Friday Afternoon Real Talk

Same Song, Different Words. The Market Never Changes.

This is classic. The market’s down a couple percent and bearish posts start to flow like water.

🚨Oil

🚨War

🚨 The Fed

🚨 Bond yields

🚨 Banks

🚨 Liquidity

This sounds like the same tune with repackaged, and different, words. Today, it’s Trump, Iran, Oil and rate hikes — as if any of this stops the inevitability that is before us.

See, here’s the thing, and this shit is real talk. I’ve been doing this for a little over 6 years now and I’m not saying I’m some sort of expert, but it’s fascinating to observe the similarities between these cycles and how similar they are. Time and time and time again, we see euphoria followed by extreme pessimism and every top, every bottom hums the same tune as the markets jostle around the mean it wants to trade at.

At tops, something is different. Everything has changed and retail obsessively posts about micro and small cap stocks changing the world that will be “the next big disruptors.” Inevitably, these stocks get blown up and many go to zero as those who thought they were geniuses with 100% YTD gains now creep back into the shadows only to quit once they realize there’s no such thing as easy money in this business. Many of these investors’ accounts are now down -30% to -50% YTD — probably more from the highs — as they used margin to get those gains in the first place, only to be rug pulled and watch their quick fortunes fade away on excessively speculative assets that never had a chance in hell at making money.

That’s not the business I am in. Do I get a little opinionated? Sure. Do I believe in my process? Absolutely — and that’s only because I was that retail investor once and the things I talk about (thinking long term, focusing on the business, letting stocks jiggle), it works.

I’m always focused on managing risk but defining it as permanent loss, not necessarily volatility. I run a higher beta portfolio, so this is natural. Permanent loss happens when you:

• Buy shitty companies with no hope of ever making money

• Use leverage like margin or options

• Sell at bottoms and buy at peaks

• Get impatient with quality companies

• Over trade and book losses/gains too quick

This game, this business — it’s psychological. It’s not a math problem, it’s a psychology problem. To be good at it, you have to maintain a mindset that’s steady, disciplined and confident despite the ups and downs. It’s the discipline to say:

“Maybe I won’t buy this stock that’s ran 200%”
“I understand this company better than the market”
“The market is volatile, my companies are fine”
“I only buy companies that have visible revenue and earnings”

I’m not saying my process has to be your process. I’m not saying I know everything — but what I do know (and am aware of) is the timeless wisdom behind investing philosophy and how important it is to work backward from these old adages: “be greedy when others are fearful,” “these are companies, not lottery tickets,” etc. These adages work from first principles. When we operate from first principles and stick to the basics better than everyone else, this is when we win, this is how we win, and this is why we continue to win.

The way I’m looking at this now is that the market (S&P 500) needs to get to about 6,100 — which is a little less than 5% down from here. It’s completely natural for the market to take breathers after getting as hot as it did in 2025. Remember, it’s common wisdom to know that the market goes down and it goes down a lot.

*FWIW* I still believe IGV (software) has bottomed and so has BTC. These markets usually bottom first and recover first.

This will put us in the little dippy dip correction territory of -10% — a healthy correction — that will present some really great buying opportunities. In fact, I believe right now is an excellent time to buy some really quality stocks. Nvidia is a stock that really jumps out at me as a “deal” and all software stocks that manage data infrastructure (not application SaaS) are also in a solid buy point too.

Stay focused, don’t tilt. I don’t see this as being “the big one,” but corrections do happen and coincidentally, they happen a lot during midterm years — seriously, check it out, midterm years are always volatile. All mega trends like AI, AI compute, robotics and space tech are still fully intact. Every day these models are getting better and better, the market just gets fatigued sometimes and it’s trying to figure out exactly where the puck is going next.

In my opinion, in my mind, I think Space Tech is next. We’re at the bottom of a massive S curve and people don’t understand exactly how synonymous space tech and AI is together, especially when we factor data centers in space.

The greatest economic boom in human history is coming and we’re ready.

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