One Batch, Two Batch, Penny and Dime

The Stock Market Faces Punishment

The stock market in 2025 feels eerily like a scene from The Punisher, where Frank Castle’s mantra—“One batch, two batch, penny and dime”—serves as a haunting reminder of calm before absolute chaos he brings when going after criminals.

For years, investors have indulged in unchecked speculation, fueled by artificially low interest rates and easy money. Now, the financial markets stand at the brink of their own reckoning.

One Batch: Historic Valuations

Price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios have reached extreme levels, surpassing historical peaks seen in 1929, 2000, 2008, and 2020. The S&P 500’s P/E ratio now stands at 30.5, an astronomical figure that signals bubble-like conditions. But individual stocks are even more dangerously stretched:

• Tesla (TSLA) trades at 170x trailing earnings and 132x forward earnings, down 35% in just 60 days.

• NVIDIA (NVDA) commands a P/E of 53, yet its stock has gone nowhere since June 2024.

• Palantir (PLTR), Robinhood (HOOD), and CrowdStrike (CRWD) have all collapsed as much as -35% or more in just the past week

This kind of overvaluation is a ticking time bomb, and much like the Punisher mantra, it foreshadows an inevitable confrontation with reality. Every bubble has its bursting point, and this market is running out of road.

Two Batch: Speculation Runs Wild

The reckless gambling has reached fever pitch. Call option volumes are at all-time highs, with retail traders piling into short-term bets on overvalued tech names, reminiscent of the doomed euphoria before the dot-com crash. The “Options Queen” herself, a retail trader who has gained popularity on social media, publicly admitted to losing $7,000 in out-of-the-money call options chasing Palantir’s meteoric rise, only to be crushed when the stock collapsed.

Meanwhile, leveraged ETFs offering 2x and 3x exposure to speculative growth stocks are seeing record inflows, a clear sign that retail investors believe this market is an easy game. But as any seasoned investor knows, when you sit down at the table and can’t spot the sucker—it’s probably you.

Penny and Dime: The Tariff Fallout