Yahoo Finance

We were talking off camera, Jeff, maybe just broader picture. You see a day like today, I got red everywhere again. Your clients, I'm sure are calling you a lot with a lot of questions. What are they asking you, Jeff? What what what's the big question? What's the big worry? What are you hearing?

Yeah, I think a lot of it is is a crash coming. I mean, I literally got text over the weekend with that exact question. And I What did what did you say back?

What did what did you say back?

No. Like we're already down significantly year to date. Like this has not been a quick uh sudden thing overnight. It's been happening over the past couple weeks of a deterioration.

The speed is

Yeah, the speed from February 19th to April 7th was dramatic. But I think now the extreme volatility, knock on wood is hopefully behind us and the volatility will stay elevated. The VIX, I think it's going to stay in the 20s for the long foreseeable future here. But I don't see us having extreme 5%, 7%, 9% days, things like that. I think that's going to come down, but the overarching issue is how long does this last? And that's where we get a little nervous.

Right.

So your clients say, "Jeff, what's going to come next?" And you tell them what?

I tell them one of two things has to happen. Either consumer and CEO sentiment has to veer from very bearish, like it is right now, to something more neutral or the data is going to catch up to the sentiment and we're going to be led into a recession. Right? If consumers are scared and like they are right now, some of the survey data says it's like 2008, 2009 out there in their minds. Now, that's not on par with reality, but that'll show up in the checkbooks. That'll show up in the spending. And same with CEOs of their indicators towards recession, sky high, right? Of what they're nervous about. So one of those two things have to happen. Sentiment shifts or we are going to have that sentiment lead us into a recession.

Right.

The CEOs are what gets a lot of headline, a lot of people's attention, right? Because to the extent that a CEO starts to say, "Listen, I I'm going to just sit on my hands for now. Any any plans I had to invest and spend and hire, I'm going to put that on ice." I mean, that is seems to me the big concern.

Right. And if they pull back again, like right now it's not showing up in in earnings yet, right? And I don't think it'll show up in earnings for another couple weeks. But if it continues to go on, you're going to see the pull back in CAPEX, which going to have secondary third order effects, whether you're a software company, whether you're equipment provider, whatever it is, it's going to have effects if that doesn't turn. Now, some of this may turn naturally, right? Everyone's we're getting used to Trump again, right? Every tweet, every Truth Social post freaks people out. But I think over time, even though he's going to continue to do it, we'll be a bit more used to it.

Yeah.

Let me ask you, let's talk about some specific names and groups. I'm sure you must get questions, for example, about the MAG 7. Some of these names have gotten really banged up, right? Do you see opportunity in those names? Are you holding off? How do you think about them?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it depends on which MAG 7 we're talking about. Like Apple is still down about 20% year to date. Um at one point it was down 30%. I think Apple, nothing fundamentally changed with their business. I think they're big enough, smart enough to get around the tariff issues where it hurts, obviously, small businesses. But from an Apple perspective, they'll be fine. Google, meta, both are in kind of their own self-created turmoil right now with the anti-trust issues.

Yeah.

So Uncle Sam has them in their sights.

Yeah. I mean, they're at different levels. Like Google already has been found guilty. Now we're just deciding punishment phase, but I'm bullish on Google because we think the parts are worth more than the sum. So if they do get broken apart, YouTube's incredible trillion dollar business. Search, trillion dollar business. AdEx, really big hundred million dollar business. All these things are worth a ton of money. Meta is in a world of hurt, I think, because they don't have any friends right now. The Trump administration is going after them. The last administration was going after them. They don't like them. So anti-trust is inherently political.

And so they have problems.

And so they have problems.

So Alphabet 2, I know you own and hold. Would you be adding here?

Correct.

Yeah, we're adding incrementally to Alphabet again. Right now, the tenuous nature of what the judgment is going to be is giving us pause from additional adding right now because that's going to hopefully come out here in the next week or two of what the decision there. That'll be appealed, but we need to know what the baseline is.

And is the same for So meta, is that on the same the same thing? It's on your watch list, but you're not moving in yet?

Yeah, we're a little hesitant on meta. If it wasn't for the trial right now, we'd be all in from a current valuation perspective. Meta is super appealing. Well, that's what I was going to ask you as we were talking about this. I was going to ask you, do you think some of that some of this bad news is priced in at this point?

Well, that's what I going to ask you. We were talking about this. I was ask you, do you think some of that some of this bad news is priced in at this point?

A little bit, but the uncertainty of exactly what the result is, because how I feel about Google is different how I feel about meta. I think meta needs to be together. If you broke that apart, Instagram here, uh Facebook over here, right? Um WhatsApp over there. I I don't think those work as well together separately as they do together. So I think it'll be interesting if they can sneak out with a fine as like a giant fine, right? As opposed to being broken up. I think that's their best case scenario right now is pay a couple billion dollar fine.

Best case, couple billion. Jeff, great to see you always. I appreciate it.

Thanks.