Sometimes, a capsule falls back to Earth from orbit, carrying something that has changed slightly from when it left the planet.

The change isn't huge, not something you'd announce in a big meeting or put in a report for investors.

It's just a small difference, but enough that the people who paid for the capsule to go up are now running new tests, filing new patents, or quietly changing their plans for molecules they've been working on for years in their labs.

While everyone's attention is focused on the flashy side of space exploration, like constellations, crewed vehicles, and the latest rocket developments, there's a quieter, yet equally fascinating story unfolding.

It's about the impact of microgravity on chemistry, and how spending time in an environment where sedimentation and convection don't exist can change things in measurable, albeit still early, ways.

And, yes, I am writing this because of the SpaceX IPO last week.

The interesting part is that the companies funding these initiatives are mostly from the pharmaceuticals and biotech sectors, not the space industry itself. On the other hand, the companies building the necessary vehicles and hardware are indeed from the space sector.

What's surprising is that most of the market isn't paying close attention to this development, at least not yet.

The intersection of space exploration and biotech is an area that's still largely under the radar, but it has the potential to lead to some groundbreaking discoveries. As researchers continue to study the effects of microgravity on chemical reactions and processes, we can expect to see some exciting breakthroughs in the years to come.

There's a gap between what's already happening and what still needs to happen on a larger scale. Right now, capsules are flying, materials are being returned, and data is being collected in labs.

After years of doing formulation work on the International Space Station, the hardware is being used to create commercial products.

Spacecraft are being built specifically to host and recover these payloads. However, no one thinks that this will become a routine, high-volume manufacturing process in just a couple of years. The big questions are how quickly the cost of processing materials in orbit will decrease, whether the benefits of formulation and processing will still be seen when scaled up, and how regulators and big pharmaceutical companies will view materials made in space - will they be seen as normal tools or exotic experiments?

The cost per useful gram of material processed in orbit is a key factor, and it's unclear how fast it will come down. Additionally, there are concerns about whether the advantages of space-based formulation and processing will hold up when scaled up to larger volumes.

Furthermore, it's uncertain how regulators and big pharma will treat space-derived materials - will they be accepted as standard or will they be viewed with skepticism?

Only time will tell if space-based manufacturing can become a viable and cost-effective option.

The physics is straightforward once you strip away the marketing stuff. In a gravitational field, crystals grow with currents and settling that create defects, uneven sizes, and sometimes the wrong shape entirely.

In orbit those forces largely disappear. The result can be larger, more uniform crystals or entirely new crystal forms that are difficult or impossible to produce cleanly on Earth.

That difference has shown up in work on antivirals like ritonavir, certain antibodies and other small molecules where particle size distribution or stability directly affects formulation, shelf life, or bioavailability.

Some of the early returns have been promising enough that companies are running follow-on missions rather than treating it as a one-off science project.

The idea of commercial space exploration is no longer just a concept, it's actually happening. Companies like Varda have already sent capsules into space, processed materials, and brought them back to Earth.

Rocket Lab has built and operated the spacecraft that carry these capsules, and they've even managed the re-entry sequence.

Redwire has been working with pharmaceutical hardware on the International Space Station for years, and now they're creating a separate division to focus on commercial pharmaceutical work.

The progress is tangible, and it's clear that these companies are serious about making commercial space exploration a reality.

As the International Space Station (ISS) approaches its retirement around 2030, a new era of space exploration is emerging. Commercial stations are being developed, and launch costs are decreasing due to reusability, making space travel more accessible.

The introduction of dedicated return vehicles has also eliminated a major bottleneck, paving the way for more frequent flights. If a significant number of high-value drug programs start incorporating microgravity steps into their development or life-cycle management, it will lead to an increase in flight rates and the supporting infrastructure will need to expand accordingly.

This growth will ultimately transform occasional experiments into a recurring operational capability, marking a significant shift in the space industry. \

With the cost of launch decreasing, and the infrastructure growing, it's likely that we'll see a surge in space-based research and development, turning what was once a niche area of study into a mainstream aspect of scientific inquiry. The future of space exploration is looking brighter than ever, and it will be exciting to see how commercial stations and microgravity research evolve in the coming years.

There are other areas beyond pharmaceuticals that are also being explored. For instance, bioprinting of tissues and organs is being done in space because it doesn't have to deal with gravity, which can cause sedimentation.

Some researchers are using time in orbit to create better models of diseases or to study things that are hard to replicate on Earth.

Certain materials, like special fibers, super-strong alloys, and crystals, have been found to have fewer defects or improved properties when made in microgravity, which is hard to achieve on the ground.

The same systems used to crystallise drugs in space can also be used for these other processes, once it becomes cost-effective to do so.

This means that the platforms and vehicles that take things to and from space can be used for a variety of purposes, not just pharmaceuticals. As the economics of space-based research improve, we can expect to see more of these types of experiments and processes being done in space.

Four listed names already have direct or adjacent exposure through contracts, hardware, or enabling technology. Here is what we’re seeing in terms of opportunity..

Redwire's first-quarter earnings were impressive, with a 58% year-over-year increase to $97 million. Their full-year guidance is expected to be between $450 million and $500 million.

And they've already made significant strides in the pharmaceutical sector, with their hardware currently on board the space station and being used by major pharmaceutical companies.

To take this research to the next level, they've established a dedicated subsidiary focused on turning these projects into commercial deals that will generate royalties. Looking ahead to the next 5 to 10 years, the potential for space biopharma and in-space manufacturing to grow into a multi-billion dollar industry is vast.

With their existing hardware base and new commercial push, Redwire is well-positioned to capitalise on this trend, providing them with a direct line to recurring processing capacity as more platforms come online after the ISS. This could be a game-changer for the company, allowing them to tap into a lucrative market and drive long-term growth. As the industry continues to evolve, Redwire's early mover advantage and strategic investments could pay off in a big way, making them a major player in the space biopharma and in-space manufacturing sectors.

The stocks we’re focusing on within this theme…

Rocket Lab is seeing some decent numbers, with $200 million in revenue in the first quarter, which is a 63.5% increase. Their backlog is now over $2.2 billion, and they have a gross margin of 38% for the period.

What's interesting is that they're not just launching rockets, they're also building and flying the spacecraft buses for Varda's manufacturing capsules, handling the work in orbit, and taking care of re-entry.

When you add their own launch schedule and the upcoming Neutron vehicle, the potential for growth is huge, especially if microgravity missions become more regular. If that happens, Rocket Lab's launch and spacecraft systems revenue could really take off, thanks to higher flight rates and more dedicated return vehicles. This could be a game-changer for the company, and it's likely that their revenue will continue to compound as they expand their operations.

With their current momentum, it's exciting to think about what the future might hold for Rocket Lab.

Velo3D has made a tonne of progress, with a notable increase of 48% in the first quarter, reaching $13.8 million.

The company has also provided guidance for 2026, expecting to reach $60 to $70 million, and is on track to achieve positive EBITDA in the second half of the year.

One of the key highlights is the improvement in gross margins, which have already risen to 17%. Furthermore, Velo3D is gaining traction in the defense and space production sectors, securing contracts for their metal additive systems.

These systems are specifically designed to manufacture complex parts used in rockets, spacecraft, and future in-space hardware. As the ecosystem expands and more platforms are developed, the demand for these precision components is likely to increase. Although the numbers are still relatively small, the growth rate and margin trajectory are aligned with the hardware buildout that will enable the rest of the theme to move forward.

With this momentum, Velo3D is well-positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for its products and services. The company's focus on delivering high-quality, complex parts for the space and defense industries is a key factor in its success, and its ability to scale and meet the increasing demand will be crucial in driving its future growth.

United Therapeutics had a great first quarter, making $781 million with a net income of $275 million. They're already doing well with drugs for pulmonary hypertension. Now, they're teaming up with Varda to send medicine into space to study rare and serious lung diseases. By doing this in microgravity, they hope to create better and more stable medicines.

They plan to do several missions to see how microgravity affects the way medicines are made. In the next 5 to 10 years, their main business will keep growing, and this new partnership will give them more opportunities to create new medicines and own the rights to them. This is a big deal because it would be hard to do this kind of research on the ground.

These companies are not going to make a BIG impact anytime soon. They are smaller businesses in an industry that needs a lot of money to operate and still loses money in some cases.

There are also risks that they might not be able to deliver on their plans and that they might need to raise more money, which could dilute the value of their shares. It's also going to take some time to figure out the rules and regulations around making medicines in space, and big pharmaceutical companies are going to be cautious about adopting this new technology.

The good news is that the science behind it works, the equipment is being tested, and there are already contracts in place. But the hard part is still ahead: turning these promising experiments into a reliable and profitable way of making things.

What compounds over five to ten years is the infrastructure layer. More platforms, more frequent flights, lower per-mission costs, and a handful of clear wins on specific molecules or processes create a flywheel.

The companies that own the vehicles, the processing hardware, or the enabling manufacturing technology, or that have direct partnerships to exploit the output, are the ones that can scale with that flywheel rather than just watching it.

The capsules are already moving. The question that will matter in 2030 or 2035 is how many more are worth flying on a regular basis and who built or partnered on the repeatable pieces that make those flights possible.

This is a huge theme for us.

And we will be covering it constantly as part of the Academy community, as well as how to trade it.

If you are not involved because you think the Academy is just a one and done course, then think again.

We provide daily research, streams and consistent contextual understanding to allow you to make the best decisions possible for your portfolio and future.

We won’t tell, you what to do because that is pointless.

We provide you the tools to do it all yourself.

If you haven’t joined yet, this will be the last time you can get 10% off before the price goes up again since we keep receiving comments like this which tell us we are under priced.

Join now

Apologies - for many the webinar link wouldn’t open.

Please sign up to webinar using this new link.

Two charts to focus on here, underlining the point that just because a market goes up a lot doesn’t mean it is overvalued.

First chart shows the forward price to earnings of the SP500.

It is unchanged through the last 5 years.

2021 had a hiccup since we had the old pandemic and rate hike expectations fed through to 2022.

I would expect we do not have a pandemic again.

But couple this with the next chart and we can see something pretty stark…

Compared to the DotCom, we are no where near the size of tech debt growth across any quality of debt.

This is important.

The firms now are revenue generating outside of the AI boom.

Back during DotCom, they were new entrants who were looking to feed off the excitement of the internet.

People might bring in a contestation with another indicator here, which is the Buffett Indicator (size of the stock market relative to GDP).

Yes, it is high.

But the issue with this indicator is that the US dominates in EVERY world ETF.

This means the concentration of investment globally is centred on US companies.

Before the concentration was far less. You’d have more exposure in passive ETFs to your domestic companies.

Or, you’d simply invest more domestically since the passive ETF complex wasn’t as it is today.

This capital flow is what makes the Buffett Indicator a little weak these days in my eyes, and doesn’t provide the adequate historical context to match what is happening today with past periods.

If US companies are returning the most cash to shareholders due to innovation and net margins (earnings) then it makes sense for investors to focus on the US and no where else!

What do you think? Hit reply and let me know your thoughts.

David.

Markets look forward.

News looks back.

There is a fundamental mismatch between your news feed and your portfolio.

The News Business Model depends on clicks. Humans display a negativity bias, so fear sells.

The Market Mechanism depends on future earnings.

Optimism and growth drive value.

By the time a crisis is on the front page, the market has often already priced it in.

When CNBC drops a Markets in Turmoil segment, the SP500 has a 100% strike rate of being higher over the next 12 months. Seriously.

If you react to the macro headline in stocks, you are usually paying a 'panic tax.'

You sell low, miss the recovery, and buy back when you feel comfortable.

Markets don't reward comfort usually.

It's why risk premium would dictate you get compensated for taking on risk when others don't want to.

For example, we thoroughly believe in buying 52 week highs in a stock - a common answer is 'I couldn't do that, it's going to reverse on me.'

Don't let short-term noise dictate long-term wealth.

You need a framework to operate in, so book in a call with me to discuss how we can help (click here)

Read our full report on how the news is destroying your gains.

I wanted to share a quick thought on something that trips up a lot of investors: the difference between the news and the market.

It is easy to turn on the TV or open an app and feel like the world is falling apart.

The news cycle thrives on urgency, furore, and often, fear.

It reports on what is happening right now or what has just happened.

The stock market, however, functions very differently.

The market is a forward-looking mechanism. It doesn't just reflect today's headlines; it is constantly trying to price in what will happen six to twelve months from now.

This is why you often see the market rise even when the news seems terrible, or fall when the news seems good.

By the time a story hits the front page, the market has likely already digested the information and moved on to the next set of expectations.

Understanding this distinction is critical.

If you react to today’s headlines, you are effectively driving using the rearview mirror.

Don't get swept up in the noise - stay focused on the long-term horizon, not the daily ticker.

Take the Venezuelan Oil news for instance…

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Many in the news and on social media think the US will just come in and make a tonne of money from Venezuelan oil.

But they don’t understand the dynamics.

This chart should explain well why it’s not as easy as ‘I see oil. I take oil. I make money from oil.’

How this should perhaps influence your view on the market is that in the short term, this is good for US oil firms as there is less competition.

But it doesn’t mean there will be immediate extraction and an increase in oil.

The market is reacting off of reduced competition and perhaps more buying of oil from the US and Canada, but it’s not directly related to an increase in production of VZ oil.

Make sure when buying single stocks you focus on the forward look, the 2nd and third order effects of the macro before you react instantly to the news.

Beginner Investing Course - CLICK HERE TO BUY (£29.99)

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It’s the most sickening feeling in investing.

You find a winner.

You watch your portfolio screen flash green for weeks. You’re up 300%.

You start mentally spending the money.

And then, slowly at first, then all at once, the PnL evaporates.

You just completed a round trip, returning exactly where you started, having gained nothing but stress and a higher tax bill.

Most investors blame the volatility of the asset class.

They say, ‘crypto is just like that’, or ‘small caps are just too risky.’

But then how do some make money and others don’t?

Most people round-trip their investments because they think they are trading an asset, when they are actually trading a factor and do not have the risk management adapted to understand this!

The asset is just a wrapper

Whether you are buying bitcoin or a micro-cap biotech stock, you’re buying a factor, not an asset (at least in terms of how you should be thinking about it).

Factors are the underlying DNA of an investment’s return profile.

Professional fund managers don't just pick stocks…

They allocate to factors like value, momentum, quality, and volatility.

• The amateur focuses on the asset (the wrapper).

• The professional focuses on the factor (the engine).

If you don't understand the factor driving your returns, you won't know when the engine has stalled, and without understanding factors, you’re coming at analysis from the wrong direction - at least for portfolio management anyway.

Case study 1: The volatility illusion (crypto vs. equities)

While round-tripping happens in every market, crypto and small-cap equities share a unique trait… extreme time compression.

In traditional markets, a cycle might take five to seven years to play out.

In crypto or speculative small-cap stocks, you experience a lifetime of price discovery in five to seven months sometimes.

Because of this, it feels like things come crashing down even sooner.

The euphoria is higher, but the rug-pull of reality is faster. When the momentum factor disappears in some of these assets, there is no gentle cooling-off period.

It is a vertical drop.

Case study 2: momentum vs. quality

Let’s look at the market through a factor lens to see why some assets recover and others inevitably tank to shit.

The momentum factor (the engine)

• In crypto: Bitcoin is the most dominant momentum asset of the last 15 years.

• In equities: think of high-growth tech firms, or companies that are looking at changing the world in 5-10 years.

If you analyse these as momentum assets, your strategy is simple…

You ride the trend until the trend breaks.

You have an exit plan based on the exhaustion of momentum (we provide a very methodical approach to trade monetisation in the Academy).

The quality factor (the anchor)

This is where the round-trip happens. People see the momentum factor working in a specific sector and think they can apply the same buy and hold logic to every piece of junk within that sector.

• High quality (BTC / blue chip equities): You’d be happy to hold bitcoin or a company like NVIDIA for a decade. They have established quality: institutional adoption, network effects, or massive cash flows.

• Low quality (memecoins / speculative small caps): These are junk assets that catch a momentum wave. They have no fundamental anchor.

The blow up occurs when an investor confuses a low-quality momentum play for a high-quality long-term hold.

They ride the wave up on a memecoin or a penny stock, but because they haven't categorised it as a low quality asset, they try to HODL it while it bleeds out.

They wait for a recovery that will never come.

Why? Because without the momentum factor, these assets have zero intrinsic value.

They don't just correct, they die. They exist only as long as the hype lasts, and when the hype moves on, they are nothing but digital or paper crap.

Flip your analysis

To stop the cycle of giving back your gains, you must flip your hierarchy of analysis:

1. Analyse the factor first: Is the market rewarding high-octane momentum, or is it fleeing to quality?

2. Attribute the strategy: If it's a momentum play, use trailing stops and aggressive take-profit targets. If it's a quality play, you can afford to weather the volatility.

3. Pick the asset last: Find the asset that best expresses the factor you’ve identified, and in stocks, within the theme you consider to be the most expansionary.

When you understand that an asset is just a vehicle for a style of trading, you stop getting married to assets that have no fundamental right to be in your portfolio once the trend ends.

Professionalise your approach

If you are tired of being a paper millionaire during bull markets only to end up back at break-even during the corrections, it’s time to stop gambling on tickers and start trading factors.

At Fink Academy, we bridge the gap between retail enthusiasm and institutional execution.

We teach you the frameworks to identify market styles, analyse factors, and - most importantly - keep what you earn through systematic risk management.

Don't let your next winning trade become another round-trip horror.

Learn the factor framework: fink.money/academy

Stop guessing, start allocating: Book a strategy call with our team here

PS. we accept crypto for the Academy too. Hit reply if you want to pay this way.

Before we get into this end of week note, have a read of a few of the article’s we’ve dropped this week.

The Ultimate Guide to Momentum Investing

UK Stocks With the Biggest Dividends

Is the Moving Average the Greatest Indicator Ever?

The £5000 mistake…

Think back to 2014.

You walked into a store and handed over £600 for the latest iPhone. It felt like the future. Ok some people get a monthly contract which includes the phone but lets not be picky here!

Today that same device is likely sitting in the back of a junk drawer. It is a paperweight with a market value of effectively zero.

We often frame this as a choice between the product or the investment. But what if you did both.

Imagine a world where your lifestyle pays for itself. If you had bought that phone for £600 and the very next month you committed to buying £600 worth of Apple shares, your financial reality today would look very different.

The phone is worth £0.

The shares are worth approximately £5400.

To put that in perspective, Apple was trading at a split adjusted price of around $22 in late 2014. Today it sits over $240. That is a return of nearly 1000 per cent. While the hardware in your pocket was depreciating at 20 per cent per year, the company was compounding at a similar rate in the opposite direction.

Without ownership, you are just a hamster on a wheel. You work 40 hours a week for a paycheck, then you immediately hand that labour back to the corporations.

You are essentially working for free for the brands you love. You are a line item on their revenue report instead of being a line item on your own net worth statement.

You are not juicing the value from your effort.

You are simply handing your power over to someone else's balance sheet.

By following a buy the product buy the company rule, you stop being just a user and you become a partner.

That £5400 would pay for your next three phone upgrades in full with thousands left over. This is how you turn a cycle of spending into a cycle of wealth.

You might wonder if this requires staring at charts all day or chasing the latest volatile trends.

It does not. We are not teaching you how to be a day trader. We are not interested in gambling on hype or staring at screens for hours on end.

Instead we teach you how to become a systemised asset manager.

Our goal is to provide you with the professional framework required to operate your investing with the same discipline as a fund. You learn to manage your wealth through a repeatable process that prioritises long term efficiency over short term noise.

If you want to stop the cycle and start making your cash work efficiently over the long term, you need a framework to operate in.

For those who have never bought a share before and have fear over where to start, you can learn the Bank Statement Method here for £29.99.

If you’re more advanced and ready to master your investing because although you might have made money, you still don’t really have a proper process, book in a call to speak about the Fink Academy with me here.

Even if it isn’t right for you, you’ll probably come away with something useful from a chat with me.

Stop just using the world.

Start owning it.

IMPORTANT

We’ve seen Maduro overthrown in Venezuela.

It is imperative you read this article written by my friend Ryan Paisey, an ex-commodities market maker, on the whole oil story there.

If you do not read this, you will be stuck in a loop of getting information from macro tourists and insane leftists who do not understand the oil dynamics.

Twitter tweet

Have you ever wondered what Apple does with the mountain of cash it makes every time a new iPhone drops?

Most people reckon it just sits in a giant vault in Cupertino. But the reality is a bit more clever than that.

Back in 2005, Apple did something on the quiet…

They set up a subsidiary called Braeburn Capital in Nevada.

Its only job is to manage Apple’s spare change (LOL).

Today, Apple is sitting on over $150 billion in cash and marketable securities.

They’re a huge asset manager.

They invest their balance sheet into Treasuries, corporate bonds etc, earning a tidy sum in interest before they’ve even shipped a single phone or laptop. Read the Braeburn story

The genius move: the buyback machine

It’s not just about hoarding T-bills, though.

Apple uses its treasury for one of the most aggressive buyback programmes in history. Since 2012, they’ve spent over $600 billion buying back their own shares.

The logic here is all about Return on Invested Capital (ROIC). Apple is so efficient that it generates more cash than it can possibly reinvest into new products without diluting its returns. By buying back shares, they essentially invest in their own high-ROIC business, making every remaining share more valuable. See the $600bn buyback history

When they can't find a better place to put that cash that beats their internal hurdle rate, they stick it in Treasuries. It keeps the powder dry and ensures the balance sheet is always earning a yield that protects their capital until the next big move.

The Swiss National Bank trick

Even the big central banks are getting in on the act. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is the ultimate example.

To stop the Swiss Franc from getting too strong, they print francs and buy up foreign assets, specifically US tech stocks.

The SNB is now one of the largest shareholders in companies like Nvidia, Amazon, and Apple itself. They’ve built a massive equity portfolio worth over $160 billion.

When they make a profit on those tech stocks, they return a huge chunk of that cash to the Swiss cantons (local regions).

It basically subsidises the country’s public services, all funded by a clever US stock-buying programme. Read about the SNB tech stash

The global hoarders: it’s not just a US thing

The Americans might be the loudest, but some of the most disciplined treasury managers are found elsewhere.

• Nintendo (Japan) is the king of the war chest. They’ve famously sat on billions for decades, refusing to go into debt. Their treasury strategy is built on survival and long-term ROIC; they keep over $10 billion in cash just to ensure they can survive multiple failed console generations without breaking a sweat. Nintendo's massive cash pile

• Samsung (South Korea) currently holds nearly $80 billion in cash and equivalents. Much like Apple, they manage this through sophisticated internal treasury units, investing in global debt markets and ensuring their liquidity is always working while they wait for the next semi-conductor cycle. Samsung's cash strategy

• Sony (Japan) has transformed itself from a hardware firm into a financial giant. Their life insurance and banking divisions often provide the float that funds their entertainment acquisitions. They treat their entire group balance sheet as one giant capital allocation machine. This is very similar to what Buffett did with Geico - he used insurance float leverage (basically the cash from insurance premiums paid by consumers) to invest.

• ASML (Netherlands) manages its cash with surgical precision. Because their machines cost hundreds of millions, they maintain a treasury that ensures they can fund massive R&D years before a single euro of revenue comes in.

Why do they bother? Because these lot understand a simple truth…

Your balance sheet is a profit centre too.

If your capital is just sitting in a basic business account, it’s essentially sitting on its hands.

It’s losing value to inflation every second.

The world’s most successful megacorps treat that extra cash as a second engine for growth.

The micro-scale secret

This isn’t just a game for the Silicon Valley giants or central banks.

The exact same logic applies to you, whether you’re on a decent wedge from a job or running your own shop.

Most people treat their income as something to be spent or saved. But smart people treat it as a corporate treasury.

There’s a fella who is infamous in FX circles who used to be a trader.

He’s now CFO at a wood manufacturer…

And they make more money from his trading of their balance sheet in FX options than they do from selling the wood now!

If you’re a business owner, you don't have to pull every penny out as personal income (and get clobbered by the taxman).

You can run a corporate investment account. You can keep the capital inside the business structure, invest it exactly like Apple does, and let it compound in a much more tax-efficient way.

Even if you’re an employee, you can treat your finances like a company of one. You need a treasury strategy that goes a bit deeper than a standard savings account.

How to build your own Braeburn Capital

Most people never learn how to do this because traditional advisors are too busy trying to sell you a pension to actually teach you treasury strategy.

That’s why we started Fink Academy.

We help high-performers and business owners stop being savers and start being allocators.

We show you how to get the accounts sorted, choose the right assets, and manage your liquidity so your money works as hard as you do.

Ready to stop running a lazy balance sheet?

Become an Asset Manager - book a call with me now to see if the Investing Academy is right for you.

Subject: The moment "good at trading" wasn't enough

It’s 2020.

By most standards, I had "made it." I’d been day trading for a long time, and honestly? I was good at it.

But I wasn't some retail amateur just clicking buttons and hoping for the best. I had nearly a decade of professional skin in the game, 8 or 9 years as a broker and working around the markets. I knew how the machine worked from the inside.

At the time, I was already running a passive portfolio for the long term, but I was simultaneously grinding through shorter-term trades in futures and FX to generate income. I knew the setups, I knew the institutional logic, and the numbers in my account were growing.

But then, everything changed.

We found out we had a baby on the way.

Suddenly, I didn't just see green and red candles when I looked at my monitors. I saw a cage.

I looked at my three-screen setup and realised: I couldn't be the father I wanted to be if I was glued to those monitors for eight hours a day, hunting for the next FX setup or futures scalp. I couldn't be "present" if my mood for the evening was dictated by a late-session stop-out.

Even with all my professional experience and my passive holdings, I’d been trading the active markets for years chasing "freedom," only to realise as the due date got closer that I was just a well-paid slave to the volatility.

All I wanted more than anything was to just STOP for a moment.

To take a REAL break. To unplug without checking my phone every time I heard a notification. To not worry if my income would vanish the moment I stepped away to hold my child.

But back then, I didn't think I could. I was convinced that if I took my foot off the gas, if I wasn't there to catch every move in the futures market, everything would come crashing down.

I was a "successful" trader with years of industry knowledge, but I was the most trapped I'd ever been.

Every pound I made from that active trading required my literal pulse, my presence, and my constant anxiety. If I stopped clicking, the money stopped.

That’s not a business. That’s a high-stakes job that OWNS you.

Fast forward to now, and life looks completely different.

I don’t live in that 2020 rat race anymore. I don't try to out-hustle the market just to feel "okay" for the day.

I’ve transitioned from being a Day Trader, someone who trades their life force for a P&L, to a Portfolio Manager.

I took everything I knew from my years as a broker and my experience with passive investing and channelled it into a system that works 24/7. A strategy built on logic, maths, and systems that don't need me to babysit them.

Now, I can actually be the dad I envisioned back in 2020. I can go on dates with my wife, hit the gym, get out on the golf course, and fully unplug because I've created an engine that doesn't sleep.

Actually, if you follow me on X, you’ve probably wondered how on earth I have so much time to tweet absolute nonsense all day. It isn't because I'm avoiding work: it's because the system is doing the heavy lifting while I'm busy winding people up on the timeline. That is the ultimate goal: having the freedom to spend your time however you want, even if that means being a menace on social media.

Most importantly, I don't stress over minor moves in the market anymore. I don't sweat the small stuff because I’ve realised that intraweek noise is completely irrelevant to the bigger picture.

Functioning this way gives me something I never had as a day trader: the time to actually think. Instead of being a nervous wreck stressing over every tick of the tape, I have the clarity to focus on high-level strategy and the macro landscape. I work hard when the system requires it, and I relax HARD when it’s time to be a father.

The truth? Trading shouldn’t be about spending your life in front of a computer only to realise you haven’t even beaten the S&P 500 over the last few months. It shouldn't be about making no money after hours of stress, or worse, realising you made money but the "cost" to your family life made the reward feel insignificant.

Ask yourself…

What’s more sexy? Walking away having made money by doing very little, or having stressed every day for six months only to find you've made next to nothing?

At The Fink Academy, we turn people from day traders into portfolio managers.

We help you claim your time back.

Here’s what some members have already said…

We build systems that are tried and true, creating results that are predictable even when life (and kids) get busy.

Here’s what is contained within the Academy…

If you’re ready to stop being a slave to the candles and finally build an investing portfolio that makes you money while you actually live your life, it’s time you built your OWN engine.

Join the Fink Academy today with 15% off, valid until New Year’s Day!

Who is this NOT for though?

• Someone who wants to day trade - please go elsewhere. We are not willing to cater to intraday noise and pretend you can be as successful as following longer term systems.

• Someone who is an absolute beginner and has never bought a share before.

• Someone who is not willing to follow a robust risk management system.

• Someone who does not want independence and wants to be told what to do at every stage.

If you aren’t that person, then the Academy is for you.

Reserve your seat today and then book in a welcome call.

Start your New Year right.

Picking stocks is easy.

Yeah, I said it.

You find a narrative, you spot a breakout, and you feel like a genius when the screen turns green. But then reality hits.

Most traders spend 90% of their time on ‘the hunt’ and 0% on the exit.

The result?

You either panic-sell for a tiny win before the stock pulls a 5x, or you bag-hold a winner all the way back to zero because you ‘believed’ in the story.

Without a systematic exit, you aren’t actually an investor. You’re just a spectator watching ‘paper profits’ evaporate.

The Face-Saving Trap

In the markets, we have a bad habit of marrying our winners.

When a stock is up 50%, the ego takes over. You stop looking at the price action and start looking at the vacation you’re going to buy. Then the trend snaps. Instead of cutting the cord, you tell yourself it’s just a "healthy pullback."

You hold because you don't want to admit the trade is over. You want to save face.

But the market doesn't care about your feelings. It only cares about liquidity. By the time you finally decide to sell, your massive gain has turned into a "break-even" or a "diminished return." You’ve wasted months of capital opportunity for a participation trophy.

The ‘System’ vs. The ‘Gut’

If you are exiting trades based on how your stomach feels when you open your brokerage platform, you’ve already lost.

Systematic risk management isn't about being right…

It's about being cold, boring and nonchalant.

The most successful desks don't "guess" the top. They use rules:

• The Trailing Metric: Use a moving average or a volatility stop. If the price closes below it, the trade is dead. No ‘one more day.’ No "let’s see the earnings." Out.

• The Tiered Sell: Sell 25% into strength to lock in the win. It removes the psychological pressure and lets you hold the ‘house money’ for the real runners.

• The Opportunity Metric: If you wouldn't buy the stock at its current price today, why are you still holding it?

Take silver at the moment.

It’s in a parabola.

You tell me how you’d exit this without feeling like A) you have left gains on the table or B) you’d exited too late.

That’s what systemising your risk management does.

It takes away those concerns.

Stop Shitting Yourself

A trade is only successful when the cash hits your settlement account. Everything else is just pixels on a screen - bullshit, in essence.

Stop obsessing over finding the perfect entry. Start obsessing over how you are going to leave the room before the lights go out.

Don't ‘shit the bed’ just because you didn't have a plan for the exit. Follow the price, lock in the gains, and ignore the noise.

The Fink Academy runs extremely systematic risk management and trade entry criteria to help you with this.

You will understand why volatility is the way to run your risk management and position sizing, as well as how to construct a portfolio that works for you.

Join here.

We keep it simple. We keep our conviction. And we know what we like.

We aren’t looking at 20 different companies here, then picking the ones that we do well and ignoring the rest.

We’re picking three, so you can remember them easily and call us out if they go to shit (or send us love if they make you money although I’m not recommending you buy anything).

Let’s get into it.

You’re going to have to be insane if you think Tesla won’t have a good 2026.

The three reasons why we’re backing Elon’s car maker to do well next year…

1) Newsflow: you cannot turn around without seeing some form of news about Tesla or Elon. The domination in the headlines create almost a cult following behind the stock. This is important. It cements buyers’ feelings about the company constantly.

I’ll use the analogy of a luxury car maker.

They don’t really advertise the model. They advertise to reinforce that buyers have made the right decision in buying the car. They advertise an ethos, a lifestyle and a personality type.

Love him or hate him, this is exactly what Elon does and you probably don’t realise it. In Tesla stock holders’ eyes, everything he does is an advert that they have made the right choice in owning the stock. It’s rather poetic.

Whether it’s his political ventures, or mouthing out on certain topics on X, it’s constant reinforcement of a ‘side’. Yes, it’s the cult of Elon. But rockstar CEOs now want that cult following. It strengthens the share price.

But this is tied to the second point.

2) Innovation: Elon isn’t just saying things, but he’s doing too. The stupidest people alive will call him a conman, even though he’s made the best selling car firm ever, is helping paraplegics live a more normal life with Neuralink, has created satellite internet for consumers, launches rockets into space…

You get the picture. So there is a growth view to the backing of Tesla too. Usually car makers trade at a lower multiple because, well, they don’t really innovate that much.

Whereas Tesla is tied to all these other businesses and their success.

You might think I’m mad, but I think Tesla could be a $10tn company in a few years when they get the robotics arm firing, as well as the launch of Tesla Robotaxis - just consider Uber’s market cap intertwined with everything else in one firm.

3) The chart: I mean, look at the chart. In the Fink Investing Academy, we teach why a stock trading at a 52 week high is ultra bullish and is a time to seriously add risk rather than be afraid.

Looking at this, we can see the real problem with Tesla’s returns this year was pretty much the tariff drama.

Just like it was for every other firm.

Whereas now we have the growth path set with all the innovation coming.

A big push forward with full self driving and then the Robotaxis will be a rocket up Tesla shares’ arse - especially since Waymo has just gone international with its first car in London…

Elon will want to be the first competitor.

All of this fundamental flow matters when you’re looking at things over the longer run.

And when you combine it with what we teach in the Investing Academy then I can almost guarantee you’ll have a pretty strong year because we’ll show you how to execute, manage risk and understand how to compose your portfolio.

Here’s what some of our members have said about the programme.

Join here with £750 off list price (can pay over four months too).

So make sure you pay attention.

But the next stock is also extremely important for 2026 and beyond.

Caterpillar… the big digger maker.

We’ve spoken about this company a lot, and if you have been following, you’ll know why.

Twitter tweet

You need to realise…

Buying firms that have monopolies on a growth story is probably the best narrative you need to hold a stock confidently over the longer run.

Caterpillar is the one stock I NEVER heard spoken about and yet they’re so vitally important to future growth that I cannot get long them enough.

Do yourself a favour and understand what I have said here.

$100tn global investment in infrastructure needed by 2040.

That’s all.

And lastly, I still think Google is going to have an exceptional 2026.

They’re full stack across the entire AI ecosystem and one of the only firms to be structured like this for the theme.

ere is why the "Google is dead" narrative was the biggest head-fake of the decade:

1) The Vertical Integration Advantage

While everyone else is fighting over Nvidia’s scraps and paying a ‘Jensen tax’ of 75% margins, Google is building its own silicon.

Their TPU v7 (Ironwood) chips are now hitting the market, and the specs are terrifying for competitors. We’re talking about custom AI hardware that is 40–60% cheaper to run than traditional GPUs.

Because Google owns the chip (TPU), the model (Gemini), and the platform (Google Cloud), they have a ‘full-stack’ margin advantage that no one else - not even Microsoft - can fully replicate. They aren't just a software company…

they’re a powerhouse of physical AI infrastructure.

2) Search isn't dying, it's evolving

The bear case for Google was that ‘Chatbots will kill Search.’

2025 proved that wrong.

Google integrated Gemini 3 directly into the search bar (AI Overviews), and instead of losing users, they’ve deepened the moat.

Search is shifting from a list of links to an ‘AI Agent’ that does the work for you.

Google has 3 billion users across Workspace and Android.

They don't need to find new customers; they just need to give their existing billions an AI reason to stay.

With the 2026 rollout of Google Antigravity (their new agentic platform), your phone won't just find a restaurant - it will book the table, invite your friends, and add it to your calendar - all within the Google ecosystem.

3) The Cloud "Sleeper" Hit

Google Cloud is no longer the ‘runt of the litter.’

It’s growing at 30%+ with massive operating leverage.

Enterprises are flocking to Google because they want an alternative to the ‘Microsoft/OpenAI’ monopoly.

In late 2025, we saw massive partnerships - including rumors of Meta using Google's TPUs to train their own models.

When your biggest competitors start paying you to use your hardware, you know you’ve won the infrastructure war.

The Bottom Line for 2026

If 2024 was the year of ‘AI Hype’ and 2025 was the year of ‘AI Buildout,’ 2026 is the year of ‘AI Execution.’ 

Tesla has the cult and the robotics, Caterpillar has the physical monopoly on global growth, and Google has the digital nervous system of the entire AI economy.

We’ve given you the picks. Now it’s about the execution.

The Investing Academy is waiting for you.

Click here to join.

Dropped a video on how I reckon the market is playing out.

Bottom line…

China is again lying about its capabilities in the semiconductor and AI race.

Twitter tweet

If you don’t want to watch, have a read of the video’s summary below:

🚀 The "Manhattan Project" or Just More BS?

China is back in the headlines with a Reuters "exclusive" claiming they’ve built their own EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) lithography machines - the holy grail of chipmaking - using a team of renegade ex-ASML engineers. They’re calling it their "Manhattan Project."

The Fink Take: Take a massive pinch of salt. This smells less like a scientific breakthrough and more like the DeepSeek saga…

a lot of face-saving PR with just enough truth to make a headline, but not enough substance to change the scoreboard.

While China's prototype reportedly occupies an entire factory floor (ASML's fits in a school bus), Nvidia ($NVDA) is already moving the goalposts. Their 2026 'Rubin' platform is being built on ASML’s High-NA EUV - technology that prints transistors at an 8nm resolution. China isn't catching up to Nvidia; they're reverse-engineering the Western world's 2019 homework.

The Reality Check: The "Mud Hut" Metric

When people talk about China overtaking the US, they usually ignore the "mud hut" factor.

• US GDP per capita (PPP): ~$75,490

• China GDP per capita (PPP): ~$23,685

China is a face-saving nation. They need to look strong, but the objective data shows an economy that is still three times weaker per person than the US, hampered by massive rural poverty. If China truly cracked the EUV code, the markets would be screaming. Instead? Meh, it’s moved because Oracle keeps having bad news, which is tied to OpenAI.

AI is Bleeding, but the Power Play is Nuclear IMO

While the "AI Bubble" talk intensifies, look at the plumbing. Oracle ($ORCL) just got slapped after its $10B Michigan data center deal with Blue Owl Capital stalled. Lenders are getting cold feet about "debt-fueled expansion."

OpenAI is the real issue. They are projected to burn through $115 billion by 2029. They’re spending $9B to make $5B.

And I’ve already said they sound like Netscape in the 90s…

Twitter tweet

The Next Trade: Forget the chatbots; watch the juice. Data centers are hitting an energy wall. The next leg up for AI infrastructure isn't better code - it’s Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

⚛️ The SMR Play: Who has the "Juice"?

If you're playing the Nuclear AI pivot, these are the names I’m watching…

1. Rolls-Royce ($RR / $RYCEY): The European heavyweight. As of December 2025, Rolls-Royce has officially been named the "preferred bidder" for the UK’s first SMR fleet at Wylfa, Wales. They aren't just a jet engine company anymore…

   they are a sovereign nuclear play. With a £2.5 billion government-backed mandate and the furthest-along regulatory approval in Europe, they are the "safe bet" in a volatile sector.

2. Oklo Inc. ($OKLO): The Bill Gates-backed darling. It’s a "pure-play" on the 2027/2028 horizon. Warning: High volatility, but Jensen Huang’s blessing keeps the momentum alive when the overall market isn’t going to absolute shit.

3. NuScale Power ($SMR): The only company with an NRC-certified design. They are pushing toward a 2030 target, but the stock remains a "Strong Sell" for many analysts due to widening losses.

4. BWX Technologies ($BWXT): The "picks and shovels" play. They manufacture the actual steam generators for Rolls-Royce and the US Navy. If SMRs take off, BWXT gets paid regardless of which reactor wins.

If you want to know how to be able to invest in these firms properly, with a fully fledged startegy for long term gains and risk management, as well as lifetime access to our exclusive Academy community, then grab 10% off the Fink Investing Academy now.

More details of what you will learn in this video.

Twitter tweet

The War Chest: Momentum & The Oil Bid

Geopolitics is getting messy (Venezuela, Putin, the usual). While defense stocks had a lackluster 2025, the tide is turning.

Bottom Line: Market dynamics go up and down. Don't "shit the bed" every time there's a red candle. Follow the momentum, watch the energy, and ignore the China face saving.

GM

Wanted to drop you an article we wrote about FINALLY BEATING MARTIN LEWIS THE MONEY SAVING EXPERT INTO SUBMISSION.

Check it out.

We Finally Convinced Martin Lewis - Fink Money

Martin Lewis finally admits you can't save your way to wealth. Find out why the British obsession with scarcity is keeping you poor & why it's time to start investing.

fink.money/we-finally-convinced-martin-lewis

PS. We have two more spaces on the Academy.

I’m discounting them with £500 off.

Next year, we’re adding more into it, so this will be the lowest price you can get it at.

Check what Parris and John’s experience has been so far if you’re undecided.

If you don’t have an investing process and know that you’re gambling, but want to systemise your risk management, portfolio composition and truly be able to reduce your anxiety when approaching the market…

Then this is for you.

Start your new investing process here.

Michael Burry just seems to not be able to learn.

In his latest Substack, he said…

But just last month, Bury shut Scion Capital Management because he said he no longer understood the market…

And now he’s short Tesla.

In my view Bury is just as bad as the British government at invoking ambition.

Tesla might be overvalued if you look at it from a Benjamin Graham’s Intelligent Investor perspective.

Which merely implies that you should focus on discounted value and not momentum…

But fundamentally, investors are now pricing in the future on a far longer timeframe than before.

And it’s down to this one thing in my view…

Moore’s Law.

See, with big tech, we’re looking at a play on fierce competition and the ability to do compute quicker, with less power and with better outcomes.

Moore’s Law dictates that the number of transistors on a circuit doubles roughly every two years since it scales exponentially with the increase in power of computing.

With this being the case, why wouldn’t you be pricing tech firms way, way further into the future, especially when this ‘Law’ has shown itself to be true over the last decade especially?

Tesla is at the forefront of innovation, and whatever your view on Musk, it’s hard to deny this one fact.

But what’s more is Tesla is and has been the top selling car maker globally for a while now.

Which means revenue and sales growth.

Which means a higher share price over a 5y average…

Burry seems a bit demented by his own success from 2008, and is perhaps trying to apply the wrong cause to a different context.

See, back in 2008, Burry was pretty much just betting that fraudulence would come to light and show where the true value of the housing market was.

But is Tesla fraudulent?

Is there any sort of misdemeanour going on?

Or is it just that investors are betting on Musk to keep innovating?

And fwiw, I used to be a Musk hater, but in 2019, I grew up.

Because if we look at the revenue per employee of Tesla, there doesn’t really seem to be any sort of problem to bet against…

And if we look at Tesla’s price to book ratio (we look at valuation metrics in the Blueprint to Investing btw)…

We’re actually at relative lows to historical…

One area you might have critique over is Tesla’s cash flow drop over the last 2 years…

But what’s the real story?

Well, Musk cut the price of the Model Y and 3 from 2023 to 2024 to compete with the Chinese manufacturers and some of zee Germans.

While he also ramped up capital expenditure on future projects.

So is this a cause for concern?

Not really.

It shows 1) protection over market positioning and 2) that growth is important - and the latter is exactly what investors want to see, and why a company can retain a higher multiple.

For a firm to be investable, they have to keep dangling a carrot in front of investors, since the whole essence of markets is based on future projections.

Nothing right now really matters.

All while ensuring the company will be profitable next quarter.

Hard job being a CEO.

But the interesting thing for me is what clearly is a bit of a personal gripe from Burry.

Musk’s $1tn pay package is extremely unlikely to be met.

It’s why shareholders voted for it - because if he does actually meet the terms of being paid $1tn across various remuneration avenues, then he makes the shareholders also exceedingly rich.

Burry doesn’t seem to get this for whatever reason.

He seems to think there is no incentive or second order outcomes of Musk achieving this pay, that ight actually be beneficial for others.

He is just seeing it from a balance sheet perspective of ‘OMG big number, big number no go to Elon because big number means less number for me.’

Caveman vibes.

One of the only reasons I dunk on Burry is because I truly think he has warped investors’ minds, as I’ve said before.

And it’s really sad because clearly he is smart, but also simply doesn’t understand the way of markets now.

Are you still doing the same thing with your portfolio and expecting a different result?

If you're already in the markets - researching, charting, and trying to stay ahead of the curve - you know the pain…

• Wasting countless hours trying to time the market.

• The stress of taking unnecessary financial losses.

• Watching inflation erode your capital while your money sits in a high-street bank, earning a paltry 1%.

• Dealing with the emotional ‘PTSD’ from past investment blunders that makes you too hesitant to invest now.

You're a keen market researcher, but dedication is worthless without direction.

The Truth: Your Time is Running Out

The problem isn't your commitment…

it’s your lack of a professional, repeatable structure perhaps.

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P.S. Want to hear it straight from the source? Watch Daniel and John talk about their journeys:

• Daniel Smith's Case Study: Gaining Confidence and Mitigating Losses

• John Wallace's Case Study: Gaining 20% in Just 4-5 Months

You know the feeling.

You read articles, maybe even enjoy Fink for the latest market insights, but when it comes to actually putting your own money in the stock market, that familiar knot of anxiety tightens. The questions pop up: where do I start? What if I lose everything? Is this too complicated?

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Far too many comparisons have been made between AI and DotCom.

There is one simple difference between this AI period and the late 90s.

These AI firms are actually making money, unlike the DotCom companies.

Jerome Powell mentioned this a few weeks ago too. He specifically noted the point above.

Nvidia just smashed their earnings with beats on EPS and revenue, while Google has released Gemini 3 which seems to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

ABN Amro has just cut staff due to AI cost savings.

Clifford Chance has as well.

And Salesforce has been the most notable who has directly put it down to AI as being the largest cost saver.

It is difficult to reconcile a stock that has done thousands of percent over a few years (Nvidia) with the belief it’s a normal market, but the revenue is very much real.

Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle and Broadcomm are all fighting to compete across each others’ different purposes.

But each with the goal of not making the next ChatGPT (which I do think is ridiculous and will hopefully die a quick death), but to lower their own, and other business’, margins.

And what drives the stock market? Profitability and returning cash to shareholders.

See lots of people attach narrative to things.

But the one narrative that doesn’t lie is money - and unless Nvidia has been committing the largest fraud ever by altering their income statements, I’d suggest commentators stop focusing on whether AI is a bubble and purely on that one number that matters.

And I refer back to the piece I wrote months ago.

2015 killed investors’ brains.

Completely one shotted them.

And the constant chatter about the AI bubble is a bit mental to me considering.

Now where there IS an AI bubble is in the smaller firms who are trying to fight for a piece of the pie, who have loaded up on debt and who are private (ahem, OpenAI).

There I think there is a bigger risk, and I wrote about the real bubble a few weeks ago too.

Private equity/private credit is where things don’t really make sense to me.

You have such an opacity in the market that all this debt load creates big problems with pricing the output and valuation.

Lots of these firms are completely unprofitable - I mean, OpenAI has no date on when it expects to make any money, which is why Elon is going so hard at Sam in my view…

But us as listed equity investors, we don’t have to worry so much…

Apart from perhaps looking at any potential big links between private and public, most likely which would be the banks and lenders, or any large listed LPs (limited partners who provide money to private equity funds to invest).

Like, if Microsoft were to have to write down their investment in Open AI, that would be a decent hit, and could shift over to some of the data centre hosts too.

But if we’re looking for a firm that’s insulated from that feedback loop, there has to only be one.

Google.

Google is going to be as big as Nvidia pretty soon.

Eventually Nvidia’s demand will slow which will lead to investors to pull back a little and find the next best horse.

That next best horse is Google since they are completely full stack, from data centres all the way to the consumer frontend of Gemini.

And there’s a lesson in there…

A few years ago everyone said Google would have to bow out and they were heading to irrelevance.

But I recall one earnings call when they’d made something like $45bn in one quarter, beating estimates.

That caused me to reassess since they had still done that for a while whilst people were calling for their demise.

Sort of getting that vibe with Apple now by the way…

But anyway, lesson there is you cannot say a firm is done for when it has so much cash.

Yes they went woke, but they didn’t go broke.

And if the return on invested capital is good enough, companies with a large cash holding will be forced by their shareholders to venture into the hot sector, but to do it well.

Apple I think is cautious.

There is no need for them to do it - perhaps because Tim Cook knows he can just run the same balance sheet shenanigans he has done for years by buying back shares rather than innovating (which, by the way, investors are more than happy with)…

But I think an element of surprise will spring from Apple in the same way Google has done with creating Gemini so well…

They are going to develop something which causes a further shift higher in the stock market, which no one really expects.

It will probably be AI related and probably in robotics - that is my gut feel.

They scrapped the Apple Car, but that is because it ventured too far away from the person - Apple is a person product; they had no business being involved in making cars.

You look at Apple and you think ‘home’, ‘office’ or wearables.

Apple Home already exists, so why not have a robot in the home?

Look, this might just be a pipe dream and I might be down the wrong hole with robotics, but Apple is set to do something for sure.

And this is the key point.

These firms are already rich.

DotCom was a shithole of companies without a proven business model coming to market on this new thing that no one was really using yet as consumers.

Of course pets.com only made $3.8m or something after listing at a valuation of $85bn.

Why wouldn’t it? /s

Vast contrast to today where these big companies are making billions every quarter, and in some cases, a billion every few days…

The key takeaway from this is bubbles can only be bubbles if valuations are completely divorced from any profit…

And right now, we’re seeing the very real revenue and profit, and very real cost savings from this ‘bubble’ across the spectrum of the market.

We’re launching a brand new product later today…

This will be a 12 phase course for newbie investors to make you comfortable with stocks and the risk associated.

If you have NEVER invested before, this will be for you…

And it’s only going to be £30.

Join the waitlist below.

I stopped day trading in about 2020/21.

Why did I do this?

The market changed.

Throughout working in the city, I’d always traded a day trading account.

It worked really well.

But in 2020, something changed.

The market became considerably more efficient.

The effort to reward ended up vanishing and while you can definitely still find short term opportunities, I can’t be bothered spending my life trying to constantly refine and compete against very sophisticated algos and millions of dollar costs on infrastructure and talent.

Because that is the truth.

That’s really what you’re competing against - not any psychology bullshit that is telling you you’re doing something wrong because you’re thinking incorrectly.

At the base level, the market is extremely, extremely hard.

And I always ask myself the question why so many individuals keep trying to find said inefficiencies in traditional markets when they can simply extend their timeframe and do far less.

No it’s not as sexy, but what matters more?

Money or doing something sexy?

I’ll pick money every time.

I mentioned traditional markets above because actually, day trading crypto still has a lot of inefficiencies, but again, it takes a hell of a lot of understanding of where to trade (smaller venues) and where to offload risk (larger venues) as just one example.

Rarely in tradfi is an inefficiency like this available anymore (they are still available, but as I said, they might be fleeting and unavailable to most due to infrastructure constraints).

So how do I do it?

Well, at the base level it’s a focus on what factor to trade.

The one that has made the most money over the longest time is momentum.

Once we know that, we can add in a few other aspects into our view.

Momentum makes the most money consistently, and what is the biggest driver of stock market returns?

Earnings growth.

Which nation makes the most money?

The US.

So we have two drivers to include into a system.

Identifying momentum in US equities.

Right, but that’s not really a system.

What that is is sort of a grasp of something called risk premia.

Momentum trading over the longer run translates to trend formation.

Why are we compensated for holding a trend?

Because it’s really fucking boring and most people don’t want to do it.

In markets you’re compensated for taking on risk when others don’t want to.

So we are happy to find these drivers and build filtering systems on top to be able to find companies that are likely to exhibit the characteristics we want to see.

And these characteristics from the base level are likely going to be thematic.

Take future innovations where the share price is not yet factoring in said growth (OMG, you also trade value! Yes, sort of. A bit of discretion never goes amiss).

Using a few loose concepts then building objective ways to identify them is what we’re about.

Add in the element of time appreciation and you’re laughing.

But that’s only half the battle, since you need to be able to risk manage adequately.

I’ll tell you something.

Price targets are a fools game.

Imagine thinking you know when a market is going to top out.

Imagine being that arrogant.

How do you then exit a market?

You close your profitable position when it’s going against you in chunks to ensure you have the maximum left in according to objective volatility measures if momentum kicks in again.

We use moving averages to determine if momentum has died or not.

We also use volatility measures across different periods in certain stock sectors that might require a different way to view volatility.

For instance, it could be MORE useful to use a full knockout on a big cap tech stock because you know if it hits a 100 day ATR at the downside that it may no longer in fact be a big tech stock and might just be a middler for a while…

Which can be a signal to sell down that specific tech stock and shift into another that’s showing the momentum we objectify in our system.

Bear in mind, we want to hold maybe 10-12 stocks in our portfolio at one time.

Not a lot.

So it might sound like there’s a lot to do, but the last position I personally changed was in October, with the one before that being in July.

In the Fink Model Portfolio which is EXTREMELY passive…

The last change was in January!

Not a whole heap of change going on. No real bother in my personal life (which lets me talk shit on X all day).

But look, I’m pretending this is easy and people should just know this.

This comes from years of pain, years of success and years of speaking with people who know way more than me, as well as seeing portfolio managers who use similar (if not the same) methods in multi million dollar and pound funds.

And it’s just a small glimpse into how you might be able to change certain aspects of your approach.

As always, nothing is certain and we are dealing in a game of probabilities - if you want certainly, stick with a Cash ISA or money market funds!

But if you want outsized returns, there are some simple things you can do to achieve them.

You just need to Fink a little laterally.

Hope that helps - hit reply with any questions.

Look, I love to think up whacky themes that have the ability to play out.

My big bet is on infrastructure…

But a UK specific bet is a real funny one.

LONG ASYLUM SEEKERS.

Yeah, you might think I’m mad for this, but truly, this is a profitable trade.

Here’s the mini-basket…

You can see the FTSE has done 15% this year.

This asylum seeker basket?

50%.

It’s made up of Serco, Mitie and Mears Group, the three names that provide contracted services to the government for asylum seeker facilities.

Now you might be thinking, ‘this is awful. How can you profit from this?’

Well, I don’t care.

It’s profitable and the UK government truly will not stem this tide any time soon, so it’s a valid theme to trade.

Note, the basket is market cap weighted, with the largest position in Serco, followed by Mitie and then Mears.

Sometimes, great positions are staring at you right in the face.

As Tim said in the Academy chat yesterday…

Naturally AirBnB isn’t UK specific, but you can see the divergence in this theme versus private sector accommodation…

AirBnB is DOWN 12 percent this year.

Let me know your thoughts by hitting reply, and as always, if you want to book a call with me to discuss the Academy, you can grab a slot in my Calendly.