Is the European Central Bank Really Going to Follow Through on Their Promises?

Speaker 8
Let
Speaker 1
me just follow up with you, if I could, Becky, because nobody knows this man and his investing prowess over the last decade, at least, as you. It seems clear to me that they have maneuvered their way through these choppy markets better than most. They're up 11 percent is Berkshire year to date. A lot has been made of the fact that they've been sitting on a mountain of cash. And when the markets were at the highs, they couldn't find really anything that looked attractive enough to them because of the fact that so many things were at high levels. They had taken down some of their positions in Bank of America and Apple, for example. I'm just wondering from your own insight what you take away from the fact that they have been able, and he has, which is why he is the oracle to begin with and the greatest investor who's ever lived, to maneuver their way through times of turbulence and what you think it all says about what is happening at Berkshire Hathaway now.
Speaker 8
Well, look, he has done this in the past, said that he's going to be very patient, look for the slow pitches. He doesn't mind doing nothing for years at a time, if that's what it takes. And that's certainly what it seemed like recently. He'll say that he won't be able to time the market, that that's not his game. But he knows when stocks look expensive. And, you know, he knows when things look like bargains. And my read on this, at least, of the $330 billion they've amassed, sitting around $300-plus billion, is that, yeah, they're waiting for the slow pitch, ready to be doing things. And when you start to see activity like we've seen, where stock markets start to drop, with the S&P down 12 percent or 12.25 percent as of yesterday's close, then add on the losses from today, sure, I would imagine that things start to look better at those prices. But, you know, he's just not going to be somebody who overpays in his estimation for anything. He's not desperate to do things and will be there when he thinks the prices are right. We'll
Speaker 1
see what clarity we get out of the annual meeting, which is coming up, as you said. Thanks so much for coming on with that insight, Becky. Appreciate that.
Speaker 8
Thanks, Scott.
Speaker 1
All right. Josh Brown joins us now. By the way, I'll just get a comment from you, too. Josh, we're going to get to your moves in a moment, but you are a shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway, and you have such deep knowledge as well about how they operate and, you know, what he must be thinking at the current time watching this kind of destruction that we've had over the last couple of days in this market. I
Speaker 3
would just say that whatever people are betting he would do is probably not what's going to happen. He has a tendency of surprising the market of late. He's not doing obvious things like adding to existing holdings. The last major thing that we saw him do was acquire stakes in five Japanese trading firms. And that was so far off everyone's radar. I think he's up 50% on that basket, so it was a great move. It just didn't make the playbook of even the most ardent Berkshire watchers. So don't play the game of thinking that you're going to think of what Warren Buffett might be thinking of because you'll probably be disappointed.
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, as I said, maybe we'll get some clarity on his direct thinking at the annual meeting. Let's get to you because yesterday you went through the market and you saw a lot of things that were up in a down day. You tried to think of things that might be able to work in this kind of disruptive environment. You bought rocket companies, RKT. Let's start there. Tell me more. Yeah, I bought in the pre-market as
Speaker 3
soon as I was watching Squawk and heard Steve Leisman come out with the new market-based projections of how many rate cuts we might get this year. The number, the probability of five rate cuts is now according to people in the bond market on the table. And I don't know if that's going to be the reality. And, you know, it's so early in the year still and so much could happen. But just thinking about that, the next level is like, all right, well, who benefits the most if we were to see five Fed rate cuts or even directionally if we got three or four? And the answer is obvious. You're going to get a refi boom. You're going to get action in the existing home sales market. And you're going to see people take advantage of that, especially if they're struggling in the economy. That's exactly when you would get a refi boom. Happens every time. So Rocket is uniquely positioned, and they're very aggressively positioning themselves for what could be. They've announced two acquisitions in the last month. One of them the other day is Mr. Cooper, which is one of the largest mortgage servicing companies in the country. And the other is Redfin, which gets 5.5 million unique users on the website. It's a business of selling leads to realtors, but also that's a huge funnel for Rocket to sell mortgages to the consumer through. So this is the type of company that benefits if mortgage rates come down meaningfully and we get a refi boom and we break that logjam of all of these homes not on the market that need to be. So
Speaker 1
that seemed really obvious to me. I'm upping it right off the bat and I'm planning to stick with it. You've added as well to Amazon, Uber and Chevron.
Speaker 3
Give us a little insight. These are core positions. These aren't short-term trades. I think of all three of these companies as being companies that will be standing at the end of the trade war. I don't know that this is the bottom for any of them, but buying Amazon in a 30% drawdown seems like a smart decision if you're planning to be a long-term shareholder. Chevron, the lower it goes, the higher the dividend goes. And I don't believe we're going to see the level of demand destruction for gasoline that the current price in crude would reflect. And it's an overreaction. We've seen the price of oil go to negative numbers. So we know you can get overreactions in commodities. So I thought that was a layup. The stock's been hammered over the last couple of days. And then Uber. Look, I think the stock's worth 100 bucks right now. So when they take it down from 75 to 65, I have to do something.
Speaker 1
I got you. You spoke a lot yesterday as well about some exchanges. You singled out the CME group specifically. But that leads me to something you sold, which is NASDAQ, NDAQ. Yeah,
Speaker 3
look, NASDAQ, I have a small gain and I've been in it for a long time. The original thesis was that 2025 would be the year we would see the return of the IPO and a lot more capital formation. And that's a really important part of their business. About half their business is like listings. So they also have some fintech and other stuff they do. But, like, the only way that stock works is if the capital markets are unfrozen and we get deal volume back. Obviously, the events of the last couple of days, they have to change your mind about that. So I think NASDAQ's fine. Fantastic company. I may revisit. But right now is the greatest hits moment. You want the greatest hits in the set list. You don't want your ninth or 10th or 11th best idea. You really want to be focused on things like long term core holdings that have come down 15, 20 percent, where if you're going to be in it anyway, you might as well have more stock and lower your average price.
Speaker 1
I want your take, too. I see that J.P. Morgan, maybe it's their trading desk, says that retail investors bought $4.7 billion worth of stocks on Thursday, the largest level over the past decade. So clearly there are others who see opportunity. And, you know, I've had people tell me, well, one of the reasons why you haven't had a greater flush in the market as bad as this has felt is because retail hasn't thrown in the towel yet. And in fact, there are retail investors out there who saw the upset yesterday and maybe today as well and say, like you, there's this opportunity to be had still.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, I'm 48 years old. My time horizon is decades. So if I like a stock and I was comfortable owning it 15, 20 percent higher, like this is a no-brainer. And I can confirm this from multiple sides. I spent two hours yesterday with Steve Quirk, who is the chief brokerage officer at Robinhood. Young people, they have 30 million clients. Their typical client is roughly 30 years old. These people are in the accumulation phase of their life. They should be buyers. We have a business at Ritholtz called Good Advice, where we cater to people with account sizes between 250,000 and a million. Those people are asking us how they can get more money into their accounts. We're not seeing the panic. We are absolutely seeing inflows and people looking to take advantage of this dislocation. That might not make sense for everyone. And, of course, people that are already in retirement are probably not throwing as much money as they can into more stock exposure. But the demography of this country is important to understand. The most common age to be in America right now, I think, is 30 and 31, meaning we have the most amount of people who are 30 and 31. They don't need to be tactical. They have the next 35 to work and accumulate assets and make more money. Those people should be buying. And I'm pretty sure they are. I don't think that that cohort of the American investing public is looking at this like, oh, no, the world is coming to an end. Yeah. Jimmy.
Speaker 2
Hey, Josh, it's Jimmy. I got a question. I think this is important. I love what you're saying about the young people. Are they getting the message that you're supposed to go to your your best hits, as you just said it? I mean, that is so important. Quality is on. Everything's on sale. So why not buy quality? I hope they're not buying, you know, ZTE options. You know what I'm saying? Are you seeing them get the religion of buy quality? I think I think one of the most interesting things that I've learned in the last in
Speaker 3
the last day or so and people at retail brokerages, not institutions, people at retail brokerages would confirm this. there is a much higher likelihood that retail players are buying individual stocks. When we're in a huge correction or a massive bear market, it's the opposite. They go to ETFs. I don't know why that's the case. I just know that it is. And so, Jimmy, there might be a higher likelihood that somebody looking at the market down 3,000 points in the last 48 hours just says, you know what, I don't know what to do here, but I'm pretty sure the Qs are offering an opportunity, or SPY, or maybe there's a tech ETF they like. So I think that is a version of going for quality, because you have to assume the largest holdings in those ETFs are the highest quality companies in America.
Speaker 1
Josh, thanks. We'll see you next week. Good weekend to you. Appreciate you coming on and telling us that. Courtney Reagan has the headlines for us. Hey, Court.
Speaker 5
Hi, Scott.

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