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“Everything can’t be a two-year idea based on compounded earnings growth…Those are great ideas and the thing you can anchor your book on, but you have to have other things that might work in the intervening two years. Very few places are only looking at the P&L over a two-year block.”
“You can’t have the same type of ideas…you have to have different themes, different durations, different catalysts…”
I loved this interview with @PitchThePM and Chandler Bocklage (former PM at Point72 that sat directly next to Steve for a decade and current Head of Business Development at Point72 in charge of hiring analysts and PMs)...
“Usually, you have to be narrower to try to get deeper. But [Ai] might actually allow people to be as deep but broaden out, which means that you can have a wider universe of potential alphas. It’s pretty exciting.”
“Everything can’t be a two-year idea based on compounded earnings growth…Those are great ideas and the thing you can anchor your book on, but you have to have other things that might work in the intervening two years. Very few places are only looking at the P&L over a two-year block.”
“You can’t have the same type of ideas…you have to have different themes, different durations, different catalysts…”
“To be a long-term successful PM, you can’t be a one-trick pony.”
"Alpha decay is compressing. There are more and more people chasing the same alphas.”
“Can you teach what you do and what makes you special to somebody else and are you willing to teach what makes you special to somebody else? There are a lot of people that aren’t.”
“When a war breaks out, things change, and the PM might have to think about that a little more holistically than the individual analyst.”
Thoughts @pmje73, @DanielSLoeb1, @davidein? 🙏💙
(Not investment advice).
Plenty of names out there to short. Prefer “real” companies to obvious shitcos but taking shitcos for a moment-
Pressing high beta consensus shorts into the hole is generally not advisable. Most of the time you would rather drink bleach. Or have dinner with Nassim Taleb. And the median res vol retail shitco is -35% 1mo so it’s fair to say this is in the hole.
On the other hand you could have shorted OKLO (nuclear, flying cars etc… interchangeable) in a straight line down all of YTD 2026.
Running a short book is generally a game of low average return, medium vol and extreme negative tail. Fund your longs, manage your risk and eke out some alpha…
Then once a decade there are TMT momo style returns available on the short side (or twice a decade… let’s see in 9mo) and it’s hard for most to take full advantage because of PTSD from shorting these names in a hot tape (shitcos), being long / intellectually invested in the theme (AI, semis) or because a large allocation to high beta, high vol will blow out your risk metrics and earn you tap on shoulder.
If the AI bubble is deflating, there are a lot of names +2,000% that will be pressable much of the way back down. Many of these are real economy and have gentler risk profiles. But general high SI shitcos won’t find a bid other than short covering if AI goes
Current opportunity set could be similar to late 21. Junk down in a straight line for almost a year and tech recently starting to disintegrate.
“FirstWave is an institutional long/short fund built on deep fundamental research, disciplined risk management and a large fridge of Celsius. Led by a team with decades of bench press experience, FirstWave combines a conviction-driven approach that combines Core, non-Core and non-sense positions that allows the team to size high conviction ideas appropriately while maintaining tactical flexibility across market regimes. A defining element of of the program is its actively traded hedging program where index, sector and factor exposures are dynamically managed using proprietary quantitative models that optimize hedge sizing, selection and timing to stabilize next exposure and manage drawdowns.”
Tech Jesus is not only a visionary but a paragon of civility while he wages a war of words against the anons. Respect
Irony, it being Tech Jesus, is that his AI data centers are high temples to Satan where elites sacrifice energy, jobs and everyone else’s sanity
I am actually quite constructive here through year end - reasonable minds can disagree, that’s what makes a market.
But yes there are going to be a lot of losers. And good feedback that I will think about; i.e. wise to buy puts whenever vol gets cheap, be diversified and always have at least some ballast in the long book. Example: in a prior life, I would always have a small allocation to gold that I would cash in during pullbacks and then rebuild during rips. Consequence of doing marketing with the gold guy for several years. But at times like this could always have more puts and more ballast. This is a tough job and we are all doing our best.
BTW, enjoy your takes and please keep writing songs.
Maybe it doesn't matter either way. S'all the same trade
What L? I rode stock from $5 to $9+
and made 7 figures on it. Made a lot of other people a ton of money on it. Stock is high risk. The bear case was exactly what played out: they didn’t get contracts and need financing. It was (and is) a last to rallly / first to fall AI power theme stock. You could have just one with this obvious short thesis…
But no…you guys had to go full blown JFK conspiracy with 6 shooters and space lasers 😂. Both of you guys invented (or have yet to prove) any of your salacious allegations of fake warehouses, whistle blowers, G2 Austin doesn’t exist, the ceo’s wife’s cousins sister’s former roommate likes anime, etc.
You guys keep coming back for victory laps at market bottoms when you both covered within minutes (or days) of your reports. So yes, congrats on the “paper” win of a stock doing something you wanted for none of the reasons outlined by your thesis;). Enjoy your victory!
“Manpower Group Shares Plunge as 3Q Adj. EBITDA misses.”
ADEN on way back to €15
European staffing stocks (ADEN etc) - up 100% during summer degrossing - starting to crack today.
Bull case is they are not in fact terminally challenged businesses but cyclically challenged and recovering.
Bear case would be that a brick-and-mortar Blockbuster business model can’t compete with digital-native at 1/20th the take rate.
Hays PLC fees shrinking -3 to -7%, depending on geo, supportive of the latter
VLO pushing news highs. Numbers will be taken up on Q3 print >> factor loading on upward revisions and momentum will go up >> more quant buying
Consensus is at call it $20 eps in Q3 dropping off steeply to $16 and then $11 in Q1. Q4 run-rate is already hotter than Q3 (~$70 latest), Zelenskyy is keeping the pressure up and 18% of US refining capacity is in the path of hurricane season.
Sensitivity is large but each $1/bbl adds approx $1B of pretax profit a year ($2.5 - $3 per sh). Sellside has Nymex 3-2-1 back at $35 quickly while it travels in the opposite direction.
Numbers up, buyback up
European staffing stocks (ADEN etc) - up 100% during summer degrossing - starting to crack today.
Bull case is they are not in fact terminally challenged businesses but cyclically challenged and recovering.
Bear case would be that a brick-and-mortar Blockbuster business model can’t compete with digital-native at 1/20th the take rate.
Hays PLC fees shrinking -3 to -7%, depending on geo, supportive of the latter
Polish IT distributor Asbis +450% ytd with a Sharpe of >5
90% topline growth + ~50% true float + in Europe’s hottest equity market is a potent combo
investor.asbis.com/news/inve…
They do the same in mining. Very good at taking large positions in juniors that become successful developers. Despite the $1-3b market cap they are often less liquid compared to the bios however
$ABVX Helikon are exceptional investors and keen on holding concentrated positions. Excerpt from the WSJ highlighting the best performing funds of 2024 and an excerpt from the Hansa Global Equity Fund Annual Report. What will be most interesting to all of the jet-following, Tuesday-loving $ABVX shareholders is the highlighted line. As recently as August 2025, Helikon built a substantial position in another company and "encouraged" an acquisition of that company.
Aspeed got a lot going for it between having secured substrate / glass and finally being able to ship inline with demand by Q2 next year, market share gain at Google (stops dual sourcing), 20% px hike across the board, and AST2700 growth at 40-50% higher Asps than 2600
GPU-ASIC grow 50-60% next year and agentic 2x … can likely sustain the valuation but by no means a cheap entry point
