Buffett’s 'Elephant Gun'

the likes of gold, for example. Cracks have begun to show in the credit markets and in the stock market. It's economically sensitive areas that have once again turned losers. Is this just a blip or is this possibly something more? And speaking of something more, we of course will close out the episode with our tradition the craziest thing I saw in Markets this week? Sarah, I gotta say the

craziest thing I saw in markets this week. It's actually the most disgusting thing I've seen in markets this week too. I'm gonna give you a little tease at that, ye do we have to wait to the end of the show to find out what this most disgusting thing is Mike keeping us all on our brace yourself because it's nasty,

it's crazy and it's nasty. Alright, it's interesting. And if you saw anything crazy in markets or even disgusting in markets that you want to share with us, give us a call on the Bloomberg Podcast hotline six four six three to four three four nine zero and leave us a voicemail and maybe we'll play it on the show. Also, you can tweet to us at podcasts and let us know what you think of the show where you've seen something crazy. We'd love to hear from you. Sarah, I'm

excited for this week's guests. Do you know why? You must know me well enough to know why my only guest would be is is he also from Philly? Mike, now, well close enough. He's a Jersey guy. He's a he's a Jersey guy like me. I'm from Philly, but I've kind of converted to full Jersey guy by now I've defected. You've won me over in the Garden State. Eight. Yeah, it's all the Italian food won me over. I think that's fair enough. Over the Tuesday, but yeah, yeah, it's

all about the stomach. But glad to have him on the show first time on What Goes Up. His name is Larry pitt Kowski. He is the co managing partner at good Haven Capital Management in good Old Milburn, New Jersey. Larry, welcome to the show. Thank you, it's nice to be here. O great, So, Larry, I was checking out the good Haven Fund before the show. One thing that popped out

at me. I love to look at sort of the asset allocation, and at least as of the end of August, equity exposure was about seventy four percent cash and government securities making up the rest about a quarter of the fund. So, as Sarah will tell you, I'm I'm about to launch a twelve part question based on that, probably as I usually sit down, say, take take notes on this question now. But to me, so that seems like it correct me if I'm wrong. But historically, is that sort of a

low equity exposure for your fund? And you know, depending on the f the answer is yes. I'm curious. Does it have something to do with this sort of froughthy valuations we've seen over the summer, the market getting up in in in some cases depending on what index, what sector you're looking at almost back to dot com style valuations, and if that is a low equity exposure, uh, anything in this correction getting you ready to sort of up

up that equity exposure or or what. I'm just curious how you're thinking about that non equity portion of the of the fund. You know, Mike, get a good haven. The amount of cash and cash equivalence we've got is normally a byproduct of finding more or less things to do where you know, I don't manage the portfolio too Some target cash levels, however, you know, you make a

fair point. During periods where there's more stress and more bargains, cash levels will normally come down, often sometimes dramatically, and when there's less to do, cash levels will will build. I would say the current cash level we've got, which as of you know recently is you know, kind of sitting around let's say high teens, is you know, kind of probably on average to what we've had over the

last bunch of years. But it's interesting in this spring, uh, during the height of the market swomen you know, March of we put about of our then cash to work as there were despite the unbelievable uncertainty and the unpredictability and something nobody had ever seen as far as in you know, an economy that had partially shut down. We did put a lot of cash to work and high quality things that I think are already turning out to be very good buys. And I would say that's how

we look to behave. We look to behave opportunistically when there are lots of things to do. However, I wouldn't ever say that I'm sitting around every day, you know, making some kind of market prediction by having a little bit more a little less cash. I don't know anybody who can do that. I certainly can't do it, but you make a very good point. It is a often a byproduct of finding more or less to do end

flows of money. You have to be a psychic in order to be able to time that, really, especially the way markets have been lately, Larry. I was looking through your holdings as well, and I noticed that Barrett Gold

is one of your top holdings. And as I kind of mentioned off the bat of the show that lately, although we had seen this unbelievable run at least in the price of spot gold over the past couple of months, that since waned as we've seen inflation expectations come off as it looks like we might not get a fiscal package from Congress. I wonder is your holding of Barrett Gold at all tied to an outlook on growth and outlook on inflation, or is there a different reason that

you're actually interested Barrett Gold. It's a very interesting story. We made it a big holding when John Thorne, the current executive chairman of the board, came in and really started to clean up what had been a prior mess under old management where they made an acquisition of a copper company with no due diligence and they overlevered themselves. And I'm primarily a business analyst. Okay, I'm a securities analyst. I'm a business analyst, I'm a stock picker, and I'm

a risk manager. Lastly our macroeconomic thoughts. So Barreck has been an important holding for us for a couple of years. And I never minded having the optionality of the exposure to gold, which is an alternative currency for all intensive purposes, as part of the thesis, as long as the majority

of the thesis, which was the business. The evaluation we paid the management team was really the predominant reason to be in it now when Barrick merged with Rangold and Mark Bristow took over it because the story got even better, okay a couple of years ago, because Wrangled was the best managed gold miner I think in the world and

had unbelievable statistics for creating shareholder value. So as I was looking at the portfolio somewhat recently, what you've seen since the pandemic as far as money printing increases in debt and that goes you know, in the US and around the world, it does lead one to be even happier to have some exposure and material exposure to an

alternative currency. The thing to keep in mind about these types of things, you know, after the OAIT financial crisis, the number of people who were thoughtful and you know, really had a strong view that we were about to enter a period of hyper inflation and the stuff done during the Great Financial Crisis to create certain bailouts was going to create a weeker dollar and runaway inflation, all

kinds of problems. There were strong views about that, and instead, over the next nine years we had deflation and a stronger dollar. So you gotta be very careful because these are very difficult things. But from where I sit today, Barrick is a we We have an enormous unrealized gain in it. The thesis and how they're running the company keeps getting better, and it's hard not to look at what's happening as far as printing of money deficits stimulus,

you know, negative real interest rates. The Federal Reserve is very clear that they want to keep rates low for a long long time, and and feel that it's nice to have something in the portfolio that has some potential exposure positively to all those things, but wrapped around what appears to be a well run company. And it's not an easy business to be in. You know, mining is is not There's not an enormous number of companies in that business that have created a lot of long term value.

But Mark Bristow has done it. At at Wrangled were forever grateful for John Thorn for having come in and really right in this ship. And so that's how we think about that position and how it he came where it is today. It's funny I always think back on that there was that famous open letter to the Fed that like thirty forty investors and fund managers signed warning of you know, Zimbabwe like inflation from quantitative using and

I guess a lesson there. Larry has never saw in your your name to a letter like that predicting dire outcomes. The lesson is is that trying to put together a portfolio using macroeconomic predictions is really, really hard. There's a couple of people in the world that have done it well,

you know, there's Soros and drugcon Miility. But I think a lot of investors you should you should really try to steer clear of having that be the thing that is, uh, you know, the driving force and how you're picking stocks for your portfolio, because it's very, very hard, and very few people get that kind of stuff right. So I'm and again the interesting thing also, but Barrick is, you know, it's become over the last few months, a lot of people have become interested in this sector and it's and

it's interesting. And of course with golden nineteen hundred bucks there cash flow is a lot more than when gold is a thirteen hundred bucks. But you know, when we made it a bigger holding a couple of years ago, you know, nobody was calling me up saying, oh, that's really interesting you made that a bigger holding. I was getting more you know, polite, like what the heck are

you thinking? And you know what are you doing? And you know and and things that I wouldn't repeat on your very high class Uh you know, a podcast so high class, Larry, I'm sure people are people are writing in like why Gold? Why not Apple? But yeah, I'm so flattered that you called this high class. I think Mike's a bit surprised. I think he might best probably I think he he dialed into the wrong but I gotta go. But but Larry, you make a great point.

I mean, I think a lot of investors struggle to wear that micro and macro cap at the same time. And Sarah and I appreciate being able to talk individual names like this. I don't know how many guests we have on We're like, I'm not allowed to talk about individual stocks, so it's it's refreshing for us. So I just I want to talk about the biggest holding um at least as of the the end of last month,

Berkshire Hathaway. Maybe a few listeners have heard of that company, Larry, kind of an obscure one there, But uh, are you are you a buffetologist, I assume, and I guess the the big question I have is, you know, eventually we're gonna get this passing of the reins from Buffett to his successor. Is that a buying opportunity or a selling opportunity? Do you think I've you know, owned you know, Berkshire

on and off in different sizes for many decades. And the interesting thing is that, which I wrote about in a last shareholder letter, is that, you know, I find that many people who are you know, supposed to be you know, professional investors, have very strange ways of thinking about Berkshire. Some you know, there's some form of worship without really you know, doing any real, you know, deep

analytical work and thinking about it as a business. And some just you know, there's never ending joy in a kind of a gotcha kind of moment of finding anything that Berkshire does wrong with just like, oh, I told you that's so good. So, you know, neither of those two extremes are logical ways to think if you're trying to make logical decisions with with money. So from my perspective when I looked at them, by the way in the in you know, March March April, during the height

of the market collapse, I basically doubled our exposure to Berkshire. So, you know what, what was I thinking? I was thinking, well, you know, we have an economy that is shut down to a great extent. Here's a company that has a hundred forty billion dollars of of cash. Here's a company that has a long history of great shareholder returns. Their main business is property and casualty insurance in a couple

of different sectors. My feeling was that property and casualty insurance, the market for pricing in terms is improving claims from the and they would be able to deal with the you know, COVID nineteen claims, and there's some noise around some of that. And the stock price was I thought, selling at a very attractive price really kind of approached

the book value. The optionality for them to put money to work in different rescue financing and transactions existed, though they may or may not do it, and I think it's unfortunately a certainty that at some point Mr Buffet and Mrmonger won't be you know, calling the shots anymore, I think, and I have some knowledge the bench at Berkshire is much more talented and deeper, uh than I think people really give it credit for. And I think Berkshire twenty years ago was really, you know, a holding

company with a securities portfolio. I think it's much more than that today. The magic of Berkshire is the generation of insurance float at no cost, which then can be invested and helped to drive book value growth. And a couple of very large businesses, the railroad business, the utility business, uh, the insurance business, and an investment portfolio that one has

to make a judgment of. So when you when you put that all in the mix, I thought, at the prices that were available in the spring, I thought these were really dirt cheap prices, and so we what an enormous amount. And you know, I think that it is playing out reasonably well. The negative on Berkshire, which is material, it's just size. It's hard to move the needle. You know, it's five billion dollar market cap and they do something very clever and they make a billion dollars. It doesn't

really move the needle that much. But if you buy back more stock or you know, at some point you distribute more money, you know, that's a lovable problem. So One of the keys I found over over all the years is just to try and be rational and not you know, get caught up in too much emotional drama about how you think about any holding. You know, so Berkshire. I may change my mind one day, but I thought it was a very good thing to increase our exposure

to dramatically in this spring. And as it turns out, you know, a lot of the criticism lately of Berkshire had been, oh, you know, it's a it's a lot of old economy assets. Will meanwhile, you know, something like the portfolio is Apple and they've been too inactive. Well, you know, shortly after all that criticism, they made a ten billion dollar deal from some you know, natural gas

distribution assets from Dominion. Uh, you know, so there, and they've done plenty of other things over the last month or so, so you know, and you had a board member, actually, Meryl Whitmer, who's well respected investors on the board, who bought I think two million dollars worth is in the open market for herself and her family in the spring. So you know, but again we'll just try. You know, I'm ably assisted here in in uh doing the analysis

and running a good haven on the portfolio side. Uh, you know, by ARTI quak and we'll just continue to you know, crunch through the numbers and and think about, you know, where the business or the company has headed over time. I kept thinking back during the turmoil in the spring. I kept thinking back to the financial crisis, when they made those really well timed investments, uh with the preferred shares and in some of the banks that were struggling back then. I was kind of expecting something

like that this time. I wonder if it's know, if it tells you anything. You know, Buffett calls it his elephant hunting gun. All that cash, you know, he like you said, he's he's fired a few shots from it, but still kind of holding fire with all that cash through all all of this. Does that tell you anything about perhaps how just uncertain and risky this environment is where where Buffett doesn't seem to be comfortable really writing a giant check for for some distressed asset right now.

I think in the March and April time frame, one of the things that I think got in the way of Berkshire potentially doing some rescue finance was the FED coming in so fast and in such an extreme way into the credit markets, which I think allowed a lot of bar words that were viable and interesting but on somewhat shaky ground to access. The fixed income markets are the equity markets, and you saw the you know, the number of underwriting is done by across the investment banking spectrum.

And I think, you know, if not for that massive FED intervention, some of those companies would have been knocking on Berkshire's door, you know, but you know again, you know, they they have not been. Thursday morning, Berkshire announced a deal with Scripts which was a you know, a preferred with some warrants on very attractive terms, you know, kind of of smaller size, but a very typical Berkshire deal.

And you know they did by, you know, recently a slug of all the Japanese the five or six major Japanese trading houses, and you know, so but they were less active at that period. And you know, again, I think there were a couple of reasons. And and Mr buffin May very well and Deputies May very very well looked at, uh, you know, a shutdown economy and said, well, you know, let's you know, let's tread gingerly a little bit. But I think the FED intervention and the ability of

companies to access traditional financing so quickly. It was very different than if you remember the the global financial crisis. That's not that that process took months. You know that, you know, FED intervention and go for you know that, and it gave Berkshire an opportunity to you know, put some capital to work. It does feel as though, I mean policy response, but everything this year has almost just happened at warp speed. Um. You mentioned earlier on the

Larry how Berkshire is a really big company. Um, so something has to happen to really move the needle. And I'm just gonna make my way down the list and looking at the portfolio, and I see you also have Alphabet as another one of your top holdings, which is also a large company. And I'm also going to preface this by saying it's my turn now, Mike to ask a twelve part question. Uh, but one I want to

ask you. I know, Uh, there's a lot of talk about how some people when they think of value investing, they think about it in the wrong way that some think of value investing, and you're leaving out possible ways

to value a company. You know, especially this year, a lot of people have brought up conversations about how to price the likes of intangible assets, and I just wonder how you work this into your thinking um and your process when you're looking at companies to put in your portfolio, and how Alphabet might fit into that that process as well. By the way, Mike, I don't know how to tell you this, but that's my favorite question so far that

Sarah just asked. So well, thank you. Don't take this the wrong way, you know, Sarah, you raised a really interesting point. And in my last shareholder letter, I attached a letter I had written to then clients talking about how owning good businesses with high returns on capital that had some defensible mode of some sort, that were well

managed quality is not inconsistent with value investing. And it's one of the things that I think is, uh, you know, here at good Haven, as I took control of the firm recently, we we needed to hearken back to a little bit more our history and owning Alphabet for instance, Uh, you know, purchases were mostly made after a bunch of years ago, after they had uh you know, they had shortly bought YouTube and there was all kinds of noise, people saying, oh my god, you know you paid whatever

it was, a billion, six billion eight to YouTube and that's an insane evaluation. And the companies a one tricked pony, and you know, paid searches is peaking. And I think

that you make a very good point, Sarah. I think, first of all, in the world of technology, for those of us that have been around a long time, one of the problems with investing in technology many years ago, Okay, in my my recent letter, I talked about how in two of somebody come to and said, look, half the you know, half the world, you know in ten or fifteen years is going to have a PC. You know, you want to put a big chunk of your net worth in the top three PC companies. And they were

then Commodore, Tandy and Whang. And if you would have done that, you would have lost a lot of money. Right. It was a very hard business to see the future because it was aging so rapidly. However, if you looked at you know, Alphabet six seven, eight years ago, I think you would have seen something selling it a relatively attractive p ratio, maybe not eight times earnings, maybe was

low teens or mid teens and growing rapidly. And then you had to do some research and you had to say to yourself, Okay, you know the snowball of advertising budgets moving digital from non digital. You know where is it is? The ninth inning is at the second ending? Is it's still growing? And and how are they going to allocate capital? And what about these new things they

just bought YouTube? Is it sensible? And I think if one would have come to a sensible conclusion, I think the earnings and Alphabet's case, I think the earnings growth over the last six or seven years has you know, very much told the story of the underlying intrinsic value growth. I think that, Sarah, your question raises a you know, kind of an interesting point. Was some of the differences in today and looking at a company like an Alphabet or an Apple. First, of all, these companies they take

very little capital to run. I mean many many years ago. If you look at general motors are Bethlehem Steel or a ust you know, it takes an enormous amount of actual physical you know, plant equipment to an inventory to make these things run. Digital companies are are different, and often you know, there's less capital spending, but there's more

run through the income statements. So you make a very good point that one has to consider such things as intangible assets and and returns on capital and think about it all differently. I don't think that one wants to wade into starting to veer into you know, metrics, you know, is all about having they eyeballs. I don't think that

that's necessary of a way to think about valuation. To have found some of the big tech companies where Alphabet or Facebook attractive investments at different points over the last six, seven or eight or eight years, and I think it it is important for value of people, you know, to not forget that owning quality is perfectly consistent with value.

The other thing that I think you're raising a good question is if you own something of such good quality and it grows very well, you should be very loath to sell it just because the valuation is no longer dirt cheap. That's a second issue. But anyway, that's all right. I think we've gotten most of the top holdings, but one more before we get to the crazy things. Jeffries, uh,

Jeffreys Financial Group, tell us what you like about them? Well, Jeffreys reported earnings Thursday morning that we're you know, stellar. You know, I can think of a few more even, you know, even more positive words. Jeffries is a investment bank that came together through the merger of Old Jeffreys and Leucadia. Rich Handler runs the place very well and owns an enormous amount of stock. The price, even after you know some recent gains is probably uh, let's call

it eighteen bucks. I think tangible book values twenty six bucks. They're improving the return on equity. They're good at what they do, they're good at protecting book value. And in a world where bargains are not easy to find, I think something at that valuation with that kind of talented management team, and again, you know, the earnings that you have seen you both Thursday morning and in the recent couple of quarters, I think should tell you that they're

on the right track. You know. I I always expected them to get rolled up by another bank. Um, I wonder what what the story is there. Maybe Handler just as wants no part of that right now. I don't know. That's that's something you'll have to ask him. But you know, I think I think from as an owner, I think as long as they continue to, you know, to build value. I think everything will you know, the rest of it will take care of them, will take care of itself.

So all right, fair enough, Sarah. We'll have to get uh, have to get Rich Handler on the show and UH explain it all to us. Something that'll be the next ask. All right, it's that time. It's it's the time you've been waiting for the craziest things we saw in markets this week. Stand clear of the craziest things we saw in markets this week. I'm gonna go first, Sara, Yeah, because we've been waiting on our toes just because we

want to hear what's gross that you have to tell us. Mike, I've been waiting with bated brev as you can probably guess. I am a big fan of of the alternative at Alternative Alternative Asset UH marketplace, and Sarah does not get any more alternative than this. And I should give a

plug to the terminal. If you have a Bloomberg terminal type in NI space, auction go and you'll you can follow along with the crazy things I find on there, because there's always something crazy being auctioned UH in the alternative asset space and this is really alternative, Sarah, so and I auction though you just gave up your sweet sauce. I did, I know, and I got other I have other tricks. I have other tricks, though, So I I throw the bone. Throw the bone to people a little bit.

As you probably know, UH, there's a robust market for Michael Jackson memorabilia. You know, if you could get your hands on one of his old gloves or one of those loafers he moon walked in worth of fortune. This one shocked me. Though. Someone is auctioning off I should preps this. As you may remember, Michael Jackson had some some problems with drug abuse towards the end there, and he was right before he died, he was actually hooked up to UH and I V that would administer these

these painkiller drugs to him. It's a tragic story too. I'm kind of now, I'm kind of feeling bad I even brought this up. Anyway, it better be worth it. Someone in is auctioning off the final I V Bag that he was hooked up to, and it comes complete with Michael Jackson's blood stains on the I V bag. I'm ashamed of myself. I can see our producer. She's like she's covering her face. She's so ashamed of this,

of this crazy thing. Okay, this is ridiculous, but I'm also I can't say I'm not curious for what this is going for. Well, let's I was going to get to that. Let's let's play prices right now. And here's where the value comes in, I think is if it is stained with his blood. I mean you could maybe clone Michael Jackson. I'm just throwing that out there to the buyers out there. If some if some crazy mad scientists looking guy in a lab coat and wild hair shows up at this auction, I think we know where

this is going. That's the only one should be able to go. Let's play prices, right, Sarah, what would you expect to bid for the winning bid to be for for this item? I'm lost. I I don't even have anything to base this off of. I have no single comparison. But I'm gonna go ahead and I'm going I guess to k Oh, I've got a lot of lousy poker face on that one. Larry, uh So, Larry, you can probably you can probably read my poker face there. And and let's hear your prices are right. I don't know.

I kind of liked I kind of like the range of Sarah's price. Yeah, yeah, Tift. I so think the guys it's some memorabilia merchant in Las Vegas who is in charge of this auction. They're saying they're they're hoping to get I agree that that's slow. I don't know about two. Unless you can actually clone Michael Jackson, then you know, then what what prices? At least I got the base right, but I look I I as soon as I said it, I knew I likely overshot, but

nothing to compare. Well, you know, maybe they're low ball in here, and and someone as enthusiastic of a collector is Sarah Ponza will show up and and bid two two. I am a big Michael Jackson music fan. I must say that's there you go, there you go. So I apologize to anyone who's grossed out by that. I'm kind of grossed out myself about the about that one, but I wanted to. I wanted to show you how strange and how crazy the alternative asset space can go. Sara,

you talked to a lot of allocation experts. Maybe you can throw that in there. What sort of allocations should you should you have to celebrity I v bags. Yeah, the next time I'm on the phone with a multi asset strategist or investor, I'm gonna suggest this, say, you know, and instead of adding to your gold that's in your portfolio, you should run an I auction on the terminal and uh, see what you can get better bang for your buck. Look, Larry's Larry's fund has a decent amount of cash. It

out there, all right, Sarah, what do you gut? Can you top that? I don't think I can stop it, to be honest, but let's go ahead with it anyway. So we've been talking a lot about trying to figure out the right way to value a company and knowing a company that you owned. Well, this week there was just a bit of a funny I guess I'm gonna call it a kerfuffle. Um that uh didn't really make sense.

So at the beginning of the week, there were these reports that Amazon was partnering with Echelon Fitness to make a five hundred dollar fitness bike, and it immediately tanked Peloton's stock price. Because everyone knows that when Amazon enters your space, Um, not the best thing for you as a company. Well, the next day, it didn't take very long. Amazon came out and denied that they were in partnership for this bike at all. They told Echelon to stop

selling the bike. Supposedly this was being called the X Prime bike, and an Amazon spokeswoman had to come out and basically say the bike wasn't related to Amazon, and Echelon then blamed the it in on quote unquote miscommunication. Um, and it really makes me think, like I wonder if this was just a ploy for them to get their name out there for me to be thinking, Oh, I think this. I think Echelon has made this really cheap bike in partnership with Amazon, even if it's not true.

But you know, the price of name recognition is pretty high. That's a pretty good one. Has anyone contacted that woman from the Peloton commercials that that everyone was outraged about that? Not that I know of, that last she'll sign on with that, she needs to sign on with that, That would that would seal the deal from me. That's a pretty good one, Sarah, I gotta admit that's a good one. It's no Michael Jackson, I v bag, but I took my hat to you on that one. Larry, how about you.

Have you seen anything crazy in markets this week? Well, you know who could who could who could come up with anything that says, uh, you know, off the chart says that Michael Jackson, I back, Mike, I'm an instant, you know. I mean, look at this, Larry, I I Mike's tapping himself on the back. Yeah, that's true. Look. The wonderful thing about the markets that's fascinating me for you know, forever and ever is you know, there's always you know, uh, you know, dramatic swings and volatility and

opportunities on either end. And you know it never, you know, human nature never ceases to amaze one. You know, when everything's doing well, everybody's uh uh you know, feeling optimistic, and when there were bargains and and and things to do, people are you know, hiding under the desk. You know as a as a smart as a smart friend of mine said, you can have you can have good headlines or cheap stock prices. You just cana at the same time,

so so and and and and and that continues. So you know, human emotion will always and it's and every you know, you don't have to wait very long to see those extremes, and the markets of today you don't have to wait very long to see those extremes. And you know, I'm just waking up every day trying to you know, you those extremes to the advantage of me

and my you know, fellow investors. So you know, I don't have anything is esoteric is your thing, But I'll continue to enjoy, uh, watching how emotions swing around and just try and make the most sense. Yeah, and you know, make a good point. I feel like the sentiment at the beginning of September is just remarkable, isn't it. Well,

you know, it's unbelievable. Don't and don't forget where you know, where markets were in March and April, and what the outlook was, you know, and you know, and uh, you know, putting cash to work there was you know, you know, it was not easy. But you know it's, uh, for those of us have been around for a long time, that was a very unusual period. But you know, I've seen such periods before and they're never exactly the same.

And but I think, you know, it's it's it's never more important to keep one's wits about one when there's you know, when there's such extreme volatility, and I think it served this well at you know Good Haven, where you know we're ranking is improving dramatically versus our peers, and we're happy to be, uh, you know, continuing to try and you know, build the track record. You know.

All this talk about emotion makes me realize. I think the reason I guess two K, Mike, is because I think we've all just been embedded in this world in which the term has been stocks only go up, and we've seen asset prices rise, and I just think that anything days, especially in ivy bag of Michael Jackson's blood um, could go for a high price. Why not. Yep, it's it's a frothy it's a frothy market, Sarah. I can see where you where you overvalued the ivy bag. We'll see,

we'll see maybe maybe you'll win. Maybe when the final auction is amount is known, you'll be you'll you'll have won the prices right on this, We'll have to check back, check back, because I do think they were low balling. You know. Look, when you're auctioning something and you're talking to the press, you should high ball it. Right, You're like, oh, we're hoping to get five million. I don't know why they low balled. Yeah, this isn't over. This isn't over.

I think we'll have to circle back to this. It makes me wonder, makes me wonder if Sarah is actually the seller. Makes me wonder if Sarah is actually the seller of the item and she's trying to get the price up. Sarah, are you secretly the seller? Right? All right? There was I'm not supposed to mention that Larry. Larry clearly unveiled the mystery of the show. I am the seller, but unfortunately we are going to have to leave it there. Larry Pittkowski, thank you so much for joining us today,

my pleasure, thank you for having me. What goes up? We'll be back next week. Until then, you can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal website and app or wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love it if you took the time to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts so more listeners can find us. And you can find us on Twitter, follow me at at Sara pant Zack, Mike is that reaganonymous, And you can also follow Bloomberg

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