SPEAKER_02 0:00

Dustin, I am live from Vancouver today. Vancouver? What are you doing in Vancouver? The TED conference is over here, which I attend every year. And uh yeah, so I'm in between sessions, which is why we're starting 15 minutes later than usual. Um and I've ran to my like hotel room. And yeah. It's funny.

SPEAKER_04 0:21

I thought we were starting 15 minutes later because it's April 15th and we wanted to start on 4 15. But this way makes way more sense.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

That's pretty good, actually. I I hadn't thought about that, but yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 0:33

I like too much time on my hands when you're when you're away. That's the problem.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

If I had thought about it, uh then we would have started at 4 20. It would have been even funnier for some of our viewers, listeners.

SPEAKER_04 0:45

Um, how's how's Ted going? Or what are like the the standout uh presentations so far?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Ted Ted's fantastic in making you uh feel miserable about the world, but also to make you feel really good about the world. So they they of course, uh, for anybody who doesn't know, they bring some of the most brilliant people from all over the world to uh give talks on every subject from physics to astronomy to uh philosophy to therapy to music to design. And uh the presenters are phenomenal, and some of them are focused on um everything that's wrong with the world and you know how we need to change our behaviors in order to survive, and others are um uh focused on you know all the cool stuff that is happening and uh and everything in between. So there's uh there's a lot of uh both hope and optimism, but also like a little bit of doom and gloom as well, mixed in. So um, and because every talk is like under 20 minutes, you get exposed to a lot of different stuff. I I love it for that reason.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

Do you find that are most of the talks on the extremes where it's like very positive or very negative, and there's not many like in the middle gray, or is it just all over?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

I think you're you're more likely to get attention in general to be like on the extremes, right? So uh AI is either going to destroy us all or it's like solving cancer and uh you know all of our uh problems in the future. So there's both of that sort of uh uh viewpoints for all kinds of different subjects, whether it's like too much social media. Well, social media is actually not as bad as uh we we thought it was for kids, and you know, there's optimism on um on the same subject that there's also doom and gloom. So um it it's it's a good way to sort of like broaden your uh mind and perspective. But that's what did you have a favorite talk so far? Like what was the like number one there there's a few standouts, but it you know, like this is probably not the right medium to uh discuss the detail. We might go into some tangential.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

Yeah, I just want to know that uh what talks I should look out for when they're posted online to watch.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Well, actually, one that's kind of interesting since you're having a baby, there's like a company called Orchid, if I'm not mistaken, that uh allows you to um sort of uh do genetic uh defect removal and uh even help sort of genetically engineer the kind of baby that you want in some sense. That's their goal. Um and they're already doing it, uh mostly focused on removing uh you know uh mutations that cause diseases, but uh but also there's like mutations that help uh like you have strong bones and you know, stronger bones than average or better vision than average or whatever. So they're you know they kind of touched on the fact that they can do those types of things make superhumans as well. So Gattaca, I don't know if you've seen that movie, but if you haven't seen that movie, it's a it's a fantastic movie, and um, it just totally reminded me of Yattaca. But funny.

SPEAKER_04 3:54

Um okay, so let's talk about the market. Market the market is I forgot what this podcast was about. Yeah, I know you've been in Vancouver for too long. Um, the market has been very green the past couple of days. I know often we we talk about when the market's red, should we be worried? So I wanted to kind of flip that and ask should we be excited?

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Well, first I want to thank you for selling some of your bumble the other day because I think you sold it right before this like 15% up uh since you sold it.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

No, but I call that a sacrifice.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

That thank you. That's why I'm saying for your sacrifice.

SPEAKER_04 4:33

If I sell 10% of my position, this thing's gonna go to the moon.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

And it that's what needed to be done. If you sold all of it, it would have probably already doubled or tripled by now. Oh my god, yeah. Uh, but yeah, no, it's uh it's interesting. These things, as I've said repeatedly, are like always hard for me to predict when something like this might happen. In the past, like literally two weeks ago, my portfolio was down 18% year to date. Um, on March 30th, it was down 18%. That was the low point. And today, I think it's up around three and a half percent, something like that, maybe four percent. And there is no way I could have predicted that two weeks ago. But of course, two weeks ago, I was a buyer of uh companies like Meta and Micron and um Robinhood prior to that. And uh, and then you know, like all of a sudden the the stock market is back, and we're having these uh ridiculous uh rises. Not ridiculous, but like in in my view, it's just sort of like adjusting for uh you know unjustified uh hits on these particular names that I happen to be very interested in. So my portfolio in particular has had a 20% swing in a in a course of like less than you know 20 days, which is unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04 5:51

Yeah. So we talked about, I think last episode, how the timing all of this is very similar to last year with the tariffs, where uh the market you know went down during the initial announcement and then eventually made its way back up and and hit new all-time highs. So far, this has been very similar um with the Iran war. Market went down, the war is not over, and it's still um climbing up or not jumping up, maybe. Um, like, do you think the skies are clear ahead? Or or are we not out of the woods just yet?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

I feel like the skies are never clear ahead, right? But what whatever the market decides to sort of hyper focus on at that moment, um, just some sometimes can get the best of some people, you know. Uh two weeks ago, people were like, why don't you have stop losses? Why are you not getting rid of something when if it if it goes down more than 30%, it's irresponsible. And you know, like, and I was buying at that time, right? Um, and you know, I couldn't have told you that like three weeks from now, you know, I'm gonna be proven right because I have no idea. And it's you know, a week from now I might look like an idiot again. So it, you know, from my perspective, it's it comes back to that same old line where I want to buy great companies at good prices. I don't want to overpay for great companies. There's lots of great companies out there that I think are either valued properly or maybe slightly overvalued, to which, you know, like I'm like, all right, great, I don't need to be in those. Um, but if there's great companies that I really like and they're undervalued or they get even better valued because you know the market decides to have a you know polarized reaction to whatever happens to be the news, then um basically I'm buying those things, right? So uh that's the that's the sort of way I've been operating. And this rise, I'm you you know, just going back to your question, should we be excited that it has, you know, the market my portfolio has risen 20% in less than three weeks, is like I'm not like I kind of view it as like I have no idea what it's gonna do in the short term. So uh yeah, I'm like kind of excited, it's nice. That the positive days are definitely like nicer because you don't have to like you know, you know, you don't think about the fact that if it, you know, if it had the reverse reaction where it was down 20% in 20 days, I'd be like, well, if it went down by that amount of money five times, I'd be down to zero, right? Um but uh so it's it's a funner, uh more psychologically pleasing way of uh you know operating, but but like I can't control it. So I've just kind of uh gotten accustomed to not having huge emotional swings one way or the other. That way I'm not making irrational decisions.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

Yeah, I think you almost have to. If you don't want to overreact when the market's down, you kind of have to be level headed when the market's on the way up. Like, yeah, you could be happy and whatnot, but it's the same muscle. So if you find if you get over, or at least for me, like if I get over excited on the way up, I'm gonna be very upset on the way down. Um going back to sacrifices, you kind of have to sacrifice that joy. Um, to to just remain level headed. Um downside of all this positivity is your cash position is on its way to zero, zero percent, I should say.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Um but not not because I'm buying anything, but just because the rest of the portfolio is growing, it's pushing the cash down. Yeah. Just to be there for our list.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

But are you planning on taking some profits and building up that cash position now that the market's kind of um turning a corner here or just kind of sitting and watching?

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Yeah, if I was being honest, um, I would say that I probably over-purchased during the time that the market was getting uh slammed, you know, two three weeks ago, let's say. Um and uh and usually as it recovers and it sort of like hits back to, you know, back to where um I thought that prices should be or like are reasonable, then I do start to trim. And um maybe if I was paying more attention in the past couple of days, I may have already started my trimming, but um I'm a TED and uh you know I'm kind of like focused on the conference and not focused on the market. So sometimes the you know, just not having being in front of your computer and trying to make a decision all the time ends up working in your favor. So the fact that I haven't sold anything this this week is actually worked in my favor and like it's rising my entire portfolio. But um, but you know, if I was to speculate as to what my next moves would be over the coming weeks, if the market remains as high or continues to go up, I probably will trim some of my positions. Uh now, Micron in particular, I feel like is still very much undervalued. Um, so I probably uh will not be trimming Micron, but uh who knows about some of the others. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 11:08

Micron is up over$100 a share uh uh since I bought it like two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Yeah, it's it it's insane. It is crazy, but it should have never gone down uh to that level. It just again, in my opinion, it shouldn't have gone down to that level after such an amazing quarter. And part of me wonders just like, is the market coming around recognizing that their quarter was insane and their next quarter is going to be even more insane than last quarter's. Uh and you know, there's all this speculation that, like, oh, maybe the memory demand will fade, or because of memory optimizations or whatever, uh, we might not need, or Micron might not sell as much memory. But the the all of the indications, like Samsung has had a uh uh quarter release since, and uh like everyone who's been talking about memory continues to say that there's their supply constrained for at least the next year, possibly well beyond. And Samsung is having record profits as well. So this sort of bodes well for Micron. Um, and you know, when you fast forward a year and you're like, wow, in the next year, Micron is likely going to have$80 to$100 per share of profits, profits, mind you, and they're trading at 400 or 440 or whatever it is, that's like a 4.4 times uh you know PE, forward PE. So it just seems insanely undervalued. At a 10 forward PE, it would be a thousand dollar stock, right? So it it I think people just don't believe that it could possibly have$80 to$100 worth of profits in the next year. And I think as that uh happens, as that cadence of profitability in their quarters just continue to uh knock it out of the park, uh it would be hard to like think that they're not gonna be able to do it, right? So who knows half what happens after the next quarterly report? But I would rather be a stockholder rather than waiting to see what happens before I buy, because sometimes the increases happen 25% in one day, right? So you you can't predict that.

SPEAKER_04 13:12

Yeah. Okay, let's move on to Robin Hood. So they are up over 10% today, uh, mainly due because the SEC uh eliminated the partner day trader rule. Now, I don't know about you, I was not familiar with this rule at all until today, but I did uh a bit of a deep dive. I'm not gonna claim I'm an expert, uh, but I I can give like a brief rundown on what the Yeah, go for it, go for it.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

It's it's good. I happen to know about it, but because only a because a friend ran into it and I was like, what is that? Like, but that's interesting. Okay, go ahead and go ahead and say what it is.

SPEAKER_04 13:51

So basically, it was introduced in 2001 uh to create some protections after the dot-com bubble. And the the rule basically is if you have less than$25,000 in your account, you could only make three day trades every five business days. Okay. And a day trade is you went into a position and you exited the position on the same day. So if you went into a position on Monday and you left the position or you went out of the position on Tuesday, that's a swing trade that doesn't count towards that uh three-day trade quota. So it's somewhat difficult to hit if you are a long-term investor or if you're just like uh, you know, average uh kind of uh secondary investor. But if you're a day trader, you're gonna hit this very, very quickly. Um so what happens after the the limit? Oh uh it so the brokerage will block you from making from selling another stock that you bought that day. So it will still let you sell stocks that you owned uh for longer. It will let you buy new stocks, but it will not let you sell a stock that you just bought. Um you you would have to wait.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

But but if you did, you I thought it would it would just consider you a day trader, and then you're uh there's like other consequences that happen. Is is that not the case?

SPEAKER_04 15:19

No.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

So for the maybe I would I understood it.

SPEAKER_04 15:22

Uh well maybe yeah, there is a different um piece, which I think is separate from this, where like brokerages will identify if you're a day trader or if you're not a day trader, and there are like different uh wash sale rules. Um this is specifically to put protections or some people would say handcuffs on investors and limit what they can do. Um this was if you have less than$25,000 in your account and you do three day trades within five business days, it will prevent you from doing uh a fourth day trade.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

That seems pretty uh like that. That's that seems bad. Like the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That seems like one of those type of rules, but the rule has been removed.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

So it it's been removed. It goes into effect technically in 45 days. When I was talking to Gemini about it, it was saying uh there are several brokerages like uh Weeble and Robinhood potentially that kind of already saw this coming and have this ready to go and they might release it sooner. I don't know the legality of that. But all brokerages have to support this new rule within 18 months. So it does give the the slower moving brokerages a bit of time uh to update their systems.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Okay, so this random rule, all of a sudden um the market decided that Robinhood should be worth 10% more today than it was worth yesterday. Yes, that just seems kind of crazy. It's like an$8 billion swing on market uh on the market cap of uh a company that has a total of you know run rate of like$5 billion revenue rate. It just became worth$8 billion more. So that's how ridiculous the market is, right? Like on this seemingly random news that might affect Robin Hood's revenues by you know a couple percentage points, maybe that's probably generous. Um the market decided that, oh yeah, today Robinhood is worth eight billion dollars more than yesterday. So that's probably 3,000 years worth of sales that might be affected by by this rule. So uh, you know, sometimes the market is like clinging for either bad news or good news to make price adjustments that should have already happened uh on a given stock. And this is exactly why I don't try to time these things, right? Like I have no idea when it might make that decision about Ribbian or about um Micron or uh you know about Bumble or whatever. Right.

SPEAKER_04 17:59

It's fascinating. I was very close to selling some Robin Hood today because I thought it definitely is positive for their business. I just don't think it's 10% uh increase, you know, positive. Um going back to the the rule itself, like and I you already mentioned like it's such a a silly rule, it's also just completely arbitrary for two reasons. You have the the 25k limit, which is totally arbitrary. Correct, or you could have you could have a large net worth and you just have your money dispersed um between multiple accounts, and then you can't day trade, you have to consolidate into one brokerage. And then the other arbitrary piece is that you're limited to the three-day trades in the five days. Like I don't feel like there was any thought put behind any of this, especially like the the 25k limit. If you have$24,999 versus$25,000, like you have completely different rules. So I just thought it was very poorly implemented.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

It is welcome to uh politicians trying to sort of like uh set up rules for it, probably again with good intentions, but just they don't understand the the um details sometimes well enough to make good judgment calls, which is why I'm more of the of the side that like industry needs to either be involved, which seems kind of bad because oftentimes industry is trying to manipulate the laws in their favor. Um but like without some industry help, it's kind of uh they're taking shots in the dark, essentially.

unknown 19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:49

Um let's talk about another stock that moved, I think it moved over 12% today. Uh EOS. So they announced a partnership with Turpine X. So it's a positive move. I have very mixed feelings on this actual partnership, and I wish I could come in here and be like, oh my god, this is gonna be fantastic. Um, but I do EOS because yes, I I have a two percent position in EO. So, like, and it the stock has been hit badly, um, as you know. Uh like I think my position was down over 50% at one point. Oh wow. Um, but and now I'm maybe down, I don't know, somewhere over 20%. So like I would love to see strong positive news and strong positive moves, but I also have to be realistic about um you know how how I'm actually feeling about these things. What is the partnership? What are what are they doing? So they so uh Turbine X has uh gas turbines to generate power and EOS has the batteries to um you know store not only store that power but also use it dynamically, specifically for large-scale data centers um that like need a lot of power on demand, um, which I don't think can be used directly with these gas turbines. Like you kind of need this like middleman system um the they're targeting up to two gigawatt hours of EOS uh storage systems over the next 36 months, I believe. And the initial uh deployment is they're targeting for 2027. So it's nothing like immediate. Uh the the pieces that give me pause about this partnership is a big piece that they're promoting is this is an off the grid like uh setup. So there's a lot of concerns about uh people. People building data center or companies building data centers and it being a big draw on the electric grid. And this totally avoids that because it's these gas turbines that are powering the data centers with the EOS batteries. So that sounds like a good thing. It does sound like a good thing. The problem that I have is if I am in the party that is against building out these data centers, can I find a way to push back on this? And the answer is absolutely, because how are you going to power the gas turbines or like what's the fuel? And it's going to be natural gas. So you're still taking a resource from the local community to power this system. So in theory, depending on where it's located, because there's different dynamics depending on the geographics, you could still have increased natural gas prices if this system shows up in your neighborhood versus increased electricity prices. Now I think it would have, from my understanding, which is limited, I think it would have less of an impact than have being plugged directly into the electrical grid. So that's positive. The build-out of actually like building the gas pipeline to the data center takes months as opposed to building the uh like electric grid connection, not a technical term, but that takes years. Um, so this is a lot quicker, which is good for the business. And again, I and I'm not even against using natural gas to power the data centers. I'm more just concerned is this going to be approved to from the the local uh municipality.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Okay. Right. But I mean, I think it might be more likely to get approved, and that might be where the excitement is, or these kind of solutions is why they might be gravitating towards them because they're more likely to be approved because natural gas is doesn't have as much of a shortage as electrical generation has. Right. So absolutely. So with electrical generation, there's two uh aspects to it. There's sort of like the fuel itself, which could be natural gas to generate the electricity, or it could be coal or nuclear or whatever, but then there's the maximum capacity of the uh power plant, which uh which, if you exceed the maximum capacity, you have to have an expansion of the power plant or a new power plant. Um, and this one is just a natural resource, essentially, being fed to uh a localized power plant for the data center. So, and and they might be able to argue that they could put power back into the grid and even remove some of the demand on the power plant. So that this might you, you know, during the time doesn't need it as much. And this is why I think that the um market might be more excited about localized power plants that are sort of using these secondary systems to generate power for a data center because they can now bring power back to the grid and lower the price of uh demand, demand power, uh, which is what uh most communities are worried about. So I I I I don't have as much concern about it, although if I'm not an EOS uh uh shareholder, so I haven't been paying close attention to it. But in general, with AI data centers in uh in particular, I think that's the excitement. Right.

SPEAKER_04 25:32

What I would have loved to have seen that would have made me feel a bit better is either one a more green solution, and which I personally prefer, but I the again, my core issue is it just being approved. Or if they came out and said, This is exactly where we're building, these are our customers that are signed up, and I don't think they disclose any of that information. So it's that it's more that they disclose that they have a plan to do this, right? And they have and they're targeting up to uh two gigawatt hours. Unfortunately, if they hit zero, that still counts, right? Like in regards to it's still up to it's under, it's under two. Um, so and I and I hope you're right, and I hope I'm being like overly cautious, and I'm not doing anything with the stock. I still believe in EOS, and I don't think that this is a bad move, but I think it's important, especially when the stock moves 12% in one day, to kind of be critical. Because if the stock goes down, either because the deal, the data center deal doesn't go through, or the market kind of has a similar sense that, like, okay, maybe this is gonna be a bit of a longer road. Um, it helps me be more level-headed of like, okay, this is something I saw coming. That 12% move never really should have happened. Um I see. So you that's what I'm thinking about.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

I think I'm hearing you have a like doomed doomsdayer type of viewpoint on your investments just in case things go bad. You're like, I knew it.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

Well, I I not I wouldn't say doomsday. Like I think that I think they're going to do well. I just don't think this deal was particularly very strong.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Okay, okay, I gotcha. That was more of a uh a joke. Unfair characteristic, yeah. Unfair characterization of uh what you're saying, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

Yeah, yeah. Like I don't I don't think the and I and yeah, and again, this is positive news. I just I I think that it's not going to be as straightforward as everyone's expecting because it's just very difficult to get um data center build-out approvals. Um, and there's a lot of like ways that uh local municipalities can poke holes in this plan. But to your point, if they're going to give back and provide energy to the electric grid, that could be very interesting. But they're also saying that the benefit is that they don't have to touch the electric grid, and that's going to save time building out these data centers. So even if they're going to give back, they don't have they don't have the wiring to do it. It's off the grid.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Right, right. So yeah, in order to give back, they would have to be connected. So yeah, you're you're you're right. But um, but there might be less of a concern in the there should be less of a concern. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:37

Um, but you know, like we were talking about in TED, it's there's a lot of like both extremes, and it's just very hard, um, unfortunately. And that's part of the reason why I like Iron so much, is they're solely uh developing green data centers. So it's a lot easier for them to get approval. So so people are doing it. Um software stocks um that have poor motes. So I wrote an article um earlier this week. Um I had I I was playing around with perplexity computer for the first time. They announced that they had uh this plaid connector that you could use to build apps with. So I was like, okay, I'll try it out. And it's not perfect by any means, but I was very impressed with what it could do and and how quickly. Within 10 minutes, I was able to like have a working portfolio tracker. Um and it shifted my perspective, even though I think we all know it's going to be easier to build software with AI in the future. The fact that it's a bit closer than I realized, like totally shifted how I I've been thinking about it. Um, and I just like had to sit down and get all my thoughts on paper to kind of sort it all out. Um, and I think it's going to have a real impact on particular stocks. So I just want to kind of break that down. And obviously, none of this is investment advice. Um, so the first big thought is code in the near future will be a commodity, meaning anyone will be able to build whatever they want with minimal uh barriers to entry. You'll be able to just prompt the the thing and it will build the front end, the back end. You'll be able to get on the app store all with just one prompt. And if you if your product um or your website doesn't have a strong moat, and by that I mean like a more of a tangible mode, like anything that's based in the real world, you could be replicated by someone with one of these problems. Yes. So an example of of companies that have a real moat would be um X and YouTube, where maybe you're watching this on, where they have the the social network of it all, where you can make the next X platform, you can make the next YouTube platform, but it doesn't mean anyone's gonna go and use it. So they have that network effect. Um, another example would be Uber, where they have uh the the cars and the driver network um and and the government like approval uh in different cities and whatnot. So it's things like that where it's gonna be very hard, regardless of how easy it is to make software, it's gonna be very hard to disrupt those players. Now, the examples of where it might be a bit easier to disrupt would be just pure software plays. So an example would be Jira or Atlassian uh and Figma, where you're not gonna be able to necessarily build that great of a product today, but it is definitely coming.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Yeah, it's easy to imagine that's where AI is going. You'll be able to say, like, build me something like Jira and it'll and make it just as good, and it'll and it'll create something for you that's uh as good.

SPEAKER_04 32:36

And not only that, but you'll be able to build it for your use case. You'll be able to build it without like all the bloat. Um, and you could add whatever features you want. You're not like reliant on some third party. Um now, with that said, that doesn't mean that everyone is going to prompt their own software and there is no future for these companies like Jira and Figma. I think a lot of people are still gonna want to use other people's software uh for because you have these software owners and creators that have expertise and vision and kind of know what to build next. The average consumer doesn't even they might know what they want, but they but they also maybe don't know what they want, which is the whole like Steve Jobs thing where he kind of um you know figures out exactly what what users may want, even if they don't know they want it.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Um there's a famous uh Henry Ford quote about that where it's like uh if I asked if you asked people who rode horses and buggies what what do they want, they'd say faster horses and you know, but exactly. You know, they they didn't tell them that they wanted cars because they didn't know that was possible. But but yeah, um by the way, you wrote this uh uh sort of your you put your thoughts down because I I read it the other day, but you wrote it over the weekend, right?

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Yeah, I wrote it over the weekend.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

Was it a coincidence that you used Atlassian, or did you know that Atlassian was just removed from um QQQ?

SPEAKER_04 34:15

Oh, I didn't even know that.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

Oh, you didn't know that. So literally, I think on Monday, I think it was announced, or maybe it was Friday, I don't remember, but I think I saw it after I read your thing. I was like, oh, that's that's kind of interesting. So um, yeah, Atlassian was just removed from QQQ and replaced by Sandisk, I believe. That's so yeah, I had no idea. Yeah, so it's already affecting some of these software companies um who you happen to use as an example. Uh Jira is made by Atlassian for those who don't know.

SPEAKER_04 34:47

And I do think B2C or um consumer products will take less of a hit than B2B um business-to-business products because corporations have more incentive to build their own solutions. One, that they hire people to do it, and two, they're paying more for the services. Where a consumer product, a lot of them are already free uh because they're supported by ads. So there's less incentive. And even the ones that um do have you know a ten dollar a month plan, there's some users will definitely want to build their own, but a lot for the reasons I listed already, um, it's not gonna be worth it for them. Um so what I did after I wrote this, it was like, oh, I should look at my portfolio and make sure all my like stocks pass this kind of check. And they do, fortunately. I mean, like the ones that I'll call out um are Bumble's a good example, where that is a pure software play, but they have the network effect.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

So I think right. You could replicate Bumble in a day, but but there's nobody on there, so then no one's coming on there to look for dates because no one else is on there, so right.

SPEAKER_04 36:09

And you could even you could prompt a better product than Bumble, right? Like if you have a better idea, but you still need the people on there, and that's the biggest problem of all. Um Meta, similar, they have the network effect. Uh Amazon, I mean, the outside of the that they have an immense amount of user users, um obviously AWS, you're not prompting, and the the whole e-commerce side and them using their Rivian electric trucks, you're not prompting that into existence. So I think all my like more software focused uh plays are fairly safe. And that's not to say if you own Figma or Atlassian that you should be selling by any means. It's just something because I do think that these companies still have businesses in this like post uh AI kind of world. Um but it is just something to be aware of and think about how are the how are they going to make their their moats more defensible.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Yeah. Also, these companies are integrating AI's uh AI into their products, making their products much stronger as well. So there is a lot of that that uh I suspect is going to be happening as um, you know, all of these companies also employ some brilliant people who are somewhat aware of these things. And um yeah, but but I generally agree with you know the high-level uh viewpoint, which which I thought was fantastic. Your your write-up was really good.

SPEAKER_04 37:44

Thank you. And we will have that in the description below. Um, Adrian, I need to send you the link so you can put it in the description below. Um okay, let's get to listener questions. I heard a rumor we have a lot. I actually have typically I keep an eye on it, but we do have a lot.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Everybody's um wanting to know your opinions on a wide variety of things. So the first essential question is someone needs to know the brand of Hamid's shirt.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

This one is just a you know, classic uh T. Um, I think it's like a$15 classic t-shirt. But uh uh ironically, the the this t-shirt thing came up before, and that particular time I had happened to be wearing a t-shirt I bought from Nostrum, which looks identical, and I had paid$100 for that one. So that's funny. Um, yeah, sometimes uh it's not what you how much you pay, but uh just the basic stuff sometimes works works just fine.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Lessons for us to live by. Um okay, so this person, I think we've talked a lot about Robin Hood today, but I just wanted to see if there was anything else you guys wanted to add for this person.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Yeah, so so um the the the the question is please discuss uh hood stock movements and if we will hit all-time highs or not. And um again, it's impossible for anybody to answer whether or not or when we might hit all-time highs. The the way I always encourage people to think about investing is uh, you know, if you A, do you think that the company is a great company and doing all the right things and building the right product line and uh making improvements at a pace that might be faster than their competition? Uh, these are the things that makes a great company, right? Like um, are they innovative? Are they outpacing their competitors? Are they providing a product that their customers love? Do their customers love them? Um, you know, all of these things sort of like help define a great company. So if you were to ask these questions about Apple or Amazon or Google or Microsoft or whatever, I think the answer is yes on the vast majority of uh these companies. Then the next question becomes okay, well, uh is the company at a price that is uh competitive relative to other companies that are also great? Um, or do you have to pay a premium for it? And uh especially for the taking the growth curve into consideration. So with Robinhood, uh what what Robinhood has going for it is that it has a very, very fast growth curve, uh meaning it's growing at roughly 50% annually. Uh and uh the um the the premium that you have to pay for it is not crazy high. It's a it's a price earnings ratio that's in the 30s 30s, for example, uh, which uh with that kind of a growth rate rate, if you go forward like a year or two, then all of a sudden the price earnings ratio becomes in the teens or even lower. And if you go four or five years, then it becomes even lower. So one of two things have to happen. It either has to stop growing, or uh its price earnings ratio has to get compressed for some unknown reasons, or the price of the stock has to go up. Like one of these three things will occur. Um and my bet is that the company will continue to be great, so it's not going to stop growing. Um, and uh uh and the price earnings ratio will probably be competitive with your you know other investments that you could make. And therefore, if it continues to grow and the price earnings ratio just continues to be competitive with uh similar type of investments, then uh then the stock price is going to go up. That's my viewpoint on it, and that's why I own the stock. So I don't know when it's gonna hit all-time highs. Uh, it could happen next month, it could happen a year from now or three years from now. All of those things are possibilities, and I can't predict these things. And um, I've stopped trying because uh I just don't know. So hopefully that gives a little bit of perspective on it.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

Okay, you ready?

SPEAKER_02 42:05

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Here's another one for Hamid. Hamid, how much more does the market have to go up before you start building back up your cash position? How do you decide when to do this?

SPEAKER_02 42:16

Yeah, that's a great question. So the uh the way I look at it again is uh which companies have the um it's harder to justify their current price point. And if I was to make that decision today, I would say that the uh first company on the list is probably Rocket Lab, despite the fact that it's you know my number one position because I love it so much, but also because it has gone up so much. Um, so if I was trimming, um and I probably will start trimming soon uh to build up my cash position, Rocket Lab will probably be on the chopping block to some degree. Uh and then because I have bought more of Meta and more of Micron than I would have wanted to, but because the prices just became super attractive a couple of weeks ago, I might trim those positions as well. Um but you you know I don't have a specific number in mind. Uh right now, this week I'm at the TED conference, I'm kind of focused on that. I I you know I don't know if I'm gonna be making too many decisions this week, but I might, you never know.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

Ready to move on?

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Yeah. Dustin, actually, how do you go about doing it? I guess you you had previously mentioned that you always have like the the stock that you're that's on the top of your list that you would get rid of if you wanted to the weakest link. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm yeah, which one is not for you, just out of curiosity. Is is Bumble? I know you just sold a little bit of Bumble.

SPEAKER_04 43:45

No, no, Bumble's not a weakest link. I I just it was actually like hold uh I don't know if it was holding up well, but the the allocation of my of uh bumble in my portfolio was actually just a little bit high relative to. Everything else. It was my second largest stock position. So I just sold um 10% just to get the price back up again. Um, but also to to build up cash a little bit. Um joke for a second. Almost missed that joke. I don't really my I'm pretty happy with my portfolio right now. If I had to pick a week link, it might be Robin Hood. Um, if I'm just looking at stocks, other otherwise I would I would definitely include Ethereum on that list. Um and Robin Hood is a stock I would want to own long term. And I, you know, it's cur currently um over five percent of my portfolio. But as as we've talked about, I do I do think um relative to Bitcoin, it still might be over. Yeah, I I I I I don't think it's going straight to all-time highs. Um, but as a as a holder, I think it is going to go to all-time highs, but like you said, who knows when. Um so that that's why it would potentially be a weaker link. But at the same time, I'm not really looking to build up my cash too much from here. Um, I mean, if Ethereum were to have a nice run, I would maybe start selling that. Um, but my I have over 10% of my portfolio in cash right now. Uh, so I'm I'm pretty happy. Very cool. Adrian, let's go to the next one.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Okay, this is for both of you. Are either of you still buyers of Rivian at this price?

SPEAKER_04 45:44

Dustin, I'll let you start on Rivian. At the moment, no, I'm happy with my Rivian position. It's over uh 4% of my portfolio. If it goes back down uh maybe to around$14,$13, uh, maybe I'll buy a bit more, but I'm good with the with my current position.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Um, so Rivian is uh almost 14% of my portfolio. And um, I think it's very undervalued even at the current price, but because it's the uh up until recently it was the largest investment I had ever made into a company. More recently, Micron became uh took that title. But um uh so I'm I'm not looking to add more Ribbian uh just because I've already made such a huge investment, but I do think Rivian is very much undervalued. And uh, you know, the the problem uh for a company like Rivian, by the way, and um I know there's a lot of like frustrated Ribbian investors out there who are like, you know, why doesn't this stock move? Or they they sometimes sort of blame the managements, maybe like they're not doing the right things or whatever to promote the company or the stock or whatever. But fundamentally, what it comes down to from my perspective is that revenue has to go up rapidly and uh uh profits have to start to show up. And until those two things happen, um it's it's hard to predict what's going to happen. So uh and the the reason it's hard to predict is because Rivian is only a$20 billion company. So if more people all of a sudden start believing in the future of this company, it could it could skyrocket from here, despite having its revenues and profits improve rapidly, because maybe some uh some other things excite investors, such as the R2 coming out and getting um finally uh user reviews, and those reviews are uh phenomenal if if they happen to be phenomenal, uh that could excite investors. I don't know, but if because the revenues and profits are not yet up, it could also not excite investors. So you never know. And and you know, that this quarter they're gonna have another sort of like quarter where they uh burn through another billion dollars of cash, and uh that could also uh frustrate investors. So I I can't again predict what what's gonna happen with Rivian in the short term. But again, if you fast forward four or five years uh and uh and think about the sort of transition to EVs and where Rivian stands in that transition to EVs, I think I think that Rivian has a very, very bright future um because of that transition that uh that continues to happen. And I expect to that it will continue to happen. And that's the reason I own Rivian. And I'm not looking to sell any of my position, but I'm also not looking to add to it just because I'm down pretty heavily on cash, and then it's also the second largest investment I've made. What else? What else do you think?

SPEAKER_00 48:45

Ready?

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

Hamid wanted to ask, as you always you always look at companies with founders CEOs, what makes Micron an exception?

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Yeah, this is a great question. So um I love founder run uh companies because uh they generally tend to be longer-term focused and they have a much higher likelihood of solving massive problems that they might have. Like Bumble is a perfect example of that, where um, you know, uh coming in, Whitney Wolfheard has recognized that um dating apps in general uh have this problem of uh swipe fatigue by their user base, right? Like uh there's just too much uh interest that's happening, and they kind of need to like look at this problem holistically at a higher level and solve it. And so coming in and saying like your product has is basically crappy and it's sort of like created this societal uh swipe fatigue issue is not something just that any CEO comes into a company and does, right? Like founders come in and they they solve these type of problems, uh, even when they seem pretty um overwhelming or huge. Um what's great about uh so one of the first things I did before I invested in Micron is I started looking into his CEO to understand is this a short-term CEO, long-term CEO? And he's been there since um, I believe uh I want to say 2017, 2018 timeframe. But more importantly, his background is uh that he was co-founder of SandDisk. So he understands this space. He's a technical guy, um, understands this space, and understands Sandisk's business too, by the way, which people seem to be extremely excited about. And Micron's flash storage space, uh uh flash storage business is actually bigger than sand disc's, right? And for some reason, the market has decided not to get super excited about Micron, at least in recent months. I know it's it's up a couple hundred percent over the past maybe over a year, but um but uh from a price earnings ratio, future price earnings ratio, Micron is getting a lower valuation than Sandis and others. Um but he seems to be executing fantastic uh in a uh perfect way. Uh and um he's got the technical background. He's been a founder, so he's got that sort of like founder-like mindset, uh, despite the fact that he's not the founder of Micron. So um I do like Micron's founder, or Micron's CEO, rather. He's not the founder, but uh I do like uh Micron's CEO. And uh I think he's got the right technical background to be able to uh continue to lead Micron in a pretty fantastic way. So that's what makes me excited about him.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Okay, staying on Micron. Um curious, Hamid, why you would consider trimming Micron even if it's overweight, you if you see it going much higher.

SPEAKER_02 51:50

Yeah, so it if it goes higher is when I would trim. Uh, I think at 440 or whatever it is right now, I'm not looking to trim. I would probably trim all these before. What is it? 456 a share. Oh, did it and 456? At some point it was in the 440s today, but um but but uh the the reason I would consider trimming is just because I bought more than I would have had the price not gone back into the 300s, right? And um, and uh the way I view it sometimes is that if I'm buying more than I would have uh because the price became extra low, then some of that I should get rid of as the price sort of like adjusts itself to the to the correct position. Um, but honestly, I I don't I'm not like looking to trim anytime soon. So it might depend on how quickly it goes up. Uh I I firmly do I uh posted on X the other day that my opinion is that um Micron should be an$800 stock today. And if it meets the numbers that it's projecting to have this quarter, it should become a$1,000 stock if it beats its quarter uh expectations, right? Um, I don't know why it's not trading at those numbers. Uh and uh fortunately for everyone else, I don't get to decide what the market does, right? So uh, but I do think Micron is severely undervalued.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

Okay, should we put Dustin under the microscope?

SPEAKER_04 53:19

Please.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Dustin, what made you go for EOS instead of Bloom Energy?

SPEAKER_04 53:25

Bloom Energy. Oh, I'm impressed.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Be the leader in having these AI data centers use their own power.

SPEAKER_04 53:31

I didn't realize he said Bloom Energy in the next sentence. I was like, oh, I'm impressed you know B use Bloom Energy. Um okay. So uh Oh, thanks, Dustin.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

This is this is my level of they're so happy when I know something. Okay, I'm gonna drop off now.

SPEAKER_04 53:53

Um, so I actually owned Bloom Energy way before we started this podcast. I ended up selling um out of it in 2024, so I totally missed this run-up. Um, but I did make a little bit of a profit on it. Um, so I I am familiar with the company, I like their business. Uh the reason why I went with EOS wasn't because I was looking for an energy play, but I was trying to utilize the products that we've built. So the uh EHS score on Earnings Hub, uh the EH 500, uh Savvy Trader in general, and see like you know what what everyone's doing on there, because you could search on Savvy Trader a stock and see like recent trade activity. And I was trying to figure out um what stocks were interesting that kind of hit certain uh criteria for me. And EOS checked a lot of those boxes uh where Bloom did not. Um so that that's why I went with with EOS over Bloom. Um, but also Bloom is a very different company than EOS if we're actually comparing those two, uh, where they are an energy um generator. Uh the whereas EOS is strictly energy storage. Um so they're in a similar space, but they are different. Thank you for the question.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

Okay, you ready, Hamid?

SPEAKER_04 55:38

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

What is your experience with your meta glasses so far? And do you believe in the product making a significant revenue for meta?

SPEAKER_04 55:48

Oh, and I have a follow-up question for this. Did you end up buying the um like I forgot what they call you didn't buy the ones with the screen, the the video, the video one?

SPEAKER_02 55:58

No. So uh I I had the Ray-Ban uh smart glasses, the first generation as well. Uh interestingly, the first generation was more comfortable to wear than the second generation for some reason, even though the weight was similar and it's just something about the plastic that was uh a little bit more comfortable on my ears and nose. Um, I like the glasses. Uh, I think they're uh they're definitely useful for certain scenarios, right? The the my use case for them has been to record my daughter's soccer game so that I could just go and just like as soon as she gets the ball, I just go like this. Um I think that uh their AI was lacking or had been lacking. I think they just made a huge update uh for the classes that uh might make it even more useful. Um I do think that uh they're onto something, but the way in which they have gone about it so far has not been successful. Uh, largely because uh I think they need to basically just for lack of a better term, create a better product, right? Like they it still needs to be lighter, it still needs to be uh have better AI on it, and it needs to last longer with the battery life. So uh they're on the second generation. By the time they're on the third or fourth, they might get those things right. I think the form factor is something that is uh has you know 100 million potential users on an annual basis at some point down the road. It might take 10 years to get there, but um, I do think they're on to something. They just haven't executed very well on it. And and the video version of the glasses, the way in which they went about selling it was uh very uh very just weird because you had to set up these uh demo sessions that were generally at Best Buy that was like not very available. It wasn't at every Best Buy was like the closest one to me was 45 minutes away. And then they'd you know, if you need prescription, they have to like custom order them. They didn't have the custom order website up. So by the time that they uh like I lost enthusiasm for them, so I never ordered them. Actually, I don't even know if the custom order form is up yet, but uh they they seem to have not really focused on it.

SPEAKER_00 58:17

Okay, let's do this last one, and I'm gonna change my language a little bit. How do you think the market will react to the inclusion of the T accounts?

SPEAKER_02 58:28

Oh, thank you. Well, apparently, uh by the way, we we uh mentions of certain words like get get our videos uh labeled as uh something that I don't want to say, and then we they get demoted for some reason. So some of our episodes have much higher view counts than uh others for these reasons. But um uh okay, what what do I how do I think the market will react to the inclusion of them? Um I feel like the market has already reacted. They this is a known thing, and um, I don't anticipate that um uh Robin Hood or anybody else is going to get uh a bump for the T accounts. So uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:09

I I agree. We uh Brandon, we did do a full breakdown of this in the last episode. So um if you want to watch that, we spent a couple minutes talking about this, so uh might be worth it. And our last episode got a hit because of that too. So yeah, yeah. We we used the T-word one too many times. Um all right.

SPEAKER_02 59:32

Okay, well, no, that's it. Were you gonna say something?

SPEAKER_04 59:35

No, I thought you were gonna say something. So I I was about to do the outro and then it I thought.

SPEAKER_02 59:39

No, do the outro, we're done. I appreciate everyone.

SPEAKER_04 59:42

We're done. Yeah, thank you all for listening. We appreciate it. Thank you all for the questions. I love when we have a ton of listener questions, and we actually have uh the time to answer them. So thank you, and we will rant with you next week. Sounds good. Bye, everyone.