News & Insights

Hey, welcome back everybody to the market enthusiast. I’m Noah Brooks and obviously this is Chris needs welcome. Here we are Thursday morning and what do we have in the markets Chris? We have new highs on the S &P 500. We have new highs on mid caps. We have new highs on the Nasdaq on the cues on small caps on international the Dow is just a hair away from a new all time high. We have had an incredible meltup. We have super strong April. Noah (01:31) SMP was up over 12 or 10 % over 10 % best month since April, November of 2020. Yeah. ⁓ Like you said, NASDAQ all time highs, Russell to everything at all time highs melting up and it’s been been really fun. ⁓ putting the weekly stuff together ⁓ this past weekend and just looking at those hot looking at the returns from April. Noah (01:55) And you know, obviously ⁓ March not so good down a little bit and the draw down from ⁓ the high. think it was January ⁓ 27th to the bottom. ⁓ What’s substantial? It wasn’t technically a correction because correction is 10%. It was 9.8%. It felt like a correction. It felt pretty bad, ⁓ but we rallied dramatically off of that off of those highs off of those lows. Excuse me. Noah (02:22) I think it was like 16 and a half percent off of those lows. And you look at the numbers that 10 % you referenced in the NASDAQ up 15. If you missed April, if an investor is out there and they got scared out and they missed April, they probably missed the returns for the year. Not that there won’t be any more returns, but you can’t miss a 10 % upside in the S and P 500 and then expect to somehow work that out. Noah (02:50) the remaining eight months of the year, you can’t miss 15 % on the NASDAQ. And I started looking at some of the longer numbers. The 20 year number on the S and P 500 is annualizing just around 11%. And that includes, mean, 20 years, we’re talking 2006. I think it gets higher, the shorter you go 10 year five, you know, yeah, yeah, it’s even higher on on the 15 and the 10. But Noah (03:18) It’s amazing to me that the market is annualizing at an 11 % return. And I think that includes dividends as well. But it also includes one of the worst drawdowns that we’ve seen. You know, certainly in the last 20 years, but probably in the last 60 years, other than the tech bubble in the early 2000s, a 53 % decline in the S &P 500 from Noah (03:47) March, excuse me from mid 2008 until March of 2009. And you’re still annualizing at 11 % return over that time period. what was it 37 % in the COVID drawdown and 22 % in in 2022 when interest rates moved up. So I think it’s like all that 11 % per year, you gotta stay invested, you have to stay invested. I always say on here, which is a line from Buffett, right? Don’t bet against America, but like Noah (04:17) those numbers just reinforce it over and over and over again for me. So like I said at the beginning, we’re sitting here at new all time highs. And I know people are thinking, okay, this is where I should get out. Right? This is where I should take some off the table. And there’s people that that’s perfectly acceptable for that are maybe over allocated equities. ⁓ But if you’re one of those people that’s trying to time the market, Noah (04:41) my advice to you, whether you’re a financial advisor, whether you’re an individual investor, is don’t play the long game. It just works in the end. I mean, there you go, the 20 year number at 11%. We’ve shaken off all the volatility in the oil markets, which is still happening. It’s come in from those March highs, I guess you would say, but still has been very volatile. Clients have been kind of volatile as well. Noah (05:11) But you know what, earning season has been spectacular. We had had a sad a couple days ago, I got an update stat here with our technical difficulties yesterday. 81 % of the SMP 500 has now reported coming into earnings season, the estimate was for 15 % earnings growth. Very impressive, very high. Where we’re at with 81 % reporting the projection is now at 28%. Amazing. Can we get to 30? Noah (05:40) who may be and imagine if we didn’t have all the capex that’d be extra earnings. Yeah, it’s impressive. It really really is. You know, so here we are beginning of May. And you know, you hear the old adage sell in May and go away. And maybe that’s right for 2026. But generally speaking, it doesn’t work. Wasn’t in 25. Definitely. It wasn’t in 2025. So Noah (06:07) I’m pretty excited about the rest of the year. mean, ⁓ there’s a bunch of things that we’re going to talk about today. Obviously Iran is on everybody’s mind, but it seems like the market is, I don’t want to say ignoring the high oil prices. I don’t think you can do that indefinitely. you know, around here, we saw gas, right around four 69 yesterday and this morning, which is definitely higher than it’s been, ⁓ all year, no question about it, but ⁓ there’s, it looks like Noah (06:37) And it’s very obviously fluid situation. The market is saying there’s going to be a deal reached. And even if they’re I don’t see even if there isn’t, but even if it’s not reached today or tomorrow or this weekend and it’s a month from now, yeah, every every day or every week that the oil price stays elevated is probably ⁓ probably ⁓ saps demand a little bit, which is maybe a natural balancing act. Noah (07:06) for that supply demand crush that we have. ⁓ But overall, earnings are great. The markets at new highs. ⁓ And you know, there’s a million things to worry about. ⁓ what’s the markets that new high speaking of the Iran thing and whatnot, UAE has apparently considered or will be leaving OPEC. Yeah, huge. Yeah. So I heard last night, and luckily, the markets didn’t react to this, as I would have guessed, maybe they would have. Noah (07:34) There’s another drone attack missile attack on UAE. And apparently Iran said they’re going to consider taking over a couple of their ports. ⁓ I will see. But yeah, potentially leaving OPEC. That’s an interesting move from them. So OPEC obviously was created oil producing ⁓ countries. ⁓ OPEC was created basically as a cartel for oil, right? In the 70s. And they have done a very good job. Noah (08:02) in keeping oil prices, what I’ll say is ⁓ inflated, ⁓ right? By limiting supply ⁓ when prices get too low and, you know, trying to create a floor there. ⁓ so what they do, ⁓ what they’re doing is they’re limiting the amount of export that the OPEC countries can put onto the market. And the UAE is saying, you know, I think we want to put more on than you’re allowing. And we’re just going to leave this little cartel. Noah (08:32) And we’re going to do whatever we want. That by itself is positive for supply, positive for the outlook, knowing that more is going to come on for UAE. But obviously ⁓ they still need to pass through the strait. Right. ⁓ As of this morning, the strait is still effectively closed, even though we’ve had a few tankers go through there and ⁓ a few cargo ships go through there. There’s I don’t know how many are still sitting there. I would hate to be one of the ⁓ ship workers. Noah (09:00) stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. Hey, how about that other ship where people were dying from the… the Hontovirus. boy. So do you know anything about it? I think it comes from rats or mice or something. now it’s communicable between humans, which I didn’t know that. It’s one of these. ⁓ it’s essentially like the plague, if I understand it correctly. But wonderful. This ship is one of those explorer ships where people, know, small boat Noah (09:29) people go on they go to Antarctic and see the penguins and you know in the north they see the polar bears everybody’s taking their photos it’s not like a celebrity cruise or a princess or something like that but they had some news on last night some video the captain came on three weeks ago on this ship and said that a passenger had died of natural causes and then you’re floating around with Noah (09:56) essentially a dead guy somewhere out there, not that that’s the worst thing in the world, but he had this very, uh, seems like very infectious disease. It spread to a few other people. Now they’re reporting that one of the stewardesses on a, so a bunch of people left early, like 27 people actually left the ship, got off somewhere, made their way. And one of the stewardesses on one of the planes that one of these 27 people left on Noah (10:20) is now showing signs. think they got off in Spain or Portugal. No, you better watch out. ⁓ Did you ever hear I don’t know how true this is. But seems like it might make sense. Do ever hear on the big cruise ships, where a few days in randomly, they’ll offer like free ice cream? Do you know sort of what is considered the reason for that is, ⁓ they only have like a couple areas for people that pass away. So if someone passes away, and they’ve already used those holds, Noah (10:48) They have to put them in that refrigerator. So you have to give out all the free ice cream. So when you get free ice cream on a cruise, just know I’m sure they have a spot for dead people on cruise ships. You don’t think so? It’s reserved that there’s not ice cream in there. No, but like if they have two spaces, you know, look it up. We’ll see. I don’t know how many I’ve that how many people die. I don’t go on cruises. I’ve I’ve never been on a real cruise like a day trip somewhere, but I’ve never been on a on a cruise ship overnight. Noah (11:17) Uh, I wouldn’t mind checking out the islands, but somehow being stuck on that cruise ship for a long period of time. And I know my wife would, would not want to do that. I think that might be the driver. I’ll take an airplane, hang out in the city for a little bit, maybe a small sailboat for the day. I don’t want to be on one those big ships. Yeah. It seems a little tight. I hear that they’re wonderful. Lots of people tell me, Oh, I should check it out. I just haven’t gotten there yet. Maybe, uh, maybe at some point in the future. Um, Noah (11:46) So speaking of travel, ⁓ what happened this week? Spirit shut down. They did. Yeah. So didn’t get that government bailout, which you could say, thankfully, I mean, I don’t think the government should be ⁓ diving into those. should be bailing companies out? No. What about Intel? Well, that worked out very well ⁓ for them. But it did work out very well. But I just thought it was very funny. JetBlue was who they were going to merge through and it got knocked down by the Department of Justice a couple years ago. Noah (12:15) And ⁓ the reasoning was it would decrease flights, increase costs. And now what do we have? Decrease. Decrease costs. And JetBlue is now taking over the home hub or increasing capacity in Fort Lauderdale, which was the home hub of Spirit. ⁓ I read last night. ⁓ So Spirit had a number of routes from Atlantic City. Noah (12:40) And they were one of the first people to go into Atlantic city and offer flights down to Florida and some other areas. ⁓ they’ve all been filled already and it’s like five days. They’ve all been filled by breeze ⁓ and breeze was making play up here in jet blue. think it was, ⁓ but you know, spirit wasn’t the worst thing. They’ve been around about 35 years. They, they had up until a Sunday, I guess it was about three and a half percent of the total seats in the United States and in domestic travel. Noah (13:09) So essentially what you’re seeing is three and a half percent less ⁓ capacity in the overall industry. And you could make a case that it’s not that big a deal, but the fact of the matter is effects a marginal consumer for sure. Yeah. ⁓ And they also ⁓ specialized in some kind of odd routes. I mean, they certainly did the big ones, you know, Philadelphia to Las Vegas and things like that. ⁓ Maybe not as odd as, as breeze and like Raleigh to ⁓ Noah (13:38) I don’t know, Timbuktu or something, something strange. But they they did have some interesting routes. And maybe that was one of the reasons, ⁓ you know, that they they didn’t survive. Obviously, they were in bankruptcy twice over the last five years. twice in the past year. This was our second in the last year. ⁓ And so now they’re in full liquidation. They’ve stopped flying. And I would imagine their planes are going to be picked up their employees, maybe not all of them, but the majority are going to be picked up. ⁓ Noah (14:08) it will be, I guess you could say like shooting fish in a barrel, right? You’ll be able to take the cream of the crop, move it over to the jet blues, the breezes, the Americans, United Deltas, right? They’ll have a great time hiring. Yeah. I mean, if you’re paid to hire at one of those companies, you’re going to have a good year. When there’s a backlog on planes, as we know with Boeing and what not Airbus made, this is a little gift for those other guys. like, Hey, we’ll repaint that. I don’t know how it takes, how long it takes to repaint one of those. Noah (14:34) 10-15 minutes. is very distinguishable that bright yellow. You and I had taken a few spirit flights. You like the big chairs, right? They don’t have first class. That’s part of their gimmick, but they do have big chairs. Absolutely. I thought the value was very reasonable. ⁓ You’re talking. So for me, I don’t need the food or the drinks in you know, in first, but I do like the bigger seat. And that big seat was like an extra hundred dollars one way. Noah (15:02) So for me, that was that was wonderful. You and I flew it out to Chicago, I think, and then I flew to Florida to the big seat to Vegas two or three years ago. It’s great. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but I can’t. remember the joke the lady made? She’s like, for all of you that said you wouldn’t fly with us again. Welcome back. do remember that. that was actually never. I’ve never really had a terrible experience flying. Noah (15:29) Well, good for you. hear nightmare stories all the time, but I’m dodging ⁓ those bullets. like in the matrix, man. I’m Neo. ⁓ Yeah. Okay. Good deal. ⁓ So they obviously stopped ⁓ and they, they chalked it up to high oil prices and high, high jet fuel prices. ⁓ Jet fuel prices have risen significantly faster than, ⁓ than oil prices and certainly gasoline prices. I’m sure there’s, you know, some disruption there. ⁓ Noah (15:59) And that’s what they said. They just couldn’t, they didn’t have the money. They asked the administration ⁓ for a bailout for $500 million. ⁓ In the beginning, it sounded like that was actually going happen. And then I guess maybe ⁓ the idea of ⁓ what would you call that socialism? Yeah. ⁓ But going back to your point about Intel, I mean, if you look at what the administration did with Intel, Noah (16:29) ⁓ injecting a large dollar amount. ⁓ And you could make a case that this is national security, right for chips, you know, with Taiwan and that whole situation, but they injected ⁓ of I don’t know what the exact I think we use that as leverage with TSMC to say like, yeah, you better get this Arizona foundry going. Because if not, we’re doing it without you. Yeah, we need chips being made here. Yeah. The bottom the government bought on a double bottom to Yeah, that was just, you know, gas on the ⁓ Noah (16:58) If I read it right, they injected about $11 billion into Intel and that stake is worth something like $58 billion today. ⁓ And I don’t know how they, ⁓ I don’t know how they exit that stake. I don’t know where the warrants are and all that stuff. Do they have to pay capital gains taxes on that? ⁓ I guess not. That’s how do they not have to pay capital gains, but you and I and all the investors out there have to do that. Government Intel muni right there. Okay. All right. I don’t really love that. I think they should have to pay into the treasury a little bit. Noah (17:28) Unless they’re going to, I it all goes, I think it all goes into the treasury. Yeah. I’m not opposed to that. ⁓ When are they going to get out though? ⁓ What’s that going to do to the stock? Anything? Does it not matter? Are they back on their feet? So Intel is one of those companies that, ⁓ after the tech bubble of the, of the late nineties really was in the, in the toilet for a long, long time. If you had bought Noah (17:52) uh, Intel at its high in 2000, I think it was around March 13th of 2000. took almost 18 years to get back up to its high, which price split adjusted and all that stuff was around 47 bucks a share. And then we got there in, in, um, in 2019 and boom, you know, today it’s a hundred dollars a share. It got down to 27, uh, during liberation day last year, and then the government stepped in. So, Noah (18:22) They had a couple of missteps in there. wasn’t just all like no. No, no. Ups and downs. Yeah. Kelsinger. We know his thing. He tried to start a foundry when ⁓ right before ⁓ the chip craze started, what was it? 2020 or 2021 and they just failed. Had to write that off ⁓ and ⁓ he got sent on his merry way. Yeah. but now I mean what, I don’t know what he’s thinking nowadays, but he’s like, I was right. I was just early. ⁓ Noah (18:49) Still wrong. Still wrong. Yeah, we know that feeling. We know that feeling. ⁓ But going back to the market for a little bit, you know, we sit here and we talk about inflation and we talked about all the economic data. ⁓ And for a while, some of the economic data was a little bit iffy. ⁓ And I suspect ⁓ a portion of that or factor in there was those tariffs. And then ⁓ not so much Iran because that data hasn’t really come through yet. But the economic data that we are seeing now Noah (19:17) whether it’s new home sales, ⁓ whether it’s GDP, ⁓ consumer confidence was up a little bit. GDP was at a 2 % annualized rate up from a half of a percent in the quarter prior. mean, all of this economic data combined with these earnings are really supporting A, the market going up and B, that multiple expansion, even though it’s not that high at the moment. I mean, it’s higher than it was two months ago during Noah (19:48) during the beginning of the Iran conflict. But realistically, ⁓ it seems like everything’s firing on all cylinders. And there’s just so much pessimism ⁓ in in early April, ⁓ and late March, and boom turns around. And now I think people have a little FOMO. ⁓ it was a of a perfect storm. Obviously, you have oil prices spiking war missiles on the news, all that fear. And then you add in Noah (20:16) cautious fed who’s like, no, we’re not cutting rates, you know, we’ll see what oil does, we’re going to remain neutral. And that seems to be their posture right now. ⁓ We actually saw four dissents. ⁓ I think Marin did his normal thing, like I want to cut 50 basis points or something like that. And then you had three, which I don’t recall ever seeing this three dissented with the bias of the FOMC statement saying that they were neutral to cut leaning Noah (20:45) you know, towards a cut rather than ⁓ neutral or hike, and they disagreed with that bias. So that was interesting to see. ⁓ Jay pals leaving his ⁓ stewardship his being the head of it as with a little bit of dissension. I think that was the most since 1992 in terms of dissenters. they’re descending on ⁓ the bias to cut meaning they think it should be either neutral or the bias to raise. ⁓ Noah (21:14) right? And I I’m sure that that doesn’t make the administration happy. Yeah, because obviously they want to see lower rates. ⁓ They’re there, you know, pounding the table on lower rates. ⁓ And it doesn’t seem like they’re in a position even after Powell just becomes the governor and not the Fed chair. ⁓ It doesn’t seem like they’re in a position to actually move rates lower. ⁓ odds for December 72 % of staying hold staying where they’re at. Yeah. Noah (21:43) Well, you have this weird situation where core CPI is still rising a little bit. ⁓ When you take, you know, the the number ⁓ at its face value, it’s rising pretty dramatically because of oil prices and gas prices. ⁓ But core is still rising. It’s not, you know, at their 2 % target. It’s closer to 3%. ⁓ And you have jobs that are, you know, weak. Let’s put it that way. Year to date, they’re they’re weak. Noah (22:12) So the job situation, you would want the Fed to lower rates, make the cost of money a little bit less. But the inflation situation, obviously from those descents, you want higher rates or you don’t want to lower. And then of course you have the political pressure that’s being applied on them. I don’t see a move in 2026, either way. Maybe late in the year if the data changes. Noah (22:41) or if we continue to get weak jobs. But it seems to me that some of those weak jobs and we have ⁓ Friday is the monthly jobs report coming out. ⁓ ADP was just released yesterday 109 and I think 105 was the expectation. So he sits positive, but we always joke about the ADP you might want to fade it. So we’ll see what happens. Well, ⁓ we think about this, ⁓ the tariffs came on, right? We had Liberation Day in 2025. Noah (23:09) tariffs came on and I think everybody was pumping the brakes. Now you have the situation where the tariffs were ruled illegal. ⁓ We could talk about the tariff refunds. That’s ⁓ I don’t want to say debacle. I don’t know. It just seems like it’s going to take a long time. There was a website set up. They have they collected $166 billion in tariff money ⁓ and I think all of that is going to be paid back out if the consumers or ⁓ the importers Noah (23:37) want it to be paid back out and go through that process. There ⁓ was 330,000 importers that are ⁓ eligible for some type of refund. And that’s, you know, that’s, that’s happening as we speak. But the fact that they were ruled illegal and they stopped tariffing ⁓ helped CEOs and CFOs say, okay, well, you know, we took a pause on hiring and we certainly saw that last year. We had five months where we had negative numbers. Noah (24:07) Total jobs last year was like 110,000 created. The majority of those creations were in healthcare. We lost jobs across the board and a lot of other sectors. And I think it’s possible that, now that these tariffs are done and I know we have Iran, but I think it’s possible that companies start to hire again. ⁓ know, fog is lifted. The fog is lifted. Yeah. A little bit more transparency ⁓ for those decision makers out there. Noah (24:37) And so, you know, I mean, I don’t know what the numbers going to be the estimates are all over. ⁓ The consensus I think is what 130,000. But you have individual estimates all over the place. ⁓ So tomorrow, we’ll find out 830 in the morning. As as we’ve been as the trend certainly has continued jobless claims, ⁓ as well as initial claims. Totally in check. No issues there. Yeah. Noah (25:04) ⁓ So what else happened this week? Anything interesting? I mean, ⁓ there’s been a lot of stuff. I mean, there’s a lot of individual it’s earning season. So you get a lot of individual company news. ⁓ I would say one of the funniest most interesting stories would be GameStop, ⁓ who ⁓ market cap ain’t given day when when I heard of the offer is about 11 billion market cap. Noah (25:29) looking to purchase eBay in there, of course, is a premium when you’re trying to buy it out. And that premium would take eBay to a 56 billion valuation. So a company five times their size, they’re looking to buy and it was very interesting Ryan Cohen who ⁓ a huge part that he found Chewy co founder co founder of Chewy and he took over GameStop as during the meme craze. So he’s been in a wild ride. He’s been ⁓ in the news a lot talking Noah (25:59) But he went on CNBC in a leather jacket, you know, like straight out of Jensen or like Jeff Bezos in the leather jacket. And he just did not want to talk to Andrew Ross Sorkin. No, that was a bad interview. It was interesting. Yeah, he’s like, Ross Sorkin was trying to get some information on the deal. He’s like, it’s on our website. He’s like, Well, how are going to pay for this? The numbers don’t add up. He’s like, this 20 billion here on the loan is no well, he was like, wasn’t he wasn’t hyper. Noah (26:27) He was calm. I thought he was very calm, he was asking, you know, what journalists questions, journalistic questions on, on financial news ⁓ and, ⁓ very dismissive in short. It was interesting. If you were, if you were watching that and you were making a decision whether or not you were going to buy eBay based on this news, you’d be like, no, I’m not, I’m not touching. I don’t think that deal is going through. No, there’s no question. ⁓ It is interesting. I don’t know. Do you ever use eBay? I do. Okay. ⁓ It’s interesting. Noah (26:56) I’ve said it on here before. I have a ton of stuff in the basement from, ⁓ from my grandmother’s estate, from a Lush’s mom’s estate, you know, things that we’ve collected over the years that are just sitting there. And some of the stuff ⁓ is pretty easy to value. You know, it’s worthless. It’s only emotional. ⁓ but other stuff you really don’t know what it’s worth. And the idea of buying ⁓ of, GameStop buying eBay is kind of interesting to me because it seemed like Noah (27:25) you could go into a GameStop, if this deal actually happened, it seemed like you could go into a GameStop store and you could get some type of appraisal on these things or guidance in terms of what you can list for. I recognize that artificial intelligence, you could take a picture of it and, you know, do the reverse search and see what it’s sold for and all that stuff. I’m not sure that that’s really deep dive stuff, maybe superficial type of pricing. that idea of walking into a place, Noah (27:53) with your product in hand and having a discussion with somebody is moderately interesting to me. It’s not scalable, right? I mean, the whole idea when you list something on eBay, you are listing it to the world essentially, if you want to ship it to the world and how you walk into a store. Um, you know, that’s, that’s a little bit different. That’s not scalable. It might work. think how did you put your D internetizing a internet company? Like we’re going backwards, but Noah (28:23) in his defense, GameStop’s really running into ⁓ really awful trends for long term of their business. I mean, I don’t I don’t play video games as much as I used to. Obviously, I don’t have time for any of that. ⁓ But I did get an Xbox and my son liked to play it. And like the last like six games we bought were all just downloaded. Like you get Xbox Game Pass and you just download the game. ⁓ I haven’t been in a GameStop in probably a decade. Noah (28:51) actually, I was actually I tried to get a PlayStation, it didn’t work. Yeah, I was in one ⁓ pre COVID. ⁓ And interestingly enough, that GameStop is no longer there. I sent you the video earlier this week. So some shop on our local news. ⁓ It was a it was turned into a Jersey Mike’s. And at the end, and they said, you know, as a former GameStop, and I just that just made me laugh. He I guess he just trying to do anything he can to get foot traffic back up because Noah (29:21) people aren’t coming in for video games anymore. No. Well, if that if that interview on CNBC was any indication doesn’t seem like that’s gonna that’s gonna fly. All My my opinion is he was expecting that the meme stalkers the Wall Street bet types, he would expect them to be like, Oh, this is a great movie. This is genius. We love eBay. love GameStop. Bye bye bye. And then suddenly his stock is goes from 11 billion. Noah (29:47) where they have one of those crazy, you know, short squeezes that gets them to 30 billion. Well, then you can do stock and these loans to make it happen. But there was no pop. Yeah, what was the number that they came up to? So they were offering 56, but they had only shown cards of they only had about 40 billion in terms of financing. There was like a $20 billion loan that wasn’t guaranteed. you know, was indication of interest. Yeah, basically. ⁓ A couple big shareholders, I think we’re willing to like Noah (30:16) get my including maybe Ryan. But yeah, it seemed like there was like a $16 billion deficit. That’s what Andrew Ross Sorkin was getting at. And he wasn’t happy to be questioned like that live on air. but saying which is also a red flag for most people. It’s like, yo, what’s this guy hiding? Yeah, it didn’t go well. To say you can look at the website, you know, it’s one thing to offer a bunch of information and then have some details. But it was offering nothing. It’s on the website. It’s on the website. Have cash have stock. Noah (30:45) website. very short answers. I Becky quick even stepped into defend Andrews like he’s asking legitimate questions. What? think it’s on the website. It’s on the website. Yeah. Speaking ⁓ of ⁓ websites, ⁓ and I’ll move into technology here a little bit. ⁓ Something that I saw we missed on the last time that we were here. ⁓ There was a marathon ⁓ in ⁓ China, a half marathon. Noah (31:14) And it was for robots, right? They had a regular marathon for humans and they had a robot marathon ⁓ and ⁓ the winner ⁓ of the two was a robot. ⁓ Fastest robot to run a half marathon ever, and it was like 45 minutes quicker than last year’s. Apparently they do it every year. ⁓ Noah (31:36) To me, that’s pretty big because we talk about what robots can do, what they can’t do. And I always go back to, listen, you’re not going to have a robot come into your house and change your AC filter or work on your HVAC or, you know, do plumbing. But the fact that you can have a robot run a half marathon pretty quick, even significantly quicker than a human. ⁓ I mean, they’re moving fast. Yeah. And they had different running styles. ⁓ And if you watch the video, like they’re different, they weren’t all the same. Noah (32:06) It’s interesting to see. Yeah. ⁓ And then we had the London Marathon, if I’m not mistaken, and we had a new world record under two hours, 26 miles in under two hours. That was in the ⁓ I think was ⁓ an hour 58 ⁓ beating the old record by three minutes. Wow. That is nutty to me. Noah (32:29) Staying on races, Kentucky Derby, golden tempo ran a heck of a race. Last the second to last or so and just the home stretch. What a kick. What a kick. And the jockey just passed out his brother on like the last like 20 yards. It’s very cool. I started getting texts in the afternoon. ⁓ I’m taking this name and this name and this name and I’m looking at this text and I honestly, I had no idea what these people were talking about. And so I questioned, said, what are you guys talking about? Kentucky Derby. Noah (32:58) Oh, right. And we recorded it and we watched it like two hours after the race. It’s one of those things where it’s kind of fun if you’re in a group of people, but like I’m not really into horse racing. I mean, I had had to bet on emerging markets. That’s who I took after we started looking at them in a potente. I don’t know why I like the name potente. Yeah. But so this horse is not actually going to race in any of the others, right? Noah (33:25) ⁓ not in the next one. What’s the next one? The Preakness? I think he’s skipping the Preakness and we’ll run the Belmont or vice versa. Skipping one. What happened that he’s not running? He’s tired. ⁓ He’s tired. All those other horses are going to do it. ⁓ No? ⁓ We’ll see. I don’t get it. Why would you not try to be a Triple Crown winner? Like I would just be like ⁓ getting in on that no matter what. You have a chance to be historic. One and done, baby. Noah (33:55) crazy. When I’m we brought up Intel a little bit earlier. They’ve been popping even farther. There’s some news that I guess Apple is going to utilize them for some chips them them in Samsung. Kind of interesting. They were up I think 14 % on Tuesday or something like that. They’re running a lot of the chip stocks in memory, especially the memory stocks are going nuts. Yeah. Some people think you know, Noah (34:25) this a bubble like this seems a little bit of bubblicious activity in this very tiny sector, but it’s not a bubble you look at Microsoft is 15 % off, you know, down for the year, all these different names are still down a lot. But ⁓ it’s a hot little sector for sure little sector. And you have companies, you know, obviously Intel, I said it took 18 years to get back. ⁓ But another one was Corning, right? Glassworks GLW ⁓ Noah (34:51) which was a high flyer of the ⁓ optical networking back in the day. ⁓ Everybody was laying ⁓ fiber optics, right? Moving from, you know, twisted copper to fiber optics. And then it just fell off. It also took, I think, 17 years to get back to its its all time high from I think it was September of 2000. And ⁓ now it’s, you know, 100 points higher than that. ⁓ So it does. Noah (35:17) They announced a deal with Nvidia now too. they’re going to, Nvidia is going to try and connect their server X and their chips with the optical glass fiber that they make instead of using copper, saying it should be quicker to do light than copper. We’ll see. Well, yeah, very interesting light travels at 186,000 miles a second, right? I don’t know what data travels on copper, but I’m sure it’s not that fast. Noah (35:42) we talked about that one ETF certainly not a recommendation or anything like that. But I ⁓ mentioned to you yesterday, DRAM, it’s just a memory ETF came out ⁓ right in this blow off top, it seems like it started trading on April 2. And I think it’s up like 7080 % in that time over 20 some trading days. Good timing for them. Good timing for them. But it also seems like when that stuff comes out right at the Noah (36:09) Right at the opportune time, maybe it runs normally. That’s like a contra indicated a little bit. Yeah, to me, it seems this this whole ⁓ memory situation does seem reminiscent ⁓ of the FOMO that we had in the late 90s. ⁓ really does. It doesn’t mean that it is. It seems reminiscent. It seems to rhyme. ⁓ And, you know, essentially what happened in the late 90s was that all of the ⁓ future expectations were just had to be corrected. Noah (36:39) Right for dot com instantly up 100%. Yeah. ⁓ so this isn’t that, I mean, these guys are all, ⁓ power earnings, right? Earnings revenue growth that is really dramatic. You’re not seeing it. ⁓ And that’s why they’re going up so much, but I don’t know that it’s sustainable. Some of these companies will grow in to those. ⁓ I think Sandisk had a hundred percent like quarter over quarter growth. It’s like, Ooh, I mean, Noah (37:05) Fundamentally, that makes sense for your stock to launch off of that. yeah, you’re right. That’s that’s where I’m going with this. if they’re doing 100%, and ⁓ maybe they can get a few quarters, you know, ⁓ triple, they’ll be capacity constrained at some point. But yeah, and then at some point, the the demand for memory has to slow down. I mean, it can go on for, you know, longer than I think. But at some point, it’s going to be the same as that internet slowdown, which was like, okay, the demand there isn’t isn’t there. Noah (37:35) with how they move five 600 % over the last year or whatever. They are liable for I said to you how I envision is, you know, someone comes out and says, our ⁓ large language model requires 30 % less memory, ⁓ and 30 % less energy. And then you have energy stocks and memory stocks just get wrecked like 2030 % type down days stuff you can guard against that you just open up 30 % down. Noah (38:05) out. If you were lucky enough to have a stop, it definitely blew right through that stop. Well, when you see these companies up 10 % a day and 15 % and even in some cases, like, I don’t know, I think the information out there is probably well known, right? Markets are really efficient. And this might be an overreaction. It’s just I don’t it can’t continue forever. It might continue again longer than Noah (38:34) And I think it can but Hey, we already mentioned Microsoft but talking about, you know, spots in tech that are not in a bubble software. We were talking about zoom, you know, the darling of COVID, know, their stock went bonkers understandably with working from home and everything like that. And they are one of the lone software stocks that is green. They’re up like 24 25 % year to date. But it’s not because we’re using zoom video Noah. Why is it? Noah (39:04) It’s because they about half of their market cap by some estimations is in an investment they made in anthropic. So they guarded against their own demise by investing in anthropic several years ago. Wonder if they got in same time Sam bankman freed got in because did you see the return on his investments? They didn’t find out for like one more year. He’d be up like 500 % and everybody would be happy. Noah (39:33) He was in like anthropic fabrics on all those big names. guy doing these days? ⁓ Probably comfy in some white collar prison somewhere. Playing a little tennis. Yeah. Yeah. He didn’t interview a little while ago. Did he? Yeah. What did he say? He’s like, you know, talking about his investments. I learned what he would have done. Yeah. ⁓ You should invest money with me when I get out. Look at my investments. What the return would have been. long is he in jail for? I don’t remember. We talked about it. Noah (40:00) Yeah, but that just slide out partner ⁓ the girl that she ratted on him. She got nothing. She probably got probation, maybe a year or something. She got off easy. ⁓ Yeah. You know, when you see those things, you know, it scares everybody out. ⁓ And I said earlier about all the pessimism that we’ve seen. And that to me, when you have all that pessimism, it’s just really ⁓ the time to be thinking strategically and thinking opportunistically about what to buy. Right? Noah (40:29) And you know, these companies, ⁓ well, at least you think these companies are good. They have a long runway and they go down like they did in, March, ⁓ the beginning of April. And it’s, it’s the time to add to them. If you own them, it’s the time to start positions in them. If you don’t, you know, we obviously, talked about the big April numbers were only a few trading days into may ⁓ and ⁓ it just is going to move and move and move. Noah (40:59) You know who doesn’t have FOMO right now? Who’s that? Greg Abel and Berkshire Hathaway. $397 billion of cash reserves. that is a lot of money. I’m waiting for him to make a splash. Yeah, do something with all that cash. Let’s hold that thought for a minute. ⁓ Noah (41:31) you Noah (41:46) ⁓ Nope. ⁓ Noah (42:06) Yep, you’re good at 41 minutes, like 10 seconds. Noah (42:14) Good luck. Noah (42:26) ⁓ All this hot air were spouting. ⁓ I mean, I think we were pretty darn close to ⁓ being done. ⁓ What else do you have? Ted Turner? ⁓ Yeah, Ted Turner and what else? Anything? I had Russia. Do you have anything that you want to talk about? Didn’t have any Russia on mine. No. Noah (42:55) I’m gonna go back to the cache on hand. ⁓ So I’m gonna turn here, I’m gonna look, I’m gonna put my hand down, ⁓ and then I’m gonna go something about that. ⁓ Noah (43:10) That is a lot of cash on hand. Where do think they have that? Is it all in treasuries? Yeah, probably. Right. You don’t think they’re day trading? not long dated with that 30 year that 30 year moved up. Yeah, we saw a 5 % this week. Monday, or was it? Yeah, Monday, we saw 5 % for the first time in a while. The 10 year had ticked up, it’s down a little bit since since beginning of the week. But you know, rates been higher. Noah (43:38) I mean, maybe they’re just rolling those. Are they in a nice long ladder? Probably. Yeah. I wonder what their team at Berkshire looks like for, you know, $400 billion ⁓ in cash. think it’s like just buying treasuries. What like what do really need to do? two two guys, two girls just probably buying treasuries every day. Yeah. What are they going to do with that money? Just waiting to see waiting to see what splash they make. I mean, they’ve got all the insurers. I think the issue with the insurers is things have been so good that Noah (44:07) like people are looking forward to when claims and things pick up like there wasn’t a bad hurricane season last year, things like that, the reinsurers didn’t really get hit. So I think people are selling down on a lot of them because ⁓ there’s got to be something in the future things can’t get better than this. So they’re selling them now at a high ⁓ or you could even say maybe because some of the private, you know, equity or private credit exposure in there, people are selling them off but like Noah (44:34) There’s a couple names out there that have been struggling in shrug struggling in the insurance space. Yeah, but they announced last week, ⁓ really, really positive earnings. ⁓ So you know, they they’re in this unique situation where they have Warren Buffett, who, ⁓ who is retired, essentially from the day to day activity of Greg Able that’s come in. ⁓ One of the largest financial related companies out there in the world. I don’t know if it’s the number one cash. Noah (45:03) reserve company, but you know, $400 billion seems like a lot of cash on hand to me. I bet it’s up there with Apple, since they haven’t taken part in the CapEx bonanza. Well, at some point, they’re going to right? I mean, they got a they just, you’re an Apple user, right? I just saw that people that got the 16 are eligible for part of this class action lawsuit. Everybody that got the 16 pro or the 16 with the Noah (45:33) Apple intelligence is as capable of or is entitled to a $95 settlement because the AI didn’t work as promised. Right. Interesting. All those ads didn’t didn’t go anywhere. Think I’m on the 15 right before that. And you got to step up. Yeah, no, I try and run this thing into the ground. I went by another one ever. The battery didn’t go right. Yeah, they used to be the same thing. Sorry. Same thing. I’m with you. Noah (46:03) I love them. But same product. It’s a little bit bigger, which I’m okay with. But at some point, it doesn’t need to be any bigger. If I could change the battery on my phone, ⁓ probably would never buy another one. They couldn’t allow that. No, they couldn’t allow that. That’s planned obsolescence. ⁓ As we wrap up here, a few other things. You know, we had yesterday we had ⁓ Ted Turner died. ⁓ The founder legend, a legend, right? Yeah, the founder of CNN. Noah (46:33) cable news network, TBS, TNT, TCM. I’m a huge probably heard or served. I’m a Braves fan. So they used to be on every single night in the 90s. And until I think the late 2000s, every night on TBS, every single Braves game. Yeah, without fail. Didn’t he buy them as well? Bought them in 1976. Then he bought the Hawks in 77. He’s like, hmm, how can I vertically scale this and get some content? Let me buy some teams. Yeah. Noah (47:02) Legend. Yeah, absolutely. 87 years old. He took over the company at 24. That’s a long run. His dad’s company. Yeah. I mean, kind of a nepo baby, right? His dad died of suicide. Oh, that’s awful. Awful way to become CEO. But I didn’t know that 1996 was a time Warner Cable merger. Um, I think he stuck around for maybe another decade in some vice chair role or something like that, but it was a long career. Yeah. Noah (47:32) I wonder if there was any succession type stuff in his family. I think he just ran it and the kids were like, yeah, he didn’t, he’s not as involved as he was in charge. Let’s put it that way. I don’t remember CNN in the early days. ⁓ but I think my first memory of CNN was baby Jessica, right? So she was stuck down the well for, I don’t know, three days or something like that. Noah (47:57) And you know, the regular news networks, they I mean, they were obviously covering it. But CNN, man, I mean, that was just boom. And then in 1990, with the Iraq war, you have this where you have full 24 seven coverage of a war, right? There’s always been reporting from the wars. But like this was live coverage. You see bombs exploding. Yeah, really, really interesting. So Noah (48:23) I think he sold CNN, you know, a number of years ago, obviously, ⁓ but the creator of it and, ⁓ you know, he’ll go down as the first person to do 24 seven news coverage. Yep. It’s ironic because my first two TV memories were CNN as well. It was there was ⁓ that that Cuban child who came in and they like, ⁓ know, ⁓ know, and then I also remember, I think it was like, Noah (48:49) Bosnia and Serbia where we were striking them. had like the night vision and you could, it was like the first time you could see like the anti-aircraft shots going up and it was wild. Yeah. On live TV. Yeah. Was that 97? I think. Yeah. Might’ve been right around there. It might’ve been earlier, but yeah. ⁓ Well, anyway, I don’t really watch too much CNN anymore, ⁓ but interesting. And now everybody has, you know, a full-time news network and you can get your news anywhere you want it at any time. ⁓ Probably too much news. Probably good. Noah (49:18) Probably a good idea to tap I’ve turned away from everything but Bloomberg. There you go. Sometimes CNBC, but mostly Bloomberg. All right. Well, there you have it, everybody. ⁓ Thank you so much for listening. We will see you next time on The Market Enthusiast.