Sleep at Night Portfolio, Big Tech Earnings Week, Spotify Blows Up, Josh on Joby

In this dynamic episode of The Compound and Friends, hosts Josh Brown and Michael Batnick dive deep into a pivotal week of Big Tech earnings, analyzing Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple as they report amid a historic corporate earnings boom. The duo highlights a remarkable 43% year-over-year earnings growth in the tech sector—driven largely by chipmakers like NVIDIA, Micron, and Sandisk—challenging narratives of a bubble and emphasizing that strong fundamentals, not speculation, are fueling market gains. They explore the broader market resilience, with revenue and earnings rising across nearly every S&P 500 sector despite inflationary pressures. The conversation shifts to investment strategies, spotlighting Michael Hartnett’s 'Sleep at Night Portfolio' and the classic Permanent Portfolio as low-volatility, inflation-resistant alternatives for investors seeking peace of mind. The hosts debate the trade-offs: while these portfolios sacrifice explosive upside during bull markets, they deliver remarkable consistency and sleep-inducing stability. The episode concludes with a bold, personal case for Joby Aviation—a speculative eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) company—after Josh shares his firsthand experience at a test flight from JFK to Manhattan, praising its quiet, safe, and vertically integrated design. The hosts also dissect Robinhood’s struggles, Jane Street’s staggering $30 billion in annual cash flow, and the growing 'ludicrous list' of overvalued, high-momentum stocks, cautioning against chasing parabolic rallies. The episode closes with a mystery: the smallest Dow stock, Nike, facing a potential exit from the index amid a 78% market cap decline and management missteps.