What this covers
In this episode of Two Quants and a Financial Planner, we explore the timeless investing wisdom of Ben Carlson. We break down several crucial investing concepts, including why investors shouldn't blindly follow billionaires' market moves, the importance of finding an investment strategy you can stick with, and why the market rarely operates at extremes despite what headlines might suggest.
We examine why even successful professionals can struggle with overconfidence in investing, the challenges of benchmarking against the S&P 500, and why persistence of outperformance is so difficult to achieve. Through the discussion, we highlight how Ben's straightforward approach to complex investing topics helps investors avoid common pitfalls and maintain realistic expectations.
Key Topics:
Why following billionaire investors can be misleading The importance of appropriate benchmarking How to handle periods of underperformance Why market extremes are rarer than we think The challenge of overconfidence in investing Finding an investment strategy you can stick with
Follow us: Jack: @PracticalQuant Matt: @cultishcreative
Email us your topic suggestions: excessreturnspod@gmail.com
0:00 - Introduction & Welcome 0:48 - Should You Follow Billionaire Investors? 5:19 - The Locksmith Story: Why More Effort Doesn't Always Mean Better Results 9:27 - Benchmarking Against the S&P 500 14:22 - Success in One Area Doesn't Always Translate to Investing 19:52 - Why Most Market Conditions Aren't Extremes 24:13 - Finding an Investment Strategy You Can Stick With 29:26 - The Challenge of Persistent Outperformance 33:14 - Market Tension and Resolution 37:05 - The Problem with Always Seeking Extremes 41:14 - Active Management and Dealing with Underperformance 45:26 - Final Thoughts and Girl Scout Cookie Tangent 48:24 - Closing and Contact Information
#investing #finance #BenCarlson #investing101 #financialplanning #markets
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Following billionaire investors' public statements, benchmarking against trending assets, and overconfidence in one's investment abilities are common behavioral traps that prevent investors from executing sustainable strategies; the best investment approach is a simple, consistent strategy you can stick with rather than pursuing an optimal but emotionally difficult strategy.
- Billionaires' public commentary doesn't reflect their actual portfolio actions or risk tolerances, and listeners lack knowledge of their entry/exit signals
- Retail investors constantly benchmark against whatever is performing best (S&P 500, Nvidia, leveraged MicroStrategy) rather than their actual goals, creating psychological pressure to chase
- Success in other fields (engineering, medicine) creates dangerous overconfidence that doesn't translate to markets, where skill transfer is philosophical not tactical
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There is no perfect investment portfolio or strategy for any individual person, despite the ability to run backtests and optimization models, because the perfect strategy in theory must be psychologically sustainable in practice.
“your perfect strategy is the one you can stick to... all of this is about that person you're talking to on the other side or if you're investing your own money all of this is about you and this is about the portfolio you believe in this is about the portfolio you can stick with and that's why there is no perfect portfolio for any individual person as much as I can run my back tests all day it it doesn't exist in the real world”
In finance, more effort does not necessarily correlate with better results; in many cases, doing nothing is the right approach, contrary to most people's intuition that hard work should produce superior outcomes.
“I think people in the world of Finance assume that like more effort means better results and in some areas of life that's true but in most areas of but in in finance that's not necessarily the case where doing more actually helps you and in a lot of cases doing nothing is the right thing to do most of the time in the world Finance”
A good strategy you can stick with is vastly superior to a great strategy you cannot stick with, because the inability to maintain a strategy during underperformance eliminates the possibility of realizing long-term returns.
“I think for most people the good strategy you can stick with is vastly superior to the great strategy that you can't stick with it's just really hard for people to find that one strategy and stick with it so I think that's that's kind of the the lesson I'd impart on a lot of people is just if you find a strategy that works for you don't worry what everyone else is doing and just stick with your own strategy”
The problem facing modern investors is not the availability or quality of investment strategies and tools, but rather the inability to resist the temptation to constantly look at what others are doing and switch strategies instead of maintaining their own approach.
“the problem is there's so many choices these days for what you can invest in that it makes it much harder for people to stick with the strategy so I think for most people the good strategy you can stick with is vastly superior to the great strategy that you can't stick with it's just really hard for people to find that one strategy and stick with it”
Richard Feynman observed that safe crackers would deliberately appear to struggle or take time to crack safes even when they already knew the combination, in order to satisfy observers' expectations that difficult problems require visible effort, showing that appearing to work is often as important as actual results.
“he's aware that he can't just go in and crack it so he finds out that all these people got the same safe and the locksmith tells him you know most people when they get the saves all these are originally set to like you know 1 2 3 4 a space type combination he was like most of the people never even change it so he'd take these bets to crack B safe and he'd walk in and he'd realize really fast oh this guy's just never changed from the original but then he'd have to sit there and like pretend for a few minutes once he figured it out so that he wouldn't disapp disappoint the people making the bets on it”
Warren Buffett's cash level is not a useful indicator for when average investors should be bullish or bearish on the market, as Buffett could be raising cash for numerous unrelated reasons (reducing Apple position size, preparing portfolio for successors, lack of great opportunities) and no one outside his organization knows which one applies.
“if you think about Buffett's cash he could be doing he could be raising cash for a million different reasons right now he could be raising cash because he's outright bearish like people say he could just say you know my Apple position has gotten too big I need to liquidate some of that and I don't have anything great to invest it in he could be setting up the portfolio for the guys that are going to follow him so they don't inherit like this huge Apple position there's a million things he could be doing we don't know which one it is and so there is zero indication you know for for an average investor in Buffett's cash in terms of what you should do”
Most of the time market conditions are in the middle (neither at a top nor at a bottom), and extreme market environments where contrarian or market-timing strategies work are rare, so spending 90% of time planning for 5-10% frequency events is inefficient.
“the hard part for a lot of people is that investors want to assume that we're always at an extreme right this is either the bottom and it's buying opportunity is the top and it's a selling opportunity whereas most of the time we're actually somewhere in the middle right... because it really works it works really well if you do it at the extremes but those extremes don't happen very often... people especially following the 2008 crisis decided to spend 90% of their time worrying about stuff that happens maybe five or 10% of the time right we we don't get these crashes all the time”
Being too intelligent can be a disadvantage in investing because highly educated people tend to assume they can out-think the market and create overly complex strategies, whereas the market is still extremely difficult to beat even with superior intellect.
“there there's almost always going to be someone smarter than you and the hard part about the markets is that I think sometimes you can be too smart for your own good and and try to think assume that you can outthink the market and you're smarter than the market and it's just it's it's not as easy as you think”
Billionaires and retail investors have fundamentally different risk profiles, time horizons, and can tolerate being wrong differently, making their investment strategies incompatible with typical individual investor circumstances
“these people don't know your time Horizon and risk profile they don't they don't they have a completely different you know they can they can take the risk and be wrong and it's not going to impact them as much as someone who just has a 401k or an IRA and is investing for their kids college fund or whatever it's completely different risk profiles and time Horizons”
Taking profits from concentrated positions or speculative bets that have become very large is extremely difficult due to endowment effect psychological bias, even when fundamental risk increases proportionally with size
“when you do have something like that going on is like taking your profits because you get wrapped up in this world of like this is something that just can never go south on me and like you've turned your $100,000 account into a million dollar account and it's like it's just very very hard in the moment to have any kind of coherent strategy to try to take these profits in case this thing goes the other way”
Overconfidence in your own abilities is not a fixable flaw but a permanent feature of human psychology that, once recognized, can be managed through humbling self-awareness but not eliminated
“you can't get rid of this is the big thing to learn you like if you listen to Daniel Crosby and other people like this this is not something you're going to be like Oh I'm G to get rid of my overconfidence like I certainly haven't gotten rid of mine but if it's something that you're aware of it you can be better”
The core investing lesson worth teaching most is that no perfect portfolio or strategy exists; a good strategy you can stick with consistently beats a theoretically superior strategy you'll abandon during stress
“I think there probably is no perfect way to save an invest there's there's no top 10 list you can read or there's no book you can read that's going to like completely change your life and make it easier for you to to figure it out I think you just have to kind of pick a strategy and then stick with it come high water...the good strategy you can stick with is vastly superior to the great strategy that you can't stick with”
In markets, you can often be too smart for your own good—trying to outthink the market or assuming you're smarter than the competition is a dangerous bias because it's not as easy as it looks, and you have to make decisions ahead of time, which is much harder than analyzing the past.
“the hard part about the markets is that I think sometimes you can be too smart for your own good and and try to think assume that you can outthink the market and you're smarter than the market and it's just it's it's not as easy as you think and I think people see C stories in the market about stocks going nuts and going up 30% one day or down 30% and there's all these pieces of the market that are that that are pretty wildly inefficient and they assume oh that must mean like it's easy to beat them without understanding that uh the market is still a very difficult place to beat especially because you have to make these decisions ahead of time it's easy to look back at the past”
Entertainment value and keeping audience attention ('keeping eyeballs glued to sell advertising dollars') is often the primary motivation of financial media, not providing useful information; this should be a default assumption when evaluating billionaire investor commentary on TV.
“for the most part when billionaires are talking this stuff on TV except it's entertainment value they're just keeping your eyeballs glued sell those advertising dollars right”
Retail investors with diversified portfolios (e.g., 60/40 allocations) should not benchmark their performance against concentrated indices like the S&P 500 or NASDAQ 100, as doing so creates false expectations and psychological pressure to abandon their actual investment strategy.
“people with a 6040 portfolio in retirement can't be judging their portfolio against uh the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ 100 and assuming that that risk profile matches what they're investing in and going why don't I own that”
Overconfidence is not an investor trait that can be eliminated, but rather a permanent aspect of human psychology that must be actively managed through awareness and the implementation of balancing mechanisms (like humility practices) in decision-making.
“you can't get rid of this is the big thing to learn you like if you listen to Daniel Crosby and other people like this this is not something you're going to be like Oh I'm G to get rid of my overconfidence like I certainly haven't gotten rid of mine but if it's something that you're aware of it you can be better”
Investors have a persistent psychological tendency to extrapolate recent performance into the future, assuming whatever has performed well will continue to perform well and whatever hasn't will continue to underperform, which is the opposite of how reversion to the mean works.
“we always want to think whatever is doing well is going to keep doing well and we always want to stay away from what's not doing well and one of the things we've learned like with with any of these types of strategies especially the kind that I run is these periods where they don't do well can be very very long”
Managing wealth across different time horizons (short-term living needs, medium-term goals, long-term wealth accumulation) requires different strategies for each horizon, and trying to apply one strategy across all horizons creates unnecessary complexity and poor outcomes.
“what are your goals like what are you trying to accomplish like what does the S&P 500 have to do with you know what you're trying to do with your kids or I think it is important to to take a step back and say like what are we trying to do here and maybe that makes us think a little bit less about the S&P 500 and a little bit more like are we on track for what we're trying to do”
Even though many individual investors intellectually understand that they shouldn't blindly follow billionaire investors, they still do it in practice—this behavior persists even among sophisticated people who claim to understand the logical fallacy, indicating the bias is difficult to override.
“even if we think we're like above these simple things like we all need to hear these things cuz they're the most important things”
Comparing yourself to wealth benchmarks relative to other people (e.g., 'Buffett has more money than me') is an infinite regress that will always make you feel poor, so it's important to focus on whether you're on track toward your own goals rather than on relative wealth comparisons.
“back to Mr Buffett in the cash position I like to remind myself I'm relatively broke you know next to Warren Buffett but Warren Buffett's relatively broke next to Jeff Bezos and like you know like I'm relatively Rich compared to the B it's all on a sliding scale be careful about these variables and what you're benchmarking to and if it's making you miserable or not”
Most of a financial planner's work (90% of the day job) involves asking the foundational questions about what clients are trying to accomplish and why, rather than making sophisticated investment decisions.
“90% of my day job is basically around are we on track with what we're trying to do what's the goal what's the actual objective what's the what's the why behind the why behind the why”
Value stocks tend to outperform in periods of rising inflation and rising interest rates, while growth stocks outperform in periods of falling inflation and low interest rates—reflecting different valuation environments rather than value's intrinsic superiority
“value stocks tend to do better when inflation is higher rising and interest rates are higher rising and we just haven't had that environment in a long long time so everyone thought well value is dead because for 10 or 12 years growth stocks kind of crushed them but that was an environment of falling inflation and very low interest rates”
You should watch what successful billionaires do with their portfolios rather than what they say publicly, because their public statements often don't match their actual investment actions
“a lot of times the these people you have to watch what they do not what they say right if if you listen to Stanley dren Miller talk anytime over the past 15 years you would assume this guy is shorting the market to you know he thinks it's coming to an end because of the way he's talking about the macro but if you look at his portfolio his performance in his trades he doesn't invest like that he's constantly moving in on positions”
Investors with diversified portfolios (e.g., 60/40) are inappropriately benchmarking themselves against concentrated indices like the S&P 500 or NASDAQ 100, then becoming dissatisfied with their returns despite proper strategy alignment with their risk tolerance
“people with a 6040 portfolio in retirement can't be judging their portfolio against uh the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ 100 and assuming that that risk profile matches what they're investing in and going why don't I own that”
Contrarian investing strategies are rare winners because true extremes (2008 subprime crisis) happen infrequently; most people spending 90% of their time preparing for 10% probability events waste resources on unlikely scenarios
“being a contrarian is such a hard a hard strategy to to take part in because it really works it works really well if you do it at the extremes but those extremes don't happen very often one of my favorite examples of this is after the 2008 crisis...people decided to spend 90% of their time worrying about stuff that happens maybe five or 10% of the time right we we don't get these crashes all the time”
You should watch what billionaire investors do with their money, not what they say publicly, because their public commentary on CNBC and Bloomberg often contradicts their actual portfolio positions and trading behavior.
“a lot of times the these people you have to watch what they do not what they say right if if you listen to Stanley dren Miller talk anytime over the past 15 years you would assume this guy is shorting the market to you know he thinks it's coming to an end because of the way he's talking about the macro but if you look at his portfolio his performance in his trades he doesn't invest like that he's constantly moving in on positions and he's more bullish than he makes it sound like because his the stuff that he says does not necessarily match his portfolio”
Value stocks tend to perform better in environments with rising inflation and rising interest rates, while growth stocks perform better in environments with falling inflation and very low interest rates, making factors useful for diversifying across different economic regimes.
“value stocks tend to do better when inflation is higher rising and interest rates are higher rising and we just haven't had that environment in a long long time so everyone thought well value is dead because for 10 or 12 years growth stocks kind of crushed them but that was an environment of falling inflation and very low interest rates and it was a much better setup for growth stocks”
The access to sophisticated investment strategies (factors, tax-efficient ETFs, etc.) that are now available to individual investors at low cost was only available to rich individuals, institutions, and hedge funds in the past, representing real democratization of investment tools.
“it's probably never been a better time to be an individual investor in terms of the strategies and products and tools we have available I mean if you think about some of the strategies that are now offered in a tax efficient ETF that were only available to Rich individuals or institutions or hedge funds back in the day and individuals can now use these same strategies at for pennies on the dollar in terms of costs”
Long-term strategy performance persistence for active managers is extremely low—most funds that outperform over 3 years fail to outperform in the subsequent 3 years (Sharpe, Morningstar research findings)
“the persistence about performance is the hardest thing in active management strategies right St and por have done a lot of studies on this showing that the the amount of funds that outperform over three years for them to go and outperform the next three it's a very low percentage of funds that actually do that”
Investors tend to believe recent outperformance will persist and avoid strategies with recent underperformance, creating a persistent behavioral bias that results in buying high and selling low across factor strategies
“this is something that just I mean it's so ingrained in investing I mean I don't think there's anything we can do about it but it's just important to keep it in the back of our minds like we always want to think whatever is doing well is going to keep doing well and we always want to stay away from what's not doing well”
Outperformance is mathematically hard to sustain across long periods—the saying 'trees don't grow to the sky' applies universally to investment returns, making extended outperformance unlikely regardless of strategy
“know that outperforming if you're on the track like it's really hard to sustain out performance the tree doesn't grow to the sky all those metaphors apply”
Persistence of outperformance is very low in active management—most funds that outperform over a three-year period do not outperform in the following three-year period, making past performance an unreliable guide to future success.
“the persistence about performance is the hardest thing in active management strategies right St and por have done a lot of studies on this showing that the the amount of funds that outperform over three years for them to go and outperform the next three it's a very low percentage of funds that actually do that”
The endowment effect (difficulty letting go of assets that have increased in value) is particularly strong when a single position has grown dramatically (e.g., $100,000 to $1 million) and is even stronger when someone's livelihood is tied to that position.
“the endowment effect is really really strong it's really really real and I do not envy the people whose livelihood is tied up inside of especially a single security or a single business or a single thing in a way where the decision to walk away and have less glamour like if if you're not asking why then you might ride it all the way up and all the way back down again”
The 2008 financial crisis trade (shorting subprime mortgage bonds as John Paulson did) was a 'once-in-a-lifetime trade' specifically because extreme market conditions where such trades work do not happen frequently, and trying to replicate that strategy regularly is futile.
“one of my favorite examples of this is after the 2008 crisis and people read the the greatest trade ever about John Paulson shorting subprime mortgage bonds right people watch The Big Short and they assumed oh I'll just do that all the time and I'll get rich where it's called the once- in a-lifetime trade for a reason these extreme situations don't happen that often”
The success of concentrated indices like the S&P 500 in recent years (two above-average years in a row entering 2024) is historically rare, and the fact that it has happened suggests the market may not have a third above-average year, making this a potentially good time to diversify into other asset classes and factors.
“Cap weighted indices coming into the end of 2024 here have put up two above average years in a row which doesn't usually happen and when it does you usually don't get a third out of it doesn't mean you can't it just means we're in above average meaning non average scenarios right now so you start looking for stuff that maybe is diversifying”
The true benchmark for most investors is not a stated index but dynamically shifts to whatever is performing best at any given time—S&P 500, NASDAQ, double-leveraged micro-cap strategies, or individual high-flying stocks—creating an impossible moving target
“The Benchmark is the greater of the S&P 500 or whatever's in the news that's been working right now so for instance right now it might be the two times micro strategy ETF because that's doing better than the S&P 500 so it's like oh you've done pretty well this year but what about this two times micro strategy ETF thing is on a huge tear”
Comparison itself is the cognitive frame through which all investing is evaluated; without consciously questioning why you're making a specific comparison, you become trapped in whatever comparison is currently most salient rather than what's actually relevant to your goals
“comparison is the frame you see the rest of the thing through so comparison is the frame and whatever it is in investing It's usually the S&P or it's the the double levered micro strategy or Nvidia or something stupid like there's always something there that will change here is the frame of which I view this thing through”
Three podcast hosts (Matt Zigler, Jack Forehand, Justin Carbono) initially worried that Ben Carlson's simple, fundamental message would be 'too simple' for their audience but were proven wrong—sophisticated people still need and benefit from reminders of basics because sophistication and failure at fundamentals are not mutually exclusive.
“and like before we had the outline for what we're going to do and before you guys started I was like I I said to you guys like this might be too simple like I don't know we can do this for our audience cuz it's too simple and like I was completely wrong about that because like even the most sophisticated people like we're going to talk about billionaires in a second but I'll be like well I shouldn't be listening to billionaires and then I'll be like Stanley druen biller on CNBC what he's selling his Nvidia like I got to look at this thing and so it's like we all need to hear this stuff like even if we think we're like above these simple things like we all need to hear these things cuz they're the most important things”
Investors confuse visible effort with investment quality: they perceive managers who visibly work hard (sweating, many monitors, frequent trading) as more competent than those achieving superior returns with minimal activity, even when the low-effort manager outperforms substantially
“if I gave people like two investment managers and one you know they've got this team of analysts grinding away to produce the best returns and you know they've got okay returns and then I gave him another one where I just show you a picture of a Quant guy like sitting on the beach drinking a pin colada and he's beating the S&P by 5% a year a lot of people are going to want like the other one better because they feel like they're actually working hard so they feel like they should be rewarded for that hard work”
When you hire an active manager, you should ask upfront: 'Would I be willing to double down on this manager during periods of underperformance?' If the answer is no, you should not hire them, because periods of underperformance are guaranteed to occur.
“my question to them is always you know when youve got into this manager in the first place you knew a period of underperformance is going to come so would you be willing to lean into the pain and double down on that manager or not and if if not then that's time to get rid of them”
Without understanding the 'stoplight signals' (what the entry condition, warning condition, and exit condition are for a position), you're just speculating on what's driving someone's decision-making, and if you can't explain those signals you should admit you're speculating rather than trying to copy their position.
“that last part which is really a Time Horizon way but I like to say it's what are the signals usually they're not telling you they're not telling you the red red light yellow light green light extra little kids playing in the backyard Vibes on this what's the thing that gets him in what's the thing that gives him a warning what's the thing that gets them out what's the thing that tells them when to stop how long is it that is that in 5 minutes is that in 5 years”
Comparison frames how you see everything—the benchmark you choose is the lens through which you interpret portfolio performance, making it crucial to deliberately choose the appropriate comparison framework rather than defaulting to whatever is currently working best.
“comparison is the frame you see the rest of the thing through so comparison is the frame and whatever it is in investing It's usually the S&P or it's the the double levered micro strategy or Nvidia or something stupid like there's always something there that will change here is the frame of which I view this thing through”
The 'why behind the why behind the why' (recursive questioning of motivations) is essential for separating yourself from the emotional experience of winning, so you can maintain rational decision-making rather than being swept away by the euphoria of rising values.
“this is where the why behind the Y behind the Y becomes so important because if you can't separate yourself from this uh this unbelievable outcome that you're experiencing it's it's tough It's just tough”
Asking the philosophical 'first, do no harm' question when considering aggressive investment allocations can counterbalance overconfidence by forcing consideration of potential downside and regrets rather than just upside scenarios.
“fear doctors say first Do no harm okay how am I potentially doing harm to myself in this decision to aggress aggressively invest or allocate to this crazy active manager or something just ask yourself the philosophical underpinning questions”
The Henny Youngman joke 'Compared to what?' is the essential question to insert when investors question their returns—forcing explicit consideration of the comparison frame rather than implicitly accepting the most recent top performer as the benchmark.
“the old Henny Youngman joke the hey how's your wife and him saying compared to what like you got to wonder why you're asking the question you got to insert that in the conversation and just like you said just find ways to interject it”
Warren Buffett's cash level has zero predictive power for average investors because his cash accumulation could result from dozens of different strategic reasons (position concentration reduction, liquidity management for unknown acquisitions, portfolio succession planning) with no way to determine which is operative
“he could be raising cash because he's outright bearish like people say he could just say you know my Apple position has gotten too big I need to liquidate some of that and I don't have anything great to invest it in he could be setting up the portfolio for the guys that are going to follow him so they don't inherit like this huge Apple position there's a million things he could be doing we don't know which one it is and so there is zero indication you know for for an average investor in Buffett's cash”
When evaluating billionaire investment positions you see publicized, you must ask three critical questions: what is the security being held, what is the sizing of the position as a percentage of their net worth, and what are the entry/exit signals that trigger their decisions
“you got to ask what's the security you got to ask yourself what's the sizing and you got to ask yourself what's the signal in this thing so it's like they might say I'm short junk bonds you go okay how are they even putting this trade on then you got to ask like what's the sizing of this trade is this like 0.01% of their net worth or are they really being like I'm all in on stuff”
Deliberately selecting your benchmark or comparison frame is a form of competitive advantage available to investors—choosing to compete against cash or against appropriate factor indices rather than being trapped by default S&P 500 comparison
“pick your benchmarks pick the frame through which you see the world pick the St the ways that you compete and where you create your attention but pick them accordingly”
Richard Feynman's story of safe-cracking illustrates effort performance: he learned that many executives never changed their safes from the factory default combination (1-2-3-4), so he could crack them in 45 seconds, but he would pretend to work for several minutes to maintain the appearance of effort and not disappoint the people who made bets on his ability—showing that sometimes you have to perform effort even when the actual work is done.
“there's this amazing thing inside of the safe cracking stuff that he did where he talks about... he finds out when he befriends the lock Smith like all these Executives got the same safe put into their offices and he had already made a thing about going in and cracking these safes... somebody can bet me that I can crack the safe in 60 minutes and I know the combination to get there in like 45 and he was aware that he can't just go in and crack it so he finds out that all these people got the same safe and the locksmith tells him you know most people when they get the saves all these are originally set to like you know 1 2 3 4 a space type combination he was like most of the people never even change it”
When evaluating whether to follow a billionaire investor's public statement about a position, you must determine three things: the security being discussed, the sizing of the position (what percentage of their net worth), and the signal or trigger that prompts them to enter and exit the trade.
“you got to ask what's the security you got to ask yourself what's the sizing and you got to ask yourself what's the signal in this thing so it's like they might say I'm short junk bonds you go okay how are they even putting this trade on then you got to ask like what's the sizing of this trade is this like 0.01% of their net worth or are they really being like I'm all in on stuff”
Perceived effort and complexity in investing create a bias where investors believe managers who appear to be working harder (many analysts, many models, many trades) are more deserving of compensation than managers with simpler processes that produce better results.
“I think people in the world of Finance assume that like more effort means better results and in some areas of life that's true but in most areas of but in in finance that's not necessarily the case where doing more actually helps you and in a lot of cases doing nothing is the right thing to do most of the time... if I gave people like two investment managers and one you know they've got this team of analysts grinding away to produ the best returns and you know they've got okay returns and then I gave him another one where I I just show you a picture of a Quant guy like sitting on the beach drinking a pin colada and he's Bea the S&P by 5% a year a lot of people are going to want like the other one better because they feel like they're actually working hard”
The actual benchmark that guides most investors' behavior is not a fixed index but rather 'the greater of the S&P 500 or whatever is in the news that's been working right now,' which changes based on what is currently performing best (Nvidia, leveraged MicroStrategy, etc.).
“The Benchmark is always for everybody the S&P 500 like they they don't want to hear about like well you know this is what small cap value has done... but what I've learned in my career is it's not just the S&P 500 The Benchmark is the greater of the S&P 500 or whatever's in the news that's been working right now so for instance right now it might be the two times micro strategy ETF because that's doing better than the S&P 500”
Factor-based investing (value, quality, momentum, dividends) should be understood primarily as a diversification tool across different economic environments rather than as a means to generate alpha or beat the market.
“I've never looked at factors as a way to get Alpha I I know if you look back at the at the at the research it shows that certain factors like value or quality or momentum have outperform in the markets over time the way that I see them is as a form of diversification and I think the this period over the last 24 months is a perfect example of it where certain stocks perform better under certain economic environments”
When evaluating market forecasts and predictions, a useful default assumption is to identify what tension or problem the forecaster is building up and what brilliant solution they will then present to resolve it.
“You have to have to have to get in front of people by highlighting the tension first you got to create and build that tension and everybody who's presenting it to you a wonderful default assumption is just asking how are they building the tension that their next going to resolve with their brilliant idea that's going to sound brilliant if they built the tension up right”
The hedonic treadmill effect applies to investment returns—once you achieve some level of return, you quickly adjust your expectations upward and no longer feel satisfied with that level of performance.
“how would you have felt instead of the Market being up 20 and you're up 10 if the market was down 20 and even you know and you were down 22 like would that have been an acceptable Choice here and if the answer is like no that actually would have really sucked then okay we we took the right decision”
You can't judge Kathy Wood's strategy as wrong just because your strategy outperformed it, because she ultimately achieved better results; similarly, you can't judge Michael Saylor's strategy as foolish just because it carries obvious risks when he's been dramatically successful.
“you certainly can't just like when you know we've told in the podcast the story like how we launched our ATF on the same day is Kathy Wood um that relaunched a small C value ETF which obviously doesn't exist anymore and she's made huge success so you can't you can't take anything away from him it's she she's done better than us”
A market forecaster can protect their reputation and maintain a following by making 40% probability predictions of a crash, because such predictions are essentially unfalsifiable—if a crash occurs (rare), they claim accuracy; if no crash occurs, they claim they said it was less likely than not.
“if I was a someone who wanted to just grow a YouTube channel or build a following for being a market forecaster what I would do regularly is I would always predict a 40% chance of a crash um because you basically cannot lose in that situation like if if you predict it's only you it's 40% so you could say well I thought it was less likely than more likely but then it's of a crash so it's of something that's very extreme so if I'm right like the chances of a crash in like Market history or not anywhere near 40% so I I basically have one either way”
Skill sets from one domain transfer to other domains more philosophically than tangibly—the underlying principles and mindsets are transferable (like patience and following instructions), but the specific tactical skills are not.
“your skill sets transfer more philosophically than they do tangibly that simple observation which works across most of life like Phil philosophically you'll find things that rhyme I know when I'm hanging blinds in my house that basically a I'm not a carpenter... I can do all the stuff just enough to be to functional... I got to take things I know from I don't know maybe not podcasting but certainly my regular work where it's like have patience read the instructions don't just rush into it”
Market narratives and media commentary are structured to present extreme tension because tension and drama are necessary for compelling storytelling, which leads to misrepresentation of how often extreme market events actually occur.
“there's no there's no resolution there's no resting place or confidence without tension first so part of this take where you're always looking for tension you're always looking to either like be contrarian or take something to an extreme you're Al always looking just to dial up that tension you want to get it as far away as you can so you can put at the resolution on the other side and say we're going from here all the way to there the reality is like most of the time we're we're in the middle somewhere... all narratives and all stories and all arcs have to start at that point of extreme tension and that's why you hear lots of stuff pitched or framed or presented to you in that way it's the most compelling way to communicate the story”
Success or wealth at one scale creates systematic misperception of comparative metrics: someone wealthy relative to peers may feel poor relative to billionaires, creating unlimited dissatisfaction regardless of absolute position, demonstrating the poverty of relative comparison without context
“I like to remind myself I'm relatively broke you know next to Warren Buffett but Warren Buffett's relatively broke next to Jeff Bezos and like you know like I'm relatively Rich compared to the B it's all on a sliding scale”
Reality is that most of daily/normal human life and market states are in 'boring' middle ranges—most of time eating leftovers and doing regular work—not in narrative-driven extremes, but this is psychologically harder to accept and market
“the reality the actual human history is most of life is pretty fraking boring like we don't live in TV shows we don't live in like 70s you know cinematic movie masterpieces my life is eating you know the other half of the Italian hogy I got last night from the place down the street for lunch before I record a podcast in between lion calls and that's okay it's just hard to admit and remember that stuff”
Successfully past forecasters tend to get validation long-term even if they were right for wrong reasons (predicting crash because of deflation, crash happening due to credit crises anyway = validation despite incorrect mechanism)
“the Broken Clock industry is Alive and Well many a newsletter is running on you know the 40% of a crash call that they got right you know 10 years ago and the best is why they get it right for the absolute wrong reasons they predict something and then something totally different happens and sometimes that's a beautiful thing because somebody gets something right that was a knockout effect from something else”
Justin Carboni's job in financial planning is 90% asking 'are we on track with what we're trying to do?' and drilling down on the why—when clients feel tempted to chase performance or de-risk, the key intervention is asking 'how would you have felt if the market was down 20% and you were down 22%?' to test whether the proposed action actually aligns with their risk tolerance.
“90% of my day job is basically around are we on track with what we're trying to do what's the goal what's the actual objective what's the what's the why behind the why behind the why and reminding people in those feelings of a year like this year when you want to Chase and you know people who especially when they're swapping one thing for another when they're drisking especially and it's like you drisk and then you see the market just continue to go up you're like was that a mistake it's well it depends are are are you H like what how would you have felt instead of the Market being up 20 and you're up 10 if the market was down 20 and even you know and you were down 22”
Being smart in one domain (being an engineer or doctor) does not automatically translate to being smart in investing—many of the worst investors are highly educated professionals who assume their intelligence and work ethic will transfer directly, leading to overconfidence and worse outcomes than average.
“some of the worst investors of all time are engineers and doctors I'm not trying to disparage people in those lines of of work but what you get is th those people have gone through a lot of Education a lot of school they're very intelligent they've worked really hard to get what they have and they assume that that success that they have in their current career will automatically translate into the markets”
Defining portfolio goals in terms of actual financial objectives (funding children's education, retirement spending, etc.) rather than relative market performance reduces the temptation to chase S&P 500 benchmarks and improves behavioral discipline
“getting back to what you just said is what are your goals like what are you trying to accomplish like what does the S&P 500 have to do with you know what you're trying to do with your kids or I think it is important to to take a step back and say like what are we trying to do here and maybe that makes us think a little bit less about the S&P 500 and a little bit more like are we on track for what we're trying to do”
Tip your hat to value investors who persist in underperforming value strategies—they are taking a genuine shot at outperformance by rebalancing into an out-of-favor factor, which is the only realistic path to outperformance.
“I tip my hat to you value investors everywhere if it's persistently under performed and you still believe in it then take your shot take your shot that's the only way you have a shot at outperformance anyway”
Because of inability to predict which factors or strategies will outperform in future environments, diversification across multiple factors is superior to concentrated factor exposure or single-strategy selection
“I've never been person who likes to go to extremes and and I'm going to own all tech stocks or all dividend stocks or all all value stocks or whatever I I like to have a little bit of each because I don't think I have the ability to predict what the future is going to hold and I don't have the ability to prct which factors or which strategy is going to perform best and so that's why I think diversification is such a strong tool”
Skill set transfers occur philosophically more than tactically—successful habits like 'slow down, follow instructions, focus' transfer across domains, but specific technical skills from one domain rarely translate directly to another
“your skill sets transfer more philosophically than they do tangibly that simple observation which works across most of life like Phil philosophically you'll find things that rhyme...but at the same time I got to take things I know from...certainly my regular work where it's like have patience read the instructions don't just rush into it...but that's the philosophy that I take to other things I do being applied not the actual tactical”
'De-risking' is a version of not looking like somebody is taking high risk—it's conceptually similar to Buffett being 'poor' relative to Bezos: you don't have to chase every high-performing asset if you can accept that you're giving up some relative returns, and you should skate to where the puck is going (not where it already is) rather than chasing what has already worked.
“just try back to the other example before of drisking and drisking is just a version of not looking like somebody's high risk it's Buffet being poor relative to Bezos you know just drisking in some way where you go I don't have to chase this I don't have to don't skate to where the puck already is it's a basic metaphor it's important for a reason”
The best protection against overconfidence in market timing and forecasting is to publish your predictions regularly (e.g., on a blog) where they are permanently recorded and can be compared against actual outcomes, creating accountability.
“I publish them regularly on my uh on your your blog or whatever yeah on my I don't know what's my subreddit what Discord on my Discord where would people share such critical only the people here know it information I tape it to the side of a mailbox you know in rural Pennsylvania”
The Seinfeld karate episode illustrates the importance of selecting your comparison group and frame carefully: you can look very successful if you're beating children at karate, but that success says nothing meaningful about your actual abilities.
“he's taking karate classes he's advancing really quick and until you find out he's taking children's karate classes as a crown man... pick your benchmarks pick the frame through which you see the world pick the St the ways that you compete and where you create your attention but pick them accordingly”
Market communication and prediction is driven by need to build narrative tension—the process of marketing an idea requires first creating and highlighting the problem/tension that the idea will resolve, making predictions inherently biased toward extremes
“if you want to Market an idea you're basically marketing a solution to a problem you're marketing the resolution to some piece of tension and you have to have to have to get in front of people by highlighting the tension first you got to create and build that tension and everybody who's presenting it to you a wonderful default assumption is just asking how are they building the tension that their next going to resolve with their brilliant idea”
A rhetorical strategy for predicting market forecasts is to always predict a 40% probability of a crash—you cannot lose because if a crash happens (which happens less than 40% of the time historically), you can claim success, but if no crash happens, you can still claim you said it was only 40% likely; this 'broken clock' industry generates newsletters that survive by selective memory.
“if I was a someone who wanted to just grow a YouTube channel or build a following for being a market forecaster what I would do regularly is I would always predict a 40% chance of a crash um because you basically cannot lose in that situation like if if you predict it's only you it's 40% so you could say well I thought it was less likely than more likely but then it's of a crash so it's of something that's very extreme so if I'm right like the chances of a crash in like Market history or not anywhere near 40% so I I basically have one either way so you see these kind of predictions and then I could just say I'm right and we forget about it if I ended up being wrong”
Institutions use color-coded performance tracking systems (green=good, yellow=watch list, red=remove) for active managers, but the fundamental problem is that when they hired the manager they knew underperformance would eventually occur; the real test is whether they would double down on the manager during the down period, and if not, that signals they shouldn't have hired the manager in the first place.
“they have these color coding systems of like red yellow in Green for their active manages they have right green is hey everything's fine we're going to stay in it and that's that means performance is good yellow is performance is pretty bad right now but it's been good in the past they're on the watch list and then red is okay this this manat is awful let's get rid of them and my question to them is always you know when youve got into this manager in the first place you knew a period of underperformance is going to come so would you be willing to lean into the pain and double down on that manager or not and if if not then that's time to get rid of them”
Cathy Wood and her ARK Invest small-cap value ETF launch coincided with the podcast hosts' ETF launch, and despite the value ETF presumably not existing anymore, Wood has achieved greater success than the hosts' strategy, demonstrating that multiple paths to success exist even if one doesn't make logical sense long-term.
“we certainly can't take anything away from him it's she she's done better than us whether it makes sense long term or not uh has worked out way better than us and the same thing with sailor like the guys the guys laughing all the way to the bank so it's who who am I as the value investor to sit here and criticize him you got to acknowledge it in both directions it's part of being humble”
Institutions use color-coding systems (green, yellow, red) to monitor active managers' performance, but these systems are only useful if the institution is willing to double down (increase allocation) during red periods when they believed in the manager's strategy when they hired them.
“they have these color coding systems of like red yellow in Green for their active manages they have right green is hey everything's fine we're going to stay in it and that's that means performance is good yellow is performance is pretty bad right now but it's been good in the past they're on the watch list and then red is okay this this manat is awful let's get rid of them and my question to them is always you know when youve got into this manager in the first place you knew a period of underperformance is going to come so would you be willing to lean into the pain and double down on that manager or not and if if not then that's time to get rid of them”
With rules-based factor strategies, investors can know from historical data that the strategy will have periods of over- and under-performance, making it easier to lean into underperformance with confidence; with discretionary active strategies, it's unclear whether underperformance signals an opportunity to double down or a red flag to exit.
“if you invest in an asset class or a rules-based strategy you know that it's going to come in and out of favor and I think if you have that part of your allocation you say have a 10% allocation to this rules-based Factor strategy that that's active but I kind of know it has this history of over and under performance and then when it does under perform I can lean into the pain and I'm going to rebalance but with an active strategy it's much harder to know is now the time to lean into the pain”
The Seinfeld karate episode demonstrates a benchmarking lesson: Kramer took children's karate classes as an adult, advanced quickly, and felt successful until learning he was competing against children—the lesson is to pick your benchmarks and competition carefully, and understand that you can succeed at one benchmark (adult competing against children) while failing at another (adult competing against other adults).
“there's a great lesson in benchmarking he's taking karate classes he's advancing really quick and until you find out he's taking children's karate classes as a crown man oh yeah I do remember that now pick your benchmarks pick the frame through which you see the world pick the St the ways that you compete and where you create your attention but pick them accordingly”
The current environment with MicroStrategy and leveraged ETF strategies issuing securities to buy Bitcoin represents a market mood/sentiment phenomenon where people are imagining the future in an extreme way that may not align with reality, rather than a sustainable investment approach.
“the reminder the future definitionally is always imaginary and whatever you're Imagining the future to be is being influenced by your mood and so when we see people like issuing Securities in the way that they're doing right now and all of us who have any background in actual Finance stuff are scratching her heads going like yikes be careful uh mood that's what's happening people are in a mood and they're imagining a future in a certain way that doesn't necessarily rhyme with reality”
When considering de-risking or portfolio adjustment, the critical question is whether the downside scenario you're protecting against would be psychologically/financially unacceptable, not whether you underperform in a bull scenario
“it depends are are are you H like what how would you would have how would you have felt instead of the Market being up 20 and you're up 10 if the market was down 20 and even you know and you were down 22 like would that have been an acceptable Choice here and if the answer is like no that actually would have really sucked then okay we we took the right decision then drisking right”
Ben Carlson views factor investing (value, quality, momentum, dividends) primarily as a form of diversification across different economic regimes rather than as a method for generating alpha or outperformance
“I've never looked at factors as a way to get Alpha I I know if you look back at the at the at the research it shows that certain factors like value or quality or momentum have outperform in the markets over time the way that I see them is as a form of diversification”
Current S&P 500 concentration in mega-cap technology stocks represents above-average but not reckless positioning—those are the largest companies in the world, so concentration in those is more defensible than in smaller uncertain enterprises
“you have to look at the S&P 500 and say that's something that's very concentrated in in in certain names right now and that may work out I mean they're the biggest companies in the world so if I wanted to be concentrated in anything those are probably the companies you know I'd want to be concentrated in”
The primary issue with active management fund persistence is inability to know when to 'lean into the pain'—when a manager's underperformance is cyclical (and should trigger buying more) versus permanent failure (requiring exit), creating discretionary ambiguity vs rules-based clarity
“with an active strategy it's much harder to know is now the time to lean into the pain and that's that's one of the things I always tell people...they have these color coding systems of like red yellow in Green for their active manages...my question to them is always you know when youve got into this manager in the first place you knew a period of underperformance is going to come so would you be willing to lean into the pain and double down on that manager or not and if if not then that's time to get rid of them”
Underperformance periods for factor strategies can be 'very, very long' and investors should understand this durability before selecting a factor strategy, or risk abandoning it prematurely during inevitable underperformance phases
“these periods where they don't do well can be very very long and so like if you're not if you're going to be the person who's going to do this I mean it's going to be bad no matter what if you're going to be the person that's going to do this but there there's certain types of strategies you just don't want to be involved in if you're going to be the person who thinks like what's been going on for these last three years is going to continue in the future”
Peter Ratweiser provides valuable analysis and commentary on market mood, sentiment, and how mood influences imaginary future scenarios; he's cited as one of the most useful resources for understanding phenomena like MicroStrategy's financial engineering.
“if you're curious about any of that stuff I think the most useful person for mapping this is or one of the most if not the most is Peter ratwater he had a great thing the other day he's been commenting a lot about the micro strategy stuff and he's commenting on it in terms of just mood and sentiment and basically the reminder the future definitionally is always imaginary and whatever you're Imagining the future to be is being influenced by your mood”
Increased access to diverse investment products and strategies (tax-efficient ETFs of formerly institutional strategies) has made it harder, not easier, for individual investors to stick with strategies due to choice overload and constant exposure to alternatives
“it's probably never been a better time to be an individual investor in terms of the strategies and products and tools we have available I mean if you think about some of the strategies that are now offered in a tax efficient ETF that were only available to Rich individuals or institutions or hedge funds back in the day...individuals can now use these same strategies at for pennies on the dollar in terms of costs that's a great thing the problem is there's so many choices these days for what you can invest in that it makes it much harder for people to stick with the strategy”
De-risking a portfolio (reducing exposure to risky assets to match your risk tolerance) is a form of 'dancing to where the puck already is' rather than 'skating to where it's going'—it's avoiding the temptation to chase recent winners even when that feels like missing out.
“just try back to the other example before of drisking and drisking is just a version of not looking like somebody's high risk it's Buffet being poor relative to Bezos you know just drisking in some way where you go I don't have to chase this I don't have to don't skate to where the puck already is it's a basic metaphor it's important for a reason and it's hard to”
Educating people about benchmarks is largely useless; most people view the S&P 500 as the universal benchmark regardless of their portfolio composition or investment objectives, creating persistent dissatisfaction even when overall portfolio performance meets their goals.
“I I think educating on benchmarks is to some extent useless um I I think people the S&P 500 is just a benchmark for most people”
The lesson from Micro Strategy and Michael Saylor's approach is not to copy what he's doing, but rather to observe and learn from the principles, because what works for him—with vast resources, high risk tolerance, and specific circumstances—will likely fail catastrophically for retail investors who attempt to replicate the strategy.
“the most important thing for you sitting outside of it is what do I learn from this like what is the lesson and the lesson can't be do what he's doing right now because at some point this is probably going to fall apart um so if your average person goes out and thinks I need to you know buy the 2x micro strategy ETF or whatever because of what he's doing you know that there's the potential and I don't know Ian maybe he's come up with something to beat the system but you know there's the potential that that potentially ends bad for you at some point”
The US stock market has been unusually concentrated with exceptional performance from large-cap growth stocks and FAANG companies, but this is a historically rare occurrence driven by specific macro conditions (low inflation, low rates, AI hype), making the assumption that this dominance will persist a high-risk bet.
“cap weighted indices coming into the end of 2024 here have put up two above average years in a row which doesn't usually happen and when it does you usually don't get a third out of it doesn't mean you can't it just means we're in above average meaning non average scenarios right now”
Diversification across different foods (restaurant cuisines) is an analogy for portfolio diversification—going Italian one night, Thai another night, Chinese another, and American another, rather than committing entirely to one type of food, provides better overall satisfaction and preparedness for different situations.
“the extreme angle would be and you know call up Jason Buck for this one like maybe it's comparative religions as is like you should be a little bit Buddhist and a little bit Catholic about stuff the simpler version that I understand is you know one night eat out at the Italian restaurant the next night you go get Thai food and on the weekend you might get Chinese food and a good old American Burger diversifying these things in a way it yields greater results it gives you compliments to the thing”
Institutions and individuals pursue adding to underperforming strategies in theory but almost never do in practice, representing a massive behavioral gap between stated belief and action
“if you believe in a strategy and you invest in a strategy and the strategy is in one of its periods of underperformance you should be adding to the strategy I mean that's what you should either be doing nothing or you should be adding to the strategy but nobody does that like even the most sophisticated you know endowments in the world I mean you see this everywhere that people just do not get this”
Diversification across asset classes (stocks, bonds, international, etc.) is like diversifying your diet—going to an Italian restaurant one night, Thai the next, Chinese the third, and an American burger on the weekend yields better results and complements different needs than going all-in on one cuisine.
“the extreme angle would be and you know call up Jason Buck for this one like maybe it's comparative religions as is like you should be a little bit Buddhist and a little bit Catholic about stuff the simpler version that I understand is you know one night eat out at the Italian restaurant the next night you go get Thai food and on the weekend you might get Chinese food and a good old American Burger diversifying these things in a way it yields greater results it gives you compliments to the thing if you go all in on one thing you run the risk of eventally being wrong”
Value investors who believe in their strategy and continue to invest in value factors despite years of underperformance deserve credit for their conviction, even if the strategy doesn't ultimately outperform.
“I tip my hat to you value investors everywhere if it's persistently under performed and you still believe in it then take your shot take your shot that's the only way you have a shot at outperformance anyway”
Cap-weighted indices entering the end of 2024 have put up two above-average years in a row, which historically doesn't happen often—when it does happen, a third above-average year usually doesn't follow, suggesting investors are in above-average/non-average scenarios and should look for diversifying strategies.
“C weighted indices coming into the end of 2024 here have put up two above average years in a row which doesn't usually happen and when it does you usually don't get a third out of it doesn't mean you can't it just means we're in above average meaning non average scenarios right now so you start looking for stuff that maybe is diversifying”
Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy strategy of issuing securities to purchase Bitcoin, while generating paper returns, is driven by speculative mood and sentiment rather than fundamental valuation, and the lesson for average investors is to avoid replicating novel financial engineering
“Peter ratwater he had a great thing the other day he's been commenting a lot about the micro strategy stuff and he's commenting on it in terms of just mood and sentiment and basically the reminder the future definitionally is always imaginary and whatever you're Imagining the future to be is being influenced by your mood and so when we see people like issuing Securities in the way that they're doing right now and all of us who have any background in actual Finance stuff are scratching her heads going like yikes be careful uh mood that's what's happening people are in a mood”
The podcast 'Two Quants and a Financial Planner' bridges the worlds of quantitative investing and financial planning and is designed to help investors apply investing and planning topics to achieve long-term financial goals.
“welcome to two quants and a financial planner where we Bridge the worlds of investing in financial planning to help investors achieve their long-term goals join Matt Ziggler Jack forehand and Me Justin carbo as we cover a wide range of investing and planning topics that impact all of us and discuss how we can apply them in the real world to achieve the best outcomes in our financial lives”
The podcast's standard closing question to guests is: 'If you could teach one lesson to the average investor, what would it be?'—Ben Carlson's answer emphasizes picking a strategy and sticking with it regardless of what others are doing.
“we asked the closing question at the end of every episode of excess returns which is if you could teach one lesson to the average investor what would it be”
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has issued securities and used the proceeds to purchase Bitcoin in a recursive loop that may have structural properties limiting downside, though the ultimate sustainability of the strategy is uncertain and it may eventually fail.
“I have to assume the micro strategy thing is going to come to an end at some point here although he seems to have he's somehow like issuing some sort of ities and then he's using the Securities to buy the Bitcoin which is he's created some sort of loop here where he like can't lose or something I don't even follow what it is but I have to assume it's at some point it's going to wind down”
Ben Carlson's communication style (taking complex topics and making them simple, focusing on blocking/tackling fundamentals) is a master class in conveying investing ideas and should be studied by advisers and communicators
“I would definitely say everybody in the investment business especially if you're an adviser who talks to people if you're not studying Ben Carlson in the way that he communicates ideas Testament to these clips these succinct bulleted points in like a minute and a half with conciseness and Clarity it's a master class”
Girl Scout cookie sales (specifically Thin Mints) are difficult to time and easy to overconsume when available; the hosts are uncertain about the seasonal availability window, suggesting either poor information or the cookies being in high demand when available.
“I have to assume the micro strategy thing is going to come to an end at some point here although he seems to have he's somehow like issuing some sort of ities and then he's using the Securities to buy the Bitcoin which is he's created some sort of loop here where he like can't lose or something I don't even follow what it is but I have to assume it's at some point it's going to wind down Jack I'm going to let you in on a secret here I have not yet gone to cash yeah well that's good that's when that's when we know that everything is is gonna fall apart here that whole thing is a mess and I I if you're curious about any of that stuff I think the most useful person for mapping this is or one of the most if not the most is Peter ratwater he had a great thing the other day he's been commenting a lot about the micro strategy stuff”