The Compound and Friends - Stephanie Link's Favorite Stocks

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

On episode 144 of The Compound and Friends, Michael Batnick and Downtown Josh Brown are joined by Stephanie Link, CIO and Head of Investment Solutions at Hightower Advisors, to discuss: what it's like to work with Jim Cramer, signs of a top in Nvidia, other ways to invest in AI, the Fed, the housing market, and much more! This episode is sponsored by Public. Make your savings work harder and earn an industry-leading 5.1% APY with a high-yield cash account on Public. Visit https://public.com/ to learn more! Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: https://www.thecompoundnews.com/subscribe Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ A High-Yield Cash Account is a secondary brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn a variable interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance. Neither Public Investing nor any of its affiliates is a bank. Learn more at public.com/disclosures/high-yield-account Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So Steph, we ran in the JP Morgan corporate challenge last night at Central Park. Oh, you and Jim Leventhal. Oh, did he? I didn't see him there. He was probably way ahead of me. So we had 20 runners and we came in 197 globally out of 1700 companies that ran all over the world. That's awesome. Yeah. Wow. And it's night two tonight, so we might get pushed back a little bit, of 1700 companies that ran all over the world. That's awesome. Yeah. Wow.

And it's night two tonight, so we might get pushed back a little bit, but for night one, that was our... We were ranked 109 local, New York. Wow. That's sick, right? That is amazing. I have some psychopaths here.

I was gonna say, really good, and everybody's in really good shape. Yeah, Duncan, what was your time? You were like... 29, 18. Were you like number seven or eight for the team? Oh my gosh. No, I think I'm, last I worked I was in like five.

You were five. Congratulations. Holy cow. Hello fellow runners. So Michael ran it in 37 minutes. I ran it in 41. Stephanie, you don't have the background here. Josh was talking a lot of shit.

The shit I was talking was you said I couldn't run it. I couldn't. Correct? But then... But I did run it. When there's a will... Wait, do you want to apologize? When there's a will, there's a way. Do you want to say that you were wrong?

No, I wasn't wrong. Wait, you were right? I couldn't run it? I smoked you. You smoked me by three minutes? Three minutes. That's a big difference. Let's not be silly. Wow, that's awesome.

Why don't you just say, I didn't think you could run it and you proved me wrong. Wouldn't that be like the nicest thing to say? No, okay, fair enough. I thought I was shocked when Josh and I could run at 5K. You were eight years younger and 200 pounds lighter than me. And I literally ran at three minutes behind you. You know, he and I did SoulCycle together. That's right.

You remember that? Wait, was that on TV? Yes, it was. Oh my God. They sent us to the Upper West Side. Yes it was. Yes it was. Oh my god. They sent us to the Upper West Side. Oh my god.

That was hilarious. I did make the whole room laugh a few times. You definitely did. You absolutely did. Do you know that... Was that during the pandemic? No, before. 2016.

Yeah. It all blends together. There was a producer there that... What was her name? Lydia. Lydia. She used to make us do these ridiculous things. Dude, Lydia might be listening. Lydia was nervous when I did this whole cycle with you.

She's like, you really don't have to do this if you're not. I'm like, what do you think's gonna happen? I'm gonna fall off the bike? And I literally fell off the bike. It's awesome. What was the segment where you guys had like stock fights? Oh, Jesus. We had stock, oh.

The debates. The debates. That was bad. That was Lydia Ehrer. That was really hard. But she had us go like to golf courses and she had us, they came to our homes. Yeah. What do you do when you're not trading?

That's what she did. So the first producer was John Malloy. Love John, shout to John. And then Lydia was like his apprentice and Lydia took over. And she made us have a lot more fun than we otherwise would have, to her credit. 100%.

So what did you do when you're not training? Running? Running. And Shake Shack? Kiss my ass. No, actually I took my kids to Long Beach, to the boardwalk. I didn't know what to do.

Like they had a, what's his name? Like John Najarian had everyone on a private yacht. I don't have a yacht. I think Mike Murphy had the city of New York do a fireworks display for his. So I'm like, we go to the boardwalk. You go to the boardwalk, that's what you do. But my kids were really small at the time.

Well, I don't know, I remember, both of ours. So the debates were they would pick two traders from the show who disagreed on a stock. Sometimes they would make you disagree. Yeah. Yes. And they would put us this far apart from each other. No, they got contentious at times. I remember. But imagine face to face, no table in between. Just sitting on stores.

Yeah, you're dumb. It was 8 Mile. It was... Oh, I have to tell you a funny story about that actually. I was reminded of this today. I don't know why I didn't tell you at the time. One time you and I debated a stock. God knows what the hell it was. And somebody sent me a meme.

I guess it was on Twitter or something. Back when people used to tweet, live tweet about the show a lot. And it was a picture of me and you yelling at each other. And the meme was someone tell Tony and Carmela Soprano to stop fighting. I love it. People tell me I look like her all the time. You get that?

All the time, oh yeah. I don't get Tony Soprano as often. Tony, that's interesting, that's awesome. That's hilarious. So that was ugly. We actually lost a few cast members of the show over the debates. Yeah, that was so hard.

Because they just couldn't. I had, I had a debate, Scaramucci one time. What the hell does he know about stocks? No offense. What does he know about stocks? He's not a portfolio manager. I mean, it was something. When did you join the network?

I'm on my 16th year. Holy smokes. Yeah. 16? Long time. Oh, you predate me. Yeah. I made my first appearance at the end of 2010.

Okay. And then right after that, somebody called me, maybe Mary, and was like, you know, Fast Money? I'm like, yeah, I do Fast Money. They're like, well, we're going to do it in the middle of the day in New Jersey, and it's going to be called the Halftime Report, and Scott Wavner is hosting it and you'd be great. So I'm like, all right, I'll do it. And that was me, you, and I think with, Terra Nova?

Weiss? Terra Nova? No, three Weiss. With the Jerrians, of course, at the time. Yes, Patty Edwards. Oh my gosh. Oh, Steve Cortez. Oh yeah, Cortez.

And who's the person in Chicago, the traitor? Oh, killer? No. Although he was on it too for a little bit. He was on the show with us, but was a... Oh, did he pass away? No. OK.

He's like tiny. Stop. Maybe it's better if we don't remember him. Probably not. Not Santoli. No. Santoli if we don't remember them. Probably not. Not Santoli. No. Santoli, Santoli, excuse me. No, not Santoli or Santoli.

But you know what? We had fun before the show, even like, before we even knew what it was. Yeah, we did. And one thing that's funny that I remember is they had people that weren't in the studio with us on a giant screen, and they would wheel the screen up next to the table.

So you would feel like you're there with them, and they would just be sitting on a screen. Oh my gosh. Like they would do that for Pete sometimes when he was in Minneapolis or in Chicago. That's right. I think it's better at the NYSE. I do, I like, I mean, I liked Angle Eclipse,

but it was quiet. I think we were calmer. I think we're a little bit, I think the energy is a little bit more at the exchange. I agree, it's just such a pain in, not that Jersey was easy for me, but it's such a pain in the ass to get to the exchange. For everybody.

For everyone. Yeah, no, it's not great. How do you get there? I get a car service. I'm like, that's kind of nice that CNBC offers it. But even that's rough. It's very rough. Like it took me the last three days,

because I was on halftime the last three days, two hours each morning to get to the M.S.A. And there's no like fast way to do it. No, you can't. Hey, do we have race pictures? I want to show Stephanie that I actually did this. I want to show her. I'm so impressed.

Proof of race. Look at that. So this is 20 of us. Oh, that's so cool. And I obviously am in the front This is this is this 20 of us. Oh, that's so cool. And um, I Obviously am in the front because I was gonna be the fastest so I'm looking at sneakers because we're always thinking about investing I'm running an a6 you're an a6. I see a little bit of Nike. I don't see any hokas I see no hookah. I was wearing hokas you were a hookah. I have a huge Hookah, do we have any others?

Oh nice. Aw, look at that. Do you see my face? That's before. Are you scared? Wait, I just wanna say that's before. I'm not. You look pretty intense.

So Stephanie, my secret is I have never ran a three and a half miles in my entire life. Is that right? I did the first mile in 14 minutes, and then I turned on Rocky, and I swear to God, I ran 10 minute miles for the rest of the way straight, as fast as I can go. That is awesome.

I swear to God. Right? The power of music. That's me stretching. Look at you. That's terrific. Getting ready. His fanny pack above him.

Hiding behind a stone wall. Was it too hot? Was it hot? No, it was beautiful. It was shady, and it was, the weather could not have been better. Right, Duncan? Wait, have you never done it? Have you never been too hot? Was it too hot? Was it okay? It was beautiful. It was shady and the weather could not have been better. Right, Duncan? Wait, have you never done it?

Have you never been in a corporation that had a team? No. You should organize it for Hightower next year. I should, actually. It's a really fun event. Oh, I'm sure. It looks like a blast. It was a good time.

Yeah. And it's not that long. You know, I mean, I know. Felt long for me. You know who we saw there, who's a real runner? Dr. David Kelly from JP Morgan. Oh really? Just like randomly walking around.

I'm like, is that Dr. Kelly? Because he's like a runner-runner. Oh I didn't know that. I worked up his time, it was 25 something. Holy moly. Wow, really? So this is the funny part, so he comes up to us, and he says this to me, he goes,

you know you guys should really start heading up to the corrals so you can get placement up front. I'm like, nah I don't think that's going to be necessary. He goes, you know, you guys should really start heading up to the corrals so you can get placement up front. Like, nah, I don't think that's going to be necessary. There's already going to be 10,000 people coming from behind like elbowing me out of the way. I don't need to be right in the front. So Rob, John, and I, the three of us,

we're in the heavyweight category of our team. We all finished together. And I said, Team Brajo, we brought up the rear the heavyweight category of our team. We all finished together. And uh. Hey, you finished. I said, it's team Brajo. We brought up the rear for the team. Oh my God, I love it. That's terrific.

That's tremendous. But what's the fastest? We haven't gotten all the scores yet. Majuli smoked it, right? Nick Majuli? Yeah. Yeah, I think he was fastest, but the fastest showing is Daniel Rosa with 2733.

What do you mean showing? On their website, they're only showing. That? On their website they're only showing some results. Is that why Nick is on my computer furiously trying to find this data? Because he was the first? If Nick came in sixth, I don't think he'd be doing the things that he's doing right now. He was definitely first. He's literally hacking the website to get his time posted. You gotta give the winner something, right?

Do you plan on doing that? The actual winner, somebody did it in like 15 minutes. In your team? They didn't get it. They got a pat on the back. They you plan on doing the actual winner somebody done in like 15 minutes in your team I know they get it. They got a pat on the back. They get a pat on the back We got respect. Yeah, I know you can give them more than respect better than anything tangible So what was your what was your time? What is it? 144? Hey.

Good job, Sean. Welcome to The Compound and Friends. All opinions expressed by Josh Brown, Michael Batnick, and their castmates are solely their 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

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That's public.com. This is a paid endorsement for public investing, 5.1% APY as of March 26th, 2024, and is subject to change. Full disclosures and terms and conditions can be found in the podcast description. Welcome to a very special edition. Very, very, very special edition. And I'll get into why in a minute. Of the compound and friends, my name is Downtown Josh Brown here with my co-host as always, Michael Batnick. Michael, say hello.

Hello. Hello. John is here. Hello, hello. John is here. Duncan's here. Nicole is here. Sean, Rob. Dan's in the background. Got a lot of help with the show. Unbelievable people all in studio today. Thank you guys for hanging.

We have an extremely special guest today. I've been looking forward to this really since the minute we booked it. And I'm going to tell you guys why in a moment. Stephanie Link is the CIO and head of investment solutions at Hightower Advisors. She's a frequent CNBC contributor. In addition, Stephanie runs an equity portfolio with the investment solutions group, which has 3.5 billion in assets under management prior to Hightower. Stephanie spent time at Nuveen Prudential, was the CIO and co-portfolio

manager at thestreet.com, managing Jim Kramer's Charitable Trust. Stephanie Link, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I can't believe this is the first time we've had you on. I know. We'll have to not wait this long next time. Hope not. I saw Kramer today in the elevator at the New York Stock Exchange.

Yeah. Did you? Yeah, yeah. We still talk. Well, I would assume. We still email. We're a little nicer to each other. Does he hit you up with questions on stocks?

We kind of go back and forth on ideas. I'll send him a couple of things. He'll come back. It's pretty cool. Now, he's your pen pal. He is my pen pal. So either you or he once told me a story that when you were working with him,

the day started at like 4.30 in the morning. The reason why is you were on the treadmill, he was just doing stock shit at 4 a.m. He was at the gym doing stock shit. Oh my God. I got to tell you, that sounds like a lot of fun, but also like very high octane. A lot. It was very intense.

Okay. But you're a quietly intense person. Yeah, absolutely. But it was a great experience. I don't think he gets enough credit for as good of an investor as he is. I know he's a momentum investor and I'm not. I'm a little bit more of a garpy kind of value. And it was a good combination though, right?

So we would email like 100 times a day, starting at, yes, about four, 4.30 in the morning. But he had a great knack for trading and like timing of trading. Like he was a hedge fund. Like he was so good at just say, and let's take a little off here or if something was up so much, you know,

that's what we would do. Or if it was down a lot, he used to make me put together a list every morning of what five stocks would I buy if they fell 5% or more on the day. And no pressure, do it before the sun comes up. And then he said, yeah, and then he made me do it if the stock fell and it was at the level,

he goes, well, that's your level. You told me you would buy that this morning. But it made me a really disciplined investor. I don't do that now in terms of trading, but I'm very mindful of one stock. I don't think you're that high turnover now from what I understand. But like that ability to recognize opportunities quickly

and like have the guts to capitalize on them is like, it's a worthwhile ability to have Yeah, even if you don't use it all the time, especially like why is a stock down 5% at least that it catches my eye I might not take action on it, but it's like okay I got to go do some homework on what's going on right and that's what we do for TV Anyway, so we do for running money. So how did that? I don't think Michael knows the story. I barely know the story How did that come about? So you're on the sell side first. Yeah.

Okay, what are you doing and how do you cross paths with Jim to start with? So I was on the sell side for 16 years and you know the sell side, no one wants to pay for research and so it was every single year I had to lay off people, cut costs, it was just not a great experience. In a bear market especially. Yeah, and it was just tough.

It was challenging. I enjoyed it. I'm very thankful that I had that opportunity, but I was looking to do something different. And Jim and I have a friend in common and they were both at the gym and Kramer asked my friend, hey, do you know anybody that's interested

in running money, my charitable trust with me and running the show. And Mike, who works for me now at Hightower, it's a very small world. He basically introduced us. We met for 30 minutes. We talked about stocks the whole 30 minutes. At the end of that, he offered me a job.

Okay. So I said, yeah, okay. So you blew him away. It's kind of an interesting story, but let me tell you something fun. And it just tells you a little bit about Jim that maybe people don't know. So he's, after 30 minutes, offers me the job.

I'm like, yeah, sounds great. And he's like, when can you start? And I'm like, I could start tomorrow, whatever you need. He said, why don't you take a month? You just had a, I just had Georgia, my daughter. And he's like, spend some time with her and then we'll hit the ground running in a month. So a month goes by and I'm having a grand time

with my daughter and I'm really gearing up for working with Jim and slowly every day I'm thinking, how am I gonna leave my daughter and how am I gonna do this job? And so I got more nervous and more nervous. So the night before I'm supposed to start working with Jim You're gonna show up there at the street headquarters the night before okay, and I Said Jim I can't come no and he said okay for first It was like a minute silence on the phone and that was like a time. And I'm like, oh, what did I just do?

Oh my God. And he said, well, why not? I said, well, I don't think I can leave my daughter. I've had such a great time with her. I do want to work and I've always wanted to work and have family at the same time. Really hard to do as you all know that it is. By the way, you're doing it beautifully

and I've watched you do it for, our daughters are roughly the same age. So I've watched you pull this off and it's pretty impressive. It's been a challenge, but so he said, well, what is it going to take for you to come? And I'm like, now this is way before work from home, way before.

Like 06, 07? Yeah, 07. Okay. And so he said, what is it going to take for you to work, to come, 07? Yeah, 07. Okay. And so he said, what is it going to take for you to work, to come work for me? And I'm like, can I work from home a few days? And he said, how many days?

I'm like, two. I'll come in the city three. So another minute pause. And he's like, how about this? How about you work from home three days and you come in two? And we call it a day. And I'm like, oh my God, this guy gets it.

You're not getting that deal anywhere else. No way. Not on Wall Street. No way. Now let me tell you, working from home for Jim Cramer was wicked hard. Cause it was 24 seven, right? And it always was.

But anyhow, he has a really amazing heart and no one really knows that. I don't think that outside his fence. I think people know that. You don't, I mean. I don't know. I don't know. I think people ask me all the time how crazy is he? His reputation though is not Twitter. In the real world, because I've seen this, yeah when people see him in real life they get excited. It's like seeing Mickey Mouse at Disney World. Oh I know. Okay. I know. So forget Twitter, forget the message board bullshit. I think just being in his position, unfortunately,

his fortunes are going to rise and fall with the stock market. So after a really big bear market, he's the guy that's on TV five days a week, that's when Jon Stewart's going to pick on him. But during a really great bull market, people love him because stocks are going up and he's giving you amazing insight every day. So I've heard Kramer on CNBC since I started watching,

I don't know when he joined the network, but he always mentions every night, the charitable trust, Aaron, the charitable trust. What is the charitable trust? Yeah, so it's a portfolio that he manages and it has subscribers that follow it. There's only like about a million dollars It's a portfolio that he manages and it has subscribers that follow it. There's only like about a million dollars in AUM. But he has 75, at the time when I worked

from 75,000 subscribers that pay a fee to get access to it, to get all the trades. He talks about his meetings, his monthly meetings now on TV. And what the coolest thing about it is at the end of the year, if you made money, any of those profits goes to charity. And what was really cool was he actually let me, he gave me half the money to send to charities, my own charities.

Cause I was co-running it with him. And so, but it's powerful in that it has subscribers and he talks about it all the time. And so it's a very concentrated equity portfolio. It's very much like what I run now. I run a portfolio that is kind of large cap core and it's 35 to 40 names. He, when I joined, had 20 names

and he didn't want anything more than 20. 20 is just too much volatility. It's a lot of volatility. So I kind of expanded it to 30 to 40. But that's the max you can do if you're actually running a portfolio. I was going to say, covering 40 stocks is a lot of work. It's hard.

It's hard. That's a full year, full time job. Full time. Earning season is, oh my god. A bear. A bear. But you know what? You can do it now with technology.

There's all kinds of ways to get the research. And of course, I'm very appreciative of the sell side, even though no one wants to pay for research, I'm very appreciative for the information, not necessarily stock picking per se, I do that, right? But there's a lot of great information that you can learn from. And I wouldn't do any more than that though,

because I don't think I could do it well. So I met your father who is a- He did. Is still working or retired? He is, he's still- Okay, Merrill Lynch broker. He did. Is he still working or retired? He is. Okay, Merrill Lynch broker. He was. Like the real deal.

He was, yes. So that was your childhood. You grew up watching your dad go off to Wall Street. Yes, he was an FA and then he was a branch manager. He was at Dean Witter. My stepmother is at Merrill, she was at Merrill Lynch. She's now at Morgan Stanley. Brother, uncle, husband, everybody's in the business.

This is in the blood. Do you think you're ever going to stop? I'm not going to stop, but I'm not going to be an FA. I like what I'm doing now. I love running money. It's a lot of stress, but I like it. A few years ago, you moved over from, uh, from the charitable trust. And I think you had a stretch at New Veen.

Yep. You were managing money. Yeah. It was really TIA, but then they merged and then they changed the name. Okay. So, yeah. So you were running money there and I remember you saying, I'm thinking about making a move to the RIA side, which is-

You were my first call. So that's where the gravity in this industry has been moving anyway. It's been moving away from everywhere and all toward RIA. And so I remember you making that decision, you chose Hightower, it's one of the biggest RIAs in America, one of the most successful RIA platforms, firms, etc. So we told them a little bit about this before the show, but just give people some idea of like your day-to-day working there, managing money for the

advisors and clients? Sure. So I chose Hightower because, well, we talked about a lot of different names, a lot of different companies, and it was great to meet everyone that I did. But I chose Hightower, A, to your point of it, has size and scale, one of the largest RIAs out there. But more importantly, I didn't know anyone at Hightower.

And so I decided to send my CV to the CEO via LinkedIn and said, hey, I'm exploring a lot of different opportunities and would love to- Oh wow, you cold? Yeah, cold cold, yeah. And I said, and I'm like, I don't really know a lot about the space, but I've been doing homework and the firm

sounds really amazing. And I thought, I'm never gonna get an email back from this guy or a LinkedIn back. Within 30 minutes he actually accepted and he said, You are famous. I don't know if I'm famous. You are capital at famous on Wall Street. I don't know about that. But it is what it is.

It was just cool that the CEO like CEOs are busy. You guys are busy. I was going to say, I really wish you hadn't told that story because now I'm just picturing what my LinkedIn DMs are gonna feel like. That's an awesome story. Yeah, yeah, so we created the role, so I have a couple of different responsibilities,

chief investment strategist for all of Hightower. So we put out research, I put out like macro thoughts and my thoughts in general about where we are in the economy and all that stuff. And in Visors, we have 174 teams. And every teams vary from two person team to a 40 person team, so there's a lot of people, there's a lot of assets under management.

But that's my number one job, my number two job is running investment solutions. And so when I started four years ago, the Investment Solutions group, which is like an internal asset management business. It's their temp. It's exactly. So any kind of, any advisor that wants to send

their clients money to me, that's what we do. And so we started, when I started it was 800 million and we're now actually up to 5 billion in AUM. And so it, well, I don't know, I'm clapping, And so it's been so within Investment Solutions, we have equity portfolios, SMAs, equity portfolios, fixed income, multi asset portfolios, all strategies. And any advisor can decide where they want to allocate the money. And we've got a great team. And when I mentioned Mike, who introduced Kramer to me,

I worked for Mike Shea when I was at Prudential for 10 years. He was the CEO of Prudential Equity Group. In the 90s. Oh wow, that's funny. And he went into retirement. When I went to go with Kramer, he retired. And then when I just joined Hightower,

I pulled him out of retirement. So I've got a great team and I just love to run money. And I said to Bob Oros, the CEO, when we decided on this role, I said, I have to run money because I want skin in the game because I think I'll be better, especially on TV. I was gonna say, you're not overseeing it from a distance. You're on the conference calls.

You're listening to companies, meeting with management. You're doing all the things that you always did. Yeah, absolutely. So you're doing a lot. Don't you think that TV makes you a better investor? Because they force you to kind of keep an eye on everything on a real-time basis. I think what TV does is it forces you to be a generalist.

So it's good to have specific knowledge, but you also need to have a working knowledge of enough of the moving pieces that you can't really be stumped. Well, they can't cut you and you say, air pass. I know. It'll be your final appearance. Well, sometimes it's interesting.

Sometimes we'll talk about a stock or a sector and I'll learn something, and I'm like, wait a minute, why don't I own that? So it's really very sin-interested. So that's after I talk about a stock, in other words. Yes. You run right into the phone booth. I didn't follow you on Nvidia, unfortunately.

I didn't do that one, I should have. Well, you've had some huge winners, and we'll talk about them. Mike, we're going to start with Nvidia and Apple, it seems like. Are there any other stocks that exist right now? Oh my god. This is pretty much it, right?

So, Stephanie, I'm curious to hear your take. I mean, Nvidia is just another variety. But on Apple specifically, it had a really rough start to the year. Yeah. And over the past couple of weeks, it's had a significant rebound. Is this related to some of the news coming out of China?

What do you think is going on there? Why is, what's driving the stock? I think, first and foremost, it got hated. I mean, the sentiment was washed out. You had like 55% of the analysts only have buys on the name. And for so many years, you had like 100%, right? So you had some downgrades, you had people concerned about China. And just in general about the iPhone cycle, the next cycle.

And I think what happened is we knew that China was bad, but then they reported earnings that actually were pretty good, ex China. And China was actually a little bit better than expected, like less bad. They're selling more phones in China than people thought. And that was enough given how negative one was.

Well, the other thing is the top line hasn't grown in a while. It's been a couple of quarters. No, it hasn't. But I think the sentiment got so negative. Cause you know what picking stocks is, it really is a lot of quarters. No, it hasn't. But I think the sentiment got so negative. Because you know what picking stocks is. It really is a lot of it. It is, right? And everybody went on one side of the boat.

And that, to me, is an opportunity. Anyhow, China was less bad. Services grew 13%. They announced the huge buyback, right? 110 billion buyback. The biggest buyback ever announced. And that's actually when I was under WaitApple for a really long time. And that's when I went over WaitApple. huge buyback, right, 110 billion buyback. They increased the demand. The biggest buyback ever announced. Ever. And that's actually when I was under WaitApple

for a really long time, and that's when I went over WaitApple, and it's 6.5% of the S&P, so now it's about 7.5% of my portfolio, which is huge. But the catalyst being WWDC, and them talking about AI. I don't know if it's gonna live up to the hype. I really don't, but I don't care because it is coming. And you do have an iPhone 16 cycle starting in September. Yeah, they're not going to not have an AI feature

on the phone. Right. They're going to have OpenAI, some sort of a deal with them. They're probably going to have AI apps and talking about that. When you said the OpenAI deals, is it going to be similar to how Google pays to be like the default browser on Apple, something like that? Could be.

It could be, but it's going to be something because there's all kinds of rumors out there right now and they know the importance of this conference and maybe it disappoints and that's okay, but again, it's coming. They are very good call. This was the first time on an earnings call that Tim Cook mentioned AI.

He had been very, like he wasn't talking about it at all. He's pronounced A-oy, that's how we're saying it. To your point, I remember shows where we would all be on the desk and Apple would come up, and Scott couldn't find anyone to be excited about it, and everyone owned it. So he's like, you all own Apple, and we're all like, yeah.

Well that's what you and I were talking about on the show. Because it was like 28 times earnings, no earnings growth, no revenue growth, no upgrade cycle in sight. It's like, what do you want us to get excited about? Like, thank God the stock's not 120, quite frankly. I know. But then when you have this $110 billion buyback as your backstop while they figure out how

do you get top line again and how do you get decent. By the way, they had doubleit earnings growth in the prior quarter gross margins were really strong Operating margins in every region of the world was higher other than China, which we know I mean, that's pretty impressive in a challenging environment. They have a huge install base 2.2 billion and services is what a quarter of the revenue now? Yeah, 26% exactly right and that's gonna grow That's a big deal because that's going to grow. That's a big deal because that's higher margin, it's more recurring.

Yeah. Do you buy that there was the regulatory overhang? Because I don't know that I do, given that it's trading, it's not cheap. What's the trading forward? Is it 20? 28 times. All right, so you can't say that there's regulatory pressure

when it's trading 28 times earnings with no top line growth. 100%, and, but, 28 is down from the historical average of 36. So it's maybe a little bit, but I don't, I don't really think so. These kinds of things, this regulatory stuff, takes years to resolve, years. What's the regulatory if they're gonna have to open up the app store or let people bill for things outside

of the app store so Apple can't take its cut? Exactly. Stephanie, I'm guessing you don't own Nvidia? I do not. What? I'm curious. Do you want to apologize? Stop. If Nvidia, at some point, maybe,

at some point it will disappoint. Yes. And people will probably, who knows what people will do. But let's just, like what would it take for you to be excited about Nvidia? Or is that just not going to happen? It's too big. So, it's not that I'm not excited about it.

It's that I try to find, we talked about everybody on one side of the boat. Everybody's on one side of the boat here. There's no bears. I mean, heaven help investors that own this thing when they do disappoint, right? It's not gonna take much. Who is the marginal buyer at this point, honestly?

Well, with the people who were short on last week. That or upcoming split, retail, right? Cause when you do a split, you get more retail involved, so maybe that's it, but I own Broadcom and I own Lamb Research. Do you sell the split? It's a 10 for one split, it'll happen middle of June. You like sell the day before. Oh, I...

It feels so suckery. But dude, you're not, let me ask you, so it's 2.7 trillion, what are you waiting for? Three trillion. Three, okay. This will become larger than Apple one way or the other. It has to when you have hyperscalers, the four largest hyperscalers spending $177 billion on CapEx just this year alone. So that's why I'm excited about Broadcom because they're the number two player.

This hyperscaler term, did it come out of nowhere or have I been under a rock? I feel like I've heard it more in the last two weeks than I've heard it maybe ever. That's because we've been talking about it. I think we say hyperscaler all the time. All the time. One of the things with NVIDIA that's not well understood by most people, they assume it's like, oh, they're going to sell more chips, sell more chips.

They have an installed base. Sure. Once you're in that ecosystem, you are now paying on an ongoing basis for access to the software that works with the chips. Yes. Somebody says a service? Well So it's the recurring revenue nature of Nvidia's software business that I think most people that are just casually watching the stock

don't understand because you hear them talking in terms of chip shipments. But it's more similar to Apple than most people think because of that embedded user base which is growing exponentially. Wait, you're saying there'll be software upgrades to the hardware? No, you're constantly paying to use the software once you are a user of the software. It's a really powerful story. My only issue, not with Nvidia, at first I thought, look, I missed it. my only issue, not with Nvidia. First I thought, look, I missed it. And this was like two, 300 points ago, right?

I thought I missed it, but then I was looking for other ways to play the same theme. There are other ways. And if Broadcom, last year AI was 10% of their revenues, next year it's gonna be 25%. So they're slowly gaining traction as well. And with Broadcom, you get VMware now too, and so you get more software, more recurring revenue.

So there's a little more story there elsewhere, not just AI. Do you worry about what I worry about, which is that at a certain point, if there's not enough return on investment for all this spending, there could be a pause. Sure. An unexpected, like, if Metta says,

or actually we decided we're going to slow down, to other CFOs look at that and say, us too. Let me ask this. You do worry about that. Of course. And you know what? How much are we, like how much is...

How many years are we pulling forward? How much is Metta, like are they double ordering, triple ordering just to get the stuff? Like we know what that, what semiconductors have that as an issue. That's why they're so cyclical because you can't get it. Then everybody's scrambling. That's why there's a book to bill.

Remember the term book to, do you remember? Yes, I totally do. I've seen people say that, a lot of people say that Nvidia is Cisco. And I saw, I think, I think Linsen said, uh, Nvidia is not Cisco because when the music stopped in 2000, Cisco's customers cannot pay Cisco. Yeah, Meta could pull back, but it's just, it's so, how do you think about the comparisons between now and the dot com bubble?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of companies that Cisco had as customers that were not making money, at all, all right? The competitive local exchange carriers. Yeah, I mean, and crazy valuations. Remember what was like multiple of eyeballs or something that we were, that's how we were valuing those companies? We're not doing that now. I don't know what happened to Cisco's revenue when the bubble popped, I'm guessing it got cut in half.

Oh, more than that. It seems hard to believe that Cisco's revenue, I'm sorry, that Nvidia's revenue would follow a similar trajectory. I think it's because it's not just the hyperscalers that are using these chips or needing these chips. It spans so many different industries. Industrials. Well, industrials is certainly the way I'm playing it. So like I don't own Nvidia, but I own Quanta Services, I own Eaton, I own this GE, which the spins of GE, all the spins of GE, by the way, have worked really well.

But if you listen to the companies, the CEOs on the conference calls, But if you listen to the companies, the CEOs on the conference calls, so Quantas services says 75% of their customers are utility and CapEx, right? So obviously we pay attention to that. CEO of Quantas said the amount of power that is going to be needed for data center, he said, is mind-boggling. I mean, CEOs don't really use that jargon. He's building infrastructure for utilities. Is that driving the utilities sector? So that's grid, it's EV, it's all that. So yeah, so all those things. That's a huge theme. I think that's a decade-long theme guys. I really do and I know a lot of people are talking about it now and a lot

Of people are you know buying utilities. I'm not buying utilities. I'm buying the companies that build the infrastructure. The stocks look great. Amazing. Yeah, they have all they've all worked. We could take a pause Whoever gets into office might be some changes with some of the acts that have been passed and some of the bills and all that stuff. But this is not going on. We have not spent on upgrading the grid in 50 years. Yeah.

And we are, it's like every year, it's a couple percent. Couple percent, that's it in terms of spend. We need to do a whole hell of a lot more. I showed you the chart of first solar. Yeah, this this chart looks like and it's an empire. It's an empire state crazy Oh, it has an RSI of 86 right now But this is pure the need for AI So related that's so that's so so you can play it through Nvidia. I'm playing it through that look I mean even John Deere, I mean, Precision Farming,

I mean, they're using all kinds of chips in terms of on all their equipment. They're not gonna need people, they're not gonna need as many people, they're gonna be more productive, safer, all that stuff. But you wouldn't think John Deere is associated with the AI, right? So I would say this, the end user of all this AI

is not the hyperscaler, The hyperscaler is a utility. Yeah, they're building it. They're building capacity. The end user is the Fortune 500. It's every government around the world, every small business in America. That's the end user. That's different from, it's not different from Cisco.

The thing about Cisco that people forget is they had a lot of round tripping and they had a lot of vendor financing. And not just Cisco, but telecom equipment companies would basically make it so that their customers could buy even more stuff from them. And then one thing I was talking about that doesn't exist now is Y2K. Oh God, remember that? But we had this binge, we had this CapEx binge that went on for three

years because people thought if they didn't, everything would break down. And it's not an accident that the NASDAQ topped in March of 2000, three months after the planes didn't fall out of the sky. Now, you don't have that artificial kind of thing with Nvidia, but what you do have is a lot of big stimulus. There's a broadband stimulus, the BED program. a lot of big stimulus. There's a broadband stimulus, the BID program. So I kind of, I understand why the demand should stay intact, but if you ask me what's the biggest risk to the market,

I think it's that the AI build out story falters. Yeah, well. Even if you think it's a decade long. I agree. I mean, I do worry about it too. That's why I'm trying to find other ways to play AI. Where you're not fully exposed. Well, memory.

You know, some of you have equipment companies. They're the memory producers. Micron. Micron, applied materials, lamb research. You need six times the memory for AI. Oh, wow. And we haven't even begun to see demand starting to improve. I think that's lamb research, I think is the second half of this year's story. And I haven't even begun to see demand starting to improve.

I think that's LAM research, I think, is the second half of this year's story. And these stocks can explode, too. And by the way, they have done really well. So when I add up all of my AI plays, like, OK, I missed Nvidia, but I got a whole other series set that people probably don't even know what quantum services does, right?

Or even LAM research, for that matter. So there's a lot of ways to play the theme. I do think though, I know we're talking about AI, but I think equally as big in terms of a theme in technology. It's not going to surprise you, but cybersecurity. I mean, you know that like just last month, McKinsey did a study and first and foremost, cybersecurity, the attacks are up 45% year over year. You saw Ticketmaster got hacked today?

Huge. They did? 540 million users globally. Yikes. And today? Yeah. And so McKinsey actually, I thought it was like a trillion dollar total addressable market between now and the end of the year, end of the decade. They just upped it to two trillion.

It's going to be just as big as AI. AI will make it much worse. Do you own any of those? Do you own any of those cybersecurity stocks? I do. I happen to own the one that hasn't done that well, Fortinet. But I would suggest if you don't want the volatility, because they all have some of them have good years, some of them have bad years. They're all high beta. They're all high beta. You buy weakness because you don't have to trade up at all. Or you could

just buy hack, the ETF, HACK. Bug is the other one, right? Bug is the other one, right? You know, Kramer used to talk all the time about like buying the best in breed. It sounds like you don't necessarily subscribe to that playbook. What's best in breed cyber? Probably CrowdStrike. That's my opinion.

Definitely CrowdStrike. But some people would say Palo Alto. They would. And I would tell you that while Fortinet had a bad year last year, the prior two years it was the best performer. So they have good years and bad years. It's all about product cycles. But here's the thing, and why I think it's such a big deal.

Right now, you have 50 to 75 vendors, probably more, but those that are worth something. And if you talk to CTOs, they will tell you they wanted to have many vendors because they didn't want to be hostage to one company and the price gouging and that sort of thing. So you talk to CTOs and they're scared out of their minds that they're going to lose their job because if they don't, if they're not spending enough, but they don't want to

have a million vendors anymore. They want to consolidate it. And why is because none of these vendors are talking to each other. So nothing's really working. Well, two things on that. So we spoke to George Kurtz on on the compound. We've had him on a thick couple times. And one of the points he's made is that the cybersecurity spend doesn't necessarily come

out of the IT budget. For a lot of companies that comes out of the operations budget, which is a whole new source of budget to that's one. The other thing I would say is Microsoft is now in security. So if you talk about vendors wanting, people wanting to consolidate vendors, maybe I don't know anything, but that seems like it would be an obvious beneficiary

of vendor consolidation. Absolutely, I just think the big five are gonna get bigger and you wanna have exposure to one of them or two of them or just as they say the ETF, because it's not going away. And it's scary. And it's CTOs are spending on two things. They are spending on AI because they don't want to get behind the technology curve or their customers or their competitors.

And they're spending on security because they're just scared. And it's coming at the expense of the Salesforce.coms and the enterprise software and why do you think those stocks, all of them look like crap. Yeah. Stephanie, I want to show you a chart and get your reaction. John, can we? Wait, before we move on, one more sign of the top in AI

that I'm a little worried about. Sign of the top in Nvidia. John, if you please. This is the New York Post. We love Dan Ives. Love him. On this show, Dan Ives is a hero. Oh, no. But no, but it's the New York Post. But this is the New York Post. We love Dan Ives. On this show, Dan Ives is a hero. Oh no, but no, but it's the New York Post.

But this is the New York Post. Is this page six? Wait, scroll down a little bit. Okay. I don't think, I can't, is this the business section? We love Dan, but this is not great. Wait, Jon, I want to read the headlines. He looks great. I want to read the headline.

I'm Wall Street's best dressed man. Here's how I use fashion to help me navigate a stressful, high stakes job. Dan Ives is the man of the moment. Do we agree? He has been dead right on these stocks. He is the face of the AI mag seven tech trade. For sure. This is the Madden cover.

But like this is, now I love his, I love Aviator Nation. I love the Hawaiian shirts under the blazers. I love pink. So, look at, how do you not love these guys? He's a Long Island boy too. But I worry, I worry. This is the business section. Wait, there's one more.

Oh my God. All right, are you selling your video now? All I'm saying is, like, this is the guy, and he has now crossed over. Yeah, it's like getting on the barrens, on the cover. Is Dan Ives too hot? Yes.

Yes. He's so hot right now. He's handsome. Handsome hot. But you know what? I will say this, because he's told me, he travels all over the world, as you guys know. Oh, he is a baller.

He talks to, there are certain regions of the world as you guys know. Oh, he is a baller. He talks to, there are certain regions of the world that have no idea the amount of information that we have here, and they're just beginning. They're not even investing, like Japan, he was like, they're not even barely investing in this theme just yet. He's like, I actually go and I do presentations, we don't even talk stocks.

It's like, we just talk the concept and what it means and the long term. It's kind of interesting. So when I listen to him talk, he's been saying this and he's been right and it's tempting to see like him in a fashion spread in the New York Post as something that we'll look back at six months from now and be like,

that was when you had to sell it. Dan, don't kill me, I love you. I know, but it is really powerful. And you'll hear many, many, many CEOs will say, this is the internet, the beginning of the internet cycle. Well, if that's true, then we don't need to worry about most of the things we just spent 15 minutes worried about.

I know, well, we worry, but yeah. I mean, that doesn't mean that you can't see a pause. And that doesn't mean they can't see a 40% drawdown, 20% drawdown, 10% drawdown. By the way, that would prove nothing. If Nvidia falls 30%, nobody gets to say, I told you so. That's right. That's right.

Because any stock could fall 30%. Exactly right. If you missed 3,000 points on the way up, you can't do a victory lap down 30%. Listen, if Nvidia goes on 80%, OK, fine. Right. Declare victory. But until then, if it gets cut in half after a thousand percent run, stop.

Move us along. Alright, Stephanie, look at this chart and react. For the audience, we're looking at S&P 500 components and we're bucketing them into 0-20%, 20-40, all the way up to the best performing stock is SMCI. This is SMCI. This is YTD. This is year-to-date return. So when you see this, what's your reaction to how the stock market,

or how the stocks in the stock market have performed so far in 2024? Yeah, I mean, what it tells me is that we're all talking about, we were talking about the broadening out in the market, and you look at this chart and, no, you're not really seeing the broadening out in the market. You're seeing huge dispersion. We had seen from October lows to about end of March, early April, you had seen like a real broadening out.

You saw financials act well, you saw an energy act well, industrials act, materials, some discretionary. I think it was a top 10 rally over that period of time in history. Yeah, I mean, but it's now back to narrowing. So it'll be interesting to see if this news with Salesforce, is that the catalyst to say, okay, guys, we just gotta take a step back

and go back into other industries and sectors because that is actually on the margin has changed. And I know it only because I feel it in my own portfolio, I was kicking butt year to date. And then now all of a sudden it's back to the fab five, seven, whatever the hell you want to call it. But I do think what has surprised many people and I've been talking about it for a while, earnings came in better than expected beyond just technology and comm services. All those sectors I just mentioned,

they all had really good earnings. And they're not so bad if you look at the kind of like the XLE year to date, or if you look at the XLF or the XLI, they're up about eight to 9%. Okay, maybe tech has now kind of taken full speed in the past month. And so you're like up 12, 13% in tech and comm services. But these other industries, they're not slacking. And the whole reason is because the economy is

stronger than people thought. And no one was talking about three and a half percent GDP for the second quarter or 3.4% last year. I want to run this. I want to run my big idea by you. This is my big idea about the second half of 2024. The consumer is not dead or even dying. But here's what's changed. The consumer is now making choices. So from 2020 to 2023, nobody made choices. I like this in red. I also like it in blue.

Buy both. I want to take a trip. I also want to buy a snowmobile. I'll do both. That's what I feel like has changed. So in 2020, 2021, 2022, consumers bought everything. They did everything. They did three vacations a year.

Nobody made any choices. And that's, I think, why we had such an incredible stock market rally. Now consumers are saying yes to one thing, no to the other. They said, we'll do this, we're not going to do that. And I think that that explains the selective outlooks that we're hearing from all the companies that you follow, I follow. Like now you're seeing for every company with a great result, you're seeing two more that's like, oh, we're getting hurt. Now you could say, well, bad news for you, but good news for this one, because that's where the spending is shifting to. I'm just making the point that the spending was everywhere and now it's narrowing.

I think that's like a, doesn't mean the consumer's dead. It just means the consumer's normalizing. Well, two things. The consumer has, just because inflation has come down from a peak of 9.1% to 3, 3.5 on the CPI, it's still up 22% over the last four years. Cumulatively. Cumulatively. And that's a lot. So that's one.

The other thing is some companies priced like mad. Starbucks. I mean, you think of Starbucks, I'm just even going to give you Pepsi. So Pepsi a year ago increased prices 16 percent. What does it mean? Like I remember 12 pack of cans? Yeah One earnest call they said that Volume was flat revenue was up 11 percent. Yeah, and it's all price. It's all price So now fast forward to this past quarter Pepsi still raising prices, but it's only

up 5%, but it's still up and you aren't up from up 16 a year ago. So I think some- Are their volumes growing or no? No. So I think that customers are just, I mean, we're hearing a little bit of trade down. We're hearing a little bit more of private label stuff. I think consumers are getting a little bit more choosy to your point, especially on the good stuff. Yeah, Walmart was saying, you know, people, I got to tell you something. Walmart said that the consumer is consistent, but they're looking for a value. I don't know about you guys, but I'm always looking for a value.

Why are we not looking for value? Right? So that I think that that quote got distorted a little bit. But I would just simply say like it's so goods have had all this pricing price increases. That's starting to hurt them. Some of the services, though, are now starting to see price. And look at McDonald's, look at Starbucks, all these companies. But to Josh's point, consumers are picking and choosing because we just had record airline travel. Yeah.

And I think this chart is incredible. John, chart back on please. We're looking at all of the components in XRT and the dispersion here is wild. So you see on average, the XRT stock is up 2% every day. Let's just tell the audience, the XRT is an ETF that owns retailers. So if you look at the best performer of the bunch this year, it's Abercrombie and Fitch, which is up 114% The worst is Walgreens, but you've got stocks all over the place targets up 5% while Walmart is having a much better year Best buys down 7 games to me games up this game stuff, whatever But the point is that for every Nike and Starbucks, you have

Dix and Chewy and Foot Locker today was up 20%. So there's wild dispersion. Consumers are not just buying everything to Josh's point. Absolutely. And I will say if you have the right product and you price it well, you're going to see better demand. Starbucks didn't price it. That simple? I mean, right? Like if you have the right product, you got Hoka's. Why aren't we all loaded up in- Well that's another interesting story

I wanted to ask you about. Lulu has been absolutely slaughtered. Yep. And just like looking around, you live in the northern suburbs, New Jersey, I live in Long Island, it's out there right? That's the one that's killing them?

ALO. ALO. But if you look around, you'll see like new brands. It doesn't mean people aren't consuming and Luluh is some sort of a bellwether for tennis moms. That's not what's going on. Luluh for so many years didn't have the competition. They had none.

They had athletic. Yeah, right. People used to say, well, you know, Nike's losing share. Nike is not Luluh. It's a totally different animal, totally different product set. Nike is a footwear company at the end of the day, and Lulu really is at leisure.

And they invented the category. Exactly. So I think that- Nike competes with On and with Hoka, and brands that didn't matter three years ago. That's right. You were talking about On millions of years ago, I was talking about Hoka millions of years ago,

and it is what it is. But I think now you have not only more competition for Lulu, you had everybody. This was one that everybody also loved and owned and they could do no wrong. They crushed the stock. And now, you know what? The valuation, even now, is kind of complex.

I would just say, back to consumer for half a second, you can't get too negative on the consumer with jobs where they are. And I look at initial claims. Non-farm payrolls, that's backward looking. Initial claims on a four week moving average are running at about 218,000 per month. Haven't budged.

Four week moving average, because it's just smooth it out. During recessions, that number gets to 375,000. So we have a long way to go before we're going to start to see the labor market loosening up. We have 1.3 jobs available around this country for every one unemployed person. I know jolts have come down. I get it. I know on the margin, things are softening a little bit. Got it. But it is still very tight. And as long as that is the case, and that's going to keep wages up and elevated. And that's good for the consumer, by the way.

And that's also the frustration for the Fed. So here would be the other side of that, is that if by the time the labor market does soften, stocks will have gotten obliterated, right? Number two, credit card delinquencies are definitely heading in the wrong direction. And so by the time, if, if, I'm not saying that a recession is coming,

but by the time a recession comes, it will have been way too late to then get defensive, as is always the case. 100%, delinquencies are running about 2%. Actually have some data on that, where it's slowing delinquencies. Is that, yep, mm-hmm. Not rising as quickly as people thought.

So I'm talking about credit card delinquencies. I'm talking about that too. You're running at about 2%. I mean, I'm looking at the big banks, the big card companies. Because I look at this stuff exactly to your point, everyone's worried about it because it's rising, but it's off of a very, very low, historically low base.

And you go back to the great financial crisis, delinquencies are like nine, 10%. So we are far better. That's not to say that you're not going to have pockets of the consumer that's going to be struggling. The low end is struggling a bit. Maybe the mid tiers as well. The high end is doing okay because they have jobs, they have better wages, home prices are up, and the market is up too. And you have the 80-20 rule in terms of spenders. Those obviously that are the upper end, they spend more on a kind of on a marginal basis. So I'm not saying everything is perfect with the consumer, but that's the thing that I...

That's pretty good though. It's better than people think. I think it is. Moynihan today was talking about how he sees no sign of consumer stress. Every bank is saying the same thing. Wall-Mining Target is sign of consumer stress. Every bank is saying the same thing. Wall-Mining Target is saying the same thing. Almost everyone is saying the same thing about the consumer. This is the Wall Street Journal today. Delinquencies or loan payments that are at least 30 days past due really started to climb

in 2023. Most people would say normalize. That fueled concern. The U.S. economy could soon hit the skids with consumers finally spending through the cushion they had built up during the pandemic. Right now though, those delinquencies are steadily falling. The latest monthly data from CreditGage showed percentage of overall outstanding balances of consumer debt, which is auto, credit card, home, personal loans, that was 30 to 59 days

past due actually fell to 0.86% in April, down from the recent peak of 1.04% in February. So we might be splitting hairs, 0.04 minus 0.86, but the point is it's not 3%. That's right. It's not like a blinking red light right now. It just doesn't exist. I don't think so. And then in today's, some of the data that we got today in the GDP report, the savings rate rose to 3.8%.

Okay, this is the second revision, second estimate to first quarter GDP. 1.3%. The first reading which we got in April was 1.6%. So lower than expected. We know they make these numbers up anyway, but just hypothetically Goldman is Expecting three point two percent for q2 the Atlanta Fed's GDP now is forecasting three and a half percent for second quarter So don't worry about q1. I think a lot of it was distorted by inventory and trade. If you look at consumption, I know everyone talked about consumption came down from 2.5% to 2%. 2% is what we've seen for the

last eight straight quarters. Okay. So like, no, I mean, not to worry on that. Plus, this number is backward looking. I care more about Atlanta Fed GDP now, although we know that that's volatile. I mean, are we really growing 3.5%? Who knows? What is it, two, 2.5% or three maybe? That's better than one three. Tomorrow we get a personal consumption and expenditure. This is the Fed's preferred measure of inflation. What are you telling people that you're expecting?

And this will come out, you'll already be wrong by the time this comes out. Okay. So. Thank you very much. Not what number are you looking for, but do you think directionally this is going to be helpful toward the rate cut?

If I look at the PPI, because those components go more into PCE than the CPI, I think you'll probably see something like 27, 28. Is it 25? It's entirely possible. It's still higher than where the Fed wants it to be though at two. So I don't think it's going to change the narrative unless it comes in at a really, really low number.

I don't think that- Oh, you better own Nvidia if that happens. Don't take the Dow of 800 points if they get a really low number. No, if you get a really low number, absolutely. But I don't know. I mean, I just look, we're making progress on inflation. But I do think going back to GDP growth, it's because inflation has stayed elevated because GDP growth has been elevated and above trend.

But also importantly, that I don't think is getting enough press or attention, and I'm not really sure why, global growth is actually better than expected. Now I know we don't believe China's numbers, but the IMF just actually raised the growth rate for China for the full year to 5%. They put up 5.5% in the last two quarters of GDP, China did. India is going to grow 7% to 8%. The Eurozone, low single digits, nothing to get excited about, but they just saw the fifth consecutive month of higher PMIs.

No one's talking about this. So to me, I look at US above trend growth, and then I look around the world, little better growth. Why do we think copper is up? Why do we think commodities are up? Because there's a little bit better demand. I'm not saying that we're going to grow to the skies and double digits and that sort of thing, but I just think you have better growth.

It's just naturally going to lead to a little bit more inflation, not better. For investors that are listening, how do you think about inevitable pullbacks? So stock markets been doing well, breath is deteriorating a little bit, but if we get 5% or heaven forbid a 10% pullback in the S&P 500, how do you think about events like that? I do better in that kind of environment because I just have a shopping list ready

of high quality, best in class, number one or number two companies. As you asked me earlier, Kramer's 100%, you only class, number one or number two companies, as you asked me earlier, Kramer's 100%, you only own the number one player. I'll own number one or number two, sometimes a number three, if it's on sale. And back when the markets fell during COVID, you could get the very best company. You and I talked about, I mean, we mentioned Starbucks, they're having struggles now, but we both bought Starbucks during then because it fell 20% for no reason.

Because of COVID. You always buy Starbucks down 20%. I don't give a shit what's going on. You know, but you buy the best in class. You know, it's like they throw the baby out with the bath water. And so that's where I look for opportunities. And I have a whole shopping list.

Do the emails ratchet up from Kramer in a 5% pullback? You get, like, you'll hear him. Yeah, I mean I think, you know, cause he's always looking for. He wants to do stuff. He does. So that's the thing, you know what you wanna buy before it falls 20%, where a lot of people just,

they don't know if like, all right, it's down 20% and that's gonna fall another 30% or is now an opportunity. How do you think about opportunity versus oh shit, the story has changed? Well, if the story has changed, it means that the economy is rolling over and hard. And employment, the thing, the number one thing that I'm watching is jobs.

And if that starts to real, initial claims start to jump higher, that's something to watch and I worry about that. But at the company level, I'm curious, how do you think about the story changing? Yeah, like what if a company is just failing to execute and the story of the company is changing, not the economy? So yeah, so in the first scenario that I just mentioned, if the company is just failing to execute and the story of the company is changing, not the economy? So, yeah. So in the first scenario that I just mentioned, if the economy is staying strong and stocks fall, you look for best in breed and you don't buy a hundred percent position if you're falling

because you just don't, you can't time it. So you buy a half a position and you just watch it and you buy it on the way down. And that's assuming fundamentals haven't changed. And then it runs up and you didn't buy enough, and then you sell it fast because it's like, well, I didn't own enough of it anyway. That's how I do it. I don't know if you do it. But the thing is, these stocks will fall in kind of just

like in a vacuum if the market falls. But if the fundamentals haven't changed, that's when you buy those stocks. When the fundamentals change, that's when you sell them. But so what does that mean? Can a company fall 20% after earnings without the fundamentals changing? Yes.

I mean, I had one. I had Snowflake for God's sakes. I mean, it was a bad, two quarters ago, it was a bad quarter. They lowered guidance, they changed their CEO, blah, blah, blah, blah. This past quarter, they then just put up 34% product revenue growth.

They raised guidance. They're still going to have best in class free cash flow margins, and the stock went down 3% again. For me, I felt better buying that day than I did when it was down 20%, even though buying it down 20% is... You got to think, can the company right the ship? If something is going wrong, can they fix it? And that's why managements are so important. CEOs are really freaking important and the C-suite.

Because if they have a proven track record to fix it, Howard Schultz, when we were buying it back in 2020, you buy that because there was a problem. Maybe that's a big part of what best in breed really means. It's like do the people running the company have a history of getting through troubling times? Yes. They know what you're doing. Absolutely. I will tell you that is one of I kind of have a process right like quality on sale and balance sheets and cash flow and blah blah blah market share but management teams are

equally as important for sure and that's why I only own 30 to 40 names at any given time because it takes time to get to know the CEOs. And when you listen to conference calls and you listen to them on TV, they're not gonna tell you anything. We don't wanna know anything illegal, but you can see their body language and then you just look at their track record.

So one of the reasons that I recently bought 3M, when we could talk about splits when companies split off stocks. What you're describing is what I watched you do with GE. You bought that stock at a time where nobody would be caught dead buying that stock. What are the gains from where you bought it? It's one of the biggest winners I've ever seen you have. Yeah, it's a lot. You had deep conviction and you talked incessantly about the management

coming in here was the guy from Honeywell? Larry Culp, he was from Danaher. Danaher, right. And if you look at that chart, it's a beautiful chart. I mean, he did such a great job. So you, you double and triple down on, you're like, no, you don't understand. Culp knows what he's doing. Management here is going to fix it. And it, it worked. Yeah, it did. And same thing I think is going to happen with 3M. It's still very early on, but Bill Brown was just named CEO of 3M. So there, and they're spinning off stuff too.

And I like spinning stuff. Now what's their problem? They had some massive like class action suit. They may like, they killed some people or something. No big deal. They definitely had some legal issues. They still do. They've set aside funds for that,

but we have to wait. So that's an overhang. But also they just didn't deliver. They didn't execute. So income. Minnesota. Thank you. In comes Bill Brown, who's now the CEO. He started in April. So when he was at L3 Harris, he was at L3 Harris from 2012 to 2020. The defense contractor. Yes. And the stock went up 430 points. Uh, percent.

430 percent under Bill Brown. So they went out and found this guy to take over. So they found this guy and now this guy is running a kind of a company that is not in shambles but has a lot of issues. This guy has fixed L3 Harris and he was at UTX as well. And he's a big focus on margins and free cash flow. So to me- So you will buy into a turnaround

when you see somebody like that come in. I mean, it doesn't always work, but that gives you the confidence to own a stock when nobody wants to be caught dead owning it. 100%. The chart looks good on 3M. I know, Stephanie, I know you're purely fundamentals. Technical analysis used to be like-

I am her technician. He is my technician. They used to do heretics back in the day. Do you even consider looking at the direction of where it charted? You must be aware of the price. Of course you only buy island reversals. Oh my God, I made the most money with Facebook.

Not meta, but Facebook. Tell this kid. Island reversal. I didn't even know what the heck it was. I showed Stephanie a Facebook chart at like $18 a share. And I go, this is an island reversal. Like I didn't even know what the heck it was. I showed Stephanie a Facebook chart at like $18 a share. Yeah. And I go, this is Island reversal. 2011?

It was like a gap down, a few days of bullshit, and then a gap higher. And then it hit that gap and it kept rolling. And it was just like one of the most obvious Island reversals anyone's ever seen. And I showed it to her. I'm not saying you bought because I showed it to you, but like it confirmed what you were already thinking. No, I bought more. So here's ever seen. And I showed it to her. I'm not saying you bought it because I showed it to you, but like it confirmed what you were already thinking.

No, I bought more. But so here's the thing, like I was talking positive on the fundamentals and frustrated because it was at $18 and no one wanted to hear the fundamental story. And then he talks about the island reversal. That's a great combination. I'm like, I got to buy more.

And then it gave me more. I heard her in the corner on her phone. She's like, Facebook, island reversal, go. But so when you're bullish on a phone, she's like, Facebook, island reversal, go. But so when you're bullish on a stock and it's going against you, how do you maintain the conviction? Because there's like a fine line between being stubborn

or being confident in your assertions. Yeah, I mean look, if the story changes, if the- Very confident in my assertions, so I couldn't help it. How does that phrase besides you and Ben? Now I say it as a joke. Very confident in my assertions. All right. No, but wait, answer the say it as a joke. Very confident in my assertions. All right. No, but wait, answer the question.

How do you remain so confident in your assertions? There you go. I'm never confident. I think I'm always humbled. And I think that's the best lesson I can give to anyone. Because if I have a 500 batting average, I'm heroic, right? So I'm trying to get everything right. I don't get everything right.

If a story changes, if the reason that I bought something completely changes for the bad, sometimes stories change for the good, but if it changes for the bad, like their strategy, at a left field, they start doing all kinds of M&A, or they're holding on to businesses that are hurting the overall company.

That's why I like spins. AMC buys a gold mine. That's right. Do you have any like mental models in terms of like risk management where like, I won't let a stock, I won't own a stock if I'm down 30%, whatever it is. Like, do you have like max loss sizes?

How do you think about that? I don't, I don't. You don't have to worry about that. You just average down. Never have a loss. That's definitely, Kramer definitely told me that. He's like, when you own a stock or yeah, when you own a stock or you're just starting a position

in a stock, he's like, you should root for it to go down. You should absolutely have all the conviction in the world that goes down. And it's true. But sometimes things change and sometimes the moves are big. I don't have companies, knock on wood, I don't have many of those. Like I don't have huge high beta names. I gave the example of Snowflake, that's probably the only one that

has huge beta. I'm willing to size it properly. It's only a 100 basis point position, it's small. But it would never make it more than two or 300 basis points because that is, that's my way of controlling the risk. You're not looking for the stocks that are moving the most. That's not your MO. No, it really, it really isn't. You think about risk management through the lens of portfolio management as opposed to being stopped out of a loss. Right. Yes, absolutely. And that's why I'm diversified. But that's also why I tend to focus on large cap quality

companies and number one, number two in terms of market share and balance sheets. And again, all this stuff that we talked about earlier, I'm not going for the fifth position in an industry. So you're not looking for deep value junkie companies. No, definitely not. I want to do, I have three more things I want to get to with you. We don't have to dwell on them for a long time, but I know the audience will be curious. Oil.

So, what is your year-end target for crude? No. This is a tricky area. These stocks just, there's so much good news for energy investors that never translates into sustained gains for the stocks. So just this week, three things. Conoco announces they're buying Marathon. It's a $17 billion deal-ish.

Okay. Marathon's a huge stock in the oil patch. Okay. The sale of Hess just closed. That's another stock off the market. You can't buy it anymore. And then Goldman Sachs raised their long-term oil demand forecast. That's today.

It's not Jeff Curry. It's whoever the new guy is. Goldman sees significant demand acceleration until 2034, okay, we'll be fine, with a long plateau filling out the rest of that decade. The bank upped its estimate for 2030 demand by 2.5 million barrels per day. Goldman analysts have a base case that calls for a peak level of 110 million barrels per day by 2034, but they include a provision for a slower EV adoption scenario that might push the peak closer to 2040. Either way, we're talking 2040.

It's 2024. So, there is no lack of demand for oil anywhere in sight. There are less companies than ever that are actually out there exploring and drilling. That's a fact. There are less publicly traded companies than ever that you can invest in. Why aren't these stocks up 30% on the year? What am I not understanding? On top of being down last year when the market was up. How terrible year last year.

But they had, to be fair... Great year in 22. Terrible year last year in an S&P rally. Yeah. To be fair. Great year in 22. Terrible year last year in an S&P rally. I just feel like the news flow is so positive. And I own a basket of these. I'm not like, I don't know, like big positions in any of the majors. Do you get frustrated by this group?

Oh, 100%. What I think about, I kind of think of energy, you got to think about it in a long-term horizon, anything that's commodity related. And if you believe that the global growth is doing better, I think that it should do better, especially given what we're seeing from OPEC+, what we're seeing from companies that are producing,

but they're not producing what they could produce. I think a little bit of it is nervousness around the election. And I think that's what's starting to creep in. But that being said, what's fascinating to me is in the past 12 months, this sector, they've spent $496 billion on M&A. And what's interesting to me, I know to your point, but what's interesting about that is,

yeah, it's good for whoever's acquiring or whoever's getting acquired, but it's more important that the CEOs, they think there's value, and nobody else thinks there's value. If they're doing these deals and no one else thinks there's value, that's interesting. And they're becoming, the US large cap companies,

they're actually becoming more self-sufficient, less efficient and less dependent on OPEC and that sort of thing. You have some companies that are building out their technology platforms. You have some companies that are building out their Permian Basin, which is a gold mine, quite honestly. You're a Chevron person?

I'm an Exxon. Now you're Exxon. And then I do own Diamondback Energy and Slumberjay SLB, which has been very disappointing. It's down 18% since April. It's not tracking Lassie. Yeah, it is. And I think people don't like they did the M&A. They did buy a company that people didn't like.

I'll give you a fun fact. Go. Salesforce.com was added to the Dow. They pulled Exxon out to do it. That's bottom. That was. I think Exxon tripled. Seriously.

I love it. And I think Salesforce might still be the same price. So also the other thing is, these companies all mint money. Their break evens are at like 30, $35 oil. You're at $80 oil. They're minting money. That's why they're doing the M&A, but because they can,

but they're still producing. They're still showing growth. I still feel like this group should be rallying. It should. And it's just, I don't understand. I agree. It's frustrating. We'll wait on that.

I want to ask you about housing. Housing is a really important driver of the stock market and the economy. It's not just houses. This is Peter Brookfarr today. Pending home sales in April fell a sharp 7.7% month over month, well more than the anticipated 1% decline. This takes the index to just 0.5% from the lowest level on record dating back to 2001. The NAR stated impact of escalating

interest rates through April dampened home buying even with more inventory hitting the market. impact of escalating interest rates through April, dampened home buying, even with more inventory hitting the market. This is Bookvar. The bottom line, we have the pace of existing home sales around the slowest since 1995, and that also negatively impacts all the ancillary activity that takes place around the transfer of a home

from one owner to another. So Home Depot, for example. So it's interesting, existing home sales are weighing on, like Home Depot is not acting well, but Pulte and a lot of the home builders are acting just fine. New homes way more desirable than, if you're going to borrow money to buy a home,

way more desirable to buy something brand new. Do you own any housing related stocks? I own DR Horton and I do own Home Depot. I think housing is going to be a great long-term theme. It may be volatile this year because of interest rates, but who the hell doesn't know that interest rates are high and the 30-year fix is at seven, and that's not going to lead into demand.

But you're not worried about the economic spillover from the slowest existing home sales back to 1995? If you think about existing home sales, if no one's leaving their homes because they have, what, we have 80% of the homeowners that have a mortgage under three. So if they're not leaving four, a seven, they're going to stay, and they're going to upgrade what they have in their homes. They're just changing what they're buying for the home,

because how many dishwashers do you need? They're making choices. Yeah. You know? And so, but you know, look, you talked about tractor supply today when you and I were on set. Yeah. And so, but you know, look, you talked about, you talked about tractor supply today, when you and I were on set. And you know, when you buy a home,

you not only do you furnish inside, but you gotta furnish outside. And then you also need to buy a car to get from the home to elsewhere. And so there's a high correlation between housing and auto sales. And auto sales are close to 16 million SAR. I mean, they're just, they're also just fine at this moment.

What I would say is, I think that we are, the fundamentals for the longterm, we're five million homes short in the country of homes in general. We have, if you talk to any of the home builders, they have under produced for 14 straight years. It's cheaper for them to buy back their stock than to buy land.

We're short a million homes relative to what should have been at trend still as a hangover from the GFC. For sure. And you have 5 million millennials just starting to buy the first home. So those are powerful trends for the long haul that existing home sales, I understand, and they are going to be depressed. New home sales are actually up double digits year over year, believe it or not. So you have this kind of some good, some bad within. It's weird.

It is weird, but you listen to Pulte and you listen to D.R. Horton, their orders grew 55% sequentially. Sequentially. Now I know we're seasonally into the strong period and all that, but 55% orders is nothing to sneeze at. And that's real demand out there. So I think you have to pick and choose

and why I mentioned millennials and why I own DR Horton, because 65% of their customer base are first time buyers. And they're in the southeast. And that's kind of a combination I like. You can own toll if you want, and that's the upper end. You can own Pulte too, there's plenty. I just like them and they're cheap. I mean, they're 12 times earnings.

And so they're really cheap. And I just think you have to deal with the volatility in the short term, but the long term, these are so much better run companies than they have been in the past. Can I tell you some bad news? Please. This week we lost Red Lobster.

We lost Red Lobster. Oh yeah. We did. We did lose Red Lobster. We lost Red Lobster. Oh yeah. We did. We did lose Red Lobster. Last summer, they brought back their $20 endless shrimp promotion, not temporary, but as a permanent menu item. Bankrupted the company within four quarters. That's not good.

Red Lobster is, I don't know what they're gonna do with it. They'll do a, Red Lobster file for bankruptcy on Sunday. They were majority owned by Thai Union, which is a canned seafood company that was basically using Red Lobster to dump all their excess shrimp. Oh my god. So if you're in the market for $20 endless shrimp, that's where it's coming from. Oh my god. Here's all the shrimp we couldn't sell.

Give it to these animals, basically, is what their majority shareholder. Anyway. Some private equity firm, you know. So this was an activist. Do you remember Darden? Oh sure. So this is Darden Foods owns... Olive Garden. Olive Garden and Red Lobster.

And the activist fund tasted the food. And they started yelling at Darden in a series of letters like, why don't you salt the water before you cook pasta? Which you and I read and we were insulted by that. Of course you salt the water. So they didn't salt the water because it wore out the pots faster. Like this is the mindset. So anyway, they ended up focusing on Olive Garden and selling off Red Lobster.

And they sold it to Private Equity slash the Thai Union Bangkok Shrimp Company. Is that a real name? I'm telling you. That's the actual... Sounds like a cool band name. Anyway, they're done. But there's a bigger story, which is like, I don't know if there's room in this economy for middle of the road restaurant chains like there used to be. I think it's fast casual Chipotle and Panera,

and then there's like the high end, which will always be fine. And then what do you do with this? Like Arby's, is that salt thing? Cracker Barrel is troubled right now. Like these chains are like shrinking in prominence because they're just not good businesses where prices are. And nobody wants to eat that. Right, the food's not good or it's not healthy or whatever.

So the thing with Red Lobster is they started at a time where you could not get seafood in the middle of America. So like you're not eating lobster in Ohio in 1968. Like you just, there was no way to get it. So they did have, they had a thing in the early days. The founder was Darden. That's where the name comes from. They lost their relevance.

And a lot of those, that tier lost their relevance because you have had some of these other companies that have expanded their menus and their, the quality is better or the health is better. The, you know, that kind of thing. So, and they're growing, you know? I mean, there are these bigger companies that are growing, expanding elsewhere,

so there's more competition as well. What's your go-to order at Red Lobster? What do you usually do? Yeah. Did you have fun on the show today, Steph? I had a ball. It was so great to be here. Thank you, guys.

So, that's about the halfway point. We're going to break for dinner. This is like, I got to tell you one thing, and don't blush or whatever, but when people ask me, people always ask me about other people on the show. Me too. I like everybody, so it's easy, right?

So I tell people the things that I like about everyone on the show, and the thing I always say about you, which you know I think is true, of all the people that are regulars on Halftime Report, you're the person that knows the most about your stocks, you do the most research, and I genuinely find you to be like,

I don't want to say the most professional among us, because we're all professional, but you're very like buttoned up. And if somebody says, what's going on with McDonald's? You know that situation cold. And you can answer any balance sheet question, any incomes. And I think that comes through the viewer. You could see that, right?

I've heard Josh say that over the years, and it's obvious to the viewers. It's obvious to the viewers. Thank you very much. I wanted to give you your flowers and say that on the show. I really believe that. Now, you could say something nice about me now. Duncan, do we have room?

We can fit it in. I'm just kidding. We always end the show with favorites. So, I know you're a golfer. Are you still playing golf? I am playing golf, yeah. Okay, are you still running? I am still running.

Okay, tell us something about golf or running or something that you're, or anything else. Like, what's something that you're into that maybe the viewers should know about? Well, I would say, I'm running, you know this, that I run on a treadmill, because many years ago I had a stress fracture in my hip and I can really only do a treadmill,

which is kind of a bummer, but I watch sports on a daily. Oh, I know, you're like a football fanatic, I know that. I gotta get home to the Rangers, are you kidding me? So I tape everything. Because you can't, there's so many things to watch. You have to turn off all your alerts too though. But the problem is that I'm always a day or two behind on sports and so whenever we get to the set,

one of you guys or gals always asks, can we talk about the Rangers? Can we talk about the Jets? Can we talk about, I'm like no. We can't. So I find that it's fun. Oh, so you'll DVR the game, you'll jump on your treadmill the next morning.

Yes. Smart. Look at you multitasking. I can't stay, who's staying up for the Ranger game tonight? It's like, over time it's well past 11, right? And so that's way, so- This has been a pretty great run for the Rangers. Sure has.

I don't think that, I don't- Are you Jets or Giants? I'm Jets. You are Jets. I am Jets. Why? I don't know. I babysat Phil Simms' kids-

Broke it at a reasonable price. You can't choose who you were for. It's passed down. Yeah. Yeah, no, everybody's Giants in my house. Oh. What are you? What's wrong with you? I know. I'm a Giant fan.

Jay is a Giants fan and you're a Jets fan? No, Jay is a Cowboys fan because he's from the South. I know. Oh, I don't know that. Okay. Well, that's no rivalry, Cowboys, Jets. No, there isn't actually. Not at all.

Both terrible. Yes. In their own ways. Yes, they definitely are. The Cowboys at least are terrible in the postseason. The Jets are terrible starting in preseason and it doesn't get better. Well we have to finger our fingers across for this year. Okay. All right. We'll see.

Michael and I are, Michael and I are Giants fans. You're Giants fans. Michael, do you have a favorite for us? The Giants are going to be terrible this year. That's okay. That's okay. We have no expectations. What did they do with the draft? Why did they not draft a quarterback? I don't think they liked anybody there. I'm happy with it. I'm a college football guy, so I don't really

know JJ McCarthy's game, but I've seen him once. I didn't like what I saw. Yeah, no. Yeah, I guess. I don't know. Why? You think that's what they should have done? Yeah, I do.

Because I just, I don't know. I don't know. You guys have confidence in your quarterback? No, no, no. This is last season. This is last season. Yeah, that's true. I think you have more things wrong than just the quarterback.

So it almost wouldn't have mattered that much right now. I think you're right. It was an the quarterback. I was wouldn't have matter that much right now I think you're right. So it was an odd choice a little bit of an odd choice anyway So can all be we can all be Eagles fans so so is the Jets we could have a year off It's okay. We had last year off to it's been a couple of years off. I know I watched Anybody see tires do you watch tires? I didn't start yet Shane Gillis, right? John you liked it Sean did you watch tires? I didn't start it yet Shane Gillis, right? John you liked it? Yeah Sean. Did you like it? I Think it was like a B- but what I liked about it. It's 24 minute episodes Perfect. So and it's only six episodes and it's basically like a movie. So it was light background

Funny-ish was good enough. Oh good What? That's your recommendation That's what I watched this week. A B minus and a short. Listen, I'm not f***ing doing homework for the show. That's what I watched this week. Funny is. It was good enough.

I could say nothing. That's what I watched this week. It was good enough. I rewatched Aliens. Best movie ever. It's a perfect movie. Aliens. Sigourney Weaver.

I have not seen it. Literally one of my favorite movies of all time. Seriously. You've never seen it? Not the first one. The second one. Really? The first one was not as good as the second one, which is weird. But for 1979 it was like...

Year adjusted was amazing. The first one? Yeah. 100%. No, but two holds up. If you put two on Netflix, I think... Where did I watch it? Oh, big time in Holter.

Not on Netflix. Maybe on Max. So Vomilus. There's a new one coming out over the summer. I think it's over the summer. I can't wait. It's like a flawless movie and it takes place in the future and those never hold up well when you actually get to the future. So good. Yeah, yeah, it's true. But this one really did.

That's interesting. I forget. It's on one of the streamers now, which is why I came across and watched it. One of my all-time favorites. I didn't like seek it out, but I was like, yeah. Don't apologize. You can seek it out, but I was like, yeah. Don't apologize. You can seek it out. The Knicks got knocked out.

No, the Knicks got knocked out, and I was just going through the apps, and I watched it, and I said, oh shit, I don't think I ever really watched this all the way through. This is a good movie. Get away from her, you bitch. Oh, you know who's in it? The bad guy is Paul Reiser. Great bad guy. From Man About You.

Great bad guy. He's a good bad guy. Very underrated. That's interesting. Because he's good bad guy. Very underrated. Because he's sleazy, you can see that. He's like a corporate... I don't want to ruin it for anyone. Anyway, perfect movie.

Do you know all the directors of Aliens? Went on to become the greatest directors. Ridley Scott directed the first one. James Cameron directed the second one. Oh really? And then the first one. I think James Cameron directed the second one. Oh really? Yeah. And then the third one was somebody else. It was Fincher. David Fincher.

So, what a great series. Alright, Steph, we've kept you here long enough. I know you have a reservation at Red Lobster that you're going to run to in the suburbs of New Jersey. We had so much fun hanging out with you today. We'd love to have you back. You want to come back sometime? I'd be more than happy to do so.

What are you doing tomorrow? Tomorrow. We will absolutely have you back and thank you so much for sharing stories from your career and your favorite stocks and just hanging with us. You are the best. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks everyone for listening.

We appreciate you. Make sure to leave a rating and review. They go a long way. Shout out to the whole compound media team for another job well done this week. Hey guys, we'll see you next week. Thank you.