The Compound and Friends - Meta Squid Game

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

On this week's episode of The Compound & Friends, Michael Batnick, Dan McMurtrie, and Downtown Josh Brown discuss: earnings week, big tech ad revenue, Tesla crossing $1 trillion, Facebook (Meta) entering the metaverse, stable coins, hedge funds, the billionaire tax, investing in robotics, and more! This episode is brought to you by Direxion. Visit https://www.direxion.com/leveraged-etf-education for more information! Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Uh, can you hear me? I'm not- I'm not sitting in the mask the whole time. I'll f***ing stop breathing. I'll hyperventilate on the- on the show. Hi. I feel like sometimes you just do that to mess with Michael. Michael needs to l- to lighten up. I just feel like we know when something's funny.

You don't need to f***ing press the bazooka. It makes me laugh harder. Wait. I don't have a bazooka. That's for announcements. Yo, you know what we need? You know what we need? We need the Kramers' They Know Nothing. Oh, now you're into it.

No, but you know why that's corny? Because he uses that. No, he doesn't. Yes, he does. What do you mean? He stands there and slaps that button. They know nothing. He has a they-know-nothing button. That's why that's corny. You know his is a custom-made thing?

What do you mean? That board with all the sound effects? I looked into that. Well, how the fuck do you expect him to pick stocks if he doesn't have sound effects? I don't understand. I mean, honestly, what is this, the Stone Age? He does use them really well, though. Are you like a fucking closet Kramer guy?

What's going on here? I mean, I've watched my share of Kramer. When do you have time to do that? I'm going to give you more videos to edit. Oh, my God. Don't fucking tell me that. It's the six to seven block, right? Jesus.

Yeah. What works for you? Except during the Olympics. Then it comes on my show We've got Amazon Apple and Shopify After the close No big deal

Small stocks Are you long any of those Starbucks Yeah I don't I don't buy Stocks that go up Right

No I know You don't want Why would I want to do that Shopify is I don't want it to be that easy You know Shopify is the one that got away. I knew that was going to work.

I just never bought it. Did anybody watch Curb this week? Yeah. Love it. Curb's back on. I didn't even know Curb was back on. It started on Sunday. It's the new best night of television.

It's on at 10.30. It's way too late for me. It's Succession right into Curb. You don't watch it at 10.30, do you? I did this weekend. Right. I feel like you can't not watch. You don't need to watch Curb live.

No, but like the premiere of the new season, I feel like you have to watch it. You have to watch it live. Especially because you just know that everyone's going to be talking about it the next day. I feel like Curb, like nobody, it's kind of...'s it's quiet it's quiet release has been quiet uh did you think albert brooks was funny yes because he is funny yeah he's funny um did you watch it yeah i haven't seen it yet all right we really i am about to record uh with dan and Josh. Who is that? Guess. Bye. Robin?

Not Ben. Does Ben get a tingle when he knows you're cheating on him on another podcast? Would you change anything about the show, Duncan? I didn't speak to you about it yet. About Ben's show? Duncan, when the camera came on, you looked a little petrified.

Yeah, no, I was nervous. I mean, it was the first time. First time? Yeah. Were you nervous about being on camera or nervous that the show was going to go well? Just both. Just everything. Just having everything lined up and ready to go.

I thought for the first live run, it was like pretty flawless. Yeah, yeah. I felt it's hard for me to take you seriously right now when I can't see your face. The only thing I would say is closer to 15 minutes is better than closer to 20 minutes. Okay, yeah. But we know that. Wait, why do we know that? I mean, we had a couple of comments already saying that they wish it was longer. People always say that.

I know, I'm kidding. People that really like it will say that, but I feel like we're going to do it every week. Yeah. How much of people's time do we want to take on a Thursday every week? All of it. All of it. As much as they'll give us. All of the time.

I thought it was great, though. I really wouldn't change anything else. Bill was really good. Yeah. Bill was great. Saul was great. Who's going to be on next week? I think Blair.

Yeah, Blair. All right. Let's see. What's up? We got the great. Who's going to be on next week? I think Blair. Yeah, Blair. Let's see. What's up? We got the bell. It's 4 o'clock. Why didn't your bell ring? Because I don't think it's going to open.

Do we have Apple yet? No, Apple doesn't do it until 4.30 usually. Are you new here? I must be. Sorry, I'm usually on TV when these numbers come out. Not to brag. Not to brag. Sorry.

I get all the Fed days now. Does it ever get boring just being like, yeah, they did exactly what they did the last time again? The Fed is super boring right now. I don't – it's too boring. I don't understand people who are like the Fed is going to torpedo the market. I'm like based – when have they – just because somebody gave a speech one time in Dallas, like nobody cares. The Bank of Canada did that this week. Yeah, but they're fucking Canadian. No, I know.

It's the Bank of Canada. But they said no taper. We're just done with stimulus. Like they're just – they're finished. I don't even know how much they were doing, but – I think the Fed needs to taper, needs to cancel stimulus, but just directly buy Robinhood stock. Yeah, I think the Fed needs to shake things up and maybe bring in a younger, cuter kid. By the way, by the way...

You can point your finger right at my mask. Because I can't see you. I guess you didn't see the show. Wait, you can't see, therefore you need to point? Yeah, go ahead. What do you got? See, therefore, you need a point. Yeah, go ahead. What do you got?

Josh said yesterday that he thinks that Robinhood's revenue is down because Bitcoin spreads are tighter, to which I said, LOL. Here's what happened. Go ahead. It was Doge. Remember? Oh, yeah. They made all their money on Doge last quarter. Last quarter, all their crypto money was made from Doge, and Doge fucking died last quarter. Therefore, they died with it it's kind of

crazy because we laughed at their ipo that doge was like a material impact on their earnings it is it really was that was the last time i was on here we were talking about that it really was all of the takes and there were many where it's like robin hood needs a new bubble it's not bullshit like they really do you need like a mania but what was interesting is that coinbase was the most downloaded app yesterday because coinbase has the

shiba coin robinhood for whatever reason doesn't this is so I'm sorry welcome to the metaverse

motherfuckers it's all so stupid it's all so stupid and getting stupider I love it I mean I used to hate it but now I love it

I guess I'm kind of okay with it now compared to where I was six months ago it sounded dumb but now that we know it's dumber, I'm cool. I came around. I have a strategy for this. Anytime you see some of this whatever the hell is going on,

when you see something that really enrages you, find someone you really dislike who's being enraged by it, and your opinion will shift on it. So I just look on Twitter, and I'm like, okay, that guy's a jerk, and he's really mad about this. Okay, I'm going to learn about this. So maybe it's actually a good thing? It might actually be a good thing.

That's actually a good way to hack your own brain. Yeah. Josh said yesterday, anytime someone unveils a short position, just get long immediately. Yep. Well, the word unveil being the operative. If you're unveiling, almost like you're pulling the cover off a classic car you just bought, don't be unveiling shit. Just do the trade.

If you unveil it, I'm getting long. Yeah. The – It's a kiss of death. A bunch of people have been talking about shorting Robinhood into these share unlocks and so I called every prime that would speak to me and I was like, is there any borrow anywhere? And everybody's like, nope.

Everything's – I'm like, so the entire available flow is short. And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, so if these guys don't sell for like three days, this thing is going to go moon. And they're like, yep. And I'm like, okay, this is smart. I'm like, who – how do you not see – if that's not priced in, I don't know what's priced in. When there's no borrow anywhere on Wall Street. Wait, there was no borrow on what's –

There's no borrow on Robinhood anywhere on the street. Like none of the major primes have borrow. Interactive doesn't have borrow. Interactive doesn't have borrow. Fidelity doesn't have borrow. You cannot find a single share anywhere because everybody thinks they're the clever boy that's going to short Robinhood right now before the shares unlock. It's going to be a disaster. What if there's not as much selling from the unlock as people expect? Yeah, I mean if the stock doesn't go down, they're going to have to cover.

They're just putting their head in a noose. I'm buying Robinhood. Amazon just reported earnings breaking. They made a lot of money. I'm shocked. A lot of money. I hate that company is going places. Up down 4%.

No, this was not supposed to be a good quarter for them because the comp from last year is really hard. Think about what was going on last year this time. Yes. Define a bad quarter. Right, exactly. Their growth rate is supposed to be the slowest in four years. It was only the second best quarter of all time. Yeah.

They might only be 5% better than the largest single revenue print for any corporation in human history. What's so interesting about Amazon is that the only number that really matters is AWS because that's almost all of their net income yep like all the grocery shit is basically a push right and then did the cloud business grow or not that's that's the whole story it's really it's really interesting

all right let's get going we're stepping on material yeah I'm legit starting to suffocate all right let's start the first game yeah this is this this is a squid game three claps harder than I thought it It's really. Did you see the earn your leisure thing they shared? That if you held Shiba from the beginning, a dollar would now be worth $600,000? Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Oh, a dollar? A dollar would now be worth $600,000.

Ridiculous. All right. The Compound and Friends, episode 21. 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.

Today's episode of The Compound and Friends is brought to you by Direction. Direction's leveraged ETFs are powerful tools for short-term active traders, but they're definitely not for everyone. So know the risks, trade boldly. For investors looking for longer-term investments, Direction offers strategic and thematic ETFs for precise exposure to satellite investment themes. Direction's latest leveraged ETF is Dozer. That's D-O-Z-R, the Daily U.S. Infrastructure Bull Two-Time Shares ETF. Offering two times the daily return on infrastructure stocks. Go to direction.com slash dozer to find out more. If you're Okay, we're here. Squid Game fans, and expenses contained in the prospectus available at Direction.com. Read that carefully. Okay, we're here.

Squid Game fans, you're going to love the visuals of today's episode. Make sure you check us out on YouTube. All right, I'm very excited about today's show. I think it was such a no-brainer to have Dan come back for Halloween. Are you a big Halloween guy in general or not really? I mean, I think every party is a costume party, so, you know. So you would show up in costume either way?

Why not? Yeah. Were you a big trick-or-treater back in the day? Oh, I mean, I'm still a big trick-or-treater. It creeps people out a little bit, but, you know. Yeah. What are they going to do about it? So I was the other thing. I was like running around the neighborhood looking for kids to beat up.

So I ran with a different crowd back then. I was running around looking for Michael in his costume. Michael lived across the street. What are you, eight years younger than me? Yeah. But I was gone. I mean, why trick or treat? We just go take his candy.

Exactly. All right. So I'm going to have to take this thing off because I think I'm going to pass out right here. That wouldn't be good for the show. Let's unveil ourselves. Let's unveil ourselves. Let's unveil ourselves. So in case you weren't sure. It's too much.

All right. So first things first, we have to do earnings. This is like the Super Bowl week where everybody big reports all the big tech names. We just got Amazon after the bell. What's your impression of the earnings reports that we're seeing, not just big tech, but just across the board? Everything seemed pretty good. I feel like this is Perrier with space balls. This oxygen feels so good right now.

Right? This is not a suggested way to live. Every print I've seen has been good. And the reactions are pretty good. Every print I've seen has been good. And the reactions are pretty good. For the large caps. For the small and mid caps, if you've printed in line, your stocks are down 5% to 30%. It's been pretty vicious.

That's where you play, so that's fun. It's been, yeah. It's been. What's your average market cap? $4. Probably like $3 billion. $3 billion. Something like that.

So these are the companies that have the most trouble weathering higher labor costs, higher – Well, it's that and then the security is just way less liquid and they've been underperforming the last like six, eight weeks and people are coming into comp season and nobody has any stomach right now or ability to have stomach. So – and there's no bids. So if you have – you have a company like – we're along this company, Turning Point Brands, that makes vapes and things like that. Oh, that's part of your ESG portfolio? Yeah, it's an ESG allocation. OK. And they like missed by 3 million on EBITDA, 3 million.

Yeah. And they were like it's going to be Q1 instead of Q4. And then the CEO gets on the call and he says, yeah, actually our data is ahead of that, but we just wanted to be conservative. OK. Stock was down 23%. The next day, management buys stock, and they announce like a $50 million buyback. Yeah. I'm like, what happened?

And then when you look at the tape— Imagine getting stopped out of that. Right. When we look at the tape, somebody sold like 350,000 shares at the open, and then it went completely sideways. So I say there's no activity. You're calling brokers. Is anybody trading this? Nope. How aware of you are you in a company that size of who else is in it in size and what they might want to do? Oh, we track everybody. I mean, we know all the

other major shareholders, you know, we're talking to, I still use the phone to trade, which blows people's minds. And so like, I'm calling the high touch guys being like, is anything happening? And, you know, cause in these types of of names, when somebody starts blocking into the stock, the float goes away really fast and these things move. And so for small caps, there's kind of three things that move stocks. It's basically attention. Something goes on social media and these guys rush in. Other people mimic them and front-run them.

It's like a big return of capital or something like that that gets people's attention. And then kind of the third thing is just these guys getting to a point where they're going to execute their fundamentals where they're going to get in the indexes. Like the whole trade in small and mid caps now is- Oh, get into the rustle. Right. Can you make the fundamental bridge long enough to get in the index? And basically, the way I look at equities right now, if you're like an endowed company, if you're a FANG or whatever, you trade at 3% to 4% free cash flow yield, roughly, maybe less if you're a hyper growth. And if you're

anything else, you're trading at eight to 12% free cash flow yield. And so if you can figure out when that gap is going to get closed, you make an enormous amount of money. If you see something get kicked out of bucket one and a bucket two, very, very painful. Right. Because you lose all your institutional sponsorship getting pulled out of an index. and they and they you know we're not a point where the majority of the market's passive and so if you're one of the last remaining mutual fund managers like that you just can't hold in their performing stock like last six weeks i mean the s&p is up like what 6.6 percent something like that for the month yeah how do you hold a stock that's down five percent for this month it's like well it kills you if you're if you're concentrated it kills you it a stock that's down 5% for this month? Well, it kills you. If you're

concentrated, it kills you. Yeah, it's insane. And even if you're not concentrated, like when you can increase performance by buying more liquid stocks, you're just like, this is stupid. I'm out. I mean, right. You look at something like Alphabet. They report like a good quarter, not the greatest quarter ever. Stock goes a hundred dollars right immediately how do you compete in a in a marketplace for investors when bucket one is made up of the largest stocks in the world the most liquid going up the most it's like it's it's insane it's it's insane uh and it's been going on for a long time and it's getting worse so alphabet i mean the thing is though it's the stocks reflecting just the growth of these companies.

It just – when does it – it's not even slowing down. It's speeding up it feels like. YouTube is speeding up. Yeah, the company's fundamentals are strong. They're getting stronger in some cases. And at the same time, more and more money is going into just kind of buying the S&P or custom – it's more top-down trading than bottom-up trading. So you've got kind of like all the levers going one way, which makes small caps just – I mean that's just crazy. So Alphabet, they're about a $2 trillion company now.

They're a hair under. Their revenue – $60 trillion, $60 billion a quarter. It was up 41 percent year over year, 11 percent sequential. Google search, their advertising went from 37 billion. Now last year, last year obviously was troubled for companies paying advertisers. From 37 billion up to 53 billion. They're returning cash like mad. $12.6 billion buyback in the last three months. The cloud has grown 45%. There's over 2 million creators on

YouTube now making money. But what's interesting is that YouTube advertising is kind of small. Their revenue was $7.2 billion. It's $30 billion overall for the year. Facebook advertising was $30 billion last quarter. So the point is there might still be a lot of room to run. YouTube did $30 billion last year. Facebook did $30 billion last quarter.

Oh, there's plenty of room. I think that's one of the primary drivers of the stock. And the cloud business, which they are, it's unlike Google to be a distant third in anything they do. But the cloud business, they were late. But that's now catching up. It's grown 45%. That's insane growth

for something that's not tiny. It's $5 billion. So tiny for them, but- Tiny for them, but- Massive. They're not accustomed to running behind in anything that they're doing. And they're not going to stay that way for a long time. The YouTube advertising thing, I think is interesting.

It's probably not as good of an ad product as what Facebook is doing because Facebook knows the user better. But I have to believe if Google sees you watch 12 videos a week, they know who you are. They know what advertisers should be putting on you. You know what I think is different, though? When you're scrolling on Instagram and you see an ad that's targeted to you

like I do all the time, I click on it. I've never once in my life clicked on a YouTube ad. I always skip. Oh, skip ad after five seconds? So I just think there's a big difference between video ads and like in-scrolling app ads. I think that's why Instagram is way more effective. Instagram ads, I was just, I mean, I've never clicked on a Facebook ad, but I've clicked on Instagram ads. Same, same.

I don't know why Instagram seems to have much better. They have your number. They know exactly what you want. The Facebook ads also just seem to be trash. It's just like, do you want this commemorative gold coin? You mean the meta ads? Sorry. Yes, that's right. The meta ads. What are you doing on Facebook that they're showing you commemorative coins? Well, what are you doing on Facebook at all? What are you doing on Facebook? Full stop.

I have like for a long time scheme to one day launch a commemorative gold coin company. I just think that's how you know you've made it in American society, is when you have a Fox News ad for a commemorative gold coin, a limited edition. That's how you know you've made it. You know why you're uniquely situated for a gold coin? Because you could grow out the mustache. You'd need the mustache. Yes.

Tom Selleck is on the coin. Keith Hernandez. Keith is on the coin. How does Microsoft keep doing this? Do you even understand what's going on? I mean, I know it's cloud, obviously, but this is another two, is it 2 trillion or more? They're more, they're like 2.5. Where is this coming from? Remember when a trillion dollars was a lot of money for market cap?

How do they keep doing this? Tell me what's going on here. All right. Cloud revenue, $20 billion, up 36% year over year. Look at this financial summary. So the gross margins on this business are 70%. Operating income, 45%. Again, returning cash like mad. $6.2 billion in repurchases, $4.7 billion in dividends. That's up 42% year over year. That's $6 billion in repurchases for the quarter.

What's that? For the quarter. For the quarter. For the quarter. Even LinkedIn revenue has grown 42%. How? How, Sway? LinkedIn ads are actually pretty effective, too. I remember when Elliot took that battleship or something from Argentina and sued them.

I think Microsoft is secretly taking over entire countries in a debt market or something. They're big enough that they could if they wanted to. But these companies are so dominant. Yeah. All right. So Facebook, a little bit of a different story. And now they're having like a midlife crisis, which makes sense. What are they, 13 years old?

Facebook, 14 years old? No, way longer. So in Silicon Valley years, they're like 35 years old or 40 years old. I think they were like from 2002 or something. No, 07, 06, 07. No way. Yes, yes, my. Not 02.

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm getting my graduation wrong. So what do we think about the name change? Like, is this the ultimate? I mean, Google did it. Did you guys see the video? I watched the video. Did you see the video i watched the video did you see the video no john throw this up why was there a video just watch it looks tan

i mean say what you will about the guy the guy's got his hand this is i mean obviously zook runs zook runs a company but i think they're terrified who saw that video and said let's run with it let's run it yep let's do it this is what we need to do you got it john yeah i'm pulling up do you think anyone's approving anything? Do you think anyone's disapproving anything that he wants to do? No, that's what I'm saying. Not a chance. Oh, it's all him.

All right. Let's see how ridiculous this is. You watch this already? Oh, yeah. It's like 45 minutes. We'll just watch half of it. Wait, can we pause? Where the fuck is he?

Oh, he's going to address that. Is that a hotel room? And as part of this, it is time for us to adopt a new company brand to encompass everything that we do. To reflect who we are and what we hope to build, I am proud to announce that starting today, our company is now meta. Our mission remains the same. It's still about bringing people together. Come on. Our apps and their brands, they're not changing either.

And we are still the company that designs technology around people. But now we have a new North Star to help bring the metaverse to life. And we have a new name that reflects the full breadth of what we see. He just put like half of SNL's writing room out of work. Wait, but what is the background? Are you going to tell me it's virtual? Yeah, everything he kept being like, I'm not actually in a room right now.

He basically was bragging that he was deep faking people throughout the whole thing. It looks like I'm in a room and it looks like this is me but actually this is not a real person. I'm in your room. I'm watching you right now. He looks this is me, but actually this is not a real person. I'm in your room. He looks like Mark. I'm watching you right now. He looks like Mark Davis, the owner of the Raiders with that freaking ridiculous haircut. Here's what I'll say about –

I don't hate it as much as I – Whatever. I don't even care. But they have 3 billion users, call it 2 billion users, whatever the real number is, a trillion plus dollar a trillion dollar 800 billion dollar market cap and they're changing their name to meta and they're going all in the on the metaverse we can talk all the shit you want about the metaverse like this is a big big big big deal for that and he said they're gonna spend 35 billion dollars in capex on

stuff servers and i was like software hey first question i was like where are you gonna spend that money? And they're like, places. Can I tell you where? NVIDIA chips. Probably. NVIDIA software and chips and the whole package. It's the only way.

AMD and NVIDIA are the only way to build any of this shit. And, like, that's where the money's going to go. I don't hate this that much because I think they're scared and I think that they know they're losing young people. And they also know young people are really into the metaverse and living a whole different life online. I think they just did Mushrooms and watched like Ready Player One. You think this is crazy? I'm just watching it. I'm like – like I have one of the Oculus headsets.

I've used it like – I used it for like two weeks. It was cool. The coolest thing about it is you can put grandma and grandpa in it and they can go skydiving and stuff and that's really cool but like i'm watching the whole thing and i'm like who is ever gonna do this he's like sitting there you're gonna have everybody in headsets having virtual full body meetings wearing headsets and i was like i you so put a gun to my head get me to do that did you hear what the kid from snap said what he's like totally thinks that this is the worst move possible because he's like people don't want to live in a fake online environment. What they actually want is augmented reality. Yeah, I agree with that.

They want their real reality but with some augmentation. But with comment sections. With comment sections. This is like Black Mirror. Everybody wants a comment section until they get a comment section for the first time. Or comment sections. This is like Black Mirror. Everybody wants a comment section until they get a comment section for the first time. Or until the comment section's talking about them. Then you definitely don't want it.

The first time you get one, you're like, I didn't know that about myself. It's brutal. So the snap bet is like people just gonna want to see the world and then have buttons they could push to do things or get information about buildings as they walk past or walk through an airline terminal and be told like how many more feet until the gate. How long do I have to wait for my McGriddle?

But how many hundreds of millions of boomers are going to be like, wait, what's the metaverse are going to be first hearing about that? He doesn't care about them anymore. He has them. No, my point is this is a big deal for the metaverse. Like, this is going to be on USA Today on Good Morning America. Like, this is a big deal. But my point is, like, to what end? Like, it's not like the hardware is not there. Like, that's what I don't understand about what he's doing. He's saying that.

He's saying, we're not going to make any money from this for 10 years. I just want to see a platform. Is he telling everybody to buy an Oculus? Is he going to? I need to see the Ray-Ban glasses. Like, what is... All right, so this is why I'm somewhat bullish. I will become more bullish.

Two reasons. Number one, did you watch Star Trek The Next Generation? Yes. Okay, come on. Holodeck? How sick?

I mean, I want it. I know we don't have it. I understand. I'm not a giant loser, so fill me in. Okay, so Michael was into girls. You and I were into Patrick Stewart. Right. The holodeck is a simulator where they could basically create an artificial world so that they could do training

or i guess they could have cool guest stars on the show oh wait have you been to the void no okay the next time i think they have one in new york but there's one in vegas next time either of you in vegas go to the void they have this in New York, but there's one in Vegas. Next time either of you in Vegas, go to The Void. They have this Star Wars thing. Is that near Experiment Rhino? Probably. OK. But they took this entire area of a casino, basically built a maze out of concrete and stuff, and you put on not just a VR headset but this whole haptic suit. Yeah.

And you get to go through a little Star Wars movie and like when you – there's like hot lava and it smells like hot lava and it's hot. And when you touch it, it squishes. And when you get hit with a laser beam, it hits you. Dude, I'm into that. It was awesome.

All right. So, so Star Trek, the next generation, similar to Westworld on HBO, just this idea that you could be in an artificial world that feels real to you. And obviously you're going to have to wear a lot of clunky equipment now, but 10 years from now, who's to say that, that, that you would. So that's thing. And obviously, you're going to have to wear a lot of clunky equipment now. But 10 years from now,

who's to say that you would? So that's thing number one. This is coming, right? I don't know what this is, but- 100%. You don't think Disney is going to metaverse the shit out of all of their-

I can't wait to live in Disney's metaverse. I want to feel like a child again. I love Disney World. Could you imagine like- It's going to get so creepy. It's going to get crazy. You're going to have a bunch

of 50-year-old dudes being Jasmine from Aladdin. Your kid is going to be like, where's Iago? And it's going to be terrible. But what – think about all the possibilities for Hollywood and entertainment. If movies are the past and the future is you just come into this world that we've created. And some people will do it really shitty and some people will do an amazing job. Yeah, Disney's there. Alright, let me pitch you a stock. It's called Immersion Corp.

I-M-M-R. Do you have a pen handy? I'll give you some of the details. This is the company with the patents for haptic everything. So every time... I don't know what haptic means. When your watch wants to alert you to something, a little buzz. When you're driving in a car and you're getting too close to the left lane and the left side of your ass buzzes, that's haptic technology.

Okay. So that's computers making you feel things. They have a monopoly on vibrators. Basically. Okay. But for adults. Got it. Anyway, this is – stock went up 11.6% today, and I have to believe that there's going to be some haptic bullishness coming from all these metaverse announcements that you just know are right around the corner. I'm going to start using that in memos, haptic bullishness.

We're deservating haptic bullishness. Don't you think Robinhood – The company generates a majority of its revenue from North Korea. Don't you think Robinhood would love to shock you if you haven't traded for an hour? I mean, I think they're probably trying to. Like, hey, fuck stick. Let's go. Right.

Why are you holding on to these stocks when you could be trading them? Look, I'm trying to take this seriously, and I do think that it's's a big deal i agree with you um have we talked enough about the metaverse anything left to say no i think i was about to say one other thing but i forgot what it was we'll see if i i think it's absolutely happening i just i but the issue with the metaverse is that like he didn't really say anything he just showed a bunch of pretty VR cartoons. Exactly. There's nothing there. They're going to build it.

Or they're going to be a part of it. They're not going to build the metaverse. They'll be a part of it. You know we're boomers. They're not going to build the metaverse. Actually, here's the main reason I'm a little bit mad about the presentation is I don't want the first iteration of this to be we're going to have meetings in the metaverse. Literally any other use case i'm into but the idea that like the three of us are going to do this from pods with him like no no i have no interest in that can i give you a great use case i'm i'm stealing this

from portlandia there was a there was a skit where they really want to go to this like festival concert right like a lollapalooza kind of thing, but it sucks so much when you're actually there. It's like bugs. They actually already have that for Oculus. And crap. Right. So just put the helmet on and you're at Lollapalooza. And anytime you want to take the helmet off for a few minutes, go to the bathroom like a human being. You could pull it, right? That seems to me to be a pretty obvious use case. All right. Let's move on to the next session. Dan, I want to kick this off with something you tweeted in August. If you could dodge a reg, you could dodge a ball.

The great patches of Houlihan CFA. I'm managing long, short risk. Yep. And then you tweeted, seriously, every day you get a different text that says, holy shit, did you hear ridiculously smart person firm just lost massive amount of money because of totally insane thing

that doesn't show up in the indexes at all? Yeah, daily, daily. What are these things? It's just, you know, did you hear that, you know, there's a peanut butter manufacturer in South Korea that's up 2000% today and just like KO the best long short manager in Hong Kong. You'll get it just completely bad shit nonsense. I mean, obviously you had the AMCs, you know, this other stuff, but even, even beyond that, you're having these like weird niche scenarios where these guys, you know, who are, you know, a lot of these institutional long short shops, what they're trying to do is run like 100 long positions, 100 short positions. Yeah. Not even concentrated guys.

And, you know, they're trying to basically take high volatility securities, mix it all together and get this low volatility bond like thing. And this is just completely broken their models and why because you get something that's trading at two dollars that goes to two hundred dollars because it turns out you can't actually predict like the correlation the liquidity any like the things that are supposed to be stable about making those bets or they need to be within a certain range in order for you to like have a reasonable thing they're just not working and you know a lot of these guys uh just kind of think you know it's about having a spread between your lungs and your

shorts but you know i think we're talking about before we went on camera like you know robinhood stocks unlocking and in a week and so you know people are on twitter saying you want a short robinhood stock into uh the the insiders being able to sell shares. Too obvious. And I called around today, and there is no borrow at any of the major primes. So even if you're a big boy trader, there's nothing out there. And you really don't want to call in a favor to get – some people will probably be listening to this going, well, can't you pull a string and get some borrow? It's like, yeah, but you don't want to do that.

Why can't you use the options? Well, if the borrow – I mean, part of the reason the borrow is not there is that people are going to be using that to trade against options and they're running all sorts of, you know, and so the options chain, I'm sure is just absolute madness. And so you go look in and there's just, you know, basically these are all just coiled springs. And if the stock doesn't collapse the next week, it's going to go to the moon because all these guys got to cover all their, all their shorts. But don't you think, so so maybe this is me being naive.

Don't you think the people that are short the stock will understand this anyway? You know, no disrespect to anybody, but this is something that like they academically know it and then they cannot help themselves. They don't think it will happen to them. Right. Or they're like – the answer will change based on what's hurting them at the time. So it's, I'm a longer, I have a longer term view on that business. A lot of times people lose and then they go, well, you can't time stocks. And I'm like, well, that's not really true. You can tell when it's a really abnormally risky scenario.

Can you imagine what will be going on on Reddit? If there's a short squeeze in Robin hood, that takes out some name. And weirdly, if that were to happen – I'm going to buy Robinhood tomorrow. I mean here's the craziest thing. Imagine we wake up on Monday or whatever and Robinhood is up 100%, something crazy. That's actually going to drive a lot of trading behavior. It's going to drive a lot of people to Robinhood. It will actually help the business. I'm buying Robinhood on Robinhood right now.

Dude, there's nothing more meta than a Robin Hood short squeeze being driven by traders on Robin Hood. And causing more people to go to Robin Hood and actually drive Robin Hood. The only thing that would make that more meta is if fucking Kevin Costner logs in in costume and is shorting Robin Hood on Robin Hood. I don't know how you get more meta than this. It's insane. Is Vlad smart enough to stoke this and make it happen what are you doing what's robin hood you put robin hood post close in the aftermarket or you put it in order for it's welcome to the metaverse bro all right fine

you know this podcast is going to come out before the open so i don't i don't know anything about vlad but i mean people around people are smart enough. People have figured this out. You know, it's not, uh, you think they had the sec breathing down their backs, uh, breathing down their necks, uh, in January, if there's a Robin hood short squeeze and anyone thinks that anyone at Robin hood is at all either aware of it in advance or involved in driving it. That's a big deal. The problem is problem is with like a lot of these – whatever we're going to call some of these companies right now, they are so kind of high on their own supply that not only are people engineering little schemes with their stocks,

but then they're dumb enough to do something like, I'm going to go buy 25 grand of call options. Yeah, you call it immediately. It's like the Matt Levine rule. Like if you were going to inside your trade, don't do it this way. Don't use options. And you look in there like a billionaire just risked their – like everything for 400 grand in short-term options profits.

It's just crazy. It's the easiest thing on earth to be watched, options trading. And when you see somebody make an outsized bet especially if they've never done it before right it's there's nothing to talk about so uh all right why are we talking about robin hood again oh because you're talking about how you know every day i'm getting a text it's like did you hear about oh well i don't know why but now i'm bullish we're not getting we're not getting those texts we're getting texts like so-and-so just sold their company for nine for 900 million dollars and i would say they're coming in weekly at this point that's amazing and i would love to say it's a contrary indicator but it probably isn't

like this is probably just going to continue because what are they going to do the 900 million they're going to go fund some other company well elon's worth 300 billion so yeah i mean tesla hit a trillion dollars in market cap this week. Pretty impressive. Worth more than every automaker in the world combined. All right, here's what I got to say about this. I mean, what is left to say? Where the hell?

My Slack's not working. Sorry. Talk amongst yourselves. We have a new term for things like Tesla right now. We call them disassociative valuations. It's like when you start talking about people who have so much money that you can't even understand it. Yeah. And like especially when it's just mostly opinion-based.

Yeah. It's a disassociative valuation. It's like we've gone past – we're past played. Right. And now we're into just something where I just don't even understand. Dude, this guy is worth a quarter of a trillion dollars personally. No, 300. So Lee Drogon tweeted.

This is – I don't even know what to do with this. He said, good luck keeping business school kids' attention for, quote, asset pricing theory class. Might as well just rip up the textbooks. So like honestly, kids going into – That sounds mad toppy. I'm just going to be honest with you. Kids going into business school, kids that are in business school learning about the dividend discount model or whatever they're learning about. Right.

How do you do that with a straight face right now? They should teach it like it's fables. How do you do that with a straight face right now? They should teach it like it's fables. My honest take is that people started ringing the top bell in like 15? 13, 14. 13. And I remember in 15 when SaaS companies were wildly expensive at five times sales. Remember that?

Yeah, what are they now, 40? Yeah. And now it's just boy who cried wolf. Like I don't know what you say. And also the companies have delivered. That's the thing that's been crazy is everybody went back – they went to Michael Mavis and like base rate stuff. They're like this many companies grew revenue this fast for 10 years

and so they know it will happen. And then the software companies went, okay, and they just went and did it. It's like having 50 LeBrons come into the NBA at the same time. It's just nuts. That's a good analogy. Josh, we were – in 2013, there was somebody – we don't need to name names. There was somebody who had been bearish for a long time. In 2013, they were bearish for a long time.

Jeffrey Epstein. And this person wrote something like, this market reeks of euphoria or reeks of fumes, fumes fueled by euphoria, whatever. That was like – You hate this guy i know that was that was a long time ago a long time ago um the unicorn cover for fortune which i think was the coming out party for this whole thing 17 where they said there are 40 companies in silicon valley worth a billion right pre-ipo isn't that adorable now it's like 4 000 now billion it's a billion right um now there are a deck of unicorns everywhere you look.

There are probably 40 that have been started this year that are already worth more than a billion. That are already a billion. That are raising money at a billion in their first couple of rounds. Yeah. Right. So at that moment, people held the physical cover of that magazine up and waved it around and said, if this isn't the top, what is? Okay, this is – And then the universe said, if this isn't the top, what is? Okay, this is- And then the universe said,

oh yeah, stay tuned. Right. John, throw up that- What year is this? Is this 13 or 14? No. What do you mean no? I'm pretty sure it is.

I thought it was like 17. What year is this? When's it? Hold on. Hold on. I'm going to look this up on Facebook. Okay. So here's my metaverse take.

I think the metaverse part of the market – the market and the media combined are basically becoming what I'm calling the infinite gaslighting machine because – Time out. It's January 2015. 2015. That's so long ago. So long. It's six years ago. I mean – and it's – all right. Go ahead. It really seems like the combination of asset prices and the media are sort of coming together to just drive the most people insane it can. Like it's just breaking people's brains. I mean it's insane.

Like I've never seen anything like it. So the other thing that's going on is that we are constantly being made aware of all of these fundings and financings in a way that I don't think used to exist. Like we're getting – I got an alert on my phone how much money Nas made in an IPO. Right. And I just said, what the fuck is this? Did you see that Shiba wallet? It was from TMZ. It was not from Wall Street Journal.

Right. So TMZ is broadcasting the billions of dollars that athletes and rappers are making in startups. That was not the case I don't think ever. Well, because they weren't making millions in startups. No, it's like billions now. Whatever. It's crazy. So Dan, that wallet, what was that Shiba wallet? or whatever.

It's crazy. So Dan, that wallet, what was that Shiba wallet? There was like something, it was like somebody bought like a few thousand dollars of Shiba coin a year ago. And now that wallet apparently has like five or $6 billion at market. Here it is.

They bought, this wallet bought 8,000 of Shiba last August. It's now worth 5.7 billion. This is from Morning Brew. From 8,000 to 5.7 billion in roughly 400 days we may actually be looking at the greatest individual trade of all time what 8 000 to 5.7 billion and we know that that person didn't sell any no because you can't well the wallet hasn't yeah yeah you see the wallet oh my god you know that's like a usb that like that guy lost on a bus somewhere

it's like probably in a it's probably all landfill. I hope it's lost. But you know what's funny? I'm sorry. I really do. These numbers are so ridiculous. So 8,000 to 5.7 billion, would we be any less in awe if it was 8,000 to 100 million? I'd have the same reaction. What's the difference?

100 million, 6 billion? Again, this is disassociated evaluation. I'm not phased. What is the difference between 100 million, a billion, 6 billion? It's the same number. 2 trillion. It's all the same number to me. It's a big number.

I'm doing a podcast. Big numbers. It's not funny. Big numbers are all the same. John, throw up this Tesla chart with last yearly revenue. I mean, Tesla got what? It was like a $4 billion order, and their market cap went up $100 billion? So last yearly revenue before

reaching trillion dollar valuation so what are we seeing so awesome this is crazy right so we're seeing facebook microsoft alphabet amazon and so all right so what this is saying um 200 and apple did 228 billion before it became a trillion dollar company in august of 2018 can you imagine how stupid tim cook feels for making that much money and only having a trillion dollar company in August of 2018. Can you imagine how stupid Tim Cook feels for making that much money and only having a trillion dollar market? Right. Amazon had to do $177 billion

before becoming a trillion a week after that. Alphabet had to do $161 billion before becoming a trillion in January 2020. Fast forward to today, Tesla's last yearly revenue was $31.5 billion and it's already at a trillion. So I guess these numbers keep going down. What's the next company?

Shopify is going to reach a trillion dollars at $14 billion. What's it called? NVIDIA. NVIDIA is $600 billion. What revenue are they doing? They're doing a lot. They're doing a lot of revenue. I think it's – wait, maybe it's not.

Maybe it's not much more than Tesla. What did they do in the last 12 months? I don't know. I've only owned the stock for seven years. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what the number is. Yeah, you have owned that stock for a long time. So yes, the distance between – or the difference between revenue and market cap just doesn't matter anymore.

$22 billion. Why would it matter? It doesn't matter. $22 billion. So they're on track. They're on track. God willing, they'll get there. They'll get there if this metaverse shit is real.

You know what's going to be a trillion-dollar company is the Texas Roadhouse, which is public for some reason. What's the Texas Roadhouse? Have you been to the Texas Roadhouse? They're going to do delivery? I don't know about this. What is this? The Texas Roadhouse is like a cult following.

Imagine like it's basically Outback Steakhouse but better probably but no Bloomin' Onion. So it puts and takes. Is this the one? I went to one in Arizona I think. Yeah, people are – like when COVID happened, people waited in like 50, 60-car lines to pick up like make-at-home steak kits from them. It's a cult. It's actually pretty decent. Is this the one where the waitresses – what's the country music dancing called?

Square dance? Yeah, but not that. The other – line dance. Line dance. Is that this one? I ate at one of these, I think. I don't know if there's a line dancing. There are peanuts everywhere, I think. What are we talking about?

I mean, where is it? It probably got – it probably got, you know, 50, 60 X off x off the bottom here yeah so that could be the next trillion that could be yeah there will never be why not there will never be a rest on stock that i i don't i can't imagine it like what's mcdonald's market cap that's gotta be sweet green is going public that could be a trillion mcdonald's what 300 i don't know no i think it's i mean the real question you have to ask if you're at columbia right now is why can't this be a trillion-dollar company? Right. Why could – right.

That's what we were saying. We were saying the other night, like what's the takeaway from Tesla becoming a trillion dollars? Right. The takeaway is like broaden your imagination of what might be possible. If people are coming out and saying a certain company can't be a trillion-dollar company, we need to cancel those people. Yeah. It's discriminatory. That's the same argument as do you know how much competition X is going to have?

Right. That never works in your favor when that's what you're worried about. All right. We did this metaverse thing already. We're not going to go back to that, right? Let's go to the stablecoin thing. So do you have like a strong view of what's going to happen here? There's a ton of money in these things and no one is regulating them yet.

How much longer can this go on for? I mean I think that regulator – I mean the regulator's job is to protect investors, right? Yeah. And the problem is they're now so slow that enough investors are getting into stuff where if they were to clamp down on it, they would hurt investors. That's right. Enough investors are getting into stuff where if they were to clamp down on it, they would hurt investors. That's right. And the VCs figured this out.

And that's why half the successful models last 10 years are blatantly illegal in a strict legal sense. And so I think crypto is now at this point where – That's the Uber method. Right. Or Airbnb. Do it until they can't undo it. Oh, you have zoning laws? F*** you. Yeah, yeah.

Licensing requirements? LOL. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Licensing requirements? LOL. No, stream it. So licensing, safety? No. We're just going to have a $400 cleaning charge. Right.

There's $100 billion in tether in USDC. Right. And we have no idea what that is or if it's there or anything like that. And so we're in this kind of Twilight Zone scenario where you can't shut that down. Okay. So Gary Gensler, I think, has successfully lobbied Treasury and Congress, and he's going to take over oversight of stablecoins. Like, I think that's a done deal. Whether or not banking regulators want in on that, somebody is going to start looking at this stuff. regulators uh want in on that somebody is going to start looking at this stuff we could see spectacular blow-ups there like we could see arrests oh yeah i mean this is it's too much money right but they but to your point they're not going to go away because but then the other

question is like what does it mean for banking regulation if like i can like why would i start a bank right now when i can create a coin thingy on an island and i can basically run a bank with the same amount of money that i'd have as a bank right somebody explains it to me and i don't know i'm over my skis here but somebody said the reason why there's so much demand for stable coins is because in a bull market people want the stable coins for leverage right and in a bear market, when they're getting liquidated, they go into stablecoins. They're not coming out of- Doesn't that sound too cute though? No, there's an overwhelming demand for cash in the system. And when I say cash, I mean stablecoins. They're not leaving the blockchain and going into USD. They're staying

in the system. And that's where the stablecoins come in. Do you think if there was a genuine economic downturn that free money from the fed couldn't counteract like if we just had like a six or twelve month recession old school recession do you think that those dollars would not come out of stable coins and go into people's like actual usd or have you mean like if people like people need the money for like real world things i actually have to eat with the money i think a lot i think i think there's a big disconnect between crypto money and real world money yes you know what fixes that built crypto bill pay who's working on that whoever's doing that i've i i feel that would probably be the killer app the daily pay is going to be in stable

coins the daily pay stuff. You think so? I think so. It is like- Will you work all day and they pay you at five o'clock? Like instantaneously. They're going to pay you in- That's another thing, super, super regulatorily.

Like if the rules were enforced, never going to happen. What? Just like the AML rules, like- There are no rules. Taxes, things like that. Right. So if there were rules, it would be impossible. But yeah, go for it.

I mean – What rule – Right. What rule applies to any of this? Like they have to write new rules. That's the problem. They think that their existing rules cover this, but these people are light years ahead of the way the regulations were written. Can I give somebody a w2 that the consideration is ether like let's build that work let's build it i mean it's coming office

is coming it's gonna be a trillion dollar company let's let's fund it all right i i do think though that when people can actually pay bills with crypto they will and that will lead, I think – Okay, question. How much of that whole direction of the future is really just how bad Wells Fargo user interface and experience is? Can I tell you literally a true story? Yeah. This happened yesterday. I'm still astonished by this, but this is the way it works. I have American Express account my whole life, personal account.

We have an American Express for Ritholtz Wealth, the business. I want to remove myself as like the thing that the business's credit is built on. The business now has an eight-year history. It's like enough already. So I'm going to move American Express for Ritholtz Wealth onto the firm. Right. Literally, they have to make my card inactive, my physical card. They have to send a new card to my CFO.

Right. The CFO will not receive that for three to five days. And then he has to apply to make me a secondary holder, which is another three to five days. So I'm going to go 10 days without a corporate credit card because that's just how American Express does things. This is not a commercial for American Express. Everybody involved in this should be embarrassed. Can I give a counterpoint?

So that's why, but let me just finish. That's why we're just going to do everything in Shiba Inu. Well, here's the counterpoint. IMAX CEO says crypto is unlikely a threat to traditional credit cards. So there, he said it. Well, it must be true then. It's a fact. It must be true.

The MasterCard deal with – who do they make a deal with where they're going to – I thought they said like you can do any crypto or something. I don't know who they deal with. With MasterCard? No, with Bakkt. Yeah. OK. MasterCard and Bakkt just did something where – something with crypto. So this came out't know who the dealer is. Backed. No, with Backed. Yeah. Okay. MasterCard and Backed

just did something where something with crypto. So this came out today, something with, whatever. This came out today. You, Penn's warden, taps Coinbase to accept crypto

for online blockchain course. Wait, what do you mean? Warden accepts crypto payments for blockchain program tuition fees. Who's warden? The business school at Penn. Oh.

That's a big deal. Oh. So you can actually, so you know what's funny about that? If you were smart enough to have enough crypto to pay for business school at Penn. Oh. That's a big deal. Oh. So you can actually – so you know what's funny about that? If you were smart enough to have enough crypto to pay for business school, you probably don't need it. Yeah. I'd love to see the Venn diagram. Like it's probably unnecessary. Oh, who is the person that has half a million dollars worth of crypto that's attending business school?

I really do think this distortion of the people in crypto that are so rich is going to have like really weird outcomes and consequences. Wait till they start backing political campaigns. Oh, it's happening. That's happening. That's already happening. Yeah. Yeah. Wait till it becomes apparent who their candidates are.

The Island Boys are going to be the Fed governor for Minnesota. Please don't talk about the Island Boys. I can't. I can't. I literally can't handle it. Are we touching on this thing with Sequoia? Dan, you have a take? I don't understand why it's a controversial topic that an asset manager wants more AUM and a vehicle to have more AUM and less restrictions.

Who is it controversial to? Did people flip out about this? Let's tell people what's going on. It's a big story. about about this let's tell people what's going on it's a big story they basically said instead of having all these individual funds they're going to have one master fund that's going to invest in in liquid companies that they backed as well as basically sub funds that are going to be their normal vc stuff and so they're like you know instead of having a whole menu they're going kind of you know this is the one thing we make if you don't like it get out right and they know

they have the brand power to do that, and they're going to dress it up into alignment of incentives. It sounds like Sequoia is like vanguarding to some extent. It's like this is the whole index. They're becoming RIA, which is – I did not have that on my bingo card. But then when companies go public, they don't want to be forced to sell. No, but it's kind of like Vanguard being like, there's only one ETF now. Deal with it.

Well, there's only one Vanguard ETF. Right. Right. They combine every fund that they run. We'll handle how it gets allocated. Normally, there's a whatever, 7th to 10-year fund, whatever it is. There's a liquidity event, whether it's M&A or an IPO. They launch a fund every year.

They give the investors their money back. But now they're saying, we invested at Square in an early stage. It IPO-ed worth $2 billion. Now it's worth $85 billion. I forget if that's the right number for Square. Why shouldn't we participate in the upside? That's an archaic model.

And what you're saying is just more AUM. But time out. Is that a bad thing? But time out. They're not conflicting statements. The public market asset managers are doing the reverse so why shouldn't they do that right no nobody's wrong here it's just everybody it's the whole game and asset managers scale scale scale scale always always has been always will be and it makes

things a lot easier just to be like there's one menu item and where else you're gonna go because we're you know the house they may have though, holding on to talent because I feel like people want their shot at running a solo thing. No, no, no, because the master fund is an open-ended fund that's going to invest in closed-end funds, which are like the isolated things. So they can basically carve people's stuff out there. And then a lot of times those funds are investing into LLCs for the specific investments and they let people sidecar in that. Like special purpose vehicles? Yeah. So basically like you have a fund that invests in another one of your funds.

That fund wants to buy a company but you put an LLC in the middle and then you can like kind of let your buddies and employees into the LLC along with your investor's capital. Right. Which in public markets would be a very big no-no for the most part. It's called cherry picking. Yeah, really not okay. But in VC, it's very appreciated because, I don't know, it's allowed. Dan, do you see more of your peers going to private markets, like Dan Loeb, for example?

Yeah, I mean, nobody – it's insane to say that. I know that sounds ridiculous coming out of my mouth. Before he beats me to death any of your peers like Ray Dalio or Dan Lowe my peers like Ray Dalio whatever people that are

in the hedge fund universe yeah they're all they're all going to privates it's crossover it's crossover they're doing both even if they're not doing it in their main fund

they're all setting up SPVs and things like that I mean we're looking at doing it like it's not there's no other option because especially like a lot of the alpha and stuff historically comes from small. Slow down. We're going to put you into ours. You don't have to worry.

They're all in small and mid caps. Like we got them? Yeah. Okay. And most of the small and mid caps now that you'd invest in are private. Yes. So, you know, when I'm looking at a public company now, I cannot invest in a public company without talking to private competitors now. So probably a third minimum of the companies I'm looking at are private because that's the nature of the market. So if I'm already spending over a third of my time investigating private companies, like why the hell can't I deploy capital if I see an opportunity?

You think about all these guys talking about the small cap premium and they're going back to like the 1930s for data that's just ridiculous nonsense these well even if you believe in it the second thing that you then have to believe is shit i'm not going to get that small cap premium because when these companies are small caps they're not publicly traded right they're coming out as large caps they don't like they're not they're not making as many new small caps am i saying that right yeah like there's plenty of small caps to invest in currently but they're not making as many new small caps. Am I saying that right? Like there's plenty of small caps to invest in currently, but they're not making new ones at the rate that they're making mid and large caps. Yeah. Because just the IPOs are bigger.

If you're buying a small cap now, you basically have two bins. You've got companies that have been small for forever, which is not a good thing. Companies that just got pancaked. Right. So you kind of got to look for people that just took a bullet in the chest and then see if they're going to survive. So you kind of got to look for people that just took a bullet in the chest and then see if they're going to survive. Or you have to hope that some company that has never succeeded is suddenly going to succeed. All of these de-SPACs are now in your universe though. They're not big for the most part. That's in a fishing hole for us.

Did anybody listen to Alex Rample with Patrick O'Shaughnessy? He made this really interesting point. Alex Rample with Patrick O'Shaughnessy, he made this really interesting point. He's a private markets guy that a lot of public investors want to be a contrarian and want to be a value investor for reasons that we know about. He's like, in private markets,

it literally is the worst strategy ever. You want to be on the bandwagon in private markets. You have to be consensus in private markets. Otherwise, nobody will fund your series B. Right. That's such a great point. Like the worst thing you could do is be on an island. You literally can't be a contrarian in private markets. You will go out of business in private markets. Otherwise, nobody will fund your Series B. Right. That's such a great point. The worst thing you could do is be on an island. You literally can't be contrarian in private markets. You will go out of business in two days. I guess you could be contrarian in terms of what sector you want to fund.

Fine. You could say we're contrarian because we're interested in health and biologics and things like that, and nobody else is right now. No, sure. But my point was, if you're going to only fund down rounds as a strategy, which nobody would ever do, you're going to only fund down rounds as a strategy, which nobody would ever do, you're going to get killed in two seconds. Or, no, there's no or.

No, in both public and private markets, you have to either invest with the consensus or you have to know what's going to be consensus the next period of time. Like this idea that you're going to buy an unpopular stock, it's going to re-rate,

but it'll never get popular. It just doesn't work anymore because if it stays unpopular, the management team is going to screw you. They're going to go to their buddy and be like, hey, why don't we put together some money and take the company private and pay ourselves all the cash because why – and look, I mean we had a company – we've had several small caps that we're either monitoring or own that have gotten crazy smashed, right? Now, if I'm the –, let's have a CEO of a $500 million company, and I'm really doing my best and the business is doing well. And one of the

things you're noticing on conference calls now, is if you go read a small cap earnings call, the sell side analysts aren't on the calls. It's all their interns and their jets. Hey, it's Susan on for Bob every time they're not even there. So this the analysts don't give a shit. They're covering like 35 companies. They don't care about the small guys. There's no serious hedge funds that have taken positions down here in these small companies. So if you're a public company CEO who's spending all this money and spending all this time and nobody gives a shit, you feel kind of disrespected and whatever. And some guy comes up and is like, hey, I run a mid-market PE fund. I'll give you 10 percent of the company if you can convince the board.

Let's do a little thing and everybody's going to make a bunch of money. Why would you have loyalty to anonymous shareholders who have done nothing but puke your stock repeatedly? Yeah, they don't – right. You have no incentive. Shareholders wouldn't even notice. They own you through an ETF. Yeah. If you disappear, who would even know?

Right. Or like there was a situation last year. This company, Collectors Universe I think it was. This guy, Connor Haley at Altifox. And basically it was like trading card authentication. And for some reason, I don't know the thesis very well, but they thought it was a great business. I don't know. But the second the stock started moving, and it was clear people cared about the business because like Rally and all these other things are putting the area in play, D1 and SAC and these other guys swooped in, put us in together,

took the company out. And yeah, the stock was up off the bottom, but they thought it was like a 5X. They made like a double or a triple or something. And so that's your home run situation. It's pretty brutal. So you really need to figure out what's going on there. And so a lot of the guys, people are a little bit more naive, I think, who just come in and they're like,

I'm going to buy small caps because small caps over time do this. I'm like, we don't live in that world anymore, man. I forget who we were talking to. I totally agree. Maybe it was Egan or somebody. But when did the rules change? Which rules? So like, for example, last night, there was videos of James Harden, like the three-pointers

per game that he used to get. Or the fouls. I'm sorry, the fouls per game. And clearly, like literally the refs changed the rules so that that bullshit doesn't work anymore. But it seems like the same thing happened in the stock market. And some people still refuse to acknowledge that the rules changed. They really changed in response to what Trey Young was doing in the playoffs last year.

Absolutely. But when do you think the rules in the stock market change and why do they change? I mean, I know it's a big question. I think they changed with QE. I don't even think it's complicated. I mean, I think it's a few things, but... Well, the two big ones that are most often said are QE and index funds.

But index funds aren't new. QE was new. No, but the size. The percentage of the market that is passive, I think, is a big factor.

But I also think it's just, you know... Actually, hold on. I just have to be very clear. Over 50% of the funds are passive. That's a big distinction. But what about the rule change where all these guys made their –

Here's where I think the rule – I have a take. OK. Go ahead. My take is let's say 2000. You were running 2000, right? So if you were running a scam, let's just call it that, and you took it public, how much do you think a guy could cash out if he was really trying to – Oh, the numbers were so small. Right.

What were the numbers? Like $20 million, $100 million? What, if your company was a scam and you managed to get an IPO? Yeah. How much could the – Well, Amazon went public at $500, so – Right, but I'm saying if you're an executive and you're looking to IPO and sell stock as quickly as possible – $30 million.

$30 million, right? You could probably sell like $20 million worth of stock. Something like that. Yeah. Right? Now, if you can keep the stock high enough, long enough, passive indexes will come in and they'll buy over a third of your company and they cannot care about price. And so if you can get an IPO, the difference between IPO, if you IPO something at $10 billion

versus $5 billion, it's such a huge difference just because you're so much closer to getting into more and more indexes. You need to get your company public and have them be able to print numbers for about two years and everyone is going to buy your stock. So you're seeing people kind of like – you've actually seen some change in IPO behavior where they're actually not IPOing as late as you might think and it's suckering a lot of short sellers because they're like, oh, it must be the top. not IPing as late as you might think and it's suckering a lot of short sellers because they're like, oh, it must be the top. And I'm like, no, no, no. These guys know that if they can print three or four good quarters, then the stock is going to triple or quadruple and then they can unload billions. So if you can play this game long enough, you're able to exit billions or tens of billions in equity value. What if versus like 20 million? That's really the big change. But what about it's only a scam if the company runs out of money?

Right. Because – Well, that's the weird thing, right? It's become this weird reflexive thing. Yes. The market is, one, allowing strategies that look like scams to seasoned investors to, one, not only pay off better, but two, actually not turn out to be scams. Yeah.

They have enough time. That's what the guy from Nicola thought would happen. I just like i think he thought he had a three-year runway right of just relentless promotion yeah until they actually built something that worked yeah but they called this bluff early but that probably hasn't happened to every company that's playing that game there's there's hundreds of other companies right now that are every bit as egregious as nicola. You think so? Hundreds? Yeah. Okay.

So what are they? Let's share. I mean let's just walk down the – just in the EV category, EV bracket. I get ready to buy all these names. Right. Yeah. No. I mean it's –

We were talking about that last week that like is – or there are a lot of people now forming companies who learned everything they know watching Elon? Oh, yeah. Like this is how it's done. It's not illegal. I'm just bullish. I'm just creative. Like this is how it's done. Like that could be the case and it could go on for a long time.

You probably need the economy to turn for – The weird thing is that these companies like one winner outweighs so many losers yes and the index just for the capital markets i mean for these vc funds like there's talking to somebody you had a buddy who was one of the early vcs and i think like toast or something i don't know if it was toast but it was like their basis was like two dollars share and it's like 155 or something yeah you could lose a lot of money on a lot of other things and apparently for like 10 of the fund yeah in that name so i'm like so if you're if if you go and your friend's like that's probably going to fail and you're like that's cool i have 20 of them

i need one i need one to 100x right and i don't even care what happens to the rest which means there's a lot of there's there's a the scale of capital and vc and also in public markets there's a lot more incentive for people to look for things that can 100X, which are definitely going to be low probability. And so you cannot short things or really even be like – and that's not right. But you can't short things just because there's a low probability of success. Like that's just not going to work. Well, right. It's going to be very painful until it works. Right. But just you're not going to work. Well, right. It's going to be very painful until it works. Right.

But just – you're not going to survive the path risk there. So wait. But you short stocks, right? You run a long short fund. So what type of stocks are you shorting? I don't need names. OK. So yeah.

So Tesla. So you said like, well, competition is going to come in, right? And that doesn't work, right? So the whole issue with this stuff is it gaslights people and they they make stupid decisions and so it's just like okay there's one company and you look at the business model and you go you know somebody else could do this right competition should do it all the time right yeah and and i think it too but i've learned just they're getting kicked in the crotch repeatedly that that doesn't work. Yeah.

Right? And because – for a lot of reasons. But there's other companies where you look at a company and you go, OK, there could be a really vicious competitor. Oh, there he is. He's right there with a hatchet. And so I had this line. I was talking with Jim Chanos one time at Short Selling and I'm like, I like situations where a company is trapped in a cage with a psychopath with an ax. OK.

If we're at that point where like in the next three seconds, somebody is getting cut down. But wouldn't you think – Then I'd short that. But wouldn't you think that would have been the case, for example, with DoorDash, Postmates, Uber Eats? I was super – so for example, when DoorDash raised a large round from – I think it was SoftBank and KOTU and a few other people. And they basically said to hell with unit economics. We're just going to take market share and they went full psycho mode. Psycho. I was very short Grubhub and we did well with it.

OK. That was an example where – and Grubhub at that point was actually free cash flow positive and was kind of, I would say, prideful on their earnings calls about we're a profitable business. And I'm like, you're not going to be in about three months because they're going to come in and murder you. And it's the wrong strategy. Right. Stop talking about your profits, idiot. Right. When your competitor is going for nothing.

Yeah. So when I see something like that where I'm like, oh, this is about to be Mike Tyson fighting a little fat kid, I'm like, I'm going to bet against – I'm not going to bet necessarily on Tyson, but I'm definitely going to bet against a little fat kid. OK. I like really lopsided competitive dynamics. So is there a scenario now in the markets where there's a psycho killer demolishing or you can't reveal? We don't want you to unveil a short, remember. I think that –

We definitely don't want you to do that. I won't unveil a short, but I do think that impossible going public is a big deal. Impossible foods? I can read between the lines there's like 50 we have whatever for whatever type food clone copy companies and daddy's home with impossible impossible is going to dominate beyond

impossible is the only one well there's a bunch of other ones in addition to beyond but impossible is the only one that in my opinion really has differentiated intellectual property any of that shit you're a vegetarian he's a vegan yeah i eat it all you want to fade this guy or what no i mean it's pretty good i don't disagree like impossible has a lot of advantages to beyond right now i can see but uh yeah i think a lot of them are going to succeed i think a lot of these companies are in the future with the growth of plant-based you know uh diets general. What's the Whopper? The Impossible?

Yeah. I think that's great. I love it. The reason I can't eat it is because... You can't digest? No. It makes me miss the real version. That's why I can't eat it. The reason Shari won't eat it and she's a vegetarian in real life, she won't eat any of it because she stopped eating meat because she doesn't want to eat meat. So she's not looking for an imitation of something she doesn't want to eat,

which I find interesting. The problem with Impossible 2 is I sometimes don't trust it. I'll go to Burger King. I'm like, I think this is a real beef burger. Or they're cooking it there. Or yeah, cross-contamination, which isn't necessarily a big deal, but it definitely makes it hard to tell if it's the real thing or not.

Right. But so like you're saying that's a situation where you have a company that's going to get a lot of funding and be on a mission. So there's a few things that are going to happen there. One, you have one competitor that is going to have more capital and everybody is going to have to deal with the ramifications of that. Yes. Two, that company is going to draw a huge amount of attention and people who like this sector are going to refocus where they're going to go. I was long, you know, layered superfoods or some other, you know, that's like a organic creamer thing. You know, they're long this and they go, oh, that's the new one. They're going to go for

the new shiny object. And so you see capital rotate out of the last thing into the new thing. They're like, to hell with Yeezys. I want these whatever the new – I want the Balenciagas. That's interesting. So stock investors will see a new version of what they already own come out. Because a lot of the times people are – Like ShibuCoin. Like most people who are long – most people that I spoke to who are long like a Beyond meat or something like that they like i like the theme i like this idea that this they like this is the future and i'm like

okay and but they're like this is the only public market expression i have for this bet we saw that with space we saw that shit with virgin galactic right and then it wasn't the only way to play right they're like you got to be long space so we're gonna go virgin galactic and i'm like it's not you know and and for a while it went really really well and i'm not as forgiving i think if you buy a stock that's really speculative and it goes up 5x and you don't trim it and then it tanks i'm like dude that's on you like you can't like you can't go after people for that like i you know i i you know take your cost basis off the table. It's very hard to do, though, because that's what we're anchored to.

We're anchored to where we bought something. Dan, how often are you talking to investors about what you're doing in the portfolio? I don't trade very often. Most of the time, I'm doing something. Do you mean my investors? Your investors. What do you do? You put them all in the Discord?

Yeah, put them all in the Discord just put on the discord bros we're all pump doge yeah no um i'm kind of probably every three months something like that i mean everybody who is like a partner in my firm because you know we treat everybody's partners like we have some like events and dinners things like that everybody has my personal cell like anybody wants to talk to me they can ping me most people that have money with us we're pretty friendly with so we'll see them around like um you know we have money from uh green light uh capital and it's public and you know i'm really friendly with those guys and we have dinner every you know now and most of the time it's just hanging out talking but it's not like we're gonna sit down let's go through the portfolio they're right around the corner those guys or at least pre-pandemic used to be.

Yeah, yeah. I used to see them at a – what's that bar with the wagon wheel in front of it? Wheel Tapper. What is it called? Wheel Tapper? Wheel Tapper. I think I used to see Greenlight guys over there. Yeah.

Nice guys. And yeah, everybody there is super nice. So I mean – and yeah, so every three months we send out a letter. We usually do some like update calls, people that want to know what's going on. There are going to be more update calls if things are super bad or super good. And good luck scaling that. Everybody has my cell phone shit. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a problem. You're in the early years though. This is when that should be the case. We're actually hitting that point right now where I'm looking to hire somebody because like my email – my total inbound communications volume is getting really unmanageable. Wait till you see what happens after you do this show.

Dozens and dozens of Canadians are listening to this. Dozens of Canadians. All right. Let's keep going because I could talk to you about portfolio stuff for hours and I'm going to after this at dinner. So I want to get to this billionaire tax thing just because I think it's a pretty big deal. They want to fund $1.75 trillion worth of infrastructure, both real and pretend. And they think they found a compromise where they don't mess with the middle class.

They don't even really mess with the investor class that much. And they don't mess too much with corporations. They're going to do a 15% minimum tax for companies operating globally. So no matter where your revenues come from, you at a minimum have to pay 15%. I think that's fine with everybody. I can't imagine anyone have a problem with that. They want to do a 5% surcharge. Is that the right word?

A 5% added tax for people making more than $10 million. And then another 3% on top of that if you make more than $25 million. That's an income. How many people does this apply to? How many people make $25 million in W-2 income? Jay-Z? Like, who is even on this list? LeBron?

I mean, not if they have a good accountant and structuring people. I mean, that's, you know. Right, none of this should be income. No, those guys, if they're smart, they have Hollywood accountants and, you know, that stuff's never going to touch anything. Do you think the 1% surcharge on corporate stock buybacks will have any impact on any company currently pursuing a buyback plan? Hell no. It's the tiniest thing I've ever heard, right? Also, there's some like constitutionality argument about it, but I don't – I'm not informed enough on that.

OK. You got to take on these taxes? I don't think they're going to do anything to the market, do you? Well, these are just proposals at this point. Well, no. This is the framework. This is like after weeks of – There's actually one thing I like about this one thing in here which is it's very frustrating

to me when we have people worth 300 billion dollars right that and then they go we're going to tax the rich right and then you look at what the tax proposal is and the tax proposal when you actually start digging into it they generally when you hear something it's like a household making 250 grand is starting to get rich and we're going to just hit them. And I'm like, first of all, for people making under like $75,000, households especially, if you didn't tax them, they'd spend all of it. And then when you look at how fast that money moves through the economy and sales tax, the government tends to be even or ahead. Yeah. And it would be massively – They'll spend all of it, and that spending is somebody else's income. Right. Which the government will tax. Yeah. And it would be massively, you know, and it's really not-

Don't spend all of it. And that spending is somebody else's income. Right. Which the government will tax. Right. So the tax system at the low end doesn't make any sense to me from a revenue or an economic standpoint. Yeah.

And then as you start to move up, it basically, they draw this line in the sand. They're like, okay, from like $100,000 to $400,000, that's like the getting rich curve. And then anything over $400,000, you're rich. And I'm like we have somebody worth $250,000, $300,000,000,000. And I don't understand. Like can we stop pretending that a family – and look at home prices in the last couple of years. If you're going to treat a family that's making $300,000,000 like they're hitters. Right, and that's leaving

aside the fact that this is federal right but these numbers don't apply equally in all regions of the country and again but imagine your if your family let's say you're like i think people that really get hammered by this are things like doctors where they might actually make three four five hundred grand in income and they're going to just get slaughtered um and it's really those are the people that's hurting the most it's kind of like the people that like actually it's most people who kind of accomplish the american dream like you come to america you get a technical degree you get a high income high status job those are the people who get hammered with the highest tax rates anybody who makes over

a few million dollars a year the stuff that those guys tax structuring people do yeah it's insane yeah yeah i mean everything's a business expense right not just a business expense but the number The stuff that those guys tax structuring people do, it's insane. Yeah, yeah. Everything's a business expense. Right. Not just a business expense, but the number – the types of trusts you can do to just put stuff around like none of these proposals will ever touch someone with a net worth over $100 or $200 million. They're doing grantor trusts. They're basically like turning net worth into insurance. Yeah. So that –

Private placement life insurance. Right. Things will be passed along. All right. So we don't think this will have a big impact really on anything. But I like what they're doing with the money. Six years of funding for universal pre-K seems like a no-brainer to me. I'm all for that.

Let people go to work knowing that their kid is being educated somewhere. Like why wouldn't we be for that? More child and earn income tax credits solar blah blah blah whatever i don't i don't know how i feel about that anymore i don't think it accomplishes anything i was at a uh a charity event the other day for um i'm blanking on the name i'm bad person uh my friend naufa sonala's uh group and they're providing lunch i know naufa yeah they're putting they're they're basically they go into the worst performing schools in the worst neighborhoods in new york

and they provide basically food because a lot of these kids like don't have breakfast and lunch which is just absolutely insane to me like i don't understand how when i look at the quantums of money we're dealing with all this stuff i'm like just give them a peanut butter sandwich like this is not it's this can't be this hard yeah how do you want them how do you want them to learn yeah they're unfed right how is this still a problem we should overdo it we should have mandatory lunch yeah like you don't get to learn until you eat that all right I don't I don't hate it uh what are we doing after this oh this robot shit I guess this feeds into the metaverse a little bit, but this is really about employees are not showing up to work,

so employers are replacing them with robots. Do you have any investments in this space? Are you looking at any of these things? I mean, there's like Josh Wolf over at Lux and stuff who they're doing stuff like that because they invest in science fiction. Shout out to Josh. You know, the man.

And yeah, I don't see anything public that I really want to touch there. I mean, there's. And yeah, I don't see anything like public that I really want to touch there. I mean, there's like a few, I think, what is it? Desktop metal went public. I haven't really looked at it. Right. But that's like printing and manufacturing. I was looking at the ETFs.

Did you look at any of these? No. They seem to have all different holdings, all three of them. There's all these ETFs for themes where there's no public stocks that have exposure to them. Right. I'm getting a little annoyed by this where they're themes where there's no public stocks that have exposure to them. Right. I'm getting a little annoyed by this where they're like, it's the, you know,

green earth ETF. And I'm like, why is Exxon a 5% weighting? And they're like, well, they technically own some, you know, whatever. So that's the problem. That's the problem with these.

I don't think there's a good liquid markets way to express that view. But these kind of match up pretty well. This is the ARK autonomous technology and robots ETF.

So I'm looking at bots right now. I mean, if you really want to be long. Bots is Global X. You know what's funny? The biggest holding in bots is Upstart. That's ridiculous. What do they do? They do bank loan sourcing on the internet.

If you really want to be long robotics, you should just buy the major defense companies. So NVIDIA is the second biggest holding in the bot. Then it's Intuitive Surgical. Keyence, I don't know who they are. By Northrop Grumman, they make all the drones, don't they? That's robots. Yeah, I don't know any of these companies, frankly. So, all right, so that's the bots ETF.

Can we deliver packages with Predator drones? Can we repurpose those? I thought Bezos was doing that. Here's what's in the ARK. Tesla is the largest holding in the ARK robot ETF, 11.82%. They're making a robot now. Do you see the weird dance thing? I would imagine they are.

Did he cancel that after he broke up with Grimes? Is he making a robot as Tesla? No, there was like a woman, I think, in like a robot outfit who danced, and then Elon was like, oh, we're going to make a real robot chick that dances for me. Yeah, I could see that makes a lot of sense. There it is, yeah. It's kind of like a genderless robot. Stop it.

She looks pretty good. I don't want to gender the robot. Yeah. Height 5'8", carry capacity 45 pounds. This whole thing is terrifying. All right, so they have Tesla as their largest in Cathy's. And then something called Trimble. My point is there's no overlap between the two largest robot ETFs.

So what even is this sector? Made up. It's made up. There's one company that's really interesting to me. It's completely off the grid. So you would probably like it. Okada. Do you know about them? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Have you seen that YouTube video that shit is dope the YouTube video of their all the boxes going back and forth they look like dishwashers in like a roller derby all those boxes moving it's crazy

Okada does the robot supermarket it looks like the doors in Monsters Inc yes when they're on the like yes they're flying around

so Okada has partnerships with Kroger and then like the largest supermarket chain in every country in Europe. Like what's the big one in England? Tesco? Tesco or something? I think so. So Okada partners with the supermarket.

They're not being contracted. It's like a partnership. It's like a- And then they will build that warehouse and it's all robots in it's like a and then they will build that warehouse and it's all robots and they're picking groceries from internet orders yeah hacking them up and shipping them there aren't people in the facility and it's a stock that trades on the london stock exchange i think but it has a pink sheet stock here so yeah a friend of mine invested in that okay oh yeah yeah

can you get the video? The video is wild. But this is not in any of these robot ETFs because it trades on the pink sheets in America, I guess. So I feel like it's a very messy asset class with not a lot of great ways to invest in it yet. So hopefully somebody will fix that. What are your favorites? And then we're going to get out of here. Are you hungry? I'm always hungry.

OK. We're going to eat like kings tonight. promise all right all right uh let me go first really quickly got the video oh wait yeah then they drop down okay and so they what they do is they have certain layers so there's like 15 layers deep this looks like the metaverse but it's real yeah and they have like they have certain layers that are refrigerated like every ever so often is refrigerated so it keeps the whole thing look how they move that is so cool see that facility that's in partnership with a giant supermarket chain so everything that's being ordered on their website it's robots fulfilling and like 15 years they're gonna have this but it's just gonna be mark zuckerberg's gonna have

your disembodied head in a jar and and then the machines are just going to put you into different simulations like this, right? What if I told you I think robot repair will be a better profession than doctor? Because the doctors are also going to be robots at that point. Impossible. Well, why is an intuitive surgical in the robot ETFs? It's in one of them and not the other. None of this makes any sense to me at all. That's ridiculous.

By the way, I remembered really quickly. I remembered what I wanted to say about the metaverse, the second thing. During the pandemic, every kid in my neighborhood went MIA from the streets for like an hour. And my kids included. And I'm like, what's going on? They're all on Xbox or PlayStation for a – I think it was Travis Scott gave a concert inside of Fortnite. It's millions and millions of people attended this show inside of a video game. And I don't know if he was paid any money, like gigantic money for that.

I don't really know how that would work. I'm sure he got paid. All right. Favorites, did you watch the new Succession? I know you didn't watch the new Curb. I haven't. I'm behind. Are you a Succession guy? I'm sure he got paid. All right. Favorites. Did you watch the new Succession? I know you didn't watch the new Curb. I haven't. I'm behind. Are you a Succession guy?

I am, yeah. Okay. I haven't seen this week's episode either. You haven't seen it either? No. All right. So we'll have a very short conversation about that. It's great.

It picked up right where it left off. And I have a feeling there's going to be some stuff coming up about technology in this season. That's all I'm going to say. All right. So, new curb. You saw it. You didn't see it yet? I haven't seen it.

It's so good. I mean. I hope he never stops. I know there will be an end at some point, but. I don't know. He's very angry. He could just keep going. So, I don't think it's a spoiler.

They're not going to do a lot of COVID stuff this year. Thank God. I'm over it. TV's for escape. Nobody wants to see more COVID shit. Well, there was one COVID. But there was one really, really great COVID joke, which I don't want to ruin for you. All right.

That's all I have this week. What did you bring for us today, Michael? Well, I'm just happy that the Knicks are back. It's been like two decades of misery, and I'm just thrilled. Did you go to any of the games this week? I'm going on Monday. What are they playing Monday? It's not a good one. The Raptors, but I'm just thrilled. Did you go to any of the games this week? I'm going on Monday. What are they playing Monday? It's not a good one.

The Raptors, but I don't care. So what? Game is a game. You go to – are you a Knicks fan at all? I mean, I grew up in Virginia, so we don't really have a team, but I'm actually going to that Knicks game on Monday. Against the Raptors? Yeah.

Oh, my God. Where are your seats? I have no idea. Maybe we'll meet. I'll text you. We'll have, like, a drink or something. That would be great? Yeah. Oh, my God. Where are your seats? I have no idea. Maybe we'll meet. I'll text you. We'll have a drink or something. That'd be great. Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, the problem is I went to school in Boston for a while, and so I just went. Celtics? Well, yeah. I went Celtics. But at that time, Brian Scalabrini was playing for the Celtics. I don't know how it happened, but we developed this inside joke where Brian Scalabrini was actually the greatest basketball player to ever live, and he was so good that he could convince you that he had no idea what was going on in the court.

He's so big, he looks very uncoordinated. So me and my buddies would all get Scalabrini jerseys and go to the games and only cheer for Brian Scalabrini. Did he see you? Probably. He had a cult following. He's like Will Ferrell in semi-pro. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He looks, yeah, that was the whole thing. So we would show up and we would, yeah, we would only be cheering for him, not the team. We'd make it very clear to the people around us. What era is that? They were good then, too. He was on the championship team. I think he was on the championship team.

And I think he's an announcer now for the Celtics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he was at the Bulls after, right? He floated. He floated. He's so big and weird looking. He's like a Tyson Fury type body type. Did you guys watch that fight?

That's the other thing. I didn't watch it. It was the best boxing fight in 25 years. I know. I'm heartbroken because it hasn't been a good one in a while. Just pull it up on a Saturday night, watch it on YouTube, whatever. Tyson Fury has a weird body. Yeah, he's just –

He's got big love handles. Yeah, he's just too much person. He's just like – but he's like the funniest person ever. You can't dislike the guy. But he – it was – there were like eight knockdowns or something crazy. I mean it was like 90s boxing again except nobody got shot. I went to a fight a couple years ago. Deontay Wilder knocked this guy out with the first punch.

You know that fight I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't even understand what it took to get to this. Like, we went out. Oh, you mentioned Jim Chanos. I was with Chanos that night. So we did this whole thing. We did like Lugers in Long Island

and then drove into Manhattan and then parking. It was a whole production. Finally get to MSG. There's nine fights ahead of this one. So we sat through all these bum fights. And then the main event, this guy comes out dressed like a black panther. He comes out. Everyone's so excited.

I swear to God, he throws one punch. The fight is called. They called it in four seconds or something. I think they broke a record. And I was like, well, dinner was good. Yeah, that was good. Yeah. So that was fun was fun so all

right that's why you need the vr headset so you can just drop into the fight and then be like all right i'm out yeah because getting out of there must have been the worst part oh dude yeah leave leaving msg when everyone's angry oh yeah and everyone's been drinking since six o'clock in in in the evening leaving msg from a boxing fight that was not a from a boxing match that was not a good match is probably the worst situation i had to get at msg a couple weeks ago after i got invited to a ricky martin and enrique inglesias concert dude you're my text it was yeah it was it was it was fantastic i was like i'm sure i'm sure batnik and and josh brown are here somewhere but uh is that your favorite, Ricky Martin?

I didn't know who I was going to go for, but Ricky Martin crushed it. Yeah, yeah. Enrique was fine. It was good. But Ricky Martin, it was insane. And I've never seen that many just turned up 55-year-old Latino women. I mean, they were going hand in hand. He's one of the biggest entertainers at the end of the last century. Oh,'s lost zero fans they've gotten older but he's lost zero fans he's still got it

oh yeah you want to leave us with ricky still got it that's my number one take today long ricky martin what was that song what was this one which one levita loca levita loca no by lando zingrique i can't remember but yeah yeah live in levita valoka was the song you celebrated his whole catalog yeah i mean it's so it's such a deep catalog. How can you pick one? Dan, he, it's just one big album. Let's all say at the same time, what's your third favorite Ricky Martin album? No, you go first.

Do you have a favorite for us? What do you got? Favorite on what? Anything. Anything. What are you into these days? To quote the great Medicaid appeal. What are your interests? Besides due diligence.

Besides due diligence. Is that it? I haven't been doing anything interesting. Pretty much. What am I doing? Cool. I played PlayStation this weekend. That was awesome.

I'm boring. Listen, if you want to watch clips from this show and see our Halloween costumes, make sure you check out youtube.com slash the compound RWM. Don't forget, for the latest in financial blogger fashion, idon'tshop.com, including a couple of new items I think you will be very surprised to see. Duncan, was there anything else I had to do? No, I think that's it.

We got it? ETH Hernandez? Yo. Yeah, we got an's it. We got it. ETH Hernandez? Yeah, we got an ETH shirt. Josh made an ETH Hernandez shirt. How dope is that shirt, though? But you don't know that it's ETH Hernandez. It's just his ETH. Dude, you know you're getting that shirt. I want that sweatshirt.

Which one? That's available. Yo, thanks to Dan. And Dan, where are we following you these days? You still tweeting up a storm? Yeah, still at SuperMugatu. SuperMugatu on Twitter. You're on Instagram. Are you private?

Yeah, I'm private. It's just like my family. Smart. Good for you. That won't last long. No. Yeah. You're going to come out.

I've got like a million requests. I'm just like, no. No, I don't even let people I know in. Good. You shouldn't. I think I'm following you, though. Yeah, yeah. You got in. You know what? You know what I know? Because I don't even let people I know in. Good. You shouldn't. I think I'm following you, though. Yeah, yeah. You got in.

You know what? You know what I know? Because I was liking all your stories from the Ricky Martin concert. All right. Dan, you're the man. Thanks for coming through. Happy Halloween, everybody. Thanks for listening.

We will see you next week. Thanks, guys. All right. It's starting to get warm in here. Yeah. I think the sweatshirt is starting to... I am disappointed that Mike wouldn't wear a mask the whole time.

I know he would. Oh my God. Thanks again to Direction. Investing in a Direction Shares ETF includes possible loss of principal and may be more volatile than investing in broadly diversified funds.

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