This Time Is Different

Stocks rallied after the midterms, then sold off the next day. What happened? Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge break down the whiplash: a market that loves certainty, a wave of data center backlash, and a Nasdaq that fell more than 5% in a day. They also look at whether Elon Musk’s empire faces a tougher road under a Democratic Congress. Ricky and Malcolm also discuss: Whether the Anthropic IPO s...

Malcolm is away, and Motley Fool Senior Analyst Jason Moser came to save the day. It’s been a while since we last checked in with him, and he’s got a big question on his mind this earnings season: how long do these big tech companies plan on bleeding cash flow? Ricky Mulvey and Jason Moser also discuss: - Alphabet’s earnings. - Jason’s take on Anthropic going public.  - Why Ricky is getting “...

If Netflix listens to two podcasters, then the company will turn around. Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: Netflix’s earnings, and if a management shake-up can solve long-term problems. What Netflix should do with the $2.8 billion breakup fee from Paramount Skydance. Why Tesla and SpaceX should just merge, and what to make of Elon Musk’s $1 billion investment in Paramount Skydance. Credit...

Some of the biggest risks are the ones that crash into you. Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: Why avoiding taxes can be the bigger investment risk, using an Oracle case. Malcolm’s two-step risk test: what can go wrong, and can you absorb it? How a recent car accident changed the way Ricky weighs everyday costs against catastrophic risk. Why Malcolm argues the money that matters belongs at...

AI agents want your credit card, and new research suggests they may not find you the best price. Ricky and Malcolm ask who these tools are actually beholden to. Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: - Why Malcolm is watching Apple’s Mac mini, and how it became a way to skip the line for GPUs. - The Financial Times report that OpenAI’s annualized revenue is closer to $50 billion than $70 billi...

Leveraged ETFs have a reputation problem, and AI agents are already slipping past the security checks meant to stop them. Direxion's Bilal Little joins Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge to separate the real risks from the misconceptions. Ricky Mulvey, Malcolm Ethridge, and Bilal Little discuss: International equities trading at a 30-35% discount to US peers. Bilal pushes back on the idea that leve...

Mark Cuban says rising health benefit costs will get more people fired or not hired than artificial intelligence will. Ricky and Malcolm dig into the claim that polite society isn’t supposed to talk about.  Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: Why healthcare costs, now close to $19,000 per employee per year, could cost more jobs than AI.  What GLP-1 drugs are doing to company budge...

Sam Altman told Fortune that OpenAI is delaying its IPO because of safety concerns. Ricky and Malcolm think the real story is something else. Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: Why Sam Altman's "safety" excuse for delaying OpenAI's IPO looks a lot more like a company that isn't ready to speak to Wall Street. The AI researcher who quit his job over how "dangerous and irresponsible" these co...

Apple dropped a new folding iPhone. Are you ready to pay $2k for one? Ricky and Malcolm are joined by special guest Dylan Lewis, now with The Morning Brew! They discuss:  Malcolm's case that this is Apple's "Jordan Mania" moment even if he's not buying one himself. Why Apple's stock is up roughly 40% over the past year, why it’s  a "safety trade" story as CEO John Ternus takes over. Robi...

Tax tricks used by billionaires are now showing up in the algorithm, but the real money secrets aren’t going out on social media. Ricky and Malcolm discuss: Winmark, a royalty-collecting franchisor (Play It Again Sports, Once Upon a Child) trading at a 52-week low, and why Ricky is interested as a long-term investor.  The 351 exchange strategy the ultra-wealthy use to defer capital gains taxe...

AI didn’t kill all software. In fact, some of the big dogs in cybersecurity may be stronger than before. Ricky and Malcolm discuss: Bitcoin's return to favor, and whether it's a trade or a decade-long hold. Why CrowdStrike and Okta are rallying, and the CISO survey stat behind the next leg of cybersecurity spending. The "SaaS-pocalypse" that may still be coming, and how private equity gets hurt. R...

Future US stock returns may not follow its historical success. Former Motley Fool senior analyst Matt Argersinger sits in for Malcolm this week. Ricky and Matt discuss: - 30-year Treasury yields near two-decade highs, and what that means for income investors who remember 2% bonds.- A real estate investment trust that Matt thinks is a great value. - The case for playing defense on the AI trade. - R...

The economy is unhinged! Ricky and Malcolm discuss: Gen Z redirecting investing dollars toward gambling. Malcolm as the lone voice of caution on a CNBC panel of market bulls.  Bill Ackman's return to Netflix as an activist investor and his shaky track record with the stock. Reddit's inclusion in the S&P 500, and why Google and OpenAI need the site for AI ambitions. Cerebras' wild earnings swi...

Malcolm bought a popular tech stock a few years ago and just decided it's time to sell. How did he know? Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: Why Malcolm is selling a streaming giant after a multi-year run, and why he believes there are signs the company's best growth days are behind it. Mercado Libre, the "Amazon of Latin America," and why a company trading off profit margins for a decade o...

A 24-year-old hedge fund manager said he had more "situational awareness" than anyone on Wall Street. Then his leveraged bets on memory chipmakers blew up, forcing a fire sale to Ken Griffin. Wall Street is pretty smart. Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: - How Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI manifesto and multi-billion-dollar hedge fund imploded within months, and what it says about ego. - Sou...

ServiceNow is down 50% over the past twelve months. Investors are doubting the company's place in a world with AI agents. But, maybe the software giant is figuring it out… Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: - OpenAI’s latest scandal. Its bot broke out of a sandboxed test environment and hacked its way into another company’s servers using stolen credentials. - Ricky passing the CFP® exam. -...

Uber, Tesla, xAI, Meta, and now IBM have all quietly signaled the same thing: AI is too expensive. Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: Whether "gotcha questions" in media interviews (from Tucker Carlson to JD Vance on Rogan) actually work Why Malcolm bought Netflix into weakness after a disappointing earnings report, and picked up Cerebras (CBRS) as a bet against Nvidia's pricing power. The...

Nvidia’s valuation is the cheapest it has been since the AI boom. Traders’ attention moved to memory chipmakers. They may have forgotten that Nvidia makes advanced memory systems.  Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:- An unpaid intern getting “fired” for demanding $32 per hour, and if unpaid internships should even be legal.- What investors forgot about Nvidia.- President Trump’s finan...

US margin debt, what investors borrow from their brokerages to buy securities, rose 54% from a year ago. Don’t take the punch bowl away! Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: Malcolm’s prediction that Sam Altman will have to walk back OpenAI's spending commitments in the back half of 2026. The mechanics of triple-leveraged ETFs, and how they're driving 10% single-day swings in stocks like Mic...

Polymarket reportedly paid creators to post videos of themselves "winning" bets that didn't exist. The Wall Street Journal found 118 videos showing nearly $900,000 in winnings — bets that, in reality, would have lost more than $166,000, placed on a creatively misspelled lookalike site. Meanwhile, Wendy's is drawing more Wall Street Bets chatter than SpaceX, 80% of its borrowable shares are already...

Elon Musk says SpaceX could hit $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, a fifteen-fold jump from 2027 estimates. Parts of the market feel like they're on fire. So where does a long-term bull actually put money when they don't want to chase 40%-in-a-week moves?  Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: The REITs they're using as cover in an overheated market — cold storage, data centers, and class-A offi...

Is the American Dream Dead? w/ Freddie Smith Over the past 50 years, Americans created roughly $140 trillion in new wealth. Roughly two SpaceX’s worth of wealth reached the bottom half. Actor-turned-economic-commentator Freddie Smith argues the American dream isn't dead, but the timeline to reach it has become unreasonable for the typical worker. Is he right, and what would it actually take to fix...

Google is raising $80 billion, and nearly 40% of it is going to the IRS, not data centers. Is Big Tech cutting employees to pay a tax bill? Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: Why index funds are forced to buy SpaceX at a bad time The Nasdaq rule change that helps big IPOs, and possible reasons why the exchange declined to answer Ricky's questions Why Malcolm is making a list of stocks to b...

SpaceX is mostly an AI company now. Or, that’s where it sees most of its total addressable market in one of the largest economic opportunities “in human history.” Well, that's according to the company. Malcolm is more skeptical. Is this the last big bang in the AI bull market? What's buried in the SpaceX S-1 that nobody's talking about. Whether OpenAI's IPO will land with a thud in SpaceX's shadow...

Malcolm flies solo this week to break down one of the more generous early retirement packages in recent memory, and whether "generous" and "right for you" are actually the same thing. He covers: - What makes Microsoft's offer different from a typical severance package (hint: five years of health care) - The three-bucket framework for deciding if you can actually afford to say yes - Why your RSU ve...