The Compound and Friends - Trading the Election

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

On episode 164 of The Compound and Friends, Michael Batnick and Downtown Josh Brown are joined by Jack Raines to discuss: earnings season, betting on the election, The Washington Post's subscriber exodus, red hot Reddit, Michael Saylor can't get enough Bitcoin, once a New Yorker always a New Yorker, and much more! This episode is sponsored by Public and BlackRock. Discover how you can lock in a 6% or higher yield with a Bond Account at: http://public.com/compound iShares launched three new ETFs to empower investors with simple solutions to express more granular views on the largest companies listed in the U.S. Learn more at: https://www.ishares.com/us Sign up for The Compound Newsletter and never miss out! Instagram: https://instagram.com/thecompoundnews Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecompoundnews LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-compound-media/ Public Disclosure: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond’s yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond’s YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more. 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/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I'm Napoleon Dynamite Sensei. Who are you? I'm like, uh... I don't know. We're all this and we're all... I'm sort of just somebody from that alone time. Let's f***ing take down a buffalo after this. We could be, uh... Right?

One of you could be Larry the Camping Dog. We could also be, uh, Talladega Knights. I forgot what they're... Ricky Bobby and whatever. Dale? Oh my god. Dale. Ricky Bobby!

Um... Shake and bake. So no, I need to know, like, were you like, where'd this come from in your brain? Nicole, were you involved in this? Yes. Hey, can we? I was sent links and I ordered.

Do you want any treats or do you want any treats? Nicole's denying involvement. Seriously, she's like, what's nothing to do with this? I love it. Can we treat it with? Yeah. Oh, Jack's had his get the price tag. Oh, yeah. We could honestly, we could leave that on if we want to leave the price tag is

hip-hop that's what they do in the culture I don't know that is Jack you want both of these no no just no, just a special. What? She was on a show called Be The Man. Oh, we're not connected to TV? Interesting. And she wore a hat and had a bracelet. No, I can't connect to the TV. It's like the whole thing with the baseball hat. Always shaking sounds. Why, you want to show this? No, I just want, how funny is that?

Let's assume everyone in the country has seen this. No, but the tag. What does the tag say? Read it, read it, read it, read it. Hold on. Citadel securities when you put in your market orders. Uh, the funniest one I saw was when my kid brings home Twix bars on Halloween. I have been going nuts this week with kids candy. It's not good.

So we have like the... Like eating it or just like what about... Getting high on your own supply. What else do you do with the kids candy? I don't know man. I eat it. That's just me. I'm crazy. I eat it. Wait, what are you guys giving out? The standard. Twix, cocaine, Starburst. Yeah. I'm crazy. I wait. What are you guys giving out this standard Twix cocaine starburst? Yeah

I might come I might come trick-or-treat cigarettes are kind of back like they're they're coming back The kids are tired of vaping like cigarettes are bad. They want the real they want the real thing Well, it's like the fight like you can smoke cigarettes on your fire escape. It's Come back in the culture. Anyway, just eating so it's in Snickers. So don't bring your kids by Jack Rains' crib this week. He's giving out Marlboro Reds. So I didn't get to read this yet, but you guys just did a story on Blumhouse? Yes, I actually have not read it either. I love that guy.

I think it's really good because we were all talking about it. I myself have not read it yet, so I can't comment on it in good faith. So Chris, we're about to start recording a podcast. But we just had a very exciting call that I will talk about it after, okay? You had a what? We had a good call, I'll fill you in after.

I wanna see the costume. I can't, dude, fix your fucking phone. you'll see it on YouTube like the rest of America See oh there he is. All right show me though show me Yeah, I'm gonna walk outside like this. Oh, it is Halloween, nobody would know. Josh should rock that outfit and walk in the house while Sherry's face is around. All right, get him, all right, off screen, off screen. I've got some new lingo that y'all can add to your lexicon. It's the word chat.

You can use it like a, it's what the, my Gen Alpha cousin, he's 13, gave me this. It's, you use it like a third person people program. Yeah, chat, what do you think? A chat, is this real? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm too old to learn new words, but you should know it's just like you can use it instead Of y'all essentially I don't know I don't hate that came from like twitch streamers when they're like chat like asking the chat questions But you can use it in the real world. I like about it than fam Fam why I'm pretty beat chats better. Yeah, there we go. This is Jen alpha shit right here. That's right

We're getting going going the iPad babies all right we at least do audio can we do audio of my video? I can act like this is like a... oh to the headphones audio of what of the thing I just got rid of? of masa what do I need to be doing over here? wait I but I have to have the thing though it's in the link come on now it's not my first Rodeo. Uh oh. Oh, it feels good. It feels good with the headphones on. Does it look good?

It's not his fault, but it's 80 degrees up. Do I need to adjust anything? Just talk it to the mic. Do I need to like pull it closer? Yeah, if you want to. Cool. This is pretty fancy. Before you play this. It's three minutes. No, no, just 30 seconds. But. This is pretty fancy, isn't it? Before you play this.

Three minutes. No, no, just 30 seconds. But the dude is trying to interrupt so bad. Master's like talking about Nvidia undervalued. And the guy leading in, the guy who's doing the interview, like wants to jump. This is in Saudi Arabia? This is the FII thing?

Uh-huh. I believe so. Alright. What? Undervalued. On what basis? Because the future is much bigger. Nvidia is just one example. Right.

Okay? What about the total, you know, J-AI future, what is the value of the future? Is this a bubble today or not? Okay? Some critics, the most negative guy says, oh, this AGI, ASI in 10 years, maybe only 5% is actually useful or replacing. I can't answer this. So that's Masa Son.

Who's that interviewing him? I don't know. One of the largest tech investors in history. He's the goat. One of the biggest bubble blowers. Also, in fairness, one of the biggest money makers. Like this guy has made in loss and made in loss fortunes. And that's him saying that Nvidia is undervalued in 2024. Thank God somebody's saying it.

He might be the only person that thinks it's undervalued, right? At this moment in time. I think there are people that think it's fairly valued. You know what? I think we need investors like that. Yeah. Well, like for real. One. You need one guy.

Yeah. He's done this three times. I wrote a piece on him a couple of weeks ago and he back when the dot com bubble popped, he set the record for losing more money than anybody had ever lost ever. Was it on Yahoo? Killing the game. It was like just all the tech companies. He YOLO'd, lost it, and then he basically YOLO'd

Alibaba again, and then lost it all on WeWork, and then he YOLO'd Arm, and then made it all back again. Legend. Legend. It's only fitting for him to go all in on Nvidia, somehow Nvidia be a fraud, him lose it all again, and then make it back on like. He has one more turn. How much money did he make from Arm?

Like people were like laughing. He f**king. Well he almost sold it to Nvidia before it came public. Yeah, didn't that one get blocked by regulators? So he, they still own like 90% of it. I don't actually know how they'll be able to sell that because they own 90% of a publicly traded stock. But I think like a couple of weeks ago,

Arm was worth 145 billion. And how much do they own you said? He, 90%. So they have like $130 billion. Like most of Softbank is- Goaded. He has to create an alternate universe, Masayoshi Son, to sell it to.

That's the only way. His investing strategy is drop a baby grand piano onto the buy button. And do it again, just in case the first time didn't take. He's like a better Bill Wang. Like he just hasn't gone to prison, but they both kind of do the same thing. I love it.

I love it too. He's killing it. All right, today's a blood red day for the NASDAQ, so we're going to get into that for sure. A lot of big earnings reactions. No, it's interesting. There's like a lot of dispersion in the Mac 7. So Microsoft and Nvidia are bright red, meta two. Apple is only down a percent. Google's down one and a half, that's interesting. There's like a lot of dispersion in the Mac 7. So Microsoft and Nvidia are bright red, Meta 2.

Apple is only down a percent, and Google's down one and a half, that's it. Apple will report tonight. Amazon too. And Amazon too. So give that a minute. Yeah. It's a, you know what,

it's a reversal of how earnings season started, because the first two big tech names out of the shoot had great reactions. Tesla and- Google. I was going to say Netflix, oh, Alphabet too. Netflix had a really big upside response

after the earnings. Alright, how we looking? We're good? We're good. Alright. Let's pod. Alright. I just noticed your computer.

What, the Shiba Inu sticker? Yeah, it's a cool looking dog. Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop the clock. Jon, before you clap, here's a word from dog. Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop the clock. John, before you clap, here's a word from our sponsor. Listen up, folks. Time could be running out to lock in a historic yield at public.com. But you could lock in a 60% or higher yield with a bond account, Josh.

But here's the thing. The Federal Reserve just announced a big rate cut, and the plan is for more rate cuts. I'm not so sure about that. We're going to see at least one more, I think. We'll see. Okay. But look, if you're looking to buy a home, that's good news.

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Not an investment recommendation. All investing involves risk. Visit public.com slash disclosures slash bond dash account for more info. Today's show is also brought to you by BlackRock. The increasing prominence of mega cap stocks in recent years underscores the critical need for investors to modernize the way they capture growth of some of the world's most well-known companies. iShares launched three new ETFs to empower investors with simple solutions to express

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iShares Nasdaq 100X Top 30 ETF, QNXT. Get exposure to large and mid-cap companies that may make up the next generation of industry disruptors and innovators like PayPal, Zoom Communicationsound 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 Ridholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed

in this podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, episode 164 of the Compound and Friends. My name is Downtown Josh Brown. Congratulations to first time listeners. You have just happened upon your new favorite investing podcast. For those of you who have been riding with us since day one, we love you. Make my music louder.

I feel like you're already fading me out. Fade me in. Don't be shy. Fade me in. Listen, this is a very special show. It's the Halloween edition. Even though you're gonna watch it or hear it on November 1st,

just understand that it's Halloween right now as we're recording it so we look way less crazy I'm here with my co-host as always mr. Michael Batnick. We got a full house here today Daniel's here Rob Duncan is here John John has gone. Everything's good All right, and of course Nicole is here and we have a very special guest, our friend, the living legend. It's amazing how young you are, you're already a legend. Jack Rains writes the Young Money Blog, a finance-focused blog covering markets, the economy and more.

Jack is also an associate editor at Sherwood, covering business and market news. Prior to Sherwood, Jack spent two years as the editor of the financial newsletter, ExecSum. Jack Reigns, welcome back to the show. Humbled and honored to be here. Also, this is not a costume. This is just how we dress and wear it. I was going to say, for those of you who are listening,

we are wearing the classic three wolf t-shirts, three wolves howling at the moon t-shirts. You have a duck hunting hat on. Yeah, I think so. I have Don't Tread on me. Let's go. In camo, of course. Is there any other way to rock that?

And Michael has the... What did you call it? Bow to your sensei. I'm the Napoleon Dynamite dude. Yeah. But Michael has the three wolves as well. And then we gave him an American flag shmata on his head. So that's the story. Something, as soon as I put the shirt on, I want to start spreading conspiracy theories on Twitter.

It feels natural. That's all that people do on Twitter now. I mean, it's Halloween, it's election season, and we're wearing a wolf shirt. Come on, throw something crazy. As soon as I put on the three wolves and the moon shirt, all I wanted to do was storm the Capitol. I can't, I don't know how I'm going to keep my stuff.

Where were you on January 6th? I heard that Kamala Harris actually died three years ago and it's actually Tiffany Trump under there wow this is um they have that whole like conspiracy with Avril Lavigne the skater boy singer so I'm glad that I tell us what that is we don't know that oh my god so there's we know Avril yeah well no you don't she's been dead for 11 years according to the conspiracy somebody somebody else came up with skater boy. It's a whole body double thing. I can't imagine where that would have come from.

Reports today from Microsoft, Metta, Uber, all three selling off. I think one of the interesting things about the Microsoft result, it didn't seem very difficult, different from what Alphabet had to say on cloud growth. But today is just one of those days where good is not enough, people need it great, or it's sell the news, the stock's been rallying all year, they would've sold it either way. What do you think?

So I think it's the latter. I didn't have time to dig into the fundamentals, but this blew my face right off my body. Did you know that Microsoft has performed in line with the S&P 500 since October 2021. That's really? Wow. I'm looking at a chart of MSFT divided by SPY

and it's where it was in October 21. So how is that even possible? You're telling me that in the last three years it hasn't outperformed? Yeah, that's what I'm telling you. I wouldn't have guessed that it hasn't. I guess it was already so high in 2021. I don't know.

I would not have guessed that. But I mean, technically the stock doesn't look great. I think like my knee-jerk reaction to this is good. Not that I'd like to see anybody lose money, but like these stocks have been on fire. Heaven forbid we should have like a normal pullback. I think that's OK. Are people trading the Mag-7 on Robinhood as much as they had

been or are they bored with these names? I feel like I feel that people are bored with these companies other than Nvidia at this point. And probably Tesla, right? Tesla's always fun. Here's a fun one. Oracle is up 61% year to date, and it's up 200% over the last five years.

So Oracle's been outperforming, I think, the entire Mag-7 except for Nvidia this year. Oracle is like the fourth largest cloud provider. They only really became a cloud computing story like two or three years ago. So I think they can just take market share, and that's probably what's fueling the gains. John, can we put this earnings reactions?

Before we do real quick, real quick. So the Mag 7, there's a ticker for that. Ryan, tell us a ticker for that. It hit an all time high yesterday. That also surprised me. Did you know that? I did not know that. How is us a ticket for that. And it hit an all-time high yesterday. That also surprised me. Did you know that? I did not know that. How is it weighted?

Is it equal weight amongst all seven? So it's the big seven. All-time high yesterday. So that's probably helped by Nvidia and Tesla. Yeah. Not Tesla. Not Tesla. Let's put this up.

So just to run through the reactions to earnings, this is just one day reaction. So Netflix started us off on October 17th. It had a one day gain of 11.1 percent. Tesla 22 percent, one of its best days ever. Even Alphabet, which was not like a blow your face off report up 2.8 percent. is different story Microsoft off five and a half Meta off almost four uber down 11 and change which I'm long the stock I think it's a I think it's a weird reaction to what was a pretty good quarter and good guidance But the sentiment shifted so fast on these because if you would have bet oh look how much they love Tesla

Look how much they love Netflix. We're good this earnings season it's just not really what you're getting right now I would also point to your day performance when I'm pulling up right now like these things listen they can't kill up indefinitely forever and ever without some sort of normal pullback so I I'm not trying to poo poo the reaction I think it's interesting but I also think that Microsoft was up 25% earlier in the year. What else is pulling back? Uber was up 40% year-to-date as of a couple of weeks ago. So is this a reason to follow through the downside?

Obviously, I have no idea. But what's interesting in conjunction with this is that there was a report from the Conference Board, Consumer Confidence Expectation, of stock price increases. So this report is old. It goes back to the 1980s. And they ask people, what is your expectation of stocks being higher one year from now in terms, it goes back to the 1980s and they ask people what is your expectation of stocks being higher one year from now in terms of like will they be higher will they be lower and

It's at the highest as far as this is from Jim Bianco's chart It's 51% of respondents expect the stock market to be higher next year. So Yeah, okay. We got a little bit frosty. This is sentiment. People are excited. This is off the charts. Investors are horny. But it is interesting. Jack, I want to get your take on this. It is interesting seeing how bullish investors are on the stock market compared with how people feel about the economy and how they feel about how

the country is going. It's a weird dichotomy. Well, I think it's like, just looking at this now, it seems like it keeps, like when stocks have been going up, people want it to still go up. Like is that 2022, where it's at the bottom, like right before this? That's exactly how it works.

That's like, I think that was around the last time I was on here, but it's like, that's everybody thought, like we were going to have a recession, the world was going to end, and the S&P's up a lot since then. So I don't know, it is weird that people think the financial markets are doing better than the economy. But my take on this is most people's personal portfolios

are up because most people are invested in index funds or something like that. So everybody feels like the economy's bad because the news looks bad. And then you're seeing all these reports about inflation, this and that. But then their own personal investment accounts are probably up like 20% or whatever this year.

So it's almost like everybody's doing bad except for me, but my net worth is up, therefore I feel good about it. Like it's like you're segmenting your situation from- That's like when they ask people like, how do you feel about Congress? They despise Congress. How do you feel about your own Congress person? Oh, she's doing a good job.

You know what, I think it's like a virus going around. And that virus, not COVID, it's like cool to complain. Like complaining is very much in vogue these days. Well, let's talk about the election because it's the last show I think before we actually get the result. If we get a result. First things first is, I can't believe how many people want to bet with money on the election. You would think that, I think the last polls were it's 47, 47 or whatever.

Like, none of the polls. I don't know which polls you're looking at. Yeah, yeah. None of the. Prediction market. None of the mainstream polls are so far apart that you would think like there's this like Obvious winner just yet. I know people's hearts. There's an obvious one. Oh since one is betting about making money, sir. I guess not

So Robin Hood which sure what is is connected with this is directly from their release two weeks ago We hosted hundreds of Robin Hood customers in Miami at our inaugural Hood Summit. There we announced Robinhood legend and that index options and futures would be coming soon. Now, Robinhood is following up on this announcement with the launch of presidential election event contracts ahead of the November 5th general election. Other people have launched these also. People are really excited to be able to trade on the result of the election. Are you surprised by that at all? No, people like betting on anything. This is like the

biggest story and honestly because like to your point even though most of the prediction markets like I'm looking at Kalashian and Polymarket now and they both show Trump favored right around 60-40 but most of the polls are still showing like a 50 50 ish. So everybody thinks that they're right on this and it's essentially a double your money thing if you're right. So why do you think there's such a big gap between the traditional polls versus the betting markets?

I think it's I think it's a couple of things. The first is that I think a little bit like a slightly higher percentage of people that are actually betting on this probably lean conservative. So that's going to skew it a little bit. But the other thing is, in the polls, Trump has had momentum over the last like month or so. So he went from being like down by like 2% to being about neck and neck.

Which is momentum like a stock. Yes, and because like in the polls, like what Nate Silver does, for example, you're polling what people's individual choices are. The prediction markets, people are betting on what they think the broader outcome is gonna be. So if Trump's gaining momentum and you're betting on a binary outcome,

not just a bunch of individual decisions, if it's a coin flip and he's been gaining momentum, more people are gonna expect that to keep going. It's really not that different from the start. This is not moved by individual people, like the count of individual people, this is moved by money. It's a market. So wealthier people, probably, and also maybe more people are betting on Trump.

And that's how you get that big dispersion. So Kalshi puts out, like they're the one who sued the CFTC and won. So that's why them, Robinhood, Interactive Brokers, they all have like US markets for this now. But they distribute research reports on their numbers and more people on the platform are putting money on Trump, but the median bet size for Harris is bigger and there's more, like bigger wealth.

So it's not what I thought it was. So there's still more net bettors on Trump, but there's a higher proportion of bigger bettors on Harris, which I'd counter-intuitive. You might know this, you might not. Do we know how the rules work? So let's say it's a contested election, which I'm willing to bet a million dollars it is

in both directions, no matter who wins. Like who wins this bet? Who gets an augury? It depends on where you bet. So, Polymarket's bets settle on Wednesday, but Cal-She's don't settle until- No one's going to be happy with that. Cal-She's don't settle until January.

So, there's like, depending on which plat, and I don't know when the Robinhood would settle, but if you bet on Cal-She, you want to actually get your payout until January 7th or whatever. Well, like Tim Draper, I have bet both candidates. Yeah, that way you can't lose. Hold on, but if you bet on Polymarket,

you might not ever get paid, because the odds of there being a resolution come Wednesday, in my personal opinion, not knowing anything more than anyone else, are very slim. Yeah, I have no idea how that's gonna work out. There's not gonna be a concession phone call. No. Okay, and why would there be? It going to work out. It's not going to be a concession phone call. No. Okay, and why would there be?

It's so tight, or we think it's so tight. Well hang on, talk about what Nicolas said on your show because I think that he's onto something in terms of what's getting the momentum going for Trump. On the betting markets. Well, so Nick made the point, which I think, look, I think we'll find out eventually if this is true, but he thinks that there are big bettors,

specifically overseas, that are offsetting risk in one particular position by betting on one of the candidates. So like if you're making policy-specific bets, one way to hedge might be to offset it with a bet on which candidate wins. Well, wait a minute, I think it's a little bit different than that. My interpretation was that this person or people

are trying to get momentum for Trump, not because they're political, but because they think that that's going to have implications for foreign currencies and commodities, and then they're using real money, like real, real money, to buy the peso or palladium or whatever, whatever policies that Trump will enact that will impact foreign markets and international markets,

that's the purpose of the money. But do you think they're like putting money on Polymarket or whatever to try to like... This is a tiny market. It's two billion relative to the currency markets. And a lot of that's probably wash trading. I don't know if you saw the Fortune piece about how like a third of this is like wash trading volume. So it's probably like... Yeah, there's... it was a pretty wild piece that I think fortune put it out yesterday about how they said at least a third of polymarkets volume on the election market and in general is like wash

trading people just moving money back and forth without taking you know buying and selling and then rebuying and reselling oh I believe that yeah yeah it's called crypto stuff you know you know what's interesting is that the tail is wagging the dog because this is having like impact on how people are thinking about the outcome of the election. Well, it's because the average person doesn't like, doesn't necessarily get the difference between a prediction market and a poll.

So the poll's 50-50 and a prediction market's 61-39, then they're like, oh, the prediction market's like the real thing. They aren't really measuring the same thing. So I would tend to believe that the prediction market is the real thing when it comes to like, the stock market. Not that the prediction is always right.

It's not volume. But I'm one of these people that believes good news happens to stocks that are already in uptrends and bad news happens to stocks that are already in downtrends. Yeah. Because I think the market is smart. I don't know if I would make the leap and say that I believe that the prediction market is leading what the actual election outcome will be. I don't think it's big enough.

Here's the fortune piece. The prediction market, polymarket has skyrocketed into mainstream consciousness during the 2024 US elections with the platform reporting that users have placed 2.7 billion in bets over whether Trump or Harris will be elected. But analysts at two crypto research firms have found evidence of rampant wash trading. Even as odds have been shared widely across social media and mainstream media outlets. Donald Trump currently has a 67% chance of winning according to the platform. So they're looking at people buying and selling these contracts to create a false impression

of volume and activity. I would guess that that's probably happening. Yeah. Okay. Are there bots doing this? I don't know. Highly possible. It'll be interesting if, you know, one of the things they try to do on the news is not call an election too early. Because they don't want to stop people from going out to vote. But if you hear on TV that a state is like probably already done and you live in that

state you might not go. If you see that same phenomenon start to play out in these betting markets, maybe not this election but next election, where three days before, you can see based on the prediction market where your candidate is, you might not even get up and go out and vote. You might say it's a waste of time, it's over already. Okay, that's an interesting thing.

Are you pro prediction markets in general? You think there are any societal reasons why we should maybe police these a little bit better or? I just, so my take is I think people can put their money on whatever they want. If it's like a fair market, you want to do that. That's like on you to do it. I do think that having prediction markets for just making it where you can bet on literally

anything at any point is just a slippery slope. And that like, it's just another thing people can get like addicted to and potentially lose money on. So yeah, from from like, I don't necessarily know how it should be governed. I think people should be able to do what they want. I do think that there's going to be consequences of like people losing money or this same thing as sports betting. I don't necessarily think it should be illegal, but I don't think it's necessarily a good thing either. I just,

on the Caesar's app, I bet on Detroit lions to win the Superbowl when, this past week. Okay. I like that bet plus 700. I looked at I also bet on Tampa Bay, which is plus 6,000 What about the Atlanta Falcons? I just I said it's Baker Mayfield like it's plus 6,000 literally who cares But the idea is like I don't actually expect either of these to work The idea is like, I don't actually expect either of these to work, but if they do work, it costs me literally nothing and the payouts are enormous. That's how it starts, my friend. I understand, but I wouldn't make bets like, oh, so and so is going to win this game by four points.

I don't do stuff like that. I'm going to put my kid's college tuition on Doge. All I did was put my kid's college tuition. That's fine. The sports apps are getting as crazy as the ETF launches. Now you could bet, and you better believe I am, who could score in the first three minutes of a basketball game?

I guess Josh Hart could have scored in the first three minutes. Yeah, he is. So that I won't do. I know. I'm a long-term gambler. Nice. It's like you're the only investor in blue chip bets,

like Super Bowl futures, not Josh Hart assist over under the first quarter. He's a good enough probability that the Lions get there And if they get there, it's anyone's game. We've seen tons of upsets in Super Bowls So like from my perspective I look at that differently as somebody saying who's gonna score the first two points in a best-well game This is neither here nor there, but Lions happen to be a top two team right now so they're not a long shot like they could easily win. They were like the fourth in the in the thing. By Baltimore, Kansas City. You should bet on the Falcons. Kirk Cousins looking good.

He's got those boys right. You a Falcons fan? Oh yeah, okay. We're back. All right, I have Mooney on my fantasy team. Nobody cares. All right, so the big story this week and there's a lot of stories, is the Washington Post losing about 10% of their subscriber base. And this is on the back of Jeff Bezos saying that the newspaper will not endorse a candidate, which is kind of weird effing timing, considering the elections on Tuesday. So I thought Derek Thompson had a really good take on this. He said, that Bezos sincerely formed in his private thoughts, the principle that presidential endorsements are bad, and the timing of this articulation just happened to coincide with this principle being obviously advantageous to his company Blue Origin. It's possible, but as a general matter, if you come up with a personal principle,

at the very moment when that principle is most convenient, the price you pay for that convenience is that nobody will trust you, nor should they. And I won't read the rest of it, But it's like, come on, man. If he did this a year ago, two years ago, I think reasonable people would have been like, well, here, we don't endorse presidential candidates. It's a defensible position.

Coming up with that principle during the editing process for a Harris endorsement days before your company is scheduled to meet with Donald Trump is not a decision whose timing deserves anybody's trust Yeah, so Bezos wrote an op-ed in the in the post It's like dude nobody believes you like reasonable people can say yeah, why would a newspaper endorse a candidate? You can't do that four days before the election. What are you insane? Just he's a business person. What did he think was gonna happen first of all?

Yeah, you trust gone, but just from the point of view of his business that he's running with the Washington Post, maybe he cares, maybe he doesn't. What is that about? It's, I mean, the last paragraph saying that, like, his other company is meeting with Trump. I imagine Blue Origin, I'm assuming they're talking about Blue Origin. He tried to say that it was a coincidence that he didn't know that... So Blue Origin relies on government contracts, obviously. They're dragging really heavy stuff into orbit. And SpaceX beat them badly.

Yeah. And Elon is all in on Trump. And there's already a lawsuit between Bezos and the government because in 2019 he thinks he was blocked from getting a contract because of his views on Trump. So this is not like none of this is news that this is now a really big factor. I think when he bought the Washington Post, it was during a time where it was seen to be smart if you were a billionaire to be a champion of liberal ideas, ideals. And that time has passed.

And you could almost argue now it's the opposite. Like you almost get more credit these days for sticking up a middle finger to liberal ideals. And this is kind of like an in-between. This is like, well, we're not going to really endorse anyone. And everyone knows now at this point that the truth is he pulled it personally. So that's come out. It's been reported. No one's in denial about that.

They lost 250,000 subscribers. It may not be great to own businesses and also own a newspaper, it turns out. Well, he came out afterwards and said, I'm reading this quote here, I would also like to be clear that there's no quid pro quo of any kind at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or any way about this decision.

As soon as you come out and say that none of that happened, it shows that you were thinking about people thinking that that happened. It's insulting. How dumb do you think we are, Mr. Billionaire? Right. And this is like part of the thing that people are pissed off about on both sides. I think if you're gonna be in the media business,

you gotta be all in, and you gotta kinda be Rupert Murdoch, and just, I'm a conservative media company owner. Be a villain, lean into the villain art. So speaking of villains, so the Wall Street Journal did a post on what's going on at X, formerly known as Twitter, and they said the journal created accounts on the social media platform that only signaled an affinity for non-political subjects. Non-political. But a majority of the posts in their For You feed were partisan or related to the election.

Kamala Harris's campaign topped the list of most seen accounts with one post mocking pro-Trump hecklers at her rally in Wisconsin Reaching all the journals accounts. Ten of the other top 14 mostly leaned right including Trump's and overall pro-Trump content appeared about twice as frequently as Pro-Harris material and I'm thinking about this of course including Trump's and overall pro-Trump content appeared about twice as frequently as pro-harass material. And I'm thinking about this, of course it's the election, but in the context of Reddit just smashed earnings. Oh yeah, Reddit's back. So cook. Yeah, Reddit's great. I think the Reddit's...

Wait, you're saying Reddit is stealing Twitter's thunder? Yeah, absolutely. Reddit is crushing right now. So I'll give you the mic in one second, but I'm on Reddit for the first time in my entire life. I think a lot of it has to do with the partnership with Google, which I spoke about on the call that I listened to, but I'm now getting stuff and I'm going to Reddit for the,

Reddit's been around for a long time. I've never been able to follow it, it's been too much for me. I'm going to Reddit and it is like the anti-Twitter. And so they're killing it. So Jack, talk more about what they're doing. It's a top three search result on Google for almost everything that I put

into the search box these days. Yeah, so there's, I read through, so Reddit absolutely crushed earnings. Their revenue was up 68% year over year, which is nuts. Their daily active uniques, which is their measurement for active users, was up 47% year over year. That's huge.

And the craziest fact in here was that the sixth most Googled word so far this year was the word Reddit. So people are typing in whatever their question is, putting Reddit in. Like Google is very much a search bar for Reddit. Nobody wants to be mind-fucked on Twitter. It's like, I just want sports or this or that. Don't feed me politics. People are like, I'm going elsewhere. Twitter search sucks. You can't look be mine on Twitter. It's right. I just want sports or this or that don't feed me policy People are like I'm going elsewhere Twitter search sucks. Like you can't look up stuff on Twitter

It's broken if you try to put in somebody's handle and look for a quote like it it can't do it right versus reddit It's reddit's been around for so long and there's so many people that are just sharing their random thoughts and anecdotes and just ideas on everything the last few times I hit Twitter like just the homepage, and my settings are now just like people I follow. Yeah. I don't know how like 4U versus, so I click on the 4U thing to see what's going on.

It's wild. The top post all five, the last five times the top post is something Elon Musk said. So he must have arranged the algorithm so that no matter what, when you hit Twitter, you see whatever he's saying. And then it's all politics. So Reddit stock was up 42% yesterday.

It successfully IPO'd earlier in the year. And yeah, the stock's on fire. It's because the business is on fire. What's the market cap on Reddit now? Is this now a big stock? I don't know. I'm making that up. It's only like 20 billion. So not like that big.

But this is happening, you think as a- It's not a coincidence. You think this is happening as a direct result of how badly they fucked up the Twitter experience? I think that's part of it, but Reddit is also one of the biggest like winners so far with AI and social media. I was reading about how they have like they've basically been using machine learning to build

out better translation tools. And part of the problem was most of Reddit was in English, right? But now they have all these like you can just hit translate on pretty much any post and it pulls it up. So it opens up a bigger international market where people from France or Brazil can now read all the like post written by people from America. So like the market just gets way bigger when it's more collaborative and less siloed. So like the they've done a very good job of leveraging the way I describe Reddit people is it's eBay for information. Yeah. So when you're on eBay, you're in you're

in like your own. You're in your own like lane of things that you care about. And that's what they're, so you search for something, they'll give you all the relevant results for that thing. So if you're somebody that collects, for example, like a Yankee memorabilia, you're not gonna see like, Yankees, Yankees, Yankees, oh, here's Trump dancing. That's not gonna happen. You're basically being served things that are, that are things that you might actually

buy. I think of Reddit as the same thing, but for information. So if you're really interested in star Wars and you're on re you're in the subreddits that are relevant to that and they do a really good job at letting you stay there and not trying to push your attention to something else. So y'all both know my whole SPAC trading story, whatever, like YOLO, my Roth IRA. Not everybody does, so real quick. Okay.

So the very quick rundown is during the pandemic, I decided to start day trading my Roth IRA, flipping SPACs, and I was just YOLOing SPAC after SPAC after SPAC. I think Chamath is a horrible person, but he made me a lot of money. So to that, I say, thank you. I think Chamath is a horrible person, but he made me a lot of money. So to that I say thank you. Anyway, I at one point turned six grand into 400 grand, which I then turned, that was in about nine months.

I was 23 and I told my dad that I was, he told me to sell and I said- I'm the smartest man alive. Yeah and I said, no, I'm up 6,000%. I'm 150% away from a millionaire. Anyway, yeah, so then I turned 400K into 200K, which is pretty cool. Most of that happened in one day.

Proud of you. But the Reddit, thank you, the Reddit part of this is I had a Burner Reddit account where I was one of the co-founders of the Spax subreddit, which now has like, I don't know, like 300,000 subscribers. Were you modding? Yeah, I was a mod for a little bit.

And then it just, it got too big where it was just people posting random BS So a core group of that made a discord server where we had like bots that were sending us push Notifications whenever your SPAC filing came out, but I was very active in reddit like posting stuff all over the place in 2021 It is phenomenal. There's a lot of smart people on there And it's just it's the only social media platform where you can really build a community within a platform that's valuable. So people can follow subreddits for the things that they're interested in,

which I have done. But you can't follow people in there specifically, or you can't? No, you can. My burner Reddit, the username is, it's BarmeloZanthony, and I have over a thousand followers. So the thing that you just said, like-minded people, social media is not good because nobody wants to spend time

with people that they disagree with. So that's why Twitter just turned into a cesspool. We're not meant to be with people who we think are idiots. And half the country thinks the other half are idiots. Yeah, and Twitter just puts them all together yelling at each other. Well, I think there's another thing going on, which is that Elon believes, genuinely believes,

I think he genuinely believes that the world needs a town square. And my belief is nothing could be further from the truth. We absolutely do not. In fact, it's absolutely poisonous for there to be a place where everyone is yelling at each other. And that's almost like a, you either believe that everyone should talk in the world to be a better place, or you think people should mind their own business, stay in their own lane, and the world would be a better place.

I'm in the latter camp. It always goes toxic. Oh, you should hear people that disagree with you. Aren't you open-minded? Nah. Yes, I get that on an individual one-to-one level, but when there's millions of people, it just always turns violent.

It always does. Or when it's most of the biggest accounts on there are not in good faith. Right. It is interesting. Remember there used to be like a whole group of social media companies Groupon, Zynga, Twitter, Facebook. None of that exists anymore because you know why? On the conference call it's these are ad platforms.

Okay. And what do ad platforms want? They want people on the platform. And you're not going to stay on a platform where every time you log in you have a negative experience, right? It's so cool though It's like to your point like it's not reddit is not a town square But if you do want to dabble or like read about other views you can just look at the siloed version of like What are the American socialists think? Okay, interesting versus just like tweeting and then all of a sudden you have an alt-right guy and then a Bernie Sanders acolyte screaming at each other in the conversation.

Oh, you can go looking for those opinions. Yes, but if you don't go, like you can look for specific stuff, which is great. Yeah, exactly, if you don't like it, if you don't like it, they're not going to keep forcing it down your throat. Yeah, like Reddit's the best way to actually find out what, like you can actually explore deferring opinions without,

it's a much cleaner, better, like healthier way to see what different. Conspiracy theories exist. Yeah, exactly. If you want to sample different conspiracy theories. That's the place. Actually, I bet there's a conspiracy theory subreddit. Let's see. Bet, there's probably, of course.

Ooh, wait, yeah, it's got 2.2 million conspiracies. Let's see, Kim Kardashian deletes her son's YouTube channel after he shares two anti-Kamala Harris videos. Really makes you think they're onto something here. He's sick. Duncan, are you on Reddit? I use it sometimes, Google searches. You land on it like I do from Google.

Yeah, I'm looking for like F1 trivia or something like that. That's how I stumbled upon Reddit. So they have a deal in place with Google or this just happened organically? Yeah, they signed, I think it was a $60 million deal Google or this just happened organically Yeah, it's they signed I think it was a 60 million dollar deal where Google can now train some of its like AI stuff on reddit content all the reddit Mods were like up in arms about it. I think that deal was signed around the time reddit went public Obviously everybody said they were gonna leave reddit. They didn't because reddits users are up 47%

So it turns out nobody actually cares what happens to their data Is Wall Street that's still still like a big thing or has it cooled off John John you're saying yes Yes, it's bigger than ever But it's like it's one of those things where the bigger it gets you lose that like when it was like a few hundred thousand people There were these edgy people just trying to figure out ways to like lose like millions of dollars in Robin Hood now It's like oh look I made money. I lost money. Here's a dollars in Robin Hood. Now it's like, oh, look, I made money. I lost money. Here's a stupid meme. Like, it's not it's like IQ 90 when it used to be IQ 140

with a gambling addiction, which was so much more fun. How did it become IQ 90? Because it became like just a bigger common denominator of people. Yeah. When it's like when the GameStop thing happened a couple of years ago, Wall Street bets was just like in the news. And then so many people subscribe to it and signed up. It went from being this like weird shadowy corner of the internet where people were trying to do these like weird option iron condors where they lost more money than God to like people just post memes of Jerome Powell now.

Right. So I, I wonder if they, I wonder if when you have that disperse of a community, you still have the power to move stocks. Um, they need, they need a new, they need like a new story. Are they, are they doing DJT? Um, they probably did at some point, you know, you know, uh, DJT was worth more than X two days ago. It's down like 20% or something now, but like it's, they made like 5 million in revenue and a 300 million net loss. Yeah.

It's worth more than X. So for the listener, DJT is the Donald J. Trump, the Trump Media and Technology Corp. And basically, people are using it as another way to gamble on whether or not Trump wins. What is DJT? I don't know. It's nothing.

It's four million in revenue and a four billion dollar market cap. And it's literally, they post some ads on truth social, which is where what do you think the ads are? Trump some, sometimes tweets. Uh, but this is, this thing is rocketing higher when Trump has a good day in the polls or he does something like really smart, or then if, if like, uh, Kamala gives a big interview and gets a lot of attention this thing falls.

So it's acting as, I don't want to say a mood ring, it's acting like an EKG for the Trump campaign basically. It's also cool because he's made more money from this. Like this Truth Social went public through a SPAC and it got held up forever. And now like he's made more money from this than he did in his entire real estate I think he has a two billion dollar stake and he's vowed that he won't sell it Has he cashed out a name? So it's I remember reading through the perspective You're the bad king, tell us

So I read through the whole prospectus on this and he owns I don't know if it was like 50% Half, he owns half And he like gets more and more that that like could vest over time But the thing is I don't remember the terms on his lockup period, but he's also the one who decides if he wants to change the lockup period. So he could say, oh yeah, like it's locked up. I'm locked up until I unlock myself. The shares are locked up until 2026,

but he's the one who determines if he can sell. Is it paid dividend? Not yet, it might. Let me read this to you. The oscillating of shares between highs and lows will likely continue as the electioneers. One current investor warned that if Trump loses the election next week, shares of DJT could plunge to zero.

Quote, it's a binary bet on the election. Matthew Tuttle, CEO of investment fund, Tuttle Capital Management, told Yahoo Finance. Tuttle, who currently owns put options on the stock, said the trajectory of shares hinges on a buy the rumor, sell the fact trading strategy. Listen to this one. Quote, I would imagine that the day after him winning, you'd see this come down.

If he loses, I think it goes to zero. That's not a bad take. So he owns puts on it, which is probably, if I were trading this, that's probably what I would do. I wouldn't buy puts though because I was actually looking at the options on this other day. I also think it'll go down, but the problem is the options are so expensive because everybody is betting on it going somewhere by like 50% or more. So you can be right and sell this money.

Right, like once the volatility... Not when that happens. Once the volatility, like the options, I don't know, it depends on when he bought them, but the options are so expensive now it's hard to make money. this stock just ripped in the last month 60% higher right and now it's down 22% off the highs right and Every you never know what tomorrow's gonna bring if there's like a sienna pole or something that has Harris Gaining momentum this thing could be down 15 points my question is why short that when you can just like buy Harris prediction market stuff? Like I don't know if you're just betting on the election.

Leverage. Leverage bro. Or what if you could get a girlfriend? That's true. Like can you imagine? Like what if you met a girl, took her out to dinner, maybe a movie. I mean no, not at you personally. I'm not betting on this.

People that are involved. All right, the New York Stock Exchange just said they're going to extend trading hours. They're going to go here. Let's go. I knew they would do this because of how much I hated it. I, the New York stock exchange on Friday announced plans to extend trading to 22 hours a day. Robinhood has had this 24 or five trading. So they're open from 8 p.m. Eastern on Sundays until 8 p.m. Eastern on Fridays.

And they've been doing that for over a year. Global cryptocurrency is 24 hours. Under the new plan, trading on the NYSE Arka electronic exchange would open at 1 30 a.m. and close at 11 30 p.m. Eastern on weekdays subject to regulatory approval. They currently have extended trading that starts at 4 a.m. and goes to late p.m. So I don't know. Does this change anything? No, it's almost like we're not doing the weekends.

I think it's... If you're a professional, is your job now 22 hours a day? Depends what your job is. Professional trader. It's not liquid enough. Nobody for an institution is going to be trading at 11pm. On like future, sure, but like on stocks. Counterpoint. Taiwan Semi decides to put out a press release at 3am New York time. Yeah, wake up.

Wake the f*** up. So a few times a year there will be market moving stuff that you can choose or choose not to participate in. Will there be flash crashes overnight that we wake up to? Probably just because like it's not gonna be that liquid. No, like I see this is like, you know, I love trading Robinhood stocks at 3.47 in the morning. Thank you. Thank you. Shout out to the flash crashes. Typically these like, at least right now, most of these stocks, there's not that much liquidity that late.

So like people are going to panic buy, panic sell, whatever. But I don't think that you're going to see like hundreds of thousands of shares trading hands in the middle of the night. If you wrote a trading algorithm for a hedge fund, you would probably not want it active. No, you would want to because of how weird the bit-ass spreads will get. But there's a lot of money to be made from like retail investors who put in a market order instead of a limit order, where you can just put a limit order at a really, really stupid price and you might get filled by somebody accidentally doing a market order. So you can profit off stupidity on this for sure. So you can set things up so that people that are dumb enough to put in the wrong type of trade,

I guess you don't need to do that at 1 a.m. You could do that at 12 noon. Yeah, but like when it's at 12 noon, it's like if you put in a market order, you're just going to get filled at like the right price. 3 a.m. you can make a lot of money from that. So Howard Linson's big thing these days is the degenerate economy. Oh, yeah. Doesn't this like feed right into that?

It's so perfect. That's why you got to own, not an endorsement, while I own, ICE. That's the New York Stock Exchange. I was going to say Draft Kings an endorsement while I own ice that's in your stock exchange I was just a draft Kings, but I don't know This is like this is like what what we just are have young men doing now. It's not going back It's just like gambling all the also but also let's like how many people are gonna do this everybody Other and let's move on to other, let's go from insane to insane on crack.

So, Micro Sailor tweeted, MicroStrategy announces $42 billion capital plan including $21 billion at the money equity offering and a target of raising $21 billion in fixed income securities. Why? MicroStrategy, they're considered by Bitcoin. That's it, they're gonna buy Bitcoin. That's it. They're going to

buy Bitcoin. So at good- How much? $42 billion, dude. At good Alexander tweeted this morning, micro strategy going green pre-market after announcing 80% of its market cap and future dilution to buy Bitcoin certainly sends a message. So micro strategy is basically like a closed-end fund that's trading at a wild premium to its underlying holdings of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is up 69% on the year. Very, very nice.

What is that, Jack? I said, of course it is. Yeah, nice. MicroStrategy is up 290% on the year. So we at Chartkin make a great chart showing the number of Bitcoin that is held by MicroStrategy. So it started at, next chart please, John, it started at, what is this number,

133,000 in December 2022. They're now up to 252,000 Bitcoin. It's a 90% increase, but, the but, but, but, the value of their Bitcoin is up 723% since they started it. So the value of the Bitcoin that they held went from $2.2 billion up to $18 billion. So you've got this coupled with the fact that it's traded at a large premium. Next chart, John, just makes for a wild story. And you can laugh and I have and you can talk shit and I have.

Hold on. Can you explain this to me? He's won and he's made so much money. It's insane. So The if you buy micro strategy right now You're paying to own You're paying three times What you would pay if you just bought the Bitcoin ETF Let's let's assume that the underlying business has no value and I'm not saying that but let's just assume that it's pretty close to zero It's tight. It's tight. tight make a hundred million dollars in revenue below

So it is so relative to the size of the Bitcoin holdings. You're paying a 3x, but it doesn't matter Why would you do that because it's working? But seriously, why would you know? I don't know the I know it has worked. No, I don't know why you would do it today I don't know the fundamental reason I don't know enough about like option Greek math and the deltas and all that sort of shit But it's just it's working and it's kind of scary because what if Michael Saylor is becomes like a top 10 richest person in the world so I wrote a piece last month about how micro strategy has been historically bad at timing the market and Pretty much all of their like all of his Bitcoin purchases are all of micro strategies Bitcoin purchases have happened when Bitcoin was like

Like all of his Bitcoin purchases or all of MicroStrategy's Bitcoin purchases have happened when Bitcoin was like at or above around $40,000. Like when it dropped down to like $16,000, he bought almost no Bitcoin in that bear market of like late 2022 through 2023. He keeps yoloing around like between $50,000 and $70,000. But to answer your question on the I have no idea what's trading at a fat premium either, except the fact that it's it's good for Bitcoin that they keep issuing equity and debt to buy more Bitcoin because like great for Bitcoin Right. So like if they're a bit it's yeah He's doing like the buyback for Bitcoin, which is not a corporation, but he's acting in that role Where he's taking on debt selling stock? Yes And the market as the price isn't moving down.

So it's just like free money and it's just, how does this not- He is like single-handedly willing Bitcoin to a hundred thousand. Right. Because he's always there to buy. Yes, but Bitcoin had like an $850 million inflow to the ETFs alone the other day. So it's not just him, but my God, what is, I don't know enough about like the convertible debt offerings to like really explain in plain. What the hell is happening here? It's wild

I would love for there to be like a Bitcoin bear market that ends up getting a margin called because like he Most of the debt is like very like cheap debt because it's convertible notes But he does I don't know if he still has any outstanding just long-term debt Basically his game has been issue convertible notes The price goes up and people just convert that equity so he doesn't have to pay it back. But they also keep issuing just senior secured notes at like six or 7%.

They then refinance with new debt to then buy more Bitcoin. If hypothetically Bitcoin had a like 85% drawdown, he could get margin called and then have to like sell some of his Bitcoin to pay back creditors. It's like a legal spiral down. It's like a legal Bitcoin. Right, we haven't seen what it looks like on the way down. It came close. On the last bear market, he came, somebody calculated the like the margin call price for him.

Hypothetically, it would be like around $15,000. Where is it now? I don't know, but like Bitcoin's around 70k. I don't know what price it would have to hit for like him to have to sell assets. But even with the ETFs, Bitcoin still isn't like the liquidity isn't super super deep And if one person like if micro strategy had to sell say 500 million Bitcoin It could like take it further where right now he's been pumping the whole thing up He could also single-handedly spiral it down I don't think that'll happen

But I hope the only thing that could make him do that is if the price itself is already down a lot. Right, exactly. Can't have a margin call until the price falls. No, it would have to fall, but if it fell far enough, then he could send it back like 90, 95%. Just by meeting margin call. Just by selling. I don't know that we've ever seen anything like this outside of the early 80s when the Hunt

brothers tried to corner the market in silver. Like we have seen this type of activity before but nobody alive who's heavily involved in Bitcoin has that experience firsthand. You can read books about they used to do this with commodities. They used to set up these, it's almost like machinery where I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna keep cornering this market until anyone that's on the other side of me has to cry uncle and go bankrupt. And this was an investing strategy back in the day with commodities. How do you think this ends though? Like what's like he wants to hypothetically buy forever but at some

point... What percentage of all the Bitcoin outstanding is he he's one right only so that's I have no idea so he's he's a whale but in the grand scheme of Bitcoin he's not that big of a deal it's one from cocktail or is it everything ends poorly or is that top gun oh so he said she says to him Elizabeth Shoe says to Tom Cruise I don't I don't want this to end badly. And he says, everything ends badly. Otherwise, it wouldn't end. Yeah, so that's sort of how I feel about this. That's so real, by the way.

Props to TC. I don't know. I probably would have said this like a year ago. So it's worked. If you bought MicroStrategy, credit to you, you made a fucking ton of money. Bitcoin is also a bet on President Trump. You think?

Yeah, big time. I wrote about it over the summer. I think him becoming president, I think there's no longer any guardrails about any kind of crypto activity because the people who have helped get him here don't want that. So that'll come to an end. I don't want to say day one, but the first 90 days you're gonna have a very different attitude toward digital assets. I don't see any reason why we wouldn't see a hundred thousand Bitcoin. I think the recent one is Trump momentum. Should we think we should buy some NFTs if Trump wins?

Like your NFTs gonna come back? It's so funny how many like pro-Trump trades there are and she doesn't have any maybe that's part of her problem. Well, they also, I think Goldman made a chart, or somebody did, I'm sorry, I don't remember who. The stocks, the companies that would be most explosive, tariff hikes, relative to the S&P, are crashing. Meaning what? Like it's being priced in that.

Oh, like Trump, China stocks, like all that. Yeah, his victory is being priced into these stocks. These tariff stocks. This is a wild story though. He's like the Bitcoin Fed, like a sailor. I think Matt LeVitt, he has a bit, cause he basically like the size of his balance sheet is now driving the price of the thing.

You know, he was one of the, I think the most poetic thing. This is going all the way back to our boy soft bank guy. Yeah. So anyway, sailor in the dot com bubble. He was one of the ones that like I'm not going to say he made the whole thing pop, but they had to like redo some of their accounting for micro. Micro strategy was a company in the 90s.

And then it turned out they were falsifying revenue by accounting like I was there. That happened in the year 2000 real time. That's possibly it was mosque and investor in a micro strategy. I don't know. That's a great question. Um, but like he was like one of the big kind of accounting frauds that tanked it. So it would be so beautiful if somehow micro strategy like screwed up Bitcoin. Um, I don't think it'll happen, but I hope it does.

I think, I think one, uh, Jason's why, who we had on the show last week, wrote about Michael Saylor at the outset of this strategy, where he first started to say, this stock is now a vehicle to accumulate Bitcoin. And Jason was pretty even-handed about it. And I sent him an email. I said, if this works, and he's right,

because he was talking about Bitcoin 1 million. Whatever. I said if this works There they're basically gonna they're gonna say he's one of the greatest investors ever. Yeah, and Jason said I don't disagree Well, guess what if it does work and it is working like it. What are you gonna say? It's The money is the answer he nailed it. This is one of the best might not like it, but he nailed love him or hate him We watch yeah, this is one of the best. I don't like it, but he nailed it. Love him or hate him, we watch. Yeah. This is one of the best things about investing. The scoreboard is the scoreboard. Yeah. And This is like one of the weird things people will go on social media Say I have an opinion on this stock or somebody goes on TV. I have an opinion on the stock and someone's like

Oh, you're wrong because A B. See it's it's like, dude, don't worry about it. Because the scoreboard will tell us. Maybe you are right, maybe I'm right, maybe neither of us are right. But we will have closure on this issue. We will know definitively who ended up being right. I know things can change very quickly, but right now he's right.

And you may not like how he did it. I don't. But as somebody who owes probably more Bitcoin than I should, I'm, and you may not like how he did it. I don't As somebody who always probably more big crane than I should I'm thank you. Yeah, you pop those bags Thank you. Does it have a use case doesn't need one doesn't need one. Uh Jack how's uh, how are things going at Sherwood Robin Hood in general? You having fun? Oh, yeah, I love your role there I love your writing. Oh, dude. It's great We actually launched a podcast a few weeks ago that I'm co-hosting called Snacks Mix.

So it's like cool to get to back-to-back days, like a podcast now. No, it's been good. Our team's great. The entire or big part of our team went down to Miami two weeks ago for our big like Robin Hood conference down there. There are a lot of Robin Hood traders there too. Very fun to talk to them. But it's been cool. And who is Sherwood endorsing for president? RFK.

I'm just kidding. Give us a sense of how big this audience is. Because I think there's a tendency when people talk about Robinhood who don't really understand or they don't want to understand people coming from more traditional brokerage firms. I think there's a tendency for them to think of Robinhood as a toy because maybe that's how it started. I think from talking to Sam Rowe,

you guys have one of the most engaged, one of the largest audiences in all of financial media. So give us an idea of how big this audience is. I know that like readerships in the millions, I don't know what the actual numbers are. Readership on what? On the stuff that you're publishing? Between our newsletters and then our site,

I don't know any of the specific numbers on that. I know that Robinhood has, I think it's like 18 or 19 million users on the finance app. But it's like, no, the brand still very much is retail traders and stuff. But we, I don't know if it's already live, but we're launching, like Vlad announced it two weeks ago,

we're launching like a full, basically trading suite desktop version. Like Robinhood has retirement accounts now, and they have like a very favorable retirement match. So they've essentially, like Robinhood's growing up, and they're offering a lot more. But this is the classic. Trying to match the job stuff.

This is classic, like Clay Christensen stuff where somebody new comes into the market, they start at the low end, they pick at the low hanging fruit that nobody else wants. And then they build capability and they start to work their way up. And then the incumbents turn around like two, three years later and they're like, wait, who?

And they almost can't believe it. So Robinhood going into retirement accounts is another step in that direction. Dude, like my, my retirement stuff was always in TD Ameritrade and it's like, like I liked TD Ameritrade a lot and then Schwab acquired them and Schwab's user experience is like, in my opinion, trash. Like it's just not, it's very clunky and I don't know, like I, I've been lazy about moving it over, but like I'm probably going to transfer my retirement to Robbena just because it's like, I already look at stock prices on Robin.

I guess that's 3.47 AM baby. Yeah, I know. Why not? Yeah. And you could, your retirement is cast. You could just like YOLO my retirement on the, on the presidential election bet. I could. Does the audience ever surprise you in the feedback that you get for what you're putting

out? Do you ever get surprised by like a growing level of maybe sophistication or people becoming more conservative than you thought? Yeah, it's like, I think the people that are reading our stuff, it's pretty, it's probably skews like younger ish, like around my age, but it's, it's, it's very much not. You're not 16 anymore. No, 27, you know, I think that's late 20s. No, but like around your age,

the people are getting married at that age. It's not. Yeah, we're adults. Right, it's adults. Yeah, except in New York. Jack, I love that you are not a native New Yorker, and you just ride or die for the city. This place is awesome.

It's like weird to like, it's like cool to like hate New York City. I don't know when that happened, but this is, in my humble opinion, the greatest city in the world, and it sounds like you agree. Oh, for sure. 100%.

You wrote, you wrote this really great piece about why New York is now your home. I want to quote from it, okay? The thing about New York is that it's tough to get, it's tough to get it until you've lived here for a few months. I visited a few times before moving here and while I always had a blast it was exhausting.

Everyone was in a hurry at all times. The subway was impossible to navigate. I had no idea where to go for dinner and drinks because of an infinite number of viable options. And I probably spent most of my time at the not touristy spots where everyone visiting the city ends up when they're trying to the not touristy spots where everyone visiting the city ends up when they're trying to avoid the touristy spots, which I thought was a really funny observation. But now it's different that you're here full time.

One thing that you said that was funny, I panic researched where to go shopping to upgrade my Atlanta uniform of golf shirts, chinos, and sneakers, and I nearly died 12 times riding a city bike around Manhattan. But now that I'm more familiar with the city, I love New York. So you've been here 25, 26 months at this point. So I would say you're a New Yorker. Yeah. I'm like a New Yorker. I'm a New Yorker. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Uh, I think once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker too. Do you believe that? Yeah, I do. Okay. So if you

spend the next five or 10 years here, and then you end up in California, you could still say, I'm a New Yorker. Yeah, I would've spent the majority of the first half of my adult life in New York at that point. That's right. Okay, so where do you live? Like what neighborhood of the city?

Technically Soho. I thought I lived in the West Village, but it turns out I'm right on the corner. Somebody said you don't. Yes, that is exact. I got corrected on that quickly. You know what? The West Village kind of got too Village, but it turns out I'm right on the corner. Somebody said you don't. Yes, that is exactly, I got corrected on that quickly. You know what? The West Village kind of got too mainstream, so it was better.

I live above 12 Chairs Cafe, the best Israeli restaurant. And now have you bought enough black clothing that you can pass as a New Yorker? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I actually like white t-shirts more than black t-shirts. I think they compliment my skin better. Not at night though. No, you can wear it at night. You wear a white t-shirt at night?

We're not in Berlin. All right, fair. What is your favorite thing about not just living in New York, but working in New York? It's especially coming from living in Atlanta. And I say Atlanta is probably pretty representative of most other cities in the US, like a decent sized city with a lot of good companies, good jobs.

There's just more touch points and opportunities in New York. I rode a city bike up here to y'all's studio to come hang out today. If I was in Atlanta, that wasn't gonna happen. Everybody and every company is either in New York or has some presence in New York. Or comes here. Or comes and visits New York at some point.

So it provides way more touch points and just surface area for opportunity than anywhere else So I fully agree with I think you agree with that right? Yeah optionality. That's the word you're looking for. Yeah, well we finance podcasts Yeah well even and even then even if you're like fully locking in on a certain career path the upside trajectory for pretty much everything is Either the highest in New York or close like okay if you're working in like tech or venture capital or whatever San Francisco is still probably the best but New York still very, if you're working in like tech or venture capital or whatever, San Francisco is still probably the best, but New York is still very competitive. If you're in politics like, I don't know, like Mayor Adams,

you know, don't know what's going on with him. He's on TV all the time. But it sounds like you are of the mind that it's New York's not for everyone. It's intimidating. There's a lot going on, but it's it's less crazy when you live here than when you visit. Yeah. And there's a there's like a learning curve because there's a lot going on. Like the first you try to, it just takes a while to both figure out where to go, what to do, what stuff you like, what you don't like, where you want to live. You can't come here for a week and a half and just know it, which is good.

But there's also a chicken and egg thing where people are like graduating school and they don't have a job lined up. It's like, oh, I can never come to New York because I couldn't afford to live, nobody could afford to live here. People that live here for 20 years can't afford to live here. But it's almost like, well, if you move there though, you have the potential of making a lot more than where you're currently sitting.

So the people that come here almost have to make a bet on themselves, like Duncan. Well I think, right? Like you made a bet. You said, all right, I'll go there, I'll figure out a way to do it. And you did it. Technically I'm in Connecticut now.

All right, shut the fuck up. I was going to say, one of the harder things about New York, especially if you're in your 20s here, is there's a mixture of people who are scrappy, scraping by, people who do have well-paying jobs, who can now afford it, and people who are being largely subsidized by their parents or whatever.

And it's like very normal. Well, that's a really big element of it. Yes, and so you'll go visit a friend's apartment, and it's super nice, decked out, like one bedroom that's $4,500 a month. And it's like, how do you afford this at 26? Well, $4,500 a month. It's like how do you afford this 26? Well, the answer is you don't but everybody's in the same social bubble and you don't like you don't really know everybody's situation But there's a there's a lot of temptation to try to like keep up with the people who have the best stuff and like I don't

Know I feel like it would be very easy to like go in a credit card debt trying to keep up the lifestyle So at you I was say, at your age, it's a pretty obvious, easy bet. When you meet somebody who's got a ridiculous apartment, it's pretty obvious it's either a trust fund situation or they work on Wall Street. There's no third option. Because even if you're in medicine or in tech,

for the most part, or something, at 25, you're not living like that. No one's paying you W-2 that way. Even if you're on Wall Street, like say you, like if you're, like a lot of my friends went into investment banking after business school, like they make very good money, but they're still not making like.

Well, they don't have any time to spend. Right, they don't, and then you're still making like, max salary, 200-ish, and then you get a bonus, so you get a full 100% bonus, like say you make $400,000 in a really good year. That's a lot of money, but you're still not, like you take taxes, you're left with like 200K basically. And then if you pay $5,000 a month in rent, like there's not as much expendable income

if you have a really nice spot. Well also, if you're paying 5K in rent, what else are you spending money on? Everything. Yeah. So it's, yeah. That's the other thing. The whole culture is about going out.

Yeah. Like people don't entertain at home. No. This is what's weird. Because everybody lives in a shoe box. Everybody lives in a shoe box. So you have to be out somewhere. And if you're out somewhere decent in New York, spending a ton of money. Yeah.

So it's just like... That's wild. I never experienced that. I never lived in Manhattan. Oh, it's insane. Oh, you lived in Brooklyn. Dude, I was unemployed forever. I couldn't afford it.

I will say Trader Joe's has been a lifesaver. I've started cooking a lot more now that I'm out of school and I'm just in my apartment more. And Trader Joe's, I always thought before, like I never shot there before moving here. I just assumed it was like Whole Foods and a more expensive like place. I can load up for like $80 and be good for a week. And it's not really cooking. It's heating up. Yeah. But if you buy like a frozen thing, it's fine.

I love Trader Joe's. Yeah. Yeah. No, no disrespect to Trader Joe's, but there's not a frozen thing, it's fine. It's probably fine. I love Trader Joe's. Yeah, Trader Joe's is awesome. No disrespect to Trader Joe's, but there's not a lot of cooking. It's more like put this in a pan, put a lid on it, it'll be ready in five minutes, you're good to go. So, all right, dude, we're so happy to have you

as a New Yorker. Happy to be here. You were an honorary New Yorker at first, now you're an actual New Yorker. I think it's pretty great. How's your dating life? Everything good? Yeah, good.

Single in New York. Where can young ladies reach out to you if they want to? Oh my God! Sorry. I was about to say earlier, but I think somebody cut me off that Matt Levine needs to write about MicroStrategy for us to better understand it. Boom! Money stuff. MicroStrategy has stock to sell. So if you want to understand like really what's going on, read Matt Levine. Alright. And hey, we're going to close out with favorites and then Michael's going to go trick or treat with his kids. Jack, have you brought us anything that the audience should hear about? Anything the audience should hear about? Probably the Matt Levine piece right there that Michael was talking about. I actually did not do a great job of pulling favorites. I just, I do.

I gotcha, I gotcha. Help, help, help. We're already the Matt Levine piece, obviously. Alright, so, Matt, another Matt. Matt Bellady, one of my favorite podcast hosts, the town on the Ringer Network, which talks about the business of Hollywood. He had on the head of FX, this guy's name is John Langroff, it was a two part special on Silicon Valley's effect on Hollywood, and what Netflix did to the business model and it is, there's nothing that you don't know, but just to hear him lay it out that way was

fantastic, so I highly recommend that. Alright, cool. Love it. I'm reading a new book by Steven Pressfield. It's a new book? It came out last year. So it's basically a daily, you're supposed to read one page a day and each page is one paragraph.

So, of course, I read, you know, half the book already. It doesn't matter how you consume it, but it's, he pulls all these great things that he said in all these different books, and it's meant for creators and entrepreneurs and writers and people that are building things. And it's just a combination of like, really great technical advice for how to move your project forward, but then also like motivation.

And Pressfield's the best. You must have read Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit, right? Yeah, and a phenomenal book. Every young writer has read that. So the book is called The Daily Pressfield, and can't recommend enough. Alright, we're going to get out of here for this week. Thanks to the whole team, you guys did a great job.

Special thanks to Jack. Jack Rains, where can we follow you? You're tweeting? Follow me on Twitter, follow me on LinkedIn follow me on lead Jack Reigns not on reddit I'm hello Anthony barmelo's Anthony with an L. Oh's and read my blog young money Co See you not calm. We love you. Happy Halloween everyone. We'll talk to you soon Alright, we got it! We get it! We're back!