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Jeff Bezos1 took to Twitter this week to take a victory lap over and old Barron’s cover story: I’m sure this story didn’t go over well at Amazon’s headquarters when it came out so I’m sure he’s thought long and hard about how to dunk on this one over the years. Well played. This cover story ran on May 31, 1999 which was just before the tech bubble burst. Over the next 16 months or so ...

This week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben is supported by YCharts: Mention Animal Spirits and receive 20% off your subscription price when you initially sign up for the service. We discuss: The debt ceiling Is the supply chain crisis finally peaking? Why giant SUVs are taking over the roads How much do other countries spend on daycare? How much money does it take to be considered rich? How wealthy is Gen X?...

This past Saturday had an awesome slate of college football games. It was nice enough outside we could even put a TV on the screened-in porch and have the games on in the background while the kids played in the backyard. That’s a perfect fall day if you ask me. After 8-10 hours of games, you begin to notice the same commercials over and over again. Scoop there it is has seen an incredibly long run. It’s a song...

Today’s Talk Your Book is presented by Cadre: Michael and I spoke with Cadre CEO and co-founder Ryan Williams about investing in the commercial real estate market. We discuss: How Moneyball has made its way into investing Commercial vs. residential real estate from an investing perspective What is the competition for deals in multi-family housing? How the pandemic has impacted multi-family homes? How to avoid overp...

A podcast listener asks: There is a ton of information out there about how much people should spend on their homes. Payment as percentage of monthly income, multiple of net worth, multiple of household income; there is no shortage of strategies out there, but they all vary drastically. I am curious to know what you two think about this topic. How much % of income should one spend on their home? Is there a net worth or in...

In the summer of 2020, James Altucher wrote a story in the New York Post proclaiming New York City is dead forever. Altucher didn’t actually believe this. He wrote this as a piece of outrage marketing. Outrage marketing is when someone makes an outrageous proclamation in the hopes of getting people riled up. And it worked. Jerry Seinfeld wrote a rebuttal. New Yorkers were angry. It feels like once a week I see some...

One hundred dollars invested in Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 would have grown to more than $2.8 million by the end of 2020. Warren Buffett’s holding company is the most impressive long-term compounding machine in history, increasing in market value at 20% per year for nearly 6 decades. Compounding is a wonderful thing but it can also become an unhealthy obsession if you view every financial decision through that lens....

Today’s Animal Spirits is presented by Masterworks: Go to Masterworks.io to learn more about investing in the art market. We discuss: Will supply chains ruin Christmas? Investors have been spoiled of late Why do investors own way more stocks than they did in the past Why do so many rich old investors call for market crashes? Why were endowment returns so high over the last year? There has never been a better time t...

See if you can spot the largest one year spike in U.S. housing prices on record: Give up? A 20% gain for national home prices over a one year period is absolutely nuts. The Wall Street Journal is beginning to worry about how this is impacting affordability: Here’s their takeaway: House prices are rising at a record pace but incomes aren’t keeping up, which is making home ownership less and less affordable. The m...

Today’s listener mailbag is presented by Naviplan by Invest Cloud: Michael and I dive back into the mailbag to go through a bunch of listener questions with a little help from our friend Tony Stich. If you have a question for the show, email us at animalspiritspod@gmail.com. We discuss: Why do we talk about bonds in terms of yield and stocks in terms of price? Do commodities belong as a long-term holding in a portfol...

Today’s Talk Your Book is presented by BlockFi: Go to BlockFi.com/animalspirits to check out their interest rates and new bitcoin credit card. We always have fun catching up on the world of crypto finance with Zac Prince on BlockFi. We discuss: Why isn’t crypto falling in the fact of regulation? Who is buying bitcoin this year? What drove the crypto crash? What happens to crypto loans in a crash? How liquidat...

On Friday, the S&P 500 finished at an all-time high. It was the fourth all-time high in as many days. This year alone the S&P has hit 48 new highs. Since we finally broke through the 2007 pre-GFC highs in the summer of 2013 we’re now looking at more than 320 new highs in this bull market: That’s more than 15% of all trading days in this time. So for the past 7 years the U.S. stock market has reached a...

The S&P 500 is up around 425% since 2003. That’s good enough for an annual return of roughly 9.5% per year. Pretty good. Here’s a chart comparing the S&P to a mystery asset that’s performed even better: It’s up almost 11% per year in this time with a much smoother upward trajectory. Hedge fund managers would kill for an equity line that looks like this. Any guesses? OK, trick question. Its...

Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa in 1507. More than 300 years later it wasn’t even considered one of da Vinci’s best paintings, let alone one of the best paintings in the world. In 1750, art experts in France ranked the top 100 paintings in the world. The Mona Lisa failed to make the list. By the 1850s, artists like Raphael and Titian had works worth almost ten times as much as the Mona Lisa. It would t...

Today’s Animal Spirits is presented by Masterworks: Go to Masterworks.io to learn more about investing in the art market. We discuss: Michael’s trip to the casino Ethan Allen and Ethereum Will companies ever fight back against becoming a meme stock? More people are investing in start-ups Why is bitcoin rising in the face of more regulation? What is wrong with gold? A terrible time to be a saver Will the labor...

The U.S. stock market is far from cheap at the moment. It’s dare I say, expensive. This shouldn’t be a surprise considering the S&P 500 is up 12 of the past 13 years (including this year) including a gain of 100% from the Corona crash lows in just 15 months. According to the Shiller CAPE ratio, the U.S. stock market is now as expensive as any time in its history save for the dot-com bubble: The Shiller CA...

A podcast listener asks: Wife and I (early 30’s) bought our house in 2020 right before the pandemic for about $500k with 20% down on it. Like most, our home value has gone up considerably so looking potentially around $100k in equity + $100k in additional value if we sold. We’re in Atlanta and the potential reason we would be selling is a move to Los Angeles for my wife to continue her growth in the entertainment worl...

Today’s Talk Your Book is presented by New York Life Investments: Michael and I spoke with Wendy Wong about dual impact investing. We discuss: Why do we keep getting unhealthier in the United States? How consumers are using their dollars to influence change Creating a giveback component to your investments Why is so much money now going into ESG funds? The number one killer every year Investing in your health How ...

In early February Saturday Night Live ran a pretty clever skit about searching for homes on Zillow: There is something alluring about looking at houses and prices on Zillow. I’m not sure how much stock we can put into pop culture indicators anymore since we’ve never had more access to information but Zillow’s share price screamed higher by almost 30% over the next week.1 From there the stock has gotten ...

CNBC recently highlighted a survey that asked a group of Americans how much money they need to feel financially secure. The average answer was a little more than half a million dollars. According to Federal Reserve data, the median net worth of all families in the United States is a little less than $122,000. So it would make sense that half a million in savings would make most people feel more secure financially. Of cou...