Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to What Goes Up a weekly markets podcast.
Speaker 1: My name is Mike Creagan, and I'm a senior editor
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg and I'm val Donna, hi across asset reporter
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg. And this week on the show, while the
Speaker 1: SMP fire just kept a seventh straight monthly gain, it
Speaker 1: happened in the same month that Federal Reserve officials made
Speaker 1: it pretty clear that they're ready to start taking their
Speaker 1: foot off the gas pedal. When it comes to the
Speaker 1: stimulative monetary policy that's been so important for this rally,
Speaker 1: how much of the rally actually has been due to
Speaker 1: that stimilios and how much was due to the ebulent
Speaker 1: investor psychology that accompanied it, and how should we think
Speaker 1: about what happens now. We'll get into it with a
Speaker 1: chief investment officer who actually helped start her own new
Speaker 1: firm just about two years ago. But first, vill Dona,
Speaker 1: some trivia I just learned about you and this chief
Speaker 1: investment officer. Neither one of you has a middle name.
Speaker 1: That's true, right, that's true, that's right. Yeah. Her name
Speaker 1: is Kim Forrest. She's the chief investment officer at Boca
Speaker 1: Capital Management. Kim, Welcome, to the show. Thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. Yeah, Kim, let's just start off
Speaker 1: before we get to the actual nuts and bolts of
Speaker 1: your views on the market. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: bit about this firm. I know you just started it
Speaker 1: in what two thousand and nineteen. UM You're based in Pittsburgh, right,
Speaker 1: Give us a little bit about how it all came
Speaker 1: about and sort of what your strategies are. Sure, So,
Speaker 1: I have been a uh PM for probably about I
Speaker 1: don't know, sixteen years, and before that, I started this
Speaker 1: career as a cell side analyst covering software stocks. Before that,
Speaker 1: I was a software engineer for thirteen years. And I
Speaker 1: found this world because I went to an MBA program
Speaker 1: to become a salesman essentially of UM software and services.
Speaker 1: And I thought I needed to get the vocabulary of business,
Speaker 1: so I got an m b A and instead I
Speaker 1: changed careers. It's so crazy because I found finance and
Speaker 1: I love it. So so that's how I got here.
Speaker 1: And I guess I'm entrepreneurial by nature because I've always
Speaker 1: kind of been itching to do my own thing, and
Speaker 1: in twenty nine I finally took the leap. So I'm
Speaker 1: a equity analyst, and we have some strategies here that
Speaker 1: are based off of the core of what I believe,
Speaker 1: and that's growth at a reasonable price. I believe that
Speaker 1: the markets always reward growth, but UM, you should be
Speaker 1: prudent about putting your money to work. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of um what we do, and we do it well.
Speaker 1: And Kim, you and I have been talking for a
Speaker 1: couple of years now. One of the things we very
Speaker 1: frequently talked about is your pets and my pet So
Speaker 1: maybe you can touch on that a bit. But I
Speaker 1: also want to ask you about UH tech. I know
Speaker 1: you and I have talked about tech a million times.
Speaker 1: I think you like certain chip companies. I think you
Speaker 1: like the five G space. Maybe one of your main
Speaker 1: funds is up forming them this year. So maybe you
Speaker 1: can tell us a bit more about your your strategy. Sure,
Speaker 1: and we'll leave pets to UH in a couple of minutes.
Speaker 1: So so right, Probably because of my first career as
Speaker 1: a software engineer, I see things through the lens of
Speaker 1: trying to find really good companies that use technology really well.
Speaker 1: What I discovered, um, when I was on the software
Speaker 1: gig was that certain companies would kind of do well,
Speaker 1: not so great things with technology that's been a whole
Speaker 1: lot of money. It was cool, it was cutting edge,
Speaker 1: but it didn't do much for them as a company.
Speaker 1: So that's the kind of software I try to stay
Speaker 1: away from, right is. You know, just because it's cool
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's good. So I'm looking for productivity. So
Speaker 1: that's the thread again, growth a reasonable price, but companies
Speaker 1: that can really deploy technology well. And I also like
Speaker 1: companies that make technology. Um. Right now, I've figured it
Speaker 1: out that at the very core of any kind of
Speaker 1: software is hardware that runs on a chip. So I've
Speaker 1: been really investing in chips to the uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I haven't really found a whole lot of software companies
Speaker 1: that I like at this point, but chips look cheap
Speaker 1: and um. Even though we started right running this portfolio
Speaker 1: right at the beginning of covid UM, chips have really
Speaker 1: performed well and they're constrained. But here's the thing. We're
Speaker 1: going to need more next year and the year after
Speaker 1: and the year after, and I think we're under um
Speaker 1: estimating how many chips we're going to need because of
Speaker 1: five G bringing us Internet of Things to be finally
Speaker 1: a thing in the in the corporate world, and I
Speaker 1: don't bring up pets just to bring up pet Mike.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've read Kim's annual reports, but
Speaker 1: she she has included I think you once included a
Speaker 1: picture of your chickens. Was it this past year? I
Speaker 1: think so. Yes. I have four chickens and everybody works
Speaker 1: in this house. They lay eggs. They are all egg producing. Um.
Speaker 1: I haven't had to buy eggs from the store in
Speaker 1: a very long time, and I'm glad because my eggs
Speaker 1: are golden and tasty and not like those sad, mass
Speaker 1: produced yellow eggs. I saw a picture of your chickens.
Speaker 1: I'm very jealous. I'm an aspiring backyard chicken farmer myself,
Speaker 1: but uh, my neighbors are not do not share my aspirations.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure if we could uh make that happen.
Speaker 1: Maybe in retirement, I'll get get finally get those chickens. Um, Chem.
Speaker 1: I wanted to unpack a little bit about your approach
Speaker 1: to uh looking at chip makers, um and I have
Speaker 1: a lot of questions about this, and as just my style,
Speaker 1: I might pack them all into like a thirty part
Speaker 1: question for you, so so stand by for that. But
Speaker 1: but but I feel like a lot of investors get
Speaker 1: intimidated with the semiconductor space because there's so much going on,
Speaker 1: there's so much nuance, and also there's so much sort
Speaker 1: of there's this like boom and bust cycle of of
Speaker 1: supplying demand. Um. Obviously now we're in this still in
Speaker 1: this kind of mismatched supplying to demand environment where everyone
Speaker 1: needs chips. Uh, they're not making enough, you know, for
Speaker 1: carmakers and other applications. But let's start first with that
Speaker 1: idea of the sort of you know, the the cycle
Speaker 1: for chip makers, which it doesn't seem to always be
Speaker 1: correspond with the regular economic cycle. It kind of has
Speaker 1: its mind of its own um and the share prices
Speaker 1: kind of through their own thing as well. So is it,
Speaker 1: you know, do you try to time that cycle uh
Speaker 1: to sort of get in and out of these names
Speaker 1: along with it, or is that is is that as
Speaker 1: foolish as trying to time the regular market as a whole.
Speaker 1: That is an excellent question with multi parts. So here
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a shot at it. First, to
Speaker 1: the timing aspect um, I think we're always surprised, both
Speaker 1: to the upside and downside. We're rational people. We look
Speaker 1: at things and we say, X, Y and Z are
Speaker 1: going to happen, and then ABC happens. Right, So I
Speaker 1: try to take most of the timing away from any
Speaker 1: kind of thing other than today's price. Like I have
Speaker 1: a little band of maybe sixty days where I look
Speaker 1: at something and go, that's gonna come back down. I
Speaker 1: can wait for that, right, So that's my at a
Speaker 1: reasonable price. Um. That being said, in the world of chips,
Speaker 1: there are definite pockets and you can even though you're
Speaker 1: not a technologist, you can figure these things out. For example,
Speaker 1: there's one um it's called Micron. It's one of the
Speaker 1: names we own, the ticker symbols M you. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that they make is this stuff called
Speaker 1: nand N A N D And that is a way
Speaker 1: it's it is a chip, but it is really um storage. Right.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to have electricity. You can put stuff
Speaker 1: on it. It's like those little cards that used to
Speaker 1: have for your camera or your phone. Right that that's
Speaker 1: that is what we're talking about. So that definitely has
Speaker 1: boom and bust cycles. And it's only because only eight
Speaker 1: companies make it. So when somebody brings a new line
Speaker 1: or a new fab online that kind of destroys the
Speaker 1: whole supply demand um curve. Right, So then the chips
Speaker 1: get cheap because you know, these are unbelievably expensive fabricating plants.
Speaker 1: They have to be running at full tilt the whole way,
Speaker 1: or nobody makes any money. So they just keep shoving
Speaker 1: them out the door. And it's kind of commodity. Now
Speaker 1: a couple of things. First, not all nanda is at
Speaker 1: it equals some are is getting faster, better, stronger than others. Um,
Speaker 1: So that is kind of adding some discrimination to your
Speaker 1: ability to pick a better company from. You know, it's
Speaker 1: no longer commodity. But the second thing is we are
Speaker 1: so quickly moving away from older storage devices like spinning disks,
Speaker 1: and certainly we don't put anything on metal tape anymore.
Speaker 1: Remember those big tape rooms where okay, yeah, that's gone,
Speaker 1: that's not a thing anymore. So because of that, I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna kind of flatten out and we're gonna
Speaker 1: have boom let cycles, not boom and bust cycles. Right So,
Speaker 1: because I do think we're just we have so much
Speaker 1: data that it has to go somewhere, and it's going
Speaker 1: on these nean devices which are now going into um uh,
Speaker 1: you know, enterprise storage areas. So that's thing. One thing
Speaker 1: too is you can discriminate across the makers of chips
Speaker 1: to high tech, which is like you're in video, right,
Speaker 1: because they're doing very very fast chips for graphics cards
Speaker 1: for gamers, but all serve for bitcoin mining and I
Speaker 1: say that with a smile, bitcoin mining and AI, so
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna pay a premium for those chips,
Speaker 1: so that it is probably not gonna go in a
Speaker 1: boom and bust cycle, unless well, they maybe make cyber
Speaker 1: uh uh currency you know illegal that might that might
Speaker 1: imbeed that, but um that's probably not your biggest worry anyhow,
Speaker 1: So right, so there are things that you can kind
Speaker 1: of try to avoid, but then again, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes things happen and the demand goes right back up,
Speaker 1: so you know, I like to have always some exposure.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the Miss America answer, right, something
Speaker 1: for everybody. Kim. Can I ask you how you're thinking
Speaker 1: about supplying supply chain issues, because I've actually been reading
Speaker 1: some reports this week, maybe over the last two weeks
Speaker 1: or so, where more and more people are thinking that
Speaker 1: some of the supply chain problems are going to be
Speaker 1: dragging out for longer and longer potentially, And I know
Speaker 1: chips is a big, big part of this, But how
Speaker 1: are you thinking about the big picture. Sure, well, I'm
Speaker 1: going further and further out the timeline because I think
Speaker 1: there are going to be UM supply disruptions and a
Speaker 1: lot of it is because a lot of the actual
Speaker 1: especially CPU chips are being made in one central location,
Speaker 1: and that is Taiwan. And I strongly believe that UM,
Speaker 1: especially Taiwan Semiconductor, is just going to have to move
Speaker 1: some of its production around the world to reduce its risk,
Speaker 1: just for no other reason. And I believe other chip
Speaker 1: makers are going to kind of have to move around
Speaker 1: the world. So why is this something that we're discussing,
Speaker 1: Because I think it gives you opportunity. You can go
Speaker 1: a little further away from actually owning chips to maybe
Speaker 1: owning things like UM we own software that helps you
Speaker 1: to design chips, so you can do that. You could
Speaker 1: invest in the companies that make the machines that make
Speaker 1: the chips right, And I encourage people to think about
Speaker 1: that because I think demand is going up, but so
Speaker 1: is UM. You know, risk remediation. So they're gonna have
Speaker 1: to build these fabs away from off of Taiwan into
Speaker 1: other areas of the world, and that will drive a
Speaker 1: whole lot of spending that you can take advantage of
Speaker 1: because there's relatively few makers of the things that make chips.
Speaker 1: With all the sort of nationalism sweeping the world and
Speaker 1: even the supply chain issues we've seen, it seems like
Speaker 1: that is something yet that you must be preparing for
Speaker 1: in the futures. This this kind of you know, big
Speaker 1: electronic manufacturers bringing chips production in house, and and you
Speaker 1: know people trying to produce their own fabrication plants, make
Speaker 1: their own fabrication plants, like even in the US. That's
Speaker 1: that Is that a real? Is that really where the
Speaker 1: industry is going, do you think? Or is it just
Speaker 1: kind of being hype that way? I think it's being
Speaker 1: hyped that way. But I could see centers around the world,
Speaker 1: like in probably tax friendly and resource friendly areas, And
Speaker 1: Intel's chips are still made in the US, so I
Speaker 1: think that is always going to stay that way, right,
Speaker 1: but I can see it maybe moving over to I
Speaker 1: don't know, Ireland, because you know, they've been a friend
Speaker 1: of pharma, So why not be a friend of tech.
Speaker 1: They're they're just really good about allowing people to come
Speaker 1: in and they know how to handle that. So so
Speaker 1: I think that there could be these pockets around the
Speaker 1: world of technology. And you know, it's not perfect where
Speaker 1: you know, Belgium has its own you know, chip making plant,
Speaker 1: you know, and so does Luxembourg. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that's getting kind of crazy, you know, too too small.
Speaker 1: But I do think having all of the uh computing
Speaker 1: of the world being made in one area is not
Speaker 1: the smartest thing. And let's take geopolitical out of it.
Speaker 1: They have earthquakes there. It's it's just not super smart, right, Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's get to all the all the various things I
Speaker 1: promised in the introduction here, which I I promise our
Speaker 1: listeners you will explain with great authority, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: we've had this this long, ferocious rally. Now, I mean
Speaker 1: we call it a seven month rally. It's it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's really longer than that eighteen month rally. Just those
Speaker 1: seven consecutive months, and now you know, we do sort
Speaker 1: of all. I've gained the confidence that the FED is
Speaker 1: you know, getting ready to start taping, tapering asset purchases.
Speaker 1: I wonder you know how important was that in your
Speaker 1: opinions to the rally? Uh? And does tapering matter given
Speaker 1: sort of you know, that reopening uh trend that's going
Speaker 1: on with all these people with you know, swollen savings
Speaker 1: accounts now to some degree or not, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: not fully ready to take those cruise ships, but at
Speaker 1: least ready to go out and eat and maybe you know,
Speaker 1: do something besides sit on zoom calls and watch Netflix
Speaker 1: all day? You know, is tapering a sort of a
Speaker 1: boogeyman that we don't have to worry about giving all
Speaker 1: those other forces in the real economy. I'm not usually
Speaker 1: a fan of, Oh, I don't know, collective government thought, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm an American, I'm you know, independent, I'm a hippie,
Speaker 1: I'm whatever you wanna, you know. But I think the
Speaker 1: Fed has done exactly the right thing in these last
Speaker 1: eighteen months. And we're gonna get to that answer about
Speaker 1: how it's affected the markets. Right. So the thing it
Speaker 1: did was bring rates down immediately back to that zero
Speaker 1: like sorry, quarter of basis point close enough to zero
Speaker 1: we call it zero interest rates, right, And then they
Speaker 1: did they understood from the two thousand and eight time
Speaker 1: frame that to really make sure that interest rates stay low,
Speaker 1: you have to do these bond purchases, so they've been
Speaker 1: doing that now. I think what Powell's theory is this,
Speaker 1: and this came through so clear to me, or maybe
Speaker 1: he was just talking. What I believe is you have
Speaker 1: to get people back to work, all of them that can.
Speaker 1: And that is his focus, not an on not on inflation,
Speaker 1: but on getting people back to work. And that is
Speaker 1: going to make it palatable to be weaned off of
Speaker 1: the bond purchases because I don't believe that interest rates
Speaker 1: will shoot back up, right, And I'm talking when I
Speaker 1: talk interest rates, I'm talking the tenure, So the ten
Speaker 1: uere isn't going to go like a two in a
Speaker 1: minute and a half after they start or start tapering. Right.
Speaker 1: But I think in stock prices, we always look at
Speaker 1: PE price over earnings. So right now we're at high
Speaker 1: PE right where we are paying more for that stream
Speaker 1: of cash flows. So we have to be willing to
Speaker 1: pay more for these companies. What we need to do
Speaker 1: is have the earnings grow so the PE follow falls,
Speaker 1: but the price doesn't fall. Does that make sense. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do math on radio, so it's really tough.
Speaker 1: But you know, this is a division problem, and you
Speaker 1: don't want to make the price change all that much
Speaker 1: whenever you're raising interest rates. And I think Powell is
Speaker 1: trying to guarantee that companies will have more earnings if
Speaker 1: the economies back to more or less full speed. And
Speaker 1: that's why he's been judicious about not cutting these the
Speaker 1: bond purchases before this, because he's seen these uh. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's clear voiant. He's just been overly cautious
Speaker 1: and been paid back with all of the variant kind
Speaker 1: of noise in the system. Does that make sense? It
Speaker 1: makes sense, And I have I do have a follow
Speaker 1: up in UH in that I've read a couple of
Speaker 1: reports again reports, and I spent all my time reading
Speaker 1: reports and notes, but a few of them this week
Speaker 1: said that we're back in a bad news is good
Speaker 1: news environment. I know the ADP number disappointed this week,
Speaker 1: and that's exactly when I started seeing some of those notes.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if if that makes sense to you,
Speaker 1: if potentially we could be in another bad news is
Speaker 1: good news environment. Yeah, I mean everybody loves low interest rates.
Speaker 1: Everybody on Wall Street, let's put it that way, except
Speaker 1: for the banks themselves, love love low interest rates. And
Speaker 1: it's because it gives us the freedom to continue buying
Speaker 1: those cash flows at elevated ratios. Right So, we're paying
Speaker 1: what thirty seven times forward earnings for Microsoft right now,
Speaker 1: which is you know, huge, But if their earnings can
Speaker 1: continue to grow while interest rates fall, then their price
Speaker 1: shouldn't fall, you know, uh can Before we get to
Speaker 1: our Craziest Things segment, I also wanted to talk just
Speaker 1: briefly about UM, your sector neutral strategy, which I know
Speaker 1: is doing well this year, outperforming the SMP at least UM,
Speaker 1: which obviously is doing well this year. Talk to me
Speaker 1: about sort of what is the appeal of going sector neutral?
Speaker 1: I mean, my guess is that there are certain investors
Speaker 1: who want to be exposed to growth but don't want
Speaker 1: to be overloaded with tech. Maybe is that? Is that? It?
Speaker 1: In a nutshell, it is, and I mean I kind
Speaker 1: of when I came up with it, I was trying
Speaker 1: to do risk remediation. Because the strategy was made UM
Speaker 1: we started running it for another advisor and you know,
Speaker 1: doing it for their clients and Boca as a subadvisor,
Speaker 1: so they wanted more growth, but not like scary growth,
Speaker 1: and I said, sure, we can do this sector neutral
Speaker 1: thing which will force my hand is a portfolio manager
Speaker 1: to maintain, you know, alignment with the all of the sectors.
Speaker 1: Why is this important? A lot of people who are
Speaker 1: running money will say things like I hate energy, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna have any energy. And then when energy does
Speaker 1: really well any year, they get their clock cleaned. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: who cares about the manage? Are the people who are
Speaker 1: holding those assets get their clock cleaned? And you know
Speaker 1: that's tough. What it really is a great little way
Speaker 1: to take a little bit of risk off the table.
Speaker 1: But what we're doing is this is where UM. The
Speaker 1: SNP five is the benchmark. The SNP five has a
Speaker 1: lot concentrated in those top five names, right, so we're
Speaker 1: going further down into the market cap, you know, lower
Speaker 1: market caps. And the great thing is some of the
Speaker 1: stocks I've picked have been scooped up by larger companies.
Speaker 1: And it's been great so far, right because you know,
Speaker 1: now I have to find another smaller company for healthcare
Speaker 1: because one of my UM stocks is getting taken out
Speaker 1: and it's a double in eighteen months. I'll take that
Speaker 1: all day. So that's kind of reinforcing. Now you have
Speaker 1: to be a good stock picker. You have to pick
Speaker 1: you know, good stocks and you know come a needs
Speaker 1: that other companies want to buy. I mean, that's not
Speaker 1: why I'm doing it. I just said, oh, this is
Speaker 1: somebody with an unusual product line and looks poised for growth.
Speaker 1: So you know, that gives you an opportunity to participate
Speaker 1: in that cycle of smaller companies being bought by larger companies,
Speaker 1: and so far it's working. It's it's a fascinating phenomenon
Speaker 1: that I feel like a lot of managers of either
Speaker 1: small caps are all caps type of funds. They never
Speaker 1: say they explicitly are looking for takeover targets, but that
Speaker 1: always ends up being sort of a big source of
Speaker 1: their their positive returns. I mean, I guess you drive
Speaker 1: yourself nuts just trying to look for targets exclusively. Well
Speaker 1: you can't. But what I've found is if you get quality,
Speaker 1: like everybody's looking for the same thing, I don't care
Speaker 1: if it's an investor or a company that wants to
Speaker 1: grow and they say, oh, we'll do We'll buy instead
Speaker 1: of build Okay, I mean that's what every company is
Speaker 1: doing if you can find that team of good managers
Speaker 1: that are made cut products that customers love. And this
Speaker 1: isn't just regular like retail customers. Corporate customers can love
Speaker 1: a product too, and if you're good at making that product,
Speaker 1: you are a candidate for takeover. And yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: a good it's a good gig. And at another good gig, Bildonna,
Speaker 1: I'm really struggling for the segway here, but uh, let's
Speaker 1: go with that. Another good gig is the crazy Things segment.
Speaker 1: Stand clear of the craziest things we saw in markets
Speaker 1: this week. That's a good gig for you, of Aldonna.
Speaker 1: So you start us off, what's the craziest thing you
Speaker 1: saw in markets this week? Well, before we get to
Speaker 1: what the craziest thing I saw was, I wanted to
Speaker 1: remind everybody that everybody can give us a call at
Speaker 1: six four six three to four zero, leave us a
Speaker 1: voicemail and we may even play it on the show.
Speaker 1: Another way to get your craziest thing on the show
Speaker 1: is to send me a Twitter message, which which somebody
Speaker 1: did earlier this week. And so I want to give
Speaker 1: doctor at Dr Einstein a shout out. I really hope
Speaker 1: I'm pronouncing that correctly. Of course, his real name, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it is. Doctor is his first name. Einstein is
Speaker 1: his second name. Uh, and I say Stein because there's
Speaker 1: there's a little underscore, a little dash between the one
Speaker 1: and the stein. So forgive me, but um, he and
Speaker 1: I have been exchanging messages on Twitter, and he and he,
Speaker 1: so he sent me something about some of the market.
Speaker 1: Mattes is that he's seen in the NFS n f
Speaker 1: T space once again. I know we we covered that
Speaker 1: last week, but he said there's an alternative, earlier version
Speaker 1: of the Ether Rocks contract that lets anyone meant a
Speaker 1: uniquely numbered rock for free. The crazy thing is that
Speaker 1: anyone can mint basically any uniquely numbered rock, and there's
Speaker 1: wild speculation on the value of those rocks, which don't
Speaker 1: even have a picture or n f T token. So
Speaker 1: these Ether rocks, I've been these hugely popular n f
Speaker 1: T s. They're supposed to be only a hundred of them.
Speaker 1: And so he was flagging to us that there's this code,
Speaker 1: there's there's something we're going on with the code where
Speaker 1: you can actually I suppose make new copies. I really
Speaker 1: hope I'm doing this do justice. But you can create
Speaker 1: more of them, and some of them don't even have
Speaker 1: a picture attached to them. And these things are like
Speaker 1: just like with everything else in the end of T
Speaker 1: space there there, everybody's going nuts over them. Basically. I
Speaker 1: think I feel like Kim hears all this and she
Speaker 1: just thinks in video and video and video. No, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking back to my youth and thinking pet rocks like
Speaker 1: that was the thing and you can't escape it, man,
Speaker 1: It just it mutates their time. Gosh, I think that
Speaker 1: was the idea behind ether rocks. It was the was
Speaker 1: it in the seventies and the eighties? It was rocks, right,
Speaker 1: So I think that's the inspiration. That's pretty good anyway.
Speaker 1: It's fun to cover cover this n f T stuff.
Speaker 1: There's just something. There's always something going on over there.
Speaker 1: But I want to give Dr Einstein a shout out.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sending that. Thank you, Dr Einstein. If that
Speaker 1: is in fact your real dame, All right, well what's
Speaker 1: your crazy thing? Now? You can't rely completely on Dr
Speaker 1: Einstein here, I can't, but I try to top his
Speaker 1: and mine is like really far out there. So I
Speaker 1: hope you like it. But it's uh, it's this story
Speaker 1: that I saw. It's about Flame and Hot mountain Dew.
Speaker 1: So PepsiCo owns Mountain Dew. They have this brand new
Speaker 1: flavor for Flame and Hot Cheetos flavored mountain Dew drinks.
Speaker 1: It was immediately sold out, and so I think on
Speaker 1: the internet there's speculation over, you know, when they're going
Speaker 1: to restock and when people can buy this sweet and
Speaker 1: sour mountain dew again. But it also made me think
Speaker 1: of this story that's been making its rounds sutainly. It's
Speaker 1: about the guy who claims he invented hot Cheetos either
Speaker 1: this one. Yeah, yeah. His name is Richard montagne Is.
Speaker 1: He even wrote a book about it, and there's I
Speaker 1: think some speculation over how much he was involved with
Speaker 1: the creation of hot Cheetos or something. Right, and he
Speaker 1: took it to the he was, yeah, that's that's the
Speaker 1: name of the book. It's it's called Flame and Hot,
Speaker 1: The incredible true story of one man's rise from janitor
Speaker 1: to top executive. Eva Longoria is making a movie about this,
Speaker 1: so be on the lookout for that. Anyway. That's my
Speaker 1: craziest thing. We have this public company involved Peptico owns
Speaker 1: as I said, Mountain the Mountain Dew brand, and I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if i'd give it a try.
Speaker 1: I love hot Cheetos, but I don't know if i'd
Speaker 1: give the Mountain me neither. I don't know. Maybe I
Speaker 1: would probably try it, but uh, we'll see. We'll see
Speaker 1: how how big of a success that that one is.
Speaker 1: I have my doubts on that one, but maybe I
Speaker 1: can get my hands on it. We can next time
Speaker 1: we're in the office. Do you do that? You first?
Speaker 1: You first? If you if your face doesn't crinkle up,
Speaker 1: then maybe maybe I'll try it. But um, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do mine really quick, just because I want to. I
Speaker 1: want to get kims into But um, you know, the
Speaker 1: Game Stop drama never ceases. I remember us. I think
Speaker 1: we joked uh last year even about well, if it
Speaker 1: stays at these levels, maybe they'll add it to the
Speaker 1: SMP five hundred. Uh, and everyone chuckled, ha ha ha,
Speaker 1: like it's ever gonna stay at these levels. Two's weren't that,
Speaker 1: But sure enough The Journal While Street Journal has a
Speaker 1: story out this week speculating on whether or not Game
Speaker 1: Stop could be added to the sp five hundred. It's
Speaker 1: way bigger than some of the smallest members of the index,
Speaker 1: but doesn't uh, it doesn't meet all the criteria including, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, having profits in the last quarter, and I
Speaker 1: think it has to have a sort of a net
Speaker 1: profit over the trailing four quarters. But we'll see. Stranger
Speaker 1: things have happened. I suppose then game stop joining the
Speaker 1: SMP and not. Leavan had a good argument, a good
Speaker 1: column arguing, well, you know, should the committee actually keep
Speaker 1: this out if it meets the qualifications just because everything
Speaker 1: everyone thinks it's crazy, And he suggests a weird SMP
Speaker 1: index to capture all these stocks and a normal SMP index.
Speaker 1: I I don't know. I think there might be something
Speaker 1: to that sector neutral and weirdness neutral. Kim, what do
Speaker 1: you think is that the next big thing? I I
Speaker 1: kind of like that. I would like a weird stock index.
Speaker 1: I think we I think somebody should put it together.
Speaker 1: How about us three, let's get together, because you know,
Speaker 1: if dal Jones can do it, we could do our
Speaker 1: own thing. Right. We could just have like, what are
Speaker 1: the weirdest stocks in? And they could be penny stock. Um.
Speaker 1: I remember years. I don't know if this will count
Speaker 1: is my weird thing. But years and years ago, UM,
Speaker 1: when I worked at the asset management firm before the
Speaker 1: one I started, UM, I had to be the girl
Speaker 1: that answer or the person that answered all the client's
Speaker 1: questions on should I invest in this? My brother in
Speaker 1: law told me about this, right, we all know that
Speaker 1: that kind of it was a great beat. I was
Speaker 1: so glad to get off of that. Okay, Anyhow, the
Speaker 1: weirdest one was a company. Now this was a penny
Speaker 1: stock truly, it traded like two cents or something like that.
Speaker 1: It was growing plankton and then getting carbon credits for
Speaker 1: releasing plankton into the ocean. Can I make this up? Now?
Speaker 1: I cannot, And I said, no, this is not a
Speaker 1: good idea. I don't know, like I don't know who
Speaker 1: would pay for it. I you know, there were no
Speaker 1: carbon markets at that time or and I didn't even
Speaker 1: know like they didn't explain how that the credits would work,
Speaker 1: like who was giving them credits and where they could be,
Speaker 1: so you know what I mean, there was a big
Speaker 1: missing thing. But I just think just growing plankton, I
Speaker 1: think that could end you up in the weird stockuments.
Speaker 1: I would I would give a high waiting to that one,
Speaker 1: I think for sure, regardless of the market. Yeah, big tanks,
Speaker 1: like in somebody's basement. I don't know where do you
Speaker 1: grow up, plankton, I think it has to be in
Speaker 1: a basement. Absolutely, that's where you gotta start. If not
Speaker 1: a garage, maybe, I don't know. Yes, no, No, that's
Speaker 1: that's too exposed. The plank didn't like it dark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's too Silicon Valley. Yeah. Here in
Speaker 1: the Touching we have a major krill uh Harvester has
Speaker 1: a has a headquarters there. Krill is a big thing
Speaker 1: for the fish oil tablets. So but at least that's
Speaker 1: it's a better use case. I suppose that U or
Speaker 1: carbon credits for that's pretty good to Kim. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that was your official craziest thing, but I
Speaker 1: like that one. Thank you. And with that, I think, Philana,
Speaker 1: I think that's all the time we have. What do
Speaker 1: you think, Phil Dana? I allow you to anoint the
Speaker 1: winner of this week's craziest Thing? Can I pick myself
Speaker 1: or not? Absolutely? Not? No, yesterday, let me think about it.
Speaker 1: I'll consider it. I'll picked myself for approximately podcasts in
Speaker 1: a row, so I guess you can pick yourself. You did,
Speaker 1: but dr Einstein again. Uh he Actually he sent me
Speaker 1: a couple of different topics. All of them were in
Speaker 1: the end of T space and all of them were interesting.
Speaker 1: So maybe maybe we can Dr Einstein it is. Although
Speaker 1: I like to plankton, I gotta say I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: a planked plankton f t S. I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be my thing. I want to work on that. Kim First,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for your time. Go take care of
Speaker 1: those chickens. Thank you. What Goes Up We'll be back
Speaker 1: next week. Until then, you can find us on the
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Speaker 1: Up is produced by Tofur Foreheads, head of Bloomberg podcasts
Speaker 1: is Francesco Levy, thanks for listening, See you next time.