Podcast Host/Announcer

Foreign,

Josh Brown

5pm Eastern. It's Tuesday. You know what that means? It's time for an all new edition of. What are your thoughts, dude?

Michael Batnick

The transformation into Michael Bolton is almost complete.

Josh Brown

You're like almost there. All right, so some love for the. Some love for the flow, for the hair in the chat, you know, I appreciate that. I'll be screenshotting every nice thing you say. All right, guys, what are your thoughts with this every week? Those of you who are joining us for the first time, we appreciate it. We're going to get into every important thing that's happening right now in the markets, in the economy, all the stuff that you need as delivered in a way that only we can. And we appreciate everybody that's joining us for the live. I want to give some shout outs real quick. Greggy B. Says downtown, let's go. That's right, Bill Griff. Buford says it's lit. It sure is. Somebody's in here talking about Canadian tariffs. It's fine. You guys will be. It's fine. It's fine. It's okay. Who else is here? Zelini, first time, we appreciate you. Thanks for being here. John Suarez is here. Who else is here? Everybody. Everybody's here.

Michael Batnick

Calamos is here. Josh, let's talk about our sponsor, what Kalamos is doing because it's something. It's pretty wild. Guys, we've mentioned it. What?

Josh Brown

Let's hear it.

Michael Batnick

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Josh Brown

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Michael Batnick

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Josh Brown

All right, shout to Kalamos, guys. There's a lot going on. We are getting into the thick of earnings season. I would argue, I will argue that we have one earnings report that will be more meaningful to the market than any other and we're going to discuss that tonight. But before we go there, I do want to mention that SpaceX has finally put out the date that they're going to report their first quarter as a public company. And the reason why this data is important, even if you don't own SpaceX, is that it's probably going to be the most talked about report of the whole quarter. And the way that their shareholder lockup works, the first block of stock becomes available within two days of reporting their earnings quarter. So it's not just about the earnings, but about the fact that we're going to see like 900 million shares available to be traded starting with the first earnings report. So they said August 4th. I assume they'll report after the close because it's a tech company and it's sort of west coast based and most of those companies report after the close. And I wanted to just fill people in because I wrote about this at Downtown. Josh Brown over the weekend wanted to fill people in on how the shareholder lockup expiry is going to work. And Michael would love your thoughts on it. So it's a staggered lockup which we talked about. And again, after they report their quarter on August 4, within two days, the first tranche of shares will be released. And that would be another 7% of the total outstanding. 7%. I don't know if we could put this on screen, this little graphic that I have here. I didn't make it as an image, so maybe we can't. But that would take us from 3% of shares currently trading now up to 12%. That would be a quadrupling in the amount of stock that is available for public trading. So that's where the 911.5 million shares comes from. So it's $123 billion worth of stock is not a typo. That's 123 billion worth of potential supply potentially coming to market. So my first question for you is, let's say the shareholder base is predominantly rank and file employees and investors who have been long for 10 years plus in the private market. Are they more likely to hold or sell if and when that tranche of stock becomes available?

Michael Batnick

Are you leading me to water? I feel like you're leading me to water.

Josh Brown

Well, now, what do you think? What would you guess? Probably it's an opinion show. I don't know if you know this.

Michael Batnick

Hold on, I'm forming my opinion okay. Taking a beat.

Josh Brown

Okay. It wouldn't last five minutes on the halftime report. We would already be in the. We would already be in a commercial break. Do you think we. The majority. The majority. Not every share. The majority of that 7% worth of outstanding shares available for sale within two days of August 4th actually get sold? Or maybe it's conditional. Where is the price? I'll tell you how willing or not people will be to sell.

Michael Batnick

Thank you for answering the question for me. What you are laying out is on the calendar. And it's not a secret.

Josh Brown

Everyone knows it.

Michael Batnick

Literally everybody knows it. And maybe, just maybe, part of the reason why the price fell after the IPO is because we got through the wave of the initial buyers and everybody is anticipating more supply. And the price went from 170 to

Josh Brown

150 to 120, 225 to 125.

Michael Batnick

So is the majority of people going to sell at. I don't know where the price is going to be on August 4th at $110? I don't think so. So, yeah, there's a lot. There's a big unlock coming or lockup coming. Unlock lockup coming. But I don't think that's just new. Supply is just going to get dumped onto the market. I don't.

Josh Brown

So it's a lot of rank and file workers and they have watched their net worth on paper soar like they have made a lot of money on paper. But two things, since the stock came public, they've watched it drop by 100 points.

Michael Batnick

So I don't know the details. Maybe you do. I don't know the details of what sort of secondary liquidity was available to these, to these employees over the last 15 years. They might have been able to take some chips off the table. Number two, I genuinely don't know the mix of early investors versus rank and file employees. So I don't think that you're going to see all the shares dumped onto the market. I just don't.

Josh Brown

Okay, it's 911 and a half million shares. It's a lot of stock either way. And assume some of that is gonna

Michael Batnick

be sold and assume the market knows that the stock just went from 225 to 120.

Josh Brown

Well, so that's a very important point because, number one, yes, everybody knows that. But also, number two, if everybody knows that, why were people willing to pay 225 a share?

Michael Batnick

Those are traders.

Josh Brown

Okay. The float's gonna quadruple from 3% to 12. And that's just the first wave. And then every two to three weeks is another 7%, another batch of 900 million. I mean we're talking about, we're talking about an unbelievable amount of money from August 21st through October 25th. And then by December 8th the entire remaining block expires and the float versus the outstanding will get to 40%. And then Elon shares are not involved in this. That's a whole separate conversation that we're not going to have today. But then he's got like he has

Michael Batnick

42% and he's not selling.

Josh Brown

And he's not selling. I agree with you.

Michael Batnick

Well, let me ask you this Mr. Opinion. What do you think happens?

Josh Brown

I think if you want to buy the stock, you're going to get an opportunity under $100 a share where to close today? One I think had a. It went, I think it went up today. Yeah, it fell, it fell almost every day. 123 over the last two weeks.

Michael Batnick

Yeah, I think it'll go to 100 today.

Josh Brown

But so, but can you just, can you look at the intraday bounce?

Michael Batnick

That's. Well, they sold it right?

Josh Brown

Like it, it hit 129 and a half today. And then immediately another wave of selling came in and crushed it into the close back down to 125.

Michael Batnick

Given that there's only, I don't know, 25 days. Let me just do a 30 minute and get some more candles on here. And yeah, there's no evidence of a bottom. I mean none at all.

Josh Brown

So look, I think this company is really exciting and really interesting and I'm not like a knee jerk. I hate Elon. Like I'm not. I don't want people to get the wrong idea. I just can't shake this feeling that at a certain point we're gonna get an opportunity under 100. Now that may be because too much stock hits the market at once or the market could turn. We could have. In a bear market. This isn't gonna hold up. The amount of supply is unbelievable.

Michael Batnick

You know what?

Josh Brown

So that's, that's my call. My call is you will get, you will get a chance under 100. And maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I think.

Michael Batnick

Trade under 100. I wonder if there's like if one of the sites has this.

Josh Brown

So I would guess, I would guess who does.

Michael Batnick

Yeah, I'm going to look now. I would guess 65 cents. Like a pretty heavy favorite to, to trade under $100. Well. SpaceX trailer.

Josh Brown

Well within what period of time? Like by over the next six months,

Michael Batnick

SpaceX prediction markets and Space Forecast. Let's see, see what we got. There's too many things here. Somebody in the chat helps us out. Anyway, I think it's good. Yeah, I think we got to 100.

Josh Brown

The thing is, unlike a lot of IPOs, especially large IPOs, there's a valuation framework to fall back on. So at 100, where is it? 123. Like in a normal situation, an analyst, a sell side analyst or a portfolio manager would be able to say, I'm comfortable paying 35 times earnings, not 75 times earnings. So when it gets around 35 times earnings, I'm willing to take the risk there. We're talking about earnings in 10 years with this thing. So there's almost no, there's almost no natural valuation support. Now that may not be necessary because the people that are willing to buy this are probably thinking more about the Tammy and not about cash flows at all. So I don't even really have a sense of like, where is it cheap? Because it's not cheap anywhere. There's a lot of promise, a lot of technology, a lot of patents. There's Elon, there's like a lot to be excited about, but there's nothing, there's no framework here for anybody serious. Like you have to like invent shit to come up with a fundamental justification for the price.

Michael Batnick

We have to. What do you, like, what do you think they're even gonna talk about on their first earnings call?

Josh Brown

Oh, well, see, AI, dude, like, like shape shifting. I don't like, I don't even, I don't time travel. I have no idea.

Michael Batnick

But how much, how much time do you.

Josh Brown

I know everyone on Wall street will be paying attention.

Michael Batnick

How much time do you think they're going to spend on the core business, the satellites versus what's possible, dude, they

Josh Brown

could come on and talk about Starlink for 50% of the time or 10% of the time. They could come on and talk about data centers in space. They might talk about mining precious metals and rare earths from asteroids in orbit. They could be talking about real estate values on Mars. Like literally setting up a colony on Mars and selling real estate to the Chinese. I have no idea. I know I have to listen. Oh, do you think it's crazy that actually they're gonna report earnings and then two days later is the lockup? That's like kind of nerve wracking. If you're, if you're sitting in this thing as an insider and you're like, it's like, why can't I sell before the earnings?

Michael Batnick

So that's why if the stock is $120 below, I don't think anybody's selling. It was 220. I know it's not real life, but that's what the price was. Nobody's selling at 120 bucks.

Josh Brown

But what if, like, you already picked out the house you're going to buy? All right, you're an engineer, you live in Texas. You, you live near Starbase. You, like moved your family, you changed your whole life to go work for Elon Musk. Once in a lifetime opportunity. You're, you're like, josh, Josh, you've got hold on thousands of years.

Michael Batnick

These people are not dumping their SpaceX. They will borrow against it. They're not selling.

Josh Brown

You know this, I think, right? I think that's true. I think that's true. But you could get a margin call if you're borrowing against it and it falls like. Yeah, yeah, I'm just, I'm just saying.

Michael Batnick

Yeah, well, it will be interesting to watch, that is for sure. Where are we going next?

Josh Brown

I agree. Okay. I think Google, I think Google's earnings are the key to the market. I think this is the most determinative moment of earnings season for whether or not we're going to have a good summer or a bad summer in the market. The market is overly reliant on tech. We've had a little bit of a handoff over the last month. The momentum tech stocks, which I know we're going to talk about later, took a backseat. A lot of selling, a lot of profit taking people had huge gains. They took some gains and the S and P did not fall apart. We started buying Apple and Alphabet instead and that sort of saved the day. We've also had performance in financials this summer, health care, and there have just been other areas of the market that have held up better. But the reality is, if we're going to put on another 10, 15% in the S and P from here to finish out the year as powerfully as we began it, the only way that's happening is if the AI trade gets back on track. And the most important player for everyone in the AI trade that's publicly traded is Google. What do you think of the Alphabet? What do you think about this idea?

Michael Batnick

I totally agree with you. We're not going to gain 15% or 10% from here without the hyperscalers participating. They're too big.

Josh Brown

And their vendors and all the stocks that sell to them.

Michael Batnick

The good news is there is a lot of room for catch up because these names, not Google but a lot of these names Microsoft meta's acting okay but they've been beat the shit and they've, they've lagged so dramatically. So we need them to start going

Josh Brown

Alphabet reports tomorrow night after the close. I thought it was. I spent half the day thinking it was today, tomorrow after the close. So we have a preview for you guys. And I wanted to quote Mark Mahaney, one of my favorite tech analysts at Evercore isi. He talks about five specific things to look for. I'm not going to go through this whole thing, but I do want to do the big storylines. First of all, Mahaney is looking for a modest beat for the quarter. The streets revenue estimate is 1 16.9 billion which would be 21% year over year growth. And then ad revenue estimate 81.5 billion which would be 5% quarter over quarter, 14% year over year. He thinks they'll beat both. Late June channel checks suggest Q2 digital and ad demand remains resilient. Search demand holding up very well on YouTube. Generally positive YouTube, more living room viewing for YouTube, more creator led engagement, blah blah blah blah blah. And then on the cloud segment which this is really the big thing for the hyperscaler/AI capex trade revenue estimate 22.3 billion which would be 63% year over year growth. He sees likely material upside given industry commentary around continued very strong demand for AI, infrastructure, enterprise, etc. So these are the big storylines. The Google cloud backlog conversion, this is probably the single biggest one cloud backlog last quarter hit a record 462 billion.

Michael Batnick

What? I don't even know what the backlog is. When they talk about the backlog for

Josh Brown

the cloud, it's like the order. Yeah, it's like the demand that's already booked and just meeting it. Operating margin expanded sharply to 32.9% from 17 last quarter. So this is like the big number. The second big number is capex and AI spending. They raised full year capex to 180 to 190 billion already. And they used the term significant increase to describe the outlook for 2027. Investors are going to hang on their every word when they talk about continued capex guidance search versus AI disruption. This will be a big part of the story. Like are they monetizing the AI within search, et cetera. Quality of earnings is another big one. This was part of the call last time. Analysts want to hear about the core operating business beating on its own, not just benefiting from where they're marking their investments because remember Alphabet has a stake in Anthropic, they have a stake in SpaceX. They're investing in all sorts of AI stuff and analysts really want to hear about the core not just like we marked up our stake in anthropic TPU and hardware monetization. Alphabet said they would start delivering TPUs which are tensor processing units and hardware directly to their customers own data centers which would be a new revenue line. It's not going to be a big part of the numbers here. Only a small portion will be recognized as revenue in 2026 but a lot more coming in 27. This is a new leg to the stool and people want to hear about it. Last thing full year guidance revision. Are they going higher on revenue? They going higher on earnings? If they do this is like the groundhog not seeing their shadow and spring is coming early and we could see all of these capex sell offs reverse hard to the upside if Google's going higher with their estimates. This is the cleanest AI story. It doesn't have the poison that Microsoft has embedded within it in the form of this giant enterprise SaaS business. Doesn't have the meta question mark why the they building data centers? Why are they now talking about leasing excess capacity in their data centers? Doesn't have it doesn't have the taint of the OpenAI expectations. Nobody has to believe in Sam Altman to believe that Google will hit like it doesn't have the problems of Microsoft Oracle Meta. I call it the last remaining standing clean AI hyperscaler story.

Michael Batnick

It's the blue magic.

Josh Brown

It's the blue magic and to me this is the one that determines whether or not we're going to have fun in momentum AI capex stocks or not. What are your thoughts?

Michael Batnick

Yeah, I like the way that you laid that out. I am curious to see three things I want to see our search is doing as a standalone. You mentioned that. Then that group it's still growing 13%. I'm curious to see if there's any deterioration from what they're doing with Gemini. We'll see. I am curious to see what they say about their capex they raise are they going higher still? That's because that's going to move the names. And then I'm very curious about YouTube. YouTube is doing $60 billion which is bigger than Netflix. 40 of that is ads, 20 is subscriptions so it's doing more revenue than than than Netflix. Obviously it costs a lot less to run that business which I don't even think the street necessarily cares about. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I don't really know. But yeah, I think it's an important one.

Josh Brown

I was listening to Matt Bellamy. The last episode they put up on the Town was about Netflix versus Google and whether or not YouTube even cares that Netflix is. I think Netflix put out like five or six press releases in the last couple of weeks about taking a major YouTube star and giving them a platform on Netflix. It might all add up to nothing in the scheme of like how big YouTube is. They might not care at all. Or I wonder if an analyst might ask a question though about Netflix competing for influencers because they are writing checks and they are featuring like chefs and tech shows and like more and more YouTube stars are popping up with their own platform on Netflix and at a certain point it's gotta matter, right? I got a. I don't know.

Michael Batnick

I don't know how influence not helping Netflix.

Josh Brown

We could just stipulate that it's not helping Netflix at all, but it might eventually affect. I don't think it'll show up in terms of its effect on YouTube in like the overall engagement because the platform is so big and no one creator means that much. But maybe, maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe it does. I think we'll. I think we might get a question.

Michael Batnick

I will, I will listen to the Google call. For me, it's sort of like House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones. I'll understand about 20 to 30% of it, but I'll listen anyway.

Josh Brown

Yeah, well, I think all of Wall street will. I think personally my opinion, this is the make or break earnings call for tech. More important I think than anything meta has to say. Anything Microsoft has to say. I agree and they're not gonna keep us waiting long. It's tomorrow after the close. Okay, take it away.

Michael Batnick

Let's do some stock market stuff. So last week was an ugly unwind, a welcome unwind depending on how you look at it. Ugly and welcome at the same time. For a lot of the semiconductors, all the AI names, everything involved, the servers, the memory, the data centers, it was chart on please. Micron fell 13. This is just last week. AMD fell 11. Nvidia fell 4, which seems tame by comparison. Oracle fell 10, Cisco down 7. Western Dig is that down 18. Whatever it was, it was, it was, it was bright red. The vic so chart can made the Vix of the semis. This is really just rolling 30 day standard deviation but close enough and it got there. So the, the prior two peaks, the Prior peak is Liberation Day. The peak before that is deep seek. And then you got to go back to Covid. So it, it was real. It was real.

Josh Brown

59 was the, the, the high of the spike.

Michael Batnick

Yeah.

Josh Brown

On the semiconductor vix.

Michael Batnick

Yeah. So that's real.

Josh Brown

So even for semi investors who are used to this kind of like long, long term semi investors who have been in these stocks for 20 years, they're used to a lot of volatility, but this is up there.

Michael Batnick

Yeah. So Cullen Morgan at Goldman Sachs could not say this better myself. Trot on, please. The AUM of levered ETFs has dropped by over $100 billion.

Josh Brown

Thanks for playing.

Michael Batnick

And of that $100 billion, 63 has come out of semis. To contextualize that 39% of leverage semi ETF AUM has been reduced. The. This decrease is one of the healthiest things that can happen for the market. Amen, sister.

Josh Brown

I totally agree with that. And the semis rallied hard.

Michael Batnick

Hard.

Josh Brown

Like all that dumbass activity like got washed out. And then real buyers came. I mean, I'm sure the leverage buyers came back today too, but real buyers bought these stocks 30, 40% off their highs and bought them with conviction today.

Michael Batnick

They sure did. I'm not sure what exactly is in this basket because I had a hard time replicating this, but whatever. Goldman has a high beta momentum, which,

Josh Brown

you know, this is all Korean chip makers and shit like memory stocks.

Michael Batnick

Well, whatever. It had its worst 21 day. I mean it, it got smoked. Like smoke, smoke smoked. All right, this is, this is a great chart from, from Duality Research. Put this up, please. So we are looking at the S&P 500 in black. Of course that was the peak on June 2nd. And then he breaks down what was the relative sector performance. And Josh, to your point. So I think this is great. We've gone sideways, we've chopped sideways. It's been a choppy market, like not super fun to trade. But you lost technology. Technology has been dog shit. By far the weakest performer since it topped. And yet despite its. What is this? 20%, 30% of the market hung in whatever it is the market.

Josh Brown

What is more bullet.

Michael Batnick

What.

Josh Brown

What on earth is more bullish than the leadership group. Chart off. What on earth is more bullish than a situation where the leadership group pukes is also the largest sector and also has the most speculative activity in. It gets absolutely taken to the cleaners and The S&P 500 index doesn't budge because there's so much buying in almost all of the other sectors that the market holds up, the internals blow out in terms of broadening and we go through a margin wipeout and then come out of the other side with a rally in the former leaders once again. If I scripted it, you couldn't write a more bullish resolution of all that leverage in June, in May and June, in this, in this very narrow area that just became like the whole market and then it gets wiped out. And look where we. You could what, put the chart back on. You know what this is? This is the end of Avengers Infinity War. Like Star Lord and Iron man and Spider man and Doctor Strange are like trapped on another planet somewhere, just completely out of the game and all appears to be lost. And then everybody else shows up ready to battle at like one after another. Look at this. Energy stocks, Staples, the drug makers, the biotechs, the banks. What else do you.

Michael Batnick

What else would you want?

Josh Brown

How else would you want to see this end? So we had this crush from the Microns, the Intels. They sold the Sienna finally that they wiped out all of the hottest stocks. But you know what? We just had this whole cavalry come in and keep the market where it was. If you're looking at that and you're like bearish. What, who, who taught you the stock market? Where'd you learn Twitter? What are you an idiot? Like, this is how you would want it to resolve itself.

Michael Batnick

One huge detail in all of this is that technology did get crushed. A lot of it was semiconductors. One stock that worked and kept the market on an even keel toast was Apple.

Josh Brown

It did Apple. Apple is true.

Michael Batnick

All right, check this out.

Josh Brown

The Anti capex.

Michael Batnick

It had its best three week stretch relative to the index since 2009. How unbelievable. I mean we know how the AI trade unwound.

Josh Brown

Do you want to give me some credit for this or what do we want to do here?

Michael Batnick

This is the anti AI Tech stock. You know what, I was going to, but now I don't want to.

Josh Brown

No, come on, dude, a little bit.

Michael Batnick

I mean if you let me finish a sentence.

Josh Brown

You've been on.

Michael Batnick

You've been. You, you've been all over this. I've been dead wrong on Apple for like two years now. So I will stop taking shots. You've been 100% right and the market appreciates you.

Josh Brown

Yeah, I appreciate that, Michael. Thank you. You're welcome. I really think, I really think that this Apple leadership. I know it's been an unbelievable three weeks. We have nailed this on the show and elsewhere. I think it. But I do think It. Do you think it has legs into? Because I've talked to you about all these catalysts that are coming up. I don't think these things that I'm talking about in September and October are on most people's radars, but they will be, surely.

Michael Batnick

I do. I think that the market knows what you found out. Like, I don't think the narrative is there yet. I think you were very early.

Josh Brown

I'm not getting off it, though, because it's. Look, it's not a cheap stock, but now they have earnings and revenue growth and it's been a long time since they have. And the only real negatives here are being resolved one by one. So the big catalyst last week that really got the stock going was they got approval to do their AI on their phones in China, and China's the second biggest market after the US and it was not really on the radar of people that this was even like up for discussion. And then they announced it like, they've reached an agreement with the Chinese government on AI on the next wave of iPhones and they're working with local regional champions like Baidu, et cetera. But this was really, really key and they got it. So I think that's number one. And then number two, people are worried about the trade war and they're worried about memory prices and blah, blah, blah. Apple's raising prices. Number one, they're gonna get away with it because of the way people pay for their phones. And number two, should memory prices decline, Apple's not gonna lower their price and that'll be an expansion of their earnings as well.

Michael Batnick

I mean, that obviously was not in the price because they just announced it and that was wonderful. I think it's gonna be excellent for business. All right, what are these charts from, Neil?

Josh Brown

So renmac just kind of underscoring what we've been talking about. You know, there's been this whole category of AI Capex stocks like Caterpillar and companies that are not tech companies.

Michael Batnick

Gda.

Josh Brown

Yeah, like the electricity generation, the turbines, the builders, the diggers. So there's been like this whole basket of non AI AI stocks that have been moving with the semis and Red Mac makes this point. The names that traded to the upside with the semiconductors sold off with them. Put this first thing up. It's a scatter plot. You see here. Vertiv and Eaton and ge, Vernova and Cummins. Look at them trading in lockstep with. With. With Nvidia.

Michael Batnick

All right, so the why and Broadcom, the return since semis peaked on June 2nd.

Josh Brown

Yep.

Michael Batnick

And then the X is the correlation with SMH. So, yeah, this is clean. Yeah.

Josh Brown

So the more coral, the more correlated the stock was with the smh, the worse the performance has been while the SMH has been selling off. So it's. It's like.

Michael Batnick

Hold on, chart back on. Yeah, it is, but. But the gray, interestingly. So the gray is tech, obviously. See a lot of that in the lower right. But there's a lot. But there's a lot of non tech. And these are all the. The names. Cat Caterpillar.

Josh Brown

So give me the next. Give me the next chart and it'll actually show you. Like there's names in here. Comfort Systems, which is fix. This is cooling. Like people thought it was an air conditioning company and then all of a sudden had a data center biz. And I think we own that in house.

Michael Batnick

I was about to say, I think we own that.

Josh Brown

Yeah, I think we do. We own a bunch of these names in Porterhouse, but like, you really can see. And of course, they all rallied hard today.

Michael Batnick

Porterhouse is up 3.9% today. At least my account was. Because we're the smartest investors ever.

Josh Brown

Yeah. All right. Anyway, I thought this was interesting. And now that's a really good segue into the next thing I wanted to talk about, which is fears of a catch down in some quarters of the market. The belief is that now that the momentum names have been killed and the hyperscalers are off their highs, what's more likely is that the rest of The S&P 500 will catch down.

Michael Batnick

I totally disagree.

Josh Brown

I'm glad you don't agree with this. I don't agree with it either, but I want to talk about it with you. On the surface. Why do you disagree?

Michael Batnick

Because of what we just spoke about.

Josh Brown

I saw, I read this this one day, though. That's just today.

Michael Batnick

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Josh Brown

I'm saying the comeback intact so far.

Michael Batnick

Forget. I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that these stocks have all gotten killed and the market held in there. Why would they all of a sudden catch down? If they were going to get sold off, they would have been sold off concurrently. The entire market would have puked money, left these names, and went into the rest. I don't buy that. It's like a delay. It's going to be a delayed catch down. I just. I just don't. I reject that.

Josh Brown

All right, Spencer Jacob, who we've had here on this show, is quoting Technical. The technical analyst from btig, Jonathan Kristy.

Michael Batnick

I love Jonathan, by the way.

Josh Brown

Yeah, so Jonathan put this out on Monday. So it's a shame the market was so green today. But let's just. Let's talk about the possibility. He said 52 trading days so far this year. The index won in one direction, but the majority of S&P 500 stocks went the other way. It's pretty rare.

Michael Batnick

That's been happening for the last three years.

Josh Brown

Okay.

Michael Batnick

It's not rare. It's rare. Historically, it's not rare in this market.

Josh Brown

Okay. He says that that ties the record, which was from the year 2000, the third highest number of instances this century. So it is really rare. July's not over yet, but 2026 will almost certainly break the record.

Michael Batnick

Throw the chart up. It's not rare. This is the market that we were in for the last three years. Number of days when the S&P 500 price and breath moved in opposite direction. Throw this chart up now.

Podcast Host/Announcer

Throw it up.

Michael Batnick

Thank you. This is not rare. We've been seeing this for the last three years. The market is very weird because you

Josh Brown

can see concentration because it's a. It's a. It's a highly concentrated market at the top. So when those stocks go and the rest of the market doesn't, you're recording one more day.

Michael Batnick

That used to matter a lot. Like, that used to be a signal when all of the market was doing one thing and the index was doing the opposite. That was like, wait, what's. What's happening? And this happens every other day now.

Josh Brown

Well, here's the. Here's the money. Quote. Divergence can be the hallmark of a rally when a new industry has taken the market baton, but also a preview of broader market trouble. BTIG writes that as the relationships between stocks normalize, quote, it's likely to be a result of everything catching down to the recent pullback in AI names rather than AI names catching up to everything else. Today's market action seems to be a repudiation of this idea.

Michael Batnick

So. Yeah, I just. I just. I disagree with the premise. Now. Jonathan might turn out to be right. I mean, obviously the stock market could fall from here, but I don't see it that way.

Josh Brown

Okay. Well, I think he'd probably rather be wrong than right. I think he's just talking about the possibility. And here's. Here's the likelihood.

Michael Batnick

Here's why I don't see it that way. This. This is. Here's the evidence. Next chart, please. This is from Grant Hawk Ridge, the Percentage of stocks above their 200 day moving average, the 500 which is the large, the 400 is the mid and the 600 is a small. They're all at the highest levels since 2024. Everything else is working. So this idea that all of a sudden they're going to retreat and catch down, why, I mean they could, but there's no evidence that suggests that they're going to throw the next one up. This is from Duality research. On the left we're looking at the percentage of stocks at highs, various various time frames. 4 week, 8 week, 12 week. There's a lot of real estate in there, a lot of financials as we've discussed. Energy.

Josh Brown

Look at the four week. Oh my God.

Michael Batnick

Yeah, there's a lot of stocks doing really well at like four week highs at one month highs. And then look at the stocks at lows. Forget about 52 week lows because there's really nothing to be seen there.

Josh Brown

But there's just, there are no 52 week lows.

Michael Batnick

So I'm seeing a lot of highs and not a lot of lows.

Josh Brown

And this is, you know what, that would be a really great dashboard to just keep in front of you. So for people listening, not watching, we're looking at every sector. We're looking at the percentage of stocks at 4 week, 8 week, 12 week, 24 week and 52 week high. And then we're doing the same thing for the lows. There are no 52 week lows in this market. Like literally 00% of stocks. 9 of 11 sectors.

Michael Batnick

Right, right. So almost virtually none.

Josh Brown

Almost none is my point. But then put this back up. But then if you look at like 57% of energy, stocks are at a four week high, 30% of comm services, a third of stocks are at a four week high.

Michael Batnick

And look at percent of stocks at lows. So you got the tech washout. You had almost half of the index at a four week low, like a real washout and the market hung in there. So I just, I think we're good. I think we're, we're over the hump now. Let's see what Google says. Obviously like the future is hard to predict but I see no evidence that that's going to happen.

Josh Brown

No, you're right, there isn't any. It's all what might happen. There's no evidence that it's happening right now.

Michael Batnick

Right.

Josh Brown

So.

Michael Batnick

All right, let's keep moving man. People love stocks. People really, really love stocks and they really love women shopping. Yes they do. You can't stop a woman from shopping Chart. That's. That's nutty, Professor.

Josh Brown

Yeah. It's not me. That's not me. This is a segment. People love stocks.

Michael Batnick

People love stocks. Chart on. So Todd Son has. I love these charts. We're looking at cumulative daily equity ETF flows by year. And this year looks nothing like the others. Now, you might say this and say, like, whoa. I actually, I don't like this. This makes me a little bit uncomfortable. I understand. There's a lot of enthusiasm in the stock market these days in equity ETFs, at least.

Josh Brown

This is all stock. This is all equity ETFs. Not any specific type, just if it's a stock ETF. Wow, this is crazy.

Michael Batnick

Crazy. So remember how much people loved Ark, Josh?

Josh Brown

Yes.

Michael Batnick

In 2021 and 2020. I suppose that's when it's. When it happened.

Josh Brown

That looks a heyday.

Michael Batnick

That looks quaint by comparison. Next chart. Look at dram. Oh, my God. So this could make you nervous. And guess what? We've been all over this. It just fell 30%. People were right to say, this isn't. This isn't. This is a cool. There's too many. Too many people on one side of the ship. Well, the ship. The ship is now floating straight. I'm not. I'm not a seaman, but it's floating straight. Everybody that needed to go overboard, they were just bounced out to sea.

Josh Brown

I want to make a. Put that chart back up. I want to make a point here. Here's the difference. So, yes, the cumulative flows and the daily trading volume in DRAM dwarf what was happening with the ARK Innovation Fund at its peak. But an even more important difference is that ARK was for, like. According to them, they saw it as a core. Like, they didn't see themselves as a thematic. Like, they saw themselves as. This is better than the way that you're investing.

Michael Batnick

What's your point?

Josh Brown

They did commercials like, why value investing will never work again and stuff like that. Like, this was like. The idea is like, this is the new equity core is investing directly in innovation. Nobody involved with DRAM is thinking like, this is replacing their core in their portfolio. Everyone gets that DRAM is like a sleeve or an also or a thematic. Whereas people really thought the new way to invest in a diversified equity is like own ARK instead of the S&P 500. People really did that.

Michael Batnick

And the reason why those numbers look quaint, even though they were big at the time. She invented this, like, thematic ETFs was

Josh Brown

not a category before her active ETFs not a category. So nobody thought, nobody thought there'd be a future in it.

Michael Batnick

No. So leveraged investors were wiped the hell out. But they kept, but serious investors kept buying. Look at DRAM Daily Fund flows. There was one day, one day in the 30 decline or whatever it was of outflows June 20th.

Josh Brown

Where were you on June 26th or June 25th? What a, what a, what a bloodbath that day must have been. Must have been great for. Must have been great for the market makers though. That's a lot of activity. I don't think they care directionally what the thing does. They just care that people are trading it.

Michael Batnick

So that's all I gotta say. People love stocks and I love that people love stocks.

Josh Brown

I love stocks. Yeah. Thank God for that. I want to do a little bit of myth busting here. Our friend, friend of the show Adam Parker did something about this like K shaped narrative. I'm just gonna quote him and I would love to get your take on what he's. The point he's making. I think what he's saying, I'll get to the end and then I'll support it. Think what he's saying is like, yes, of course there are haves and have nots in the current economy, as there always are. And it's true that there are some extremes between the upper end of the K and the lower, but also the lower end of the K. It's not as bad as you think for a variety of reasons. And we might be overestimating this idea and punishing certain stocks or certain categories of stocks for no good reason. So he's asking, perhaps the narrative is more about the lower third not participating in balance sheet improvement as opposed to their own income statements. The narrative often jumps from the lower income consumers are frustrated and trading down. Then it jumps to lower income consumers are financially deteriorating. And that second part just might not be true. And so here, here are a couple of pieces of evidence that the lower end consumer is actually doing better than perceived by the people who continuously talk about K shape. Number one, lower income wage growth has recently re accelerated. Bank of America's deposit account data showed that after tax wage growth for lower income households went from 2.9% in May to 4.1% in June. PNC also has data supporting that idea to credit performance at major banks is healthy. Jpm, bank of America, Wells Fargo, all reported stable is important or declining card delinquencies and charge offs while card spending and loan balances continue to grow 90 day card delinquencies are the lowest they have been since September 2023. So yeah, K shape, the bottom of the K, they maybe aren't keeping up in terms of like their net worth.

Michael Batnick

They're not going to go to the World Cup.

Josh Brown

They're not deteriorating is the point. More card accounts are being paid in full. This is the Philly Fed. 37% of credit card accounts paid in full. In Q1, the amount making minimum only payments declined to 10%. 4. Most households describe their finances as acceptable. Still, 73% of adults told a Federal Reserve household survey that they were doing okay or living comfortably. That's up from last year. 63% said they could cover a $400 emergency. 5. Lower income consumers are adapting rather than disappearing. So they are increasing spending at discount apparel stores. They're trading down private labels, discount merchandise. We all understand this. But the spending is not stopping, it's continuing. So this is substitution and price sensitivity, not demand destruction. And last but not least, aggregate consumption remains positive. June 2026, core retail sales rose 0.5% following an upwardly revised 0.8% the prior month. It's mostly higher income consumers shifting that up. But the overall data does not show the bottom half falling out. Are we saying it's good to be on the bottom of the K? No, of course not. Are we saying that there isn't room for improvement in these people's lives? No, of course we're not saying that. But it is not true that this bottom income consumer is drowning or dying or disappearing from the stores or not paying their bills. It's just, it's not in the data. It's not what's happening right now. What are your thoughts?

Michael Batnick

I've been saying this for a long time and it's probably deeply unpopular for people with money to say that things aren't as bad as the people are making it out to be.

Josh Brown

You can't win.

Michael Batnick

So, yeah, to echo what Josh said, like, obviously, you know, it sounds incentive insensitive to say this, but we're looking at the data and we're listening to the people with the data inside the banks and they're all saying the same thing. They're all saying the same thing. This guy went viral, a PNC economist. They have the data. They literally have the spend and the balances and they're saying it's improving now. Like, Obviously the bottom 10% of people are always struggling. That's always the case. And I think that probably where the bigger extreme is is the people at the top of The K, all the people that went to the World cup and spent $50,000. It's obscene wealth that it makes the lower end of the K. And even

Josh Brown

the, the comparison, yeah, it makes the juxtaposition.

Michael Batnick

It makes everybody, it makes everybody feel shitty. But it's awesome news that factually looking at data, the lower half of the K is not doing nearly as bad as some people would have you believe. And it's all, it's, it's virtue signaling. It's people with money saying we people don't understand how bad people are doing, how much are getting crushed by inflation, how they can't afford the rent, how

Josh Brown

they can afford to say that though. But it, but if you say that though, you're right. If you come out on Instagram and say that, people will share your post.

Podcast Host/Announcer

Yeah.

Josh Brown

This is how you go viral, how bad everything is.

Michael Batnick

Yeah. Who's against that populist message? It resonates because obviously people are struggling. Obviously we all know people that are struggling, but it's just not true. And I have to fight back against the poison, even if it's an unpopular take, cuz it's not true. So.

Josh Brown

Right. So you get. So I get on a plane, I'm in business class. Who are all these other people on the plane? You know, like who is filling up every airplane I'm on?

Michael Batnick

Dude, we want.

Josh Brown

I haven't been on a flight with empty seats in three years.

Michael Batnick

When we went to the Commander's Lions game. These are not all rich people, but there was 90,000 people there and they're all on the top of the K. Can't be.

Josh Brown

I'll let Adam have the last word.

Michael Batnick

One last thing. I was at Fanatics Fest all weekend and there's a lot of people.

Josh Brown

We're bragging about this.

Michael Batnick

There's a lot of people there. What you're too good for. For fandom.

Josh Brown

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only autographs I'm interested on my own. Go on. You got to meet all the Knicks. I think that's the coolest thing ever.

Michael Batnick

Yeah, sure. Don't, don't, don't save yourself.

Josh Brown

No, you're not.

Michael Batnick

You're not. You're not a man.

Josh Brown

I wouldn't have gone. I wouldn't have.

Michael Batnick

You are. Now. You are no man of the people, sir.

Josh Brown

No, I'm not. I'm salt of the earth, though.

Michael Batnick

I know you're not.

Josh Brown

You are.

Michael Batnick

You are acid of the earth. I was there and there was a lot of people that were. That were teachers. I heard. I met a bunch of them. There was a lot of gym teachers and whatnot. This is not the upper end of the K only. And they were all there and they were all able to be there having a great time. The K. The K is not as bad as people think.

Josh Brown

Which of the Knicks were you most excited to.

Michael Batnick

Oh, you're not interested? Let's keep moving.

Josh Brown

I am interested. No, I think. Can I tell you who I think it was?

Michael Batnick

Interest.

Josh Brown

Can I tell you who I think it was?

Michael Batnick

Go ahead.

Josh Brown

Who you were you. Knowing you, I think you were most excited to meet Kat?

Michael Batnick

Um, no, but close. Not a bad guess. Yeah, I was most excited. I was most excited to meet coach Brown. Really? Yeah.

Josh Brown

Really?

Michael Batnick

Yeah.

Josh Brown

I feel like you could have done that outside of the fanatics fest. You probably could have done that.

Michael Batnick

Coaches don't make appearances ever. This is very rare. And I was able to tell him that we were the loud fans behind him in Denver. He gave us a shout out on TV after and he was so excited to see me.

Josh Brown

Dude, I'm glad you got to go to that. I want to give Adam the last word on this. To sum up, the lower end consumer is employed generally current on most obligations, receiving, improving wage growth, continuing to spend and becoming more price sensitive. All of those things are true. The conventional K shaped narrative is probably roughly half reality and half overstatement.

Podcast Host/Announcer

Half.

Josh Brown

It accurately captures wealth inequality and affordability frustrations. This is the part but frequently exaggerates the degree of deterioration in current cash flow.

Michael Batnick

He's absolutely right. I think when you say that the bottom of the K is not doing as bad as people think. It sounds like you like are pro wealth inequality.

Josh Brown

Right?

Michael Batnick

I think that's what people hear.

Josh Brown

Nobody, which of course nobody, Nobody is pro wealth inequality. The only difference in society or how to address it.

Michael Batnick

Elon wants to be a trillionaire, but

Josh Brown

it's like, how do you. I would argue Elon Musk personally has been responsible for the creation of more millionaire households than any publicly traded CEO in. In. In the entire market. That's my opinion.

Michael Batnick

Wait, one last thing. The. The companies that report that the K is okay, that it's exaggerated a little bit, are the banks. Right. The companies that literally have the data and the companies blaming the lower consumer are fast food companies.

Josh Brown

Yeah. Yeah. The banks are saying people are paying their bills and the people listening to that message are like, no, they're not.

Michael Batnick

No, they literally are. Sorry, Chipotle people don't want to spend $16 for a bowl. They're doing something else. All right, I'm Going to make the case for biotech stocks. They're doing well. I don't really know much about.

Josh Brown

You have done that earlier this year and you've been right.

Michael Batnick

Yeah, I don't really know, honestly, what's going on. I did some digging. It's like, I don't know, M A, ipo, whatever, whatever. Like, I, you know, there was a lot of pressure from RFK on these stocks. So they were just, they were, they were very hated and now they're bouncing and maybe that's just, maybe that's just it. So the one that I own is XBI first chart. It's, it's working. The next chart is xbi, which is the equal weight version relative to the cap weighted version. So this is similar to IWM versus spy. You are seeing continued risk appetite for the riskier names. The part about the chart that has me potentially a little bit worried is, are we, is this is, Are we double topping next chart? This is. We're getting back to levels that we were at during the mania in 2020. But I think this is going, this is going to 200 eventually.

Josh Brown

All right, I love the pitch and I actually think this is. This chart that you ended with is the bull case. Because the quality of the companies that make up the XBI and the IBB have improved since that last peak in 2021. Earnings are higher for the companies that actually have earnings in that index. And the largest companies in the ibb, which I think leads the xbi, are doing better than ever. And these companies basically have been left for dead for a really long time. So I, I don't look at that as a double top. I look at that as we've come full circle and now all of the companies underlying this index are in a better place than they were back then.

Michael Batnick

And in 2020, that was Moderna, which was up. Was it up a thousand percent? That was like the pandemic drug mania.

Josh Brown

Don't look now. Moderna is a leader in, in, in health care this year. It's one of the best stocks.

Michael Batnick

I sold that stocks in this. I sold it 400% ago. Awesome. All right, let's go. Mystery chart. What do we got?

Josh Brown

Let's put it up. Okay, let me explain this. The bottom, the orange is an entire S and P sector ETF. It's one of the 11 sectors, Roger. The top is. The top is an ETF of a specific industry group within it.

Michael Batnick

Okay, okay.

Josh Brown

If I'm you, let me just cheat. Let me cheat. If I'm you, I'm using the bottom one to figure out the top one.

Michael Batnick

Well, that's. That's what I did as a bottom one. Financials.

Josh Brown

Okay, you got. You're halfway there. But you got to guess the purple. Okay, that's the. Purple is the. Purple is the mystery.

Michael Batnick

Insurance.

Josh Brown

Did you just look at the chat or you really guessed it?

Michael Batnick

Swear to go.

Josh Brown

Be honest, dude. I cheat off the chat. I cheat off the chat.

Michael Batnick

How do I do a screen share? I'm never in. I'm never in the chat. You have my full attention.

Josh Brown

All right, Michael, a round of applause. He did it again. First, first try. Batnik.

Michael Batnick

I honestly would never in a million years have guess insurance. But you've been on that. So that's why I guess insurance.

Josh Brown

So you knew like what I wanted to talk about.

Michael Batnick

Yeah.

Josh Brown

This is the. This is chart off. This is the. I have more. This is the best. This is the best subsector within finance this summer, within the financial services this summer. There are a lot of drivers here. But at the end of the day, what really matters for these companies is you didn't have any catastrophes to speak of yet. They're over earning. You've got premiums rising and a consumer willingness to pay those higher premiums. And the thing that you have to remember at the end of the day is these are basically de facto investing companies. And rates are higher, they're elevated relative to two years ago, three years ago, and they're staying high. We know.

Michael Batnick

What's your favorite name in here?

Josh Brown

I'm going to show you three that are on my list of best stocks in the market.

Michael Batnick

Hartford looks great. That's on your list, right?

Josh Brown

Yes, but I'm not showing you that one. I have three others.

Michael Batnick

Go ahead.

Josh Brown

All right, Daniel, if you please. Here's Travelers. I've been. I've been pounding this stock on TV to no end. Do you want it? I'm not in it, unfortunately at the moment. But you know what?

Michael Batnick

You know what? Hold on. This is so awesome because these names are like unbiable because they're just so boring. But if you took the ticker off, this is a buy 100 out of 100.

Josh Brown

We had this. We had this on, I think June 8th or something. We brought this to CNBC Pro.

Michael Batnick

I don't know what that is.

Josh Brown

Sean and I, and then we did a TV segment about it and it just will not stop going up. I think it's up 70 points from where we started talking about it. Give me the next one.

Michael Batnick

I can't buy it here.

Josh Brown

Give Me the next sets property casualty. I like plain and simple. Here's Chubb. This is global. Like unbelievably large and important insurance company. This is the high end. This is who serves the top of the K. Chubb. They are like, literally, like, if you call them and say, I had a problem with my house this morning, they'll send somebody out with a check that afternoon. Like, wealthy people work with Chubb and carriers that cater to big corporations. And the top of the K. Put that chart back. I think this is a breakout in progress.

Michael Batnick

Wait, I love that you're saying this. You know why? This goes back to our theme earlier. Chart off. Investing in the top of the K is a legitimate investing strategy right now. Delta, Hyatt, Amex, whatever. What's the play to invest in the bottom of the K? There is none.

Josh Brown

Stumb. That's why I was trying to tell you a year ago you were putting up charts of Dollar General. I'm like, well, even if things go

Michael Batnick

great, but that's not a play on anything. It's just. That's a idiosyncratic.

Josh Brown

No, that's a play on trade down. Which even if you're right, how much money do you make? That's the problem. Chubb is earning record profits. Travelers is earning record profits. These companies are not lowest common denominator clientele. These companies are selling a extremely profitable product to people who will literally pay anything.

Michael Batnick

What's the last one?

Josh Brown

I got one more. Aflac. This is a Japanese customer primarily. Most of the earnings growth for Aflac come out of Japan. But look at. I mean, look at this chart.

Michael Batnick

It's going higher.

Josh Brown

If you. If you don't know the ticker symbol and I show this to you, you probably think it's like electrification for data centers.

Michael Batnick

Yeah.

Josh Brown

You know what I mean?

Michael Batnick

Yeah.

Josh Brown

What. What is there not.

Michael Batnick

Look at.

Josh Brown

Look at the respect. Look at the respect for that 200 day. Look at it the entire way. The entire. Would you have one violation go to travel of that 200 day?

Michael Batnick

Speaking of respect, this is put up the Travelers. Unbelievable.

Josh Brown

Look at this, look at this. So that's directly. All three of these names directly out of our best stocks in the market column, Josh. That we do for pro.

Michael Batnick

To quote the great Jennifer Love Hewitt. What are you waiting for?

Josh Brown

Yeah, I'll just buy every stock that looks good. I'll be out of money real fast because we have 208 names on our list. All right, guys, that's it from us tonight. I want to remind you my personal favorite podcast, Animal Sports spirits comes tomorrow morning. YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Do not miss it. That's Michael and Ben. We'll have an all new edition of Ask the Compound. And then at the end of the week, we're going to finish out strong with an incredibly special guest. Actually two guests. First time on the show.

Michael Batnick

I can't wait.

Josh Brown

I mean, you guys don't even know what we have planned for you.

Michael Batnick

You don't even know.

Josh Brown

So don't make plans on Friday morning cuz we're coming hard on the compound in France. What is that? What are you doing?

Michael Batnick

This is.

Josh Brown

Are you doing an unboxing?

Michael Batnick

It's a Litra Beam. My. My office is getting dark. I got to get ahead of the winter.

Josh Brown

Duncan.

Michael Batnick

Duncan, help me out.

Josh Brown

All right, guys, thank you all for coming out. God bless. Good night.

Podcast Host/Announcer

Ritholtz Wealth Management is a registered investment advisor. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Ritholtz Wealth Management and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. Nothing on this podcast should be construed as and may not be used in connection with an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy or hold an interest in any security or investment product. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital. No advice may be rendered by Ritholtz Wealth Management unless a client service agreement is in place.