Hot take: a company who’s growth goes from 50% to 0% in recession is just as cyclical as a business who’s growth goes from 25% to -25% in a recession Multiples reflect trend growth so only 2nd derivative “Secular growth” favorites are actually extremely cyclical #EFT

$AHT - I meant WORTH a hell of a lot more than $2.50

SCOOP: Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan billionaire, really wanted a pardon. He got it not long after his daughter hired Alina Habba, a lawyer close to Trump, in a deal worth more than $50 million. Habba was also working at DOJ at the time. nytimes.com/2026/10/20/us/po…

Pepsi paid $2bn for Poppi and now says it won't pay the $300m earnout. Everyone's acting surprised. What happens when a giant buys a challenger brand, with the receipts: - Honest Tea, Odwalla, Zico: all bought by Coke, all discontinued. Zico's founder bought it back. - Bai: Dr Pepper paid $1.7bn, wrote most of it down. - Bodyarmor: Coke paid $5.6bn, took a $760m impairment three years later. - Rockstar: Pepsi paid $3.85bn, has lost share every year since. - Freshly: Nestlé paid $1.5bn, shut it within three years. - Dollar Shave Club: Unilever paid $1bn, sold it for a fraction seven years later. - Bonobos: Walmart paid $310m, sold for $75m. - Mirror: Lululemon paid $500m, wrote it off and shut it. - Ballast Point: Constellation paid $1bn, sold for pocket change four years on. - Reebok: Adidas paid $3.8bn, sold for $2.5bn fifteen years later. - Snapple: Quaker paid $1.7bn in 1994, sold for $300m in 1997. The original. The pattern isn't bad luck. The brand was bought to protect the original and core portfolio, not to grow. Once it's off the market, the job is done. If you ever sell to one of these: the cash on day one is the price. Everything else is a promise from someone who is incentivized is not to keep it.

Trump on Ossoff: "I don't think he's a good looking man. I actually think Mike Collins is a good looking man. And he's all man. I'm not sure about Ossoff. And I think Rick Jackson is a beautiful-looking guy."

The NASDAQ is currently 5% off its closing high. We need to double the loss before we can call this a "correction" and quadruple the loss before it is a "bear market".

EXCLUSIVE: Elon Musk came to Donald Trump with the plan to throttle Ukraine’s use of SpaceX’s Starshield satellite internet network, sources have told the Telegraph. The tech billionaire made the proposal during the US President’s row with Volodymyr Zelensky over strikes on Russian oil refineries. ‘The reality is that they were both in it,’ a senior source said of Musk’s and Trump’s involvement. But after a night of carnage in Kyiv caused by the slowdown, Musk was alarmed about the possibility of adverse consumer reaction in Europe. The SpaceX boss then proceeded to tweet, blaming the US administration, and ultimately, President Trump for authorising the slowdown. ‘He tweeted out that he was innocent and that it was the US administration that did it,’ the source said.

Tether's U.S. CEO Bo Hines was partners with a convicted felon (bribes, cocaine, prostitutes, and NY State retirement funds) operating under an alias. Getting easier to put all the pieces together after the great @wsj reporting today (see quoted post below). @BoHines is CEO of @Tether USAT.  Before that he ran Trump's White House crypto council, where he shepherded the GENIUS Act through Congress. He left the White House August 9, 2025. Tether hired him ten days later. Hines co-founded NXUM Capital. One week before the 2024 election, NXUM donated $1 million in billboard ads to Trump's MAGA Inc. Super PAC. Hines told Fortune he oversaw all of NXUM's political work. Trump gave him the White House crypto job two months later. One of NXUM's listed partners was "Nav Singh," Managing Partner and CIO.  The Wall Street Journal article confirms that “Nav Singh” is actually Navnoor Singh Kang, a convicted felon. Biographical and photographic evidence that Nav Singh is Navnoor Singh Kang The NXUM biography for Nav Singh said he worked at Goldman Sachs, PIMCO, and Guggenheim Partners in fixed income, with an economics degree from Columbia. A 2015 Pensions & Investments conference profile lists a speaker named Navnoor Kang: "co-head of investment grade corporate credit at Guggenheim Partners… Portfolio Management Associate at PIMCO and Goldman Sachs. B.A. in Economics from Columbia University, 2003." If an identical education and work history was not enough, a Backstage acting profile lists the full name Navnoor Singh Kang with a headshot that matches the man shown on NXUM's website (before NXUM deleted it). In fact, the NXUM profile headshot is taken by a photographer who specializes in actor headshots. Navnoor Kang served jail time for taking bribes in cocaine and prostitutes to steer billions in pension funds, and was permanently enjoined from deceiving anyone in relation to a securities transaction. In 2016, Kang was indicted by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He had been Director of Fixed Income at the $207 billion New York State pension fund. Brokers lavished him with cocaine, crack cocaine, prostitutes, a $17,400 Panerai watch, a $4,200 Hermès bracelet for a girlfriend, VIP concert tickets, and luxury ski vacations. In return, he steered over $2 billion in public pension money to their firms. He pleaded guilty to securities fraud and honest services wire fraud and was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison. Here's WSJ coverage at the time: wsj.com/articles/former-new-… In 2019, the SEC permanently enjoined him from violating antifraud provisions under Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5. If he was operating under a false alias that concealed his conviction from NXUM's investors (unclear whether NXUM had ever had any investors, but Singh/Kang carried the Chief Investment Officer title there), that may itself have been a new violation of the order. NXUM donated $1M to Trump. Trump appointed Hines. Hines was deeply involved with the GENIUS act, which now benefits Tether. Then Tether hired Hines ten days after he left the White House. Now Hines' NXUM is a key partner of the $100M crypto PAC funded primarily by @howardlutnick's Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether, rumored to be spending heavily in DC. Unanswered questions remain. What is Bo’s connection to Singh/Kang, and why did no one at the White House or Tether appear to balk at Hines’ partner being a convicted securities fraudster operating under an alias? What’s the Nav Singh to Bo Hines connection and is it appropriate for the CEO of a major USA-domiciled stablecoin? Does Tether, or any Tether subsidiary, have a financial relationship with NXUM Capital or with Navnoor Singh Kang (under any name)? Did Kang/Singh play any role in connecting Hines to Tether, or in NXUM’s decision to donate $1 million to MAGA Inc? Was Kang’s identity known to any members of Congress who worked with Hines on the GENIUS Act? Gonna be fun to watch this one unfold.