The stock market threw something of a fit on Thursday, and a lot of investors were confused. No big company failed. Demand for AI still looks like it’s off the charts. Why would the AI trade be down so badly if the numbers keep going up? I’ve been laying out my thesis for months (here, here, here, and here, for example) and explained why I’m not getting in front of what may be a steamroller. And that’s worked well of late. The Asymmetric Portfolio is up 1.7% this week thru Thursday, while the $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ ( ▼ 0.01% ) is down 0.75% and the $SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ ( ▼ 0.52% ) is only up 0.1%. Yes, my positioning with a non-AI portfolio has paid off this week. But let’s be honest, it hasn’t pai

When I was growing up in the 1980s, we had a set of Britannica encyclopedias on the bookshelf in the living room. If I had a question about an animal, country, disease, or anything else, that’s where I could go to try to find an answer. Despite being thousands of pages, the explanations weren’t in-depth, weren’t updated, and often what I was looking for wasn’t there. The next step was going to the public library a few blocks away. And I never quite got the hang of searching their catalog system. If you weren’t alive then, it’s hard to explain just how hard it was to find information. Sometime in the late 1980s, we got a computer with MS-DOS. In the early 1990s, that computer could access the internet through a service called Prodigy. Suddenly, you could get the weather 24/7, not just at 5:

Only about $0.05 of every dollar spent on $Uber(UBER)$ ends up as profit or free cash flow for the company. Now imagine an ad-supported version of Uber. What if advertising revenue could subsidize fares, making rides significantly cheaper — or even free in some cases? 👀 Uber already has a massive consumer network and valuable insights into shopping and travel behavior. Advertising could create a higher-margin revenue stream without requiring a proportional increase in rides. The big question is how much of that potential can translate into sustainable free cash flow. A trillion-dollar valuation by 2035 is an ambitious target, but new monetization opportunities could change the math. 🚗 Meanwhile, $General Motor

The last few days have felt different on the stock market. Questions are being asked about former rocket ships (including Rocket Lab), Anthropic’s revenue growth is slowing, neocloud yields are rising, companies are cutting back on AI spending, inflation is stubbornly high, and it’s possible the semiconductor and AI stocks that have held up the entire market in 2026 could come crashing down. At least, that’s the narrative. A few days doesn’t make a trend, but if you’ve felt uneasy the last few days, it’s time to remind ourselves how to survive — and thrive — in a bear market. $SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ Do Your Research Ahead of Time! It’s almost impossible to think clearly in a fal

Questions are finally starting to be asked about the AI trade, and the answers may not please some. Longtime readers know the AI trade is something I’ve generally stayed away from. We’re seeing trillions of dollars invested in AI technology that hasn’t proven (yet) to have a sustainable business model. My argument isn’t that it’s not valuable, but rather that we’re likely to over-invest, get a correction (the bubble pops), and then the opportunity for long-term gains comes in the wreckage. In other words, the “Trough of Disillusionment” is my sweet spot, which I explained in this 2024 article. I’m not predicting the bubble bursting yet. But I’m not going to get in front of that train, holding the bag when it does. And the past week has seen most of the AI infrastructure (bottleneck) stocks

A picture is worth 1,000 words. So, today, I’m replacing a lot of words with pictures. Over time, owning growth stocks that can compound year after year gives us a great chance to beat the market. So, what are the fastest-growing stocks in the Asymmetric Portfolio? #1: $SoFi Technologies Inc.(SOFI)$ ( ▲ 1.22% ) #2: $Robinhood(HOOD)$ ( ▲ 1.88% ) #3 $Zeta Global Holdings Corp.(ZETA)$ ( ▲ 0.18% ) #4 $Duolingo, Inc.(DUOL)$ ( ▼ 0.86% ) #5 $Hims & Hers Health Inc.(HIMS)$ ( ▲ 10.19% ) Over time, growth will drive stock performance, but over the past year, that hasn’t been the case

Last week, I wrote Disaggregating the Aggregator, explaining how I was viewing the possible AI agent-led disaggregation of companies that currently aggregate demand in the smartphone era. These are companies like $Uber(UBER)$ ( ▲ 0.34% ), $Alphabet(GOOG)$ ( ▲ 1.62% ), $Netflix(NFLX)$ ( ▼ 1.16% ), $DoorDash, Inc.(DASH)$ ( ▲ 3.83% ), etc. My shorthand is that it’s the apps that we choose to interact with every day. But in that article, I came away relatively bullish on companies that had some kind of tie to the physical world. Uber with drivers, $Zillow(Z)$ with homes, etc. As I’ve t

Coming into 2026, the promise was for lower interest rates and a booming economy. But reality has been far different. The 10-year treasury yield, which is a proxy for everything from mortgages to corporate debt, continues to rise and is now at a level not consistently seen since 2001. And mortgage rates have spiked more than a full percentage point since March and will likely climb over 7.25%, or more, in the coming weeks as higher rates move through the system. What does all of this mean for the market? I’ll get to that in a moment. Higher Rates and the Market Like it or not, interest rates are important for the economy and the market. Lowering interest rates is like adding fuel to a fire. But raising rates is like snuffing a fire out. And over the last few weeks, rates have risen rapidly

The disruption story brewing in the market for the last three years really took hold when $Meta Platforms, Inc.(META)$ ( ▼ 3.34% ) Muse was released on September 8, 2026, and rapidly went to #1 in the app store. People were posting pictures of Muse buying clothes, re-booking flights, making calls to restaurants, and many other phenomenal use cases. I called it AI’s Mass Market Moment, and I think that’s true. I also think others will follow. Moats don’t last for long in AI. But we can see how we may interact with technology in the future, and it may not be through the apps we use today. This is creating both opportunities and risks for the companies we’re investing in. $Amazon.com(AMZN)$ ( ▲ 0.12% ) has t

🐯 Hey Tigers! Three very different setups I’m watching right now. 👀 🚗 $Uber(UBER)$ I think the “Uber gets disrupted by AI” story could eventually look pretty silly. The disruption isn’t showing up in the numbers yet, but more importantly, I’m not convinced the mechanism makes much sense. Imagine telling Muse: “I’ll pick up riders if you have some.” Someone nearby asks Muse for a ride, and Muse responds: “Travis is going to pick you up and take you to the bar. He seems nice, I’ve read his emails.” 😂 Could Uber’s bargaining power change over time? Absolutely. But does that mean a company sitting at the center of a massive transportation network suddenly becomes irrelevant? I’m not convinced. The bigger question is who actually benefits if rates go h