For most of the AI buildout to date, AI servers were GPU-heavy and CPU-light. One CPU was needed for every four to eight GPUs in an AI server, but with agentic AI, that shifts dramatically toward one CPU per GPU. Intel said during its Q1 2026 earnings call that the ratio of CPUs to GPUs deployed in data centers could tighten by as much as 1:1 in agentic scenarios as AI workloads shift from training to inference.

The reason is because training an AI model requires matrix multiplication which is pure GPU work whereas Agentic inference is different: each agent call invokes tools, queries databases, makes API calls, retrieves documents, parses responses, orchestrates multi-step workflows. With the ability to send out API calls to multiple sources, each agent can essentially use the internet far more intensively than a human can and all of that orchestration runs on general-purpose CPUs. So as demand shifts from training models to running billions of agents that browse, code, and call tools, the CPU intensity per GPU goes up tremendously.

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Investors often want a simple rule that protects them from large losses and easy to execute. Stop losses are the most common example. The appeal is clear. The market can be punishing, and concentration magnifies both outcomes and emotions. The problem is that stop losses, while simple, are often not consistent with the underlying logic of a concentrated portfolio.

Stop losses appeal to people because they feel like discipline. They create a hard boundary that promises protection. The issue is that in a concentrated portfolio, a stop loss often replaces the only thing that matters, judgment, with a price level you picked when nothing was happening. It is a rule designed to prevent you from thinking at the moment thinking is most valuable.

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I am not writing this to be provocative. I was an early bull. I owned almost 20,000 shares at one point and rode the position to a gain of over $562,000. I believed in the telehealth platform and direct-to-consumer model that would revolutionize healthcare. But part of being a disciplined investor is recognizing when a thesis breaks. The thesis on broke a long time ago. What follows is not the perspective of someone who missed the trade. It is the perspective of someone who was in it, profited from it, and exited because the warning signs became impossible to ignore.

On February 5, Hims & Hers announced it would begin offering a compounded version of Novo Nordisk’s oral Wegovy pill at an introductory price of $49 per month. Within a few hours, the FDA responded by announcing plans to restrict GLP-1 ingredients used in non-approved compounded drugs. The Department of Health and Human Services referred the company to the Department of Justice for potential violations of federal law. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary posted publicly that his agency would take “swift action” against companies mass-marketing what he described as illegal copycat drugs. The stock, which had already fallen 12% during the trading session, dropped another 14% in after-hours trading.

This was not a surprise. It was the logical endpoint of a pattern that has defined Hims & Hers for years: a management team that consistently prioritizes provocation over common sense.

The Value Trap

At first glance, the financial profile looks compelling. Revenue grew 69% year-over-year to $1.48 billion in 2024 and was tracking toward approximately $2.35 billion for 2025. Subscriber count reached nearly 2.5 million. The company posted $126 million in net income in 2024. For investors scanning screeners, HIMS appears to be a high-growth business trading at a steep discount, with shares down roughly 68% from their all-time high of $72.98 reached in February 2025. At $23 per share, one might assume the market is simply mispricing a growth story.

That assumption is wrong. The stock is not cheap because the market is inefficient. The stock is cheap because the market is pricing in existential legal and regulatory risk that most retail investors are underweighting.

Consider the operating model. Revenue growth at Hims & Hers is largely a function of marketing spend. They need to maintain an outrageous level of spending just to maintain customers. The company's customer acquisition cost has nearly doubled from $544 in 2021 to an estimated $979 by 2024, and analyst commentary through 2025 suggests the trend has only continued upward. Hims is spending close to $1,000 to acquire a single subscriber, and that number is rising, not falling, as the business scales.

A Pattern of Management Missteps

The real failure in is the culmination of repeated decisions by CEO Andrew Du-dumb and his management team to court controversy and push regulatory boundaries.

In May 2024, during the wave of pro-Palestinian campus protests, Dudum posted on X encouraging demonstrators to continue protesting and offering to hire them. Regardless of the sincerity of the underlying sentiment, for a public company CEO, wading into a polarizing geopolitical conflict and alienating a meaningful segment of your customer base is a governance failure. The same criticism applies had he taken the opposite position.

Under federal law, compounding pharmacies can mass-produce copies of brand-name medications only during a declared drug shortage. The FDA resolved the Wegovy shortage in late April 2025, meaning the legal basis for mass compounding of semaglutide effectively ended. Rather than winding down this product line, Hims pivoted to what it described as “personalized” compounding under a different legal exemption. The company continued offering compounded semaglutide injections, arguing that individual dosage customization qualified as patient-specific compounding rather than mass production.

In late April 2025, Novo Nordisk and Hims & Hers announced a partnership that would allow Hims to offer branded Wegovy through NovoCare Pharmacy, starting at $599 per month. The deal was designed, in part, to transition patients off compounded semaglutide and onto FDA-approved treatments. Within weeks, Novo Nordisk terminated the agreement. In a public statement, Novo accused Hims of “deceptive promotion and selling of illegitimate, knockoff versions of Wegovy” and of engaging in “illegal mass compounding” in violation of the terms of their arrangement. The stock fell 35% on the day the termination was announced. CEO Dudum accused Novo of “misleading the public,” but the partnership had lasted barely a month before the larger company walked away.

In February 2025, the company ran a 60-second Super Bowl spot titled “Sick of the System,” attacking the weight loss industry and implicitly promoting its compounded GLP-1 offerings. The ad contained no safety disclosures, no side-effect information, and only a three-second, barely legible disclaimer noting the products are not FDA-approved. Bipartisan senators wrote to the FDA requesting enforcement action. The Partnership for Safe Medicines sent letters to both the FDA and Fox Broadcasting calling the ad “blatantly misleading.” The company’s own 10-K filing acknowledges that FDA regulations require promotional materials for prescription compounded drugs not to be false or misleading. Yet the company aired the ad anyway in front of over 120 million viewers.

The management failures become even more glaring when you compare Hims to a direct peer. Ro, a telehealth company founded the same year, has maintained active partnerships with both Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. Ro integrated with Novo’s NovoCare Pharmacy and launched the Wegovy pill through that channel in January 2026. Ro also integrated with Lilly’s LillyDirect platform to offer Zepbound. While Hims burned its Novo partnership in under two months, Ro has deepened its relationships with both major GLP-1 manufacturers. The difference is not the business model. It is management judgment.

And then, despite all of this, Hims proceeded to launch a compounded oral semaglutide pill on February 5, 2026, priced at $49 for the first month, dramatically undercutting Novo Nordisk’s branded Wegovy pill, which had received FDA approval just weeks earlier. Novo immediately called the product an “unapproved, inauthentic and untested knockoff” and announced legal action. Within 24 hours, the FDA signaled it would restrict the GLP-1 ingredients used in non-approved compounded products, and HHS referred the company to the Department of Justice.

What the Short Interest Is Telling You

As of the most recent reporting period, short interest in HIMS stands at approximately 67 to 72 million shares, representing roughly 32 to 37% of the float. This is an extraordinarily elevated level. A heavily shorted stock typically has short interest in the low-to-mid teens as a percentage of float. HIMS consistently ranks among the most shorted names in the U.S. equity market.

This is not a case of short sellers waiting to get squeezed. Short interest has remained persistently high even as the stock price has declined substantially. In a normal scenario where a bearish thesis is eroding, you would expect to see short interest decreasing as the business improves. The opposite is happening. The most recent data showed short interest rising 3.5% from the prior reporting period.

For any investor tempted by the low price and the top-line growth rate, the short interest is the market’s message. Sophisticated participants with real capital at risk are making a large directional bet that the stock has further to fall. They are not doing this because the company’s revenue is growing. They are doing this because the legal and regulatory framework underpinning the company’s fastest-growing product line is collapsing.

The Path to Zero

The zero in the title is intended to cause a reaction but the scenario is not far-fetched at all. Weight loss revenue, overwhelmingly driven by compounded GLP-1 products, was projected at $725 million for 2025 and was growing as a share of total revenue.

As of today, that growth driver is under simultaneous attack from every direction. The FDA announced it would restrict the GLP-1 ingredients used in compounded drugs. On Saturday, Hims pulled its compounded semaglutide pill from sale, just two days after launching it. On Monday, Novo Nordisk filed a federal patent infringement lawsuit against Hims. The lawsuit targets not only the pill but also Hims’ compounded injectable versions of Wegovy and Ozempic. Novo is asking the court to permanently ban Hims from selling any compounded semaglutide products and is seeking to recover damages.

The damages exposure alone could be existential. Novo cut its full-year guidance three times in 2025, publicly blaming compounded alternatives for eroding branded semaglutide sales. Analysts estimate that compounded semaglutide collectively stripped $2 to $3 billion from Novo's potential revenues. Under U.S. patent law, Novo can seek lost profits, reasonable royalties, and potentially enhanced damages for willful infringement. For a company with a market capitalization around $4 billion and only $600m in cash, that liability would immediately trigger a chapter 11 filing.

Conclusion

Price is the single best predictor of the future. Not because markets are perfect, but because price aggregates the information, analysis, and capital allocation decisions of every participant simultaneously. When thousands of analysts, institutions, and algorithms converge on a price, that price encodes a probability-weighted distribution of future outcomes that no individual participant can replicate alone. Price is not a lagging indicator of what has already happened. It is the market's best real-time estimate of what will happen next.

This framework matters for Hims because the price is telling you something that the income statement is not. When a stock trades at $19, down 73% from its highs despite reporting 49% revenue growth, the price is not broken. It is functioning exactly as designed. The market is not looking at what Hims earned last quarter. It is looking at what Hims is likely to earn over the next five years, discounted by the probability that it earns nothing at all.

This is the distinction between a value opportunity and a value trap. A value opportunity exists when the market has temporarily mispriced an asset, when sentiment has overshot fundamentals and the underlying business remains intact. A value trap exists when the low multiple is not a mispricing but a correct reflection of deteriorating fundamentals that the casual observer has not yet internalized. The P/E ratio looks low because the denominator, earnings, is at risk of evaporating. The revenue growth looks high because the company is spending aggressively to sell a product that the federal government, the Department of Justice, and a $300 billion pharmaceutical company are simultaneously working to remove from the market.

The Best Memes / Tweets

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. The author does not hold positions in the securities discussed. Always conduct your own due diligence before making investment decisions.

enters its Q1 FY2026 earnings report (Wednesday, February 4) with significant momentum. The company’s most recent quarter revealed over 30 GWh of AI data center projects in the pipeline, 80% of which originated in just the weeks preceding the earnings call. Combined with a record $5.3 billion backlog and strategic positioning in domestic manufacturing ahead of potential tariff changes, Fluence could be well-positioned to capitalize on the accelerating energy storage demand driven by AI infrastructure buildout.

KEY MANAGEMENT COMMENTARY FROM PRIOR EARNINGS

The following quotes from CEO Julian Nebreda’s Q4 FY2025 earnings call provide insight into strategic positioning:

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I have been reading a lot lately about the theorized Mar-a-Lago Accords123, a hypothetical framework in which major economies coordinate to weaken the U.S. dollar as part of a broader push to restore industrial competitiveness.

Last Friday that theory moved from the realm of speculation into possibility as the the coordinated entry of the Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve into the foreign exchange market suggested that a new interventionist regime could be underway.

We saw both the Federal Reserve and the Japanese Central Bank utilizing what is referred to as a rate check4 to influence the currency markets.

A “rate check” is a signaling mechanism in which a central bank contacts major dealer banks to request pricing for a large hypothetical foreign-exchange transaction. While no trade is executed, the inquiry itself conveys information. Dealers infer that official intervention may be imminent and adjust their positioning accordingly. To manage risk, they widen spreads, reduce exposure, and often trade in the anticipated direction of the central bank’s potential action. These defensive adjustments are then transmitted through the interbank market, allowing the central bank to influence prices through expectations and positioning rather than through the direct deployment of reserves.

In this instance, as I will detail below, both the Bank of Japan and the United States conducted rate checks, signaling to dealers that sizable official sell orders in U.S. dollars were likely forthcoming. This shift in expectations weakened the dollar and provided support to the yen, which had been in a precipitous decline in the preceding weeks.

In the days leading up to the currency reversal the Japanese sovereign debt market experienced a dislocation that can only be described as a historic meltdown.

While concerns about Japan‘s fiscal position had been simmering for weeks, they suddenly boiled over on Tuesday afternoon5 with little warning, sending yields on some bonds to all-time highs.

The catalyst was rooted in the fiscal agenda of Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi whose administration called for snap elections on February 8th6 and proposed significant tax reductions and a boost in government spending raising doubts about the financial health of one of the world’s most indebted governments.

“Debt is 200 percent of GDP and the government is seeking to expand fiscal spending,” said Yuxuan Tang, head of Asia macro strategy at JPMorgan Private Bank. “That will add to the premium investors require to own the long end of JGBs.”7

The numbers associated with this move are staggering for a developed sovereign bond market. Over a period of just two days the yield on the 30-year Japanese Government Bond surged by approximately 51 basis points. To put this in perspective a move of five or ten basis points in government bonds is typically considered significant volatility. Concurrently the spread between the 30-year and 2-year yields widened by nearly 30 basis points. This widening spread, referred to as a bear steepening8, reflects investors demanding significantly higher compensation to lock up their capital for three decades amidst uncertainty regarding future supply and fiscal sustainability. This was not merely a repricing of yield. It was a structural vote of no confidence in the fiscal trajectory of the Japanese state.

This instability in the bond market created an impossible policy dilemma for the Bank of Japan during its most recent meeting. With domestic inflation tracking just below 3%, well above the central bank’s target, standard monetary policy would dictate a rate hike to cool prices. However hiking rates into a bond market meltdown risks triggering solvency issues for leveraged domestic institutions that hold vast quantities of these bonds. Faced with this choice the Bank of Japan opted for financial stability over price stability. They held the benchmark interest rate steady at 0.75%. Foreign exchange markets immediately interpreted this decision as a capitulation. The signal was clear that the Bank of Japan would tolerate higher inflation and a weaker currency to prevent the bond market from collapsing. Consequently the yen sold off aggressively pushing the exchange rate toward the psychologically critical 160 level against the U.S. dollar.

Immediately following the rate decision the USD began appreciating against the Yen and then, suddenly, experienced and vertical decline of over 1% in a single five-minute window during Asian trading hours. In the highly liquid foreign exchange market a move of this magnitude in such a compressed timeframe is statistically improbable without the presence of a government actor.

The consensus among market participants is that this price action was precipitated by a rate check conducted by the Bank of Japan9. A rate check operates as a signaling mechanism by asking bank dealers to price a large hypothetical trade, implicitly indicating that official central bank intervention may follow. Dealers act on the information by front-running anticipated flows, adjusting positions defensively before any transaction occurs. Those adjustments quickly ripple through the market, driving price moves based on expectation rather than execution and allowing the central bank to influence the currency without deploying reserves or formally intervening.

It is essential to distinguish a rate check from direct capital intervention because the two operate through entirely different channels. A rate check influences prices through signaling and expectations, without requiring the central bank to commit capital. By contrast, a standard intervention requires the central bank to deploy foreign exchange reserves to purchase its domestic currency. For Japan, whose roughly $1.37 trillion in reserves are largely held in U.S. Treasuries, this would mean selling those assets to obtain dollars and then converting those dollars into yen. That process consumes finite reserves, permanently alters the balance sheet, and represents a clear escalation. As a result, direct intervention is a last-resort tool, while a rate check is a low-cost way to move markets without crossing that threshold.

However, the true geopolitical pivot occurred hours later during the U.S. trading session. Market reports and price action indicate that around 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time the Federal Reserve Bank of New York conducted a similar rate check operation10, requesting pricing from major dealers to sell dollars against the yen.

The timing of the request is notable. 11:00 AM is considered peak FX liquidity and after the earlier period of volatility that had already drawn attention to official activity in the yen. It implies a level of coordination between Washington and Tokyo that has not been seen in some time.

While such actions are uncommon, they are not without precedent. In October, the U.S. Treasury extended a temporary currency swap line to Argentina11, providing dollar liquidity through the Exchange Stabilization Fund to support peso stability during a period of acute market stress. The facility was framed as precautionary and short-dated, with limited drawdowns that were subsequently repaid.

The currency maneuvers occurred against the backdrop of a broader Sell America trade that had already begun to take hold earlier in the week. Tensions involving the EU and Greenland had already rattled markets leading to a rare correlation where U.S. equities, U.S. Treasuries and the U.S. dollar were all selling off simultaneously. The Dollar Index (DXY) had posted its largest five-day decline since August essentially erasing months of gains. This weakness in the dollar was not a flight to safety but a liquidation of U.S. exposure. By stepping in to accelerate this decline via rate checks the Treasury Department was leaning into the market’s existing momentum.

Options traders are paying a premium to hedge against further dollar losses over the next month, they are now the most bearish since early June. That is a sharp reversal from a week ago when the sentiment was bullish.12

Fundamentally, the U.S. dollar remains materially overvalued even after its recent pullback13. The reason is that the dollar’s strength has been driven less by lasting improvements in U.S. productivity or competitiveness and more by financial forces that tend to overshoot. High U.S. interest rates, persistent safe-haven demand, and the dollar’s role as the world’s primary reserve asset have pulled large volumes of foreign capital into U.S. assets, pushing the currency above levels justified by underlying purchasing power.

When those capital flows dominate, the dollar can stay strong even as the U.S. runs large trade and fiscal deficits. Imported goods become cheaper, exports become less competitive, and the real effective exchange rate rises beyond what long-run price differentials would imply. That is why PPP-based and real-effective valuation frameworks continue to show the dollar trading roughly 10–15 percent above fair value despite its decline through 2025.

This type of overvaluation is inherently unstable. It persists only as long as interest-rate differentials, policy divergence, and risk aversion continue to favor U.S. assets. Once those supports weaken, the adjustment tends to occur through the exchange rate rather than through slow changes in domestic prices or wages.

A similar dynamic existed in the mid-1980s. The dollar was not strong because U.S. goods had suddenly become more competitive, but because capital inflows driven by policy and yield differentials overwhelmed trade fundamentals. When the economic and political costs of that imbalance became untenable, coordinated action followed. The parallel today lies in the mechanism of overvaluation rather than in the exact level of the exchange rate.

The current administration has made re-industrialization a cornerstone of its economic platform. A currency that is overvalued by historical standards acts as a massive tax on U.S. exports making American goods uncompetitive in global markets while simultaneously subsidizing imports. This dynamic directly contradicts the goal of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the domestic market. A coordinated devaluation of the dollar therefore serves two distinct but complementary purposes. For Japan it provides a lifeline to a bond market that is cracking under the weight of fiscal expansion by preventing a currency collapse that would import hyperinflation. For the United States it corrects a valuation anomaly that is stifling industrial growth.

The mechanics of how this plays out in the coming weeks will likely involve further verbal interventions and potentially more aggressive signaling from the Exchange Stabilization Fund. The fact that the New York Fed participated in a rate check validates the view that the Treasury is active. The Exchange Stabilization Fund was designed precisely for this purpose to stabilize the exchange value of the dollar but it can also be used to signal a desired lower level. Investors should pay close attention to the correlation between U.S. yields and the exchange rate. In the brief period on Friday when the rate checks were rumored the long end of the U.S. Treasury curve sold off in tandem with the dollar. This suggests that foreign holders of U.S. debt may be rotating out of unhedged USD assets further fueling the move.

If the yen continues to appreciate in a durable fashion, the implications for U.S. risk assets (like high beta stock) are materially asymmetric and skew negative14. Japan remains one of the largest external holders of global financial assets, with roughly $5 trillion deployed overseas, a significant share of which sits in U.S. Treasuries and equities. A stronger yen alters the relative return calculus for Japanese institutions. Assets that were previously attractive on a currency-hedged basis lose appeal as yield differentials compress and domestic alternatives become competitive. Even incremental rebalancing by Japanese insurers, banks, and pension funds would place upward pressure on U.S. yields and tighten U.S. financial conditions at the margin.

The second-order effect operates through the global carry trade. For more than a decade, the yen has served as the primary funding currency for leveraged positions in higher-yielding risk assets, including U.S. equities and credit. Yen appreciation mechanically raises the cost of maintaining those positions, forcing deleveraging as volatility increases. These unwindings are typically nonlinear. As the yen strengthens, risk assets tend to weaken in tandem, not because of a sudden deterioration in fundamentals, but because balance sheets are being compressed. This dynamic helps explain why sharp yen rallies have historically coincided with abrupt drawdowns in global equities and spikes in cross-asset correlations.

The “Mar-a-Lago Accord15” need not be a signed document with a press conference to be effective. The mere recognition by the market that the U.S. and Japan are aligned in their desire for a weaker dollar is sufficient to alter the risk premium. If the U.S. is pivoting to a weak-dollar policy to support domestic manufacturing the DXY could see a prolonged structural bear market. Institutional allocators must now consider that the “Fed Put” for asset prices may have been replaced by a “Treasury Put” for the manufacturing sector executed via the exchange rate. The era of the one-way strong dollar trade appears to be ending and the volatility observed this week is likely just the opening salvo in a protracted adjustment of global capital flows.

The path forward will be dictated by the interplay between Japan’s fiscal crisis and the U.S. industrial agenda. If the Japanese bond market continues to exhibit volatility the Bank of Japan will have no choice but to continue its dovish stance relying on the U.S. Treasury to do the heavy lifting in the currency market. For the U.S. administration this offers a low-cost method to achieve its trade goals. By allowing the market to interpret these rate checks as the start of a new accord they can achieve a loosening of financial conditions and a boost to competitiveness.

Whether this episode ultimately proves to be the opening chapter of a formalized Mar-a-Lago Accord or merely an opportunistic convergence of interests remains an open question. The next critical waypoint in this unfolding saga will be Japan’s snap general election in February, which will determine whether the fiscal trajectory that destabilized the bond market is reinforced or restrained. The election outcome will shape expectations and markets are likely to treat February as a de facto referendum on whether the pressures that prompted last week’s intervention will intensify or abate.

A small but consistent group of accounts played an outsized role in shaping how I think about markets. Some helped me understand individual companies more deeply. Others provided high-quality market news, geopolitical context, or sector-specific insight that improved my timing, conviction, or risk management. Many simply forced me to refine my thinking by exposing me to perspectives I would not have arrived at on my own.

This post is a way of acknowledging that influence and sharing it forward.

Below, I’ve grouped the accounts that have helped me most by category. Some are particularly useful to turn post notifications on for, because they consistently surface valuable information. A number of these accounts are closely associated with specific stocks or sectors, while others focus on general market structure, technology trends, energy, geopolitics, or biotech.

This list is not exhaustive, and it is not meant to be a ranking. It reflects my personal information diet over time and what has worked for me. Your process may look different. But if you are trying to build conviction thoughtfully rather than trade headlines impulsively, these are accounts I would strongly recommend paying attention to.

Artificial Intelligence

• Dwarkesh Patel (@dwarkesh_sp)

• JunDoi (@JunDoi050)

• Vikram Sekar (@vikramskr)

• Dylan Patel (@dylan522p)

• tae kim (@firstadopter)

• 돈스 (@dons_korea)

• Dan Nystedt (@dnystedt)

• Epoch AI (@EpochAIResearch)

• Jukan (@jukan05)

• Zephyr (@zephyr_z9)

• Paul Triolo (@pstAsiatech)

Energy

• Tyler Norris (@tylernorris)

• Modo Energy (@ModoEnergy)

• Rondo Energy (@rondoenergy)

• Doug Levin (@douglevinenergy)

• Shanu Mathew (@ShanuMathew93)

Breaking News

• Polymarket Money (@PolymarketMoney)

• The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter)

• First Squawk (@FirstSquawk)

• Earnings Hub (@SavvyTrader)

• OSINTdefender (@sentdefender)

• Open Source Intel (@Osint613)

In Depth Research

• Fermion (@victor_priv)

• HK (@hiteshkar)

• Jukan (@jukan05)

• M. V. Cunha (@mvinvestsg)

• Zephyr (@zephyr_z9)

• James Chanos (@RealJimChanos)

• AustinFindsAlpha (@AustinStocks)

• Jonathan Stern (@jonathanstern)

• Hims House (@himshouse)

• Serenity (@aleabitreddit)

• Mark Hogan (@MB_Hogan)

• Citrini (@Citrini7)

General

• Gregory Blotnick (@gregoryblotnick)

• Stock Talk (@stocktalkweekly)

• Dr J Rould (@jrouldz)

• Ashton Invests (@Ashton_Invests)

• Cluseau Investments (@blondesmoney)

This post comes from a subscriber question I get constantly: if you were starting fresh, with $100,000 to invest right now, what would you do? Not “what would you recommend to a retiree,” not “what should my parents do,” and not “what is the academically optimal portfolio.” This is what I would do, in this moment, with my current worldview and my current risk tolerance.

The most important caveat is also the simplest: my stage of investing may not be your stage of investing. That matters. My goal is not to avoid volatility at all costs. My goal is to take intelligent risk, build exposure to the right market theme and give myself enough time for my outcomes to play out. That naturally leads to a portfolio that looks very different from the “balanced” allocations you’ll see in most personal finance content.

If you want set-it-and-forget-it investing, this is not for you. A concentrated single-stock portfolio requires attention, emotional control, and the willingness to act when the screen is red.

The core concept that defines how I invest is thematic investing.

It is the decision to allocate capital around a multi-year structural trend based on a prediction you are making about how the world is changing, and what that change will force governments, consumers, and companies to spend money on. You are not starting with a stock ticker. You are starting with a view of the future, and then working backward into the businesses most directly levered to your prediction about the future.

A theme is a causal chain. Something changes in the world, that change creates a constraint or an urgency, the urgency shows up in policy choices and corporate priorities, and those priorities show up in contracts, capital expenditures, and hiring. Over time, that flow of decisions becomes revenue and profit for a relatively small set of companies. Thematic investing is simply trying to get in front of that chain early enough that time works in your favor.

How do you “make” a theme? You follow the news religiously with a specific lens. Not as entertainment, and not as a trigger to trade every headline, but as a way to identify when the world is repricing what matters. World events shape what investors fear, what they believe is scarce, and what they consider strategically important. When those perceptions shift, capital allocation shifts.

With that framework a few things to consider:

1. I let winners run. I do not trim because something is up. The only “de-risking” I consider is selling covered call options against a position when implied volatility is extreme or the market is offering good premium.

2. I buy drawdowns if the thesis is intact. If a stock is down 30% to 50% and the business and the bottleneck are still real, I am buying more, not selling. This requires the ability to add capital.

3. On taxes: I am not building this around taxable vs. non-taxable mechanics. But if you are in a non-taxable account, you have the flexibility to actively manage risk, recycle capital, and rotate faster. In a taxable account, you want to be more selective about turnover unless you are harvesting losses.

With that framework, here are four themes I’d build around today, plus a short list of stock candidates under each so you can tailor it to your own risk tolerance. I’ve also included sample portfolio allocations based on these themes. Some of these themes naturally overlap, and in practice a single stock can express more than one theme at the same time.

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Tuesday, December 9, 2025 at 4:30 PM

investor presentation at will be important for assessing momentum across the broader AI-energy theme. The company’s turbines are increasingly deployed as fast-to-install firming assets for large AI data centers, giving investors a high-frequency read on how much on-site generation is being pulled forward as developers work around multi-year grid-connection delays.

Any disclosure on scaling capacity, supply-chain visibility, or revised delivery expectations would inform how quickly off-grid and distributed-generation solutions are being integrated into AI buildouts, with implications for OEMs, component suppliers, and energy developers positioned to benefit from accelerating power requirements across the AI infrastructure stack.

2. Federal Reserve Decision and Speech

Wednesday, December 10, 2025 at 2:00 PM; 2:30 PM (Speech)

The Federal Reserve’s December rate decision is at 2:00 PM. The committee is widely expected to lower rates by 25 basis points (PolyMarket odd > 95%). Beyond the cut itself, investors will focus on updated guidance around the balance sheet, the potential timing of an end to quantitative tightening, and any detail on how the Fed views on monetary policy heading into 2026.

Jerome Powell’s press conference at 2:30 PM will be more important as markets will look for signals on whether the FOMC is open to cutting again in January or intends to pause after this move. With odds of a January cut falling to roughly 25 cents, a scenario in which the Fed delivers a “hawkish cut” in December while downplaying the likelihood of a follow-on move next month may not necessarily weigh on markets, given that expectations for near-term easing have already reset lower.

Interestingly, Goldman Sachs has also noted that they view that Fed is likely keep the option of a January cut open. If that scenario pans out expect stocks to go higher.

3. Oracle Earnings Results

Wednesday, December 10, 2025 at 4:10 PM

reports earnings on December 10 at the market closes, and the results will be important for the broader data center and AI infrastructure trade. Last quarter the stock rallied sharply after Oracle disclosed roughly $455 billion dollars in remaining performance obligations, including an estimated $300 billion dollar multiyear commitment from OpenAI, before giving back those gains as investors questioned backlog quality, execution risk and the capital required to deliver it.

This quarter investors will focus on whether cloud infrastructure revenue, utilization and capex guidance support the credibility of that backlog and indicate real progress in deploying large AI clusters. The earnings could deliver confirmation of stronger demand or accelerated build schedules would benefit data center developers and power-infrastructure operators such as , and , while any signs of delay or concentration risk would have the opposite effect.

4. Microsoft at Barclays Global Technology Conference

Thursday, December 11, 2025 at 11:05 AM

Microsoft will present at the Barclays Global Technology Conference and will give investors a clearer view of how demand for cloud services and AI workloads is evolving. Any comments on Azure growth, customer adoption and ongoing infrastructure investment will help indicate whether large enterprises are continuing to expand their use of AI tools and cloud computing. This update could help shape expectations for broader AI spending.

5. Broadcom Earnings Results

Thursday, December 11, 2025: 4:10 PM

Broadcom reports earnings on December 11 after the market closes, and the results will be important because the company is widely viewed as one of the largest beneficiaries of the shift toward custom AI chips. Investors will focus on updates related to Broadcom’s custom-silicon work, particularly with Google’s TPU program and with OpenAI’s planned processor initiative, since both are central examples of major cloud and model developers moving toward proprietary hardware. Any indication that custom-chip demand is accelerating or expanding would carry broader implications for NVIDIA’s competitive position and for AI-infrastructure operators such as , as well as for the overall data-center buildout tied to AI workloads.

Recent commentary from the KIS Memory Semiconductor Asia Marketing points toward a multi-year period of constrained supply across DRAM and NAND.

This creates a supportive pricing environment for SanDisk , whose revenue mix is heavily tied to NAND-based storage solutions across client, enterprise, and embedded markets. The current setup is meaningfully constructive. Fully commentary transcript at the end.

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In the stock market, price is the most honest source of information because it incorporates everything investors believe about future cash flows, competitive dynamics, and risk. It represents the aggregation of thousands of independent judgments made in real time and backed by actual capital. Analysts and investors can debate strategy, valuation, and macro conditions, but the market expresses its collective view through the price it is willing to pay. Price adjusts before narratives do because capital responds faster than commentary.

When a stock refuses to follow the broader market or cannot generate sustained interest, the signal embedded in that behavior often tells you more about the future than any headline or management remark.

A core principle of market structure is that price often reacts ahead of the narrative. When investors begin to reduce exposure, they rarely announce it. There is no press release that says sentiment is weakening. Instead, the signs appear in how a stock behaves relative to its peers and relative to the broader market. A name that refuses to participate in strength is telling you something about positioning. A stock that cannot find upside even when conditions are broadly becoming favorable is telling you something about expectations. Investors who ignore those signals usually end up getting lost chasing the story after the market has already moved.

That dynamic is visible today in $DUOL and $DKNG. The market is delivering a strong, broad rally with clear participation across all sectors. Days like this are useful not because of the green on the screen but because of the outliers. The stocks that lag are often the ones undergoing a fundamental sentiment shift that is not fully recognized yet. Underperformance is rarely noise. It is often the earliest and cleanest indicator that something in the outlook has changed.

is a clear example of a stock that failed to participate even as the broader market attempted to stabilize after several days of weakness. When a stock cannot recover with the rest of the market, particularly after a period of selling pressure, it often signals that investors are focused on company-specific risks rather than broad macro forces. The reluctance to reengage tells you that capital is waiting for clarity on issues that go beyond short term volatility.

For months, sentiment around has been shaped by the rapid acceleration of prediction market volumes. Platforms such as have reported contract growth that rivals the early phase of regulated sports betting, raising the possibility that user behavior is shifting faster than the traditional sportsbook model anticipated. This creates uncertainty about share of wallet, engagement, and long term economics. Price is reflecting that uncertainty.

Compounding this is the inconsistent messaging from DraftKings management. In early commentary, CEO Jason Robins dismissed the competitive threat. In October 2025, he said, “I just don’t see a world where in a state that has both [prediction markets and sports betting] it’s not clear to the customer that the sportsbook is just a vastly stronger experience.” He also stated, “I do not believe prediction markets will attract customers away from traditional sportsbooks.” Those remarks implied stability and confidence in the core model.

Yet only weeks later the company acquired Railbird Technologies, a CFTC-licensed event-contracts exchange, marking a clear strategic shift. The tone changed as well. Robins said, “We are excited about the additional opportunity that prediction markets could represent for our business.” This pivot suggests that management recognized the competitive pressure and moved quickly to avoid a structural disadvantage. The shift from minimizing the threat to pursuing the opportunity underscores how rapidly the landscape is evolving.

This matters because valuation frameworks for $DKNG were built on assumptions of predictable user monetization, widening margins, and stable competitive positioning. Prediction markets introduce a new variable that challenges those assumptions. The repeated underperformance in sessions where the market is stabilizing indicates that investors have begun to discount a broader range of outcomes. When price diverges from the narrative, the narrative usually adjusts later. The burden of proof now sits with the company to demonstrate that the sportsbook model remains intact as prediction markets scale.

offers another example of a stock that is struggling to recover even as the broader market attempts to stabilize after several days of weakness.

The most important issue is the clear deceleration across core user metrics. Growth in daily active users, monthly active users, and paid subscribers, has slowed more quickly than the prior narrative anticipated. The business had been priced for consistent compounding, but the recent trends suggest the growth curve is flattening. Investors are treating this not as a temporary pause but as a potential inflection point in user engagement

At the same time, there has been a decisive shift in sentiment regarding the impact of AI on the language learning market. The rise of personalized, conversational tutoring powered by large language models has introduced a credible alternative to traditional app-based learning. These tools can generate adaptive lessons, real time corrections, and immersive exercises that resemble interaction with a human tutor. This raises legitimate questions about how much of Duolingo’s engagement can be defended if AI-native tutoring becomes widely available at low cost.

This has brought new scrutiny to Duolingo’s moat. The company’s defensibility rested on habit formation, gamification, and brand strength. That model worked well in a world where mobile learning was defined by structured, lesson-based apps. The emergence of AI tutors changes the competitive landscape by offering a fundamentally different type of learning experience. Investors are now asking whether Duolingo’s engagement loop and user stickiness can withstand a shift toward personalized instruction that evolves with the learner.

Price behavior is reflecting these concerns. The consistent inability of $DUOL to bounce on stronger days suggests that capital is waiting for clarity on user trends or evidence that the company has a credible strategy to compete in an AI-driven environment. This type of persistent underperformance is rarely accidental. It is often one of the clearest early indicators that the market is preparing for a reassessment of long term expectations. The burden of proof now sits with the company to demonstrate that its model can adapt to a rapidly changing landscape.

Investing requires a willingness to evaluate information the market is providing rather than relying solely on prior assumptions or attachment to a specific narrative. Price behavior is often the earliest indication that expectations are shifting, and it tends to reflect changes in sentiment long before those changes appear in revisions to estimates or in management commentary. For that reason, persistent underperformance in a supportive environment deserves careful attention. It suggests that investors are reassessing the forward outlook and allocating capital accordingly.

Periods where the broader market is advancing with meaningful participation across sectors offer a useful lens for identifying these dynamics. In such environments, most stocks benefit from improved risk appetite, incremental buying, and short covering. When a name fails to respond to those conditions, the lack of participation is not typically random. It indicates that investors see unresolved questions about the business, whether related to competitive positioning, growth durability, unit economics, or balance sheet considerations. These concerns may not be fully visible in public narratives, but they are reflected clearly in the price.

The objective for investors is not to avoid volatility or react to every short term move. The objective is to understand what the market is discounting and why. Stocks that repeatedly lag on strong days are signaling that the balance of risks is shifting and that capital is positioning for a different range of outcomes. This type of behavior often precedes formal estimate revisions, guidance resets, or broader narrative shifts. It is therefore an important input in assessing whether the current thesis remains intact.

In that context, the recent performance of and is instructive. Both stocks have struggled to participate even as the broader market has stabilized. That divergence highlights where investor focus is moving and where confidence has weakened. It does not provide a full answer, but it offers a clear starting point for understanding the issues that matter most to the market.

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The first major data point came from Challenger jobs data which reported 153,074 announced job cuts in October, the highest figure for that month since 2003. The market has been operating on a “soft landing” assumption for months, but this data combined with no official government data is creating heightened uncertainty

The second source of stress is the Trump tariff case, where the Supreme Court now seems poised to rule against the administration’s trade restrictions. In theory, removing tariffs should be good for markets. In reality, it won’t remove them but it just reopens the issue. Trump clearly has backup plans, and investors know it. Instead of clarity, the ruling heightens uncertainty around something that was supposed to be settled, and that uncertainty is what’s pressuring the market.

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