Economic Data Deteriorates, Private Credit Struggles, Retail Traders Give Up

Josh Brown (0:13)

So sorry, we're late. We're live now, I think. Yeah, I see. Give us a sign. Tell us that we're actually here. All right. Sorry, I was busy negotiating a ceasefire in the Gulf. The Strait, looks like we got everything under control. I think it's a 30-day ceasefire. Did you read that?

Michael Batnick (0:36)

I saw a tweet.

Josh Brown (0:38)

All right. 30 days. Yeah. Well, we already won. So I don't even understand why it's us, right? Wasn't there a victory? All right. We're back. It's another edition of all new edition of What Are Your Thoughts here on The Compound channel. First time listeners and viewers. My name is Downtown Josh Brown here with my co-host Michael Batnick. Michael, say hi.

Michael Batnick (1:00)

Hello. Hello.

Josh Brown (1:01)

You guys, we're super excited to see everybody that's here for the live. I saw literally every Pounder I've ever heard of, plus all sorts of new names and faces. Thank you guys so much for showing up. Last week, we broke a record, had over 2,000 people come for the live. We'll see how we do tonight. We have an ad read. We'll get through this, and then we'll get right to the show. We have tons to do. Tonight's show is brought to you by Betterment.

Michael Batnick (1:29)

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Josh Brown (2:17)

Thanks to Betterment. Not only are they a sponsor, we actually use the service ourselves at Ritholtz. And we appreciate it.

Michael Batnick (2:25)

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Josh Brown (2:52)

Okay, let's not beat around the bush here.

Michael Batnick (2:56)

Don't do it.

Josh Brown (2:57)

The economy is just not good.

And it's going in the wrong direction in many ways, not in all ways, but in many ways. And it's super noisy and hard to just stare at any one data point and try to draw a conclusion. We don't try to do that. But we came into January talking about 4% or 5% GDP. And now we're scraping the bottom. We're talking about 0.7% growth. And I know that number moves, and it's varied, and it is prone to constant revisions. So it's not the end-all be-all. But I do not think it's a good economy right now. It's certainly not as good as it was last year and the year before. And it's mid as hell. And I think the market is sort of reflecting that to some extent. What do you think?

Michael Batnick (3:49)

I don't know. The market doesn't really care about the economy. I think there's a lot of things going on.

Josh Brown (3:52)

Chart on.

Michael Batnick (3:55)

Which chart?

Josh Brown (3:55)

On Friday, the S&P 500 broke below its 200-day moving average for the first time since May 2025 And then, after the close, Trump taco-ed the Iran situation with a tweet about, we're in talks with the Iranians, if there's any left, and they want to be cool, and we're going to figure some shit out. And then Iran came out and said, no, nobody's talking to you. There are no deals. There's nothing even being discussed. The market didn't seem to really care. This is like par for the course. And then it looks like today, after the close, there was some sort of a ceasefire announcement. And that's great. We like a ceasefire, I guess. But the reality is, it doesn't matter that much outside of the price of oil, what to me, I think, is really worth talking about. Thank God earnings growth is holding up. I think that's what's keeping the S&P 500 from being down worse than 7% because almost everything else that you could point to seems to be going in the wrong direction. And I want to show you a few things and just get your read on the situation. So, Brian Westbury at First Trust is talking about the hard numbers. Real GDP growth for the fourth quarter of last year, according to Atlanta Fed GDP Now, which is a model. They were talking about 5.4% in January. Now it's 0.7%.