Investment Philosophy: The podcast discusses the concept of risk riding, highlighting how investments that appear successful may carry hidden risks, using examples like hurricane insurance and big tech companies facing antitrust threats.
Buffett's Legacy: Warren Buffett's ability to outperform the S&P 500 over the past 20-30 years is examined, emphasizing his strategic decisions during the financial crisis and his age as a potential risk factor in investment performance.
Company Spending: Concerns are raised about companies spending excessively on investor relations, both in terms of time and money, questioning whether such expenditures reflect poor management of shareholder resources.
Averaging Up vs. Averaging Down: The podcast explores the notion that investors often prefer to average down rather than average up, suggesting that there is potential alpha in buying stocks that have already appreciated in value.
Valuation Insights: The idea that a stock can be cheaper today than yesterday is discussed, particularly when positive developments increase earnings potential, challenging investors to reassess valuation metrics.
Behavioral Finance: The challenges of avoiding emotional biases in investment decisions are highlighted, especially when stocks perform well, prompting investors to reconsider their assumptions and risk tolerance.
Personal Announcement: The host shares a personal update about expecting a second child, indicating a temporary hiatus in the podcast's schedule due to upcoming family commitments.
Transcript
You're about to listen to the yet another value podcast with your host me, Andrew Walker. Today is my monthly ramblings for the month of October 2025. I hope you enjoy them. Oh, I should tell you, what are we going to talk about today? I've got five different things we're going to talk about. Buffett, his age, and what I call risk riding. And you know, the the more I think about it, the more just respect I have for the man and incredible I think his career is. So, we're going to start by talking about that. Then we're going to talk about uh companies spending like drunken sailor on investor relationships on investor relations both when it comes to actual dollar figures and time. This is a place where I think it's really interesting to think about. I wish I had unique edge here because I do talk to a lot of management teams and a lot of managers. I don't have unique edge but I do have thoughts and I'm trying to develop them and I'd love to hear from you if you've got better thoughts. Uh wrap it up with two interrelated topics. There is a tweet, I'm sorry I don't remember but put out but uh everyone wants to average down but no one wants to average up and that's why there's alpha and averaging up. I saw that and it has just been living in my mind and I've been thinking about that quite a bit. So I'll discuss that and then switch to very related the classic cheaper than it was cheaper today than it was yesterday kind of despite the stock going up. I I always think about that and trying to just mentally break that down a little bit and think about it obviously ties into averaging up. And then finally, we'll wrap up with a personal announcement for the future of this ramblings and my sanity, but we'll we'll get there. Uh, I hope you enjoy the rambles. We're going to get to that in one second, but first, a word from our sponsor. Today's podcast is sponsored by AlphaSense. This is actually a little bit of a different sponsorship because AlphaSense is hosting a webinar with my friend Doug Olaflin from Fabricated Knowledge on Tuesday, October 28th. And the good news is Doug is coming on this podcast this Friday, October 24th. will probably release it October 28th to coincide with the webinar. Uh Doug is an expert expert expert in all things semiconductors. He is the president of semi analysis which is very very popular among anyone who's interested in AI or semi analyst. But not only that, Doug is an expert in management incentives. Actually he owns the I believe the best performing pitch of all time on yet another value podcast. That would be podcast number 166 when he came on and pitched Apploving at $20 per share on May 8th, 2023. I'm looking right now. It's October 20th, 2025. Applovin is at $566 per share. So that's a casual I don't know. Let's round. What is that? 20 30 32 backer. Casual 32 backer. So I am so excited to have him back on the podcast. Uh, I'll include a link in the show notes and everything to the webinar that Alphasson's obviously sponsoring the show notes. Doug's coming on to get you to go listen to. But, uh, I'm really looking forward to having him on. He is a wealth of knowledge. I think you'll enjoy it. I think I haven't listened to the webinar yet, but every time I talk to Doug, it he it's just always entertaining and always informative. So, that is the sponsorship. We'll get to the podcast now. All right. Hello and welcome to the yet another value podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Walker. With me today, it is myself on for my monthly random ramblings for the month of October 2025. Uh I'm going to hop into the ramblings in a second. Quick starter disclaimer, nothing on this podcast investing advice. I'm going to be rambling for about 30 minutes here. So remember, this is just a man man who as I look at myself in the zoom, really needs a haircut, really needs a shave, rambling for 30 minutes. So consult financial adviser. See the full disclaimer at the end. Look, this is my monthly rambling random ramblings. I hop on for about 30 minutes onto a Zoom, talk about a few things I've been thinking about, things on my mind for the month. Uh this is October 2025. So the things I'm going to be talking about today are first I'm going to start with uh Buffett's age and a concept I like to know as risk writing. Then I'm going to talk about companies that spend like drunken sailors on investor relations. Then I'm going to talk about uh two related things, averaging up, averaging down, and then things that are cheaper today than it was yesterday. And finally, I'm going to end with a little mini announcement. So, let's hop into it. And, you know, sometimes on this podcast, I like to, especially in the ramblings, I like to kind of test drive something before I I post it on the blog because it's easier to I think when you say something, you put it on the podcast, so it's a little easier, a little friendlier. People kind of get where you're saying it more than just the the hard the hard non inonation of text. So something I might write about in the future, but I've been thinking a lot about Buffett's returns over the past 20 25 years lately. And there's a concept I like to call risk writing. And what this is is say you buy a stock and it goes up 20% for three years in a row, right? Awesome. Great. That's a fantastic investment. But it is. But sometimes you'll make that investment and I'll see somebody, you know, really spiking the football on Twitter about this great investment they made and I'll look and I'll say, "Oh, it's very obvious that you had some huge tail risk, right? There's the the story I think it's nlee who's the the turkey that for a thousand days thinks the farmer is its best friend and then on the thousand day turkey gets cut off." You can make a investment that does 20% per year and it can have been a great investment, right? But you could also make a 20 investment that does 20% per year for several years and it you know hindsight 2020 it's a great investment but maybe you were taking a really big risk and it just didn't pay off. Uh so I the very simple advanced uh example would be hey you might have bought her you might have been underwriting hurricane insurance right and you made 20% three years in a row because a hurricane didn't hit but the fourth year the hurricane might hit. So the question there would be did you calibrate the hurricane insurance uh correctly or not? One that I really like to use because somebody said and it's really stuck with me is the big tech companies. You know, from 2015 to today and probably continuing going forward, they have been just incredible, incredible compounders. And part of that is the businesses are great. I don't think many people understood just how great 10 years ago. Part of that is they were run by control shareholders or they had controlling shareholders and they've really pivoted well. You know, you look at Facebook, that product could have been dead 12 years ago if they hadn't made the mobile pivot. and now the AI bit like these guys have been really good at pivoting in a way that previous businesses didn't really ride but I think the risk riding components to me all of those would factor in the risk riding component to me would be hey a lot of these businesses I think had pretty serious antitrust tail risk and the government never cracked down on them you know I I think there's a different world where European style regulations come to us earlier and Google gets gets cracked down on earlier or Facebook they they're not allowed to buy WhatsApp WhatsApp or they're forced best WhatsApp earlier or Amazon gets really firmly looked at at retail antitrust practices here in the US. I'm not saying any of these should have passed. I'm not sh saying but I do think there is some there is a there are alternative worlds where part of what you were getting in that return from buying Google, Facebook, Meta, whatever it is 10 years ago was this antitrust tail risk that never came out to pass. Okay. Why do I mention that with Buffett? You know, I I think a Buffett's I'm going to say this in a way I think some people will take in a positive light, but I actually mean it in a really or sorry, they'll take it a negative right light. I mean it in a really positive light. Over the past 20 years, if you 30 years as well, if you invested in Bergkshire, whether it's 20 years ago or 30 years ago, you beat the S&P 500. You know, and on both counts, Berkshire has done something like 11% versus 10% for the S&P 500. So, you you beat it. I mean, it's not like a smashing success like investing in the Buffett partnerships in the 50s and 60s were, but you beat the index and you probably did it with less risk just given uh Bergkshire's underlying asset base. I I honestly don't know like they are very conservatively positioned, but they also write disaster insurance in their insurance business. So, you know, maybe you got off lucky that there wasn't a much bigger bigger hurricane or, you know, the classic earthquake in Los Angeles or a nuclear weapons attack, god forbid. So, you know, you you wrote that risk, but I think one risk factor that I've really been thinking about is Buffett's age. You know, it's really easy to forget when the financial crisis happened and Buffett is making all those great investments, all those preferred investments in the banks, the Goldman Sachs, the Bank of America investments that would serve Bergkshire really well for years. He's buying stuff. He buys BNSF. above 75 when the financial crisis is just starting to happen. You know, when uh just for comparison, not not to bring politics in this, Joe Biden's 78 when he gets elected to to the presidency in 2020 and we see how quickly he goes downhill. I mean, he might already be there. Buffett's 75 and he's writing multi-billion dollar checks. Uh there's I there's a different world where Buffett is declining as the financial crisis is starting and either he doesn't make those investments or he's making really bad investments you know and I would point you to look at John Malone uh you know I just did the podcast with Burn Hobart John Malone's past 10 years when he's basically 75 to 85 he has not covered himself in glory in any of his investments and especially his lieutenants everything I think really negative they have not seen the ball clearly and Libertyy's way under performed look at Carl Icon Over the past 10 years, ICON Enterprises is down 50ish% over the past 10 years versus, you know, S&P 500 is up like 450%. Now, part of that is IEP traded for a big premium to NAV if I remember correctly at the start. So, kind of starting point valuations matter, but look at the past 5 years, look at the past three years. IEP has not covered themselves in glory. And I if I remember correctly, is quite a bit younger than Buffett. So, I would say like look, if you're buying Berkshire 20 years ago, I think one of those tail risks you were riding was the possibility that Buffett kind of even if he hadn't lost it, there was a decent chance he lost it. And I would challenge you, you know, if he lost it, how are you ever going to know that he's lost it until he writes a really bad investment? Or, you know, look, every time Buffett buys a stock, everybody says, "Hey, you don't bet against Buffett." Oxy, right? Oxy hasn't done well. There have been several stocks that haven't done well and everybody has misses. But I would just say I think if you were buying Berkshire and buying it for Buffett and saying he's a genius, there will never be another like him. He would make multiple bad investments in a row and the stock would underperform for years and I think after five years you'd kind of point and be like, "Hey, did I miss it?" And you would be way down. So I'm just really interested in that risk writing. And again, I think people are going to take that as a negative, but I actually mean it as a positive. I mean, the man is just a one of one. At 75, he goes into the global financial crisis and he comes out not completely unscathed, but comes out really, really well. At 85, the man buys his biggest on dollar figure profit, his most profitable investment he'll ever make in Apple. At 85, this man buys Apple. But again, I think it speaks to how narrow of edges we're talking about here where remember when he's 80, he buys IBM and he bails out of that pretty quickly. And I, you know, if you kind of thought of it as a one for one, he bails out of IBM and a couple years later he buys Apple. Imagine a world where Buffett's just a little less sharp and he sticks with IBM for another 10 years and he doesn't make that Apple investment because of it. Bergkshire probably underperforms over the past 10, 20 years just on that one swap because of the concentrated portfolio and how much of a home run Apple is. So I I don't have any like firm takeaways. I'm not here to say yolo one way or the other. I just it's a really interesting thought experiment to me. Uh, and I know people are going to take it negatively, and I I don't mean that negatively. I actually mean it really positively. I'm just like the more I think about latestage Buffett, it's actually the most impressive Buffett to me because he's operating in the constrictures of a you know a trillion dollar balance sheet and at 8590 when again I'm talking about younger people than him who I don't want to say lost it but have clearly lost a step multiple steps whether it's Joe Biden at around 80 in the presidency or Malone and Malone and Icon you know 10 years younger having trouble keeping up with the new moving environment. I I I'm just remain incredibly incredibly impressed by Buffett and you know I think a lot of the things I'm talking about Buffett is stepping down this year. He's going to become chairman Amordus. He's going to have a new CEO. He's going to have a new chairman. They are much the new people coming in are a lot younger. But I do think Brookshire as a whole has a a lot of that tail risk writing. I think when you think about the transition for from a founder-led conglomerate to the next generation, especially at this size, especially as the incentives with, you know, Buffett having been a 20% shareholder to people who have big stakes in it, but you know, aren't founders. I I think there's a lot of these things that investors in Bergkshire need to be thinking about. Okay. Uh that's it there. And again, I I I understand some of that could come across critically. None of that was meant critically. I'm actually the more I think about that the more impressed I am by Buffett. Let's move on to the next thing. One thing I've been thinking about a lot is company spending and this probably relates to cockroach theory a little bit but particularly company spending on investor relations. Uh and I I mean this both in time and in money. So, there's a few companies I'm aware of recently that I'm aware of or that I've seen recently that have been spending money like drunken sailors on investor relations programs. And you can point to this in a lot of ways, right? There's money and I'll get to money in a second, but there's also time, right? Whenever I hear a company, a big a particularly a large company where the CEO is spending all of their time talking to investors in some way, shape or form, I I I kind of wonder like you're that CEO's time has value, right? And when they're spending all their time talking to investors, particularly I I know of several companies where I mean small shareholders, and not to belittle small shareholders, but small shareholders can spend the CEOs are willing to spend a lot of time talking to small shareholders. And I I I kind of look at them like, hey, this guy's going to buy, you know, you're a $750 million company and this guy might buy $7,500 of your stock and you're spending two hours across the course of two weeks talking to this guy. That's nice, but that doesn't seem like a good use of your time. And I know you could extend it to companies just having IR teams in general, having big IR teams, but that's one area I've thought about it a side, but the other side I've really thought about it is on the, you know, the Purel dollar figure side of it. And I'll give one example that might highlight this nicely. Uh about 10 years ago, no, probably 13 years ago, I went to a energy company's analyst day, right? And at the analyst day, they gave out, this was an energy company. They gave out batteries that you could use to, you know, uh, rechargeable batteries that you could use to charge your phone and iPad on the go. And these things were awesome. They were rechargeable and you could recharge them with the sun, right? They solar powered, so you could go outside, set the thing up, it would take the sun, and then you could charge your phone. Probably cost 100 or 150. I think I looked at the retail price at the time, it was 135. And they gave them to every analyst that attended. So if this was a decent sized company, I mean this we're talking like 200 analysts, right? So you're talking, if I'm doing the math in my head correctly, 30 $35,000 of kind of gifts to analysts that are covering the company to say nothing of, you know, the night before the IR day, they host a big dinner for the analysts and a networking cocktail event. I mean, you're talking about $200,000 for this analyst day. I guess probably more. I mean, time cost of I was just thinking about that like that. That's traditional IR stuff. I get it. But does that show a does the way that is that really a good use of shareholder money or is that a way for you know the the top guys the smoo and booze I don't know I'll point to other examples there are a few companies I know of that uh multiple companies as I'm saying this I was thinking of one in particular but I can think of two more off the top of my head that they make consumer focused products and when you go visit them they will they will hand out the products like crazy and you know if it's an energy drink company and they hand out, you know, Monster and they hand out one free Monster. I mean, whatever. What's the COGS there? Two bucks. But I know of companies that make consumer focused products that go for 50, 100, $150. And if you go visit them, the CEO, the chairman, they will hand them out like candy to uh to shareholders, potential shareholders, analysts. And I always look at that, I'm like, "Hey, it's a nice gesture, but that's shareholder money that's getting spent." And like, what's the return on that? So I don't have anywhere I'm trying to drive here except when I see that I never know hey is this indicative of a management team a company that doesn't really treat their shareholder that treats their shareholder money kind of like funny money or is there a return there or is it so small scale that I shouldn't even be paying attention to it. I I honestly don't know the answer, but I will tell you my bias is towards this is a management team or company that's treating shareholder money like funny money and I don't like that. And maybe that's just because I'm a miser. I don't have very many expensive hobbies. May I I I don't know. But I I will tell you I it I've got a lot of distaste and when I see it I I'm actually much less inclined to buy a company, look at a company, all that sort of stuff of it. And I don't know if if that's a shortcoming of mine or not, but that is the second thing I I want to talk about. And you can tell it's been on my mind because again, there's been two or three prominent examples that are popping up in my mind over the past month. And I don't know how to weigh that factor. And I think it's really interesting, right? If I came to you and I said, "Hey, you came to me and said, "Hey, I've got this great company, blah blah blah blah blah." And I said, "Oh, I've been to their headquarters." And they were handing out, it's a treadmill company, and they were handing out free treadmills. I I understand how ridiculous that example is. They're handing out free treadmills to every single investor who walked in. Guess what? That's not it. It will go into the COG numbers. So, technically it would be in the numbers. You would never see it in the COG numbers. But that is something that no that no quant fund, no one else is going to know. You have to go you have to go to the company, engage with them, find that out. That's something that is very proprietary, very unique data. I'm not saying that it's going to make or break an investment, but I could imagine a world I I like to think a lot about what do pod shops, what do quant shops don't have. That type of stuff is something that you have to do the work to get to find out. I do think it's kind of proprietary. I think it's kind of edgy. I don't know the right answers how to use it, but it's something really interesting I think about. Let me go to another thing I've been thinking about. Uh there's a tweet and I'm so sorry. Somebody tweeted out. I don't think it's a widely followed account, but you can tell it's living rentree in my mind because it's still here. And the tweet was, "Everybody wants to average down." And I might be paraphrasing this. Everybody wants to average down, but no one wants to average up, and that's why there's alpha and averaging up. And I've really been thinking about that a lot lately because I will tell you, I'm a classic value investor at heart. And I want to average down, right? Stock goes from 10 to 9, my instinct is to buy. Stock goes from 9 to 8, my instinct is to buy. That is very dangerous, right? The way most the way most investors, most value investors who ever blow up is you start out with, you know, John Hemp from Bronte Capital had the classic had the best way of putting it. You start out with the 2% position at 50, you double down at 25, you double down again at 1250, you double down again at six, you double down again at three, and it goes bust and boom, that's how your 2% position turned into a 10% of the fund loss, right? I I I personally, it's very hard to not do that, right? For me, I'm a value investor. The stock was at 50. Yes, I do love it more at 30 than I loved it at 50. Hopefully, I'm adjusting. You know, hopefully I'm adjusting. And if the facts have changed, then I have changed my mind, ma'am. But, uh, you know, that's my instinct. I don't average up much and I think that's a failing in my end. It's something I'm working, but this tweet just uh, it's something I'm working on and this tweet just really changed my thought process on it. You know, stock announces great earnings, the stock goes up 20%. my instinct is to sell, not buy. Probably the wrong instinct and it's something I'm gonna work on and I continue to work on and I continue to think about. But that tweet, as you can kind of tell, it's been living in my mind and I I think it's actually accurate. And you know, there's momentum strategies and things that go all this sort of stuff, they tend to work. And I think this is why it's because the people who know a stock best and buy it at 10, when it goes from 10 to 13, they are the they are probably the people who know it best and they're probably the people who struggle the most to buy it because they say, "Hey, yesterday it was 10. It's hard for me to buy it at 13." Well, yes, yesterday it was 10, but look, year 10 might have been, hey, there's one branch where this is worth 30. There's one branch where it's worth 20, and there's one branch where it's worth zero. Maybe it's gone to 13, but the branch where it goes to zero, you know, before it was a 33% chance. Now it's a 2% chance. So it's a much better uh riskadjusted odd at 13. So think about that a lot. Trying to push myself on it. Trying to think about it. Uh but oh you know there is one other aspect to it. Most investors run most value investors run pretty concentrated. It's hard not to run concentrated if you're a value investor just because you can only do so much work on so many ideas. A lot of other reasons. If you're running concentrated and the stock goes from 10 to 13, it's really darn hard to add because, you know, if you're running concentrated and it goes from 10 to 13, now it's worth 30% more of your portfolio and if you're running concentrated, it was already quite a bit of your portfolio, now it's quite a bit more. Uh, you might be running into fund level limits. You might be running into risk limits. You might be running into sleep at night limit. So, another thing to consider, but it's something I've thought about very related. Let's go to the other thing I I wanted to talk about. Cheaper today than it was yesterday. You could probably tell from the this would fit very nicely into that decision tree branch I just announced. But one thing I I have been thinking of and I'm trying to get better at it again is a stock announces good news, the stock goes from 10 to 11, but you know, you could imagine a world where I thought the stock was going to earn a dollar per share this year and they announced good news and now I think it's going to earn $2 per share this year. The stock goes from 10 to 11. Well, hey, the P just went from 10 to 5.5 in in that math, right? it is cheaper today than it was yesterday. And I I've been thinking about, hey, how do you get yourself to buy? Is that true? And you know, there is one way uh does the way it's gone from that dollar per share to that $2 per share in my hypothetical example. Does the way it did that matter? I'll give you an example. If they're going from a dollar per share to $2 per share in earnings because this is a company that had a lot of fat and they're finally cutting costs and they're saying, "Hey, we're cutting costs. our expense face is coming way down. So, we're going to show a lot more of that earnings through. That's great. But that's a lever that you probably already had in your model and you probably already were thinking about and they've pulled it and it's great that they've pulled it pull they're pulling it now and they're bringing all that cost cutting all that time value of money of the cost cutting forward. But that's a onetime thing versus, "Hey, does it go from a dollar per share of earnings to $2 per share of earnings?" Because they come on and they say, "Guys, things are going gang busters, right? We thought we're going to grow at 10% this year. We're growing at 40% this year. We can't keep up with demand. By the way, we just did a new product launch. Uh, everyone thought we didn't build an any of our models. The new product launch is going great. Demand is through the roof." You know, those are two very different sets of circumstances. the cost cutting was one time the and it will continue into the future unless management kind of loses their discipline and lets the patent build back up. So that is nice but you know revenue going through the roof lots of different businesses they they still have that cost cutting lever to pull if it ever needs to get pulled two very different examples. So, another thing I've been thinking about, uh, when is something cheaper today than it was yesterday? When should you be pulling the trigger when something is cheaper today than it was yesterday? How do you, but to all this the averaging up when everyone wants to average down and the cheaper today than it was yesterday points, the other big risk is it's very easy to let your emotions get the better of you. You know, I I know I'm not immune to it. Stock goes from 10 to 12. It was a medium-sized position. Now, it's a pretty big position. I'm more excited about it uh today than I was yesterday. Hey, I'm making a great money on it. I was right. How do you avoid getting caught up in the emotions? And you know, I've had stocks go from 10 to 20. And I'm like, yes, this is on the right path. I'm doing this. We're this is going to be great. And you know, two days later, it's back down to 10. It's back down to eight. It was a short squeeze. I I don't know. But, you know, it's very easy when the stock is working to say, "Hey, I was being too conservative on everything." and kind of let loose the dogs of Excel and start taking all your numbers up and underwrite 18% growth into perpetuity. Whatever it is, how do you balance those two emotions? I don't have any great answers. These are just me rambling. These are the things I think about a lot and I'm trying to get better at a lot of them. If you got advice, hey, look, I'm always down to swap thoughts. Go listen to the podcast with Ardan Fukin. I'm always down to swap thoughts and hopefully be thoughtful about these and hopefully, you know, Buffett, I started this podcast off talking about the riskw writing of Buffett. Buffett was 75 and still hidden out the park and still evolving. 85 when he bought Apple. The good news here is I'm not quite 40. So hopefully I've got at least 15 20 years to continue to evolve and develop and improve before I I start having any of those worries. I mean fingers crossed. Speaking of getting old and fingers crossed I'm being uh close to 40. Announcement, just a little personal announcement. Hope you don't mind me sneaking in. Announcement. Uh second baby coming in mid November. Uh why should that matter? Well, first you're listening to me ramble for 30 minutes. You've probably developed a little bit of a connection with me. Maybe you want to hear what's going on in my life. But how it really matters for you is probably going to be taking the next two months off. Not the full podcast, but you know, the random ramblings are more I take 30 minutes, drink my coffee, go ramble about things that are on my mind. My mind's going to be pretty cluttered for the next two months with little babies and late night wakeups and all that sort of stuff. I'm going to be working. I I don't I I think I go crazy if I don't work. My wife will tell you that uh I I'll go crazy if I don't work, but probably won't be having quite the time for uh ramblings for sure. The podcast is going to be on a little mini hiatus. Probably a little bit of a slower schedule than normal as I kind of figure all of that out. But I'm terrified. Is terrified the right word? I'm excited, but I'm terrified. Uh wife is doing great. She's got more energy than me, eight months pregnant, and she she's all around. She's doing great. But we've got the baby coming. exciting. But, you know, in the next, it could come tomorrow. Hopefully not. You know, fingers crossed it's due in mid November. It could come tomorrow. Hopefully mid- November, but don't be surprised if you see this uh this podcast feed and the newsletter as well. Go blank for a couple weeks while I, you know, go through the real hells of it and try to get everything uh align. But really excited for that. I appreciate you understanding why the podcast might be a little bit uh out of line for the next couple weeks. But look, I'll I'll be missing you. I'll I'll be thinking about it. You'll we have some great guests lined up between now and then. So, you'll hear those and I promise you when I come back, you'll have the rambliest rambling of all time because uh I'll have three months of stuff sorted up, plus a lack of sleep from the baby. But appreciate all your support. I, you know, again, this is a ramble. I don't know if I'm right. I don't know if I'm wrong. I'm not trying to be right on any of this. But if you want to swap thoughts, anything, emails are always open. appreciate all the support and looking forward to kind of seeing you on the other side of the baby in terms of ramblings. A quick disclaimer, nothing on this podcast should be considered investment advice. Guests or the hosts may have positions in any of the stocks mentioned during this podcast. Please do your own work and consult a financial adviser. Thanks.
October 2025 Random Market Ramblings
Summary
Transcript
You're about to listen to the yet another value podcast with your host me, Andrew Walker. Today is my monthly ramblings for the month of October 2025. I hope you enjoy them. Oh, I should tell you, what are we going to talk about today? I've got five different things we're going to talk about. Buffett, his age, and what I call risk riding. And you know, the the more I think about it, the more just respect I have for the man and incredible I think his career is. So, we're going to start by talking about that. Then we're going to talk about uh companies spending like drunken sailor on investor relationships on investor relations both when it comes to actual dollar figures and time. This is a place where I think it's really interesting to think about. I wish I had unique edge here because I do talk to a lot of management teams and a lot of managers. I don't have unique edge but I do have thoughts and I'm trying to develop them and I'd love to hear from you if you've got better thoughts. Uh wrap it up with two interrelated topics. There is a tweet, I'm sorry I don't remember but put out but uh everyone wants to average down but no one wants to average up and that's why there's alpha and averaging up. I saw that and it has just been living in my mind and I've been thinking about that quite a bit. So I'll discuss that and then switch to very related the classic cheaper than it was cheaper today than it was yesterday kind of despite the stock going up. I I always think about that and trying to just mentally break that down a little bit and think about it obviously ties into averaging up. And then finally, we'll wrap up with a personal announcement for the future of this ramblings and my sanity, but we'll we'll get there. Uh, I hope you enjoy the rambles. We're going to get to that in one second, but first, a word from our sponsor. Today's podcast is sponsored by AlphaSense. This is actually a little bit of a different sponsorship because AlphaSense is hosting a webinar with my friend Doug Olaflin from Fabricated Knowledge on Tuesday, October 28th. And the good news is Doug is coming on this podcast this Friday, October 24th. will probably release it October 28th to coincide with the webinar. Uh Doug is an expert expert expert in all things semiconductors. He is the president of semi analysis which is very very popular among anyone who's interested in AI or semi analyst. But not only that, Doug is an expert in management incentives. Actually he owns the I believe the best performing pitch of all time on yet another value podcast. That would be podcast number 166 when he came on and pitched Apploving at $20 per share on May 8th, 2023. I'm looking right now. It's October 20th, 2025. Applovin is at $566 per share. So that's a casual I don't know. Let's round. What is that? 20 30 32 backer. Casual 32 backer. So I am so excited to have him back on the podcast. Uh, I'll include a link in the show notes and everything to the webinar that Alphasson's obviously sponsoring the show notes. Doug's coming on to get you to go listen to. But, uh, I'm really looking forward to having him on. He is a wealth of knowledge. I think you'll enjoy it. I think I haven't listened to the webinar yet, but every time I talk to Doug, it he it's just always entertaining and always informative. So, that is the sponsorship. We'll get to the podcast now. All right. Hello and welcome to the yet another value podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Walker. With me today, it is myself on for my monthly random ramblings for the month of October 2025. Uh I'm going to hop into the ramblings in a second. Quick starter disclaimer, nothing on this podcast investing advice. I'm going to be rambling for about 30 minutes here. So remember, this is just a man man who as I look at myself in the zoom, really needs a haircut, really needs a shave, rambling for 30 minutes. So consult financial adviser. See the full disclaimer at the end. Look, this is my monthly rambling random ramblings. I hop on for about 30 minutes onto a Zoom, talk about a few things I've been thinking about, things on my mind for the month. Uh this is October 2025. So the things I'm going to be talking about today are first I'm going to start with uh Buffett's age and a concept I like to know as risk writing. Then I'm going to talk about companies that spend like drunken sailors on investor relations. Then I'm going to talk about uh two related things, averaging up, averaging down, and then things that are cheaper today than it was yesterday. And finally, I'm going to end with a little mini announcement. So, let's hop into it. And, you know, sometimes on this podcast, I like to, especially in the ramblings, I like to kind of test drive something before I I post it on the blog because it's easier to I think when you say something, you put it on the podcast, so it's a little easier, a little friendlier. People kind of get where you're saying it more than just the the hard the hard non inonation of text. So something I might write about in the future, but I've been thinking a lot about Buffett's returns over the past 20 25 years lately. And there's a concept I like to call risk writing. And what this is is say you buy a stock and it goes up 20% for three years in a row, right? Awesome. Great. That's a fantastic investment. But it is. But sometimes you'll make that investment and I'll see somebody, you know, really spiking the football on Twitter about this great investment they made and I'll look and I'll say, "Oh, it's very obvious that you had some huge tail risk, right? There's the the story I think it's nlee who's the the turkey that for a thousand days thinks the farmer is its best friend and then on the thousand day turkey gets cut off." You can make a investment that does 20% per year and it can have been a great investment, right? But you could also make a 20 investment that does 20% per year for several years and it you know hindsight 2020 it's a great investment but maybe you were taking a really big risk and it just didn't pay off. Uh so I the very simple advanced uh example would be hey you might have bought her you might have been underwriting hurricane insurance right and you made 20% three years in a row because a hurricane didn't hit but the fourth year the hurricane might hit. So the question there would be did you calibrate the hurricane insurance uh correctly or not? One that I really like to use because somebody said and it's really stuck with me is the big tech companies. You know, from 2015 to today and probably continuing going forward, they have been just incredible, incredible compounders. And part of that is the businesses are great. I don't think many people understood just how great 10 years ago. Part of that is they were run by control shareholders or they had controlling shareholders and they've really pivoted well. You know, you look at Facebook, that product could have been dead 12 years ago if they hadn't made the mobile pivot. and now the AI bit like these guys have been really good at pivoting in a way that previous businesses didn't really ride but I think the risk riding components to me all of those would factor in the risk riding component to me would be hey a lot of these businesses I think had pretty serious antitrust tail risk and the government never cracked down on them you know I I think there's a different world where European style regulations come to us earlier and Google gets gets cracked down on earlier or Facebook they they're not allowed to buy WhatsApp WhatsApp or they're forced best WhatsApp earlier or Amazon gets really firmly looked at at retail antitrust practices here in the US. I'm not saying any of these should have passed. I'm not sh saying but I do think there is some there is a there are alternative worlds where part of what you were getting in that return from buying Google, Facebook, Meta, whatever it is 10 years ago was this antitrust tail risk that never came out to pass. Okay. Why do I mention that with Buffett? You know, I I think a Buffett's I'm going to say this in a way I think some people will take in a positive light, but I actually mean it in a really or sorry, they'll take it a negative right light. I mean it in a really positive light. Over the past 20 years, if you 30 years as well, if you invested in Bergkshire, whether it's 20 years ago or 30 years ago, you beat the S&P 500. You know, and on both counts, Berkshire has done something like 11% versus 10% for the S&P 500. So, you you beat it. I mean, it's not like a smashing success like investing in the Buffett partnerships in the 50s and 60s were, but you beat the index and you probably did it with less risk just given uh Bergkshire's underlying asset base. I I honestly don't know like they are very conservatively positioned, but they also write disaster insurance in their insurance business. So, you know, maybe you got off lucky that there wasn't a much bigger bigger hurricane or, you know, the classic earthquake in Los Angeles or a nuclear weapons attack, god forbid. So, you know, you you wrote that risk, but I think one risk factor that I've really been thinking about is Buffett's age. You know, it's really easy to forget when the financial crisis happened and Buffett is making all those great investments, all those preferred investments in the banks, the Goldman Sachs, the Bank of America investments that would serve Bergkshire really well for years. He's buying stuff. He buys BNSF. above 75 when the financial crisis is just starting to happen. You know, when uh just for comparison, not not to bring politics in this, Joe Biden's 78 when he gets elected to to the presidency in 2020 and we see how quickly he goes downhill. I mean, he might already be there. Buffett's 75 and he's writing multi-billion dollar checks. Uh there's I there's a different world where Buffett is declining as the financial crisis is starting and either he doesn't make those investments or he's making really bad investments you know and I would point you to look at John Malone uh you know I just did the podcast with Burn Hobart John Malone's past 10 years when he's basically 75 to 85 he has not covered himself in glory in any of his investments and especially his lieutenants everything I think really negative they have not seen the ball clearly and Libertyy's way under performed look at Carl Icon Over the past 10 years, ICON Enterprises is down 50ish% over the past 10 years versus, you know, S&P 500 is up like 450%. Now, part of that is IEP traded for a big premium to NAV if I remember correctly at the start. So, kind of starting point valuations matter, but look at the past 5 years, look at the past three years. IEP has not covered themselves in glory. And I if I remember correctly, is quite a bit younger than Buffett. So, I would say like look, if you're buying Berkshire 20 years ago, I think one of those tail risks you were riding was the possibility that Buffett kind of even if he hadn't lost it, there was a decent chance he lost it. And I would challenge you, you know, if he lost it, how are you ever going to know that he's lost it until he writes a really bad investment? Or, you know, look, every time Buffett buys a stock, everybody says, "Hey, you don't bet against Buffett." Oxy, right? Oxy hasn't done well. There have been several stocks that haven't done well and everybody has misses. But I would just say I think if you were buying Berkshire and buying it for Buffett and saying he's a genius, there will never be another like him. He would make multiple bad investments in a row and the stock would underperform for years and I think after five years you'd kind of point and be like, "Hey, did I miss it?" And you would be way down. So I'm just really interested in that risk writing. And again, I think people are going to take that as a negative, but I actually mean it as a positive. I mean, the man is just a one of one. At 75, he goes into the global financial crisis and he comes out not completely unscathed, but comes out really, really well. At 85, the man buys his biggest on dollar figure profit, his most profitable investment he'll ever make in Apple. At 85, this man buys Apple. But again, I think it speaks to how narrow of edges we're talking about here where remember when he's 80, he buys IBM and he bails out of that pretty quickly. And I, you know, if you kind of thought of it as a one for one, he bails out of IBM and a couple years later he buys Apple. Imagine a world where Buffett's just a little less sharp and he sticks with IBM for another 10 years and he doesn't make that Apple investment because of it. Bergkshire probably underperforms over the past 10, 20 years just on that one swap because of the concentrated portfolio and how much of a home run Apple is. So I I don't have any like firm takeaways. I'm not here to say yolo one way or the other. I just it's a really interesting thought experiment to me. Uh, and I know people are going to take it negatively, and I I don't mean that negatively. I actually mean it really positively. I'm just like the more I think about latestage Buffett, it's actually the most impressive Buffett to me because he's operating in the constrictures of a you know a trillion dollar balance sheet and at 8590 when again I'm talking about younger people than him who I don't want to say lost it but have clearly lost a step multiple steps whether it's Joe Biden at around 80 in the presidency or Malone and Malone and Icon you know 10 years younger having trouble keeping up with the new moving environment. I I I'm just remain incredibly incredibly impressed by Buffett and you know I think a lot of the things I'm talking about Buffett is stepping down this year. He's going to become chairman Amordus. He's going to have a new CEO. He's going to have a new chairman. They are much the new people coming in are a lot younger. But I do think Brookshire as a whole has a a lot of that tail risk writing. I think when you think about the transition for from a founder-led conglomerate to the next generation, especially at this size, especially as the incentives with, you know, Buffett having been a 20% shareholder to people who have big stakes in it, but you know, aren't founders. I I think there's a lot of these things that investors in Bergkshire need to be thinking about. Okay. Uh that's it there. And again, I I I understand some of that could come across critically. None of that was meant critically. I'm actually the more I think about that the more impressed I am by Buffett. Let's move on to the next thing. One thing I've been thinking about a lot is company spending and this probably relates to cockroach theory a little bit but particularly company spending on investor relations. Uh and I I mean this both in time and in money. So, there's a few companies I'm aware of recently that I'm aware of or that I've seen recently that have been spending money like drunken sailors on investor relations programs. And you can point to this in a lot of ways, right? There's money and I'll get to money in a second, but there's also time, right? Whenever I hear a company, a big a particularly a large company where the CEO is spending all of their time talking to investors in some way, shape or form, I I I kind of wonder like you're that CEO's time has value, right? And when they're spending all their time talking to investors, particularly I I know of several companies where I mean small shareholders, and not to belittle small shareholders, but small shareholders can spend the CEOs are willing to spend a lot of time talking to small shareholders. And I I I kind of look at them like, hey, this guy's going to buy, you know, you're a $750 million company and this guy might buy $7,500 of your stock and you're spending two hours across the course of two weeks talking to this guy. That's nice, but that doesn't seem like a good use of your time. And I know you could extend it to companies just having IR teams in general, having big IR teams, but that's one area I've thought about it a side, but the other side I've really thought about it is on the, you know, the Purel dollar figure side of it. And I'll give one example that might highlight this nicely. Uh about 10 years ago, no, probably 13 years ago, I went to a energy company's analyst day, right? And at the analyst day, they gave out, this was an energy company. They gave out batteries that you could use to, you know, uh, rechargeable batteries that you could use to charge your phone and iPad on the go. And these things were awesome. They were rechargeable and you could recharge them with the sun, right? They solar powered, so you could go outside, set the thing up, it would take the sun, and then you could charge your phone. Probably cost 100 or 150. I think I looked at the retail price at the time, it was 135. And they gave them to every analyst that attended. So if this was a decent sized company, I mean this we're talking like 200 analysts, right? So you're talking, if I'm doing the math in my head correctly, 30 $35,000 of kind of gifts to analysts that are covering the company to say nothing of, you know, the night before the IR day, they host a big dinner for the analysts and a networking cocktail event. I mean, you're talking about $200,000 for this analyst day. I guess probably more. I mean, time cost of I was just thinking about that like that. That's traditional IR stuff. I get it. But does that show a does the way that is that really a good use of shareholder money or is that a way for you know the the top guys the smoo and booze I don't know I'll point to other examples there are a few companies I know of that uh multiple companies as I'm saying this I was thinking of one in particular but I can think of two more off the top of my head that they make consumer focused products and when you go visit them they will they will hand out the products like crazy and you know if it's an energy drink company and they hand out, you know, Monster and they hand out one free Monster. I mean, whatever. What's the COGS there? Two bucks. But I know of companies that make consumer focused products that go for 50, 100, $150. And if you go visit them, the CEO, the chairman, they will hand them out like candy to uh to shareholders, potential shareholders, analysts. And I always look at that, I'm like, "Hey, it's a nice gesture, but that's shareholder money that's getting spent." And like, what's the return on that? So I don't have anywhere I'm trying to drive here except when I see that I never know hey is this indicative of a management team a company that doesn't really treat their shareholder that treats their shareholder money kind of like funny money or is there a return there or is it so small scale that I shouldn't even be paying attention to it. I I honestly don't know the answer, but I will tell you my bias is towards this is a management team or company that's treating shareholder money like funny money and I don't like that. And maybe that's just because I'm a miser. I don't have very many expensive hobbies. May I I I don't know. But I I will tell you I it I've got a lot of distaste and when I see it I I'm actually much less inclined to buy a company, look at a company, all that sort of stuff of it. And I don't know if if that's a shortcoming of mine or not, but that is the second thing I I want to talk about. And you can tell it's been on my mind because again, there's been two or three prominent examples that are popping up in my mind over the past month. And I don't know how to weigh that factor. And I think it's really interesting, right? If I came to you and I said, "Hey, you came to me and said, "Hey, I've got this great company, blah blah blah blah blah." And I said, "Oh, I've been to their headquarters." And they were handing out, it's a treadmill company, and they were handing out free treadmills. I I understand how ridiculous that example is. They're handing out free treadmills to every single investor who walked in. Guess what? That's not it. It will go into the COG numbers. So, technically it would be in the numbers. You would never see it in the COG numbers. But that is something that no that no quant fund, no one else is going to know. You have to go you have to go to the company, engage with them, find that out. That's something that is very proprietary, very unique data. I'm not saying that it's going to make or break an investment, but I could imagine a world I I like to think a lot about what do pod shops, what do quant shops don't have. That type of stuff is something that you have to do the work to get to find out. I do think it's kind of proprietary. I think it's kind of edgy. I don't know the right answers how to use it, but it's something really interesting I think about. Let me go to another thing I've been thinking about. Uh there's a tweet and I'm so sorry. Somebody tweeted out. I don't think it's a widely followed account, but you can tell it's living rentree in my mind because it's still here. And the tweet was, "Everybody wants to average down." And I might be paraphrasing this. Everybody wants to average down, but no one wants to average up, and that's why there's alpha and averaging up. And I've really been thinking about that a lot lately because I will tell you, I'm a classic value investor at heart. And I want to average down, right? Stock goes from 10 to 9, my instinct is to buy. Stock goes from 9 to 8, my instinct is to buy. That is very dangerous, right? The way most the way most investors, most value investors who ever blow up is you start out with, you know, John Hemp from Bronte Capital had the classic had the best way of putting it. You start out with the 2% position at 50, you double down at 25, you double down again at 1250, you double down again at six, you double down again at three, and it goes bust and boom, that's how your 2% position turned into a 10% of the fund loss, right? I I I personally, it's very hard to not do that, right? For me, I'm a value investor. The stock was at 50. Yes, I do love it more at 30 than I loved it at 50. Hopefully, I'm adjusting. You know, hopefully I'm adjusting. And if the facts have changed, then I have changed my mind, ma'am. But, uh, you know, that's my instinct. I don't average up much and I think that's a failing in my end. It's something I'm working, but this tweet just uh, it's something I'm working on and this tweet just really changed my thought process on it. You know, stock announces great earnings, the stock goes up 20%. my instinct is to sell, not buy. Probably the wrong instinct and it's something I'm gonna work on and I continue to work on and I continue to think about. But that tweet, as you can kind of tell, it's been living in my mind and I I think it's actually accurate. And you know, there's momentum strategies and things that go all this sort of stuff, they tend to work. And I think this is why it's because the people who know a stock best and buy it at 10, when it goes from 10 to 13, they are the they are probably the people who know it best and they're probably the people who struggle the most to buy it because they say, "Hey, yesterday it was 10. It's hard for me to buy it at 13." Well, yes, yesterday it was 10, but look, year 10 might have been, hey, there's one branch where this is worth 30. There's one branch where it's worth 20, and there's one branch where it's worth zero. Maybe it's gone to 13, but the branch where it goes to zero, you know, before it was a 33% chance. Now it's a 2% chance. So it's a much better uh riskadjusted odd at 13. So think about that a lot. Trying to push myself on it. Trying to think about it. Uh but oh you know there is one other aspect to it. Most investors run most value investors run pretty concentrated. It's hard not to run concentrated if you're a value investor just because you can only do so much work on so many ideas. A lot of other reasons. If you're running concentrated and the stock goes from 10 to 13, it's really darn hard to add because, you know, if you're running concentrated and it goes from 10 to 13, now it's worth 30% more of your portfolio and if you're running concentrated, it was already quite a bit of your portfolio, now it's quite a bit more. Uh, you might be running into fund level limits. You might be running into risk limits. You might be running into sleep at night limit. So, another thing to consider, but it's something I've thought about very related. Let's go to the other thing I I wanted to talk about. Cheaper today than it was yesterday. You could probably tell from the this would fit very nicely into that decision tree branch I just announced. But one thing I I have been thinking of and I'm trying to get better at it again is a stock announces good news, the stock goes from 10 to 11, but you know, you could imagine a world where I thought the stock was going to earn a dollar per share this year and they announced good news and now I think it's going to earn $2 per share this year. The stock goes from 10 to 11. Well, hey, the P just went from 10 to 5.5 in in that math, right? it is cheaper today than it was yesterday. And I I've been thinking about, hey, how do you get yourself to buy? Is that true? And you know, there is one way uh does the way it's gone from that dollar per share to that $2 per share in my hypothetical example. Does the way it did that matter? I'll give you an example. If they're going from a dollar per share to $2 per share in earnings because this is a company that had a lot of fat and they're finally cutting costs and they're saying, "Hey, we're cutting costs. our expense face is coming way down. So, we're going to show a lot more of that earnings through. That's great. But that's a lever that you probably already had in your model and you probably already were thinking about and they've pulled it and it's great that they've pulled it pull they're pulling it now and they're bringing all that cost cutting all that time value of money of the cost cutting forward. But that's a onetime thing versus, "Hey, does it go from a dollar per share of earnings to $2 per share of earnings?" Because they come on and they say, "Guys, things are going gang busters, right? We thought we're going to grow at 10% this year. We're growing at 40% this year. We can't keep up with demand. By the way, we just did a new product launch. Uh, everyone thought we didn't build an any of our models. The new product launch is going great. Demand is through the roof." You know, those are two very different sets of circumstances. the cost cutting was one time the and it will continue into the future unless management kind of loses their discipline and lets the patent build back up. So that is nice but you know revenue going through the roof lots of different businesses they they still have that cost cutting lever to pull if it ever needs to get pulled two very different examples. So, another thing I've been thinking about, uh, when is something cheaper today than it was yesterday? When should you be pulling the trigger when something is cheaper today than it was yesterday? How do you, but to all this the averaging up when everyone wants to average down and the cheaper today than it was yesterday points, the other big risk is it's very easy to let your emotions get the better of you. You know, I I know I'm not immune to it. Stock goes from 10 to 12. It was a medium-sized position. Now, it's a pretty big position. I'm more excited about it uh today than I was yesterday. Hey, I'm making a great money on it. I was right. How do you avoid getting caught up in the emotions? And you know, I've had stocks go from 10 to 20. And I'm like, yes, this is on the right path. I'm doing this. We're this is going to be great. And you know, two days later, it's back down to 10. It's back down to eight. It was a short squeeze. I I don't know. But, you know, it's very easy when the stock is working to say, "Hey, I was being too conservative on everything." and kind of let loose the dogs of Excel and start taking all your numbers up and underwrite 18% growth into perpetuity. Whatever it is, how do you balance those two emotions? I don't have any great answers. These are just me rambling. These are the things I think about a lot and I'm trying to get better at a lot of them. If you got advice, hey, look, I'm always down to swap thoughts. Go listen to the podcast with Ardan Fukin. I'm always down to swap thoughts and hopefully be thoughtful about these and hopefully, you know, Buffett, I started this podcast off talking about the riskw writing of Buffett. Buffett was 75 and still hidden out the park and still evolving. 85 when he bought Apple. The good news here is I'm not quite 40. So hopefully I've got at least 15 20 years to continue to evolve and develop and improve before I I start having any of those worries. I mean fingers crossed. Speaking of getting old and fingers crossed I'm being uh close to 40. Announcement, just a little personal announcement. Hope you don't mind me sneaking in. Announcement. Uh second baby coming in mid November. Uh why should that matter? Well, first you're listening to me ramble for 30 minutes. You've probably developed a little bit of a connection with me. Maybe you want to hear what's going on in my life. But how it really matters for you is probably going to be taking the next two months off. Not the full podcast, but you know, the random ramblings are more I take 30 minutes, drink my coffee, go ramble about things that are on my mind. My mind's going to be pretty cluttered for the next two months with little babies and late night wakeups and all that sort of stuff. I'm going to be working. I I don't I I think I go crazy if I don't work. My wife will tell you that uh I I'll go crazy if I don't work, but probably won't be having quite the time for uh ramblings for sure. The podcast is going to be on a little mini hiatus. Probably a little bit of a slower schedule than normal as I kind of figure all of that out. But I'm terrified. Is terrified the right word? I'm excited, but I'm terrified. Uh wife is doing great. She's got more energy than me, eight months pregnant, and she she's all around. She's doing great. But we've got the baby coming. exciting. But, you know, in the next, it could come tomorrow. Hopefully not. You know, fingers crossed it's due in mid November. It could come tomorrow. Hopefully mid- November, but don't be surprised if you see this uh this podcast feed and the newsletter as well. Go blank for a couple weeks while I, you know, go through the real hells of it and try to get everything uh align. But really excited for that. I appreciate you understanding why the podcast might be a little bit uh out of line for the next couple weeks. But look, I'll I'll be missing you. I'll I'll be thinking about it. You'll we have some great guests lined up between now and then. So, you'll hear those and I promise you when I come back, you'll have the rambliest rambling of all time because uh I'll have three months of stuff sorted up, plus a lack of sleep from the baby. But appreciate all your support. I, you know, again, this is a ramble. I don't know if I'm right. I don't know if I'm wrong. I'm not trying to be right on any of this. But if you want to swap thoughts, anything, emails are always open. appreciate all the support and looking forward to kind of seeing you on the other side of the baby in terms of ramblings. A quick disclaimer, nothing on this podcast should be considered investment advice. Guests or the hosts may have positions in any of the stocks mentioned during this podcast. Please do your own work and consult a financial adviser. Thanks.