Transcription
I think the whole world is short the dollar, and if you look at the last four months, it's basically unchanged. I don't worry about the dollar going lower. Maybe the dollar goes lower based on the design of the system. If the dollar goes lower, it actually becomes more entrenched.
You've got the S&P cozied up here, pushing 6,500 once again. Gold miners up 80% year to date. Uranium miners up 50% year to date. Cannabis and industrial miners up 42% year to date. Forgive me, but I haven't seen leadership in the stock market like that in my life.
What are your thoughts on the administration and what their effect on the market has been? Trump is rewriting the rules-based order, and that has huge implications for markets.
[Music]
What is happening, good people? We are here to record Macro Dirt podcast number 61 with my co-host Jared Dillian and our special guest today, Brent Johnson, CEO of Santiago Capital. How are you guys doing?
>> I'm good. Thanks for, thanks for having me. It should be fun.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How you doing, JD?
>> I'm good, man. Um,
>> Yeah.
>> We, we, we. It's only August 27th, but I think we touched fall in New York. It was 59 degrees when I woke up this morning, and I'm still freezing. So, we've got my man Brent with us today. Brent, you and I have broken bread before, so we've gotten the chance to get to know each other, but I want our audience to get to know you and what you're about. So, let's start with a personal exercise called the five H's. All right. If you could give me a pretty simple answer to the following five questions.
>> Okay.
>> Who is your hero?
>> Well, that's a good question. Um, you don't have to take it too seriously, and nobody's going to laugh. Probably you're going to laugh, but it's probably the character Santiago out of the book *The Alchemist*.
>> Oh, I like that. Why so? Tell me just a little bit.
>> It's my favorite book. Um, that's partly where I got the name for my company. I, I think it's the most simple yet deepest book you read, you'll, you'll ever read. And it's about, it's about a little boy who goes on an adventure. I'll, I'll just leave it at that.
>> Who wrote that?
>> Uh, Paulo Coelho.
>> Got it. You know, nobody's ever asked me that question before. That's a, that's a great question.
>> First time for everything. Well, I got four more good questions. You ready?
>> All right.
>> What is a highlight of your life?
>> Oh, that's easy. Um, other than my son being born, um, when I, my first time I ever played basketball in Allen Fieldhouse as a freshman, uh, at University of Kansas, and I was guarding a guy named Kevin Pritchard, who was playing in, who had won a national championship at Kansas and was then playing in the NBA. And that, when I first, that's the first time I walked in the building, I got picked on a team, and that's who I had to guard. So, it was, it was quite a wakeup call that I wasn't quite as good as I thought, but it was still, I'll never forget it. It was amazing.
>> Yeah, that's what college sports will do to you. That's exactly right. That's a really cool highlight, though. That's a really cool highlight. A tough one. What hardship have you endured?
>> Oh, man. That's a, that, you know, well, couple, uh, on a personal level, you know, I didn't like it when my parents got divorced. That, that, that was tough. Um, I had to shut down part of my business about six years ago, and that was one of the worst days of my life. Um, but, you know, you just got to keep, get up and keep moving forward, and you got to focus on the future, and you can't look back.
>> Man, that's great advice if I ever heard any. What do you hope for, Brent?
>> Peace. World peace. I hope my son doesn't have to fight.
>> Yeah, man. That's a popular one for dads, man. I think that's the first thing that rolled off of my tongue, too. What do you find hilarious?
>> Oh, man. I love Twitter. Twitter. I just think people, I, I think people are absolutely insane. And it's just people, people are losing their minds over the littlest stuff. And it's, it, it's funny. A lot of people find Twitter stressful. I, I, I find it as a way to relieve stress just because I get so much entertainment out of it.
>> Yeah. Yep. That's true. And we're going to break out, what's, what's cool about that answer is that we're going to break out our, um, post-market conversation and we're going to talk about things on the internet that crack us up, and we're going to come back to some of the things on Twitter, and we're going to go through some of JD's stuff, too. Um, let's start. We're going to go into the markets right now, Brent, but I want to start with this question for you. Um, and then we can kick it around a little bit. What are your thoughts on the administration and what their effect on the market has been? And I'm not asking you to get political. We just like to talk about these things objectively because they affect the markets and it's really relative.
>> So, I don't think you can analyze markets without thinking about what the administration is doing. I, you know, I, I've talked about this a lot this year, and I've written about this a lot this year, is that Trump is rewriting the rules-based order. Um, and that has huge implications for markets because the United States, which is the biggest player in the world, whether you like it or not, is changing, fundamentally changing the way it does business with the rest of the world. And even under the best of circumstances, I think that would be extremely hard to pull off without some adverse consequences. And I don't think we have a perfect scenario that he's trying to do it in. So the idea that there isn't going to be some adverse consequences, I think, is extremely naive. And even if he is successful in what he's trying to do, uh, I, I think there's going to be some massive consequences.
>> Totally fair. Totally fair. JD, do you want to ask Brent any questions about the admin or markets related to the admin?
>> Um, I mean, I, you know, Brent and I have kind of jousted about the dollar in the past.
>> Let's joust again.
>> Um, so, you know, this was, I was actually working at Bloomberg at the time. I had Brent on a spaces to talk about the dollar. This was like 2022, and uh, I was bearish, and he was bullish, and now I'm bullish. Uh, and, uh, it's, you know, just from a trading standpoint, you know, I, I think the whole world is short the dollar, and if you look at the last four months, it's basically unchanged.
>> You know, uh, I was talking to somebody yesterday who does business with a lot of CTAs, and he's like, "Yeah, like every CTA I talk to is like, short the dollar." Like, it's, it's the most consensus popular trade out there. What do you think?
>> Well, so I, I'll tell you, I don't worry about the dollar going lower. The dollar might very, maybe the dollar goes lower, but here's what I know based on the design of the system. If the dollar goes lower, it actually becomes more entrenched because the way you, the dollar goes lower is you increase dollar liquidity. And the way that you increase dollar liquidity is you increase dollar credit. You make more credit available. Money in our system, money gets loaned into existence. So the dollar can fall for a month, a year, 10 years, but that just perpetuates the system. The point I have tried to make with being bullish the dollar is that if you think there's some big crisis ahead, if you think we're transitioning from this system to another system, it's probably going to happen as a result of the dollar going higher, not going lower. Unless, unless the US systematically and proactively resets it lower, and that, that is a potential risk. I cannot rule that out. I don't think they will do that, but I could see them doing that. But even in that scenario, I think they would still quote unquote mandate that the United States or that the dollar is still the currency that you use if you want to do business with the United States. And I very much think the rest of the world wants to continue doing business with the United States because of our consumers. Um, and I think Trump has, to me, uh, one of the, I don't know if the word nice is the right way to say it, but one of the things that I have, uh, long talked about was the, was the power of the US economy and the way they could dictate terms to the rest of the world if they ever chose to do so, just on an economic basis. And that's what I think Trump is doing. I think Trump is showing the power of the US consumer, and that's how he has been able to negotiate the tariffs with, you know, other parties. But as it goes back to the dollar, my whole thing on the dollar is really from a structural long-term perspective. The system demands the use of dollars. And I don't think we can transition from the current system to a new system without a lot of volatility. And I think in that transition, if we transition, maybe we won't, but if we were to transition, I think that transition period would be extremely chaotic and volatile. And I think in that volatility, the dollar would go higher, not lower.
>> Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I don't think we're going to. People were talking about de-dollarization a couple of years ago, and I, I thought that was a bad idea. And, yeah, so.
>> It's basically a fairy tale that that people tell that they've been telling for 50 years. I mean, I, I get, and part of it is the loss of purchasing power of fiat currency. And listen, that, that's a legitimate gripe, and it's a legitimate concern. But that's why we invest. That's why we don't just sit in cash. That's the whole point of having a portfolio of assets because fiat currency loses value over time. But so do all the other fiat currencies, right? And the point that I have really tried to make, as well as I could, is that if the dollar, which is a fiat currency, rises versus other fiat currencies, that matters for markets. Now, if you don't care about markets, then maybe that doesn't matter to you. But I do care about markets. I'm involved in the markets. And if, and if you think the dollar rising versus the euro, yen, ruble, and yuan doesn't matter, you just don't understand how markets work.
>> Yeah, it does provide a lot of tailwinds in the other commodity markets and equity markets, etc., etc. It's being wagged by the rates market. So, yeah, that's all intertwined and very important, especially for somebody like me who's trading on a day-to-day basis. Um, but I appreciate what you said about, you know, we're, we're not going to be able to to stop the death of fiat currency. All we can do is make moves in the markets, right? That's why I wrote today, I wrote about the store of value trades that I currently have on the pad, which are Bitcoin, gold, and gold miners, right? They're doing their thing right now. They're retaining their store of value. They may not be rallying, they may not all be rallying, but they are retaining their store of value, which is one of the few moves that we can make against the $37 trillion debt pile, right, Brent? Would you say that?
>> Right. No, no, that's exact. That's exactly right. And it, look, if you zoom out over time, assets go up and to the right, right? And part of the reason is, as we're discussing, fiat currency loses value over time. The point I've tried to add on top of that fact is that if you zoom out, you will also see terrifying drawdowns along the way. And if you are in retirement or moving towards retirement, and you don't have time or the or the desire or the the wherewithal to sustain one of those terrifying drawdowns, then you need to, you know, set your portfolio up in a way that those terrifying drawdowns, which inevitably come, won't wipe you out.
>> Totally great points, man. All right, let's, let's, let's slightly pivot. I want to talk about Trump's relationship with the Fed. I want to talk about the media just doing all this clickbaiting story about him firing Lisa Cook, and what, in my opinion, is the real story is that he's going to get rates lower, come hell or high water. So Brent, riff on that for a moment. What do you think of his treatment of Powell and what he's trying to accomplish, and that kind of thing?
>> Well, I, I, I find it fascinating, and part of the reason I find it fascinating is for four or five years now, I have, as part of my overall thesis, I have thought that we will eventually get to a point where the Fed and the Treasury are merged. Whether that's official or unofficial, I don't know, but I, I have said that is an inevitability because I've also said the biggest myth that they teach at business school is that the Fed is independent. I think it's autonomous, but I don't think it's independent. Um, and, and I think a lot of that autonomy is getting stripped away as we watch it. You know, the same thing has happened uh four times since World War II where the president or the executive was in open conflict with the Fed chair. Um, and the interesting thing is the Fed, you know, actually has a pretty good track record. I think they're three out of four or at least 50/50 in those events, depending on kind of how you define it. But ultimately, you know, the Fed was created with the stroke of a pen, and the Fed can be changed with the stroke of a pen.
>> And, you know, I think as, as, as problems or events mandate it, I think that is what will happen. In other words, I believe, and I know this has gotten very cliché, but the whole Fourth Turning thing, I actually think is real. Like, that is what we are going through. And but the interesting thing is the rest of the world is going through it as well. So, it's not unique to the United States. And I think, I think it's really a Game of Thrones. And I, I've used that analogy many times. And I think if you look at what Trump is doing with the Fed, with the State Department, with the military, with the, the Commerce Department, he's kind of trying to get all of these different areas on one team to quote unquote make America great again. In other words, everybody's pulling towards the exact same goal, uh, in unison. And I think part of the reason is, I think he realizes, and his team realizes, and maybe even the opposition realizes, we're in this period of time, this Fourth Turning, where the whole global order is kind of up for grabs.
>> And Trump wants to go down as the greatest president in history. Well, you can't go down as the greatest president in history if you lose American hegemony under your leadership. Right? So he is, and, and so that's where I think, and I know I'm bouncing around a little bit here, but I, I think what's happening, I think what's happening, and I think part of the reason investors are perhaps frustrated with his policies, or, or from trying to analyze it from an investment perspective, is because I think for 30 or 40 years, people like us, the three of us, and people who, you know, live in the west, western markets for the most part, free markets, I know they're all manipulated to some extent, but we have been able to look at a project based on the numbers, and if it pencils out on a spreadsheet, then you push go. But I think those days are kind of at least on hold for a while, if not gone for a long time, because what I, what I mean by that is, I don't think things need to pencil out on a spreadsheet in order to get mandated. Um, you know, it doesn't necessarily need to make a whole lot of sense from an economics perspective if it does make sense from a national security perspective. Um, and I think, you know, potentially industries that should die will get funded because the government wants them and needs them from either a strategic perspective or geopolitical perspective or some domestic program. And I, and I think that's where we're headed. I think we're headed back towards, you know, some people would call it fascism, some people would call it national capitalism, some people would call it a centrally planned market. I mean, there's many different names for this, but I, I think that's where we're headed. Back toward, back towards, uh, mercantilist policies, you know, no, not the laissez-faire, you know, free market that the, the Keynesian stuff that's that's been taught in business schools for the last 50, 60 years. Um, I don't like this, but this is where I think it's going.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, we don't, we don't necessarily love everything that was going on, but we have the market to make moves and express that. I would love to hear JD's thoughts on, um, I, I kind of agree with Brent, just because I feel it so much all around me that we are going through a Fourth Turning type of thing. Would you agree with that, JD? I'd love to hear your opinion.
>> Yeah, I mean, like Brent said, I think the, I think the Fourth Turning stuff is a little cliché, and I don't really believe in deterministic history.
>> You know, I don't, I don't believe that, you know, everything is all planned out and we're going to follow this pattern like we followed P. Like I read the book. It's, you know, you know, with Neil, I think it's Neil Howe.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Um, the most interesting part of the book was actually the generational studies, you know, reading about generations and stuff like that. Um, but I don't, I don't think we're following some predetermined path. Um, having said that, um, you know, it's funny because, um, you know, Neil Howe is getting a lot of mileage out of *The Fourth Turning*. He wrote another book called *The Fourth Turning is Here*, uh, which I think sold pretty well. And I'm kind of interested to see how this plays out to see what the first turning looks like, which should be coming pretty soon, you know, in the, in the next few years, you know, and how this ends, whether it's with a war or something else. Um, so, yeah. So, let me, let me, if you don't mind this, let me follow up on that really quick, because this, this is what, what Jared just talked about is something that I've been thinking about a lot for the last year. And there's another book that, so, so first of all, *The Fourth Turning* had a huge influence on my overall outlook. So, I, I, you know, kudos to to Neil Howe for putting that, uh, putting that out there. Another book that I think has probably equally, um, influenced my thinking is a book called *The Storm Before the Storm*. And my friend Mike Green about four or five years ago said, "You got to read this book." And then I saw him again a month later, and he asked me if I'd read it, and I said, "No." And I saw him again a month later, and I said, "No." And finally he just yelled at me. He's like, "You have to read this book." And so I did. And it's amazing. And, and the reason it's amazing is it's, it's about the Roman Empire and the Roman Republic. And it takes place from like 110 BC to 60 BC. So it's like a 50, 60-year period. And the parallels that are going on in this book, this 50, 60-year period to what we are going on in the United States now is uncanny. But that's not, that's not the deep insight of the book. Because I think there's a lot of people who often will compare the United States to the Roman Empire and they say we're due for a collapse, and it's just a matter of time, and we're going to be destitute. But when you read this book, what you realize is at the end of this book, it wasn't that Rome fell. It was that the republic fell. But what came after it was the Roman Empire. And I think that is not necessarily guaranteed that that's what happens here. But I think that is more likely than for us to lose hegemony and, you know, become, you know, this wasteland while the rest of the world rises and overtakes our, our position in the world. I don't think that there is any way that the United States loses hegemony without using absolutely every tool at its disposal. And when I say every tool, I mean every tool. And I don't, again, I don't like this, but to me, that, that is the more likely path. And so going to Jared's, uh, question, what does the first turning look like? What does the spring look like? I think a lot of people who have read that book believe we're going to have this big cataclysmic Fourth Turning, and then we're going to enter the new turning. And the new turning is going to be better, and more free, and more liberty, and more, you know, positive thinking. And I'm not sure that that's the case. In other words, new doesn't guarantee better. It just means new. And the new institutions that spring up and the new, you know, uh, norms that get put in place won't necessarily be as good as they were previously. Um, and I, I don't know how to fight against that. I don't know how to change that, but I'll tell you, it is just something that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
>> Yeah. For me, the only factor is how much freedom we're able to maintain, you know, or, or maybe get back, if anything. I feel like that's like, you know, the biggest observation or the biggest impact on our lives, kind of thing, that could happen through this next turning, but I don't think as big as you guys. That's why I really like listening to how you think about things on a kind of a longer term like that. What do you guys think about, well, let's go into the idea of what do you think? How, how do you think this is going to pan out with Trump and interest rates, right? He hasn't stopped belly aching about wanting rates, you know, closer to zero. He hasn't stopped breathing down Powell's neck. How does this end, Brent or Jared? I'm not picking on.
>> Let me, yeah, let me jump in here. So, uh, twos 10 has steepened about 8 to 10 basis points in the last couple of trading sessions.
>> Yeah.
>> Um,
>> twos two-year yields are going down, 10-year yields are going up.
>> Um,
>> By the way, Lisa Cook is garbage. She's a terrible person, right? Like if you look at her research, like I was, I mean, I was shocked that she was confirmed as a Fed governor. So, you know, I don't really know about the allegations with like her mortgages or anything like that, but if she's gone from the Fed, like I'm happy. Adriana Cougler, she resigned. Uh, she probably knew that they were digging up dirt on all the Fed governors. She didn't want to get involved. She resigned. So ultimately, we're going to get to a place where on a board of governors with seven people, you have five or six of them that are Trump appointees, right? And they're going to lower rates. The back end is going to go up. That's happening now. The curve is going to steepen. I don't think Trump understands the term structure of interest rates. I think he thinks that if you lower Fed funds, then mortgage rates go down. And I think Besson is going to have to explain it to him, and I don't think he's going to listen. So ultimately, what I think this leads to about a year from now is yield curve control, right? Because the Fed is going to cut rates, long rates are going to go up, Trump is going to get pissed, and then, you know, like Brent said, we have this merge between the Fed and the Treasury, and we're going to end up with yield curve control, and that's when gold goes to 10,000.
>> Wasn't there a headline out there where Besson said like, "I would be the head of the Treasury if if called upon or something like that that alluded to him being both?"
>> Yeah, he was considered to be, he was considered for that.
>> Yeah. I just thought that that was interesting. Like, you know, when that, when you hear that the first time, you're like, "Oh, interesting. We're going to elect a Fed governor to, you know, Treasury Secretary." But like you said, that, that alludes to the merging of those institutions in some way. Would you say, Brent?
>> No, absolutely. And I, I think that's where it's headed. Um, I think it's just a, whether it's again, whether it's official or unofficial, I think that's where it's headed. And I, I, I would, I would, there, there's a historical period of time which I think is potentially, um, uh, a potential parallel, and that is if you look, uh, you know, the late '70s through the early '90s in Japan, what happened there? Part of the reason for Japan's, you know, catastrophic, catastrophic, I mean, not catastrophic, you know, incredible rise was the quasi-quasi merger of the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan, where, you know, the, and I, I, it wasn't officially merged, but they, they kind of did, right? And basically, the, the Bank of Japan mandated that the, or the Ministry of Finance mandated that the Bank of Japan, or the, and the banking system provide credit to the economy, and they said, "You have to give this many loans," and that could increase the money supply, and that increased the asset prices, and you had this, you know, 15-year period of of massive growth. I could easily see something like that happening here where, you know, if they get control of the Fed, or if they at least, you know, coordinate very closely, and Trump mandates, you know, this gets built, and this industry gets funding, I could easily see something like that happening as well. Now, it didn't end well for Japan, right? Uh, but it had a heck of a a run while it lasted, and I, and I think that could potentially happen here.
>> JD,
>> Nothing to add on that.
>> Yeah. No, that's a good point. I want to talk about what we think this means for the stock market. We've got the S&P, uh, cozied up here, pushing 6,500 once again. We've got gold miners up 80% year to date. Uranium miners up 50% year to date. Cannabis and industrial miners up 42% year to date. Forgive me, but I haven't seen leadership in the stock market like that in my life. What do you make of the stock market here at 6,500? Brent, bullish, bearish, neutral? I've heard you on a couple of recent podcasts say that the stage could be set for a pullback, not a crash.
>> Tell me your thoughts.
>> So, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty bearish short-term, and when I say short-term, I mean the next four to six weeks. Um, I don't think we get out of Q3 without a meaningful pullback. Now, whether that's 7% or 17%, I'm not smart enough to know that. Um, but I'm actually fairly bullish after that. I, I just think we need a reset. I, I've been doing this long enough that I know that markets don't go in a straight line forever. Now, they, they can go in a straight line longer than you think sometimes, and the mark, you know, the whole market can say irrational longer than you can say solvent. That's a real thing. So, I'm the first to admit that I could be wrong here. But when I look at all the different signals that I follow, right, the last two times that I got the same cluster of signals, um, was last summer in May, uh, of of 2024, and it didn't show up until late July, early August, but it did show up. And then the same thing again this December and January, and it didn't show up right away, but then it, then it did show up a month and a half later, end of March, early April. And then I had this whole same cluster of signals again, you know, a month ago, or, or six weeks ago. Um, and so I, I, I just feel like we are due for a pullback. And you, this kind of, it kind of relates to my mandate. My, my, I have a, I work with individuals. I manage their personal portfolios. Most of them are in retirement or moving towards retirement. They obviously still want to get a return on their assets. They want to outpace inflation, but they don't want to suffer these 20, 30% drawdowns, right? Mhm. And so I'm always trying to look for what could cause that to happen and make sure it doesn't. And when I look at the environment now, I don't know that there's going to be a crash or, or a downturn, but I, what I do know is this is the type of an environment where if something unexpected happens, we could easily have a 10 to 20% pullback. And, and it wouldn't even be that big a deal, right? I mean, I, I, I don't, I'm not even necessarily sure we would go back to the lows of April, but, you know, we could easily go back to 5,500 on the S&P. I, I mean, and it, to me, that would be healthy, right? So, I, I, I know a lot of people who are kind of predicting, you know, 1929 and the Great Depression, and I know a lot of people who are predicting, you know, just up, up, number go up because they're just going to print money. Um, I'm kind of like, I'm more nuanced than that. You know, I, I, I, I think we're due for a pullback, but I'm not after that, I'm, you know, I'm, I would be likely to be buying on that dip as opposed to not.
>> That's fair. JD, you want to give us a spin on the on the equity market? Anything changed?
>> Yeah, actually, I, I 100% agree with all of that. I mean, look, Chamath is coming out with a SPAC, okay? Like that, all of the things are in place now. That does not happen on the lows, you know? So that, yeah. I mean, and, and I've said before, TG, like on previous Macro Dirts, you know, I think I think we at least get a pullback to like 6,000, you know?
>> Yeah.
>> Um,
>> It's amazing, you know, as time goes on, we all have to like temper our bearishness for that pullback that we're expecting. You know what I mean? Like I, I've gotten feelings like that. I wrote a note last week that was like that was called "I'm a Little Bearish and Long," you know, because it's one of my positions that I'm always in where I get myself into the position that's trending, and I look around like you guys, and I'm like, sentiment is overheated, the CTAs are all long, retail is long out the wazoo. I mean, if they want to crack this 10%, everything is in place. But,
>> Yeah.
>> you got to have the egg timer on that view as well, because when that doesn't come, you know, you got to think about it if you're a short position out there. Even this last little pullback, we had what, 12 of 15 negative days, nine negative days in a row, the S&P backed off a percent and a half.
>> Yeah.
>> Peak to trough. So where was the reward for the short seller? Right. He didn't even get a look at getting out yet. So with that in mind, the idea that there are going to be guys taking pot shots from the short side and continued liquidity thrown at the market, I just bring my stop losses up really close to the market, and if I get elected, I get elected. But if not, then I get to participate in whatever float-away dynamic that we're in right now, because I don't know when that's going to end either. And luckily, I'm positioned the right way for it. So I don't care if it doesn't end for a little while.
>> Well, I think I think that's the right way to think about it. And, you know, to be clear, like we own assets. All of our clients own assets and stocks, and we own gold, and, you know, and if, if we go up into the right, then that's fine. But, um, I, I, I'm just of the view, but, and, and it sounds like you are too, like you have stop losses, like you, the point is, if you're an investor who does not have a 10-plus year time horizon, right? If you have a three-year horizon, five years horizon, six, and you're in whatever it is, you can't, in my opinion, you can't do nothing in this environment. You either need to have some cash on the sidelines, some kind of an, an, an asymmetric hedge, or some kind of an overall portfolio. You have to do something to be prepared if, in the environment we're in, something unexpected happens, because this is the environment where, you know, the rogue wave could come.
>> Yep. The rogue wave could come. And when I can't think of a catalyst, I just look at the VIX and say, "Oh my god, this thing is going to melt to 12 again before."
>> Right.
>> Maybe. Yeah.
>> Yeah. You know, I feel like we're in the most danger right now of the S&P making a new high by three points a day into the end of the year. And I actually calculated that. That puts it at 68.50 for the end of the year. Wouldn't even shock me. Wouldn't even shock me.
>> So, I'm just going to continue, you know, keeping my all bets are off levels really tight to the market below, and I'm going to keep riding the length as far as I can ride it. So.
>> There you go.
>> Yeah, I think we covered pretty much everything. I want, I want to know your view on one thing, Brent, before we go into an off-market fund topic. What are your thoughts on Bitcoin?
>> Just, just your general feel on it. You don't have to be bullish.
>> I think, I think it's, I don't think it's money. I, I think it's a pure play on global liquidity. And it's, it's, it's the, if, if you want to play global a surge in global liquidity, then then buy Bitcoin because I think that's that, that, that's what it reflects. I think if, if we go into some kind of a credit contraction, I think Bitcoin goes down. When they turn the printers back on, I think Bitcoin goes up.
>> Okay. So, it's a tradable, it's a tradable security for you, too. It's starting to show up as a, it's, it's, it's displaying its new macro personality, right? In terms of what's driving it, etc., etc. JD, do you have any comments on Bitcoin before we go off the markets?
>> No. No comments on Bitcoin. Let's go off the markets, guys, and talk about some fun stuff. Um, Brent, you mentioned before that Twitter cracks you up. I mean, we all have our thing on the internet. I'd love to talk about what cracks you up on the internet because as, as many evils as it has out there, I can go through and read a little piece. I mean, listen, watch a little video by a comedian called Chad Goes Deep. And he's like this West Coast comedian that just talks about boosting your stoke and how to stay happy and all that. And it really does me good. You know what I mean? Like those things crack me up. What, what is cracking you guys up on the internet lately?
>> Well, for me, I mean, the, the main thing I look at is, uh, Twitter and Instagram. Um, and it's funny because I do Twitter when I, when I want a break during the day, and Instagram kind of before I go to bed at night. I flip through, you know, some funny memes or whatever, just to kind of relax. And I know you're not supposed to do that right before you go to bed. So, all the people, you know, and this is what cracks me up. Somebody will hear me say this, and they will send me a DM or they'll send me an email say, "You shouldn't do that." And it's like, and that's it. It, it, it's people get so upset over the littlest stuff and make a federal case out of it, and, and you can just feel their, their anger coming over the internet. And I, like I said, I, I don't care what anybody else thinks. I mean, it's not that I don't take their, you know, position into account. It's just that I'm kind of my own guy at this point, right? I, I know who I am. I'm comfortable with who I am. And when, when people take pot shots at me on on Twitter or whatever, I actually enjoy that more than, than just, you know, just regular banter because I grew up playing. Again, I grew up playing basketball. It was always part of it, right? There was always some trash talk, and it was funny. I, I like it when when people get mad. It's, it's hilarious from an ironic perspective. When somebody comes up with a really good one, I, I give him credit because, you know, it's a good comeback.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is a kind of healthy environment, uh, like that, you know what I mean? Where, where literally nothing, nothing is is off base or out of line, right? So, it keeps the, the town square available to anything, right? Like anything can go on on the internet. JD, what, what's your, uh, spin lately? What's cracking you up?
>> Man, I watch fart videos on the internet.
>> Fart videos?
>> On YouTube. Yeah. So, there's this, uh, there's this guy who lives in New York. He's made millions of dollars off of this. So his his YouTube channel is called Humor Bagel, right? You should look it up on YouTube. And he walks around in Central Park, and he's got like a, a hooded sweatshirt with a pocket, and he's got like this little fart device in his pocket, and he walks by like a group of hot girls and will rip the fart machine, and like he has somebody filming the reactions. Dude, it is incredible. And the ones where the girls are like they can't breathe, they're laughing so hard. I'm like, "I want to marry you." Like, that is the best.
>> That is good, man. There, there is some no holds barred [ __ ] on the internet that is just out of control. I got to, every once in a while through my scroll, I get stuck watching this big heavy set guy dancing in tight sweatpants and like an outfit to a great disco song, and he's a great dancer, and repulsive to look at. And I'm like, "Why can't I take my eyes off of this?" You know what I mean? Like [ __ ] like that happens to me all the time. But there's a guy, the one, the one that I've enjoyed most recently is there's a guy, I think he's from Chicago. I think he's Italian. I'm not sure. But he, he'll be somewhere with his wife, you know, at an event, at a dinner, walking through Whole Foods, and he'll hold up the camera and he'll say, "What up, fam? Here we are at," you know, and he'll, and he'll put him and his wife like on the internet, and she's always just so embarrassed, right? And he's, he's pretending like he's some big influencer, but he's not. But it's hilarious to watch his family's reaction when he just embarrasses them in like a, you know, kind of a nice social environment.
>> That is amazing. Let me, I'm going to ask you guys this question, and I'm going to give you my answer as well, and we're going to end the podcast with that. What is your favorite most amusing account on Twitter? Mine, for example, is Las Vegas Locally. Las Vegas Locally. They literally mention everything that goes on about Las Vegas. You're so plugged in to where the best meals are, the cheapest meals, what's going on, and I find it fascinating. I'm literally obsessed with it, and it gets me excited to go to Las Vegas. What, what about you guys, Brent? Favorite Twitter account?
>> Oh man, that's a good one. I, I don't know that I have one in particular. I, you know, Rudy Havenstein is always good just because he's, you know, the, the, and he'll, he'll probably hear me and say I'm not cranky old man, but he's just the cranky old man, you know, but, but he's great.
>> Yeah, he's great. And he's very funny. So we, we,
>> Oh, he's very funny. He's, he's hilarious. Yeah.
>> He is effing hilarious. I mean, his casino tweets and, excuse me, I've got to do some hedging trades tweets are are some of the best content on the internet for me. JD, what about you?
>> I mean, Super 70 Sports was good for many years, you know, that like that's really good. Um, the one that reminds you that like that like Fergie Jenkins threw a no-hitter on acid.
>> Yeah.
>> [ __ ] like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, there's a guy, David Burge. He's Iowa Hawk Blog. He's a little bit political, but that guy is freaking funny. He's really funny.
>> He's brilliant. 100%. That's great, man. All right, man. Well, we covered a lot of ground. Brent, I can't thank you enough for joining us. You really elevated the level of our conversation today, and I appreciate that. We'll have you on again. Thanks to everyone that has been liking, subscribing, and hitting the subscribe to the Macro Dirt Duel subscription. You people are awesome, and we're going to keep working hard for you guys. Um, continue to hit the like and subscribe button for the Macro Dirt Podcast because we're trying to blow this thing up to the moon. And Brent, we will have you on again soon to talk about how some of the views we discussed today developed over time. So, thank you again for joining us, my friend.
>> Thanks for having me.
>> That is it. Signing off from Macro Dirt Podcast number 61. Have a good week, good people.
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