The Compound and Friends - Josh Is the Third Wheel

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

On this week's episode of The Compound & Friends, Michael Batnick, Ben Carlson, and Downtown Josh Brown discuss: the Robinhood IPO, FAANMG earnings roundup, liquid alternatives and ETFs, JPMorgan unlocks crypto for advisors, the problem with European companies, actively managed mortgages, and more! This episode is brought to you by Masterworks. Visit https://www.masterworks.io/compound to skip the 10,000 person waitlist. 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/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

so i the other day i wore like a j crew shirt and it had two whales on it didn't even realize i wore it on the podcast and some guy emailed in and he goes dude you guys got new new will shirts hook me up it's not even on the oh no that's a j crew shirt what's with the uh crystals up there which where is that like feng shui then there's a with the crystals up there? Where? Is that like feng shui? There's a lot of stuff up there that doesn't really have any rhyme or reason. Like that magnolia bergamot? What the hell is that?

Do you ever smell this? No. How would I smell it? Are you into scented candles? The way I am? Smells good. Do you like candles in your house? Smells very good.

Ben doesn't use candles. No way. Ben doesn't drink coffee or use candles. My wife's a candle person. I don't know. By the way, that is the most contrarian move. Who drinks Diet Pepsi? Literally.

Diet Pepsi is my thing. I know. Diet Pepsi is better than Diet Coke. I agree with that. What's contrarian about Diet Pepsi? I'll die on that. Nobody drinks Diet Pepsi. This guy.

I love it. I don't drink Diet Coke. You drink Diet Pepsi too? Uh-huh. So Rob, but it is not rallying into the course. Diet Coke does not taste anything like regular Coke. Diet Pepsi tastes exactly like regular Pepsi. Diet Coke is very distinct from the product that it's a diet version of.

Although I will say the best Diet Coke in the world is at McDonald's. That's a fact. I think it's the – it might be the syrup, but I think it's probably the straw. I think it's the French fried grease. It's the straw, right? It's got a big straw. No, it's the mix. Somehow the mix they have there is better than any mix anywhere else.

The syrup to water ratio at McDonald's is the best. Do you think they turn it up a little bit? I don't know. It's got something about it. It's way better than anywhere else you go. They don't water it down as much. Diet Coke has its... McDonald's has its own formulation of Diet Coke.

For sure. For sure. Isn't that like... It's like how Guinness is better in Ireland. Wait a second. I was just watching American Gangster. And you know how Denzel gets pissed at Cuba Gooding Jr. because he f***s around with the blue magic?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like Coca-Cola should have the same thing. You can't mess with their formula. Don't you think it comes pre-made? You really think McDonald's could turn the dial up? I think they buy so much, such a high volume, that they are specifically fed by a certain portion of Coca-Cola. They get the high octane.

And I think it's like slightly different. What was the Michael Keaton movie about Ray Kroc? Remember? They talked about how Coke was like their first partner. Mexican Coke is different than U.S. Coke. Like it's not, it's a formula, but it's not completely uniform. I just feel like it's theirs. But okay, so maybe it's different from McDonald's.

That's a fair point. Also, typically when you're drinking it, you're eating a lot of salty shit with it. That's true. You're probably not, but like. Yes, he is. What do you mean? Were you eating French fries? Ben's a big fast food guy. Oh, you are eating a lot of salty shit with it. That's true. You're probably not, but like... Yes, he is. What do you mean? Are you eating French fries? Ben's a big fast food guy. Oh, you are?

All right. Although, we went to Parm today for lunch. You ever been to Parm? Yeah. Best hero in the city. It's pretty good. Ben took the top bun off. Wouldn't you eat Chick-fil-A? You eat it without bread? I prefer... Well, the bread was like this big. I know, I know. I'm just saying, do you eat Chick-fil-A without bread? You said, try the veal. It's the best in the city. Yeah, I took... Yeah, that's the secret.

Eat the chicken, no bread. The secret to what? Just staying fit. No carbs. That's the whole secret? I could do that. No carbs during the week. So I think that most people think it's the opposite.

Most people would think like just don't eat the chicken parm. By the way, all right, think it's the opposite. Most people would think like, just don't eat the chicken parm. By the way. All right. So that's the bell. Just don't eat the chicken parm. Yeah. It's not easier said than done. 34.74.

How much is it down on the day? Like what's the percent? 8.4%. Because we're not points guys here. That's right. 8.4%. All right. All right.

So my prediction was like 50. I was way, way off. Ben, what did I say this morning? What the stock would do. Ben goes to me before when we got back from lunch. Robinhood, what do you think it is? I said down 11%. It was down nine.

Not to brag. No. You said it's going to finish below 30, though. That was my ludicrous call. It finished down 8.37% is the official, so down $3.18. I nailed the open. Why'd you say 11%? What does that mean?

You just made that number up. Ben said, what do you think it's trading down just to guess? I said down 11%. Then it was down 9%. So I would have thought like a 10-plus point gain, and I would have thought that it would help. But it wasn't a genius call I made. Like the – what was the range? 38 to 42?

And they opened at 38? That's a bad sign. That's a bad sign. Yeah. So I'm surprised you went the other way. Did you not know that? No, I don't know anything. I did because I got LK shares.

Are you new here? The bad sign is, hey, we got plenty of stock for retail. That's – to me, that's the bad omen. And in this case, they did it very uh deliberately which i think i think they did the right thing um we just start the show you still you're still walking around futzing with the the set what does that thing do ben ben hasn't been here for this i have to pick out the wall color duncan is rocking solo today because usually john is here and john is at the white Lotus.

I know. It's amazing. That's amazing. Good for him. He's in Hawaii. I don't know where he is, but he's been to Hawaii. Yes,

I have. And I was talking to Duncan just before. I don't want to go back for like 20 years because I have such incredible memories for it that I don't want to dilute those memories. I don't need to go back. I went on a helicopter ride in Hawaii. Me too. I cried over the volcano. I got off and I threw up. I went on a helicopter ride in Hawaii. Me too. I cried. Over the volcano? I got off and I threw up.

I cried. Really? I had like a – well, I got emotional because I went to the place where they filmed Jurassic Park with the waterfall and it took me back to my childhood. Oh, that's where they filmed Jurassic Park. That's right. What island is that? Kauai, I think. Okay.

So I didn't – I was at Maui and I was in Kona for our honeymoon. And I don't want to go back because I don't want to do the flight again. That's fair. It's fine. We did a direct flight to the big island from Newark. Oh, wow. How far was it? 12?

10 and a half hours. We sat first class. We took a bunch of like sleeping pills and it didn't work. So I ended up watching whatever the movies were on the plane. And it was like Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and 3 or something. I don't want to repeat that journey. Remember, this is pre-Netflix, pre-devices you could watch movies on. I love Hawaii.

So do you watch the show, Ben? We were talking about it on Tuesday night. I said I think the third episode was the best one so far. It's getting good, right? Yeah, I like it. So, all right, you ready to go? We were talking about it on Tuesday night. I said I think the third episode was the best one so far. It's getting good, right? Yeah, I like it. So, all right, you ready to go? The compound and friends. David O. Russell.

Very nice. 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. What do Michael Batnick, Ben Carlson, and Jay-Z have in common? We're all very good on the mic and we all invest in blue chip art, but unlike Mr. Carter, Ben and I don't have tens of millions of dollars to invest in a Basquiat like Jay-Z. So we use masterworks.io instead, the premier art investing platform. Contemporary art prices rose 14% on average per year from 1995 to 2020 with very little correlation to equities. Basquiat's average historical return is over 19% based on data collected by masterworks.io. So go to masterworks.io and start investing today. See disclosures at masterworks.io slash disclaimer. All right, welcome to the compound and friends. And we have a very special friend here today, Ben Carlson. And Ben is- He looks so cute. He looks adorable. Ben is an official member of the compound. You're not even an end friend.

You're part of the compound. So we have no friends today, I guess. And Duncan's an official member of the compound. The survey says that people are losing their friends. Fair. All right. So this is, I think, going to be a day that we remember for a long time because Robin Hood, one of the most talked about topics

in our industry, maybe in the whole country over the last year or so, finally went public. And it was not particularly well-received, but it's also not a bloodbath. They priced at the lower end of the range, $38. They opened it around 1230. It immediately touched 40 and then has been falling ever since. But again, not terrible. $34.82. If you're Snoop Dogg and you own the stock at 20 cents, you're fine. If you're an early investor in any of the venture rounds, you're fine. If you're an insider, you feel okay. What if you're that guy? If you're Ben Carson, I don't know. So first of all, you got shares in Robinhood pre-IPO.

How did that happen? How did that work? This was an experiment for me. You don't do this. I did this. Yeah, never. I did this for the show. Okay.

Thank you. We appreciate it. So they had this new IPO access thing you put in that you want to get some of their shares. Right. And they give you a price range. So this range was $38 to $42. Really bad sign when they said all your shares got filled at $38. Never want to hear that.

Because it also gave you a 20% buffer. If it went 20% above or below those, or at least above, then you wouldn't get it because it wouldn't want to give you too high of a price. Right. So when you got your shares, do you find out immediately? Or does the stock open and then they say, oh, you're in? I put it in two days ago, and then this morning it said you had allocated. And I was going to wimp out yesterday and cancel. I'm like, I don't do this stuff, whatever.

It's my Robinhood account. I'm having fun. And Michael said, no, no, no, keep it in for the content. Wait, so you got the full allocation that you asked for? The full allocation at the low end of the range. So that's why I'm like, no, no. Keep it in for the content. Wait, so you got the full allocation that you asked for? The full allocation at the low end of the range. So that's why I'm like, okay, this thing is not going to trade well today. There's no way if the retail is getting at the lower end of the range that it's going to

do well. Now, they told their users who got shares in the IPO that if they want to be in contention to get shares in future IPOs, they have to hold the stock and not sell it. Is that your plan? Do you want to do more of this?

Wait, for how long? For how long? No, my plan was to sell this after a 30% pop. Yeah, that didn't work out. Well, no. So here's the – I was going – this was an evidence-based approach on my part. Take the L. No, I'm taking – trust me.

I'm never going to financially recover from this, to quote the Tiger King guy. So historically, you get like a 30% pop on average first day of IPO. And then over the next three to five years, you underperform by 30% and it levels out basically. That's where all the return comes from the IPO is you get in at the IPO price and then it pops and then you sell.

How about this? Another piece of historical data that is now rendered completely useless. Well, they interviewed the guy from NASDAQ today and asked him if he's like disappointed or whatever. I guess whoever's in charge of opening the deal. And he was basically like a third of these deals opened down. It doesn't mean anything.

And you can point to Facebook and say, all right, that was one of the most disastrous IPOs ever. And then you made, I don't know, 8x on your money or something if you lived through it. 100 million shares traded today of Robinhood, by the way. Do you think they missed their window for if they did this three months ago? February. That would have gotten way more. For sure.

February. Yeah. But they weren't ready. They still had fines they had to settle. Like they were not in a position to do this until now. I think they weren't sleeping on it. But yeah, like this would have been way more well-received. So 100 million shares for Romano today.

SPY did 42 million. Apple did 85 million by comparison. So tons of volume. Closing market cap of 29 billion. It's big. Well, it's not that big. Coinbase. Coinbase, 61 billion.

Not only are you wrong, Ben, you're so wrong. Wrong about what? Ben said, go ahead. What did you say? I said Robinhood is going to be bigger than Coinbase. You did? Not today. At the IPO, and I'm pretty sure he did one of these.

I said this. He pounded the table. He told me to timestamp it, which I did. Six months ago, probably, I said Robinhood's going to be bigger than Coinbase. Oh, six months ago? I probably would have said the same. I do think there's some similarities between the companies. So if you think about like what Wall Street's going to want from this company, their earnings or revenues are going to be all over the place, right? It's going to be really great one quarter and crappy the next. And that's the same thing with Coinbase though,

right? They're going to be kind of one quarter and crappy the next. And that's the same thing with Coinbase though, right? They're going to be kind of similar companies in that they're going to be really volatile. Trading volumes and trading volumes are not going to be consistent from one quarter to the next, but that is 75% of their revenue. What do we think that the street

is going to judge them on? User growth. User growth. Memes. So, well, but I do think, because I think that the revenue, I think that the street will look past their revenue growth if it's like a quiet quarter. I think it's going to be all about user growth.

The street is not going to give them credit for a quarter where like options trading was big because that's expected. And they don't do that for other brokerage firms that are publicly traded. And it's transitory. Well, it really is like literally transitory. So they're going to look for user growth. It's always, well, it really is like literally transitory. So they're going to look for user growth. It's a business of ups and downs, but if they can go from 22 million to 30 million,

then definitely this thing could add 10 billion to market. But I do think that 30 billion, like that's reasonable. They have- 30 million people. 30 billion market cap. Well, it's there right now. I'm saying, no, but that can grow. Like that is reasonable.

I think they can grow that. So Ben's IPO shares, buy, sell, hold. I would hold it if I were you. If you're already in the hole 8%, what do you have to lose? Besides the other 100%. I'd be out. I'd be out because you did this as a goof. Like you're not looking – like do you really want to be an investor in Robinhood?

I mean it's 100 shares. Who cares? But I'd be out. I would not be out because I think there's going to be a slew of very good research reports from the street and high-priced targets because a lot of important firms have a lot on the line here. And I just – I feel like a lot of people that have been waiting to sell it got a chance to sell it today. How's this? Yeah, there had to be a lot of people who said, I'm selling immediately when I can. Robinhood.

So that happens. 100 million shares. Do we think there's a lot more of that said, I'm selling immediately when I can. Robinhood. So that happens. 100 million shares. Do we think there's a lot more of that? So this is a Michael point I'm stealing. Wait, before you steal my point. Thank you, by the way. Robinhood is going to trade like Twitter. It's going to be a constant investor headache over the next five years.

Oh, I could picture that. Like, in other words, every time it looks like it's about to break out. It's going to gap down 14%. Well, one of the things that I just would normally say with something like this is like, let's say you wanted to be an investor in it. You're probably not that price sensitive anyway. So why wouldn't you wait for the first report as a public company? Let's say you have to buy it at 40.

That's the price you pay. Like, let's just see if they can even do this right and not come out of the gates missing earnings expectations. Who's the price you pay. Let's just see if they can even do this right and not come out of the gates missing earnings expectations. Who are the buyers? Obviously, ARKF. I forget who said that. Cathie Wood's going to buy this. Who are the natural buyers? I'm pretty sure she'll come out of the woodwork

at some point. There's got to be a ton of new ETFs this is going to fit the bill for, right? Any sort of niche. Well, all the thematic ETFs are going to want to own Robinhood, right? The fintech ETFs, but they're not that big. Probably ARK. I don't know the main fund, but like...

Well, after today, it's going to be all the deep value funds. Right, exactly. Yeah, Berkshire's taking a 10% stake. ARK and NRK. Ben, alley-oop me. What's my take? So, the VC's pouring into this lately because they wanted to get in before the IPO. They're stealing the first day pop. Yeah. Well, that's been going on for a while now.

So Ben and I spoke about it this morning and Matt Levine wrote about it as well, that when I said historical data was rendered useless, if these companies are going to be bringing shares to retail and there's more demand like, or more supply, I guess, pre IPO, then shouldn't the pop be compressed? Isn't that like a reasonable conclusion? Yes. Cause the people that are price insensitive and just want in, if they can get in prior to the opening tick and they're, they don't care what you're selling it to them at that is the pop. Now the question is how big is this group? Like why is Robinhood going to get a big piece of future IPOs? It might not be enough to move the needle.

So they said their customers, this is the Wall Street Journal, said their customers got 20% to 25% of this one. They thought it could go up to 35%. So maybe their customers didn't want it as much as they thought. But forget it. Put Robinhood to the side. Yeah, like in other words, how does Robinhood muscle its way into the, you know, to the table for a deal that Goldman or JP Morgan

or Morgan Stanley or lead underwriting, they could come to the table and say, hey guys, we're democratizing finance. No, they could say, listen, we've got Muppets,

not to be, you know, too rude, but like our clients will pay anything. Yeah, I don't know if they would say that because somebody

will write that down. I don't think it they would say that because somebody will write that down. I don't think it's a good idea. This is a Bloomberg article, largest decline for an IPO of its size since Uber. Things didn't work out so terribly for Uber. It's above its IPO price. But here's what Bloomberg says. Shares in the broker behind the meme stock revolution fell as much as 12% below the IPO price, puts the stock in the running to rank as the worst debut on record among US firms that raised as much cash as Robinhood or more. Big deal. What are those?

There's a list of 10. What do they raise? $2 billion? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. The list is pretty small because IPOs are getting bigger these days. What? I mean, the Airbnb IPO day was pretty good, I think.

Wasn't great. Coinbase was a horror show because somebody paid 400-something on the opening tick, so that one couldn't... I don't know. This just doesn't seem that catastrophic to me. No, not at all. Doesn't seem that bad. So this is a win for Eugene Fama.

Why? Because it didn't have a 30% pop, and it didn't fall 30%. Uh... It's a relatively efficient price. Oh, the market was efficient in opening it where it opened it? Ish. Do you think that they have a whole slew of announcements they can't wait to make that are going to get people excited?

Like maybe we're going to add sports gambling to the platform. We're going to sell weed. I don't think they have anything in their chamber. I feel like they show their hand. They probably have a lot of fines coming up too. I have no evidence for that. What do you think about the news yesterday that they're being investigated because the CEO never bothered getting a series seven?

I don't understand how that came at, that came down to the last day. That's like when my, my public information. Why does he need it? Why does he need it though? It's 18 hours before the IPO. He needs it. If he's substantially involved in the day-to-day operations on the brokerage side, he doesn't. Yeah.

Well, I'm telling you what lawyers who commented in the articles about this said, operations on the brokerage side he doesn't yeah well i'm telling you what lawyers who commented in the articles about this said so i'm not a lawyer obviously i know a lot of people sometimes think that i am i'm really not but the lawyers are like it depends on his level of involvement in the in the brokerage side like whether or not he has to be like how come when we're talking about law somebody always has to say i'm not a lawyer like if you're talking about running you don't say like i'm not a lawyer? Like if you're talking about running, you don't say like, I'm not an athlete. Well, because I'm saying like a legal opinion.

No, I'm not saying you specifically. I'm just saying everyone, we all say I'm not a lawyer. Because you know why? It would almost be like giving medical advice and someone's like, what medical school did you go to? Oh, I didn't. Like it sounds as stupid, I guess. So maybe that's why people just preemptively do that.

That's why I do that. As stupid, I guess. So maybe that's why people just preemptively do that. That's why I do that. As a broker, I don't think that's a big issue, but I do agree that a lot of the stuff with payment for order flow is going to get a second look and it might not be able to do it as profitably as they were able to do it in 2020.

I think that ship's sailed. I don't think we're going back. I don't think we're going back, but I think it's more, will be more heavily regulated. Isn't that like a, isn't that like a consensus take? Like, can you, can you possibly imagine another free for all? Regulated what? So they need more disclosure or what? What are they going to do?

No, you have tons of disclosure. Nobody reads disclosure. They might make it less profitable by just forcing. How about this? How about this? Forcing best execution. Give users the option to rattle to New York Stock Exchange and say, do you want to pay $4.95 for this trade?

Yeah, I agree. Nobody would. Nobody. Right. Who cares? I don't think investors care. I absolutely don't. So this whole crusade about people getting pissed at Robinhood for not giving-

Honestly, if I get a penny fill Phil, higher, I don't care. No, you don't even know. And that's – so that's why I think it's probably not going to go back. But I still think it's going to be something that they'll probably be listening to people complaining about for a long time. And by people, I mean politicians. Are we done on Robinhood? Is there anything else that we want to say? Is there anything else that we were supposed to say on this topic? What do you think?

Only my children can't go to college now. Other than that, we're good. Well, just, you should, I have an idea. I got it. I'm not a lawyer, but short 100 shares. All right, don't be a f***ing dick about it. Short 100, because now I'm going to preface every statement I make with what I'm not. Short 100 shares just to be hedged. Okay. So lock in the loss, but don't sell. Okay. I'm not an archer who lives in Sherwood forest, but I would say, I would just say that if you had to give a letter grade to Robin hood's debut as a publicly

traded company, C plus C plus or B minus because in the end, this is still a $30 billion company with a CEO who's not registered to be in the business that literally just settled one of the largest fines ever with its regulator. And they still managed to come public with a debut where 100 million shares changed hands. So I don't think you can call this a loss for anyone except for Ben, to be quite frank. All right, let's keep it moving. Where are we going next, Mike? We are going to technology stocks. Oh, yeah, we have to do this. Listen, I know we talk so much about these names.

How can we not? It's the whole market. It's the whole market. It's almost all that matters right now, and it won't always be that way. So let me just set this up. This is Felix Salmon at Axios. As recently as 2017, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Google combined were worth less than $2 trillion. Wait, as of when?

17. Because now they're 10. Hold on. Today, Apple and Microsoft are both worth more than that alone. Wow. And the five biggest tech giants are collectively worth $9.3 trillion. The four companies reporting this week, and we didn't even get Amazon, The four companies reporting this week, and we didn't even get Amazon, so far generated an astonishing $250 billion in profit over the last 12 months.

Ten years ago, when they all mostly looked identical to how they look today, their profits were less than $58 billion. Right. So these companies generated an excess $200 billion in profit over the last decade above and beyond where they were. Above and beyond their market cap. Is that what they're saying? No. Oh, okay. Like their profits 10 years ago, those, the four companies that reported this week were $58 billion.

Now they're $250 billion. Is that a quintuple? It's almost like the stock market is reflecting reality of their businesses. If we would have modeled this out in a spreadsheet 10 years ago. Nobody would have believed you. No way. Said this is the growth. This is what's going to go to.

These are the market caps. No way that could ever happen. Or they would have said it's going to be the biggest investment bubble in history. No, you know what? It would have been like, yeah, okay. So everybody in the world is going to have seven iPhones. That's what would have had to happen for Apple

to justify these numbers. This is from Ned Davis. They show the market cap of the fan mag stocks is now bigger than all value sectors combined. So that's energy, materials, industrials, and financials. These six stocks are bigger than all those combined. Yeah. Justified? Well, but then you go to the reports and you ask yourself, where should these stocks trade? These are companies doing like $100 billion in revenue.

And growing 20%. Growing faster than 20% with 50%, 43% gross margins for Apple. It's absurd. How could that even exist? So here's where investors potentially get in trouble. Like trying to get the second tier of these ones and assuming they can do this. Are these ones just complete outliers? Nvidia came along.

They weren't part of Fang five years ago. I think they took Netflix's place. But do you think any of these next level ones? No. Yes. No, no, no. I'm saying can they do this? I don't think so.

Can they get this? Can we say, okay, well, who's going to be the next trillion-dollar company? Salesforce is in the f***ing Dow. We never talk about it. Oracle is on fire because they got very serious about the cloud, and they already have the biggest installed base of large corporations. Hold on, but you're answering a different question. I think, Ben, what is your question?

These can be new fangs. I'm saying that we have this second tier, and people are looking at, like, $100 billion companies now, saying, okay, this one's going to be a trillion dollar company too. Is that really going to happen? We're going to have all these other five or 10 more companies get to that level? Yes. All right. All right. Let me back up. What do you think Adobe's market cap is right now? Take a guess. 300. Don't cheat. 300 billion. It's not that far off. I'm right. It's where, I mean, that's where these stocks were three years ago in 2018. Okay, that doesn't seem that, but that's a 3X from here.

That's a big return. We just saw Apple add $800 billion in market cap in a year. Yeah, but I don't think these are, no. Yeah, justify it. All right. What do you think PayPal's market cap is? I know it's around the same, like 250, 300. I think it's fucking bigger than JP Morgan.

Is it? It's 400. But I'm saying for a company that size to have another 3x return. I don't see it. I'm saying if that happens. If you look at the total adjustable market and you see, like PayPal is a good example. I don't know what percentage of like every transaction on earth they have. I can't imagine it's more than 1%.

Time frame, time frame. Are you talking in the next decade? Wait, I'm not a total adjustable market, but how big is this shit going to get? Right? Well, if they continue to eat into the GDP of all of these countries. I'm just saying, if this happens, then we could have

another six or seven years of really decent to good gains in the market. The reason why I don't think that PayPal and Adobe and Salesforce can be in the same category, and I'm not saying that they can, that you're saying they can, is because Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft

are all a huge part of our daily lives. Michael, Microsoft, seven years ago, was irrelevant. They completely reinvented it overnight. Okay, fine. Take Microsoft out of the equation. It's the second it overnight. Okay, fine. Take Microsoft out of the equation. It's the second biggest company. Fine. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google are all in our lives every single day. Stipulated. Is Venmo not? No. Really? No. I use it once a month. Okay. Salesforce is in our businesses daily life. Okay. All right. And that's why it's trading where it

is. Alphabet, YouTube revenues. I want to talk about that. 7 billion in the quarter, up over 80% year over year, which is ludicrous. So listen to this. So YouTube is about to pass Netflix in revenue. And I think one of the takeaways from this is how profitable advertising is versus... And the subscription model is fantastic, obviously. YouTube has both now but look at youtube yeah well let me say this on the call which i listened to on the quarter app which i love oh

they do have a subscription i forgot about that they have youtube tv and they have youtube premium whatever they made the case on the conference call that there are consumers like millions of consumers for whom there literally is no other way for an advertiser to reach them but YouTube. They're not listening to the radio. They don't have traditional television. They don't obviously read anything in print. Like if you want to reach that consumer, it's YouTube or nothing. I hope.

And I believe them. I can't wait until the time where they can do the Olympics on YouTube. And it's on demand, so we don't have to look for it on Peacock. Do your kids have YouTube on TVs in the house anywhere? They have, but I mean, their TVs are their iPads. So my daughter has YouTube and Netflix and literally does not know how to access Fios cable. Right. She doesn't know what channel any show is on.

If it's not on Netflix, she doesn't care about it. And most of the time, she'd rather just let the YouTube algorithm continue to play Drake videos. My four-year-olds ask, what is this when a commercial comes out on the regular TV? They don't know. Yeah. So you mentioned too, like back in the day, what is everyone going to buy, seven iPads or iPhones? Right. So I have an iPad from 2014 probably still.

But iPad revenue last quarter was $7.4 billion. Yeah. If you annualize that and it's close to $30 billion, I know it doesn't work like that. Wait, last quarter? Yeah, $7.4 billion in that quarterly report. Just selling screens. So let's annualize that.

I know it doesn't work that smoothly. It's whatever, $30 billion. Netflix is trailing 12 months. Revenue's annualize that. I know it doesn't work that smoothly. It's whatever. $30 billion. Netflix is trailing 12 months. Revenue is $28 billion. So the iPad is bringing in probably more revenue than Netflix. Did you see the Apple watch numbers?

They have iPhone users coming in in droves to the stores to test drive the watches and buy them. It's like unexpectedly becoming as hot as coming in in droves to the stores to test drive the watches and buy them, it's like unexpectedly becoming as hot as the AirPods. Like the watch is becoming a very big product. Every one of those, I said, I'm never going,

why would I want this? I have it all now. I have one on each wrist just to be safe. Listen, they're going to sell a ton of watches. They've been selling a ton of AirPods. Every one of these products they sell locks you in deeper to that ecosystem. And I think the only bear case you can make on the stock is that they might fumble the ball with an iPhone launch or somebody might politically get very involved in the iOS take rate for the app store.

And they might just say, this is an illegal monopoly. But that kind of stuff takes years to play out. I don't see it as like a near-term threat to the stock. And that's why it seems effortlessly to just be adding tens of billions of dollars to its valuation. And I almost wanted to stop and calm down because it's become so extreme. I don't know. I feel like a lot of this move happened in the past three weeks. We were talking from over the last year that Apple and Amazon, they're just going sideways. And when it moves, it moves.

When they break out, they go. All right. Anything worth saying on any of these that we haven't covered? I think we talked a lot about this. I don't know. I'm astonished. I wonder if they'll get to a third of the market. They're about 26%. 22. You could could have in September, Apple fell 20%. And then in March, it fell

18%. So these stocks still get hammered occasionally out of nowhere. And every time they come back. One more thing I want to add, and I wish I had the numbers in front of me, but if they keep growing at the rate that they're growing and the market keeps growing at the rate that the market is growing, I think in like seven years, these companies are going to be like 57% of the market. And in 10 years, you're going to be 75%. So I don't want to say something has to give, because if we've learned anything, nothing has to give. But I got the feeling- Didn't one of you guys do the post about the last time we saw this much concentration in the U.S. stock market? Well, back in the 60s, the top 10 were 50 or 60 percent. So this has happened.

Yes, with a conglomerate era. I think AT&T and GE were like 16 percent of the S&P. Now, that didn't end well, but it never ends well. But if they're at 35 percent in a few years, that wouldn't shock you. Not at all. It wouldn't, it wouldn't shock me, but I, I really feel that there's going to be a next generation behind them that becomes, that become bigger. It doesn't mean that these companies will have to slow down. I just can't picture it being five stocks forever. Is that good? Like, does this not stifle innovation like in competition?

I don't know because you could make the argument that Apple has plenty of competition. It's just overseas. I mean, they compete with Android for a user base and they compete on devices everywhere, in China, in Europe. Like, it's not like they're the only phone company. They're just very, very sticky with the people that start buying their products. They don't leave.

And by the way, everyone has a friend who says, you know, Android phones are actually better than iPhones. I'm going to show you why. And you go, guess what? I'm not including all my texts anymore because your text box is green. Yeah, no, I don't do the green text. You know, I assume it's. We're going to get emails from people who say, Android is better. I'll tell you why.

You know Starbelly Sneetches, the Dr. Seuss book? Okay. Like one group has Starbelly's and that's like the person with the green on their phone. Contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. It's just like the green, they make like pariahs. Well, once they made these phones a subscription product through the carrier versus you have to give a $700. I mean, now they're $1,200. But I think that that allowed the ecosystem to get even bigger because people are innumerate and they're like, oh, I could afford this.

Well, you know what could fuel more growth is the buy now, pay later. If you could get an Apple phone and pay 60 bucks a month to them, like interest free or whatever, pay a little bit of interest. I feel like that is what they already have that. I know I'm saying they're going to swim downstream as well. I'll give you, I'll give you one more quick bear case. China has become very important to Apple and the sands are shifting beneath everybody's feet. And I highly doubt that this economic cold war can go much further without somebody in Beijing saying, you know how we really with people.

Apple's 10% of their stock market. Let's make it harder for them to sell blank. We don't care. We just crashed our own stock. They just crashed their own markets. Like the bear case was for apples. It's over owned, overloved.

Everybody owns everybody who wants to buy. Apple owns Apple. Yo, the bear case was that it is it's over-owned, over-loved. Everybody who wants to buy Apple owns Apple. Yo, the bear case was that it's index money pushing it up. And it's just like people pouring money into ETFs and that's why Apple is going up. No. Maybe it's because Apple has $250 billion to do buybacks with as far as the eye can see. And by the way, we didn't even get into that, the cash balances there. All right, let's keep going. All right. So was this from Reckon Thaler? I believe it was. He did this from Morningstar.

He did this post on liquid alternatives. Ben, this is near and dear to your heart. This is wild. During the last decade, liquid alternative funds averaged an annualized gain of 1.6% behind every fund category, except for like energy and precious metals. I feel like short-term bonds would have done better. So it was an alternative to making money. So 1.6% was the annual return. What do you think the average fee was? Over 2%.

1.6%. Okay. So investors- Shut up. And fund owners- How much money is in these? Split it 50-50. Not as much as there used to be.

There was 453 liquid alts that were launched since 2009. Only 153 are still around. You know how I knew this category was basically, you know, a giant piece of shit? I'm sorry. I apologize to everybody. Anytime I wrote anything critical about liquid alts, my inbox, when I used to have a public email, would absolutely explode with people defending it. Something that's good doesn't require defense, right? So I did this big thing about Natixis, and they did like a liquid alt product. And the pitch was like, this is the

answer to every problem, works in every environment. And then you look at like six, seven-year track record, it doesn't work in any environment. And that was one of the more popular ones. I don't even know what the biggest liquid alts are now, but nothing really seems to have changed. Well, the thing that Michael and I always talk about is can these things actually survive a bull market? Like everyone wanted them after 2008

because, oh, I can hedge the downside in Black Swan. And yeah, Reckon Thaler said 453 funds have been launched since 2009. 153 exist today. See, this guy doesn't listen to me. Wait, wait, wait. Josh, you see what he got to deal with on the podcast? Yeah, he was checking his email. So 2.30, he was checking after hours, Robinhood quotes.

Excuse me, I need to do some hedging trades. Ben, has it bounced? So two-thirds of the liquid alt funds that have launched since 2009 are gone already. So I would guess that those weren't the good track records. So here's the thing. To Ben's point that we discussed this all the time, if you can't survive a bull market, you're in big, big trouble. But Reichenthaler wrote, liquid alternatives are hard to own. The elaborateness of their strategies makes them unpredictable, which tends to upset shareholders. Losing money is one thing, but losing money unexpectedly without knowing why

is quite another, end quote. So I listened to a webinar or earnings call or whatever from one of these liquid all, it's probably in 2014, 2015. And one of the big sources of negative return for that quarter was the short position that they had on in sugar. Could you- That makes perfect sense. Could you imagine explaining that to a client? Well, I was going to ask you,

what percentage of the money in liquid alts is advisor directed? 100%. 100%. Right. Because the institutions are not going to, they're not going to be in this rapid, they're going straight to the fund. And there's no retail investor that's like, I want a liquid alt. Right. Because the institutions are not going to, they're not going to be in this rapid. They're going straight to the fund.

And there's no retail investor that's like, I want a liquid alt. No. So if, so if you're the, the middle, the middle person, the intermediary in that equation, you have to call up your clients and be like, you know, why is this, why is this thing down six quarters in a row? What happened this time? Uh, they're short sugar. So it's tough if something

like this is 5% of your allocation and it's 100% of the questions that you're answering. But are these the things that these are harder to replicate quantitatively? And if you want to invest in a hedge fund strategy, you actually have to invest in a hedge fund manager who will take concentrated bets and use leverage and do these things that are probably even bigger risks, but those are the only ones that are going to pay off. You have to get lucky, pick the right manager at the right time, and then know when to exit because none of these strategies can consistently deliver anything. Well, why don't, why did these stop?

Nor can, by the way, nor can beta. It just so happens we're living in the best decade ever for stock market beta. It won't always be this way. Why have returns been so bad for these strategies? I know we're using in the best decade ever for stock market beta. It won't always be this way. Why have returns been so bad for these strategies? I know we're using a catch-all. There's dozens of- It's kind of not fair because how many different things these funds are trying to do, but I don't even think there are any standouts. It's also tough when the S&P just had its best risk-adjusted return 10-year period ever. Well, so that's why I think that's a big contributing factor is what it's being compared against.

But the other side is when you lose to short-term bonds, that's what I'm explaining to them. Even with all these categories, market neutral and event-driven and macro and multi-strategy, there's 11,000 hedge funds competing against these, and they do similar strategies. Maybe this stuff has just been figured out by these places, and it's arbed away. Did any of these look great during the 15-minute bear market last March?

Like, did any of them have, like, a really killer week, even? I don't remember. I don't remember reading about any of them. I definitely, I don't recall. Maybe the Black Swan funds probably for a few minutes. Well, it probably happened too fast even for the trend-following stuff, right? Because the trends weren't,

we didn't have any trends in place because it happened so fast. So by the time they moved in, it was probably too late. If you were looking at anything shorter than a month, you might've been able to do something there tactically, but let's assume 99% of these funds weren't. I think managed futures had a good 2020.

Let me just carry on. Let me just take a peek. All right. So look, I don't think that the concept behind liquid alts is as bad as maybe is being made out. I think some of the problem here is in the execution. And Ben, to your point, maybe you really do need to be an LP in a hedge fund to capture some of these potential returns. Like maybe it just doesn't work in this wrapper. Look at this chart of a managed future strategy. It was, it held,. It held amazing in the downturn.

Amazing. It was flat for the year. S&P was up 16, but it kept you in the game. So there was no drawdown, but there was no return either. So that's like just sitting in cash. Do you guys still get pitched these? Not much anymore. I don't think so.

I was about to say, my inbox is so freaking flooded with pitches that I can't even discern which is which. I feel like all the pitches these days are private equity. And ESG stuff. Right. When are those going to have a moment like this? Eventually. I don't know when.

But if you're going to take those illiquid risks that you get in a hedge fund, I know liquid alts have liquidity. But if you're taking illiquidity risk in a hedge fund, why wouldn't you just go to private equity? What do the liquid alts people pivot to now that- ESG. I think Michael's right. It's, right? I think so.

So they remake themselves as ESG because they can get in front of new advisors that just haven't heard of them before? It's funny because the bear market didn't last long enough last year for them to show, okay, these liquid alts, look at how they did. Now you need to be in this. It was way too quick.

So we're going to talk about ETFs and the fact that we're back to the too many ETFs thing? Nah, this is never going to peak. This chart is going in one direction, and it will continue to. So Ryan Kerlin did this thread. Chart on. From Alpha Architect. Tweet on. As the cost of launching an ETF this thread, Ryan Curlin from Alpha Architect. Tweet on. As the cost of launching an ETF goes down, more ETFs come to market. I know it's not a bubble.

Think of it this way. If it costs you $0 to launch and run an ETF, how many new ETFs would come to market? A lot, a lot, a lot. If it was 10K per year to run an ETF, a lot of people would decide to launch a fund of their own. And why not? You have upside if your strategy gathers AUM and you have a break even point at about a million dollars. So to conclude, Ryan said, cost of ETF launches are coming down. Raise your prediction for how many ETFs are going to be listed 10 years from now. It's going to be an absurdly high number. I completely, look at this chart. Wait, Mike, what is the cost? Because there are hurdles. Well, isn't it just, well, the cost to set up is the first one, right? And each one after that, you have scale and it doesn't cost as much.

Yeah, but think about firms like Alpha Architect that are now doing launches for other firms. They already have economies of scale. So I think that they've already laid the groundwork. And for somebody to come in with an idea to them, I think the fees are getting lower and lower and lower and lower. You can take shots on stuff. Why not? That's what Ryan said. On the other side of this is a lot of these will fail and then they'll try new ones.

For sure. Yeah. Like what happens with mutual funds. You could say yes to a lot more people as the costs come down and the ones that- So that was the point I was going to make is that 10 years ago, there were tons of ETFs being launched also, and people would say it's a bubble and they would cite the number of funds. But then anytime you looked at the dollar amounts in the funds, you realized this is

one of the most concentrated industries on earth. Nobody has assets. There's more ETFs and stocks was like, who gives it was such an event. They have no money in them. But the thing that's interesting is this is the number of ETFs listed in the U S by year. That is not new launches.

So the number keeps going up and up and up. Now the rate of change is slowing clearly, but it's not coming down. What, what was like the percentage that was in the top 10 ETFs? It was like 85% or something. Like all the money was in GLD, SPY, QQQ. Must've got a pie chart for that. No, well, that was, uh, uh, Nekarasi, I think did one of those pie charts and yeah, it's basically what you're describing. I don't

know what the number is, but it's very top. They were talking about zombie ETFs. Well, think about when crypto, when the first Bitcoin is, and they allow crypto to be in ETFs, there's going to be just so many of those that come out. When they allow all those different tokens to have their own ETF. Everyone's going to shoot their shot. Everyone's going to try and try to. If you had to launch an ETF today, what would it be? Robin Hood IPO shares.

But you have to buy them at a premium over what I bought them at. We used to get pitched, when is Red Holtz going to do ETFs? I was like, that's the worst f***ing idea I've ever heard. It is. Because whatever we launch becomes our track record. Right. Even if we do something super niche and we're like, this should be 1% of your portfolio max, it doesn't matter.

That's your new ticker symbol. Like, assuming the ticker is BRRYY and then Barry basically has to live and die by how that ETF is doing on any given day. It's a horrible idea. Meb is written about that. Just like once you put out a product, it becomes what people think of you day to day. Meb cost a billion dollars, right?

Last year? Yeah. Well, he said he's gone up and passed it a few times because something's been done. Well, Meb is Cambria. We're big fans of Meb's. I don't have a problem with the number of launches. I think it's great for the industry that people are still willing to take risks.

We would be complaining about the opposite if there weren't launches. We would be complaining about how Vanguard and iShare strangled innovation. So somebody's always going to have a complaint about something. It's like IPOs. IPOs were dead in 2015 and now there's too many of them. Too many. Right. We didn't have enough companies going public.

Now there are too many companies going public. It's never going to be good enough for anyone. JP Morgan allowing crypto for financial advisors. It's a pretty big 180. When did this happen? It says last week. Okay. Jamie Dimon was pretty,

he's got some quotes that did not age well. He doesn't care about this stuff. I'm not saying he does. Yeah, so he hates, but I guess from his perspective, other people are doing it. It's gotten bigger. You have to be in the game.

This is a fall in line kind of thing. I think the other, I put this one in here. This is from last month that I don't think people made a big enough news about this. Interactive Brokers is going to offer crypto by the end of the summer. If you remember when the zero trading commission stuff happened, Robinhood had it forever. And Interactive Brokers was the first one to say, we're going to offer on our platform. Then everyone else fell in line

after them. Charles Schwab, TD. I think we could see a similar thing with crypto where Interactive Broker offers it. And then all the other brokerages say, all right, we're on board. Fidelity. It's inevitable. Charles Schwab. It's inevitable. So this is Reuters. JP Morgan will allow all of its wealth management clients access to cryptocurrency funds. So this is like, I guess, Osprey Bitcoin Trust, Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

And I guess Bitwise is the third one that exists. The bank told financial advisors in a memo earlier this week to take buy and sell orders from its wealth management clients for five cryptocurrency products. So they're not recommending it, but they're able to take buy and sell orders and let their clients decide they want to do that. Advisors are allowed to execute only unsolicited crypto trades, adding that advisors cannot recommend products but only buy and sell. Unsolicited. Yeah. We're past the point where you can – like a few years ago, advisors were basically like ignore it and it will go away.

You're past that point now where people can ignore it and tell their clients like no, you're an idiot, never own crypto. You can't do that anymore. I know there's advisors who still feel that way, but you just – you can't. crypto. You can't do that anymore. I know there's advisors who still feel that way, but you just, you can't. Well, the brokerage firms had this issue with the double and triple levered ETFs where they said, okay, these can be unsolicited orders only. And a lot of commission-based brokers were like, yeah, sure. No problem. I'll get my client to sign off on that. And that, that didn't, that didn't go well. And that's probably about the same amount of volatility as any of these crypto funds have today, I think Bitcoin is 4x more volatile than the S&P.

So if anything, it's more volatile than a triple levered. But again, this comes down to JP Morgan doesn't want to have to tell a financial advisor that they have to say no to a wealthy person who wants to fuck around with this stuff. So I think it's a, it's a gateway and we'll see more, more adoption, not less. What do you think? Yeah, I think, I think this is inevitable as well. You think the other large brokerage firms like Merrill, like they all have to eventually do this. And their, their models pretty soon are going to sit, they're going to start with like a 1% position. They're going to say, well, all our models are going to have a 1% position in

Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatever it is. That's going to happen. If Bitcoin rallies back towards 60,000, I would say that happens before the end of this year. That one of the wealth management gigantic firms is going to like put that in their model, like Grayscale, you know, Osprey, whatever product they use. But they're going to be like, Bitcoin is a part of every portfolio. And I don't think anybody will even be surprised when it happens. The best buy signal for Bitcoin is when Michael and I slack each other. Okay, it's going to 20. Let's buy some more and it's 20. And then it immediately goes from 30 to 40. Right, you'll never see the 20. OnRamp is kind of attacking this from the software side. And we're friends with those guys.

Shout out to Tyrone and Justin and everybody working at OnRamp. So we did something with them that is really not that big of a deal, but we basically said, okay, we're going to use your software so that our advisors can view the people, the clients who have crypto held away from us. How even does that work? Oh, it's very simple. We get the client's first name, last name, phone number, and email, and they get an email, and I think Stripe ports their

Coinbase Gemini. What are you laughing at? Sorry, that's a Curb episode. Look at the ring you left on the table. It's not a ring, it's more like a puddle. Yeah, it's a Curb episode. I was raised in a barn. That's very unlike you. He didn't have a coaster.

It's not like me. And Michael just put Josh- Duncan, do we have paper towels in the studio? Use that fiat. Use that fiat. There's a $5 bill on the table. Duncan, throw me that worthless $5 bill. I can get a paper towel.

Throw me that non-blockchain traded currency. So then what happens? So the client gives us permission to see it? So now we can see it. We theoretically can execute on their behalf. We're not doing that yet. But the same way that we report on outside holdings, privately held real estate or assets that we're not managing on, we are reporting this as if it's part of a financial plan because it should be. Yeah, so you can incorporate it in the plan. So yeah, so we're not giving, obviously, we're not giving price targets or telling people what to do with it. But hopefully one day, our financial planning software, Orion, will incorporate that into

their software so that we can build this into the portfolio. Yeah, and there are people who say, hey, I've got these holdings. I bought it a few years ago, or I just bought some this year. I just want to see what it looks like in the context of my portfolio. Well, let me ask- And or a client could say to us, hey, listen, guys, I want my, I want to have 2% of my portfolio in crypto. And I want you guys to do the rebalancing for me. So every time it goes up to 60,000 and it's 5% of my portfolio trim sum, if it goes down to 8,000, I want to buy some.

That's the best explanation for an advisor is showing someone how a volatile asset, if in the context of a portfolio, can be rebalanced. Because if this thing is going to shoot up really quick and fall really quick in these huge moves, for rebalancing purposes in a diversified portfolio, that's actually a really, that's important to have, right? But you can use that if you rebalance correctly. Okay. So now what happens when a client says to us, okay, I have, I, you know, I bought Bitcoin at a thousand dollars a coin and I have millions worth of Bitcoin. And I really only have a million in my other investable assets. Like my whole portfolio is Bitcoin and I'm comfortable selling some,

you know, based on your advice, but like, what do you do in that situation? Like, do you radically change the way that you're investing their other assets here based on how much volatility they're getting from that other asset class? Or do you, do you really try to give them advice and talk them out of holding so much? I would, at this point, I would keep them separate and active. I don't believe this to be the case, but act as if Bitcoin could go to zero. I mean. Well, that's when you help tax managers too, right?

It would have a huge impact on someone's life. If it did like, do you take less risk in the stocks and bonds as a result of that? I don't think so. You don't, I don't. Don't you think we're past the point though of saying only put money in that you are comfortable seeing disappear? Yeah. Listen, I don't think, I don't think it's going to zero. We own it. I mean, I'm, I'm far past that. I'm just, I'm just saying for the purposes of financial planning, I would be very careful with how I projected that into the future. That's all. And listen, I'm not a financial planner. Yeah, I think it's like inching along away from that concept like only put money in that could go to zero.

I don't think anyone is really saying that anymore. It's like too established. Too many important people are now very invested in this not going to zero. But I do think it's a good like mental framework, like only put in what you're willing to lose. I don't think it's going to zero either, but I just think it's like a decent – it's a decent starting point to calibrate. We all know that fiat is what's going to zero. That's obvious. Obviously.

It's been trending towards zero its entire life, the US dollar. The US dollar. So advisors that now incorporate this into their practice using OnRamp or if they're at JP Morgan using a publicly traded trust, pretend ETF, they do have to get more – they have to get more fluent in the vernacular to talk to these clients that are involved because the clients who own this stuff are reading about it voraciously. Well, I think that's really tough. Like, Ben and I – and you. We spend a lot of time trying to stay up to date and read and learn. But it's very likely that the client that owns like a million dollars in Bitcoin is going to know way more than their advisor. So it's the advisor's job not to like just necessarily advise but to report and to incorporate it into the plan. I also think they're going to have very –

And tax manage it. I also think the client that has a million dollars or more in crypto is going to be very extreme in their point of view about it. Like I don't think it's a casual situation. Well, isn't it the advisor's job too? Like there's a lot of sharks in the sea. Like there's a lot of charlatans in this space to like help them figure out like are your sources of information actually helping you? Are they just trying to gaslight and get you up in arms and the problem with that though is a lot of the charlatans like really have made a ton of money i know and that's that's the the hardest part about this is you look at like

people that in in a wall street context you'd be like that person is a ridiculous human being but then they made like a billion dollars so it's hard to who the f**k are you to say you know so that that's very tough. The other thing is that a lot of the information sources and news agencies that are covering this stuff really just were invented out of thin air in the last two or three years. Who knows if some of these are disinformation ops

coming from another country or if people are just making things up. Like no one's vetting any of this. Infowars.com. But you know what I'm saying? Like it's, it's very hard to even know, even if you're trying to know who to trust, where do you even begin in, in that, uh, in that realm? So I think it's, look, this is gonna be tough for advisors no matter what, because a lot

of the things that you would say that are common sense and typically would be good advice in reality could turn out to be bad advice because of the volatility and, and frankly, the upside that we've seen. Let's go to European companies. Do they suck? Did Drew Dixon write this? He did. So there was an article. I like him. Yeah. Drew's great. This was an article in response to something I believe is when it was in The Economist. And I thought he made some really good points

that I never really thought about. And the point that he made was, it's really a geography thing. So we're talking about how, well, we have all the great growth stocks, right? We have all the FANG stocks and Europe just doesn't. US stocks beat the shit out of European stocks over the last 10 years. And one of the big drivers is our FANG stocks. So Drew said that a lot of these technology stocks, they're clustered on the West Coast. And so these startups don't happen elsewhere. So they don't happen to the same effect in London, Frankfurt, or Paris, but they also didn't happen to the same effect in Chicago, Miami, or Washington, DC. This isn't something that is awful about Europe. It is something that is great about Silicon Valley. I thought that was a good point. He says there are nearly 57.5 million

square miles of land on planet Earth. Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix are all within 40 miles of each other. So clustering is a factor. Here was another thing. He said for every Procter and Gamble, there was a Unilever, for every Mondelez and Nestle, for every Boeing and Airbus, every Nike and Adidas. And he goes on and on. And point taken. I mean, I think he's wrong. I read his piece.

I liked it and I like him, but I think he's wrong. I think there's issues of scale and then there are cultural factors. And this is not to insult anybody. It's just a simple reality. They don't have the same risk-taking culture that we do for better or for worse. So they tend to fall in line more and they tend not to be as entrepreneurial. Not every single person, but just generally speaking, like there's empirical data about this stuff. But then here's another- But wait, hold on, hold on. Here's a pushback. And I've written about this a million times.

From 1970 to 2011, the US and European stocks had the exact same annual return. So what's your retort to that? No, my retort is the markets over the last 10 years and maybe for the next 10 years have much more heavily valued risk-taking. But did we get more ambitious in the last decade? I think Silicon Valley has, and it's gotten much more capital. I put VGK, which is a Vanguard Europe fund, into this little Vanguard portfolio comparison compared to the S&P. And if you look at the sectors, they're pretty much the same except technology. The US has 25% of technology,

which is really probably closer to 40%. And Europe has 8.3%. So Drew's other point, he wrote a follow-up piece to that about how cheap Europe should be. And this was really interesting. US growth and Europe growth both trade at 33 times forward earnings. I thought that was very interesting. The difference between our markets, as Ben just mentioned, is they have way more value or cyclical-oriented stocks. And that's why they traded at a discount. Josh's culture thing is, so I did a speech in Italy a number of years ago. That was amazing. Remember, Ben came out to the rainbow and the smoke and here comes the sun? They made a cartoon of me. You're huge in Italy

and that's the funniest thing I've ever heard. It was in like Milan and Rome but they talked to me about these advisors and they said, historically people in Italy bought real estate

and government bonds and that's it. And they said, once the government bond yields crashed there and we had the real estate bust, they had to learn about what risk taking

meant in stocks and they were like, we need you to talk to them about the basics. Like, really? Why would you take a risk when cradle to grave, the social safety net is paying for everything, number one. Number two, if you're rich in Europe, it's probably because your great-grandparents were rich. They were dukes and duchesses, and they owned real estate.

That's what wealthy people in Europe historically have had, And most people obviously aren't wealthy, same as here. But I want to give you a structural explanation that Drew did not get to, but that I think is very illustrative of why it's so hard for Europe to grow its own fangs. First of all, they'll strangle these things in the crib because they're very anti-monopolistic. Unless the government owns a piece of it. Like in Germany, the giant banks are okay because the government's very heavily invested there. But they're not exactly big fans of our tech giants. So we know they're not going to want to grow their own. Don't they find Google like every other week?

Yeah, they find Google like it's – Google is just paying them taxes through fines at this point. Let me tell you about the example of Spotify. So this is a perfect example why European markets haven't kept up and may not be able to in the future. This is a Swedish company. To go public, they did a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. They didn't list in Stockholm. And the reason why is as a direct listing, they would have had to drop $26 billion worth of stock on that market, and that market can't support it.

So that's like a reason Spotify couldn't go public there even if it wanted to at its size. So now instead of SPOT appearing in a European index and contributing to the gains, it's part of the Russell 1000. So it's a $41 billion technology market cap that doesn't exist there. It exists here. If that were in Europe, it would be a top 20 stock. It would be very important stock. And it would be like right behind Sanofi and Allianz. And they just don't have those. So they have ASML and SAP are the only tech names in the top 20 MSCI Europe. And I agree, that is like what's causing

most of that differentiation over the last 10 years. I don't know what changes it. Like how does that all of a sudden reverse? Investor, dude, investors change their mind. Preferences change. They might not care about tech companies anymore. Interest rates can rise and maybe higher cash flow companies overseas can do better. That's like not inconceivable.

If they're higher cash flow and investors favor that factor for like a long period of time, you're right. I don't know what suddenly causes that. Basically, value outperforming growth. That's what changes this. I don't think investors need to go all one way or the other. They value outperforming growth. That's what changes this. Yeah, and I don't think investors need to go all one way or the other. We actually saw international stocks be very correlated with the value rally in the early part of this year.

So until one of those value rallies has legs beyond a couple of months, I think it's just going to continue to be tough. All right. What else? I want to talk about paying off mortgages. Set the table. All right. What else? I want to talk about paying off mortgages. Set the table. All right. So I had a talk with Bill Sweet, our CFO, a few weeks ago. Now, I've changed my mind on this a few times.

So my first house, my first mortgage was like 6.5%. What year is this? Late 2007, early 2008. Which was great back then. And we got a great deal on the house because no one else wanted. They dropped the price like three times. So I refinanced two or three times. And every time I refinanced, I just kept the same payment. So by the end of it, I'm paying like double payment. And then we sold our house and got a new one. And I thought, well, that money didn't do any good

except for a greater down payment in the next house. How is that not good though? It allowed you to upgrade. Yeah, it helped. But I was thinking like, well, couldn't that money have been used somewhere else? So I'm just saying I've changed my mind. It's like, at first I thought I'm going to pay this off as fast as I can. Now I've changed my thinking on this. And Bill Sweet told me a few weeks ago, he said, I'm never paying my mortgage off. If interest rates stay low, a big if, but if interest rates stay low and I keep, stay low, a big if, but if interest rates stay low and I keep, call it 30 to 40% of equity in my home and every four or five years I paid off a little bit and then I do a cash out refi and I paid off a little bit and I'm just staying in that sweet spot. And if on an after-tax basis,

after inflation basis at 3%, you're basically barring for nothing right now, right? I'm not taking into account taxes and all the other ancillary costs. Title insurance. So are you in favor of actively managed mortgages? I am saying, so I'm saying housing prices, and obviously housing prices aren't going to keep going up this much, but if you've owned a house in the last, if you bought even in the last 18 months or something,

you're sitting on some equity. All right, so you're talking about practice. Let me talk about the game. Okay, I'm just saying, why wouldn't you occasionally take money out of your house if you're able to continue to borrow at rates? What are you doing with the money though? Wait, hang on. I am. So let me jump in here. So that's the other side of it. What are you going to do with the money? So I- Hedge fund mortgage.

No, Dogecoin. Yeah, hedge fund mortgage. So my home value, not to brag, went up about 40% along with the rest of the country. You smashed it. Over the last – I'm great at timing the real estate market. Over the last two years. So as I'm trying to refinance, I'm saying to my guy, hey, wait a minute. Why not – like this money was just created out of thin air thanks to Jerome Powell. Why not – what good does it do just sitting in the home? Give me the money. Give me the money, Lebowski. So I got the money. I ran the numbers

with Bill, who is my financial planner. And I've got to earn, I don't know if this is possible, if this is exact. So I wouldn't say, I have to beat a low single digit rate of return in order to break even. But it's more than that. Because now I'm going from a 15 to a 30. I lower my monthly payment significantly if I want to. And if I want to continue to pay what I'm paying now, like Ben was doing with the double pay, I can do that. So will I be paying more over interest over the life of the loan? Sure. But up to Ben's point, if we're actively managing our mortgage, then in five years of the market, you know, if I get some more principal, more equity in my home, then I could do it again. Again, this is all assuming that rates stay low.

And I also think you have to either – there's like two things you can do with that money. One is fix up your house. Like that's perfect for renovations. Why wouldn't you – because you get a better tax break on that. Money from the house put back into the house. Yeah, so if you take a home equity loan credit and you use that to fix up your house, that interest is tax deductible. And it's money well spent. And I think it is, especially if you're going to stay in your house and live in it longer.

Like, why wouldn't you? There's a huge, huge caveat here. You have to be financially responsible for this to make sense. Because if you don't, if you're just taking the equity out of your house because it's the best forced savings mechanism in the world. And then spending it. And then spending it to fund your lifestyle, you could royally f*** yourself. For a lot of people, a house is, like a house in Social Security is retirement for the majority of the country. So you have to be responsible.

You have to invest. Like if I'm just taking this money to spend it to go on vacation, that's not a good use of this money. So you don't have to like have a smashing success with your returns. But you have to be funding your 401K and contributing to other accounts. You have to have good financial responsibility to do this. Yeah, if you're someone – but if you're someone like us who's trying to optimize a lot of their finances, and I'm a guy who like looks for the best rewards,

credit cards and stuff. If you're that kind of person and you're thinking about this, I think with rates being as low as they are, I think that dynamic of taking on debt and debt being the worst thing in the world, I think that's totally been flipped on its head by how low rates are.

I love debt if it's at 2%, 3%. It's a way different story if mortgage rates are 5%. Even before the pandemic, like we never had a mortgage. My wife is like, her father's like super conservative with money. He's a CPA and just drilled it into her head. No debt if you don't need debt. He grew up in Germany in the 1930s. No, but he's like, no, it's it's actually it's like old school brooklyn mentality

pay for shit with cash no debt no reason to have debt formulate your lifestyle based on what you're bringing in and what you're saving and that's it and i'm not saying it's a bad thing it's probably a great thing um a lot of our friends bought gigantic houses like on the water and we just like we're like that's not really our dream to have a big, have a big mortgage in our forties. Right. So, but she was very wise about using the house to do exactly what you suggested, take money out in the form of a home equity line and do renovation because we're going to stay and just make our lives better, but do it at a manageable size rather than be like,

hey, let me just take all the money out and find better places to invest it. We invested right back into the house. I don't think she would have let me do the same thing even to invest in my business. Like if I were like, hey, we're going to do this whole brand new thing at work and I got to put quarter million dollars in,

I don't think she would have been down for it. But we invest back in the house made a lot of sense to her. And I think that's probably the conservative thing to do if you're going to pull the money out. So yeah, I completely changed my mind. So when I got my 15 year refinance, I guess a year and a half ago at this point, I was super psyched.

I was like, oh my God, I'm going to overpay my mortgage. I'm going to be done in 12 years. And like that thought was really appealing to me and it still is. But having the flexibility to borrow money at 3% is more appealing. And you're a landlord now too. So you have like other properties to- All right, take it easy. No, you are though. Oh, I've never said that publicly.

I mean, I'm like intimidated by it, to be honest. Well, it's property, not properties. It's property. Yeah, geez. Well, start, right? tea, not proper teas. Yeah, it's proper tea. Yeah, geez. Well, start. Right? I'm building my portfolio. Alright, here. Rockefeller started with one oil well. That's true. Alright, since we're talking about mortgages, I'm going to steal

the soapbox thing. Do it, go. Because I want to stay with this. Take the initiative, Ben. Yeah, hey, I'm not a friend. I'm part of the show. That's right. So, you said, come up with something that people aren't talking about enough. I think, speaking of these low rates, I don't think people are thinking through just how helpful long-term

these low mortgage rates are going to be. So if you look at total U.S. household debt, $14.6 trillion. We have this chart, Duncan? Yeah, it's white charts here. Chart on. Chart on. Mortgage debt is $10.2 trillion. So that's 70% roughly.

And that relationship is pretty steady where mortgage debt is – How perfectly that tracks. Yeah, mortgage debt is roughly 70% of total U.S. household debt over most years. Josh, why are you surprised? Come on. All right, wait. So time out. For the people that aren't seeing the chart, so U.S. household debt is $14.6 trillion.

And mortgage debt – And of that total, mortgage debt is 10. What's that? You said it's 70%? So it's 70%. What's the other $4 trillion? Credit card? Student loans.

Student loans is 20 or 15, and credit cards is the rest, and then auto loans, that sort of thing. So I'm just saying the majority for most people with debt is mortgage debt. Is the mortgage. Okay. loans, that sort of thing. So it's, so I'm just saying the majority for most people with debt is mortgage debt. So if you take that long-term debt and put a much lower rate on it, that's not just a one-time savings. That's a savings. That's a compounding savings over the years. And that's how the market overheats. We know where this is going. I'm just, I'm just saying people eventually will adjust their lifestyle, but this is a savings that goes on for a long time. I don't think people are figuring out if you've refinanced or bought a new home at 3%, 2.5%, whatever it is, that's a huge savings for a long, long time if you're locking in that debt. I don't think people have realized how much that is over the long term.

And the home sizes are getting bigger. Yes. So they're saving money on what the mortgage would normally cost, and they have a higher quality of life given the average home size is increasing. And you're 100% right to put this in So soapbox because I don't read any articles about this. And this is why, this is how Adobe gets to a trillion. And that's why Adobe could be the next trillion company. No position in Adobe, by the way. I want to do this very quickly, but I feel like it needs to be said. And without getting political, do you guys agree with me that a lot of the people who

refuse to wear a mask tend to be the same people who also refuse to get a vaccine? Or is that just in my head? It's the same exact thing. That's not controversial. It's the same person. It is the same person, right? Of course. Okay. And they probably didn't vote for Biden. But if you want the freedom to send your kids to school this fall without masks on their face, which I think we all want, or maybe most of us want, like, why wouldn't you just get the vaccine to do your part to help make that happen? Because I can see the writing on the wall already, my f***ing kids going back to school with masks on. Like, I'm going to be very upset about it. Well, because they don't want people to tell them what to do. Okay, but like at a certain point, can you just get with the program and cooperate?

The alternative is like kindergartners with masks on their face for another year. Can we not all agree that we should have, if we want some kind of freedom, let's all contribute and work toward it together? I'm just amazed that we still have to have this discussion. I saw right before the show that Biden wants to federally give $100 to people for getting the vaccine. Make it 200.

Yeah, I'm a taxpayer. I'm paying for that. I'm fine with it. Let's just like, let's just get this done. It's going to have to come from the private sector though. No one's going to, the government getting into it is going to make it worse. So when Google-

Make it more political. When Google says you have, it's fine, freedom. You want to work here? You have to get the vax. That's what it is going to make it worse. Make it more political. When Google says you have – it's fine. Freedom. You want to work here? You have to get the vax. That's what it's going to have to be is companies. So the biggest employer in Grand Rapids where I'm from is Spectrum Health. It's a big hospital system.

They said yesterday for some reason these doctors and nurses aren't getting the vaccine as much. I don't even understand that. That's mystifying to me. Me too. And they finally said, all right, some hospitals are saying you have to get it. You can't work here that. That that's mystifying to me. Me too. And they, they finally said, all right, some hospitals are saying you have to get it. You can't work here.

And they're, they said they're going to wait for FDA approval. I keep hearing that. And I don't believe it. I don't know why the FDA wants to have it. They had the, they had the, the,

the chief of the New York city fire department on, on our local Fox five, like affiliate, not Fox news, but like a Fox network. And I think it was Rosanna Scotto was asking him like, what is it going to take for your members to get vaccinated voluntarily?

And he goes, FDA approval. And I'm like, really? Are you sure? That doesn't sound right. I know a lot of FDNY people throughout the course of my lifetime. I don't feel like that's what it is. I think that the misinformation is having a bigger impact than the FDA, not formally

do it. I guess we'll find out. I'm through firefighters right now. Listen, I guess we'll find out. Anyway, that's my soapbox. Mike, what do you got? I'm flat on the week. All right.

Sounds good. Let's get into favorites. Did you guys watch the Woodstock 99 doc? Yes. I thought it was amazing. What did you think? Were you into it? Totally. Super into it. So you guys watch the Woodstock 99 doc? Yes. I thought it was amazing. What did you think? Were you into it? Totally.

Super into it. So did you go, by the way? No, I almost went. I'm surprised you didn't go. That does seem like something you would do. I wanted to go to the 94 one, which was amazing, by the way. They spent five minutes on that during the doc. I was 14, and I don't really – I remember this being a thing.

I don't remember hearing much about – I didn't know that this was like the Fyre Festival. This was so much worse than the Fyre Festival. This was so much worse than the Fyre Festival. Somebody died. I don't think anyone died in the Fyre Festival. I do remember watching all the shows on MTV at the time. Yeah. So one of the... So first of all, Bill Simmons produced this. It was like a ringer of

films. And I hope they do more of this because they're really good at it. They are. Okay. This is part one. By the way, this is part one of six. Not that they're going to do five more on Woodstock, but they're doing five more documentaries. Well, it's called Music Box, and it seems like they're really good at it. They are. Okay. This is part one. By the way, this is part one of six. Not that they're going to do five more on Woodstock, but they're doing five more documentaries. Well, it's called Music Box, and it seems like they're going to do more music stuff, which I'm all for.

This was my generation. I was 23. And one of the points they made in the doc, which I think is the most important point, is that this was a festival of 22-year-olds, mostly white males. These are people, they were born when I was born, the late 70s. They never had anything go on in their life that was adverse.

They had nothing to fight for. Very different than 1969 when 22-year-olds were watching their peers come home in body bags. My generation just didn't have that. We had the bull market of the 80s and the 90s basically 18 years of stock prices going up full employment so what were they rebelling against nothing they had nothing to corporate greed michael just spoiled assholes there's always going to be someone unhappy like right now you could say is like a after going through the pandemic like we've got and things are pretty good and you can get a job and pay, it pays a lot more money

and stock prices are up and house prices, like, and there's still going to be a lot of people unhappy. That's like the nineties right now. If you look back at it from our perch,

like financially, the nineties were this glorious time, right? Yeah. Everything was fine. There were, yeah, there was no,

the internet hadn't gotten terrible yet and people should have been happy and then they show all these people in 1999 who are angry. It was idyllic. First of all, it never feels like the good old days in real time. But second of all, these people in 1999 who are angry. It was idyllic. First of all, it never feels like the good old days in real time. But second of all,

these are an isolated, the entire country wasn't upset. These were a group of young kids that were going crazy. Well, so I'm a racist because I would say the scariest sight on earth to me is a group of drunk 22-year-old white kids.

What, today or back then? Period. Like that, like to me, that's who I'm i am most afraid of college kids with nowhere to be a lot of a lot of alcohol in their system in large numbers this was like a million of them so and it was 110 degrees and they were charging four dollars a bottle for water and the bathrooms didn't work it was gross and they were there for three days that's like what do you think is gonna happen the music was weird like limp biscuit into jewel a bottle for water and the bathrooms didn't work. That was gross. And they were there for three days.

That's like, what do you think is going to happen? The music was weird. Like Limp Bizkit into Jewel into Alanis into Red Hot Chili Peppers. I hated Limp Bizkit. Well, that was one of the aggravating factors

was that the way they booked the show, there wasn't a lot of variety. Like the one hip hop act they had was DMX. It was like the Metallica of rap. Was Korn there? Korn was there. Korn was a big factor. Puff Daddy was there i don't know are you a big corn guy back in the day limp biscuit no not really but i watched mtv like you all the time and so yeah they were

they were tearing apart a tower and it's crowd surfing on pieces of plywood and like fred durst was like yeah that's that's cool like from stage. So like they had a lot of encouragement. And what's funny is the fires broke out during probably the most chill act. The Red Hot Chili Peppers on Sunday night is when they actually destroyed the whole place. Were they asked the Red Hot Chili Peppers to like calm down the crowd

and they played Fire by Jimi Hendrix? Yeah, it was tasteful. I think what separated 94 from 99, the way they booked the acts for 94, they were paying homage. Homage? Homage? I do homage. What do I do? It's very interchangeable.

They were trying to pay their respects to the 69 Festival by having like Crosby, Stills, and Nash play or whatever. And 94 had amazing music. So 94 had amazing music, but they had boomers come back to We Live Woodstock. None of that was going on five years later. They didn't book any throwback bands. 99 is the most garbage year in all of music because that's when like NSYNC and all the pop stuff comes on.

Right. So I think there was just like this confluence of factors. The best part of the doc though, and I fully approve of this, was them throwing shit at the MTV guys. Was Kurt Loder there? Carson Daly. Oh, Carson Daly. They said Kurt Loder was doing reports on TV like he was in Vietnam.

I forgot. I mean, like how influential MTV was. It was everything. Like what was Carson Daly live? What was the show? Total Request Live. That was huge. But they made the point that not for this audience. That was teenage girls. They were the anti. Right.

They hated it. This audience were the kids that felt betrayed by MTV because they turned it into Backstreet Boys. Right. Right. Right. Anyway, awesome doc. And we don't have to talk about this. It paired very nicely with the Fight Club Rewatchable. Yeah. Same era. Oh, that was doc and we don't have to talk about this but it paired very nicely with the fight club rewatchable yeah uh same same era oh that was another point they made matrix happened in 99 fight club fight

club columbine was earlier in the year there definitely was something in the in the air um nationally uh 100 foot wave on hbo we don't need to talk about it now very heavy heavily features uh jet skis. So I definitely would highly. And you're a jet ski guy too, right? Yes. But you're a lake jet ski guy. Oh, you guys are ocean guys.

This is the coastal elitism. Do you have any waves on your lake? I don't think Ben can hang with us. I can ride into Lake Michigan. There's waves on Lake Michigan. Can you ride into the Atlantic Ocean with Michael and I? Riding in the ocean is terrible, though. It was not fun.

It was scary. Come on. Come on. Okay, you can't open it up though on the glassy lake. Correct. Yes, I can. I rode to Fire Island. I rode to Fire Island from where I live. You have to pick the right spot to do that. The right day, the right conditions.

You guys are coastal elitists i'm gonna come tear your leg up like you've never seen all right 100 foot wave what's that do you remember oh is that a video game in 64 game oh yes yeah that's great all right uh who has favorites all right i love bill bill walton non-ironically like he was a huge part of my childhood he was my favorite basketball commentator of all time and i have my, my dad got me a Bill Walton Trailblazers jersey. And I'm actually, I wish I wore it today now that I think about it. I've never worn it in my life.

Not because, where am I going to wear it? It'd be kind of weird. And he also bought me a Bill Walton Celtics card with like his jersey patch on it. Okay. Like I truly love Bill Walton. I think he's an incredible person. And I was like reminded of this

because there's another Ringer podcast called The Press Box with Brian Curtis. And David Halberstam wrote a book called Breaks of the Game, which I've never read. It's about the 79-80 Trailblazers. And Bill Walton was obviously prominently featured in that.

Supposedly the best NBA book ever written, I've heard. Not surprising because- Really? I've heard that. You've read some of his books before. Yeah. The 50s by him is amazing.

Albersdom died a couple years ago. He died in a car crash. His book called The 50s is unbelievable. I have that I never read it. But anyway, Bill Walton is such an inspiring, beautiful person, and I'm not kidding. Like, the way that he spoke about—so, it was amazing. This guy just said—I guess he said, hi, Bill, so it was amazing. This guy, this guy just said, I guess he said,

hi Bill, good to see you. And Bill Walton spoke for 50 minutes. This guy didn't ask him a question until minute 50 of the podcast. And this guy has such, like the way that he speaks about respect for his parents, he calls his mother every night.

She's 94 years old. He grew up, his mother was a librarian. I forget, his dad was a music teacher. He never threw a ball with his father. I don't know how, so he was his, he grew up with books and just so learned it and he's a librarian. I forget. His dad was a music teacher. He never threw a ball with his father. I don't know how. So he grew up with books and just so learned it, and he's a dad. Like if I could go to dinner with one person in the world, I think it would be him. Yeah.

He's just a sunshine of joy, and he's so learned. He's always in a good mood. He's just like a beautiful human being, and I mean that very sincerely. So is that a watch or a listen? Listen. And I'm probably going to re-listen to it. It was so great. All right.

I'm going to check that out. Ben, what do you got? All right, you said it. I want to plug the Quarter app. Q-U-A-R-T-R. Michael and I have actually talked to the founders of this that are like hustlers in the best way possible. German. We invested.

Michael and I invested a little money. Maybe this will be the first worthwhile European technology company. They're Swedish. And these guys are hustlers in the best way possible. They were offered some VC monies and the guy's like, we don't want VC money. These guys are great. Really? But so I am not as much of a stock guy like you, Josh, so I don't listen to quarterly, but they made it easy.

The pigeonhole, man. Well, they had Spotify and Shopify this week, and you can get on there, and you hit a button, and it goes right to the Q&A, so you skip over them reading all the results, which I don't care about. It's like the skip intro button. The PDF inside the app. So listening to the Spotify and Shopify CEOs, I think, are the two most brilliant corporate leaders we have. Charismatic. So you get to hear them talk, and like a podcast, you can put it on two times speed and do it while you're working out or something. This is something I never would listen to if it wasn't made easy for me.

So the fact that they made this easy, I think is, it's great. So check out, it's on Android now too, I guess. It's easier than listening to a podcast because you don't get like all these choices when you open the app, like put in your face, you just put in the ticker and you're listening. And I love one touch button to get to the Q and A. So you don't have to listen to 20 minutes of boilerplate that like no longer matters. Like you really just want to hear the analysts question them

and them answer. And you could do like five of those in a row really easily. I'm going to do Amazon tonight, by the way, on the way home. And you get the PDF inside the app. Yeah, so the PDF of their presentation that has all the good charts and data. Transcript too. Yeah, and the transcript.

So if you miss something or you want to see something written, you can find it. One more thing. Ryan Reynolds was on SmartList this week. So SmartList is the one with Jason Bateman and Will Arnett and Sean Hayes. I'm a huge Ryan Reynolds fan. You really are. So the guy is hilarious.

Platonic? I have a man crush on him. Those guys are so – I think Will Arnett is like on the down low one of the funniest guys there. They are so sharp. They're one-liners to each other back and forth, like zinging each other is great. But Ryan Reynolds also – he was throwing out inspirational stuff. He's hilarious. He's also a real – I guess he owns like a mobile phone company and a marketing company. And he's a really sharp guy.

So Ryan Reynolds on SmartList. So SmartList, a podcast. I never listened. I've heard of it. I never listened to it. They're still at it. They have huge guests. It's just, they bring all their friends on from Hollywood.

So their guests every week are enormous. Like LeBron and Clooney. Didn't that seem like something that was like for the pandemic and then they would stop? Yes, that's what I thought it was. Then they just sold it for $60, $80 million. It's going to be exclusive to someone. I can't remember who. Unreal. We'll check that one out. Great favorites, guys.

Yeah, really good job. By the way, when I saw you and Michael on Instagram taking pictures in front of Central Park horses and carriages, I was... I haven't been to New York in a while. You know what I said to myself? First, I said, this is adorable. But then I said, oh, man, Chris is going to be so jealous.

I said to Chris, he gets very catty when Ben's in town. He really doesn't like it. So I said, I hope. It's really going to be back in New York. What do Courtney and Robin say about you guys' relationship? Like, are they supportive? So Courtney and I were driving somewhere. We were driving up north. My parents live uh during the weekday yeah a couple weeks ago and michael and

i probably called each other six times on a three-hour drive and she goes do you guys do this all the time i said yeah okay actually when when something michael when something good happens to you is robin the first call these days or is Ben probably Ben no because when something good happens to me it probably doesn't affect Robin like I will I will get the notification on slack Ben gets the call and Robin maybe overhears it yeah is that fair yeah all right well listen I love uh love seeing you guys reunited back together again I know it's been a long time Ben you're gonna come back more often this year than last year, let's hope. And all right, awesome. We loved having you.

And guys, if this podcast isn't enough for you and you haven't checked out Animal Spirits yet, which I can't even imagine, but let's say you haven't. Animal Spirits is my personal favorite investing podcast. And America's too in many ways. Survey says. So you guys are every Monday and every Wednesday, Animal Spirits. So make sure you guys are every Monday and every Wednesday animal spirits. So make sure you guys check that out. You can watch the full video of their Wednesday podcast on our YouTube channel,

youtube.com slash the compound RWM for clips from this show and from animal spirits. All right. Thanks for checking us out this week. We will see you as always next Friday. Have a great weekend. All right. That was good.

You guys didn't get too mushy with each other. I had a little tear. I had a little tear. That was one of the things I was worried about but it didn't happen. That was f***ing good.

Yeah? All right. You ready? Okay. Good dress rehearsal, right? Thanks again to our sponsor, Masterworks. Go to masterworks.io slash compound for more information.