Anpanman - $ASTS and Human Psychology - Real Talk

[00:00:06] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: It will just basically come to your phone and be seamless regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Good evening, everybody. Hope everyone is doing well after a long day. I'm pretty tired actually, but, um, hope everybody is hanging in there. I know some of you have had trouble sleeping just given how the markets have been. I've, I've had trouble sleeping too. Um, but yeah, if you guys could give me a thumbs up, I just want to make sure I'm not talking to myself. Here. I'm gonna assume that everybody can hear me because, okay, I see a thumbs up there. All right.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: So I wanted to get people together and talk a bit about human psychology, 'cause I think it's probably a good time to discuss this. Yeah, I, I don't have a set agenda. I took down a few notes of, of things to cover, but I think over the past few days and weeks we've seen some people behave certain ways and it's totally understandable. I mean, humans are human for, and, and it's just part of, you know, natural behavior. And so I wanted to kind of go through why these things happen and what, what their motivations are. And, you know, I think folks can get, you know, fired up when they see some of these things, but just recognize that people have certain tendencies and they may not necessarily have the awareness to understand that. And, or, you know, sometimes people do have motivations that aren't necessarily in the best interest of others, but But yeah, it is what it is and you do you and I'll do me. But I think just having a discussion about it maybe perhaps will help people become more aware of their own tendencies. But anyway, it sounds like I'm just talking about fluffy stuff, but yeah, let's dig in. So yeah, what happened today? I mean, I think there was some stuff on Twitter where people—
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: went back and forth, you know, someone who I won't name kind of retweeted what I, what I, something that I had posted about AC Space Mobile and said, you know, they were involved at, they got involved when the market cap was smaller, smaller. I think it was like $1.5 billion and it's gone up 20x. And so now it's probably closer to the end versus the beginning. And from a risk perspective, perhaps people should sell. sell some or sell all and then go into 3 different ideas that this person was pitching. And so initially when I saw that, I was like, oh, okay. I mean, yeah, you can make that argument to a degree that, and I've been telling people in Spaces all along, depending on your own financial situation and your involvement and your exposure, just given how much AST SpaceMobile has run, It is always good to reevaluate your situation. And if you, you know, just a simplistic standpoint, if you are able to take out your cost basis and you've made a lot of money, if you can take out your cost basis and also set aside money for taxes, which is really important because you don't— a big mistake that people make in retail investing is they sell things, they immediately reinvest, and then They don't put it, set aside money for taxes. And then all of a sudden when it comes time for tax day, which, which, you know, could be April or depending on how many extensions you get, July or October, they're all of a sudden down money. And then they, because they reinvested everything and then they don't have enough for taxes. And so don't make that mistake. Definitely if you do take profits and you owe money in, for example, 2025, set aside that money, don't touch it. And make sure that you have enough to pay for taxes. But going back to, you know, understanding your position, if you, you know, simplistic way is taking out your cost basis and then letting the rest ride. Like, you know, if you have a small position relative to your net worth, if it's a few percentage points, which, you know, I think is pretty common, or if it's bigger, it could be 10%, 20%, some of Some of us who are crazy might have 80% of our net worth in this name. And that's not by, that's not something that came from irresponsible behavior. It's actually for a lot of people, they invested very early and it grew to a very large percentage of their wealth. And so other things come into play. If you're sitting on a massive long-term gain, you have to contemplate taxes. For example, I started talking to my wife about hey, would we ever consider moving away for a year out of New York City? And because, you know, if you add up state and city tax, that's 15%. It's another 15% on top of what you already owe, which is pretty nuts. And so if you're sitting on tens of millions of gains, that really can move the needle. And so, and that discussion extends also to your retirement accounts, right? Like if you're, if you're, if it's not a Roth IRA, but it's a typical, you know, IRA account or 401 or whatever it is, right? Like if you have tax advantage ability to invest and you compound gains without paying taxes, but at the end when you get to retirement age, if you live in a high state and city tax bracket like New York City or in California, Maybe it's worth at retirement, hey, you know what, maybe we should move to Tennessee or Florida or Texas because that money that you pay at the end when you do take withdrawals, like, and people should ask their accounts, like you can actually not pay those taxes as long as you move and you can prove that you moved somewhere else. You know, in New York you have to live outside of the city and state for over 183 days and they're really like tenacious about checking your cell phone bills, like your locations, like all this stuff, you know, making sure that you actually live outside the state. Otherwise, like they'll come back and get the taxes from you. But anyway, but going back to what I was saying before, yeah, in any one situation where you're sitting on top of a big gain, tax planning comes into effect. You know, do I sell? Do I, you know, when you have such a big gain and it's long-term gains, That's why a lot of people, I mean, some folks on Twitter are like, why aren't you just trading this thing? Just slapping it around? It's like, well, I'm sitting on a long-term gain and once I monetize that, I've got to pay taxes and then I restart the clock all over. Like I've got to, whatever I buy back, it's going to go become short-term gains and until I hold it for a year and then it goes long-term. And so it's never as simple as people say. Like you, yeah, I can trade things around in my retirement accounts, 'cause that's, you know, that tax bill's not, that's deferred for until I retire. But yeah, you know, I think the other thing that I mentioned is if you have a big position that's concentrated, like AC says, T. Mobile, it's important to understand the context, right? Like I think for somebody who bought in at $40, then their risk reward, the way that they think about What people refer to as margin of safety and risk reward is different than someone who has a cost basis of 3 or 2, right? Like that person can probably stomach the volatility because, and by the way, like there's very few people who bought in at 2, like they're right off the rip, like they bought a $2 position and there are a few which I've talked to and God bless them, they were smart. But a lot of people actually had bought in higher if it was like, 10 or 12. I remember there was one person who bought it at 20 when the SPAC ripped and then it like after, right after they bought it cratered and they went through that. They obviously went through fire holding it all the way to 2 and adding on the way down, but then riding it all the way back up. You know, I was in, I mean, for me it's a bit different 'cause I was in warrants and I bought, I guess probably my average on my warrants was around a dollar $1.20, $1.30, which was great for a period of time. And then of course they went as low as $0.33, which was not fun. But, you know, once I exercised those warrants, my, the cost basis in the stock ended up being like, you know, I guess it was like $12, $13 or something like that. But when you have a low cost basis, it's different, right? And if you've, if the position has become outsized because of the position has appreciated, then you have a very different perspective than, for example, someone who's buying stock today at 99. And so I think it's important to have that context where the decision is going to be very different for everybody. But I do think it is smart, and I've told numerous people that if you get to a point where you can be financially independent, And you, let's say like, I don't know, you have a mortgage. Let's say you have a million-dollar mortgage on your house or, and your house is worth, I don't know, $2 million. Or if you're, if you have a mortgage on a house, if your house is like $600,000, you have a mortgage that's $300,000 left and your position in AST has grown to, I don't know, like $1.5 million. Like you, it's probably not a bad idea at some point to monetize portion of that and pay off your mortgage, right? And the reason why I say that is, you know, I truly believe in taking out your cost basis. One of the things that I've been trying to tell people, I guess, over the last year is like, you know, what was your net worth before you entered this position? Like, if you had a net worth of $1 million and all of a sudden you're sitting on a position that's worth $5 million, like, I think it's not a bad idea to just take out your original net worth and then the rest of it.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: And it's tough. I know it's super tough. Like there are people who want to own a few hundred thousand shares or they have a target of like, I need to get to 20,000 shares or, and it's tough to give up your shares, which is kind of funny because I mean, I go through the same thing too. Like if I ever if I ever have to sell shares, I always think of like, oh, am I, is this like what Steve Larson refers to? Is this the Amazon, right? Like selling Amazon at $2 or $3. Or I remember my wife when she worked in tech, she's like, hey, you should buy this company called Spotify, or not Spotify, Shopify. And she had like a small position. I think it was like $10,000 in her retirement account. And, you know, I didn't really know that much about the company. I was like, yeah, whatever. And of course, like Shopify just completely took off. It was like an absolute home run. Of course, like I sold those shares on her Because I was, I didn't, after I analyzed it, I was like, yeah, whatever, it's an e-commerce company. But I think like it's easy. The thing about investing is like it's easy for people to, when you're not familiar with an investment, and this is why I think people are so wed to AST SpaceMobile in that when you work, when you've done so much due diligence and you understand a company inside and out and you understand it better than any institutions out there, it can be really difficult to give that up, right? And if you really think you've caught lightning in a bottle, which I think we are, we have done here, people become very passionate about it and, you know, we've become this cult. But I think like, it's interesting because for people looking from the outside looking in, they're like, well, what is this? Like there's this company doesn't have any revenue yet. And You know, it's going to get crushed by Starlink. I mean, whatever, we can go through the whole litany of reasons why. And that's the thing, like when you're not invested, you don't own this company, you're going to come up with every reason why you shouldn't own this company and why those kooks, those crazy people, like they're going to be wrong. And you're like rooting, and this is where like jealousy and envy comes. You're going to root for it to fail because you're like, oh my God, that thing has gone up so fast. so quickly, it doesn't make sense and it has to come back. And I saw some people replying like, it's gone up too fast and it has to, nothing goes up like that and stays up there. It has to come back down. It's like, well, you guys missed like when we went down quickly and we were at like $1.90 or $2, right? Like they missed all the pain to get to this point. And so Yeah, it's, I think there is a bit, and you can get a bit myopic, right? Which is why you try to be honest with yourself because when you're riding high and the, you know, if the stock price is at 100, you feel really good. It's like, oh, I'm on top of the world and there's nothing that could go wrong. And the market finally gets it. And then this stock has a drawdown to 36. It's like you've got all these people on Twitter that just come out and there's like, Abel needs to tweet and Scott, what are they doing? Everything is wrong. I can't believe that satellite's delayed. And they just come up with a whole host of like reasons why they're being wronged and the stock shouldn't be there and the company needs to do something about it. It's just that, I mean, that's just like human psychology. It's pretty funny. But, you know, when you've gone through this enough times, you understand And I joke about this, but it's true. You know, apologies for people who are here from Reddit, but when the Reddit, when the subreddit ACDSpaceMobile, when people are, when it's like bloody murder and they're losing their shit, I mean, that's usually the time when we bottomed. That's a bottom signal. Or conversely, like when you have some of these accounts like Stone Fox Capital, like this loser, or Pivot Capital, who Pivotal Capital is, who mysteriously has disappeared, or Onada Capital or whatever, who, any number of bears, like when they start coming out of the woodwork and they start, you know, doing their celebration dance that they tweet and say, I told you so, that's usually a bottom indicator as well. And so it's interesting to get to, you know, on the one hand it's annoying to see this stuff, but on the other hand it's like these are really valuable signals. And so it's just, you know, if you are more trading oriented, you can take advantage of that. And so, I mean, over the last few weeks, I think I don't usually talk about numbers, but I figured, you know, let's just have an honest conversation. And I guess over the last few weeks I've probably made $3 or $4 million on trading AST SpaceMobile options because like vol was so cheap. It got so cheap. And people, before we had this run-up, like people were pretty, depressed and upset about the satellites being delayed, but then you had the company telling you like, oh, it's coming. And we've had this discussion of like, things are inevitable. Like it's inevitable, it's coming. Like, yeah, can they slip? Sure. But then, you know, you're getting in terms of risk reward and where the options were priced and you were getting, it was like, it seemed like a decent bet. And it's kind of funny because like where, We're at this point now where the company is about to launch this multi-launch campaign and like commercial service is about to roll out and you had people kind of giving up. And that's why I tweeted this, that meme of the football player who's like running to the end zone and then dropping the football right before the end zone. It's like, what are you guys doing? Like, you can't. And I got criticized by someone for saying, oh, you're You're encouraging retail to take risks and you know better. And it's like, no, that's, you totally missed the point. I'm telling people that for the people who've held this position for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years, who went through all that pain and due diligence and sleepless nights or whatever, like we're at the cusp of why we started this whole thing, like why we invested. And so how can you just, how can you give up at the end zone? And so that was my point, which again was lost on this particular person who was like, oh, you're teaching retail to take undue risks and not be smart with their money. It's like, well, no, retail doesn't have to act like a hedge fund. We, depending on a person's particular situation, and I remind them, That you should be prudent in terms of taking a risk and not, you know, size this position in particular to a point where you're not going to wear cover for it. But then at the same time, if you know what you own and the company is on the cusp of doing something truly special, and of course there's risks, right? Like you can have a satellite that goes up and it bricks, it doesn't work, or, you know, something with launch could happen. But we are at a point now where the company is well capitalized. It's got a ton of satellites in production and ready to go. And it has launch paid for. And so if you were to, you know, if you were to put that risk on back in 2022 when we were launching BlueWalker 3 and we were running the company by the seat of our pants because we didn't have enough cash, to make it through a big delay or a negative event. But if BlueWalker 3 failed or, you know, something bad had happened, then yeah, I mean, the company would've probably come back, but would've obviously the stock would've gotten demolished and they would've had to raise money at terrible levels. But now we're at a point of scale and capitalization and we've got partners who are well capitalized as well, where we can take those hits and it's not a company-ending event. And so there is this, like when you talk with people and they're like, well, you know, this could either be a home run or it could be a zero. It's like, no, you don't understand the situation. There's no zero. scenario for this company now. Like we're at a point where things have developed enough where it's going, you know, if the launch fails or if the satellite doesn't work properly, you know, oh yeah, there's going to be a drawdown for sure. Like maybe the stock goes down 30, 40%, or maybe it goes down 20%. I don't know. It probably doesn't go down as much because we've got, we basically have 2 satellites right now, FM1 and FM2. They're going to launch almost simultaneously. And so if something bad happens to one, then the other one's still going to go up. And so, but this whole notion of like it could go to zero, like that's just absurd. It doesn't make any sense. Like there was someone who said, well, the margin of safety at $100 is way worse than the margin of safety at $5. Well, no, it's not. Like, do you remember why the stock was at $5? Like that was back when Let's go back in time. That was back in 2022, 2023, and then of course 2024 when, I mean, let's go back to 2024 when we only had one satellite. We only, you know, we were trying to cobble together additional capital to make sure we had enough runway and we were building Block 1 satellites. And that, you know, the Block 1, the 5 Bluebird satellites, we didn't have any definitive commercial agreements yet. We didn't have any, I mean, we had some indications that FirstNet wanted to work with us, but of course we didn't have a test satellite. So who knows, like, you know, we got to get, or we did have BlueWalker 3. Sorry, I think about it. We had BlueWalker 3 and we were— FirstNet was contemplated working with us and then, but we didn't, and we had some initial understandings that perhaps there were some government contracts, but it's disingenuous to say that the margin of safety was better at 5. I mean, mathematically, yeah, it makes sense. Like 5 is a lower number and you're not risking as much at 5 versus at 100, but that's intellectually dishonest, right? Like at 100, The company has anywhere between $1.5 to $2 billion in cash. We've got like Golden Dome potentially coming. We've got 8 defense contracts. We've got definitive commercial agreements with Rakuten, Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone, Google, you know, American Tire, by the way, we also have an agreement with them. And then, you know, we have Bell Canada and possibly Saudi Telecom, like on the way shortly. And then, you know, we've got testing results that have come in and we're, you know, we're, I mean, this is a huge one, right? Like we are on the cusp of getting FCC US market access approval. Like it's a very different story where we are or level of progress where we are at 100 versus where we were at 5. And so for anyone to make that like, oh, you know, at 5 it was much better than it was at 100. Mathematically, I guess, sure. But, you know, I can present to you 2 different companies, one at $5 that is on the cusp of bankruptcy versus one at $100 that is about to cure cancer. Like, which one do you want to own? I'll take the one that's $100 like every day and twice on Sunday. Like, intellectually, it's just a dishonest, like, argument. It doesn't make any sense. And so So I think when people are throwing around those types of arguments, you really have to take a step back and think like, okay, well, what does it mean? Like, why is the stock at 100? Is it because the company's made progress? Is it partially because the market is frothy? Is it because good things are about to happen? And so I think you've got to take that all into account. And obviously, Yeah, the markets are frothy. And by the way, like, I don't think anybody is arguing against that. Like, for all intents and purposes, like we've entered into, or we're on the cusp of zero interest rate, like environment, right? Where rates are coming down, you know, the economy's slowing down. And what was it like the Fed Powell yesterday said that they're going to stop quantitative tightening. And so yeah, like risk is, we're kind of at this point and where risk is starting to come back on. And so I remember I shared a chart with Alliant Capital the other day which showed like Goldman Sachs hedge fund VIP, you know, the names that all the hedge funds own versus the most short names. And that index has completely cratered over the last few weeks. And part of that I think is because It's just a risk-on environment. And so all these heavily shorted names have like totally rebounded and, you know, some of them, and I'm sure AST SpaceMobile has benefited to a degree, but that index has now returned to a level where it was, I think back in 2023. And so obviously you're going to see, I mean, you see all the hedge fund accounts on Twitter just crying bloody murder like, oh, this is not right. These companies shouldn't be trading up here. It's going to end badly. And yeah, I get it guys. Like you're on the wrong side of the trade. Like your shorts are blowing up in your face. And so yeah, shit happens. Like that's how finance works. Like, you know, you're going to have these periods where you have volatility and if you can't ride it out, if you're not positioned, then, you know, sorry. You know, I think that's part of the advantage of retail. where, you know, we don't have a risk manager and, you know, you can hold for long periods of time if you have a drawdown. Like, as a retail holder, if you have a 10 or 20% drawdown in your portfolio, like it's not a problem as long as, you know, obviously maybe your loved one won't be happy about it, but as long as you understand the risks that you're under— that you're taking, you can ride the volatility. Whereas if you have a 5 or 7% drawdown at any you know, pod shop, then you're basically, your capital is cut. And if you go down to 10, then you're gone. You and your team are gone, right? And so it's a very different approach. And I think it's important to understand that context as well. When people are pontificating and lecturing on Twitter, it's like, well, yeah, you have to abide by certain rules, but for retail we don't. And so Yeah, sorry, you do. I don't, but that doesn't mean you have to like shit on what I'm doing. But anyway, but yeah, so going back to my timeline, my notes here, I think it is hard like for people who are running a concentrated book that has conviction. When I mean concentrated, you know, for me that's I'm usually invested in maybe a handful of names and some things I trade, right? But I'm probably invested in only 5 or 6 names at a time because I want to know what I'm invested in. But then when you're, when you have a small book and it's concentrated and then you have conviction in those names, and AST is by far like the absolute biggest, like it's a big percentage of my net worth. It's hard. It's hard to do. It's hard to Own something in that size. And that's why I think like when you have the opportunity to take, you know, the mental apart, the ability to take a win, which is like selling your cost basis or taking out your net worth or doing something, it's huge because then you, the mental game changes all of a sudden where you're like, oh, I had a win. And now I'm playing with house money. And so when there's ups and downs, I really don't care, which is true. Like I've been, it's kind of funny, like as we've gone up or if we go down, like I'm kind of in a different way from Kook. Like I'm kind of indifferent because I've already, like I've already won. And then the rest of this, which, you know, I have a pretty massive position, the rest of it is just house money and I can mentally compartmentalize it and be like, okay, this is great. It's like life-changing and I can set up my generations are set for life. But then at the same time, it's like, I really believe in this company and I enjoy it and I want to continue to stay invested. Right. And so, but with that, of course, like during difficult periods of time, you know, when the stock has gone down, it's like, you know, there's the mental anguish of like, am I missing something? What if something's wrong? You know, all these things. Right. And, but I think For most space mobile investors, we've gone through so much of that that I think people truly understand. They've reached this like point of nirvana, right? Where they understand, oh, the volatility, the day-to-day volatility or the FUD out there, like it's just part of the game. And I understand, but I have conviction in what the company's going to do. Like, you know, someone throws Starlink at you and it's like, okay, yeah, they'll eventually get there and they'll be a good, there'll be good competition, but this market's going to be big enough for 2 big players, right? And so in a duopoly, the economics are typically really good. So I'm okay with that. That's fine. But I think going back to emotions, like, so this is where it kind of gets a little tricky. When you do sell, you have to have the ability to say, okay, I'm going to be fine with it. Like, you know, I'm going to, what if I miss out of this, And this is where like you've got to figure out on your own, like if you sell 10% or 20% or 30%, are you okay with like the stock continuing to go up? And that can be hard for people to like come, you know, to be at peace with that because then there's this whole range of emotions. And that's why like, you know, people when they sell, I've seen people, they like completely, you know, cash out and then they have regret or FOMO or, you know, if it's, if they sell 50% or 30%, it's like, just be at peace with what you do and it's okay if like the stock goes up and if, and heaven forbid if the stock goes down, like, oh, you can buy some back. But it's interesting because like that money does weird things to people. And so, you know, whether it's regret or FOMO, like once people sell something that they believed in, I think, and this is where, this is kind of the crux of the discussion today. It's like there's a certain level of decorum that I think people should have or awareness. Because I think like it's the thing in Twitter is it can be pretty toxic, right? Like if people openly say I sold something and they believed in it, but for whatever personal reasons they sold, then that's fine. And people shouldn't like, there's, you shouldn't be ashamed for selling something because everybody has their, I mean, who knows, like maybe you're You've got sick family members or you need to take care of some financial obligations, like nobody should give you a hard time about it. But the nature in which you do that is important, right? So, and if you want to be honest, and for some people like me and others who discuss ideas, like it is important to some extent. Like on one hand, I don't feel obligated to tell people like, oh, I'm buying this or I'm selling this. But deep down inside, morally, I'm like, oh, I should let people know that I feel bad if I like, hey, I got into something and then I never tell them I exited. Like there's something that I don't feel right about. So oftentimes I'll, I will say like, oh, I've exited this. And then people will say, why'd you do it? Like, is it because there's influence or anything? And it's like, no, I just, I set a target for myself and I'm out of this thing, or the circumstances changed or whatever it is, right? It could be any number of things. And I think this is important where people have to learn to, you know, ultimately it's your responsibility, right? Like you, what I like to say is, I used to tell this to my, to the analysts that I worked with when I was a portfolio manager. I was like, hey, you got, your job is to bring at-bats, bring the at-bats, and then I'll decide like which to swing at, which ball to swing at. And then because I swung at the ball, if I hit a home run, then great. And we make money and we're all happy. And then if I If I swing at a ball and we miss and it, and we lose a ton of money, then that's on me. Like I didn't do enough work. You brought me an interesting idea. It didn't turn out. It's not on you. It's on me because I swung the bat. And that's how people should look at Twitter or social media and investing. It's like people will bring up interesting ideas, but it's up to you to do research and to figure out what your risk tolerances are. And, you know, did they actually do any research or, you know, And then you're ultimately the decision maker. And so you pull the trigger, like no one's forcing you to do that. And then it's up to you to decide like when you want to get out or maybe buy more or whatever it is. Right. But I think it's important to have responsibility. And so when it comes to selling there, and when I mentioned before, like there is a certain level of decorum and there's no written rules or whatever, but I think like for people who are aware, there's right ways and wrong ways to do it, right? Like if heaven forbid, or not heaven forbid, whatever, I could do it. Like if I came out tomorrow and said, hey, you know what, my circumstances have changed and I'm selling AST Spacebolt. And by the way, like if I did that and it was for no other reason than just my personal, you know, let's say I really wanted to travel the world and I've given up all material possessions and I'm going to take the family to travel the world. And tomorrow I say, you know what, I'm going to sell this stock. Then people, I should come out. I will come out and say, hey, I've sold the stock. Here are the reasons why I sold the stock and the best of luck everybody, because like I still believe in the company, but my circumstances have changed. That's fine. Like, and people should be like, oh, good for you, man. I'm so happy for you. You did all this work and You know, you had a high level of conviction, you went through all this pain and suffering, but you believed and now like you're reaping the rewards, right? And they should be happy for you. And then, you know, you walk off into the sunset or whatever. It shouldn't be like, oh, I decided to sell. And then people are like, well, what's wrong with you? You know, that's just like the wrong approach, right? It's not the type of, I don't know if you had friends and You know, are you the friend that's jealous that someone does well? Or are you the friends like, hey, good for you, man. I'm so happy and I'm glad that we can share this moment together. Like what kind of person do you want to be? Right? So then taking that a step forward, it's like for social media accounts, if you are, look, people, again, people can sell for whatever reasons. And, but what's weird is like when people sell, And let's say like, you know, let's take AST SpaceMobile for example. Like if I, if someone has sold at like 70, maybe they sold half their, I don't know, they sold half their position at 70 and then they sold all of it at 80. And then all of a sudden, you know, they start posting like, oh hey, I sold and here's all the risks that really made me uncomfortable. And I think like the margin of safety's bad and the risk reward's bad and, you know, it's just a good time to sell. And maybe there's like, a few things, a few, you know, things left, but you're really at the end of the trade, then it's kind of like, what's your end goal on this? Like, where are you coming from? Right? Because, you know, if you are someone who's been advocating for it and then you sell and then the stock goes up even higher and then you start churning, right? You'd be like, Which is, look, I get it. Like there's people that want to pontificate and are like, well, you should, you know, they want to tell you what to do, right? They're going to lecture and say, well, it's at this point it's really risky and you should take it off or whatever. But it's not the right way to go out, right? Like I think if you are coming at it from a point at like with good intentions, right? where you're exiting and you're telling people exactly why you're exiting. And by the way, like there was a Rocket Lab investor, Tim X94. He also was AST SpaceMobile investor, I remember, and he's pretty controversial. And when I read his stuff, sometimes I'm like, whoa, that's pretty spicy. But I remember he got a lot of heat for exiting Rocket Lab and look, Rocket Lab did just fine without him, right? But I think like, but he gave his reasons and those were his reasons alone. And then, and you know, you gotta respect that. Like, okay, like you've made a logical decision for yourself, that's fine. But it's another thing, like if you're selling and you're still bullish about it, but then, but then, you know, you've, then you've completely sold down and then the stock gets away from you and then you start coming in with like these hot takes of like risks that were already well known and then start making comparisons to, well, you know, like the stock is way more risky here at 100 than it was at 5. Well, yeah, but what's the context? Like what stage in development was the company in at 5 versus where it is now at 100? And so yeah, I think people, if you are in those instances, it's like, Look, you can sell and that's fine. And, you know, some people, I guess, like feel the need to justify why they sold, which is fine too. Like, I guess maybe, and I've tended to find like people on Twitter use it as like therapy. Like sometimes when things are down, like, why are things down? And all these bad things are happening. Or when they sell, they're like, well, I sold for these reasons and I feel really good and this is why you should sell too. It's like, No, you can tell people why you sold, but to project that onto other people, like, come on, man. Like, be genuine about it. Like, have some self-awareness, right? You don't need to justify why you sold. Like, everybody sells for their own reasons. But I think like you can tell when people are insecure and when they start Using that insecurity to then justify what they did and to project that on others, right? And so that's kind of like the key thing where then you start hearing these arguments, well, it's gone up too fast and like it's all going to come crashing down. And, you know, and I think it's important, as I mentioned before, like understanding what angle or what perspective people are coming from, right? Because the context is important, right? Is someone telling you this as a hedge fund manager or are they telling you this as somebody who sells subscriptions? Like, that's a very different, we joke, it's a different ball of wax than, you know, like just a retail investor who, like myself, who has a different, and by the way, like I've got my own biases and perspective as well. And so, you know, I've already told people like I'm an unapologetic bull. And so when you take what I say about ACDC as well, you should take it with a grain of salt, right? Because I've got like rose-colored glasses to a degree. I mean, it's what has enabled me mentally to get to this point versus, you know, getting basically psyching myself out of the investment and selling whatever it was at $2 or however on the way, right? But, you know, it's like I said before, like it's human psyche is pretty interesting when it comes to money. Because we, I'll give you an example. Like we had this, there's like various chats, right? Whether it's like Discord or there's like Reddit, there's Twitter, there's people in Facebook too. I'm not, by the way, like I, this is a funny story. I asked in my real, a real person, myself, I asked to join the Facebook group because I was like curious to see what was in there. And I was not allowed in. So just funny thing to note there. But There was this one guy I remember in this Twitter chat of ours and he was like an uber bull and he would just talk constantly about like the company and the positive, you know, the progress it was making and how it was going to change the world. And financially, you know, the earnings power was going to be great and all this other stuff, right? And then within, it was like a span of a week, like he, this guy came in hot. He was just like, hot and heavy. Well, I don't know about these delays and what about the ASIC? Like, you know, there could be issues there, like, you know, in terms of getting that produced on time. And it went from, it was night and day just in one week. It was, this guy was super bullish to then he was just spreading all kinds of, you know, FUD. And at first I was like, okay, you know, like he's got some concerns and, and so people were, you know, addressing his questions, but he, it went beyond just like asking questions. He was like pushing a narrative. He was like pushing this narrative pretty hard. And like, I remember thinking like, what happened to this guy? Like, what's going on? Like, maybe he's snapped, like he's lost it. But then, and I remember at one point I was like arguing with him. I was like, oh, you know, what you're saying just doesn't make any sense. And then And then it was like a day later, all of a sudden he like left the chat. And then, and by the way, like during this period of time, he was tweeting stuff that was like pretty negative. And then he left the chat and then it was like a day after that, his account, like just like he deleted it. And then I remember hearing from, it was like, oh, you know that guy? What happened is he, I think this is really like when the stock was at I guess it was like at 30 or something. Like the guy sold, he actually sold and I think he sold his like entire position. Yeah, I know he sold his entire position and 'cause he thought like the timing was right and there was something negative that was going to happen possibly. And then the stock like ripped and he was so beside himself. He was so upset that he came into the chat thinking like he could influence things. He was like so negative. And then, yeah, so that ugly part of himself came out where he was like, I need— I missed it. The FOMO kicked in and I want the stock to go down and I'm just going to tweet negative things. I'm going to try to influence all these people to be negative and concerned. And so I can get the stock back down so I can buy back in. But what was Interesting is that, you know, so this guy shared it with someone else who was in the chat and he had this self-awareness to be like, oh my God, what am I doing? And like, this is not, this is not cool. And so he actually left the chat on his own accord and then he deleted his Twitter account. And I think, you know, some of you out there know who this person is, but yeah, like I've, and that's not like the first time I've seen that. I've seen other instances where people have sold out and they then turn negative on something. And it's, and this is part of human nature. Like, I think, you know, I've experienced that too professionally where if you're at a hedge fund and you talk with a number of people and you've done well in position and you sell and you feel this overwhelming sense of like, did I do something? Like, did I make a mistake? Like, and if the position After you do that, you start becoming all of a sudden a more balanced, you know, the more balanced view of like, well, you know, what about like when you're talking to other people about the idea, you're like, well, I don't know, what about these risks and this and this? Because you have this like feeling that you don't want to miss out or you don't want to be wrong or you want to be right for selling at the time that you did. And it's just natural, right? Like I, we've seen some other people who are, whether they're deeply rooted to this position, to this stock or kind of loosely on the outside but are involved, you know, change their tune, right? Like when they had a bigger position, they're more positive, optimistic, and bullish. And then when their position goes down, they become more balanced and they start bringing up the what-ifs. And so it's just natural, right? And I think I'm not saying like, by the way, like I'm not being negative about that because it's just part, it's just natural. And, but I think it's important for everybody to understand the context of like, where is it coming from? Right? And so if someone is telling you that, oh, the risk reward is not as good, maybe everything's priced in and they've gone from a 10% position to a 2% position, then yeah, by default, like their human tendencies are going to tell them like they've made the right decision and they're going to want to push a narrative that's going to be more balanced, right? And so it's just natural. I'm not faulting them. I mean, that's part of the game at investing too. It's where, you know, for example, when I enter a position, there's this balance of like, okay, part of me is like, because I, it's just kind of my personality, it's like, oh, I want to tell other people about it and I want, you know, and maybe it'll be, it'll be, it'll work out. And there's, there is this like positive feeling that you get when you come across some interesting idea and it works out and you're like, oh hey, we all won together. But then there's the other part of you where you're just like, I shouldn't share it with other people because I, maybe I want to buy more. Maybe it'll go, hopefully it'll go down and I can buy more and then I'll share it with people. But it's like all these things, it's like human psychology, right? It's It's just something that you have to grapple with. And so there's, and you know, I just, and then there are some trades that you do where you're like, I don't want to tell anybody because I'm doing something stupid. Maybe it'll work out, maybe it won't, but I definitely don't want to get people in trouble. But I think when it comes to, you know, understanding where people are coming from, the other thing that I would, I guess I would add in there too is options. And this is like the big one, right? Like usually the people who scream bloody murder and the most vocal when things are not going well are the guys who are long short-dated options, like long short-dated calls or long short-dated puts where they like, dear God, I need the stock to go up, or dear God, I need the stock to go down. And they'll be very vocal about it. They'll like, you know, they'll be very, they'll make sensational type of tweets where management needs to do something and my God, this company doesn't communicate. Or if they want stock to go down, they'll say, oh, the thing's been delayed and who knows if it'll work. And maybe Verizon's going to walk away from AST SpaceMobile. Usually it's like people who have short-dated positions, like they're like the most vocal or whatever it is. Right. And I think that's important to understand too, because there are some people out there who sell covered calls and they think it's like a great strategy, which it can be. It means it's basically writing insurance, right? When you sell a covered call, you're giving away all the upside, you're collecting some income, but you've got all the downside, right? But oftentimes people, when they sell covered calls, they're like, hey, look, here's AST SpaceMobile. Like it's at 50, what was it? I guess a few weeks ago it was at $50 and I'm going to sell these like $60 calls and $70 calls and I'm going to collect a healthy $4 and $2 or whatever it was. Right. And then of course the stock rips in their face and then all of a sudden they've gone from being positive about the stock to bringing up all the things that could go wrong. It's like, well, you know, have you heard about this company called Starlink and I don't know if there's launch capacity and, you know, how do we know that these satellites even work? And it's like, guys, come on. Like, it's just, you're being so transparent. Like you're, you sold not only like, and by the way, some of these people are like, oh, I sold covered calls. And then they become bearish all of a sudden. It's like, oh yeah, I guess that didn't work out for you. It's just like, I remember looking at WallStreetBets the other day and the subreddit too, where people were posting like, you know, fuck me, like I sold these calls or my puts got evaporated. And yeah, like that's the game you play. Like the, in options, you're going to be contorted into hoping for outcomes that aren't necessarily going to be in your control or oftentimes are out of your control. And so, you know, for the guys that When the stock rebounded to 50 from 36 and people were selling call options, I was telling people like, why are you selling them? Like, yeah, things might get delayed here or there. You might luck out and collect the premium scot-free. But we are going back to that, you know, the GIF of the guy running with the football and dropping it right for the end zone. Like, you are that person. Like, you're selling vol Which by the way, like I think volatility on options was at a 3-year low in September and October for AST SpaceMobile. So not only are you selling your upside, but you're selling it like so cheaply, but people are doing it. And so I think, you know, I think that's where some of the angst has come from too for some of these people who advocate like selling cash-secured puts or selling calls. It's like, okay, yeah. I mean, If you're going to advocate those strategies, then fine. But, you know, don't cry when things go against you and then start, you know, telling people the opposite of what you were a few weeks prior. But yeah, I think going back to what I was saying before about people's motivations, and this applies to, let's, you know, we'll talk about our friends Stone Fox Capital, this guy who You know, yeah, I guess he has a subscription service and he's been an AST bear, I guess for the last, I don't know, he popped up like recently, I guess for the last year, year and a half. But yeah, he, this guy, if you look at his Twitter engagement and, you know, he's like a contributor to Seeking Alpha, no one really engages with him. I don't know how many subscriptions he has. He touts that he has 50,000 followers on Seeking Alpha, but you know, it is what it is. But I think for people who sell subscription services, and that's a lot of people, like, and by the way, like if you're, I get it, like some people are made to research and this is true in the investing world where sell-side research or analysts who work at hedge funds, like they're really good at researching things. They're not necessarily, or they may not have the DNA to pull the trigger or to to manage risk or put risk on. And that's okay. And so selling subscription services is fine. It's a totally legit way to make your livelihood. And especially for young people who may not have, who are building wealth and are trying to build a business, like that's great. But I think also it's important to understand what, where subscription service sellers are coming from, right? Like they're there to put out like bait. You know, to engagement and laid on markers. And what I mean by that is for people who do subscription services, like they'll lead their engagement by saying, I bought this stock at 2, or I bought this stock at 5. And of course, like whatever stock they're talking about, it's like at 200 or whatever it is. And it's like if someone's leading you with that type of line to build credibility, like then you're like, red flags should go off. It's like, okay, should I be really listening to this guy? Like, why do they need— the content of what they put out should be more important than like laying, like trying to beating their chest. Like, well, I bought Tesla at $5. Okay, good for you. Like, you were lucky, right? I mean, a lot of people are lucky, but tell me like, what's your investment thesis? What are you doing? What are you about? Right? So I think it's important like to understand the motivations of these people. Like, what are they selling? Like when they're tweeting and maybe they're picking a fight with, I don't know, AST SpaceMobile shareholders. Like, what are they doing? They're trying to engage people. They're trying to bring people in. And the important thing for people who sell services are, and I talked about, I had mentioned this before, is like they often are trying to place markers, right? What do I mean by that is like markers meaning like they're going to tweet, hey, the stock market is going to crash in the next 3 months and they tweet that earlier this year and then they tweeted again 2 months ago and then they tweeted again now and then they tweeted again 2 months from here. Eventually maybe they'll be right and they'll be able to go back and say it and they'll retweet and say, see, I told you guys the stock market was going to crash. Or, you know, this guy's doing Fox Capital. I remember when the stock went from like 50 to 36, he went back to one of his markets and he is like, see, I told you that this stock was going to go down. And of course, like, yeah, it went down 36%. By the way, like for any high growth, you know, speculative company that is on the verge of, you know, revenues but is not there yet, like any growth company, I mean, you name it, like even mature companies like Meta or Google, like they had massive drawdowns, right? Like for any growth company, you should expect a 30 to 50% drawdown. Like that's a feature, that's not a bug, which just happens when there's uncertainty and people are trying to discount the future, like potential of a company. That's what's going to happen. But this guy tweeted out, you know, some warnings and then of course like the stock went down to 36, not having nothing to do with what he was saying. But of course like that was this like visceral reaction to SpaceX buying EchoStar's AWS Forward H-block spectrum and people are losing their shit over that. And then of course hedge funds, the smart guys, the smartest guys in the room who are long EchoStar are like, hey, I'm going to go short AST SpaceMobile because it's a great pair. It's going to be a great pair trade, which then, you know, they shorted that thing. They shorted AST all the way down to $36 and then look at them now. Like what an absolute shit show for them. I mean, what a terrible trade. But yeah, these guys who sell subscription services, like they're there to get their name out. They want to call, they want to take credit for, and that's the thing, like there's, when they tweet, they're going to talk about, they're going to talk about their credibility and how they got things right and how they're doing things better than others. And that's where like I joke with like, with Todd, it's like they're going to stunt. Stunt on you, right? Like they're going to try to build up their credibility because that's what they're selling, their service. And so you'll see, I mean, you guys all know, like when you see on Twitter someone selling their subscription service, they like show their stock price performance or their portfolio performance and be like, you need to ask your whatever subscription service that you have now if they have real audited results like I do, or like whatever it is, right? But it's a, it's a It's a contest between them. But I think understanding that context is important because for the most part, like these guys, unless you're just doing it for entertainment, like typically just ignore them because they're there trying to get your attention and then hopefully get your dollars. And there are some good ones out there, by the way, like MC Kunya, this guy that I've gotten to know who you know, he's also invested in Bed Bath Beyond, but he's made some great calls. Young guy. I think he's smart. His write-ups are really good. And by the way, I'm not selling his service, but I'm just giving props to him. But yeah, I think it's important to understand, you know, where those guys are coming from and their goals. And so, and honestly, like, don't take them seriously. Like they can write negatively about any number of tickers. And by the way, people are free to do that. They can write negative, they can write positive. you know, if you're short something and write something positive about it, then, you know, it's a free world, right? But it's important to understand like what the, where they're coming from, how they eat. Like, you know, for some of the guys who sell subscription services, you know, are they really managing risk? Like, are they, they're selling subscriptions, but are they actually putting capital to work in these ideas? Like how much capital are they putting to work? Like, yeah, I'm long AC Space Mobile, but I own one share. So what does that mean? Like, that's not really having skin in the game. And now if one share is like 100% of their net worth, then I guess they do. But yeah, it's important to understand where those guys are coming from. And then the other thing is hedge funds, right? So I mean, they're always going to talk their book. And so if someone's running a hedge fund, they're going to talk their book. And this includes AST bulls too, right? Like they, they're kind of aligned with us if they're long or if they're short, they're obviously running counter to us. But yeah, they have a tough job. And so I think it's important like for guys who are running hedge funds when people are kind of lecturing about risk management and what things that are silly that they're not involved in, or maybe they're on the other side of, you've got to understand like they come at it from a very different angle, right? Like they've got risk parameters, They've got limited partners who invest capital that they've got to report to. And so they don't have your interests in mind all the time, right? And so oftentimes they will talk their book. Yeah. The famous one is Bill Ackman. When he's long something, he'll go onto CNBC and talk about it, or, you know, if he's short something, he'll go on to, you know, he'll go back up there and talk about like why the government's wrong about something and And they should be cutting these programs, which happen to fund the company that they're short. So yeah, it's important to understand that hedge funds are not, you know, when those guys are talking on Twitter or wherever, like everybody's talking to book. And by the way, like that applies to me, it applies to all of us, right? Because we're, if you're long a stage-based mobile, you're going to be biased to the positive. And obviously like it's important to be, to understand the risks and to be able to identify those risks. And if there's a problem or a change in the thesis, then you've got to be smart and do so. But yeah, I think, you know, for people who are managing hedge fund money, it's different. It's a different game and the risk tolerances are going to be different. So oftentimes when they look at retail and they're like, oh my gosh, you've got a 10% of your portfolio or 20% of your portfolio in AST SpaceMobile, like you're asking for it and you're, you know, that's too risky. Well, yeah, in the context of managing a portfolio, a diverse book, a hedge fund, it is like no hedge fund's going to have a 20% position in AST SpaceMobile, although maybe Ryan O'Connor is in the crowd, maybe he does. But, you know, I think like that's where And that's where people like from the hedge fund world, they always think like, oh, retail's dumb. Like, I'm the smartest guy in the room. They don't know what they're doing. I'll be, you know, I have more information than them. I know better than them, you know, and they're going to get whatever investment they're in, they're going to get demolished, right? And so it's, I think it's important to understand that because that's who you're playing poker with every day to day, right? In the markets. And so those are the players who, and I truly believe this, like the ones who are actually going onto Twitter and pushing a thesis like that they're short something or whatever. Like oftentimes, like again, going back to Pivot Capital or some of these other guys, like the ones who are most vocal are typically ones who aren't really running that much risk or they're in trouble. Like they they're in a position and they're in trouble and they're like now going to become vocal about it on Twitter to try to sway opinion or sentiment, which, you know, we saw Pivotal Capital doing like as AST ripped in his face or Onada Capital, whoever that guy is. You know, these guys will come out of the woodwork and start posting negative things. It's usually because they're positioned the other way. It's not, you know, you'll see trolls who are who will FUD positions and they'll tell you like, oh, I have no interest in this whatsoever. And it's like, oh, then you find out that they're working at the competitor, the company's competitor, or that, or they're short. But it's pretty simple as that. But I do think, you know, for retail, it is important to recognize like your own risk tolerances and your financial situation and And if you're like Cook where the guy's like on a mission from God and he doesn't want to sell any of his stake in Apple, and he's okay with that and he's financially fine riding that, then that's his situation. It's not your situation. If you've got obligations and you've made life-changing money, but those obligations, by freeing, by paying those obligations down and and basically unburdening yourself to have a more, having a free lifestyle, you should do that. You should consider it. To what extent, you know, maybe it doesn't have to be all or nothing. And I think that's the other thing people, there's like this mental thing where they're like, oh, if I sell 10%, it basically feels like I'm selling everything. It's like, no, you're selling 10%. It's just part of it. And by the way, like I'll go back to the time when I had warrants, I had like almost a million warrants and Yeah, I had to sell some to exercise the rest of them. And the number of shares that I had back then at the time, once I exercised the warrants, I had more shares back then than I do today. And that's just the nature of it, right? Like over time I did sell some here and there, but the value of my position today is like 3x what it was back then. And that's because like, you know, the stock price has performed and it's great. And so you can sell, you can sell some and still be in the game. And it's funny because I, there is this fear. It's the other, I guess the other side of FOMO where people don't want to sell a single share because they feel like they're going to miss out. And an extreme, this is an extreme example. Some of you guys know Grandma Party, who's this account that when things go bad and when things were bad, it was just constant FUD and negativity and just like calling for The heads of management. And I knew this person during the 2021, 2020, you know, SPAC boom and when times were good, like the guy was riding high, but then when times were bad, he was like just absolute venom just to everybody. Like, I wish I'd never met anybody. I, you know, this is bad management. You know, it's a complete scam. I mean, just negative stuff and just was tweeting this stuff too. And I would go to him and say, hey, you know what? Like as a friend, and why don't you just sell? Why don't you just sell the position? Like this thing is like, is such a cancer for you. This is like when the stock was in the single digits, like maybe 5, 6, 7. It's like, why don't you just sell? It's like a mental, it's weighing on you. So, and just not good for you. Like just sell. And he was, he would say, no, but the problem is that if this does extremely well, I'll never be able to live with myself. Which to be fair, it was smart not for him to sell because then the stock did really well. But yeah, but then I was like, well, okay, I get that. But then what's with all the negativity? Because like, if you believe that there's this small probability that you are going to be right, then what's the point? Like, just just mentally write it off and put it aside. And, but there's no need to like negatively, you know, affect other people, like bring them down. Which by the way, like this guy was so negative. I'm pretty certain like he probably had a hand in forcing some people to sell, which is really a sad thing. But yeah, it's like, why? And then you're being so publicly negative to management. It's like, And this is a time when, you know, the company was scrapping by and doing its best because it was on the cusp of signing, eventually signing Verizon. This is like, I guess, January of 2024 when they had to raise, do that brutal equity offering, right? They had to do that to bridge themselves to finally get Verizon on board, which was a very complex partnership to work out. But it's like, why? Okay, so you're, You own this company, you think there's a small chance of success, but yet you're going to like give it to management. And by the way, you're like calling for the head of Abel Avalon who founded this company. He's like a key man, right? Like with, you want him to get fired, which like if he's not at the company, then the company doesn't exist. Like there's no logic in, in, in, you don't make any logic, little sense in, in your behavior. And, but there's people who do that. And so, That's why I think, you know, the, yeah, it's just money investing. Some people are built for it, some people are not. And I think recognizing where you sit and your tendencies and your strengths and weaknesses is really important. Like that's the first step, right? And so if you are a gambler and you have a hard time holding onto money and you just like the thrill, the action, Maybe on the one hand, there's some positive aspects of that, which I have some of that as well, which can lead to investment success. But on the other hand, it can lead to your downfall or detriment, right? Because like Cook and I talk about this in TUT as well, where there's oftentimes you don't, you know, overtrading is where you end up making less money or losing money. Like just buying and building things that you have conviction in. Like the hardest thing is not to touch it. or not to do anything about it. And I think a lot of people have a hard time coming to grips with that. And so, you know, it's important to understand that those aspects. The other thing is like, you know, if you're looking to spend a decent amount of your time investing, you have to understand like, you know, how much time do you actually have? Because there's people, and I know there's a lot of space mobile investors who are like, I didn't get any work done today. And they keep saying that for like days and days and days. And it's like, okay, maybe Maybe you're spending too much time on this, but, and I know it's hard, but the reason why I mentioned that is, you know, oftentimes people will push this narrative like, hey, if you invest in the market, you need to have a diverse portfolio. No, you don't. You don't need to have a diverse portfolio. Actually, I'd argue against that because diverse meaning like 15, 20 names as a retail investor, you're not going to have any edge in that. And it's tough to manage that many names to know if you have a full-time job to know any, like some surface-level information about those companies and keep up with them. It's really tough. Like you are, if you don't have that much time, I would argue like then just invest in the S&P, the index, right? Like that's probably the easiest way to go. But if you do have time and you think you are good at research and then importantly, and there's a decent community out there or people that you can work, whether it's like a circle of friends or neighbors or whatever it is, or maybe it's social media where you have the ability to discern like what's real and what's not on social media, then yeah, then you might run your own portfolio. You might have a few names or whatever it is. Like you could have your portfolio could be 50% S&P and then you've got, you're like, okay, I'm going to tell myself I'm going to allocate 10% to 5 names that I know really well, or I'm going to push myself to know really well. Like that's, I think that's like an okay way to run a portfolio. You know, and obviously it depends on like where you are in life. If you're young, you can take more risk. If you're older, then you should probably be dialing down the risk and looking at more income type of investment opportunities. But I think this whole notion of like having to run a diverse portfolio, like that's the quickest way to underperforming the market, especially if you don't have time. If you have a full-time job, then, you know, when are you going to have time to research? Like, and by the way, like you are not going to watch Mad Money and get ideas from Jim Cramer. Like that's the quickest way to ruin. Because I mean, to his credit, I think he does a lot of great investor education, but this whole like, you know, speed analysis of like saying whether to buy or sell and all sorts of like that stuff just, it just doesn't work. Right. But anyway, I've been rambling on for quite some time. I hope this is helpful. I'm going to take a quick look at any questions or comments. Let me see.
[01:10:11] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:10:14] Speaker A: There's some funny stuff here.
[01:10:17] Speaker B: Oh boy.
[01:10:22] Speaker A: Someone has a collection of warrants.
[01:10:24] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:10:24] Speaker A: These, I guess this in particular is SPAC warrants. If warrants, let's see, it warrants when the stock reaches $11.50, it needs to be above that for 20 of 30 days. What if the stock price hits $18? Can the warrants be exercised the following day? Oh yeah, this is a very particular question for SPAC warrants, and this is typical, but then there's also some nuances because it depends on the warrants. They sometimes change the features, but for warrants that have $11.50 strike, once they, you know, this is post-IPO and the shares, the underlying shares have been registered, that warrant you can exercise for shares at $11.50. And so obviously if the stock is at $8, you wouldn't exercise it because You're going to get, you're going to have to pay $11.50 to take delivery of that stock. Stock's at $8. It doesn't make sense. It's just like a call option. However, if warrants and SPACs have a cap of $18 typically, and so what happens is if the warrant trades above $18 for 20 trading days within 30 consecutive days, then the company has the ability to call those warrants and force you to either, you know, to force you to exercise them, right? And so that's what the feature this person is asking about. So warrants are like long-dated call options. However, if the stock trades above $18 for 20 or 30 days, the company can force you to essentially exercise them. And when you exercise them, that's for $11.50, and then, you know, you'd have to pay $11.50 take delivery of the stock. And then, you know, obviously you get the upside between $11.50 and wherever the stock is trading once they call them in. So it's not as if like if the stock trades at $18, that's all you get. If the stock, once they call and the stock keeps going to like $30, then the profit you made is the difference between $11.50 and $30. The other thing that I, you know, I've talked about this for warrants is that a unique feature for SPACs is that if the company is acquired for a majority cash, then warrants actually get taken out for Black-Scholes value. And so that can be very valuable in that even if the company gets taken out for well below the strike price of the warrants, let's say, you know, $2 or $3, but it's for all cash, then what you will get is the company will value those warrants on a Black-Scholes basis. And so you'll actually get paid for those warrants. And so I mean, just making this up, like if a company were being bought out for $7 and the Black-Scholes value of that warrant at that point in time is $3, then the company will pay you in cash $3. So that's kind of a cool feature about SPAC warrants that not many people know about. But, you know, I've written about Satisfye, this warrant that I was buying under a penny and the company got taken out for cash and those warrants ended up, you know, the company got bought out for $3 in cash, but the warrants ended up being worth 87 cents. And so that was like a huge return. But yeah, that's an interesting feature of warrants that in M&A they can have this like pretty significant upside. Let's see here. I had a $4 cost basis in Rocket Lab, slowly trying to build a good position, size position. It started to run up and I had the bright idea to sell covered calls around 12. She never looked back. It's like high school girlfriend you cheated on, she left you and went on to be rich and famous. Yeah, that's an apt example. Yeah, selling covered calls, like it's an income strategy. A lot of people pitch it as like a fun and safe way to collect extra income while stock is like, I mean, in their they hope that the stock trades sideways. And then of course people get tempted by, in high volatility names, they're like, oh my gosh, I can collect this fat premium. Well, those stocks are, they have high implied volatility for a reason because they can move. And so when you're selling covered calls, always be mentally ready that you'll get assigned and your stock gets called away. You know, it's one of these strategies that works until it doesn't. And so just like being long those calls, right? Like being long calls in general, you're going to lose money until that one time it hits. Or, and the thing I like to tell people about trading options, if you're going to be long options and short options as well, is like you better have a very good sense of timing and price, right? Because if, and those things are difficult, right? Because you can have a very good sense of a company, like some catalysts are going to happen and you think the stock price is going to go higher. But then, you know, just like Trump has shown us this past week, you know, if he has some tweet about China and the entire market goes down, every stock has beta, you know, co-movement with the market. And so you might be right on something, but then because of macro factors, you end up losing. So options are always risky, but But yeah, covered calls, they work until they don't. And when they don't, usually it's gonna be a time where you're gonna be really upset about the outcome. So yeah, I mean, I think maybe you can, you can, when selling covered calls, like do it on a, if you really feel a need to do it, do it on a part of your position. But I highly recommend don't do it on your entire position. It's just the quickest way to regret. Let's see some other questions here or comments. Let's see here. Let's see here. Yeah, you know, I think the Forum Trader had a good post earlier today where he kind of outlined, yeah, it's, I think it's hard mentally for people to get around the fact that, oh my God, this stock's at $100, the market cap's at like $32 billion. And it's easy to kind of throw into the meme bucket. I think somebody, Lynn or some account was like, here's the top list of multi-billion dollar companies with no revenue. Well, yeah, sure. Like, this company has no revenue and well, it will this coming quarter, but people, whenever they make these like sensationalist charts or they try to convince you that something's overvalued, it's like, well, but what's What opportunity, like what are people discounting in the future? Like when Starlink was launched or SpaceX was raising money, people weren't valuing SpaceX based off of what they were doing at that point in time. They were valuing them on the potential in the future. And so I'm sure, and you know, whether it's Tesla, any other names like— Where you had like SpaceX when it was valued at, and this is like a Tim Ferriss special, right? Like over the years, As SpaceX continued to raise money at higher valuations, Tim Ferriss was like, this shit will never happen. It's never going to work. It's way overvalued. And it just kept marching along. Like, you know, it went from $10, $20, $30 billion, $40 billion, $100 billion. I remember he like posted like, this thing's way overvalued. It'll never earn an economic return to justify its valuation. And lo and behold, like it's at what, $450 billion or $500 billion? And And he had this mea culpa of, I guess it was like 2, 3 years ago where he is like, I was wrong about Starlink. It was right. I mean, he was like fighting Starlink the entire way. And then he finally, like in a very backhanded way, he admitted that he was wrong. And that's, and then he said like, Starlink's going to dominate, you know, communications and it's going to put everybody out of business. And it was like literally like an overnight post, which was quite funny. But I think, you know, that's the other thing where people get worked up. I mean, it's funny, it's like the tales all the time, right? Where in the US especially where you have capitalism and free markets, you're always going to have these naysayers who, you know, obviously they missed an investment and they want to validate their feelings and justify why they missed it and why they won't touch it now. It's like, well, AST SpaceMobile is interesting, but Starlink will crush them. And then it's like argument over, game, set, match. But then they forget like, where did Starlink come from? Or where did SpaceX come from? And years ago, the same people were saying like, oh, SpaceX, they'll never be able to compete against ULA and the prime contractors like Ariane, all these companies. Roscosmos, the Russians, like they're just never going to be able to compete and launch. And then lo and behold, like this scrappy startup, they did it and then they became the dominant provider. And then Starlink, the same thing, like the scrappy startup and they became the dominant provider. And so it's just kind of funny where when people use the Starlink or SpaceX argument, it's like, well, hey Sherlock, shit for brains. Like where do you think those companies came from? Like there were massive incumbents and they came in with game-changing technology and of course execution and they disrupted industries. And so you're going to tell me that that's not possible? Like it ends with them? Like, no, like this is like the American capitalist system where companies go through, I mean, for the good companies that continue to innovate and disrupt themselves, like they continue to stay relevant. But, you know, it's just kind of funny. It's a lazy argument, right? When people talk like that. But anyway, I've been rambling now. What was going to be an hour, I guess, is an hour 20. So maybe I'll cut it short there. But I think, yeah, today and over the last few weeks, yeah, people—
[01:20:28] Speaker B: Right.
[01:20:29] Speaker A: At the end of the day, like, don't take it too seriously. People show their true colors and And it's hard. It's hard being, being investing is hard and, you know, missing on opportunities and selling too early and, you know, boxing yourself in by selling calls or whatever it is, right? Like there's a whole host of reasons why people do what they do and how they change over time and just recognize that for what it is. And it's okay. Like I myself, sometimes when I see this stuff, I'm, I get upset. But like today when it happened to me, you know, someone retweeted my post and then was telling, basically saying like, this thing's overvalued and I sold out. I was like, okay, you do you, ma'am. Like, that's what you want to believe. That's how you can wake up tomorrow and feel good about yourself. And that's fine. Like, it's no sweat off my back. But I guess the thing that's a bit odd is like when people then go from that point to then, hey, I'm going to go on to a Twitter Space and broadcast like why I did what I did and why, you know, I want to pat myself on the back and I think everybody else should pat me on the back. It's like, come on, man, just have some awareness. Like it's just, it's so transparent. Just, you look like a fool. But anyway, I'll end it there and I hope everyone has a good evening. I still believe that we will breach 100. Uh, this week. And as, as some of you know, uh, the Antonov with the Bluebird 6 is, is now in India. So, um, so yeah, we're, we're on the cusp of it. It's, it's gonna happen. But, um, yeah, everyone have a good night and we'll meet again in the coming days. Take care. Thanks for listening to the AST SpaceMobile Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others. Post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest news about AST SpaceMobile, make sure to subscribe. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time.
[01:22:36] Speaker B: We're doing something very, very big, and I think with this technology we can really affect billion lives. AST SpaceMobile is the only company that has proven technology to deliver several The goal of mobile connectivity directly from space is the everyday smartphone. People will just basically turn on their phone and be seamless. Regardless of where you are, we don't want the user even to know that it's connected by satellite. Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership with the MNOs.
[01:23:17] Speaker A: Mmm, waffles.