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By 2027, Bernie Sanders and his cabal of pessimists are going to be in the streets protesting AI. Blaming it for everything…That's the political tape we're walking into.The reason isn't ideology. It's economics. We are watching the most consequential technology transition since the industrial revolution play out in real time, and the early returns look exactly like the early returns of the last one: capital is winning, productivity is exploding, and the wages of the people doing the displaced work are flat to down.The week the catalysts all printed in one directionBefore we get to the politics, let’s grade the tape, because the tape is what makes the rest of the argument unavoidable.TSMC’s Q1 2026 call was the cleanest piece of corporate communication I’ve read this quarter. They raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to better than 30% year-over-year. Gross margin printed a new high of 66.2% — well above the 56%+ long-term guide. Capex is now tracking the high end of the $52–56 billion range, and management said explicitly that revenue growth will outpace capex growth. That’s a margin-expansion story sitting on top of a unit-volume story. They almost never travel together. They are travelling together right now.ASML revised 2026 revenue up to €36–40 billion (from €34–39 billion) and flagged an EUV supply shortage in 2027. Anthropic’s annualized revenue went from over $9 billion at the end of 2025 to over $30 billion by April 2026. That’s a tripling of ARR in three months. I have spent enough time around early-stage capex cycles to know what they look like, and that is what they look like.The single most important sentence said on a corporate call this quarter came from TSMC CEO C.C. Wei. I’m going to put it here in full because if you only remember one thing from this newsletter, it should be this:“The shift from generative AI and the query mode to agentic AI and command and action mode is leading to another step-up in the amount of tokens being consumed.”Read it twice. Generative AI was a query layer — a person typing a prompt and reading an answer. Agentic AI is a labor layer — a system doing the work end-to-end. The token math compounds, it doesn’t add. And the entity that consumes those tokens isn’t a curious knowledge worker on a free tier. It’s the workflow that used to belong to that worker.The mix shift inside TSMC tells the same story without the press release language. In the fourth quarter of 2019, high-performance computing was 29% of TSMC’s revenue and smartphones were 53%. Today HPC is 61% and smartphones are 26%. The positions have completely flipped in five years. Advanced nodes — 7nm or below, where TSMC is a de facto monopoly — are now roughly three-quarters of revenue.I keep coming back to this: 2026 revenue estimates for TSMC are up roughly 25% since September 2025, and the stock is up roughly 60% over that window. That’s a multiple holding while estimates run up. That is the signature of the market pricing more upside, not less. The bubble signal would be one of MSFT, GOOG, META, or AMZN guiding capex down on this week’s prints.UPDATE; All 4 hyperscalers beat and guided up last night.The Canadian canary nobody is talking aboutIf you want a concrete data point that this is no longer a Silicon Valley story, look at Rogers. Last week Rogers Communications cut its 2026 capex plan by roughly 30%, from up-to-$3.5 billion down to $2.5–2.7 billion, and offered voluntary departure packages to about 10,000 employees. That is not a hyperscaler. That is a regulated Canadian incumbent. If a slow-growth telecom is willing to take a 30% capex axe and put 10,000 buyout offers on the table, the cultural permission to use AI to compress headcount is no longer a coastal phenomenon. It’s a TSX-60 phenomenon.The signal isn’t Rogers specifically. The signal is the speed of cultural adoption. Six months ago, a Canadian incumbent doing this would be a one-off. Today it reads as a template. I am watching BCE and Telus closely for the next two prints, and I am watching the Big Six banks even more closely. The first big bank to publicly acknowledge it is the one to own as a stock and to fear as an employee.What I think happens nextI want to be clear that I am not a doomer. I am see justification in the AI capex thesis, and can already see the productivity gains that come with it. The world ends up richer on the other side of this. That has been true of every previous technology transition, and there is no reason to think it won’t be true here.But the transition is the part that’s going to be politically and culturally disorienting. Productivity gains and wage compression can — and during Engels’ Pause, did — coexist for decades. The political response to “the country is much richer in aggregate but my paycheck is flat and my kid can’t get an entry-level analyst job” is not going to be measured. It is going to be Bernie Sanders in the streets, and it is going to be sooner than people think. The 2027 timing isn’t a guess pulled out of the air. It’s the lag I’d expect between visible displacement and the political reaction to it. Productivity is already ticking up. Layoff announcements are already climbing. Entry-level wage growth has already stalled. That is the smoke. The fire is the next two years.The picks-and-shovels remains the story. The foundation models are accelerating and monetizing. The AI-power complements are becoming more cemented, because the agentic layer is, at the end of the day, an electricity load. And budget for political volatility - because in a world where capital is winning this hard, this fast, the politics catch up. They always do.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Dwarkesh and Reiner Pope Teach Us Ai:* Kill Them With Kindness:Best Links of The Week🔮* Labour productivity in non-conventional oil extraction is nearly $580 per hour; approximately ten times the rest of the economy Trevor Tombe, University of Calgary* According to a December 2025 C.D. Howe Institute study, just ONE natural resources project has been approved under the new federal Impact Assessment Act* saw this new interview with Ben Uyeda on About Art. Ben is an architect-turned multidisciplinary maker/artist/hotelier. He created Reset Hotel, where we stayed in Joshua Tree recently, and I got to spend a little time with him while we were there. A quote really stood out to me:“The difference between creativity and taste. The culture we’re in right now is mistaking having great taste for being creative. People are mistaking consumption with production, and I think creativity is always about production.“It’s second nature for me to curate lots of great design ideas and products at this point. It’s what I constantly do online.It’s much, much harder, and probably much more valuable, to build great things.* Rogers Communications Inc. is offering voluntary departure packages to about 10,000 employees in its workforce as the telecom giant moves to cut costs amid slowing industry growth. - BNN* Engles Pause and Employment - Fabricated Knowledge This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Machiavelli, often considered the father of modern political philosophy, focused heavily on what he called the “effectual truth”—the reality of what actually works, rather than what we wish would happen in an ideal world. He believed that maintaining prosperity requires a clear-eyed understanding of power and a ruthless grasp of human nature.Right now, global markets, international security, and our own domestic economy are forcing us to take off the rose-colored glasses. Here is the effectual truth of what is driving the macro landscape this week.1. The Geopolitical Contest of Economic PainThe Strait of Hormuz has been largely closed since late February, pushing WTI crude above $100 a barrel and U.S. gas to $4 a gallon. While the market surged this morning on hints of de-escalation, the broader strategic lesson is alarming.We are witnessing a shift away from conventional military deterrence toward a “contest of economic pain.” Adversaries are proving they do not need a world-class navy to inflict catastrophic damage on the West; they simply need the ability to choke off vital global commerce.This is the exact blueprint China is studying for Taiwan. The risk isn’t necessarily a D-Day style amphibious invasion, but a gray-zone “quarantine”—a customs dispute that forces the global economy to capitulate without a single shot fired. The West urgently needs a strategy of structured ambiguity and an acknowledgment of Economic Mutually Assured Destruction, because right now, we are entirely unprepared for the economic fallout of our own deterrence.2. The AI Pivot: From Hardware to AgentsIn the markets, we’ve seen a violent rotation out of AI infrastructure names (like Micron, LITE, Coherent, and Ciena). This sell-off was triggered by Google’s new TurboQuant algorithm, which promises 6x memory compression. The debate tearing through the market right now is whether this massive leap in efficiency will kill hardware demand, or if it will trigger the “Jevons Paradox” - where increased efficiency actually drives wider adoption and consumption.While the hardware side re-rates, the software side is accelerating. AI “agents” are moving rapidly from pilots into live production. The true promise of tools like Claude is the automation of the “coordination tax” and the staggering amount of friction, documentation, and internal repackaging required to get anything done in a large organization. AI-native startups are going to move with terrifying speed, while massive incumbents will have to drag their workforce into the AI era.3. Canada’s Stagnation: Falling Behind AlabamaBringing the focus back home, a jarring statistic has been dominating Canadian business circles: Canada’s GDP per capita has now fallen behind the state of Alabama. Over the last decade, our real GDP per capita grew by just 0.4% annually, dropping us below the OECD average for the first time in recorded history.How did we get here?* The Productivity Trap: A massive surge in temporary residents and cheap labor entirely disincentivized Canadian businesses from making the capital and technological investments necessary to improve productivity.* The Fiscal Mirage: Government spending has ballooned from 38% of GDP to 45% over the last decade. Because GDP includes government spending, this deficit-financed public sector expansion has masked a severe depression in the private sector.* The Brain Drain: The wealth gap at the top is driving our best talent away. Roughly 40% of Canada’s potential top 1% earners have emigrated to the U.S. seeking competitive compensation.But as investors, we navigate the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.My thoughts on the Iran conflict:Iran’s main suppliers are the same people facing untenable, existential risk from Hormuz being closed for an extended period.There are break points here where tens of millions or more die from starvation, cold, etc. Which people from all countries tend to be less than chill about. Yes, the US has global rivals who would like to “beat” American over time, but nobody is trying to have a destabilized Asian continent. *How* we have done what we just did (geopolitical equivalent to the Michael Jackson window baby approach to parenting) probably solidifies our handoff of the global mantle of leadership, which has profound long-term implications.But there is a very immediate “we absolutely cannot f*****g have this” situation on the ground for the exact players who allow Iran to exist. Hard to bear hug Iran while US and Israel are in “just kill everyone” mode. But whenever US and Israel are satisfied with the purge level, Iran will get bear hugged out of Hormuz. Or returned to the stone age courtesy of Huawei firmware.Hormuz being closed for Developed markets is a material threat to standards of living. For much of the world, it would be death on an unimaginable scale. The press has misframed the stakes. Governments (and more proximate markets) understand the actual risk profile here, which is why they’ve traded so weak vs USIt’s going to take 5 to taco. None of which include Iran.Oil is down 1% with market up ~4%. Lots of work to do.Below you’ll find all the best stuff I have been reading and watching.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* A Great episode that frames the current moment in markets from the Compound and DataTrek:* A great conversation about Taiwan and Iran:* Jamie Dimon talks about his legacy and the future of banking:* Zeihan on how to break Iran:Best Links of The Week🔮* Ian Bremmer on the state of Iranian de-escalation - X* Josh Wolf talks about the alternative approaches to Ai - Thread on X* Getting on the right side of the ice. A great framming of software in today market. - Thread on X* A fantastic presentation on the future of SAAS from Redpoint. - Redpoint Partners* “Artificial intelligence drove chess toward perfect play, leading to more draws at top tournaments. Now grandmasters are winning by making less optimal moves... - Blomberg* “Whatever the final outcome for Anthropic from its feud with the Department of Defense, the attention it has generated — coupled with the company’s funny Super Bowl ads taking aim at OpenAI and the surging popularity of Claude Code — has made Anthropic more popular with consumers than ever. -TechCrunch This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Welcome back to the pod, everyone.Todays episode covers the following 4 topics:* Canadian Jobs, Liberal majority and the Mark Carney performance review.* Market structure and positioning * War in Iran* Open Ai Shifts focus to the enterprise as LLMs prove they aren’t just a commodity.Market Update📈📉Asset prices don’t make their biggest moves because of fundamentals. They move because of positioning. ]Right now, if you are reading the headlines, you are missing the underlying mechanics of what is actually happening in the market.We are looking at the first week of net outflows from equity ETFs since last April. But it’s not just selling. Volume in short ETFs just surged to new all-time highs. Participants aren’t just taking chips off the table; they are actively, aggressively betting against stocks at a historic pace. Add to that the fact that the VIX positioning has totally reset—the crowded trade of asset managers betting on lower volatility has been cleared out. And sitting right underneath all of this is the US Dollar Index, testing that massive, psychological 100 level.When positioning gets this one-sided, the risk completely shifts. It’s no longer about how much lower stocks can go. It’s about how catastrophically wrong these participants are going to be if prices start moving higher. If this market starts to go higher, all of those record shorts aren’t just wrong; they become fuel for a violent squeeze.But what lights the match?Political Tug of War:You have to look at the geopolitical chessboard, and specifically, you have to look past the mainstream narrative that the Middle East is just a “distraction.” There is a pervasive, intellectually lazy argument out there right now comparing America’s involvement in the Middle East to the decline of the British Empire. This idea that the USA is overextending itself in the “periphery” while China eats the future.It is a brilliant piece of reasoning, steeped in history, and it is completely, fundamentally wrong.Iran is not the periphery. Iran controls access to the Strait of Hormuz. It is at a nuclear breakout point, and it is the primary force multiplier for both Russia and China. A nuclear Iran is structurally a China-friendly Middle East, especially when China’s plans to price oil in yuan rely on those exact Gulf relations. So, when we see a targeted strike on Kharg Island, taking out military structures while leaving the oil infrastructure intact, that isn’t a distraction. That is a calculated play to force Iran to relent without sending oil to $200 a barrel and suffocating the global economy. It is a stark reminder that deterrence breaks the moment allies start doing the math on American passivity.Open Ai shifts to focus on the enterprise:This kind of forced reality check isn’t just happening in geopolitics; it’s happening in tech, too. Look at OpenAI. We are watching a massive strategy shift in real-time as they pivot away from consumer side-quests to focus strictly on the enterprise. Why? Because in a compute-constrained environment, hosting a billion free users is a financial black hole. Consumer habits are glacial, but enterprise customers will switch workflows overnight if the ROI makes sense.OpenAI is realizing they can’t fight a two-front war. If they don’t lock down the enterprise market against Anthropic, they lose their valuation premium. Meanwhile, incumbents like Alphabet and Meta are perfectly positioned to swallow the consumer AI market because they already have the infrastructure to monetize it through ads. AI is hitting its capital cycle reality phase. The easy money is gone, and the focus is shifting to who can actually generate cash flow.The crowd is leaning entirely to one side of the boat.Will it tip over?Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Bill Gurley on the importance of personal agency:* Senra Interviews a human encyclopedia: Marc Andreessen * The most important conversation on the Ai Infrastructure landscape:Best Links of The Week🔮* Thomasz Tunguz is concerned about memory and power shortages.* The emergence of Ai Agents inside the enterprise - Article from X* Fareed Zakaria makes the case for the USA becoming the next British Empire - Link from X* Jeff Currie from Goldman Sachs talks to the set up in Oil Markets - Link from X This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

"The world has always been ending - and yet here we are." - Morgan HouselUS and Israeli strikes killed Iran's Supreme Leader. Oil spiked 40% in 10 days. The Strait of Hormuz - the chokepoint for roughly 20% of global oil supply - is in chaos. Flights grounded. Shipping rerouted. Headlines screaming.And the question I keep hearing is: "Should I be doing something?"Here's the only question we should be asking..."Did your financial goals, time horizon, or need for liquidity change this week?"If the answer is no... then neither should your portfolio.Korea. Vietnam. The Gulf War. 9/11. Iraq. Every one of those events felt like the one that would change everything. The reality is, it didn't change much for long-term investors.But here's what IS worth watching. Especially if you're Canadian:When the Middle East burns, capital doesn't disappear. It relocates.Upstream energy investment is already pivoting toward lower geopolitical risk - and that means North America. Canada, the US, and Guyana. Our oil sands don't sit on the wrong side of a naval chokepoint.Canadian energy names aren't just a hedge right now. For some portfolios, this conflict is quietly working in your favour.The sectors to watch: energy and consumer staples up. Airlines and chemicals under pressure. Technology remains a mixed picture: lower cyclical risk helps, but higher rates and data center financing costs are a real headwind.The investors who get hurt in moments like this aren't the ones who stayed put.They're the ones who confused scary headlines with permanent loss of capital and sold.Don't be that investor."I'm finished!" - Daniel PlainviewPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Tyler Cowan puts the entire world into perspective:* Hard lessons with Stan Druckenmiller:* A great view into the impacts of global shocks:Best Links of The Week🔮* Matthew Ball’s annual report covers the state of the gaming industry, why gaming is losing the attention war, and the five areas of revenue growth for 2026. - Matts Amazing Year in Review* Jefferies published an update on the global secondary market, which broke volume records in 2025 ($240 billion). - Jefferies Report* Silicon Valley Bank’s published their 26th annual report on the State of the U.S. Wine Industry, which it says is stabilizing after revenue declined by 2% in 2025. -SVB Report* Ai causing cuts to software employment is just beginning - Tweet from Balaji* The shale revolution emboldened Trump. The shale revolution enabled this war. The shale revolution enabled the closure of the Hormuz Strait. - Tweet From Anas This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Panic in the stock market rarely comes from crazy ideas. It usually comes from taking a perfectly logical premise, drawing a straight line into the future, and entirely forgetting that human beings are involved.Over the weekend, a bearish report by Citrini Research went viral, sending shares of IBM, DoorDash, and Visa plummeting. The thesis was terrifyingly simple: Artificial Intelligence is going to collapse the cost of software to zero. AI agents, powered by what is now being called “vibe coding,” will ruthlessly hunt for the lowest fees, bypassing middlemen instantaneously. In this telling, the entire rent-extraction layer of the U.S. economy goes to zero overnight.It’s a compelling story. Fear always is.To figure out how to navigate this as investors and entrepreneurs, we have to pull apart exactly what this doomer narrative got right, and the massive, glaring blind spot it missed.Market Update📈📉The tape is currently trying to find its identity—it is a trend market, but we are lacking momentum. Here are the key themes we are tracking:* The Software vs. Hardware Divergence: We have been talking about the AI bifurcation, and the technicals are confirming it. Software stocks have been showing weakness on the charts since last summer, while semiconductor names have largely consolidated and held up well. The market narrative is finally catching up to the price action. We get earnings from both Nvidia and Salesforce on Wednesday, which will be a major tell for this divergence.* 4% of GitHub public commits are being authored by Claude Code right now. At the current trajectory, we believe that Claude Code will be 20%+ of all daily commits by the end of 2026. While you blinked, AI consumed all of software development.* Private Credit Warning Signs: While public credit spreads look fine, the charts for publicly traded private equity firms are looking weak. Because equity is the thinnest slice of the capital structure, they are highly sensitive to underlying balance sheet health. Private equity and private credit are key vulnerabilities to monitor closely.* The Consumer Disconnect: Real GDP looks okay, but if you look under the hood, real incomes (net of transfer payments) are basically flat. Current growth is being driven by consumers drawing down their savings. That is not sustainable long-term without the labor market stepping up to drive incomes higher.* Housing & Rates: Mortgage rates have fallen back to 2022 lows, but housing demand isn’t surging the way you would expect. In fact, if rates keep dropping, it might actually unlock existing resale inventory, creating much stiffer competition for the homebuilders who have been the only game in town.The Giant Pachinko MachineThe reason the market spooked is because the foundation of the fear is entirely real. Software creation has fundamentally changed.As Naval Ravikant recently pointed out, we have moved past classical computing. You no longer have to meticulously write highly structured, precise code. AI programming is more like a giant pachinko machine: you pour massive datasets into a structure you’ve tuned, and the system searches for a program that works.This means English is now the hottest programming language in the world. As Naval put it: “Vibe coding is the new product management.” You simply describe an application to an egoless, tireless AI, give it feedback by voice, and it builds the scaffolding, the libraries, and the test harnesses.If your business model is acting as a simple digital tollbooth, you are in trouble. We are entering a Glengarry Glen Ross economy for digital goods. Because anyone can spin up an app, the market will hollow out the middle. The number one app will take all the scale, and a million hyper-niche apps will fill the long tail.But that is where the truth ends, and the static thinking begins.The DoorDash DelusionThe greatest flaw in financial forecasting is treating the economy like a physics equation, assuming every variable stays the same while you introduce a massive new technology.This is where the doomer report falls apart, a point brilliantly deconstructed by analyst Ben Thompson. The narrative looks at a company like DoorDash and assumes it is just a digital button that preys on hungry, lazy humans. If you view it that way, of course an AI agent will destroy it by searching twenty alternative apps for a cheaper fee. Habitual app loyalty doesn’t exist for a machine.But this view ignores the dynamic, messy reality of what these businesses actually do. DoorDash isn’t just an app on a home screen. It is a massive, three-sided logistical network that coordinates physical human beings, driving physical cars, to pick up physical food from physical restaurants.The lethal flaw in the doomer mindset is a total lack of belief in human choice, dynamism, and markets. It assumes businesses will just sit still while AI eats their margins. It forgets that incumbent platforms have exclusive data, pre-existing physical infrastructure, and network effects that grant them structural cost advantages. You cannot vibe-code a physical logistics network into existence over a weekend.The Mud and the MetalWhen you spend your days analyzing durable capital—or managing the gritty reality of deploying mobile boilers and Haglunds out into the frozen fields of Alberta—you quickly realize that a line of code is only as valuable as the real-world action it triggers.You cannot prompt-engineer a barrel of oil out of the ground.The physical world has constraints. It has friction, weather, and capital cycles. The more abundant and frictionless the digital world becomes, the more valuable the scarce, constrained physical world becomes.The Motorcycle for the MindIf you view AI as a competitor for a static job, you will be terrified. But that is the wrong mental model.Steve Jobs famously called the computer a “bicycle for the mind”—a tool that makes human locomotion vastly more efficient. Naval Ravikant recently updated this for the modern era: AI is a “motorcycle for the mind.” It has an engine. It is breathtakingly powerful. But it still requires a human to ride it, steer it, hit the accelerator, and apply the brakes. AI is not alive. It has no desires. It does not live in mortal fear of being turned off. Because it lacks its own internal compass, it fundamentally lacks what makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur: extreme agency.Because most things we want in business and investing are zero-sum games, freely available AI algorithms will eventually cancel each other out. If every seller has an AI optimizing their pitch, every buyer will have an AI filtering it out. When the algorithms cancel each other out, the remaining alpha goes entirely to the human with the most creativity, judgment, and agency.Action Cures Anxiety: The PlaybookSo, what do we do when markets panic and headlines turn dark?* Anchor to the Physical and the Personal: The digital layer is getting commoditized. The premium is shifting to physical constraints and deep human trust. At Thiessen Shackleton Wealth Management, the conversations that actually matter aren’t about the algorithmic efficiency of a portfolio. They are about fear, greed, legacy, and trust. AI can optimize a spreadsheet in milliseconds, but it cannot look a client in the eye and give them the confidence to stay the course during a market correction. You cannot vibe-code trust.* Become the Rider: The AI era is a golden age for those with agency. You now have a magic wand. If you want to build a tool, test a thesis, or understand a complex market structure, you have the ultimate, patient tutor that can meet you exactly at the edge of your knowledge.* Look Under the Hood: AI anxiety comes from a lack of understanding. The solution to anxiety is always action. You don’t need to know how to build a neural network, but you should fire up the best models, ask them questions, and figure out where they excel and where they hallucinate.The future will be weird. The middle will get hollowed out. But the world is not static. It will be built by humans with extreme agency, solving physical problems, and adapting exactly as we always have.Stay the course,We’re not AI doomers. “Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.”Dispersion is not noise. It’s the opportunity.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Ezra Klein with a really great interview* Secretary Marco Rubio spoke at the Munich Security Conference about the future of the U.S.–Europe alliance. * A unique mental framework to think about Ai from the Naval PodcastBest Links of The Week🔮* 2028: Intelligence Crisis - Citrini Research* How Does OpenAi Compete? - Bennedict Evans* Xbox Replaces Head of Gaming - WSJ* The Long-term Reality of Hyperscalers: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Scenarios - MBI Deep Dives * While AI is tech, not all tech is AI, and tech-heavy indices fall short of capturing the full spectrum of AI beneficiaries. - UBS* Tim Opler’s latest biopharma market update covers industry sentiment, M&A activity, capital markets & more. - Stifel This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Most people treat their health like an old car: they ignore the bumps and bruises until the smoke starts pouring out of the hood. In our post modern world of aesthetic refinement and high-performance business, we’re seeing a radical shift in how people treat their health.The Repair model is dying; the Optimization model is taking over.I recently sat down with Raj Dhillon, a 20+ yr veteran of rehabilitative medicine and the co-owner of Pivotal Physio, to discuss why the physiotherapy industry is currently at the heart of the massive shift in how we value human capital.* Pivotal Physio & The ARC Concept: Pivotal Physiotherapy Official Site (Edmonton) Pivotal Physio & The ARC EvolutionIn Edmonton, Raj and his team at Pivotal Physio aren’t just running clinics; they’re building a blueprint for the future of health. With strategic hubs across Northgate, Fort Saskatchewan, and the Brewery District (High Performance Centre), they’ve scaled beyond the traditional “one room, one therapist” model.The real game-changer is their ARC (Athletic Development & Recovery Centre). Located inside Evolve Strength Downtown, ARC represents the “merger” of the gym and the clinic.* The Concept: Why wait for an injury to see a specialist? ARC treats the “weekend warrior” and the professional athlete with the same proactive rigor.* The Services: It blends high-level clinical expertise (IMS, pelvic health, concussion management) with elite recovery tech like NormaTec compression and hydrotherapy contrast tubs.This isn’t just about fixing a sore back; it’s about TAM Expansion. By moving into the lifestyle and performance space, Raj has effectively turned patients into long-term members.How We View The Opportunity: A $400+ Billion MarketThe numbers backing this shift are staggering. The global Preventative Healthcare market is no longer a niche for the ultra-wealthy - it’s a massive, institutional asset class.Some Canadian Context:In Canada, the economic case for preventative health is even more urgent.* The Economic Burden: Chronic illness costs the Canadian economy roughly $236.3 billion per year in lost productivity and healthcare expenses.* Research suggests that increasing access to physiotherapy could reduce the financial burden of just three major conditions (osteoarthritis, back pain, and heart disease) by an additional $144 million annually.* Workforce Gap: Demand for these services is expected to grow 70% by 2033, yet we currently face a massive supply shortage. This scarcity creates a moat for established players like Pivotal who can retain and train top-tier talent.Reformed Millennials Thesis: Why Health is the New TechIf you’ve been a long term listener and reader, you know our philosophy is that leverage is everything. Traditional healthcare offers little leverage—it is a one-to-one exchange of reactionary service.Preventative Health provides “Maintenance Alpha”:* Consolidation: What we are seeing across the market is a number of Private Equity Roll-ups in the physio space, mirroring the consolidation seen in dental and vet clinics over the last decade.* Predictable Revenue: By shifting to a recurring maintenance model (like ARC), clinics move away from lumpy, injury-dependent income toward stable, subscription-like cash flows.* The ROI of Uptime: For a business owner, a 10% increase in physical uptime (mental clarity, energy, lack of chronic pain) is the highest-returning investment on the balance sheet.Bottom Line: The line between healthcare and performance has permanently blurred. Raj Dhillon and Pivotal are proving that the future belongs to those who view the human body not as a liability to be managed, but as an asset to be optimized.Sources:* Market Size & CAGR ($412.59B): Mordor Intelligence: Preventive Healthcare Technologies and Services Market Size & Share Report (2026-2031) * Consumer Segment Growth (13.6%): Business Research Insights: Preventive Healthcare Market Analysis 2026-2035* Annual Economic Burden ($236.3B): Canadian Physiotherapy Association (CPA): Pre-Budget 2026 Submission* Chronic Disease & Productivity Costs ($190B / $122B): Sun Life: Chronic Disease in the Workplace Report * Physiotherapy ROI & Savings ($144M): CPA Impact Studies: Deloitte Economic Impact of Physiotherapy in Canada* Workforce Demand Growth (70%): Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS): Physiotherapists (2024-2033) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

If you only looked at your crypto or software stocks this week, you probably think the sky is falling. But if you zoom out, the Dow just hit 50,000 and Europe is at all-time highs. This isn't a market crash, it's a changing of the guard.* The Market Regime: From “US Tech Dominance” to “Global Industrial/Breadth.”* The Tech Regime: From “SaaS Middle Game” to “AI Endgame” (Atoms & Energy).* The Geopolitical Regime: From “Alliances” to “Transactionalism” (Trump/Carney).The speed of technological releases is mind numbing. It seems every week I am learning and adapting portfolios and my mental model of how all this new technology will defuse into the world.It’s terrifying and exciting.Market Update📈📉For decades, the U.S. dollar has functioned as a safe haven.When investors get nervous, capital flows into dollars. When fear rises, demand for safety rises with it. The dollar benefits.So what does it mean when the dollar is making multiyear lows in the middle of a broadening bull market?Maybe it’s not about debasement. Maybe it’s not about the end of fiat currency. Maybe it’s much simpler than that.In an environment where investors are embracing risk across sectors, countries, and asset classes, who needs the ultimate safe haven?Instead of asking what a weaker dollar is doing to stocks, maybe we should be asking what stocks, and risk assets around the world, are doing to the dollar.Emerging Markets Hit All-Time HighsThe move to new all-time highs is not happening in isolation. It reflects rotation.Capital is moving away from crowded mega-cap U.S. technology stocks and into other risk assets.Participation is expanding. Leadership is changing. That’s what healthy bull markets do.This is not a China trade and it’s not a dollar collapse trade.In our opinion, it’s a risk appetite and global rotation story. This is what money moving toward opportunity looks like.When emerging-market currencies are breaking out and emerging-market equities are printing fresh all-time highs, that’s not fear. That’s demand.The USD is not falling apart it’s just not needed in this current moment.Because in a broad, expanding bull market, investors do not hide.They hunt.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Patel on the MAD pod* OpenClaw Eliminates Apps* Elon having beers with Stripe and DwarkeshBest Links of The Week🔮* Brent Beshore on the human competitive advantage - Twitter/X* Sinofsky on the death of software… Nah but kinda - Twitter/X* One of the best interviews i’ve listened to between Ben Thompson and Benedict Evans on SAAS - Stratechery* “Mexico's decision to halt oil shipments to Cuba has delivered a fresh blow to the fuel-starved country, with the island logging its first month without oil imports in a decade. Oil imports to the island reached zero in January for the first time since 2015... due to a US naval blockade and threat to impose tariffs. Cuba is facing shortages of everything, from cooking gas, to water and electricity, with multi-hour lines at gas stations and at least two large beach resorts shutting down due to gasoline shortages.” Source: Bloomberg* Home automation is swiftly moving into wellness-focused applications, as our friend Joe Mattera of Mattera AV Designs writes in a recent blog post. Computer controlled lighting through the day can combat Seasonal Affective Disorder and help keep you “in the zone” as you work in your home office. Automated heating and cooling, linked to motion sensors, can save real money and alleviate financial anxiety. Security systems increase peace of mind. Frankly, we always thought home automation was a “nice to have”, but after reading this it feels more like an essential for any home. Read Joe’s full take here.* “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told employees that ChatGPT is “back to exceeding 10% monthly growth,” according to an internal Slack message viewed by CNBC. The company is aiming to launch a new model within ChatGPT this week, Altman said. More than 800 million people use OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, weekly, but the company is facing increasingly stiff competition... On Monday, OpenAI will officially begin testing ads within ChatGPT.” Source: CNBC This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

In a healthy bull market, you don't usually see people rushing to buy toothpaste and condom stocks. But right now, Consumer Staples are crushing the S&P 500, and Financials are breaking down. The "tape" is guilty until proven innocent—and Mark Carney just gave us the verdict on Canada's future, too.Market Update📈📉The “Guilty” TapeThe burden of proof has shifted. In a healthy bull market, you don’t usually see investors flocking to “boring” stocks like toothpaste and toilet paper. But that is exactly what is happening right now.* Consumer Staples (XLP) are up 6.5% year-to-date, crushing the S&P 500 (+1.5%).* Financials are lagging badly. When you look at the ratio of Financials vs. Consumer Staples, we just broke below key support levels from October.Why it matters: Markets don’t usually let “defensive” sectors lead unless smart money is worried about what comes next. As we said on the show: “In a market like this, the tape is guilty until proven innocent.”One more thing on the Dollar (USD): Don’t fear the strong dollar; respect it. The historical link between the USD and Energy is holding. If Energy is about to outperform (and the charts say it is), a strengthening dollar isn’t a headwind—it’s part of the regime shift. The crowded “short dollar / long metals” trade is looking very vulnerable.The USMCA “Sunset” ReviewWith the July 1, 2026 deadline approaching, here is your cheat sheet on the most important trade deal in North America.1. How the Renewal Works (The “Sunset Clause”)This isn’t a standard renegotiation. It is a mandatory check-in written into the deal to prevent it from becoming stale.* The Date: July 1, 2026 (The 6th Anniversary).* The Goal: All three nations (USA, Canada, Mexico) must confirm in writing they want to extend the deal for another 16 years (to 2042).* The Risk: If they don’t agree, the deal doesn’t die instantly. It enters a “year-to-year” purgatory where they must meet annually to fix issues. If nothing is fixed by 2036, the deal terminates. Business hates uncertainty, so a non-renewal in July could spook the markets.2. What They Want (The Friction Points)🇺🇸 The United States (The Enforcer)* China Backdoors: The U.S. is obsessed with preventing China from using Canada/Mexico as a side door to sneak goods into America tariff-free. Expect them to demand tighter “Rules of Origin,” especially for EVs and car parts.* Dairy Access: A classic grievance. They want the access to the Canadian dairy market they were promised, arguing Canada is using administrative loopholes to block them.* Labor Rights: Continued pressure on Mexico to ensure cheap labor isn’t undercutting American wages.🇨🇦 Canada (The Defender)* Stability Above All: Canada’s economy relies on this deal. The #1 goal is to get that 16-year extension signed quickly to keep investment flowing.* Supply Management: We will shield our dairy and poultry farmers at all costs, likely trading other concessions to keep the Supply Management system alive.* Softwood Lumber: We will try to use this leverage to finally fix the timber tariff dispute, though it’s technically outside the USMCA.The Bottom Line: This July isn’t just a rubber stamp. With Carney’s “Rupture” speech setting the tone, Canada is trying to pivot to new partners while desperately trying to keep the American door open. It’s a balancing act that will define our economy for the next decade.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙Carney Speaks to Davos:Elon:Best Links of The Week🔮* “OpenAI is reportedly asking a high price to advertise on ChatGPT, around $60 per 1,000 views, or triple what ads on Meta’s platform usually cost, according to The Information. Despite the higher price, OpenAI won’t be offering advertisers the same level of detailed information that Google and Meta do, such as whether users took any action in response to seeing an ad on ChatGPT, like making a purchase. Early advertisers on ChatGPT will only get “high-level” data on how their ads perform, like total ad views or total clicks.” Source: The Verge* “The Trump administration is proposing a .09% average payment increase for Medicare Advantage plans in 2027, significantly below Wall Street’s roughly 4% to 6% expectations. The proposal also includes eliminating payments tied to diagnoses from insurer medical chart reviews not linked to specific medical visits, reducing the 2027 payment rate by 1.53 percentage points. Overall payments are projected to increase by 2.54% for 2027, combining the proposed rate changes with an additional 2.45% from underlying billing trends.” Source: WSJ* “Nvidia invested an additional $2 billion in CoreWeave, a cloud computing firm and key customer, to speed up an effort to add more than 5 gigawatts of AI computing capacity by 2030. As part of the collaboration, CoreWeave will be among the first to deploy forthcoming Nvidia products, including storage systems and a new central processing unit, or CPU, called Vera. The investment has sparked concerns about circular financing deals that have lifted valuations of AI companies and fueled concerns about a bubble.” Source: Bloomberg* “Elon Musk’s rocket maker SpaceX is lining up four Wall Street investment banks for leading roles on a blockbuster initial public offering, which is likely to be the world’s largest ever new listing. SpaceX executives have held meetings with bankers from Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley in recent weeks as the company prepares for an IPO as soon as this year.” Source: FT* “European Union lawmakers are expected to vote on ratifying the bloc’s trade deal with the US after President Donald Trump walked back his latest threat to impose tariffs on European allies. The trade deal’s ratification process was suspended due to Trump’s “coercive” threats, but was restarted after he said he wouldn’t impose the levies. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said the reversal was enough to justify voting on the measure, which could have a preliminary vote in the coming days.” Source: Bloomberg This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.2026 Predictions📈📉Todays newsletter is for forward guidance and optimism. Since my conversation with Mel last week, Ive had some time to build a list of predictions I have for the coming year.* Alberta Votes on their separation referendum and its not even close. While the rhetoric and fiscal considerations of the vote will become a hot issue in the province, the vote ends in a lopsided victory for nay.* We are moving from an era of “Who has the fastest processor?” to an era of “Who has the fastest and biggest memory pipes?” The Memory Wall is the newest mainstream focus as data management and data commute>compute as a result of inference growth, becomes more important.* By summer of 2026 it will be as though the digital world is going through some kind of fast evolution, with some parts of it emitting a huge amount of heat and light and moving with counter-intuitive speed relative to everything else. Great fortunes will be won and lost here, and the powerful engines of our silicon creation will be put to work, further accelerating this economy and further changing things.And yet it will all feel somewhat ghostly, even to practitioners that work at its center. There will be signatures of it in our physical reality - datacenters, supply chain issues for compute and power, the funky AI billboards of San Francisco, offices for startups with bizarre names - but the vast amount of true activity will be occurring both in the digital world, and in the new spaces being built and configured by AI systems for trading with one another - agents, websites meant only for consumption by other AI systems, great and mostly invisible seas of tokens being used for thinking and exchanging information between the silicon minds. * In 2026 we will stop asking Ai to be our copilots and we will begin finding ways to complete our busy work while we sleep. We are still in the waterwheel phase of AI, bolting chatbots onto workflows designed for humans. * Reemergence of software as a trade idea. Markets will care less about the picks and shovels of the data center build out and start fixating on the ROI of the capital deployed. Think AI Agents and efficiencies. This prediction is a bet on the data owners and platform managers in 2026.* 2026 is the year of Basic Robotics and Amazon leads the MAG 7 in % performance for the first time in half a decade. The collision of AI and robotics is the Champagne and cocaine cocktail that will fuel Amazon’s retail margin expansion, catalyzing a 2x increase in the gross merchandise value of its largest business (retail) by 2033, without adding any human workers. Just as Ford’s assembly line slashed automotive production time by 88%, Amazon’s robotics investments have reduced the time from click to ship by 78%. The rest of the Mag 7 capitalizes on the elevation of information (bits) over objects (atoms), while Amazon is leveraging bits to move atoms faster and cheaper.* JPM joins the Trillion Dollar Club and becomes the first financial inside the magnificent 7. Additionally, financials lead the market, along with software and industrials in 2026. * Podcasts finish off Late Night TV - The Late Show with Stephen Colbert employs 200 people, costs $100 million, and makes $60 million. When Colbert shifts to podcasting, he’ll take eight people with him and make just $20 million, but it’ll only cost $5 million to produce. The means of production are being arbitraged. There will be outrage from the creative community, who believe they’re too precious to face disruption.* The Degen Economy Grows and continues to eat Las Vegases lunch. HOOD, COIN, Pollymarket, WealthSimple etc. I predict/believe that prediction markets, 24/7/365 stock markets, tokenization and the international retail investor are a Cambrian explosion of growth for financial markets. While the volatility in these stocks and markets are severe, they have survived the internet bubble, the great financial crisis, COVID and a rising rate environment. The survivors get smarter, and the onramps kept coming. The players in the market are growing. * Narrative Economy becomes the predominant investment theme. You might be wondering, What is the ‘narrative economy’? It is an economy that sits on top of ‘technology’ and the ‘degenerate economy’. The ‘narrative economy’ emerged full throttle in 2024. Storytelling always mattered in public markets and because of technology, ZIRP and politics/policy we now have Memestocks and Memecoins that are ‘storytelling’ first entities. These sit on top of the ‘degenerate economy‘ thats work ~$2 plus trillion (Bitcoin, Solana, HOOD , Fan Duel, Draft Kings, Coinbase). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Welcome back!This week were talking politics and pipelines. Keep reading below for our thoughts. Or tune into the podcast for a deep dive.Pipeline MOU Update📈📉The “Alberta-Ottawa Pipeline MOU” signals a fundamental shift in the Canadian economy from energy confrontation to energy collaboration. By linking the approval of a major infrastructure project (the pipeline) directly to decarbonization efforts (Pathways Alliance CCUS), the agreement effectively creates a “Grand Bargain” that integrates the resource economy with federal climate goals.* Economic Certainty: The suspension of the Clean Electricity Regulations and the removal of the federal oil and gas emissions cap (replaced by TIER management) removes the regulatory “ceiling” that was stifling investment. This implies a return of foreign and domestic capital to Western Canada, as the fear of stranded assets diminishes.* Integration of Power and Resources: The MOU explicitly links oil production with “data centres,” “nuclear strategy,” and “interties.” This implies that the Western Canadian economy will shift from purely extracting resources to becoming a complex energy hub, where bitumen production funds and fuels a transition toward nuclear energy and high-demand tech infrastructure (AI/Data centers).* Indigenous Economic Reconciliation: With the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation (AIOC) backstopping ownership, this deal implies a massive transfer of wealth and equity to Indigenous communities, moving beyond impact benefits agreements to genuine co-ownership of multi-billion dollar infrastructure.2. Egress Growth and EconomicsThe most significant economic implication is the Resolution of the Egress Crisis.* Volume Increase: The MOU outlines a new 1 million barrel per day (bpd) pipeline to the Northwest B.C. coast. Combined with the existing Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX), this creates massive excess capacity.* Price Differential Collapse: Historically, Western Canadian Select (WCS) traded at a steep discount to WTI because landlocked oil had nowhere to go.* Impact: With 1 million bpd of new capacity to the Pacific, Canadian producers can bypass the US Midwest bottleneck entirely and sell directly to Asian markets at world prices (Brent/Dubai pricing).* This effectively eliminates the “differential risk,” potentially adding $10-$15 CAD per barrel to the bottom line of every barrel produced in Alberta.3. Impact on Oil Companies’ EconomicsThe economics for the Pathways Alliance members (CNRL, Cenovus, ConocoPhillips, Imperial, MEG, Suncor) will undergo a structural shift.Capital Expenditure (CaPex) ChangesThe MOU creates a “forced” but incentivized capital spending cycle. The logic is explicit: “No Pathways; no pipeline.”* Immediate CaPex Spike (2026-2030): The six companies listed must now immediately fund and construct the massive Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) trunkline and capture facilities. They can no longer “wait and see.”* Pipeline Financing: The notes state the pipeline is “Private sector financed.” This implies that these companies (likely forming a consortium) will also have to allocate billions toward the pipeline construction, likely front-loading costs in exchange for long-term shipping rights.* Offsetting Factors: The extension of federal investment tax credits (ITCs) and the Alberta Carbon Capture Incentive Program (ACCIP) will absorb a significant portion (likely 50%+) of the CCUS CaPex, softening the blow to balance sheets.Profitability OutlookWhile CaPex will rise, the long-term profitability outlook is exceedingly bullish for these specific companies:* Revenue Quality: By accessing the Pacific coast, they will realize higher prices per barrel. The revenue gain from narrowing the differential will likely eclipse the cost of the new carbon taxes.* TIER Impact: The companies face higher operating costs due to the TIER price increasing to $130/tonne by April 2026. However, because they are building CCUS, they will generate massive “carbon credits” under this system. If they successfully lower emissions, the high carbon price turns from a penalty into a revenue stream (selling credits to other emitters).* Production Unlocked: The concession of “No federal oil and gas emissions cap” allows these companies to increase production volumes, provided they manage the carbon intensity via CCUS.Summary of Impacts on Specific CompaniesCompanyImpact AnalysisCNRL & CenovusAs the largest producers with significant heavy oil exposure, they stand to gain the most from the egress (pipeline) narrowing the WCS differential. They have the balance sheets to fund the required infrastructure.Suncor & ImperialWith strong downstream (refining) assets, the pipeline allows them to export more crude to high-demand Asian markets. Imperial’s relationship with ExxonMobil (majority owner) may help leverage global technical expertise for the CCUS build-out.MEG EnergyAs a pure-play oil sands producer, MEG is highly sensitive to differentials. This deal is a “company maker” for them, drastically reducing their discount risk, though financing their share of the CaPex will be heavier relative to their size compared to CNRL.Market Risk: The notes mention “Market Risk” regarding a private proponent. If these companies hesitate to fund the pipeline, the deal collapses (”No Pathways; no pipeline”). Therefore, investors should expect a near-term reduction in dividends/buybacks as cash is diverted to these mega-projects, with a promise of significantly higher, stable returns post-2030.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Owning the next decade of ai apps: with Box CEO Aaron Levie* BC Premier on the pipeline* Michael Ovitz the founder of CAA:Best Links of The Week🔮* “A late November rally propelled stocks near record highs, with investor optimism over a potential Federal Reserve interest-rate cut in December helping reverse the effects of an earlier midmonth market slump. The S&P 500 rose 0.5% on Friday, pushing it near a record set in late October and helping the index eke out a 0.1% monthly gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.6% on the day, finishing the month with a 0.3% gain. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, however, registered its first monthly loss since March, falling 1.5% after a choppy period spurred by fears of an artificial-intelligence bubble. The index added about 0.7% Friday.” Source: WSJ* “Consumers spent record amounts online on Black Friday, but it is less clear how traditional retail stores did on the official kickoff of the peak holiday shopping season, with one tracking company showing a slight increase in foot traffic and another showing the big drop. Adobe, which studies Adobe Analytics date culled from over 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, reported that U.S. ecommerce sales reached a record $11.8 billion online on Black Friday, up 9.1% year-over-year. That exceeded Adobe’s forecast of 8.3% ecommerce growth on Black Friday.” Source: Forbes* “OpenAI’s huge early lead in the race to dominate artificial intelligence is under the greatest pressure since ChatGPT’s launch, as rivals Google and Anthropic gain ground in the cutting-edge technology. Three years on from the debut of its popular chatbot, the $500bn start-up is grappling with the reality of soaring data centre costs, the technical challenges of remaining at the frontier of AI and the constant battle to retain key talent. It is also facing a resurgent Google, with the release last week of Gemini 3, Google’s latest large language model, which is considered to have leapfrogged OpenAI’s GPT-5 and achieved gains from the model training process that have eluded OpenAI in recent months.” Source: FT* “OPEC+ countries agreed to maintain group-wide oil output quotas for 2026 in a meeting on Sunday, and also agreed on a mechanism to assess members’ maximum oil production capacity, OPEC said in a statement. Eight OPEC+ countries, holding a separate meeting on Sunday, also have an agreement in principle to maintain a pause in their output hikes for the first quarter of 2026.” Source: CNBC This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Quick Hits:* Asset Class Reversal: We are witnessing a historical anomaly. Gold (+54%) is currently the best-performing major asset of 2025, while Bitcoin (-1%) sits as the worst. This is the direct inverse of 2013 and a dynamic we haven’t seen before in a calendar year.* S&P 500 Technicals: The S&P 500 closed below its 50-day moving average for the first time since April 30, officially ending the 5th longest uptrend since 1950.* Institutional Signal: despite Bitcoin’s price lag, institutional adoption is heating up. Harvard’s endowment reported in its Q3 13F filings that the iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) is now its largest position and biggest increase—a significant stamp of approval from the endowment world.The AI “Non-Bubble” and Gemini 3The narrative regarding Artificial Intelligence has shifted fundamentally over the last few weeks. We are moving from a phase of “inevitable euphoria” to a phase of “verification.”1. The “Non-Bubble” Disappointment Ironically, both AI bulls and bears are disappointed. Bulls wanted a parabolic, “melt-up” bubble (think 1997-1999) to maximize short-term gains. Bears wanted a bubble so it would burst. Instead, we are in a “non-bubble”: valuations are reasonable (NVDA ~20x), margins are rich, and we are early in the supercycle.2. The Catalyst: “Sam’s Splurge” (SS) The turning point was Sam Altman’s $1.4T infrastructure plan. Instead of fueling excitement, this massive capital requirement opened “Pandora’s Box,” shifting investor sentiment from blind optimism to scrutiny.* Credit Risk: The sheer scale of the plan (nearly the size of the private credit market) forced lenders to reprice AI-linked risk. We saw this immediately in widening CDS spreads for Oracle and Coreweave.* Government & Feasibility: The plan invited government scrutiny regarding energy grids, water usage, and land rights. It dragged long-term risks (post-2028) into the present day.* Too Big to Fail: The market realized that OpenAI is no longer just a startup; it is a systemic risk. If they fail to execute on $1.4T, they drag the ecosystem down with them.3. The Market Reaction: BSS vs. ASS We are moving from BSS (Before Sam’s Splurge) to ASS (After Sam’s Splurge).* Profitability over Narrative: As uncertainty rises, the market is favoring profitability. Companies with tangible earnings (Memory/DRAM) are outperforming, while pure narrative stocks (Nuclear, Quantum) are rolling over.* The “Giddy” Phase is Over: The straight-line ascent is likely done. We are entering a healthier, more mature phase where stock-picking, fundamentals, and idiosyncrasies matter more than sector-wide hype.Bottom Line: The AI trade isn’t broken; it is simply growing up.This is supported by todays release of Gemini 3:The long-awaited Gemini 3 finally launched yesterday, and the entire industry seemed to have been holding its breath for it. Based on the benchmarks released so far, the model largely meets the high expectations that had built up beforehand. It resets records across multiple mainstream leaderboards, especially in long-horizon reasoning, native multimodal alignment, and cross-modality inference. On many benchmarks the performance gap over competitors is not small, rekindling optimism that large models may genuinely break through long-chain task complexity and real-world application depth. These capabilities are precisely where the next stage of AI deployment will happen—far beyond simple chat or text generation.What’s interesting is that Gemini 3’s improvement doesn’t come from fancy RL tricks or alignment methods, but almost entirely from stronger pre-training. Multiple sources, including Google employees, confirmed this point: this round of progress is, quite literally, “built on brute-force compute.”Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Plain English with a fun episode on Ai and Work:* The BG2 Podcast Mentioned in the podcast:Best Links of The Week🔮* Warren Buffetts final letter to shareholders. Enjoy Retirement GOAT - Berkshire* Felix Stocker has a nice essay on mining and society. Which sounds like the topic of the one humanities class a geological engineering major would grudgingly sit through, but which is actually a pretty pivotal question: many modern conveniences—especially including the batteries, windmills, electric motors, and solar panels we use to reduce our reliance on emissions-heavy sources—require inputs that necessarily have to be dug up out of the ground, often in an environmentally-destructive way. When there’s a debate over a mine, it’s not so much big business versus the environment as it is environmentalism versus climate change and energy security* Mark Humphries in Generative Historyhas a fascinating piece on Gemini decoding centuries-old handwritten records in a very human-like way, by using context clues in the document to infer missing information. In a sense, the LLM’s transcription was more than 100% correct, because it identified and fixed an ambiguity in the historical record (even expert human readers will occasionally miss something like this). One of the unique axes on which models perform well is that they don’t get bored the way a person would, and are willing to check their work to make sure it’s logically consistent even when the task is just to transcribe text.* And on a similar note, this Dwarkesh Patel and Dylan Patel interview with Satya Nadella has an interesting side note on legibility: Nadella notes that AI makes it easier to move information from an Excel file into a real database, and that means it’s easier to join across different datasets. Cheap determinism is a complement to more flexible but uncertain LLMs. Future historians will have a much easier time trawling through historical data, at least as long as someone pays to store it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Budget Update📈📉Welcome back.It was a busy week in Canadian political news. We had multiple floor crossings and a brand new Canadian budget to review. Why does this matter? The Canadian budget reveals the priorities, trade offs, and a growing deficit that continues to shape future policy in our country.A great infographic from Canoe financial:Revenue. Where it comes from?* The federal government expects to collect about $507 billion in revenue in 2025 to 2026. The three biggest contributors are:Personal income tax* The largest funding source by far, at roughly $238 billion. Canadians themselves are the primary engine of the budget, contributing almost half of every dollar the government spends.Corporate income tax* Businesses contribute $97 billion, the second largest source. Goods and Services Tax (GST)* Consumption drives $54 billion through the GST.Other revenue sources include excise taxes, employment insurance premiums, enterprise Crown corporations, and investment returns. But taken together, the story remains simple: personal and corporate income taxes fund most federal spending.When revenues fall short of planned spending, the gap is filled with borrowing. In Budget 2025, that gap is large.Spending. Where the money goes.* Planned spending totals about $585 billion including actuarial losses, with a focus on three major areas:Individual Supports:$144 billion in major transfers to persons* Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement: $83 billion* Employment Insurance benefits: $30 billion* Canada Child Benefit: $30 billionThese programs represent direct cash support to households. They are predictable, indexed, and politically durable.Support for provinces and municipalities:$111 billion through transfers* Canada Health Transfer: $57 billion* Canada Social Transfer: $19 billion* Equalization and territorial financing: $29 billionHealth care remains the single biggest provincial transfer. Growth in this category continues to exceed revenue growth.Direct program spending and operations:$266 billion on programs and government operations* Indigenous reconciliation and services: $44 billion* Infrastructure and housing initiatives: $27 billion* Climate and natural resource programs: $18 billion* International assistance: $20 billion* Defence and security: $60 billion combinedThis is where most new policy announcements appear. Key initiatives:* Housing and infrastructure to address affordability pressures* Defence modernization and procurement cycles* Indigenous reconciliation funding commitments* Climate related and natural resource transition programsThese areas are increasingly multi year and structural, not one time line items.The deficit.Even with more than half a trillion in revenue, expenses are rising faster.* Deficit before actuarial losses: about $73 billion* Net actuarial adjustments: about $5 billion* Final projected deficit: $78 billionBorrowing fills the gap and adds to debt servicing costs. Public debt charges are now $56 billion, making interest the fifth largest line item in the entire budget. Higher rates are translating into higher carrying costs on federal debt.For our thoughts on this - tune into the pod.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Daniel Yergin on Energys Transition:* Invest Like The Best:Best Links of The Week🔮* Boaz Barak on the counterintuitive economics of AI. This is a very good piece, that thinks clearly about bottlenecks: if we automate lots of labor, and that makes us richer, that makes the remaining labor much more valuable. But AI messes up the classic growth equation, because it’s a case where capital is increasingly fungible with labor. We’ll need a whole new formula to even describe what growth looks like in an AI-heavy economy.* Richard Dewey et. al. trained a model to play a simplified version of liar’s poker via self-play, and then pitted it against experienced human player. They also had it play against LLMs (one interesting note there is that the LLMs tend to play cautiously; they speculate that part of what’s happening is that so much poker advice for beginners suggests folding more often, and that’s carrying over to this domain). Liar’s poker turns out to be a surprisingly complicated game with a vast number end states, so playing it means doing a tiny bit of deterministic reasoning and accumulating an arsenal of nested heuristics—which is a good description of a lot of machine learning.* “For months, a small company in San Francisco has been pursuing a secretive project: the birth of a genetically engineered baby. Backed by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and his husband, along with Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, the startup—called Preventive—has been quietly preparing what would amount to a biological first. They are working toward creating a child born from an embryo edited to prevent a hereditary disease. In recent months, executives at the company privately said a couple with a genetic disease had been identified who was interested in participating.” Source: WSJ* Perplexity to pay Snap 400mm to integrate their AI model into their search - ““The deal gives Perplexity exposure to more than 940 million Snapchat users, who will get answers from its AI engine when they ask questions to the company’s My AI chatbot.”“The new feature will be integrated into the app’s interface early next year. Snap said it will start recording revenue from this deal in 2026.”Source: Techcrunch This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Quick note on podcast cadence: This coming Friday we will have a special podcast release talking about the Canadian Budget. Tune in on LinkedIn if you want to hear our views.MarketsGood, some bad, and a little bit of uglyWe’re getting a lot of emails and calls about whether were due for a bear market.And It’s always important to bring back the conversation to time horizon.Some folks are short term swing traders... Most are long-term investors. Many find themselves somewhere in between.What I want to remind everyone of today is that the longer your timeframe is, the more important asset trends become. And one thing we know for sure, asset prices trend.Right now, the most bullish data on the board is that long-term trends remain firmly intact across stock markets around the world — not just in the U.S. and Canada.This is the good: The S&P500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq100, TSX and Russell 2000 Small-cap Indexes all finished October with their highest monthly closes on record.Europe, Japan, China, Latin America, and London all went out at new highs for the cycle as well.This isn’t just a U.S. technology bull market. Consolidation continuation:Back in early October, we talked about what this market correction should feel like — and the traffic jam analogy still fits perfectly.This is the bad part of the current environment: There’s simply more supply than demand for stocks at these levels. And much of that can be explained by a historical equity run up from the April lows.In other words, there are still plenty of investors looking to sell into strength, no matter how strong the longer-term trend remains.The best visual of this came to my inbox curtsy of Trend Labs:This chart of the small-cap index remains the cleanest visual of overhead supply in today’s market — and it’s also one of the most important gauges of market breadth.If the Russell 2000 is in an uptrend, you probably don’t have a breadth problem.The percentage of stocks on the NYSE that are above their 200-day moving average (in other words, in uptrends), peaked back on September 11th. Whats happening with market leadership?The good news is that the worst part about this market can easily be corrected with one day of action, AND it falls within the context of a strong uptrend.So even the ugly here needs to be viewed within the context of the current cycle.This is a chart of the First Trust Nasdaq-100 Equal-Weighted Index Fund (QQEW) failing to hold on to its breakout from last week.Momentum is also putting in a bearish divergence, which doesn’t help the situation:This index gives each of the 100 stocks an equal weighting, rather than the larger companies representing a larger percentage of the overall index, like the market-cap weighted Nasdaq-100 (QQQ).The longer the equal-weight Nasdaq-100 (QQEW) is below 144, the longer this correction will last. Same with the Russell 2000 Index (IWM).It doesn’t mean the market is going to crash, or that we’re beginning some kind of epic bear market. It’s just the same ongoing correction that we’ve been talking about for over a month.Recap:It’s a bull market, at the end of the day.So even though this post is mostly about the bad, the ugly, and the wave of selling pressure we’ve seen in recent weeks, the bigger picture remains the same: We’re still in a powerful uptrend, and there’s little to no evidence that it’s over.Sector rotation is the lifeblood of a bull market. We know this — and we keep seeing it.Healthcare was the worst sector. Then it became the best.Energy was the worst, and now it’s heating up again. What will come of Q4?Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Gavin Baker on Ai, technology business models* It’s still so early! A16Z Founding partners talk about the current state of Ai:Best Links of The Week🔮* “Google is about to release Gemini 3 and my smart friends tell me it is expected to be better than the de facto leader in AI coding - Claude from Anthropic. That means that the top two AI coding products by far will have both been trained using TPUs (Google’s chip), not GPU’s (Nvidia). On top of the data they own from Android, YouTube, Gmail, Maps etc…I think the world is realizing that Google may have an edge” Here comes Google - Howard Lindzon* “Advanced Micro Devices, the main contender to Nvidia in the artificial intelligence chip market, failed to impress investors with its revenue forecast after an eye-popping rally sent expectations soaring. Fourth-quarter revenue will be roughly $9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Though analysts had estimated $9.2 billion on average, some projections ranged as high as $9.9 billion. Investors have bet heavily on AMD following blockbuster agreements with OpenAI and Oracle, which plan to use the company’s chips in their build-out of artificial intelligence computing. The hope is that AMD can finally crack Nvidia’s dominance in the AI processor market.” Source: Bloomberg* “WhatsApp announced on Tuesday that it’s launching an Apple Watch companion app. For the first time, WhatsApp users will be able to use their Apple Watch to get call notifications, read full messages, and record and send voice messages.” Source: TechCrunch This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

TLDR: Listen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back.The indexes barely sneezed last week, and the high-momentum flyers from quantum computing, nuclear, space, drones, rare earth metals, robots, crypto, and AI pulled back 10-40%. The price action in momentum stocks is often a precursor of what might happen in the general market. Timing it is the tricky part as sector rotations could continue to keep the indexes near their all-time highs.The market is currently in a range-bound, choppy mode. In such an environment, breakouts don’t work for more than a day or two and often lead to a reversal. Breakdowns don’t last too long either, as the dips near support levels are getting bought. The market is digesting its recent gains and looking for new catalysts. They are right around the corner.The new earnings season has just begun. Morgan Stanley crushed estimates and gapped up. Then, lending troubles in select regional banks brought down the entire financial sector, and Morgan Stanley gave back its gap. American Express also reported strong results, gapped up, and finished strongly.It is a scalper’s tape for nimble traders for the time being, where trading less and focusing on earnings movers makes sense until the next clear swing move.Pocket Lobbyist Insights:Budget Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a speech in advance of the forthcoming November 4 federal budget outlining his government’s priorities.Auto alarms: Tariff wars continue–internally with Stellantis and GM decisions to move operations to the U.S., as well as externally with President Trump saying he has “terminated” trade talks with Canada after anti-tariff ads were taken out by Ontario Premier Doug Ford.Foreign policy: Carney is travelling to South Korea for the APEC summit next week and might meet with President Xi, though that meeting is yet to be confirmed publicly. President Trump will be there and is meeting with Xi.Crime crackdown: Bail reform through Bail and Sentencing Reform Act introduces over 80 clauses of targeted changes to the bail and sentencing framework in the Criminal Code.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Historical Cycles: History shows these massive transformations happen in ~80-year cycles. Each cycle involves “watching an old system being essentially dismantled... at the same time as we’re taking off on these new technologies to build the next systems”* The U.S.’s Self-Inflicted Challenge - Chinese Rare earths leverage and the shocking comparables across multiple industries in Canada:China’s announcements last week should have the same effect on the U.S.: we need to always act with the understanding that (1) we have a critical dependency on China that is particularly important to our tech industry and (2) that China is willing to leverage that dependency.Best Links of The Week🔮* “The six largest U.S. banks collectively earned nearly $41 billion in the third quarter, a 19% increase from the previous year. Bankers express unease about the future despite strong third-quarter profits, healthy consumer spending and low debt delinquencies. Concerns include a cooling job market, elevated inflation and the federal government shutdown’s potential economic impact.” Source: WSJ* “The U.S. has to use industrial policy to compete against nonmarket economies like China, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC. The Trump administration will set price floors across a range of strategic industries to combat Beijing, Bessent said. The administration could take equity stakes in more companies in the wake of China’s new restrictions on rare earth exports, he said.” Source: CNBC* “United Airlines posted higher-than-expected earnings for the third quarter but revenue that missed Wall Street’s estimates. The carrier boosted capacity more than 7% in the third quarter while unit sales fell for both domestic and international travel. United said it expects an adjusted-earnings forecast of $3 to $3.50 a share in the fourth quarter.” Source: CNBC* From Hodinkee: “On this episode of The Business Of Watches Podcast, we catch up with Antoine Pin, the Chief Executive Officer of Tag Heuer, who is having quite a year. The brand is in the first season of a new decade-long deal to be the official timekeeping sponsor of Formula 1. It’s a high-profile, multi-brand agreement that, if executed correctly, could launch Tag Heuer to a whole new level of visibility. But it also comes at a challenging time for the global economy and the watch industry in general, as soaring input costs, a strong Swiss franc, and U.S. tariffs on Swiss goods take a toll on margins and confidence.” You can listen to the podcast or read a transcript of the interview here on Hodinkee. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Happy Thanksgiving everyone,If you don’t have any video of your family spending time together over the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday, give Sora a try.Listen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Okay, so while I’m having my philosophical moment about AI, the markets have been telling their own, more straightforward story. Let’s look at the numbers for the last quarter.September was a pretty good month for stocks, but you had to be in the right places. The S&P 500 was up about three and a half percent. But get this—nearly 70% of that gain came from a handful of Big Tech companies. So if you weren’t in tech, you probably felt a little left out.The other interesting trend is that capital seems to be flowing into Emerging Markets, which had a fantastic month, up over 7%. At the same time, money is trickling out of Europe. It’s a bit of a rotation we’re keeping our eye on.And for the first time in a while, US small-cap stocks actually beat large-caps in the third quarter. That’s a sign that the rally might be broadening out a little bit, which is a healthy thing to see.What Breaks This Market Rally?It all comes back to the trillion-dollar AI question: Are we in a bubble?The giants—Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta—they’re going to be fine. They are spending an eye-watering amount of money on AI data centers, but they can afford it. It’s like a “tails I win, heads I don’t lose too badly” situation for them. That infrastructure will eventually pay off.The real risk, if this bubble pops, is for the companies that sell the shovels in this gold rush. Think NVIDIA, Oracle, and all the other companies in the AI supply chain. They would be in for a really tough time.I’m watching for three things that could be the “uh-oh” moment:* AI progress hits a wall. We realize AGI isn’t coming next year, and companies ask, “Why are we spending $10 billion for a model that’s only 5% better?”* Supply finally overtakes demand. For two years we’ve heard “we can’t get enough chips!” What happens when everyone has built their data centers and suddenly there’s more than enough supply to go around? That’s when the panic stops.* The free money dries up. A few of those AI startups with cool demos but no actual business model run out of cash, and investors get spooked.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙Casey Handmer on the Dwarkesh Patel Podcast - I’ve listened 5 times.Ray Dalio at GEF:Best Links of The Week🔮* “OpenAI’s short-form artificial intelligence video app Sora hit 1 million downloads less than five days after its launch in late September... Bill Peebles, head of Sora at OpenAI, shared the milestone in a post on X late Wednesday. He said Sora reached 1 million downloads even faster than ChatGPT, the company’s popular AI chatbot that supports 800 million weekly active users. Sora allows users to generate short videos for free by typing in a prompt.” Source: CNBC* “China has tightened its controls on rare earth exports ahead of an expected meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump. Shares of U.S. rare earth and critical mineral miners surged as the market speculates on further investment in the industry by the White House. The Trump administration has taken equity stakes in several miners this year to stand up a domestic supply chain against China.” Source: CNBC* Last week saw some notable developments on the SLM side that is worth noting. Venturebeat explains in “Samsung AI researcher’s new, open reasoning model TRM outperforms models 10,000X larger — on specific problems”: “The trend of AI researchers developing new, small open source generative models that outperform far larger, proprietary peers continued this week with yet another staggering advancement.”“Alexia Jolicoeur-Martineau, Senior AI Researcher at Samsung’s Advanced​ Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Montreal, Canada,​ has introduced the Tiny Recursion Model (TRM) — a neural network so small it contains just 7 million parameters (internal model settings), yet it competes with or surpasses cutting-edge language models 10,000 times larger in terms of their parameter count, including OpenAI’s o3-mini and Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro, on some of the toughest reasoning benchmarks in AI research.” - Venturebeat This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

TLDR: The single biggest question on everyone's mind is: Are we in an AI bubble?Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Market update* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Now, history is our best guide here. Think about the great capital cycles of the past. The railroads in the 1840s had a simple feedback loop: the government gave them land, they announced a route, speculators drove up land prices, proving the "territorial development" thesis and fueling more railroad construction. Boom. The gilded age.Then came the telecom bubble of the '90s. The loop was even faster. A company announced a network buildout, their stock price soared on the promise of infinite internet traffic, and they'd use that soaring stock to raise more money to build more networks. Higher stock prices validated the spending.So, what about today's AI buildout? The key idea is that more compute and more data lead to better models, unlocking a new frontier.But when you look closely, the one thing we're missing is that hyper-speculative feedback loop seen in past bubbles.We're not quite there... yet.The Real BottleneckThe real story isn't just about chips; it's about the picks and shovels. This AI capital cycle is a three-legged stool: Compute, Data Centers, and the most critical leg, Power.And that's where the lag is. While a chip cycle might be about 12 months, building a data center takes years. Building a new power plant to run it? That takes even longer. We're seeing companies like GE Vernova booking power plant slots for 2027 and 2028.This makes power the "golden screw" – the one critical piece that holds everything up. Just like tiny, cheap microcontrollers were the bottleneck for the auto industry a few years ago, massive power plants are the bottleneck for AI today. The industry's eyes are shifting from chips to data centers and power grids, and that's where you'll see the first signs of oversupply when the cycle eventually turns.The Market's DilemmaNow, this massive, multi-year buildout is happening against a very confusing economic backdrop.Last week, Fed Chair Powell basically admitted the FOMC is torn. They're stuck between stubbornly high inflation and a weakening labor market.The new "Dot Plot," which shows where committee members think rates will be, is all over the place. For 2026, forecasts range from a rate hike to seven more cuts. That's not a consensus; that's a shrug.But the market? It sees things very differently.Fed Funds Futures are pricing in an 80% chance of two more rate cuts this year. This is the classic"bad economic news is good for stocks" setup, because it means cheaper money is on the way.This dynamic is what's fueling Big Tech.Companies like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google are crushing the S&P 500 because they have both a powerful secular growth story in AI and the market betting on lower rates to fund that growth.So the central tension right now is this:a massive, long-term AI capital buildout, which desperately needs cheap capital, is running headfirst into a Federal Reserve that is openly broadcasting its own uncertainty.The big question is, which force wins? Can the AI narrative continue to power the market higher, or will the economic reality of a divided Fed finally cool things down?Pocket Lobbyist Insights:* Carney said the Israeli government is "working methodically to prevent the prospect of a Palestinian state from ever being established” at the UN General Assembly on Monday afternoon.* Trump–in his UN General Assembly Speech–critical of Europe; a country Canada has decided it will more closely ally with economically to offset tariff disputes.* 25 Republican members of Congress and Senators are calling on Carney to ‘reconsider’ his government’s decision.* Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate foreign commerce, though the President negotiates trade agreements; Congress has an up/down vote (no amendments with limited debate) on implementing the bill.* Canada recognizing Palestinian statehood and potential blowback from the Trump administration on tariff negotiations (in addition to United Kingdom, Australia and Portugal).Best Links of The Week🔮* “Plans for massive AI investments often lead to larger increases in market value for the companies making the investments. Investors are clamoring for companies spending big on AI, with companies like Nvidia and Alibaba seeing large increases in market value after announcing AI investment plans. The market enthusiasm for AI investments has added significant value to companies like Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon, with their market capitalization boosted by about $1.8 trillion this year.” Source: Bloomberg* “Microsoft is bringing Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4 and Claude Opus 4.1 AI models to its Microsoft 365 Copilot today. It’s a big move that expands model choice beyond just OpenAI’s range of models in Microsoft 365 Copilot, and it will allow Microsoft’s customers to access Anthropic models in Researcher and Microsoft Copilot Studio.” Source: The Verge* “Instagram has reached 3 billion monthly users and is changing its home screen navigation bar to highlight private messaging and Reels. The app is running tests, including one in India where the app will open directly into Reels, and another that lets users influence their content algorithm by selecting or hiding topics. The changes are part of a broader effort to leverage Instagram's most popular features, with private messaging and video watching being the most popular ways people use the app.” Source: Bloomberg* The Fed cut rates from the Transcript “At today’s meeting, the committee decided to lower the target range for the federal‑funds rate by a quarter percentage point to 4 to 4 ¼ percent, and to continue reducing the size of our balance sheet.” – Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

I have a very exciting announcement for our subscribers.Starting this week I will be releasing a bi-weekly podcast with my good friend Melissa Caouette, Founder of Pocket Lobbyist and Principal at MC Consulting.subscribe hereWe will be bringing you a regular diet of Canadian market and political insights to help you better navigate your business and portfolio of investments.On to the Market Update:As I always say, if you must panic… panic first.At close on friday, the $VIX was sitting in the $14 range.I do not make market ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ calls. That would be silly.However, a few times a year the market starts to scream - “be careful and/or take some extra risk.” Once or twice a year when the $VIX spikes to 30 we get an opportunity to hold our noses and buy stocks. And during those times, I am generally looking to add stocks rather than sell them…There has been three opportunities since 2008 where the $VIX spiked above 60.* The Great Financial Crisis of 2008* March 2020 Covid Shutdown* Liberation Day Tariffs of April 2025.On it’s own, a $VIX 14-16 means very little. If you added stocks when the $VIX was 60, you have been rewarded as the $VIX calmed back down the last four months. A low $VIX does not mean I want to sell stocks, but it is the reward for buying the spike in March and a much better moment to ‘panic’ if you must sell.Here’s a list of… interesting things that are concerning me.* For some reason people are chasing/piling into Cathie Woods ETF’s again at record pace…It’s not just that degenerates still trust Cathie after years of awful returns…but penny stock trading has been accounting for 30 percent of market volume throughout this summer. Summers may just be the new season for extra degeneracy as the institutions vacay.* Next up… Chamath is floating another SPAC. He thinks it’s ok because he calls the market a ‘casino’(never mind his horrendous track record).Chamath KNOWS that YOU KNOW that he is a grifter and he can still do this and the SEC does not care.This is the darkside of the degenerate economy. Do not expect guardrails or a bailout.The warning signs are accumulating.* Lastly, let’s take one quick look at the mechanics of growth and expectations one should consider. Robinhood has had the run of a lifetime. Based on the numbers, it has made total sense. But, can the background that helped them post these numbers continue?Decoding the Jackson Hole Message and NonFarm Payrolls: Beyond the Hawkish HeadlinesThe dust has settled on Fed Chair Powell's highly anticipated speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. While initial reactions were mixed, a closer look at the text reveals a more nuanced and ultimately dovish stance than many are reporting.The speech was not a "pounding the table" moment. No new policy was made, and it was certainly not a policy mistake—the FOMC meeting is still weeks away.Here’s a pragmatic breakdown of the key takeaways and what they signal for the path ahead.1. The Fed's Core Message: A Clear Nod to the Jobs MandateInstead of a hawkish warning, Powell's concluding remarks pointed directly toward a policy adjustment, emphasizing the Fed's concern for its employment mandate. His final line before discussing the new consensus statement was pivotal:"Nonetheless, with policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance."This language signals a clear predisposition to ease policy, contingent on incoming data. The market reaction confirmed this, with the probability of a September rate cut ending the week largely where it started (around 83%), despite some intra-day volatility.2. The Path to a September Rate CutThe message from the Fed is clear: policy is data-dependent, but the bar for not cutting rates is now extremely high. A rate cut in September seems to be the baseline scenario unless the next cycle of data comes in exceptionally hot across the board.The Fed will cut rates in September unless we see a combination of:* Strong employment data (in all its forms).* Hot inflation reports (CPI, PPI, and Import Prices) in the week before the meeting.Barring this "fire hot" scenario, the Fed appears poised to act.3. Debunking the 2% Inflation Target MythA significant misinterpretation circulating is that the Fed has abandoned its 2% inflation target. This is incorrect. The FOMC's new consensus statement is about flexibility, not abandonment.* What Changed: The framework moved away from rigid "inflation averaging" and now allows for more flexibility to tolerate inflation above 2% specifically when the labor market is weak.* What Didn't Change: The official target remains 2%. The speech did not confirm a commitment to permanently run inflation hot or an abandonment of the target altogether. It's a strategic shift to avoid tightening policy prematurely during a potential downturn.Looking Ahead: My PerspectiveI believe the Fed is slowly and steadily moving toward a view that is more cautious about the real economy and less concerned about persistent inflation. This speech was another step in that direction and the market is pricing in 3 cuts to end this year. and 2 more in 2026.While I remain critical of the Fed's long-term balance sheet policy, which has contributed to asset inflation, the near-term outlook for monetary policy is leaning dovish. A potential cut is not a policy mistake; it's a pragmatic adjustment to a shifting balance of risks.The key now is the data. If it doesn't show significant re-acceleration, the Fed has given itself the green light to begin easing.What was your main takeaway from Jackson Hole? Do you believe a September cut is locked in for this week?#JacksonHole #FederalReserve #JeromePowell #MonetaryPolicy #Economics #Inflation #InterestRates #MarketOutlook #Finance #InvestingBest Links of The Week🔮:* Oracle’s move off OpenAI Contracts: Oracle (48), led by founder Larry Ellison (81), added half of ten year old OpenAI’s $500 billion recent valuation this week in two days. All over its erupting AI Data Center Building revenue backlog from its $300 billion OpenAI Stargate buildout deal. Source: Bloomberg* Apple continues to have a unique set of advantages vs its peers in this AI Tech Wave. Especially as AI capabilities truly ramp up across their ecosystem. Won’t have to squint hard to find them. Apple is poised to deliver bottom up AI applications and services to billions in the months ahead. With a laser focus on Design in the hardware and software. - Apple Product Launch Source: Bloomberg* “A rally that put stocks on the brink of all-time highs sputtered and bond yields rose as euphoria around Federal Reserve rate cuts eased just days ahead of a key inflation reading... Traders are bracing for a not-so-friendly price reading later this week. The Fed’s preferred gauge of underlying inflation probably ticked higher last month, with the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy rising 2.9% from a year ago. That would be fastest annual pace in five months.” Source: Bloomberg* “Banks are pushing to change new US stable coin rules over fears they will spark trillions of dollars’ worth of outflows, underlining growing competition between Wall Street and the [virtual] currency industry. Banking lobbies including the American Bankers Association, the Bank Policy Institute and the Consumer Bankers Association last week warned lawmakers of a “loophole” in regulation that will let some [virtual currency] exchanges indirectly pay interest to stable coin holders.” Source: FT* “Elon Musk’s artificial-intelligence startup xAI sued Apple and OpenAI Monday, alleging the companies are illegally thwarting competition for AI companies. The lawsuit says the iPhone-maker’s partnership with OpenAI makes the startup’s ChatGPT the “only generative AI chatbot that benefits from billions of user prompts originating from hundreds of millions of iPhones.” That enables OpenAI to use the prompts and feedback to improve its model, a significant advantage, according to the complaint. The suit also says Apple is deprioritizing the apps of competing chatbots in its App Store rankings.” Source: WSJ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

HAVEN And The Brothers Who Built A Global Sanctuary For MenswearIn the global lexicon of high fashion, certain cities are spoken with reverence: Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York. Edmonton, Alberta, is not typically on that list. Yet, it is from this industrial prairie city that one of the world's most respected and technically advanced menswear brands emerged. HAVEN.At the heart of this story are brothers Daniel and Arthur Chmielewski. They are not fashion scions or design school prodigies. Instead, they are pragmatic problem-solvers who left careers in the finance to pursue a shared passion, one rooted in the grassroots authenticity of street culture. Their journey is a testament to a different kind of success—one built on necessity, discipline, and an unwavering commitment to quality.Founders' BackgroundDaniel and Arthur Chmielewski grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, a city more known for its oil industry and harsh winters than its fashion scene. Their father, a contractor, instilled in them a "workmanlike approach" to any task, an ethos that would later define their business philosophy and even the physical construction of their first store, which they built themselves with the help of their father and friends.While their day jobs were in finance, their passion lay elsewhere. The brothers were deeply steeped in "street culture from a grassroots level”. They were particularly drawn to Japanese brands, which they admired for executing product on "a whole 'nother level from a quality standpoint". This appreciation for superior craftsmanship and meticulous design, so different from the mass-market clothing available in Canada at the time, would become a cornerstone of their future enterprise.The "HAVEN Filter"The guiding principle behind every product curated or created by HAVEN. This ethos is not an abstract marketing concept but a tangible framework. It is a commitment to purposeful design where function, utility, and performance are paramount.Defining the Philosophy:The "HAVEN filter" prioritizes a set of quintessentially Canadian values: * purposeful, * utilitarian, * functional, and * performance-driven. The brand's mission is to create "functional everyday clothing" that actively improves the wearer's comfort, performance, and utility in their daily life. This philosophy extends beyond their in-house label to the meticulous curation of other brands they carry. Daniel Chmielewski champions the idea of making conscious choices about consumption, advocating for "exceptional quality and timeless design" over fleeting trends. The goal is to build products that remove barriers, allowing individuals to do more without having to think about what they are wearing.Digital by Necessity:While HAVEN's design philosophy was forged by its physical environment, its commercial success was seemingly secured in the digital realm. The brand's early and aggressive adoption of e-commerce was not a calculated strategic move into a burgeoning market, but a crucial pivot born from existential necessity. In the mid-2000s, when e-commerce was still in its relative infancy, the HAVEN web shop and blog became a vital portal for a global community of enthusiasts. It served as a primary, and often exclusive, North American source for cult-status Japanese brands like NEIGHBORHOOD and WTAPS.This digital-first strategy allowed HAVEN to cultivate a loyal customer base far beyond the borders of Alberta. By the time they were ready to expand physically to Eastern Canada, their reputation had preceded them. The opening of their Toronto store was met with a pre-existing clientele built entirely through online orders, validating their belief that a void existed in the market for their curated retail experience.Content as a Cornerstone:Daniel recognized early that a successful online presence required more than just a transactional platform. He understood that retail is about "storytelling and building relationships with customers". HAVEN launched its "Intelligence" section, an online journal featuring original editorial content. Through interviews, lookbooks, and feature articles, they educated their customers on the history of the brands they carried and demonstrated how to style the products. This created a "greater understanding and appreciation of the product," transforming passive consumers into an engaged and knowledgeable community.This decade-long focus on e-commerce technology, content and quality before the major launch of their in-house label represents a masterful, if perhaps unintentional, business strategy. Most brands begin with a product and then face the high-risk, capital-intensive challenge of finding a market and building distribution channels. HAVEN inverted this model. This "platform-first" approach de-risked their product launch and is a fundamental reason for their enduring success.Strategic CollaborationsCollaborations are a core component of HAVEN's brand identity, serving as a method to reinforce their values and expand their expertise. These partnerships are not arbitrary marketing exercises; they are carefully chosen alliances with brands that are "pushing the envelope when it comes to innovation". Each collaboration acts as a form of third-party validation, reinforcing a specific pillar of the HAVEN ethos.Partnering with Viberg, a legendary Canadian bootmaker, anchors their identity in high-quality domestic manufacturing and heritage craftsmanship. Working with Norda, a niche Canadian trail-running shoe brand, signals their commitment to cutting-edge, authentic performance. Collaborations with historic English shoemakers like Clarks Originals and Tricker’s demonstrate a deep respect for timeless design, providing a balance to their modern, technical focus. These partnerships allow HAVEN to tell a multi-faceted story, cementing their authority across the domains of Canadian heritage, technical innovation, and enduring quality.Conclusion.The story of HAVEN is a modern blueprint for building an authentic and enduring brand in a world obsessed with fleeting trends. Its success is the result of cumulative effects of countless deliberate decisions. "There's no silver bullet, but there are a hundred golden bb's". This philosophy—a relentless focus on high-quality products, a steadfast adherence to core values, and a culture of continuous learning and adaptation—is the true secret to their longevity.The Chmielewski brothers have built something with a deeper resonance. Daniel expresses immense pride in seeing their journey inspire others, particularly young entrepreneurs. Their path from a small-town upbringing to the global stage serves as powerful proof that passion, when fused with discipline and a clear vision, can overcome any perceived barrier, be it geographical or industrial.Ultimately, HAVEN stands as more than just a clothing brand; it is a quiet champion for a more conscious and purposeful form of consumption. In an era of disposability, their focus on timeless design, exceptional craftsmanship, and functional utility advocates for a "buy fewer, better things" mentality. They have built a sanctuary for those who believe that clothing should not be a fleeting costume, but a reliable and enriching tool for everyday life. Sources used:* Built to last - Sharp Magazine* EyeCMag - Haven Shop opens in Toronto* Hypebeast - Haven Opens Flagship in Vancouver* NuvoMagazine - How Haven Became A Streetwear Brand This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in the substack podcast app Or on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Welcome back.Im excited to be back making more consistent content for the subs. Todays podcast was a lot of fun to do. We had a familiar face back on the pod - Melissa Caouette from MC Consulting and Pocket Lobbyist - subscribe hereWe talked deeply about the state of play in Canadian Politics and how the tariff war is impacting our economy, Canadians sentiment towards the Prime Minister and what we should expect over the coming 12-18 months.Market Update📈📉· Macro: Huge changes to interest rate policy, Jobs data and foreign policy strategy is afoot· Market: GPT 5 drops… The impacts that should trickle down as a result.· Media: A Huge Deal between the NFL and Disney changes the landscape of sports mediaGPT5 release:OpenAI’s GPT-5 & Open Source OSS: OpenAI had a very big product week, with both its long anticipated GPT-5 and GPT-OSS, ‘Open-Weight’ AI models. The key takeaways on GPT-5 are that it is simplified and unified such that their 700+ million weekly users don’t have to pre-pick which AI model to click on, from a drop down menu. Now GPT-5 is designed to ‘route’ the queries to the right underlying OpenAI models. Also GPT-5 is broadly available even in free tiers. Although higher usage means higher priced tiers. Also businesses and developers can of course pick specific OpenAI models still via the APIs. On the OpenAI open weight ‘OSS’ models, the offerings should sate businesses and developers who want to use open source to craft their own AIs, but stay within the broader OpenAI ecosystem. Also this helps OpenAI publicly respond to the global popularity of Chinese open source models. And of course address Meta’s Llama LLMs. Both sets of products now will of course be rigorously reviewed. discussed, and assessed by the global market. So stay tuned for that. More here.Big Tech Navigates AI:Apple & Nvidia Manage Tariffs: Both Apple for now, and Nvidia a few weeks ago, seem to have mollified and placated the administration in Washington. Most importantly on their ongoing tech tariffs, especially on chips and devices. Both CEOs Tim Cook and Jensen Huang have done what they had to do to personally manage their companies through these geopolitical and ‘just political’ waters. These depths in tech are now more politically treacherous than in any prior tech waves. And it’s not clear that getting exemptions for their particular companies is going to really help long-term. Especially given the enormous, and complex ecosystems their businesses have built and rely on. To do the tech magic at global scale that they’ve achieved for investors to date. More here and hereMind Candy:A Great Newsletter Post from Mel at Pocket Lobbyist:“I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about small-c conservatism and how it applies in modern contexts. A recurring theme that surfaces when I juxtapose philosophical conservatism and philosophical liberalism is the concept of common sense and how it is developed. (Note: these are different than political interpretations).In the conservative philosophical tradition, 'common sense' is a kind of accumulated wisdom of tradition, which is inherited rather than invented; a kind of practical knowledge grounded in habit and custom. Unlike liberals, who may believe common sense has been historically constructed as a result of bias, privilege, or outdated norms (rather than as a result of experience), conservatives may adopt a practical approach and may rely less on "procedures" or "rules" and focus more on intentionality and practicality.The rick bell story below about my friend Nuvyn Peters and her family swing encapsulates the damaging impact of governments over-regulating, over-prescribing, and over-involving themselves in areas where application of a rule appears to have lost touch with the spirit of why it was created in the first place. To be grounded in the tradition of philosophical conservatism is to observe how these overreaches can, over time, damage the social fabric of our communities and societies with negative consequences (i.e., bylaw officers are unreasonable; therefore, all bylaws are unreasonable, which is surely not the case).I have no doubt that many people at the City of Calgary agree that this is an absurd situation and likely agree that the swing should have been left alone.However, the issue is that we no longer empower people, whether within governments (or airlines and banks as other examples), to develop and apply common sense in executing their duties because we rely so heavily on rules and so-called "expertise," however this may be designated in a particular context.We are discouraging enforcement officers (be it bylaw, customer service, or otherwise) from thinking critically about their engagement with other human beings by being excessively prescriptive in the name of efficiency or consistency, but to what end?Even Thomas Paine (a liberal) understood this: "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil...in its worst state, an intolerable one."Albertans will vote in municipal elections on October 20, 2025. If you find yourself chatting with candidates, ask them what they think of common sense and how they would seek to ensure bylaws build–rather than deteriorate–social cohesion and community. Local government is the closest to us, and it matters a whole lot.”Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* What can GPT5 do?* Stephen Kotkin — How Stalin Became the Most Powerful Dictator in History* Zeihan on Trumps Ukraine Policy ChangeBest Links of The Week🔮* The story behind Ozempic’s parent company, Novo Nordisk. Born from a desperate quest to save a single life, this Danish pharmaceutical titan would go on to transform diabetes treatment, revolutionize drug delivery, and most recently, ignite a global obsession with weight-loss medications. This is the remarkable story of how a small nation of just six million produced one of the world's most influential biotech empires. Source: Quartr* "The U.S. government slapped a 39% tariff on imports from Switzerland, including watches, after a diplomatic trip to Washington D.C. by the Swiss president and top government officials failed to win a last minute reprieve from the Trump administration. The new tariff rate of 39% came into effect at midnight on Thursday in the U.S. and at 6 am in Switzerland. The surge in costs for importers in the biggest single market for Swiss watches will challenge an industry that is already struggling with a post-pandemic-era downturn in global demand and a rising Swiss franc that has gained 12% against a weaker U.S. dollar this year. Meanwhile, input costs to produce luxury watches have continued to rise, with the price of gold hitting record highs." Source: Hodinkee* "Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15 per cent of the revenues from chip sales in China, as part of an unusual arrangement with the Trump administration to obtain export licences for the semiconductors. The two chipmakers agreed to the financial arrangement as a condition for obtaining export licences for the Chinese market that were granted last week." Source: FT"Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan will visit the White House after President Trump called for his removal due to ties with Chinese businesses. Tan aims to reassure Trump of his commitment to the U.S. and highlight Intel’s manufacturing as a national security priority. Trump’s call followed scrutiny of Tan’s business dealings, including sales to a Chinese military university by a software company he formerly led and his venture-capital firm’s investments." Source: WSJ"The US expects to largely complete negotiations with countries that have yet to secure a trade deal by the end of October, Nikkei Asia reported, citing an interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The comments, made to Nikkei on Thursday, come after President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs took effect. Some key trading partners, including Canada, Mexico and Switzerland, are still seeking to secure more favorable terms with the US." Source: BloombergDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Welcome to the latest edition of Reformed Millennials!This week, we're thrilled to feature a conversation with a true innovator in the field of ophthalmology, Dr. Andrew Machuk, the owner and operator of Visionary Eye Surgeons. In a field where technological advancements are happening at lightning speed, Dr. Machuk is at the forefront, bringing the latest in surgical precision and patient care to Western Canada.We explore the cutting-edge innovations that are revolutionizing eye surgery. From the remarkable accuracy of the Calisto eye-marking system that he utilizes, to the latest in advanced intraocular lenses that can restore a full range of vision, we delve into the technology that is making procedures safer and more effective than ever before.But the conversation doesn't stop at the operating room door. We also take a wider look at the rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare in Canada. We'll discuss the significant strides being made in preventative medicine, and how early detection and intervention are changing the game for long-term eye health. Dr. Machuk, a passionate advocate for accessible care, will also share his insights on the crucial role in reaching remote and rural communities, ensuring that all Canadians have access to sight-saving expertise.Finally, we'll navigate the complex and often-debated topic of the business of healthcare in Canada. Dr. Machuk will offer his unique perspective as a physician and a business owner, discussing the challenges and opportunities of operating a private surgical facility within Canada's public healthcare system.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* BG2 and Coatue’s Laffont Brothers: Best Links of The Week🔮* The future of the storefront - Rick Rubin on Linkedin* "The automation of Amazon facilities is approaching a new milestone: There will soon be as many robots as humans. The e-commerce giant, which has spent years automating tasks previously done by humans in its facilities, has deployed more than one million robots in those workplaces... That is the most it has ever had and near the count of human workers at the facilities." Source: WSJ* "OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is hitting back at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent AI talent-poaching spree. In a full-throated response sent to OpenAI researchers Monday evening and obtained by WIRED, Altman made his pitch for why staying at OpenAI is the only answer for those looking to build artificial general intelligence, hinting that the company is evaluating compensation for the entire research organization. He also dismissed Meta’s recruiting efforts, saying what the company is doing could lead to deep cultural problems down the road." Source: Wired* "Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell kept his options open when he said steady economic activity was giving the central bank time to study the effects that tariff increases have on prices and growth before resuming interest-rate reductions. “We’re simply taking some time,” Powell said Tuesday, repeating his earlier view. “As long as the U.S. economy is in solid shape, we think the prudent thing to do is wait and learn more and see what those effects might be.” Powell spoke alongside central-bank leaders from Europe and Asia at a conference in Portugal hosted by the European Central Bank." Source: WSJ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

* Market update* Scenerios* VIX History* Black Monday* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉After doom scrolling twitter for the last 60 hours straight, I have come to the conclusion that nobody knows anything.We’re 3 months into this Tariff war and if someone is claiming to know how this ends, they are either lying or Ignorant.But im going to trying and piece together the past to help make sense of today and give some scenarios that could play out in the near future.Trump 1.0’s reaction function was the S&P 500.Trump 2.0’s seems to be the 10 year treasury yield. And once inflation and the deficit are decisively under control, he will be back to focusing on equity markets.I’ve been attending a lot of fund manager calls and meetings over the last 2 weeks. HF, LO, Macro.This is probably the most negative on a forward looking basis I have ever heard such a broad swath of investors in the last 10 + years. Quite something given tech bubble in 2000, GFC in 2008, Covid and 2022.I think the fragility of this moment is not to be ignored. It would only take one “Truth Social” post backing off tariffs (“we have negotiated some good deals” or “waiting 90 days”) and a little bit of policy stability to start the pendulum swinging the other direction. Or 4/2 being anything other than absolutely terrible.* Oil down to 58 from 75 since inauguration day.* Rates are down meaningfully and creeping into the 3’s.* Truflation at lowest level in 4 years.* Dollar is down.* Credit spreads stable relative to any period with similar equity volatility.There is a massive degrossing in the long leg of the momentum factor; by some measures the sharpest down move ever in this period of time.The Nasdaq down roughly the same magnitude/velocity as the Covid crash.FII was less 20 days ago and Trump opened his speech focusing on how much the equity markets were up since his election. I think its reasonable to assume that he still cares despite all the rhetoric to the contrary. “No crying in the casino,”It feels to me like there is a little too much confidence that the Trump administration wants a recession. It cant possibly be lost on them the cost of a recession if one were to arise.Time will tell as ever. Below are some historical charts and scenerios’ to peruse…Scenerios:First, the tariff war just started so it’s early, but the bedrock of the “American exceptionalism” trade over the last 15 years has been the virtuous circle connecting stock prices, the allocation of corporate/societal capital, and the US government’s economic policies. This ecosystem generally worked well for most people, and a few weeks of turmoil does not necessarily threaten it. A few months of volatility and ever-lower stock prices, however, risks permanently damaging investors’ confidence in its foundations.The world isn’t ending. But the rules are changing. For decades, investors benefited from one major tailwind: globalization. Trade was open. Supply chains were efficient. Goods were cheap. That tailwind is fading.* Worst Case Scenario: The administration is serious about keeping tariffs in place long-term, with the goal of forcing everything back to domestic production and we enter an era of fragmentation. This would mean higher prices for consumers in the short and long term, rising inflation, and a real hit to the average American’s standard of living. We’d likely fall into a deep recession, and the markets could drop anywhere from 30% to 60% in a short period of time. It’s the classic stagflation scenario — slowing growth and rising prices — and it’s brutal for everyone. No one wins.* Best Case Scenario: This is all part of a “master plan” — an effort to create global uncertainty and bring countries to the table one by one for better trade terms and concessions on other issues. If that happens quickly (within six months), we could actually see interest rates drop, a recession avoided, and improved trade deals that ultimately benefit U.S. consumers and businesses. In that case, the short-term pain leads to long-term gain. Lots of winners here but its important to sus out the losers.* Badish Scenario: The intent is negotiation, but it takes more than a couple of quarters. Even if successful, the collateral damage in the meantime sends us into a recession anyway. Supply chains are disrupted, companies hesitate to invest, and consumer confidence erodes before any deals are finalized.The Market is leaning towards scenario 3 for one main reason in my opinion - The market and its participants believe that the administration lied about the tariffs being 'targeted' and 'reciprocal'. None of the math on their boards made any logical sense and it lacked any intellectual rigor. When Trump said 10% on all nations -- futures rose 1.5% on the news. That win would have raised the $600b (tariff taxes) he wanted/needed for his tax cut AND encouraged companies to reshore.But instead, he took out his silly billboard of scattered brained math that was arbitrary, and nonsensical. The markets took one look at the China number and reversed the 1.5% gain and shot down 11.5% over the next two days. It’s messy, the tariffs - as they sit - would be devastating if they lasted long, and there’s a lot of uncertainty, but I’m optimistic this wild adventure will come to a conclusion before the summer.VIX History:Closes above 40 are rare (occurring just 2.3 percent of the time) and always signal a crisis that demands an immediate policy response. Below is a list from DataTrek of every time the VIX closed above 40, the reason why it was so high, and what happened thereafter:* August - October 1998: Hedge fund Long Term Capital fails, Fed arranges a private sector bailout.* September 2001: America hit with 9/11 terror attacks, incremental fiscal and monetary policy supports US economy.* July – October 2002: Lead up to Gulf War II (2000 – 2002 bear market ended in October 2002, when Congress approved military action against Iraq).* September 2008 – April 2009: Financial Crisis led to government bailout of US banking system (Q4 2008) and Great Recession spurred Congress to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (February 2009). Stocks eventually bottomed in March 2009.* 2010 – 2011: Aftershocks from the Financial Crisis, made worse by the Greek Debt Crisis, which was eventually resolved by an EU bailout.* 2020: Pandemic Crisis leads to $5 trillion in US fiscal stimulus and Fed taking rates to zero.The VIX is currently +40 because of US government policies that have created a crisis in investor confidence similar to wars and major disruptions to the global economy, and only a change in those policies will force volatility lower and stabilize stock prices. History is crystal clear on this point.The only times the VIX has closed higher than Friday’s ending level were in 1998 (1 day), 2008 – 2009 (80 days), 2010 – 2011 (3 days), and 2020 (22 days). In every instance, changes in government policy were needed before volatility declined.Takeaway: We are now in the chapter of the VIX Playbook where policymakers should be listening to the market and crafting a solution that reduces volatility. It has always worked that way in the past, but government policy itself was never the catalyst for a crisis. This time it is, which makes a speedy resolution more difficult but does not alter the fact that policy must change, or stocks will continue to be under pressure.Source: CME GroupHow were thinking:For anyone 55 or younger and is accumulating assets, this is an incredible opportunity to buy stocks cheaper than we have seen in 4 years.For anyone thinking of selling and getting out to wait for clearer skies I want to point to the best and worst market days data below.The problem with wanting to avoid the bad days is that half of your market return is clustered around the worst and best days in market making it nearly impossible to time.Currently we are in the heat of a ruthlessly swift bear market sell off. The below stocks are the best performers in 2025 so far that are just starting to roll over into no mans land.In a bear market, you can't really hide.First instinct for many is to hedge by buying puts or shorting the stocks that have performed the worst. Unfortunately, that usually bites you in the butt because those are the stocks set to rally the hardest in the event of a policy change.The VIX is likely going to hit 80 today.There is no fundamental price to pay attention to during panics like these.Technicals is all we have.Some of the levels I am paying attention to: 4907 and 4623.On Thursday the market tried to bottom at 12:00 and then it rolled over. Friday, the market tried to bottom at 12:30 and then rolled over.When we compare that to 1987, we start to see a possible Wednesday for a near term bottom.With all that in mind, I think there is good reason to degross your portfolio on 4-5% rallies.I will be focusing the portfolio allocation on the following themes:* Strong FCF and Dividend Growth.* Compounders.* Mexico, Canada and USA.Twitter links from the pod:* Stan Druckenmiller on tariffs and markets* 6 more takes - Joe Wiesenthal* First 8 takes - Joe Wiesenthal* The Long View on what trump and his team really wants - LinkPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* B2G Podcast was a great conversation.* Ezra Klein on the current moment:Best Links of The Week🔮* “The Trump administration will remain steadfast in its reciprocal tariffs on major U.S. trading partners even in the face of a global stock market sell-off, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. Stocks have sold off heavily in the U.S. and around the world after President Donald Trump rolled out broad-ranging tariffs on April 2. In addition to a 10% duty on all imported goods, Trump announced higher levies on imports from 57 countries, which are set to take place on April 9.” CNBC* “Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell... emphasized the central bank doesn’t need to hurry to adjust interest rates as policymakers wait for more clarity on the administration’s policies and their impact... [he also] said the economic impact of new tariffs is likely to be significantly larger than expected, and the central bank must make sure that doesn’t lead to a growing inflation problem.” Source: Bloomberg* The downside risks to the S&P 500 as a result of foreigners selling are potentially significant. Apollo Academy* John Gruber explains why the delayed announcement of a new Siri could mark a key moment in Apple’s history. Daring Fireball* Shortly before Daniel Kahneman died last March, he emailed friends a message: He was choosing to end his own life in Switzerland. WSJ* J.P. Morgan Asset Management - Guide to Retirement This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Welcome back.After a prolonged paternity leave, the podcast has returned with a very special guest - Dr. Jalal Abouhassan.Jalal is a tenured dentist who has recently ventured out on his own to open his own startup practice. Glenora Circle DentalOur conversation is wide ranging and covers a number of areas. Ranging from what to expect when you visit a dentist to the opportunities in expanding a dental practice. We’re always looking for new upcoming arenas to watch from a private and public markets perspective.If you are looking for a new and innovative family friendly dental practice, I highly recommend checking out his practice.Market Update📈📉Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Dylan Patel goes on B2G and paves the way for the Semi market in 2025:* Peter Thiel on Real Estate:* Peter Zeihan on The Canadian Collapse: “Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to demote former Finance Minister and deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has triggered a new round of speculation over his political future.”Best Links of The Week🔮* NVDA vs. AMD - Semi Analysis* Google also ramps up AI Reasoning - Tom’s Guide* Foundation Models are coming to Robots - Michael P on Substack* Scaling Laws Meet Economics - Fabricated KnowledgeDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

What a week it has been in Canadian Politics!Melissa Caouette is back to help us understand everything happening in Canadian Politics.Timeline of the events: 📈📉MONDAY December 16th:9:07 est a.m.– Chrystia Freeland posts her Letter of Resignation as Minister of Finance on X9:30 a.m.– Cabinet meeting• Communicating what would be included in the Fall Economic StatementMorning and into afternoon – Opposition responses to resignation start rolling in• Poilievre and CPC – calling for his resignation/election• Singh and NDP – "All options are on the table"• Blanchet and BQ – Calling for an election12:45 p.m.– Doug Ford Council of Federation Meeting with Premiers• Puts Freeland on speakerphone2:20 p.m.– Question Period in the House of Commons• Prime Minister and Freeland both not present• Poilievre and CPC grilling the government4:00 p.m.– Fall Economic Update (tabled by Government House Leader, Hon. Karina Gould)• $61.9 billion deficit for 2023-24• $48.3 billion deficit projected for 2024-255:00 p.m.–Liberal Caucus Meeting in Ottawa• Prime Minister addresses caucus• Freeland gets a standing ovation7:00 p.m.–Liberal Party of Canada Fundraiser• Long and hard day11:30 a.m.–Polls for Langley-Cloverdale by-election closed• Conservative landslide victory1:30 est - Clean energy policy changes and updateBest Links of The Week🔮* Powering Canada’s Future—Canada’s final Clean Electricity Regulations* Fall Economic Statement - Financial Times* Canadian Housing Start Data - Twitter link* Analysis on Freelands resignation - The Hub* Where the additional budget deficit came from - Trevor Tombe on XFreeland’s letter to the Prime Minister:Disclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

📈Canadian 2024 Budget Highlights with Mel Caouette📉Welcome back.We apologize for the inconsistent email and podcast schedule over the last few months. We will be back this summer in full force!This week’s podcast brings back our most popular guest - Melissa Caouette. We talk about the Canadian Federal Budget and its impact on Canadian entrepreneurs, home owners new and old, and those looking to plan their financial lives.Twitter links to reference for the pod:* Professional Canadians impacted by the Capital Gains Inclusion policy.* Incorporated people deciding on how to pay themselves post-budget policy changes.* What the new budget means for Canadian Farmers.* Budget Link that covers the housing portion of the policy.Quick Market Update:By now it should be clear to everyone that the Fed doesn’t have a specific plan for when they will cut rates this year. Powell keeps saying they are taking the data one month at a time and adjusting their view. This is why stocks rallied when the jobs number on Friday came well below estimates. A weakening jobs market improves the prospects for an earlier rate cut.We are already starting to see some easing. The pace of the Fed’s balance sheet reduction is slowing down. The Treasury plans to start buying $2Bn worth of Treasuries weekly. This is why the dips in the stock market continue to be bought.Earnings season:Two trends stood out so far – upside gaps often faded while downside gaps followed through. These are both bearish reactions. And yet, the indexes are holding relatively well. SPY, QQQ, and IWM have made a couple of higher lows and higher highs in the past two weeks. Small caps are firmly back above their YTD VWAP. SPY and QQQ rallied to their 50-day moving average. Going above their Friday highs will likely lead to FOMO chasing as many market participants are underinvested. Losing Friday’s low will likely lead to a quick gap close. In the meantime, Chinese stocks had a second strong week in a row. Sentiment towards Chinese names has been extremely bearish for a long time. FWe are in a market of stocks environment. The popular, well-known stocks have had some troubles this earnings season. They either gap up and then quickly close their gaps or gap down. Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Great recap of the most recent Apple Event and Quarter:* Justin Lin interviewed by YAV podcast:* Market update from the guys at RenMac:Best Links of The Week🔮* “Trung offers up many examples of how the best athletes in the world across almost every sport are both learning and educating on YouTube. I have seen it in golf and I know if I had the time or inclination I could rapidly improve my game.” Youtube - The learning machine - Source: Trung Phan* “Over the last thirty-plus years, each major technology wave, like the PC and then the Internet, evolved as a series of technologies in a tech value stack that came to define the full ecosystem with huge collective value over time.” Source: AI - Building Value Over Time* Disney shares tumbled 9.5 percent on Tuesday even as it reported the first profit in its core streaming business since it leapt into a battle with [NFLX] five years ago. The Disney+ and Hulu streaming unit earned an operating profit of $47mn in the quarter to the end of March, compared with a $587mn loss a year earlier. Disney achieved the milestone months earlier than expected thanks to cost-cutting and the popularity of Hulu programs including Shogun and The Bear. But investors appeared to be more focused on a potential slowdown in the company’s theme parks." Source: FT"Apple announced new versions of its iPad Air and iPad Pro tablet computers on Tuesday. They’re the first new iPad models Apple has released since October 2022. “This is the biggest day for iPad since its introduction,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a video posted on the company’s website." Source: CNBC"The Biden administration has revoked export licences that allow Intel and Qualcomm to supply Huawei with semiconductors as Washington increases the pressure on the Chinese telecoms equipment company. The move by the US Department of Commerce affects the supply of chips for Huawei’s laptop computers and mobile phones." Source: FT"TikTok sued the federal government on Tuesday over a new law that would force its Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the popular social media app or face a ban in the United States, stoking a battle over national security and free speech that is likely to end up in the Supreme Court." Source: NYT"Reddit shares rallied 14% in extended trading on Tuesday after the company released quarterly results for the first time since its IPO in March. Revenue increased 48% to $243 million for the first quarter. Reddit reported 82.7 million daily active users for the period." Source: CNBCDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments, and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog, or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog, and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational, and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog, and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax, or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog, or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaims that any viewer of this website, blog, or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax, or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance, or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Joel’s unconventional career path* How to start a business in your early years* How to approach the ever changing technology market* How to think about buying your first house* Tips and tricks to networking* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Happy Easter weekend, everyone. This weeks episode is a little bit different than our typical show. Part 1 of 2.Joel is interviewed by Omid from the Second Floor Podcast.It’s a wide ranging conversation about networking, investing, mentorship, leverage and the Canadian Economy.If you care to hear Joel’s thoughts on the above subjects, we thinks it well worth your time to listen and subscribe to The Second Floor Podcast.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* “Truly showing belief in others will buy them a ticket to someplace they never knew.” “Create a brand that people chase, don’t chase people with your brand.” Another gem of an episode on @patrick_oshag pod:* A great podcast covering the new paradigm shift amongst big tech from Ben Thompson and Stratechery. * The New Face of Military Technology with Peter Zeihan:Best Links of The Week🔮* Nvidia’s ACCELERATING AI Strategy. And a Podcast to go with it - Source: the 30 year overnight success story interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.* The Concorde Jet vs. Boeing 747 - Source: Trung Phan* "Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said the standard version of the SU7 will sell for 215,900 yuan ($30,408) in the country — a price he acknowledged would mean the company was selling each car at a loss. Tesla’s Model 3 starts at 245,900 yuan in China. Lei claimed the standard version of the SU7 beat the Model 3 on more than 90% of its specifications, except on two aspects that he said it might take Xiaomi at least three to five years to catch up with Tesla on." Source: CNBC* "Reddit shares are plummeting after experiencing a rally stemming from the social media company’s IPO last week. Shares closed Thursday at $49.30, falling below their closing price on Reddit’s first day of trading last week on the New York Stock Exchange. Earlier this week, Reddit disclosed in a corporate filing that CEO Steve Hoffman sold 500,000 shares, and Reddit COO Jennifer Wong also disclosed that she sold 514,000 shares." Source: CNBC"Home Depot is placing an $18 billion bet that will take the retailer beyond its big orange stores. The home-improvement retailer said Thursday it would buy a company that sells goods for professional roofing and other building projects, branching out to grab more spending by big contractors and construction firms." Source: WSJImportant Charts From the Last Week:Crypto, commodities and bond charts courtesy of All Star Charts.Disclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

📈Alberta Budget Highlights📉Welcome back.This weeks podcast has a special guest: Melissa Caouette founder of Pocket Lobbyist and MC Consulting.from her political newsletter:On Thursday, February 29, 2024, Alberta’s Minister of Finance and President of the Treasury Board, Hon. Nate Horner, tabled the Government of Alberta 2024-27 Fiscal Plan: A Responsible Plan for a Growing Province.TL;DR: Budget 2024 includes a modest $367 million surplus with revenues projected to be $73.5 billion. A relatively positive economic position when considered in the context of global uncertainty with 2.9 per cent projected real GDP growth. Population growth was significant this year but will lower slightly to 3.7 per cent in 2024-25.Tax updates include a new electric vehicle tax and a new Land Ttitles Registration Levy. The government will increase cigarette and smokeless tobacco taxes and adopt the federal-provincial vaping tax framework. A campaign commitment to introduce the Alberta is Calling Attraction Bonus is also included. Education Property Taxes remain the same.Here are the links to all the important budget documents for anyone interested in reviewing all the details:* Minister Horner's Budget Address* Fiscal Plan* Capital Plan and Details By Ministry*  Business PlansAbout Pocket LobbyistPocket Lobbyist is an innovative, first-of-its-kind platform for government relations and public policy materials in Canada.We offer innovative products that support organizations in anticipating, interpreting, and mitigating political risk, including a membership portal and cohort-based professional development opportunities.After launching in 2022, Pocket Lobbyist is a trusted resource for some of Canada’s largest municipalities, economic development associations, non-profits, associations, lobbying firms, and private sector companies. Twitter links to reference for the pod:* Trevor Tombe on the 250B-400B Herritage fund* Canada no longer one of the richest nations on earth* Land transfer tax gets a huge tax overhaulPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Richard Lewis was a legend and he passed this week. He will be missed,. This best of Richard Lewis on Letterman is fantastic:* G2 Podcast:* New Founders Pod:Best Links of The Week🔮* PRIME TIME: WHY NIGHT GOLF COULD EXPLODE IN POPULARITY: “There are about 16,000 golf courses in the United States, but less than one percent of them have lights. That could change in the coming years as many in the golf industry feel we are at the beginning of a night golf trend. “Source: here* Nvidia CEO Jensen highlights Inference over Training AI:  With the markets increasingly tuned to the potentially higher upcoming competition from other chip vendors for Nvidia in AI inference vs training, it’s notable that CEO Jensen Huang is making this a priority. Especially in terms of providing the street Nvidia metrics on this front. Source and detailed take: here.* "Over and over again, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has been asked the same question: What is Apple doing about generative artificial intelligence? His answer: Stay tuned. Investors are getting impatient... That sentiment is why Apple’s decision to shift some employees into AI and cancel its electric-car project—one of the most widely anticipated potential tech products in a decade—was greeted with almost universal investor enthusiasm Tuesday." Source: WSJ* "The Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of underlying inflation rose in January at the fastest pace in nearly a year, helping explain policymakers’ patient approach to start cutting interest rates. The so-called core personal consumption expenditures price index, which strips out the volatile food and energy components, increased 0.4% from December, data out Thursday showed. From a year ago, it advanced 2.8%. Economists consider this to be a better gauge of underlying inflation than the overall index." Source: BloombergDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Super Bowl Economics* Market update* Underneath all time highs* Rates aren’t coming down… now what?* The power of AI and inference* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back.The GoodThe most bullish thing I see out there for the stock market is the lack of new lows… Most stocks are holding and staying above their 52 week lows…It's mathematically impossible for the stock market to get worse, go into a correction, or even think about the possibility of a bear market, without seeing an expansion in new lows first.And we're just not seeing it.The NYSE Composite went out last week at a new all-time high. And even the most short-term of new lows lists have yet to see any expansion.The BadHowever, the bad thing is that there have been a number of bearish divergences adding up.The stock market just entered what is historically one of the worst times to own stocks of the entire year, the new 52-week highs list has already dried up.We are in nomansland.The all time highs list peaked 2 months ago, and has been deteriorating with every new high you see in the S&P500 and Nasdaq (neither one closed at a new high last week).US Treasury Bonds are falling off a cliff. When a $130 Trillion asset class is crashing, is your bet that it won't impact the stock market?You're seeing Consumer Staples outpacing Consumer Discretionary stocks, which is what you normally see in the market right before a good rug pull.And worst of all, the US Dollar is ripping higher. Over the past several years, when the Dollar is strong, stock are not…The US Dollar is the only safe haven in this market. And Dollar Index Futures are up every week this year - 7 weeks in a row. All of these, in my opinion, are definitely bad for stocks. The UGLYThis market is losing its leaders.Adobe, arguably the most important software stock, is getting crushed.The iShares Software Index Fund just got back to its former bull market highs from late 2021.The most important stocks within the index are already rolling over.If Software is falling, Apple and Microsoft are rolling over, and momentum is diverging everywhere, do you think the Tech Sector Index itself won't follow?Remember, Technology represents 30% of the S&P500 and over 50% of the Nasdaq100 $QQQ.Now, this is all to say that we cant possibly see the future and all these bearish signals could change in an instant. We as investors and market participants must stay nimble.Twitter links from the pod:* Capital One buying Discover* Lifestyle influencers are transitioning out of the business* EV Leases are plummeting in price* Raising Canes origin story* Trevor Tombe talks about the Alberta herritage fundPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* The Legend Behind the Legend: This awesome interview was served up of Steve Williams who was Tiger Woods caddy for 13 years. Steve had the best seat in golf for 13 years. There are so many great stories on Tiger Woods’ crazy life, the one on how he got fired and on the legacy of Tiger Woods.* The Compound brings back my favorite guest:* B2 is the best new podcast in tech and investing. This episode was a phenomenal cruise around tech markets.Best Links of The Week🔮* "Nvidia’s surge to an all-time high is the biggest single-session increase in market value in history, besting Meta’s historic gain just three weeks ago. Shares of the chipmaker jumped 16% Thursday, adding about $277 billion in market capitalization and bringing its total market value near $2 trillion. The addition eclipsed the $197 billion gain made by Facebook-parent Meta at the start of the month." Source: Bloomberg* "Japan’s benchmark stock average hit a record high Thursday after 34 years of waiting, and the reason mostly boils down to one word: profits. Japanese companies are making a lot of money, and they are handing out a lot of it to their shareholders. In contrast to 3½ decades ago, when Nikkei Stock Average record highs last made headlines, no bubbles or magical thinking are needed to justify the new peak." Source: WSJ* "Social media company Reddit filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday after a yearslong run-up. The company plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “RDDT.” Its market debut, expected in March, will be the first major tech initial public offering of the year. It’s the first social media IPO since Pinterest went public in 2019." Source: CNBC* "A patient implanted with Neuralink’s brain technology can now control a computer mouse just by thinking, the company’s founder Elon Musk said. ″[The] patient seems to have made a full recovery with no ill effects that we are aware of and is able to control the mouse, move the mouse around the screen just by thinking,” Musk said in a Spaces session on social media platform X. Neuralink is the billionaire’s startup, which says it has developed a brain implant designed to help humans use their neural signals to control external technologies. The company aims to restore lost capabilities such as vision, motor function and speech." Source: CNBCDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Good Good tournament with Grass Clippings* Market update* Canada betting too much on USA trade* American exports* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back.Last Wednesday the Dow, S&P500 and Nasdaq100 all closed at new all-time highs.But the number of stocks on the NYSE that actually made new highs was a fraction of what it was last week…Breadth is weak.The indexes make new highs. The headlines focus only on that.But then the actual new highs list is non-existent.A sell off is beginning, we’re just not seeing it at the index level yet.But, things can change at the drop of a hat.The number of S&P 500 stocks above their 200 and 50dma is decreasing while the index is making new highs. This is how indexes topped in the past. The trouble is that timing a top is a lot tougher than capturing a bottom. A bearish divergence can continue a lot longer than most expect and can resolve in two ways: * We can see an expansion of the rally as more stocks participate. This happened last year in May and June. * Or we can see a correction and most stocks pull back.From where we stand, both scenarios are equally plausible right now. More stocks joining the rally mean more and better opportunities in faster-moving stocks. A correction means lower prices in the strongest companies – so many investors are dreaming about buying pullbacks in the strongest semiconductor and software stocks. Any dips will offer better risk-to-reward opportunities. As legendary investor, Peter Lynch said: “Far more money has been lost while preparing for a correction than during the corrections themselves”.Twitter links from the pod:* Trevor Tombe on Canadian resource investment* Trevor Tombe on Canada betting too much on USA trade* Chris Arnade talks about American exports* Adam Sandler and Brad PittPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* BG2 podcast with Aaron Levie:* Using the Apple Vision Pro:Best Links of The Week🔮* Todays luxuries are tomorrows commodities - “We're entering a world in which consumers will experience abundance in creativity and productivity, in their relationships and social experiences, and in personal growth across dimensions like education, wellness, and financial health. This will manifest in a new generation of AI-native consumer products and companies that grow faster and engage users more deeply than ever before”. Source: Gamma* Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank has shifted its focus toward deciding when to begin cutting interest rates, but that solid economic growth means officials didn’t have to rush that decision. Given recent economic strength, “we feel like we can approach the question of when to begin to reduce interest rates carefully,” Powell said during a rare television interview to be broadcast on CBS on Sunday night. Powell, speaking on “60 Minutes,” said officials were trying to balance the risks of leaving rates too high for too long, which could cause an economic slowdown, and of cutting rates too soon and allowing inflation to settle above the Fed’s 2% goal." Source: WSJ* "Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk has been “surprised” by the readiness of European consumers to pay for weight-loss drugs from their own pockets, as the region’s largest company invests in new supply to meet runaway demand. The company’s weight-loss drug Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic powered it to record sales in 2023 and a current market capitalisation of $508bn." Source: FT* "Hawaiian Airlines is rolling out complimentary Wi-Fi via SpaceX’s Starlink on board commercial flights this week... the first major U.S. airline to offer the satellite-based service. “SpaceX has really cracked the code – literally, in terms of the technology – to be able to deliver a wide bandwidth of very high quality connectivity to an airplane with a global reach,” Peter Ingram, Hawaiian Airlines CEO, told CNBC." Source: CNBCDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Sports business update (Netflix $5B Deal with WWE)* Inflation news and jobs data* Market update* META earnings* AMZN earnings* Vision Pro impacting culture* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back.We had a very exciting week in markets. There was some important US data that was released. QRA & RRP, FOMC and Big Tech earnings.QRA - There was a net funding for US treasury and bills, which was a surprise and would be considered a headwind for equities. FOMC - Many forecasters assumed that Quantitative Tightening (QT) would end in June, however, after this months meeting it’s quite clear that QT ending is no longer a certainty. There will be no rate cut in march. In order to see a cut, Jerome Powell will need to see a few CPI prints that negate the benign inflation that we have seen over the last few quarters.This is all to say, that its clear we are in a fairly precarious place with regards to equity pricing. We are priced for a perfect “no landing'“ situation.AI and Big Tech:Big Tech AI driven Earnings Season Momentum continues: Meta took the investor crown with its quarterly results, with the stock up almost 20%, with Amazon also seeing a double digit positive reaction. Microsoft, logged some gains initially post announcement gains, but gave them up later in the week. Apple and Google had modestly muted reactions, Apple for weakness in China, and Google for continued concerns on AI impact on its Search business. Lots in the weeds to parse for each of the ‘Magnificent 7’, but overall, the AI sentiment tailwinds continue.How to think about the evolution of culturally important technology: Vision ProIf one looks back at Apple’s ‘platform’ record over the decades, the company is generally never the first in a hot new tech area. But when it does make its move, it’s typically a committed, focused, and multi-year bet on making it a vertically integrated ‘Best’. With an almost religious ‘attention to detail’, fusing both the hardware and software elements. With the North Star of the eventual user experience.Let’s look at the broad strokes through tech history. Apple typically relabels the tech to whatever it wants. (This time it’s ‘Spatial Computing’ instead of ‘VR, AR or MR’).Let’s look at this ‘late’ but eventually ‘best’ trend through Apple’s history:* GUI (Graphical User Interface) pioneering Macs in the 1980s, bringing the world from the ‘Command Line’ of Microsoft’s MS-DOS to their eventual success with Windows 95 and beyond,* to its Internet ‘built-in’ iMacs in 1997 when Steve Jobs ‘came back’ to Apple,* to the iPod that revamped the Music industry from albums to buying music tracks individually, changing the habits of billions in how they consumed music,* to of course the mobile phone with the iPhone in 2007 after Blackberry and many others had already ‘taken the lead’, redefining the ‘Smart Phone’, and establishing the ‘App Store’ and App Economy that now sees over a trillion in business activity per year,* to the Airpods in the ‘Wearables’ space, overtaking prior wired and wireless efforts,* to the Apple Watch, which continued the ‘Wearables’ progression from others, painstakingly iterating over many years,* to now the Vision Pro in headsets that have seen billions in expenditures by everyone from Meta/Facebook with Oculus/Quest headsets to Microsoft, Sony, and so many others.Twitter links from the pod:* AMZN earnings recap* META earnings recap* Oil stocks to own forever* Real estate development story that will blow your mind* Bill Gross talks about QT and QEPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* How to think about New All Time HIGHS - from the Compound* How to think about product pricing - Invest Like The BestBest Links of The Week🔮* "After decades in the shadows of record-shattering Wall Street stocks, a transformation of the euro-area’s index of blue-chip companies looks to have finally set the benchmark on course toward a new high. Europe may lack a “Magnificent Seven” tech cohort of its own, but a pared-down version of that phenomenon has emerged. The Euro Stoxx 50 has just hit its highest since 2001, with the latest leg of the surge powered by blowout earnings from the region’s two biggest tech stocks, ASML and SAP." Source: Bloomberg* "Reddit is weighing feedback from early meetings with potential investors in its initial public offering that it should consider a valuation of at least $5 billion... even as it is estimated below that figure in the volatile market for shares of private companies. The San Francisco-based social media company and its advisers are targeting a valuation in the mid-single-digit billions... The ultimate figure will depend on the IPO market’s nascent recovery... Reddit is considering a possible listing as soon as March." Source: Bloomberg* "Meta Platforms is hoping Apple’s launch of the Vision Pro can reinvigorate its $50 billion metaverse effort, which consumers have yet to widely embrace. The social-media company wagered its reputation on the technology in 2021... Three years later, Meta’s Reality Labs division accounts for less than 1% of overall revenue, and the company has struggled to expand the cache of its Quest devices beyond a niche market... On the eve of the arrival of Apple’s Vision Pro, which will hit U.S. stores Friday, executives at Meta are optimistic, believing the iPhone maker’s entry into the market will validate Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s gamble and draw more consumers." Source: WSJ* "China has moved to officially limit short selling after informal efforts failed to stop a worsening stock market sell-off. Investors who buy shares will not be allowed to lend them out for short selling within an agreed lock-up period, the Shenzhen and Shanghai bourses said on Sunday... Regulators are coming under increasing pressure to halt the stock sell-off, which has been fuelled by uncertainty over the country’s economic growth prospects." - Source: FT* "Big pharmaceutical companies like Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck and Johnson & Johnson face so-called patent cliffs that will put tens of billions of dollars in sales at risk between now and 2030. That refers to when patents expire for one or more leading branded products for a company, which opens up the door for competitors to sell copycats of those drugs, often at a lower price. Some companies appear to be well-prepared to offset some of the losses from upcoming patent expirations." - Source: CNBC* "The Biden administration, eager to highlight a signature economic initiative as elections approach, is expected to award billions of dollars in subsidies to Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, or TSMC, and other top semiconductor companies in coming weeks to help build new factories. The grants are part of the $53 billion Chips Act, intended to reshore production of advanced microchips and fend off China, which is fast developing its own chip industry." - Source: WSJ* "Cathie Wood has said her tech-focused Ark stock market fund “paid its dues” with two years of steep declines, before roaring back last year with one of the industry’s best performances. Wood’s $8bn Ark Innovation exchange traded fund recorded a 68 per cent gain last year, putting it within the top one per cent of its peers, according to data from Morningstar. That rebound came after a 50 per cent annualised loss across 2021 and 2022, when sentiment soured against the high-growth companies it had backed." - Source: FTDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Sports recap* Market update* MSFT Co-pilot launches and surpasses APPL in market cap* Amazon bails out regional sports networks* Benson Boone Soft Launches his hit single Beautiful things* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back.Lets quickly start with interest rates and the Fed/Bank of Canada:The Fed/BofC dot plot assumes 3 cuts in 2024. 3 factors drive that assumption * Inflation falling * Real GDP falling * Monetary policy Lately the market and policy makers have focused entirely on #1. BUT 2. And 3 matter as well. To validate the 3 cuts, GDP is projected to fall from 2.6 to 1.4. If it doesn't then almost all of the cuts in 2024 would not likely manifest. Last year we saw great progress in fighting back down inflation. This year will be about how the real economy handles current borrow rates. Will gdp fall a lot? Or will it be stronger for longer?Market technicals:I think it's important to reiterate that if the most important sectors are holding their key breakouts, it's hard to be too bearish on the overall market at this stage.First is Technology - the largest weighting in the S&P500 representing almost 30% of the entire Index. Tech is also 50% of the Nasdaq.You're seeing similar from Industrials which is historically highly correlated with the S&P500 among all S&P sectors.The importance of Homebuilders needs little introduction. But also keep in mind that this is one of the key groups within the Consumer Discretionary sector:We don't have bull markets around here without Financials. So if the NYSE Broker Dealers Index is above those former cycle highs, like all of these others, it's hard to be too bearish on equities:And finally, the strength out of Semiconductors cannot be overstated. As $TSM released better than expected 2024 guidance.Twitter links from the pod:* Roy Maddox on 2024 expectations* Brent Beshore talks small business investing/characteristics* Ram talks demographics, growth and inflation* Nate Silvers on the population Bomb* How to grow/market/scale an ecommerce businessPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Bob Elliott talks about what the Fed needs to see in order to see rate cuts in 2024:* Beautiful Things - Benson Boone* Sam Altman and Bill Gates talk the future of AI:Best Links of The Week🔮* The Red Sea, a key global trade route, faces material disruption from Iran-backed Houthi rebel attacks on commercial ships. - FT* In the world of media and technology, there is something that is always in play…the bundling and unbundling of things. - Ben Thompson has covered this over the years.* I love this Morgan Housel piece titled ‘Information That Would Get Your Attention’.* The Apple Macintosh is 40 years old (a true reminder to let the Vision Pro breathe)Disclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Sports roundup* NFL success* Market update* Bitcoin ETF* Tiger and Nike part ways* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Lets start with what happened last week.Bonds traded down and equities traded slightly up.But what matters to participants is the short end of the yield curve. And how interest rates are going to move as we trade through the year.“If inflation falls towards target, unless they ease, they will be tight.” - Jerome PowellWhat the market is betting on at he moment is that the inflation rate will fall to somewhere between 2.3%-2.5%. which will allow the fed to cut to 2% REAL. Real interest rates are CPI minus the fed funds rate.This is where the 4.3%-4.5% fed funds rate is coming from.The problem is that CPI came in hotter than expected last week.3.4% vs and expected 3.2%A lot of people are still trapped in super short dated bills.The reinvestment risk for most participants is enormous. Most investors are looking to enter market slightly lower than where we are right now.Moving forward. Will inflation drift towards target?At the moment, the proper positioning is likely 60:40 (equity:bonds) for most wealthy long term investors.40% in 3-4 year duration bonds.60% long duration equities.What do we sell? What do we buy?There is some incredibly exciting opportunities in tech right now. Stuff that could significantly run into the future. But the market feels properly priced here.None of this is financial advice but this is how I’m thinking through the first week of 2024.Twitter links from the pod:* Ram on twitter talks about global investing trends* Bitcoin ETF Taxation* Andy Constan on the future of inflation* Kate and Ashley Quiet Luxury* CES 2024Everyone should check these links out:Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024 wraps up an AI-laden week: CES 2024 wrapped up this week with almost every company having an AI featured announcement. Or so it seemed. Useful rounds ups of the plethora of announcements across Electronics, PCs/Laptops/TVs/Automobiles, and gadgets of every type can be read hare, here and here amongst many others, Of particular note of course was the focus by both chip and PC vendors to highlight the AI capabilities of their next generations of products this year. And Intel, AMD and other chip vendors did their best to make their case that they were also in the AI chip race vs Nvidia, which at the moment is running away with the AI infrastructure market. Now it’s on the software and services companies to ramp up their offerings to leverage the local hardware with innovative AI apps and services. CES also saw a range of new AI Devices and Services: Ahead of Apple’s much-anticipated launch of its Vision Pro glasses which go up for pre-order on January 19, CES also saw new AI devices and services on offer. Sony previewed 'Spatial Content’ Headset against Apple’s upcoming focus on ‘Spatial Computing’. A new company launched its Rabbit R1 $200 AI device product below (no subscription), with an ambition similar to Humane AI’s pin product rolled out a few weeks ago. Samsung had fun with its Ballie AI robot. We’re going to see a cambrian explosion of AI gadgets and services this year, including AI services like ChatGPT stuffed into our VWs and BMWs. My deeper take on this trend here.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* How to become a millionaire in your 20’s* Scott Galloway talks about his successes and failures investing* Parenting Podcast of the weekBest Links of The Week🔮* Permanent Equity Annual Letter. Joel’s favorite private equity gourp. - Link* "US crude oil and natural gas output is set to notch fresh records in 2024 and 2025, the government has forecast, despite mounting fears that the shale revolution that fuelled the nation’s energy boom has run its course. Average US oil production will amount to 13.2mn barrels per day this year, rising to 13.4mn b/d next year, according to an energy outlook released on Tuesday by the Energy Information Administration. The figures top the 12.9mn b/d estimated in 2023 — itself a record, surpassing levels reached before the pandemic." Source: FT* Google is going forward with sweeping changes to how companies track users online—moves that have been years in the making. Advertisers still aren’t ready. The changes, among the biggest in the history of the $600 billion-a-year online-ad industry, center on the use of cookies, technology that logs the activity of internet users across websites so that advertisers can target them with relevant ads. Starting Thursday, Google will start a limited test that will restrict cookies for 1% of the people who use its Chrome browser, which is by far the world’s most popular. By year’s end, Google plans to eliminate cookies for all Chrome users." Source: WSJ* "German inflation accelerated to its fastest rate for three months in December, casting doubt over investors’ hopes that the European Central Bank will start cutting interest rates as early as March. Inflation in Europe’s largest economy rose at an annual rate of 3.8 per cent in December, up from 2.3 per cent a month earlier... The reduction of government subsidies on gas, electricity and food that began last year has triggered a re-acceleration of annual inflation in much of Europe." Source: FT* "Eli Lilly started a new online service offering telehealth prescriptions and direct home delivery of its new anti-obesity drug Zepbound, an unusual move into the drug supply chain by a pharmaceutical company with one of the hottest-selling medicines." Source: WSJ* "Peloton is partnering with TikTok to bring short-form fitness videos and other content to the social media channel. The partnership comes as Peloton looks to attract a wider array of customers and boost subscribers amid falling sales and profits. In May, Peloton rebranded as a fitness company “for all,” and is still working to get that message out to the public." Source: CNBCDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Reviewing 2023 predictions* Whats in store for 2024* 2024 predictions* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back and Happy New year everyone.The market has gotten off to a very slow start. Erasing all the gains in the final five trading days of last year.On LinkedIn I posted a little blurb on the January Trifecta that i think is important to talk about as we trade through January.Santa failed to show up for his Rally.In investing, there are many adages or proverbs that people track.One that has become popular is the New Years Trifecta.The first leg is the Santa Clause Rally. Which combines the final 5 trading days of last year and the first 2 trading days of the new year. The second is “the first 5 days” of January.The third is “as January goes, so goes the rest of the year”.The first adage or indicator is usually measuring the S&P500, but it’s also fair game to expand it more broadly as I think it helps to see the whole market. (See attached chart from All Star Charts)So what does it all mean exactly?Last year, we had one of the best January’s in history. Which lead to one of the best performing years for a 60:40 portfolio in a long time.We’ve gotten off to a poor start here in North America. But the rest of the world, specifically Emerging Markets, Financials and Healthcare have bucked that trend.There are many strategists on the street bullish these three areas of the market.They are showing relative strength.I think that’s important to pay attention to.It’s a new year, with new trends.2024 Predictions:* Cancel culture gets canceled* Ozempic (GLP-1) is bigger than AI* S&P 500 sees a +15% gain* Jerome Powell leaves the fed in 2024 after soft landing confirmed and before Trump* TikTok finally gets banned in the US and Canada (After election)* Hypest IPO of 2024 is going to be Kim K’s Spanx and Stripe* Longevity products go mainstream* Crypto begins a new bull market* Software moats erode with AI* Valuation dispersion widens* A new generational social media product is born* India has a blockbuster startup IPO* US IPO market reopens; M&A stalls with regulation* Small cap tech IPOs will make a comeback* AI deflates healthcare* Digital detoxes go mainstream* The value of culture will skyrocket in the AI age* Fed will hike more than it will cut in 2024* Bitcoin spot ETF will not happen in 2024* Gold will trade below $1700* No banks will fail* China Equities will outperform all G7 equities* YoY US CPI measure for all of 2024 will exceed 2023 year end level* Mag 7 will again outperform SPX 493Podcast & YouTube Recommendations* The best interview of Scott I have ever watched. And I’ve seen darn near all of them.* Zeihan on Canada’s position economicallyBest Links of The Week🔮* The Case Against Travel by Agnes Callard - An argument we might all be more open to after experiencing an airport around the holidays … Especially in an age of online booking and Instagram, travel shouldn’t be considered an achievement or a hobby.* An Extraordinary Introduction to the Birth of Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (with Haviv Rettig Gur) by EconTalk Podcast - A much broader perspective on the foundation of Israel that goes well beyond 1948 and puts Zionism in a wider historical context in Europe. * Bonus (Listen): Sam Lessin of SlowVC: The End of Factory-Farmed Unicorns on World of DaaS pod Everyone is afraid to make predictions, except Sam Lessin. Sam gives an in depth breakdown of the last five years of VC, and where it’s heading in the next five.* Why The Age of American Progress Ended by Derek Thompson “Invention alone can’t change the world; what matters is what happens next.” The US has more Nobel prizes for science than most of Europe combined, but if there were a Nobel prize for deployment and adoption of new technologies, we certainly wouldn’t be the leading recipients. * The Secret Life of the 500+ Cables That Run the Internet by Stephen Shankland Some of the facts about the several hundred cables that connect the global internet are unbelievable: They’re only about the width of a garden hose, and they carry 99% of intercontinental internet traffic.* What do you actually want? by Raffi GrinbergFor the season of goal setting, a practical, replicable exercise to understand more about what you actually want and why, with grounding in modern psychology.Disclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Introduction - Dan Belostotsky* Where does Honestdoor fit in the Real Estate sector?* Process of using Honestdoor* Realtor.ca Court Case* Real Estate startups * Hypothetical Buying Agent : Selling Agent scenrioListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉2023 was a year of relief.Kurt Vonnegut once correctly pondered: "The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is." While 2022 was humbling and bewildering at times for many of my portfolio companies, in hindsight it was one of those moments we needed to just stay calm. Given hopefully multiple decades of life ahead of us, it matters a lot less how 2022 or 2023 went; what matters much more is what lies ahead.Morgan Housel's recent book "Same as Ever" had this sentence that really left a mark on my mind: "To know where we are going, we should know where we have been. And when you know where we have been, you realize we have no idea of where we are going."After the pandemic and the massive stimulus in 2020, Russia-Ukraine war, supply chain crisis, and soaring inflation of 2021-22, and then the apparent taming of inflation in 2023, it seems like a good bet that we will keep getting surprised in 2024 (and beyond). Some of them will be positive surprises, and some negatives.What is going to be most interesting to me and the Canadian Market will be how we tackle our real estate “problem”.This weeks podcast features Dan Belostotsky, founder and CEO of Honestdoor.Dan was the perfect guest to round out the year that featured a volatile market in stocks and real estate.If you’re interested in learning more about Dan and his business, check our their platform here.links from the pod:* "Pending home sales in October dropped to the lowest level since the National Association of Realtors began tracking them in 2001. - CNBC* Zillow Acquires Trulia - Strathechery* Sharptech on the future of Real Estate* How to deal with writers blockBest Links of The Week🔮* Blockbuster year in public markets buoyed by AI: The stock market obviously had a great year given the macro economic developments, and anticipation of a tempering Fed on rates in 2024. - WSJ* Year-end AI Summaries and Predictions: It’s the time of year of course for year-end summaries and predictions for 2024. - The information and here for predictions * How the $250 billion plus ‘Creator’ economy that is going to be impacted by AI in 2024. - The information * There's also Tech products for 2024. - WSJ* "The New York Times on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, accusing them of copyright infringement and abusing the newspaper’s intellectual property. In a court filing, the publisher said it seeks to hold Microsoft and OpenAI to account for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages” it believes it is owed for “unlawful copying and use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works.” The Times accused Microsoft and OpenAI of creating a business model based on “mass copyright infringement,” stating their AI systems “exploit and, in many cases, retain large portions of the copyrightable expression contained in those works"." Source: CNBCDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Netflix is Cable and Cable is Netlfix* Amazon will bundle sports and news* Market update* 2024 outlook* Plans for the holidays* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Merry Chrysler Everyone!After one of the biggest rallys in stock market history, we think its fair for the podcast to take a break.In doing that, we want to provide everyone with all the reading and listening we’ll be tackling as we head into the Christmas break.Twitter links from the pod:* Lego thread* Trevor Tombe talking about Canadian Inflation* Trevor Scott and the opportunity in FairfaxBest 2024 Outlooks from across the finance industry:* BlackRock: 2024 Global Outlook* PIMCO: Prime Time for Bonds* Robeco: 2024 Outlook: Goldilocks: Exit stage right* Charles Schwab: U.S. Outlook: One Thing Leads to Another* Charles Schwab: 2024 Global Outlook: The Big PictureSummary Reports* Vanguard: Economic and Market Outlook for 2024* Morgan Stanley: 2024 Global Macroeconomic Outlook: Central Banks Look for ‘Just Right’ on Rates* Morgan Stanley: 2024 Investment Outlook: Threading the Needle* Goldman Sachs: Macro Outlook 2024: The Hard Part is Over* Goldman Sachs: 2024 U.S. Equity Outlook: “All You Had To Do Was Stay”* Bank of America: 2024 OutlookReal Estate* Nareit: 2024 REIT Market Outlook* Realtor.com: 2024 Housing Market Forecast and PredictionsMiscellaneous* Cambridge Associates: 2024 Outlook: Private Equity & Venture Capital* Deloitte: 2024 Investment Management Outlook* McKinsey: The State of Fashion 2024Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Bezos Interview With Lex Friedman and 5 takeaways from the Bezos interview: 1) Deep self-awareness & stacking the deck in your favor is a good formula for career success. 2) Many people self-identify as entrepreneurs because it's cool vs. what's actually true. 3) Great entrepreneurs are able to telescope flawlessly. They drift from cloud to mud discussions in seconds. 4) Irrational optimism lets you start a business. Emotionless pragmatism lets you succeed in business. 5) Powerpoints are terrible meeting tools. They are meant for persuasion & selling vs. problem-solving & truth-finding.* My Favorite Two Boomer Influencers Talk Health and Longevity:* What Happened To AI in 2023!?:Best Links of The Week🔮* Trading for a Living (Jared Dillian)Ex-trader turned fantastic writer, Jared Dillian publishes one of my favorite blogs on the internet. Not only does he educate and entertain with everything he writes, but he does so in a style all his own. I particularly enjoyed this piece on trading because it’s filled with insights that are completely foreign to me. Though I have no interest in day trading, Jared is able to make this topic come alive in a way that is both beautiful and intriguing. There is this level of depth of that makes you want to keep reading. Don’t just take my word for it though, see for yourself.* The Levers That Money Can’t Pull (Lawrence Yeo)Lawrence Yeo doesn’t usually write about money, but, when he does, I listen. In this post he does a deep dive on the things that money can and can’t do for your life. While we all know that money by itself can’t buy you love or purpose, Lawrence has a unique way of approaching this problem that makes his writing so compelling and memorable. If you ever need a reminder on the importance (and non-importance) of money, this post is for you.* The Problem with Being House Rich (Ben Carlson)In this piece, he provides a friendly reminder of the fact that most Americans have most of their wealth in their home. He goes on to explain how this can be problematic for some who look rich on paper, but can’t access their wealth when it is needed most. For those of you that want to better understand the tradeoffs associated with being “house rich,” look no further.* The Myth of the Broke Millennial (Jean M. Twenge)I love it when a writer busts a commonly held (yet mistaken). Jean takes her analysis to the next level by demonstrating how Millennials (my generation) aren’t as far behind as previously believed. Her analysis examines changes in income, wealth, and why Millennials still might feel poor despite these improvements (hint: it’s the media). Though the myth of the broke Millennial persists today, I’m hoping this article will change your mind.* Seven Deadly Stocks (Michael Batnick)Michael hasn’t written much this year, but this piece shows that he’s still got it. Of all the beliefs that have been endlessly repeated in 2023, the most common one I’ve heard is that the market is being carried by a small number of large stocks (i.e. “The Magnificent 7”). Michael does a great job of providing context to illustrate that the Magnificent 7 weren’t always so magnificent. If you need a short, but sweet post to understand why the rise of the Magnificent 7 isn’t necessarily a problem, then this post is for you.* Charlie Munger’s Life Was About Way More Than Money (Jason Zweig)Following the death of Charlie Munger a few weeks ago, the internet was flooded with articles and Twitter threads of Munger’s wit and wisdom. As I read through these I saw the same stories, quotes, and ideas repeated again and again. But then, I read Jason Zweig’s piece about Munger and was truly in awe. Even when you think everything has been said on a topic, Jason finds a way to write something truly original. As I’ve said before, “When information is cheap, wisdom is expensive.” Thankfully, Jason continues to share his wisdom with us year after year.* "Next year is poised to be a pivotal year, where SpaceX’s performance will act as the barometer for the entire space investment landscape. The spotlight will shine particularly bright on the much-anticipated Starship launch, with its success being a potential catalyst to galvanize and elevate investor optimism to new heights. Adding another layer of intrigue to the financial landscape is the prospect of Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet venture, going public. The mere contemplation of an initial public offering for Starlink has the potential to be nothing short of transformational for the space sector." Source: TechCrunchDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Ohtani Contract* Liv Golf* Jerome Powell FOMC meeting recap* Market Update* Canadian Mortgages* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Some thoughts…Markets are inherently pro cyclical. Liquidity attracts liquidity. Momentum attracts momentum. Sentiment is contagious. The best summary of this is the Minsky Hypothesis.Minsky had three phases:Cash Flow Investing Phase: Investors initially focus on investments based on cash flows and fundamental values, driving steady market growth.The focus is yield and downside minimizationSpeculative Phase: Gradually, as markets rise and confidence grows, investors shift towards speculative investments, often relying on debt, disregarding underlying values.The focus is capital gains and trendsPonzi Finance Phase: The market reaches a point where investments are made with the expectation that prices will continue to rise, ignoring fundamentals.The focus is ‘past returns = future returns’ so buy moreThis unsustainable growth leads to a market correction when the reality of overvaluation and excessive debt becomes apparent.Minsky’s framework explains both the 2008 crisis and 2022 crypto leverage crash. It’s a great framework…Twitter links from the pod:* This guy created the world's 1st ever, fully transparent fashion brand.* My relatives immigrated from Bangladesh to Reno, Nevada just 6 months ago.* Victory over Google! - RIOT vs. Google.* The Los Angeles Dodgers are proposing to pay the most talented baseball player in history like he's a mediocre middle reliever.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Optimistic Science Fiction - Foundry* TCAF with my favorite guest, Bob Elliott:* Cultivating Happiness with Peter Attia:Best Links of The Week🔮* "Big tech stocks reclaimed their position as the market’s leaders this year. Just how far ahead of the pack have they run? Collectively, the stocks known as the Magnificent Seven—Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla and Meta—have jumped 75% in 2023, leaving the other 493 companies in the S&P 500 in their dust. (Those have risen a more modest 12%, while the index as a whole is up 23%.)" Source: WSJ* "For LVMH and other luxury-goods stocks, 2024 is shaping up to be 2023 in reverse. Unlike this year, when China’s reopening fueled a splurge on pricey handbags and jewelry before running out of steam, investors expect 2024 to start on a weak footing before a revival in the second half. As analysts at BNP Paribas put it, next year will likely be “a game of two halves” for luxury stocks such as Richemont and Gucci-owner Kering." Source: Bloomberg* "The mounting deluge of mostly irrelevant information is overwhelming many investors, making financial markets more chaotic and less efficient at pricing in important data, says hedge fund magnate Clifford Asness. The founder of US-based AQR Capital Management, still one of the world’s biggest computer-driven investment firms despite a sharp drop in assets in recent years, once studied under the University of Chicago’s Eugene Fama, who won a Nobel Prize for his efficient markets hypothesis. But three decades of exposure to how markets work has eroded Asness’s belief in the theory." Source: FT* "Next year is shaping up to be another pivotal year for weight loss drugs, which skyrocketed in popularity despite hefty price tags, mixed insurance coverage and some unpleasant side effects. Investors will be watching to see how Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk navigate the ongoing supply issues plaguing their treatments. Those two companies and other drugmakers hoping to join the weight loss drug market are also expected to release crucial clinical trial data." Source: CNBC* "Confronting sizable debt burdens and the fact that most streaming services still don’t make money, studios like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have begun to soften their do-not-sell-to-[NFLX] stances. The companies are still holding back their most popular content — movies from the Disney-owned Star Wars and Marvel universes and blockbuster original series like HBO’s “Game of Thrones” aren’t going anywhere — but dozens of other films like “Dune” and “Prometheus” and series like “Young Sheldon” are being sent to the streaming behemoth in return for much-needed cash. And [NFLX] is once again benefiting." Source: NYTDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Christmas Parties Belong In December* Ai’s position in media and the internet ad market* Market update* Sports business update* LIV golf drama* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back.First I want to urge all readers to check out Ben Thompsons latest piece - Regretful Accelerationism.As this year comes to a close a year after OpenAI’s ‘ChatGPT moment’ that kicked off the gold rush in the AI Tech Wave last November, it’s clear that for now the big tech ‘Magnificent Seven’, most with market caps over a trillion dollars each, rule the public market roost. Some might say their AI tales are wagging the relative smaller cap ‘dogs’ in the market (pun intended). As the WSJ notes today in “What the Stock Market Taught Us This Year: Don’t Fall for These Investing Traps”:“A handful of tech and tech-related stocks, weight-loss drugs and artificial-intelligence providers offer the sum total of stock-market outperformance this year. Beyond these headliners, there is less and less attention on individual names.”“Those tech behemoths, dubbed the “Magnificent Seven,” account for more than 30% of the index and 87% of its return through October. Let us say that again: Just seven stocks represent one-third of the S&P 500 index. Some now consider Google parent Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla to be defensive businesses that can grow through any economic cycle.”We’ve seen this before, and the lesson is always the same: Winner-takes-all can dominate over shorter time frames but is rarely a winning bet in the long run.”This concentrated performance of the AI boosted performance of big tech is something we’ve talked about on this podcast at length.As this other WSJ piece also today “How Long Can the ‘Magnificent Seven’ Stocks Hold the Line?” notes:“As in the eponymous 1960s Western, the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks keep on winning. This also means investors are betting the farm on just a handful of bullets hitting their targets.The S&P 500 is in a bull market, fueled by soft inflation data in the U.S. and Europe and the widespread belief that interest rates will start coming down early next year. Yet the stock market has become so top-heavy that speaking of a “bull market” carries less meaning than before.”Without the key seven stocks listed above and talked about at length on this site, the WSJ adds:“The high-growth, technology-related companies that analysts have dubbed the Magnificent Seven—the S&P 500 would be up only 8% this year, rather than 19%. Indeed, these stocks inched higher Tuesday even as the broader equity market faltered.”The issue becomes complicated in a public market increasingly dominated by index investing, which for individual investors in abstract is an eminently wise way to invest in stocks for the long term. But the ‘Magnificent 7’ concentration means that:“That poses a conundrum for investors, who increasingly use index funds. Right now, buying an S&P 500 tracker means investing 30% of the money in just seven stocks. Historically, the top seven have accounted for 21% of the benchmark, taking the end-of-year average of the past decade.”And this means a stratification in valuations in this concentration:“This not only runs counter to the principle of diversification, but also means the most important stocks investors own are pricey. The seven stocks have posted strong profits lately, but they are still trading at an average of 32 times forward earnings, compared with 19 times for the broader index.”Of course, all assets are ultimately driven by the realities and perceptions of where interest rates are and might go, in the much larger bond markets. Investors in both private and public markets are of course adjusting from over a decade of aberration ally low interest rates (aka ZIRP, RIP for now). As the earlier WSJ piece noted:“The extremely low interest rates that have persisted for much of the past two decades. Over the past 50 years, U.S. interest rates have averaged 5.98%. Today’s 5.5% rate seems high compared with the 0.25% paid during the recession of 2008, but no comparison to 1980 when rates topped out at 20%.”“Similarly, at the start of the new millennium, a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 8.08%—basically in line with 2023 levels, but significantly higher than the bargain 2.96% rate that could be had just two years ago.”“Higher interest rates now feel like a shock to our systems because we got anchored to some extreme lows. When considered in the full context of a longer history, though, they are in line.”“Now people are anchored to the S&P 500 beating everything else. But just as we have seen with interest rates in 2023, the trend will revert to the mean, even if it takes a while.”Of course on the tech and AI front, we’ve long made a point of making sure investors separate financial cycles from secular technology cycles. They’re almost never in sync. This post is to highlight the broader realities of the financial cycles for now. Again, as the WSJ notes in their piece on the ‘Magnificent Seven’:“With so much market value concentrated in those seven stocks, the benefits of diversifying into small-caps can be severely reduced when a few of their company-specific investments pay off, the research also suggests. The artificial-intelligence boom sparked by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has already helped chip-maker Nvidia triple its revenues relative to a year earlier, could be just such a payoff.”“But reliance on big idiosyncratic effects cuts both ways. Who will benefit most from AI is still an open question. And other megatrends are underpinning the value of the Magnificent Seven, such as Meta’s metaverse or Tesla’s self-driving cars, that are showing less promise.”Tune into the podcast next week to hear more on this.Twitter links from the pod:* BIOTECH BOOM* Japanese stocks* Andy Constan talks about market makeup - supply vs. demand* Trevor Tombe talks about carbon tax policyPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Prof G talks about the GS Apple break up:* Serhant Talks about the biggest trends in real estate:* Cybertruck is here and its hideous:Best Links of The Week🔮* Working - with Barrack Obama on Netflix* After Charlie Munger passed away at age 99, a reader kindly shared his video Psychology of Human Misjudgement. If you listen to any podcast episode this week, make it this one. Munger goes through the most common causes of human misjudgment, including distorted incentives, the urge to reciprocate, social proof, authority bias, commitment bias, etc.* I also loved the interview with British historian Edward Chancellor. He’s bearish on the renewables and the private equity industries since they’re hurting from recent interest rate hikes. Chancellor thinks the best value can be found outside the United States, especially in the UK and Japan.* Finally, have a look at the ASEAN stocks discussed by Ross & Van Compernolle in their recent update. These include Delfi, Velesto, PV Drilling, Marco Polo Marine, CSE Global, Arwana Citramulia, etc. Ross & Van Compernolle believe that the offshore oil & gas services market remains tight as industry capex lags behind demand. They also believe that Indonesia’s economy will benefit from fiscal spending in the run-up to the 2024 election. Most of their stocks trade at single-digit P/E multiples.* "Companies on both sides of the Atlantic are rushing to issue debt, taking advantage of the cheapest borrowing costs available in months following the sharp global bond market rally... The acceleration in issuance follows a rapid shift in investor sentiment over the past few weeks, in which markets have begun to price in US and European interest rate cuts in the first half of next year... US bonds recorded their best monthly performance in nearly four decades in November." Source: FT* "Amazon is betting members of its Prime program will want to pay a separate monthly fee for unlimited grocery delivery on some orders. Trial service will give Prime members in three cities the option to pay $9.99 a month for access to free Fresh and Whole Foods deliveries on orders more than $35. The company has tweaked its fee-free grocery delivery threshold in recent years amid mounting costs." Source: CNBC"A leading Gulf artificial intelligence company has said it is cutting ties with Chinese hardware suppliers in favour of US counterparts, in a sign of the growing geopolitical struggle over the new technology. G42 of the United Arab Emirates is making the move to ensure its access to US-made chips by allaying concerns among its American partners, which include Microsoft and OpenAI, chief executive Peng Xiao said." Source: FTDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Market update* Stock Market posts its best November in history* How to think about portfolio allocation after a historical rally in stocks and bonds* Mark Cuban for president or is he selling the top in sports franchise valuations* New CRA tax reporting rules* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back.This week marked the completion of the very best November in history for a 60:40 portfolio of stocks and bonds. What an incredible shift in sentiment we just witnessed.I believe we are in Phase 2 for Risk Assets.Phase 1 was the Non-Consensus Rally.Most capital was offside, and wrong-way positioned and value was abundant across all sectors.In phase 2 - sentiment will thaw (a bit too quickly perhaps).It’s clear that in this phase, people are leaning in to a new narrative.There is still skepticism, but another layer of capital has added a bid to markets in the last month. (November)Valuations are higher but not excessive.Phase 2 is where markets climb a wall of worry.Phase 3 is when Consensus is all-in and public markets valuations are excessive.Usually you have a Goldilocks backdrop and a new economy or a “AI” narrative. That takes a few years to get going…We have a ways to go. That's my sense today.I'm always evaluating incoming data to test and falsify these hypothesis… Chart from all star charts:Twitter links from the pod:* I tried Ozempic and… - Sam Par* People around the world all want the same thing… and its no surprise to capitalists* Mark Cuban quits shark tank after a decade long runPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Tesla unveils the Cybertruck! In 3 packages.* Best podcast of the week comes from Peter Zeihan* Bob Elliot Talks Market Positioning, Gold and Bitcoin:Best Links of The Week🔮:* Economist predicts rate cuts in 2024. Source: Financial Post* "Amazon on Tuesday announced a new chatbot called Q for people to use at work. The product, announced at Amazon Web Services’ Reinvent conference in Las Vegas, represents Amazon’s latest effort to challenge Microsoft and Google in productivity software. It comes one year after Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI launched its ChatGPT chatbot, which has popularized generative artificial intelligence for crafting human-like text in response to a few lines of human input." Source: CNBC* "Apple is pulling the plug on its credit-card partnership with Goldman Sachs, the final nail in the coffin of the Wall Street bank’s bid to expand into consumer lending. The tech giant recently sent a proposal to Goldman to exit from the contract in the next roughly 12-to-15 months... The exit would cover their entire consumer partnership, including the credit card the companies launched in 2019 and the savings account rolled out this year... The move would mark a swift about-face for a program that just over a year ago was extended through 2029 and was intended to serve as a pillar of Goldman’s main-street ambitions." Source: WSJ* "Billionaire investor Bill Ackman is betting the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates sooner than markets are predicting. The Pershing Square Capital Management founder said such a move could happen as soon as the first quarter." Source: Bloomberg* "Home prices were 3.9% higher in September compared with the same month a year earlier,**according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index. The growth coincided with the 30-year fixed mortgage rate’s climb toward 8%. Rents are easing, however, while home prices rise." Source: CNBCDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Open Ai Saga completes* The supply chain of the new AI industry* How to approach your career path and ladder climbing* New short term rental policy changes from CRA* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back for the Thanksgiving Reformed Pod.After a CRAZY week of tech news, it seems absolutely everything fell apart and was rebuilt in 6 days. What an incredible sequence of events.Over that week, the market continued its November rally as the nasdaq and S&P touched on new all time highs.This has been quite the reprieve for investors and advisors after a terrible finish to October.Some Data from Datatrek:Mutual fund/ETF investors have found their courage again. Last week we noted that this investor cohort had finally started to add to their equity and fixed income holdings after 3 months of net redemptions. We predicted this was a turning point in their market views, and this week confirms that point of view. The data here is courtesy of the Investment Company Institute (link below):* For the week ending November 15th, inflows totaled $13.1 billion as compared to $14.4 billion in new investments the week before. The 4 weeks prior to this 2-week period saw outflows of $55.0 billion, so the recent turn in fund investors’ animal spirits is certainly underway.* Equity mutual funds had net inflows of $10.7 billion last week and $7.2 bn the week before. This compares to the prior 4-week outflows of $19.7 billion so, again, we’re seeing an improvement in investor psychology. Worth noting: fund investors are only adding to US equity positions. Non-US funds continue to see outflows.* Fixed income funds had inflows last week of $4.7 billion, adding to the prior week’s $7.8 billion of fresh money. The last 2 weeks has now replaced the $10.4 billion redeemed over the prior 4 weeks.* Fund investors are even adding to their commodity fund positions, with inflows last week of $0.4 billion and $0.6 bn the week before. As with bond funds, this puts back the $0.5 billion they redeemed in the prior 4 weeks.Takeaway: As we noted a few weeks ago, investor confidence was running at unsustainably low levels in October and any sort of asset price stabilization could prove to be the catalyst for better sentiment. Stocks and bonds made their lows in the back half of last month. The turn in money flows started 1-2 weeks later. As long as stock and bond prices continue to drift higher through year-end, our base case assumption, fund inflows should continue.Twitter links from the pod:* Canadian Tax Guy talks about the new CRA changes* Chamath on future of AI* Gavin Baker talks about the OpenAI Saga* Car Dealership Guy on car market sentiment* Ram Talks OpenAI strategy* Bucco on NYT and content strategyPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Multibagger Presentation from the MicroCap Club:* Things that never change - The Compound and Friends:* Invest like the best with another incredible episode:Best Links of The Week🔮* New Commerce view from Shopify - Source: Shopify website* "Alibaba founder Jack Ma held off on plans to trim his stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant after the share price fell. Ma has not sold a single share, Alibaba’s Chief People Officer Jane Jiang told employees in an internal memo... Alibaba’s stock is currently trading below the company’s actual value, Jiang said, citing this as a reason Ma has not cut his stake. Alibaba’s regulatory filings last week revealed Ma is looking to sell 10 million shares at a value of around $870 million." Source: CNBC* "The Louvre Museum in Paris has added a “national treasure” to its collection four years after it was discovered during a house clearance. “Christ Mocked” by the Florentine painter Cimabue was found in an elderly woman’s house in the town of Compiegne in 2019. She had kept the rare artwork – which she thought was a Greek religious icon – in her kitchen... The painting, which dates from 1280, went on to fetch almost 24.2 million euros ($26.8 million) at auction in October 2019, more than four times the pre-sale estimate. But the French government then stepped in to block its export, assigning the painting “national treasure” status. The move kept the tiny, ultra-rare painting in the country for 30 months, during which time the government raised the funds to buy it for the nation." Source: CNN* Must Read of the Day: A slew of retailers have issued tepid, cautious or downright disappointing fourth-quarter outlooks over the past few weeks, casting a pall over the crucial holiday season right as they gear up for the biggest shopping day of the year. The companies, which include everyone from luxury goods giant Tapestry to big boxer BJ’s Wholesale Club, cited a host of dynamics that led them to reduce their outlooks or issue forecasts that came in below expectations. Some, such as Best Buy and Nordstrom, cited the uncertain state of the consumer following months of persistent inflation, while others, such as Hanesbrands, said demand is simply drying up for its basic T-shirts, socks and underwear as wholesalers look to keep inventories in check." Source: CNBC"Ousted OpenAI chief Sam Altman will return to run the company he co-founded, following days of speculation and turmoil at the leading generative artificial intelligence start-up. In a dramatic reversal, Altman, who was fired by OpenAI’s board of directors last week, will be reinstated under the supervision of a new board, the company said late on Tuesday in California. Greg Brockman, the co-founder and president who quit the company on Friday after Altman was fired, will return alongside him." Source: FTDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* F1 and Liberty Media* Stock Market Update* Dealerships Aren’t Taking EV Orders* Chinese E-commerce stack (TikTok, Shein and TEMU)* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back.The market ripped into the close, closing off a >10% rally in stocks in November. It’s incredible how quickly a narrative can change. Price is powerful.Todays important reading is all from the Open Ai Developer day:OpenAI's Dev Day had a vibrancy and buzz reminiscent of the excitement typically seen at Apple's WWDC keynotes. In closing, two overarching themes stand out about OpenAI’s direction, highlighting the company's strategic approach and future ambitions.* Vertical Integration Strategy: OpenAI's efforts in broadening the range of its model modalities, coupled with reductions in pricing and latency, reflect a strategic move towards vertical integration and getting more workloads into production. This includes extending into areas like storage, memory, and retrieval and also for some customers fine-tuning GPT-4 and custom models. This indicate a strong focus on capturing a larger share of value in delivering models to enterprise clients. The extent of this vertical integration and its impact on surrounding tooling will be important to watch.* Executing on End-user Ambitions in Parallel: Alongside its B2B/developer focused initiatives, OpenAI is also making significant strides in going direct to end consumers. Key developments include the continued enhancement of ChatGPT, particularly the pro plan and notably, the launch of a platform for users to create and list GPTs via chat/UI in the GPT Store. This raises intriguing questions: Could the GPT Store emerge as the next big app marketplace? And do consumers prefer centralized access to GPT functionalities via ChatGPT, or do they seek these capabilities integrated into their various existing apps?Announcements from the video:I. GPT-4 Turbo boasts a number of improvements vs GPT-4:* 128K context length which is a significant jump from 32K* Better cost (~3x cheaper) and latency (2x faster)* Improved instruction following and function callingImplications:* More workloads: OpenAI announced that 92% for Fortune 500’s are already using OpenAI. Improved cost and latency should help move more of these into production. In addition, the longer context length closes a gap with Anthropic’s models, and should help OpenAI maintain/gain share vs them.* Long context windows: Longer context length closes a gap with Anthropic’s models, and should help OpenAI maintain/gain share vs them. They will also help replace techniques such as RAG for some use cases, though as the analysis below shows long context windows are not always a substitute for RAG even in smallish context lengths since accuracy tends to degrade as prompts get longer.II. Multimodality in GPT-4Multimodal was another big theme, particularly on the API side for developers. OpenAI announced that the following would be available via APIs in GPT-4 and independently:* Dall-E 3 for image generation* A new version of Whisper, v3, for speech-to-text* A text-to-speech API for the first time, which is competitively priced* A vision API for image understanding which was already starting to roll outImplications:* Impact on other models: It’ll be interesting to see how domain specific models in each of these areas fare vs OpenAI’s bundled approach.* Multimodal applications: As AI's sensory capabilities continue to broaden and the state of the art continue to improve, it paves the way for novel applications of it which integrate the modalities.III. The GPT StoreOpenAI also announced the ability for anyone to create their own “GPTs” which are basically custom mini GPTs with a specific prompt and knowledge base and tool access. These GPTs can then be listed on a GPT Store and shared with others and monetised.A few things stand out:* Ease of creation: GPTs can be created via a no-code UI and by simply having a conversation. They allow you to upload files and give it additional knowledge, and also help craft the right prompts based on what you’re trying to achieve, and can access external APIs.* The Store itself: These can then be listed on a store and monetized over time, suggesting OpenAI’s ambitions of creating an App Store for AI and a central place where people go to to use AI in ChatGPT.IV. Assistants APIOpenAI also announced an assistants AI, which provides additional functionality and simplifies some of the things developers were doing using other tools. In some ways, its the API version of the functionality made available for creating “GPTs” above.It features:* Memory of threads and conversations with the chatbot* Native retrieval and handling of external files directly, allowing to easily add external knowledge to the model* Enhanced Code interpreter and function calling for using other tools made available as part of the APITwitter links from the pod:* Gavin Bakers video of the latest Space X Launch* Car Dealership Guy talks about the future of cars* Best Business models - Thought exercise* Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* AirBnb’s Brian Chesky talks about his new Playbook:* War All The Time: Martyrmade Podcast:* Future of office now that weWork is bankrupt:Best Links of The Week🔮* Canadian Debt Looms Large - Trevor Tombe* Super Human has put out a how to guide on using ChatGPT - Superhuman* China is the worlds Shopping Cart - Rest of world.org* More Powerful GPU’s and AI Models. “One thing we can count on for some decades now, is technology getting better and cheaper over time. The AI Tech wave, even in its current early days, is following the template of the PC and Internet waves in that regard.” - Michael Parekh* Nvidia is rolling out their next generation GPUs as well, led by founder/CEO Jensen Huang: “Nvidia on Monday unveiled the H200, a graphics processing unit designed for training and deploying the kinds of artificial intelligence models that are powering the generative AI boom.” - CNBC* Crowdfunding Takes a Piece of Calgary - Globe and MailDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Market update* Open Ai changes the world of tech with their first developer day* Sports Team Valuations and The Marginal Buyer* Remember the fallen* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉In todays market update, i want to focus on Cost of Capital’s Evolution and Today’s Market Dynamics.Understanding the Cost of Capital1. Why It Matters:* Cash Flow Management: Companies must wisely reinvest their earnings to surpass their cost of capital. Failure to do so can lead to poor market valuations.* Market Perception: Investors value companies based on their ability to reinvest cash flows in lucrative projects.2. Historical Perspective:* 1980s-90s: The rise of junk bonds and the focus on financial leverage. This era saw a heightened consciousness of cost of capital, partly due to the disruptive influence of corporate raiders and academic literature advocating for more debt.* Dot Com Era: Intellectual capital began to overshadow traditional capital allocation methods. Tech giants like Microsoft and Cisco led the charge, redefining market leadership.3. The 2000-2020 Shift:* A Debt-Friendly Environment: Low interest rates led to increased corporate debt, altering the landscape of corporate finance.* Bear Markets and Equity Cost: The volatile market conditions made assessing cost of equity challenging.* Tech's Rise: The tech rally in the 2010s highlighted the diminishing importance of financial capital compared to intellectual capital.4. The Present Scenario:* Rising Costs: Debt and equity capital costs have returned to early 2000s levels.* Tech Dominance: Big Tech firms are now major players in the S&P 500, signifying a shift in market dynamics.* The Debt Dilemma: High corporate debt levels amidst rising interest rates raise concerns about potential economic impacts.Key Takeaways:* Intellectual Capital Over Financial Metrics: The past 35 years have witnessed a transition from traditional capital metrics to a focus on intellectual capital, particularly in the tech sector. This shift has significantly influenced management strategies and market valuations.* Generative AI's Potential Impact: The rise of generative AI could either widen the gap between tech valuations and other sectors or bridge it. Its full impact on market dynamics remains to be seen.Conclusion: The journey of cost of capital from a mere financial metric to a broader concept encompassing intellectual capital highlights the evolving nature of business and investment strategies. As we navigate this landscape, understanding these shifts becomes crucial for making informed investment decisions.Twitter Links from the Podcast:* Trung Phan and the social network* Ram talks about GOOG - Lumida Wealth* The history of Insulin* Tiktok is brainwashing our childrenPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Bob Macro Update is terrific:* How to think about Multibaggers - Ian Cassel* My favorite podcast from this weekBest Links of The Week🔮* Expectations Debt - Morgan Housel* Corry Wang on Ozempic - A fascinating thread on the wide-ranging implications of a real anti-addiction drug. An under-appreciated number of consumer categories depend on a tiny cohort of super consumers (including gambling, alcohol, candy and soda). What happens when addiction is curable?* Banking on Status by Julian Lehr - How luxury takes on the next frontier: Software. (or, why increasingly dull apps and services all look like lifestyle brands)* The Six Moats of Data Businesses by Travis May - Travis outlines the features that aren’t moats, and what effective moats actually look like in data businesses.* Jared Kushner: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Gaza, Iran, and the Middle East on Lex Fridman Podcast - A real-time reaction to the Oct 7 terrible terrorism and a deep-dive into the history of the Abraham Accords.* Bonus (Heartwarming): Stay in the Game by Drew Dickson - A beautiful, honest story about one of the hardest things in the world to be open about: a troubled child. Plus, an amazing twist ending. Bonus (Listen): Ben Horowitz, co-founder of a16z: Venture Capital on World of DaaS pod - A wide-ranging conversation with one of the greats of modern venture capital. Ben and I discuss culture, the war-time CEO playbook, and whether AI will eat the world like software.* Must Read of the Day: "Amazon is turning to Prime members to bolster its healthcare business, an industry where the company has sought to expand for years. The tech giant on Wednesday revealed plans to offer its millions of Amazon Prime subscribers a low-cost annual membership to One Medical, the primary-care business Amazon purchased for $3.9 billion earlier this year. Amazon says Prime subscribers can now become One Medical members for $9 a month, or $99 a year. The typical cost to become a One Medical member is $199 annually... The move is the company’s latest to grow in the healthcare industry, including in primary care, pharmacy and even medical-drone deliveries after unsuccessful attempts in recent years to crack the market." Source: WSJ* "Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have cleared Eli Lilly’s injectable diabetes medication for use as a weight loss treatment, creating the first direct rival to Wegovy, Novo Nordisk’s obesity drug." Source: FTDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice in Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton and Cameron Pitchers specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton, Cameron Pitchers and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton and Cameron Pitchers disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Market update* Rate commentary* Carbon Tax* Vibe Shift in Woke culture* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉October marks the end of a challenging three-month period for US and global equities, and we want to keep you informed about the current market conditions and potential opportunities. Here are some key highlights:Market Volatility: Despite the S&P 500 showing resilience, the overall market has been under pressure. Small caps and international equities have experienced more significant losses, with the S&P 500’s YTD price return falling to 9.2 percent.Geopolitical Risks: In addition to concerns over interest rates, the Israel-Gaza conflict has introduced a new risk factor. While oil prices have stabilized after a brief spike, uncertainty remains high.Seeking Opportunities: With recent poor performance data, some investors are considering increasing equity exposure in November and December to benefit from the usual positive seasonality during these months. Call it the Santa Clause Rally.Uncertainty in the Middle East: Predicting the impact of events in the Middle East on investments remains challenging. Historically, a more tradeable/investable low will show when/if the CBOE VIX Index reaches 28-36 and 10-year Treasury yields stabilize.Sectors and Investment Strategies: Only a few sectors, including Utilities, Tech, Communications, and Consumer Staples, outperformed the S&P 500 in October. Value has outperformed Growth recently, but it’s crucial to understand the underlying dynamics. More below.US Big Tech: Despite the recent market turbulence, US Big Tech companies have shown their strength in supporting the broader market. Their contribution to S&P 500 returns has been substantial.Energy and Precious Metals: Oil prices have not sustained a high level due to Middle East tensions, which is surprising but potentially bullish for stocks. As Gold has outperformed the S&P 500 this year.Interest Rates and Small Caps: Rising interest rates have hit the US small cap sector hard, affecting various industries, including Technology, Financials, and Health Care.Global Tech Markets: Asian Big Tech companies have fared better than their European counterparts in the last three months, reflecting the ongoing market dynamics.Economic Outlook: The Q3-2023 GDP growth showed a significant rebound, but alternative metrics and concerns about inflation suggest a more cautious approach.In conclusion, the markets are navigating various challenges, including geopolitical uncertainties and interest rate fluctuations. We encourage you to stay informed and make well-informed investment decisions.Twitter Links from the Podcast:* Bari Weiss Wokeness* How to make money as an individual creator on TikTok* Credit event isn’t coming* $APO talks about the concentration of returns in the market * Trevor Tombe on Carbon Tax* Peter Lynch and Seth Klaraman on todays marketPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Change Makers Conference:* Palmer on Invest Like the Best:* Trends with friends:Best Links of The Week🔮* The Canadian Carbon Tax - Trevor Tombe* The Land of Rising Profits - GMO* "The Treasury Department announced plans Wednesday to accelerate the size of its auctions as it looks to handle its heavy debt load and with financing costs rising. In a development getting close attention on Wall Street, the department detailed its refunding plans for future debt sales. The announcement comes with Treasury yields around their highest levels since 2007, a reflection of financial markets spooked over how much damage higher borrowing costs could exact. Most immediately, the Treasury will auction $112 billion in debt next week to refund $102.2 billion of notes set to mature Nov. 15, raising more than $9 billion in extra funds." - CNBC* "For almost 30 years now, Nissan.com hasn't been the place to custom order an Altima.Owned by small businessman Uzi Nissan since 1994, the website was set up to represent his various small businesses before the Nissan Motor Corporation took interest. It infamously tried to rip it from him in court, only to lose after prolonged and costly legal battle stretching over a decade. But since Uzi's death in 2020, control of his website has allegedly been stolen by a mysterious thief, forcing the the Nissan family to take the matter to court once again." - Full story here in The Drive* "DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach believes interest rates are about to trend lower as the economy deteriorates further and tips into a recession next year. “I do think rates are going to fall as we move into a recession in the first part of next year,” Gundlach said Wednesday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell"." - CNBCDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice in Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton and Cameron Pitchers specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton, Cameron Pitchers and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton and Cameron Pitchers disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* BOC Rate Hold* Market update* Earnings Season* AirBnB headwinds* Car Brands vs. Dealerships * Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉The battle between bonds cash and equities is heating back up as investors tussle with rising rates, bonds sellings off and equities retreating.Its increasingly difficult to justify equity risk with government bonds and GIC’s giving us such a sweet yield.BUT!AI spend is real and should serve as a secular tailwind for the ecosystem from chips to electrical fans for server farms. What price to pay is largely determined on whether the optionality of future growth potential is realized (and largely unknown).(Contributed by Benjamin Lavine, CIO at 3D/L Capital).Source: BloombergIts also very hard to see an imminent recession with spending (consumer, business) so strong and fiscal tailwinds well into 2024.(Contributed by Benjamin Lavine, CIO at 3D/L Capital).Source: BloombergTwitter links from the pod:* Greg Isenberg on the future of VC and Attention Commerce* Cardealership Guy talks about delinquency in the car industry* Fazeclan going public… was a great idea for them. Bad for the investors.* Ford with a double miss and poor EV guidancePodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Bob Elliot on Investing Through War Economies:* Invest Like the Best - Aswath Damodaran* Zeihan Goes on Real Vision:* All In Talks About Diabetes Drugs and Terror Attacks In Israel :Best Links of The Week🔮* How to make money by losing $300,000 a year on slot machines. Link* Morgan Housel writes about managing expectations. Link* In an annual letter written over a decade ago, Seth Klarman shared lessons from 2008. Link* Ten ways to create shareholder value by Al Rapaport. Link* "Apple is planning an end-to-end overhaul of its AirPods lineup, refreshing a product category that’s emerged as one of the company’s biggest sellers. The changes will include a revamped version of Apple’s entry-level AirPods in 2024 and a new Pro model the following year... The company is updating the products’ earbud design, the look of the cases and audio quality. A new version of the AirPods Max headphones are coming in 2024 as well." BloombergDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice in Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton and Cameron Pitchers specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton, Cameron Pitchers and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton and Cameron Pitchers disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Market update* Canadian inflation* The Bond opportunity* Warrens Big Miss with Disney Stock* F1 meets the PGA?* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back Listeners and ReadersQuick take on Canadian Inflation Data:Canada's annual inflation rate eased to 3.8 per cent in September, reflecting a slowdown in price increases compared to the previous month, when it peaked at 4 per cent. While certain categories, such as airfare and durable goods, saw price decreases, grocery prices remained elevated. Alberta's inflation rate for September was 3.7 per cent, similar to the national averageSome Thoughts on Bonds from the internet:"this is the biggest bond market rout in 150 years. Last year was worst year since 1871, with a total return of minus 15.7%, even worse than the annus horribilis of 2009. We are looking at bond investors’ two worst years in a century and a half.”Quilt chart above and US bond yield chart below from BofA Global Investment strategy:New highs:Great charts and thread from Bob Elliott - my favorite from the link:One of the largest bond routes in history.To put this US selloff into a broader perspective highlights that the ~30% drop in US bonds is on par with the largest historical declines in the UK.Twitter links from the pod:* Trevor Tombe details the Canadian Inflation print from Oct 17th* Fabricated Knowledge compares the AI buildout to the telecom buildout* Trung Phan talks about Warrens Buffets BIGGEST miss - DIS stock* Problems with the rails - a great recession indicatorPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙I loved this Theo and Harris Conversation about the business of Youtube Watch Content:* Scott Galloway gives great personal finance advice:* Affordable housing clip: Boomer vs. Gen ZBest Links of The Week🔮* Marc Andreesen is out with The Techno-Optimist Manifesto - here* "Interest rates are high, inflation remains elevated and pandemic savings are dwindling. Yet the U.S. consumer is on a spending binge. The display of consumer resilience persisted in the latest retail-sales report, which on Tuesday showed spending at stores, online and at restaurants rose a stronger-than-expected 0.7% in September from a month earlier... Consumers are still splashing out on a range of items and experiences, including on interest-rate-sensitive cars and more expensive restaurant meals." Source: WSJ* "General Motors’ driverless-car unit Cruise is confronting a new safety investigation by federal regulators, after reports of its autonomous vehicles exhibiting risky behavior around pedestrians. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a Tuesday filing that it had opened a safety-defect probe into nearly 600 driverless cars operated by Cruise, adding that they might not be exercising appropriate caution in crosswalks and roadways... The probe represents the latest challenge for the San-Francisco-based Cruise, which is majority owned by GM, as the driverless-car firm tries to expand services in the Bay Area, Austin, Texas and Phoenix." Source: WSJ* "Disney reorganized its company into three segments earlier this year, splitting ESPN and sports apart from its entertainment division. As part of the split, investors are now getting a look under the hood at ESPN. ESPN generated more than $12.5 billion in revenue for the nine months ending July 1." Source: CNBC"OpenAI is in talks to sell existing employees’ shares at an $86 billion valuation... The artificial intelligence startup behind ChatGPT is negotiating the transaction, known as a tender offer, with potential investors." Source: BloombergDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice in Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton and Cameron Pitchers specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton, Cameron Pitchers and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton and Cameron Pitchers disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Thanksgiving Geopolitical Thoughts* Importance of diversification during war* Market update* Ozempic and Wegovvy are changing the world* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back after the Canadian thanksgiving long weekend. We want to begin todays newsletter by sending our sincerest thoughts and prayers to all of our friends in the Jewish community and the innocent civilians impacted by the brutal terrorist attacks in Israel this weekend. Hate has no place in our community, country, or world.Headlines of the week:* On Wednesday, news that LVMH’s revenue growth has slowed dramatically likely marks the end of the global luxury bubble. Global growth investors may cycle into US Big Tech as a result.* Middle East tensions have pushed gold/silver prices higher but virtual currencies are falling. News that terror groups receive funding via the latter puts this space under renewed scrutiny.* Appetite-suppressing drugs have received a lot of attention lately for potentially hurting food-related companies’ top lines as people who take them consume less. That may be true in the near-term, but companies’ may be better off over the long-term from the health benefits some of their customers may enjoy along with weight loss. The longer people live, the longer they’ll be “consumers”, after all.Ozempic thoughts and links from the podcast discussion:As much as there’s negative sentiment surrounding the impact of weight loss drugs on a variety of industries from an investment perspective, there are also plenty of positives other than obviously benefiting the pharmaceutical and health care companies that offer them. For one, retailers can capitalize on this weight loss trend as people need new wardrobes for their new, slimmer selves. Additionally, there’s a substitution effect here. The less money people spend on food and drinks, the more discretionary dollars they’ll have to allocate towards other goods and services. Ultimately, new innovations always come along to disrupt industries and it’s up to investors to discern which companies can best adapt.Sources:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-04/walmart-says-ozempic-weight-loss-drugs-causing-slight-pullback-by-shoppershttps://www.wsj.com/business/ozempic-impact-snack-food-companies-9eec87e5?mod=hp_lead_pos10https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/wegovy-weight-loss-drug-heart-attack-stroke-570f435e?mod=article_inlineTwitter links from the pod: * Bob Elliott shows us why diversifying in the face of war produces superior returns* Bob on the market composition now vs. 2 years from now* Nikita Beir on how to hire competent consultants* VC bet by SBF could save investors in FTX platform* Michael Kao talks about the impacts of the war on Oil pricesPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* 5000 years of history and Golds important role in a portfolio:* The conflict between Israel and Palestine can often seem like a permanent feature of the global order. The wars, intifadas, refugees camps, suicide vests, UN resolutions, and peace talks have been painfully burned into our collective consciousness. But how could this have happened? Was it always this way? That’s what we’ll seek to find out in Fear & Loathing in the New Jerusalem, a multi-part series exploring the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.* Derek Thompson Has a few Israeli Palestine experts on his Plain English Podcast to explain the why:https://spotify.link/bsiXJER4PDb Best Links of The Week🔮* "A sustained rise in long-term Treasury yields could be bringing the Federal Reserve’s historic rate hiking cycle to an anticlimactic end. Top central bank officials have signaled in recent days that they could be done raising short-term interest rates if long-term rates remain near their recent highs and inflation continues to cool... San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly last week said the increase in Treasury yields since Fed officials’ last meeting is roughly equivalent to a quarter-percentage point rate increase in the Fed’s short-term rate." Source: WSJ* "LVMH’s sales growth softened in the third quarter as shoppers reined in spending on high-end Cognac and costly handbags — more evidence the post-pandemic luxury boom is waning. Organic revenue at the French group’s crucial fashion and leather goods unit, which includes the Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior labels, rose 9%, the company said Tuesday. Analysts expected an 11.2% increase. Sales at the wines and spirits unit tumbled 14%, much worse than estimates." Source: Bloomberg* "German sandal maker Birkenstock priced its shares at $46 in an initial public offering ahead of its first day of trading on Wednesday, giving the company a market valuation of $8.6bn. The price is in the middle of a range of $44 to $49 set by the company last week, reflecting demand for its shares as the group perpetuates a revival in the US IPO market after a dearth of deals since the start of 2022." Source: FT* "ExxonMobil has agreed to buy Pioneer Natural Resources in a $59.5bn deal that is set to unleash a wave of consolidation in the US shale oil industry. The biggest western oil supermajor said on Wednesday it had sealed an all-stock deal that values Pioneer at $253 per share. The combination hands Exxon a dominant position in the Permian Basin, the vast field in western Texas and New Mexico that has helped turn the US into the world’s largest oil and gas producer." Source: FT* "Federal Reserve officials at their September meeting differed on whether any additional interest rate increases would be needed, though the balance indicated that one more hike would be likely, minutes released Wednesday showed. While there were conflicting opinions on the need for more policy tightening, there was unanimity on one point – that rates would need to stay elevated until policymakers are convinced inflation is heading back to 2%." Source: CNBC"Israel’s new unity government pledged on Wednesday evening to change the “strategic reality” of a Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas as it tightened its siege of the enclave ahead of an expected ground offensive. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed the emergency war cabinet and unity government earlier in the day with Benny Gantz, head of the centre-right opposition National Unity party, in response to Saturday’s deadly attack by Hamas." Source: FTDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice in Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton and Cameron Pitchers specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton, Cameron Pitchers and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton and Cameron Pitchers disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Podcast apologizes for poor trade predictions* Market update* Challenges facing Canadian Millennials and Gen Z* The opportunity presenting investors in Canada* How the internet broke and fixed music* The economics of the James Dolan Sphere* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉Welcome back.We’re experiencing another volatile week in markets, as the hedge fund and bank bosses return from their summer slumber. The talk on the street continues to be “Higher for longer”. And this sentiment change has started to throw gas on the fire and reinvigorated the “hard landing” bear crowd.One of my favorite follows from twitter (linked here and quoted below) had a great breakdown of the Hard or Hot Landing narrative. Below is his Hot or Hard landing argument.“The ‘Hot Landing’ Thesis: The easy wins in inflation - repaired supply chains & declining shelter costs - are behind us.Now these structural pressures remain:* Re-shoring from China to Mexico/Vietnam/E. Europe/India increases industry cost structure* Labor: UAW strikes and 20% wage hike demands are a symbol for wage pressure elsewhere* Energy & Food: YTD records (almost $100 oil)* Persistent Budget deficits* Stimulus from Chips ACT & IRAI’m not saying we are going to relive the 1970s.However, the path to 2% gets harder the closer you get.And 2% is the Fed target - they are not settling for 2.5%.That means ‘higher for longer’ rates and inflation.Postscript:The ‘AI bailout’ scenario is if an AI productivity boom shows up next year.I’m hopeful on AI, but am not counting on that.”Twitter links from the pod:* Canadian Wages settlements still heading higher* What the fed pause means for interest rates and the yield curve* Look at the explosive growth and falling costs of batteries, solar and wind in the chart below…the numbers are really impressive.Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙Bob Elliott talks fed funds and how they are done for now. He talks labor/wages, productivity and consumption habits.To/dr - fed needs asset prices to come down so inflation can follow suit.* Mathew Ball takes to Plain English to Explain the rise and fall of Disney and what their path forward to success looks like.* Nuclear Power!Best Links of The Week🔮* Trevor tombe launches an Alberta Pension Plan simulator - here* "Netflix plans to raise the price of its ad-free service a few months after the continuing Hollywood actors strike ends, the latest in a series of recent price increases by the country’s largest streaming platforms. The streaming service is discussing raising prices in several markets globally, but will likely begin with the U.S. and Canada... Over the past year or so, the cost of major ad-free streaming services has gone up by about 25%, as entertainment companies look to bring their streaming platforms to profitability and lead price-conscious customers to switch to their cheaper and more-lucrative ad-supported plans." Source: WSJ* Spotify is doubling down on audiobooks: Paying subscribers of the music service will now have access to up to 15 hours of audiobook listening as part of their monthly subscription. - Fast Company* Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.'s deputy chief economist says the private sector must be given the proper incentives to invest more in housing in order to address the need for 3.5 million additional units by 2030. - BNN Bloomberg* Canadian Economy set to get back on its feet in 2024 says Deloitte Canada Chief Economist - BNN Bloomberg* Canadian Oil exports to hit new heights in next few years - BNN Bloomberg Disclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaims that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* NBA trade rumors and the biggest issue facing small market teams.* Swifties meet Football* Why are markets selling off into Q3/Q4* Are Stocks Overvalued?* Alberta and their quest to separate itself from CPP * Powerball Winner mistakes* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.Market Update📈📉One thing about market corrections is that it drives investors and clients nuts. You can see it in the conversations being had on twitter.But more acutely, you will see it in the media headlines.In my experience, it's way better to focus on how normal this is and more importantly, pay attention to which stocks and assets are bucking the trend.Focus on whats working.Twitter links from the pod:* Trevor Tombe talks CPP* Ram talking about VC and asset allocation* Matthew Ball on Googles relationship with Apple* Will there be a credit event that comes from the yield curve bear steepening?Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Marks Interview with Sam Altman at Y combinator:Mark Zuckerberg has said that one of the best things Facebook did was invent the idea of a growth team.“Making it so that we could grow faster was the most important product feature we ended up building for Facebook. The traditional approach to growing and marketing is you have a communications group or marketing team and you buy ads. Sometimes there’s a place for that.. But if you’re actually trying to grow a product, the best levers for doing that are often within the product itself.” He continues: “There’s no magic in the group we’ve built here that other people can’t replicate. It’s just being very rigorous with data and investing in data infrastructure so that you can process different experiments and learn from what customer behavior is telling you.”* A wonderful interview touring the macro headwinds facing markets: What to do and how to allocate your money from On The Margin* The future of the next platform is the home: Dithering podcastBest Links of The Week🔮* FTC Sues Amazon - Wall Street Journal* Alberta eyes more than half of CPP assets - Globe and Mail* Amazon invests 4b in Anthropic - Tech Crunch* "The United Auto Workers union will announce expanded strikes at General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis plants if the sides don’t make significant progress in negotiations by 10 a.m. ET Friday... The new union-imposed deadline comes a week after the UAW announced it would expand its initial Sept. 15 strikes at assembly plants of each of the Detroit automakers to 38 additional parts and distribution locations for GM and Stellantis. The UAW did not expand its strikes at Ford, citing progress in those talks." - CNBC* After months of hints and anticipation, today Meta Founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Meta’s ‘Smart Agent’ AIs, along with other new products and services at the company’s Connect Developer Conference. Key difference vs OpenAI, Google and other LLM AIs that Meta was focusing on according to Mr. Zuckerberg, - “People aren’t going to want to interact with one single super intelligent A.I. — people will want to interact with a bunch of different ones.”* "Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said Wednesday he’s unsure whether the central bank has raised interest rates enough to tame inflation. Speaking one day after he penned an essay suggesting that rates may have to go “meaningfully higher” from here in order to bring down prices, Kashkari told CNBC that the neutral rate of interest, or one that is neither holding back the economy nor stimulating it, may have moved higher... Some of his concerns stem from the fact that sectors of the economy that normally are affected by rate hikes seem to be ignoring them." Source: CNBCDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* The problems facing NFL running back compensation* Risks of higher interest rates for longer* How Joel thinks about higher rates for investors* 5% GST rebate for Real Estate developers* Recommendations and LinksListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.📈📊Market Update💵📉Today was CPI day and the rest of the world is still struggling with historically tight employment.Only and Canada and the US have anywhere close to sufficiently tight monetary policy to curb further acceleration in inflation and to top it all off, commodity prices are showing significant momentum.The dot plot is telling us higher for longer… and that is bad for bonds and its bad for equities. So where does that leave us?The only thing that seems to be holding up are gold and commodities.Listen in today and check out some of the links below to see what were listening to and watching.Valuation Chart from the pod: Twitter links from the pod:* GST real estate incentive thread* Levi’s 21 things he’s learned owning 1.2m sq ft of industrial RE* Lumida Wealths weightings on big tech🎙Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Bill Gurley speaks at the All In Summit* Bob Elliott and Andy Constan on the next 5 months in the market:* Ben Thompson at Sharp Tech talks everything Media:🔮Best Links of The Week🔮* Alberta eyes more than half of CPPs assets! - Globe and Mail* High interest savings account or invest in stocks? - Globe and Mail* Federal Reserve officials are set to hold interest rates steady at their meeting Wednesday >>Officials debate rate hikes, shifting from inflation concerns to avoiding a sharp slowdown, amid signs of easing inflation and labor market cooling - WSJ* High borrowing costs and the shortage of properties for sale have slowed home buying by Wall Street’s rental giants >> Higher rates, expensive financing, and fierce competition hinder major landlords from buying homes, despite the rental market boom. - WSJ* Apollo’s sees ‘Unprecedented Returns’ From Private Debt >>Amid traditional banks' retreat due to rate hikes, private credit providers are poised for unprecedented returns in upcoming years as primary lenders in buyouts. - BloombergDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. While Joel Shackleton is registered to provide investment advice as an Advising Representative this website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Market update* Interest rates, Gold, and Stocks ++* Canadian Market* Sports, ESPN and the rebuilding of the entertainment bundle* RecommendationsListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.What’s Going on in the Market📉📈Q3 ‘23 was the first quarter in a year where S&P earnings finally grew (albeit only 1%)Underneath the surface there is a lot of churn taking placeTech firms are growing earnings across sectors, and taking share from legacy techE-commerce is extending beyond retail to drug delivery, food delivery, telemedicine, etcWhat i’m seeing:* CVS > NowRx* Emergency Rooms > TeleMedicine* Grocery > InstacartLegacy advertising continues to lose ground to digital ads* OutFront Media (billboards) > Google* CableTV > YouTube / TikTok* Newspapers > Substack/BeehiveEven industries like Basic Materials are changing.* Paper manufacturing down* Steel > Carbon Fiber* Concrete > cost efficient ConcreteAnd so on…Aggregate earnings growth of 1% masks the true underlying changeNew players are growing earnings 10 to 20%, while legacy players are seeing earnings decline of 5% to 40%On the surface, it looks placid.Underneath the surface industries are transforming…links mentioned in the podcast:* Mexico is the new China* Pandemic Boom and Bust* No Landing Sentiment - Bob ElliottPodcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Why Shopify did a deal with big bad Amazon:* The Rise and fall of ESPN, the future of Cable TV and bundling:* An update on the business of Rolex:Best Links of The Week🔮What Happened in Vegas by David HillHow Jimmy Hoffa built the Teamster’s modest pension fund into something that “operated as one of America’s largest banks,” and what happened when he turned it away from conservative public market investments toward bets like financing casinos with the mafia.SVB's Demise: The Hidden Cost of Overcharging in the Competitive Banking LandscapeContrary to popular belief, the collapse of SVB was not due to a sudden frenzy of withdrawals. Their practice of overcharging customers would have driven them out of business if the March 2023 collapse hadn’t gotten there first.Bonus (Listen): Bryan Johnson: How to Age in Reverse on World of DaaSBryan Johnson is spending millions of dollars a year to reverse his biological age, and it’s working. His program is intense, but he shares the most easily replicable pieces of it (which are more approachable than you might think).How Larry Gagosian Reshaped the Art World by Patrick Radden KeefeA look into the secretive empire of art dealer Larry Gagosian, a unique global force who helped make the art world the $65 billion industry it is today.“Winners Take None” by Hunter WalkMost software markets are winner take all. Some of the most (over)hyped VC-backed “tech companies” of the past decade are probably winner take none, and maybe never were tech companies either.Amazon’s Cloud Crisis: How AWS Will Lose the Future of Computing by Dylan PatelA comprehensive look at the rise (and potential fall) of an $80 billion business.The wonder drug I hoped would stop my 11.30pm fridge raids for cheddar and chorizo didn’t work for me. But I still believe it could change the lives of millions by Boris JohnsonWhatever you think of Boris Johnson, he’s a masterful writer. No US president since Thomas Jefferson could write like him.Bonus (Listen): Steven Pinker: Human Cognition vs. AISteven brings his perspective from cognitive psychology to explain how AI does (and does not) mirror the human brain. We also discuss rationality, intellectual freedom and super powerful AGI.MORE:* Dara from $Uber talks about why he’ll always find a reason to say his company sucks - Wired.com* How Dollar stores became magnets for crime - ProPublica.org* How people are getting Doxed for just 15$ - 404 media.co* How Saudi Arabia is buying up the world - New Statesman.com* Nikes Marketing Blind spot - Trungphan SubstackDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. This website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton as registered representative specifically disclaim that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Opening riff on the NBA preseason drama* Market update* CREA Update (July) & Calgary market note* Taylor Swift* Sports items - ex-ESPN on air starting new fantasy media corp with big backers* Recommendations and PredictionsListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.📈📊Market Update💵📉Last week was another tough week for markets as investors were hit with more inflation data.Some good reads to help you better understand where were at in this tightening cycle:* The Rise (and Fall) of inflation in Canada - Trevor Tombe* Liberal PM meets with Cabinet to discuss impacts of inflation on voters - Bloomberg* Consumers betting on variable rates as mortgage rates skyrocket - BnnBloombergChart of the week: REITs positioning.Twitter links from this weeks podcast:* Great thread on how Dahner compounded capital better than almost all roll up companies in history.* Do carbon taxes affect food prices - Trevor Tombe🎙Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Macro Sunday with Michael Kao* All In talks Media polarization and the Rich Men North of Richmond.* Nick Colas on how to use the VIX to Invest Money more effectively.🔮Best Links of The Week🔮* Canada continues to inbound tens of thousands - globe and mail* Global Sports investment can bring the world closer together - Sportico.com* White House announces new China Tech Curbs: As expected, the administration moved forward to curb US VC and private equity investments in China across semiconductors, quantum computing and AI for now. Won’t be implemented until 2024 after a review process. There is an effort to balance the overall trade relationship vs containing China related to ‘national security issues.* Nvidia’s new GPUs: Founder/CEO Jensen Huang officially kicked off Nvidia’s next generation GH200 GPU ‘Superchips’, while the current A100 and H100 chips are already in superhot demand and on global allocation. Nvidia also announced iterations of other Enterprise focused AI infrastructure services around its hardware and software compute architecture. Nvidia continues to be the biggest provider of GPU chips for the current global AI gold rush going into 2024 and beyond.* Meta out-executes TikTok on monetizing short videos: A surprising thing that came out in Meta’s quarterly results call last week was Mark Zuckerberg outlining that Meta’s short video Reels monetization with advertisers is on a “revenue run rate that jumped to $10 billion, up from $3 billion last fall, and $1 billion last summer.” That means that Reels is about the size of TikTok’s business as of 2022 end, and poised to potentially surpass it this year. This despite the general industry reality that Reels as an AI algorithm drive video product is still not as good as TikTok. Watch the 13 to 16 minute marks in this YouTube video discussion by the tech reviewers at the Verge for more context. This underlines Meta’s unparalleled ability to focus, execute, and leverage its multi-billion global user base ahead of their competitors.Disclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. This website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaims that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com

Listen in podcast app and follow below for the podcast topic arc.* Market update* What does $PENN look like without Barstool* Berkshire earnings* Steve Jobs transition to Tim Cook* Future of sports gambling and content production* Sports franchise valuations* Recommendations and PredictionsListen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.📈📊Market Update💵📉Quick read on US CPI from Bloomberg!We’re keeping the commentary short and sweet this week… but have some great podcasts and links to check out below!US equities fell on Wednesday ahead of today’s July consumer price index report.Technology (-1.51%) and communication services (-1.24%) lagged the broader market indices, while energy (+1.22%) and real estate (+0.20%) outperformed. The Nasdaq lost 1.17%, while the "FAAMG" stocks dropped: The 30-year and 10-year Treasury yields finished at 4.176% and 4.009% respectively, while the 2-year yield ended at 4.810%.* If you read anything related to stocks this week, I highly recommend Chris Bloomstran’s tweet thread on Berkshires most recent report:https://twitter.com/ChrisBloomstran/status/1687913318860619777?s=20What is everyone thinking about?* US credit card debt just hit $1 trillion, a big flashy number, but entirely consistent with long term trends. This is not a sign that the US consumer is tapped out.* US retail money market fund balances hit their own record recently, at $1.5 billion. This is a significant change from prior 40-year trends and bodes poorly for smaller US banks.* US bank stocks have rallied by +1 standard deviation versus their long run track record. The easy money has been made.Twitter links from the pod:* Bob Elliott on short term rates* Bob Elliott on what people are missing about inflation🎙Podcast & YouTube Recommendations🎙* Nick Kolas talks about how to value Tesla:* Steven Pinker talks with World of DAAS about humans vs. AI:* A great listen from the Founders Pod. Paul Graham is one of the most interesting people in venture capital* Bryson vs. Phil money game was a fun watch:🔮Best Links of The Week🔮* Josh Brown Explains His Thesis On $UBER - Reformed Broker * "Twenty-five years after the Cadillac Escalade launched General Motors into large, highly profitable luxury SUVs, the Detroit automaker is hoping a new all-electric version of the vehicle will ignite the same success for a new generation of luxury buyers. - CNBC* Where the market is for luxury watches - The luxury watch dealer* "European natural gas prices surged almost 40 per cent on Wednesday as the potential for disrupted global liquefied natural gas supply from Australia spooked traders betting on further price declines." - FT* AI: Video hits Home …as Meta shows, with Advertisers & UsersDisclaimer:Investing in equities, fixed-income instruments and/or alternative asset classes involves substantial risk of loss. Any action you may take as a result of the information presented on this website, blog or in any Reformed Millennials Podcast (a “podcast”) is your own responsibility. By opening this page and/or listening to a podcast, you accept and agree to the terms of this full legal disclaimer. The information on this website, blog and in any podcast is presented as a general educational, informational and entertainment resource only. This website, blog and any podcast does not provide, and should not be construed as providing, individualized investment, tax or insurance advice, nor as containing any recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities or otherwise make any other form of investment, or take any tax or insurance decision. Nothing contained on this website, blog or in any podcast should be construed or interpreted by you to mean that an investment in any securities presented or discussed would be suitable for you in your particular circumstances. Joel Shackleton specifically disclaims that any viewer of this website, blog or any podcast should rely in any way on any of their contents as investment, tax or insurance advice or as an investment, insurance or tax recommendation. Viewers are encouraged to consult with their individual investment advisor and other financial professionals prior to taking any potential investment actions or making any insurance or tax decisions. The views and opinions expressed herein are the personal views and opinions of Joel Shackleton and any other specific contributor to the blog or podcast only and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of their Firm or any of its other registered individuals or employees in partnership with Joel and his guests. Joel Shackleton disclaims any obligation to update any of the information set out on this website or any blog or podcast going-forward. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reformedmillennials.substack.com