On this special episode of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are joined by Ryan Sean Adams and Adam Hoffman, of the Bankless podcast, to discuss: crypto cycles, Bitcoin vs Ethereum, crypto entering politics, and much more! This episode is sponsored by Public. Make your savings work harder and earn an industry-leading 5.1% APY with a h…

On episode 364 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: our trip to Charleston, slowing vs. normalization of the economy, the loneliness of the American worker, Fed rate cuts, getting rich fast, degens trading options, car deals are coming back, the true cost of home ownership, in defense of credit card reward hunting, the poor m…

On today's show, we spoke with Chris Floyd, VP and Portfolio Manager for Franklin Templeton Investment Solutions to discuss how rates affect high-dividend paying companies, the low volatility aspect of the portfolio, utilizing REITs as an income driver, systematic approaches to screening out negative factors vs concentrating on positive factors, an…

On episode 363 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: what happens if the AI bubble bursts, 200 years of stock market concentration, how to find lower insurance premiums, the bottom 50%, the fentanyl of private markets, assets & debt across generations, middle age conversation starters, and more! This episode is sponsored by YC…

On today's show Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined by Sal Gilbertie, CEO of Teucrium to discuss the cost of production and commodities, how inflation affects the cost of production, how investors are utilizing Teucrium products, what's going on in cocoa, and much more! Find complete show notes on our blogs... Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Commo…

On episode 362 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: the great Bill Walton, how many people own stocks and houses in America, how the internet and outrage culture broke surveys, 401k millionaires, what inflation means now, the Home Alone house is on the market, the best personal finance traits, and more! This episode is sponso…

On today's show, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined by Kyle Brown, CEO, President, and CIO of Trinity Capital to discuss how the Trinity Capital structure works, how venture debt investing works, understanding execution risk vs technology risk, Trinity's 5 income-generating businesses, risks involved, and much more! Find complete show notes…

On episode 361 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: losing a family pet, the S&P 500 is not the economy, everything is up this year, the stock market is NOT a casino, wages are cumulative just like inflation, consumers keep consuming, ETH ETFs, the Ben Carlson streaming bundle, and more! This episode is sponsored by Franklin …

On today's show, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined by Alex Morris, President and Chief Investment Officer of F/m Investments to discuss what duration, maturity, and convexity mean to a bond, the psychology of bond bear markets, why TIPS did not perform as expected in 2022, differences between yield to maturity and the 30-day SEC yield, and…

On episode 360 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: pullbacks in bull markets, the legend of Jim Simons, if 401(k)s were a mistake, what a car says about its driver, hotel movies vs airplane movies, and much more! This episode is brought to you by YCharts and Fabric by Gerber Life. YCharts is always one step ahead of the game…

On today's show, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick spoke with Matt Kaufman, SVP and Head of ETFs at Calamos Investments to discuss: why embedding options within ETF wrappers has gotten so popular, how Calamos structures protection ETFs, why timing can matter with structured protection ETFs, demographic tailwinds for structured protection products, an…

On episode 359 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: the suffocating bull market, the other side of government debt, Jerry Seinfeld on when money changed everything, consumers are finally fighting back against inflation, Wall Street translations, who is buying Bitcoin ETFs, the bear case against housing and much more! This epi…

On today's show, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined by Christopher Jensen, Director of Digital Assets Research for Franklin's Digital Asset Investment Strategies Group to discuss, the resiliency of Bitcoin, the global casino vs global computer use-case theories, understanding the Bitcoin halving, and much more! Find complete show notes on o…

On episode 358 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: Michael vs. StubHub, inflation at Disney is undefeated, 30 years of stock market returns, the bond market correction rolls on, ARKK is finally seeing an exodus, corporations are taking advantage of consumers, the biggest AI winners, the new normal of housing prices, and much…

On today's show, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined by Eric Metz, President, and Chief Investment Officer of SpiderRock Advisors to discuss, the pending acquisition by BlackRock, covered call performance in a bull market, tax benefits when utilizing options, what's driving option-overlay growth in todays market, and much more! Find complete…

On episode 357 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: why the stock market needed a correction, why the 1990s is an outlier (in more ways than one), economic growth is a policy choice, Gen Z is doing better than you think, living in the U.S. vs. Europe, the number of households with a paid off mortgage, the renovation boom, and…

On today's show, we are joined by Anupam Ghose, Managing Partner at System Two Advisors to discuss: why the China story is different than the India of today, India's macro tailwinds, how GDP growth translates to higher stock prices, risks involved when investing in India, and much more! Find complete show notes on our blogs... Ben Carlson’s A Wealt…

On episode 356 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: why the stock market isn't down more, why the price of oil isn't up more, improvements in investor behavior, the auto insurance crisis, why home insurance is rising, why rich people don't feel rich, millennials and boomers powering the economy, higher for longer mortgage rat…

On today's show, we spoke with Ed Egilinsky, Managing Director, Head of Alternatives, and Head of Sales and Distribution at Direxion to discuss: flows into bullish and bearish levered funds, diversifying away from large-cap tech, utilizing the Nasdaq equal-weight ETF, the appropriate time period to hold leveraged products, and much more! Find compl…

On episode 355 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: how we prioritize our spending, 1987 vs. the Covid Crash, crazy index fund flows, stock market concentration, panic about government debt, the tech recession in California, will millennials move to Florida in retirement, the most streamed shows, and much more! This episode i…

On today's show, we are joined by Rahul Sharma, Portfolio Manager and Executive Director of Schafer Cullen Capital Management to discuss: China's effect on Emerging Markets, avoiding value-traps in EM, strong macro trends in India, passive vs. active management in Emerging Markets, and much more! Find complete show notes on our blogs... Ben Carlson…

On episode 354 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: inflation helping corporate profits, what's going on with chocolate, airport traffic hitting all-time highs, the new Robinhood credit card, the downfall of Jack Daniels, and much more! This episode is brought to you by YCharts and Kraneshares. Join thousands of users who rel…

On today's show, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined again by Jason Barsema, Co-Founder and President of Halo Investing to discuss: investing in notes structured around single stocks, the difference between hard and soft protection, what the Catapult Note is, Halo's annuity and annuity servicing capabilities for advisors, and much more! Find…

On episode 353 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: why the elements are in place for a boom-time decade, why household allocations to stocks were so low in the past, how to lie with statistics, who keeps buying Treasury bonds, picking the AI winners in the stock market, some good news for homebuyers, and much more! This epis…

On this episode, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined by Jonathan Shelon, Chief Operating Officer of KraneShares to discuss: an economic update on China, China's buyer of last resort, what happened in Chinese real estate, and much more! Find complete show notes on our blogs... Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense Michael Batnick’s The Irrel…