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GREENLAND | NETFLIX $NFLX EARNINGS | STOCK MARKET TALK
Recorded: Jan. 20, 2026 Duration: 3:01:13Space Recording
Short Summary
In a lively discussion, crypto enthusiasts explored the implications of upcoming earnings reports from major companies like Netflix and United Airlines, highlighting growth opportunities in the streaming sector. The conversation also delved into the geopolitical landscape, emphasizing how U.S.-Denmark negotiations over Greenland could reshape defense strategies, while trends in market stability and investor sentiment were closely monitored.
Full Transcription
what is up what is up everybody a red day in the stock market should be an interesting
conversation it's monday hopefully we do have Mr. Scott
Redler joining us today as well.
Always a great time when he is on here.
It's Tuesday.
Oh, it's Tuesday. Oh, I wonder if he's coming on.
You know,
I genuinely did think it was Monday there for a couple
seconds. It is Tuesday.
I read Tuesday.
How you doing, Mike?
How you doing, Brian?
How you doing? I'm doing okay. I you doing, Mike? How you doing, Brian? I'm doing okay.
I'm doing well.
I am back in the warm, out of the cold.
Happy to be here.
Obviously, it would be nicer if my portfolio was up.
But not so bad.
BM&R is down.
You know, what could be better?
I'm kidding.
I still own a lot of BM&R.
I actually have some BM&R calls as well. You got 40 years you can wait, buddy. Don't worry. you know what could be better i'm kidding i don't know i still own a lot of bmr i actually
have some bmr calls as well but you got you got 40 years you can wait buddy don't worry
listen give me five give me five actually and i bet you i'm making some money now is it as much
money as i would have in ethereum that's a different conversation that i think we will
have at some point but uh yeah give me five years 10 i'll be cooking
how was the day how has the day been going for your for you uh trading gentlemen i i'm sure a
lot of volatility we did yeah i'm sure a lot of volatility was an interesting day a solid day in
the market we went higher off the open and then kind of faded around 11. It's like that's what I'm seeing
Like Brian, I'll start with obviously we know who's going first and then we'll go to mr Brian line after that. What's up, Mike?
And how are you?
I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Tell me what's what's what's going on your world today
You know, obviously
Marcus not happy with the whole tariffs in greenland and really it's the tariffs and what's going on there and it's showing its displeasure um you know real
more worrisome than what's going on the markets of the bond market the bond market looks really um
problematic right now you got to watch those yields and
what's going on over there. China's been dumping our bonds. Again, we know that Denmark today,
their wealth fund dropped all of our bonds, but they don't have a significant amount. It's more
symbolic. But, you know, the market's worried on if we're heading back into the trade war again
and, you know, greenland and trump speaks tomorrow
davos davos and that's going to be big i think that's 8 30 eastern time tomorrow morning
and i think the market's going to want to see what he says there he's going to be around you
know he's going to be in europe that's a big spot the hot spot right now we'll see how this all goes
and what he says uh you take that aside here um you, the market could have been down a lot worse.
I mean, we're on the lows here.
We're under the 50-day on the SPY.
As far as January barometer goes, we are now red for the month of January for the first time here today.
The VIX is on the highs, signifying it's a risk-off environment.
It's way out of the Bollinger Bands here.
You know, some names have held in well today.
Boeing is up today. It's had a nice day. ONDS on an upgrade had a nice day. I traded Intel earlier
this morning and AMD twice. Both of them had nice days pulling back here, but still well off where
they opened and stronger than rose to the markets. You had names like Costco very strong today.
Gold and silver, new all-time highs. Micron, Sandisk, new all-time highs micron sandisk new all-time highs that that trade
just doesn't want to quit you know it's not a everything down day here in the market but there
is a lot of carnage out there i'm not trying to make this rosy the banks are looking very bad
here after their earnings um we're seeing names like apple getting absolutely destroyed tesla's
on the lows amazon which was trying to hold and destroyed. Tesla's on the lows.
Amazon, which was trying to hold and build back up, is on the lows here at this point.
It's messy.
We saw Quantum Names, RGTI, and some others had nice days.
You know, the market here is not in a happy spot.
We have Netflix earnings tonight along with United Airlines.
I think we have J&J tomorrow morning with the Halliburton's in there as well as Schwab reports tomorrow morning.
That'll be interesting.
You know, for me, long term, I'm not worried.
We'll see if, you know, is this the viable dip?
Is this as far as we're going to go?
We're heading almost to a 3% pullback already.
You know, one day, you know, two down days, we're almost to a 3% pullback here in the markets.
The question is uh is
he going to pivot or going to stick the course and is europe going to react and are we going to end
up in a trade war and that's what the market's looking at here it wants to figure out if you know
that this is what it's going to be is every time he gets unhappy we're going to throw more tariffs
on countries to the point where you know nobody's happy uh my two cents here is take it easy.
I came in today saying I don't want to short this market into the hole because you just don't do that.
And I know we're on the lows here.
I found for me, long term, didn't sell a thing today.
Short term, made three trades alongside.
All three of them managed to make money.
That was a shocker.
And, you know, just staying out of the way.
This all afternoon, just staying out of the way. Let whole afternoon, just staying out of the way,
let this market do what it's going to do
and then see what we're going to get tomorrow morning.
Obviously, the Supreme Court, again, did not rule on tariffs.
I think the market would like to get that uncertainty out of there.
And I think we have a lot of data coming this week as well.
We have GDP and PC.
I think those are on Thursday morning.
morning. So a lot going on this week. Intel reports on Thursday night too.
So a lot going on this week.
Intel reports on Thursday night too.
You also have Netflix reporting earnings today after the close.
So we will be getting the first real big live,
live earnings of this earnings season coming up after the close.
Netflix also have interactive brokers and United Airlines reporting earnings.
J and J Schwab, et cetera. Tomorrow news is Schwab Intel,
but next week is a little bit of a bigger week.
GE, Procter & Gamble, Thursday morning.
We'll look forward to a lot of that stuff.
Obviously, it's a little bit of a red day.
Interested to see what happens tomorrow.
Let's keep going around here at the start,
and then obviously anyone can feel free to chime back in
on the conversations that we do have.
Mr. Brian Lund, how are you doing today?
Doing good. It's a absolutely beautiful midwinter
day here in southern california these are the these are the days where we get paid back for
the weather tax that we pay for being out here in california with a high interest rates and
crazy state government um but the market a little little bit different scenario here. One of the things I'm
fond of saying when I do my daily update for subscribers is there's nothing technically wrong
with the market. Today, there is something technically wrong with the market. We lost
a lot of levels today. We lost the pivot low from the 14th. We lost the 50 EMA. I mean, I say we lost that
unless we have a miraculous recovery in the next 50 minutes. We lost the 50 EMA.
We lost that pivot low from the 2nd of January. We did that all in one day.
That's not good. But here's the thing, right? The market was technically,
there was a problem technically with the market on the 2nd of January and on the 17th of December
and on the 20th of November and on the 10th of October. If you look at all those days,
those were big, big down days, big red candles that ended at the lows of the day. What happened the next
two to five days? They got erased. The question is going to be, will that happen again?
Right? Will we see the market pop tomorrow, find its footing, and then start to gradually
retrace this drop? I don't know. This one feels a little bit more significant to me.
It feels, if I look at the overall chart, it looks a little more toppy, at least short-term.
I think another thing is, and this is really important, when I trade, and I'm going to guess
when Mike and a lot of other people here that use technical analysis, when we trade,
we don't really care what the reason is, right? Like, I don't know why we're selling off today.
It could be Greenland, but probably not. It could be the tariff wars, but probably not. It's probably more likely something related to that Six Sigma event with Japanese bonds, but who knows, right?
So we don't really know, nor do we care because if something breaks
your technical levels or your support resistance levels or your stop loss, it shouldn't matter why
it does it. It just, it does. Having said that, I think there's another story that's been brewing
in the market for the last couple months now that I saw a lot of play on this weekend and today, and it's the unraveling of
open AI. I think there is a certain segment of the market that is worried how much of the AI
miracle is kind of the emperor has no clothes, especially related to open AI.
the emperor has no clothes, especially related to open AI. My own anecdotal take on it is when
ChatGPT came out, I thought it was fantastic. And when Gemini came out, it was horrible.
Well, Gemini right now just rips ChatGPT's ass. It is so much better. And now you're seeing Sam
Altman talk about maybe putting ads on chat
GPT. And I did a search the other day on it and it gave me some hits. Hey, you want to buy some?
I was looking for like some shoes. Hey, you want to buy some shoes? It gave me links to
where I could buy them. He's talking about maybe allowing porn. I think there is a certain,
like a Jenga puzzle there that people are thinking okay if AI open AI is really
not what we thought it was going to be all that proposed spending all that lift that they're
going to give not just you know that that sector but like other companies I think that's there's
a little bit of worry out there there's a really great podcast that came out on January 5th it's
from the Cal Newport Deep Questions podcast.
And it was literally going through all of 2025
for specifically OpenAI with Ed Zitron,
who's an analyst in that space.
And he was basically making the case
that that company is built on sandcastles.
It was a great podcast.
I listened to it when I was out in Vegas when Stock Talk ghosted me again. So I would encourage everyone to go listen to that.
But look, again, it doesn't really matter what the reason is. I mean, the market's in a tough
spot today, and it's going to be really important what happens in the next couple of days. If we continue to go down, if we, if we don't see any sort of, um, you know,
reaction, uh, bounce, uh, then it could, it could go from a short term risk off to a little bit more
intermediate term risk off. The open AI thoughts are a little different than what we're hearing.
A little interesting. I'm sure we'll, we'll double click into it like i don't know i i am definitely not some ai expert in here
but i do definitely see all of the updates that are coming in the industry and how quickly ai is
moving now i i'm not the one who's gonna be able to tell you if if the open ai continues to be at
the bleeding edge of it i mean that's what it seems to be but uh i know let me let me just
clarify that because i want to make sure this is an important point. I totally believe
in AI and AI revolution. I think it is changing and it's going to change
our world. I just think we're going to have winners and losers. And I think everyone
thought that OpenAI was the de facto winner. And I think some people
are questioning that now. Maybe not questioning the whole theme of
AI, but like, okay, what pieces
are connected to that company that might impact my portfolio? So I believe in AI as a macro theme
for sure, right? I think there's some cracks in the story around certain personalities and
certain components of that story.
You know, sometimes those cracks can, you know,
I wonder how quickly those things are discovered, you know?
I wonder where we are at and how long they might last,
even in a stage where, that could be true,
but my kind of real question is what would expose them?
And it probably would be some sort of pullback.
Well, I mean- Because where a lot of people are going to, you know, tie you kind of well isn't it gonna be isn't it gonna be uh elon musk's uh
lawsuit i mean isn't that really gonna be it i mean i think that's gonna be where legally they
can force him to disclose i mean that seems to be what elon was saying all this weekend he was
basically saying that he's gonna win a shitload of money from open AI.
So I think that could probably be the catalyst.
Interesting.
Monitiv, I know you just joined up here, but you're in the AI area.
We've also kind of talked through Oracle when that was a little bit higher,
talking some concerns there.
Do you have any thoughts on uh anything brian was talking about um i agree on everything he said except the reason why i think
this in rivals is still a balance sheet issue right i've been calling that out for the longest
time there's serious leveraging up across the board in too many companies and very few of them have the ability to scale up cash flow to
meet that. And when that mismatch starts happening quarter after quarter after quarter, the quality
of balance sheet deteriorates rapidly, slowly at first and rapidly later. And you get to a point
where it's not fixable anymore. And then you do things like taking it off balance sheet.
I'm not saying it's happening, you know,
it's happening already.
I'm just not saying it's, you know,
it's at a stage where it's a big problem.
But I think that's definitely one of the bigger reasons
why this could unravel, right?
So, I mean, I've said enough, you know, about Oracle.
I'm not going to go there, but it's not just Oracle.
There's a lot of companies that are tied at the hip
with what OpenAI is going to execute
and how it's going to flow through to them, right?
Whether it's AMD or a whole bunch of smaller companies
where, you know, they are
priced on future cash flows, not today's performance. Purely on future cash flows,
not today's performance, I should qualify. So across the board, you could see a lot of problems
if OpenAI is unable to, you know, to keep up, right? And it looks like today that they're scaling up revenue
and far, far, far away from scaling up
free cash flow and profitability, right?
So they are going to burn through cash faster than expected.
They are not going to be able to raise the money
without questions like they did a year, year and a half ago.
So all of this means that,
you know, self-generated cash becomes important, free cash flow becomes important, and that's
sorely lacking in most companies, right? There's only a handful. Microsoft, Google,
or the world can do it because they have the free cash flow to sustain operations
and to, you know, grab market share in this.
There's very few others who can say that.
And that is the problem.
That is where this unravels, in my opinion.
We will circle back in on that AI conversation.
Monsim, I'm going to come back over to you at some point soon because I do want to, we
have a good time talking through what's going on through the earnings season.
But let's keep going around the panel as we were.
Mr. Logical, why don't you jump in here for a minute or two?
Yeah, I only got 10 minutes, but I didn't hop to a meeting.
But I think today is pretty interesting.
It's been kind of a continuation of what's been going on beneath
the surface, if you've been paying attention, which is there's been a lot of, I would say,
underperformance and people rotating out of big tech. And you've seen the relative weakness of
Qs, for example, versus IWM, RSP, many other parts of the market. But today's move is a little concerning for sure.
I mean, for the S&P to just drop like a stone, generally speaking, if you want to see this trend
continue in the market, you would like to see, you know, the SPY basically chop, consolidate,
kind of do its thing. And then you see the high beta, you know, areas of the market,
like you've been seeing these thematic places and the IWMs, et cetera,
continue to outperform.
So you really want to see a market, like on a market cap weighted basis,
grind to the upside slower.
And then you can kind of see the high beta have like a sandbox to play in.
So that's what you want to see. My
concern right now is can the market continue to hold up if tech doesn't hold up and the S&P
doesn't hold up? I doubt that. I'm sure Stocktech probably when he speaks he'll have a similar
opinion I imagine. But what I can say though when I look at my portfolio, look today's a red day for
me obviously. But half of my names are green.
So that's pretty interesting. I think, you know, I don't know why I keep doing this to myself.
Every time I try to trade crypto to the long side, because I see it set up, it absolutely
bags me. I think I'm done trading crypto. I hate this garbage. But I'm going to focus on real companies. Like, for example, today,
XBI is actually green, plus 64 bips on the day. You had a buyout today. I forgot who did the
buying. I saw it earlier. But then they bought out a company. It's a $2.2 billion acquisition.
Then you have Merck and Tox for a very large acquisition of RVMD. Today you had really blockbuster,
not blockbuster data, but really, really solid data from Corvus CRVS that's up a lot.
So look, I personally continue to add and diversify my portfolio. So today I've actually
added net names today. But the thing is that I'm not really adding the things that are up hundreds of percents I'm focusing on you know adding a diverse basket of names
and there are a lot of things that look really good so you know today I added to
like a commodity name I added to a buy I added to buy, actually. I actually added CLF, which is a Cleveland Cliffs.
It is a U.S. Steel producer.
They had a lot of negative things in the past
that are now rolled off of their balance sheet.
They had a really big contract that was negative to them and their P&L.
And then, obviously, you had U.S. Steel Corp being acquired not long ago,
so it's probably the only way to really play U.S. Steel at this point in a scalable way.
You know, I was looking at the Ford chart and, you know, Ford actually looks really good.
And then I started looking down the line at other names that are kind of related.
And I saw CLF and that chart looked amazing.
And so it kind of fits into this kind of U.S. industrialization.
And yeah, so, you know, I thought that fit pretty well. And so it kind of fits into this kind of U.S. industrialization.
And yeah, so I thought that fit pretty well.
Yeah, because I mean, my other commodity plays in aluminum in CENX,
and that thing has just been going straight vertical, breaking out of like a multi-decade base.
So I did want to have a little bit more like commodity-esque, materials-esque exposure.
So yeah, CLF is a new one for me today.
There are a lot of names.
Some of them are running away from me.
I would have liked to enter them, but I didn't.
On the buyout side, as I continue to see more buyouts happen,
I want to continue to accumulate some of these assets that I think will be bought out in the next 12 months or so. And it's really tough to know which one's going to go next. So I think a basket
approach makes the most sense and having like three to 5% size and, you know, each of them,
and then just with the higher probability ones, and then, you know, cross your fingers that,
you know, you get lucky on one of them. And that's the one to go next. We shall see. So yeah,
the bio side, yeah, I'm sticking to kind of buyout names. I definitely have some smaller
quote unquote lotto positions. Like I always take like 1% size. I think it's always good to have
some of these names that seem to be, you know, potentials for, you know, multi-bagger status
if they hit on data. If it's binary, I take very, very small size, like I said, 1% or so. Yeah, I mean, for me, I run a lot of positions. When I like a lot of things in the
market, I'm okay having, you know, 30 positions because I try to run a levered book. So I'm
pushing margin, I'm levered long. But, you know, I try to avoid getting blown up. Besides, you know, market pullbacks, if you only have like, you know, 3%, 4% size, 5%
size in a name, you know, even if it drops 20%, 30%, it's not going to kill your portfolio.
So I'm okay with a diversified approach.
That's what I've been doing for the last two years.
It's been working really well for me.
That's just kind of how it works in my brain.
I do have Netflix long exposure into earnings. I am a
little scared. I'm not going to lie. I wouldn't say scared, but I don't know if this is going to
be the earnings that reverses the trend. When I look at the weekly options flow, there is a ton
of outstanding options. I wouldn't be surprised if we, you know, market makers would like this to stay flat.
So, you know, in a very anticipated earnings like this one, I bet a lot of premium gets burnt.
I have calls, but they're not for, they don't expire until August.
If we did see some downside, I would probably buy back these $130 short legs of the calls that I have.
Yeah, so, you know, I'm not sure how Netflix is going to go,
but, you know, they did have a big Q4 with Stranger Things,
the Jake Paul fight, and other things that they're getting into.
They did revise their offer for Warner Bros.
I really wish that deal would fall through.
If that deal fell through, I bet this would be at $120 in a blink of an eye.
I don't think it's going to fall through at this point,
considering they keep revising the deal.
So we'll see what happens. Again, like I found that trade from a lot of a big
call flow that came in a couple of weeks ago. We shall see. Again, no one position in my portfolio
is going to blow me up because they're small size by design. What else? Oh, today I did add a software
name. I posted about it not a few people got which one
i was alluding to uh but really really strong action today in it it's a name that i've traded
quite a bit uh the ticker is braze software b-r-z-e um this one is kind of near its highs
of the day it's on 2x volume it's up five on the day. Let's see if it can hold it through
the close. But while most other software names actually faded into the day, this one did not.
Obviously, software is a pretty tricky spot. It is tough to call bottoms. This one, though,
did touch its October 2022 lows. It's down about 40% from the recent highs after their earnings report,
where they actually accelerated top line revenue. I tried to go along that stock after earnings,
eventually it came kind of close back down to my cost basis. I cut it around 31 or 32.
And then the stock just sunk down to like 23, $22 today. And so that to me felt like it's worth taking a stab at it,
uh, at these October 22 lows, especially after a really stellar earnings report recently.
Um, in a lot of these situations, what I'll do is like, it's just easier for me to limit my exposure
by taking that position via calls. Um, and because honestly, if it's going to, you know,
perform well on the next earnings report or whatever, to, you know, perform well on the next earnings
report or whatever, then, you know, I have a couple of catalysts with calls, uh, out for June.
And, you know, this thing has overshot to the downside, I think. And if they put up a decent
quarter, then maybe some of this FUD goes away. We'll see. Um, but either way in these scenarios
where I'm bottom fishing, a small size and calls is, you know, I think that's probably the best way to put it.
That way you limit your exposure.
We'll see what happens.
But yeah, I mean, definitely, you know, so cut some crypto exposure today.
I hate that thing.
Added pretty diverse holdings across the board today.
I think, you know, SPY is definitely concerning.
It is really tough to see the rest of the market get going if SPY can't hold on.
But I don't know if I want to, like, just get overly bearish.
But, I mean, yeah, obviously, it doesn't take a genius to see that we're below the 50-day, and that's never a good sign.
But, you know, I don't want to – I'm not sure how I want to interpret, you know, moving forward.
I'm not sure how I want to interpret moving forward.
I'll just watch it day by day.
I'll just watch it day by day.
I appreciate you for joining us here and contributing to the conversation.
I feel hopefully you'll join us back after your meetings.
Let's go over to StockSniper, then Monitive, and then I got some questions,
and then we'll also talk some Netflix earnings heading into it.
Can you come back to me right before Netflix earnings?
Nice.
Yeah, no problem.
Monitiv, why don't we come over to you?
I know you also, I'm sure you have some thoughts on what's going on in the world.
Some thoughts and maybe some people say in the conversation.
But also, we're going through earnings season here.
And I know that you like to track kind of how the earnings season is going.
I had the bank earnings went.
So far, it seems like most companies have been beating but uh i always like the insights you have also kind of talk
through what's coming this week percentages of the market my guess it would be like what 10
of spy reports this week maybe five something like that but yeah six percent six six and a
half percent 33 33 earnings in sn&P this week.
So, yeah, earnings is going fine.
Does that matter?
I don't think the discussion on the markets is earnings yet, right?
I mean, it's probably going to get there in a couple of weeks when we get more interesting earnings.
But even positive earnings is not doing it for anything right the uh price action
after earnings has been almost completely you know negative or at least neutral right even with
good numbers so earnings alone is not you know saving the market this time around uh the
expectations are not huge but again given we are coming off,
you know, a strong quarter comparison,
you know, from Q4 last year,
it is not, it's not a small number.
So, so far, right?
I mean, there's two ways of looking at this.
One is just the growth of the companies that have reported so far.
That earnings growth is almost 19%.
If you extrapolate the number and include all the ones that are going to report based on their projections,
you get to about 9%, 9.5% earnings growth, which is what we expected when we started the year, January 1st.
Revenue growth is coming in about 7, a little over 7%.
It's about half a percent more if you just take the companies that have reported so far.
So we're doing okay as far as earnings is concerned.
There's been nothing terribly offside yet.
We've seen some interesting numbers that is worth paying attention to in
financials, but nothing yet that would cause immediate concern, right? These are things that
you, you know, make a note and, you know, put away for another day. If we start consistently
seeing numbers where they're having to increase reserves for loan losses, then it's a problem.
Doing it one time, even if it's a big change coming from a few of them,
it's not yet an issue.
It's just what they're dealing with.
So Netflix today should be interesting.
Again, they've stopped reporting subscription numbers a year ago now,
so we're going to have to make up those numbers from, you know, reading between the lines.
But I agree with logical, right?
So Netflix would be nice if the deal falls.
It's going to probably fall at the end of it anyways.
but that's a year and a half away.
But that's a year, year and a half away.
So we're going to have to either delude the noise
or it jives down sometime and the results start playing in.
Now, I don't know why we are up today, seriously,
because if they're going for an all-cash deal,
I guess there's less dilution,
but potentially overextended balance sheet.
I think it's because this has been rumored for a week now.
So they just got it out of the way ahead of earnings.
I think that's why we're up on it.
Yeah, I mean, but my point is,
it's not a better deal for them necessarily just going all cash.
It's a little more giving away quite a bit more,
except maybe less dilution to begin with right so so that's that's the point i was trying to make uh but but i agree with you
right it's been rumored it's like you know it's now finally coming true anyway we should know
you know in less than half 40 40 minutes or so so we will take a look at that when it comes out.
But next week, right,
we are going to start seeing some more interesting ones.
And, you know, that should start.
Look, if in the next two weeks,
earnings doesn't produce any reaction,
then, you know, we're completely disconnected
from the
earnings season. And it's really not about earnings at all. It's about, you know, everything else,
geopolitics mostly, right? So, so I hope that's not the case. We should start, you know, getting
anchored back, the market should start getting anchored back to earnings. If not, we have a real problem. And I'll go again.
You know, I posted in Stock Talks Discord,
but my thoughts on this,
and I will talk about it here.
I'm not going to specify tickers yet.
We'll get to that.
But I like SaaS software.
I have spent the last three weeks
looking through the last few quarters of earnings,
earnings calls, management commentary, analyst commentary, independent research,
trying to find out how much of this public quetching about AI taking, destroying software is real
and how much of it is just nonsense.
And my take is, you know, the quetching is very real.
The data behind it is complete bunk.
There is just absolutely no data to show that enterprise software
is being replaced by in-house AI developed capabilities.
Companies are trying that, but they're far, far, far away from actually replacing enterprises.
So I think we are going to, my take, again, it's just my position, is that if the markets
stabilize, we will see a recovery in enterprise software.
And we should see, I mean, look, you go back two years,
you know, you had this play out with snow
and then a year ago or three quarters ago,
it played out with MongoDB.
Now, both of them, you know, overcorrected on both directions
and, you know, came back too fast, in my opinion.
But there's a lot of companies that have sold off that are actually not giving you anything negative.
ServiceNow is a great example.
They are not saying anything.
Neither are the analysts that follow them saying anything specifically negative, except the stock has been just going in one direction
and it's just straight down so so i think that to me is the interesting part of this market for now
is is you know see if there's any recovery there if there's not well you know then it's a startup
position and i'll have to deal with it but But there is a bunch of these enterprise SaaS stocks
where I think the narrative has gone far ahead of anything close to reality
any time in the next few years, let alone this year.
So that's what I've been doing.
I appreciate you there
Mr. Monitiv
do you care about any of the earnings after the close today?
I know they're kind of outside of the ones you look into
maybe some Netflix thoughts but I guess it's not too much
There is United Airlines
you have to remember these, Delta did tell us that they had a 200 bips hit because of shutdown, right? I mean, we were shut down half the quarter. So six weeks, right? That's half the quarter was shut down. So they had an impact. And so it would be interesting to see if United Airlines confirms that. And for me, more interesting is there is a defense IT close. Sorry. CSEI systems. Typically, tech systems, defense, you know, companies, the big three that I, as I've been calling them, the gatekeepers should been a shit show. CACI has done very well, actually. But these will
provide a view into what is to come with defense. And again, I've talked about it in other places.
My own feeling is that defense has run ahead of itself. And there is no way that a half quarter shutdown by the government
did not have a quarter impact on them, right? So operational impact will be there. The question is
how they guide and whether they take into account the risk of another shutdown in that guidance. So I think we are going to have a very good 2026 from defense,
but that's going to be more an H2 story than an H1 story.
So most of what I'm interested in is starting to come after this,
but UAL and Netflix are going to be interesting today.
I'm looking forward to them.
Thank you for joining the conversation, Mr. Monitiv.
Stock Talk.
I know we got you, though.
What's up?
What's going on?
Hello, hello.
I know we had multiple stock picks last week,
so I don't think we have one today.
No, no, no.
There we go.
It's a little
bit of a different day from from you we're back in the earning season your favorite time when i
get to ask you questions on the major earnings and you don't with the companies at all yeah um
but yeah we're back in interesting times before we go into that it gets to ask you about the
earnings you got any thoughts on on the market today in general i know we got a lot of dollars and other stuff yeah standing out to you obviously a little bit of a of a flush
out day today in a lot of high flyers um amcor and e and s were green which is nice those are
my two largest positions and so they make up like 40 of my portfolio so those were green, which is nice to see. Sina, which is my newer position, was down 5% today, 5.5%.
So it took a little bit of a drawdown on that.
I'm not selling that, though, but did take a little bit of pullback on that one.
GLDD was down about 2%, too, but that's not a big deal.
Not a big deal.
It's coming back into the 9 EMA, still well above it.
It's coming back into the 9 EMA, still well above it.
Didn't really see any concerning breakdowns anywhere that, you know,
made me feel like I need to get defensive here.
The one thing that is sort of concerning about today's action
is really just the action in the S&P 500.
You don't want to see a nuke candle like this is what I like to call it,
where you just get a straight gap down below the 9, 21 EMAs. And in this case, below the 50 as well. Most of the breakdowns we've seen on the
daily chart in the S&P 500 have come incrementally. In other words, you'll get, you know, two or three
red days to pull you below the nine, pull you below the 21. And then maybe you get a third or
fourth day where you get, you know, a bottoming out candle that pulls you below the 21 and then maybe you get a third or fourth day where you get you know a bottoming out candle that pulls you below the 50. Today we just skipped a lot of that action and then went
straight to the 50 and then attempted to bounce intraday and had some pretty decent action in the
morning but that faded and S&P 500 closing down a little bit over two percent uh well below the 50 day 50 day up at 679 we're closing about
677 so precedent says we get green days after a candle like this i mean you look at the last two
pullbacks uh in late december and then uh the pullback in november which killed a lot of high
beta both of those bottomed around the 100 day moving average um the second one being a lot of high beta. Both of those bottomed around the 100-day moving average,
the second one being a lot further, but the first one basically came right into the 100-day.
Today's action, that opens up room to bring us down to 670, maybe on a little bit of selling tomorrow or into the end of the week. What you don't want to see is, and this is just my view
on the daily action, what you don't want to see is and this is just my view on the daily action what you don't
want to see is a weak bounce tomorrow back into the 50 and then more blood into the end of the
week that will set you up in sort of a short-term downtrend on the daily chart which means at that
point you should be defensive um but we're not quite there yet i think you need to give the
market a breathing room into the end of the week we obviously have some big meetings coming up between the us and nato um i think a couple factors
driving the selling today the jump in japanese bond yields trump bringing the tariff buzzword
back on the table um europe sort of standing in the sand if you will on the greenland issue we
just haven't heard a lot of clarity from europe on this issue i've been tracking the comments from macron especially closely because he likes to talk um you know
the german government is pretty tight-lipped until there ends up being a consensus on the eu side and
so they are being tight-lipped right now uh nato secretary general root it seems to always be in
our favor i think he's a big fan of Trump's. And so he,
all of his comments are very pro U S and, you know, he seems determined to want to find a way, um, to resolve this issue. But, you know, we don't want to see is sort of a stalemate around
Greenland between the U S and the EU and then see economic retaliatory actions and then see
nothing resolved on the Greenland
issue. That would be like the worst case scenario here. I think what we want, what we'd like to see
and JP Morgan's desk actually commented on it this morning, that they expect a bullish resolution to
this. I think everyone's kind of baked into the idea of expecting a bullish resolution to everything
because of the last couple of years, obviously that can't change at any point um i think you just have to be cognizant of the fact that right now in my view geopolitics
is the macro like i think it's it is more of a driving force for the markets now and in the last
year than the macro has been and that the macro will be i think i think this will be the year of
geopolitical action if if you will,
in terms of not just people doing things geopolitically, but the market reacting to
geopolitical action. And I think today's sell-off is just the first example of that. So you'd like
to see resolution around the Greenland issue. I think that's what the markets are worried about.
They're not so much worried about Greenland, but they're more so worried about the economic
consequences of a standoff with Greenland. And so that's where I think we're at.
I think that's where the selling pressure is coming from today. It's just another element
of uncertainty, you know, and the markets don't like uncertainty. As far as the tariff issue is
concerned, I mean, precedent from last year says that we shouldn't be worried about it as,
year says that we shouldn't be worried about it as you know an economic disaster enforcer you know
that's not the way that we interpreted or not we the market interpreted the april 2nd tariffs from
last year was oh shit these are going to blow up the global economy and they did it well largely
because they weren't enacted in the way that they were presented there you know we ended up with much much lower rates
but the not only the US economy survived global economy did just fine and the
markets went up a lot last year and now we're back in the same boat where new
tariff actions are being threatened around the Greenland issue and you know
some people believe that they're going to be instituted and other people think that, you know, it's just a negotiation tool again.
So we're kind of back in the same boat that we were in about a year ago.
Markets are higher, which is about the only difference.
But that is a difference, you know, and valuations are a little richer than they were a year ago.
So does that mean that there's more air to come
out of some of these names? Potentially, we had a really hot start to the year. A lot of these
names are up 20, 30, 40, 50, even 60% in 14 or 15 days. So for some of the froth to come out of
that is not, shouldn't be too surprising. But I think you need, I think one thing that'll help
traders and investors sort of navigate this year is just to think of the geopolitics as the macro. And, um, you know,
I think that'll probably give you a little bit more of clarity around how the
markets are acting in this environment. So yeah, those are my thoughts.
I didn't do anything today. I didn't panic out of anything,
didn't sell anything, didn't buy anything,
but I would like to see the S&P 500 stabilize before, you know,
I get back into groove and start buying new stuff.
So that's really what I'm looking for is just stabilization of the price action on the major indexes, some sort of resolution on the geopolitical front.
And then I think we can get back to being in a normalized environment.
But could this selling continue? Absolutely.
If there's no resolution at the end of the week on the Greenland issue or if there's no clarity at the end of the week on the Greenland issue, or if there's no clarity at the end of the week on the Greenland issue,
yeah, markets can absolutely go lower from here.
Same thing on Japan front.
You know, if Japanese yields keep acting like penny stocks,
then that's not going to be overly comforting for the markets either.
So I think both of those things you keep your eye on
at the end of the week,
and you hope for some stability in Japanese bond deals.
You hope for some stability on the Greenland issue.
And I think markets can stabilize off of that.
But if not, you probably see a little bit more blood into the end of the week.
You know, for me, I'm an individual stock trader and investor.
So I don't want to say I don't worry about the indexes.
I care about the indexes in terms of where the backdrop is.
I mainly only look at SPY. I'm about the indexes in terms of where the backdrop is. I mainly only
look at SPY. I'm not really going through every major index. But yeah, I look at SPY to get
context on where we are environmentally, but I mostly look at my individual stocks. And so,
you know, if you're one of those people where most of your portfolio is in individual stocks,
I think it behooves you to just scroll through the daily charts, see if there's any major
breakdowns, see if there's any major breakdowns,
see if there's any concerning price action. If there is, then you can adjust accordingly with those specific names. But I think the stuff that's not breaking down, the stuff that's holding up,
I think you defer to that. I mean, today I have a handful of names green and I'm letting them be
green. If they don't want to break down on a day like today, I think that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
So pay a little bit of attention to your individual stocks.
Be cognizant that geopolitics is the macro.
Keep an eye on Japanese bond yields.
Make sure they don't go a little crazier.
I'd say pay more attention to Scott Basant's comments than you do to Trump's.
I think Basant is sort of Trump's sophisticated mouthpiece, if you will, where Trump likes to be a little
bit more negotiative, tactical, potentially even strong on the world stage.
And Vicente, I think, likes to be the voice of clarity and sort of cool the markets down
when need be.
So I would personally pay more, give more weight on the economic side to the Treasury Secretary's words and yeah just see what happens in the
end of the week I think the point you're making about I don't even think this is
about Greenland itself it's about the trade kind of consequences as this is
going back and forth and it is his kind of clear tactic to come in strong and then kind of see what happens and maybe pull back and stuff so i don't know a lot of eyes on
this davos speech coming up tomorrow i imagine we're still in the escalation phase of the uh
phase of the art of the deal would be my guess but um the market has multiple times been faced
in these spots and it's continuously bounced there's been one or two times where it's gotten closer.
But here we are right near all-time highs.
Yeah, I mean, if you're hedging going into today, good job.
If you weren't, it's tough in these situations to be like,
okay, you get a massive red candle in the S&P.
You take out the 9, 21 EMAs, and the 50-day.
And if you want to hedge the hole here, you can.
I'm not saying we can't go lower,
but it's just like a tricky spot to be in tactically.
That's why I didn't pick any puts up today.
Now, if tomorrow the action follows through to the downside,
you know, let's say, God forbid, you lose 100-day,
then I will hedge.
Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen,
but obviously there's a possibility of that happening because we did just knife through the 50-day.
There just wasn't any semblance of support there, which is not a bullish thing.
I can't.
I'm not going to spin that as bullish.
But you go look at the last two 50-day forfeits on the S&P 500.
What happened?
Followed by two to three days of recovery and then back above the 21 before you know it.
So I think you just defer to the market here.
You know, the market is, I always emphasize this about price.
The market tells you a lot through price.
And the market right now is telling us that it just doesn't like the added uncertainty here with the new round of tariffs being presented.
So you just accept that and you wait for the market to resolve that issue.
Now, if the market doesn't resolve on that issue, then you know there's still a problem there and then you react accordingly.
But I said this last year
at the start of the year and it worked very well for us which was react don't predict i feel the
same way about this year when you have a volatile um market guider if you will which in this case
is the geopolitical environment you have you can't be a predictor because, I mean, you're not Nostradamus, right? Like none of
us are Nostradamus where we know exactly what is going to happen. We know, you know, I don't know
anyone who knows exactly what's going to happen in Iran, in Syria, in the Middle East, in Gaza,
in Venezuela, in Greenland, in Ukraine. That's seven theaters of geopolitical volatility, right? There are bombs detonating in all those regions.
There are people dying.
There are economic consequences in all seven of those regions.
That is very difficult for the market even, as intelligent as the market is and as comprehensive as the market is.
That is very difficult for even the market to price in because there are so many potential consequences,
you know, in the oil markets, in the commodity markets, in the with the tariffs between the U.S. and the EU, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not just about the cost of life and the moral consequences
of these conflicts and the territorial sovereignty issues. that's all more higher order conversation,
you know, more for the purpose of philosophy and discussion. But on the market side, there's
economic consequences with all these conflicts. And that's what's hard to price it. And that's
why the market acts volatile when the tariff issue comes up, because it doesn't know what's
going to happen. And that's pretty understandable. And if the market doesn't know what's going to happen, the market acts in this sort of volatile, erratic way around the
tariff issue, you as an individual trader or investor have no hope of deciphering that.
And that's not to say that you're dumb. I mean, I'm saying this about myself too. I'm saying all
of us have no hope of deciphering that. So the best you can do is just be reactive and play the cross the bridge when you come to a
game in markets like this. It's very difficult to sit there in markets like this and just flip
your bias constantly. Anytime something good happens in the geopolitical front, you get bullish.
Anytime something bad happens on the geopolitical front, you get bearish. I mean, you're going to
grow a lot of gray hairs by the end of the year if you act like that with your bias in a market like this because it is going to be
volatile by nature of the volatility globally right now so yeah i think you just have to expect
volatility here react don't predict monitor your individual names especially structurally
and you know play the game kind of behind the ball a little bit and, you know,
just watch the ball. That's kind of the environment you're in, I think, where you just watch the ball.
Savor time. What are you watching these earnings up after the close? I know Netflix,
maybe it's a good one to talk about, but I imagine it's not anywhere close.
Interactive brokers, maybe there's some interest there, obviously.
We talk about stocks, and it's generally in the world also.
A Robinhood shareholder, and then we got United Airlines as well, about to be reporting earnings.
Netflix should be out in about 10 minutes or so.
Yeah, none of those earnings.
I mean, I don't own any of those names, but none of those earnings are really interesting to me.
I mean, maybe UAL, we'd like to see a good print there just for the sake of the economy.
I always like to see good prints on airlines and cruise stocks,
even though I don't own them.
I like to see them have good earnings reports
because it's just a good barometer of economic health, discretionary health.
So, yeah, I'd like to see them have a nice report,
even though I have no horse in that race.
But outside of that, I mean, Netflix,
I think Monit have talked a lot about it
and gave some good commentary, better commentary than I'm going to give.
I'm not a big mega cap guy, as you know.
So that'll be interesting.
We'll see what happens with that deal and Warner Brothers
and Paramount and all that.
That story is still interesting.
So, yeah, I mean, I'll'll pay attention to them but not too much attention
that is fair enough that is fair enough we do like i said we got about nine ten minutes or so
uh from those reporting those earnings coming out netflix should be the one around 4 0 1 p.m eastern
the earnings calls at 4 45 they tend to do it as like a YouTube video coming out so
that's pretty normally a high-quality video there there's also a lot a just in
general right now there is a lot of Davos commentary going on obviously
Trump is speaking there tomorrow but there's a lot of CEOs a lot of interesting
chatter going on over today,
and I'm sure tomorrow, the next day.
This is a little bit of an interesting time.
I don't know how, I'm sure a lot of these do impact small caps in different ways
when the CEOs just say random stuff.
It's very interesting how just different times, times of day, times of week,
times of whatever, there's just different headlines to watch out for.
But have there been any CEO commentary anything like that that has
moved any names in your space
talk talk from Davos
not really
not really I mean it's part of the
game when I'm mostly in mid caps
that you're not going to typically have that but
yeah
no not really I haven't seen any
particular comments from Davos that have
moved individual names meaningfully.
So, yeah, no.
That's fair.
Sniper, I know you got some earnings numbers for us.
We're closing in on that.
Can I get a quick mic check?
I'm speaking with a Unipod.
Yeah, I hear you.
Nice.
I hear you.
We're finally back with the earnings.
I got to say Netflix is going to be one of the more exciting ones.
A lot of people care about this one.
When it comes towards Netflix earnings and we're looking at it today,
we're looking at $11.97 billion revenue, which is up from last quarter.
We're looking at the EPS to come in at $0.37, which is a bit lower from last quarter.
When I take a look over at Netflix,
one of the most important things to look at before going into any kind of earnings trade is to understand the implied move.
And make sure if you are planning on trading this, understand that if it does not exceed the implied move, the options will open up likely worthless.
The implied move on Netflix for this report is 6.62%, or $5.82.
This is lower from the previous report.
Last quarter, we were looking at a $7.55
move. I posted up, instead of giving you guys the last four reactions, I'm going to make things a
little better this quarter. I'm going to go ahead and post, or I have already posted, just about
every single earnings reaction after two weeks, after one week, after three days, and also the
next day after it. I used to typically read out the earnings move after each day, or report of the last four on
the one-day move, but now you can pretty much look at it under larger time frames and pretty
much see any kind of statistic that you're looking at looking for. The other one that people are
caring about is, again, like you said, there's previously mentioned this too, United Airlines
is also coming out at 4.01 p.m. We're looking.36 billion revenue there or $2.96 EPS. And then
the third one that we're looking comes a little bit later. And that one's going to be Interactive
Brokers coming at 4.30 PM. With Interactive Brokers, we're looking for 1.58 billion revenue
and 56 EPS. I'm pretty interested to see that. That is slightly lower than the last quarter
on the revenue side of things for interactive brokers,
but we shall see.
We shall see.
Either way, this is going to be an awesome start
towards the earnings season.
Netflix stopped providing subscriber numbers
four quarters ago from this report.
So pretty genius if you ask me
after the NFL Thanksgiving situation
that they had going last year.
They pretty much said no more subscriber numbers after that when they closed it off at a record high subscribers.
So now, again, I think Monitib was previously talking about it, but we have to read between the lines and kind of do the math and kind of get an estimate of the subscribers.
But again, nobody will be precise because there is alternate revenues on Netflix.
because there is alternate revenues on Netflix.
But, guys, I am excited to see this one.
Again, I also heard a couple people mention Stranger Things Season 5
will not be reflected on this report.
That will be reflected on the next report.
This will be the quarter before that.
So I'm really looking forward towards Netflix,
but keep in mind that a lot of the stuff that has came out recently
I don't believe will be reflected on this report.
Good run through there.
Malatav, I know you talked about it for a second there.
We've been referencing it.
Now that there is four or five minutes left before heading into the Netflix earnings,
is there any credit that you want to rehash?
Anything new in there?
What your eye will be going towards first?
No, not really.
I think we've talked enough about this.
But again, average revenue per user is important.
U.S., obviously, there's more ARPU per user than Asia.
So if U.S. numbers are weak, it will pull down overall numbers because U.S. is the most profitable.
overall numbers because US is
the most profitable. We do
want to see the progress on their
ad tier, see what they
say about it and what
progress
there is, how it's going,
how the uptake is. So that's
probably going to be interesting.
So US versus rest of the world
numbers, ARPU and
ad tier. So those are the three other things that I will look at.S. versus rest of the world numbers, ARPU, and ADTIER.
So those are the three other things that I will look at.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate you for hanging out with us, for everyone hanging out with us.
We do have some live earnings coming up in the next little bit.
Normally that can become a little hectic.
It will get more hectic as we go forward,
as we get into like 20 companies reporting earnings in one day
and all of that good stuff.
Today we'll be able to cover it.
Normally it takes half a second.
We'll be able to show you the moves first,
and the numbers will be coming out pretty quickly as well.
When anyone ever gets them, you guys can read them out.
I will be looking as closely as I can to try and find them before you.
A little competition.
But yeah, we will read the numbers out the second they are released.
Netflix should be coming out right at 4.01 p.m. Eastern.
Generally, they're pretty quick to the market being closed.
Yep, about two, three minutes away from that one.
Market's expecting around $12 billion of revenue,
around 55 cents of EPS.
Both would be new all-time highs, I believe.
At least, no, sorry.
That would be a new all-time high in revenue, not an EPS
it looks like. It had like a 70-cent quarter recently.
Correct.
And we are getting ready to close basically on the lows
of the day, at least on my portfolio, the single stock portfolio.
Let's see what it looks like across
the market yeah closing on the lows of days for sure Hughes getting ready to close the day down
by 2.2% VOO down by 2.1% I'm sure IWM and Russell and Dow Jones actually look and Netflix is also
moving a little lower into the close although although there's obviously no numbers out.
IWM, not on the low of day.
There you go.
Small wins.
And then Dow Jones,
if people are still watching that,
Dow Jones basically closing on the low of day.
Market did just end it for the day.
Netflix should be out any second and like I said also United
Airlines and IBK our interactive brokers will also be reporting earnings
it's a weird Netflix move into the last five minutes people did not want to be
holding the stock into into the earnings
service now it looks like they have the pr confirming the open ai news from earlier
i'm gonna stick it here on the close and then uh if if netflix doesn't come out one second
one minute then we will uh shift the conversation going around and bring up some more topics.
But I do want to see if we get this. I see United Airlines put out a Formate,
so that stock might be moving a little bit right here off of earnings.
Initial move on United Airlines is up by 1%. I will check back in on that in a minute.
Interactive Brokers also earnings is out.
It's not loading quite yet. I don't have the numbers but I do see that the numbers are out.
Wow, it said 430.
Yeah.
I'm not seeing Netflix just yet either.
Netflix stock is down 1%.
Daftar? Netflix stock is down 1% after yeah but again I haven't seen the numbers just yet in front of me now it's down to looks like there might have been some actually some Netflix release
boop no it came back okay there we go.
Netflix is out.
Let me get this in front of me.
$12.16 billion revenue.
Net $2.42 billion.
U.S. Canada $5.34 billion.
EPS $0.56.
It's coming in dribs and drabs,
so I don't have the report in front of me.
Yeah, I don't have the report in front of me yet,
just yet either.
I see it all on the wire.
Netflix Outlook,
2026 ad revenue to roughly double.
Operating margin of 31.5%.
Netflix Free Cashflow Outlook of roughly $11 billion. United Airlines, double beat. of 31.5%. Netflix free cash flow outlook of
roughly $11 billion.
United Airlines double beat.
Barely on rev.
Let's see if I can
see this for a second. Netflix stock.
Interactive Brokers is down
five. United Airlines
up by 1.5.
And then the one that I know a lot of people
are going to be watching is Netflix.
Give me a second to actually get a good representation
in front of me.
There we go.
Wolf account just tweeted it.
Down 2.4% right now.
Let's get this out.
But the initial move on Netflix stock is lower.
Okay.
Revenue of $12.05 billion beating expectations 56 cents beating
expectations paid membership crossed 325 million during the quarter this it's the forward guidance
which is slightly below expectations 2.16 billion is what they said next quarter netflix guided
towards while she wanted to uh 12.2 billion i said minus i don't know i said 12.16 billion while she was 12.19 billion so i miss eps expectations 76 while she wanted 81 cents
full year outlook is basically in line with expectations maybe a little bit higher
it's not a horrible full year outlook stock
for what I am seeing the forward guidance for next quarter is below expectations the forward
guidance for the full year is um is not bad is still slightly above expectations
yeah I think we're gonna to see a lot of this
where there's a little bit of hedging going on
about what the numbers look like
in the front half of the year
but keep the full year numbers
very bullish
out of the vibes
which I don't think
is the worst thing
but I guess you don't
want when you're in Netflix which is now down 3 it's accelerating a little bit thing. I guess you don't want it when you're in Netflix,
which is now down 3%.
It's accelerating a little bit lower here.
I guess that's not enough.
But yeah, from what I'm seeing,
I can even just pin this up in the nest above,
a little bit of a review from this.
Netflix initial move lower, down 3%.
Revenue was a beat this quarter.
EPS was a beat this quarter.
It's funny. I still haven't seen their report come out on this wire no they still haven't posted it either so I've been I've been on their website so they've
not posted weird is this one I was gonna come out 405 is another popular time for
405 is another popular time for news.
for news
No? Interesting.
Interactive brokers and United Airlines both beat on both top and bottom line.
What's up, Sam?
What's going on?
Dude, why is Stock Talk stocks always green every single freaking day?
Not all of them. Not all of them.
Not all of them.
Just a couple today.
Just to have Corey and ask a couple.
But I had red ones.
Every day, your stocks are green.
Every day.
I have other stocks, though, too.
I had red ones today.
Oh, man.
I don't know.
Congratulations.
I'm just messing around.
I don't know.
Yes, that's correct.
Yeah, nice.
It's a great strategy, man.
Your strategy is really good.
I really enjoy employing that strategy.
I don't want to say more than that.
I mean, you obviously have a great community over there.
But what do I think about today?
I don't know.
It's pretty nasty close under the
50-day moving average on Qs and SPY. I see this is obviously a politically driven
sell-off, right? And this is the largest sell we've had in SPY besides, of course,
the October tariff tantrum sell-off. No, that was a China news sell-off. The tariff
chance of it was back in April. Do I really think this is going to stick? I don't know.
It's so... When I see a lot of stocks green today and a lot of stocks barely down,
the dip being bought on AppLovin, which is clearly not a cheap company, but definitely
a Wall Street favorite, a lot of the sell was in mega caps. Oh, Netflix is down 4% after hours.
But a lot of the sell was in mega caps
and it's obviously going to push the market down.
IWM is only down 1.18%, right?
RSP was down 1.5%, which is a decent amount.
But Sox is only down 1.5%.
Micron is practically green today.
Sandus is up 8%.
Skywater is up 5 percent
today. Like a lot of that AI theme is still there, especially in the semiconductors and
Piscine shovels, right? Intel is up 3 percent. Like, is this like a massive sell-off day or is
it just certain companies that weren't doing good this year are just continuing to sell off or maybe
stocks are up like 20 percent in a matter of a couple of weeks or maybe more than that is down like 5%, 6% today because they're high beta.
I don't know. It just seems like another day to me.
It's very difficult to be bearish after a day like today
when you've had a massive move in a lot of these stocks
and still maintain their levels up here.
Do I feel safe holding companies that are pre-revenue,
that basically are not going to turn profitable for God knows how long,
that are really depending on a theme to continue in order to finally turn a profit
or turn a revenue in the next two or three years.
Like, the themes are working, and I think they're going to continue working
as long as we don't get that massive sell-off.
And I think a lot of – we're in earnings season.
Like, it's just – it's very hard to be bearish in earnings season, right?
So I think the market's probably waiting for some of these companies to report earnings which if they do then and they're
good it's like we're probably gonna go back to all-time highs like i don't if the numbers are
good across the board for a lot of these companies the capex goes that we see the same story every
single quarter and the market reacts doesn't react react bad to it, then the analysts will raise
their price targets. People will keep buying stocks still. It's going to continue going up,
but like, it's just to be like, oh, that's it guys. We're at a top. Very difficult. Plus grab
is green today. I don't know why grab is green today. I just thought that was pretty funny
because it's basically red like almost every day. But today it's up 3%. So kudos to grab.
like almost every day but today it's up three percent so kudos to grab um yeah i mean i think
it may be a bit of profit taking can't really say what it is but i mean i'm my pro is not that bad
today um zeta is not down that much today was good to see even though we're in the midst of a software
sell-off on semiconductor is basically flat today which is good to see too um you know obviously
we've talked about amcor, probably, E&S.
Those are doing good today.
Those are holdings in mind as well.
Robinhood, it's going to move the crypto, right?
So I don't have any big positions in crypto.
I'm not swinging crypto right now.
I think I've done pretty good staying away from that one.
What do we see again?
We saw a massive rejection of the 100-day moving average for Bitcoin.
Price is just telling you what to do here. It's telling you not to long these stocks right now,
and I think that is continuing to play out. In fact, Ethereum and Bitcoin rejected the 100-day
moving average. Could not stay above it. And these things matter, right? I think a lot of
you guys have been talking about the moving average stuff, and I've been paying way more
attention to it in the last few months, and it saved me to it in the last few months and it saved me a lot.
It saved me and saved me a lot by cutting positions that just are not doing well,
that are not positions that I want to hold
for a long period of time.
And it's also saved me from buying things
that will continue to go down.
I own Rubrik.
Rubrik is probably one of the most bullish
software names that I'm on.
And it's also in cybersecurity.
It's in a massive downtrend,
but I was buying this thing back in the 30s and I added to it last April around the 40s.
Not really looking to add here. I don't know. I want to see some meaningful recovery in software
stocks before I start buying software stocks again., I have the positions that I reviewed in the last couple of weeks that
I know I would want to hold, even if it drew down. And some of them not look so great. Rubric
is just a terrible chart right now, grabs a terrible chart. But the positions at this point
are not that big where it's not really hurting me if they drop down more, because it is a much
smaller position. And a position that are already outsized are doing really well today, or doing really well in the last few weeks. And
I'm up pretty considerable year to date. And you know what, to be honest, I think that there's a
reason why a lot of these stocks are not suffering greater drawdowns, because I think the themes are
still there. Like AI is still here to stay. I don't think it's going anywhere. And I think that
whatever sell-off we go through, whether it's another 10% down or if today's a bottom, who knows,
I think that the market's already telling you what's going to lead the way up and it will
continue leading the way up if the market goes back up and what will be sold off the least,
in my opinion, that's what I think. But until then, it's not an everything rally. It has not
been since the beginning of the year because people are probably down like 20, 30% year to date still
or already so down 23% year to date
and they're down like maybe 10 or 15% today.
And in my opinion, if that happens,
you either have too much leverage
or you're invested in the wrong things
or you just don't care, right?
I mean, like there are people
who don't really care about drawdown.
They just deal with it in the long-term investment.
There's nothing wrong with that, right? people who don't really care about drawdown they just deal with it the long-term investment there's nothing wrong with that right but i don't know it is not an
everything rally i wish it was like in september august all the way since april but it has not been
everything rally since october right it's stopped in october and since october people are still down
a lot because they were heavily invested in a lot of high
beta stocks, pre-revenue that are not doing well today because I think the market realizes
I don't want to put the money in things that are not working.
I want to put money in things that are working.
And it's difficult to continue buying things that are just not working.
And that's just from what I've seen.
But yeah, we've got earnings coming up.
So we'll see what happens've seen. But yeah, we've got earnings coming up, so we'll see what happens with that.
Yeah, Netflix stock definitely accelerating
a little bit more to the downside
since we were last mentioning that.
It was down 2.3%, now it's down 4.5%,
4.9% going on here.
Again, the earnings call starts in about 30 minutes or so
on Netflix stock,
so you can reserve some judgment for that one.
We'll see what they say coming out of that earnings call. Again, that starts in about 30 minutes or so on Netflix stock. You can reserve some judgment for that one. We'll see what they say coming out of that
earnings call. Again, that starts
in about 30 minutes or so.
Are we going to listen to it?
Probably not. I don't think too many people
are that interested in it.
United Airlines up 2%
and then Interactive Brokers down.
It was down 6%. Now it's down just 1%.
So yeah,
that was an interesting move on interactive brokers a little bit,
but I don't know how many people end up caring about that one.
Do you have any thoughts?
There's a few interesting things here.
So in the third year of ad revenue, ad selling,
they've crossed a billion, billion and a half in the third year.
That's probably the fastest to a billion recent times.
They're going to double again next year is what they're guided to.
So two and a half times over 2024 for 2025,
and then another double.
So three billion ad revenue, pretty darn good.
in that revenue, pretty darn good.
That's going to get interesting.
That's going to get interesting.
I think there's going to be some more hand-wringing
over Warner Brothers.
They just have to raise a lot of debt,
and they're adjusting their credit lines
almost on a daily basis to make this, they're tweaking this, right?
That's the only negative.
So across the board, we're seeing, you know, mid-teens growth are higher, right?
The lowest growth is Europe at 15%, LATAM and Asia, you know,
20% and US Canada is at 18%. So all of these numbers are pretty solid. So we are, you know,
we're probably going down just purely on guidance upfront, right? Q1 guidance plus,
guidance up front, right?
Q1 guidance plus, you know,
people just paying attention to, you know,
the eye-opening numbers
that they have to raise to make this deal.
They have about $10 billion in cash.
They're going to generate another $10 billion or so next year.
So they'll have to raise about $35 billion.
Or $40 billion. So that's that's gonna be it's gonna put a dent on their free cash
flow dramatically if this deal closes i i don't think this deal closes anyway i think it's gonna
get killed by regulators if it ever gets that far i i don't know. Operating margin is, you know, close to tagging 30%, 29.4% operating margin.
So these are very, very, very good numbers. Execution is solid.
I think they just got sucked into this Warner Brothers and I don't know why they don't want to drop it.
They had a chance. They could have walked.
They didn't.
I guess breakup fee is massive.
That's true.
But I don't know why they did this all cash deal.
I'm not happy.
I'm not happy they did this, but it's what it is.
The numbers are just fine.
At least a quick look. There is nothing I see that worries me yet.
Again, the deal closing is a year and a half away,
so I'm not taking that into account,
but just saying, you know, free cash flow is solid.
Margin numbers are solid.
Growth of individual, you know, GEOs is solid.
which will, you know, Geo's is solid.
Yeah, this will correct back.
I mean, if we get anything positive from the Warner Brothers deal,
this will react.
But, you know, we have earnings already and they're doubling down,
so I don't know when that will be.
Anyway, those are my quick thoughts.
They will definitely be getting some questions on the earnings call, probably,
about around this deal.
And you can kind of get – you look at the chart.
This is basically 50-week lows for Netflix.
If not, it's a full – yeah, this might be 50-week lows for Netflix and After Hours.
It definitely is an overhang from this Warner Bros deal
is that a short term pain for
the long term gain I guess they're going to argue
it but it is an
interesting one
yeah I mean what were they
guiding for full year
let's see
for full year they were
guiding between 50.7 billion to
51.7 billion so 51.2 billion billion, so $51.2 billion, whatever that is, operating margin of 31.5%.
Okay. So let me work those numbers.
I mean, look, for the first time in their history, the multiples are starting to come down dramatically, right? So this talk is getting more interesting from a fundamental perspective.
It never was.
Forward numbers were probably looking at something like 24 or 25.
Again, back of the envelope math, I apologize.
It might not be that accurate.
But somewhere below 25 is what I calculate from that guide.
That puts it in a very different category suddenly, right?
If you still have that net margin growing well above 30%
and your user base, you know, growing.
I don't know how long this can stay down.
I just don't know that, you know, what's going to turn it around first, right?
We probably need the market to help this along.
It's not going to do it itself. you
you guys there everybody suddenly got quiet oh i'm here what's up monative
that's okay i i stopped talking i was wondering if somebody so i just got a notification saying
the host is having connection issues yep yeah i got that um all right so that normally means
the space is gonna rug yeah i was having a little problems maybe it saves it maybe it's not i could
give a little reset but i guess you guys can't hear me from the other account guess who's
here in the holes now it might be echoing all right give me one second let me try and save this
i got it i saved it i'm hearing emp behind the main account
you know they just don't want to give him credit
okay i keep unmuting.
Emp, all you.
That guy saved it.
Yeah, so, yeah.
If you take about a $3.2 to $3.5 estimate for the whole year,
we're talking 25 times forward.
They're still growing.
So, yeah, this is going to be fun watching.
There's a lot of companies that for the first time in maybe a few years, that they're starting
to become fundamentally interesting, right?
Technically, there's been a lot of things going on, but fundamentally, nobody has looked at it,
but it's starting to get interesting,
meaning these companies are not as expensive
as what they were once thought of as.
25 times for Netflix is something else.
Anyway, I'm repeating myself here.
Moditiv, did you look at any of the other earnings?
No, I was trying to furiously look through the numbers here.
I will get to that.
Yeah, they did come out a little slow are you looking at intel earnings on thursday what's
what's your next top watch uh for the rest of the week on earnings front no intel of course uh but
but again right it's it's i think there is there's already a floor set on Intel because, you know, government is involved
now and there's a geopolitical angle to it that there's really not my choice. But I want them to
really, you know, talk about 18A and 14A. So I just want to see if there's any customer that's
closing and getting ready to, you know to move into full-scale production.
That's been the drain on their cash.
If we even start making a dent, let alone becoming cash flow positive in the foundry business, right?
Far from that.
Even if we start making a dent on it and lose less, that I think itself will move Intel up.
I mean, look, people were talking about Intel, you know,
would have gone bankrupt without the U.S. government support.
I think that's lack of understanding of what it's worth in pieces, right?
So would they have had a problem?
Yeah.
Would that have been?
It's a narrative problem, not a real problem again, right?
Yeah, they have a big debt load,
but they also have massive value in IP.
If you price that at liquidation value,
then it's a very different story.
Then you could potentially say there's a bankruptcy risk. But if you price it atation value, then it's a very different story. Then you could potentially say there's a bankruptcy risk.
But if you price it at fair value, you know, no, they're not bankrupt.
Far from it.
So I think all that's history now.
So let's see how the execution is on the foundry side.
That's the only part we don't know.
We already know that, you know, both Intel and AMD said that they're going to have a shortage of CPUs too.
So we know a lot already. It's purely commentary I'm waiting on on Intel. And then we had a Pre-release from ISRG, I think that's tomorrow, is their planned release.
They were at a conference, so they pre-released numbers, and the stock fell 7-8% that day.
So I want to see if the details and the commentary help recover that number.
There is some underlying strength in healthcare today, so that's something that remains to be seen. So that's
another one that I'm curious about.
And I
did say CSEI and
BAH will give us some
view into how much the
impact of shutdown on defense.
Did UAL talk about it?
Did you see? I haven't seen it,
but I can't say I've really looked
through UAL that thoroughly just yet.
All right.
All right.
I'll go look and come back.
Yeah.
A lot of people also don't know.
In the event, if the country was to go to war, just about every single commercial airliner
would be allocating a large portion of their fleet now for military uses if the U.S. was to go into total war.
And that includes all the A320s, 747s, 787s, and A350s, which absolutely UAL is under.
Stocktalk, you around?
I am here, yep.
Have you been following specifically the Greenland situation over this weekend?
Yep.
So I remember last week that we were pretty much talking about it and we were saying it's very unlikely that this resolves with the violent conflict.
I am in absolute agreement with you there.
Do you have any thoughts expressing towards Trump's 10% tariff that could escalate to 25% if the U.S. is to not acquire Greenland?
Do you think that as more tariffs are threatened, they become lower impact?
No, I think the issue around the tariffs this time isn't around the actual tariffs.
I think the issue around this time with the tariffs is around U.S. trade reliability.
A lot of the countries that we are threatening to impose tariffs on now over Greenland,
we just signed trade deals with.
We just signed them five months ago or came to agreements with Germany, France.
So if you come to a trade agreement after six months of negotiations
and then a geopolitical issue arises,
and be mindful, they're our allies.
And then in that same breath, we say,
well, I know we just signed a trade agreement for 15% tariffs,
but now we're going to increase them by another 10%
because you don't agree with us on Greenland.
The risk there is not the tariffs.
The risk there is a lack of reliability in U.S. trade relations, and that's a bigger issue.
So, look, I wasn't a fan of the blanket tariffs in the first place.
Look, I wasn't a fan of the blanket tariffs in the first place.
I was very clear about that.
I'm not one of those guys that's like, I agree with everything that, you know, one side does
and disagree with something that the other side does.
I try to take things case by case.
I was never a fan of the blanket tariffs.
I was a fan of tariffs in areas like shipbuilding, certain steel production tariffs, certain tariffs
in the semiconductor industry.
Yeah, I think tactical tariffs can make sense. Blanket tariffs or tariffs used as geopolitical tools, I think,
I'm not a fan of that personally. And I think in this case,
it's getting messy because at a certain point it becomes boy who cried wolf from both directions
not like just from the u.s side it becomes boy who cried wolf also from the people who are
implying implications for these for these tariffs right like oh if we put 25 percent tariffs on
france germany etc then you know the european economy is going to collapse and xyz will happen
to the united states even those people sound like they're
crying wolf because none of that happened last year because the final tariffs, you know, were
much lower. And so it becomes unpredictable from both sides is the point that I'm making. And it
becomes unreliable from both directions. And that is an issue because that makes it impossible for
markets to price it in. So long story short,
do I think we're going to put 25% tariffs on our European allies? No. But do I think threatening
that jeopardizes US reliability on trade? Yes. Do I think the Greenland issue is going to be
resolved peacefully without a shot fired? Yes. But do I think that opening the possibility of military action can spook the
markets? Yes. So it's a nuanced issue. It's not just like black and white. And
there are deeper aspects about
reliability that are at play that I think the market cares more about than
like whether or not
an additional 10% tariff is going to go on France or Germany or whether an additional 25% tariff.
For one thing, I don't think we're going to escalate it to 25. I think right now he's
threatening an additional 10% tariff on those countries because they are acting in solidarity
with Denmark. But I think people will be surprised at how much negotiating power the
Secretary General has, and also how much Trump likes him compared to his European counterparts.
If you've ever heard, I've never heard Trump speak badly about Root, or Rupp, or however you
pronounce his name, the NATO Secretary General. I've never heard him speak badly about him because he's always complimenting Trump. And Trump likes that. And so I think he is probably the EU's best
mouthpiece if we do want to get a quick resolution here.
What I think is probably, if I'm in Europe's shoes, what I think they're probably thinking
is that they give America a segment of Greenland and potentially even divide Greenland between
multiple European parties and allow them all to build military infrastructure there and then call
it, you know, Operation Arctic or whatever as a way for NATO to secure the Arctic. But
I mean, we had von der Leyen, the EU secretary yesterday talking about, hey, we want to deploy
icebreakers. I mean, they barely have any icebreaker capability, they'll have to develop
an icebreaker capability. I mean, none of the European militaries have a sophisticated icebreaker
capability. So if she's saying that now, then that's in a way them stepping up to the plate to say, yeah, we want to help provide for
Arctic security. But I mean, what, we're going to sit around and wait for the European Union
to develop icebreaker capability or develop sophisticated missile defense capabilities.
I mean, the European Union needs the United States for that type of military infrastructure. They just do.
Pretty much all of the long-term munitions might, missile defense might, naval might,
almost all of it in NATO is American. And I'm not just saying that as an American,
this is just objectively true, along with the vast majority of the funding for all NATO programs. And one thing I think that Europe is missing on this issue,
and I'm going to avoid getting too political here, though,
is we have been providing for the defense of Europe for a long time.
It's not like Europe pays for American defense.
In fact, there was a European MP, I forgot her name.
She was on the news on Sunday, and she said, we have to be realistic here.
She was like, imagine if the United States said that Europe has to contribute to defending the American southern border.
What would Europe say to that?
Europe would laugh, right?
They'd be like, why?
That's not our problem. But we do that. We defend all of Europe. There are American military bases on
every border, every major border in Europe. We have American military bases in basically all
of our allied countries. We have U.S. Marines providing infrastructure, training support, logistical support to all of their militaries. So there is an exchange happening here. And I'm not saying
who's right, who's wrong. I'm not saying we should outright get Greenland, although, you know,
I am leaning towards that. But there is an exchange happening here and like you know we have provided for europe security for
decades and so that i think has to be acknowledged in the conversation here with europe and i think
the better negotiators on the european side like root understand that and i think you have to
appeal to that if you want to see softness from Trump on this issue. Like, I think the Europeans have to acknowledge that and appeal to that if they want to see Trump be a willful negotiator here.
So we'll see what happens.
But they're expected to meet twice this week.
You know, Macron wants them to come to Paris after Davos.
If Trump does, I think that'll be a good sign.
Trump hasn't clarified on whether he will or won't, but Macron has invited him to dinner in Paris after Davos, and they're expected to meet in Davos as well.
So we'll see if there's any resolution on this issue within a week from now or two weeks from now.
But it is a very complicated and nuanced issue.
It is not simply a matter of territorial sovereignty.
It's not simply a matter of trade. It's not simply a matter of trade it's not simply a matter of any
of any of that stuff in a vacuum it's it's a very very complicated issue i think
i like your saying earlier when you said geopolitics is the new macroeconomics
um do you mind if this year yes do you mind if i say that i don don't care. I don't have a copyright on the words. One thing I would want to say, and you previously just mentioned this
in your previous statement, but would you say that that division of territory would be the
best case scenario or likely the best way that this issue resolves?
I think, yeah. I mean, I think it would be a good compromise. I just don't know if,
you know, I think really Marco Rubio is guiding the policy on this, I think more so than Trump.
I think Trump basically told Marco what he wants, and now Marco's trying to come up with a politically savvy way to execute on that.
But I don't know if Trump will be satisfied with that.
Because, look, for all intents and purposes, we can do whatever we want in Greenland already.
We already have a military base there.
We used to have, what, six that we closed over time because back then, you know, the Arctic tundra was frozen and the shipping lanes weren't there.
And so we just didn't feel the need to have as many military assets there. That has changed now.
So, yeah, it is one solution. I just don't know if the U.S. side is going to agree to that.
to that from trump's perspective he wants ownership because from his view if we spend 200 billion on
missile defense infrastructure new military bases a port etc etc etc if we do all that then you know
why would we do that for territory that isn't ours why would we invest 200 billion for territory that
isn't ours but that's what we have been doing with nato for the last five decades is we've been
pouring built tens or hundreds of billions
of dollars into the defense of Europe, and it's not even our territory. Right? And it goes back
to the analogy of like, if we asked Europe to help defend the American southern border, would they do
it? Absolutely not. And so this is where the conflict I think is not only, and I'm not just
speaking on behalf of Trump, I'm saying, I think from the American side, right? Like we've wanted Greenland for a hundred years for this reason, because it's difficult
to get a country to commit hundreds of billions of dollars in military infrastructure when
the territory is not yours.
That's a difficult, that's a, that's a, that's a tough proposition.
And so that's, I think where the dispute is.
The dispute is, is like Europe saying, well, we don't care.
Build another base. You're our ally. Build as many bases as you want. Put ships there. Put aircraft there. They don't care. That's what they're saying to us. And so they don't understand why America wants ownership. And then from the American side, they're saying, why would we dump all that investment into territory that isn't ours? So it is a nuanced issue. Anyone who's pretending that this is like one obviously right one way or the other,
or obviously wrong one or the other, I think it's just not being fair to the facts. Like there's a variety of incentives on both sides here. Um, and I mean, America is for all intents and purposes,
NATO and NATO does not have punching power without the United States. So yeah, I don't know. It's,
it's complicated. And I'm not saying we
should just outright get Greenland and there should be no exchange whatsoever. But I mean,
you know, something something has to be done here. I don't think Trump is just going to walk
away from this. And there's he's in office for years still. I mean, you know, there's plenty
of clock on the administration still. So it's a very, very complicated issue,
much more complicated than people are giving it credit for.
It's not just simply a matter of territorial sovereignty
or anything like that.
It's about defense spending
and where that defense spending will be appropriate.
And so, and if you look at the Golden Dome program,
like Canada wants to be involved
in the Golden Dome program,
there's no shot if if Greenland is
not a part of that program and Denmark's argument will be well we'll we'll let you build that's
Denmark's argument like we'll let you build it doesn't matter I just don't know if it's a good
enough argument and I don't know if it's going to deter the U.S. from from wanting that to ownership
of that territory so yeah it's a big geopolitical quagmire and i don't think americans are going to fight europeans
like actually fight them i think that that's an absurdity but you know could american ships land
in greenland without permission i don't think that that's far-fetched so you know we'll see
you know i suspect that if that was to happen again like we were talking about uh you know, we'll see. You know, I suspect that if that was to happen, again, like we were talking about, you know, I don't think they're going to shoot at him.
I don't see it going by.
Yeah, who's going to shoot an American soldier? You think a European is going to shoot an American soldier?
No way. No way.
So, since we're speaking about geopolitics, I was just wondering, you know, regarding one of the other main
conflicts that is kind of going on.
Do you see that the Iranian protests pretty much looks like U.S. has slightly backed off?
They're still heavily guarded throughout the region, but it does look like about 15 to 25
percent of the U.S. forces have withdrew from the Middle East.
Do you see this situation as something that is high impact towards the U.S. stock market
and just towards economics in general?
I think the uncertainty is high impact.
I don't think the actual consequences are high impact economically.
I don't think, even if an additional 10% tariff was put in place on Germany or France,
I don't think it would last very long.
I think based on the precedent from last year, Trump likes to use these as a tool.
I would have thought the market would have become privy to that by now, but the market clearly sees another layer of uncertainty here.
of uncertainty here and look it doesn't help the japan situation does not help right i mean you
And look, it doesn't help. The Japan situation does not help.
saw five or six or seven standard deviation move in in japanese bond yields like over the weekend
like that's a big move um that's not helping either so and then on top of that equities are up
in a vertical line for three straight years in a row so it's like we're not really dealing with a
with a based out uh equity market either you're dealing with a parabolic equity market with many layers of
geopolitical uncertainty, many layers of uncertainty with the Japanese economy.
You know, Russia last night did their most successful cyber slash electric grid operation of the war so far in Kiev.
They took out power for half a million residents in Kiev last night.
That war could be escalating.
I mean, if they do that again, that opens up way for another Russian offensive in that region.
And now you have the Syria situation heating up again.
The Iran situation's heating up again.
You know, the Venezuela situation,
we don't even know what's happening there.
We haven't gotten any clarity on that
since the Greenland stuff got pulled out of a hat two weeks ago.
So now we still don't know what's happening with Venezuela.
We're still seizing ships there.
U.S. oil companies haven't begun to build infrastructure,
even though they committed to it two weeks ago.
So there's a bunch of question marks there.
What's happening with Venezuela?
And then now Trump today brought up seizing the Panama Canal today in his speech.
So that's now another X factor.
So, look, markets like a beaten path. They like to walk down a beaten path.
It makes it easier to do EPS projections. It makes it easier to project a multiple for the
indexes. It makes it easier to just operate as an investor in those environments. Geopolitical
uncertainty is the worst type of uncertainty because it's layered. It has economic implications.
It has military implications. It has territorial implications. That's why geopolitical uncertainty
is the worst type of uncertainty. Now, some people will hear that and say, well,
you go back historically, wars make markets go up. Yeah, but war is not the only element of
geopolitical uncertainty. It's not always guns being fired. Geopolitics is more than that.
It's not always guns being fired. Geopolitics is more than that. Geopolitics is also trade relationships. It is perceived reliability of a nation. That's a huge element of geopolitics. And right now that's what's in jeopardy, is perceived reliability of Europe's dependence on America for defense. That is in jeopardy for the first time
in decades. And that is spooking people, not just in the military sense, but in the market sense.
And so you have to see resolution. You have to see a conclusion here, I think, before markets
are willing to move past it. And I don't know how long that'll take. This does not feel like an issue that's going to be resolved in three weeks. Europe clearly is standing with
Denmark. I will say shakily. I mean, in fact, earlier this morning, the French government has a
account called French Response. And people were tweeting memes out about NATO Civil War this
morning, posting like AI-generated images of like US troops marching on Greenland. I don't love the
idea of joking about that kind of stuff because that would be horrific, but I don't think that's
going to happen. But they're posting memes, and the French response count this morning said, it's just a little discussion amongst friends. Democracies love debates. So Europe
standing in, I'll put it in quotation marks, solidarity with Denmark over their territorial
sovereignty. But let's not pretend that the French or the Germans or the British want to fight the Americans.
That's out of the question for them.
Certainly for the United Kingdom.
Certainly for the United Kingdom.
Like, if push comes to shove, the United Kingdom will stand with the United States.
I'm certain of that.
I mean, you've heard Keir Starmer's comments around this.
He's very, very unwilling to take an anti-U.S. position.
Very unwilling.
He was throttled by it by the British media over the weekend.
Keir Starmer basically effectively, summary of his statement, said,
it is in the national interest of the United Kingdom to stand with the United States.
That was basically the summary of his comments. There's a lot of nuance in between there about him saying,
oh yeah, we stand with Denmark, blah, blah, blah.
But bottom line, his comments was, we cannot afford to break with the United States.
The United Kingdom has been the closest ally of the United States for five decades.
And their entire military is dependent on U.S. training programs, U.S. infrastructure,
U.S. munitions.
They don't have a military without us.
And they're not going to just walk away from that.
Even Georgia Maloney, I mean, I've been looking at everybody's comments on this issue because I think it's an important issue.
But Georgia Maloney, the prime minister of Italy, she was talking to her parliament over the weekend as well.
And she was getting asked hard questions and she gave a great speech and said, what do you want me to do?
You want me to go to war with the United States?
She's like, that's not going to happen.
Right.
And she understands that the United States is Europe's defense.
Right.
If Russia attacks any European nation, who's the first person they call?
America.
If China were to encroach on territorial sovereignty for Europe or European ally, who would they call? America. If China were to encroach on territorial sovereignty for Europe
or a European ally, who would they call? America. If Greenland were actually threatened, which
Europe is saying it's not right now, which I think is actually sort of a silly position to take,
but Europe's saying, look, Greenland's not a threat right now. But if it were,
and Russian destroyers or Chinese destroyers were encroaching on the sovereignty of Greenland,
who would they call?
They're not going to call each other.
They call us every time.
Because we're the only one with the punching power to deter our counterparties. And I think in all of this discussion, there has to be an acknowledgement of that.
If you're being fair on both sides and really not just taking a pure view on territorial sovereignty here,
which I think is a mistake,
if you take that out of the equation and say, I'm not going to just look at this as a territorial sovereignty issue in a vacuum.
Once you start adding in the other elements, the U.S. does have an argument.
And so. I don't know, it's not going to be resolved in a few weeks, I don't think.
And Trump does not want to back down on this. And the UK is not going to break from the United States on this.
I do not think that's going to happen.
The French are more willing to be like a mediator.
The French have always been willing to do that.
You know, they like to play chicken.
But the French will do that.
They'll do that.
Oh, America, you can't do this.
We were Denmark.
And then, you know, Germany kind of falls in line with the French on that issue.
They don't speak a lot. They don't speak a lot.
They don't give a lot of public commentary.
So Germany kind of just in the shadows will fall in line with France on that issue.
But they're not going to shoot American troops.
That's not going to happen.
So, you know, one way this could be resolved is just America landing on Greenland.
Like we send a detachment to Greenland and just say, what are you going to do about it?
We send a detachment to Greenland and just say, what are you going to do about it?
That seems like the sort of arrow in the quiver, which I'm not saying they're going to use it now,
but that to me is the arrow in the quiver where Marco Rubio fully understands that no one is going to fire on U.S. troops.
He knows that.
That would be a death sentence, and that would be a really, really big mistake. So if Europe keeps kind of playing goose around this issue and doesn't come to a conclusion or doesn't give the U.S. a pathway to solve this, that may be where this issue ends.
It's just American ships landing U.S. troops on Greenland, not with the intention to fight, but just, you know, with the intention to put an American flag down.
And I don't know.
That seems like the kind of brutal, not brutal, but brute force way to end this
is just say, okay, fuck it.
We're going to go there.
Try to stop us.
you know, and that, that, that might be the way that this ends. I don't know.
You know, and that might be the way that this ends.
I don't know.
You know, I got one last one for you, uh, about a third conflict that's going on and, um, you
touched on it a little bit, but I think it was pretty interesting that Russia is targeting key
Ukrainian infrastructure places. You know, they're taking out energy. They've been causing outages
in them for, uh, in Ukraine for about a week now. But again,
if I'm not mistaken, Ukraine has just received air support, a bunch of fighter jets from Czech
Republic. I believe they just received power from the UK. And I believe they just received a large
lump sum of cash from somebody else. It might be Denmark. I don't want to be certain on it. Don't quote me
on Denmark, but somebody else just gave Ukraine a bunch of cash as well. I think that there's a lot
of speculation going that Russia can't fight for that much longer considering their macroeconomic
situation. And it kind of seems to me like they're pretty much getting most of their funding through
gold. And it seems like gold is about half of what the country has left.
It seems like they have under a trillion dollars left in the war chest.
How do you see this issue resolving?
Do you think that Ukraine could just hold out for longer
and eventually Russia would just have to surrender because of a lack of funding?
What are they going to pay the soldiers?
No, no shot.
I don't think there's any shot Russia surrenders.
I don't know how that issue resolves itself.
I mean, that war has gone on for much longer than I thought it would go on.
Ukraine's put up a hell of a fight.
I mean, American weapons have a lot to do with that.
But we're building new drone infrastructure now for Ukraine.
Those deployments will probably go out in the next few months.
I don't know.
I don't know how that issue is going to resolve itself.
I mean, the worst case scenario would be a tactical nuke, but I don't want to even think
about that possibility.
So, you know, cross that bridge when you come to it.
But Russia has that option up their sleeves, so I don't think there'll be a surrender on
the table as long as they have that option up their sleeve, and they do.
And they will have that option up their sleeve.
No one's going to take away Russia's nukes.
So, yeah, Russia has sort of a, you know, Trump card, if you will, that makes it impossible for them to lose a war, really.
You can't lose a war when you are one of the premier nuclear powers in the world.
It's just not a thing that's possible. So, yeah, I don't think Russia's going to surrender.
Certainly not. I don't think that's how that war ends. But I don't know how it ends. And I don't
want to entertain the possibility of it ending. And, you know, if Russia's wartime capabilities
really do wane enough to where they can't produce the necessary kinetic force to continue to fight the war, is it a possibility?
Yes.
Is it something I want to entertain right now?
Of course not, because you just have to assume that that's not on the table.
Because the second you start entertaining the idea that nuclear conflict is on the table and everything goes out the window.
So I don't want to entertain that possibility, but I don't know how that ends.
But, I mean, Russia's not even – Russia and Ukraine is just one of the seven theaters right now, right? You have Syria, you have Gaza, you have Venezuela, you have Greenland. And now apparently
you have the Panama Canal as of Trump's comments this morning. So yeah, it's a mess. It's a big
geopolitical soup with a lot of uncertainty. And I don't know any better about how it's going to resolve than the next guy. And so, you know, I don't think you can sit around and make predictions about this and try to play off the predictions. I think you just, like I said earlier, you have to stay reactive.
by the way, Netflix earnings call
started six minutes ago, I believe
for anybody that's interested
in tuning into that one, you can find it on
earnings hub, one of our friends, they play
the calls live there
great place to listen to the calls
yeah, I think that we pretty much just
covered the entire geopolitical sphere very
well, I'm going to have to
pass it back to Evan, I don't really know any other thoughts
or any other comments to talk about here yeah yeah i thought that was good i think that one
of the comments there about what is this something that's going to be resolved overnight um potentially
but it doesn't seem like that this seems like something that's going to be coming to the
forefront and then back to the back i don't think it's a coincidence that the heat has picked up here as Trump goes over to Davos, like heading into Trump going over to Davos. So maybe this is
a local peak, we can call it, on the heat on this temperature, at least for a little bit. But maybe
I'm reading that wrong. I have a feeling we're in the phase where some, I don't know if it's
going to be solved, but some de-escalation will be coming in this department in the in the next couple days but again yeah we're playing exactly
what we're just saying don't do the prediction going forward that's where
you kind of get hurt so I'm not necessarily I'm letting the market come
to me but tinfoil hat speculation I don't know we'll see maybe tomorrow's
speech I believe Trump is speaking it like early in the morning 6 7 8 a.m.
something like that us East CoastS. East Coast time.
Do you know, does anyone know off the top of their head what time that speech was tomorrow?
I don't want to be certain, but I have an idea.
I'll confirm it.
8, 10 a.m., I think, maybe.
In route.
Okay.
Present, present, present, green. uh and root okay president president green
yeah i believe this is 8 10 a.m interesting okay early in the morning tomorrow watch out for for
president trump talking i imagine where we're gonna get uh an interesting speech it could be
him scolding all i do know is that he will be in front of all these European leaders at that point.
So that should be a very
interesting one.
The last thing I saw was
approximately 2.30pm local
time, which would be 8.30pm New York
time.
Yeah.
Okay.
Around about an hour before the market
opens.
We get up next and early tomorrow.
But yeah, definitely we'll be on the lookout for that one.
The other fun fact of the day is it's been exactly 50 years since the U.S. last acquired a new territory, the Northern Mariana Islands, 1976.
Northern Mariana Islands, 1976.
So I know we've talked about this since I seem to be the minority.
I don't think this ends with much.
I think this ends with the U.S. not having Greenland.
But I will digress.
And why don't you talk us through the technicals a little bit on the market? I'm curious what today ended up looking like you from a trader perspective.
Any levels?
I've seen some people talking about the NASDAQ closing behind the 50-day or something for the first time in a while.
Stuff like that.
What are some of the levels of interesting stuff we've seen there?
We should be continuing this.
I have some more good speakers on this geopolitical topic joining us. What are some of the levels interesting stuff we've seen there? We should be continuing this.
I have some more good speakers on this geopolitical topic joining in,
so we might be even continuing this conversation in a second.
Yeah, I'd say it does look a little bit rough on the technicals.
I mean, you went straight through the 50-day again.
We've seen this happen a few times, and it spends maybe a day or two, maybe a couple more under the 50-day and has
gotten back over it. How many times can we do that and recover? We'll see. It was interesting today
to see basically, I watched the NASDAQ as close as anything. If you go to the low of December, which is on the 17th,
we basically pushed down at the open right at a golden retrace,
came back to what would be halfback,
so half the midpoint of the range of the last just over a month,
right at a month, and rejected there pretty hard right under the 50-day.
So it doesn't look great. You did
leave a big gap above you. There's a lot of uncertainty. If we know anything, the markets
hate uncertainty. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the selling continue and a sharp
snapback to this area, maybe a little bit higher, and then you find out if it's going to reclaim
or not. That's kind of what I'm looking at now. But, you know, structure-wise,
you broke a lot of things today in one day. Usually, once you get this type of move,
you consolidate for a while. So I wouldn't be surprised to see tomorrow just kind of
track back upward, maybe even gap down if things, you know, headline wise get worse tonight. But it's, you know, Sniper and Stock Talk and some of you guys were kind of hitting on this. There's
just, I think there's so many pieces of uncertainty right now. So it's not just like,
what are tariffs going to be? Or are we going to go to war with Iran or something like that?
There's just, there's so many different ones going around that I think a lot of people are
looking at this going, I just, you know, I'd almost rather lock in some gains
and get some protection here a little bit.
And then obviously earnings season,
I mean, basically kicking off, you know,
obviously Netflix going today,
we were talking earlier,
I think Netflix probably more of a media company now
than a tech it used to.
It was more priced as a tech stock, probably a little bit less of a media company now than a tech it used to. It was more priced as a tech stock,
probably a little bit less of a tech stock
and more of a media company at this point.
But either way, I mean, that doesn't change a whole lot,
but it changes some.
But next week, I mean, you start running into all the MAG7 earnings.
So, and what, FOMC, I believe, is a week from tomorrow.
So I feel like things could look a whole lot
different as we get more information. Things calm down on the geopolitical front. You start to get
some decent earnings next week. We could be right back to where we just fell from in no time at all.
So can you make the argument for some concerns? Absolutely. Closing right at 6,800 on the S&P,
Absolutely. Closing right at 6,800 on the S&P, going straight through the 50-day.
You typically don't just go through the 50-day and not bounce and backtest it.
So I would expect some type of relief. It may track a little bit lower first,
but I would expect some type of relief over the next few days.
Maybe some people get, or maybe some positive news, but
maybe just some people starting to like some of these levels going into the earnings in the FOMC
next week. And then you find out as it comes back up to backtest some of the areas that it lost
today, and you find out what it's made of, what it's going to reclaim. I mean, you're, I don't
know. It's really interesting. I mean, we've been in the same range
since what, I mean, technically like October at this point on the NASDAQ. I mean, really,
we haven't gone anywhere. You've gone up a little bit, gone down a little bit back and forth
since October. So we're really just in a range about market, which we talked about on here at
one point and a few different people were saying, you know, what's the pain trade floating higher or doing this or that?
And the pain trade has been just not going anywhere.
In certain pockets of the market, stock pickers, you know, logical stock talk and some of these guys that, you know, really hone in on individual names are excelling in this market and your general indice buyers and your chasers are kind of
getting punished because it's just little pockets of the market here and there that are actually
moving while the indice themselves really aren't doing anything. I mean, you look at the NASDAQ,
it's done absolutely nothing. IWM obviously is a little bit different story. It's a different index.
And then the S&P as a whole, really having marginally higher highs since October, but really trading right back in kind of the same spot.
So you've really done a whole lot of nothing, up, down, up, down, up, down, sideways since three months ago.
Yeah, this has been said so many times in the spaces in every single different market, but it's a stock picker's market for the last couple of months.
Yeah, that term gets overused.
But I think if you apply it properly to the current, if you look at what we're currently doing, I think this is what most people are talking about when they try to use the term.
talking about when they try to use the term. When the indices themselves move back and forth a
little bit, they stay within a 4% to 5% range, maybe a 3% range up and down from a midpoint.
That's where a stock picker's market is, when you have certain individual names and sectors and
value plays that are absolutely running while the rest of the market's just kind of taking turns.
And we mentioned this early December. I brought this up. I said, if you look at the Mag7, you know, the leaders of the market,
your big tech names, they're all over the place. And they're all disagreeing with each other with,
you know, Meta and Microsoft were down at, you know, a 200 day while Google was breaking out
to new highs, a couple of the others in the middle. And, you know, that's kind of what we're
getting. We're getting a market where things are kind of all over the place in different sectors
and the leaders of the market, some are leading, some are not.
Some are trying to lead to the downside.
And then you find pockets of opportunity.
And this is what I would say is a stock picker's market.
I would say going back, coming out of tariff lows, it was not.
It was a trending market everywhere.
everywhere. Now we're in a stock pickers market for the last three months.
Now we're in a stock picker's market for the last three months.
We should be having our friend Paul joining in. Paul from the team over at Themes ETFs. We're a
big fan of them supporting what we're doing, keeping the conversation going, talking about
some of the themes in the market that have been driving. I think this Greenland one, maybe we'll
continue to double click a little bit further into.
But yeah, so I appreciate that run through there, Amp.
It is a stock-triggered market.
We've been hearing stock talks, picks on this one.
There's been some really good performers in here.
There's also been a lot of sectors.
Netflix is one name that is basically
on those 52-week lows in After Hours.
I believe it did touch it.
I don't know if anyone is looking at something that might give you more exact numbers.
I'm also looking on the 52-week low list.
Adobe's on here.
Salesforce is on here.
Domino's Pizza.
DocuSign.
HubSpot.
ServiceNow.
Monday.com.
There's a lot.
Netflix bounced just above the April teraflow.
So it didn't quite hit 52-week-loss.
PayPal's also on this 52-week-low list, so is TradeDesk.
The 52-week-low list definitely has a couple different names on it.
It's not missing some large names.
Intuit, HP.
Evan, you're normally a positive person. I was surprised how
many 52-week high names there were
on the list today, even in a down
market. There were several names that stuck out
as big outperformers in a
down tape today.
Several making new all-time highs even.
I'm normally
a positive person. This 52-week low list has a lot more names on it than I was expecting to see.
AMD is one that...
Is this an after-hours move on AMD?
Okay.
AMD closing green.
I saw ENS was green for a lot of the day.
I don't know if it closed today green.
Did it not?
No, it did.
Looks like a nurse just closed today a little bit green Eli Lilly a little green UNH and illogical is talking about
healthcare not having a bad day Micron was also another name that had a very
nice start to the day ripped all the way up to all-time highs the blue is up at
like five percent for a little bit close the day up still one percent it gave
back a lot of it, but still did okay.
What was it?
Intel and Arm had great days today.
Boeing had a good day today.
Walmart and Exxon made all-time highs this morning.
I'm not seeing Paul, by the way.
I'm trying to find him.
Yeah, no, me neither.
Okay.
So we are still in the think of earnings season.
I will say, obviously, we had a couple of those names today.
Before Stocks on Space is tomorrow, we will have also heard earnings from Johnson & Johnson,
Charles Schwab, Prologis, Prologis, whatever it is, PLD, Ally Financial, Travelers, Halliburton, Truist Financial,
Citizens Financial, so a couple banks,
bank-type entities, whatever it is.
Tomorrow after the close, there are not really any interesting ones.
Kinder Morgan, a few others that I'm not really watching.
Another earnings that I am excited for
later in the week is Intel
ticker INTC
obviously government owned Intel
but that name
we actually created a little Trump
tracker portfolio
on a new project we're working on
and because of Intel
the Trump tracker is up more than
20% so far this year.
Intel is up 23% year-to-date.
It is January 20th.
MP Materials is also up 30%,
so it makes sense on this portfolio that is doing pretty well.
I am curious, Stock Talk,
if I can bring you back towards the Trump, Greenland, NATO, all that stuff.
Obviously, Trump's speaking tomorrow morning in front of Davos.
Do you have any expectations on where we are in the art of the deal process?
Are we still in the escalation phase of it?
Is he going to knock some heads, tell some people why they're wrong in front of their face?
Are we in the maybe cooler heads prevail, Saw the market move down a little bit.
Stick save at some of these moving averages.
I mean, I think he's conscious of the markets,
but I don't think the issue is going to resolve itself tomorrow.
It's a complicated issue.
Very complicated issue.
The thought, though, is he's going to...
Either Europe folds, which they don't seem like they're going to,
or we do something that makes them fold.
That's really what's going to happen, in my view.
And that something that makes them fold could be a lot of things.
It could be economic.
It could be, like I said earlier, straight up just U.S. troops landing on Greenland shores.
That's a pretty hard thing to counteract.
Because, like, in that scenario, what would Europe do?
You're not going to shoot them.
What are you going to do?
How are you going to prevent them from entering Greenland?
You can't.
Well, I mean, we already have the ability to make bases there.
No, we already have a base there.
That would turn into anything.
Right?
And isn't there some open treaties where they can build any base they want, really?
Yeah, exactly.
So, I mean, Europe can't physically stop the United States from entering Greenland.
They're incapable of doing that and probably unwilling of doing that, to do that.
I would say unwilling and incapable because they're first and foremost unwilling and secondly,
also incapable. So I don't know. Like the ball is really in Trump's court, not Europe's court.
I know the perception is that the ball's in Europe's court because they have to give us an offer, but I mean, the United States isn't really
inhibited here on action at all. We can really do whatever. So I don't know. I don't know.
If they don't want to negotiate, Trump will probably probably do that I would imagine like he'll just go
not himself but he'll just set truth
I do think a lot of people are thinking
okay going back to just the tariff example of
he's coming out super hard and he's going to try to negotiate down from there
I think some people are maybe holding out hope on that
I'm not sure I'm in that camp fully.
Just something about this seems a little bit different.
I also have a suspicion that Trump wants to get out of NATO and redo NATO altogether.
And this could be an excuse to do so.
That's kind of like a side thought that I've been having too.
Yeah, I just don't know what the halfway ground is.
I've heard a lot of people say that
where they're like, oh,
you know, he's starting
off big and he'll
settle for something less. What would be settling
for less in this scenario? We can already
build bases there.
that's not a concession.
If Europe's like, oh yeah, you can build bases there, we can already do that. So that's not a concession. Like if Europe's like, oh, yeah, you can build bases there.
We can already do that.
So like what's the I just don't know what the halfway concession is here.
Is it you get half of Greenland?
Are you like the northern half or like I don't know?
I don't I don't.
It doesn't seem like in my brain, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around these things just logically.
That's how I think about geopolitics, just through logic.
But what's the offer?
What's the halfway offer?
There is nothing.
You either get Greenland or you don't.
You can already build bases there.
Clearly Trump wants ownership of it. So I don't know.
It doesn't feel like there's a halfway point here. It feels like it's either you get Greenland or you don't know. It doesn't feel like there's a halfway point here.
It feels like it's either you get Greenland or you don't.
In a world, I feel like we were talking about this earlier,
is this just kind of a shock to increase European spending on defense?
Like maybe they're not going towards that 5%.
Maybe this is it.
I would imagine in a world where the U.S.,
there isn't an applied guarantee from the U.S. over Europe
and NATO is reshaken or something like that.
I'm not saying that's what I suggest,
but it's kind of what we're talking about here.
I would imagine an investment into European defense companies
would probably be paid off at that point in time,
would probably be a decent one.
I don't know if you're going to find your spin cap exposure.
Whether or not you believe Europe is capable of defending Greenland,
Trump does not believe that.
And that's the, that is the operating factor here.
Like, you're not going to convince Trump that Europe can defend Greenland,
no matter what you, what evidence you show him, right?
Like, if you convince him that Europe can outfit Greenland, no matter what you, what evidence you show him, right? Like, if you convince him that Europe can outfit Greenland for missile defense, even if that is true,
again, this is the point that people are missing. Like, I've heard some European defense experts,
like, arguing, like, well, Europe is more than capable of defending Greenland. Like,
that doesn't matter. You have to convince the Americans of that.
Whether Europe is capable or is not capable
of defending Greenland is actually irrelevant here, because if the Americans are not convinced
of that, then the issue remains. This entire issue is centered on the idea of convincing
the U.S. government that Europe is capable of providing missile defense and Arctic defense as a whole to Greenland
and protecting the newly formed shipping lanes and protecting the shores and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So that is the conversation.
Can you convince Trump or not of that?
And if you can't, then in his eyes the issue remains and if
it's in if in his eyes the issue remains it needs it needs to be resolved so the tricky thing here
a lot of times is the facts matter less than the perception of the facts just like in the markets
like perception is reality in this case where if trump isn't convinced or if Marco Rubio isn't convinced that Europe is capable of this, then to them the issue remains.
And, you know, if they think it's going to cost the U.S. X hundreds of billions of dollars to build an Arctic defense infrastructure or whatever, tens of billions, hundreds of billions, whatever the number is, they are not going to want to do it if they don't own the territory.
And that's the issue.
You know, I've served with the Europeans.
Each one has its own unique set of abilities and capabilities.
But the one thing I can tell you is that
they have no taste for war.
Like, if you go to Afghanistan,
you go to anywhere in the world that we've served,
the British are always ride or die.
They were in some of the thick of it
when we were over there.
But I can tell you,
most of the Europeans have no taste for war.
They don't want war.
Their public policy is centered around that.
And so even when it came to military spending
for their defense,
they're always looking for ways to military spending, like for their defense, you know, they're
always looking for ways to not spend more on their own defense.
And I think the challenge is there is a level of corruption that's been happening in Europe
that has allowed for countries like Russia to gain a foothold.
So I'll give you an example.
And this is the one thing that should shock everyone.
But when you look at Gerhard Schroeder, who was like the
chancellor for Germany, this guy pretty much dismantled all of the infrastructure in Germany
and then signed a deal with, I think, Rosneft to get a lot of natural gas from the Russians.
You know, those kinds of things left these guys vulnerable. And I remember Trump won. When Trump
won came in and he said, look, y'all got to increase your, your spending on defense,
because if you don't, then, you know, you're going to embolden the, embolden the Russians.
The problem that I'm running into right now with the way that Trump is doing it is that
he's doing it too publicly. Like I could understand thrashing these people privately and saying,
look, y'all defense needs to be worked up. You need to buy more defense.
You need to get your shit together.
But doing it in this way, in my opinion,
only emboldens the Europeans into at least developing
their own domestic defense industry more
than trying to buy weapons from the US.
Even though the US, we make some amazing,
amazing pieces of equipment.
The one challenge that I have right now
with the administration is,
why do this publicly?
Why shame everyone in such a public manner?
You know, keep this private.
Put it in a way that, you know,
lets these guys save face.
Because Europeans know
they haven't been spending on defense
nearly as much as they should have.
But at the same time,
by making this like a national,
like, spectacle, all it does is alienate alienate them long term
and now the financiers in europe are saying look maybe we do need to be a little bit more self
reliant but that also means disconnecting other endpoints that are vulnerabilities for us whether
that be economically or militarily and the problem is that economic disconnection leads to,
in my opinion, long-term weakness of the US dollar, which is not what we need right now.
Yeah. I don't know. The reason that I think this issue is nuanced is because like again i try to
look at these things logically and i i think we need greenland as an american and i don't agree
with everything trump says but i i agree on this and i don't know if i see it that way then that
means there's other americans that see it that. And that makes it a complicated issue. There's plenty of people that see your way. And I'm sure that this is one
of those issues that's going to be debated about for quite some time. The problem is,
what does the general public think about this? And how is the international community going to
think about this? And the way that some of this is being framed is also, in my opinion, kind of toxic.
Like Stephen Miller is saying, listen, there's a country that's weak out there that can't do the defense, so we have to do it.
And it's like, you don't need to publicly shame people.
That's not how geopolitics works.
Everything is built on alliances.
Everything is built on long-term stability.
And right now, the stability part of it's going.
And the challenge here is that the Chinese are willing and open
to creating avenues where they actually benefit from this dysfunction.
So leaving the door open for the Chinese to get a bigger footfold in Europe,
I think is way more detrimental than possible missile defense from Greenland.
And I think the US, the capabilities that we have are plenty enough
that we don't necessarily need to have a forward base deployed in Greenland.
But then again, I mean, what is the chances of a ICBM level attack
coming in from China or Russia to the US?
In terms of probability, that's probably one of the least probable things. So instead your,
your idea is let's,
let's actually alienate the people right now and create real world problems
to solve a problem that is just not there right now.
Yeah. I think we can't,
I don't think the U S can think of the Chinese and Russian threat and
probability terms because it's not about whether it's likely or not.
It's that that is the only threat
no other country on earth can threaten us what iran is going to go to like somewhat
cross atlantic war with the united states that's never going to happen um they don't have not only
do they not have the military capability to fight a war across the ocean with the united states but
i mean it would be it would be hilariously bad risk for them
to even attempt to do that. Russia and China are the only nuclear powers that do pose a threat to
us in even in theory, even if you think it's not going to happen, or the chance of nuclear war is
whatever 1%, it doesn't matter. Like from a national security standpoint, you feel the
threats that are real and you don't feel the threats that are not real. And there are no real
threats to the United States outside of China and Russia, even in a theoretical scenario. So
I think thinking about improbabilities is not the right way to think about it. Like what we should
think about is that if a world war scenario were to emerge, the major threat is the ICBM launch points
for Russia, which would cross over Greenland. Almost all of them do.
Almost all of the direct launch points to D.C., to New York are over Greenland.
And so U.S. missile defense infrastructure has to be in Greenland. Can we build it there right now?
Yes. Denmark will allow us to do that.
But the argument the U.S. side is making is that why would we, when we already invest hundreds of
billions protecting non-American territory in Europe, why would we do that again with Europe
or with Greenland? And that's a good argument. No other country on earth is expected to provide defense to territory that is not theirs,
except the United States. The United States is actually expected to do this.
Yeah, but at the same time, we get all sorts of benefits because we're-
We get power projections.
Quote, unquote, the police.
Yeah. Yeah, but the power projection benefits also keep our currency, which is the US dollar, the de facto world reserve currency, right?
When you think of it this way, when the Europeans are not spending on their military, no one else is capable of doing the things that we can do.
People look to us for that stability.
People look to the US dollar for, yeah, king dollar is there.
King dollar is always going to be there because they have the ability to power project.
The minute you take away the ability to power project, that's it.
The U.S. dollar is just, in my opinion, just currency at that point.
I think at this juncture, though, the currency dependency is more of the fact that the United
States is the largest economy in the world, and they are just dependent on the U.S. economy
now.
I think two or three decades ago that was true.
It was more about power projection.
It was more about arms deals that we signed with Saudi Arabia, the arms deals that we signed with Europe to be transacted in American currency, the petrodollar.
Those were the enforcing factors then.
Now I think it's just a matter of America is an economic behemoth, and now we can just put economic pressure points down and enforce use of U.S. currency.
Now we can just put economic pressure points down and enforce use of U.S. currency.
I don't think we need to lean as much on power projection as we did in the 70s, 80s, and 90s as we do now.
To me, it's more a function now of U.S. economic might enforcing the currency side of the equation.
And, like, look, we sit around a lot of times, you know, the Europeans will make fun of Americans and be like, oh, you guys don't have all these social programs.
You don't have all these welfare programs.
You don't have free health care.
Yeah, because we defend all of you.
That's why.
Europe has had the liberty since the 50s of spending their money on their people.
And the United States has spent its money protecting
the Western world. We've had a trillion dollar defense budget for a long time,
trillion plus dollar defense budget for a long time. And a lot of that money goes to
global security. And you either say, we don't need the United States to do this anymore,
which would be a grave mistake, in my opinion, for the rest of the world, especially the Western world, to say that, to take that position.
Or you come to the negotiating table.
And so, you know, I don't think this has to be done through force, but I do think this is not an issue that is just going to go away quietly.
And I don't think the Europeans, the stance that they're taking now is the right stance, in my view.
You know, I don't think this idea of, like, making this a territorial sovereignty issue is the right stance to take.
This is not the United States saying, we want to take all your land.
You know, this is the United States saying, hey, there is a island, the biggest island in the world,
that happens to sit between us and Russia and sit between all the ICBM projection lanes between Russia and the United States. And we're building
a golden dome to protect not only us, but Canada as well. And it needs to operate in that region.
Now, all things being equal, again, can we build that infrastructure without ownership of Greenland?
Yes. The question becomes, why would America be the dollar allocator there in a region that is not theirs? And so...
Yeah, but stock talk. I mean, you could say the same thing about Japan. We have more bases in
Japan with almost 50,000 troops stationed over there. Has that been a problem for us? No. South
Korea, we've had troops stationed there since the 70s, right? All around the world, we've had station troops stationed there since the 70s right all around the world we've
had these bases and we've we don't own those countries we don't dictate policies of them so
why is this one that much more important yeah but once once again we have missile bases around the
world we had missile bases in turkey right we never had to worry about oh my god like hey listen to us from turkey no no i get that but i'm saying
that like from from like a power projection standpoint right no but i'm saying this is not
about power projection this is about no no but i'm saying yeah but greenland like denmark and
them they're not saying you can't build missiles missile silos in greenland they're saying listen
as long as you let us know we'll like I said we'll allow it everything to happen
That's why we've got missile defense bases in in Greenland to at least track this stuff
Yeah, I don't know a residual problem there though with the mentality of Europe saying we'll let you build
Of course, they'll fucking let us build. Why do you think that?
Why do you think that all these countries allow us to station?
10 15,000 20,000 Marines?
Why do they let us do that?
Just because?
Like, let's take it logically, right?
Why do they let us do it?
Why?
Well, number one, it serves their purpose because if anyone ever attacks them,
right, exactly.
No, that's, I agree with that.
They know that if there's 20,000 Marines sitting in your country and someone hurts you and a Marine dies, the force, the power of the United States military will rain down upon that enemy.
That's why.
Why do you think Japan and Germany and France and everybody in NATO lets U.S. troops walk in and prance through their cities and, you know, go to their bars and have
a military base. And why do we do this? Because they know that it is a deterrent.
No, and I 100% agree. But that's the point that we already have that deterrent in Greenland. Like,
what is the point of ownership if you already have that deterrent there?
My point is, is is that of course europe is
going to say come on down build all you want in greenland of course they're going to say that
that's in the interest of denmark right denmark's like whoa what the hell the united states you
want to build build bases there go for it we don't even have the money to do that so of course they're
going to say that the issue is not like can the united states build more
deploy more troops i mean dude we could put another 20 000 marines in germany germany's
not gonna give a fuck or if we go to i don't know any any european country and we go hey we think
it's good for nato for us to put more troops here they'll be like sure right but that's not the point
the point is is why yeah but stock talk Stock Talk, if you tell the Germans...
...on defense of territory that is not its own.
That is the point.
But Stock Talk, that's the same thing as saying,
listen, we're going to put station...
But right now, we're not asking Germany to surrender their territory to us.
We're not asking the Italians to do that.
Because in all those other...
Exactly.
So then Greenland is not necessary.
Chris, hold on.
In those cases you brought up, Germany, Japan, Turkey, no one's firing nukes at us from there.
That's why it's not important. That's why we don't need the territory.
It's a fundamentally different thing.
Just because you have an American military base somewhere, no, we don't need to own the whole country.
But in this case, it is a uniquely different thing.
Greenland was irrelevant for decades because the water was frozen.
It is not frozen anymore.
Lanes are opening up.
There's the ability for ships to move around Greenland now.
And it is now a national security theater.
And, you know, do we have to own it?
You know, do we have to own it? No. But again, it's the idea of this expectation for the last 60 years that the United States will spend hundreds of billions of dollars defending nations that are not its own.
And I like that. We can't pretend that that is just like, OK, let's shrug that off and just keep doing it in perpetuity.
And Europe can keep spending on free health care and all these, you know, social welfare programs
in the United States. Don't worry. Don't worry, guys. Keep spending your money on yourselves.
We got you. We'll pay for everyone's defense and we won't own any of the territory. We'll just put
our troops, we'll put American boots on the ground in your countries to die for you should
that scenario come. Like what? I mean, we've been doing this for 60 years and now we're sitting here and now
everyone's like oh america's the bad guy because we're saying hey like we want to spend another
200 billion dollars building missile defense infrastructure and port infrastructure and
deploying ships but oh don't worry yeah go ahead but we want to own it though we want to own the
land though where all those troops are going to stand and where the where those missile defense
systems are set that is i mean i don't want to bring up the issue of fairness,
because that seems childish to bring up a geopolitics, but it's certainly not fair.
And it's certainly an odd precedent to keep.
Like, we're entering an era now, or we have been for the last five or six years,
I think probably the war with Russia and Ukraine kicked this off,
of countries being more entrenched in
their own national interests. And that doesn't mean you can't have friends and allies, and it
doesn't mean you can't play good with them. Like, the United States is not going to fire on any NATO
members, okay? I don't think that that's going to happen. I don't think any NATO members are going
to fire on the United States. But there has to be sort of some semblance in my view of,
there has to be some hindsight here.
There has to be an ability to look in the rear view mirror
and say, what has the United States provided
for Europe for 60 years?
And Europe has effectively not done very much
for the United States over that period,
outside of trading with us, but everyone trades with us.
You know, so in what scenario has Europe spent any money on US national security interests
outside of the United Kingdom and a handful of nations sending small detachments of troops
to fight in our conflicts, which we love, we're thankful for.
But outside of that,
there has not been very much. And there has to be, you know, we have to be cognizant of that.
Otherwise, we are setting the precedent that says the United States will spend endlessly
on the defense of its allies, regardless of if it's our territory or not.
That is also a dangerous precedent to set.
You know, at what point do we start thinking of
the United States' national interests?
And that's the issue that I think is being brought up here.
Trump doesn't always,
Trump is not eloquent, okay?
That's not his forte.
He doesn't present these things in the most palatable way. And he certainly is probably more aggressive at times than he needs to be. And he probably threatens tariffs a lot more than he needs to. And so I don't agree with the approach. And I don't agree with a lot of the language. And I don't agree with a lot of the rhetoric, but I do agree that the United States needs
Greenland.
So that, that part I do agree on.
Now, the way we get there, that's up for debate.
But yeah, I don't know.
I'm trying to take a nuanced view on this to say I don't agree with everything, but
on this issue, you know, I see
the logic and I understand why the United States doesn't want to say, because Denmark's argument
continually is going to be, well, we'll let you do it. And the United States argument is, well,
that's not the point. The point is, is that we have been doing it for Europe for decades, and now
we want to do it for the United States.
And I don't think it's a crazy position to take, for the U.S. to take this.
The U.S. has been a very unselfish ally for 50 years to Europe.
Very unselfish.
We put American troops in harm's way.
I mean, do you think Ukraine would have stood a chance to make the war last this long
without American weapons? No. The answer is no. And, you know, we do this for the interests of
Europe. Like, the idea that we have not protected Europe is hilarious. Like, it kind of makes me mad
to hear European leaders say that. Like, act like the United States is being bombastic
or has been a bad ally.
Like we've been the best ally that Europe could have hoped for.
We've enforced, you know, not, I won't say world peace because there have been conflicts
obviously, but we have enforced greater respect for territorial sovereignty post-World War
II than has almost ever existed in human history.
And that came from the United States
power, not from anyone else enforcing that. The United States enforcing the idea of territorial
sovereignty. And yeah, maybe we're stepping on it now, but we're not doing it outlandishly.
We're not invading Greenland. We're not killing soldiers from the Kingdom of Denmark. We are
saying, hey, we need it. Yes, you're our allies, but let's figure out a way to give it to us because we're not going to keep playing this game of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Europe with no exchange.
You know, at some point there needs to be, whether it's an exchange of territory or an exchange of, I mean, it's funny.
We just got Europe to step up to 5% defense commitment for NATO.
And we've allowed them to do it in a gradual and incremental way.
Right?
Like, I mean, as if we're not being nice enough.
They should have agreed to do that years ago, you know, and let alone in an incremental way.
You know, so I don't know.
This, this, to me, this sounds like,, this sounds like a cop coming in and saying,
listen, I need to sleep in your bed because, you know what?
I protect you, and I've been protecting you for the longest time.
So, you know what?
I get to stay.
This is my house now, too.
That's not how it works, man.
You know, and I agree.
The United States has done it.
The alternative is, okay, defend yourselves.
Which is exactly what the Europeans right now have to consider.
The problem is, but Stockholm, the problem is the Europeans... We'll take half of Europe, dude, if we do that.
What, if we bail on the Europeans?
The Europeans, as they are constructed today,
I mean, one-to-one military might with the United States?
The United States could
fight all of Europe if it came down to it.
I'm not saying that's going to happen.
Trust me, I 100% agree.
If we wanted to take over Europe, we could steamroll them.
Yeah, and if you look at nuclear capabilities,
if the Russians continue to pose a threat to Europe,
on the nuclear capability side,
Europe's screwed.
If it ever came to that so i mean europe
europe has become a museum of self-aggrandizement and this idea of like oh we take care of our
people like no shit because you none of you guys have spent on your defense for decades
that's why you're capable of providing these welfare programs and free health care for everyone.
Like, yeah, it's great.
I'm not saying those programs aren't great
and it's not a great idea,
but let's not pretend why Europe has been able to do that.
They've been able to do that directly
because the United States has provided
for their security for decades.
And so, no, we're not stepping in now and saying,
well, now it's our land too.
We're not asking for parts of sovereign Europe. We are saying, well, now it's our land too. We're not asking for parts of sovereign Europe.
We are saying, hey, look, there's this territory that you have, that you've done nothing with,
that we now need for Arctic security and defense. And we are the only ones that can provide the
necessary infrastructure, both missile defense-wise and ship-wise, to defend it. And for Europe to
stand there and say, no, we can do it,
it's just not something that's historically supported
based on the last decade that Europe can do it.
If they could do it, why didn't they do it?
So, yeah, I have tried to wrap my mind around this issue,
and I try to take these issues one by one,
but I think the United States has a point here.
And I'm not saying Trump has a point.
I think that the administration has a point here i'm not saying trump has a point i think
that the administration has a point here you know i'm gonna interject really quick and say one thing
uh just one point that i heard that was a little bit missed um in greenland uh again like stock
talk was mentioning it is directly on the path for icbms over from russia and china but the thing is
there's nine countries in this
entire world that have nukes. That includes United States, Russia, France, China, UK, Pakistan,
India, North Korea, and Israel. We nuclearize them. We don't know if they exactly have them
and whatnot, but basically nine countries with nukes. And aside from Israel, basically that's
on the path or Greenland is capable of providing interception from all nine of the nuclearized nations.
Just had to put that out there.
Yeah, the other thing is, dude, in terms of like nuclear defense right now, the bigger problem is something of a dirty bomb or a nuke getting in via like a single person bomber.
That's a bigger threat than something like something like an ICBM.
So if the Russians or the Chinese, they really want it
to do us harm, they're going to go the cyber route. The cyber route, the influences with TikTok.
If you were standing here right now and saying, look, we want to put pressure on the Europeans
to ban all of Chinese social media from there, I would be standing right there with you because
I think that's something that the Europeans would actually agree with us on saying, look,
there's harmful algorithms that are coming in from these foreign countries and foreign actors. I mean, I've seen
it myself on X, the amount of people that are constantly politicizing things and then trying
to sow divisions into our brains and ecosystems. I think the brain rot that's coming in from a lot
of these social media platforms and is being highlighted is a much bigger threat than something like an ICBM.
And I think the Chinese know this and the Russians know this.
They know that they could never fight us with a kinetic war.
They're not going that route.
We don't want to fight them.
We don't want to fight them.
Huh?
No, no, of course we don't want to fight them, but they want to diminish our influence around the globe.
That is their goal.
How do we weaken America and America's reputation?
That's Europe's goal or China's goal? That's China's goal, not Europe's. Europe doesn't care
about that. Yeah. So that's the thing. So right now, what we're doing is alienating our partners.
Like we've had this longstanding partnership for such a long time. And at the same time right now,
those bonds are being slowly eroded. I mean,
the Chinese are just sitting there saying, wow, this is great. We don't even have to do any
influence campaigns. These guys are literally destroying their own relationships. We've
destroyed our relationship with a lot of countries in our own hemisphere. Now we're going after
Europe, which we have natural bonds with for the longest time. That is my biggest problem
right now with what's going on is that, look, I get it. You want Greenland, you want some level
of compensation for all the defense spending you're doing. Totally agree with that. But you
don't do it in public, which makes it very untenable for the European populace to even
say that, no, America's a country that's
worth relying on. I mean you know when it comes down to it, Europeans are still democratically
elected governments. You think the next election cycle anyone comes there and says yeah you
know what we like the Americans we want to have trade relations with like the best trade
relations with the Americans that they're gonna get elected? No the Europeans are gonna say no.
Don't you feel that silly?
What if you were in
a 40-year marriage with somebody
and they start acting like a dick
for a couple of weeks? You start calling them unreliable?
We have
defended Europe for 50 years.
Dude, but politics
is one of those things that everyone remembers
what you're saying to me and you're doing to me right now.'re not going to remember oh yeah we had a great time in bahamas
of course there's recency bias but we're adults we can acknowledge recency bias right right adults
can acknowledge recency bias so any european official that wants to call america an unreliable
ally i would tell them hey why don't you pull your memory beyond two years and then tell me how unreliable America has been?
Americans have died to defend Europe.
Died.
Yeah, but that's not the politics of the day, man.
No, I know it's not the politics of the day, but there has to be an acknowledgement of the historical precedent.
50 years and trillions of dollars in defense spending that America has done to defend Europe,
not to mention landing on the beaches in D-Day to win World War II in the first place. But
we're going to wash all that away? All of that is for nil because Trump wanted to be bombastic
for two years? I mean, let's be realistic here. Has Europe overall, has America been a reliable
ally to Europe? The answer is overwhelmingly yes overwhelmingly
and in fact not only have they been a reliable europe arguably america has been the greatest
most reliable ally to europe in world history and now we're sitting here saying oh after two
years of bombastic statements from an elected president who will be out of office in two years,
that America is now unreliable.
Three years, Stockton. Three years, buddy. Three years.
Whatever.
You know, I'm saying, like, it's ludicrous.
And if I was on the negotiating team for America, I would laugh in the faces of a European negotiator who said that.
I would say, hey, wait a second. When's the last time you read a history textbook?
Because America spilt blood,
spilt trillions of dollars,
has told Europe, we've told Europe,
don't worry about it.
Spend on your people.
Build museums and give free healthcare and welfare programs and tell everyone in the world
that you take care of your people better than us.
Don't worry because we will defend you. And we have. We have. Any country on earth where
there are American Marines is uninvadaable. They're uninvadaable. You know what kind of
liberty that provides you as a nation? To know that you're uninvadaable, to know that there's
20,000 Marines sitting downtown who, if anyone touches you, they're fucked.
That is an enormous national security advantage.
And every nation in NATO enjoys that.
Not because of Germany, not because of France, not because of the United Kingdom, but because of American troops.
That's why they enjoy that liberty.
And for them to forget that because trump tweets brashly is stupid
like yeah but i don't i don't think that look tweeting brashly is one thing
saying that you want to own a piece of uh a piece of them is a completely different thing you know
you can say the juror the european we can't put in a vacuum like that chris we can't just say
we're not just coming out saying oh we, we want to own a piece of Europe.
That's not what this is.
But I'm saying territorial integrity is way different than a couple of insults.
If it was a couple of insults, whatever, they could forget about it.
No one cares.
But you're talking about violating territorial integrity.
I mean, right now, what if Europeans said, listen, we want Alaska because you know what?
We want to do stuff over there for national security purposes.
I mean, we're not exactly going to be like, yeah let's give that to them right yeah but we're not
going to do the same argument because we would be like in what world can you provide better national
security than we can that's why that's a dumb argument like I've heard this argument too Europe's
like well why don't we tell them that we need you know like Alaska or that we need this or that like
that argument is a nail from the get-go because europe cannot provide defense infrastructure the way we can yeah well i don't know man being the policeman of the of the world
is fine and all but at the same time i don't think you should be able to go up to people's homes and
be like listen i want a piece i want your garage to run my operations because i protect your
neighborhood like that's you know i don't know't know if that logic makes a lot of sense.
You know, especially if they're saying, hey, listen, I don't mind you, you know,
having a headquarters out of my garage.
Just don't say that, hey, this is my property now all of a sudden, you know.
It's an interesting debate.
I think it's an interesting debate.
I think one of the things that we were talking about here is this is probably not something
that's going to be over in the next little bit.
I wonder if we get into local hotspots where this becomes a big topic.
I imagine this conversation coming around Davos is not a coincidence when they're all meeting in Europe.
But I have a feeling that this will be something we're talking about for the next couple of years here, probably.
No, no. I think this is Liberation Day Part 2.
I think there's enough pain once the once the administration the one thing i've noticed over the last few years
is that when this administration has to deal with the economic fallout of something like this whether
it be through the bond market or the stock market they tend to fold their cards and i think that's
what everyone is kind of assuming and which is why even though we got a level of correction today
it's not nearly as bad as we got during the Liberation Day period. So I think there's a lot of investors on the
sidelines saying, look, Trump is going to taco out just like he did last year, in which case
eventually the rhetoric around Greenland will die out, in which case the markets will start
rallying again. Now the question is, when is that going to happen? Is it going to be with the S&P
down 5%, 10%, 15% God forbid? Who knows? But I think that's the key.
For me, when I'm looking at this, I'm looking at this saying, look, there is a level of pain this
administration is willing to accept based on precedence, not precedence, but based on past
experience. It runs around 15%. I think if the S&P is down 15% for the year, I think at that point,
the impetus to cause an off-ramp to this whole debate ends up becoming much stronger,
whether the Europeans end up saying, listen, we'll give you a 100-year lease to X amount of
land like we did with Hong Kong, something like that. So this way, you get to accuist the US,
but at the same time, keep some level of dignity
intact.
I mean, I don't think Europeans are going to give up the land, but they're willing to
probably make concessions around ownership over certain portions of it, maybe like a
leasing situation for long term.
And this way, both administration from the Trump side can say, look, we got what we wanted.
And the Europeans could say, look, we got what we wanted.
So I think at some point that's going to happen.
But until then, the markets are going to feel the pain.
My bigger concern right now is Japan.
I'd love to hear your conversations about Japan
on what you guys think is going to happen with the credit markets.
Because right now, Japanese leverage has been financing
a lot of the speculation here in the US when it comes to our markets. So our multiples
have expanded greatly because people have been borrowing yen cheap, shorting it, and buying
stuff here in the US. So the question is when that carry trade is completely dead now,
what's going to happen? Are multiples going to compress? Or is this something where I think we, you know, is this going to be a structural change in the market where we
see 20, 25, 30 PEs
on tech companies go down to maybe,
I don't know, 15, 20?
Stock talk was Japan.
I don't know.
The Japanese, what'd you say, Evan?
Basically asking if you watched something you were watching.
Yeah, I know it is something I'm watching. Yeah, it's
concerning.
I don't know.
Three major Japanese banks this morning
calling for yield curve control again.
I think that's probably likely to happen.
I don't know.
The Japan situation gives me a headache, too.
I'm there with you, but...
I keep saying this with everything,
but that's another one where we
just have to cross the bridge when we come to it. We just have to hope that it doesn't get out of
control. I mean, the move this weekend, I think, was the biggest move in terms of standard deviations
that we've seen in like two years. It was even bigger than the one last year that had percent
come out. Just so everyone knows what yield curve control is, basically what you issue a lot of short-term
debt to buy long-term debt. So what you're doing is essentially you're suppressing things at the
top. So imagine right now, the administration says, listen, I think long-term rates have
gotten too expensive, right? Which means that corporations that they have to basically borrow
money from, the cost for them is going to
go up because the treasury market's a competitor. So what the treasury would end up doing is
something that Janet Yellen did right after the great financial crisis, which is yield
curve control by issuing short-term debt and then using that money to buy long-term debt.
So essentially what you're doing is you're shifting things, right?
So think of it this way.
If you're paying someone 2% to borrow from and you're buying something that's yielding 5%, you get literally a 3% spread between the two.
But on a national level, on a central bank level, what you're also doing
is you become the default buyer of long-term debt. So that's what yield control is basically.
So you're just trying to prevent yields from going crazy. And the Japanese have been doing
it for literally like 30 years they kind of
stopped doing it because of inflation and now they're they're in a position
where they might end up having to go back to it again so welcome back to
Abenomics
it was yeah it's gonna be a shit show in Japan. But hopefully we see some stability there, at least for the rest of the year, because
you don't want that to be in the pile with all the geopolitical turmoil that we have,
because that's just another factor.
So, yeah, I am concerned about Japan, to answer your question.
I am concerned about how long they can keep up YCC, Yield Curve Control, without breaking
something.
I am concerned about
credit availability at a certain point. I think we're probably past the point of worrying about
the Japanese consumer. That's been a concern for a long time. Yeah, Japan is in a tricky spot
between a rock and a hard place. And a lot of the new conservative economic policy that's
being touted by their new leader is, I think, good net net, but a lot of it is without acknowledgement
of the greater problem that they're having in the credit markets and win with yields. So
I don't have a prediction on what's going to happen there, but I do hope that situation
resolves itself because that will be a headwind for markets as well just as it was last year whenever that was that we saw
volatility with uh with japanese yield so yeah the japan situation needs to be watched closely
definitely need to pay attention to that you don't want to see any more blowouts like we saw this
weekend where you know i think u.s stocks will continue to react badly to that i don't think
the yen carry trade is as much of a risk as it was last year uh the three biggest firms that were
involved in the yen carry trade have taken a much more mature positioning on that trade since what
happened last year. So yeah, I think the end carry trade is less of a risk, but I do think
the overall economic health of Japan is a risk and that will have reverberations in the U.S. markets and elsewhere if that continues to blow out on the yield side.
So watch Japan. Definitely I'm watching Japan.
I think right now we're just in a mix of a bunch of geopolitical uncertainty plus the Japan situation.
I think combining for a headwind equity markets.
But yeah, we'll see what happens there
the market can really handle any any one thing at any one given time but once you start to throw
two three four concerns at it that's when we can start to to kind of get these areas and
i wonder if that's what it is everyone on the downside wants to find something to point towards why the market is going down and obviously on the upside we've had this
conversation it's the opposite they're just kind of happy that's going up so you know i feel like
the answer is pretty much always is multiple things on the downside that would bring you in
and it's probably the combination so you solve one or two of them or at least kind of put to put
on the back burner in the market in my opinion probably continue to chug higher from that point it is interesting monotone we were talking about you
were kind of mentioning it earlier as we're heading into earnings season like earnings are not the
main focus at this point in time so it'll be very interesting to see how this ends up going um
obviously it's a stock picker market there's a lot of stocks in the 52 high list a lot of stocks in
the 52-week low list so i'm sure that will continue to move on but uh macro seems to be back as a as a main driver
indeed a couple of things i don't know if you guys talked about it i went to listen to the
netflix call so so they are they they are pausing uh buybacks to you know to conserve funds for uh
for the buyout right to, to conserve the cash.
So that's probably the most negative thing in that call.
Oh, well, in the release.
It was already in the release.
I apologize.
But the call itself was fine.
Anyway, I think one of the reasons why we might be ignoring earnings,
you know, why, you know, we might be ignoring earnings. Well, obvious reason is we've not had
any, you know, highly followed companies report yet outside of banks. So that's going to, you know,
today was the first one, right, Netflix. As we have, you know, a rotation out of big tech into
small caps, maybe later in the season, there will be more reaction from earnings
as all those small mids start reporting, especially the ones that have been super hot.
So I think the impact will be there. It's not like you can ignore earnings for a long time.
It just doesn't work that way. Markets will punish you if you ignore earnings for too long.
But, you know, it's not moving in the headlines, right?
So just the numbers flying across the tape is not doing anything so far this quarter.
Which makes sense.
Which makes sense.
I mean, given kind of, like we were talking about there, macro is driving the market.
Most of the time it does not.
Most of the time, well, I don't know.
We'll see.
But yeah, right now we have a lot of geopolitical stuff,
maybe is the more correct term to say that is driving the market.
All right, we've been going for a good little bit on this one.
I got my days mixed up on the conversation with Paul
and the Leverage Shares Teams team.
I do have that tweet pinned up on the list of above.
We've been dancing around NATO, the defense topic a little bit, and they obviously do
have that ETF and ATO.
Obviously, you guys should be very informed investors when you do anything.
Go to the websites.
Look at the summary prospectus.
It has all the information that you guys need.
You should definitely be informed investors.
And obviously, whenever you put your money in anything, it does have risk.
But yeah, we appreciate them for supporting us. We have some good conversations on here.
Check out that tweet pinned up in the nest above. There's actually two tweets
pinned up there. The one to the right of it is a little bit more of the ETFs.
But Mr. Chris Patel, I'd like to actually circle back to you. I know you drove us down that Japan
conversation as well. I was looking through the market, and one of the parts of the market that was outperforming today,
compared to some of the other parts of it, was the healthcare side of it.
Specifically, I saw UNH close the day up a percent, percent and a half, or whatever it was.
So I wondered if you had any thoughts about that part of the market, that sector.
Yeah, I mean, it's in a long-term recovery phase.
A lot of the reasons why healthcare
has been managed healthcare, let me just be very clear with it. Managed healthcare is like
insurance companies, right? So the biggest players, of course, are going to be something like
Centene, United Healthcare, Elevance, Molina, and each one kind of Humana, CVS Caremark.
They all operate in their own particular segments.
For the last couple of years, they've been really beaten down.
Some of the changes that have been made around how things are coded, especially at the Medicare
Advantage level, have been detrimental to a lot of these companies' profit margins.
But the thing is, the industry has a way of correcting that.
They typically can raise premiums every year. So imagine right now you are a health
insurance company. You provide blanket insurance to everyone. You have to project out what your
costs are going to be a year ahead of time. So if you think that you're going to basically be taking
in $100 billion worth of expenses, you want to maintain some level of margin, you're going to
price your premium so that you're going
to collect, let's say 115 billion. So this way you get 15 billion in profits. That's your net
profit margin. The challenge that you run into is that let's say people are sicker, people utilize
more services. There's other factors that come in, that like new drugs come along that are just
super popular, like the GOP ones, and a lot of doctors
are prescribing those. All of those things can really add up on costs. And so your projections
on, hey, making a $15 billion net income is actually not going to be 15, it might be five.
So a lot of these health insurance companies dealt with that. But the thing about the industry is that
they can always reprice next year. So one of the things that we saw this year was just the amount
of premium increases. I mean, it pissed a lot of people off. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure that no
one likes to see their health insurance premium spike up by 10, 20, 30%. But essentially, that's
what happened. And it happened by everyone. It's one thing if you were trying to target market
share. So let's say UNH was trying to target more market share. They could essentially say,
you know what, we're going to undercut our competitors by X amount of percentage and try to
gain more members. That's not the case here. The case is trying to protect margins and everyone
is doing that at the same exact time. So it's almost like if Coke and Pepsi were targeting
each other, they would lower prices against each other. But if both of them are losing money,
then of course, both of them are going to raise prices simultaneously,
recovering margin simultaneously.
And I think that's the bull case for a lot of these managed healthcare companies
where they have been able to get higher premiums
out of both the commercial side of things, the government side of things.
And now I think that they're on a slow path to recovery.
The one thing you can't do is you can't just restore your margins in one or two years,
and the reason for that is because there would be way too much public backlash.
There's a level of public backlash that these guys are willing to endure,
and I think they will endure it,
but I don't think that you're going to see a V-shaped recovery in this industry.
I think it's going to be a while before it recovers,
but in terms of a recession-proof industry, this is pretty recession-proof. Regardless of whether or not
the economy goes up, down, left, right, people are going to have health insurance. People are
going to need to pay those premiums. And that's what propels their business model higher. Of
course, there's ways that they can kind of make cuts here and there to benefits, to kind of like
restore margins there too. So there's multiple levers these guys can pull.
But in terms of like a recession-proof, I wouldn't call it recession-proof, but probably a recession-resistant industry, this would be one of them.
So as people are looking into, you know, I think right now tech is super overvalued.
overvalued. I think this industry is overvalued. The managed healthcare sector relative to its
I think this industry is overvalued.
historical earnings is actually priced pretty fair. I mean, it's not undervalued like it was
during the summer. And a lot of them have actually caught like 20, 30% rises from their
absolute 52-week lows. But yeah, so the one thing I will say is that you have to be very careful with how
you look at managed healthcare because each one operates in a different segment. And because they
operate in a different segment, the margin recovery potential for each one of them can be
accelerated or decelerated depending on how it is. So I'll give you a good example. Like Molina,
Molina has primarily Medicaid patients on their books. So which means
that they're more likely to be impacted by changes around Medicare payments. Not Medicare,
sorry, Medicaid payments. Whereas if you look at UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealthcare has a lot of
commercial, but they also have a lot of Medicare Advantage patients on their roles.
So a lot of those Medicare Advantage patients, if there's a change in Medicare Advantage that basically reduces the amount of compensation that providers and the insurance companies get, that's going to impact UnitedHealthcare more.
So this is where you have to be very careful.
This is not just, hey, just buy any managed healthcare company and you'll do well.
But some of them are going to recover their margins faster than others.
And as long as you're willing to do that research, I mean, there's definitely opportunities there.
And I think it should be part of most people's stable income portfolio as well.
UnitedHealthcare has been a consistent 15% year-over-year grower for like, I don't know, probably like 20 years now.
The challenge is some of it recently has been artificial rather than normal.
UnitedHealthcare in the past, they've been known because of the large scale that they had to be able to price things in a way that, you know, they were just actuarially, they just did not take
a lot of risks. And they were good at managing their MLRs, so their medical loss ratios.
A couple of years ago, they sort of messed up on that. And so right now, they're slowly in the
path of getting back to their margin recoveries. But they're also dealing with the fallout of some of the practices
that they may have had that are not exactly super favorable to the patient population.
And so they're dealing with congressional hearings and all this other stuff.
So it casts a really bad light on their business model, in which case people are not as happy investing in that
particular industry because it's out of favor. But it's one of those industries that is pretty
resilient to a lot of downturns. So anyone looking for safety, they're probably at least throwing some
money that way. You're seeing a whole bunch of value investors. They all jumped in on the boat
during the summer. Michael Burry has been talking about Molina. I mean, his particular
strategy around Molina is that they've got a lot of new Medicaid wins in, I think, Florida and Texas
that are supposed to boost up future earnings. So like I said, the traditional value investors
are definitely circling around this industry. I think David Tepper at one point had United
Healthcare or even Buffett had bought United Healthcare. I think David Tepper at one point had UnitedHealthcare,
or even Buffett had bought UnitedHealthcare.
I'm not sure how big their positions are anymore.
But yeah, overall, I do think that, you know,
if you want to diversify into some other names and other sectors,
this might not be a bad one to be in.
Especially with, you know, the volatility in the market around tech
and all this other stuff.
So, yeah.
Thank you for that rundown there, Chris.
It's definitely a different part of the market than, obviously, we talk about here a lot.
And a lot of investors, at least on Twitter, are looking at all the tech.
And there is a bigger market around that.
So I appreciate you for running us through that.
I do think we're at the top of the hour.
We've got some meetings and stuff coming up here.
I am going to close this down here in a second.
You should definitely make sure
that you are following all of the speakers up here.
Chris, I hope you come and join us back in here again.
It was a great addition having you.
The regulars on the spaces,
you should make sure you're following Monitive
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a lot of content being hosted from there of course you should make sure you are following stock talk
weekly co-host in the space for years now sharing all of his insights we appreciate him and then if
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we really do appreciate all our friends for coming in
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We appreciate all the listeners for allowing us to be a part
of your guys' daily routines.
Life has been pretty crazy for me over the last little bit.
We're starting to get a little bit more settled in.
So I promise from my end, I will be doing better and better job
on these spaces going forward.
I appreciate you guys for hanging out out with us sticking with us and uh we're excited for uh 2026 tomorrow same time
same place 3 p.m eastern we will be live here no earnings tomorrow but after that we got intel
and the next week obviously there's all of the maggot mag magnificent seven big cap tech a lot
of them are going to be reporting so So, yeah, we appreciate everyone.
One more time, follow speakers, follow speakers, follow speakers.
Have a great one, team.
I appreciate you all.
The maggot seven.
I might have said that.
I don't know.
It was rough times. .
