Seismic Market Rotations with Travis Prentice, CIO of Informed Momentum Company
Summary
AI Infrastructure: The guest highlights a major rotation toward AI-driven hardware needs—memory, compute, and data center buildouts—benefiting physical-world enablers over software.
Physical Economy Shift: Expect leadership in engineering and construction, semiconductors, and other real-economy assets as AI demands tangible infrastructure and power.
Micro Caps: After prolonged underperformance, micro caps could inflect as breadth improves and capital flows potentially re-favor smaller public companies.
Nearshoring: Supply chains moving closer to home catalyze demand for construction, materials, and industrial capacity, reinforcing the AI infrastructure build.
Software Headwinds: Application software and knowledge-based services face disruption from AI, explaining recent underperformance versus hardware and industrial beneficiaries.
Capital Flows: Private equity and private credit pressures, alongside strain in passive concentration, may redirect funding toward public equities, aiding small and micro caps.
IPO Revival: Policy shifts like semiannual reporting and lower burdens could revive public listings, helping capital formation for emerging companies.
No Specific Tickers: No single stocks were pitched; the focus remained on momentum-driven processes and sector-level opportunities within AI infrastructure and industrials.
Transcript
Welcome to the Planet Micro Cap podcast, the number one destination for everything micro cap investing. I'm your host, Robert Craft, and each week I sit down with elite investors, CEOs, and market experts to uncover actionable insights and real world lessons you can apply immediately. Are you a new or experienced micro cap investor? Do you want to meet Microcap management teams as well as other micro cap investors from around the world? Planet Microap hosts the highest quality in-person micro cap events in North America. The mission is to bring the best micro cap investors, companies, and allocators together to gather, connect, and grow. Visit planetmicrocap.com to learn more about our Las Vegas and Toronto events. Now, a quick disclaimer. This presentation is forformational purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation to purchase or sell any security referenced herein. Planet Microap holdings LLC and Microap Club LLC are not licensed brokers nor registered investment advisors. We our partners, contractors, members, subscribers, guests, or affiliates may or may not hold positions in one or more of the securities mentioned in this presentation and may trade in such securities at any time. We may have received cash compensation from one or more participants for presenting at past, present, or future events. We recommend you consult a licensed investment adviser, broker, or legal counsel before purchasing or selling any securities referenced in this presentation. In this episode of the Planet Micro Cap podcast, I spoke with Travis Prrentice, CIO of Informed Momentum Company to break down what he's seeing beneath the surface of today's market and where capital is actually flowing next. We dive into the concept of informed momentum, where price meets fundamentals, and why a faster, more disciplined approach is critical in a market increasingly driven by AI infrastructure and a shift back to the physical economy. Travis shares why breath matters more than ever in capturing outsized winners, how to spot highquality momentum versus noise, and why micro caps after a long stretch of underperformance may be setting up for a meaningful turn. This is a conversation focused on process, discipline, and staying aligned with what the markets is doing, not what you think it should do. We mentioned several companies and sectors during this conversation. I'm not a shareholder in any of them. Thank you again for tuning in to the Planet Microcap podcast and please enjoy my conversation with Travis Apprentice. Travis, thank you for joining me today. How you doing? >> Good, good. How are you, Mr. Craft? >> Oh, Mr. Craft is doing okay. You know, my you know, he's doing well chilling out in Palm Springs, but uh myself, you know, >> a good one. Yeah. >> Yeah. You know, we're uh we're making it work, that's for sure. >> So, the weather's good on Planet Micro Cap, huh? The >> the weather is nice on Planet Micro Cap. You know, it's uh I That's very funny. I have to I have to think of a better comeback now for that one. You know, at some point you're starting off the first one to you know, you were the first one to ever say like, "Oh, how's the weather on planet?" It's like, "Ah, you know what? Now I have to like do I go think of like the actual planet that is comparable to a planet micro cap." >> I Well, I'm in San Diego and I think the answer is always it's always sunny on planet micro cap, right? >> There we That is true. That is >> I love that. Or maybe it's, you know, it's March in the market and we're going through a lot of stuff. So maybe partly cloudy. I don't know. >> You know what? You know what? There's You know what it should be? It's like it's it's it's it's 70°. It's nice. It's sunny with always a chance of rain. How about that? >> That That's That's my That that and maybe even a thunderstorm and maybe a tornado. You know, you never know. It might >> you you wear glasses, but you have you wear sunglasses, but you have an umbrella with you just in case. >> Yeah. You're you're just ready for every single season that could come your way. That's for sure. Jeez, Louise. Oh my goodness. Everyone's already sick and tired of us trying to figure out this uh this uh uh metaphor. But you know, look, I I invited you back on because one, it's been a while since we had you on uh back I think our first interview we did that back in June 2023 talking about informed momentum. I I'm assuming you love that interview so much you decided to rebrand the entire company from EAM to Informed Momentum Company, right? I'm just >> Yeah, absolutely. That was that was the aha moment we had. >> That was the Yeah. like made made all the sense in the world. Of course. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what's funny about that is though? It's like, you know, a lot of names in our business for whatever reason have these like allegorical they're like double meanings. They're uh symbolism and we were just like, "Hey, inform momentum is our philosophy and process. Might as well just name the company that. It's what we do every day." So, we went the opposite of double meaning, just straightforward transparency. I mean, you know, I I didn't know if you were going to figure out another like new leaf, you know, to add on, you know? >> Yeah. Or another rock. Another rock or leaf capital, you know, like that. That always works, you know. I wish somebody would just do that and just like call them tree rock leaf capital. Just like we're not we're not even going to try. We are just going to be tree rock leaf capital at some point, you know? >> That's that's a good one. >> Someone you got to trademark that >> 100%. So, last time we talked, let's get we're going to get into some stuff now. Okay everybody, now we're going to get serious. Here it is. So, you know, in our in our last conversation, you described the approach, you know, informed momentum, combining price trends with the layer of fundamental awareness. Since then, how would you say that framework has evolved? And are there any signals or filters you're weighing more heavily today? >> Yeah, that's a great question. And I think the fundamentals of what we do in terms of always focusing on, you know, stocks that are doing well intersected with businesses that are improving is steadfast. You know, we're always dedicated to that because we think over the long term it works. But I think you have to challenge yourself. You have to evolve. You have to challenge the signals you're using and always get better at it. So we're always probing and proddding and challenging the signal capture that we use uh across all our strategies including micro cap strategies. Um so a lot of the research we've done more recently has really been in that vein. So you know one of the research projects we did was actually look at the momentum formation period in terms of how long should a look back be when you consider a company that's outperforming. You know the standard academic one is a 12 minus one you've probably heard about which is you know the last 12 months of stocks performance versus a selection universe uh except for the most recent month. That's like the standard academic definition of momentum. And we just did a study about a couple months ago that suggested that while the 12 minus one works over the long per long term like going back to 1926 as everyone cites right in the French data um but over the last uh 20 or so years um having a little bit more recency bias works a bit better. So you want to be a little bit quicker twitched I guess in momentum recently and I guess that makes sense when you consider you know how much information is out there and how quick it gets disseminated. Um so that's one thing that um you know we've kind of confirmed is that you want to be have a little bit more recency bias when you when you consider a company's outperformance a stock price's outperformance. Um we've also done um on the same vein just thinking about how a company becomes a high momentum security. So the manner in which momentum manifests itself actually matters. So the more volatile that performance stream has been um and also the the less gradual the lower the risk return. So set another way the less volatile and more gradual a momentum formation period is or the more continuous it is the better the risk adjusted return. So we've incorporated that kind of knowledge within our process as well. So yes we evolve and we get better uh we try to get better every day. Yeah, I assumed it was yes, but you know, we always like to know how and why, right? >> Yeah. Sorry, that was a long answer, but um >> No, it's >> it's better than just yes, cuz I think everyone would say that, but uh what do you have to prove that? >> Yeah, 100%. And you've also emphasized the importance of breath, you know, uh owning a wide basket of names because outcomes and momentum are probabilistic. So in today's market has that principle held up or have there been moments where concentration has made more sense? >> Yeah, I think for momentum in particular which is what we focus on obviously breath is your friend. So breath is beautiful in a momentum strategy and that has to do with yeah the probabilities but also the positive skew. You need to have enough uh breath in your portfolio in terms of name count to really capture the outliers if you will. So if you concentrate too much, what it in ends up happening is you kind of discount the ones that may be at least perceived riskier in the front end. Um but in a momentum strategy, you really want to capture those outliers because it's those outliers in performance that really drive returns. So breath is beautiful, I think, within a momentum strategy. We actually did a follow-on study um looking at other styles too. So growth of value and quality and we found generally speaking actually in growth and quality which is a little counterintuitive that breath helps as well in terms of riskadjusted returns. So I think there has been and we can get into a lot of this stuff but there has been a within the marketplace uh a large focus on concentration in terms of as asset allocators allocate to active managers there seems to be a very much a a want to have concentration um for various reasons and I think in some strategies that might make sense maybe the things you're looking for only intersect in a very few stocks and that and that makes sense but Um I think it depends on what you're trying to capture and I don't think there's one answer in terms of number of names in a portfolio that is universal. I think it just matters to what you're what you're um trying to seeking to capture in your strategy. Uh but certainly a momentum breath is beautiful. >> So given the current environment are you seeing momentum trends extend shortened or behave differently than in the past especially in in some of the smaller names? I would say it's generally the same because we believe momentum works for largely behavioral reasons. So at the beginning of a trend or at the beginning of positive information, new information, there tends to be an underappreciation of that trend. And so at buy point uh in a momentum strategy, it's these stocks are generally underappreciated. But then part of the payoff structure for momentum is you know at the end of that life cycle is an over extrapolation over an overexaggeration of current trends. So it's like underappreciation to overappreciation is kind of what we believe how why the momentum momentum premium exists. And what we've seen lately more recently and when I say lately you know I've been around this for like 30 years. So when I say lately, take it with a great assault. Over the last 10 years or so, we've seen a uh maybe a little bit more violence in terms of the overappreciation. So when companies are on the right side of trends, they get very exaggerated fairly quickly. So I think and we don't have much evidence to back this up. This is just kind of from a practitioner perspective observing things. Uh but I think we see it like a little bit of more violence in terms of overexaggeration and it's a little bit quicker. So I think um you in momentum always you need to be quick but but right now it's the quick and the dead. So you got to be very quick and efficient and effective. How do you you know for those that may not have a huge emphasis on momentum? I mean this is probably something I was going to ask a little bit later but I might as well follow up on it now. I mean, cuz some folks might be listening in and saying, you know, I yeah, I I follow some momentum, but, you know, I may be a little hamstrung of wanting to make the that decision quicker to get either in or out of of that name or or I'm just not a trader, you know, I'm I'm in the fundamental story and yet here we go. This the stock ran or fel, you know, what have you, but the thesis didn't break. you know, what do you say to those investors when they're trying they're hearing this, they want to better understand the strategy, but also it just goes a little bit against some of what they they normally do? >> Yeah, it's a great question and going against what the average investor wants to do is probably why the mo the premium exists. So, a great example of that is we're actually finishing up a research, we're actually going to publish it probably next week on the 52- week high and how it's such a strong predictor of future outperformance uh over the, you know, the subsequent 6 months. And so, that's a classic example of you would think most investors either when a stock hits a 52- week high, they're either selling into that or they're saying they're too late, right? because who who among us really wants to pay the highest price that anyone's paid for a stock of the last year. However, it's very strong predictor of future returns and I think it gets back to the behavior, right? Cuz if no one wants to do that on average, right? Then if everything else being equal, that's probably an undervalued security. So I would suggest that instead of having emotions drive your decisions, just look at objectivity and say, well, if a stock hits a 52, what's the likelihood of that stock outperforming over the next 6 months? And it turns out it's a very very high probability. So I would say that uh if it's at a high, it's not over likely. Um, and it's not too late uh based upon the evidence empirically. I very much look forward to having you back on when you do publish that that piece. Um, give is there any more from that piece you want to divulge, you know, from from the research that you've seen because who knows, you might be you might be putting it out tomorrow. I don't know. >> No, and look, it's not new. Like, we're not the only ones. It's just what we what we pay attention to as investors is kind of skewed a lot of times. Um, but this is we we always, you know, we're not doing anything really new. who I think were evolving momentum, but these kind of lessons have been known for quite some time. In fact, you know, Richard Dhouse is probably one of the godfathers of momentum investing. You know, he had the famous line, buy high and sell higher. Turns out that was very accurate in terms of the 52- week high research that we're doing. So, um, and Richard Donian back in, you know, the 50s and 60s, uh, same kind of thing. Um, so these lessons aren't really new, but they've kind of been hidden under, you know, what's dominated the market, which has been the rise of passive. Um, you know, quality investing's really kind of taken off over the last 10 years, and value always is kind of the more popular some of the more popular investment styles, but momentum's always on been there persisting through time. But for some reason, there's lots of reasons, but for for various reasons, it tends to get ignored >> for sure. So my next question here uh of my set questions um momentum can and we kind of covered this a little bit but you know let's let's explore a little further but momentum can sometimes be driven by narratives rather than fundamentals. We kind of alluded that already but how do you differentiate between that real momentum that's likely to persist versus the short-term narrative driven moves that could fade quickly? >> Yeah, definitely. And that's probably the most important thing to focus on. And we believe the highest expression of momentum investing is that price is signaling something going on in the business that's positive. Um, so we're always of the mindset of start with what works, right? Like look at momentum is one of the best, you know, factor premium in global equity markets. So start with what works, but we want to elevate it a bit by understanding why that momentum exists in the first place. So we start with momentum but then we ask of every company that we invest in in terms of why is this m why are the signals looking the way they do and really we want to focus on from that just business improvement so not absolute values of growth or anything like that but second derivative type uh questions you know is this business improving fundamentally because when you intersect price trends reflecting business trends that's where you get I think a much higher probability of paying off and a little bit higher ampl litude and better riskadjusted returns. Um so it's marrying price as a signal and when you see price as a signal that's showing guiding you in terms of where businesses are improving. I think that's really what we do and what we think is the highest expression of momentum investing. >> So momentum works well when these trends do persist but in micro caps reversals can be quite sharp. What characteristics tend to show up in positions where momentum does fail? >> Yeah, there, you know, momentum is a discipline where you're going to you're going to take losses. Um, you just want to cut those short as as quickly and as efficiently as you can. Um, so that you know, you're right more than you're wrong, but when you're right, you're really right. And when you're wrong, you're not that wrong. And that's kind of the game uh with momentum. But what we've seen in term and first of all you got to like pick your time frame because I think you you made a a good point in terms of you know the daily noise. So first you got to understand price trends from a uh what what price trends are you seeking to exploit. And when we talk about momentum we're talking about medium-term trends. So trends that will likely persist for 6 to 12 months kind of around that time frame. So that's first is you got to pick your time frame that's most relevant to your your philosophy and process. Um and in that you you tend to avoid some of the reversals that can happen in momentum. But when we're wrong generally speaking it's companies that for whatever reason don't execute. And we know we have a lot of stories of those within within Micro Cap that everything seems to be set up for success, but you know, life happens, the world happens, and a lot of things are unpredictable or most things are unpredictable. So, that's always going to be there. Um, but the mistakes we've made is maybe when the business trends aren't as strong as we thought would be kind of the areas where trends don't persist. And then I would say the last part is just the market environment matters. So every factor that you're exposed to is determined by the market dynamics that are prevailing. So when a momentum strategy doesn't do well is generally when you get very abrupt leadership changes within the market or swift market reversals. So going from a a big selloff to a big rally in a very short period of time kind of like we had around liberation day. those kind of environments where trends are upset and they reverse is when a momentum strategy you wouldn't expect it to do well because at the essence it's it's trend following. So if there's no trend in the market or they're reversing quickly, you know, that's the Achilles heel of a momentum strategy. But thankfully there's those don't generally persist for very long. So now I this is my the next segment I want to get into and that has to do with edge and structural insights and uh really having to do with this AI rotation beneath the surface because that has definitely been >> permeating you know and so the with all this focus on AI at the top of the market you know under the surface leadership may be shifting toward more capital intensive or real economy type businesses. Are you seeing momentum signals confirm that rotation? Oh, absolutely. I think there's two major things that are happening, two major seismic shifts, big changes that are happening in the marketplace that you can see through the lens of trend and price. Um, you nailed one, which is AI. And AI is moving to what we would say is the disruption phase and ground zero for that is software. I mean, you're seeing it today, right, in the market. um where we're seeing what is possible from AI, not just you know chatbt and large language models and having fun with that and obviously great tools but we're seeing what this technology can do in terms of software coding AI agents and things like that. So we're in the disruption phase and that technology the magic of AI is very much in the hardware not the software stack. So you're seeing this massive technology shift and it should benefit and we're seeing it benefit the more physical companies that trade in the physical world and what I mean by that is you know hardware in terms of technology so memory compute power um but even engineering and construction firms materials utilities energy right it's just much more of a physical technology than what we've seen before in the internet and the knowledge based economy me. So that's a major shift. Um, and it has massive ramifications for what's going to work in the market going forward as we've kind of transitioned from a software knowledge driven world to a hardware knowledge is very cheap world. So that has massive ramifications and that's why you're seeing what you're seeing on the other side of trend which is what's not working which is software consultants knowledgebased workers right like that's ground zero for a disruption and I think that's probably why quality investing is having a rough time right now right because if you're looking at what has been profitable what has worked well what has compounded that is what's in the crosshairs of disruption now right so software is a classic example of that. But the other thing that's occurring at the same time that's driving the same types of changes is and I think what what's happening in Iran is another example of this kind of furthering this along is bringing supply chains back home or nearer to home. And that in and of itself from an infrastructure standpoint is going to need the same types of companies that the AI infrastructure needs. Right? So these are all happening at the same time. So you're going from knowledgebased drivers and software to um globalization to something delbalization or nearshoring. So these are massive shifts that we haven't seen in quite some time. So and that's showing up in what's working in the market, right? I mean we can let March aside for a second, but it's got that that the clouds have come in a little bit. So things are a little foggy at the moment on planet Micro Cap and in our world too. And uh but that aside, you're really seeing that in terms of what's working in the market are those two major structural changes. >> What what if you had to think back to a time period where you're seeing these massive structural changes. You know, there's always you can always make a case for certain narratives of big, but I' I'd argue that in 2026 we these are monster narratives that we're dealing with. Yeah. >> What are what what time period does this kind of remind you of that when you when you're thinking about where we're at right now? You know, we're recording this on March 27, 2026. You know, where what what what what's feels familiar? Was it COVID during that time when that all happened? I mean, what do you think? >> I don't know if there's a really good So, I've been in the business since 97. Um, so I mean, I've read obviously history, but I've never experienced I'm not that old yet. only 30 years or so in the business. Um I don't know if I've seen anything quite like this at the same time. Um and I think AI is is at its essence such a disruptive force. I don't think I've ever se I don't think I've seen anything like it. I mean, I guess the allegory or the closest correlary would be maybe, you know, the late '9s with the internet and how it shifted a lot of, you know, businesses, but but even then it was it was it was very um like you could tell, okay, like things are moving online, there's going to be e-commerce, so department stores, okay, yeah, that might be an issue, right? Like no one like so you could but that was kind of confined um in terms of how it dispersed through industries. Whereas AI I think is fundamentally and profoundly can affect so many different industries and there's going to be uh a lot of beneficiaries if they harness the power of AI within so many different industries and there's going to be losers across so many different industries. So in terms of the disruptive scale that AI is showing it's just much larger than anything we've seen I I think I I've seen anyways. Um and that's going to be good and bad. And I think um you know from a micro cap perspective I think this is fundamentally a good thing because what it requires is a lot more companies to make this all work than in the prior cycle. Um, so you think about, you know, before in the in the world of the the virtual, you could just create some code and if it's better than someone else's code, you can just distribute it across the world, right? It's like with incrementally zero cost, right? So very high incremental margins. AI is a fundamentally different technology to make it work. It's a lot of investment and it's a lot of hardware and it's a lot of you need a lot of the physical world to come along with you and you need a participation from a lot of different companies across industries to make it work. So I think from a micro cap perspective, these are actually fundamentally really good things that you need a broader participation of companies to make these things happen. And when you put on infrastructure too, things moving back to the US from a US perspective in micro cap, that's also a positive thing. So, I'm I'm much more um I think the the the the clouds are definitely parting on the planet micro cap and you can see some rays of sunshine in terms of looking forward. >> Oh man, your lips to God's ears right now. You know, everybody I think everybody who's listening in who's a a micro cap fanboy is all like Travis, dude, let's go, man. >> I speak in Vegas right now, dude. >> Well, I have more for you because there's a massive cycle. Well, there's more there's a massive change in cycle too that I believe will help micro cap and it has to do with private equity and private credit um and also the rise of passive. Those three massive forces I think are changing at the moment. And what does that mean for micro cap and and small cap too? I think it means a lot of good things because with what's happening in private credit and private equity because of AI and the disruption you know that private equity is 30 to 40% of their book is SAS software companies so you can imagine it's going to be a little tougher for them than it has been which which means that the capital raising might not be as robust as it's been for the last 25 years or so I mean those businesses you know private equity and private credit have over the last 20 years have increased in AUM somewhere between 10 and 20x right where so a lot of money has gone away from the public markets into the private markets and now the returns are slipping versus public so you have a performance problem and you know I think you could imagine that public equities are going to going forward get a little bit more money than they've had and at the same time as private credit dries up or private equity isn't allocated to as much then maybe we can see some companies going public again, which I think would be very helpful. Um, and certainly the Trump administration seems to be uh seems to be on their agenda in terms of quarterly reporting, moving to maybe semiannually, which I think would be great for for smaller public companies. You know, lowering the cost and the burden, but also the public markets can again go back to financing the innovation. I think that would be fundamentally great for micro cap and small cap companies. And look, I think we've been in this world where it's been dominated by private credit, private equity, and passive for so long. But these things cycle. And so if you just follow the money, I mean, all these things are good ideas. Private credit, private equity, passive is a good idea, but like on Wall Street a lot, they take a good idea and it goes too far and then it becomes a not as such a good idea anymore. So I think we're on the other side of these major cycles. Oh man, I'm definitely clipping that for sure. Uh, and we're putting for for socials that is that again, you know, we've, you know, we talk about it a lot that we just want more good quality companies to go public earlier on in their life cycle and at the end of the day, they just need the right incentive to do so, you know, and absolutely and you know, >> let's see. you know, yeah, >> doesn't help. It doesn't help that it's very expensive to uh still go public in in the US. Um I hope something changes on that front, you know, but the I mean semiannual reporting is one thing, but then also, you know, exchange fees, all that is is a whole other ball game. You know, they they might, you know, they're also looking at this too and seeing like all right, how can we totally make this in a lot more money now with all this stuff? So, >> make going public great again, right? Oh, I would love we're getting that should be our that that should be our hat. I like that. >> Yeah, I think it's gonna I think it's gonna happen. But the other thing that's that I think >> we have to understand is the rise of passive too. And when I say passive um I'm not talking about it's not really passive, right? It's very much an active strategy of market cap waiting your investments which has really really hurt small and micro cap relative, right? I mean, we can't underestimate the impact of that because that's a market in 2000 that was maybe maybe a trillion dollars was passively allocated to globally. Now that's up to 20 trillion by some estimates. So you've gotten 20x a rise in allocating capital not by anything fundamental but by the market cap of a company which has really crushed on a relative basis small and micro cap. And you can see that over the last 10 years, right? So you're seeing a little breakage with that now though in terms of only large market caps dominating the market. You see this year that it's the it's not the mag seven anymore, it's the miserable seven, right? So I think that is also a great idea that's gone too far. And I think if you just get a little bit of an allocation out from a market cap weighted algorithm, you could see a pretty dynamic scenario shaping up for small and micro cap stocks. Uh that I don't think has been the case for a long time. So to your audience, if you've survived being a micro cap manager and a small cap manager over the last 20 years, you've done a really good job because you've had a lot of forces uh against you. You've had a lot of headwinds. But look, things cycle. That's just how long it takes to cycle and we we've definitely endured a long cold winter >> for that is for sure you know. So going back to to uh some of my questions regarding you momentum and you know where things are at from momentum perspective h how do you avoid getting pulled into moves where price is rising but signal quality is deteriorating? The main reason I want to ask is now that we've kind of covered a little bit of, you know, what's going on, how it relates to micro caps, you let's give some some practical knowhow for folks that aren't uh, you know, momentum type investors. >> Yeah, I would say I think it goes back to what we were talking about. I think so we look at the world from a systematic perspective, right? We're we're systematic quantitative oriented investors. So we we care much more about objective data and objective signals but we also understand we want to know the reasons why they look the way they do but I think the first step is just identifying the characteristics that you want to that that are associated with uh positive outperformance right so for us we take a very holistic signal capture perspective on momentum so we combine you know price signals uh volume signals 52 week high that we talked about um but also fundamental signals too. So positive revision and positive estimate or positive surprise on earnings. And so when you combine both the kind of the the fundamental and the price based signals of momentum, I think you get a good um you get a really good pond to fish in. So I I would first I would say have a very robust front-end process because there's a lot of micro cap small cap companies out there, right? There's a ton to choose from. In fact, you have a lot of them at your conferences, right? So to be able to to focus on that uh calendar of events to focus on which are the socks you want to you want to really put your time on that's really important in small and micro cap especially globally like we manage global micro cap right so you're talking about 10,000 companies or more right so so be be very refined in terms of the situations that you want to focus your time on that's what I would say up front and then I would say really get understand you know why the signals are the way they are and to to which you can kind of understand at least a little bit because nothing is sustainable over the long term, but for a foreseeable, you know, a medium-term horizon that they're on the right side of trend from from a a a kind of barebones fundamental perspective, you can see it happening in the trend on on the business. You can see the positive trends developing within their financials. So, I would I would say don't try to predict anything, but look at what is actually happening and be quick to recognize that. um both price-wise but also businesswise and why because if you know why then you can kind of ascertain whether it will pay you in an investable horizon. >> So quick yeah no 100%. So quick followup to that I mean you know because that you literally hit on one of my questions was you know what signals tell you that a trend is sustainable versus just a short-term spec. I mean you kind of hit on why it's sustainable. It's like, okay, you see the moves, maybe go verify with, you know, a recent Q, recent K, you know, recent news release, new contract with, like, there's things that you can kind of be like, okay, this makes sense. This, you know, they're they're walking the walk, proof in the pudding, there's the release, there's the news, there's an interview where they talked about it. Okay, >> I can I can understand that. You know, on the other side, let's say you see some of those spikes and you're trying to assess whether this is a short-term spike versus a sustainable move or trend in in that direction. What are some of the things that you look for when you're saying, "All right, I didn't see that contract, man. All right. I didn't see they didn't make as much money this quarter as they did last, but this still like what what are some of the things that you that ultimately end up being red flags of like, okay, this was definitely a short-term spike. >> Um red flags would be a lack of transparency. So, you mentioned maybe it's a contract um that they announce with someone like a big comp like maybe not even a big company, but if they're not saying who it is, there's not a there's not a quote from that company from like the management of that other company saying how important this contract is to them, that's a red flag. If there's no Yeah, there's no monetary value behind the contract, that's a that's a red flag. Um, and I think overall if it doesn't fit the general business, that's also a red flag. So like you see a lot of companies trying to transition doing different things. And if it's kind of out of the blue and doesn't make sense, like you're like, how did you do a contract in this particular business when you've been trying to find success in this side of the business? You know, there's a there's some red flags. from a practitioner perspective and observing things. Those would be kind of the big three to me is like if there's a contract, name the company, uh, and then also name the value and when it's going to happen and then make sure it makes sense within their business, um, that they've been, you know, that they've been managing. I mean, I don't know if you you you spend your time doing this sometimes, but I mean, you're in small micro cap, so this, you know, this is an unfortunate part of, you know, our space, but do you have do you subscribe to like a stock promotion tracker or something just to be like, all right, let me just make sure this isn't a promote, you know, because it very much could be right now versus, okay, this is actually, you know, you know, they're they're just announcing good news and this is good quality stuff and, you know, it's not just, you know, big huge win into, you know, or or even just see if there's a a shelf, you know, hanging out there or something like that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um I would no what we use uh at IMC and we manage strategies actually across the market cap perspective. Um now so our foundation has been small and micro cap uh our history is built on that. Our foundation is built on that but we actually manage across uh market caps now. So it it actually gives us a really nice perspective now when we do small and micro cap to have our research go across uh market cap spectrums globally too. So EM non- US uh and the US um we use publicly available information. So no like like stock promoters and stuff like that we don't consume anything. It's all publicly available information but we also have uh relationships with uh research brokerage firms you know across the world and that's our primary sources of information. Um, but we we always also consume, you know, transcripts as well, which I think are very pretty valuable, especially with AI tools now that we've kind of built within our process that allows us to take all this these text, all this text data and actually consume it very quickly and exactly what we want out of all this information. Um, so that's been very powerful. But that's our source of information and we kind of keep it to those those sources by design. Um just we just want to know exactly like from a filing perspective like we can see earnings accelerate, we can see revenue expansion. Um I guess they can always lie on their filings but you know as a terms of a source of truth that's pretty close that you can get. So when it when you when it comes to let's say finding a new idea or you know you're start you've had it on the watch list and you're or or made just just idea generation in general and then with the and then and putting the strategy to work how what what are some of your processes that you do because I'm sure there's times where you know it might be very the next day where you start to see kind of the the price momentum and underlying business momentum start to diverge and you're like wait hold what oh I haven't I haven't even done all the work yet like what the heck is going on like I you know so how do you think about that when it comes to u you know deploying the strategy and then idea generation and then ultimately then sizing into a position >> yeah and our process is a constant vigil I mean it's an everyday approach everyday mentality um and we think momentum is literally like hand handtohand combat trench warfare I mean it's It's it's work. You know, you come in every day and you have to move. Um that's both on identifying new trends, but also not overstaying your welcome when trends reverse. Um so it's definitely an everyday type of strategy. We think if you do it well, that's what you have to do. And so when we talk about rebalancing or when we move the portfolio, it's truly a daily process. It's every single day uh moving towards strength and away from weakness overall. So we very much believe that there's a lot of alpha to be added on to just the momentum premium if you're willing to move when the signals move. And so when we talk about rebalancing it's every day incrementally every day but every day. Um and so we have a very robust capture um idea capture in the front end like on our discovery pro we call it the discovery process where we're identifying companies across the world you know every single day day in and day out. So we'll have a handful of ideas that meet our requirements each and every day. Um and so we move from identification to analysis, you know, within hours, right, of a of a market closing across the world. We have a we have a list spit out to us of like, okay, here here are your top ones based upon everything you look at. Here it is. And then it becomes incumbent upon our team to then take that yield and then understand the you know the analysis part the company analysis part and looking very specifically for the sit fundamental situations that we want to exploit. So it's a daily thing and we move from idea to investment within days right it's the quick and the dead and again in momentum. You want to be early to trend to capture the early part of the trend. But on the other side also you want to move away from trends because the biggest when they reverse. So the biggest risk in a momentum strategy is overstaying your welcome. So we know based upon our research and others that when stocks are on the right side of trend, it's very powerful. It's persistent through time. It's robust. But this the alpha signal will decay. So on average, if you buy a company that has done well over the last 12 months, there's a high probability that it will continue to do well, but only for about the next 6 to 10 months after that momentum formation period. So what that means is you got to move, right? So if you overstay your welcome, that's the probably the biggest risk in a momentum strategy because it will turn against you again as expectations catch up to reality. Um then the momentum premium kind of goes away. So you got to be quick to the trend when it when it manifests itself, but then get out when it when it reverses. So that's a daily process to do it well. >> You know, from your your 30 years experience, I'm going to use the 30 years experience question. Here we go. uh from from a momentum 30-year experience perspective, what would you say have been the most sustainable trends in micro caps that tends to work each time when you're when you're looking at a business again from that momentum lens? >> Mhm. I would say it's always different. So flexibility would be the most important thing. Apt adaptability. But there's a certain things we find in companies that occurs again and again in outperformers. And one is innovation. So when companies are launching new products that have early traction or new services that have early business traction in terms of revenue that is gener generally associated with positive outcomes. And then I also think um the other the other thing that we see most often in our winners is um transformation or um reinvention probably is a better word where either through a company that has a transformational M&A that happens or new management team or better management team that comes in and kind of changes the future or just improving market dynamics. Those are kind of the the central themes that we see at play in a you know from an idiosyncratic or stock specific perspective that generally are the reasons why the momentum exists. So I I would say it's it's always a different flavor of those things but if I would put it into buckets it's look for innovation and look for reinvention and generally you'll kind of get this expectations uh alpha right as as expectations change. So low expectation to then mild to high expectations that that that kind of cycle that a company goes through um I think is what we see most often. >> Absolutely. So another question I have for you is a you know we talked a little bit about entry but you know exits are just as important in momentum strategies. What does your sell discipline look like and where do most investors get it wrong when they're trying to employ a momentum strategy? Well, I think generally speaking, most people get it wrong when uh emotions take over um or biases. And I would say those are kind of the same thing. But um so we just know by doing this for so long that the the only variables that matter in in momentum or really any stock is the amplitude of outperformance. So how much is it out that stock outperformed by and how long has that been occurring? So the duration of that outperformance. So as the amplitude is high and the duration becomes long, the lower the probability of that continuing that outperformance continuing. So those are the variables that we pay attention to. Um and then also you're going to get things wrong. So so I think the biggest thing is one not overstaying your welcome and taking gains as they come in. So as companies go through kind of an extraordinary value creation, you want to kind of take some off the table because you never know when it's going to end. So I would say, you know, ring the register, take some gains and then reinvest it uh in companies earlier on in that in that cycle. And then I would say but but where most people get it wrong is when things go wrong at the company and especially when they've worked, there's a hesitancy to move on because that's your winner, right? That's your pride. That's your your your your stock that you've invested in. And then when it's on the other side of the trend, there tends to be this kind of, oh, it's just one quarter of underperformance. You know, they'll be fine. I'm a long-term investor. Like all those things where it's like if if things are the reason why you owned it is now reversing. Like so revisions are going the wrong way now. Maybe they missed the quarter. These are all signals that that trend is is is probably over. And so you just got to be unemotional about that, right? Not not attached and just move on. And I think that's where most people where a momentum strategy can go really wrong is if you don't if you're not disciplined on the sell side and in a strategy that relies on process and discipline. What would you say separates investors who succeed from those who get pulled off track aside from you know probably leaning too much into emotion? >> Yeah. Um I really think it's just grit. It's just persistence. I think that's what separates it is not that can you do this very well at certain points in time it's doing it every single day well all the time through time no matter what's happening in the market I think that's what separates uh the good from the great you know is just doing it every single day and that persistence that it takes um to do that I think is totally underrated you know it's like you can have a great strategy but if you don't win every single Hey, then you're opening yourself up for for not winning at the end of the day. So, I think it's just about a daily grind that that that you seek and like you actually have joy from, you know, and you don't you don't really judge yourself on the outcome of every day. You judge yourself on the did you drive the process to the best of your ability every day and then the results will like likely take care of themselves. But I think sometimes you get off track because you have just this scoreboard, this short-term scoreboard that's driving your emotional state, whereas you at the end of the day, this is a business. So don't get caught up in your your personal view of yourself in terms of the outcomes of every day. And I think sometimes uh you know that herbs and people get frustrated because they internalize some of these outcomes uh rather than um finding joy in other parts of the of your life. >> Listen, it's not personal. Well, it's strictly business, right? You know, >> absolutely. Uh, so look, ego gets you in trouble, right? And so, as much as you can detach yourself >> from what you're doing, I think the better better you off you are. >> And I think that go that's uh that goes across the board when it comes to being at both. I can't tell you how many email frustrated emails I've written out and realize like, okay, I'm going to that was nice. I felt good. And then you just don't send it. You know, it's >> count to 10. >> Yeah. Very much very much applies here. Um, so Travis, my final question for you today because you I mean you we've covered so much and I'm sure you'll be back on hopefully not in another three years, but to to kind of give an update, but for investors trying to navigate today's market, whether they're in micro cap, small cap, large, what have you, what would you say is the one principle or fra framework that served you well throughout your career uh from from you from deploying this momentum strategy? Wow, that's a great question. I would say um gosh, being open-minded um and intellectually curious. Those two things together I think are really important and and are and I I think are high they're like uh KPIs for success I think in investing. Um and flexibility I think goes along with that, right? Like I just not trying to predict or wanting the world to be the way you want it to be. just try to see it for what it is instead of like what you want it to be or what should work. You know, I always hear this kind of oh this should work and it's like well I you know that this shouldn't be in your vocabulary. It's like what is working? What is actually happening? Um, so I think like especially when in days like this where there's so many big changes happening is just to be open-minded, intellectually curious, and unbiased and just move to where you see the trends and and not really spend a lot of time thinking about what it should be and just look, it's hard it's hard enough now to try to figure out what's actually happening, let alone trying to predict anything. So I would just say be flexible, be open-minded, and and be intellectually curious. And I think um that will serve you well over time. Very good. All right, Travis, we've, like I said, we've covered a lot here today. I'm sure I'll have you back on at some point. Uh, for those that want to learn more about the Informed Momentum company and strategy, where can our audience go and uh find everything they need to know? >> Yeah, you can go to ww.informedmomentum.com and you'll find everything we have there from all of our strategies to all of our research that I kind of talked about. We publish it right on our website and available to everyone. So you can go check it out. >> Very good. And that's www.wininformed.com. >> informed momentum.com. >> informed momentum.com. Very good. >> Or just uh well, I was going to say just Google informed momentum, but no, you got to chat GBT it or Jim and I it because it's not that's not a thing anymore googling it. >> Or it'll just come up on our interview from three years ago. Or maybe this, you know, we don't know. Um well well Travis, thank thank you again for doing this, man. Really do appreciate it. Good luck. Stay safe and uh I'll look forward to our next update. Awesome. Thank you. It was fun.
Seismic Market Rotations with Travis Prentice, CIO of Informed Momentum Company
Summary
Transcript
Welcome to the Planet Micro Cap podcast, the number one destination for everything micro cap investing. I'm your host, Robert Craft, and each week I sit down with elite investors, CEOs, and market experts to uncover actionable insights and real world lessons you can apply immediately. Are you a new or experienced micro cap investor? Do you want to meet Microcap management teams as well as other micro cap investors from around the world? Planet Microap hosts the highest quality in-person micro cap events in North America. The mission is to bring the best micro cap investors, companies, and allocators together to gather, connect, and grow. Visit planetmicrocap.com to learn more about our Las Vegas and Toronto events. Now, a quick disclaimer. This presentation is forformational purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation to purchase or sell any security referenced herein. Planet Microap holdings LLC and Microap Club LLC are not licensed brokers nor registered investment advisors. We our partners, contractors, members, subscribers, guests, or affiliates may or may not hold positions in one or more of the securities mentioned in this presentation and may trade in such securities at any time. We may have received cash compensation from one or more participants for presenting at past, present, or future events. We recommend you consult a licensed investment adviser, broker, or legal counsel before purchasing or selling any securities referenced in this presentation. In this episode of the Planet Micro Cap podcast, I spoke with Travis Prrentice, CIO of Informed Momentum Company to break down what he's seeing beneath the surface of today's market and where capital is actually flowing next. We dive into the concept of informed momentum, where price meets fundamentals, and why a faster, more disciplined approach is critical in a market increasingly driven by AI infrastructure and a shift back to the physical economy. Travis shares why breath matters more than ever in capturing outsized winners, how to spot highquality momentum versus noise, and why micro caps after a long stretch of underperformance may be setting up for a meaningful turn. This is a conversation focused on process, discipline, and staying aligned with what the markets is doing, not what you think it should do. We mentioned several companies and sectors during this conversation. I'm not a shareholder in any of them. Thank you again for tuning in to the Planet Microcap podcast and please enjoy my conversation with Travis Apprentice. Travis, thank you for joining me today. How you doing? >> Good, good. How are you, Mr. Craft? >> Oh, Mr. Craft is doing okay. You know, my you know, he's doing well chilling out in Palm Springs, but uh myself, you know, >> a good one. Yeah. >> Yeah. You know, we're uh we're making it work, that's for sure. >> So, the weather's good on Planet Micro Cap, huh? The >> the weather is nice on Planet Micro Cap. You know, it's uh I That's very funny. I have to I have to think of a better comeback now for that one. You know, at some point you're starting off the first one to you know, you were the first one to ever say like, "Oh, how's the weather on planet?" It's like, "Ah, you know what? Now I have to like do I go think of like the actual planet that is comparable to a planet micro cap." >> I Well, I'm in San Diego and I think the answer is always it's always sunny on planet micro cap, right? >> There we That is true. That is >> I love that. Or maybe it's, you know, it's March in the market and we're going through a lot of stuff. So maybe partly cloudy. I don't know. >> You know what? You know what? There's You know what it should be? It's like it's it's it's it's 70°. It's nice. It's sunny with always a chance of rain. How about that? >> That That's That's my That that and maybe even a thunderstorm and maybe a tornado. You know, you never know. It might >> you you wear glasses, but you have you wear sunglasses, but you have an umbrella with you just in case. >> Yeah. You're you're just ready for every single season that could come your way. That's for sure. Jeez, Louise. Oh my goodness. Everyone's already sick and tired of us trying to figure out this uh this uh uh metaphor. But you know, look, I I invited you back on because one, it's been a while since we had you on uh back I think our first interview we did that back in June 2023 talking about informed momentum. I I'm assuming you love that interview so much you decided to rebrand the entire company from EAM to Informed Momentum Company, right? I'm just >> Yeah, absolutely. That was that was the aha moment we had. >> That was the Yeah. like made made all the sense in the world. Of course. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what's funny about that is though? It's like, you know, a lot of names in our business for whatever reason have these like allegorical they're like double meanings. They're uh symbolism and we were just like, "Hey, inform momentum is our philosophy and process. Might as well just name the company that. It's what we do every day." So, we went the opposite of double meaning, just straightforward transparency. I mean, you know, I I didn't know if you were going to figure out another like new leaf, you know, to add on, you know? >> Yeah. Or another rock. Another rock or leaf capital, you know, like that. That always works, you know. I wish somebody would just do that and just like call them tree rock leaf capital. Just like we're not we're not even going to try. We are just going to be tree rock leaf capital at some point, you know? >> That's that's a good one. >> Someone you got to trademark that >> 100%. So, last time we talked, let's get we're going to get into some stuff now. Okay everybody, now we're going to get serious. Here it is. So, you know, in our in our last conversation, you described the approach, you know, informed momentum, combining price trends with the layer of fundamental awareness. Since then, how would you say that framework has evolved? And are there any signals or filters you're weighing more heavily today? >> Yeah, that's a great question. And I think the fundamentals of what we do in terms of always focusing on, you know, stocks that are doing well intersected with businesses that are improving is steadfast. You know, we're always dedicated to that because we think over the long term it works. But I think you have to challenge yourself. You have to evolve. You have to challenge the signals you're using and always get better at it. So we're always probing and proddding and challenging the signal capture that we use uh across all our strategies including micro cap strategies. Um so a lot of the research we've done more recently has really been in that vein. So you know one of the research projects we did was actually look at the momentum formation period in terms of how long should a look back be when you consider a company that's outperforming. You know the standard academic one is a 12 minus one you've probably heard about which is you know the last 12 months of stocks performance versus a selection universe uh except for the most recent month. That's like the standard academic definition of momentum. And we just did a study about a couple months ago that suggested that while the 12 minus one works over the long per long term like going back to 1926 as everyone cites right in the French data um but over the last uh 20 or so years um having a little bit more recency bias works a bit better. So you want to be a little bit quicker twitched I guess in momentum recently and I guess that makes sense when you consider you know how much information is out there and how quick it gets disseminated. Um so that's one thing that um you know we've kind of confirmed is that you want to be have a little bit more recency bias when you when you consider a company's outperformance a stock price's outperformance. Um we've also done um on the same vein just thinking about how a company becomes a high momentum security. So the manner in which momentum manifests itself actually matters. So the more volatile that performance stream has been um and also the the less gradual the lower the risk return. So set another way the less volatile and more gradual a momentum formation period is or the more continuous it is the better the risk adjusted return. So we've incorporated that kind of knowledge within our process as well. So yes we evolve and we get better uh we try to get better every day. Yeah, I assumed it was yes, but you know, we always like to know how and why, right? >> Yeah. Sorry, that was a long answer, but um >> No, it's >> it's better than just yes, cuz I think everyone would say that, but uh what do you have to prove that? >> Yeah, 100%. And you've also emphasized the importance of breath, you know, uh owning a wide basket of names because outcomes and momentum are probabilistic. So in today's market has that principle held up or have there been moments where concentration has made more sense? >> Yeah, I think for momentum in particular which is what we focus on obviously breath is your friend. So breath is beautiful in a momentum strategy and that has to do with yeah the probabilities but also the positive skew. You need to have enough uh breath in your portfolio in terms of name count to really capture the outliers if you will. So if you concentrate too much, what it in ends up happening is you kind of discount the ones that may be at least perceived riskier in the front end. Um but in a momentum strategy, you really want to capture those outliers because it's those outliers in performance that really drive returns. So breath is beautiful, I think, within a momentum strategy. We actually did a follow-on study um looking at other styles too. So growth of value and quality and we found generally speaking actually in growth and quality which is a little counterintuitive that breath helps as well in terms of riskadjusted returns. So I think there has been and we can get into a lot of this stuff but there has been a within the marketplace uh a large focus on concentration in terms of as asset allocators allocate to active managers there seems to be a very much a a want to have concentration um for various reasons and I think in some strategies that might make sense maybe the things you're looking for only intersect in a very few stocks and that and that makes sense but Um I think it depends on what you're trying to capture and I don't think there's one answer in terms of number of names in a portfolio that is universal. I think it just matters to what you're what you're um trying to seeking to capture in your strategy. Uh but certainly a momentum breath is beautiful. >> So given the current environment are you seeing momentum trends extend shortened or behave differently than in the past especially in in some of the smaller names? I would say it's generally the same because we believe momentum works for largely behavioral reasons. So at the beginning of a trend or at the beginning of positive information, new information, there tends to be an underappreciation of that trend. And so at buy point uh in a momentum strategy, it's these stocks are generally underappreciated. But then part of the payoff structure for momentum is you know at the end of that life cycle is an over extrapolation over an overexaggeration of current trends. So it's like underappreciation to overappreciation is kind of what we believe how why the momentum momentum premium exists. And what we've seen lately more recently and when I say lately you know I've been around this for like 30 years. So when I say lately, take it with a great assault. Over the last 10 years or so, we've seen a uh maybe a little bit more violence in terms of the overappreciation. So when companies are on the right side of trends, they get very exaggerated fairly quickly. So I think and we don't have much evidence to back this up. This is just kind of from a practitioner perspective observing things. Uh but I think we see it like a little bit of more violence in terms of overexaggeration and it's a little bit quicker. So I think um you in momentum always you need to be quick but but right now it's the quick and the dead. So you got to be very quick and efficient and effective. How do you you know for those that may not have a huge emphasis on momentum? I mean this is probably something I was going to ask a little bit later but I might as well follow up on it now. I mean, cuz some folks might be listening in and saying, you know, I yeah, I I follow some momentum, but, you know, I may be a little hamstrung of wanting to make the that decision quicker to get either in or out of of that name or or I'm just not a trader, you know, I'm I'm in the fundamental story and yet here we go. This the stock ran or fel, you know, what have you, but the thesis didn't break. you know, what do you say to those investors when they're trying they're hearing this, they want to better understand the strategy, but also it just goes a little bit against some of what they they normally do? >> Yeah, it's a great question and going against what the average investor wants to do is probably why the mo the premium exists. So, a great example of that is we're actually finishing up a research, we're actually going to publish it probably next week on the 52- week high and how it's such a strong predictor of future outperformance uh over the, you know, the subsequent 6 months. And so, that's a classic example of you would think most investors either when a stock hits a 52- week high, they're either selling into that or they're saying they're too late, right? because who who among us really wants to pay the highest price that anyone's paid for a stock of the last year. However, it's very strong predictor of future returns and I think it gets back to the behavior, right? Cuz if no one wants to do that on average, right? Then if everything else being equal, that's probably an undervalued security. So I would suggest that instead of having emotions drive your decisions, just look at objectivity and say, well, if a stock hits a 52, what's the likelihood of that stock outperforming over the next 6 months? And it turns out it's a very very high probability. So I would say that uh if it's at a high, it's not over likely. Um, and it's not too late uh based upon the evidence empirically. I very much look forward to having you back on when you do publish that that piece. Um, give is there any more from that piece you want to divulge, you know, from from the research that you've seen because who knows, you might be you might be putting it out tomorrow. I don't know. >> No, and look, it's not new. Like, we're not the only ones. It's just what we what we pay attention to as investors is kind of skewed a lot of times. Um, but this is we we always, you know, we're not doing anything really new. who I think were evolving momentum, but these kind of lessons have been known for quite some time. In fact, you know, Richard Dhouse is probably one of the godfathers of momentum investing. You know, he had the famous line, buy high and sell higher. Turns out that was very accurate in terms of the 52- week high research that we're doing. So, um, and Richard Donian back in, you know, the 50s and 60s, uh, same kind of thing. Um, so these lessons aren't really new, but they've kind of been hidden under, you know, what's dominated the market, which has been the rise of passive. Um, you know, quality investing's really kind of taken off over the last 10 years, and value always is kind of the more popular some of the more popular investment styles, but momentum's always on been there persisting through time. But for some reason, there's lots of reasons, but for for various reasons, it tends to get ignored >> for sure. So my next question here uh of my set questions um momentum can and we kind of covered this a little bit but you know let's let's explore a little further but momentum can sometimes be driven by narratives rather than fundamentals. We kind of alluded that already but how do you differentiate between that real momentum that's likely to persist versus the short-term narrative driven moves that could fade quickly? >> Yeah, definitely. And that's probably the most important thing to focus on. And we believe the highest expression of momentum investing is that price is signaling something going on in the business that's positive. Um, so we're always of the mindset of start with what works, right? Like look at momentum is one of the best, you know, factor premium in global equity markets. So start with what works, but we want to elevate it a bit by understanding why that momentum exists in the first place. So we start with momentum but then we ask of every company that we invest in in terms of why is this m why are the signals looking the way they do and really we want to focus on from that just business improvement so not absolute values of growth or anything like that but second derivative type uh questions you know is this business improving fundamentally because when you intersect price trends reflecting business trends that's where you get I think a much higher probability of paying off and a little bit higher ampl litude and better riskadjusted returns. Um so it's marrying price as a signal and when you see price as a signal that's showing guiding you in terms of where businesses are improving. I think that's really what we do and what we think is the highest expression of momentum investing. >> So momentum works well when these trends do persist but in micro caps reversals can be quite sharp. What characteristics tend to show up in positions where momentum does fail? >> Yeah, there, you know, momentum is a discipline where you're going to you're going to take losses. Um, you just want to cut those short as as quickly and as efficiently as you can. Um, so that you know, you're right more than you're wrong, but when you're right, you're really right. And when you're wrong, you're not that wrong. And that's kind of the game uh with momentum. But what we've seen in term and first of all you got to like pick your time frame because I think you you made a a good point in terms of you know the daily noise. So first you got to understand price trends from a uh what what price trends are you seeking to exploit. And when we talk about momentum we're talking about medium-term trends. So trends that will likely persist for 6 to 12 months kind of around that time frame. So that's first is you got to pick your time frame that's most relevant to your your philosophy and process. Um and in that you you tend to avoid some of the reversals that can happen in momentum. But when we're wrong generally speaking it's companies that for whatever reason don't execute. And we know we have a lot of stories of those within within Micro Cap that everything seems to be set up for success, but you know, life happens, the world happens, and a lot of things are unpredictable or most things are unpredictable. So, that's always going to be there. Um, but the mistakes we've made is maybe when the business trends aren't as strong as we thought would be kind of the areas where trends don't persist. And then I would say the last part is just the market environment matters. So every factor that you're exposed to is determined by the market dynamics that are prevailing. So when a momentum strategy doesn't do well is generally when you get very abrupt leadership changes within the market or swift market reversals. So going from a a big selloff to a big rally in a very short period of time kind of like we had around liberation day. those kind of environments where trends are upset and they reverse is when a momentum strategy you wouldn't expect it to do well because at the essence it's it's trend following. So if there's no trend in the market or they're reversing quickly, you know, that's the Achilles heel of a momentum strategy. But thankfully there's those don't generally persist for very long. So now I this is my the next segment I want to get into and that has to do with edge and structural insights and uh really having to do with this AI rotation beneath the surface because that has definitely been >> permeating you know and so the with all this focus on AI at the top of the market you know under the surface leadership may be shifting toward more capital intensive or real economy type businesses. Are you seeing momentum signals confirm that rotation? Oh, absolutely. I think there's two major things that are happening, two major seismic shifts, big changes that are happening in the marketplace that you can see through the lens of trend and price. Um, you nailed one, which is AI. And AI is moving to what we would say is the disruption phase and ground zero for that is software. I mean, you're seeing it today, right, in the market. um where we're seeing what is possible from AI, not just you know chatbt and large language models and having fun with that and obviously great tools but we're seeing what this technology can do in terms of software coding AI agents and things like that. So we're in the disruption phase and that technology the magic of AI is very much in the hardware not the software stack. So you're seeing this massive technology shift and it should benefit and we're seeing it benefit the more physical companies that trade in the physical world and what I mean by that is you know hardware in terms of technology so memory compute power um but even engineering and construction firms materials utilities energy right it's just much more of a physical technology than what we've seen before in the internet and the knowledge based economy me. So that's a major shift. Um, and it has massive ramifications for what's going to work in the market going forward as we've kind of transitioned from a software knowledge driven world to a hardware knowledge is very cheap world. So that has massive ramifications and that's why you're seeing what you're seeing on the other side of trend which is what's not working which is software consultants knowledgebased workers right like that's ground zero for a disruption and I think that's probably why quality investing is having a rough time right now right because if you're looking at what has been profitable what has worked well what has compounded that is what's in the crosshairs of disruption now right so software is a classic example of that. But the other thing that's occurring at the same time that's driving the same types of changes is and I think what what's happening in Iran is another example of this kind of furthering this along is bringing supply chains back home or nearer to home. And that in and of itself from an infrastructure standpoint is going to need the same types of companies that the AI infrastructure needs. Right? So these are all happening at the same time. So you're going from knowledgebased drivers and software to um globalization to something delbalization or nearshoring. So these are massive shifts that we haven't seen in quite some time. So and that's showing up in what's working in the market, right? I mean we can let March aside for a second, but it's got that that the clouds have come in a little bit. So things are a little foggy at the moment on planet Micro Cap and in our world too. And uh but that aside, you're really seeing that in terms of what's working in the market are those two major structural changes. >> What what if you had to think back to a time period where you're seeing these massive structural changes. You know, there's always you can always make a case for certain narratives of big, but I' I'd argue that in 2026 we these are monster narratives that we're dealing with. Yeah. >> What are what what time period does this kind of remind you of that when you when you're thinking about where we're at right now? You know, we're recording this on March 27, 2026. You know, where what what what what's feels familiar? Was it COVID during that time when that all happened? I mean, what do you think? >> I don't know if there's a really good So, I've been in the business since 97. Um, so I mean, I've read obviously history, but I've never experienced I'm not that old yet. only 30 years or so in the business. Um I don't know if I've seen anything quite like this at the same time. Um and I think AI is is at its essence such a disruptive force. I don't think I've ever se I don't think I've seen anything like it. I mean, I guess the allegory or the closest correlary would be maybe, you know, the late '9s with the internet and how it shifted a lot of, you know, businesses, but but even then it was it was it was very um like you could tell, okay, like things are moving online, there's going to be e-commerce, so department stores, okay, yeah, that might be an issue, right? Like no one like so you could but that was kind of confined um in terms of how it dispersed through industries. Whereas AI I think is fundamentally and profoundly can affect so many different industries and there's going to be uh a lot of beneficiaries if they harness the power of AI within so many different industries and there's going to be losers across so many different industries. So in terms of the disruptive scale that AI is showing it's just much larger than anything we've seen I I think I I've seen anyways. Um and that's going to be good and bad. And I think um you know from a micro cap perspective I think this is fundamentally a good thing because what it requires is a lot more companies to make this all work than in the prior cycle. Um, so you think about, you know, before in the in the world of the the virtual, you could just create some code and if it's better than someone else's code, you can just distribute it across the world, right? It's like with incrementally zero cost, right? So very high incremental margins. AI is a fundamentally different technology to make it work. It's a lot of investment and it's a lot of hardware and it's a lot of you need a lot of the physical world to come along with you and you need a participation from a lot of different companies across industries to make it work. So I think from a micro cap perspective, these are actually fundamentally really good things that you need a broader participation of companies to make these things happen. And when you put on infrastructure too, things moving back to the US from a US perspective in micro cap, that's also a positive thing. So, I'm I'm much more um I think the the the the clouds are definitely parting on the planet micro cap and you can see some rays of sunshine in terms of looking forward. >> Oh man, your lips to God's ears right now. You know, everybody I think everybody who's listening in who's a a micro cap fanboy is all like Travis, dude, let's go, man. >> I speak in Vegas right now, dude. >> Well, I have more for you because there's a massive cycle. Well, there's more there's a massive change in cycle too that I believe will help micro cap and it has to do with private equity and private credit um and also the rise of passive. Those three massive forces I think are changing at the moment. And what does that mean for micro cap and and small cap too? I think it means a lot of good things because with what's happening in private credit and private equity because of AI and the disruption you know that private equity is 30 to 40% of their book is SAS software companies so you can imagine it's going to be a little tougher for them than it has been which which means that the capital raising might not be as robust as it's been for the last 25 years or so I mean those businesses you know private equity and private credit have over the last 20 years have increased in AUM somewhere between 10 and 20x right where so a lot of money has gone away from the public markets into the private markets and now the returns are slipping versus public so you have a performance problem and you know I think you could imagine that public equities are going to going forward get a little bit more money than they've had and at the same time as private credit dries up or private equity isn't allocated to as much then maybe we can see some companies going public again, which I think would be very helpful. Um, and certainly the Trump administration seems to be uh seems to be on their agenda in terms of quarterly reporting, moving to maybe semiannually, which I think would be great for for smaller public companies. You know, lowering the cost and the burden, but also the public markets can again go back to financing the innovation. I think that would be fundamentally great for micro cap and small cap companies. And look, I think we've been in this world where it's been dominated by private credit, private equity, and passive for so long. But these things cycle. And so if you just follow the money, I mean, all these things are good ideas. Private credit, private equity, passive is a good idea, but like on Wall Street a lot, they take a good idea and it goes too far and then it becomes a not as such a good idea anymore. So I think we're on the other side of these major cycles. Oh man, I'm definitely clipping that for sure. Uh, and we're putting for for socials that is that again, you know, we've, you know, we talk about it a lot that we just want more good quality companies to go public earlier on in their life cycle and at the end of the day, they just need the right incentive to do so, you know, and absolutely and you know, >> let's see. you know, yeah, >> doesn't help. It doesn't help that it's very expensive to uh still go public in in the US. Um I hope something changes on that front, you know, but the I mean semiannual reporting is one thing, but then also, you know, exchange fees, all that is is a whole other ball game. You know, they they might, you know, they're also looking at this too and seeing like all right, how can we totally make this in a lot more money now with all this stuff? So, >> make going public great again, right? Oh, I would love we're getting that should be our that that should be our hat. I like that. >> Yeah, I think it's gonna I think it's gonna happen. But the other thing that's that I think >> we have to understand is the rise of passive too. And when I say passive um I'm not talking about it's not really passive, right? It's very much an active strategy of market cap waiting your investments which has really really hurt small and micro cap relative, right? I mean, we can't underestimate the impact of that because that's a market in 2000 that was maybe maybe a trillion dollars was passively allocated to globally. Now that's up to 20 trillion by some estimates. So you've gotten 20x a rise in allocating capital not by anything fundamental but by the market cap of a company which has really crushed on a relative basis small and micro cap. And you can see that over the last 10 years, right? So you're seeing a little breakage with that now though in terms of only large market caps dominating the market. You see this year that it's the it's not the mag seven anymore, it's the miserable seven, right? So I think that is also a great idea that's gone too far. And I think if you just get a little bit of an allocation out from a market cap weighted algorithm, you could see a pretty dynamic scenario shaping up for small and micro cap stocks. Uh that I don't think has been the case for a long time. So to your audience, if you've survived being a micro cap manager and a small cap manager over the last 20 years, you've done a really good job because you've had a lot of forces uh against you. You've had a lot of headwinds. But look, things cycle. That's just how long it takes to cycle and we we've definitely endured a long cold winter >> for that is for sure you know. So going back to to uh some of my questions regarding you momentum and you know where things are at from momentum perspective h how do you avoid getting pulled into moves where price is rising but signal quality is deteriorating? The main reason I want to ask is now that we've kind of covered a little bit of, you know, what's going on, how it relates to micro caps, you let's give some some practical knowhow for folks that aren't uh, you know, momentum type investors. >> Yeah, I would say I think it goes back to what we were talking about. I think so we look at the world from a systematic perspective, right? We're we're systematic quantitative oriented investors. So we we care much more about objective data and objective signals but we also understand we want to know the reasons why they look the way they do but I think the first step is just identifying the characteristics that you want to that that are associated with uh positive outperformance right so for us we take a very holistic signal capture perspective on momentum so we combine you know price signals uh volume signals 52 week high that we talked about um but also fundamental signals too. So positive revision and positive estimate or positive surprise on earnings. And so when you combine both the kind of the the fundamental and the price based signals of momentum, I think you get a good um you get a really good pond to fish in. So I I would first I would say have a very robust front-end process because there's a lot of micro cap small cap companies out there, right? There's a ton to choose from. In fact, you have a lot of them at your conferences, right? So to be able to to focus on that uh calendar of events to focus on which are the socks you want to you want to really put your time on that's really important in small and micro cap especially globally like we manage global micro cap right so you're talking about 10,000 companies or more right so so be be very refined in terms of the situations that you want to focus your time on that's what I would say up front and then I would say really get understand you know why the signals are the way they are and to to which you can kind of understand at least a little bit because nothing is sustainable over the long term, but for a foreseeable, you know, a medium-term horizon that they're on the right side of trend from from a a a kind of barebones fundamental perspective, you can see it happening in the trend on on the business. You can see the positive trends developing within their financials. So, I would I would say don't try to predict anything, but look at what is actually happening and be quick to recognize that. um both price-wise but also businesswise and why because if you know why then you can kind of ascertain whether it will pay you in an investable horizon. >> So quick yeah no 100%. So quick followup to that I mean you know because that you literally hit on one of my questions was you know what signals tell you that a trend is sustainable versus just a short-term spec. I mean you kind of hit on why it's sustainable. It's like, okay, you see the moves, maybe go verify with, you know, a recent Q, recent K, you know, recent news release, new contract with, like, there's things that you can kind of be like, okay, this makes sense. This, you know, they're they're walking the walk, proof in the pudding, there's the release, there's the news, there's an interview where they talked about it. Okay, >> I can I can understand that. You know, on the other side, let's say you see some of those spikes and you're trying to assess whether this is a short-term spike versus a sustainable move or trend in in that direction. What are some of the things that you look for when you're saying, "All right, I didn't see that contract, man. All right. I didn't see they didn't make as much money this quarter as they did last, but this still like what what are some of the things that you that ultimately end up being red flags of like, okay, this was definitely a short-term spike. >> Um red flags would be a lack of transparency. So, you mentioned maybe it's a contract um that they announce with someone like a big comp like maybe not even a big company, but if they're not saying who it is, there's not a there's not a quote from that company from like the management of that other company saying how important this contract is to them, that's a red flag. If there's no Yeah, there's no monetary value behind the contract, that's a that's a red flag. Um, and I think overall if it doesn't fit the general business, that's also a red flag. So like you see a lot of companies trying to transition doing different things. And if it's kind of out of the blue and doesn't make sense, like you're like, how did you do a contract in this particular business when you've been trying to find success in this side of the business? You know, there's a there's some red flags. from a practitioner perspective and observing things. Those would be kind of the big three to me is like if there's a contract, name the company, uh, and then also name the value and when it's going to happen and then make sure it makes sense within their business, um, that they've been, you know, that they've been managing. I mean, I don't know if you you you spend your time doing this sometimes, but I mean, you're in small micro cap, so this, you know, this is an unfortunate part of, you know, our space, but do you have do you subscribe to like a stock promotion tracker or something just to be like, all right, let me just make sure this isn't a promote, you know, because it very much could be right now versus, okay, this is actually, you know, you know, they're they're just announcing good news and this is good quality stuff and, you know, it's not just, you know, big huge win into, you know, or or even just see if there's a a shelf, you know, hanging out there or something like that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um I would no what we use uh at IMC and we manage strategies actually across the market cap perspective. Um now so our foundation has been small and micro cap uh our history is built on that. Our foundation is built on that but we actually manage across uh market caps now. So it it actually gives us a really nice perspective now when we do small and micro cap to have our research go across uh market cap spectrums globally too. So EM non- US uh and the US um we use publicly available information. So no like like stock promoters and stuff like that we don't consume anything. It's all publicly available information but we also have uh relationships with uh research brokerage firms you know across the world and that's our primary sources of information. Um, but we we always also consume, you know, transcripts as well, which I think are very pretty valuable, especially with AI tools now that we've kind of built within our process that allows us to take all this these text, all this text data and actually consume it very quickly and exactly what we want out of all this information. Um, so that's been very powerful. But that's our source of information and we kind of keep it to those those sources by design. Um just we just want to know exactly like from a filing perspective like we can see earnings accelerate, we can see revenue expansion. Um I guess they can always lie on their filings but you know as a terms of a source of truth that's pretty close that you can get. So when it when you when it comes to let's say finding a new idea or you know you're start you've had it on the watch list and you're or or made just just idea generation in general and then with the and then and putting the strategy to work how what what are some of your processes that you do because I'm sure there's times where you know it might be very the next day where you start to see kind of the the price momentum and underlying business momentum start to diverge and you're like wait hold what oh I haven't I haven't even done all the work yet like what the heck is going on like I you know so how do you think about that when it comes to u you know deploying the strategy and then idea generation and then ultimately then sizing into a position >> yeah and our process is a constant vigil I mean it's an everyday approach everyday mentality um and we think momentum is literally like hand handtohand combat trench warfare I mean it's It's it's work. You know, you come in every day and you have to move. Um that's both on identifying new trends, but also not overstaying your welcome when trends reverse. Um so it's definitely an everyday type of strategy. We think if you do it well, that's what you have to do. And so when we talk about rebalancing or when we move the portfolio, it's truly a daily process. It's every single day uh moving towards strength and away from weakness overall. So we very much believe that there's a lot of alpha to be added on to just the momentum premium if you're willing to move when the signals move. And so when we talk about rebalancing it's every day incrementally every day but every day. Um and so we have a very robust capture um idea capture in the front end like on our discovery pro we call it the discovery process where we're identifying companies across the world you know every single day day in and day out. So we'll have a handful of ideas that meet our requirements each and every day. Um and so we move from identification to analysis, you know, within hours, right, of a of a market closing across the world. We have a we have a list spit out to us of like, okay, here here are your top ones based upon everything you look at. Here it is. And then it becomes incumbent upon our team to then take that yield and then understand the you know the analysis part the company analysis part and looking very specifically for the sit fundamental situations that we want to exploit. So it's a daily thing and we move from idea to investment within days right it's the quick and the dead and again in momentum. You want to be early to trend to capture the early part of the trend. But on the other side also you want to move away from trends because the biggest when they reverse. So the biggest risk in a momentum strategy is overstaying your welcome. So we know based upon our research and others that when stocks are on the right side of trend, it's very powerful. It's persistent through time. It's robust. But this the alpha signal will decay. So on average, if you buy a company that has done well over the last 12 months, there's a high probability that it will continue to do well, but only for about the next 6 to 10 months after that momentum formation period. So what that means is you got to move, right? So if you overstay your welcome, that's the probably the biggest risk in a momentum strategy because it will turn against you again as expectations catch up to reality. Um then the momentum premium kind of goes away. So you got to be quick to the trend when it when it manifests itself, but then get out when it when it reverses. So that's a daily process to do it well. >> You know, from your your 30 years experience, I'm going to use the 30 years experience question. Here we go. uh from from a momentum 30-year experience perspective, what would you say have been the most sustainable trends in micro caps that tends to work each time when you're when you're looking at a business again from that momentum lens? >> Mhm. I would say it's always different. So flexibility would be the most important thing. Apt adaptability. But there's a certain things we find in companies that occurs again and again in outperformers. And one is innovation. So when companies are launching new products that have early traction or new services that have early business traction in terms of revenue that is gener generally associated with positive outcomes. And then I also think um the other the other thing that we see most often in our winners is um transformation or um reinvention probably is a better word where either through a company that has a transformational M&A that happens or new management team or better management team that comes in and kind of changes the future or just improving market dynamics. Those are kind of the the central themes that we see at play in a you know from an idiosyncratic or stock specific perspective that generally are the reasons why the momentum exists. So I I would say it's it's always a different flavor of those things but if I would put it into buckets it's look for innovation and look for reinvention and generally you'll kind of get this expectations uh alpha right as as expectations change. So low expectation to then mild to high expectations that that that kind of cycle that a company goes through um I think is what we see most often. >> Absolutely. So another question I have for you is a you know we talked a little bit about entry but you know exits are just as important in momentum strategies. What does your sell discipline look like and where do most investors get it wrong when they're trying to employ a momentum strategy? Well, I think generally speaking, most people get it wrong when uh emotions take over um or biases. And I would say those are kind of the same thing. But um so we just know by doing this for so long that the the only variables that matter in in momentum or really any stock is the amplitude of outperformance. So how much is it out that stock outperformed by and how long has that been occurring? So the duration of that outperformance. So as the amplitude is high and the duration becomes long, the lower the probability of that continuing that outperformance continuing. So those are the variables that we pay attention to. Um and then also you're going to get things wrong. So so I think the biggest thing is one not overstaying your welcome and taking gains as they come in. So as companies go through kind of an extraordinary value creation, you want to kind of take some off the table because you never know when it's going to end. So I would say, you know, ring the register, take some gains and then reinvest it uh in companies earlier on in that in that cycle. And then I would say but but where most people get it wrong is when things go wrong at the company and especially when they've worked, there's a hesitancy to move on because that's your winner, right? That's your pride. That's your your your your stock that you've invested in. And then when it's on the other side of the trend, there tends to be this kind of, oh, it's just one quarter of underperformance. You know, they'll be fine. I'm a long-term investor. Like all those things where it's like if if things are the reason why you owned it is now reversing. Like so revisions are going the wrong way now. Maybe they missed the quarter. These are all signals that that trend is is is probably over. And so you just got to be unemotional about that, right? Not not attached and just move on. And I think that's where most people where a momentum strategy can go really wrong is if you don't if you're not disciplined on the sell side and in a strategy that relies on process and discipline. What would you say separates investors who succeed from those who get pulled off track aside from you know probably leaning too much into emotion? >> Yeah. Um I really think it's just grit. It's just persistence. I think that's what separates it is not that can you do this very well at certain points in time it's doing it every single day well all the time through time no matter what's happening in the market I think that's what separates uh the good from the great you know is just doing it every single day and that persistence that it takes um to do that I think is totally underrated you know it's like you can have a great strategy but if you don't win every single Hey, then you're opening yourself up for for not winning at the end of the day. So, I think it's just about a daily grind that that that you seek and like you actually have joy from, you know, and you don't you don't really judge yourself on the outcome of every day. You judge yourself on the did you drive the process to the best of your ability every day and then the results will like likely take care of themselves. But I think sometimes you get off track because you have just this scoreboard, this short-term scoreboard that's driving your emotional state, whereas you at the end of the day, this is a business. So don't get caught up in your your personal view of yourself in terms of the outcomes of every day. And I think sometimes uh you know that herbs and people get frustrated because they internalize some of these outcomes uh rather than um finding joy in other parts of the of your life. >> Listen, it's not personal. Well, it's strictly business, right? You know, >> absolutely. Uh, so look, ego gets you in trouble, right? And so, as much as you can detach yourself >> from what you're doing, I think the better better you off you are. >> And I think that go that's uh that goes across the board when it comes to being at both. I can't tell you how many email frustrated emails I've written out and realize like, okay, I'm going to that was nice. I felt good. And then you just don't send it. You know, it's >> count to 10. >> Yeah. Very much very much applies here. Um, so Travis, my final question for you today because you I mean you we've covered so much and I'm sure you'll be back on hopefully not in another three years, but to to kind of give an update, but for investors trying to navigate today's market, whether they're in micro cap, small cap, large, what have you, what would you say is the one principle or fra framework that served you well throughout your career uh from from you from deploying this momentum strategy? Wow, that's a great question. I would say um gosh, being open-minded um and intellectually curious. Those two things together I think are really important and and are and I I think are high they're like uh KPIs for success I think in investing. Um and flexibility I think goes along with that, right? Like I just not trying to predict or wanting the world to be the way you want it to be. just try to see it for what it is instead of like what you want it to be or what should work. You know, I always hear this kind of oh this should work and it's like well I you know that this shouldn't be in your vocabulary. It's like what is working? What is actually happening? Um, so I think like especially when in days like this where there's so many big changes happening is just to be open-minded, intellectually curious, and unbiased and just move to where you see the trends and and not really spend a lot of time thinking about what it should be and just look, it's hard it's hard enough now to try to figure out what's actually happening, let alone trying to predict anything. So I would just say be flexible, be open-minded, and and be intellectually curious. And I think um that will serve you well over time. Very good. All right, Travis, we've, like I said, we've covered a lot here today. I'm sure I'll have you back on at some point. Uh, for those that want to learn more about the Informed Momentum company and strategy, where can our audience go and uh find everything they need to know? >> Yeah, you can go to ww.informedmomentum.com and you'll find everything we have there from all of our strategies to all of our research that I kind of talked about. We publish it right on our website and available to everyone. So you can go check it out. >> Very good. And that's www.wininformed.com. >> informed momentum.com. >> informed momentum.com. Very good. >> Or just uh well, I was going to say just Google informed momentum, but no, you got to chat GBT it or Jim and I it because it's not that's not a thing anymore googling it. >> Or it'll just come up on our interview from three years ago. Or maybe this, you know, we don't know. Um well well Travis, thank thank you again for doing this, man. Really do appreciate it. Good luck. Stay safe and uh I'll look forward to our next update. Awesome. Thank you. It was fun.