Episodes
May 27, 2024
Talk Your Book: Growth Stage Debt Investing
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 executi...
May 22, 2024
Wages Are Beating Inflation (EP.361)
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 infl...
May 20, 2024
Talk Your Book: Higher For Longer
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 be...
May 15, 2024
When Will Houses Be Affordable Again? (EP.360)
On episode 359 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...
May 13, 2024
Talk Your Book: Defining Risk with Structured Protection ETFs
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 protect...
May 8, 2024
Fighting Inflation (EP.359)
On today's show we 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 ...
May 6, 2024
Talk Your Book: Bitcoin Flows
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...
May 1, 2024
Negative Arbitrage (EP.358)
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 ...
April 29, 2024
Talk Your Book: Hedging Your Portfolio with Options
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 mar...
April 24, 2024
A Healthy Pullback (EP. 357)
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 bett...
April 22, 2024
Talk Your Book: The Bull Case for India
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 ...
April 17, 2024
The Yeah But Bull Market (EP.356)
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 insur...
April 15, 2024
Talk Your Book: Diversifying Away From the Magnificent 7
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 t...
April 10, 2024
Enjoy the Bull Market While it Lasts (EP.355)
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 re...
April 8, 2024
Talk Your Book: Emerging Market Fundamentals
On today's show, we are joined by Rahul Sharma, Portfolio Manager and Executive Director of Schaffer Cullen Capital Management to discuss: China's effect on Emerging Markets, avoiding value-traps in EM, strong macro trends in...
April 3, 2024
The Never-Ending Travel Boom (EP.354)
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 downfa...
April 1, 2024
Talk Your Book: Preserving Your Capital
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 so...
March 27, 2024
The Roaring Twenties (EP.353)
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 kee...
March 25, 2024
Talk Your Book: Finding a Bottom in China
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 estat...
March 23, 2024
Talk Your Book: Return Stacking
On this episode, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined by Corey Hoffstein of Newfound Research to discuss: managed futures, return stacking, using leverage effectively, and much more! Find complete show notes on our blog...
March 20, 2024
This is a Good Thing (EP.352)
On episode 352 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: thoughts on Italy, consumers wall of cash, inflation at the grocery store, real estate agent commissions in trouble, the best airplane movie of all ti...
March 18, 2024
Talk Your Book: The Mount Rushmore of ETFs
On today's show, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined by Ryan McCormack, Factor and Core Equity Strategist and Paul Schroeder, QQQ Equity Product Strategist at Invesco to discuss: the creation of the Nasdaq 100, where t...
March 13, 2024
The Richest Country in the World (EP.351)
On episode 351 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: one of the most resilient stock rallies ever, money market funds vs. crypto, Americans are rich, the stock market has always been concentrated, inflat...
March 11, 2024
Talk Your Book: The Bitcoin Halving
On today's show, Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick are joined by Chris Kuiper, Director of Research, and Matt Horne, Head of Business Development for Fidelity Digital Asset Management to discuss: the new Bitcoin ETFs, how much ...