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SMALL CAP INVESTING
Recorded: April 7, 2025 Duration: 1:06:39Space Recording
Short Summary
In a dynamic market landscape, investors are focusing on small caps and strategic positions as they navigate volatility. Discussions highlight the importance of understanding macroeconomic factors, with many participants expressing optimism about potential rebounds and growth opportunities in various sectors.
Full Transcription
Thank you. and
what is up everyone uh-oh we lost ben there for a second we'll get him right back up get him that
co-host slot there he is yeah let me throw you that co-host. Boy, big news candle something just happening right when I'm opening.
What just happened right now?
The only thing I see is some stuff coming out of Kearney in Canada.
But it was also like right at that hourly close.
I don't know. I don't see anything clear on the news.
Didn't hear anything on the squawker.
But I will keep everyone updated on any big changes in the market i'm sure
most of you guys are actively doing that as we talk throughout this space but uh yeah wild times
obviously in the market uh in general i am excited to hear everyone's takes uh of this crew uh some
of you i've heard a little bit from here and there on other spaces but um now with with more
information and what's going on, I'm curious of
what everyone's thoughts are and how you're approaching things right now in general. So,
Ben, if you want to kick us off to start the space here, but this is the small cap investing
space that we do right here on Wolf Financial every Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern. Thanks everyone for joining and Ben, I'll let you kick us off a little bit here.
Yeah, great. So look, I've been, thank God, navigating this well. You know, basically
predicted all these levels in SPY all the way down here to the 480s and in my trade account,
I'm actually up in the last 10 days, which has been incredible.
Now, yeah, I wish I did that in my retirement account.
I didn't.
In my retirement account, I just, like, around the edges, I make changes because I'm like,
that's a 10-year, decade outlook.
I can't pull the money out for over a decade.
And I kind of regret that because it was so obvious to me, this drop and the levels we've
seen in the SPY.
I mean, I've been all over it every day. I kind of regret that because it was so obvious to me, this drop and the levels we've seen in SPY. I mean, I've been all over it every day.
I kind of regret that.
But, you know, it is what it is.
But my strategy in my trade account, you know, still actually very much focused on small caps.
You know, a lot of people in my Discord have taken the warnings and just went to all cash as of about a month ago and just been trading to the downside.
So kudos to them. But I love my
small cap. So the way I've been doing it is I've been just kind of aiming for break even through
this past month, which might sound a little crazy. But my thought process is if I can make money on
hedges on the way down, and I almost manage it to break even. And I'm holding three small caps core sizes, nice positions.
It's Kodak, Burna Technology, and AST Space Mobile, which is a little larger than a small cap.
But those are my three core positions, and they're down significantly in the past month,
month, yet my account is up here in the last, well, at least in the last 10 days or so.
yet my account is up here in the last, well, at least in the last 10 days or so.
And my thinking is if I can hedge and hold these core positions when the market's ready
for a rebound and or when there's a catalyst I'm waiting for on one of these small caps,
I'll be positioned to really take my account to the next level.
So that's how I've been playing this volatility in my trade account with respect to small
caps.
You're good.
You know, I don't know. Is that smart? Is that not?
You know, people in my community who have been to all cash and just been trading to the downside of my advice have been ahead.
But they don't have, you know, I don't know. I like it.
I like having these exposures to small caps while being able to tread water.
So I don't know if there's a right way or not a right way, but that's how I've been handling it.
And, you know, as far as what happens from here, like, really, who the hell knows?
You know, my reference chart, my what I've been calling it, the everything chart I've been referring people to in my Discord is the weekly chart on the SPY.
That's my everything chart that I've been relying on the last few weeks to figure out what's going on with the market.
When I say everything chart, I mean everything depends on that.
Once we get into, when it was like the deep seek stuff, I was focused on QQQ.
Once we get into broader economic issues and possible recessions, I want to go to a broader
index like the SPY. So I've been focused on the SPY and looking at, you know, and this relates to
small caps, right? Because again, where the SPY bottoms, the IWM and the small caps are going to
bottom. So that's why this is my reference chart, my everything chart. And this 200-week moving
average has been the line I've been looking at as a long-term
bull support line, actually. We're in a bear market, but if you look at the 200-week moving
average, this has been a bull support line for 15 years that was really only violated in
the great financial crisis back in 2009. Also in COVID, but very short, very short in COVID. It went below
it for like a week and then popped in a B-shaped recovery. So we're still above that 200-week
moving average. And we also have a support at 458, a very strong support at 458. So my
downside levels that I've been telling people since a few weeks ago has been around 460,
which kind of coincides with the 200-week moving average and this 458 level,
which was the peak of the previous run before that bear market.
It was January 2022, December 2021, actually.
December 2021, that 458 almost perfectly correlates with that 455 or something
level there, 455 is the 200-week moving average.
So that to me is kind of like a worst case scenario in the short term, okay?
And I think the risk reward is the upside.
The risk is the upside this week.
So I've been laying off the hedges,
adding more longs. I added more to my Kodak today, added more to Berna on Friday. And,
you know, I think at this point, we thought this morning with that fake headline, which who knows,
some people saying not fake, it's just came out early the 90-day pause, that shows you the risk
to the upside.
And I think that's why we didn't go right back to 480 after it came out that that was
fake.
It really put the fear of God in the shorts.
I got to be a little bit careful here being too short.
If that fake story didn't happen, who knows, maybe we would have hit that 200-week moving
average today or tomorrow morning around 460.
But I think the risk is to the upside here in the short term.
We also have CPI coming out on Thursday, which I think is going to be light, which is kind
of meaningless, right, given all the tariffs that are coming out.
It's going to be light based on what I'm saying from Truflation data.
Truflation has been very accurate.
It's about 45 days ahead of CPI.
So I was thinking, you know, I game played this out last Wednesday.
Last Wednesday night, I put a note out that I think we're going to be hitting all these levels and we're going to bottom out Tuesday morning.
I explained all the psychology behind it.
And then we can see a rally with the CPI excuse because at that point, we're still oversold.
Any excuse can get it to go.
So that was my thesis.
At this point, I'm not sure the CPI will be a good excuse because everything's just focused on tariffs right now.
I'm not sure anyone's going to get red CPI Thursday.
But, you know, the move we had this morning just shows you that any, you know, small positive catalyst, there's a huge risk to the upside.
So, yeah, like that's where I'm at.
I stuck with
my small caps, hedged in order to keep them while preventing my account from going down.
I'm looking for a big near-term bounce here. I think risk is to the upside, whether it's
a tariff headline or CPA headline that doesn't really mean anything fundamentally, but might
be used as an excuse for a pop. That's what I'm thinking about. Man,
this sucks. I hate it. It's exhausting. It's so exhausting, the news flow. Come on. Oh my gosh.
Those are my comments. We'll go around the horn. It was absolutely wild when we had a
fake news story basically come out this morning, completely pumped the market, then get walked back.
Everything that's going on is wild, honestly.
I feel like maybe that term is going to be even overused, but I think it's also fitting.
But let's continue around the panel here.
Money Mark, let me bring you in next and see what you're thinking.
you're thinking well i was my language strong enough last week we uh you know i've been saying
Well, was my language strong enough last week?
yellow alert for months and uh you know some people listen some people didn't so last week i
wanted to get very strong with that language um you know you guys kind of noted it and you
be you know you sound like red alert and i clarified that hey you know i've been in this
market for 30 years to get to red alert you're talking financial crisis you're talking dot-com
collapse um you know i don't think we're we're there um even covet i only considered an orange
alert um you know so these are big big colors you know yellow is pretty bad as it is and look at
where we are right now now what's
funny from a trading perspective i'm kind of the opposite of ben i haven't been actively trading
my portfolio because there's too much to get whipsawed you can get look what happened today
you get whipsawed by fake news right so i don't want to play that i I'm not a gambler. In fact, over the last three trading days, I've had my lowest volume of trades in memory, like years probably.
following the rules that i provide as guidelines to people who follow my work going over 50 cash
less than 30 long and hedging with a 20 short against the market which is kind of standard
in a yellow alert that's working great um you know like ben i'm up over the last few days in the
stock market uh and you know not just my trading. And, you know, not just in my trading accounts,
but also, you know, my whole net worth. So, you know, what do we do now? Ben made a great point.
200-week moving average is typically a very good place to acquire if you're a long-term investor.
You also want to look at your individual names out there right like i'm just
watching individual stocks and seeing what kind of valuation levels ensue because the market is
taking everything down um you know you got people pulling out of etfs you've got hedge funds getting
blown out of positions so the selling is going to be indiscriminate so you're going to have
stocks out there that get knocked down to levels, you know, when
you account, especially for cash, right?
How much cash they have.
You might have a stock that's trading at six that has two or three bucks of cash, 50 cents
or a buck of earnings.
And you have to look at that and say, you know what?
I don't care if the stock goes down another 20 or 30 percent, because what I'm buying now, I know is worth a lot more than what I'm paying for.
So that's kind of the focus. But in the meantime, are we done? I don't think we're close to being
done. Right. It's very clear. We've been talking about this for months. Right? And very clearly for weeks, Trump has an agenda, right? He's not going to
back away from that agenda. Whether you like Trump or not, I think the bottom line there is,
you know, folks are, what's really interesting is when you look at the formula he used for the
tariffs, that tells you all you need to know, right? Like these aren't
high school kids that smoked weed and decided to do their, you know, exam that's due tomorrow at
6 a.m. and handed in at 8 a.m. No, it is a crazy formula, right? But that tells you something.
It tells you that their intent is not to tariff countries those amounts.
Their intent is to let these people know you're either going to negotiate or something crazy is going to happen.
And here are the crazy numbers that we're throwing at you.
Undeniable numbers, numbers that are going to make you stand up.
Not some 5% number that might make you pause and say, yeah we'll just accept the five percent screw trump right but a 50 number that says what
the hell that's the real message here whether you like him or not whether you like it or not
that's the message so it's not going to end soon unless the courts end it which i kind of think
is unlikely we'll see or if congress, right? And there's already a
bill, bipartisan bill, to take away his tariff powers, at least in part. And the problem is,
is that to pass that, he's going to have to cross Trump's desk. He's going to have to veto it. And
then it's going to have to go back. And it's going to have to get a 67% vote, which will require 35% of Republicans to turn on Trump, which means they're not going to get his support in the midterm elections.
So buckle up, folks.
Look for your individual names that you're willing to own for the long term.
Cool.
Sell puts.
Cool.
Just don't get too aggressive.
too aggressive. I haven't made many trades here. The advice that I gave a few months ago stands
I haven't made many trades here.
on 50% cash, less than 30% long, and over 20% short and making money.
Great words there. There was one headline just came out. The press conference with Netanyahu
has been canceled. So that is out the door for today. That's the
most recent update. Money Mark hit right on the nails there too. A lot of talk around a bill
coming out around these tariffs. And Trump has said multiple times, I've seen multiple sources
report it, that he would veto that, which would send it back to that majority vote. Let's keep
going around the panel here.
Kyle, let's go over to you next and get your thoughts.
I got to give a shout out to Money Mark because I did go to cash right before this all happened.
And I have to give him credit
because he's one of the main reasons why.
When I look at my current portfolio today,
I'm somewhere between 60 to 70% cash. I'm only holding a
couple names, and I've really stripped away the ones that I don't necessarily have a ton of
conviction, especially the ones that have any kind of tariff exposure. Ben brought up a name.
Berna is one of the ones that I hold today. Crixendo, MPTI, all of these stocks are just ones that I have a lot of
faith that over the next 12 to 18 months, even if we do see another 5%, 10%, 15% drawdown,
they're ultimately still going to do well. I think it's really easy to get caught up in
every single piece of news minute by minute. I even caught myself in the gym this morning between sets,
like scrolling the news and trying to see what was happening.
I kind of took a step back and said, what am I doing, right?
Like I think one of the best things you can do in a market like this is
hold your cash, hold your names that you have a lot of conviction in
and really just don't make any brash decisions.
There's a couple moments where I was like, man, should I go ahead and deploy this?
And I'm like, I don't necessarily know if I should, so maybe I'll just hold off and do nothing.
But I think it's pretty clear at this time, like no one really knows what to expect. Today was a pretty good example when the news
came out that the tariffs were going to be delayed for 90 days or longer, and the market shot up
4% or 5% off the bottoms and then immediately crashed once people realized that wasn't true.
I think this administration is pretty set on holding these tariffs for at least a certain
period of time.
There may be some deals that happen, but at the end of the day, no one really knows what
to expect.
So I wouldn't go buying a bunch of names at this time.
I would sit on the sidelines, maybe some cash and maybe go short for some positions.
But at this time, I just caught myself this morning.
I'm like, hey, maybe it's better just to sit
and wait and see until we actually see some news that's verified because there's a lot of news
coming out, but we don't necessarily know if it's good news or the right news or even the truth.
And there's a lot of messaging across a lot of people. So I think it's maybe best for a lot of
people just to sit, put and hold your highest conviction names. And it's okay to for a lot of people just to sit put and hold your highest conviction names and it's
okay to have a lot of cash that's that's kind of where i'm at right now yeah and to be clear right
cash is in money market accounts earning four percent so you know if at the beginning of this
year if we if you go back in time and say hey i'm gonna let you have four percent profit this year
for free a lot of people would take that now knowing what they know
now you know so it's not just cash you're actually making money off of this and by the way that's
firepower for later when the market gets crazy when the blood is really in the streets and i
don't think this is the bottom right here and when the bottom is in if you're a hundred percent in
stocks you're not going to have the cash needed to buy those
cheap stocks. And then you miss out on the next big run. Yeah, great points there from both of
you. Appreciate those thoughts. Yeah, it is interesting. Even Robinhood offering 4.5% on
cash sitting in your account is not a bad looking return in times like this, especially when you
look at where we're at year to date. Let's keep going around. Ariel, let's get some thoughts from
you next, please, sir. Yeah, my pleasure. And I see you back again. So again, great job last week.
I mean, I heard you guys on the panel. And again, money mark, that's that was money, what you said.
And hopefully a lot of people listened and saved their cash here.
I have to say, I'm looking closely at the developments.
I like to look at things first in the macro level, then I go bottoms up after that.
So top down, bottoms up.
I'm looking at the VIX here, and we're still at insane elevated levels.
I mean, 48 on the VIX is just, I mean, exorbitant, and that's historically very high.
When I look at the VIX at that point, I look at exorbitant. And that's historically very high. When I look at the
VIX at that point, I look at implied vol, implied volatility in the underlying options with stocks
that I actually like. So I'm not going to mention them, but you guys mentioned a lot of them,
Palantir, all those names that you guys mentioned in the past. I like to look at what does that
implied vol look like versus historical vol and then if you like the
the stock you want to put in fresh capital especially for those of you that's like just
can't you know you know you're in stocks you got smoke you're down 30 40 percent on your portfolio
i know so many people like that and then they're like i can't do anything i don't want to sell my
my favorite stocks i'm like all right cool like go buy more stock but but you know what you do
you don't just buy it so it could go down 30 more percent. And then you then again,
screwed. What you do is you buy it and then you sell the options, right? And you sell maybe like
three months out the options or one month out that is maybe like more of a 20% up move. And
then you could have the increase in the actual option price itself, which is going to be super
high because of the implied vol, right? And that's something I'm looking at right now. So that's like one major
play. This allows me to kind of go upstream a little bit because I love the volatility. I love
the velocity of capital, right? That's what we call it here in my world. And I'm sure you guys
see it the same thing. If I can make 5% in 10 minutes, annualize
that, right? Then that's like insane returns. When we just talked about having 5% for the whole year,
that's because it's your safe money. So that's something that I've been very much focused on,
especially the VIX here. And I can tell you that, just think about the mentality of how everybody
trades and everyone's about instant gratification. People forget that folks like Warren Buffett, who is a legend and still around, thank God, but he went into cash because he looks at longer term. He looks at businesses. I keep reiterating that. Look at a company as a business. Don't look at it as a stock in these types of times. If you look at it
as a business, then you're going to be like, cool, let's go look at the balance sheet. Let's go look
at the cash flow statement. Let's look at the fundamentals because that's another thing I am
doing. I'm screening the hell out of the markets and I'm seeing, give me a quarter to quarter
growth in a stock that's been going up for the last three to four years that got hammered. And that,
I'm telling you guys, you do that, you're going to do extremely well because you forget about
the stock price. Who cares? It goes down 50, 70%. If you know you're going to stay in it for a year
and you know quarter to quarter, their EPS is growing, their cashflow is getting better. They
don't need to raise money. I'm telling you, I'm not promising anything or guarantee, but I'm
telling you that is a sound strategy for those listeners that need to figure out some kind of a compass here to
figure out what to do in the next week, month, and three months, a year, all that good stuff.
So that's my initials. Sorry I'm so long, but I really needed to say all that.
No, I thought that was fantastic, Ariel. appreciate you being here and joining us sharing those
thoughts with us uh let's go to dougie fresh next and then we'll finish out with the godfather
dougie fresh what are your thoughts around the market how are you approaching things right now
i know you're a lot more on the technical side so i would love to hear your perspective
well i've actually been enjoying the market had it shorted down obviously money mark on the money
i i've been saying this show right here shorted down obviously money mark on the money i i've been
saying this show right here is absolutely amazing everybody's a great great speaker has great
insight in different areas ariel kyle money mark godfather i think you got a great team right here
and uh yeah hit it on the money right there we all knew it was coming down i mean you could kind
of tell the tariffs were going to knock it out. So Cain brought it down right here.
How about a great fake news story today?
I mean, it is pretty amazing, right?
And I honestly think that it's a calculated drop by the administration.
I think it's all completely calculated.
They need to get these interest rates down.
The Fed immediately had an emergency meeting today at 1130.
I don't know what happened with that.
I've been kind of
checking it out i didn't see anything but yeah like what are they discussing lowering the interest
rates because that's what he wants i'm not sure but something's gonna happen here are we at the
bottom maybe not not yet i don't think but it's great opportunity i mean this is the greatest and
just having cash on hand is the perfect thing to do. We've been saying it for weeks.
All of us have been telling everybody, make sure you're prepared for this bad boy.
And honestly, there's still a bunch of them still popping.
We had two of them that ran over 150% this morning from last night's show.
It was CHSN and BJDX.
I mean, you still have 150, 344 percenters with MKDW. I'm just looking.
JNVR is up like 500 percent. So there's still ones moving. The market never stops. You just
have to scan in the right places, really hedge it at the right spot and play a lot of ETFs right now.
There are really some good ones right there, like the Yang. I mean, that thing blasted off
the last few days and
hedged against china and um yeah i think that's the way you're going to look at the market right
now and just kind of pivot around and at new stories it's all going to be big reactions as
you can see with a fake news story today and uh and who knows was it fake was it put out for a
reason to stop the market from really dipping down real hard again
i think it's calculated here so i think they obviously have their agenda they're going to
carry it out now he's not he's not pulling back at this point and it's a big negotiation tactic
you know you you put the levels all the way at the top and then you know you meet in the middle
or three quarters our way wherever he's going to. But you can't drop the tariffs like you were saying, 5 percent where people are like, that's not a big deal.
You make these people really think like, hey, he's doing something crazy.
And I was explaining on my show, I said, you know, tariffs, you know, there's countries where we can't even sell cars in on like Indian stuff.
in on like Indian stuff, they said we have like 110% tariff over there. So the tariffs are going
They said we have like 110 percent tariff over there.
to work themselves out and all these countries will have to be allowing us to either do business
in their countries or they're not going to do business in our countries and we'll keep our
money. So long-term, I think it's great. I think there's a million great opportunities all over
the market. Be patient and just do one at a time. Don't get crazy trying to, you know, trade a bunch
of them, focus on one that you like, knock it out of the park and then move on to your next one.
And I think that's the way you're going to have to move around the market right now for a few
moments. And then, you know, catch these ones at the bottom, eye up the ones that you love and
find these bottoms because they're beautiful opportunities. And, you know, just listen to this show because these guys give them out all the time.
So there you go.
And Ben hitting it on the head with the 480 with the Spy.
Beautiful job, Ben.
That was beauty.
And, yeah, I listened to Ben, to be honest with you.
I was like, Ben's on to something here.
I looked at it and I was like, oh, that's coming down there.
He's got a good point there.
And I honestly wasn't even looking at that number before until you said it.
So that's why it's great to listen to people collaborate, especially a lot of different people that look at different things.
So thanks for having me on as always.
And that's how I see the market.
Appreciate those thoughts, Dougie and The Godfather.
Last but not least, always love hearing your thoughts.
Love to bring you in now.
Yeah, good morning or good afternoon, depending on what coast you're on.
Look, I'll try to keep comments brief because there's a lot of voices at times like this.
But my two bits worth in terms of where we're at and what we're seeing is that, yes, per the conversation or per the
point that Money Mark made, per the calculation of these tariffs, it's clearly, it's clear to me
at least that this is, you know, setting some boundaries for negotiating, but only partially negotiated. Look, when you've got a situation where
mandatory expenditures and interest consumes 100% of revenue, and this is the fiscal picture for the
US, you need to up the revenue or cut the expenditures. And this administration is trying
to do both. They want to up the revenue, obviously, more so on the tariff side than on the tax side.
And they've got to offset these tax cuts that they want to conclude in the latter part of the year.
So from that standpoint, these things will only be partially negotiated down.
It's clear that Trump wants to lower the debt.
It's clear that he wants to address this wealth imbalance between Wall Street and Main Street.
It's clear that he wants to reshore.
He wants to re-industrialize.
He wants to adjust the trade deficit.
But the balance will be somewhere in the middle.
And right now, the opportunities that are being afforded by the market are as follows.
And one of them was highlighted by Ariel.
I think, well, and, you know, certainly one way you can play it.
To me, one of the biggest opportunities in this market right now is that volatility, which was massively underpriced a week ago, is now,
I think, close to being overpriced. Certainly, the de-risking that we saw,
both from longs as well as some of the playing with the macro instruments by the hedge funds in
terms of shorting, we're seeing some covering there. The de-risking is slow to
a trickle. So, you know, the balance of risks are to the right tail right now, in my opinion. And,
you know, we saw that with that fake news or early news event. I think there will be some sort of a,
you know, pause period here for all nations that haven't retaliated. Trump's way of saying,
you know, come play ball with us and we'll give you some time and we'll negotiate deals,
you know, clip by clip.
So I think that's ultimately what happens.
Again, on the volatility side, guys on the Discord
that we're in know the way I'm playing that.
You know, I'm focused on the trade side of my two buckets by shorting
volatility. On the long side, the long-term bucket, I continue to pick away at names that I
like. A lot of the names that I've mentioned in the small cap spaces over the weeks and months,
spaces over the weeks and months.
When I started reviewing all the valuations again this morning, it occurred to me that
not only are a lot of these things trading 50% below where they were before, and a lot
of the competitive advantages really haven't gone anywhere, be they patents or be they
technical leadership. But a lot of these names, and I hadn't really considered it
before tariffs became in focus, are services rather than goods related. And some of these
names are OpFi and Root and Mind and AGX. These are companies that are all, for the most part, providing services.
And a lot of what makes these individual companies special hasn't gone anywhere.
The biggest change, again, it really hasn't been on earnings and probably won't be on earnings, but it's been on the market's willingness to, or how much the market's willing to pay for these things.
And that's the side that I think sees the biggest change between now and six months from now. So I'm focused very much on two things. One, skating to where the puck is going to be in six months in
the long-term portfolio, and B, taking advantage on the short-term basis of where
I see the market overreacting. And you have to have a thesis to do that. And my thesis is that
we end up somewhere above 10, probably somewhere closer to 15 to 20% tariffs, which was obviously
higher than the market's original expectation of somewhere closer to 10.
But I think, you know, the market's going to come around to the benefits.
And again, I think the market is going to start to focus on the further benefits to the U.S. economy that this administration plans to deliver.
In no way has this administration, you know, forgotten about
the fact that midterms are only 18 months away. But this, you know, 700 million or whatever you
think the number is of revenue that's up for grabs, a big chunk of it, I'm telling you,
is going to come in the form of tariffs versus taxes, and it's absolutely necessary. So,
come in the form of tariffs versus taxes, and it's absolutely necessary. So yeah, I think it's a
decent time now, actually, to be picking away at longs. I can see a case on an earnings basis.
I can see a case on a technical basis for us ticking, you know, that 4800 level on the S&P.
But I really don't see it going much lower than that. I think we start to get
into Fed puts and Trump puts once we get below that sort of 4,800 level. That's where I'm sitting.
There I am. I am unmuted there. Okay. Well, I was trying to get the unmuted button. I feel like I may be the stat guy here on PTI at times. So I'll come in with a quick correction here. If anybody watched pardon the interruption back in the day, they used to have was that John guy that would come in. I don't know who does it now. But one correction here. Today's meeting, Dougie, was not an emergency meeting.
It was just a closed board meeting.
It was announced on the 3rd, which was what, last Wednesday or Thursday, that it was announced.
It was a closed board meeting.
They do have these pretty frequently.
There was two in March.
There was one back in February.
There's a few more scheduled coming up soon as well.
So just wanted to make that one quick clarification
that it wasn't like an emergency meeting where they just convened.
But that doesn't mean they didn't talk about all of this stuff going on.
Right.
I mean, I just just just to clarify that one little point there.
Maybe it's a little bit picky, but do want to make sure we are as accurate as possible.
But either way, Ben, I think that brings us back around to you.
I appreciate the whole panel giving their thoughts on the bigger picture here.
And Ben, let's get a little bit more granular and see if there are any thoughts or value plays or anything that you're looking at right now.
Sure, absolutely.
First, I just want to comment on a couple of things that were said.
So, Godfather, you know, that level I was looking at, if you actually look at the S&P futures808, that's like the major, major support I was looking for,
which kind of coincides very closely with the 200-week moving average.
So maybe the bottom is in here, at least for now, right?
It could always go lower later.
But, yeah, I think the risk is to the upside
and been looking for longs here today.
So I agree with you on that.
Also, big kudos out to you on that VIX you were talking about.
I mean, you absolutely nailed it.
We were on the Benzinga Show live last Wednesday when you're like, VIX, volatility is underpriced here.
I don't understand why people are buying stocks going into this binary event.
So you really led our community very nicely with UVXY on both sides of it, right?
And now you're shorting that volatility.
So just absolutely brilliant job on that.
Last thing I just want to answer to MoneyMark here.
The reason I didn't make any changes to my retirement account, we're like opposite here,
that's crazy amazing that you're able to make those kind of changes with big money.
You know, when I was younger, my retirement account was much smaller.
I was very aggressive because I was like trying to get to the next level.
But now that it's a nice, you know, number, I tend to be more conservative with it.
conservative with it. I'm like, I can't touch this money for a decade anyway. But one thing I want to
I'm like, I can't touch this money for a decade anyway.
say is that that could impact people listening is, you know, in past situations here, whether it was
the COVID crash, or the great financial crisis, in both cases, I was able to recognize that we're
about to crash really bad. And I, and I did go to like big cash positions and maybe even, you know, not too
much shorting, to be honest, but big cash because I don't really shorten my retirement account. But
I did go to big cash positions and I felt like a genius and I avoided like another 20, 30 percent
drop in both cases. But in both cases, I didn't get back into the market until we went back above
the previous high.
Now, back then, I had other full-time jobs to keep me busy. Maybe that's part of it.
But I think that is a risk for the average person who's not completely engaged. And if they check out of the market now and they feel like a genius, they've waited a drop, I think the average person
would not get back in until they're sure. They're like, okay, we're back above the previous high.
And then where did that put you when you're talking about a long-term retirement
account so you got to kind of know yourself and your situation and the time you have and your
personality you know can you get back in the lows there's a lot of factors here there's not one right
answer for everybody um so there's that yeah ben that that's a great point and the thing is is like
i don't think of it as you know making a great move or being some kind of genius.
It's just having been in the market and I observed the market since 1986, got in the market in 94.
term market you know I got the charts going back to 1915 every single time the
market has hit the top line you've had an opportunity to buy at a cheaper price
and and the only two exceptions and these aren't even exceptions it was just
they would test your your conviction was 1929 when the market went really crazy above those lines and eventually you saw a crash to catastrophic levels and the Internet bubble.
When you have that famous irrational exuberance speech in 1996 and the market continued higher for three years after that, you still got a chance to buy lower than it was in 1996 eventually.
So the odds are just in your favor and you say, well, we're in a place where every single time I can buy cheaper and I get to make 4% on my money in the meantime. So you kind of do that. And the
point there that you made, the best point you made is, are you going to get back in at the right time?
And what you have to do is scale in. Down 10%, buy a little bit. Down 20%, buy more. Down 30%,
buy a ton more. You should be largely invested by the time the market's down 30% to 40% because
12 months after a 30% drawdown, the market is up like 90% of the time. So it's just playing the
odds. Yeah. Awesome. Great, great management. You're not only a great analyst, you're great
at execution. Good job. Now, let me move over. I'm going to just talk about one stock because
I took too much time here.
My three core positions in my trade account are Berna, Kodak, and ASCS.
If anyone wants to talk about ASCS and Berna, go ahead. When it's your turn.
Kodak, though, I doubled down my position on Kodak today.
I put an alert in my Discord community as a four-pillar pick.
It's the first four-pillar pick idea I have in like a couple months because, you know, kind of been in that orange, red alert, yellow alert thing.
So I haven't been giving out high-conviction trade ideas.
But I did give it out.
And, you know, my trade ideas, when they're high-conviction,
it's based on our four pillars of sentiment, catalysts, fundamentals, and technicals.
And I think Kodak has all of it going for it right now.
The reason I've been – and by the way, all three of these, Kodak, ASCS, and Berna, this
morning before the fake news came out and before SPY turned green, all three of these
were either green or almost green, showing a lot of relative strength in these names.
And there were a lot of names this morning, by the way, that were showing a lot of strength
in green while the SPY was still down 1% to 2%, which was a great thing.
Ben, real fast, what's the ticker for Burna, just to have that out there for everyone?
BYRN.
They report on Thursday earnings, by the way, on CPI Morning.
But in any case, lost my train of thought, Kodak.
Okay.
So, oh, I was saying there was a lot of relative strength in a lot of stocks this morning,
which I think is another sign that SPY is ready to have it pop on any kind of catalyst.
But in any case, Kodak, I've doubled down.
It's a focus of mine now because there is potentially a near-term catalyst on tariffs.
Trump has been talking about pharma tariffs in addition to everything he's done. And he said, you know, we don't know when, but apparently there's going to be more tariffs announced soon.
And one of those sectors is pharma.
Now, Kodak in order to build
pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities or facility in the United States. That loan was later rescinded
because of inside trader allegations, which later they were vindicated about that. It wasn't even
anyone internal to Kodak. It was other people who maybe had that news, but there was like a bad aura around
this, whatever. They pulled that loan. In any case, Kodak still went ahead of building this
pharmaceutical manufacturing facility with their own money. And it's taken them years to do it.
On the most recent conference call, the CEO said that this facility will, will launch this year.
Didn't give a specific date, but he said it will launch this year.
And this is a certified good manufacturing practice facility approved by the FDA to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients.
This is exactly the area that Trump has been talking about.
That's a, you know, I don't know, national security risk or whatever,
just a very important industry that they want to onshore. So Kodak is ready with this facility
this year, roughly at the same time that Trump is talking about pharmaceutical tariffs. So I think
there's a chance that sometime in the next few months, who knows, maybe it'll happen next week,
Trump will come out, announce these tariffs and showcase Kodak as a great American company who's now producing pharmaceutical active
ingredients here in the United States.
Now, that's just the icing on the cake.
You have a fundamental turnaround in this company.
You have other tariffs that were instituted in November, which could increase their revenue
by like 20% this year. These are photo printing tariffs that now Kodak is the only domestic manufacturer of them
because their two competitors left the market.
Kodak stayed with it.
They asked the Biden administration for tariffs.
They got it in November, a couple weeks after the election.
I'm not sure if the politics had anything to do with the timing,
but they were awarded those tariffs like an average of 100% on China and Japan.
So that alone from those tariffs can see Kodak increase revenue
by maybe 20% or more this year, depending on, I don't know,
I've done some research with different AIs.
And I'm also coming up with a fair the in the 20s on Kodak
if they do get this increase in their printing plates on those tariffs. But now we have pharma
tariffs and a whole new business line for Kodak and a possible event with Trump, great American
company. And you have oversold levels. You have, you know, 450 massive support, which I didn't
quite get to. Don't forget the pension. And then they have the pension. Oh money mark. Are you into Kodak?
And then they got the pension monetization which will reduce their debt. So yes Kodak is my picture you guys
And I hope it works out. Thank you everyone
Well money mark while you're up here go ahead and jump in see if you have any picks or anything on
your mind yeah you know one thing i didn't say in the opening part is if you look at a if you look
at a chart going from like december 1st to now on the russell or what have you you can draw a nice
little channel and we are at the bottom of that channel. It's a descending channel, of course, because the market's going down. We're at the bottom end of that channel. So,
you know, we are short-term oversold. Now, from a stock perspective, same stock as last week.
The one thing that I will tell you, though, is as I get interested in my traditional names,
a good way to get into them, and I think this was said by one of the other panelists, is you can start selling puts with the volatility that's out there, right? If you have a
stock that's sitting at 10, and you can sell the 10 puts for two bucks, and I do have stocks that
have that profile, you know, go go ahead now you're buying the stock
for eight effectively right you're giving up upside above 12 but you're taking in two bucks
at worst and you know at best you're buying the stock at eight if the stock continues lower
so that's one way of doing that now from um the stock perspective i'm just going to reiterate geodrill g e o df it's ge o on the toronto exchange
for any canadians out there so g e o df trading well below the street value of the drills that
they have they're an outsourced driller they'll take the gold out of the ground if you have some
gold in your backyard they don't deal with your backyard they're dealing with like newmont you
know major gold players out there on multi-year contracts to get the gold out of the ground and as long as gold
is anywhere near i mean the gold has to go down like 30 percent before it has any impact on geo
drills business there is demand for drills the gold miners are scrambling to get more drills because
they haven't seen an environment like this where gold is up, not in the last two days,
but for the last several months and oil prices are going down. Don't forget, lower oil is good
for gold miners because that's their major expense. And then gold prices is their revenue.
So that continues to be the
one where you've got value there. The lower that goes, the more attractive it becomes because
you're paying less than the price of their drills and you're getting the whole business,
all their contracts and everything for free effectively.
There's a headline that's hitting, I heard it on the the news car i haven't seen it on the wires yet
but uh around the eu and some counter tariffs right there we just saw some volatility in the
market i'll see if i can get that full headline in a minute in the meantime kyle i want to go
over to you and see if you've got any uh any things on your radar yeah um i'll just go ahead and talk about one right now. It's Emtron Industries.
The ticker is MPTI.
So they're a small defense micro cap, around 115 million market cap.
They make precision control and spectrum control solutions.
I know most people probably don't know what that means, but to kind of keep it short, it's components that are critical for missiles, drones, planes, and radars.
Exactly the thing that the administration cares about today.
So over the last 90 days, and why I really like the stock where it is, is they've actually landed three eight-figure contracts.
And the last one just came last week, I think last Thursday.
So probably the worst time to announce news.
But they got another one for $12 million from Airbus and Boeing.
So the stock did get dragged down last week.
And right now, I actually have the company at a backlog of over $65 million,
which is at least four to five quarters of work. And the company is extremely conservative with
guidance. But earlier this year, before even all of these contracts came in, they were expecting
double-digit growth and their margins to expand even closer to 50%. So I think there's a lot of uncertainty, especially with defense spending going forward.
But when I look at what this administration really cares about today,
it's the drones, the missiles, the radars are all going to be critical pieces.
And this is one of those small defensive players that's going to be a major supplier to all of the tier one Boeings and Airbuses and all of them.
So when I look at the ticker is MPTI, the P is just say 15 and it's expecting over double digit growth for this year.
And I think the news kind of was good last week, but the market still reacted negatively to it.
So the ticker is MPTI, it's Emtron Industries.
The full headline on that, thank you there, Kyle, appreciate it.
The full headline on that, European Commission proposes, that's the term here, 25% tariff on U.S. goods to take effect May 16th.
The full headline, it just came out there.
I wanted to get that out to all the people. And Kyle, appreciate you going through that name
right there, Imtron Industries. And let's see, Dougie Fresh, let's go over to you next.
And thank you for clarifying that meeting, because all I knew is it was a closed door
meeting. I actually didn't really know if it was a special meeting or not.
So thank you for actually letting everybody know because I didn't even know that.
And the SPY is not even looking bad right now on Amazon's way up.
But anyway, Kodak, I'll run through real quick, Ben.
Dude, they were great picks right there.
Kodak busting up right there.
It's up right now, kind of at 566, looking great.
Your ASTS, that AST Space Mobile, is really setting up to be bullish and trying to
get rolling it's a little it's trying to cruise now just watch for it to pull back if it can pull
back a little bit more i don't even know if it will and that other one burning holy cow that one
probably looks the best trying to curl up off the macd and come out you're right they do have
earnings what the 10th is uh a couple of days right there.
So yeah, that one looks real good. I usually stay away from earnings, but that looks great.
And then I just found two on the scanner. And again, guys, I don't do much research on
what the companies do or anything like that. I look at charts and BBAI is looking good. I know
we've talked about it before on here, big bear, but it is setting up. It's about to roll off that
MACD and it has, it's right in between two support lines. it's about to roll off that macd and it has
it's right in between two support lines it's going to jump up there and go up so that one looks really
good and then also that wulf the terror wolf is starting to curl back up and looks better so it
did pull back with the market but it is starting to base out and looks better there so there's two
to look at and again
They're kind of just setting up for a quick run-ups there and obviously the markets way down in a little wild now
so you can just play these quick pop-ups and
Because they are it's very volatile like you guys said so it's a great trading opportunity
And then just seek out the ones that you like and catch them bottom. So there you go.
Appreciate that, Dougie.
And, yeah, of course, it wasn't a shot at you at all.
I know a lot of people were looking at that headlines going around this morning about emergency meeting and stuff.
Just wanted to clarify that out.
But definitely not a shot at Dougie.
We do appreciate those thoughts there as well on Kodak and Spy.
Yeah, Spy, just green on the day, slightly green on the day.
Trying to reclaim into Friday's range a little bit.
We'll see if it's able to hold on to any of this slow push up that it's kind of ground up since we started the space, actually.
Godfather, I want to go over to you next and see what's on your radar trading wise.
And of course, I know some of you have already mentioned this.
I do want to make this clear for the audience.
A lot of people up here have mentioned trading the downside or a lot of protection to the
downside.
So please keep that in mind.
And of course, anything on here, not a recommendation, but something to definitely put on your watch
list and do further due diligence on.
further due diligence on. And with that, Godfather, go ahead, jump in.
And with that, Godfather, go ahead, jump in.
Yeah, just to add a few more macro comments as they are relative to small caps specifically.
Look, when you've got a liquidity pull environment, which is what we have now,
buyer strike, however you want to call it, small caps get disproportionately affected.
Small caps get disproportionately affected.
Right now, I think there are more opportunities.
I think the stats of Goldman were something like 35% of all the volume on the exchanges are driven by ETFs.
I see more opportunities, and I'm certainly more focused on the trade side of my account, playing these macro things like shorting volatility, etc. But,
you know, I do think that it comes to the small caps advantage as we go closer to the end of the
year. Eventually, we're going to get some more certainty in this market. Volatility is going to crush. The market will again turn its focus to earnings and fundamentals will again
matter. So, you know, it's uncertain environments like this that I think, you know, should provide
everybody, you know, with a reminder that they need to own quality through every market.
And if you do, then, you know, you're not going to run away when things go on sale.
And, you know, all these names that I mentioned in the preamble, I'll mention again, Root,
Mind, M-I-N-D, AGX, OpFi, OPFI.
D, AGX, OpFi, OPFI. These are all names with fundamentals that are
completely defensible. These are companies that don't need capital. These are companies with
expanding top lines and margins. These are companies that have, for various reasons, leadership in their
groups. And I think all of these things can be added to, you know, in periods of dislocation
in the market like this. I think there's fabulous sales happening in all of these names.
Last week, I focused on a short idea, that being GRRR, and the reason I did was A, I thought it was fraud, and B, they were about to report earnings.
The stock was $27 last Monday. It's now traded as low as $17. If you shorted that, kudos to you. If you're still short, even greater kudos to you.
I covered much too early, but nonetheless, even greater kudos to you. I covered
much too early, but nonetheless, it was a nice wind at your back type trade.
I don't feel the same in this market a week later in terms of, you know, the relative risk reward to
short ideas. I actually, you know, like the market more from the long side here, despite the fact that I think we could
easily fall another 5%. On that theme of focusing on names where there are near-term
catalysts, Berna was mentioned multiple times. We talked at length about this name on last week's
space. So I won't go on about it, but the earnings are on Thursday. They did more or
less pre-announce, so I don't expect a lot of excitement with respect to the actual Q1 earnings,
but I think they're going to talk about both their retail rollout strategy, that being stores
within stores at Sportsman's Warehouse, et cetera, et cetera. And the bigger part of the picture being the rollout of their
smaller form factor launcher, which is a higher margin product. And if you look at the pre-announced
numbers in Q1 and you look at the volumes, it's indicating 40% growth. If you look at consensus
estimates, they're indicating 22.5% growth.
A, consensus estimates are too low, and B, the multiple crush that we've seen makes this anything below, in my opinion, $17, $18, an absolute steal.
I think you're going to see this thing trade right back up into the mid-20s within a couple of months' time.
right back up into the mid-20s within a couple of months' time.
The other name I wanted to mention today specifically because they have
an analyst day or an investor day tomorrow is AGX.
This is Argan.
Again, this is an EPC company, Engineering, Procurement, Construction.
They effectively make power plants or build power plants.
Their specialty is in natural gas complex power plants.
This is an area of the market where most people left.
Essentially, we had no power load growth in the U.S. since the global financial crisis in 2008. So a lot of folks left
this business. Basically, Kiewit and Argan are the two main players in these super complex
natural gas powered facilities construction. And the drivers haven't gone anywhere, right? Trump's reshoring and
re-industrializing mandate actually makes the story stronger. You know, the other elements of
demand drive here also aren't going anywhere. Whether you believe AI data center is slowing or
not, every single one of these guys will still point to electricity and power demand as being
the biggest limiting factor.
And then, of course, you've got the EV charging infrastructure and electrification of everything.
So these guys reported they essentially doubled consensus estimates.
Their backlog was up 96 percent.
It's due to double again in short order. There's essentially a notice to
proceed for one major contract that they could frankly announce tomorrow. It's an imminent thing.
They showed 20% increase in margins on a sequential basis. Their pricing power has never been better. Like I said, their backlog
has never been better. And just to get to peer valuations, this stock should be trading in the
150 to 170 range. In fact, I think it should be 170 plus. But when they announced those earnings,
the stock went from 115 to 150. We played that well
in our Discord. There was an opportunity to buy it this morning, which I missed around 115. But
even here at 125, you're now around six and a half times EV EBITDA. It should be 10 plus. So
near-term catalyst, assuming nothing happens in terms of the bottom falling out
of this market between today and tomorrow, which of course is possible. Again, this is something
that I think provides a near-term trade opportunity, but more importantly, I think this is a fabulous
small cap name to hold in your long-term account. And you simply dollar cost average as it goes lower.
That's it.
Beautiful.
Well, we are at the top of the hour here.
Ariel, if you're still with us, would love to see.
I know you don't do individual picks,
but would love to see if you had any thoughts to kind of wrap up on here.
Yeah, sure, guys.
I'll be quick.
So, again, inflation has been the talk quite a bit.
Again, top-down kind of look.
But then when you start looking bottom-up, what companies benefit when you're going to see most likely a rate that's going to be dropped, right, by the Fed?
And that's real estate to me.
So I've been definitely looking at that industry and looking at, you know, a lot of
times what we've been hearing is real estate's terrible, things are going down, inventory's
going up. But I'm actually looking forward to playing that space. I'm not saying just
home builders, but across the board, you know, so that's something that, you know, like that's
one thing I just wanted to point out there for everybody that when they're looking at
individual stocks. So that's one thing I just wanted to point out there for everybody when they're looking at individual stocks.
So that's my take here.
Appreciate those thoughts.
I do want to see if anybody does have any final thoughts as we close out here.
Would love for them to jump in.
Ben, do you want to go ahead and kick that off?
Yeah, just a minute with Berna,
which is an uncomfortably large position for me, to tell you the truth.
And I may sell some covered calls before the ER on Thursday or just lighten my load a little bit.
But as we head into earnings season, I think one of the things to think about, in my view, numbers don't matter at all.
to think about, in my view, numbers don't matter at all, whether they're just reported numbers,
revenue, EPS, even if there's guidance, which there won't be for most companies, but there
might be for some of the smaller ones that are more domestic. I think the key is going to be
any language in the press release about impact of tariffs on their business, and then also then in the conference call.
I think sentiment is going to reign in things that really can't be calculated so well.
So that's something to consider, and it's something I'm going to be considering.
When I look at this Berna press release, which is the headlines are probably going to be beautiful.
You know, I'm going to jump right to that section. There probably will be a few lines in the press release, and I'll make a judgment if those few lines
are good enough for me. They've talked about tariffs before and how there's really no impact
on them, but that was before these just got expanded. So will the expanded now tariffs
have an impact on them? I want to see what those two or three lines are and what adjectives
they use and how they represent that.
And then I'm also going to tune into the conference call to see how they talk about that.
So it's a very dangerous environment for ERs.
I don't want to say dangerous, but sensitive environment where any qualitative comments
on tariffs going forward is really going to be the driver in the stock price, in my opinion.
So just be careful and be aware of that
as we head into earnings season.
All right.
Anybody else with any final comments?
Speak now or forever hold your peace.
You know, I would say just, you know,
as I mentioned earlier,
for those of you, if you don't know what say just, you know, as I mentioned earlier, for those of you,
if you don't know what it means to sell puts, look it up on YouTube, look it up on AI,
learn about selling puts. That's the number one thing that I'm doing right now. I haven't
made many trades at all, but I am starting to sell puts to start getting exposure to on the long side, even though I know that we can have
more of a drawdown to come. If we at least get a bounce, those sold puts will go lower in value,
which is to your benefit because you sold them. And if we go straight down from here,
then you're going to be buying some of your favorite names at lower price. So learn about
that stuff. Education is critical and environments like this are great education to make you rich in the future.
Fantastic point there from Money Mark.
Definitely, definitely check that out.
Definitely go do some learning, do some education around trading,
especially if you are newer to this game.
Education is so massive in this. I think that's a great way to wrap this up.
Appreciate everyone that tuned in. Make sure you follow all of these great speakers that
spend their time with us each and every Monday at 1 Eastern. You have Ariel from Catalyst Capital.
We have Money Mark up here. You see Dougie Fresh, The Godfather, Kyle Adams,
and then of course our co-host Ben over at Story Trading. Appreciate that. We do have more spaces
coming up. We have Stocks on Spaces starting around Power Hour. Once that's done, we have
our Stock Picks for the Week show, which will be very interesting. Tune in later. Spoiler alert,
I may have knocked off Ben here on the last day. We'll see what
happens, how the rest of this day plays out. And yeah, we've got a lot more content coming up,
a lot of content for the rest of the week as well. So make sure you follow Wolf Financial,
of course, right here, this account that's hosting. We put out our schedule each and
every Sunday for all the content we have. Also, Stocks on Spaces, our other family of accounts as well. Evan's been running a lot
of spaces himself. I know last night we were live for around six hours. We had some big guests on
last week as well. If you haven't been tuning in, Dan Niles, Dan Ives, Tom Lee have all been
on interviews in the past few days with us, and we have a few more lined up this week. So
make sure you check that out. We appreciate everyone that tuned in and we will see you
guys on the next space. Thanks all for tuning in and take care. Thank you.
