Who Is Winning the Trade War? With Michael Batnick (Ritholtz Wealth Management)

I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand.

It's time for some money rehab.

Yesterday, I gave you a pulse check on the economy.

Today, I'm giving you a pulse check on the markets.

And to do that, I'm joined by Michael Batnik, managing partner at Ridholtz Wealth Management and co-host of the Compound and Friends podcast.

Michael's co-host, by the way, is a money rehab homie, Josh Brown.

Today, we talk about whether the negative outcomes of the Trump tariffs and the so-called taco trade are over and where interest rates are headed.

We also play bullish or bearish, and Michael tells me his take on some of the buzziest stocks of the day, from Palantir to American Eagle.

Let's get into it.

Michael Batnick, welcome to Money Rehab.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited to do this.

I just spilled a seltzer, so forgive me.

I'm just drawing my seltzer, but go ahead.

Very excited.

I was wondering what you were doing with like a pink blanket, a pink baby blanket.

What is don't ask.

Okay.

You're also in the middle of moving, so that's stressful.

Thank you for taking the time.

Of course, thank you.

Very exciting.

While you're moving from a 3% mortgage to a 6% mortgage.

I'm trying to stimulate the economy.

There's a lot of bad articles out there.

I'm trying to do my part.

That's rough.

How does that feel?

Well, it feels good because paying more in interest.

Yeah, a lot more in interest.

And I am very proud of myself that I am able to make this decision because on paper, in the vacuum of money, it makes no sense to give up this 3% mortgage, but I'm doing it because I want to be in a house on the water.

And so.

Oh, that's what it is.

Okay.

These are high class problems.

Well, moving over to the water with a higher mortgage means that you're doing really well on Wall Street, clearly.

So let's start with just a pulse check of what's going on how are you feeling about the markets right now all right how am i feeling let me do this so a lot of conversations around the stock market are

where is it going what does this mean what's going to happen next i have an opinion like everybody else but they're worthless because nobody can consistently see the future spoiler alert

doesn't stop us from wanting to know spoiler alert but here's what i'll do i will describe what's happening today because i think i'm pretty good at that and then we can try and unpack and interpret the meaning of the market today.

So right now, it's a bull market.

Today, we should say we're talking on Tuesday.

Today, the market is a bit down.

It's Tuesday, August 5th.

And we are a shred below the all-time high that has ever been printed in the history of the galaxy.

So things are pretty good.

People are feeling excited.

There is a lot of speculation whether you listen to the earnings calls of Robinhood or CME, which is where a lot of the futures and derivative contracts are traded, or you listen to Goldman or whoever in terms of like what their clients are doing.

They're all saying the same thing.

It's money-making season, and people are getting excited and they're speculating with shorter and shorter time horizons.

Even ARC is rejoining the party.

Kathy Woods.

Kathy Woods' famous A-R-K-K, which was the poster child of the 2020 Euphoria.

She had a record setting info the other day.

I think it was 800 million dollars or whatever it was.

It was a lot of money.

And how long this lasts, of course, nobody knows, but you know, there's a there's some yellow signs flashing.

Right.

How long does that last?

Because everybody thinks they're a genius when the market is up.

And by the way, we should mention that the market hits a new high, what, every 19 days?

So when you hear it's like a new high in the galaxy or intergalactically or whatever, you know, right now we're at all, all, all-time highs, but markets hit all-time highs all the time.

All the time.

So I think there is the human tendency to get nervous at all-time highs because

we remember some of the bad times and we think like, is this as good as it's going to get?

Should I sell now?

But what we also know is that if you were to invest at an all-time high on average,

one year later, one, three, and five years later, in fact, the returns are higher than on average for investing at any other random day.

And I think that's counterintuitive.

But when you think about why stocks are hitting all-time highs, not always, maybe not today, but generally, it's because things are pretty good.

And things don't generally turn from pretty good to holy shit, the world's ending overnight.

Now, of course, sometimes it does.

Sometimes you hit an all-time high and then look out below.

But generally, the market is not that dumb that it's making all-time highs for no reason but then of course like like any any other time something can come off and hit us off our axis and by definition that's what risk is and it's ever present and never goes away and again by definition we can't know what that is because it's unknowable because we're not psychic let me tell you a funny story so when my now husband first told me he loved me I the first thing I said back

was, I think there's going to be an earthquake.

I was like, oh my God.

I'm such a weirdo, right?

Because I thought, oh my gosh, something bad is about to happen.

Like it can't be this good.

Are you in California?

Yes.

Okay.

And I remember earthquakes.

And so I'm like, no, no, no, it's too good.

Like something,

the other shoe is going to drop.

Like something bad is going to happen, which is kind of what you're talking about with the markets right now.

Like if we look back to earlier this year and, you know, the time, if you're listening to the show, buy the big dip, a lot of people did, but now money is waiting on the sidelines for that to potentially happen again because the market being at all-time highs means the market's really expensive too so what would you say to somebody who's waiting with their shekels

for something to go on sale again okay that is hard advice to give but I would say you need to have some semblance of a plan it doesn't need to be the best plan or you know rocket science with all these fancy equations but if you're like if you are sitting at too much cash and you feel like a dum-dum, and maybe you're feeling a little bit of anxiety or FOMO, take a beat, right?

Like the market always gives you another opportunity to get in.

But I would say that, like, just blindly waiting for a pullback is horrific, a horrific thing to do.

Because what if it's 1995 and we just don't get that opportunity and the market is 20% higher a year from now, and you only had a 3% pullback, and you're like, now what do I do?

All right.

So we can't control where the market's going to go.

So

just maybe like something as rudimentary as this.

Every month or every other month for the next year, I will put in one quarter of how much I ultimately want to invest and just stick to it.

Or there are programs out there where you can dollar cost average or you can automate the investments.

I am always on the side of automating.

Automate, automate, automate because.

I get scared like everybody else.

I get fearful when others are fearful.

Nobody doesn't feel those emotions.

Like we are all human beings and we all get scared together and we all get very excited together.

And so the best thing that you can do to sever that part of your brain from your wallet is to automate your investments.

You know what I've been doing that actually your homie Josh Brown told me about and he wrote about, I think, in his book, was to do limit orders

on things that you feel like you want, but they're too expensive.

And so when the limit orders hit, that means the market's down.

Sometimes I know the market's down when some of these limit orders of ridiculous things that I've put, like I would buy, you know, whatever.

I'm just saying hypothetically, NVIDIA if it was 140 or something like that.

So when these hit, it means the market is dropping, but also it means like I'm getting these things that I thought I missed out on.

I love that.

I love that.

Yeah, Josh is a big proponent of that.

And I think it's a great approach.

You put in these ridiculously low bids.

And if they get hit, wonderful.

So you're basically saying that if we're in 1995, flashback, holy cow, things could continue to go up.

And every time you're not putting money to work,

if they're not in limit orders, which I did argue with him, that's not putting money to work.

That's still waiting on the sidelines.

And if that does, those don't hit, then

that's not great either.

So

fundamentals, we're still adding jobs, fewer than expected.

Let's get into the jobs hoopla.

So 73,000 jobs were added.

The bigger issue here is all these revisions.

So the numbers from May, the numbers from June were revised wildly weaker than originally reported.

I think it was 132 in May to 42.

That was the downward revision.

And then 179

in June to 11,000.

Like that's a swing of 250,000 jobs.

That's the two largest downward revisions since the pandemic.

What's going on?

And then President Trump kicked out the BLS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner because of it.

We are in the perfect storm of Wall Street narratives right now because simultaneously we had those job numbers and a generally softening economy, which isn't...

which isn't in and of itself the end of the world.

The economy can slow down and then it can reaccelerate.

Just because you slow down doesn't mean that that we're going to crash or anything like that.

It's cyclical, it's noisy, but we had that really big job downward revision, as you mentioned.

We also, the labor market is softening and 70% of the economy relies on consumer spending.

So there's the push and pull of what's happening with the economy and spending versus, well, what matters to the stock market right now?

It's all about hyperscalers and how much they're spending on CapEx.

And the contribution to GDP of what they're doing was actually more than the increase in consumer spending.

So, that is the big question today: can the stock market survive a slowing consumer?

And is it enough?

Like, can the weight of the stock market world rest on the shoulders of Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta and Google, and how much money they're spending and buying from NVIDIA?

And that is the

$4 trillion question.

And what do you think?

I don't, I mean, this is boring.

I genuinely don't know.

I am very excited to see.

I think that some of the numbers are starting to get a little crazy.

So NVIDIA, for example, is

about to cross the entire market capitalization of the industrial sector.

And these are not small companies.

like Caterpillar, Honeywell, GE, whatever.

These are not small companies, as well as healthcare, all of healthcare.

Every single Pfizer and Bristol Myers and Merck and whatever, whatever, all of them.

Now, the market isn't dumb.

The market doesn't just give away money or ascribe multiples that make no sense.

If we are,

and I should forget about if, we are on the precipice of a

insane technological revolution.

And I think people are too quick to think back to the last time this happened.

They think about the internet bubble.

They think about this ending badly.

And are there like similarities?

Yeah, sure.

I mean, it's not crazy, but is it going to go the same way where these companies are going to lose 90% of their market cap because we overinvested and we discounted too far into the future?

People like to talk about like Cisco really did grow 20% a year for 20 years after the dot-com bubble burst.

But the stock still got killed because the market was pricing in whatever, 40% growth into infinity.

I think people over-index too much on the recent past, but this is it.

This is the only thing that matters, like really and truly, because outside the Mag7 names, earnings aren't growing that quickly.

And

the stock market, the price of the stock market, it does follow earnings.

It's not alchemy, it's not rocket science.

At the end of the day, these are businesses and the price follows the business.

You have so much pressure for seven companies.

What about about the 493 others?

And if you're saying that they contribute to GDP, let's talk nerdy data for a second.

If there's so much downward revision from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, like how do we believe any data that's coming out there?

How do we believe the GDP print?

Okay,

so.

A lot of this stuff is based on survey.

There are a bazillion inputs.

And there was a guy who responded to Tramath.

I think his name was Andrew Cohn, but I'm not positive.

And he's like, listen, dude, there are hundreds of economists who work here.

They are not trying to lose their job.

They are trying to get the data accurate.

And this is a $30 trillion economy.

And they're trying to get it right.

And revisions are nothing new.

And I do think it is at a very dangerous precedent of, I don't like what the data says.

Let's get somebody else in charge.

I think that is not a good thing for the fabric of our society.

For sure.

But they're constantly and chronically underfunded, right?

So even if you get someone else in there, how is it going to be different?

Oh,

I have no idea.

I don't know what the plan is.

But I'll tell you this.

I have a suspicion that we're going to do that NF non-farm payrolls, whatever they were $73,000 in August.

I'm suspecting that the data is going to get better.

I mean, these revisions are crazy.

Like, this is their one job.

Why are these revisions such a huge swing?

Like, I get the margin of error and the revisions and all that stuff.

And we've had this forever, as long as they've existed.

But

they're aggressive.

This person that I'm referencing, he did a study looking into the distribution of revisions just to make sure that they're not biased one way or the other, either to the upside.

They're chronically over optimistic or pessimistic.

And it looks like a normal bell curve where it really does wash out.

It is noisy.

But yeah, it is.

I don't, I don't have great insights as to why there's not like real-time data.

Maybe all of the data needs to move to the blockchain.

I have no idea.

Honestly, that's like above my prayer gear.

Hold on to your wallets.

Money rehab will be right back.

And now for some more money rehab.

A big story now coming out was the Fed's decision to keep rates steady.

Do you think all of the craziness going on with the BLS could impact the Fed to cut more?

Is that really the underlying story here?

Well, I don't think Powell will be bothered by what President Trump decides to do with these commissioners, but the market is pricing in more rate cuts, which is probably a combination of the fact that Powell's term is almost over.

And also, in my opinion, and I'm not an economist, I think the Fed should be cutting.

i think that one of the key pillars of this economy is the housing market and the housing market is absolutely frozen if you look at existing home sales they're just there there's no activity going on because people are stuck they can't afford to move they're stuck in their mortgage and that's a huge part of the economy and so we're very

like you right

going from a three percent mortgage to a six percent mortgage so i i think rates should be lower i think the economy is also slowing down the two year significantly below Fed funds rates.

I think all indications are that we are a little bit too restrictive.

And I think that people would say, Michael, what are you talking about, dumbass?

Look at fart coin and all this other like speculation.

That is on the margin.

And that is not, I hate to break it to you.

That is not what the Fed is looking at to determine the appropriate level of interest rates.

Yeah, I cannot imagine Jay Powell looking at fart coin as one of his important indicators.

No, it's not an input level.

But, you know, like you and I have seen a lot of,

you know, earthquakes.

This is not our first rodeo at, you know, the ups and downs of the market.

When you cut rates to rock bottom levels, you know, the nostalgia that people have for that,

it worries me because when rates were that low, like the economy was hanging by a thread.

Like those were emergency measures.

It's not funsies to just take rates all the way down so that we can stimulate an already healthy economy.

When you do stuff like that, the economy is weak.

It's sick.

It's not healthy.

Wait, what's funsies?

I don't know what that word is.

For funsies?

Yeah, I don't know what the right level is.

I don't know if it's 3.5% or 1.25, whatever.

But I think we're too tight.

And I totally agree with you.

A lot of the behavior that we saw in the Zerp era of zero interest rates were pretty gnarly and dangerous.

There was a lot of economic distortions.

I think the consumer benefited a lot from it because Silicon Valley and a lot of these venture-backed funds were funding a lot of non-profitable ventures, like Uber being one of them, and Tesla, not Tesla, a lot of others that the consumer was a huge beneficiary of.

And that is, that's bigger as off.

And I think that's probably for the best.

I agree on that.

You guys had an episode last week talking about Wall Street basically saying that Trump is winning the trade war, the taco trade is over.

If somebody, again, is sitting on the sidelines with some cash thinking that we're going to see another dip with the uptick in tariffs again.

What do you think is going to happen there?

Can you talk me through the case that Trump is winning and the taco Trump always chickens out is over?

So I think the

talk last week, and honestly, like, I don't know about you, I'm sort of over tariffs, just in terms of like, not that they don't matter.

They're not over.

Not that they don't matter at all.

And they absolutely matter to a lot of small businesses.

So I'm not trying to minimize it.

I just mean in the general discourse.

Like I personally am tired of talking about what is he going to do?

Will he or won't he?

Once a lot of these measures and levels are actually there and we have some data that we can revise and revise again and then get to the bottom of it.

Like then I will be curious to see what the impacts are.

But it seems like so far the market is looking past it because what is driving the market earnings and certainly the narrative, it's not anybody who's reliant on steel or or whatever other imports are going to be tariffed.

It's

the Mag 7.

and that's it.

That's all the market cares about right now.

And it won't be that way forever.

I guarantee it.

But for right now, that's what matters.

Yeah, but closing these trade deficits is bringing in trillions of dollars to the U.S.

It is?

For funsies, for free.

Okay, maybe it is.

Is that a stimulus that's not a stimulus check?

Okay, so the federal deficit.

These are taxes.

It's a tax on consumer.

And so the more liquidity that you take out of consumers' pockets, like, I don't know how that's stimulative.

And so the deficit goes from whatever trillion to a little bit fewer billions.

Like, I don't, I don't know.

I, I am not one of those people that are particularly concerned about the deficit.

I think a lot of that is fear-mongering or a basic misunderstanding of like how the economy works.

We've almost always had a deficit and it almost always has never mattered.

Okay, so why are you over tariffs, even though, you know, pharma tariffs could now go up to 250%?

Like, all of this is a big deal and has ramifications on.

Oh, Oh, it is a big deal.

I'm going to say for me personally, as somebody that is commenting on the market, I don't care that much because I am not an expert on what the levels are going to be, what the ramifications are going to be.

Like that is just not my beat.

And I just don't care to talk about it that much.

It's not that like, I don't think it matters.

Of course it matters.

Okay, what do you want to talk about then?

Like what if we, what if we not focused on?

Is there something that has been overshadowed by all the tariff news, by all the data news?

What should we be focusing on and taking a closer look at?

What is capturing your heart and attention?

All right, let me give you an answer and a non-answer.

My non-answer is nothing is overshadowed.

There is so much noise out there that if there is a story, it will be reported on.

One of the things that's been popping up lately is like, there's just too much money.

The upper class has too much money.

Airport lounges are full.

3 million is the new 1 million, whatever it is.

I think one of the stories that is perhaps a little bit uncovered because

I just don't know that's like that sexy or exciting.

First-time homebuyers are getting royally fucked.

If you were saving money because you used to think that a house that you wanted cost $600,000

and you were working for years with your partner to put away $150,000 to get into the house, and now all of a sudden, you have to put away $250,000 and the mortgage payment is out of reach.

I think those people got a super duper raw deal.

And

that is maybe not spoken about enough, but I think that the distortions in the housing market are seriously sending shit haywire.

So, meaning what?

What does that mean?

Let's like pull the thread on it.

All right.

One of the things that we've been talking about, and I don't know how to quantify this because the stock market is so large that these dollars that I'm talking about are a drop in the bucket.

But we have gotten a lot of emails emails from people that are tired of sending in a money market fund for a house that they're never going to be able to afford and are tired of watching the SP 500 compound at 15% while they do that.

And so a lot of these people are taking money out of what would be a very conservative bucket and putting it into the stock market.

But what's wrong with that?

What if they're then renting and then they're making more returns in the market than they would have with their house?

Well, so that is that is a good question.

What is wrong with that?

Nothing.

In fact, I think it's phenomenal that somebody's like, this is the best thing ever.

I had $150,000 that was sitting in cash.

That would have been $151,000.

And now it's $195,000.

I love that.

I think that's incredible.

But a house is not an investment.

It's where you live.

It's where you raise your family.

100%.

And if you are getting frozen out of that opportunity because you can't afford to, I think that stinks.

And I really feel for those people who are tired of being in a 900 square foot apartment with a baby who might want a second and can't afford to do so because their parents don't have a $200,000 check for them.

Like I feel for those people big time.

And I don't know how many of them there are, but there's 70 million millennials, whatever the number is.

And I don't know what portion of those people are waiting to get into a house, but it's like not a small number.

You can also rent a house.

And it doesn't mean that if you're renting an apartment or a house, that it's it's not a home depending on where you are true like on the south shore of long island which is the most desirable place to live i'm kidding there's like there's no homes for rent in my town like there might be one so depending on where you listen if you could rent a house i am not one of these people who thinks that renting is throwing away money renting is putting a roof over your head and that's totally fine yeah so i am i am not one of those people who are like you need to buy a house or you're pissing money away to the landlord like i do not ascribe to that view at all I have a funsy story.

Can I tell you a quick story?

Always.

So I was at the bank today depositing a check, which is something I do very rarely.

You're such an important rich dude.

Stop.

So I deposit it.

How much was the check?

It was $1,500.

Okay.

And I wrote it out to cash.

You don't have a mobile deposit?

This is, all right.

So I, so we have a family cabin and it is not glamorous.

It is fucking disgusting.

It is a hunting cabin that my stepdad bought in the 90s.

It is gross.

And so I have a joint account with my two stepbrothers and i needed to put some money into the into the account so i went in there i wrote out a check for fifteen hundred dollars wrote it out to cash and the guy's looking at me and i'm looking at him i'm like yes he said you have the cash i said yeah got the cash and he's like looking at me we're staring at each other he said sir do you have a do you have a check for me and i'm like oh oh oh my bad so i i just i just felt the deposit slip and i was like here i want 1500 in my account and he's like buddy i need some money how how it works like yeah i my my bank skills have atrophy big time

i mean it's kind of impressive that you like actually went to the bank and filled out a deposit slip talk about our thing back to 1995 let's go let's do some nostalgia all right our game ready yes let's go bullish or bearish okay i need to explain the roles to you stop it I need to explain to the audience, this is not investment advice.

I am registered.

I can't be giving advice, but let's have fun.

Understand.

This is for educational purposes only.

For funsies, let's go.

For funsies, United Health.

Okay.

So I don't know that I've ever seen a Dow stock lose two-thirds of its value in a straight line while the market was at an all-time high.

Have you ever seen a Dow CEO get shot on the street?

No, I have not seen that either.

This is very unusual.

So without knowing anything about the company, if I have, what do we, so what are you talking about?

Like the next 20% higher or lower or hold for a year, sell for a year?

What are we thinking?

Are you bullish or bearish on the stock?

Like, because the buyer is, yeah, remember?

You don't want the rules, but that's what the rules of the.

Buy with a tight stop.

How about that?

Around what?

Recent lows.

So I would, if I had to pick one thing, I would buy it here and I would put a stop at like 230.

Tesla.

I would never sell.

I would never like doubt Elon or his shareholder base.

I think one of his superpowers among many is

getting people to believe whatever he says.

And I think that the pay package, having a cloud over the stock is behind them, which is definitely good, instills confidence.

I do not own the stock.

I never have owned the stock, but I would be more bullish than bearish on Tesla.

More bullish than bearish on Tesla.

I mean, the Groka integration is pretty cool.

Pretty cool.

So how about this?

All of the bad news as far as the car company is concerned, nobody gives a shit at all.

It's all about autonomous and robots and whatever.

And it looks like if anybody can do it, maybe it could be him.

So they're licensing out the

auto driving capability to other car companies.

The taxi thing is going to happen soon.

My husband's excited about that.

Some passive income for us.

To use a dad joke.

He's got the Midas touch.

Is it a dad joke if a woman says it, or is it a mom joke?

No, it's a dad joke.

Honestly, I agree.

Pfizer.

What a piece of shit this is.

Oh, tell me how you really feel.

It's looking less piece of shitty.

Maybe, maybe that's the bottom.

Maybe that, maybe that is the bottom.

Yeah, I guess you can own this.

It is that, so I am looking at the charts.

I am a technically inclined person.

I know a lot of people think technical analysis is voodoo bullshit.

It's not.

It's supply and demand.

You are measuring the appetite of buyers and sellers.

And I think that I'm very happy to see technical analysis getting less shit in the mainstream media than it used to be.

Like people used to laugh about it.

I don't think they are anymore.

Anyway, enough throat clearing.

So like a technical analysis, basically you're looking at charts, fundamental analysis, you're looking at you know info from the company and earnings and revenue and so fundamental analysis used to be like a serious business like i'm a businessman and i look at the fundamentals all right i get it technical is heads and shoulders you're like looking at charts you're seeing resistance levels you're yes yes yes yes all right bullish let's go physer bottom is in palantir i was funny you mentioned this well they reported earnings last night

yes you are you are Very funny.

Earnings reported last night.

So this is a good timing.

I was listening to the call.

I know nothing about palantir i know that it's ai and defense ai and government contracts and whatever whatever i was listening to the call last night and i get the appeal they have a similar shareholder base that is seemingly willing to pay whatever multiple they just crossed a billion dollars in in quarterly revenue which is impressive they're growing very quickly but holy the stock is like a 400 billion dollar market cap so talk about like maybe excess and discounting too much and listen i am not like a palantir palantir expert.

I don't relax.

I know there's a lot of people that feel very passionate about the company.

I would not buy it here, and I definitely wouldn't short it here, but this is super, duper, duper, duper extended on any timeframe.

So, if you want to get into Palantir, I would just maybe let it breathe for a little to pull back because shares were up 7% to an all-time high.

The stock was $65 at the lows in April, and it's now 170.

I mean, kudos to them.

An incredible run, but this is a volatile stock.

And if you are bullish and you don't own it, you will probably, probably, maybe have a chance to buy back lower or buy lower.

I would not be chasing this today.

It is super extended, which is what some people are saying about Figma.

So I saw, oh, wow, this stock is now crashing to.

All right, so Figma came public on what day did it come public?

On Thursday.

It was last Thursday, yeah.

Opened at 85.

I think it was priced at 33.

Whoops.

Yeah.

Ran all the way to 140.

And now it's back down at 85.

So nice little round trip there.

I saw somebody tweet that Figma is the most

highly valued on a forward earnings projection basis of any of the largest like 600 tech companies.

I don't buy stocks that have traded for three days.

That's just not my jam.

What about IPOs in general?

I don't buy IPOs.

Oh, excuse me.

Okay.

It's just not what I do.

No shade.

I mean, I did quite well with my Reddit and my Core Weave.

Oh, good for Core Weave was phenomenal.

Good for you.

Reddit?

Thank you so much.

Core weave kind of got overshadowed because the market was, you know, in the shitter with the tariff stuff.

Okay.

DraftKings.

All right.

So I am psychotically bullish on the

degenification of

everyone.

But

DraftKings

is in in a very competitive space between them.

What's the big one?

Who owns a fan dil?

Is it Flutter?

What's that thicker?

So I don't know who the winner is going to be, but let's just say, oh, yeah, Flutter's at an all-time high.

Let's just say that, like, I am bullish on the space.

I don't know if they're, yeah, why can't there be multiple winners?

I would say, you know what?

Bullish.

Fuck it.

Why am I clearing my throat?

Bullish.

Meme stocks.

You don't do any of this, do you?

No, Arthur.

I mind.

I'm not, I'm the moderator.

I'm not playing this game.

So I believe right what's the latest one open door open open door i know eric doesn't like it being called the meme stock but tough nuggies what is you want to call it he eric is eric is genuinely and i believe he's sincere like he's earnestly sincere that is earnestly sincere that's redundant yeah he thinks that this is a business that is highly undervalued and the fundamentals might or might not bear that out we'll see but just the meme stocks in general i think the quote dumb money is not that dumb.

I think that these people are sophisticated.

I don't think that they get enough credit.

I think that no doubt there are, there is some dumb money.

But what I think it is, is that people are, and I'm generalizing here, they're recklessly or they're responsibly reckless.

Like, I think that people are eating their meat and vegetables in their 401k

and they're doing all of like the slow, steady

compound, you know, 8% to 10%.

500 and 500.

Yeah, I mean, but that's boring, but consistent and important, yeah.

And you should do that, and I ascribe to that.

Like, that is the way, but it's also okay to have fun.

And if you want to light a couple of bucks on fire or you give yourself a budget, and listen, maybe it works.

Like, there are people that are making money, so I don't want to say like it's impossible, but just if you're listening, not that you need my advice, but just be a little bit careful, especially right now when everything seems to be going up.

So, dumb money, you're referring to the movie that was based off game stomp and the reddit folks and the wall street bets bros and all that stuff i don't think they're done i don't either and i mean they had hedge funds like rounding for the hills so like kudos to people bitcoin all right i am a

what they call a trad fi dude meaning i work in traditional finance I am and have been bullish on Bitcoin.

I don't ascribe to the ideas behind it, some of the ideology.

It's not my cup of tea, the dollar is worth this, and crashing, and have fun staying poor.

Like, I don't like all that shit.

I hate, in fact, I hate it.

And I hate it so much that that's why I bought Bitcoin because I'm a very spiteful and very petty person.

And if they were right and I didn't participate financially, I would have jumped out the window.

So I bought Bitcoin in 2020.

I've bought more of it.

And the way that I have always thought about it and the way that I continue to think about it is, again, I don't care about the inflation hedge, the debasement hedge, like whatever.

Maybe it is.

Good, good for you.

I think that there is more.

In fact, I shouldn't.

Why do I keep saying I think?

There is more demand than supply.

And that's all I care about.

There are more people that want to buy it than want to sell it.

And I don't know at what point that will change, at what point price will find an equilibrium.

but the ETF in the month of July brought in an average of $600 million a day.

And that is a lot of money.

And now there are treasuries buying it.

And again, fundamentally, I don't care why they're doing it, but they are.

And so I am and have been bullish on Bitcoin.

But I do not want anybody to listen to me and then go buy Bitcoin for the first time.

It is a very volatile asset class and you have to have a super strong stomach because it is quite a ride.

But what you're saying is what we've talked about a lot on the show is allocate maybe 1% of your net worth.

That's what you can afford to lose, but you kind of can't afford, quote unquote, to lose out on the mega growth if

it continues to rip.

Like the last 10 years, the top 10 investments, what was number one?

Bitcoin.

Bitcoin, 80%.

You know, where, where was the S ⁇ P 500?

Number six, 13%.

All right, call me back.

Call me back, Michael.

I know this is an audio podcast.

We're just making faces at each other.

But yeah, no,

it did that.

Hold on to your wallets.

Money rehab will be right back.

And now for some more Money Rehab.

All right, Broadcom.

All right.

So let me go to the chart because I am ignorant into this name.

I mean, obviously, I know know it's like a giant trillion dollar company, but I'm not a fundamental Boracom knower, but holy F S,

this stock has done extremely well.

My lord.

All right.

So I would put this like in the Palantir camp in terms of like super duper extended.

Maybe you want to wait for a pullback, but also it has earnings next week or in two weeks.

And NVIDIA has earnings coming up in a few weeks.

And that is going to.

certainly determine the short-term direction of the market.

So, but yeah, no, this is a winner for sure.

Yeah, I put them in the same bucket.

I bought a few years ago Palantir, Broncom, ServiceNow, Palo Alto Networks, like those types of cats are all together.

They're winning cats.

Good for you.

American Eagle.

All right.

So, what in the world?

Like, was the Sydney Sweeney?

I mean, I guess it was a surprise to everybody.

I don't know.

How nuts is this?

Like, the idea that a company, and I don't know what the market cap of this stock is, but I'm guessing it's not like tiny, tiny, tiny.

Is it a billion dollars?

Can move to this degree because, listen, I get it, she attracts eyeballs, $2 billion market cap.

I don't know.

I mean, this is a meme stock.

That's what I, I thought you were going to say that for sure.

But the Sweeney stuff is wild.

You just saw Trump in a presser talk about how she's registered as a Republican and he likes the ad.

I mean, this is so we know the CMO of American Eagle, like CMOs don't last very long.

The tenure is short.

I think this guy just extended his tenure.

I love it.

Good for him.

I love seeing stocks go up, but I would suspect that this comes back.

I mean, this stock has been, as Trump would say, a dirty dog for a long time.

That wasn't bad.

Thank you.

But yeah, no, listen, it's popping.

That's that type of market.

Everything's popping.

Everything is popping.

Everybody looks so smart.

Starbucks.

I own Starbucks.

I am a twice daily customer.

The turnaround is not turning around.

So they brought in Brian Nichols, who famously killed it at Chipotle.

And the difference between the performance of the two stocks since he left is quite stark.

Chipotle is getting its Chipotle has diarrhea, forgive me.

And

Starbucks is not doing too great either.

Like the

same store sales are still down, but I guess Wall Street is kind of giving him the benefit of the doubt because the stock,

the stock was up 7% or 6% after the earnest call.

And people are like, why is it up?

This makes makes no sense.

Fundamentals suck.

It opened at the highs of the day, closed on the lows of the day.

And it's sincere-bad.

I know there's all like short-term noise.

But I still think that Starbucks is like the corner store type of routine place.

I don't think that Luckin is going to.

I said, there was an article in the Journal the other day about Lucknowing in Manhattan.

I think I'm a believer.

So Starbucks, you're bullish.

How does it continue to grow, though?

Well, that's the question.

I mean, the thing is, it's literally no.

If it's on the corner store, if it's on every other block.

It's literally not.

So, they did a lot of things during the pandemic that pissed people off.

They diluted the menu, they raised prices way too far, like a lot of other companies.

So, they're trying to get back to basics.

And listen, the stock is a no man's end.

Like, it is literally in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

So, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

It's a that's a very tepid, that is a lukewarm bullish, huh?

Super, super lukewarm.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't, I didn't burn my tongue on that one.

But Chipotle, it sounds like with the diarrhea comment, you're you're bearish.

Listen, Chipotle, Chipotle,

it got too expensive.

Like, I don't want to pay $15 for a bowl of burritos.

And I like Chipotle, but there's just too much competition now.

I don't think this stock will ever make a new all-time high.

How about that?

Okay.

Yeah, X-Lax is cheaper.

EPS.

This is the cleanest downtrend I've ever seen.

I'm talking about the stock with Josh later today, actually.

We're doing a segment called like to catch a fallen knife, would you or wouldn't you?

I would not.

This, this is like textbook bare, bearish shit.

It's nothing but a lower series of highs.

So it starts here, it falls, it bounces, but not as high to the previous one.

It falls more, bounces lower, and it just is down and down and down and down and down.

So, no, I would not buy the stock.

Fundamentally, I have no idea what's going on.

I guess this is like an Amazon story.

And it's also like a digital transformation story.

Like everything that we get is delivered to us electronically.

I mean, I know our clothes aren't, but everything else, it's in our inbox.

And this is like a

20th century stock.

So you're describing like a dead cat bounce situation, the cats, yeah, the cats have nine lines.

Yeah, it's it's gross.

I would not buy the stock.

I mean, when they did their earnings call, they didn't even provide full-year guidance for revenues or operating profit because

they're saying ongoing macro uncertainty.

Yeah, that's code for we're getting our asses kicked.

I got it.

What stock are you bullish on right now that we didn't mention?

Okay, I'll give you two, and I own these both.

Thank you for the disclosure.

Yep, I'm very bullish on IMAX.

Ha, that feels like a meme stock.

No, how dare you?

This is a very serious business.

So IMAX is not just big.

It's not AMC.

Okay.

It's not AMC.

IMAX has less than 1% of global screens, and they do 3.5%-ish.

of global box office revenue.

And if you think about the 10-pole movies that people go to see, Oppenheimer, Superman, things like that, In some cases, they have 20%

of the global box office.

And now you are seeing IMAX on posters.

Like, it is as big as Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible movies.

They announced a couple of weeks ago they pre-release sales for the Odyssey, which doesn't come out for a year.

I'm like, what the fuck are they doing?

Like, this is so bizarre.

It sold out in Manhattan in under three minutes.

So, IMAX is like the ultimate experience type of event.

People don't go to the movies the same way that they used to.

Obviously, the box office has just not, has not rebounded, has not retaken its 2019 highs.

But when people are going out to the movies, they're going to see IMAX.

So that's one.

I did.

I went to go see Superman, the new Superman.

I saw it in IMAX.

And honestly, I hated it because it was with the glasses, the 3D glasses.

Oh, I don't do that.

Maybe I'm in my old age.

I don't know.

Everything looks flurry and weird.

I don't like that.

It wasn't like the 3D movies that, you know, I remember as a kid where stuff was like flying at you.

It was just like a little bit different, but honestly worse.

I agree.

I am not a 3D viewer myself.

Okay.

The other stock is Rocket Mortgage.

The ticker is RKT.

I don't own enough of this stock.

It is breaking out and I don't own enough.

Well, that's a shame.

What does breaking out mean?

Breaking out.

Some of this technical stuff.

All right.

So breaking out means that it is at the highest level that it has been in X number of time, whether it's, it depends on your time frame, three months a year, whatever.

In this case, it's at the highest point that it's been since October 2024.

But more importantly, there was previous resistance.

And this is not voodoo.

All that it means is that at some level, sellers step in.

And in this case, they say, okay, at $16,

I'm out.

It came back down, went back up, more sellers came in at $16.

That was called resistance.

It couldn't get to 16.

And then it finally punched above and it's staying above.

And there's nothing but blue skies ahead of it, meaning there are no sellers.

It's only buyers on the way up.

So that's what's happening rocket now.

Why?

I think this is very simple.

This is the purest play on mortgage origination, refinancing, and this stock is not waiting for the Fed to lower rates.

It is anticipating that the Fed will lower rates, whether it's September or later.

There will be a refi boom.

Supply will get unlocked as mortgage rates come down, and this will be the biggest beneficiary.

So it's still a buy.

I think so.

Yes.

All right.

We end our episodes, as you know, because you are a long time listener, first-time caller by asking all of our guests for a tip.

Listeners can take straight to the bank.

I'll give two.

And this is very easy and basic and no shit, Sherlock, but just automate, like automate as much as you can.

Of course, automate your spending, automate your saving, like auto-pay, anything that you can automate, do it.

Duh.

Credit card points.

I was with somebody at the beach yesterday who's hoarding his credit card points.

I said, dude, what the fuck are you doing with 700,000 chase points?

These, like, these are like, these are, these are inflationary.

Like, they, they, they, the value to sick degrades over time.

Do not hoard your, hoard your points.

They decrease in value over time.

I'm like, is this OCD?

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

For like the one trip to the Ritz in Paris.

I, no, no, he was not.

He is not going to the Ritz in Paris.

I have no idea what he was doing.

And then the last thing is

i think people

need to

ask more have a little bit of what we call in the south shore chutzpah if you don't ask you don't get and nobody is going to ask for anything on your behalf so

ask if you don't ask you don't get

you promised two you gave us three

how lucky are we there you go thanks this was fun Thank you for having me.

Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network.

I'm your host, Nicole Lappin.

Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie.

Our researcher is Emily Holmes.

Do you need some money rehab?

And let's be honest, we all do.

So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com, to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me.

And follow us on Instagram at MoneyNews and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content.

And lastly, thank you.

No, seriously, thank you.

Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.