Exactly, he made tons of bets. A crappy hit rate still would have yielded some serious results.
OT: Stock and Investment Thread
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Def a staggering $$$ number that would haunt me forever if I was SBF. But If you gave any of us a few billion of other people’s money and we had access to the right tech leaders = Anthropic, HOOD, etc. are nuts even a blind squirrel would find.
On a different note, where is the next rotation now that industrial and staples are crowded. Hard to believe the housing still stuck in the mud although I see the ITB up 8% last couple of days.
I believe some people make a killing buying up FTX bankruptcy debt/assets (not sure of the right word). They got shares/ownership of all those companies at pennies on the dollar.
In theory, everyone who had money with them was made whole. They missed out on lost gains, but not when valued in dollars
Crypto companies- we want to be able to offer better yields to our customers
Banks- we don’t want that, we want to keep that for ourselves
Our elected officials- the banks have a point
Banks- we don’t want that, we want to keep that for ourselves
Our elected officials- the banks have a point
I got out of UBER a few weeks ago as well (with a nice gain from the mid/low 60s). I'm still bullish on the company, but the narrative is clear right now. Need to see evidence of a change.
I mentioned AVAV a month or so ago.
Military grade autonomous drones.
At the time I stayed away given it had just ripped 75% or so.
Welp, it has given that whole move right back. Not sure the why outside of market volatility.
Keeping an eye on it, think there is support right here at $230.
Military grade autonomous drones.
At the time I stayed away given it had just ripped 75% or so.
Welp, it has given that whole move right back. Not sure the why outside of market volatility.
Keeping an eye on it, think there is support right here at $230.
From FS Insights/Tom Lee (Morning Alert):
The S&P 500 is up +1.2% YTD, but the seemingly positive gain masks turmoil happening within sectors and within investor sentiment. The two primary things investors are grappling with, are: (i) AI carnage of software and other sectors raises concerns about whether AI is bad for equities and (ii) Gold’s relentless rise is creating FOMO about why own stocks at all.
We continue to view 2026 as an overall tougher year for markets, with a 3 phase market (rally, then large decline, then YE strong). And our positioning remains:
In AI, investors rotating into "bullet makers" and not the "armies." Friday's Jan CPI, coupled with visible AI impact, could trigger market to rethink inflation.
The S&P 500 is up +1.2% YTD, but the seemingly positive gain masks turmoil happening within sectors and within investor sentiment. The two primary things investors are grappling with, are: (i) AI carnage of software and other sectors raises concerns about whether AI is bad for equities and (ii) Gold’s relentless rise is creating FOMO about why own stocks at all.
- The infrastructure story of AI today parallels the massive builds required when wireless carriers built national networks in the 1990s to early 2000s. I was covering the wireless services sector then and simultaneously, in every square inch of America (every city at least), 5-7 carriers were building mobile networks at a cost of $20-$50 per citizen (per Pop), on top of the $50-$100 per Pop spent on a carrier license. Think about that staggering cost back then — each start-up was spending around $15 to $20 billion to build a national network, at a time when only 7% of Americans even used a cell phone. See the parallel to today? With AI and obviously 2025 dollars and global in scale.
- Back then, investor appetite shifted between buying the carriers and buying the infrastructure and handset makers. We used to call this “buying the armies or buying the bullets” — that is, there were times when investors favored the carrier stocks or they favored the infrastructure.
- To me, this is what is happening in AI today. Think of the MAG7 as the “armies” and NVDA +0.75%, chips, memory, power generation, commodities as the “bullet makers.” In 2026, it seems like investors are favoring the “bullet makers” at the moment. Hence, the outperformance of energy/basic materials, commodities, industrials, memory, chipmakers. But at some point, this rotation will arguably shift again to MAG7.
- So while we are cognizant of this thematic ballast shifting, we do not think we should necessarily “UW” MAG7 because the market is favoring bullet makers. After all, these are all tied to the same theme. The payoff of AI and superintelligence, and the massive resources and investment made tied to that secular story.
- In our view, the carnage in software is evidence that AI is productive. Software and SaaS are tools and costs for corporate America — think of them as input costs.
– total software spend in USA in 2025 is about $450 billion
– think of this as one TAM (total addressable market) for AI
– if AI can deliver these services for 50% of the cost
– that is a huge payoff for corporate America
– and it’s deflationary too - Now factor in data providers, services, financial services, etc and you start to see the payoff coming from AI. But also the disruption. To us, that is the why this carnage, in our view, is proof AI has a payoff.
- Overall, to us this argues that AI’s biggest impact in the US is ultimately less inflation. Because if there are fewer workers, less software and services spend, but the same output, this is both:
– productivity
– and disinflationary - And this Friday, we get the January Core CPI report. The Street is looking for:
– +0.30% MoM
– +2.52% YoY
– In each of the last 3 CPI reports, the actual came in below Street
– We expect Jan to be below consensus - Foremost, Core CPI YoY of 2.52% is back to pre-COVID levels and the average of 2017-2019 Core CPI readings. This is “normal” inflation conditions even with tariff impacts still lingering in these results.
– in 2017-2019, Fed funds was 1.5-2.0% ish
– currently, Fed funds is 3.5% to 3.75%
– so you can see, the Fed has a lot of room to cut if Core CPI is 2.5% - In short, we see conditions for a dovish Fed in 2026. This is with a new Fed Chair Warsh. And we know that investors are starting to view him as a dove, but with an eye to reduce both interest rates and the Fed balance sheet. And possibly coordinate with the Treasury department more closely.
- A dovish Fed is supportive of stocks, and this is why in our base case of a “3 phase market,” we see stocks exiting the year strongly.
- As for Gold’s relentless rise, keep in mind Gold has become so big, it is now essentially larger than the stock market.
– At $42 trillion today ($5,100 gold),
– this is bigger than S&P 500 ex-MAG7 of $40T
– and 2X the size of Asia stock market - Is it any wonder that we are seeing many investors simply say “let’s buy gold” and forget about equities. However, there is something we need to consider:
– since 1975, when looking at rolling 3-yr inflation adjusted returns
– gold underperformed inflation 48% of the time
– half the time, cash beat gold - Thus, Gold is not really the “store of value” many think. It has been a great investment in the past few years. But the 50-year history shows that Gold is not consistently a good inflation hedge. So, it makes sense to own some gold, but buyer beware.
We continue to view 2026 as an overall tougher year for markets, with a 3 phase market (rally, then large decline, then YE strong). And our positioning remains:
- Energy/Basic Materials -> top pick
- MAG7 & Bitcoin & Ethereum
- Industrials -> “bullet makers”
- Financials: Large-cap and regional banks
- Small-caps
I sold AMZN at $210. Currently below $200. Think I'll jump back in if it gets to $180. Seems like some support there.
It's currently 28x PE. And that is before todays downward move.
Not super cheap relative to the market, but super cheap relative to itself.
Earnings and Rev's expected to have solid growth moving fwd.
It's currently 28x PE. And that is before todays downward move.
Not super cheap relative to the market, but super cheap relative to itself.
Earnings and Rev's expected to have solid growth moving fwd.
AI has broken so many stocks and re-rating taking place everywhere. SHOP earnings and call seemed great to me - “creating rails of AI agentic commerce” - yet it’s done nothing but drop. SPOT continues to get creamed = are we really gonna listen to AI generated songs and if so wouldn’t they be good for SPOT because cheaper royalty structure - nope. NFLX aside from Warner deal dropping because Elon says long form AI videos coming. DASH chart ugly. Hard to hold onto these positions thinking there will be a turnaround.
I like Gerstner. He covered this topic at length on the All in Podcast this past week. Similar thoughts and a sound bite below. He doesn’t see it as a death of software but more of a repricing.
“Gerstner’s comments were largely a response to the "SaaS crash" occurring in early 2026, sparked by new releases from OpenAI (v5.3) and Anthropic. He argued that Salesforce and similar companies must prove they are "AI durable" rather than just "AI enabled," as digital agents begin to perform the tasks that humans previously used these software interfaces to complete.”
It’s a massive shift and no long term relief in sight. It’s hard to keep existing software/platform positions because if it’s in the green I want to take profits and if it’s in the red I want to cut losses and take the tax loss. In either case the result is selling. On the other hand, starting a new position is tough with all the AI uncertainty. Quite the mess if you ask me. Thankfully, i started to pivot to precious metals, industrials, energy in my non-taxable accounts but I definitely waited too long.
Funny you comment on AMZN today, I just bought at $200 even. I own a bunch already, but saw it drop from a high of $250 earlier this year, so figured grabbing some at $200 made sense
Ya, I have a bunch of stocks that just continue to puke. Saas, but also AI like SOUN, TEM, and TLS.
Long term it does.
But having failed to break out, it's now stuck in the mud. I'm more playing the short term.
Given my track record, I'll probably miss it as it rips higher.
What happened at 11am? I assume Trump did something, but don't see any news. LOL!
Been recently thinking about closing my SLB and XOM calls after such a big run-up. As such, SLB closed at +225% and XOM at +250%. Still holding XLE and WMB calls, but needed to lighten the exposure. Happy to jump back in but likely with less contracts. I went nuts with XOM and was using Fidelity IRA money (so no taxes implications).
Maybe grab some AMZN leaps? Seems like it's going to be a big winner over the next year or two.Long term it does.
But having failed to break out, it's now stuck in the mud. I'm more playing the short term.
Given my track record, I'll probably miss it as it rips higher.
Love Amazon in theory but what exactly are they at this point? E-commerce? Cloud? AI? Spending a **** ton of money to compete with who? Google and Meta roadmaps much more defined although I’m definitely not counting Amazon out.
From a stock POV, they are mostly an AI-enhanced cloud company. As per the last earnings report, AWS demand is off the charts and way beyond current bandwidth. AMZN needs to increase capacity to realized such revenue growth. Sounds promising, right?
On that basis, what I would find most interesting is for Amazon to completely displace software vendors like SnowFlake with native Amazon AI apps that run in AWS. If that’s where this is headed and the cloud behemoths like AWS, Google, MsFT deploy native capabilities then look out below because software if really f’d.From a stock POV, they are mostly an AI-enhanced cloud company. As per the last earnings report, AWS demand is off the charts and way beyond current bandwidth. AMZN needs to increase capacity to realized such revenue growth. Sounds promising, right?
Stablecoins are backed by treasuries mostly, gold, etc.
ETA- current coinbase yield on USDC is 4-4.7%
Buy LUCK bowling is back! AI can’t throw a 7-10 split, plus they have a new marketing exec and bought a water park in CA. Can’t be any worse than software. Plus, I’m pissed I choked on Sphere which looked like a lay up heading into earnings and was up like 20% today.
This has been a rough start of the year. There is definitely a sell first and then ask questions later attitude out there right now. None of my players are working. I have made some small changes on the margins, but have largely stayed the course. I did sell MSFT, NOW, CRM, CRWD, AMZN.
Thankfully my energy and EEM calls have provided some solid gains, but my growth/tech lean has not been good in 2026 (as of now). I'm just trying to figure out what to buy/add to? A lot of these tech names are going to be huge winners long-term, but obviously not all. I think SAAS companies will likely be broken for a long time, unless they can pivot in a meaningful way. Non-SAAS software companies like PLTR, SNOW, MDB, Databricks, cybers should be fine. I think. LOL!
Are you adding to PLTR?
I sold SNOW as well. I am adding to PLTR. I do expect a sharp rebound at some point. I also bought ALAB.
Market been treating MSFT like its
a software company as it now only has a 25PE
…and advertising revenue moats for META, Amazon and Alphabet are now forever apparently. Google has made quite the “comeback” from “woke”George Washington.Interesting stuff.
Until hardware input costs become clear and co-pilot proves it’s not trash, MSFT might be stuck in limbo. But probably just takes some positive analyst/tech reports to get it back on track.Market been treating MSFT like its
a software company as it now only has a 25PE
Interesting stuff.
SNOW having a nice bounce but I just can’t trust these software stocks knowing that Google, AWS, and Azure will likely build same capabilities as native AI applications within the ecosystems.