No. 1 Forensic Accountant: The Coming AI Collapse | Anthony Scilipoti

The fundamental value of a company is the present value of its future cash flows, and when a company generates negative free cash flow yet trades at a multiple of revenues rather than fundamentals, its valuation is extracted entirely from future expectations rather than current performance.

“Buffett says, the company is the present value of its future cash flows. And the how do you develop those cash flows? Well, you need to do forecast on what it's what it what it's going to drive the business. And so that's what I think the fundamentals are. And so when a company today is not generating much in free cash, in fact negative, and yet the market wants to trade it at a multiple of its revenues, well, then the company's valuations is extracted from its current fundamentals and trading based on some future expectations.”

Smaller and mid-cap companies are not growing earnings in the current environment, while Magnificent 7 tech stocks are, creating extreme concentration in market returns; this concentration is vulnerable if Mag 7 growth slows.

“except for some of the Mag 7 that are growing their earnings, the smaller and mid-caps are not.”

Board members are typically selected by relationships and agreement rather than by expertise or challenge; boards focused on saying 'yes' to management (vs. interrogating decisions) are common and prevent the friction necessary for sound oversight.

“How do you think most board members get selected? Often times, uh, by relationships. Going back to humans run companies. That's correct. I'm going to ask you on my board if I like you, think you're going to agree with me.”

Valeant Pharmaceuticals' business model involved manipulating accounting (changing non-GAAP EBITDA calculations year-to-year), creating fraudulent networks of online pharmacies, and manipulating drug pricing—all of which were discoverable through forensic analysis despite management's public claims about integrity and drug reformulation.

“We wrote about Valeant. We said sell Valeant. Okay, we're the only sell on on Valeant in 20 12, 2013. The company didn't blow up until 2015. Okay? But they and they would talk about their integrity and their, you know, how they were changing the world with the with the drug reformulations they were doing and so forth. But if you look deeper, they were just manipulating the accounting and changing the pricing on on drugs and creating a fraudulent network of online pharmacies.”

The problem with EBITDA is not that it is calculated, but that investors misuse it: EBITDA is purely an operating performance metric, but many treat it as if it were cash flow or comparable to debt, which EBITDA is not; additionally, management has discretion over which items to exclude from adjusted EBITDA, making it infinitely malleable.

“EBITDA is the mother of all disastrous measures. Why? Because of what investors want to believe that it is. And that it's something that is cash flow. That it's something that can be compared to debt total debt. And it is not. It is purely a operating performance metric calculated before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. That's it... What do I do with stock options? What do I do with joint venture gains? What do I do with gains on investments that I made that I happened to sell this year? What do I do with the charges that I took on that acquisition that I bought this year that I included in my EBITDA?”

Stock options should be expensed on income statements because they represent a choice to compensate employees in stock rather than cash; two otherwise identical companies with different compensation structures will show different EBITDA and EPS, making one appear more profitable despite identical economic reality.

“I think stock options should be an expense. And if they're not an expense, I I borrow from Buffett... that if it's not an expense, then what is it? You can choose to pay someone in stock options, or you can choose to pay them in cash. So, if I pay all my employees, you pay you have the same company, you're a we're a competitor, you pay all your employees with stock options, I pay them in cash. I have a lower EBITDA. I have a lower EPS. Your stock trades higher than mine.”

In 2000, the dot-com crash didn't occur in 2000 but began then; the market actually bottomed in 2003, meaning the decline lasted 3+ years, contradicting the narrative that tech crashes are fast and sharp.

“people forget that in the early 2000s or the 2000 crash. Well, actually, the market was lower in '23 '03 than it was in 2000. But everyone thinks that it happened in 2000. It actually didn't. It began. It's like that's when it started. Right. kept going.”

Buffett's record cash position (reported as $350-400 billion) is the largest as a percentage of Berkshire's market cap in history, signaling either extreme caution or expectation of major opportunity, and stands in contradiction to market euphoria and all-time highs.

“the greatest investor of all time who has built up uh I don't know cash What's he at? 400 billion by now? I don't know. Or 350 billion. His largest cash holding as a percentage of market cap, I think, ever.”

Earnings management (where CFOs legally guide analysts to expected numbers and can manipulate those expectations if desired) is understood practice in finance and is how 'the world works', but systematic earnings management disguises deteriorating business quality.

“I was talking and I'm not going to mention who I was talking to, a well-known CFO once about earnings management. Yes. And they said, you know, we would call analysts after the earnings call. And we would, you know, legally, but we would definitely lead them uh to what numbers to expect for the next quarter even if we weren't and we would sometimes manipulate that if we wanted to. And I always thought that that was a bit nefarious, but I mean, this is how people work and how the world works.”

The high-yield bond spread (difference between 10-year bond and non-investment grade bond rates) is near its tightest in history, and VIX is trading at benign levels, indicating that investors are pricing essentially no risk into the market despite euphoric conditions.

“we look at the the high-yield bond spread, the spread between the 10-year bond and the high-yield bond in the US. Okay, that's the non-investment grade bonds. Well, that's the tightest, near the tightest that's ever been... So, there's no risk priced into the bond market. And then in the equity markets, we use VIX, which is a measurable volatility of the of the S&P 500, and that is trading at a benign level.”

Interest rates are likely to fall because governments want them down (to manage accumulated debt) and central banks are concerned about employment/economic situation, creating structural bias toward rate cuts regardless of inflation dynamics.

“debts have have continued to balloon in a period which has been relatively buoyant uh by historical standards. And interest rates they perceive interest rates are going to go down, that's going to keep on the buoyancy. Well, the central bank, and if you followed Powell despite all the pressures coming from Trump to cut rates, I mean, Powell is going to cut rates because he's concerned about either the employment situation, right? Or the economic situation more broadly.”

Structure (control environment, ownership, incentives, time horizons, capital sources) determines which strategies are possible; a structure misaligned with strategy guarantees failure regardless of execution quality.

“One of the things that we've sort of hit on here without naming it is how important structure is to investing. Part of the reason that Berkshire was able to do that and Buffett was able to act is that or Buffett's able to do what he's doing today is he controls so much of the shares. So he's got the structure to enable the strategy to play out. Whereas, if you think about it, you know, there's many times during Berkshire's uh long career where an investor, an activist investor, would have come in, demanded the return capital, demanded to take on debt to buy back shares, and the structure that's enabled so much success has also prevented that.”

When Nvidia invests in CoreWeave at levels below 5% ownership and materially insignificant to Nvidia's balance sheet, the related-party transaction and its details face minimal disclosure requirements, allowing large volumes of such circular investments to aggregate into systemic risk while remaining individually immaterial.

“Nvidia would make that investment in in CoreWeave? It's such a small meaningless dollar amount to the balance sheet of Nvidia that the number amount of disclosure is irrelevant. It be it's a it's a related party. Now we only own 5% so that's not material to to Nvidia and the dollar amount to Nvidia's total balance sheet is also immaterial. So it doesn't matter. But if this is happening over hundreds of transactions where it's making investments like this in its own customers then what ends up happening if all of a sudden it runs out of the ability to get cash or the customers end up having problems selling services with the chips that it buys then kind of things start to fall fall apart.”

A three-stage forensic analysis process identifies risks: (1) understand the business and control environment (compensation structure, life cycle stage, accounting policies), (2) identify flammable items (suspicious metrics that could be problems under certain conditions, like negative cash flow that could be positive sign or negative sign depending on context), (3) identify the spark (trigger event that converts flammable item into crisis).

“It's a three-stage process that we use and we teach... The first stage is you understand the business and the control environment. Okay? Again, understand and understand the accounting that's being used... And you understand sort of the the the structure, how is management compensated?... So, then you look for a flammable item... Unless you know... if a company's generating negative cash, it may actually be a fantastic thing. They're investing in an AI startup... And so, they're investing in something. Yes, it's negative cash flow today, but I'm not investing for the cash flow today, I'm investing for the cash flow tomorrow. So, you see that as the red flag, you don't invest in it. And unless you understood the first part, which was the fact that where they are in their life cycle type of business, etc., that is now not a red flag, it's just a flammable item. By itself, not a problem. It depends. And then you get to the third bucket, which is the spark.”

Stock prices move 20-40% on earning news despite investors having unprecedented access to detailed company information, supplier data, credit card data, expert networks, and analytical tools—this paradox suggests the problem is not information scarcity but lack of judgment frameworks to interpret information.

“we're looking at on a daily basis during earning season, stocks move. Like it used to be 1 or 2%. Now we're looking at 20% moves in a day... yet we're in a period of AI... there are drones... You're you have access and you can buy access to credit card data... there's all these expert networks... You can talk to suppliers. There's all these expert networks that you can talk to like individuals working in the industry or used to work in the industry... And so yet all of that is happening and Oracle stock price moves 40% on news. And we have access to better and supposedly better information than we've ever had. How does that make any sense? If we had better information, then you know what? Stock prices on news would hardly move.”

AI and technology tools like ChatGPT help analysts locate relevant sections of financial statements faster, but AI cannot identify connections between disparate data points unless the analyst already knows what pattern to search for; therefore, AI amplifies analysis of problems already visible to experienced analysts while failing to surface novel risks.

“Because now, read the financial statements, Anthony. I just put it into AI. I asked ChatGPT to tell me what about this? Look for that. Look for that. And there there's all the instances of those things. And then I just read it and it's all there. Well, did the AI miss it? Did the AI understand the linkages between each of those sightings?... the AI makes me get to the answer perhaps more quickly, but it's my If I don't already know where I want to go... then AI just gives me information. But that information doesn't help my decision if I didn't start with where I want to get to.”

The real opportunity for forensic analysts isn't in identifying fraud that will be caught (most fraud is ultimately discovered), but in identifying structural vulnerabilities and deteriorating business models before they collapse, differentiating from simple fraud detection.

“I say you know the things that we're talking about right now these little things if you will. You know in the time of 2000s just like we talked about Enron that didn't have the disclosure. So the key wrinkle to everything I brought up and that's why now I want to take it to the accounting is the financial statements of Nortel... It also wouldn't show up as part of operating cash flow. And if it's not part of operating cash flow then operating cash flow looks better.”

Stock options create misaligned incentives because employees have no control over most factors affecting stock price (Fed policy, commodity prices, competitive entry, GDP growth), yet compensation is tied to stock price, causing employees to make decisions to manipulate stock prices in the short term rather than build durable business value.

“the things they say, the things they do will affect market's perception of the company, perhaps in the near term, perhaps in the medium term. But in the in the longer term, in the in the fullness of time, the results will prove what's going to happen. But the management and and the the guy on the shop floor, even the sales manager, may have no impact on what actually happens in the stock price. Yesterday, Powell cuts rates. So, that moves the company's price. All of a sudden, as an employee, I'm better off or worse off, but I had no effect on that... So, I think it it incentivizes what I think the wrong thing is, and makes people make preferential decisions, which can manipulate the stock price, which may or may not be good for the company.”

Nothing happens without a reason—when you notice something unusual in a company's structure, subsidiaries, or accounting, asking 'why?' leads to understanding true business model; most investors skip this step, assuming arrangements are standard.

“Because again, when you see it's a flammable, you didn't even know that was a flammable item unless you know from the first page, 'Oh, they're set up in Quebec.' And you go, 'Well, why did that happen?' Which is part of the mental model of being curious to say 'Nothing happens without a reason.'”

In Chinese markets, the color coding is reversed: green stocks are down, red stocks are up, which changes investor psychology—seeing 'green' (normally positive color) when stocks fall encourages buying, while seeing 'red' (normally negative color) when stocks rise encourages caution; Chilupati recommends this reversal for Western markets.

“when I went to China... met with analysts there... when they look at their screen, stocks that are down are green. Stocks that are up are red. That's how you should rejig your screen. In fact, I've called FactSet and Bloomberg and see if we can change that. Because if you look Wake up every day and everything's red, and you like do we live this in '08, right? It went lower and you thought, 'Okay, I'll buy some now.'”

CoreWeave went public with Nvidia purchasing $250 million in shares at the last moment to close the financing deal, JP Morgan provided a bridge loan before the IPO, and JP Morgan was also a lead underwriter—these transaction layers obscure true market demand and create a self-reinforcing cycle of capital.

“CoreWeave goes public. It's trying to close its its equity it's financing on the last moment Nvidia buys $250 million worth of shares of CoreWeave so that it could close the deal. These are you know JP Morgan gives them a loan so that they could just before they go public and then they go public and repay the loan to JP Morgan. Who's the one of the lead underwriters? JP Morgan.”

During raging bull markets, knowledge and experience from prior cycles become liabilities because they teach awareness of collapse risk, while investors who have never experienced collapse believe each downturn will be recovered, making them willing to take risks experienced investors avoid.

“During raging bull markets, knowledge is superfluous, and experience is a handicap. Because if you have the the benefit of knowing what happened in all the other blow-ups, you know how painful it could be. But if you've never experienced it, and every time something went wrong, it just rallied back like nothing happened, well, you think it's going to continue.”

AI may be genuinely transformative, but being correct about future transformation does not prevent financial collapse if the present financing structures are unsustainable; this distinction between paradigm correctness and financial viability is routinely ignored in bull markets.

“this is a new a company that just went public earlier this year CoreWeave... None of these things don't mean anything. Nothing means anything until it means something. I say you know the things that we're talking about right now these little things if you will. You know in the time of 2000s just like we talked about Enron that didn't have the disclosure. So the key wrinkle to everything I brought up and that's why now I want to take it to the accounting is... I want to say none of these things matter until they matter. And then when they matter they matter a lot. You know with great power comes great responsibility you're right. This should not be interpreted as I'm telling that something's going to blow up. I'm just saying that there are some linkages things we've seen in past euphoric times.”

Nortel, Lucent, and Cisco engaged in a business model where they would sell products to customers on extended credit terms and offer those customers credit lines to buy from competitors, creating customer debt that only remained hidden in long-term receivables until the equity market stopped supporting continued customer borrowing.

“you had Nortel, and you had Cisco, and you had Lucent... they needed customers. Well, the customers needed to raise money cuz if you're going to build infrastructure, you're not going to generate cash flow for some time. So, they would raise money from equity holders, and eventually get some debt. But the powers that be at Lucent and Nortel would also offer them, so they would say, 'Buy this $10 million worth of product, and why don't you pay me over some extended period of time? Oh, and by the way, we'll give you a line of credit so that you need 10 million from us of of cable uh but well you can also you need to buy some routers from Cisco. You know what? We'll give you some line of credit so you could do that.'”

Companies that use buybacks to offset stock option dilution are performing accounting sleight-of-hand: buybacks do not increase intrinsic value or generate returns, they merely preserve share count while destroying capital that could be invested in productive assets.

“Most buybacks, they're just covering up stock options... So, that's an expense. I think that stock options... everybody it comes down to human motivation. So, if I am going to compensate you on the stock price, then you're going to make decisions that move the stock price.”

Junior analysts using AI without foundational accounting knowledge will fail to develop the pattern-recognition and causal-reasoning capabilities that require learning by 'being in the weeds', meaning AI automation of entry-level analysis prevents the next generation from developing expert intuition.

“The one that said find me all the references of, you know, where the company capitalized costs. That the AI can do. I get it. But you need someone with experience to know what which of those references matter and to what that means to the business. And this brings about a number of challenges because well, if that junior person doesn't learn, doesn't get on the in on the ground floor, they'll never learn to be able to make all those connections. And the only way to learn is sort of like being in the weeds and not being in AI.”

We are currently in a period of extreme euphoria where investors claim financial statements and fundamentals no longer matter because AI is changing the world, similar to claims made about Nortel, Lucent, Cisco, and 360 Networks during the dot-com boom, but those companies no longer exist despite building infrastructure still in use today.

“I hate calling things bubbles, but I think we're in a period of extreme euphoria. Where you read and speak to investors and they say that the numbers don't matter and the financial statements no longer matter because this is changing the world... I saw that Nortel was changing the world and Lucent and Cisco and 360 Networks. They were building out the infrastructure of the internet that we're using today. But those companies don't exist anymore.”

Coach (CEO) in 0-17 NFL team must take risks and run untested plays because incremental improvement cannot generate enough wins; this structural reality (one-game elimination) is analogous to portfolio manager structural reality in bubbles—but with opposite response (both take risk, but in different contexts).

“I I sort of think about this in the context of sports, right? Like if I'm a head coach, I'm going into an 0 and 17 team in the NFL, I'm going to take risks, and I'm going to do things that may or may not work out, uh but it's not going to be status quo. And I could leave the situation worse than I found it.”

Passive/index investing creates momentum in large-cap stocks because index funds are market-cap weighted (larger companies get more capital), causing winners to compound (larger → attract more index capital → larger → more capital), while smaller companies are starved of capital regardless of fundamentals.

“we're having of the index investing passive investing is that in essence, all that is is momentum investing because it's a you're buying index which is market cap weighted. So, the money that you're investing is going to the largest market cap companies. Those companies continue to grow. They drag the index higher... there's really two indexes. There's the Mag 7 and the sloppy 493.”

Companies operating in British Virgin Islands or other tax havens with complex subsidiary structures are conducting activities intentionally obscured from investors; complexity itself is a red flag, and the question 'why are you set up this way?' often produces uncomfortable responses.

“So, just being com You know, to you, I think you asked the question, 'Is being complicated a a problem?' Well, it's just 'Why is it happening?' And then you go back to 'Nothing happens without a reason.' Then you point to some company operating in the British Virgin Islands that's listed on the list and go, 'What does this company do?' Yeah. And management starts sweating. And so, 'Why are you asking that?' 'I don't know.' You have your answer before you ask a question.”

Valeant set up its head office in Quebec province (French-speaking Canada) because the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the second-largest pension plan in Canada, has a mandate to invest in Quebec-based companies and foster their growth, creating a structural flow of patient capital regardless of fundamentals.

“They set up their head office in Quebec province in Canada, French-speaking. Well, the Caisse, which is the largest one of the largest pension plans in Canada, right? Their mandate is not just to make money for its pensioners, okay? And they're... one of their mandates is to invest in Quebec-based companies and foster growth... so in this case, you set up in Quebec, you know you got a set flow of capital that's going to come from this Quebec-based pension plan.”

Nortel's financial statements did not show long-term customer receivables as part of current assets, instead classifying them as long-term assets, which meant these receivables did not appear in operating cash flow calculations, artificially inflating operating cash flow and masking illiquidity.

“the financial statements of Nortel didn't show that long-term loan as a part of current assets. It showed it as part of long-term assets. So when the simple calculation of current ratios they would only take well current assets and so this long-term asset that wouldn't show up as part of the liquidity calculation. It also wouldn't show up as part of operating cash flow. And if it's not part of operating cash flow then operating cash flow looks better.”

Veritas Investment Research wrote a sell report on Nortel in 2000 at age 29, which caused the company CEO John Roth to publicly claim the report was hurting ability to raise capital, caused clients to cancel, and caused employees to contact the firm upset—but the company did not collapse until 2015.

“all of that started because we wrote a sell report on Nortel in in 2000. And people thought we were crazy. And you know, at the time I was 29 years old... when John Roth gets quoted in the newspaper that we're hurting his ability to raise capital, and clients are canceling, and you know, employees are contacting us upset because of the things we're saying”

Markets can continue rising indefinitely if liquidity is available, regardless of fundamentals—if investors have cash, they will deploy it, creating upward momentum; therefore, market direction depends on liquidity conditions more than underlying business performance.

“this can continue, and and markets can continue going up for for any number of amount of time because it's a function of how much liquidity is in the market as well. People have If investors have lots of cash, they'll continue to invest.”

Being negative sounds intelligent because presenting facts and numbers compellingly creates appearance of authority; selling positive vision requires selling a dream, which feels less rigorous but is what drives investment in growth stories.

“one of them is being negative sounds intelligent. Mhm. Being negative typically is looking at facts. It's looking at numbers. It's presenting them to you in a way that says wow that seems really compelling. If I want to sell you something that is you know that so that's the negative side. If I want to sell you the positive side well then I got to sell you the dream. AI is going to change the world. People are going to be no are no longer going to need to work.”

When evaluating management compensation, consistency of metrics matters more than individual metrics—if a company changes its bonus metrics when missing targets, it signals management integrity problem; consistency signals management takes accountability.

“Did it change? Did a company say, you know, 'We're going to pay management on X performance metric. If they hit it, they get 100%. If they don't, they get some graduated scale.' Well, then management doesn't hit it, and they change the the metric, and management still gets a bonus. I think that's a problem.”

Nvidia invests in CoreWeave (which is a customer of Nvidia for chips), Microsoft invests in and buys cloud services from OpenAI (which is also a customer of Microsoft), and Nvidia supplies chips to CoreWeave while also being a material investor in it—these are the same circular financial structures that characterized the pre-2000 infrastructure boom.

“you have the likes of the Nvidias of the world and let's say Microsoft and you have Open AI and such and Nvidia is investing in Open AI. And Microsoft is an investor in Open AI. Microsoft offers cloud services to Open AI. So it's a customer. So Open AI becomes a customer of Microsoft but Microsoft gave it the money so they could actually pay it back. Nvidia invests in Open AI and Nvidia is a a supplier of chips to Open AI. So it's all circular what's going on here.”

The correct calculation of free cash flow depends on three factors: (1) business facts (what was sold, at what terms), (2) constraints (is the company private/public, what regulations apply, what debt covenants exist), and (3) objectives (is the business being valued for sale based on EBITDA or for long-term ownership based on cash generation); without these three anchors, free cash flow calculation is arbitrary.

“You always start with the facts before you think about a transaction and how you're going to account for it. It's all about the facts, the constraints, and the objectives. Right? The facts determine what did I sell, what did I buy, from who, at what cost, under what terms, etc. So, those are the facts, broadly. Then I have the constraints... Then I operate in the US... And the last is the objectives. I want to sell my business this year. And my business sells on EBITDA. Buddy, I'll tell you how I'm going to account for it.”

Apple is a concerning example of buyback risk: revenues are growing minimally, cash generation comes from brand (customers willing to pay $2,000 for phones), but debt has been taken on to fund buybacks and EPS growth—if brand strength diminishes or market matures, debt becomes crushing burden.

“I look at Apple and this is what concerns me. Revenues are growing minimal. And yet, it generates meaningful cash because it has a brand. People are still willing to pay 8 $2,000 for a new phone... there's a lot of competitors. And I'm not sure that that will continue forever at the same rate. In fact, it's already slowing. And that debt that they've taken on to buy all back all those shares to generate that EPS growth, that could end up being a problem.”

In Tesla, the volume of options traded exceeds the dollar value of stock traded daily, and when options are sold, market makers (brokers) must hedge themselves by buying stock, which creates mechanical upward pressure on stock price independent of fundamentals.

“Someone told me that in Tesla, there is more transactions on options than there are in dollar value on the actual stock in the day.”

When companies report earnings, especially during earnings season, single-day stock moves of 20-40% are now normal; these moves are disconnected from incremental business news and reflect options hedging dynamics and retail trading, not fundamental value discovery.

“we're looking at on a daily basis during earning season, stocks move. Like it used to be 1 or 2%. Now we're looking at 20% moves in a day. Oracle moved 20%. That was like on I don't recall the exact number, but that move those were valuations of entire companies.”

Valeant bought Biovail, which had a Barbados tax structure where income tax rates decline as income increases (opposite of normal progressive taxation), allowing Valeant to inherit that advantage—a structural advantage that created incentive to maximize income regardless of sustainability.

“Biovail was a Canadian company that was run by Eugene Melnyk... they they would buy a drug and then repurpose the the the formulation so they'll be slow release, etc... they also had a phenomenal tax structure where they were set up in Barbados. And Barbados is like heaven. So, the more money you make as income, you pay a lower percentage tax. Imagine that. So, what Valeant did was they bought that structure when they bought the Biovail.”

AI will not replace human judgment in investing because AI lacks the ability to identify novel patterns or make novel connections; AI can execute known patterns at scale, but it cannot generate the hypothesis about what matters unless humans tell it where to look.

“I guess that the potential is that it it supersedes individual and collective intelligence. And so it gets to a point where it's able to do that. I guess that's the Maybe. Yeah. We'll see. Yeah.”

The contradiction of all-time high markets with widespread consumer struggle ('more people struggling now than in recent memory'), rising inflation, and high unemployment suggests structural economic dysfunction or misalignment of market valuations with economic reality.

“I have a hard time reconciling this, right? Because the the the territory, the boots on the ground, is a lot of people are struggling. Seems like more people than at least in my adult lifetime, uh with the exception of maybe the 2008 financial crisis. And we have markets at all-time highs. Yep. And we have inflation, core inflation, actually going up. And we also have governments uh with high unemployment pushing interest rates down.”

Walmart, Target, Lululemon, and Starbucks reporting sales struggles and pricing pressure indicate 'Joe Sixpack' (middle-class consumer) is struggling, and since these are foundational consumer companies, their weakness signals broad consumer health deterioration.

“When Walmart is telling you that there's a problem with its sales forecast, and Target is struggling, and Lululemon can't sell the same number of pants, and Starbucks is considering to changing some of its pricing and some of its its business model, you know, this is Joe Sixpack and and Stevie Winebox that stepped up from Joe Sixpack. You have Stevie Winebox in the middle.”