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STOCK MARKET TALK
Recorded: March 11, 2026 Duration: 2:36:24Space Recording
Full Transcription
All right. all right all right what is up everybody i appreciate you guys joining us back here for
another day of stocks on spaces i'm in another new location in another new airbnb let's hope
we get some good wi-fi on this one here it has been quite the day quite the couple
weeks boy am I tired but nothing gets me more exhilarated accelerate exhilarated well then
being able to come here and hang out with all of you so shout out to the the 40 of you who came in
here instantly right off the start another interesting day in the stock market, individual stock portfolio is basically
breakeven. The ETF portfolio is down 0.2%. Qs are down by 0.1. VOO is down by 0.3. So we have a day
where the NASDAQ 100 tech names are slightly outperforming the S&P 500. Again, I have a NASDAQ
30 ETF, which is up by 0.2%. So NASDAQ outperforming SPY, big cap tech outperforming
normal rest of the NASDAQ type of there. So that is the environment that we have going on
right here. We obviously had the Oracle earnings yesterday, a lot of other stuff going on in this
market, meta platforms. We had a lot of stuff around oil and gas. IEA members agreed to release
400 million
barrels of oil to help get prices lower. That would be their biggest increase that they've had.
There's a lot of conversations around Japan and Germany, also doing similar type-ish things.
Yeah, overall, an interesting news day in the stock market. As always, in the bottom right
of your screen, there is a Spaces chat. Right now. There's nothing down there, but if you guys want to put any thoughts, any questions, any stocks, you want
us to look at all of that good stuff, put that down in the bottom right of your screen. I appreciate
everyone for joining us hanging out here on this one. I'll send out some invites. We're gonna have
a fantastic spaces as always. I think we might be having Roy Crossroads joining us. He's been able to join us on a couple of these Wednesdays.
But yeah, I appreciate everyone for hanging out with us today.
Let's start us off here, Mr. Options.
Mike, how you doing, sir?
I'm good.
Yourself?
I'm doing well.
I am doing well.
It's been quite the crazy week.
We are past the hump of the craziness.
You got another crazy week next week, man.
We got another crazy week after that.
And then the weekend after that, we got stuff.
So we are in a busy time for Evan.
Which I'm excited to come out of it and just stay at home, do nothing, and get to recover.
But yeah, those next couple days shouldn't be too bad.
Got to be at the beach.
I got some merch today.
Leverage Shares sent us some merch
I'm wearing a BMNG
a 2X BMNR hat
let's give it some luck
I got some two merch today as well
I'll bring it to you
I got a lot of hats
but what's going on in this market
what are you watching
we're stuck here
we had that nice day move up yesterday and then, you know,
sorry, Monday.
Yesterday we tried to push, couldn't hold.
And today we've kind of just been all over the place.
We're just off the lows right now.
We really haven't gone anywhere.
But the market's just sitting here.
It's it's feels like it's just waiting.
You know, we're very headline driven right now.
You get little comments out by Trump or some headline on this and that.
And the market gyrates one way or the other, but tends to be short lived.
We're not seeing, you know, big moves necessarily off of that.
Oracle had a nice report yesterday.
They're been slowly drifting, giving it all back today, but they're still up a good amount here.
You know, that's good to see.
I mean, I think that's really important for the market uh for that one to hold here uh couldn't
hold the 50 day though so we'll keep an eye on that honestly today for me it's uh it was really
just about uh trying to take a little trade i had a nice trade with stock on oracle and then i jumped
on calls on tesla as it was smothered with flow and tesla looks so good and then it jumped on calls on Tesla as it was smothered with flow and Tesla looks so good and
then it just the flow turned it gave it back it tried to break the 21 day it got well above it
all the way up to the 417 area now it's all the way back down to 406 it's off 10 bucks off the
highs still up on the day but not the easiest of action here and I keep trying to say that to
everybody less is more you're in a headline driven market you need to be you know your size need to size appropriately here and not try to kill it you know overall though you
know intel holding up nicely you know intel pushed above yesterday's highs holding in micron sandus
came running back today so overall the market is just hanging out it's chilling out you know
You know, do I am I tired of this action yet?
do i am i tired of this action yet i'll be the first to admit it i've had enough of this
I'll be the first to admit it.
I've had enough of this.
It just seems like this endless chop we've been stuck in.
And, you know, typically when you can't find buyers in a market like this, you need to go lower to find buyers.
So I would love to see this market roll over and go find some buyers.
It just doesn't want to.
And it really just is very content to chop around, continue overall with this sideways action.
I know crude is I know the energy and the stocks are up today, but crude is really doing nothing here. is very content to chop around, continue overall with this sideways action.
I know crude is, I know the energy and the stocks are up today,
but crude is really doing nothing here.
Crude is still under 90.
As long as it stays under 90, you know, I think we're okay.
Break up 90 and start pushing again and could go back and try to retest those highs we had from very early a.m. on Monday morning.
And that would signal some more problems for the market if that was to happen.
But nothing's really changed here.
It's kind of been just a quiet day,
a lackluster day in the markets.
And I don't think I've taken a trade since like 9 o'clock.
So I've really been just sitting here,
I'm sorry, 10 o'clock,
sitting here just watching the action
and just nothing is really exciting me too much.
Do you ever trade pre-market sometimes yes interesting what about post-market you a 5 p.m trader ever
uh i trade i trade um earnings names right after on the close with stock i love to do that
i will trade futures based upon the market sometimes if there's an event going on or i
think something's going on late in the evening hours or early morning but i like my sleep evan and there's always plenty of
opportunity during the day so i generally um after long days here i try to tune it out other than
checking futures in the news every once in a while throughout the evening and try not to be sitting
in front of my computer trading yeah brian lund living on the west coast Is going to bed at 8pm Waking up at 3.30
What's your go to bed wake up time look like?
I generally go to bed around 9
I usually get up between 4.30 and a quarter to 5
And you guys will see
I'm posting publicly on Twitter
Before 6 o'clock in the morning
Nice
I'm just curious
Don't lie Mike, that's your assistant
We know it.
You're scheduling the post.
You mean Duke?
Yeah.
Is that your dog?
Yeah.
He does a great job for paws, man.
Let me tell you.
Sometimes you fat paws it, though, so that's not good.
Yeah.
You know, when he takes trade sometimes, you see those weird candles.
Like, you know, he accidentally put way too much on.
I do got to say, it is pretty difficult for me.
One of the first things I'll do in my bed when I wake up is check what's going on in the world if I need to get a tweet up.
I consistently get when it's EPS and it's negative EPS.
I can never get it right when it's a beat or a miss, obviously, because a negative 0.1 is a higher number than negative 0.2.
But for some reason, I continuously get that wrong in the morning.
It's a difficult start today.
And that's always tough, right?
And, you know, there's so many numbers out there.
Everybody always says, well, why are your numbers different than what I'm seeing?
Well, because there's so many different numbers that are put out there, right?
You just choose the ones that you think are the most reliable.
That's about it.
Yeah, the truth of the matter is, with all data and information,
there are a lot of different numbers that come out.
What's happening with these analyst expectations
is they're taking an average of X number of analysts.
So Bloomberg might be looking at 30,
maybe Reuters has 15,
maybe this other source has 22,
and maybe one has 40.
So the numbers can change a little bit.
But the truth of the matter is,
whatever number gets printed out on the Bloomberg terminal is the one that the market takes as accurate.
For better or for worse, it doesn't matter if every other one is saying a different source,
whatever Bloomberg terminal is saying is what the market is going to react to, I believe.
And analyst expectations are important because even like a lot of these numbers,
whenever an earnings comes out, you might see some really fantastic
numbers beating internal expectations,
huge growth rates.
But if it's not beating the Atlas expectations,
the stock is not going to move higher.
Especially on forward guidance as well.
Guidance is always big.
Guidance is everything.
Brian Lund, how are we doing? Sir, you got any thoughts
you want to throw into the mix here to get us started?
I might have one or two.
I just tagged you in a tweet.
So hopefully this is an image you can throw in the nest or the cauldron
or whatever the hell they're calling it now.
And look, we're all frustrated here, like Mike talked about,
like Scott's talked about, like we've been talking about for weeks.
I'm trying to find some green shoots without curve fitting too much.
And one of the things that I have been noticing for the last week or so, and I've been pointing it out to subscribers in our trading room,
is for the first time in a long time, it looks like there's a little bit of relative strength in the Qs.
there's a little bit of relative strength in the Qs.
The way you can see this on the chart I just posted is if you look at the 5th of February,
which was for the Qs and the SPX, that was the third day in a row that we broke down, right?
The first day started with a reversal bar that we followed through.
The next day, I guess that would have been the fourth.
And then the fifth was a follow through.
We didn't quite see a breakdown in the IWM and the Dow, but those were both down on that day as well.
If you use that as the key day, right, when we really kind of broke down, the queues are above that day.
They are still in a range.
They've basically gone sideways and they're above that day.
Whereas if you look at the SPX, the Dow, and the IWM,
they're all significantly below that day.
So that's just showing that the market has been able to push those three indexes lower
and hasn't been able to push the Qs lower.
Now, part of that could be because the tech sell-off started first.
We started seeing some weakness in tech way before.
But that could also tell us that maybe we're closer to being done.
So, again, this is not significant unless we see some price action that keys off of it.
Why I point it out is when you get a sector that's beaten up for so long, the MAG-7 or tech, whatever, at some point, people just take their eye off the ball.
They go, ah, forget it, right?
It's beaten up.
I've seen this play numerous times.
That's usually the time that the market decides
that it's going to do a different play.
So just keep an eye on the cues.
Keep an eye on some of those names in the tech area
that have been beaten down.
See if they start showing better relative strength.
Those could be the next market leaders
if we end up challenging all-time highs
in the next weeks or months.
I did get that tweet pinned up in the list above.
It is to the right of the one that StockTalk put up there.
My man.
There we go.
It is actually super easy.
If you click the thing on the right side,
the download, the up side, the download,
like the up arrow
and the thing below it,
you'll be able to get into the spaces.
Is that on mobile
or is that on desktop?
Both.
Both, actually.
I know it does work on both.
But you have to like,
it has to be the one that you're in.
So if you are on the desktop
but you're not in the spaces
on the desktop,
it won't work.
But if your computer is in it,
it will work.
Got it. Appreciate you as always. And I will say, the only request that I have but you're not in the spaces on the desktop, it won't work. But if your computer is in it, it will work.
Got it.
Appreciate you, as always.
And I will say, the only requests that I have for the speakers who are coming in and hanging out with us,
I guess maybe there are a couple requests,
but the main one is feel free to jump back in on the conversation.
I feel like these are the best whenever they're free-flowing.
Smart people talking to other smart people.
You don't need me coming in and say,
interesting point in between, as Brian Lund would like to point out.
But I did see Wolfie joining us up here.
Wolfie, I know we're talking a little bit in the DMs.
This is a chop market.
This is not one that is super fun.
A lot of the theme that people have been talking about here is,
you know, Larry Thompson, Hostile Charts was talking yesterday.
It's a great time to go on a hike, live life a little bit,
see some nature, you know. Maybe go outside, touch to go on a hike. Live life a little bit. See some nature.
Maybe go outside.
Touch some grass.
Talk to a female if anyone does dare.
No, don't do that.
Don't do that.
Don't do the last one.
That's a little crazy.
It's crazy, dude. Don't do that unless you're ready.
And if you think you're ready, you're not ready.
Just trust me.
That's like my rule for shorting a stock.
Keep waiting, keep waiting, keep waiting. And then when you think you're 100 for shorting a stock like keep waiting keep waiting
keep waiting and then when you think you're 100%
ready to short it keep waiting
and keep
Wolfie tell me more how are you
feeling in this market it's a chop market
tell me more about the women or tell me more about the stocks
let's start with the stocks
and let's do a little sandwich here let's hit with the women let's go to the stocks let's do a little a
little sandwich here let's hit with the women let's go to the stocks and then
close off with a good one liner uh you asked I was I just want no I know no I'm
just trying to trying to think I have put it for you I I mean it depends on
where you live but there's's a couple sandwich spots in Southern California to go to.
No, I think basically when you have a war conflict or something that's kind of like headline grabbing, you get benchmarks or you get like inflection points.
Usually it's like the start. Usually when there's an inflection that, you know, kind of gives direction.
And then if and when at the end you get some sort of like potential resolution, like those are usually where you get the extremes.
In between there, like people always talk about these, the anecdote of like sausage making I think like that's what we're getting now.
I think when this was first starting like what was the I think was the fix trading at like 15 or
something like that. I was on here I was saying it's not a bad time to buy like some volatility
just kind of like hedge yourself go out three to six months depending on what you want. Get some, you know, tail exposure, but also get
like some short term stuff. But like when you get moves that go from that 15 point to like the 30s
where we got effectively your, you know, your average true range on a stock, whatever each stock
moves in a given day, that doubles. So your position sizing, if you want to participate has to be basically cut in half
or less um and then you know and where we're at i don't think there's like a real edge like you
know when when i was on here in november and like october i was like i think you know this uh
multi-polar thing that we're going to makes makes the energy play asymmetric enough to be a good risk reward i think when you're up here
it's not um i see i also see like a lot of people are like okay well i can go short oil well the
problem with that is like you know once once the implied volatility on this stuff gets to where
it's at um most people aren't really trading you know uh shorting commons or doing any of that
stuff most people are doing the options front well now you're you're effectively going to eat Most people aren't really trading, you know, shorting commons or doing any of that stuff.
Most people are doing the options front.
Well, now you're effectively going to eat.
Every day that you get, like the last two days, is basically going to eat at your premium and it's going to decay, right?
So it's not really an opportune time to kind of do stuff like that.
The more opportune stuff to look for, in my opinion, is just like some of these names that get kind of left for dead or get dislocated or come down to levels.
So, you know, I talked about, I think, HIMSS, I think the last time or one of the last times I was on, I was like, you know, it's trading up against this like 14, 15 level.
It's been destroyed.
I understand that there's the Novo, there's all that stuff.
But like, you know, at some point it's worth a shot.
You know, if I flip it, you can look at Novo now.
It's trading against 38.
It's pretty, you know, it's pretty low value.
It's basically left for dead.
Anything kind of swing it.
Anything that can kind of turn on a headline would probably pop this thing like 15-20%.
So like, and I'm, and I have a position in both. So I have a small position now in HIMSS after the
run up, I sold most of it. But I also have a position in Novo, for example. You know, but like,
I think it's a market in this environment, You want to trade specific stories, specific setups, and then specific like mean reversions.
And it's more easy to trade like mean reversions to the upside.
So if you just take a look at like Papa John's, for example, Papa John's for the last like three years always has like these, you know, take out rumors.
And it's usually a Middle Eastern country that's going to take it out or something like that. But like, on a technical basis, if you look at it, it's effectively a double
bottom from April of last year, you know, gave you a $30 level to trade against. So
if that was something that you had in the back of your mind took a shot, you know, on
a day like today where the headline comes out,'re rewarded it's up like 25 or 20 or something like that but like you're rewarded uh for for
taking those shots and the asymmetries there um you know but once you have the moves that happen
so like if you look at like I think I think a few weeks ago I was on I was talking about like
software names having a five to ten percent or no a 5% basket of like 10 names of software.
The quality names that have gotten beaten up pretty much gives you, you know, enough asymmetry that if it works out, you could, you could, you know, really make good money.
And if it doesn't, then like you're buying like quality stuff.
I also said like you could sell, put premium for something that you're interested in, especially with implied volatility and skew that way so you know i think it's like that's kind of like where you're in it's kind of
like where you're at um i haven't really done much this week um you know that goes back to my saying
at the top if you you're not ready if you think you're ready to talk to a woman you're not and if
you if you're talking to a woman and you think you're ready and you think you're on it, you're going to get a curveball and you're not.
But, you know, I took some shots on some of these China names at the end of the week last week, particularly Baidu.
Just from the AI front, stock traded basically down to its 200-day.
Got a small pop, but like, you know, just set a stop and leave it.
Got a small pop, but like, you know, just set a stop and leave it.
I know Tesla hit its 200-day the last couple of weeks and days.
I know some people traded that.
I didn't.
I know NVIDIA hit its 200-day after a sell-off.
Some people traded that.
I didn't.
But that's basically like the environment you're in.
You get these opportunities to take shots.
There's one I'm seeing right now, a little headline.
What's that? Billionaire Tillman Fertitta. uh billionaire tilman fertida fertida i don't know has been in exclusive talks to buy
caesar's entertainment czr for about seven billion dollars caesar's is now haunted to the upside
that's interesting um it's interesting because he owns the rockets so uh that's that's why it's interesting because he owns the Rockets. So, uh, that's, that's why it's interesting to me.
Good for Giorno.
Yeah.
No, but, uh, but, but outside of, outside of like taking these shots, like, I think,
you know, a lot of times we talk about like, what's the pain trade or like, what's the setup or whatever, like the, the most painful trade at some point.
And I don't know if this will be it or if it'll be in a few months, but the most painful trade will be if and when you have an elevated VIX, and I'm not talking like a 50 VIX, I'm talking like a VIX that's like in the 20s. And then that VIX has to come down. But at the same point in time, stocks sell off. So you get this like slow bleed drag where like the volatility comes in, but the market doesn't seem like it's working in favor of that volatility.
Right. So I think that that's the danger.
If I had to if I had to ballpark some sort of danger, I think what the I think it was Mike that was talking before me.
But speaking on like the queues, it might have been Brian or Mike, but speaking on the queues, I think, yeah, there's some bright spots and some stuff that's there.
My only hesitance there is the same hesitance I had when we were talking about software a few weeks ago where I was like, yeah, I think you can take a shot on some of these software names.
But the problem is once you get the run, how sustainable is it? I think that's the same thing for some of these software names. But the problem is, once you get the run, how sustainable is it?
I think that's the same thing for some of these Q names, right?
Like, I don't know how sustainable some of these moves are going to be.
So if it's, like, something that you've got your time horizon that's, like, five plus years or something,
like, that's a different game than the game I'm trying to play.
And I'm not going to speak to that. But I do think
that, you know, it's you're better rewarded taking shots on individual names or individual stories or
individual themes for whatever period of time that you're trying to take, as long as you've got the
thesis. So like Nebius is a good example of that bucking the trend today up 14%. I talked
about HIMSS this week. That's something that I happen to be in. You know, some of these memory
names, SanDisk, I think got down to its 50 day. You take a look at it today, it's up 4%. So things
like that, right? Like they're unique individual stories, individual names. But you take a look
at the market, markets like, you know, it's down 50 points on the NASDAQ. It's pretty flat. S&P is down 20. Not too much going on. That's effectively the way that I see it and where I'm at. opportunity to wait and to like, you know, study and to like, try to figure out what it is that you're going to do next. And in
my case, like I put out an annual packet every year, but in my
case, like go going through and trying to figure out like,
where's what what what I'm trying to get through. And that's
pretty much it. I'll leave it there.
I appreciate you for joining us as always, Wolfie. I think
sometimes people do forget and we've been having this
conversation on these spaces.
You don't always have to be in as a trader.
You don't always have to be in a trade at every single time.
Cash is the position and waiting for that market to get to a point where maybe we are on that.
I think when you look at this market, it's obviously not, we're in a chop market.
not we're in a chop market it's not giving us downwards momentum there is and as i believe it
It's not giving us downwards momentum.
was brian was saying earlier we kind of in this type of market you would generally expect it to
go to lower levels to find that price discoverability and and you know start to get some
health there but clearly this market doesn't want to do that and there's something in there and i
think it's the the market seems to think that this uh this war might end at some point that
we might just get a random headline.
I don't think it's the war that's really driving the market.
I mean, it's part of it.
You have to come back.
I mean, that is part of it, right?
That is really – that's one of the things.
But before the war started, we were having – again, it's the AI trade, the Cap 7, the AI trade that's been unwinding.
It's the whole government's been shut down for six weeks.
There's not been much talk about that, right?
We have just a lot of undercurrents here, little understories under the market.
The whole inflation is still holding higher and not coming in.
A lot of little things going on in this market that it's just not happy with.
And you're right.
It doesn't want to sell easily, but but doesn't want to go up either so it you know we probably get a pop if the war ends and you know
that that when the war ends i say but you know i don't know if that's the all clear to get in here
i really don't know that's going to drive it yeah if i if i just add like what when you
when you think about it like you know what know, what's the driver, right?
Like, where's your leadership?
You know, for the last few years, leadership's been like Oracle, Microsoft,
you know, the whole AI complex, right?
I think that the CapEx cycle for the last few months has been checked a little bit.
People are a little shaky on it.
I don't know if that changes, but if it changes, it'd be a good thing. But until that changes,
that doesn't drive it. If it's energy and energy prices, then you have the other side of that
anchor or the other side of that barbell, which is like inflation. Is there like a push on
inflation there? Do you have this like weird which is like inflation. Like, is there like a push on inflation there?
Do you have this like weird moment where like inflation doesn't come down, but it also doesn't
skyrocket?
Like you just kind of put the Fed in the box, you know?
So you have all these, like Mike was saying, you have all these like moving parts and a
lot of them are like idiosyncratic from one another and they kind of mean the opposite
of one another. So that's for me, I'm speaking for myself,
that's why I default in this current environment
to try to find either like special situations
or a mean reversion setup
or something that got discounted
or something that got dislocated
from net asset value or whatever.
And that's kind of like where where i'm at just
based off of that entire thing that he's saying and then like some of the other you know ancillary
parts to it yeah yeah that does make sense that does make sense i i do also think there was
definitely that weakness coming in before before this Iranian things happened. And maybe it was maybe somewhat new coming into it of seemed to die off a little bit, those kind of conversations.
And one thing that I also find interesting, Mike, that you brought up there is the government being shut down.
When it was shut down last time in December or whatever it was, there was a lot of conversations about that.
But this time, I don't even think it has at all.
I don't think there's really been much conversation.
It just started to see some headlines. It don't think there's really been much conversation. Just started to see some headlines.
It's the airports that's really driving those headlines,
right? Yeah, that, you know,
there's talking TSA lines are backing
up now. They're saying come four hours beforehand.
You're seeing TSA
was getting partially paid. Now they're going to be
moving to no paychecks moving forward.
So maybe they'll start to come a little bit to a head
there.
It is just interesting because that has not been a part of the,
well, I don't know if interesting is the right word,
but it's just not been a part of the conversation at all.
Like, I don't even know if we really talked about it on these spaces,
and I'm not saying we're the end-all be-all of what conversations are going on,
but I definitely don't think it's similar to what was happening
last time the government shut down.
So I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know.
So we've talked about this in the past as well.
The market can digest pretty much any negative headline that you throw at it.
It's once uncertainty gets into the question,
and it's once multiple negative headlines get into the question,
is when the market seems to struggle.
So, yeah.
I'll say one other thing.
The other thing is positioning.
Whenever you get extremes in positioning,
it's usually when you get some sort of tail one way or the other.
And when you get this slow and steady buildup,
whether it's positive or negative,
then whatever the positioning wants
unwinds the other way. So like when you get an environment where people aren't hedged and then
you get this like war headline and then it's just like headline after headline after headline to
then finally something happens, it forces people to kind of either flatten out or take a hedge or
whatever. And then from there, you would need like a real accelerant to like, you know,
have that shock value that you that you guys are talking about. So that's like the other
the other thing that I think is really important because like when things get to a point where
everyone's loaded the boat, it opens the it opens the door for, you know, some sort of
match being let to the downside. And then the opposite is true when like you know nobody nothing
good is like there's nothing but bad news it sets up an opportunity for like you know a mean reversion
that can catch people off sides as you saw in like some of these software names in the last few weeks
you got any thoughts on software we'll see i mean i know if you look at the last couple weeks
there's maybe some signs of a bottom there maybe you want to go and see it retest and create a
higher low um but is that an area of the market you're you're watching at all we have adobe
tomorrow yeah i mean when i talked about i mean adobe not so much like yeah adobe is like one of
those things like it how much is like how much is priced in?
So like if they say anything that's like better than feared,
you can see that stock rip, but like it's not so much.
But, you know, when we were talking about it in late February,
the one I gave as an example was CrowdStrike.
gave as an example was CrowdStrike. And at the time, CrowdStrike was trading at like
And at the time, CrowdStrike was trading at like $350-ish.
$350-ish. And if you went out just one month, for the $250 puts, you had to pay like $2
or something like that. And so I gave the example on this call that to me, a company
like that that was getting dislocated because people were like, I can use Claude to make my own security.
It was insane.
It's like, you know, no, no Fortune 500 company or head of security at a Fortune, or CTO at a Fortune 500 company is going to be like, you know what?
I'm going to take all of the risks that I'm paying CrowdStrike to take care of.
I'm going to onboard it to myself to save a few bucks.
No one's doing that in the short run.
So, you know, in those opportunities,
like I sold puts on-
It kind of goes back to that old saying,
nobody gets fired by hiring IBM.
You know, at least you have some possible
that ability that you're trying to do the other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Until things get like good enough and vetted enough, yeah.
But, and then like when we were seeing headlines like, oh, someone did such and such, it's like, no one's going to do that tomorrow. That's insane. that stock in particular traded at like 550 in November, and then in effectively two months is
down to 350. That's a real, that's a real sell off in a real name. And so that's a real market
cap being shed. So then you got to go, okay, well, is their business hurt? Did they have something
happen? And it's like, most of those answers are no, then if you're telling me that I can collect $2 for the stock
to go down another effectively 25% from there, well, the stock goes down another 25% from there.
I'm happy owning it because it's down 50% in like two and a half months. So I'm happy owning it as
long as the business itself isn't damaged. and I didn't think that there's anything
uh that was imminent with the business so you know you could pay you could uh you know sell
sell premium collect it and then and then in my case I bought calls as well but on the now the
inverse is true on the back of uh some of these run-ups you know I don't want to be long in the
tooth I just want to own at this
point what I'm comfortable owning for the next however many months or year or whatever. So I'm
happy to continue to hold a small position of CrowdStrike, for example. Another one was
ServiceNow. Team was another one, Atlassian. So I'm happy owning small positions, leftover
positions from that original trade. But it's not something that I'm happy owning like small positions, leftover positions from that
original trade. But it's not something that I want to that I want to chase, you know,
up, I don't know the exact number. Probably I'm guessing probably 25%. But I'll draw it
out here and put a number around it. But so like in the case of CrowdStrike, it's up.
Yeah, 30% in two weeks.
It's not something I want to chase there, right?
Like if you get some sort of sell-off, like you said,
you get a sell-off back to like the 20-day,
you go from 440 to 410, you know, and it holds,
and now it builds a higher low.
Sure, you can take a shot,
but like I don't like the idea of chasing these things.
And then the last point is a lot of these names,
you know, one of the things that I
like to look for are percent away from mid to long term moving averages. So like in the case of
CrowdStrike, for example, when we talked about it here, you know, it was 35% off of its 200 day,
35% off of its 200 day and it was 26% off of its 50 day. So that tells you just how aggressive
that sell-off got in the short term. But when you get these run-ups and these stocks are still
below these moving averages, effectively you want them to prove themselves above before you like look for the next leg
it's not like something you want to chase into those moving averages um and then if you look
at the market itself so if you like pull up the nasdaq um you know take a look at the qqq
it's effectively bumping up against its 50 and its 100 day and it has been you know since the
beginning of february so when you have like these simultaneous like uh you know, since the beginning of February. So when you have like these simultaneous,
like, you know, sell points or resistance levels that kind of like coincide,
after run-ups like that, you want these things to prove themselves out. You're better suited
looking for stocks that may have sold off into major moving averages and taking shots there,
you know, i.e. NVID video when it did it in last week,
Tesla I think last two days did that. That's kind of like how you want to look at it. But
yeah, your mic is getting a little choppy here. Yeah, no idea. Your mic was getting a little I was able to hear what you were saying.
Yeah, go.
That's all good.
So but that's, that's basically another one like, like, and I, you know, stock stocks
programs are like, like, another one was like nebius nebius basically traded down to 200
day, like when you get stocks to trade down to major moving averages, after some of these
run ups and some of these beaten up names, that's basically where you want to to look you don't want to look for stocks that are trading now back into their moving
averages that are uh overhead supply like and and that's effectively where i'm at there
thank you mr wolfie as always yeah maybe it's like a wi-Fi thing or it could just be on my end. Stock talk.
Are you at a good spot right now?
What's up?
What's up?
Yes, sir.
What's going on?
Two things I want to talk about here on the first one.
Wolfie kind of introed us into that.
Nebius getting a $2 billion investment from NVIDIA.
NVIDIA, I know, becoming that little Berkshire Hathaway type thing of the tech world.
We'll see.
So I wonder if you have any thoughts on this one, on that one, Nebius from this morning.
And then there was another story here out within the last couple minutes.
Caesars billionaire Tillman Fertitta, who Brian Lund was saying owns, I think, with the Houston Rockets, he was saying,
is now in exclusive talks to acquire Caesars Entertainment, ticker CZR, around $7 billion.
That stock had a little bit of a move higher. i know there is some interest for you in this area maybe it's not even in the stock world
but just like you're intrigued by the businesses so i i curious if you have any thoughts there
caesars and i know it's even a theme that we've talked about on here um with the owners whoever
took over the dallas mavericks being yeah yeah i have no interest in getting exposure to the gambling space.
I mean, I understand the companies.
I've thought about it for quite a while.
I mean, there was a point at which I thought about DraftKings and Flutter a couple of years ago.
But I just think the space is too competitive.
The CAC, customer acquisition, is a nightmare.
There's no stickiness on the products.
There's no real moats.
Most of the legacy casino providers have really well-established player bases that have perks and rewards and all that stuff.
And so I think they have a shoe into the industry whenever they want to flip on the digital switch.
It's really a duopoly right now for all intents and purposes between FanDuel and DraftKings,
but it's a pretty brutal duopoly in terms of the market share fight.
So there's just not a lot of competitive visibility in my view.
So I'm personally not interested in building that as a section of my portfolio.
But yeah, that was an interesting headline that came out.
I saw that headline as well.
On the Nebius side, Nebius is a core position of mine.
It's the only pure data center name that I own.
I've owned it since last May.
I haven't sold any.
The stock's been obviously quite volatile in the last few months. Went from $130 back to the $70s, now back in the $110s.
I've held it through all of that. I plan to continue to hold it. I think they're the best
position, pure play, data center stock out of the whole group. I think when you look at the quality of the deals that Nebius has received,
both the Microsoft deal and the NVIDIA deal today,
I think it speaks to the credibility of Nebius' team.
They have a lot of very, very hardened industry experts from when they previously
used to be Yandex, and they've carried over that talent pool, I think, very effectively.
I think both the NVIDIA deal today and the Microsoft deal that they signed months ago
are reflections of that. If you look at the terms of the Microsoft cloud and data center
deal that they signed, they're much more favorable terms than the deals that, for example, companies
like Iron and Cypher have gotten, which are conditional deals and often involve warren
allocations and optional exercises on behalf of the hyperscaler.
In the case of Cypher, it was Google,
and Microsoft signed a deal with Iron.
But I think when you look at the terms of the deals,
the deals that Nebius has gotten are much more favorable,
and I think that that's a reflection of their talent pool
and their expertise more than anything.
So, yeah, I like Nebius a lot. I think it's not only
the data center expertise, which I think is validated by the deals they've received, but
they have quite a layered business when you look at it in the sum of the parts fashion, right?
You're looking at multiple assets that they either own or are entirely subsidiaries of theirs that are
multi-billion dollar assets.
Everything from Toloka to AVRide to ClickHouse, ClickHouse arguably being the most valuable
of the group.
Those are all subsidiaries of Nibius, sorry. And those grant, I think, a little bit of valuation support to the company. In fact, probably quite a's considered the core of the business. I see it as optional from a valuation standpoint. So, you know, I've held this name with quite a bit of conviction.
I'm still not selling today. You know, I think this is a stock that probably goes much higher
over the next three to five years, as long as they execute. It's not a story that you're ever
going to understand by looking at the balance sheet or by looking at the earnings reports, because that's not the appropriate reflection of their value.
You have to look at the subsidiaries that they own and the subsidiaries that they're invested in in order to get a concrete perspective on the valuation.
So, yeah, I'm a big fan of Nebius.
It's, you know, not an enormous position for me, but it is a pretty decent size
weighting. After today's move, it's sitting at a little over a 5% weighting in the portfolio.
Just a week ago, it was sitting at a 4.2%, 4.3% weighting. So the relative outperformance versus
the rest of the portfolio positions has moved up that weighting pretty substantially.
But yeah, I plan on sitting on it.
It's not a position that I have any plans to sell.
If I was going to sell it, I would have sold it on the first technical breakdown off the
highs months ago when it came off that 135 spot, fell below 120 under the 21 EMA.
I would have sold it there if it was just a trade that I was waiting for the momentum
to fall out of, but it's not.
So yeah, it's probably a stock that i end up owning for years honestly i mean it's a core position in
my portfolio uh not as high of a weighting as some of the other core positions but it is a
core position nonetheless i think i designated it as a core position in april or no sorry not
april of last year june of last year bought it in May. I think by June it was a core position.
So I've been holding it for several months now.
I plan to continue to hold it.
And really, really fantastic deal today from NVIDIA with the $2 billion investment.
And again, I think just another validation of their business.
I'm having a little trouble here and here on stuff.
So you should be good.
How much do you consider getting over that year mark for long-term capital gains
when you're making these decisions and to do it?
Obviously it's not this one specifically, but in general, how much does that play in?
Um, I mean, it plays a role.
I mean, the, the long-term tax obligations are much lower. So yeah, I mean,
if, you know, if I have a position that I'm high conviction on, and I want to make some trims,
and I'm a couple months out from it being, you know, a one plus year position, I'll probably
wait for those trims. There have been exceptions to that. I don't wait for a year to sell every
position. Obviously, there's, I make plenty of trades in the interim. But yeah, it plays a role. I mean, I care about paying less
taxes. So yeah, I mean, yeah, it plays a role is a short answer. I don't want to elaborate on that
too much. But yeah, it does. I like to when I can hold positions for longer. I mean, look, if you're purely technical, you're going to have a hard time holding anything for years.
but especially these momentum or market leading stocks are going to break down during market
corrections. And so if you're purely, you know, if you're using a rules-based technical system,
you're going to be out of it in those moments, or you should be. You know, you're not, you
shouldn't, if you're looking at a position purely technically, you're not going to sit through a
drawdown from 135 to the 60s. I would imagine you wouldn't. And I don't know any rules-based
technical traders that would do that. But I will will because I'm not purely technically driven on these types of positions.
I have a thesis, and as long as that thesis is valid, I stay in the position.
And for Nebius, there's been nothing that has disturbed the thesis in this entire time that I've owned it.
Nothing at all.
Yeah, the price action hasn't
always been favorable, but there's been nothing that's disturbed the thesis. I mean, they're
still an owner in all of the subsidiaries that I find to be valuable. Clickhouse, AVRide,
Tuloka, namely, but they have other subsidiaries as well. And they've executed on the data center
side. And even if you don't believe that they're executing, Microsoft and NVIDIA are telling you that they are by virtue of the nature of the deals that they're signing with them.
Microsoft is a very, very capable company, right?
They have all the money in the world.
They have all the talent in the world.
They have plenty of software talent, plenty of hardware talent.
When companies like that come to a much smaller company and give them billions and billions
and billions of dollars in contract to do something for them, that is a testament to
expertise.
That's what that is by definition.
There's no other reason that Microsoft would need them.
There's no other reason that NVIDIA would feel compelled to make a two billion dollar investment like when you look at Jensen
Wong's quote today about Nebius he said Nebius is building an AI cloud designed for the agentic era
they are a fully integrated business from silicon to software and they're powered by our next generation compute.
That's a pretty direct statement to point out why the company is differentiated from other pure play data center stocks.
And it's coming from the horse's mouth himself.
It's coming from Jensen Wong's mouth on the PR today.
So I like to hear things like that.
And when you go back to their deal they signed with Microsoft,
the comments that Microsoft COO made around that deal were very similar,
that they are an end-to-end platform,
that they possess some of the deepest set talent.
When you look at Nebius before they were delisted around the Russia thing
and then relisted post-Russia divesting the Russia business,
they're like one of the oldest AI, divesting the Russia business.
They're like one of the oldest AI,
I'll put that in quotation marks,
companies on earth.
And that's why the talent pool is there.
And that's where the recognition is coming from, from these larger players.
So it's a very unique story.
It's a story that you need to understand deeply
because again, the earnings reports,
if you look at the revenue on the earnings reports, you'll scratch your head and you
won't understand the valuation. But if you look at the details of the Microsoft deal,
the valuation of ClickHouse, the valuation of BabyRide, the valuation of Toloka, then the
valuation starts making a lot more sense. Once you start adding up those numbers, you get to
the 20 billion mark pretty easily. So it's not a business that like a bystander
will understand or have conviction to hold. But, you know, I like I always say, I do my research
and it's one of those stocks that I don't have any plans on selling. And I'm glad I've sat
through the volatility because there were a lot of people when the stock was very relatively weak,
right, which isn't wasn't long ago you're
talking about going back to february of this year the stock was pushing into the 200 day
with down sloping 9 and 21 ema above the price rejecting the 9 and 21 ema's on every attempt
to reclaim like it was weak and it was it was not only weak versus the market, it was weak versus other data center stocks coming into that 200-day moving average.
Came in to set the 73 mark on, what was it, February 5th, a month ago.
And now it's $1.10, $1.11 as of the close today, or will be as of the close today.
And so that's a big move off the lows, right?
And that's a big move off an area where it was, you know,
a lot of people were looking at the stock like this is a dead goose.
This thing's going back to 60s, maybe even the 50s, people were saying.
And in that moment, I could have been a seller if I bought into that narrative,
but I didn't.
You know, my mentality was, okay, send it back to the 50s,
send it back to pre-Microsoft deal prices, and I will just buy more.
You know, that was my philosophy at that point.
And that's still my philosophy with a lot of high conviction positions that I have.
There are non-core positions I have that I'm willing to peel out of if the price action goes against me.
It's pretty simple.
But the core positions, I have a deeper thesis, and I stick to that thesis,
as long as something doesn't happen to change it, you know.
And so in those instances, I'm more of a prospective buyer on weakness than I am a person that's going to be shaken out of those stocks, even if the technical picture isn't pretty.
And it wasn't pretty just a month ago and now you know really a month of chop for this name you know going from 73 to 100
back down to 83 and now back to 111 um it's not easy to hold through that type of action because
there's a lot of fake outs but you know it it pays off if you know what you're doing so this
is stock now pushing over the highs of the local range the the close today, if it closes above 110.50, is a strong close in my
view. You close here above the highs of the local range, you have a shot to go right back to all
time highs on this thing. And to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if we see that. So yeah,
it's a name I like a lot. It's a core position. It has been a core position for several months.
It'll continue to be one. I'm not going to be a seller of it this year.
I mean, you know, maybe if it doubles from here, then maybe.
But I'm not going to be a seller of it at this point.
My shares are up like 365%, 366% from where I entered.
And I'm sitting on it.
You know, this is a position that I think could potentially at some point be a 10-bagger for me or more.
This is a position that I think could potentially at some point be a 10-bagger for me or more.
So when it gets to that point, then we'll think about selling some.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Ooh, sorry, I'm double hearing myself.
That was rough.
Brian, can I circle it over to you?
I want to circle back towards the tax conversation that I quickly brought up there.
I know you're a little bit of a different market participant than Stock Talk.
I put out a tweet about you don't always have to be a trader, and you said you can kind of do both.
So I'm sure you have both.
But I am curious your thoughts on when you are taking a trade, how you think about taxes going into this.
Do you trade out of an LLC?
If the SEC is listening, do you pay your taxes?
Do you have any thoughts on how it plays into your trades?
Yeah, I would say 90% of my trades
are in retirement accounts.
So there's no tax issue.
Gotcha.
Okay.
Yeah, and let me just add on real quick to to what stock talk said i i think
one of the traps we fall in to when we do these spaces just because of the constraints and you
can't really elaborate is we we talk our own book right mike and i talk trading or scott talks
trading stock talk talks thematic things other people fundamentals. But you can do multiple things at once. You might
have a core thing that you do, like maybe 75% of somebody is thematic and 25% is trading. But
they're not always mutually exclusive. Stocktuck made a great, great point is that it's hard to
hold those thematic names if you have a technical analysis approach because things are going to break down short-term, intermediate-term, below moving averages where it would make no sense from a risk management standpoint to hold them.
What I think you can do in those scenarios, and we've talked a little bit about this in the past, it's what I call active investing.
It's kind of a hybrid between trading and long term holding. So like if I have a core position that I really believe in fundamentally and it's technically moving OK and then maybe it starts to fall to short term technically, but I still have that long term thesis.
I can trade around it. And what that means is like if it pulls in a little bit and I'm willing to add to my position, I can sell puts lower, right? So that
if it gets down to that spot, I'll get more shares at a lower cost basis. And if it doesn't, I'll get
the premium. If it takes off and in the short term, it just rips above the eight day for two
weeks straight, I can sell calls against it out farther or trim part of it. So that is a way to
bring your cost, to average your cost basis over time, when you don't
have short term constraints, when you have a long term opinion on a stock when you're not leveraged
so that the market's making you make decisions. So I just think it's important to remind people
that you can you can combine different styles together in one strategy. It just depends on what your objective is and how long you have to get there.
I'm curious on how you deal with it, because a lot of times people might say style drift.
So how do you deal with that balance between not being super rigid and going to where the market's going versus style drift?
you know, going to where the market's going versus style drift.
Yeah. So I'll, I'll, I'll draw an analogy to my ADHD because it's very similar, right? So one of
the things that you learn when you do cognitive work on ADHD or any sort of what do they call it?
Something normal tendency these days is you do mindfulness, right? You're constantly reinforcing mindfulness.
And what mindfulness is,
is it's the ability to identify triggers in real time.
So a lame example is the way my ADHD used to manifest a lot
is Friday afternoon would come around
and I'd start some project that I wanted to do for the weekend.
And by the time Sunday was here,
I would have 10 projects all in different states
of accomplishment. So I didn't focus on one thing. The cognitive work helps you identify
those triggers. When you start to drift off of your project to do something else, you go,
wait a minute. You'd be mindful. You go, you know what? Maybe I need to refocus here.
It's the exact same thing when you're trading if you get into a position for a
day trade you have to be self-aware you have to watch yourself and say you know that little
rationalization hey maybe i'll hold this a little bit longer right or maybe i'll pull my stop or
that's where that drifting comes in and that's where you have to catch yourself now that being
said there are times when price action will justify taking a day trade into a swing trade, but it's really a tough dance because
we all have the great abilities, myself included, to fool ourselves. So you got to be really honest
with yourself. Sometimes writing it down helps, but it's really that mindfulness, just kind of
stepping outside yourself, looking back and saying, is this why I got into this position? Does that criteria still hold up?
Does it justify this trade drift or strategy drift? Or am I just being lazy or am I just
being undisciplined in what I'm trying to accomplish? Yeah, that makes sense. I know every single day, Brian, you do a call
after the market close. I saw it on Twitter yesterday. What do you think you're going to
be talking about on that call after a close? Yeah, so it's funny you asked that because I just
wrapped up this cover slide. I'm going to be talking about the one thing that almost all
traders do right before they blow up their account.
And I would go into it here, but it's a little bit more involved. So anyone wants to watch it,
it'll be the free part of my daily update and you can see it in Twitter or various other places.
Very nice. Very nice. Always appreciate you joining in, brian lund there is an earnings or two
after the close as well for anyone who cares uipath and bumble i don't think those are too
many stocks that too many people are watching we did i did see hamid come in and hang out down
below i know that he is uh he's watching bumble stocks we'll see on that one brian is there anything
that um yeah we didn't talk about on the spaces that you think would be interesting?
Any topics that would be worth talking about?
There's so many, but we've only got three minutes left.
Path is actually kind of ripping right now pre-earnings.
Now, it's funny.
Usually when this happens, somebody will say, someone knows something, and then they'll announce earnings and the stock will tank.
But it is moving pretty aggressively right now.
So I think a lot of people are actually watching PATH.
Okay, interesting.
I was going through the argument that not many people are watching PATH,
but I guess probably I'm wrong.
For sure, do PATH.
There you go.
I'll make sure we get the PATH earnings coming out on the Wolf channel.
Shout out to that.
Always appreciate you joining us out here,
hanging out with us, Mr. Brian
Lunds.
Hope you will join us back here tomorrow as well.
Stock Talk, you interested in UiPath
at all? Bumble or those names you looked into
ever?
That was over to you mr.
Yeah.
If you don't remember,
I traded path on earnings.
Oh yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
Dumb question honestly for me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was like a 500% trade.
So I just sold it instantly.
That ended up being the right decision because that stock ended up falling
apart shortly after.
But yeah,
it was just a quick trade.
I think we were in the 12 area and out in the 18 area pretty quickly.
So yeah, that was just a trade, not a stock I'm interested in owning for the long term or anything.
But they're coming up on earnings again around the same price point that we caught the last earnings gap up.
So maybe they'll be positioned for good earnings here.
The company's executing well.
Volume profile looks terrific since last October.
It's not a bad-looking chart.
It's a chart that's attempting to bottom here.
Obviously still below the 200 a day, but it wouldn't surprise me to see an earnings move on this one.
Obviously it's up 7% going into the print, so that might pose a little bit of a problem,
but no position for me on this anymore.
It's a little bit of a weird move in this last hour, going from just up 1%, 2% to up
7% now.
Yeah, people are trying to rush in before the earnings report, I guess.
Some people are probably pretty positive on their their expectations there but yeah not a name
I have looked at reentering at all anytime recently and probably not gonna not gonna be
interested in reentering it anytime in the near future either even if they do have a good report
that was just a just a trade for me a couple of months ago you ever look into the uh the dating apps ever is there any interest in there the match groups
bumbles no that's another area where it's just like there's just not enough product differentiation
for me one big thing that i like to see is like product differentiation because it allows me to distinguish the
opportunities between companies when there's like extreme commoditization in
an industry it becomes really difficult to analyze the industry because well not
it doesn't become difficult to analyze the industry. It becomes difficult to analyze the distinctions between individual names because, you know, the product sets are so similar.
And it makes it difficult to believe in moats.
It makes it difficult to put, like, a lot of credibility behind the idea that a
company can defend market share in those types of industries.
And that applies to everything from dating apps to broke,
not brokerages,
sports betting apps.
Why do you think stockbrokers don't fit in there?
I feel like you could make,
well,
I think brokers would fit in there too.
The reason I hesitate to say that is cause I do own Robin hood, but
I own Robin hood for not for the brokerage business, even though that is their main
business. I own it for the idea that it's a financial ecosystem play. And I don't think
the other brokerages are, I don't think the other brokerages are viable financial ecosystem plays.
I don't think IBKR has made or could make an effective foray into broader financial services the same way I don't think Webull could.
I don't think really any of the traditional brokerage apps or even the modern ones have positioned themselves the way Robinhood has.
Robinhood has been very aggressive in adopting new product sets, in integrating new services for their customers.
Everything from the credit card to the prediction markets to retirement savings to family accounts.
They even have advisement on the
platform now or they take a fee so they've I think captured the entire
financial ecosystem sort of in a lightning in a bottle moment in the last
couple of years and that's to me what makes that name interesting and I mean
keep in mind it's still very very small name interesting. And I mean, keep in mind,
it's still a very, very small weighting for me, right? I mean, it used to be a much bigger
position in my portfolio, but my portfolio is 10x in the last two years. So a lot of my legacy
positions have fallen in weighting dramatically. Like Amazon, Robinhood, and Tesla, which are all
legacy positions, are all less than 2% weightings now. There was a time where Tesla was like a 12%, 13% weighting six, seven years ago.
There was a time when Amazon was a 9% or 10% weighting four or five years ago.
There was a time when Robinhood was a 5% or 6% weighting.
That was as recently as just a year and a half ago, two years ago.
So portfolio grows and positions that are in all common stock,
like my legacy positions, they often fall behind in waiting because I size my new positions
more aggressively. And I also put options exposure usually on my new positions,
not in this market environment, but in equalized conditions, I put options exposure on my new positions, not in this market environment, but, you know, in, in, in equalized
conditions, I put options exposure on my new positions. So they end up leapfrogging my older
positions and waiting pretty quickly. And, you know, that's what happened with Amazon,
which have fallen. Are there ever scenarios we're on one of these more, um, traditional older
holdings where maybe you'd like to put the point and maybe it's adding more
commons but i was kind of asking the question here around options like you think there's ever
a world where maybe it's robin hood amazon whatever tesla you like to set up and you get
back in or is that just something you would just be looking for a new one yeah i mean
there have been moments like you know the flash crash last apr, I thought about buying more Robinhood in the 30s.
I should have in hindsight, obviously.
Hindsight's 20-20.
But I thought hard about that.
Tesla, I've not been interested in buying stock in a long time.
I just think the valuation's a little bit of a head-scratcher.
But I'm not going to sell it either.
My Tesla cost base is under $20 per share so I'm definitely not selling it I'm up
like two thousand percent for my cost basis so just because I'm not selling
something doesn't mean I'm inclined to buy more I've tried to do with Amazon a
few times I actually own some 2028 Amazon 250 calls for January 2028. Currently, I'm
underwater on them, but I picked some of those up a while ago, sometime last year. I can't
remember when it was. So yeah, I mean, I occasionally do nibble on a little bit more through contracts
or some other mechanism. In a market crash, i would be much more interested in adding to those
like an actual market crash um you know i could see myself picking up more amazon or robin hood
in that scenario but but do you think your first instinct in those scenarios is like to find a new
stock as opposed to going to where like the yeah the research is yeah it tends to be i mean
there's always in any market there's like 10 to 12 names that i want to buy that are on like my
to buy list so you know in market pullbacks i'm generally looking for those names but
there have been instances where i bought legacy stock. It's just not something that I do a lot.
So, yeah, I mean, the answer is it depends.
The answer is it depends on what's going on and what sort of catalysts are on the table
or what happened with the company that might have made me interested again so on and so forth so if the opportunity presents itself and it's at a price that I like then yeah
I'm going to add anything in those scenarios but I have not added to any of
my legacy positions and quite a while I did see Bumble did just reported
earnings it's up 10% I haven't quite gotten the numbers
in front of me yet, but BMBL at $3.14. It's actually still a little bit down, but
stock is moving higher in after hours there. BMBL reporting earnings. I haven't seen UI
path cross yet, and the stock really isn't moving aggressively like the numbers are out,
stock really isn't moving aggressively like it like the numbers would are out so waiting there
so waiting there.
those are most of the earnings that we have today tomorrow there are a couple adobe will be on live
on the spaces excited about that sentinel one ulta lennar so software cyber security makeup
home builders we get a couple different sectors reporting earnings tomorrow. Today, though,
it's just Bumble and Path. There was a story a couple weeks ago that Netflix has agreed to
acquire Ben Affleck's AI filmmaking technology studio. And we actually talked about this.
Ben Affleck, right when he saw a ChatGPT launch and the guy knew, hey, something's here. I'm
going to do it. And Netflix came out with a price.
Apparently, it's $600 million is what it's going to be acquired for.
$600 million?
Yeah.
Wow.
Ben Affleck is probably happy.
How much of Interpositive does Ben Affleck own?
Corey, do a quick Google search.
It has not been disclosed.
Disclosed, sorry.
I'm hearing myself speak back for the
first time on these spaces, and it's horrible.
I imagine
he owns the majority of it,
I would just guess.
CrowdStrike and Perplexity partner
to deliver enhanced security
for Comet Enterprise.
I don't think anything will move off of that one,
but a CrowdStrike with a little partnership there with Perplexity.
My thing says UI pass should be out in about two minutes or so here.
I just want to kind of be in this in-between spot until then,
and then I'll ask you some more questions,
StockTalk, and we can go into some different discussions. i did think the caesars entertainment one was a little interesting
um but i know your thoughts around it
yeah it's just not interesting to me the legacy casino companies are just not interesting to me
because they're kind of in this awkward balance between trying to defend the legacy business
because they're kind of in this awkward balance between um
while also trying to penetrate digital gaming.
And that's just not a place I want to be from an executor standpoint.
Like you have to really, really rely on excellent execution in those moments.
And, you know, I don't want to have to bet on that.
I prefer it to be the type of business where like an idiot can manage it and it'll still do well.
And I don't really see either of those as those types of businesses.
Do you see consolidation happening here across these like the FanDuel's, DraftKings of the World, buying maybe a Caesars or the other way around, Caesars or whatever, like the large incoming casinos buying the sportsbooks or the sportsbooks buying large incoming casinos? Is that something you think is kind of the endgame is here in this area?
Yeah, I mean, I do think so. I think that there will be a dramatic amount of consolidation in the sports betting industry at some point, whether it's the book, the digital books, buying other digital books or the major casinos buying digital books.
But watch it be Calci and Polymarket just come in and buy everyone, leverage buyouts, take over the world.
Yeah, I mean, that's not far-fetched in a couple of years
if they keep growing the way that they are.
It's just going to be a brutal space.
I think sports betting is going to be a very brutal space
for many years to come,
and it's going to be really, really tough to get margin momentum, I think.
Some of these guys have proven that they can expand margins over the last couple of years, but I'm not sure where the
ceiling is for margin improvement because, again, there's just so much customer acquisition.
Warfare is the right way to put it that goes on in this industry. You know, I can't think of a single sports book
that hasn't done deals like, you know, switch to our platform, join our platform, get $300 in free
bets, you know, and the difficult thing with that is, is that there's, it still doesn't enforce
stickiness. Like somebody downloading a sports betting app, getting $300 in free bets, placing the bets, losing or winning
doesn't necessarily keep them on the app. In fact, they're slightly more inclined to stay if they win
in those scenarios because now they have more money on the app via the credits. But ironically,
that's not the outcome that the gaming books want. They don't want you to win on your free credits.
That's disastrous for business, actually.
But ironically, that is better for customer retention.
Because if you join a sports betting platform, you get 300 free credits and you lose.
That makes the product less sticky.
And that's the outcome that they want.
They don't want you to win with those free credits.
So it's just a really, really difficult business.
And it's very competitive.
And there's no differentiation between the product sets.
There's no competitive advantages.
There's no moats.
The odds are relatively
the same across all books so like how do you set your product apart some people
will say UI UX and like sure but you need to execute on an insane level from
a UI standpoint for that to be a factor. Like I think in Robin Hood's case,
for example, in the brokerage space, I think they actually did do that well. I think they
took such a radically new approach to brokerage UI and UX that it was effective. It was effective
as a differentiating factor because younger audiences, gamified audiences, if you will,
younger audiences, gamified audiences, if you will, who are not legacy traders and investors
found it to be an attractive and easy to use platform and found it to be, you know, found
the colors to be, you know, amenable. And like, it sounds silly when you start talking about UI UX,
start talking about UI UX because then people are like the stuff you're pointing out is so
because then people are like, the stuff you're pointing out is so rudimentary.
rudimentary but sometimes you just have the right blend in terms of UI UX that just captures an
audience and captivates an audience and Robin Hood did that really well you know no brokerage
apps looked like Robin Hood before Robin Hood came on the scene and then Webull very quickly
tried to gamify their own platform and
i think they did a good job of it and i think weeble has excellent ui ux now but robin hood
is really the first mover there and captured an enormous amount of market share because of that
so much that even the whole gamestop fiasco which had people hating robin hood they still didn't
leave the platform you know people people literally lost tons of money and still didn't leave the platform. You know, people literally lost tons of money and still didn't leave.
That's pretty convincing that the UI UX is serving as a competitive advantage.
Because if it wasn't, then you would have seen a huge flight of users from Robinhood
during that time to these other platforms, and you didn't.
You know, it was very sporadic to the extent that it did happen.
There was maybe a couple thousand accounts or whatever. But years later, all those GameStop and AMC apes are still using Robinhood.
Even after the platform quote-unquote fucked them over.
That's a testament to UIUX advantage.
Now, in the sports betting space, there is no such player.
I've used all the sports betting apps.
My friends have been on different ones.
I use FanDuel because it is easier for me to use than DraftKings.
For me, FanDuel is much simpler as someone who didn't come into this betting.
Yeah, look, I think maybe there's different advantages.
Like, you could say FanDuel is a little bit cleaner or whatever.
DraftKings is a little bit cleaner, depending on who you talk to. That's different advantages. Like you could say Vanduul is a little bit cleaner or whatever. DraftKings a little bit cleaner, depending on who you talk to.
That's not enough.
You know, maybe the buttons are a little nicer.
Like that's just not enough.
That's not enough.
That's not enough differentiation in UI UX to really drive market share.
And that's the problem there.
You know, that there's just no differentiation in the product set.
It's a bunch of people with different brand names offering the exact same service.
And as a consequence of that, they have to literally bribe you to come to their platform.
Right?
Literally.
So that's a problem. It's just, it's a messy, ugly warfare oriented business that
I don't want to be involved in, which is why I've avoided them. I like gambling as a business. I
think it's a recession proof business, like as a whole, you know, if maybe, maybe at some point
I'll buy an ETF on the space or something, but as a whole, I like it as a business. I think it's a great business.
Casinos are a great business.
But the transition from physical casinos to digital casinos
is a very difficult one to play because of all the things I just talked about,
the lack of differentiation.
And also, if you do say, like, okay, I think DraftKings is going to win
the U.S. market or I think FanDings is going to win the U.S. market, or I think FanDuel is going to win the U.S. market, it's probably going to be one of those two. It's effectively a duopoly. from MGM and Caesars and so on and so forth. Like the amount of market share that those guys currently enjoy,
albeit in physical gambling, the kind of market share they currently enjoy
and their ability to just flip a switch and pivot to digital gaming
to whatever degree they choose, that's a competitive risk.
So it's just a messy place. And, you know, I'd rather
be invested in other areas. Yeah, that makes sense. One thing we haven't really talked about
on here, there's a lot of people when they talk about Robinhood, and they want to be on the
negative side of it. Some people really did get pissed off by the GameStop stuff. But the common
theme people talk about is the gamification of the market and you kind of brought it up there a little bit in
the ui i'm curious if you have any thoughts on that is that something like you're maybe don't
think is the best thing you think it's part of the market maybe it's just human psychology into
getting them to do good stuff like you can gamify the market in a way that helps people in the long
term i'm just curious if you have any thoughts uh on this if it's something you even think about yeah i think about it and i think it's not a good thing um but
it's also not a preventable thing i mean everything has been kind of gamified in the digital area. I think it's especially a risk when it comes to investing and trading because there have been moments where that was the case.
If you go back and talk to the dot-com era guys, they'll tell you about Yahoo message boards and AOL and all this stuff and how there was some level of gamification there but when you gamify the actual brokerages themselves I think it changes the perception of
capital like you know it just becomes numbers on a screen as opposed to real money and it's part of
the reason why I think there's so many new traders that are so bad because they just don't have
respect for their own capital because they
feel like it's just a video game you know that it's like points on a screen when it's real money
and i think that's part of the reason we've seen short-term instruments pick up so dramatically
like yeah retail participation is up meaningfully over the last 20 years, but it's been trending up pretty much forever.
It's been something that household participation, retail participation has been trending up for the better part of the two decades.
And so I don't think it's entirely the fault of that.
entirely the fault of that. I think it's also the fault of increased retail participation
with these commission-free gamified brokerages, which has led to the explosion in short-term
instrument usage. If you look at zero DT usage, I've talked about this many, many times in the
spaces, but if you look at zero DT usage prior to 2019, really prior to 2020, it's like nothing in the market.
I mean, zero DT tools were very new then.
They still are relatively very new.
But you're talking 5% to 10% of notional options volume.
Now you're talking 50% to 60%.
That's a huge, huge astronomical jump.
astronomical jump right you're talking about you know eight to ten x in in notional volume
uh on zero to one data expiration contracts that's a consequence of gamification right and
i don't i don't see any other way to explain it i don't think that innately this generation may
be slightly hot riskier than the generation before
them but not that much more you know you can't quantify it that way in any logical sense so
i think part of that that you have to point to that and say okay part of that is a is a product
of of gamification of investing and i don't like that because I'm somebody that takes the game pretty
seriously. I put a lot of work in. And so I don't like the idea that it has become gamified. But I
think it's pretty hard to ignore. And I also think you'd be a fool to look at what's happening in
markets today, the amount of short-term volatility, the type of V-shaped corrections and recoveries that we get to look at this type of
market and then say, oh, yeah, like, it's the same market. It's always been, you know, nothing ever
changes, yada, yada, yada, like a lot of legacy guys say. I think that's bullshit. Like, yeah,
does the market rhyme from generation to generation? Absolutely. You know, are there
things about human behavior that never change that reflect themselves in markets over and over again?
A hundred percent. But are there structural aspects of the market that change?
Yes, absolutely.
And those structural aspects to me are largely a product, at least in the last decade or so of the gamification that
we're talking about. And so, yeah, it's not a good thing. I don't like it, but it is an inevitability
and it's something that's just going to get worse. Like wait till markets are 24 seven,
which isn't far away. Then wait till we have half day contracts, which isn't far away.
Then wait till we have one hour options contracts, which isn't far away. Then wait till we have one hour options contract,
which isn't far away. Then wait till you have perpetual futures on individual stocks,
which is literally right around the corner. Robinhood's about to release that within the
next six to eight months. What do you think is the end game here, Stock Talk? Does this end with
just more and more? Or is there ever a pushback point where it's just like too much i'm not asking what that pushback point is but do you think we get to that
or is it just i think we crossed that line like you know i think the idea that of floating 24 7
markets which the cme and nasdaq and the s&p have are all doing now i think that means you're just
past the point of there being a stopping line
because that should be the stopping line. Like I don't want 24 seven markets. I don't know any
serious traders or investors that want that. I don't know any. And so if we're going to go ahead
and do that, then the rest of the stuff I brought up, half day options contracts, one hour options
contracts, that's a nothing burger compared to 24 seven markets that, you know, that's a much
bigger line to cross, I think. So, um, we're too far gone, you know, um, there's just way too much money being made on the market making side from the volume that's being traded in these markets on a day to day basis.
And they're not going to give that up.
You know, the Ken Griffins of the world are not going to give that up.
And they have a lot of influence in the financial industry at this point to where they're probably not going to be forced to give it up either.
And so, yeah, I think it's too far gone.
I don't think there's a stopping point here.
I think markets get more and more levered, more and more explosive, shorter and shorter duration.
Instruments will start appearing.
Retail participation will go higher and higher.
I mean, this Trump accounts thing is going to drive retail participation
and household ownership through the roof.
It's going to accelerate the pace of that dramatically.
Because now people, even people who may not have been predisposed to owning stocks,
are just going to have accounts.
Because their parents are going to open them for them when they're born. And so, yeah, we're too far gone. It is what it is now.
And markets are just going to get more and more volatile, more and more violent, shorter and
shorter duration, higher and higher participation for people that don't know what they're doing.
And that's just where we're headed.
So you just have to be prepared for it.
You can't sit around and say, I don't want that.
Like, trust me, I feel like complaining about 24-7 markets,
but I also understand there's not a damn thing I can do about it.
And, you know, I don't think if you got all the influencers on X together
to oppose that,
that it would make a difference because there's too much money on the other
end of it. Right. Um, the more short-term instruments you introduce,
the more burn you introduce and that's good for market makers.
And that's good for, um, you know,
financial institutions in most cases.
And so they're not going to resist it.
And if they don't resist it,
retail sure as hell is not going to either.
So yeah, we're just, we're headed,
we're unfortunately spiraling in that direction
and it is not going to stop.
You know, I do wonder one or two things.
For me, Robinhood adding prediction markets,
specifically sports prediction markets,
really did mess with the psychology for me on that one.
There was a couple of times when I was going into using it,
and it really took it to a level that I was not a fan of having in my account,
in my brokerage account.
So that was one thing that I already felt like, I don't know, guys.
I get the business model on this one,
but I'm not necessarily I get the business model on this one, but I'm not necessarily
in love with this one. I do wonder if in the end game here, it creates space for a different type
of brokerage that doesn't do all this stuff and is much more focused on that long-term investor
on that kind of not gamifying it. I wonder if it creates the opportunity of everyone going so far
the other way. Someone comes in and undertooks them,
takes all the users.
A lot of this stuff that is being introduced,
I mean, sure, it's right for someone,
but for the average person, it's not right for.
And they're getting closer to using them,
as you've been saying.
So, I mean, it feels like there isn't going to be
an opportunity there for someone to come in
and say no to a lot of this stuff.
And sure, maybe they'd get some people
in the DGEN that want on there, but I feel like that would probably be a quite sustainable business.
And honestly, I do wonder if once they start to take some market share from these other companies
that really went into the all in 24 seven everything markets, if we start to kind of
see a pullback in that direction, maybe, or maybe it's even like subset of brokers or like just
stuff that's, Hey, market will close at this this time this is all you'll see type of thing um i do
wonder what the end game is in here but i agree with most of what you're saying it feels inevitable
feels like we're going in that direction um and it doesn't feel like the best thing 24 7 markets
is a weird one i don't fully like i don't want to. I don't want to be here at 10 PM thinking about the stock market and stuff. Um, you know, we have futures open.
Yeah. I don't want, I don't want to lose more sleep, but yeah, I mean, I don't sleep much
during the weeks just because of how crazy the markets are and, you know, wanting to be not
wanting to miss anything. If markets were 24 seven, that would just exacerbate that problem.
So yeah, I don't want it either, but it's going to happen.
There's not really a way around it.
One thing that we also do talk about a lot is like, you have to be a good trader to be
a good investor.
There's so much other stuff like research and everything, but a lot of it is also like
mindset and being in the position to not get FOMO and being in the position to not, you
know, feel greed and fear and all that stuff.
And I feel like 24 seven taking out sleep, like if I have to do these things at like 10pm
or something, I just feel like it introduces
a lot more of those negative
possibility of emotions coming into this
it doesn't
this just doesn't feel like a good idea, honestly
like it ends
I don't know who this is really
meant to suit, like who 24-7
markets is actually good for, besides
the people making the money on the fees yeah yeah it's meant for the market makers i
mean no one's no one's sitting here clamoring for 24 7 equity markets
it's not for the people it's for it's for the business of equities that's what
it's for um you know a lot of people will lose money in overnight markets and a lot of people will
probably be victims to it, but not, it's not going to be the people that make the markets
and it's not going to be the Ken Griffins of the world. They're going to have a jolly old good time
from that. So, yeah, I don't love where markets are headed, but I'm going to be in markets for the rest of my life.
So I kind of just have to deal with it, suck it up and deal with it.
But, yeah, the corrections are going to be worse.
They're going to be faster.
The recoveries are going to be faster.
The intraday volatility is going to be worse. The separation of action between the
indexes and individual stocks is going to be more dramatic. All of that stuff is just an immediate
product of what's going to happen when we take these shorter term instruments to the next level.
going to happen when we take these shorter term instruments to the next level.
And yeah, there's just not much you can do about it. Just got to kind of either be a bystander or
adapt to the game. You know, those are the only two options. And I'm certainly not going to be
a bystander. So I have to adapt my process to it as needed. But yeah, it's happening.
It's happening.
A lot of people who are like, I think are kind of thinking about it as, you know, something that's not going to happen because they don't want it to happen.
That's unfortunately not the way things work.
It's going to happen either way, most likely.
And that's going to lead to all of those things.
So suck it up and get ready for it is really all you can do.
We got some comments down below in the Spaces chat.
Michael said, with 24-7 markets, when will earnings
calls take place?
Doesn't matter, question mark.
From everything I've been seeing, there still is like different sessions that's going to
end up happening here.
So I haven't seen anything that would make me think earnings calls and earnings and stuff
would move out of their current times.
But I think it's an interesting question.
We'll see.
Another comment was before the trade said, he thinks that this could be good for long-term investors.
Because what you're kind of saying there, Stock Talk, overreactions, all that stuff might happen more.
And maybe that gives the long-term investor kind of sees through that a little bit more chances to buy better prices.
So something to think about.
Maybe there are some people who you,
you're good at buying the dip,
I guess gives you some good opportunities.
And then,
Phil,
Philippe said,
24 seven liking crypto.
It made me too busy and obsessed.
Yeah.
I mean,
crypto has been 24 seven forever.
So like,
I don't really think people have felt the impact there, but equities have not been.
And, you know, in equities, I'm just not sure it's going to be as well received.
And I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed by the fact that
things are going to happen overnight that they don't necessarily want to happen,
but they are just going to be bystanders to it because you're not going to have a choice.
No one's going to be up 24-7.
I think it's actually going to dramatically
increase the usage of bots in trading and investing because you know you'll set up an ai agent um
that will do something or or you'll have it do something based on certain price levels being violated
or whatever the case is in an overnight session and you'll automate the bot and you'll go to bed
and you'll see a lot of that uh when 24 7 markets get here and
i do think there'll be some pushback from smarter people in the industry who are like
fuck no i want to be able to have a life but yeah i don't think it's going smarter people in the industry who are like, fuck no, I want to be able to have a life.
I don't think it's going to matter in the end.
I think it'll just happen either way.
Got to live with it.
This just in. Stock talk will be staying
up 20 hours every single day during
the work week.
Probably.
I'm going to have to
find a way to keep myself wired.
It's going to be annoying.
It's already difficult to keep up with markets
full time.
It's going to be even harder.
I just hope they wait a few years.
I know I'm probably
asking for a lot there, but I hope they wait at few years. I know I'm probably asking for a lot there,
but I hope they wait at least a couple of years.
We need some higher milligrams in.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
I made myself a little laugh a little there.
I won't lie.
One of their companies, Pange uh pangia logistics panel reported earnings
yesterday i know this was a little bit more of like in the the trader basket for you but um
yeah i cut my options exposure on that today this morning
yeah it's down to a much smaller weighting now if it doesn't really bounce at the end of the week
i'll probably cut the rest of it too was there anything on the earnings report that was interesting
uh no the earnings report actually they hit all the rest of it too. Was there anything on the earnings report that was interesting?
No, the earnings report, actually, they hit all the points I wanted them to hit on.
But the issue that came up with them,
which is the issue that's going to come up with all shippers,
is that insurance rates are going to go up, fuel rates are going to go up.
And that's the concern they brought up. And so that's where I think a lot of the weakness came from this morning.
And then obviously me saying I'm selling my options probably led to even more weakness in it from our community.
But yeah, it's I mean, it wasn't a great report and it wasn't a terrible report either.
It wasn't a great report. And in this kind of market environment, that's probably not going to cut it. And especially if you bring up potential concerns around, you know,
insurance prices and shipping prices, then that's even worse. So we'll see. We'll see
what happens.
Yeah, obviously this whole straight-of-a-moves Iran stuff has thrown a lot of a wrench into
this one. I did see some stuff that like 10%
of the global shipping capacity is stuck there.
They actually have zero exposure to the Strait of Hormuz.
Say that again?
They have zero exposure to the Strait of Hormuz, so it wasn't so much that.
It's more so the indirect implications.
I would almost think that this
would have been a net benefit as people
who are linked to the Strait of Hormuz
are kind of stuck there having problems.
I think it was a large percentage or a meaningful percentage, not a large percentage of cargo ships being stuck there,
which would which my head would maybe think like the rest of the fleet would be stretched and maybe some opportunities.
Yeah, I mean, I thought I kind of waited to the open to see if there would be a positive reaction from the idea that they are insulated from it while other shipping companies are not.
I thought maybe they'd get a little bit of a preferential bid off of that, but they didn't.
So that's why I ended up cutting the options exposure this morning.
I thought there might be a bid off the open and there wasn't.
So, yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, it's part of the game with small caps are gonna be highly volatile.
But also that was never intended to be a core position anyway.
It was intended to be a trade.
The thesis and the theme behind that sort of got broken largely because Trump pivoted away from Greenland to Iran.
You know, like nobody's talked about Greenland in a while.
So the Greenland basket, you know, sort of has become an irrelevant theme pretty
quickly because of what's going on in Iran. So that also plays a role there too.
Themes can disappear, man, very quickly. It's one of the things about themes.
I feel like also in this market right now with Trump, I want to say this in the right way,
maybe a lot of stuff is going on at once that could kind of take the thoughts
and the eyes.
And I wonder if that makes you think differently about some of these
catalysts going forward as like,
who knows when he's going to be onto the next thing,
when we're going to be talking about Cuba and the Caribbean again,
and then we're back to Venezuela and oil and stuff like that.
And government shut down right now.
Who knows when we're going to talk about that more.
But I'd be curious if like the themes going forward, you maybe need to prove it for that. It's going to be a little more sustainable when we're going to talk about that more. But I'd be curious if the themes going forward, you maybe need to prove it for that's going to be a little more sustainable when we're talking about Trump catalyst.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the thing with the Trump administration is even in the first Trump administration, for those that traded back then, man, it's been a long time since that administration.
It's been like eight, nine years since then.
But I mean, in the first Trump administration,
this was the same thing.
It was a lot of headline-driven volatility,
a lot of new themes popping up and then disappearing.
So, you know, in my portfolio,
when I scroll down my portfolio
and look at the different thematic baskets,
most of them are themes that I think are secular, that are going to last for a long time. Like the power grid theme, that's not going
anywhere. The semiconductor supply chain theme, that's not going anywhere. The edge compute theme,
I don't think that's going anywhere. The data center theme, I don't think that's going anywhere.
Those stocks, I have to really, really have a reason to sell those.
You know, even this new one, new position, MITK, which I shared the thesis on Twitter today, that's a stock that I really like in the AI fraud category, because I think that's
a really, really under-talked about thematic.
That's a name I'm definitely not selling.
the name I'm definitely not selling. If it comes back to my cost base, I'll buy more.
You know, if it comes back to my cost base, I'll buy more.
So there's stocks, the defense stocks I own too, like Huntington Ingalls has become such a
fan favorite name for me. I don't think I'm selling that anytime soon either. And that
valuation is still reasonable, even though it's doubled from where I bought it. So there are stocks that I'm just not
going to sell. And because I believe in a five or 10 year thesis around what's going to happen with
that thematic. And like one thing about getting 10 baggers, I've had a lot over my career.
I'm somebody that can speak to that from experience. If you're a trader or investor
who wants to get 10 beggars,
in other words, you want to get a stock that 10X is from where you bought it,
you must take a longer-term outlook.
You must.
There's no possible way you can sit through all of the volatility
for a stock to go from 5 to 50 or from 20 to 200.
There's so much volatility involved in the path from going from 20 to 200
that if you don't have a longer term picture in mind, you're never going to hold. You're just
never going to do it. You'll see an earnings gap up 20%. You'll be like, I'm selling.
It's difficult to not sell in those moments. Like VIAB, for example, which is a core position for me, which we got into in the 13s and is now trading at $30 just, you know, six months later.
That stock, I've sat through two 20% earnings gap ups back to back and didn't sell any.
That's fucking hard to do.
And it's a pretty big position for me.
I mean, it's like, you know, 12% of the portfolio.
That's difficult to do because you're trading, your trader's mentality is in the back of
your head.
Like, dude, you caught two earnings gap ups back to back, like sell it.
But then the longer term mentality behind me, I zoom out on Vyabi's chart and I look
at that monthly chart and I'm like, dude, I zoom out on Vyabi's chart and I look at that monthly chart
and I'm like, dude, I'm not fucking selling this thing. You know, I really like the company. I love
the way they're executing. They have a long history of being a publicly traded company.
They're finally hitting an inflection point. You know, their network testing products are highly
relevant to all of this optical hype that's going on in the market so when I remind myself of why I
own it though in those moments I'm like okay I'm not selling it even though it did gap up for me
twice you know and it's difficult it's difficult to not do that it was also difficult to not sell
nebius the first time it hit 100 right because that stock talk about a 10x in in several years.
That stock 5x for me, 5x for me in a matter of six or seven months.
Right. That's a big move in a short period of time.
All things being equal, people are sellers in that scenario.
I'm not because I believe in a five or 10 year thesis with that name.
You know, so.
If you want to be somebody
who over the course of your investing career you have multiple ten beggars
which is really how you get rich to be honest that's how you get rich I mean
the stock that made me wealthy the first stock that ever made me wealthy was
Tesla right which is up 20x from my entry but holding that stock since 2015 made me a lot of money. Well, in today's terms,
it's not much of my wealth, but back then it really was life-changing money, you know,
when that stock started going up a lot. And by the time we hit 2020, that stock was a 10X,
And by the time we hit 2020, that stock was a 10x, 12x for me.
You know, and it was a huge part of my portfolio then.
So the long-term vision is hugely important.
Otherwise, you're just a scalper.
You know, otherwise, you're just trading.
And that's okay.
There's nothing wrong with trading, right?
I'm not dismissing.
There's a lot of great traders out there.
Nothing wrong with trading.
But you have to know the distinction.
Like you're never going to get consistent 10 baggers with a trader's mentality.
You can have positions that you trade.
I have positions that are just for trade, right?
And then I have other positions that are not for trading, right?
And pretty much the only time I upsize those positions or add those positions are on
significant market corrections or market crashes so
that's that's the mentality that i've adopted with with trading and investing there are
stocks that are for investing for me and there are stocks that are for trading for me and
i draw a very distinctive line between those two. You know, it has to meet a lot of
criteria. A lot of criteria have to be met for me to have the confidence to say, I'm just not
going to sell this under any normalized circumstances. I'm going to hold it for
months and months or for years. I have to have a tremendous amount of confidence in the name to do
that. And with a lot of the names I own, thankfully, I do have that confidence.
And so it makes it easy to do.
But it's never a simple process.
There's a lot of moments where I'm like, man, I want to take profits here.
You know, I'm up a lot.
You know, I feel like the stocks run a lot.
You know, I want to get out of it here.
I faced that
sort of um doubt if you will many times but then i go back i read my original thesis i read through
my research i have a notebook um i don't share it on discord or anywhere else but i have a notebook
with all my research on all my positions over the last like 10 years.
And it is a massive, I mean, it's a notepad.
It's not a notebook, but it's a notepad.
Is it like, is it, Stock Talk, is it written or like online?
No, no, no, typed.
It's on a, it's on like the, what do you call it?
The Apple Notes app or whatever.
But it's hundreds and hundreds of, I mean, if it was on a Microsoft Word document, it'd
be hundreds and hundreds of pages.
And it's segmented by stock.
And on it is all of the research that I've done on all of the stocks that I've bought
in size for the, I don't want to say for 10 years, but like for the better part of
eight or nine years. And whenever I'm like losing confidence or concerned or whatever,
I just go back and read the notes. And sometimes I go back and read the notes and go, oh,
this did change. Or, oh, this isn't the same. Or, you know, sometimes I'll go back and I'll see,
I had a bunch of notes about the valuation being cheap, right? Like I sometimes have positions
where that's a big driver of the thesis. Like, oh, the stock is cheap. And then sometimes I'll
have doubts about a position. I'll go back and I'll see that I've written all of my notes,
like about how cheap the stock is. And then I'll go look at the current valuation and be like, well, it ain't cheap anymore.
And I'll be like, you know what, I'm going to sell some or I'm going to sell some contracts or I'm going to sell some leaps or whatever, because, you know, a huge part of the thesis is no longer true.
Right. And some people simplify this by just saying, well, buy when a stock is cheap, sell when it's expensive.
And some people simplify this by just saying, well, buy when a stock is cheap, sell when it's expensive.
It's not quite that simple for me.
But there are certain stocks where the valuation is a big part of the thesis.
And on those names, if the valuation expands and the multiple expands, then that part of the thesis is no longer true. And so I have to ask myself in those moments, are the other parts
of the thesis, the execution or maybe the business modes or the technological modes or the product
sets, are the other parts of the thesis still strong enough for me to still hold in spite of
the valuation no longer being attractive? And sometimes they are compelling enough.
And I say, you know what?
Even though the valuation isn't as attractive anymore,
X, Y, and Z are still true.
So I'm still going to hold, you know?
But in other cases, I'll look at it and say,
well, the valuation isn't as attractive anymore.
You know, maybe their CFO left.
Maybe another competitor came into the space.
Then stuff is starting to pile on to the thesis, right?
And then I ask myself, okay, I'm probably going to be a seller here.
So, yeah, it just depends.
But bottom line is if you take a trader's mentality on every stock you own, you'll never own anything for an extended period.
period and you won't build real wealth. Real wealth is built from having a position with a
And you won't build real wealth.
great cost basis that you hold for a long time and you watch it 10x or 15x or 20x. That's how
you build real wealth. That's how you look back at your portfolio and go, oh shit, I got rich
from that stock. You can't do that if you trade everything just never happened will never happen you can get
rich trading you know from a dollar standpoint you're going to pay a hell of a lot of taxes on
the way by the way but um you can get i'm not saying you can't get rich trading you absolutely
can uh it takes longer it's more frustrating there's more gray hairs you click a lot more
buttons you pay a lot more taxes and And those are the trade-offs,
you know? So I prefer my style and there will be probably five to 10 positions every year,
maybe more, actually definitely more, 10 plus positions every year that are just for trading.
And then there'll be another five or six positions where the intention
is to hold them for the longer term. And I'll be shaken out of some of them and others I'll hold
and carry over into the next cycle. Right. Like from this cycle is probably a high likelihood
that I carry over Nebius. Right. I mean, I've held it now for seven, eight months. I have a $23 cost basis on it.
Stock's 112. That's probably going to be held for a long time. You know, Centris Energy is probably
going to be held for a long time. OSS, One Stop Systems, probably going to be held for a long
time. You know, Synaptics, even though I'm underwater on it, I really, really like that name.
All things being equal, unless we get a market crash and I get shaken out of it,
which I don't think is likely because I haven't been shaken out of it yet, even though I'm down
a lot. That's probably another name that'll hold over through the next cycle. Amcor,
probably going to hold that over through the next cycle. So there's a lot of names that I own.
You know, Kratos. I have no intentions to sell Kratos with a cost basis in the
20s. You know, I'm sitting on 35 leaps that expire in January of next year. That's probably
not going anywhere either. Like, I just have such deep cost advantage on so many of my names and
on practically all of my names that the likelihood that it gets shaken out is very, very low,
even in a market crash. Like in a market crash, is Kratos going back to $20? I don't think so.
I am curious though. I know you like to manage a certain amount of positions. I don't want to
throw something out there and then you just come in and correct it. But do you see a time where
maybe you just have too many positions in there and a company you like a lot, you're just like,
all right, I need to move on from it and go from there maybe what do you think the higher yeah of your position amount of positions could be yeah yeah you're talking
about like moments where I prioritize the portfolio over an individual position yeah that happens a
lot I care most about the portfolio at the end of the day like the end of the day, like the end of the day, the stocks are just parts of the portfolio. And so,
yes, the answer to your question is yes. There are moments where I look at my position count,
or I look at my total exposure to the market, or perhaps most often, what leads to that reflection
is I look at my margin. You know, if I'm too heavily margined in terms of my long exposure, sometimes I will have to sell stocks that I don't want to sell just to reduce margin exposure.
So, yeah, that happens frequently where I have to make a difficult decision about selling a stock for the purposes of buying power management on the overall portfolio.
So, yeah, short answer to your question
is absolutely that happens. And it happens quite frequently, actually. And those are not scenarios
where anything is wrong with the stock, or I've lost faith in the stock, or that, you know, I
think that there's some problem with the company. It's just a portfolio management decision from the perspective of
keeping the portfolio healthy and flexible and capable. Because I need to have the ability to
buy a stock at any time. So I'm never going to be like 200% long ever, period. No matter how much
I like the market conditions or whatever. At max, I'll go 20% to 30% in margin.
I'll be 120%, 130% long at max.
Even that's pretty aggressive for me.
And most of the times, my margin balance is hovering between 5% to 10% deep.
I'm not in a crazy amount of margin ever.
So I use margin when I feel like the market conditions are favorable or if there's stocks I really want to own.
But when I have to manage against that margin, there's sometimes sales that I have to make that I don't want to make.
And that's part of the game.
That is actually kind of similar to what I was going to ask you about is that the margin and
how you use it and i was going to say before i asked that it is an important caveat here because
if you're a brand new trader or investor this is your first year in the market i personally this
is me my belief you should not be touching margin it might even be the first couple years i almost
you shouldn't touch margin until you know you're profitable consistently.
And that's not something you should ever be guessing either.
You should just know that.
A lot of times I see traders and they go like,
I think I'm a good trader.
Or they go like, yeah, I'm a pretty good stock picker.
And I'm like, why do you think that? And they're like, well, I've been in the market for a while.
I do my research, yada, yada, yada. None of that matters. The only thing that tells you if you're
a good trader or an investor is your performance. That's it. Do you outperform the market
dramatically or do you not? And if you don't, then you're not good. That sounds like really,
really, I don't know, mean, I guess to some people to say, uh, it's not intended to be.
It's just the truth. If you do not outperform the market regularly, consistently, year after year.
You're not good.
It's not your opinion on whether you're good.
The market tells you if you're good via your performance.
And if you're not good, you shouldn't touch margin or touch options at all until you're good.
until you're good.
And if you do this for 10 years
and you just cannot for the life of you
actively manage your way to outperformance,
it's time to just buy the S&P 500 and call it a day.
And that's also a hard thing for people to do
because there's a lot of ego forfeit involved in that.
There's a lot of ego forfeit involved in that. There's a lot of concession involved in that.
The idea of saying, you know what?
I'm not good at this.
I'm not good at stock picking.
I'm not good at managing my portfolio.
I need to just buy a broad-based index fund and call it a day.
And a lot of traders, it takes them a decade to make that realization, a decade of losing money or underperforming to make that realization.
And even if you're not losing money, you know, let's say you have 10 years of positive performance.
OK, but you're returning 5% annually.
You're not good.
Like, that's the truth.
Just because you're not losing money doesn't mean you're good
um you don't have to lose money to be bad if you are underperforming
the major broad-based indexes you're not good at stock picking period and like people need to drive
that through their heads like it took me i mean i've been in the markets now for 14 years.
And, you know, I'm only 32.
I've been in the market since I was 18.
It took me three or four years to really convince myself that I was good.
But it took me probably five or six years for the market to prove to me that I was good.
And those are different things.
It's different to think you're good and the market proves to you that you're good. And once the market proved to
me that I was good, that's when I started taking more risk. That's when I started using more
options, started using more margin because that was a way to leverage my confidence in my ability.
And prior to that, I did not do that. You know, prior to that,
I did not, was not leveraging my bets frequently, which I do now. I now I leverage pretty much every
bet I take. I was not doing that then because I wasn't sure yet if I was good. And, you know,
once you, once there's this, I brought this quote up before, but some
of you know, the guy, Alex Ramosi, he has some great quotes, but he has this great quote that
says, confidence doesn't come from shouting affirmations in the mirror. Confidence comes
from having an undeniable stack of proof that you are good.
That's where confidence comes from.
Not from waking up in the morning and being like, you know what?
Yeah, I'm going to conquer the day today, dude.
And like putting on a real mean face in the mirror.
That's not where confidence comes from.
It comes from proof that you're good.
You know, if you think you're a good tennis player,
a lot of people think they're good tennis players,
and there's other people that win championships.
That's the proof that you're good.
Not, oh, I get hit a ball really hard.
I think I'm good.
I beat my friend 10 times in a row.
That doesn't matter.
When you go to the public gyms to play basketball,
there's a lot of guys in there that think they're hoopers, right?
They never played against real competition.
They never played in a competitive environment.
And so they think they're good, right?
But they have no proof.
And that's the distinction.
Real confidence comes from proof that you are who you say you are.
Not from just telling yourself that repeatedly, which is what a lot of people obfuscate for confidence.
And they think that that's where the confidence comes fromer and a good manager, then you can sit back and say, all right, I want to take more risk.
I want to leverage my bets.
And you can do so with confidence at that point.
But prior to that, don't be a hero and, and, and don't try to get rich quick.
And, you know, I see this all the time. Like I have a friend of mine
who's a little bit younger than me and he wanted to get in the markets. And, you know, he hit me
up and was like, Hey, I'm going to put X amount of money in. Like, what should I buy? You know?
And he's like, I'm trying to, to save up for a new Corvette and I want to expedite the process.
And I told him right away, I was like,
that is the wrong mentality to have walking the markets.
Like, you know, I want to get a new $150,000 car.
And so I'm going to get into the markets now
and try to make that $150,000 as quickly as I can.
Like that's going to backfire on you.
You know, anyone who, anyone who tries to get rich quickly
in the markets usually ends up poor,
unless you get really, really lucky.
And in that case, you end up giving most of it back anyway. So operate on the burden of proof and hold your own feet to the fire in those moments to say, like, am I good?
Is the market telling me I'm good year after year after year throughout different market
environments? If it is awesome, you're probably good. But if it's not, you know, take a step back
and say, all right, you know, where, where did my false confidence come from? Why am I feeling this
way? You know, what do I need to do to improve? Where's my errors? Where are my errors coming from? And all of that. And once you do, and once you settle on that, then you can sit back and be like, okay, I made it. You know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a successful active manager in my own portfolio.
They think that they're there.
And that's a really, really dangerous place to be.
You know, when you think you are somebody who you're not,
that's a really dangerous place to be
because you're going to take a lot of silly risks
and you're going to make a lot of silly mistakes
if you operate that way.
I feel like in the stock market,
those are the real losers.
I don't mean like you're a loser physically,
like people lose money. It's because smart people don't know what they know when they say,
I'm going to go buy ETFs, everything else like that. It's the people who think they know more
than they do. Yep. Yep. Those are the people who generally do the worst in markets. I agree.
I did see we got our friend, Mr. Adam Patti joining us up here.
Hey, you guys.
How are you doing?
Thanks for having me.
I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me.
I got to say, before we talk about anything else, Stock Talk, that is, I've heard you
say a lot of smart things, but honestly, what you just went through is brilliant because
it's so, that is the bottom line.
And the real risk is that over the last several years, the market is just, you know because it's so that is the bottom line. And the real
risk is that over the last several years, the market is just, you know, it's just gone up
and everyone was a genius. And, you know, now we're in a more challenging market environment.
We're in a stock pickers market. You need to do your research. You got to look under the hood.
And, you know, hopefully people just don't take their success over the last few years for granted and just believe that's their skill when it was really the market going up.
And that's that's you know, that's what I fear. Right.
People, you know, you got to know your role and understand your level of knowledge.
The market doesn't always just go up and, you know, and that's where things get scary for people.
So thanks for going through that.
That was great.
I appreciate you, Adam, for joining us up here.
Sorry, I was having a second.
They're having troubles unmuting.
I am excited for this next conversation here.
I think this next one does fit perfectly in it.
Obviously, Adam Patti over from the VistaShares team joining us up here.
We have a lot of great conversations. And maybe for those newer investors who don't want to go
super deep into the individual stock picking, maybe it is some of these ETFs that we're going
to talk about in here could be right for you. Since we are going to talk about a couple tickers,
I do want to go through a little quick disclosure read before, and then we will get right back into the conversation.
But as we do talk about the stuff, investors should carefully consider a fund's investment
objectives, risks, charges, and expenses before investing. A fund prospectus and summary
prospectus contain this and other information about the VistaShares ETFs. To obtain a fund's
prospectus and key information documents, visit their website at vistashares.com.
Vistashares.com.
I will get that linked below.
Funds prospectus and key information documents
should be read carefully before investing.
We're excited to be working with the VISTA shares team.
You know, our goal on these spaces
is to work with really, really smart people,
allow us to put the content out for free forever
and just give you guys great stuff to go in and research in. And maybe these opportunities are
right for you. Maybe they aren't. One of the great things about VistaShares, there's a bunch,
but the investment communities, the people actually coming together behind these products
and doing it. And for the ones where it isn't an investment committee, the strategy is going around
these really famous and awesome investors who we talk about here,
Druckenmiller, Ackman, Buffett, et cetera. So I really love the way that the VistaShares team
has come in and started this out. But Adam, I'm just going to kick it back over to you. I don't
know if there was any topics or anything that you were excited to talk about, if there was any big
news that you guys have had recently. Obviously, you heard a good little bit of that last conversation.
So I also think, as you were saying there, I think there's ways it can kind of work into
this next one here as we're talking about some of the ETFs that you guys have created
and the team behind it.
But yeah, I'd love to throw it over to you and just start it off on what you're excited
about.
What's been new?
Yeah, no, I'd love to dig into what Stock Talk was talking about because it does tie
into what we do.
And I think it's important in today's market.
But just wanted to thank you and all your listeners. We recently hit a billion in assets,
just a little over a year since we launched our first ETF. So that was some pretty startlingly
quick growth for us. And so we're really fortunate to have gotten the confidence of investors. And
a lot of it is due to the people who are listening to the show of investors. And, you know, a lot of it is, you know,
it's due to the people who are listening to this show right now.
So just thank you very much.
So, yeah, I mean, look, I said it a little bit before,
the last few years has been, what is it?
I'm going to mangle the phrase,
but the tide that lifts all ships or something like that.
You know, when the market is going up,
the indexes are driving performance higher.
We all know the S&P 500 and the Qs have been largely concentrated in the MAG-7,
and we all know what the MAG-7 has done over the last several years. So everyone did very well.
But we believe that it was an aberration. That is not how the market performs all the time.
The market goes in cycles.
So we believe we're going into a period where it's a stock picker's market.
And this is where it gets complicated for investors because if you look at actively managed mutual funds,
over time, most actively managed mutual funds actually do underperform the indexes because the mutual fund market or the actively managed, you know, product market, let's just say, is so diluted with so many different managers.
So, you know, what are investors supposed to do if the indexes are underperforming?
You go after a stock picker, but then your stock pickers are underperforming.
What are you supposed to do? So, you know, we've tried to solve that in a few
different ways. You know, one is by bringing out products that harness the power of portfolios
developed by the most legendary investors in the world. We just launched a new one a couple weeks
ago, which we're really thrilled about. And then, as you mentioned, is bringing an investment committee together made up of experts,
not not Wall Street analysts, but actual practitioners in the fields in which we're investing,
people who understand the supply chains and understand the companies and know where their
pipelines are and where the industry is going.
So we're trying to take a very different approach than really anybody in the industry. And it seems to be resonating. So we're really thrilled.
Yeah, I have pinned up in the nest above a tweet with a bunch of the ETFs that you guys go in and
have. If you guys want to do your research, like I said at the start of this, the goal of this is
to put interesting stuff on your radar, go in, dig deeper. If you guys have questions, Adam comes on these shows and we can ask them to him.
So it's transparency.
It's new.
It's awesome stuff going on here.
I am really intrigued by the Target 15 ETFs.
For anyone who doesn't know, I'd love to hear a little bit more about them.
And obviously, the new ETF that launched was TPRY, the Terp Tantrum one.
We're going around David Tepper, I believe.
I did say that wrong, right?
It is Tepper.
What?
Yeah.
Yeah, so David Tepper coming in here,
adjoining, we have ETFs around Warren Buffett
and Berkshire Hathaway, around Bill Ackman
and Pershing Square,
which who knows what's happened there
with the public one.
So I actually do want to ask you on that a little bit.
And then obviously Stanley Druckenmiller, one person who's talked about on this spaces a lot as well. So if you
could talk me through a little bit, those kind of four there, those portfolios, maybe tell me a
little bit more about the Target 15 aspect of it. And like you were saying there, kind of how the
market is changing and, you know, maybe a little bit more of a stock pickers market. And I do know that like Bill Ackman's portfolio and Stanley Druckenmiller's portfolio,
and even David Tepper's portfolio looks very, very different than the S&P 500.
So I'd be curious to just dig in a little bit deeper on those ones.
Yeah, sure.
So yeah, we just launched TPRY about 10 days ago.
That is, we look at David Tepper or Appaloosa's portfolio and
capture the top 20 holdings. So, you know, just to be clear, we are not affiliated with David Tepper
or Bill Ackman or Druckenmiller. We look at their publicly available portfolio holdings to create
our portfolio. So, but we do that because it provides a really easy way for investors to access the best thinking of the best investors.
We did our research. We tried to determine, you know, who are those investors that have the longest, the best long-term track records,
which investors typically have high conviction around their stock picks, and which ones hold those positions for the longest periods of time. We weren't interested in hedge fund managers that are trading in and out of securities all day long, though there are some spectacular managers that do that.
That's not our game. We're looking for buy and hold type investors who have conviction and have long term track records.
So we brought out OMAH a year ago, just reached its one year anniversary.
That is, you know, invest like Buffett or Berkshire.
And then we brought out Bill Ackman's portfolio, then Drucken Miller's portfolio, and now David
Tepper's. And all of those, to your point, are wrapped in what we call our Target 15 methodology.
So, you know, I can get into the portfolios of each one of them. All the portfolios look very
different from one another, which is why we also like this suite of products. But what the Target 15 methodology is designed to do, it's an options overlay.
It's designed to drive to generate 15 percent income annually paid monthly.
So every single month we are seeking to pay out one point two five percent.
We're not we're not interested in one to six or one to four.
We want one to 125 every single month. We're not interested in trying to
maximize income and seeing any nab decay or anything like that. So it's a different approach.
We view these as core equity diversifiers. So if you do own the S&P or the Qs or any of those
large indexes, you pull a little piece off that and you buy one of these products to give you a different flavor of equity exposure. And of course,
then with the 15% income and, you know, they've done extremely well. We've, you know, these have
been really well received. They're very simple products. You know, they're not complicated.
You can understand exactly how we construct them and then how we run our options overlay. So,
you know, we're going to
continue to move forward with these types of products until people get sick of them. Because,
you know, and the key again is, you know, what you mentioned is that the portfolios need to look
very different from one another. So if you look at Druckenmiller versus Tepper, for instance,
I mean, there's no overlap. Actually, there might be one overlap, one security that is similar. But, you know,
they have very different approaches, right? So Druckenmiller is a global macro investor.
Bill Ackman is an activist or value-tilted investor. Tepper is more a value-contrarian
type investor. And Warren Buffett is Warren buffett with his own methodology around value and um you
know the moats and all the financial metrics that go into that so um you know they're very different
and um you know we've hit our one two five on every single product um every single month since
they've been launched and um you know they're doing quite well love. Appreciate the explanation. Stock talk. If I could bring the question over to you,
Mr. Stock talk, we do talk a lot about Stanley Druckenmiller on, on the spaces. He's one of the
ones that you people that you do quote as someone that you're being a fan of. So I'm curious,
what about Stanley Druckenmiller? Do you like, is there, is there one or two things in there?
Is it the style? Is it the it just the return and everything like that?
What about Stanley Druckenmiller?
Kind of gravitates you towards him, Stock Talk.
Mr. Stock Talk?
I think he might be taking a break.
Might be in the bathroom or in some deep research.
I know 5.10 is prime stock talk in the bathroom time.
All good.
All good.
Yeah, that is really interesting.
I am curious.
There has been stories around Bill Ackman taking Pershing Square public.
And obviously, you guys have that kind of in there built in with OMah and berkshire hathaway being a public company
and that kind of being a part of this is is that something that um obviously we kind of have that
playbook there i don't want is that maybe what we would expect going forward if a person square were
to go public maybe it would kind of be included in the the ackee fund has there been any thoughts
there and do you have any thoughts on um bill aftman taking his pump his company public whoa
yeah i mean that's brilliant move we're thrilled we can't wait to participate and and add it to the
ackee portfolio so um you know just like we mentioned with onah we own berkshire hathaway
as our top holding and then the top 20 holdings of berkshire hathaway. So the Coca-Cola is the apples, the American Expresses and so forth. You know, we intend we would do the same thing with ACKY, which is our
acronym ETF. As soon as they go public, we would love to acquire that position in the
portfolio and model it after what we did with OMAH because it just makes a ton of sense.
It gives you that exposure. But the difference of course is that we're providing that 15%
overlay, which is a nice compliment, just like people using oma h now as a
compliment to Berkshire Hathaway, we would anticipate that people would use
a C K Y as a compliment to the Pershing Square security when it comes out. So
thrilled that he's doing that and um you know
it's big news yeah i am looking forward to it i do see stock talk disconnected came back so i think
he was more having problems than being in the bathroom i do want to shift the conversation
a little bit oh there we go what's up stock? Can you hear me now? Yep, I got you now.
I hope your bathroom visit went well.
You cut out.
You cut out right when you went.
Nope.
I want to hear you.
We talk about Stanley Druckenmiller a lot on the spaces,
and someone that you are a fan of.
The question is why.
Is it just the way he invests?
Do you think it's similar to you?
Is it the returns?
Is it kind of the language and stuff that he talks about?
What about Stanley Druckenmiller has been one that you've mentioned as being in your top three?
I think he's the greatest of all time.
Everyone has a different perspective.
Some people think Warren Buffett's the GOAT.
Some people think Peter Lynch is the GOAT.
Druckenmiller put up 30% annual returns over three decades
without a single losing year.
I mean, that's, that speaks for itself.
I mean, you know, you get zero down years, right?
That's like goat status.
Over three decades is insane.
But yeah, I mean, I don't want to say that we are super similar
in our stock picking style.
I've learned a ton from him and his –
I've watched every Druckenmiller interview that's ever been done,
at least the ones I can get my hands on,
the ones that are publicly available.
But I just admire him a lot.
I admire his confidence a lot, his humility a lot,
the fact that he even today still feels like he's emotional at times
about his investments and that he trusts a lot of his research teams
with stock picks.
He was talking in the recent Morgan Stanley interview
about his biotech stock picks, and he was talking about how he morgan stanley interview about um his biotech stock
picks and he was talking about how he doesn't know his hand from his foot when it comes to biotech but
he has a biotech team that he trusts very intimately and he relies on the research and he says when
they get excited he gets excited you know i i just think that his ability to defer when necessary his
ability to put a great team around him um his ability to adapt to different markets, to different regimes, his ability to change his mind quickly.
All of those things, I mean, they sound those sound like rudimentary things to admire in somebody, but they're not when you apply it over a multi-decade time frame.
He's also somebody that understands the role of nerve very well. He talks about this in multiple
of his recent interviews also, but the idea that he feels he was a better manager when he was
younger because he had more nerve. In spite of the fact that he feels like he's more knowledgeable now,
he thinks he was a better investor and better manager
when he was younger as a consequence of that.
So there's a lot.
I mean, I could talk about Druckenmiller.
There's a lot of things that I like about him.
But he's somebody that had mentors very early in his career,
you know, in Soros and others.
And he developed a very, very unique style of his own that's very different from Soros or any of his other mentors.
And he stuck to it for a long time and also adapted as necessary, again, through different market regimes, through different, you know, leading stocks and has
shifted his portfolio so many times. I mean, if you look at his portfolio five years ago and look
at it now, it's dramatically different. You wouldn't even think it was the same investor
to a degree. And that impresses me always, like his ability to just be anywhere he needs to be in the market.
I mean, he understands everything from commodities to macro to micro to biotech to technology stocks.
I mean, he was very early on the NVIDIA trade this cycle, even though you could argue he sold a little bit early.
And even he'll tell you that himself. It's those sort of concessions that I like.
You know, I mean, he knows that he's not going to perfectly sell tops.
He knows that he's not going to perfectly buy bottoms.
He just tries to stay focused on the opportunity set in front of him.
He was talking even about some of the subjective research he does.
He was talking about how a couple of years ago, when before this whole AI thing started, that him and
his office were tracking a group of Stanford students about what they were talking about in
terms of what they were socially discussing. And he said, look, they were pivoting away from crypto
to AI like a year and a half before the AI trade started. He said they put a lot of credence in that.
Like that's not some that's not a traditional data set that a hedge fund would look at and
think that there's any objective conclusions to be drawn there.
But that was one of the impetuses for his investment in NVIDIA was that a bunch of Stanford kids
started talking about AI and started talking about GPUs, you know, about a year before
the wide release of ChatGPT.
And it's just his ability to grasp at these sort of very diverse data points across different
industries.
You know, it's just, he's just a very impressive, thoughtful person.
And so he's my goat.
If I had to pick a goat, I would pick Druckenmiller.
I'd probably put Lynch second and Buffett third in my own personal list.
It's just according to my opinion.
I don't want anyone to come from my head.
But, I mean, all those guys are fantastic for their own reasons
and have taught investors very important lessons.
I do try to mimic some of the lessons that Druckenmiller has taught
in my own stock picking and in my own portfolio management.
I'm obviously don't have to worry about a lot of the rules that he does from a hedge fund perspective.
But, yeah, I'm very inspired by him.
I admire him a lot.
I'd love to talk to the guy one day.
But, yeah, he's just he's an amazing, amazing investor and trader.
So, yeah.
Well said.
Well said.
I, you know, we agree, which is why we decided to bring the DRKY out as a tribute to, you
know, his brilliance and his portfolio is just so unique, you know, to your point about
biotech.
He's got so much biotech exposure.
I mean, one, two, three of his top five biotech. He's got so much biotech exposure. I mean, one, two, three of his top five biotech
stocks. I mean, this really, he's got a very interesting approach. And to your point also,
his ability to switch from industry to industry and really move around the market based on where
he believes the opportunities are is really unparalleled. So yeah, DRKY, invest like Druckenmiller, but with 15% income.
We love that product.
Yeah, shout out to that.
Again, TweetPinnedUpWithAnessAbove has a bunch of those ETFs there,
and the website is a great place to start your research.
We were saying earlier, never go and just buy something because you hear it online.
You should do your research into it. You should know what you are
getting into. And these spaces also, you have the ability to ask questions. So if you guys are
going research into this, the VistaShares team is super active online, including these spaces.
And we would love to go in and answer any questions that you guys do have as you are doing
your research into this. So please do let us know and we will throw them your way. But I do want to ask you to switch it up a little bit here and
talk more about, when you're looking at the tweet pins up on the list above, the AIS and POW ones,
which are a little bit of a different one. So the ones we've been talking about, they are kind of
built off of these famous investors and their 13F islands.
AIS and POW, you guys built a investment community. So for AIS, I know you guys have Sunni Madra. He was at Grok, G-R-O-Q, which got acquired by NVIDIA. So now Sunni Madra is high up
in the NVIDIA organization. We have John McNeil, who was a former general manager at Tesla doing
some other stuff. So as you were saying, a lot of these people are really active within the industry,
active of what's actually happening on the ground.
And it's been an interesting time for the data-centric theme.
There's been a little bit of fears
that has kind of creeped into the conversations here
around spending and stuff.
Obviously, we did have Oracle earnings yesterday.
They talked about AI being pretty strong.
They talked about the remaining performance obligations,
which is a lot of AI being higher than it has been. So I'm just curious on what you've heard from the guys and everything like that, the team, guys and girls. And maybe you
can tell me a little bit more about AI and POW as we're digging in. Yeah. And just one correction,
John McNeil was the president of Tesla. Just want to make that clear. But yeah, I mean, look, we have seen no slowdown in AI spending.
That is, I mean, that, and you also see it in the earnings results, right? I mean,
you see the announcements coming out. Marvell, you know, came out, was it a week ago?
The spending is, if anything continues to accelerate
because it's an arms race, you know,
and the arms race is about compute.
How much compute do you have?
How much do you control?
So what does that mean?
It means you need AI data centers
and you need semiconductors.
So that's the AI infrastructure that matters.
So when Meta invests, you know,
a hundred billion dollars into
into AI into AI what are they doing? They're building data centers and buying semiconductors.
That's what they're doing and that's where the money's going. So what AIS is is you know we build
a proprietary methodology. We call it the bill of materials and we analyze the supply chain to
determine where the capex spending is going. We determine how important each level of the supply chain is.
We assign a score to that.
So for instance, when you build an AI data center, most people don't know that 30%
of the cost of the data center goes into cooling systems.
And who's the leader in cooling system?
It's Vertiv.
Vertiv actually was just added to the S&P 500.
So that's the type of analysis we're going through.
And on the power side, on POW, we use the same methodology,
except what we're doing there is we're
trying to identify where the capex spending is going
into upgrading the grid and building power plants
and distribution and transmission capabilities,
because AI doesn't work without electricity.
There's been a lot talked about how the gating factor to AI even becoming anything is, in
fact, electricity.
And unfortunately, the grid in the United States is decades old.
It's archaic.
It just needs a complete revamp.
China's ahead there by far in terms of electricity production.
So we need to catch up.
And that's going to take trillions of
dollars with a T of capex spending. And, you know, we're just getting going on that. And those are
long lead times to do that, to do those build outs. So power infrastructure or, you know,
electrification is really equal in importance to the actual, the AI data, the AI infrastructure.
So that's why we built two products, AIS and POW, their bookends.
One is the electrification portion, one is the AI portion.
And we felt it was important to create an investment
committee made up of experts.
So when people do active products, they have a portfolio manager or
they have wall street analysts
crunching numbers you know we do that as well of course but that's not what drives the portfolio
what drives the portfolio is the knowledge of people who are actually in the industry daily
building data centers upgrading the grid so you mentioned sonny madra who now runs all of hardware
over at nvidia he's on our investment committee.
John McNeil, you know, he was president of Tesla.
He's done a bunch of things since then.
Now he's on the board of General Motors and is vice chairman of GM's autonomous vehicle
subsidiary.
So, I mean, he's in the industry.
They're looking.
They see the pipeline.
They understand the technologies.
They know what companies are winning or which companies are losing.
And that's where we gain our insights.
On the electrification side, John and Sonny have a lot of knowledge there as well.
But then we brought on this guy, Justin Lopas.
Justin is a former SpaceX engineer, former head of manufacturing at Anderil.
He is now the chief operating officer and co-founder of a company called Base Power, which is one of the leading energy technology companies in the world.
So, you know, his knowledge of the space is, you know, really second to none.
So when we talk to him about what he's seeing in the industry, he's seeing it from a perspective of, you know, actually doing the work of the build out for the grid.
And that's where we get our
insights. So we don't see any slowdown. The earnings that have been coming out have indicated
no slowdown. If anything, there's an acceleration. And I think that acceleration has continued
because it's getting, you know, it's getting more competitive. China continues to pour money into
it. The sovereigns, you know, the sovereign A, like in Saudi Arabia and so forth, they're pouring tons of money in. And at this point, what we care about is where the CapEx spending is going. So we're not betting on which LMM is going to win. Again, when Meta or whomever decides to build something, who is soaking up that capital?
Who is getting paid?
Where are the profit pools?
That's where we identify how we're going to invest.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
I am curious, is it mostly U.S.-focused, the U.S. data center and grid build-out, or is it more around the world?
No, I mean, AIS is around 50, 50, 50%.
In fact, our largest holdings are a lot of non-US companies,
the same with POW.
I mean, these are global industries.
So our largest holding is SK Hynix,
which is a South Korean company.
We've got Foxconn, which is, you know,
obviously it's a Chinese company.
So, you know, a lot of, about 50% of the exposure is non-US.
And then on the, I'm just checking the latest numbers,
make sure I don't misspeak.
POW is, yeah, about 50, 52% in the United States.
I mean, believe it or or not our second largest company is
italy so if you look at the companies in the top 10 holdings of pow i guarantee most people other
than stock talk who seems to know all the companies uh most of these companies nobody's ever heard of
you know prismian you know these are companies that are actually absolutely vital to building out
distribution and transmission.
And the interesting insight is, you know, when people talk about electrification, they say, oh, we don't have enough power.
We don't have enough. We don't have enough. We don't have enough. Right.
And it's true. We don't. So we need new power plants.
But the biggest problem is not in the energy because we have plenty of energy.
We don't have the ability to distribute it to the endpoint.
So it's really the transmission and distribution that is over 50% of the capex is going into those segments.
So that's where you really want to focus as an investor.
Who is into the boring stuff, the switching equipment, the transmission lines, the cabling, all that boring stuff.
And those are companies, most of them non-US, that are providing that critical technology.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
I'm very intrigued by this electrification in general.
The grid is so old.
Clearly, we are using more and more and more power going forward. I feel like data centers and who knows what the world looks like in 100 years from now, if there's more and more stuff that is guzzling up all this energy. But it does feel like when you look at movement forward in civilization, it tends to be coincided with a movement forward in energy.
it tends to be coincided with a movement forward in energy.
Maybe it's electricity, maybe it's all that stuff,
but we in the U S have clearly not kept up with it.
And, you know, maybe for a while,
it wasn't front and center in front of everyone's noses until we're really
excited about this data center theme that takes up all of this energy.
So yeah, it feels like one that I'm surprised it's a conversation now and not
the decade ago, but it feels like it's going to be something that in a couple of years from now, we're going to be like, oh, we should have gone harder.
Yeah, I agree with you 100%.
I mean, you know, people are talking about AI for a few years now, and really it's just become the last six months or so that people are really even talking about the electrification piece.
I mean, you know, I'm called maybe 12 months ago, but it's starting to build a lot of steam because people are realizing it's the gating issue. And,
you know, look, I mean, the grid needs to be updated just for consumer use. Forget about
that. I mean, just, just the power, you know, you know, California wanted everyone to have
electric cars. You know, they have brownouts every summer from electric, from air conditioning
units. I mean, it's, it it's you know, it's crazy.
So the grid can't handle the consumer demand.
Then you lay in the AI component and it's just we have no way we have enough power or enough enough capability right now to power these these facilities.
facilities. In fact, the government just came out recently about three weeks ago, a month ago,
that any new AI data center needs to have its own power generation facility. So there's another
level of complexity and CapEx spend that needs to occur because they don't want the consumer to
bear the cost of higher electric bills. So the hyp know, the hyperscalers need to start
getting into the electric business.
It's a wild situation.
So, you know, a year from now, you know,
look, I would say, look, if you're gonna look at any themes,
certainly AI infrastructure is a no brainer.
And, you know, you should be looking at electrification
and, you know, look again, look under the hood,
understand the companies you're investing in, understand concept we have great research on our website for both of these themes um extremely
detailed and um you know i'd encourage you to take a look i was just uh reason i was a second late
there is i was pinning the tweet up in the nest above with the link said it multiple times here
we'll say it one more time. The whole goal is informed investors.
We work with really smart people
who are creating great products.
If they're on the spaces,
it means we think they're doing something good.
It's right for someone,
but we want you guys to dig in.
We don't want you just to go in
and buy something because you hear it.
We want you to be able to build the conviction
behind these themes and get excited about it.
And last time I'll say this, I promise,
but this is a great space to come in and ask questions.
Anything that I see, I will go in and bookmark it
for the next time that we have Adam up here
if we didn't get the chance to ask it this time.
But you guys should definitely check the tweet pinned up
in the nest above.
Inform yourself.
As people are digging in, Adam, onto the website,
when I go into the VistaShares website,
obviously, when it's just to be the start of people's research,
but where do they kind of,
what are some of those things that you would start people looking at it?
The prospectus, fact sheet, all those stuff are really good places,
but I'm curious if there's any other stuff on the website that you think
people should make me, as they're digging in, should be a part of that research.
Yeah. I mean, prospectus, you should really, and look, it's boring.
There's a lot of legalese in there. I get it, but take a look at it because, you know, you should really, look, it's boring. There's a lot of legalese in there. I get it.
But take a look at it because, you know, you really want to understand, at least look at the investment strategy section of the prospectus for any product to understand really what the strategy is.
Adam.
Yes.
Or did I lose you?
Let's put those data centers to work.
Run it through the AI models.
Make these things easier for you.
But yeah.
Exactly. The investment case is pinned up on the top of both the POW and the AIS ETF page.
So if you click on our website, go to ETFs, click on AIS or POW, right at the top on the right hand
side, we have an investment case. And that's a nice place to start. It gives you more of a non-product specific overview of why you should be looking at this space.
Was there anything on this conversation that we didn't talk about that you think I should
have asked or you were excited to talk about? No, as usual, I think you guys covered a lot.
And again, I just thankful for you guys and your listeners and thank you for
supporting us. And, you know, as you mentioned, you know, hit us with questions. You know, I can't
always respond because compliance doesn't like me to respond to certain things. So but, you know,
if I get questions, you know, I can certainly address them, you know, on one of these spaces
as well. So DM me, go to the VistaShares site and,
or VistaShares X is the handle on X and, you know, hit us with questions. Love to answer them.
Yep. A hundred percent get involved. We, this whole thing is being done transparently in front
of you. So if there's anything you're questioning there or anything like that, please feel free to bring it to the forefront. That VistaShares account is up here. If you guys
do want to give it a follow, you should also make sure you are following Adam Patti as well.
If any part of this conversation was interesting for you, those would be the best places to keep
up with everything. Just posting some good posts in general, but a lot of stuff to keep you updated
on all of these themes that we have going on here. Adam, I appreciate you joining in as always on this one.
Again, tweets pinned up on the nest above, go to the Vista Shares website,
dig in deeper. Really appreciate Adam Patti, creating great products,
coming in, supporting the team,
allowing us to keep our content for free forever.
We're live every single Monday through Thursday, 3 to 5 PM Eastern,
at least.
A lot of times we bring on really, really smart people for these type of conversations to come in
in the after hours.
And we appreciate each and every single one of you guys
for allowing us to be a part of your daily routine.
Adam, is there any final words
you want to leave the people with?
Any wise words of wisdom?
Don't panic sell.
Just, you know, have a plan, stick to it. Fear is the worst. You don't
want to sell everything and lock in your losses. You'll never make it up. So just be careful when
the market gets volatile like this. 100%. 100% agree. Thank you very much. Thank you, Adam.
Thank you. This is Shres team, Shout Stock Talk,
and everyone else who we had come on this
spaces. Make sure you're following
the speakers. Follow the speakers.
Check out the tweets pinned up in the nest above.
And we will catch you all same time, same
place tomorrow.
Have a great rest of your day, everyone. Thank you.
