Episode 300: CCC

 In this week's episode, David Zarling, Ian McMillan, and Kevin Firari discuss Nvidia performance versus Semiconductors and the broad market as a whole, areas of the market that are underperforming, equal weight S&P 500 (RSP) out to all time highs, recent AAII survey results, interesting names within the Nasdaq that are performing well, fixed income, and potential rate hikes. 

Transcript

David 1:22

Welcome back to the Weekly Trend podcast. Today is Friday, May 22nd, 2026. S&P 500 currently sitting at 7480, higher than last Friday. I'm David Zarling, and I've got both Kevin Firari and Ian McMillan this special 300th episode. Can you believe it's been 300 episodes?

Ian McMillan 1:41

I can Last week was 299

David 1:44

Yeah, 'cause I said it, 'cause I said it

Ian McMillan 1:46

That's how numbers work. They go in consequential order

David 1:49

Cause last week was 299, now you know it's 300

Ian McMillan 1:53

Exactly.

David 1:54

Yeah, it's fair

Ian McMillan 1:55

What do you think the next episode number will be?

David 1:58

I think don't hold this to me, 301

Kevin 2:02

And really we can make it 302 if we wanted. What's the difference?

David 2:05

That is true. We could just We could make up numbers

Kevin 2:09

I was actually trying to remember this. Do you remember what year we started in?

Ian McMillan 2:13

Yeah, 2019.

Kevin 2:15

Was it 19?

Ian McMillan 2:16

December 2019. It was like right before Christmas

David 2:21

Yep. And then COVID

Kevin 2:23

So that's probably what caused it really

David 2:25

Yeah. Basically the, the podcast was epis- was patient zero. We infected everybody

Kevin 2:32

I hope you're happy

David 2:33

Look it's been pretty amazing. Consistency is king. not saying all the episodes have been amazing and that's, that's 'cause of me. You guys have been awesome

Ian McMillan 2:43

Yeah, first episode was December 23rd, 2019

David 2:48

Pretty amazing. We love all the people that have listened. If you guys were to guess, no cheating Op cities that listen to the podcast

Ian McMillan 2:58

You are

David 3:02

New York, number one

Ian McMillan 3:03

But that makes sense.

Kevin 3:05

Mm-hmm.

David 3:06

It

Ian McMillan 3:06

It'd be weird if it was in New York Right?

David 3:09

Yeah, that's what I think. If you're in the markets, chances are you live in New York What would be second? What do you think is second?

Ian McMillan 3:17

San Francisco

Kevin 3:18

Hmm. I would've guessed like Chicago

Ian McMillan 3:21

Or Austin

David 3:23

Chicago is three. You said Austin?

Ian McMillan 3:25

Yeah

David 3:26

It's not in the top 10

Ian McMillan 3:29

Is it It's a large m- metro area

David 3:33

Yeah, large metro area. Non-US,

Ian McMillan 3:35

the US

David 3:36

non-US

Ian McMillan 3:37

Well then

David 3:38

Ooh, I like that guess, but it's not Think

Kevin 3:41

Bye

David 3:41

like a, a neighbor

Ian McMillan 3:43

Trana

David 3:44

Yeah, true

Ian McMillan 3:45

Okay, duh. I, oh God, I can't believe I didn't think of Canada. Kind of embarrassed

David 3:51

And then the next out of continental US major metro is perth, Western Australia

Ian McMillan 4:01

Who do you think that is? You think that's Nick Rach?

David 4:03

I don't know what could be, but it's, it's, I think it's more than one

Ian McMillan 4:07

He would be, I have been listened to a lot of times.

David 4:10

Yes, right

Ian McMillan 4:11

Perth? Is that like is Perth like a financial

David 4:17

Hmm, that's a

Ian McMillan 4:17

Hub All right, let's ask the Googles

David 4:21

Well, and isn't Nick on the

Ian McMillan 4:23

No, it says Sydney and Melbourne are the main financial hubs

David 4:27

Yeah, and I think Nick is on the, Nick is on the eastern side

Kevin 4:31

Maybe that's where all the episode 225 or whatever it is that keeps popping up. Just somebody on loop

David 4:38

So they, so they go to sleep

Kevin 4:40

trailers, yeah.

David 4:41

Throw on the weekly trend and take a nap. Oh. What

Kevin 4:45

Whatever helps

David 4:47

What, yeah, what do you think about these markets, boys? Let's talk about the stocks

Kevin 4:51

Nvidia kind

Ian McMillan 4:52

I guess they're okay

David 4:54

Nvidia?

Kevin 4:55

Yeah, keep making all these Nvidia earnings AI images, and then underwhelming I feel like

David 5:02

I, think it's kind of fascinating, you know

Ian McMillan 5:05

And then you've got Nvidia down today, all the other Semis are up, or a lot of them are

David 5:11

Yeah, it, it's-- has underperformed, let's use SMH, since summer of '25. Underperformed

Ian McMillan 5:20

it just I don't know. I kind of expect like... I know, I guess they just had earnings. I thought it was kind of setting up to go back in the driver's seat. Maybe it's just a, It's just not the shiny thing anymore. Like, it's g- it's one of those things, like it's good to see Nvidia participate, but it's just not the s- it's just not the cool kid on the block anymore. I don't know. Clearly from a relative strength standpoint, it's not. Again, that could change. I felt like we had a great opportunity here the last couple weeks for that to change based on price action, and hasn't really grabbed the bull by the horns, so to speak

David 5:56

Yeah What do you, what do you think about this thesis? So Nvidia has a 16% absolute return since June of 2024 So coming up on two years Pretty minuscule when you consider what's going on with semis overall

Ian McMillan 6:12

Or even the broad market

David 6:14

Or yeah, even the broad market Could it be indicative of risk-on behavior if

Ian McMillan 6:21

Yeah.

David 6:22

are

Ian McMillan 6:22

If you're, yeah, if you're, if you don't feel the need to hang out in like mega cap semis

David 6:27

And you're going into the smaller stuff, you're going into the stuff that's a little bit more volatile

Ian McMillan 6:33

SK Hynix

David 6:35

Yeah, SK Hynix Marvell, Micron. Although Micron's probably bigger. That's... I don't know, I just think of Nvidia as

Ian McMillan 6:45

Micron's big now

David 6:47

gold standard

Ian McMillan 6:48

I'm gonna talk about AMD anymore. Looks pretty good though

Kevin 6:52

Yeah,

Ian McMillan 6:52

my be- beginning of my career, we talked about Micron a lot, and then no one talked about it for like 10 years. And now it's definitely a hot one again

David 7:02

Were you gonna say, Kevin?

Kevin 7:04

Almost like Intel too. You can kind of throw that in like the AMD bucket

David 7:08

Yeah when you look at one-year returns, Nvidia's at like 63%, Micron 700%, Intel almost 500% that's Fascinating And it's it's still sitting there. Like you said, it's participating. You know, it's still above a, a 200-day

Ian McMillan 7:29

Maybe it's gonna be like the JPMorgan of semiconductors.

Kevin 7:33

I was literally just thinking that. Just

David 7:35

Yeah. Does it fall more into like a utilitarian

Ian McMillan 7:39

Like everyone else just kind of like sp- I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I guess what's great is I don't have to know

David 7:50

That's right

Ian McMillan 7:53

to wonder. We'll see Anything else working besides semiconductor? We talked about semiconductors for three weeks, I feel like

David 8:01

Yeah, we've ta- yeah, we've been

Kevin 8:02

it's gotta be longer

Ian McMillan 8:03

Even longer

Kevin 8:03

it? Three years, feels like?

David 8:06

300 episodes? of semis? That's

Kevin 8:08

Pretty much

David 8:09

what it feels like

Ian McMillan 8:10

We were saying the other, other day, like, if you went back it was just Kevin and I, like, if you went back and looked at all the trades over the last six and a half years you by far, it's, it would have... It's semiconductors. Like, you constantly end up back in semiconductors

David 8:31

Yeah,

Kevin 8:32

it has to be the most consistent outside of like S&P for exposure, like things like that

David 8:38

I can think of

Ian McMillan 8:39

Yeah

David 8:39

good, really good runs with gold miners and silver,

Ian McMillan 8:44

2024, not a lot of semiconductors.

David 8:47

No

Ian McMillan 8:48

Or '20- well, 2022 was a bear. But yeah it was

Kevin 8:51

of energy there for a while, but nothing has been as consistent, I feel like, year to year. We're at least ending up back in the semi group with a little slower in some form or fashion

David 9:04

Remember when we were all excited for the differentiation, like early 2022 when we were owning energy and commodities and the market was dropping and That never really, that never really stuck

Ian McMillan 9:14

Yeah, that, yeah, that didn't end up being so cool, did it?

David 9:17

No

Kevin 9:18

Even like the international differentiation was like, hey, maybe we're actually gonna get an

Ian McMillan 9:23

Yeah.

Kevin 9:23

on international. I

Ian McMillan 9:24

this... Okay, so you bring up foreign. What are we doing here? Emerging markets. Kinda getting messy on the relative.

David 9:34

Look

Ian McMillan 9:35

Like intermediate term messy. It's still in an uptrend, but

David 9:37

at how terrible China looks. Chinese equities do not look good

Kevin 9:41

Yeah, still can't get it together?

David 9:43

Even, even your more broad ETFs like ASH or A-

Kevin 9:47

Mm-hmm.

David 9:49

ASHR too great in emerging markets. Ex-China looks a lot better than emerging markets

Ian McMillan 9:56

Looks like financials

David 9:58

Yeah.

Ian McMillan 9:59

Financials snuck

David 10:01

Yeah, on a relevant basis

Ian McMillan 10:02

It's not that bad

David 10:03

even, absolute basis, right? Still

Ian McMillan 10:05

I know Below 200-day. I, I don't know

David 10:10

Is that the warning shot?

Ian McMillan 10:12

Well, it's, it's a war- it's not until it is. I don't know what we're doing here, but it's weird. Isn't JP Morgan... Is JP Morgan below 200-day?

David 10:23

Right there

Ian McMillan 10:24

Yeah. Back above as of right now, but Been been below for a couple weeks And then, right, it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, it could be consolidation, but now it's, it's kinda gone on too long

David 10:39

I am happy to report that

Ian McMillan 10:40

my

David 10:41

the Dow Jones is above the Pam Bondi level

Ian McMillan 10:43

Pam

Kevin 10:44

the hook for now. For that anyway

David 10:46

Mm-hmm. Above

Ian McMillan 10:48

That's the

David 10:51

My Dow 50,000 hat

Ian McMillan 10:53

Front running it. I have a Dow 49,000

Kevin 10:56

See that? Like if-- 'cause like GSIB, right? So globally, we'll say important banks 'cause systemically is a very hard word to say, I feel like.

David 11:04

You just did it

Kevin 11:05

I know. I just figured I'd throw it in there. But year to date, like return contribution really it's... Is this Mizuho or is that, is

Ian McMillan 11:16

Oh, they all Japanese banks

Kevin 11:18

Yeah. And it's like BNY Mellon, State Street, TD Bank, there was a thing there for a while with Canadian banks. Not sure what was going on there

David 11:27

banks

Kevin 11:28

But, but

Ian McMillan 11:29

Yeah, I remember,

Kevin 11:30

more of a international bank tilt, and like Mitsubishi Financial's up there, HSBC

Ian McMillan 11:35

When y'all were little, I don't know, Dave would know 'cause he's around youth baseball. Do y'all remember Mizuno cleats?

David 11:42

Oh,

Kevin 11:42

yeah

Ian McMillan 11:43

Mizuno was like a legit brand. I always think about Cal Ripken and Mizuno cleats whenever someone brings up that bank. But now I feel like I never hear about that company

David 11:53

It's true

Ian McMillan 11:54

Is it not around anymore in the youth baseball, Dave?

David 11:57

I have not seen somebody wear Mizuno cleats

Ian McMillan 12:00

That was like a classic, like black low top cleat

David 12:04

Yeah. Well, and they had the tongue, the, the lace tongue. You know? Like, that's not a thing anymore. You know,

Kevin 12:09

I feel like even their batting gloves of that brand even were popular there for a while.

David 12:14

Those,

Kevin 12:15

like

David 12:15

those I do see, batting gloves I see some

Ian McMillan 12:19

I remember batting gloves, and then I remember Franklin was, like, the first brand to come out with, like, colored gloves

David 12:24

Oh

Kevin 12:26

Franklin's just always way too generic.

Ian McMillan 12:28

They are very generic. Very generic Need when you're playing in the sandlot

Kevin 12:33

That's true

David 12:34

What, do you know what the I, I think are the hottest batting gloves right now? Youth and pro

Ian McMillan 12:40

I don't know what

David 12:41

Whose bolts?

Ian McMillan 12:42

Bruce Bolt

David 12:43

Yeah, Bruce Bolt batting gloves. They got these ones that like go a little higher on the wrist. They're almost like Weightlifting gloves. They're, I don't know, they're all the rage.

Ian McMillan 12:55

$65

David 12:57

Yeah. My, my kids do not wear that, FYI

Ian McMillan 13:01

They kind of look like superhero gloves

David 13:03

Yeah, Bruce

Ian McMillan 13:04

Bruce Bolt

David 13:06

Yeah, I don't know, I don't know why we got rid of the tongue, the tongue to cover the laces if we're sliding, if we're working, we're Charlie Hustle out there

Ian McMillan 13:13

Stirrups. Kids don't wear stirrups anymore

David 13:16

No.

Ian McMillan 13:17

Oh, we have lost so much American culture

David 13:20

Now we're wearing oven mitts?

Ian McMillan 13:22

Yeah

David 13:23

weak

Ian McMillan 13:25

Anyways

David 13:26

We did

Ian McMillan 13:27

Sorry, I got us sidetracked

David 13:28

We, we sidetracked over there. Equal weight S&P, new all-time high

Ian McMillan 13:33

Hey, confirmation

David 13:35

Yeah, I think Dow new all-time high, equal weight S&P new all-time high, confirmation again, relative performance not all that great

Ian McMillan 13:43

Yeah, probably don't wanna... Okay, so what about breath? Breath is confirming

David 13:48

Ref the sketch

Ian McMillan 13:50

NYA not, not very close to all time. We're close, but like in the grand scheme of price behavior compared to the other major indices, NYSE Composite, a little disappointing

David 14:04

Yeah. Agreed. And it's, it's an interesting-- isn't it always interesting? It's an interesting market. We could say that all the time

Ian McMillan 14:13

Whole life I've been saying it

David 14:15

It, micro caps outperforming small caps

Ian McMillan 14:19

I know, but yet, I don't, I don't know. I guess that's happening. Maybe I don't swim around enough in the microcap world I don't

Kevin 14:29

even I guess more near term,

Ian McMillan 14:31

know

Kevin 14:32

not quite over the last 12 months. Microcaps outperforming mega caps even. More as of late it's been kinda sideways

Ian McMillan 14:39

I guess all my scans are 300 million market cap and above, so I'm literally excluding

Kevin 14:44

Mm-hmm.

Ian McMillan 14:45

microcaps from my life. But yeah, good for them. Nice run versus mega caps too, or they were

David 14:52

All

Kevin 14:53

a relevant 200-day, so not too bad

David 14:56

Yeah, it's not bad. And all this happening with more bears than bulls AAII Survey

Ian McMillan 15:06

Did it go? I saw where Oh, you know, the stats peoples and they ta- they were someone that had talked about s- AA, AAII most bears and stocks at all-time highs

David 15:21

I suppose

Ian McMillan 15:22

But it, did we get more bearish over the last week?

David 15:26

We did

Ian McMillan 15:27

So it stayed bearish and even increased

David 15:30

Right

Kevin 15:33

right? Like, what was it? Like 38, 39% to low to mid-40s or mid-40s-ish

Ian McMillan 15:39

Mid-40s. 40, 45% of y'all are bearish? Whoo. I'm not saying that it's wide open pastures, but

Kevin 15:51

What does neutral mean? Like, if you're answering neutral,

Ian McMillan 15:55

Your hour

Kevin 15:56

Just

Ian McMillan 15:58

Have an opinion

David 15:59

Yes. That's funny. How about just not answer the survey? Why answer neutral?

Kevin 16:05

Yeah. Like how are you positioned if you're neutral, I guess? Just net e- like long, short, net even, like at neutral where you were just going nowhere

David 16:13

Yeah, 'cause the question is what, you know, what direction you feel the stock market will be in the next six months?

Ian McMillan 16:19

Okay, so flat.

David 16:21

So,

Ian McMillan 16:21

say neutral

David 16:23

yeah I think it's fair Six months. Man,

Ian McMillan 16:27

So it's the end of the year at Christmas

David 16:29

Yeah, it takes us into November. That's wild

Kevin 16:31

I know it'll be Monday let alone six months

David 16:34

Yeah, right

Ian McMillan 16:36

I saw a stat where I think it was like May through October in midterm election years, usually pretty crappy

David 16:43

Pretty crappy.

Ian McMillan 16:44

Yeah. Like there's only like one winner for for that, what is that? Like six-month period, five-month period, but

David 16:52

Well, you know what's weird is there's also the stats out there about The second year in the second term of a president That is bullish

Ian McMillan 17:05

And presidential number divisible by five

David 17:08

Yeah, probably something, yes. Yeah, like some type of, yeah

Ian McMillan 17:12

Like they do with baseball stats.

Kevin 17:14

In the eighth inning when the sun is out

David 17:17

That's right

Ian McMillan 17:18

First, player wearing number seven to hit a home run in the eighth inning

David 17:21

It's

Kevin 17:21

In his 15th professional game

Ian McMillan 17:24

Do you guys see someone hit a grand slam on the sixth pitch of a game the other night?

David 17:28

Oh, man

Ian McMillan 17:29

Yes, and someone gave the s- someone gave the, like,

Kevin 17:32

hit it. I don't remember who they

Ian McMillan 17:33

probabilities for it and it was pretty insane

David 17:36

But yeah, Arnau- Arnaldo is a Diamondbacks

Ian McMillan 17:39

Yes, it was Diamondbacks

Kevin 17:40

Can't remember who was pitching now though.

David 17:42

So that means,

Kevin 17:43

Oh, Robbie Ray, I think

David 17:44

six pitches, that means guys had to had hits and they went station to station?

Ian McMillan 17:50

Or they, or it balked or like hit batters. I'm not sure

David 17:54

Or you get a walk, that's four pitches. Hit. Nope, that doesn't work. You gotta have... It can't be a walk. It's gotta be hit batter or hit, hit,

Ian McMillan 18:03

Could be like an infield single or something.

David 18:05

Yeah

Ian McMillan 18:06

They just didn't, like, advance Depends on how it played out. You never know

David 18:10

Very likely for that. I would've been bearish on that happening

Ian McMillan 18:14

Then you would've lost your bet on Kalshi on Poly Market

David 18:18

For sure

Kevin 18:20

Isn't that the thing, like with that survey, right? So how do you feel the stock market will be in the next six months? Just because you feel like you're bearish about that, like it doesn't mean you're doing anything about it. How, like what percentage those members that get that survey are like act- actually actively managing-

David 18:38

Well, and I think that's the hard part about surveys is people s- how often in life do you hear people say things different than what they're doing?

Ian McMillan 18:45

Or yeah, if you know that like you're rebalancing quarterly and it doesn't matter, then like who gives a shit?

Kevin 18:51

Right? Like you could think it's bearish, oh, look, over the next six months doesn't mean

Ian McMillan 18:56

Yeah, but you literally, like your, your investment process says you can't do anything. You just need to stick with your, like, diversified buy and hold portfolio

David 19:07

Yeah, no, I, I think that's a great point. Surveys versus what you say versus what you do, two different things

Kevin 19:13

'Cause like if you actually asked like where do you or how do you think you'll be positioned like at the end of the next six months or something in six months, something like that, like I wonder

Ian McMillan 19:23

If you're, if you're... Okay, so if you're a buy and hold advisor and someone asks you how you're positioned, what do you say to that question?

Kevin 19:31

Yeah,

Ian McMillan 19:32

I guess neutral. Is that where like the neutral answer comes from?

David 19:36

Yeah But I'm guessing, I don't know. That's a great Yeah, I, I, I think there's a fair point being made that what you say versus what you do are completely two different things

Ian McMillan 19:48

And you think humans would do that?

David 19:50

Oh, yeah.

Ian McMillan 19:51

You think that humans would talk out of both sides of their mouth

David 19:54

Oh, yeah.

Kevin 19:55

It's like that emotional hedge where I

David 19:57

emotional heads.

Kevin 19:58

my team to win, but

Ian McMillan 20:00

I would tell my clients, be like, "Well, I've answered the AAII sur- survey correctly for 14 weeks. I know, I know you're down 25%, but I have, I have been answering the survey bearish." I just can't do anything about it

David 20:14

I like what you were saying, Kevin, too. Sports fans do this all the time

Kevin 20:19

If I'm playing DraftKings, right? I'm taking some of the opposing players 'cause at least if they have a good game, we lose. You know, maybe I'll make a little money off of it. It's

Ian McMillan 20:27

Yeah

David 20:28

Some of my closest Packer fans are awesome at this. Like bet, bet against your team. If your team

Ian McMillan 20:36

And

David 20:39

If my

Ian McMillan 20:39

Yeah.

David 20:40

I made money

Ian McMillan 20:41

If you could cash out Caleb Williams four plus touchdowns, even if it was against the, the Packers, it's kind of a moot, kind of a moot afternoon

David 20:51

Yeah even just like a small bet on whether he'll have his fingernails painted

Kevin 20:55

The odds on that have to be you're not gonna make much money, I think, going the long side of that

David 21:00

Yeah, it's true

Kevin 21:02

And

Ian McMillan 21:02

See, that's what's

Kevin 21:03

survey, like the historical averages too being positive is what? 37 and a half, but then neutral and bearish are pretty much exactly 31%. Like it's almost a third, a third, a third, which is feel like perfect

Ian McMillan 21:16

Isn't that crazy considering we spend like, only like once every eight years we get a bear market?

Kevin 21:23

Mm-hmm.

David 21:24

Except for, except for since 2018, it's been a little bit more. But your point, your point is valid And then you got hedge funds with huge short exposure right now

Ian McMillan 21:35

Yeah, but do you think that that's, like the hedge fund world, like long, short?

David 21:40

By

Ian McMillan 21:40

Yeah

Kevin 21:41

essentially they're so long too, they're just offsetting it to record degrees. Like, yeah, that's kind of where my head went to seeing that right away

David 21:49

they It could be bigly long semis and trying to that exposure. That could be a thing

Ian McMillan 21:55

Yeah, with like the, like shorting the crappiest semiconductor stocks

David 22:00

Yeah. Which I'm not saying it's crappiest. What is that, Nvidia? Do you, are you long semiconductors and

Ian McMillan 22:07

Yeah, it wouldn't even have to be crappy, just like you're shorting what's ever underperforming

David 22:11

Right I mean, 13%, 13% short index and ETF hedging by hedge fund. But by definition, that's what hedge funds do

Kevin 22:23

Right. Like without getting the overall net exposure I feel like it, it's like with all the 13F filings going around, all the talks about that, like how useful really is it to see those? If you're trying to gauge what someone's portfolio looks like at this point in time, I

Ian McMillan 22:40

It's not. It's like a random snapshot.

Kevin 22:43

Yeah

Ian McMillan 22:44

I think, like, you can s- I think some of it's probably valuable. Like, you see guys, like, build positions and things. I think it's more interesting in retrospect

Kevin 22:55

Mm-hmm.

Ian McMillan 22:56

Like I was looking, I think I told Dave this a few weeks ago. I was just, or I think it was a couple, like last week. I was just curious and like David Tepper's been buying EWI for like six or nine months. So that's cool in retrospect, but like if I saw that in the moment Would I have been like, "Oh yeah, I should buy South Korea," versus any of his other Trades? I don't know. I don't know

David 23:23

Well, and this goes back to You know, the, the critique of analysis, the study of price, the study of supply and demand is, "Oh, you're just looking at the current price." Well, okay. Name any other study or field where somehow you know the future every- everything else is backward-looking. 13 Fs, that's what? What are we looking? Like, that's possibly a month and a half ago Someone's positioning? GDP, earnings, these are all backward-looking. Price is the only thing that's forward-looking, future discounting mechanism I don't know.

Kevin 24:01

And if you project it, then you're getting into economics and like how often economists are right on

Ian McMillan 24:07

I just like the trends. I like the trends

David 24:10

You know how we have weather apps? Why don't we have economist apps?

Kevin 24:13

Well, there's probably some. There's gotta be

David 24:16

crazy.

Ian McMillan 24:17

it do?

Kevin 24:18

No.

David 24:18

Be, be, be, be wrong 50% of the time

Kevin 24:22

If all else equals, well, nothing ever equals. That literally never

David 24:28

Crazy. Yeah, and everything's gotta be taken in context, but I do know that economic law is the only thing that matters. Price, supply and demand

Kevin 24:39

Yeah, they nailed it with that one

David 24:41

Everything else, just opinions and no one knows anything. No one knows. Maybe you guys do. I don't

Kevin 24:48

If I did, I wouldn't tell you

David 24:49

Thanks a lot, Kevin

Kevin 24:51

I also wouldn't be here. I'd be very rich

David 24:55

where would you be?

Ian McMillan 24:56

Wow, you wouldn't hang out with us if you were rich?

David 24:58

come on. man.

Kevin 25:00

Not five days a week

Ian McMillan 25:02

Okay, fair enough. Fair enough

David 25:03

How many days do we get? Kevin, Kevin's independently wealthy

Ian McMillan 25:08

Independently wealthy. He's home from Aruba

David 25:10

Yeah, what do we get?

Kevin 25:12

Two days a quarter. It seems fair

David 25:14

Ooh.

Ian McMillan 25:15

Two days a quarter, that's what we've been diminished to

Kevin 25:19

I probably wouldn't see anybody outside of like my wife and kids probably more than two days a quarter. Just people in general

David 25:27

You get 2.2% of your time. I like that. These-- Are these eight-hour days or do we get 24 hours? Is it like a 48

Ian McMillan 25:33

he just

David 25:33

just

Ian McMillan 25:34

swing by the office and say hi

Kevin 25:35

still gotta sleep so that I wouldn't go 24, but Give you a 10 to 12, I guess

Ian McMillan 25:40

He'll swing by the office. He'll park out front. He won't be able to park his Lamborghini in that gravel parking lot

Kevin 25:47

Well, first of all, it'd be a Ferrari. If I drove a Lamborghini that'd

Ian McMillan 25:49

That's true. That's true. It would have to be a Ferrari

David 25:52

Kevin's Ferrari.

Kevin 25:54

Mm-hmm

David 25:55

I like it. That's funny. Oh, man. on our agenda today, I've got shared the top performing stocks in the NASZY this year I guess we don't get to really be surprised what's on here

Ian McMillan 26:09

Yeah. Pretty pretty straightforward

Kevin 26:12

But I think like those cyber names are notable. Like, and Ian was talking about that even before we kind of went through, updated tech workbook yesterday, like how good a lot of those cybersecurity names look. Which kind of explains, I guess, looking back in retrospect why like software was kinda looking a little bit more interesting there for a while. That kinda makes sense now

David 26:36

Yeah, just a ton of semiconductors and memory Google Costco

Kevin 26:42

Yeah, I think like CSX is interesting. Cause they've looked pretty good, and even UNP

Ian McMillan 26:47

If you told me Old Dominion was up 32% year to date, I would call you a liar

Kevin 26:53

Yeah, that's not even close to the best looking trucking name there right now

Ian McMillan 26:57

What do you think is the best, that S- S-A-I-A?

Kevin 27:00

No. I'm not even gonna... I'd have to go back and look.

Ian McMillan 27:04

Natural, well that's

Kevin 27:05

probably like three to four I think in industrials that looked a little bit better Can't remember the ticker for Knight Swift off the top of my head. KNX? too bad Yeah.

David 27:16

RXO trucking?

Kevin 27:18

No. Well, that was,

Ian McMillan 27:21

XPF

Kevin 27:22

that industry kind of, I guess. That was like the freight brokerage software, I think.

David 27:27

XPO.

Kevin 27:27

like,

David 27:28

XPO's trucking.

Kevin 27:29

yeah

David 27:30

That's the best year to date

Kevin 27:32

JB Hunt looks good. Kinda watching Schneider to see if that's gonna start participating

David 27:39

You weren't far off with SAI or SEO, SIO they're up 37 Percent. So that's interesting, right? Transport's doing pretty f- pretty okay it's not like that y- that's where you're gonna get your alpha, but the fact that they're participating

Ian McMillan 27:56

Yep

Kevin 27:57

just

David 27:57

FedEx. FedEx on an absolute basis, and we were close to all-time highs there, holding the highs from the last five years near three seventeen We're gonna talk about economically sensitive transportation. FedEx looking good UPS on the other hand, trash

Kevin 28:18

Yuck

Ian McMillan 28:19

You know what else looks like trash? Credit cards

David 28:22

Really? Yeah.

Ian McMillan 28:24

I wouldn't lie to you about that

David 28:26

Yeah, MasterCard, Visa. Did American Express lose Cause that was on a huge base breakout

Kevin 28:33

It was kind of like the last one standing there for a while, but yeah

Ian McMillan 28:36

Yeah, no

Kevin 28:37

fell to

David 28:38

Transportation participating. That's good

Kevin 28:41

Mm-hmm.

David 28:42

But yeah, you look, you look at this top performing out of the Nasdaq, it's all storage, memory, Semis

Kevin 28:49

We're concentrating

David 28:50

Pretty wild. But yeah, we still have aerospace space

Kevin 28:56

I would say pretty much more of the space side of that, right? Like things that would be in UFO, rocket, R-O-K-T

Ian McMillan 29:02

Planet Labs

Kevin 29:03

I know. Intuitive Machines, really good No. Space and AI

David 29:10

Based on AI

Kevin 29:12

in space, it's a big winner

David 29:15

Well, and tech overall, new all-timers Hughes overall trying to go to new all-time highs today. I don't know, man. It's really hard to be bearish when that's happening. And then you look at-- You guys were talking about Japanese banks, but Japanese equities continue to climb out of a thirty-five-year base We gotta think about treasuries and rates. We gotta we apparently have a new Fed,

Ian McMillan 29:39

All right We do have a new fetch air officially

David 29:44

That's what I heard That's what my aunt,

Ian McMillan 29:46

Worse?

David 29:46

that's what my aunt was telling me What do you

Kevin 29:49

It's pretty interesting where TLT reacted, kind of those lows from, would that be like fall of '23? Around like 82.50 on TLT Pretty interesting

David 29:59

to hold there me. If that fails, we're hiking rates later this year. Bond market's gonna force what's his name? Would you say Warsh?

Ian McMillan 30:08

Isn't that his name? Isn't, well, that's who they said. Kevin Warsh

David 30:11

Wash my hands of these

Ian McMillan 30:14

Washington

David 30:15

Washington, DC

Ian McMillan 30:17

Warsh i-- well, nope. I'll keep that offline

Kevin 30:21

Nice TLT. Kinda low. It's kind of an important relative level to AGG. Kinda earlier, what would that have been? Kinda middle part of the month, week or so ago. Kinda testing that from the underside now, but not a good look

David 30:36

When even TLT like, or AGG o-overall,

Kevin 30:40

All right. Yes

David 30:42

fact that they, you know, you get this corrective move, know, se- what was it, 7, 8% in S&P. Bonds did nothing to offset that. how many times have we said in the last 300 episodes that the 60/40 portfolio is dead and we're in a new rising rate environment for the next, you know, for all of your kids' lifetime, or not their whole lifetime, but probably gonna be in their 30s and 40s until we see a downtrend in rates

Kevin 31:11

Mm-hmm. Actually timing-wise might work out good for him. Might start getting close to retirement. Hey, are picking back up again

David 31:17

Yeah I don't know, man. Base metals? were you gonna

Kevin 31:22

ooh, I just c- 60/40, I guess, depending on how you look at it, you could still be fine. Just comes down to the composition of the 40.

David 31:29

Yeah, talk to us about that. What, what are you seeing in fixed income?

Kevin 31:32

There's plenty of like floating rate areas that you could be in. Like a lot of your different short duration stuff, and even on the higher yield side of that it's doing just fine. It's just- obviously, right? With Sensitivity to interest rates, you just either got to be floating rate, short duration. It's still risk on in those areas, which is good to see. You know, like convertibles kind of fixed themselves right away earlier this week, so that's good to see too

David 31:59

So you're saying it's risk on in land?

Kevin 32:02

Yeah. As long as you're duration, really Triple B CLOs hanging in there. It's good to see. High yield floating rate, like FLRT, that's good. Chinese bonds Chinese equity's not doing great, right? But Chinese bonds still holding up really well

David 32:18

Using

Kevin 32:19

There's definitely, you know, not to be confused with Cinnabon

David 32:23

Mm-hmm. delicious

Kevin 32:26

still things out there

David 32:27

Got the dollar range bound of near 100 again. You wonder what-- if we break 100 to the upside, what that looks like for the overall market

Kevin 32:36

Yeah

David 32:37

Anything else you guys wanna cover? I know pretty soon here we're gonna have to... Ian's gotta run

Ian McMillan 32:42

Run, run

David 32:44

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Ian McMillan 33:36

Nothing from my end

Kevin 33:37

So be nice to get a new all-time closing high on S&P for the holiday weekend. Nice three-day weekend with a new high. That would be pretty nice

David 33:46

Yeah, Memorial Day

Kevin 33:48

Well, we gotta buy this up

David 33:50

Not to be confused with Veterans Day, also important, but this is where we remember all those who gave their life No greater love is this than to give one's life for one's friends, and here we live in freedom because what others gave. hope everyone listening, and you guys too, have a great three-day weekend, and take some time to think about those who gave the ultimate sacrifice so we get to do what we do. How cool is it to be in markets every single day for our clients? It's a privilege, and I love we could do episode 300 together, guys. Thanks for both jumping on here

Ian McMillan 34:24

Have a great weekend everyone