Does Barbie Push a “Woke” Agenda? Exploring Current Cinematic Themes and the Stock Market

This is the untamed ethos podcast. Join us as investment pros, executives, and other experts talk business, personal growth, investing politics, and the trending topics well rounded pros need to know about. Authentic, unfiltered, and fun. Joshua Wilson is the founder of United Etha's Wealth Partners, a registered investment advisor. Due to industry regulations, will not discuss any of United ETH's investment advice on this podcast, and nothing you'll hear on this podcast should be taken as investment advice. All opinions expressed by Joshua and by podcast participants are solely their own, and do not reflect the opinions of United ETH or its affiliates. Welcome back to untamed Bithos. I'm Joshua Wilson, and with me as usual is Doctor. Vicks, Russell Rhodes, and we got a busy week ahead, in the busy week behind the earnings, middle of earnings, lots of trends, and I know you're following right now. Some big surprises, coming out as well. So a lot of talk about today, Doctor. Vicks, but, gotta address the elephant in the room. You're looking awfully pink today, Russell. I'm very pink. I, you know, like anybody that is father of a daughter, got to go see the Barbie movie this past weekend. So and, you know, I've had to dress in pink. For the obligatory pictures in front of the the theater and then the little Barbie booth and all that kind of stuff. There was one funny line in the whole movie when Helen Muran, who was the, the, the, narrator they talked about there there's one scene where Barbie's getting all upset. You know, it's Margel Robbie. And she goes, I'm ugly now. And Miran Maren chimes in and says, note to the producers. You don't cast Margorobi for to make this scene convincing. Which I just thought was hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, it was a little corny. I don't have no other way to do Really? Not your thing, Barbie, maybe No. Not terribly my thing. My wife was really excited that, Ryan Reynolds basically did not wear his shirt the whole time. Oh, yo. It wasn't Ryan Roselyn. The other guy. It's the Ryan Goslyn. Oh, with Goslyn. Yeah. The two rounds. I was surprised. So I saw it yesterday as well. Actually filmed a video of it. I thought that it was Ma'am, my my thoughts are all over the place. I don't know if we should just talk about those there, but I was surprised. I mean, obviously, you you think little kids, I mean, it's PG thirteen movie, but, I'm sure you caught the masturbation joke at the beginning. Oh, yeah. The, yeah, the beach off. They just kept going with it. I'm gonna beat you off. They just kept going with it too. They did too. And then there was a there was an f bomb at the end but they put the mattel logo over it. Yeah. That's right. You know, that's right. Which was really funny. I thought was a cute way to and And it's funny. Our, in my household, our children are allowed to actually curse appropriately. We just as opposed to just sounding completely stupid. Yeah. So, they've always kinda they they you know, they my kids were sixteen and eighteen now. But they still would have known what it was when they were six and eight. So one of the one of the one of the best, cursing stories in the Rhodes household is my oldest who you know likes everything in a certain way. And, one time, you know, we put her to bed and everything, and we had left the towel from her bath on the floor. And all of a sudden, her door opens up, and we hear this little voice God damn it. And the towel flies out and she slams the door. I'm like, well, that was appropriate, I guess. So yeah, the beach. I don't know how and and it we my my daughters have, we we've got cousins that are practically, like, s siblings at this point because they're so close and they go to the same high school and all that kind of stuff. One of them is only twelve. And my sixteen year old who saw it twice already even said that there were probably some things that the twelve year old wasn't gonna be able to pick up on. Throughout the movie. And and I can see that. I think there were probably some things that my sixteen and eighteen year old didn't necessarily pick up. Oh, it it's as well. There's times the movie didn't know what it wanted to be. I mean, you know, she's she's she's playing this, the the stereotypical kind of, Bembo Barbie. Is kind of what she's playing, the the main character, Margot, Robbie. And then all of a sudden, she jumps off on this, you know, four lines of sounding like she has PHD and gender studies or PhD and, you know, sociology or something like that. And, just out of the blue, just She she went from being completely clueless toward the beginning. It's almost like they changed directors halfway through. Yeah. You know, she went from being Absolutely clueless to spending twelve hours in the real world and becoming very worldly. How's that? Yeah. Down right. To the to the short soliloquies on social causes. I mean, it this was easily the wokeest movie I've ever seen in my life. Easily. I've I've seen worse. But, this was this one really did make, make make boys look pretty stupid. Can ain't so bright. Never really got super bright. He was even in fact, when they, you know, flip when he goes to the real world, comes back and and starts to act like a guy from the real world as opposed to an androgynous doll He he he he looked like a thirteen year old boy who all of a sudden drank his first beer or something and and Yeah. Just a lot of confidence for no particular reason and and just weird. Well, that's what the but that's exactly what the what they portray them in to be in the real world though. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Refer to them as Ken's. The Ken's in the real world. The real world, Ken's, and they're just as dumb. I mean, the CEO of Mattel is an absolute like, idiot, the entire board, which is all men, which is not accurate because the the board's about half female in real life. They're all bumbling idiots. It's anything that's male is a bumbling idiot. I I think that the thing that was the shock most shocking to me in the movie was I really felt like it had a pretty strong anti motherhood bias. That's kind of what bothered me the most. Yeah. They're us some of that. And, I mean, even at the the the beginning scene, the the beginning scene, which was basically a parody of the beginning of two thousand one, with the little girls and the dolls and everything. Yeah, I felt like that that was that was leaning toward, you know, making making it look like it almost made it look like you have to do one or the other. I guess is what it comes down to. Yeah. I I had, I knew that looked familiar, and I -- Oh. -- I looked it up, and it was from the from Stanley Kubrick film. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, in fact, I'm gonna do something that doesn't work particularly well on the screen, but There's a a side by side from Instagram of the beginning scenes. Yeah. And I even my my daughter's given six of that. My sixty eight. That that movie was made while I was being made. Yes. I was I was born in to sixty seven. So that movie was being made when I was Well, let's put it this way. My my siblings weren't even born, and they're fourteen years older than me. So, that's before my time. And, you know, I get it. That's, that's that's a nod to the space odyssey film from not sixty eight. Although it's called two thousand one. But none little kids don't know that. It's ridiculous. Oh, no. They didn't they didn't know that one at all. I showed it to my daughters on the way back. Or in the car when we got in the car to come home. I was like, do you remember the very first scene? Because I knew exactly what it what it was. Yeah. Oh, I sure didn't. I I knew it was I knew it was something that was older than I'd seen because it's a classic. Right? So I knew that it I Where have I seen this before? So I had to kinda look it up? But, yeah, that is the the scene is these they're just breaking these Barbie dolls up and that, you know, you don't have to be a mom anymore. That's fun for a few minutes, but then it's not. Ask your mom. It's not fun after a while. Yeah. Is that really what you wanna say to an eighty eight year old girl? Funny when you're eighteen, but when you're eighteen. I thought the mom from the real world that went back. I I did like how I I felt like she had some really logical lectures in there. It wasn't it could have been a lot worse, you know. She could have been, and and she wasn't even a single mom. You know, the dad was -- A mom. -- home. Do nothing. Of course. He's saying to daddy, And and he was he reminded me of AOC's boyfriend, and I know that that that's gonna get me, but that was the kind of kinda guy, you know, just, maybe maybe I'll pay the mail. He's thirty. So his daughter's thirteen, and it's they say dad, so I assume it's not stepdad. So I assume No. It's a dad. He's just, and and he's, you know, his his wife is hispanic and his daughter's half Hispanic, and he's just now barely learning Spanish. The only thing that we know of this bumbling idiot is he's just learning a few phrases of Spanish. That's the only time we see him is he's barely learning. He can men can learn that can learn real, real, real well. Well, and and we talked about this on one of the very first episodes a bit. There was, you know, I was down at Iu. I had a former student call up and say, hey, my buddies, and I all go I know you teach Thursday nights until about eight thirty. My buddies and I go for dollar burgers at this place every, about nine to ten o'clock. Every Thursday night wants to meet us out. And the whole table, the guys were like, you know, they just women just want us, they wanna trap us, and, you know, they want they they, you know, the last thing in the world I wanna do is get trapped into a marriage because once the, you know, once once a kid comes along, I I just don't even matter. And the the way they depicted the dad in the Barbie movie, kinda reinforce what those guys were, what what those guys were saying when we were talking about it. Also, one of the guys had been dating a girl for, like, three or four years. They broke up and he saw a picture of her, like, four months pregnant on Instagram. They only broke up six months ago. So yeah. Yeah. So all of them were bitter about women. I I just gotta give that context. They were all a little upset at the ladies Wow. Big of the pregnant, that's that's the bane of the Barbie movie. I mean, that's the joke that keeps coming up is midge the pregnant version of a Barbie that came out within the sixties. She was very popular. Pregnant Barbie that comes out and and and every time she comes on the screen, they make fun of her. Oh, my god. It's, ugh, you know, like, no one wants to see. Nobody says that's too weird. It's always shock and disgust whenever we see the pregnant woman on the Barbie movie. And there's no kids in the movie. I mean, there's all you see is a couple of tweens, but no little kids at all. It's all couple of tweens and then all dolls and horrible people in the, in in the real world. But, yeah, every time that motherhood is pretty much mentioned. And every time you see a pregnant doll, it is this is weird. This is shocking. This is disgusting. No one wants to see that. Your entire identity should be based on what you who you are and what you do. Doesn't it's okay if you're average, but, Mhmm. No one wants to buy an average doll. And this is kind of a we're really on the Barbie movie, but it's I I think it's okay because I I I wanna know what your opinion of this is. And and, Michael Sarah, who plays Alan, who's like the only non Ken. Yeah. What what do you think they were trying to do with him there? Because my my mother-in-law had a and I hadn't I we there were eight of us, the extended roads rose family. Right. Went to, went went to movies. It's the first time I've been I've been married to my wife for twenty one years. That's the first time I've been to the movies with anybody in her family. Really? We it's just not something we've ever, you know, ever done. I whereas before her, I dated somebody whose family owned a a bunch of video movie rental places. Right. Right. And we went to every single freaking movie ever. Yeah. So it just I thought it was kind of different. But what do you think Michael Sarah? And he played Allen, the only non Ken man in Barbieland. I'm quoting it from the site. Yes. Yes. Michael Sarah, I but first off, he played some comic relief. Because he was just this out of place guy, you know. Yeah. I think he plays the, I I was trying to kind of figure out if he was a guy at all because they kind of make reference to the fact that he's he can wear all of Ken's clothes they they say that. But there's something else they say that makes me wonder, wait. Is is he even considered a Ken? Is he even considered a guy? Because he's not a Barbie. He's not a Ken. It I I kind of was wondering if they were saying he was non binary or if he was trans in some way, and there is a trans Barbie. You know? Is there which one? I didn't know. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. So one of the things you notice. So so one of the themes that I noticed in the movie is that genitals don't matter. That comes up over a note. Because no but they do at the very end. I don't wanna give away the end. They do at the very end in the real world. In the real world, that where where she's gonna get her have to go to the gynecologist. But they refer multiple times to, to make jokes about genitals They talk about the, you know, Barbie says, I do not have a vagina. He does not have a penis. We have no genitals. And then they continually make fun of Ken for having no genitals. And then in the movie where where in the end where the Barbies are teaching the Barbies to to manipulate Ken. There's a whole scene where they literally go out step by step. Here is how you manipulate men in order to make the world right you have to manipulate men. You need to giggle at this time. You need to make the instructor ego at this time. All these different things you have to do. And then at that point, and the the the Barbie says, once you get him right where you want him where he's following in love, then you get up and leave and go flirt with another candidate. So you see all these Barbies get up and go Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. What one of the what the the trans Barbie is Doctor. Barbie, She goes and seduces Ken. And it's never mentioned the actor is trans, and she's trans, but she goes and seduces Ken. Ken doesn't say anything about her being trans, but you have a trans barbie seducing Ken. And so that's you know, that that that comes up. But, yeah, I think that the whole genitals don't matter thing is a is a is a big underlying theme, of all of this. In there. And so I think Alan is, I think he's non binary. Yeah. That's what my mother-in-law thought. She said was he trans, and I said, I don't think he's trans. I think he's just kind of you just have very, just very, very neutral doll that nobody could define. So, tens are men, right? When they go to the real world, they were spurred to men as Ken's. Yeah. And and so he's not a Ken, and he's not a Barbie. He's just Alan. And it's okay to just be Alan. And Alan has kinda some very feminine characteristics, and then you also see Alan have this random extended, unneeded fight scene. Yeah. That way, yeah. Yeah. The whole thing was caught up. It it bordered on silly. And I I was a little disturbed by the manipulation part of it. Not, you know, not again. I I I was thinking while that was going on that there's a, you know, that this is almost like a little playbook. He was absolutely appropriate. I mean, if I were a fourteen year old girl and and I knew how to manipulate guys like that, I, you know, I've I've never would have had to do my own homework. Absolutely. I don't know. I don't know else to say it. Every little detail. They they they did they did not miss a detail. For example, when when when, when they're on the dates, Barby's and the Kim's on the date. And Ken says, I'm gonna play guitar at you. Not to you, but at you. Why? Because anything a man does is to stroke his own ego. And did you notice the song that he plays? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. The word the words to both songs. My wife was actually, Mary Beth was, was explaining that to my daughters that the, you know, that the words you know, we're very specific to the gender sides there, and that's why those two songs kept coming up. Yeah. The the lyrics of the the verse is basically Barbie singing. Right? It's a woman. It's a matchbox twenty song from the nineties. So this is my era. Right? She said, I don't know if I've ever been good enough. I'm a little untrusting when I think the truce gonna was, was it? I forget the with all it. I I remember Yeah. I forget the words of it. But, the the chorus is Ken saying, I want to push you around. Will I will? Yeah. Well, I will. I wanna push you down while I will while I will. I wanna take you for granted. I will. I will. It is a song about mean, the the lyrics are about Ken overtly saying I want to -- Oh, yeah. -- I want to abuse you. And and and the lyrics from the female standpoint, I think my head's caving in. I don't think I've ever been really loved by a hand that's touched me, and I feel like something's gonna give I mean, it's amazing. Oh, yeah. No. It's just dead on. It's totally dead on. That's funny. From ninety eight I was trying to find the exact words to it, but, yes, they are there are all kinds. And, again, that's that's one that you know, the the twelve year old that was with us probably didn't pick up. Actually, I know, you know what the sixteen and eighteen year olds didn't either. Yeah. They they wouldn't More did the grandparents. Actually, it was just Mary Beth than myself that really I'll tell you what what every little girl picks up, and the younger she is, the easier it is to pick up on this is patriarchy equals capitalism equals fascism equals men. Patriarchy equals men equals bad, fascism equals patriarchy, capitalism equals patriarchy, men equals patriarchy, men equals capitalism, back capitalism, spacism. All of this is synonymous with the oppression of women, and it's men versus women. It is Yeah. And I don't is the matriarchy, and that's good. Matriarchy is good. Patriot is real world. That's bad. You can make the world more like a matriarchy, more like fantasy land. It is it is brilliant. I mean, It is really it's a mash in my video, I say it's masterfully seductive and insidious piece of left wing propaganda, which I believe Yeah. I try not to take it to that extreme, but it, it definitely it's I I don't like the us versus them part of it. I really don't. Yeah. You know, that that just we've got enough of that. Yeah. You know, it's out there. I it it I'm looking forward to seeing Oppenheimer. Yeah. I wanna see that. And you know what else I wanna see? I wanna see the ninja turtle movie. I saw a preview for, oh, yeah. They they snuck that one in on us. The preview is funny. I was surprised. The preview looked funny. How he did it. And I I wonder in another thing, you know, they're a little bit of a different generation. And the way they did it for people at him it. The way they did it was they were in the shadows for most of it. And, yeah, you couldn't tell a hundred percent for sure if it were the ninja turtles or not. When one of them turned to the side, you could see the goggles on them. And then the lights come on for a second. You can actually see them. But, yeah, I thought it was very cleverly done because it it wasn't even being done like it was a promo for a movie. Yeah. So, This is funny. So I noticed this. I'd I've never seen notices before, but one of my, one of my black friends, should revealed this to me the other day. And he said, not the other day. It's been a few weeks ago. He said, we're slowly we're slowly kicking all the gingers out of Hollywood. I'm like, what are you talking about? He said, don't you notice that, gingers in movies are slowly being replaced by black folks. And I said, I don't believe you. I've never, you know, and, well, I did see the thing about aerial, aerial being black. Whatever. I don't care. But he's like, no. It's not just arrow, it's everything. So he starts sending me this stuff, and he sends me this this list of all these different, characters that were want red headed white folks that are now, black actors. And I'm like, okay. Yeah. I got it. This is an impressive this is an impressive list. And, of of of of things. You can Google it. You know, ginger, red headed actors replaced by black characters. And this is just in the last couple of years, and It's it's funny. I didn't see it coming. I I I was I thought it was funny. Oh, no. You just see one aerial movie and everybody and you get your head and you He began go go off, but no. He was he was correct. And then I noticed in the teenage mutant ninja turtle preview, the April O'Neil, who was red headed white girl is now a, African American female. And, I mean, I don't care. I'm not an actor and I don't care. It's all it's all to me, it's all about the story. I don't I don't care, but it was funny to see that. And and and I it wouldn't be so noticeable if they weren't all red headed. Yeah. Yeah. I can say it for from from that one, for for that Disney princess. They are redoing Snow White. Yeah. And, Snow White is is a person of color in the movie, but also Snow White is not looking for the prince. She's looking for a career. I'm serious. I I I I you know what? I say something like that after seeing about two tweets about the movie. So I I should I should hedge that one by saying. And and I can understand that a little bit, but why not why not hope to have a great partner in life and a career? Yeah. I do. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'm I wouldn't have stuck around here for twenty plus years if it wasn't if it, you know. Yeah. I don't understand why we have to choose. I mean, to me, the whole point of of of feminism is choice and options and not pushing people in any any given way. I'm okay with all of it about I have I have no problem. If you wanna be career first, great. Then you need to find a partner, of whatever your sexual preference of partner is that that that works with, right, find someone who's, like you and share some values, but then has enough personal differences that you can make a life you know, together because you need to have some differences as well, not just not just similarities. So I don't I don't care about any of that stuff, whatever they whatever they wanna do. It just feels like that there's, But there's such a push in that direction that it feels like it's it's well like the Barbie movie, which I felt was overtly, devaluing motherhood. And and and and here's the thing is that that I think it's tough is, you know, where these things start talking about these sort of you can have it all stuff is, well, no, you really can't. You really can't. You can't have it all. You can't have all of all of it. You can have some of all of it, but you are going to make trade offs. And that's just the way it is. If you're going to, you know, I've I've always said one of my goals is I wanna be a great dad. I want and and and how I and how and how I define that. And I get to define that. Right? You know, I've seen my brother coach all the little league sports and stuff like that, and that's important to me. And other people that's not important too, they they they're gonna dad their other their way. Great. Yeah. Fine. You get to define it for yourself. But for me, I know that if I wanna coach the little leagues, I need to be able to leave work a little early. You know. Yeah. And, on those days. And, you know, those are choices. And it'll there'll be a certain point where the next dollar is not worth The trade off. Yeah. Mhmm. No. Absolutely. So I, the the the I I my only thing about being a good dad is and my favorite phrase around that one is, if I if I show me a good golfer and I'll show you a bad dad. Yeah. That makes sense. That means that because the only way, so okay. So the, you know, the the the whole idea behind the the that is that only way you can be a good golfer, and I know this personal experience, because I lived in Atlanta for five years, played almost every weekend. I was also single and moved to Chicago took a winner off and went out. And I think I'd added twenty five strokes to my game or something ridiculous like that. So, yeah, if you can't play, you can't play all the time, you're not gonna be any good. Period. So Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we have, we've talked a lot of a lot of movies and and then -- Duh. -- commentary today. This is what we're paid for. Russell's what people tune in to hear us talk about the world, not not about volatility. No. You know what? Honestly, I don't think anybody cares what I think about anything except for the markets. It's a fun conversation. No. I do. You know what? I there there there was one little I know you wanna get onto the markets, but there was one little thing I wanted to bring up because I I have students that follow-up with me and I had a really sharp one that followed up with me last night who just graduated She's got a job with a corporation that she has agreed to, and she starts in late August, she was doing one final summer internship, and she's getting an offer from the internship. And part of part of her wants to go to the internship but she's afraid to back out of the other obligation. You know, I told my advice to her was to stick with the obligation and tell the people she's interning with that, you know, she feels like she needs to make good on that obligation do it in a very polite way, say, you know, I wish you had offered me the job before the other place and leave you'll still leave that door open in the future if you end up deciding that you'd like to go back there. But it was it was just interesting to hear, and this is somebody that graduated in twenty I'm sorry, in three years. So she's a she's a young college graduate. I think she just turned twenty one. But I found it interesting that that she really had, like, you know, a question in her mind had it go about handling that one. And I think when you come out of school, you're afraid when you make, you know, professional decisions in for yourself that that might upset employers that they're gonna take it personally. And I think it takes a while before you learn that nobody's gonna take this stuff personally. You know, you're supposed to do what's best for you. But I I always seem to get one or two kids that have a couple of offers. They've accepted one. They wanna turn down the other or vice versa, and they're just absolutely mortified to deliver that news. And I'm like, trust me. I've delivered that news. I've received that news. I, you know, it it it it's not gonna be a taken as personally as you think. Don't, you know, and especially for people just out of school, To what's best for you. Absolutely do what's best for you. I I I would have one bit of, of of disagreement with that. And, that and that's just with your sweeping statement that no one's gonna take it personally. I would offer that there's always someone someone who will take it personally. Generally, no one will take it personally. But, yes, there's always someone that'll take it personally. I've worked with people. And and I've I've literally, I I'd I'd I'd I'd work to remember that I that I did it, did some consulting with, and every that was one of the things we struggle with every like, everything was personal. It's like, this is just business. You did this from your end, and you didn't have a problem with it. Why? Because you did what best for your business. And this potential employee who said yes, and then a week later comes back and says, no, because they took another offer. They were interviewing for other things. We were interviewing other I get. Exactly. You know? And, yeah, there's always someone who will take it personally, but unfortunately, those people don't matter. Or, unfortunately, those people don't matter, not in the long run. But, no, I I agree with you. I'm just pushing that little, little, well, be careful with the sweeping statements because I can this one guy thing comes to mind of like, oh my goodness. Everything that ever happened was personal to that guy. I used to be like that. I I've gotten past that big time, but I used to be, you know, just think automatically people were personally attacking me and and screwing with me. And sometimes they are. I know for a fact, sometimes they are, but for the most part. Yeah. Most most things that people do, how they treat you is an is is an indication of what they're going through themselves or how they feel about themselves or or the or the personal struggles of insecurities they have. I'm just not that important to to most people. Yeah. Very few people. Am I important enough to actually truly influence their lives and truly have have a real reaction. Usually, their reaction to me is a rationalization. And, you know, people can, can have emotions and then want to pin them to someone else. And they don't wanna take the time to, you know, to shift through their own cognitive dissonance of how this is exactly what they're putting other people through or whatever, you know. So, yeah, I just, I was was really just trying to get her to frame it in. I need to make good on this obligation that I already that's because she was going with the first job. So that, you know, it's not you guys, but I really feel like I, you know, should follow through with this commitment. Yeah. That that's that's the best framing plus it because it leaves your door open. If here the thing is, I mean, I think it would be easy to advise her to go with the one that you really want. That's an interesting idea to, you know, to to to say, hey, you know, you've made the commitment go through it. Now you've said to the second firm, I'm a person who fulfills commitments. Yep. That's how that's exactly how I told her to say it. Plus, the undergrads I teach are at Indiana Indian epilis. A lot of them are first generation college students. So I get, you know, I get a lot of questions that I think some of us would go you know, ask our parents or whatever. And and I encourage that. I encourage that out of them. I really do. I don't want them to be afraid to ask me stuff like that. Very valuable. I as a first as a first generation college student, there is so much that's never taught. And it's just it's just what's in class and Yeah. All the stuff that happens outside of class and all those kind of life lessons are what's really a lot of times most valuable at navigating the world, navigating professional world, navigating personalities, things like that. Mhmm. The, what's actually happening in in in classes small overall. Alright. Let's talk about how the market's gonna crash. Let's do it. When's it gonna crash? What what day would you know? I just I what I can tell you, their thing I've been, you know, we and we talked about this earlier as well. I've been I've I've was pretty bullish, you know, and and I probably went to neutral. I know I went to neutral too early, but that's okay. That was pretty bullish, and there were One of the main things that I was looking at to remain bullish was the, the relationship between the S and P five hundred and the Nasdaq one hundred. And it was The Nasdaq one hundred really led us for the first half of this year to the upside. But last week, the Nasdaq one hundred was down about one and a half percent. And the S and P five hundred was up point seven percent. So and and you're starting to see it it was like the NASDAQ one hundred leads each week. And now we're starting to see, that relationship breakdown, and that that was something that was keeping me bullish. And then the other thing and and I got a little pushback from one of the derivative analysts on the street when I wrote about this, over the weekend. But, SMP and the VIX are trending in the same direction. And if you go back to June twenty second, that's when Vix made its twenty twenty three low. And since then, the S and P five hundred is made seven new highs for the year, and Vick has not made another new low. So S and P has been trending higher nicely, and Vix has a little bit of an uptrend as well. When they trend in the same direction, especially when they're both trending higher, that can be a precursor to a sell off in the S and P five hundred. Now we've it sometimes it We had this state of of affairs in early twenty eighteen. It went on for about six weeks, and then we got Volmageddon. And I'm not saying we're gonna get Volmageddon again, but as long as Vick doesn't close below, I think it's twelve ninety one. I'm I've gone from neutral to bearish, and I'm actually short S and P futures. I started out the year long Nasdaq futures, about a month and a half or so ago. I took a look at the relationship between the Russell two thousand and the S and P five hundred and the S and P five hundred was outperforming like eight by eight percent or so. Never had that kind of outperformance where that gap didn't get closed within the next six months. So I I switched over to long Russell two thousand short the S and P five hundred and the long Russell two thousand outperform the short S and P five hundred, but I took the long Russell two thousand last night. So now I'm just short. And, again, as long as, you know, Vick is remaining in the, you know, above that twelve ninety one level, I'm a stay I'm a stay bearish. And we'll see we'll see if it works or not. But I think I think we're looking at I don't think we're gonna end the year down on the air, but I do think that we're gonna see some sort of sell off maybe before Labor Day. Yeah. It's, it it it is felt weird to see you know, really under got kind of fifteen, sixteen level for so long here because it's really, when when do we fall down? Was that May or June? End of May? In the May is, where you had that big, so, oh, no, June first. June first is where where we went from, you know, seventeen thirty five or something like that to under sixteen, and we've we've not closed above sixteen something, on the VIX. Since, since the first day of June. Yeah. No. We've, we've remained at really nice low levels. But the thing is it does I mean, they're I think today, as we sit here, the S and P is up slightly and Vix is up a little bit. And normally, I don't get all excited about that. I really don't because, about one out every five trading days Vicks and the S and P five hundred move in the same direction. But when they move in the same direction over a period of time, and when I'm doing a weekend review and I look at Vix and the S and P five hundred on a week over week basis, and I continue to see, Vix, you know, up and the S and P five hundred up every once in a while. Or the S and P five hundred, you know, down slightly and fix up a lot more than I would expect, along with the longer dated futures moving up when the index moves down, the VIX futures move up when it moves down. There's just a lot of of red type flags and And I've been fielding those questions for a while when I do my Saturday office hours. Do you think we've talked out yet? Do you think we've talked out yet? And I seem to be getting more and more of those questions. So I think there's actually some consensus out there that, the market's probably ahead of itself to a certain point. You know, how much do you think that that the new option contracts on the market are influencing the Oh, not at all. Not at all. I I did a, after everybody was saying this, this was what was going on with Vix in twenty twenty two. That, you know, Vick was under pressure because of all the short dated option trading. I did a comparison of the European Vic versus the euro stocks fifty and the CBO EVix or the US Vix versus the S and P five hundred and the behavior of the two was almost exactly the same. They don't have weeklies yet or dailies yet. On euro stocks fifty. I say yet because August twenty eighth getting euro stocks daily. So people in Europe are gonna be able to take advantage of daily expirations as So, and and I had, when I was at the EQD Global Conference in last year, not this year, but last year. There was a lot of debate around the well, there's a lot of debate around whether we were gonna we needed to see Vick over forty before the bear, you know, before the bear market set, you know, his his head is capitulation or whatever. And I was the only one I I hate people say I told you so, but I was the only one on stage that said I just don't think we're gonna have to see forty this time. And my reasoning behind it, I I said it's possible that the daily options are messing up Vicks and because I hadn't run those numbers quite yet. And everybody disagreed with me or no everybody thought that might be a reason. And then I said, but also everybody was anticipating a difficult year in twenty twenty two. And Vicks don't spike about forty unless you get fear and a surprise, and there was no surprise last year. So that's why we, you know, that that's why we seem to have bottomed out without Vick's doing what it had done historically. But after that, where I was I one person was pretty rude to me about, you know, the forty thing. And, you know, and and the short chain of option thing, I ran the I I was like, now how can I prove this? How can I prove this? And it occurred to me that there are other markets with that have been behaving very similarly to S and P five hundred that have volatility indexes and low and behold without daily options, you had the exact same behavior. So that's, it's it's kinda funny because I brought that argument up for the first time, and then first time I'd heard anybody bring it up, and they even talked about it on a podcast summary as well about, you know, is this true or not? Because nobody else had really been throwing it out there quite yet. But that wasn't the case. I I logic makes you think that might be the case, but, correlation sure isn't causation. Yeah. So what are you looking for at this point then, Russell? What I I just I think we're probably gonna get a ten percent sell off from the highs. I would I would expect to see where are we right now. S and P is forty five fifty, four hundred and fifty points. Oh, no. About forty two hundred, forty one hundred or so. Maybe a slow bleed lower. I think that would make sense. Where's the now now you got me looking at charts and support and all that kind of fun stuff as well. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I could I could easily see a retrace to about there. I mean, it's a it's a pretty lovely chart you know, since, honestly all year, but, you know, even the even the the pullbacks have been very, very shallow for several months. Yeah. And the the the the pullbacks continuously catch a bit. It's when when they don't is when we're, you know, when we have two or three bad days in a row, you might actually start to see a little bit of Eddie Murphy's panicking out there. Well, sure. I mean, we we they've they've it's just roared back. I mean, obviously, we had a nice big up day. They're in the middle of of June and then immediately a down day and then several down days and, you know, really for a week and then just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, five, six days in a row. It just even gap up. There, into into the I guess into into the fourth of July week, you know, it's recovered recovered quickly. Now we're just kind of finally stagnant for a couple of days. And I guess we're gonna see if you're, if you're on target. Yeah. Yeah. No. I and it just And and we are at the very beginning of earning season. That was kind of the other thing I was looking at over the weekend. And, like, I Again, again, we all we we talk on Mondays, and and I do a lot of market reviewing over the weekends. So, which is nice because it gives me things to talk I believe I saw something, about and this was just this morning, so I've not researched it. But, at least sent the, over ETF think tank had posted something about the NASDAQ, gonna put some sort of restraints on Oh, they I know what they did. They're lowering the they're lowering the they lowered. It's not even lowering. It happened on Friday on the close. They lowered the weightings of all of those Nasdaq stocks that are over weighted in the QQs. So this was, and they they did the rebalancing on a crossing on Friday so that the portfolio was the way that it should be. You know, first thing this morning. And I know I talked I talked to somebody I was in New York and had some meetings on Friday. And I talked to one person who had bought puts that expired on Friday, on the stocks that we're gonna get, that that we're gonna have their exposure reduced in the queues. And, I I I don't I I I know from experience, these are these things are done very efficiently. Yeah. They they basically are done on one big crossing at the close, and it's typically pretty hard to make money off of, a rebalancing like that that's telegraphed to everyone. But they did, try to find the, the members of the queues real quick. They did, well, it's, what's this as of? Oh, this is as of the end of last quarter. Still has Microsoft at twelve percent and Apple at twelve percent Nvidia at seven percent. So Yeah. This is not an updated number. I can't wait to see the updated number at the end of this quarter and see what the new path, but I'm sure it's on their website as well. And I was and one of the things I was doing in New York, so I was meeting with the Nasdaq people, and I said, is this gonna have any impact on, you know, MDX? It said, no, not not not at all, really? So Oh, really? Yeah. That's because they're gonna keep their weightings. So you're gonna have a divergence between the q q qs. I ETS on the MDX? I think they might. They didn't say that officially to me. I just said, is this gonna have a an impact on you guys? And they said, no, it shouldn't impact, anything we do at all. That's interesting. So that that creates the potential for a trading opportunity if you're trading q q qs against MDX. No? Yeah. You can. You could, if you if you think the overweight, it it's almost, if if there is a disconnect between the waitings, you know, if you think the smaller smaller stocks are gonna catch up with the larger stocks. You could do something where you're long the queues and and short the index through options somehow. So, yeah, you could you could try to combine the two. I wanted I what I was I I had that on my list of things to look at today, I wanted to look at what the waitings were in the queues and what the waitings are in the NDX and see how much of a disconnect there might be there or if there is a full disconnect. But as far as the NDX, they said it's it's it was a nothing burger for the spot index when we were talking about it. Yeah. I haven't I haven't read much about it. I just saw the saw the tweet. Are they limiting the weight to a certain amount or are they just reducing the weights? Is there any other weights? I think they're reducing the weights. So it's not a hard limit for the future or is it, you know, have to do this again because there's a difference in saying we're just gonna reduce it this one time versus we're gonna call a hard a hard top on Oh, no. This is a fault. Okay. Reading it through, maybe they're rebalancing, you know, all the stocks in the index as well. I thought it was just for the queues. I thought it was just for queues as well. But, of course, I'm reading an article by somebody that may not. Yeah. That may not fully understand how the whole thing is going. But, yeah, I guess it is a NASDAQ one hundred rebalance. It is. Oh, well. I'll have to I'll have to go do some more digging in there. Alright. And the they they were saying that, yeah, that top seven stocks were fifty five percent of the index. I mean, typically, the top ten are over a half of the index. So Yeah. I don't really know why. And a a part of me when when I heard this announcement initially, a part of me was thinking, well, now it's time to ball by the smaller names in the Nasdaq and maybe short the larger ones just because, re I, you know, kinda like the whole sports illustrated curse Right. If you're on the covers SI, you're screwed for the next couple of months. A part of me thought maybe them doing the and I didn't say it to them. But them doing this rebalancing might be, you know, a market top for the large caps, not because of the the shifting around of the waitings, but just, you know, just, using it a signal like that. When typically, when a stock gets added to the Dow. It under underperforms for a while and the one that gets yanked out of the Dow outperforms for a while. Yeah. And opposite of what you'd think. So just kind of thinking the same thing there with that one. Yeah. It makes sense. What else you got on the week ahead, Russell? This is the week that, I I I cover what I cover the I have like a coverage universe to keep myself focused. Yeah. And the I I I follow all the major indexes around the world, all the major volatility indexes around the world. And domestically, I cover the I I pay close attention to the universe of fifty stocks that were the fifty most actively traded option markets the previous year. Just and when you do, you know, talking about, the imbalance in the Nasdaq one hundred, fit those fifty stocks are like ninety percent of the equity option volume in the US every year. So they're really the very, very liquid liquid companies. Seven of them reported last week, which was like the first first first week of this, earning season for for those stocks. And what I look at is I look at the price changes relative to the three year average price change. And the and the idea behind that is, you know, a company can report really good numbers in the stock sales zone. Well, it's because they gave bad forward guidance. A good earnings announcement in my mind is not beating the earnings estimate, a good earnings announcement is a positive reaction out of the stock after you make the announcement. Yeah. And so, like, Last week, Tesla was down nine and three quarters percent. The average move for Tesla is up or down five point nine percent. That's a bad earnings announcement. Netflix was down eight point four percent. Their average moves eleven percent. So that wasn't a I I don't consider that a bad earnings announcement. But out of the seven companies that reported last week, three of them had outlier moves to the downside. Wow. And only one of them Bank of America had outlier moves to the upside. We got fifteen of those stocks reporting this week. And it will be interesting just to and it's a better mix than last sleep. Last week, it was a couple of airlines Tesla Netflix, Las Vegas sands, Bank of America. So it was kind of a funny mix for those. So I really I wanna see how the in, I wanna see how the stocks react relative to historical moves. Typically, the summertime, you don't get as many outlier moves. So, typically, we get most of the outlier moves when we get the fourth quarter earnings. So, like, early in the year, this is usually kind of a quiet one, but Maybe there's just so much other uncertainty around the macroeconomic environment that people are paying closer attention to earnings this time around. Yeah. That's definitely a really simple I mean, I'm looking I'm looking at the list of the Wednesday report this week. It's a it's a fun list. It's like, you know, And it's I say fifteen stocks. It's fourteen companies because there's two Googles out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. GM, Google, Microsoft. This is a fun week. One stock that reports this week has not exceeded or it's straddle. It hasn't exceeded its straddle price. Ever or actually just in the last three years, and that's Coca Cola. Coca Cola is the at the money straddle has overpriced the move, all twelve of the last earnings announcements. Wow. You can go both ways on that one. You can say, well, Is it time for them to, you know, is it time for them to have an outlier move? Because typically you expect them to happen, expect them to happen a good, you know, at least two thirds of the time. And what's interesting about Coca Cola is their straddle before and after earnings. It the the price has been all over the place as well. So the higher straddle, the lower straddle, it's, it's adjusted quite nicely in conjunction with what's expected out of the, what's expected out of the company. Looking at the other earnings. I wouldn't touch meta or Facebook earnings with I wouldn't with your money. It's That's a that that stock. There's no rhyme. Some of them have really nice rhyme or reason to earnings, and some stocks just Don't touch them. And Meta is by far number one. You never know you never know what Zuckerberg's gonna say. Yeah. Or who he's gonna fight or anything else? Anything in particular that you think that's, can could could really move markets, you know, from spending on its earnings? Not necessarily from earnings unless we just get a lot of, negative forward statements. Which is, one of the reasons we saw a couple of under performers last week. I'm more I I'm really more concerned with, and I think the market would probably react more negatively, to an indication that the Fed's not dying. Because it we are we are priced in that the Fed's done on the hiking rates. Totally. Yeah. And the If anything, the first cut keeps getting pushed out, but another height does not doesn't keep getting priced in. I'm gonna be watching the the futures markets, the, fed funds futures markets, etcetera. That that will adjust based on whether or not the market thinks there's gonna be another hike. That's something I'll be looking very closely at as the statement comes out. And as Powell is doing his press conference. But Nvidia is not a concern? No. Not for the overall market. I think that's a that's a, you know, very very company specific. Yeah. Situation. You know, they're gonna they're gonna profit from AI. Yeah. Maybe they make the equipment for it. Alright. We have anything else to cover today, Russell? No. You know, Fed funds or the FOMC odds are we'll have a race will be a tad higher, and everybody hopefully is gonna think it's done. You know, because everybody thinks that, I question whether or not we rally over the, you know, over them if they indicate it's the last one. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's all about what's not in the market and slightly negative earnings, I think, 's in the market. Last rate hike, I think, 's in the market. What what can come out of nowhere and surprises. Right. They'll Maybe inflation has another leg to the upside. Right. When when you see wheat, rally and through, you know, going through the roof because of some things that are going on in other part of the world. Yeah. It's, that that that that can feed through as well. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, appreciate everybody logging in. Please give us a like, comment, give us some subscription. We appreciate that, Curt. Just keep going on. And thank you, for today, Doctor. Vicks. We'll see you all next time.