said, like, staples and utilities and healthcare were showing relative weakness, meaning that there was like a risk on environment.

Well, today when the market's down 160 basis points for the S&P, consumer staples down half of that. So all of a sudden things got real defensive real quick. But is today trend or counter trend? It's tough to tell. I mean, you think it's all because of Powell got pretty hawkish on his testimony to Congress. Who didn't expect that? Enough people, apparently. I think the market's got a little bit of wishful thinking where they're hoping maybe the market's starting to price in the end of this rate. So in my opinion,

the biggest question right now is, is this a rally in a bear market or the beginning of a new bull market? So this is what changed. For people that are listening, we're showing the probability of a 50 basis point rate hike. This is from the CME FedWatch tool. And it was zero. There was a 0% implied probability that they were going to do 50 basis points. As recently as when? To start the month.

At the next meeting? Yeah, in March. March meeting. So on March 1st, there was a 0% implied probability. I'm sorry. That was February. My bad. In the beginning of February.

So it was drifting up. It was 30% a week ago. And all of a sudden, after Powell's – not his testimony. What was that? Not his performance. No, he spoke to Congress. Yeah, his testimony in front of the House. No, was there an inflation thing?

I can't remember what triggered it. It might have been – whatever. It doesn't matter. Because he spoke this week. This happened this week or last week? But this happened the day before. It doesn't matter the time frame. The point is –

A bit of Chicago drinking. I have no idea. The point is, it went from zero in February to 30% in March to 70%- Overnight. A day ago. It went from 40% to 70%. So the question is, we have the jobs report tomorrow. I assume the market is hoping for a miss, right?

If we get 500,000 jobs again- And a downward revision for January. If we get 500,000 jobs again, the market's going to get killed. It's going to zero. I think also what scares the market more, I mean, that risk of a 50 basis point hike going to 70 for this next meeting is the, that's not going to be it. It's not just that 50 basis point hike because we're at what? 475. Yeah, 475 now.

So, I mean, 50 basis points, the magnitude of that compared to where we were last year, it's an adjustment. But it's the, are we going to see more 50 basis point hikes? That's a great point because they've hiked the probabilities of the next two meetings going up. And the terminal rate. The market wasn't reacting. Like the two-year crossed 5% yesterday. But it was on its way up and the market wasn't reacting. And that to me was like bullish.

Like the market sees it's not reacting. And then all of a sudden the, the, the traders repriced the probability of a rate hike going higher. And all of a sudden the market's reacting real quick. I mean, is the, is the market just wishful thinking, hoping, okay, we went from zero a year ago, five, five is the terminal rate. Like, let's just hope he stops there. Or now they're like, oh, he's going to do six. It's so funny. a few weeks ago, my colleague, Megan Casella, was working on a piece about, you know, when some people think it might go to six. And it was just, I mean, again, kind of to your point, Michael, like a few weeks ago, it was like six. I mean, you're really going out on a ledge saying that. And now we're like, yeah, six.

Yeah. It's amazing how the market participants do that. Yeah. It's amazing how the market participants do that. Something that was like 5% was unthinkable a year ago in March when they did the first rate hike. It was 25 basis points. 50 basis point rate hikes were unthinkable. Then they did 475s in a row, like without a break.

So like we keep breaking these barriers of what's conceivable. Do we start talking about seven in April? Like where does the train eventually end? I keep hearing people say, well, we're closer to the end. I hope. Right. But you made the point on CNBC today that if you told us a year ago, we'd be at five, the market's been pretty resilient. Yeah. I mean, it's been to your point until an hour ago. You're right. I mean, to your point, beneath the surface, it's not horrible. Well, because things are too good. That's the problem, is that the market is not the market.

The economy, consumers—we're going to talk about consumer spending— they're not responding to a tighter monetary policy. How far off the high is the S&P right now? 17? I don't know. I can find out. So if I got in a time machine, came back to last March, and whispered in your ear, Michael, we're going to do 500 basis points worth of rate hikes in the next 12 months, where do you think the S&P is?

Much lower. You probably don't think negative 17%. Way lower. The economy, the data has not turned yet. Yeah, earnings per share are down a little bit, but not that bad. But Powell acknowledged that in his testimony. He says, I realize these rate hikes have not filtered into the system. So I think he's open-minded where if the jobs report, CPI, all this stuff, the next set of economic data comes in softer, he might – that line that shot – that might come down to a quarter.

It absolutely could. It absolutely could because – Guess what? I don't think – I don't buy that shot, that might come down to a quarter. It absolutely could. It absolutely could because- Guess what? I don't think, I don't buy that. I don't think they're doing 50. I mean, I obviously could be wrong. I don't think so either. I think they're doing 25.

I think the market has it wrong. You're probably right because there's, you're also, you want to kill the demand, but you also don't want to break the financial system. So the market thinks the Fed is going to panic, panic hike. And I think the market is wrong. I don't think they're going to. Yeah, he's like reserving the right to do 50. Yeah, he wants to keep people on their toes.

I mean, we've talked about this a lot where the Fed talks too much maybe. You know, like there was this whole thing where, you know, you used to try to guess what the Fed was doing based off of the size of like Greenspan's briefcase or, you know, his like gate when he was walking. His lunch order. Exactly. So now we get so much information from the Fed. I mean, the press conference afterwards where everyone's asking the same question over and

over again, and we're getting too much where I think the Fed wants to still have that ability to surprise us. I think they always will. But to your point, it would be a pretty powerful thing to hint at 50 and then do 25. It's almost like saying I'll do what I want when I want, what I think I need to do, regardless of what you decide to price in. So the meeting is when? Is it the 23rd? So if they do 25 and not 50, what does the market do?

I can't say until I see what comes out tomorrow morning with the jobs. Tell me if there's three more Silicon Valley banks out there and I'll tell you. You know what I mean? Right. Because this could start taking over. It could be forced liquidation. Who knows? It has nothing to do with the rate hikes if banks have to free assets.

Let's do this. Let's do this Renaissance macro chart. Well, this is a bit stale at this point. Let's do this Renaissance macro chart. Well, this is a bit stale at this point. Let's look at the next chart. Okay. So Lizanne Saunders tweeted the recession probability model

based on the 10-year, two-year spread has risen to an all-time high. The inversion is pretty extreme here. And Joe, yes, you go question in the doc.

When did everyone become so obsessed with macro? We could go years on end with macro really being in the backdrop. Right now, it's all you need to know. If you got the Fed fund story right, you won. Well, if you want to keep macro simple, Marty Zweig's expression of don't fight the Fed is very simple. When they provided an accommodative environment after the pandemic, don't fight the Fed, insane amount of bond buying. They did more bond buying in six weeks after the pandemic. Don't fight the Fed. Insane amount of bond buying. They did more

bond buying in six weeks after the pandemic than they did in nine years combined. More treasury purchases in six weeks after the pandemic than from 2009 to 2018 combined. So insane liquidity, kept rates at zero, increased the balance sheet. Then December, January of December, 2021 into January of last year, those three things, they announced the opposite, which is raise rates, no more bond buying and reduce the balance sheet. So if you just kept it simple to that, then you don't want to fight the Fed on the way up and on the way down. So a year ago, I was saying that. I was saying, if you ever said don't fight the Fed on the way up, you should be saying don't fight the Fed when they go in reverse. It works both ways, right.

However, the reason why I've been singing a different tune lately is because the market is singing a different tune. It's not me projecting bullishness. I'm asking why has the market been so bullish for such the last two days. So it was the economy and the stock market fighting the Fed for the last year. Yep. Maybe trying to – the market's a discounting mechanism. Maybe trying to factor in the end to your point. Like everyone's like the end of this hike, but now the market's like it might not be the end.

Consumers are fighting the Fed. They're not changing their habits. To answer your question, when did everyone become so obsessed with macro? You probably remember this really well. In like 2010 and 2011, that's all anyone would talk about also is Greece. That's 10 years ago. Europe. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was macro, macro, macro, macro. And what was going on in the background of that, you had this new category, this new class of stocks that weren't at all involved in the financial crisis that started to like really work. Like Netflix and Lululemon. And these were like new uptrends for new big growth, and then Facebook came public. Chipotle, yeah. Yeah, and then eventually that took over, and the Fed receded. The macro shit receded.

The last gasp was like these shrieking headlines about banks in Cyprus, and finally traders were like, who gives a shit? Netflix is up 20% every month for the last three months. Why are we talking about Cyprus? That will happen again. But I think what makes everyone obsessed with the macro now is, let's say you're an investor, right? Research stock, and you love the stock, and you buy it, and you're like, I think the earnings are going to be great. And then the earnings are great.

And then the stock drops 25% anyway. Why? Macro shit. What else are you going to focus on then? You have no discipline. You don't know how to trade. You're just an investor. You're like, holy shit.

The Fed's comments just took 25% of my money away from me. You become a macro obsessive from that point forward. That's how it happens. And now multiply that times hundreds of millions of people. So that's what I think is like the current state of affairs. People are less focused on the fundamentals of their stocks because the FOMC shit, the inflation stuff, it's driving everything.

And I hope it ends because it's so boring. I'm going to steal our friend Brian Lund's line. How does that make me money though? I mean, I guess it depends if you're a trader or if you're managing a big fund. Oh, it makes nobody boring. I'm going to steal our friend Brian Lund's line. How does that make me money, though? I mean, I guess it depends if you're a trader or if you're managing a big fund. Oh, it makes nobody money. Yeah, I mean, my problem with macro, I understand to talk about it,

interest rates affects everybody. My problem is that if you go down that dark rabbit hole- Oh, it's dark. It's dark. And you try to understand it all, my mini rant with macros is, we have enough trouble understanding our country's economy. There's 195 countries. Now you're going to claim to understand how commodities, currencies,

fixed income and stocks in 195 are all commingled. Geopolitics, demographics. It's just too dark and too much. And I'm like, if you're managing a $10 billion global macro fund with offices in Hong Kong and New York and London, I get it. But if you're helping your mom with her Roth IRA, like, stop it. You're like, you're obsessed about how the Aussie dollar is going to affect copper prices. And I'm like, come on. Just stop it. Do you know anybody who does macro who's optimistic?

No. So, exactly. Not one. But are they ever? So I only use macro for my 529 plans. That's what I mean. When you over obsess about it, you become too negative. Where to steal William O'Neill.

That's the world's scary place. To steal William O'Neill's line. I've never met a wealthy pessimist. All right. Let's continue on this macro path though. What's the next chart? I'm okay talking about it. So Gavin Baker has.

Love Gavin, by the way. Gavin Baker said, important charts. Credit card spending slowed significantly in the second half of February and job openings on Indeed continue to decline. So he says economic strength in January increased the odds of a hard landing, right? That's what happened. February weakness makes the narrow path to a slough landing slightly wider. So what's in this card? Total card spending?

Doesn't it appear that it's going the right direction? It's going down, which is the right direction. That's right. I'm beginning to think that we would never see it. But finally, we're starting to see it. You and I were talking about tourism. That's the engine behind this. It doesn't seem to want to slow down at all.

So how do we get people to chill out with the spending? You first. No, seriously, that's what it is. I'll stop when you stop. Yeah, we've been locked up for two years. We still want to do stuff and take advantage of it. I don't want to pretend I'm a hero, but the other day I chose not to spend an extra dollar

for a chopped salad. I said, you know what? I can chop it myself. Bit by bit, we'll get to where we need to what? I don't know. You didn't add quash? What didn't you? Bit by bit, we'll get to it. I can chop it myself. I don't want to overstimulate the economy. So I said, no, thank you. I will chop it myself.

You're doing your part. Oh, okay. I see. Yeah. I mean, you're not all heroes. Carlton, you're still spending up a storm on Broadway. Let's do this. Let's do this story.

Oh my God, yeah. You wrote, what Phantom of the Opera's high ticket prices say about the Federal Reserve and inflation. Jack Otter let you write this? Was he like, Carlton, come on, don't bring your home life to work. No, Jack actually sent me the report that part of this was based off of. So Torsten Slock at Apollo.

So this is byline from February 8th. But he's been just looking at consumer spending at events, you know, tickets for Broadway shows, travel spending, tickets to sporting events. I mean, people are still spending there. Now you guys know me, I love Broadway. I really don't know much about sports, but you know, you go to these Broadway shows now. And if you look at the databases, the shows are selling out at like 90% capacity. I mean, there've been a few that just for different reasons, couldn't get the right audience, but people are paying top dollar

to still go to Broadway shows. You're even seeing like for shows like Funny Girl and Phantom of the Opera, people are doing standing room only seats. And these are shows that have been in existence

for decades. I took my dad to see Phantom of the Opera a couple months ago for Father's Day in June. Did you like, was that when they announced that they were closing it or?

It was, I don't remember, but it was phenomenal. What a show. The music, the costumes, the pageantry. I hear it's popular.

It's been okay. Do you think it's excess in the system or pent up demand from people being home or both? How is it pent up demand? It's been a year and a half. Broadway was closed for a year.

A year and a half. That's a lot of missed shows. But it's been open for. Well, no, but here's the thing. So Broadway reopened for a year. A year and a half. That's a lot of missed shows. But it's been open for – Well, no, but here's the thing. So Broadway reopened in September 2021. Oh, so 18 months. Yeah, so what are we talking about? Pent-Up Demand two years from now?

No, no, no, but listen. Pent-Up – excuse me. So it was closed for 18 months. Yeah, yeah. Wait, pause. What did you do with all that time not at the theater? I feel like you must have been going crazy. Oh, I was totally going crazy.

That's why I'm going to shows now. YouTube, you know, just like watching. Like they had like a Liza Minnelli virtual birthday party. Good enough, I'll take it. Yeah, whatever, fine. But the thing is, so they were closed for so long. But then you had Omicron hit. So that affected shows until, say, what, February 2022?

That's when everyone got it, too. Yeah, everyone got it. People were nervous. Shows had to shut down because the casts were getting it. You also didn't have a lot of domestic travel happening then. Now international travel is starting to come back to New York. Like, international travel accounts for, I think, like 15% to 20% of Broadway show attendance. And they're pent up, too, right?

They're pent up, too. Right. So, I mean, like, us New Yorkers, we can walk by the ticket booth and be like, yeah, whatever. I'll see Phantom. I'll see this. But, you know, for people feeling comfortable traveling and coming into New York, whether from other parts of the country or from, you know, international travel. Well, I'm glad New York got that industry back. Yes.

Because there were – Wow. What? Sorry, just – John, throw that up, please. That's the same chart as the rate hike probability. Yeah, seriously. I mean, that's a lot. So we're looking at.

Phantom of the Opera. What is this, average ticket price at 200? Yeah, so what you have happening there with the average ticket price, they've announced that they're going to close. So you had it as a show that, you know, was doing reasonably well, but now there's the scarcity aspect to it. But, no, I mean, the thing with Broadway is also, you know, was doing reasonably well, but now there's the scarcity aspect to it. But, no, I mean, the thing with Broadway is also, you know, they put in about $2 billion a year for New York City.

It's so important. But it's not just that $2 billion. It's also the, you're going out to a restaurant, you're going to a hotel. So really, they bring in about like 15 to 16 percent or 15 to 16 billion. There's a multiplier effect of Broadway for the rest of Manhattan. That's like really important, especially now with nobody showing up at work. Yes. In Midtown.

It's like nice. It's nice that there's a beating pulse somewhere. All right. I agree. This is a good article. I read it today. What was the ticker for the Empire State Building? ESRT.

Oh, the one I just talked about? You know, there's a REIT. I read it today. What was the ticker for the Empire State Building? E-S-R-T. Oh, the one I just talked about? You know there's a REIT? It's the Empire State Building. It's outperforming today. Is it really? Something's going on. It's only down 25 basis points.

So ironically, the best thing that could happen for New York City office real estate is a recession. Why is that? Because everyone has to come to the office. Then you better show up at work. Yeah. But like, there's not going to be any of this work from home stuff. Joe works those pajamas. He didn't get it. Like people around here, half of them are sitting home on Mondays and Fridays, basically.

Okay. Like almost everyone I know is at home at least two days a week. Yeah. I mean, I'm the same. And I mean, I'm amazed. You don't do that when your company says, hey, we're laying off 20% of our workforce. FaceTime, FaceTime, FaceTime.

ESRT, I submitted on one of our shows earlier this week. It's the Empire State Building basically, and then they own a few other properties. If they turn that into condos tomorrow, they would sell out the whole building. Oh my God, yeah. Right? Like, I live in the Empire State Building.

Are you kidding me? It's only office? It's only office. It's only zoned for – one of the things that New York City is trying to do now, and Mayor Adams is big time behind this, they want to do conversions of all this office real estate. We have a huge shortage of apartments. The average New York City apartment rent is now $5,200 a month, which is absurd. And we have all these office buildings

that are half empty. It's the most obvious trade in the world. But we have zoning that has to get changed to make that happen, not to mention all the construction. But I was saying to myself, Empire State Realty Trust, it's a $7 stock, $2 billion market cap.

I'm sure it's got tons of debt. I didn't even look. That's the kind of thing. They'll figure out something to do with it. Oh, yeah, totally. No, I think you're right. I mean, condos would just be perfect. It's a one-of-a-kind asset worldwide.

You cannot build another one. They pay a premium to live there. You cannot replicate the Empire State. And you still make money on the tourism as well. So I feel like there's going to be worse headlines for office real estate this summer, but I'm like, that's the one I'm watching. All right. So are the bad headlines speaking of behind us with regard to tech layoffs? Conor Sen tweeted, after the big spike in January, tech layoffs fell significantly in February. My premise is the big headcount right sizing is over

and a pickup and layoffs from here would signal more of a macro issue. Josh, I forget who you're talking to. Oh, Dan, Nathan. Companies got the playbook, right? On what Wall Street wants. Like there's been a massive spike in layoffs. Meta just announced another round of them.

Salesforce. I mean, everyone- Respectfully to Conor Senn, I don't, I don't see how you make this call. So tech layoffs fell significantly in February. Look at March. Yeah.

I mean, I know it's early. I know it's only 10 days in. I think layoffs beget layoffs and they come in waves and there's a pause at some point. But like, you just overall, there's going to be less demand

for this type of worker. Like throughout all of corporate America, not just tech. But tech is still like it's still probably 2x the number of employees than they've ever had before on a headcount to revenue ratio or whatever. I just I think it's early. You think those January numbers are going to be eclipsed? January is always going to be if you have a layoff cycle, it's always going to be big because people don't do anything in December. You think we're going to get a spike like that again? No, but you could get a year of something that's half of that and equal more of it. So I feel like that's, I don't know.

I'm making shit up though. How do I know? Just like my guess, once this train gets started, I've never seen it stop that abruptly. Right. And I've lived through a few of these cycles. There's so many things we've never seen. Also, you've had activists go in after some of these large tech companies that were thought to be impenetrable. Activist investors, they love cost-cutting.

What does that mean? Layoffs. Big companies, even if they don't have an activist in them, to avoid getting one, they're going to have to justify their call. By the way, it works. Stocks go up. I've always hated seeing that.

I mean, you can understand why, oh, they're cutting costs. But I mean, just as a human being, it's just. Well, it's 3.30. All right. As we're recording, it's 3.30 Eastern. We're about to hear from Oracle and DocuSign. Could hear layoffs from both. I mean, that's the thing that makes the stock prices go up this year.

That's the hot thing now. Yeah, we're getting control over spending. Also, I mean, they acquired so many employees during the pandemic. I mean, they got very excited on that side. I mean, many of these companies, I can't speak specifically to Oracle or DocuSign, but, you know, double their workforce during the pandemic when they probably didn't really need to. These are people that attend meetings for like all day.

They don't even work. The clipboard people. Like they're just like walking around just constantly, you know. How do I get that? How do I get that job? The VIX is having its first like big green bar day in a while. So it's not, I mean, it's not that high. It's like 22, 23, but big green candle for the first time in a while. So it's not that high. It's like 22, 23.

But big green candle for the first time in a while. How do you feel about big green candles in the VIX? I don't look at the VIX. Really? I honestly don't look at the VIX. 25 years of doing this, I've probably looked at the VIX five times. And people hate me when I say that, but I don't pay attention. You watch the market very closely.

If you just watch the market, you know what the VIX is doing. It doesn't do anything for you. Yeah, my stocks tell me. Okay. What's this earnings down, no recession, equities higher? This seems like sort of a moot point at this point given what's happening in the market

today, but let's just zoom out. This idea that we're going to have earnings come down but avoid a recession with the stocks higher, which sounds like a cocktail that you can never concoct. It's happened. It's happened actually. It's actually happened a bunch. Look at this, 1998, 1986, 2016.

Is that 1916 or 2016? 2016 was an earnings recession without an economic recession. So are they saying we can have that again? Yeah. Just the fact that it's possible. Earnings down, avoid a recession. Whose chart is this? And stocks higher.

This is good. I like this. This looks like Evercore ISI. Don't you feel like this is the kind of question that people get all the time from clients? Like if you know earnings are going to be down, why do you think that, you know, stocks. I think just a simple,

I mean, Joe, you would probably agree with this. The market knew that earners would be down 12 months ago. Yeah. Right. Started acting that way at least. Discounting mechanism.

Hey Joe, you, you, you wanted to talk a little active passive, which we haven't done in a while. Yeah. And you mentioned three things Cathie Wood did right and the biggest thing she did wrong.

Educate us if you would. We haven't had this discussion a while on active versus passive. I think there's this constant, my feeling on it as an active manager is I think there's room for both. Meaning, I think when the market goes straight up, everyone just wishes that they were passive.

And then when the market goes down, they wish that their advisor had maybe reduced exposure or they're broke or whatever. So I think there's room for both. I think longer term, if people don't have the time to do it, an advocate for what you guys do, just stick with things 10, 20, 30 years. But leading into the Cathie Wood thing, if you are trying to manage an active portfolio and you are trying to outperform, which is what I'm trying to do, Kathy Wood did the way she did it in whatever it was, 2020? 2020, 2021. Yeah. She did it in three ways, which is stock selection, concentration, and then the conviction to hang on to those ideas. Those are the three things. So first one is William O'Neill says 90% of people fail

because they buy nothing to write home about stocks. So a lot of people are buying garbage, penny stocks. I just offended everyone. But my point is like, you know, you want to try to buy companies with strong earnings and sales. So she happened to be in some, that's what she did with stocks.

Tesla, which was the best stock of the year. Yeah, all of them, Teladoc. Yeah, stock selection. At the time during the pandemic, a lot of them grew their earnings and sales. So her stock selection was strong, and Tesla was one of her concentrated positions. Number two, which leads into concentration, she held between 30 to 50 stocks. And it's a concentrated portfolio. Ken Huebner, CGM Focus Fund. He's in 20 stocks, 5% positions each. Like, when you're right, you do well and you outperform. So it's stock selection, concentration, and then the conviction to hang on to them.

And, I mean, you got to tip your hat. She had a 10%, I think, the max that ARK would allow, a 10% position in Tesla, and wrote it for whatever, 400%. Fearless. position in Tesla and wrote it for whatever, 400%. Fearless. So when she made 150% that year, half of it was just holding that Tesla position. So that's how, if you want to be active, that's how you can outperform. The problem with the last part of it, which she could have done, is risk management, meaning you either have to eventually say this stock has made an insane move, sell into strength with technical valuations, whatever it is.

Like to say Tesla split adjusted is going to go from 200 to 4,000 and miraculously get that right. You can't now say, okay, 30,000. Like at some point you have to take some off the table. So you either have to sell into strength or when they technically break down. So I applaud her for what she did in outperforming, but the biggest part that she made the mistake was in not managing risk and taking profits off of the table. The other thing that I'll say though. Well done, Joe. I agree with all of that. I think like the thing with Cathie Wood is, you know, I think 20, 30 years from now,

the world is probably going to look a lot like the things that Cathie Wood has in her portfolio. You know, I mean, we're going to probably have more EVs, you know, more digitization, all of that stuff. So I think she's very good at understanding trends and, you know, this kind of futuristic look on things, but that doesn't always make you money. And I think to your point, it's that, you know, yeah, have the conviction when it's working your way, but realize that when the market, which doesn't necessarily understand, think about where things are going to be. I mean, yes, the market is future-looking, but not these big idea sorts of things. But when you study history in a stock like the one she held, Zoom, DocuSign, whatever, when they go up 2%, 3%, 4%, 500%, I mean, pigs get slaughtered.

You have to take profit at some point. I don't disagree with any of the three points you made. They're all excellent points. The only thing that I would ask you is these aren't separate accounts. These aren't individual investors' money. She can't swing to cash. So let's say – granted that she said, you know what? I love Tesla, but I made 1,000 percent in 2020.

I'm going to cut my position in half. What should she have done with the proceeds? Utilities. No, but for real. Nothing. That's the point. But no, and you're you're right in certain mutual funds etfs their mandate is they have to be 90 stocks 100 invested so to your point what are you going to miraculously switch into all pharmaceuticals

and energy wait she can't i don't know i don't know her mandate i'm pretty sure she can't hold cash but nobody's paying her not 20 cash right 20% cash. Right. Yeah, but like one of the Fidelity funds, 90% stock, 5% cash, 5% bonds. That's like Fidelity, whatever, contra fund. Let's say she called you in the fall of 2021 when the gravy train for like high beta tech ended and some of her stocks started to break down. down, what would you, if she said to you, listen, I can't hire you because we don't manage money technically, but what should I do from your perspective on risk management? What's something simple enough that I, Kathy, what a non-technician could implement right now? What would you have told her?

I mean, some of those valuations got incredibly stretched. What could she do about that? I mean, you got to, – I mean that's the thing. Pick different stocks. I don't know what they're – if they're using technicals. Of course not. They're definitely not. Yeah, you do.

I would have said when you study history, if your stock is up 500 percent and you're not selling it, I don't know what to tell you. I mean that's – So is it – She did sell – she sold some stuff along the way. She sold some, but she rolled too much of it down. I mean – so really quick, Ken Huebner in 2007, CGM Focus Fund, one of my favorite managers, he did the exact same thing.

It just, there wasn't social media and everyone. He was up 80% when the S&P was up. Crushing it. Three and a half. Crushing it. Because at the time when oil went from 50 to 150, he owned all the Potash, Mosaic, fertilizer, oil service, steel, copper, aluminum, all that stuff.

And he did 80%. He was on the cover of Forbes or Fortune as investor of the year. Manager of the year. Manager of the year. And then he went from $2 billion to $10 billion in assets and then had a 65% drawdown. Literally the identical story. And I'm not picking on Cathy. I'm not picking on you.

But at some point, all of those stocks went up three, four, five, 800%. You have to – I don't know what you switch into, but you have to realize they're not going up forever. I guess what I'm asking you is do you tell her, okay, here's what I would do if I were you. I know you love these stocks. I know you love their future, their outlook 10 years out. But just do me a favor. Use a trailing 50-day moving average. Look at it on a weekly basis.

A close below, just cut your position in half. Yeah. Like something like that. Going back to what I said in the beginning, if you just used the 50-day or 200-day, she would have saved at least half of her losses. But then to Michael's point though, what are you, selling out of those stocks,

she's not buying Smucker. She's not buying Clorox. That's true. Like she's not going to do that trade. She's a growth manager in high beta names and high valuation names. Sometimes you just got to let a player play. I mean – You know what I'm saying, Carl?

Let's not. Let's talk about the banks. Are there any left? So, all right. The XLF – how much is the XLF down on the day? It's a big drop. It's really bad. Let's see.

Sorry. I'm on a 15-minute chart, my bad. Let me adjust. Are you on delayed quotes? Stop. He's on Yahoo day. It's a big drop. It's really bad. I'm on a 15-minute chart, my bad. Are you on delayed quotes? Stop. It's down four. Four is not terrible. What's the regional bank ETF? Down eight. It's gross.

Let me set this up. First of all, put this chart up. This is SVB Financial Group. Otherwise known as Silicon Valley Bank, but they own other businesses. Speaking of the Empire State Bank. And by the way, before we say a single word about any of this stuff, none of us take any pleasure in falling stock prices for any company. These companies have employees. They have people whose families are counting on the income that they make working at these firms. So like we might like crack a joke here or there,

but like this is obviously not funny for the people who are invested or work at these banks. That being said, holy shit. Yeah. Guess what? This is stale, by the way. It's $110 right now. It's worse?

It's $110. Yeah, it's been cut in half today. It's down 60%. So Silicon Valley Bank was $700 a share and it's 100 what? 10. Okay. This stock is down approximately 80 some odd percent from its high 50% on the day. Um, I've almost, I would say I've never seen anything like this, but I have, but it was 13 years ago or 15 years ago. Yeah. Um, this is one of the worst financial days I can remember. Absolutely. I mean, and when you

look at the bank indices, we're looking at a day that's on par with the onset of the pandemic. Well, not the onset, but, you know, kind of June 2020. Yeah, they're right there now. Yeah. So when you look at Silicon Valley Bank, and I will say this, I'll admit this is a bank I wrote positively about about two years ago. Their client base. I was going to ask you about that. Were you really? Stay the course? No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Go on. But client base, it's in the name, Silicon Valley oriented. They're a banker to venture capitalists and startups. And with rates rising, that's not a great business. Well, let's tell people what prompted today. Right. Explain it for the listener that's not focused on this.

Okay. So a lot of things, I'm going to do my best because it's a lot of moving pieces. Okay, so you have, one, a client base that is mostly exposed to growth tech-oriented names. You know, VCs, startups, that sort of stuff. You have them burning through cash. So you have your deposits going down. No IPOs. Exactly. Exactly. So you have that happening. Now banks

look to deposits as a low cost source of funding. So then you also have, okay, well, that low cost source of funding is drying up. Well, now we have to go to our securities portfolio, which is a mix of stocks and bonds, mostly bonds. With rates rising, bond prices go down, but they need to sell these bonds to raise capital. So they're selling them at a loss in the case of- $1.8 billion. Yes, exactly. Wait, so what do you mean by $1.8 billion? The yield of the securities that they sold, to Carlton's point, these are deposits that you turn into bonds. Unfortunately, it sounds like they were maybe off sides with respect to their duration. So they sold securities at a yield of 1.8% with a 3.6 year duration. They took a $1.8 billion hit

on that. They lost money in treasuries. Which is not great for a bank. They had to raise common stock. They did a convertible offering. And John, if you show the next chart, please, to Carlton's point about outflows, which is cash burn. There's so much going on in this chart. I know. It's like, I just don't even want to look at it. Just look at the pink line. Is that a sunset? Just look at it.

The pink line is cash burn. So the companies that bank with Silicon Valley Bank are startups, and they are hemorrhaging cash. And so you get the situation where you raise a lot of money. You delegate your existing equity shareholders shareholders and the bank crashes. Give me that price chart. Give me that price chart again. You multiply that by several banks. Is that where there's some liquidation going on?

Well, this was the biggest bank in the index. It was a $9 billion market cap, but it was like $25 billion. There it is. So you know what this is? This is live by the sword, die by the sword. Look at this ride higher from, let's say, middle of, let's say, 2015 up until 2021. That's six years of rocket ship returns for a regional bank because they're just like collecting all of the benefits of being the banker to the biggest startups, the hottest companies.

Does crypto play any part? Well, I was about to say. It's crypto adjacent. It had a market cap of $45 billion at the peak in November 2021. How much? $45. I just said $25. It's now $6. Today feels different because there's just

forced liquidation. So you've got Silvergate. This is – which bank? Silicon Valley Bank. I apologize. I'm getting these confused. Okay. And then alongside this or separate but I guess related is you have Silvergate, which is the largest bank to the crypto industry.

All in on crypto. Which started out as a home launder, just a commercial bank in San Francisco, went all in on crypto. The market cap peaked at $6 billion. It's now under $100. And they're about, well, it's going to, I don't know where it's going. They're liquidating.

They're liquidating, yeah. They're liquidating. There's three things that are remarkable to me about Silvergate. First, almost the entire float was sold short. And the shorts were so right that there wasn't even really a chance of a squeeze. The shorts just nailed this situation. Absolutely.

And the situation was they're the bank of crypto, which means inevitably if you're in that space, you're doing business with people that you should not be doing business with, and the money is flighty. Well, and I think what's interesting, too, and a few others have pointed this out, where in the case of Silvergate, I mean, crypto is the big story, right? You know, we've all seen what's happened to crypto prices. We can all be cynical with the blowups that have happened elsewhere. But this is also just a traditional failure of risk management. It's a failure of, you know, matching your assets to liability. I mean, it's just, it's the very basics of running a good bank just fell apart here. And I mean,

yes, obviously the crypto takes the headline for it, but it's also the basics we're missing. Matt Levine wrote about this today. The crypto companies that use Silvergate, that had deposits at Silvergate were getting 0% interest. There was no interest that they were receiving. So all Silvergate had to do was literally. There was no interest that they were receiving. So all Silvergate had to do was literally park it in six-month treasuries and they could have earned a monster spread. What did they do? Not that. They engaged in, I don't want to say, they weren't reckless, but they went out on the treasury, they went out on the curve and they did things that a bank, a properly run bank would not have done. Here's another one the shorts are talking about now is Signature Bank.

This is SBNY. This is, this is, they're calling this crypto adjacent. They were one of the few banks to bank crypto companies. And they said at the end of last year, we've had enough. We're going to wind down that part of our bank. I guess not fast enough. And this thing is, do we have this? Oh, this is it.

This thing is four times forward earnings. Does anyone believe those forward earnings? This was a $350 stock that went to, where is it now? 92 or something. Oh, here's a PE ratio. You want to be a contrarian? Sub five, sub five PE.

Joe, buy as much as you can. This reminds me of that phrase, just when you think things can't go higher, they do. And just when you think they can't go lower, they do. Is this one of the worst falling knives you've ever seen? Yeah, I wouldn't touch it. There's still a lot of market cap left here to evaporate. JP Morgan reiterated overweight on this thing today. What?

They said they have like a billion dollars left in crypto exposure. The bank is fine. I'm not saying it's true. I'm saying that was the argument, which… Well, credit to them. Instead of like downgrading a stock after it fell 85%, I guess they're… My point is, why wouldn't JP Morgan just buy it? Yeah.

Just buy it. Four times earnings. Jamie Dimon's not trying to get into that business. Let it run out and, I mean. Wait. Oh, this was not today. This was three days ago. This is this week, though.

In a note to clients published Monday, JP Morgan reiterated an overweight rating on signature shares, writing, quote, on an overall basis, the mid-quarter update provided by Signature threads the needle as the company continues to reduce exposure to digital asset-related deposits, but most importantly, at a pace that appears to be dictated by Signature rather than by the markets. Okay, so this was not a good—okay. This is on Monday? Yeah.

Oh, it happens. Bad timing. It happens. Oh, I want to ask you this. So, like, two or three weeks ago, you had all of these headlines coming out about Silvergate, that State Street took a position. Right. Black Rock, Citadel, Josh Tussman.

That money wiped out? Josh Tussman for market-making purposes. It would have to be, yeah. What was going on there? Any color? No, honestly, I don't understand. I don't know why you would touch it because we kind of knew where this train was headed. I mean, and again, I don't want to make light of it as, you know, Josh was saying earlier, but.

Is that just an immediate write down? I mean, I don't see how it could be anything else. Yeah. Ken Griffin Citadel Securities reveals 5.5% in crypto bank Silvergate. This is February 14th, Valentine's Day. They say, maybe it doesn't say that here. Oh, the filing was a result of the firm's market-making operations as opposed to a directional investment in Silvergate. But that's Citadel.

So they obviously just made a freaking killing buying the shares and lending them. Soros had put positions representing 100,000 shares of Silvergate as of December 31st. The closing price then was $1,740. That's probably worth a lot of money today. I'm guessing. All right. So the shorts were all over these things and they were dead right. So here's a question as somebody that covers the banks.

Are there others out there or these are the big ones that we just ran through? Yeah. I mean I think these are the big ones and I want to be careful saying names of banks right now in this sort of situation. But where you would look for something like this to sweater out is look at other banks that have the heavy client exposure to – San Francisco-based banks. Is this a heavy client exposure? Exactly. Latino-based banks.

Joe, who's your banker? All right. So I could run a screen of banks that are based in Northern California. Yeah. could run a screen of banks that are based in Northern California. Yeah. And I mean, you just look at where the deposit base is and, you know, are these ones that are going to be, you know, going through cash burn, like we saw with Silicon Valley. I mean, that's where I would start looking, you know, just like we were talking earlier about in 2015, 2016 banks that had exposure to the oil patch and how they did, you know, it's, you just have to look at those banks that have sensitivity

to certain industries. So doesn't this provide opportunity for real investors that actually can go through the filings and do like real investor homework? Like this bank is getting sold, babe, at the bathwater, but they're not exposed. Are you in any financials now? No. None of them look good? No. Okay. Really? Your book is probably pretty small in terms of number of names right now. Cause it's, yeah, I keep it pretty concentrated, But it's mostly growth stuff, so I don't trade in many financials. There's a big rebalance happening this spring where a lot of the fintechs are going to move out of tech and into finance. So financials are going to become a bigger part of the S&P.

As a result, do you know what the percentage is going to be? I don't know. I can't remember offhand, but I know it I know it's like going to be names like PayPal going into it. And that's going to be a bank now. Yeah. It always should have been. Exactly.

Okay. I mean, I know that the banks would have wished that they'd be regulated like a bank. Yeah, right. Well, I don't know. They have their own set of rules. Nobody's quite sure for how much longer that could go on for. One thing vaguely on this topic the u.s government transferred a billion dollars worth of confiscated bitcoin into their own coinbase wallets um they're not

long-term holders i've like people are like a little spooked yeah that they're starting to dump all the crypto they got from uh various hacks and other stuff that they've recovered did you read about this? No. I saw the article when you posted it, but I don't know much about it. I don't know anything about it at all. But Bitcoin now $21,000? Nope.

$20,400. It's going down. All right. Joe, what are you trading these days? Are you at liberty to talk about the areas that you're involved in? You don't have to name tickers, but – Yeah, sectors. Yeah. I mean software, semis, biotech, those are growth sectors that are hanging in there pretty good.

Those have all had a big bounce year to date. Yeah. Actually, let me ask you this. Like some of the semis that go into car parts, I mean for sensors and everything that's going on. Even in a difficult economy, there are companies that are still growing. You actually combine fundamentals with technicals? Correct. Yeah, he's a screen guy.

Which makes a lot of sense. Why don't you think, so you want to buy businesses that are growing their earnings per share because those are the biggest winners, and you want to make sure that they're going in the right direction. Correct.

How come that sounds like a novelty, which seems so obvious? I don't know. I mean, the market's hard enough. Why not use everything in your arsenal to help your probabilities of success? That's all it is. So many people think it's black and white, and it's not. There's a lot of gray area.

So use everything you can. So they did the studies on the biggest winners throughout history. And why does a stock or a company go up if the stock goes up? Because they're growing their earnings and sales, for the most part. That's why stuff goes up. You used to give this awesome presentation at events like the 100 baggers throughout history. What are the biggest winners of all time have in common? What are some of those conclusions that you've drawn for people that haven't seen it?

At least 30% earnings and sales growth at least. Annually? Year over year, annually, yeah. They tend to IPO in the last five years. So the lesson there is don't be afraid of new companies. So like in the late 80s, early 90s, Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, Dell, those were monster winners. They also IPO-ed at a much lower valuation because you couldn't get funding back then like you could now. So earnings and sales growth, newer companies. So earnings and sales growth, newer companies, they come from certain sectors, mostly computer-related, medical, even retail.

Sectors with high profit margins. Yeah, even retail, restaurants, and retail clothing as well. Right. So like Panera Bread went public, split adjusted at like $4. They got taken out at $350, stuff like that. So Chipotle has been a monster. So it's retail, restaurants, clothing, computer-related software, semis. So, but you're also doing risk management. So I think what you're trying to do, you're trying to find those companies, but then not be fully exposed to

them the whole way up because a lot of them have huge drawdowns along the way. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I use technicals to manage the risk because I'm a big fan of the institutions are controlling everything. So if I buy 10 shares, Carlton buys 10,000 shares, it's not going to matter. It's the big pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds that are trading hundreds of thousands, if not millions of shares. When the technicals and the fundamentals disagree, to answer Michael's question, why doesn't everyone just do that?

Because there's going to come a juncture always, every stock, where the fundamentals look great and the stock price is tanking. And when the fundamentals and technicals disagree, you have to choose. Which one am I listening to? Am I sticking to my guns because the CEO is awesome and the products are great? Or the market's breaking down. I'm going to believe the market and maybe I'll buy it back later. That's why it's so hard, right? Yeah. It's, you have to separate your ego from everything because there are companies I absolutely love and the technicals are garbage and I don't

own them. There are companies that make no sense to me and the technicals are amazing. And like, I'll give you an example, like Zillow. I love the platform. I think Zillow is like the, when you think of the stocks, I'll watch your mouth. When you think- I own the stock, so watch your mouth. When you think of housing, it's like- Anyway, it's garbage. It's like, it's no, but it's like the Google. When you, what's the first thing you do when you think of housing? Zillow.

Yeah. And it's a platform. Why isn't this a monster company where you could literally combine financials, sell houses on there, making it- It's the Fed. Making an amazing platform. And I've loved the company, but big difference between a company and a stock.

The stock did well years ago, but again, with interest rates, I get it. But I don't understand why this isn't worth more. But that's an example of I love a company. I don't own it because the technicals are garbage. So the technicals will win for you. Yeah. So when those two things disagree, you believe price. And Joe's humble. I try. Yeah.

No, but you know what I mean? Like that's where you'll say, okay, the price is the price. Tell me the story later. I'm trusting the big institutions have resources. I don't have teams of analysts that do all this stuff. I don't go meet with companies and all this stuff. And I will trust that if they are backing the stock where they're supposed to at a logical support level, that means they're believing in it over 3, 5, 10 years. If they're not, I'm not going to get in their way. I just wonder. I mean is there a difference between approaching it as a trader versus an investor? Yes.

Because if you're looking at a trade, like, yeah, I would follow the technicals more. But if you're looking at it as an investor – Oh, I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And the thing is, the thing with investing is it's so much easier in hindsight because there, again, there are amazing companies right now, but I wouldn't say they're great stocks because they've already had their growth period. So I know I'm going to upset more people with saying, okay, Apple, Amazon, Google, amazing companies, but they've gone up so much. Are they going to triple from here?

Probably not statistically, but are they going out of business? No. So the point is like are you going to invest in them? You know what has to happen there? Their shareholder base has to turn over. Or they have to pay a dividend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's how you do it.

With Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, they went through their huge growth period in the 90s, and then they went sideways. And then to keep your investors, you have to pay a dividend. Apple did it, but the others haven't yet. Right. That's exactly right because the shareholder base turns over. The people who are looking for that 20%, 30% return in the stock, it dawns on them that's not likely. This is a $3 trillion market cap.

I should not expect that. And they move on. They go to Shopify or whatever. And the new investors that step into the breach are like, oh, wow, 2% yield. Value. Yeah. Value growth at a reasonable price. Pay a dividend.

And to your point, that's more investors. Right. And it just depends on what you're looking for. I mean, it depends on if you're a value trader, investor. And even as an investor, are you a growth investor or value investor? We are in such a unique transition period in the economy and in the market and in life. Is there going to be a big reveal here? No, no, no.

No, the market is generally struggling for direction. There's been a lot of bear market rallies. The trends are flat. There is no trend in the market. It's up and it's down, it's up and it's down. And that is, I guess, not to be expected, not to be unexpected when you go from the Fed funds rate at zero up to 475 and who knows where it goes a year from now. Someone made a great point that almost like politics are now translating over to the markets where everything's so binary, like it's either has to be a bull market, new highs or new lows. Yeah.

Why is it so divisive? Like why can't we just be in a range for a while? Because everyone's a passive investor now and they want that index up. Like that's why. It's like not enough to have some stocks up. You could be in a range for a while. Yeah, I agree. Maybe we don't go to new lows or new highs.

We just sit in a range. One of the things I've wondered too is when you look at the market participants now, they've only known chaos. I mean you look at the older millennials, Gen X, Gen Z coming up where it's – it was dot-com bubble. It was 9-11. It was the war in Iraq. It was the great financial crisis. It was the pandemic. So this generation of traders that everyone used to say they're young. Well, now they have 15, 20 years of experience.

Yeah. But it's all been chaos. And the most right. And the most unsatisfying version of that is a year of chop where we go nowhere. Yes. Which can absolutely happen. We live in such an impatient world that if stuff is not moving, like sentiment used to take two to three months to go from bullish to bearish. Now it's two to three days.

We had a swing last week that Dietrich wrote about. Yeah, Ryan Dietrich said that the bulls have never gone from a 52-week high, the AII, from a 52-week high to being outnumbered by bears two to one in just a three-week period. That had never happened before. I think part of the reason is technology information is being disseminated literally in real time on people's phones where you used to get in the paper your mutual fund NAV at the end of the day or like it would take time. Now it's like red candle. I'm bearish. In five minutes.

Dude, guilty. Guilty as charged. We're all guilty of it because we live in such an impatient world and technology is not helping. So you wrote that the biggest thing you learned from 2022 is patience. Yes. What did you want to say about that? I realized there's a great line I read recently, which is, I can't tell you how to get rich quick, but I can tell you how to get poor quick by trying to become rich quick.

I realized that over time, and it's taken me time to just relearn this, the market does, let's say, 9% to 10% a year with dividends. The best in the business do 20%. There are younger traders that I talk to that when they tell me they're like, 20% a year, I want to do that a month. And I'm like, what? Yeah, but weren't you like that when you started? I used to be like that. Exactly. So I'm not making fun of it. Now, I guess in my older, trying to be mature, even though I still act like I'm 12, but in my mature years, I'm realizing it's slow and steady. I've actually reduced my position size, done less trading, because I realize a lot of times I might

be right on something, but if I try to size up too much to make too much too quickly, I end up getting stopped out of it. So I realized that if I just reduced it a little bit, chilled out, I usually do better with patients. So it's kind of a nice relearning experience. Yeah. I think it's, I think 2022 is healthy because stocks only go up is not like the right way to view the market. Like it's a funny joke and like we were all in on it, but like, you know, it's not real. But I think a lot of people didn't – weren't in on the joke. By the way, to the regional banks going down 8% today, worst day since 2020.

Passani just tweeted, it traded 56 million shares today. The average volume is 7 million. What? The KRE ETF? Wow. Capitulation? Yeah. Or at the beginning.

Yeah. We'll find out. You know what I'll be doing next week? Oh, you're going to be writing about regional banks. Oh, I'm sure. You wrote about banks just the other day. Yes. Three banks that may benefit from rising rates.

Yes. So which ones are you talking about? Yeah, no, it's – I think they all benefit from rising rates, but some more than others. Right. And, I mean, these are your more custodian banks where they don't have the exposure to, you know, the loan books that, you know, your Bank of Americas would. So you're looking at, like, a State Street, a Northern Trust. Not a Schwab.

And Schwab had a rough day today, or at least double-check me. Oh, my God. It's down 13%. Yes. Schwab's down 13%. What happened? I saw it get down five this morning. It's the spillover of what's been going on with SVB.

I mean, also, Schwab has to worry about deposits fleeing as rates go up because there's this competition for where people are going to put their deposits. Wait, that's a huge reaction. Seriously down day. Yeah. But most brokerages are giving you 4% or 4.5% now, right, in cash? No, a lot of brokerages— Schwab doesn't, unless you buy the money market.

A lot of brokerages are waiting for you to take that. And if you don't, you're swept into something that's much lower. So a lower cash. So you have to, like, opt out of the suite. You have to choose it. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense.

All right. So you are at Northern Trust. State Street. Bank of New York Mellon. These are very conservative institutions that just have oceans of cash. Exactly. And most of their revenue comes from fees, you know, wealth management fees, that sort of thing. So basically when you look at their loan book or how they're getting their interest income, I mean, it's gravy for them.

You know, so a rise in rates, they're not facing the same risks that some other banks do where they had to pay, you know, higher deposit betas. where they had to pay higher deposit betas. So any rise in interest rates basically helps them to the tune of about 4% to 7% increase in net interest income for these banks. I mean it is a tough thing to talk about today when we look at the shakeout in the industry. No, but maybe these are where the opportunity – like these are not banks that are lending money to CZ. Exactly. Like that's not what's going on here. Exactly. So, I mean, these could be the safer bets in a challenging environment.

Okay. I don't hate it. Which one was the most interesting to you of the three? Not like which one should people buy. Buy Solar Hold. Michael will handle that part. You know, I mean. Wait. Why doesn't Goldman Sachs just buy Bank of New York Mellon

I've wondered that they say they want to be big in the custody business that's the third largest custodian for RIAs it's a 300 year old institution it would be genius when you look at this guy's trying to give credit cards to f***ing 17

year olds. What are you doing? Buy Pershing. And the funny thing is with that whole credit card business too, you know, like you look at the transformation of Morgan Stanley and they got out of their Discover business because they realized it just... It's not great. Yeah, it's not, I mean, it's not to say it's a bad business but it wasn't the right business for them. You have Goldman

that was trying to do credit cards. It's like, no, just do asset management. There's still places where you can buy banks or buy some of these custodians. Probably have less regulatory risk doing that. That's how you want to do it. I don't think they'd be allowed to. Why? I mean, just the optics or because-

Goldman Sachs is still Goldman Sachs. Morgan Stanley was able to pull off a lot of M&A in the last – and they've done incredibly well. Yes. Like they basically stole Smith Barney during the crisis. They bought E-Trade. Nobody cared. Nobody even blinked. Yeah.

They bought – Eaton Vance. Eaton Vance. They've done a really good job. I think anything Goldman does is probably 3X more controversial. Right. Just because it's the name. Vampire Squid.

Yeah. I still think that's like part of it. Like I think Elizabeth Warren would want to have a hearing if they said we're buying – Oh my gosh. She would love – Bank of New York Mellon is the plumbing of the financial system. People don't even understand like what that's underlying. Every ETF.

Right. The exchanges. They own Pershing, right? They own Pershing. Okay. So anyway, that's something that I forget who was talking about that. Was William Cohan talking about that? That they should do it?

I think so. And Puck? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that doesn't mean it's going to happen, but that would be interesting to me. Should you guys have fun on the show today? Yes. So we're going to do a brief intermission,

and then we'll do hour two. Just like Broadway. You guys were awesome. So much fun hanging with you both. This was great. I didn't know that you knew each other. Yeah. Very cool.

No, I was so excited when I found out we were going to be on together. It's very cool. My nerves went way down. Okay. Joe is... I have that calming effect, I guess. You when I found out we were going to be on together. My nerves went way down. Okay. Joe is – I have that calming effect, I guess. You know I'm a shy person.

But Joe is a sweetheart. Joe is one of the nicest guys. She knows her finance better than anyone. It's amazing. We go back years, though. Yeah, we used to go to Salt almost every year. Yeah. Skybridge Alternatives.

Yes. I went one year. You only went one year? Uh-huh. Okay. Best week of my life. Honestly, I never had so much fun.

I understand why they do the conference in New York now, but the Las Vegas conference was great. When they started, you had Clinton one year, George W. one year, Melissa Lee. One of the greatest interviews I ever saw was when she interviewed George W. 2,000 people. Then we were there one year when Tepper Me? Alright, so that was the best thing i've seen in a conference uh anthony interviewed tepper at

the height of his powers like this is coming out of the crisis maybe and then he went on like a three-year run and it was 2014 ish yeah yep so i remember him being chased around the hotel by just people who i don't even know what they wanted from him. They just wanted to be near him. They wanted to like maybe touch him and something might rub off on them. It was crazy. Like the guy was in the pool like trying to get a minute to himself. And the pool was surrounded by like 29-year-old hedge fund guys.

I cannonballed them. You cannonballed the shit out of them. They had Lenny Kravitz that year. I forget what involve them. You can't involve the shadow. They had Lenny Kravitz that year. I forget what we did. Like we went to Hyde every night, partied like animals. Amazing political speakers, top money managers, and great musical. It's a great conference. That was a lot of fun back in the day.

That's already nine years ago. Holy shit. My God. Here's what's great about you. I didn't have a hotel room. I was in LA with my brother. You're like, are you coming to Salt? I'm like, I don't know.

I might do CNBC if I come. They'll put me on the air from there. You're like, all right, just come out. I'll take care of you. I'm like, I don't know what that really means. Like, we go out to dinner. I get off the plane. You're there waiting for me at the airport.

Hotel room comp. I'm like, holy cow, Joe knows Vegas. We end up going out every night. And you know every bouncer, every bartender, every waiter. It was incredible. Your network there is crazy. How many years did you live there? I lived there

about five years, yeah. Okay, so to everyone in the audience, if you're planning to be in Vegas, DM Fahmy. Locked and reported. No, but it was just amazing to see somebody that connected. You're like Sinatra. Well, I don't sing that well, but yeah. No, I'm lucky.

I know some great people here in New York and Vegas and Florida, everywhere. Well, it wouldn't have been the same. It wouldn't have been the same. Downtown Cairo, if you need anything. Wouldn't have been the same adventure without you. All right, let's do favorites. Can I ask you a Broadway question? Always.

What is shucked? Is that going to be cool or not? See, it's not one that's on the top of my list. It's not out yet? Out this week, I think. Previews? Previews this week, I think. Okay, but this is something that's coming from the Midwest to New York?

That doesn't happen very often. No, and the premise, I've heard it described as kind of like Oklahoma meets Book of Mormon, which could be fantastic or a disaster. Okay. It's not on the top of my list. That's one where – I mean I normally don't trust reviews because I think some people are just mean-spirited. Yeah. It's kind of one that I'm going to wait to hear some reviews on.

Top three Broadway shows you've ever seen. Yeah. What are the best ones? Okay. So I have A Love Affair with Les Mis. I mean that was like an obsession during my preteen years. Out now, like running now, Moulin Rouge is definitely a really fun night out. Yeah, I think.

Because the story is not great. No, the story is not great. The music is great. The music is great. And the production, it's like you walk into the theater and they waste no moment to entertain you. I mean, the set design, the costumes and all that. I mean, yeah, the story is kind of all over the place. But, you know, the performers, it's just, it's a sensory overload.

Like, I definitely think that's one we're seeing. And then for other- Avenue Q. Please say Avenue Q. I know the music. I never saw it. That's my shit. Yeah, no, I love the music.

That's my favorite one I ever saw. But I've never seen, I never saw it. Is there one you went in with low expectations that love the music. That's my favorite one I ever saw. But I've never seen, I never saw it. Is there one you went in with low expectations that blew you away? That you just didn't think was going to be good? For a musical, no. For a play, and it's one that's running now, and I don't want to say low expectations, but Pictures from Home, which is running out with Nathan Lane, Danny Burstein, and Zoe Wanamaker. I went in because it's like, how can you go wrong with that cast?

So I just went in like, all right, they're on stage. I'll watch it. Joe wants to know what you think of the one that was like based on Def Leppard and Poison. What was that show called? Rock of Ages. Rock of Ages. Did you ever see it? I never saw it.

I wasn't living in New York when it was like, I don't think I was in New York. Because that soundtrack would be for me and Fahmy for that show. Yeah. Now that one, on Pictures From Home, that one was one, I wanted just to see the performers. I am not a crier. I was sobbing in the theater.

Like, I mean, it's just, it's a really good story from the story. Okay. I mean, it's,

it's a beautiful play and it's just like, oh my God, I'm on the, I'm like the girl crying on the subway, but anyone else who was at the play

was also the person crying on the subway. You should take Robin to that. When was the last time you took Robin to a show? Never. Yeah, when's the last time? So do that.

It'll make her cry. No, wait. I love Broadway. Unironically. And she won't go with me. Really? Yeah. She won't go.

Why? I don't know. She doesn't want to. We need like a couch here now. I don't know if she won't go. If I buy tickets. If you buy tickets, she's in. But I've said it like a hundred times.

Like, let's go see a show. She doesn't want to. All right, Carlton, while we're on the topic, what's your favorite for this week? Okay, so I just saw Dancing. That was earlier this month. It's a Bob Fosse show. I mean, it's in the title.

It's just about Fosse choreography. I was there with one of my friends. Is that Ted Danson? No, no, Danson. Jazz hands the whole thing, like the bowler hats. It's a biopic of Ted Danson. I mean, there's no story.

Think of it like you're watching maybe about 20 music videos. I went there with my friend, Mary Romano, and she and I both love shows. And normally, even if I like a show, by two hours, I'm kind of like, okay, we can wrap this up the show ended I could have watched another hour oh wow it was just beautiful okay so that would be

one of my favorites tv show finally got on the ted lasso train and then this is the under the radar one there's a show on amazon called harlem it's about four single women um I mean I hate the sex in the city comparisons but just for shorthand, let's say the Sex and the City. It's just kind of like a caricature. But the show actually feels real. You actually believe that these women are friends, and you actually believe that they have the jobs that they have and the dynamic between friendships and the humor and all of that. I love that show.

We'll check that out. Joe, what do you got for us? I don't watch TV. Atta boy. My favorite shows would probably be Animal Spirits, Compound, and Friends. And you love to read Barron's. And I read Barron's and only her articles, yeah. We appreciate it.

Michael, what do you got? Paki wrote a post called Internet Computers, the third browser war and the fight to bring the operating system to the cloud. This was amazing. It was 12,000 words. I don't know how he does this. I read it on the airplane. There's a new browser by the browser company. 12,000 words

is a book. It's a book. It's called Arc and I downloaded it. I have not played around with it yet, but early indications are it looks pretty sweet. So I highly recommend checking that out. It's like the history of Netscape and Mosaic and Windows and incredible. All right. I'll get to that. That's going to be like a Sunday afternoon. It's like the history of Netscape and Mosaic and Windows and incredible.

All right. I'll get to that. That's going to be like a Sunday afternoon. It's like a summer read. If it's raining. Yeah. There's got to be a lot of conditions have to be right. But I love Paki.

Shout out to Paki. Oh, wait. One more thing. Go. Chicago. I think it's my favorite city in the country, like even including New York. It was sort of a bummer. It was sort of a bummer walking down Park Avenue today.

Like I just, I love Chicago. I've never been to Chicago. I've been through the airport, but I've never. I've never. Really? I know. It's, it's, it's not as big as Manhattan, but it might as well be.

Yeah. And the population density is about one one hundredth. So you can go entire blocks without passing a zombie. Can't you think, Barron? I just can't find a, I can't find a steakhouse in Chicago. But there's tons of, like, Morningstar has a conference there, right? Oh, yeah.

It's such a great setting. Great setting. Michael and I wandered around yesterday. My legs are sore. Well, we walked seven and a half miles. Yeah?

And it was up and downhill. It was a lot. Is there a musical in Chicago? Well, yeah, that brings us back to Bob Fosse. Renee Zellweger was in the movie.

Yeah, that's right. I love Chicago, too. All right. Only murders in the building. Anyone? Yes. You're in? Yes.

Of course you're in. I love it. It's like my- Duncan? No? No? John? I haven't seen it. Nobody else?

So good. Cozy murder. What's cozy murder? No spoilers. Well, no. No spoilers. I also watch Britbox and they have a genre

called cozy murders so think like non-grizzly non-grizzly like I mean Angela Lansbury what was that show Murder She Wrote

like that kind of yeah but sorry interrupted you so Martin Short you must have liked Martin Short as a failed Broadway producer and his biggest box

his biggest bomb was Splash the musical and he tried to put a pool in the theater and all the swimmers broke their necks diving into it. Yes. It was pretty great. All right. Uh, I got into it cause it's a podcast.

It's a podcast show basically because it's a TV show, but they're making a podcast on the show. And, uh, I thought that was, I thought that was really funny. All right. That's all we have for this week.

It's been quite,'s been quite an episode. You guys learned something from each other. I learned a lot from both of you. I learned a lot. That was awesome. Duncan, did you learn anything this week? I did. I learned a lot.

Also, talking about reviews, I have a review to read. Let's do it. Let's hear it. So this one's from Drew1729. Best shape of my life. I've never been able to do cardio, but this is the perfect podcast to run to. I don't have a background in finance or asset management, but these guys talk about

markets in a super approachable way. They're hilarious and they find incredibly interesting guests. The pace of the conversation is a perfect match for my cadence. And because of the cold open, their theme music, which is sick, always drops right as I get to the park. There are literally mornings where it's zero to 10 degrees out, and I think there's no way I'm going outside until I remember I get to listen to a new episode. That's so nice. If you're looking to learn about markets and investing

or get in better shape, I can't recommend this podcast highly enough. I love this kid. Have Nicole send him a t-shirt for sure. That's a killer. Can we find him? Can we track this guy down? Probably not. They'll have to reach out to us.

All right. Don't ruin it for everyone. Hey, Drew, send us an email. All right, guys. Thank you find him? Can we track this guy down? Probably not. They'll have to reach out to us. Alright, don't ruin it for everyone. Hey Drew, send us an email. Alright guys, thank you so much for listening. We appreciate it. Make sure, if you haven't already, subscribe to the show. Please leave us likes. Please leave us comments. They go a long way. We will see you next week. Thanks to Joe.

Thanks to Carlton. Oh, let's get your handles real quick. Carlton can be red at Barron's and follow it on Twitter at at Carlton English. Beautiful. Fahmy, what's your Twitter? Are you tweeting?

Yeah, at JFahmy and JoeFahmy.com JoeFahmy.com at JFahmy to learn more and thank you guys so much. We will talk to you soon. All right.