Market Outlook: The host is cautious amid a euphoric January rally and highlights rising geopolitical risk from unpredictable policy shocks that could trigger outsized drawdowns.
AI and Alpha: Extensive discussion on how AI and quant competition compress traditional fundamental edges, reframing the alpha vs. beta debate.
Sports Betting Risk: Detailed concerns that regulation targeting parlays could materially hit sportsbook unit economics, with DraftKings (DKNG) singled out as especially exposed.
Cannabis: The host questions broad cannabis liberalization given today’s much higher potencies, flagging potential for tighter rules that could alter industry growth and margins.
Retail Trading Practices: Warns that a market shock could spur curbs on zero-day options and 24/7 trading, posing risk to retail broker/venue business models (e.g., Robinhood) and short-term activity.
Semiconductors: Uses Nvidia (NVDA) to illustrate path-dependency in AI outcomes—strong recent gains don’t guarantee alpha if the AI adoption curve had been slower.
Concentration & Power Laws: Revisits power-law return concentration, noting index attribution can overstate the case for buy-and-hold compounders versus true single-stock alpha.
Circle of Competence: Emphasizes sticking to one’s edge and avoiding style drift, as off-circle bets often become repeat detractors despite strong core holdings.
Transcript
All right. Hello and welcome to the add another value podcast. I'm your host Andrew Walker. Today's podcast we have my monthly ramblings for January of 2026. It's 2026. You know we these are the ramblings of a madman. So please see a full disclaimer at the end of the podcast. And by the way, speaking of the podcast, if you like this podcast, please review, rate, subscribe wherever you're watching or listening to it. And if you don't like this podcast, turn the podcast off and never leave me a review. Uh but anyway, the rambling today. I've got five different things. I'm going to talk about the state of the markets. I'm going to talk about the response to my weird markets podcast, my theory of weird markets I did. Thank you so much for the responses. I'm going to talk about investments that make me want to slap people. I'm going to do a quick talk on the power laws and the markets thoughts and just some push back I've been thinking about. And then I'm going to talk about uh something that I think I've changed my mind on recently. Uh vices is one thing I've changed my mind on. I'm going to talk about my change on vices and how I think that could show some tail risk in different segments of the market. So, we're going to get all there in one second. I'm going to ramble in one second. But first, a word from our sponsors. This podcast is sponsored by AlphaSense. One of the hardest parts of investing is seeing what's shifting before everyone else. For decades, only the largest hedge funds could afford extensive channel research programs to spot inflection points before earnings and stay ahead of consensus. Meanwhile, smaller funds had been forced to cobble together ad hoc channel intelligence or rely on stale reports from sellside shops. But channel checks are no longer a luxury. They're becoming table stakes for the industry. The challenge has always been scale, speed, and consistency. That's where AlphaSense comes in. AlphaSense is redefining channel research. Instead of static point in-time research, AlphaSense Channel checks delivers a continuously refreshed view of demand, pricing, and competitive dynamics powered by interviews with real operators, suppliers, distributors, and channel partners across the value chain. Thousands of consistent channel conversations every month deliver, comparable signals, helping investors spot inflection points weeks before they show up in earnings or consensus estimate. The best part is that these proprietary channel checks integrate directly into AlphaSense's research platform, which is trusted by 75% of the world's top hedge funds with access to over 500 million premium sources. From company filings and broker research to news, trade journals, and more than 240,000 expert call transcripts, that context turns raw signal into conviction. The first to see wins. The rest follow. Check it out for yourself at alphasense.comyavp. That's alpha-sense.comyavvp. >> All right. Hello and welcome to the yet another value podcast. I'm your host Andrew Walker. With me today, I'm excited to have myself. Man, I almost forgot the intro and uh I was laughing at myself. I'm excited to have myself. It is time for those of you who've been following the podcast for the past two years know every month I pop on and I do what I call my monthly random ramblings where I just hop on and ramble for 20 30 minutes about three four five things that are you know happening in the markets or that I've been thinking about that are kind of on my mind. So you know it's just the ramblings of an increasingly mad man. And that bring me nicely to my next thing. Quick disclaimer remind you these are the ramblings of an increasingly mad man. So nothing on this podcast investing advice. I don't think I'm talking about any specific stocks today, but you know, you should please feel free to see our legal disclaimer, see the disclaimer at the end of the podcast, all that sort of stuff. Okay, that out the way, let's go to the topics I want to talk about today. So, I I will be honest. I started writing these and then I was just like so excited to get this going and I want to hit the gym at some point today. So, I just like put them on paper, haven't fully thought through them. But, here's my five things. I want to talk about the state of the markets real quick. Uh, I want to talk about my response to the Weird Markets podcast that I did, which I thank you so much to everyone who's given me feedback. I've gotten so much feedback. Continue to get great feedback. I'll talk about that. Uh, I want to talk about investments that make me want to slap some of my friends in the face. Again, we'll talk in a second quick and then quick thoughts on power laws in the markets and things that people change their minds on. So, all that out the way, let's dive in. And the first thing I want to talk about is the state of the markets. I'm recording this on January 22nd, 2026. Uh, you know, it'll maybe it'll be lost in the footnote of history. Maybe it'll be the start of World War II. Who knows? But this week was kind of marked by, you know, at the end of last week, of course, Friday aftermarket hours. Trump really started going on and on about his threats to Greenland, saying he was going to tariff every country that was, you know, not that was sending troops up to. I don't know. I don't know the geophalist, but he's going to tariff a whole bunch of US nations, US allies, because they weren't going to hand over Greenland. That happens on Friday. Uh on Tuesday, the market kind of opens down at, you know, I think it closed one and a half% down. It wasn't even that. And by Wednesday, the market's ripping up as Trump kind of backs off. And today, I'm recording this close to the market close. I mean, the stock markets have just been on a face ripping rally so far this month. Aside from the, you know, including or aside from, I don't know what the right word is, that one day Greenland diff, you know, as I'm writing this, as I'm wrapping this up, the Russell is probably up eight, nine%, maybe 10% on the freaking month. You know, the S&P is probably up 3%. I can pull that up and talk about as, but we're just in this space ripping rally. And, you know, I look trit, I I do the trit the tritmonger series, the trip buffet series, all this sort of stuff. It's really tried to say be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are are fearful. But I I do feel like that like I I think things are pretty stretched. I think it's kind of time where you kind of want to be getting defensive. I'm getting some gray hairs on my head. I know like it's when things are ebul euphoric is right before things can get weird and but you know all that's right. The other thing I want to say is look over the past year there's the taco trade, the Trump always chickens out trade, right? him. We had that in a big way with the tariffs in April. We have all sorts of things. And I I think that would extend to Greenland right now, right? He literally threatens, hey, I'm going to use force. We're going to take Greenland, which I I think it would be the start of World War II, certainly the end of the NATO alliance. I don't know if countries are going to war over us sending troops to Greenland or not. I have no clue. I'm not trying to play geopolitical strategist, but I would just say when you're, you know, the the taco bet is the the most popular bet. I was texting with a friend over the weekend who's like markets are going to crash on Monday on this Greenland stuff that I believe his term was there's no offramp and I was telling him look I I I think it's terrible and markets were down but I don't think anybody say down 1% has crash but just based on my feed based on the strategy I see everyone is betting on taco everyone's betting on Trump chickens up and I get it but where I'm trying to drive with this is you can only at some point you write a check and there is no taking it back. And I don't know when that point is, but you can get yourself into such hot water or you can do something so crazy and there's just no taking it back. And whether that is actually like, you know, the the one would be, hey, you actually send troops the the things to Venezuela, go crazy, whatever it is, you can do that or you you know, a lot of these have you say it and then at some point you try to reverse it and yeah, maybe you you know, I thought I actually thought this might happen with the tariffs for a while. You put the tariffs on and then you try to reverse it, but everybody's already changed their strategy. You know, I think Oh, here's here would be a good one. You you say something crazy, right? You say we're going to take you were going to take Greenland and two two days later the response is terrible, markets go crazy, and you say, "Never mind, we're not going to take Greenland." But at one some point, the damage is already going to be done, right? Like the US brand is going to suffer so much. People are going to actually follow through on the dump US Treasuries. People are going to say we can't trust US treasuries. You know, you you see this in emerging markets. It happens. I I guess what I'm saying is there's the I I'm a little bit I'm quite cautious on the markets right now. It just seems like everything's ripping to new highs. It's harder to find value. It's really lowquality stuff that's really ripping and driving this market. I would say quite cautious that I'm quite cautious on the geopolitical thing. I think this taco trade that everybody, you know, the moment it happens and it's weird where, you know, you taco on Greenland and the market closes at, you know, 100, it goes to 98 when you say Greenland, and then it goes to 105 when you say we're not doing Greenland. It's weird like you can drive the market even higher when you say, "Hey, we're not going to do this crazy thing." But at some point there's going to be some crazy thing and it's not going to be walk backable. Even if you can actually walk back the action, the damage of the brand, the damage of the sales, it's going to be done. And I I'm I'm starting to worry we're going to get there. And when that happens, you know, it's not the market's down three, it's the market's down 20. You you have a a geopolitical, you have financial crisis, something weird's going to happen. I I'm I'm worried we're getting there because these things are just getting so effing crazy. And uh yeah, anyway, I don't know. Maybe and look, maybe I'm making too much of it, but it does seem weird that you would have geopolitical headlines of taking Greenland by force. like that it's just it's just so crazy and then to give it up for kind of nothing. Okay, and that was a a true rambling just on the state of the markets, but that's kind of how I feel. And you know, I do think I mean again the I've got the gray hairs on my head. The it it feels tough when everything's ripping up and you're like, "Hey, these are lowquality stocks that are ripping. Everything's ripping." And what's the thing that happened with the crypto? Everyone's getting rich but you. But I there is the other side to this and I I've been through it enough time to know like you want to be on the other side and have the cash because the wash out at some point comes and I'm not saying the markets and crash or anything but there's a lot of lowquality stuff that's uh just ripping non-stop. Okay, let's go to my second thing response to weird markets. So for those of you who who didn't hear it, I did a podcast a week or two ago. It was what I called my working theory of weird markets. And the crux of it is this AI computer the markets are getting so competitive. the AIS are getting so good. Traditional valuation mech traditional ways of uh winning, they're getting competed away, right? The only way to generate alpha going forward is going to be increasingly on the weirder and weirder side. And I got such great feedback and such great responses. So, thank you to everyone who listened. Thank you to everyone who gave uh responses. I I'm just I'm still working on the full post. There'll be a full text post at some point. You know, it's hard to compile all those thoughts just like throwing on your own. just wanted to talk a few things that people said in response that I thought were maybe missed the mark or I thought were interesting but I wanted to run. All right. So the first thing I heard there were two the two most common refrains were hey you know markets if you bought the market in April of 2025 you know at the on the absolute bottom of the Trump trade. Markets are up 30% since then. How can you say markets are weird? How can you not say you can't generate alpha? And my response to that is easy guys. You're literally describing the movement of the indices. You are describing beta. Like that is pure beta. Whether the market goes, you know, if the market goes up from now till the end of the year, if it goes up 4% or 40%, that is beta. That is not alpha. Now, your pocketbook probably feels a lot better if it goes up 40% versus four 4%. But that is beta. You know, alpha would be, hey, I could see where this was going. I knew to short the market on March 1st. I need to cover the the short on April 7th and then like reverse the short and go max long on April 7th, the absolute bottom of the tariff trade. That would be alpha, right? That would be macro alpha. That would be trading it. There are other things you can point to, but you know, just saying, "Hey, the market's gone up a heck of a lot in a short period of time." Absolutely not alpha. That's beta. On a kind of similar vein, a lot of the people who responded would say something along the lines of, "Hey, you know what about Facebook at the end of 2022 when it traded for $100 per share and you know, Jim Kramer was crying on the was crying on TV. What about JP Morgan at the, you know, in the spring of 2023 when it was trading for, I think, eight or nine times price to earnings." And I those are more interesting, right? We're now talking about individual stocks and individual stocks that have generated a heck of a lot of alpha versus uh versus the overall market. But you know again I would just say I if you're going and cherrypicking a past example that is not there was there could have been alpha in the stock but you can't just cherry pick a past example and say hey this stock worked out well you know you have to be able to say like hey there was a systematic reason for the mispricing and if you were a active manager at the time and you loaded the boat on those then yes you generated alpha but again I would say just like being able to cherrybook one example even if an investment manager did that I don't think that like speaks to systematic mispricing in the markets or and that's kind of more what I was driving towards though I there is the single stock piece of it but again I just think going and saying hey you know if you bought Nvidia in early 2023 you did great yes that is true but that does not speak to alpha maybe you were taking on crazy risks you don't know about right we're living in the world where AI boomed what if there was another world where and chat GPT comes out in the summer of 2020 23 or late 2022 or whenever and it's a complete bust and you bought Nvidia saying hey AI is here and you know it turned out to be the metaverse all over again, right? Where people were really hyped about the metaverse for a while and yeah, nobody ended up using it, right? There are other worlds to consider. So just because we're living in this world where Nvidia did great, I don't know if that's the case. What if AI had been three years too soon? So, uh, speaking of AI, the other feedback I got, so a lot of my weird market theory rested on, hey, the AI is getting so good and also, you know, the quant models are getting so good, the competition is so high. uh individ individual investors are it's increasingly hard to use uh fundamental models just say hey this is trading at eight times price earnings and expect to generate alpha like I just don't think there's alpha there and I got several people who said hey Andrew you forget we can use AI too so we can generate AI we can generate alpha using AI and again I think that's false and if you'll let me step into a sports metaphor I'll I'll tell you why uh think about golf clubs and golf I mean what drivers called the drivers are called woods because drivers and stuff literally used to be made out of big wooden heads. Now they're made out of, you know, graphite carbon. They're so strong. They're so light, but they're still called woods. Uh you can't say is would me playing with well I'm a terrible golfer, but would me playing with, you know, modern woods, would that be better than me playing with the woods from 50 years ago? Absolutely. 100%. I'm going to hit the ball farther straight or whatever. But it is not alpha because everyone else plays with modern woods similar to tennis rackets. You know, you think about the pictures in the 50s of people playing with the little tiny ra wooden rackets versus today the the modern strings, everything. Yes, it's an advantage to have a modern racket versus an old racket. But everyone plays with a modern racket. So there is no edge to having the modern racket because everyone's playing with it. Similar to and that's where I'm going with AI, right? You can't say hey Andrew individual investors can use AI too. That is true but there is no edge to something that everyone can use. Now there can be edge you know I think I've used this analogy before sometimes a specific tool amplifies or detracts from a talent and maybe there is edge where you're saying hey you know this specific individual investor is really good at reading management body language but he's really bad at the uh fundamentals and there's another investor who's really bad at reading management body language but he's really good at the fundamentals. Well, 20 years ago, the latter investor who was good at fundamentals, bad at body language, might have had a big edge over the investor who was good at body language, bad at fundamentals, right? But today, if the fundamentals are getting just kind of neutralized by AI, the latter investor, he might be increasingly obsolete, whereas the body language investor might be, you know, his skill set might actually be getting amplified by AI, which can make up for his weaker skills. So I I guess where I'm driving is this AI AI as a tool cannot generate alpha. You cannot say hey Andrew everyone can use AI so I can generate alpha. No it's a tool. Now if you wanted to have a discussion on hey does AI amplify or attract from for specific investors. That's an interesting discussion to have but I don't think it really affects or impacts my weird market thesis unless we wanted to start saying hey there are certain unique investors who it makes it and yeah you know what I think I'm going to wrap it up there. I think those are the the two main points I wanted to hit. Again, it's still an evolving theory. I'd encourage you to go listen to that podcast. I'd love to get feedback on it. I'm still working on a big big post on it that I I'll probably post sometime in February just because, man, writing is hard. Turns out writing is hard. Who knew? Uh let me go to my third thing, and this is what I I was laughing when I said it. These are investments that make me want to slap people. And I've I've literally never hit someone in my life. So, I'm not actually saying I'm going to go physically slap someone, but this is, you know, it is mid to late January right now. Getting investor letters all the time. And I get investor letters from friends. I get investors from investors I kind of know. Sometimes just thanks to having a slightly larger than normal public presence. Sometimes I get investor letters from people I have no clue. Uh, but you know, I'll read I read a lot of these investor letters. And sometimes I'll read an investor letter and the person will be like, "Hey, you know, I spent eight years working at Coca-Cola and then I ran a consumer private goods company for a private equity firm for another five years and then I launched the fund." And my top four of my top five holdings are, you know, consumer emerging consumer package good company one, emerging consumer package good company two, emerging consumer package good three, emerging consumer package goods company four, and then my fifth holding is, you know, oil companies drilling for oil off the coast of Africa. And this is my uh wanting to that's one thing you know obviously that's an extreme example but I think every investor and I'm trying to be better at this every investor has a skill set every investor has edge and when I read these types of letters I I just want to go to that fund manager and be like hey man like you obviously have a skill set you obviously have alpha uh maybe not obviously have alpha but you obviously have edge you obviously have skill in this one specific area why do you feel the need to go outside and do this thing that you have like not only do you have no edge. I think you might have negative edge when you're when you're going to do that. You know, again, in my example, you're you're domestic CPG focused and you're going to emerging oil company. Like, I think you're probably the psycher table. So, I I I say that because it's something I say that because it's a rambling, but it's also something I'm trying to hold myself to a little bit more, too, right? where I look at a lot of companies and I think in the past I've gotten in trouble when I've tried to use someone else's skill set and layer it onto someone else's skill set, someone else's thesis and layer it onto mine. You know, I see a lot of people with unbelievable thesises where they've done uni unbelievable due diligence. But when I've like kind of stretched I guess you know when you invest when you look at something that somebody else has done great diligence on one of the issues can be you do confirmatory diligence not your own thinking and your own diligence. And my history has been when I've stepped outside of what I think is my core skill set. Now maybe I'm using the benefit of hindsight to say that was core and that wasn't. when I've stepped outside of my core skill set and invested in something where I think somebody's done great work and I'm excited and probably my my research and my thinking goes more to confirming what they're saying versus actually thinking through those have generally been my worst losses. So this is rambling but I guess what I'm trying to say is a if you see me investing something and you're like hey that's not Andrew's course still you can call me out. And one thing I'm trying to be better at when I'm talking to my friends, and it can be a little awkward, but being like, "Hey man, you're buying emerging offshore oil company." Like, is that really your skill set? If that is your skill set, awesome. But, you know, for a lot of my friends, I don't think that's that's their skill set. And I'd rather them spend the time, the focus, get the returns because I can't tell you how many letters I read where it's like, "Hey, we were up 2% this year. The market was up 10%. Our core longs were up 8% or our core longs were up 20%. Except for this one thing where we stepped outside our skis and it was down 30%. And it canceled out all the great the great things. And then you go read the letter their letter the year before and they'll say, "Hey, you know, the market was up 15%, we're up 6%, our core longs were up 30%, but this one thing was down 40% and it canceled out all the returns." Be like, "Dude, for four years in a row, your biggest loser has been this offshore oil company. It seems like you're maybe even doubling down on it over time." And like at some point, let's just say, hey, let's go swing at what we're really good at. All right, so that's investments that make me want to slap people. Uh, quick talk on power laws. You know, I I've said it on this podcast before. There it's gotten increasingly popular for people to talk about. And and there's a stat that looks something like this. Over the past 50 years, you know, 40 stocks have driven the vast majority of stock market returns. And I I think it's really interesting. And it's a stat that compounder bros used to love. But I I want to spend some more time thinking about this because one thing that strikes me, you know, say you're Walmart. You're the largest company in the index. And I I just chose Walmart because they're big. I I wasn't specifically calling them up. And for the next 20 years, your stock does 4% per year. Well, that's a terrible, terrible return, right? Barely more than inflation. Probably less than bonds are yielding these days. That that's an awful return. But if you were the largest company in the index and you did that 4% per year for 20 years, you're actually still going to account for a decent chunk of the index's return versus say you're, you know, the S&P 500. Say you're the 480th largest company. You get added in year, you're in it in year one and in year one your stock goes up 20% and then you announce a deal to get acquired for a huge premium, you know, a 75% premium. So your stock basically doubles that year. Well, in a 20-year time horizon, you know, you're you're not going to you're going to recount for literally 0% of the index's return, right? You're way less than that company that went up 4% per year for 20 years, but your stock obviously did much better, right? So, anyway, just something I've been thinking about where I'm seeing a lot of the power loss quotes where it's basically what compounders say, right? You you find the best company, you hold it for 20 years, and that's true. That would be great. Very tax efficient. You know, if you bought Walmart in 1970, if you bought Birkshire in 1970, if you bought Nvidia in 2000, if you uh Nathan's Famous is one that I I was involved in briefly that just yesterday announced the buyout and I the buyout premium was probably disappointing, but you know, if you have bought Nathan's Famous, which owns the hot dog brand, the fast food concepts that everybody's probably familiar with, mainly from the July 4th hot dog eating contest, if you have bought Nathan's Famous 20 years ago, I mean, the stock's been a home run because it was a franchise royalty stream. They paid out dividends, great business, grew a little bit. Uh, it's been great. So, yes, there are power loss that, but I I wonder if they're getting a little overstated in their All right, last thing. Again, just random rambling, so I'm just going to jump right to it. Uh, I I mentioned I believe it was last month in my random ramblings. Things people change their mind on. And one thing that I've been thinking about people changing their mind on that I think is also an interesting tale risk. And I might have mentioned this a few times, but you know, uh, vices is one that I've really changed my mind on. You know, I I I've got a pretty strong libertarian streak. I mean, people should be able to do what they want to do, I would say. And if you'd ask the younger me with a fuller head of hair and less gray 10 years ago, I'm like, yeah, basically all vices should be legal and people should be able to make their own decisions. Now, you know, 12-year-olds shouldn't be allowed to get access to whatever drug you're talking about, right? Like probably some age limits are appropriate, but uh once people are of legal age and can make rational decisions, they should, you know, make their own decisions and go their own way and everybody should be allowed left to their own devices. I always believe that, but I will tell you, I'm no longer sure that's the case. And and I'll point to two specific places. You know, cannabis cannabis isn't getting increasingly legalized. Uh it might come off the federal permits at some point. And I I was always a fan like hey if alcohol is legal across the country why shouldn't cannabis be legal across the country and I still kind of believe that but I also would say like look the cannabis that people were smoking at Woodstock in the 70s you know it it would get you high I'm sure I can't say I've smoked cannabis in the 70s I don't know but you know the stuff today is so potent and so strong and so engineered uh I I I don't know and you know I the same thing with gambling. I always thought gambling should be legal and then people could decide if they wanted to go gamble or not. And I kind of believe that. But when you look at DraftKings and you look at online g even and freaking gambling even gaming like these things are so fine gaming and I'm specifically thinking of freetoplay gaming like you know the Candy Crush stuff these things are so finely tuned to addict you to get you to keep playing all that sort of stuff and having on your phone it it it I I'm starting to think like hey maybe it's not good for society. Maybe it's not good for people. And I understand that goes against a libertarian streak, but maybe it's just like, hey, it's a libertarian thing, but it also is coming again like humans weren't designed to, you know, our bodies weren't designed to process this uh cannabis this strong. You know, it's unnatural. It wasn't designed to be able to resist the lure of the phone, right? And particularly when it's gaming and you know, I'm thinking about sports betting, right? He it was cool when you could if you had to It is cool if you can drive to a casino and go and say, "Hey, I want to bet 20 bucks on the Yankees to win today's game or whatever, right? That's awesome. But when it's on your phone and you can do it in a heartbeat without even thinking about it and you can do it not just in the Yankees to win, but you know, you can bet on the next ball or the next strike or all this sort of stuff. And you can do it without a thought and you could burn, you know, serious amounts of money wast without even thinking about it." like and that I guess taking away the people's checks and inhibitions just because it's on your phone and it's so fast versus you know if it's in a casino you have to decide you want to go to the casino you have to drive there you have to get the cash out all that sort of stuff I I I increasingly wonder if there should be like the libertarian hates to say it but if there should be some state imposed limits on hey all of these things are so engineered like humans just weren't designed and society would be better off if there were some limitations on them and you know maybe that is in my, you know, if I was dictator for a day, I'd probably do like, hey, gaming's legal everywhere, but online gaming is not. Hey, cannabis is legal everywhere, but you can't make it so strong that, you know, you get 500 hits of the old stuff in one thing. And I think alcohol probably falls into this, right? Like I I I can't say I'm insanely familiar with specific alcohol limits, but you know, we do beer and wine. Uh beer wine has specific alcohol contents and you can sell beer wine in specific places. And then liquor has specific alcohol contents. It's much stronger and you need a different license to sell that and you can sell that in different places and uh maybe a small step. But those were the two things I was just thinking of. Hey, these are things I've changed my mind and to bring it to investing. You know, I do wonder uh DraftKings predict prediction markets all those things they trade at pred draftkings got hit a little bit over the past few months as prediction market the rise of prediction markets but Robin would probably fall into this bucket as well. I I do wonder if there is, hey, you're investing them and you'll make a return and you'll probably make a little bit of alpha from it, but I wonder if some of that alpha that you capture investing them over the next 5 to 10 years, assuming that there is alpha, is actually paying you for the tail risk of, hey, Andrew is right. You know, there is or not even that Andrew is right, but there is some risk that a government at some point comes and says, hey, we need to change this, right? DraftKings. And it doesn't have to be banning all sports betting for DraftKings. If you ban parlays, right? DraftKings makes all their money on parlays, which are where you combine, you know, you don't just bet the Yankees to win, you bet the Yankees to win and score more than five runs or something. These those are insanely profitable for the books and they're very popular among the youths and some of my friends uh because you can do these parlays and you know, you bet 10 bucks and if you string them together, right, 10 bucks to win a thousand, 10 bucks to win a million. the the book takes a huge pick from them, right? I wonder if there's going to be some crackdown on parlays, and if there were, that would take away their most profitable revenue source, and I think it would be good for society. Um, Robin Hood, some crackdown on zero day trading, you know, does does trading zero day options, does that really create economic value? Probably not. Uh, I know right now it seems like the markets are going the other way. It seems like every market wants to go to a 247 model. I think that's actually a really bad idea, but we can talk about that another time. But it seems like it's going to everyone can trade anything all the time whenever they want. And the libertarian me says, "Great, that's awesome." And the market structure person in me says, "Hey, maybe this isn't good for society." And I wonder if there's a risk at some point of, "Hey, if we had a stock market crash, are there lots of rules and regulations that come along and say, hey, let's limit the trading. Let's limit and by the way, let's take away the zero day trading options." Like, I don't think it's impossible. So, all right, I've rambled enough. This has been a lot of fun. As always, these are just my ramblings. I'm not saying like any of these are lifelong core convictions of mine. I'm always happy to talk. Always happy to chat. Hit me up in the show notes. Hit me up over email. Whatever it is, I'm always happy to chat about this. Always happy to chat about how to improve the podcast, how to do anything. So, I'm here if you want to talk. Um, look, thanks so much. See the disclaimers at the end. Uh, it is January 22nd. We've got some great podcast coming up in the near future, too. I will mention that. Uh, looking forward to chatting you then. 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.
January 2026 Random Ramblings
Summary
Transcript
All right. Hello and welcome to the add another value podcast. I'm your host Andrew Walker. Today's podcast we have my monthly ramblings for January of 2026. It's 2026. You know we these are the ramblings of a madman. So please see a full disclaimer at the end of the podcast. And by the way, speaking of the podcast, if you like this podcast, please review, rate, subscribe wherever you're watching or listening to it. And if you don't like this podcast, turn the podcast off and never leave me a review. Uh but anyway, the rambling today. I've got five different things. I'm going to talk about the state of the markets. I'm going to talk about the response to my weird markets podcast, my theory of weird markets I did. Thank you so much for the responses. I'm going to talk about investments that make me want to slap people. I'm going to do a quick talk on the power laws and the markets thoughts and just some push back I've been thinking about. And then I'm going to talk about uh something that I think I've changed my mind on recently. Uh vices is one thing I've changed my mind on. I'm going to talk about my change on vices and how I think that could show some tail risk in different segments of the market. So, we're going to get all there in one second. I'm going to ramble in one second. But first, a word from our sponsors. This podcast is sponsored by AlphaSense. One of the hardest parts of investing is seeing what's shifting before everyone else. For decades, only the largest hedge funds could afford extensive channel research programs to spot inflection points before earnings and stay ahead of consensus. Meanwhile, smaller funds had been forced to cobble together ad hoc channel intelligence or rely on stale reports from sellside shops. But channel checks are no longer a luxury. They're becoming table stakes for the industry. The challenge has always been scale, speed, and consistency. That's where AlphaSense comes in. AlphaSense is redefining channel research. Instead of static point in-time research, AlphaSense Channel checks delivers a continuously refreshed view of demand, pricing, and competitive dynamics powered by interviews with real operators, suppliers, distributors, and channel partners across the value chain. Thousands of consistent channel conversations every month deliver, comparable signals, helping investors spot inflection points weeks before they show up in earnings or consensus estimate. The best part is that these proprietary channel checks integrate directly into AlphaSense's research platform, which is trusted by 75% of the world's top hedge funds with access to over 500 million premium sources. From company filings and broker research to news, trade journals, and more than 240,000 expert call transcripts, that context turns raw signal into conviction. The first to see wins. The rest follow. Check it out for yourself at alphasense.comyavp. That's alpha-sense.comyavvp. >> All right. Hello and welcome to the yet another value podcast. I'm your host Andrew Walker. With me today, I'm excited to have myself. Man, I almost forgot the intro and uh I was laughing at myself. I'm excited to have myself. It is time for those of you who've been following the podcast for the past two years know every month I pop on and I do what I call my monthly random ramblings where I just hop on and ramble for 20 30 minutes about three four five things that are you know happening in the markets or that I've been thinking about that are kind of on my mind. So you know it's just the ramblings of an increasingly mad man. And that bring me nicely to my next thing. Quick disclaimer remind you these are the ramblings of an increasingly mad man. So nothing on this podcast investing advice. I don't think I'm talking about any specific stocks today, but you know, you should please feel free to see our legal disclaimer, see the disclaimer at the end of the podcast, all that sort of stuff. Okay, that out the way, let's go to the topics I want to talk about today. So, I I will be honest. I started writing these and then I was just like so excited to get this going and I want to hit the gym at some point today. So, I just like put them on paper, haven't fully thought through them. But, here's my five things. I want to talk about the state of the markets real quick. Uh, I want to talk about my response to the Weird Markets podcast that I did, which I thank you so much to everyone who's given me feedback. I've gotten so much feedback. Continue to get great feedback. I'll talk about that. Uh, I want to talk about investments that make me want to slap some of my friends in the face. Again, we'll talk in a second quick and then quick thoughts on power laws in the markets and things that people change their minds on. So, all that out the way, let's dive in. And the first thing I want to talk about is the state of the markets. I'm recording this on January 22nd, 2026. Uh, you know, it'll maybe it'll be lost in the footnote of history. Maybe it'll be the start of World War II. Who knows? But this week was kind of marked by, you know, at the end of last week, of course, Friday aftermarket hours. Trump really started going on and on about his threats to Greenland, saying he was going to tariff every country that was, you know, not that was sending troops up to. I don't know. I don't know the geophalist, but he's going to tariff a whole bunch of US nations, US allies, because they weren't going to hand over Greenland. That happens on Friday. Uh on Tuesday, the market kind of opens down at, you know, I think it closed one and a half% down. It wasn't even that. And by Wednesday, the market's ripping up as Trump kind of backs off. And today, I'm recording this close to the market close. I mean, the stock markets have just been on a face ripping rally so far this month. Aside from the, you know, including or aside from, I don't know what the right word is, that one day Greenland diff, you know, as I'm writing this, as I'm wrapping this up, the Russell is probably up eight, nine%, maybe 10% on the freaking month. You know, the S&P is probably up 3%. I can pull that up and talk about as, but we're just in this space ripping rally. And, you know, I look trit, I I do the trit the tritmonger series, the trip buffet series, all this sort of stuff. It's really tried to say be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are are fearful. But I I do feel like that like I I think things are pretty stretched. I think it's kind of time where you kind of want to be getting defensive. I'm getting some gray hairs on my head. I know like it's when things are ebul euphoric is right before things can get weird and but you know all that's right. The other thing I want to say is look over the past year there's the taco trade, the Trump always chickens out trade, right? him. We had that in a big way with the tariffs in April. We have all sorts of things. And I I think that would extend to Greenland right now, right? He literally threatens, hey, I'm going to use force. We're going to take Greenland, which I I think it would be the start of World War II, certainly the end of the NATO alliance. I don't know if countries are going to war over us sending troops to Greenland or not. I have no clue. I'm not trying to play geopolitical strategist, but I would just say when you're, you know, the the taco bet is the the most popular bet. I was texting with a friend over the weekend who's like markets are going to crash on Monday on this Greenland stuff that I believe his term was there's no offramp and I was telling him look I I I think it's terrible and markets were down but I don't think anybody say down 1% has crash but just based on my feed based on the strategy I see everyone is betting on taco everyone's betting on Trump chickens up and I get it but where I'm trying to drive with this is you can only at some point you write a check and there is no taking it back. And I don't know when that point is, but you can get yourself into such hot water or you can do something so crazy and there's just no taking it back. And whether that is actually like, you know, the the one would be, hey, you actually send troops the the things to Venezuela, go crazy, whatever it is, you can do that or you you know, a lot of these have you say it and then at some point you try to reverse it and yeah, maybe you you know, I thought I actually thought this might happen with the tariffs for a while. You put the tariffs on and then you try to reverse it, but everybody's already changed their strategy. You know, I think Oh, here's here would be a good one. You you say something crazy, right? You say we're going to take you were going to take Greenland and two two days later the response is terrible, markets go crazy, and you say, "Never mind, we're not going to take Greenland." But at one some point, the damage is already going to be done, right? Like the US brand is going to suffer so much. People are going to actually follow through on the dump US Treasuries. People are going to say we can't trust US treasuries. You know, you you see this in emerging markets. It happens. I I guess what I'm saying is there's the I I'm a little bit I'm quite cautious on the markets right now. It just seems like everything's ripping to new highs. It's harder to find value. It's really lowquality stuff that's really ripping and driving this market. I would say quite cautious that I'm quite cautious on the geopolitical thing. I think this taco trade that everybody, you know, the moment it happens and it's weird where, you know, you taco on Greenland and the market closes at, you know, 100, it goes to 98 when you say Greenland, and then it goes to 105 when you say we're not doing Greenland. It's weird like you can drive the market even higher when you say, "Hey, we're not going to do this crazy thing." But at some point there's going to be some crazy thing and it's not going to be walk backable. Even if you can actually walk back the action, the damage of the brand, the damage of the sales, it's going to be done. And I I'm I'm starting to worry we're going to get there. And when that happens, you know, it's not the market's down three, it's the market's down 20. You you have a a geopolitical, you have financial crisis, something weird's going to happen. I I'm I'm worried we're getting there because these things are just getting so effing crazy. And uh yeah, anyway, I don't know. Maybe and look, maybe I'm making too much of it, but it does seem weird that you would have geopolitical headlines of taking Greenland by force. like that it's just it's just so crazy and then to give it up for kind of nothing. Okay, and that was a a true rambling just on the state of the markets, but that's kind of how I feel. And you know, I do think I mean again the I've got the gray hairs on my head. The it it feels tough when everything's ripping up and you're like, "Hey, these are lowquality stocks that are ripping. Everything's ripping." And what's the thing that happened with the crypto? Everyone's getting rich but you. But I there is the other side to this and I I've been through it enough time to know like you want to be on the other side and have the cash because the wash out at some point comes and I'm not saying the markets and crash or anything but there's a lot of lowquality stuff that's uh just ripping non-stop. Okay, let's go to my second thing response to weird markets. So for those of you who who didn't hear it, I did a podcast a week or two ago. It was what I called my working theory of weird markets. And the crux of it is this AI computer the markets are getting so competitive. the AIS are getting so good. Traditional valuation mech traditional ways of uh winning, they're getting competed away, right? The only way to generate alpha going forward is going to be increasingly on the weirder and weirder side. And I got such great feedback and such great responses. So, thank you to everyone who listened. Thank you to everyone who gave uh responses. I I'm just I'm still working on the full post. There'll be a full text post at some point. You know, it's hard to compile all those thoughts just like throwing on your own. just wanted to talk a few things that people said in response that I thought were maybe missed the mark or I thought were interesting but I wanted to run. All right. So the first thing I heard there were two the two most common refrains were hey you know markets if you bought the market in April of 2025 you know at the on the absolute bottom of the Trump trade. Markets are up 30% since then. How can you say markets are weird? How can you not say you can't generate alpha? And my response to that is easy guys. You're literally describing the movement of the indices. You are describing beta. Like that is pure beta. Whether the market goes, you know, if the market goes up from now till the end of the year, if it goes up 4% or 40%, that is beta. That is not alpha. Now, your pocketbook probably feels a lot better if it goes up 40% versus four 4%. But that is beta. You know, alpha would be, hey, I could see where this was going. I knew to short the market on March 1st. I need to cover the the short on April 7th and then like reverse the short and go max long on April 7th, the absolute bottom of the tariff trade. That would be alpha, right? That would be macro alpha. That would be trading it. There are other things you can point to, but you know, just saying, "Hey, the market's gone up a heck of a lot in a short period of time." Absolutely not alpha. That's beta. On a kind of similar vein, a lot of the people who responded would say something along the lines of, "Hey, you know what about Facebook at the end of 2022 when it traded for $100 per share and you know, Jim Kramer was crying on the was crying on TV. What about JP Morgan at the, you know, in the spring of 2023 when it was trading for, I think, eight or nine times price to earnings." And I those are more interesting, right? We're now talking about individual stocks and individual stocks that have generated a heck of a lot of alpha versus uh versus the overall market. But you know again I would just say I if you're going and cherrypicking a past example that is not there was there could have been alpha in the stock but you can't just cherry pick a past example and say hey this stock worked out well you know you have to be able to say like hey there was a systematic reason for the mispricing and if you were a active manager at the time and you loaded the boat on those then yes you generated alpha but again I would say just like being able to cherrybook one example even if an investment manager did that I don't think that like speaks to systematic mispricing in the markets or and that's kind of more what I was driving towards though I there is the single stock piece of it but again I just think going and saying hey you know if you bought Nvidia in early 2023 you did great yes that is true but that does not speak to alpha maybe you were taking on crazy risks you don't know about right we're living in the world where AI boomed what if there was another world where and chat GPT comes out in the summer of 2020 23 or late 2022 or whenever and it's a complete bust and you bought Nvidia saying hey AI is here and you know it turned out to be the metaverse all over again, right? Where people were really hyped about the metaverse for a while and yeah, nobody ended up using it, right? There are other worlds to consider. So just because we're living in this world where Nvidia did great, I don't know if that's the case. What if AI had been three years too soon? So, uh, speaking of AI, the other feedback I got, so a lot of my weird market theory rested on, hey, the AI is getting so good and also, you know, the quant models are getting so good, the competition is so high. uh individ individual investors are it's increasingly hard to use uh fundamental models just say hey this is trading at eight times price earnings and expect to generate alpha like I just don't think there's alpha there and I got several people who said hey Andrew you forget we can use AI too so we can generate AI we can generate alpha using AI and again I think that's false and if you'll let me step into a sports metaphor I'll I'll tell you why uh think about golf clubs and golf I mean what drivers called the drivers are called woods because drivers and stuff literally used to be made out of big wooden heads. Now they're made out of, you know, graphite carbon. They're so strong. They're so light, but they're still called woods. Uh you can't say is would me playing with well I'm a terrible golfer, but would me playing with, you know, modern woods, would that be better than me playing with the woods from 50 years ago? Absolutely. 100%. I'm going to hit the ball farther straight or whatever. But it is not alpha because everyone else plays with modern woods similar to tennis rackets. You know, you think about the pictures in the 50s of people playing with the little tiny ra wooden rackets versus today the the modern strings, everything. Yes, it's an advantage to have a modern racket versus an old racket. But everyone plays with a modern racket. So there is no edge to having the modern racket because everyone's playing with it. Similar to and that's where I'm going with AI, right? You can't say hey Andrew individual investors can use AI too. That is true but there is no edge to something that everyone can use. Now there can be edge you know I think I've used this analogy before sometimes a specific tool amplifies or detracts from a talent and maybe there is edge where you're saying hey you know this specific individual investor is really good at reading management body language but he's really bad at the uh fundamentals and there's another investor who's really bad at reading management body language but he's really good at the fundamentals. Well, 20 years ago, the latter investor who was good at fundamentals, bad at body language, might have had a big edge over the investor who was good at body language, bad at fundamentals, right? But today, if the fundamentals are getting just kind of neutralized by AI, the latter investor, he might be increasingly obsolete, whereas the body language investor might be, you know, his skill set might actually be getting amplified by AI, which can make up for his weaker skills. So I I guess where I'm driving is this AI AI as a tool cannot generate alpha. You cannot say hey Andrew everyone can use AI so I can generate alpha. No it's a tool. Now if you wanted to have a discussion on hey does AI amplify or attract from for specific investors. That's an interesting discussion to have but I don't think it really affects or impacts my weird market thesis unless we wanted to start saying hey there are certain unique investors who it makes it and yeah you know what I think I'm going to wrap it up there. I think those are the the two main points I wanted to hit. Again, it's still an evolving theory. I'd encourage you to go listen to that podcast. I'd love to get feedback on it. I'm still working on a big big post on it that I I'll probably post sometime in February just because, man, writing is hard. Turns out writing is hard. Who knew? Uh let me go to my third thing, and this is what I I was laughing when I said it. These are investments that make me want to slap people. And I've I've literally never hit someone in my life. So, I'm not actually saying I'm going to go physically slap someone, but this is, you know, it is mid to late January right now. Getting investor letters all the time. And I get investor letters from friends. I get investors from investors I kind of know. Sometimes just thanks to having a slightly larger than normal public presence. Sometimes I get investor letters from people I have no clue. Uh, but you know, I'll read I read a lot of these investor letters. And sometimes I'll read an investor letter and the person will be like, "Hey, you know, I spent eight years working at Coca-Cola and then I ran a consumer private goods company for a private equity firm for another five years and then I launched the fund." And my top four of my top five holdings are, you know, consumer emerging consumer package good company one, emerging consumer package good company two, emerging consumer package good three, emerging consumer package goods company four, and then my fifth holding is, you know, oil companies drilling for oil off the coast of Africa. And this is my uh wanting to that's one thing you know obviously that's an extreme example but I think every investor and I'm trying to be better at this every investor has a skill set every investor has edge and when I read these types of letters I I just want to go to that fund manager and be like hey man like you obviously have a skill set you obviously have alpha uh maybe not obviously have alpha but you obviously have edge you obviously have skill in this one specific area why do you feel the need to go outside and do this thing that you have like not only do you have no edge. I think you might have negative edge when you're when you're going to do that. You know, again, in my example, you're you're domestic CPG focused and you're going to emerging oil company. Like, I think you're probably the psycher table. So, I I I say that because it's something I say that because it's a rambling, but it's also something I'm trying to hold myself to a little bit more, too, right? where I look at a lot of companies and I think in the past I've gotten in trouble when I've tried to use someone else's skill set and layer it onto someone else's skill set, someone else's thesis and layer it onto mine. You know, I see a lot of people with unbelievable thesises where they've done uni unbelievable due diligence. But when I've like kind of stretched I guess you know when you invest when you look at something that somebody else has done great diligence on one of the issues can be you do confirmatory diligence not your own thinking and your own diligence. And my history has been when I've stepped outside of what I think is my core skill set. Now maybe I'm using the benefit of hindsight to say that was core and that wasn't. when I've stepped outside of my core skill set and invested in something where I think somebody's done great work and I'm excited and probably my my research and my thinking goes more to confirming what they're saying versus actually thinking through those have generally been my worst losses. So this is rambling but I guess what I'm trying to say is a if you see me investing something and you're like hey that's not Andrew's course still you can call me out. And one thing I'm trying to be better at when I'm talking to my friends, and it can be a little awkward, but being like, "Hey man, you're buying emerging offshore oil company." Like, is that really your skill set? If that is your skill set, awesome. But, you know, for a lot of my friends, I don't think that's that's their skill set. And I'd rather them spend the time, the focus, get the returns because I can't tell you how many letters I read where it's like, "Hey, we were up 2% this year. The market was up 10%. Our core longs were up 8% or our core longs were up 20%. Except for this one thing where we stepped outside our skis and it was down 30%. And it canceled out all the great the great things. And then you go read the letter their letter the year before and they'll say, "Hey, you know, the market was up 15%, we're up 6%, our core longs were up 30%, but this one thing was down 40% and it canceled out all the returns." Be like, "Dude, for four years in a row, your biggest loser has been this offshore oil company. It seems like you're maybe even doubling down on it over time." And like at some point, let's just say, hey, let's go swing at what we're really good at. All right, so that's investments that make me want to slap people. Uh, quick talk on power laws. You know, I I've said it on this podcast before. There it's gotten increasingly popular for people to talk about. And and there's a stat that looks something like this. Over the past 50 years, you know, 40 stocks have driven the vast majority of stock market returns. And I I think it's really interesting. And it's a stat that compounder bros used to love. But I I want to spend some more time thinking about this because one thing that strikes me, you know, say you're Walmart. You're the largest company in the index. And I I just chose Walmart because they're big. I I wasn't specifically calling them up. And for the next 20 years, your stock does 4% per year. Well, that's a terrible, terrible return, right? Barely more than inflation. Probably less than bonds are yielding these days. That that's an awful return. But if you were the largest company in the index and you did that 4% per year for 20 years, you're actually still going to account for a decent chunk of the index's return versus say you're, you know, the S&P 500. Say you're the 480th largest company. You get added in year, you're in it in year one and in year one your stock goes up 20% and then you announce a deal to get acquired for a huge premium, you know, a 75% premium. So your stock basically doubles that year. Well, in a 20-year time horizon, you know, you're you're not going to you're going to recount for literally 0% of the index's return, right? You're way less than that company that went up 4% per year for 20 years, but your stock obviously did much better, right? So, anyway, just something I've been thinking about where I'm seeing a lot of the power loss quotes where it's basically what compounders say, right? You you find the best company, you hold it for 20 years, and that's true. That would be great. Very tax efficient. You know, if you bought Walmart in 1970, if you bought Birkshire in 1970, if you bought Nvidia in 2000, if you uh Nathan's Famous is one that I I was involved in briefly that just yesterday announced the buyout and I the buyout premium was probably disappointing, but you know, if you have bought Nathan's Famous, which owns the hot dog brand, the fast food concepts that everybody's probably familiar with, mainly from the July 4th hot dog eating contest, if you have bought Nathan's Famous 20 years ago, I mean, the stock's been a home run because it was a franchise royalty stream. They paid out dividends, great business, grew a little bit. Uh, it's been great. So, yes, there are power loss that, but I I wonder if they're getting a little overstated in their All right, last thing. Again, just random rambling, so I'm just going to jump right to it. Uh, I I mentioned I believe it was last month in my random ramblings. Things people change their mind on. And one thing that I've been thinking about people changing their mind on that I think is also an interesting tale risk. And I might have mentioned this a few times, but you know, uh, vices is one that I've really changed my mind on. You know, I I I've got a pretty strong libertarian streak. I mean, people should be able to do what they want to do, I would say. And if you'd ask the younger me with a fuller head of hair and less gray 10 years ago, I'm like, yeah, basically all vices should be legal and people should be able to make their own decisions. Now, you know, 12-year-olds shouldn't be allowed to get access to whatever drug you're talking about, right? Like probably some age limits are appropriate, but uh once people are of legal age and can make rational decisions, they should, you know, make their own decisions and go their own way and everybody should be allowed left to their own devices. I always believe that, but I will tell you, I'm no longer sure that's the case. And and I'll point to two specific places. You know, cannabis cannabis isn't getting increasingly legalized. Uh it might come off the federal permits at some point. And I I was always a fan like hey if alcohol is legal across the country why shouldn't cannabis be legal across the country and I still kind of believe that but I also would say like look the cannabis that people were smoking at Woodstock in the 70s you know it it would get you high I'm sure I can't say I've smoked cannabis in the 70s I don't know but you know the stuff today is so potent and so strong and so engineered uh I I I don't know and you know I the same thing with gambling. I always thought gambling should be legal and then people could decide if they wanted to go gamble or not. And I kind of believe that. But when you look at DraftKings and you look at online g even and freaking gambling even gaming like these things are so fine gaming and I'm specifically thinking of freetoplay gaming like you know the Candy Crush stuff these things are so finely tuned to addict you to get you to keep playing all that sort of stuff and having on your phone it it it I I'm starting to think like hey maybe it's not good for society. Maybe it's not good for people. And I understand that goes against a libertarian streak, but maybe it's just like, hey, it's a libertarian thing, but it also is coming again like humans weren't designed to, you know, our bodies weren't designed to process this uh cannabis this strong. You know, it's unnatural. It wasn't designed to be able to resist the lure of the phone, right? And particularly when it's gaming and you know, I'm thinking about sports betting, right? He it was cool when you could if you had to It is cool if you can drive to a casino and go and say, "Hey, I want to bet 20 bucks on the Yankees to win today's game or whatever, right? That's awesome. But when it's on your phone and you can do it in a heartbeat without even thinking about it and you can do it not just in the Yankees to win, but you know, you can bet on the next ball or the next strike or all this sort of stuff. And you can do it without a thought and you could burn, you know, serious amounts of money wast without even thinking about it." like and that I guess taking away the people's checks and inhibitions just because it's on your phone and it's so fast versus you know if it's in a casino you have to decide you want to go to the casino you have to drive there you have to get the cash out all that sort of stuff I I I increasingly wonder if there should be like the libertarian hates to say it but if there should be some state imposed limits on hey all of these things are so engineered like humans just weren't designed and society would be better off if there were some limitations on them and you know maybe that is in my, you know, if I was dictator for a day, I'd probably do like, hey, gaming's legal everywhere, but online gaming is not. Hey, cannabis is legal everywhere, but you can't make it so strong that, you know, you get 500 hits of the old stuff in one thing. And I think alcohol probably falls into this, right? Like I I I can't say I'm insanely familiar with specific alcohol limits, but you know, we do beer and wine. Uh beer wine has specific alcohol contents and you can sell beer wine in specific places. And then liquor has specific alcohol contents. It's much stronger and you need a different license to sell that and you can sell that in different places and uh maybe a small step. But those were the two things I was just thinking of. Hey, these are things I've changed my mind and to bring it to investing. You know, I do wonder uh DraftKings predict prediction markets all those things they trade at pred draftkings got hit a little bit over the past few months as prediction market the rise of prediction markets but Robin would probably fall into this bucket as well. I I do wonder if there is, hey, you're investing them and you'll make a return and you'll probably make a little bit of alpha from it, but I wonder if some of that alpha that you capture investing them over the next 5 to 10 years, assuming that there is alpha, is actually paying you for the tail risk of, hey, Andrew is right. You know, there is or not even that Andrew is right, but there is some risk that a government at some point comes and says, hey, we need to change this, right? DraftKings. And it doesn't have to be banning all sports betting for DraftKings. If you ban parlays, right? DraftKings makes all their money on parlays, which are where you combine, you know, you don't just bet the Yankees to win, you bet the Yankees to win and score more than five runs or something. These those are insanely profitable for the books and they're very popular among the youths and some of my friends uh because you can do these parlays and you know, you bet 10 bucks and if you string them together, right, 10 bucks to win a thousand, 10 bucks to win a million. the the book takes a huge pick from them, right? I wonder if there's going to be some crackdown on parlays, and if there were, that would take away their most profitable revenue source, and I think it would be good for society. Um, Robin Hood, some crackdown on zero day trading, you know, does does trading zero day options, does that really create economic value? Probably not. Uh, I know right now it seems like the markets are going the other way. It seems like every market wants to go to a 247 model. I think that's actually a really bad idea, but we can talk about that another time. But it seems like it's going to everyone can trade anything all the time whenever they want. And the libertarian me says, "Great, that's awesome." And the market structure person in me says, "Hey, maybe this isn't good for society." And I wonder if there's a risk at some point of, "Hey, if we had a stock market crash, are there lots of rules and regulations that come along and say, hey, let's limit the trading. Let's limit and by the way, let's take away the zero day trading options." Like, I don't think it's impossible. So, all right, I've rambled enough. This has been a lot of fun. As always, these are just my ramblings. I'm not saying like any of these are lifelong core convictions of mine. I'm always happy to talk. Always happy to chat. Hit me up in the show notes. Hit me up over email. Whatever it is, I'm always happy to chat about this. Always happy to chat about how to improve the podcast, how to do anything. So, I'm here if you want to talk. Um, look, thanks so much. See the disclaimers at the end. Uh, it is January 22nd. We've got some great podcast coming up in the near future, too. I will mention that. Uh, looking forward to chatting you then. 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.