Anpanman - Conviction Over Chaos: Navigating the Space Sector Pullback

[00:00:06] Speaker A: This is the AST SpaceMobile Podcast. 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.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Hey everyone, thanks for joining. Figured I'd just fire up a midday space and just talk about some of the volatility today, which is not unexpected. I think there's been some— I think it's been consensus among institutions that perhaps we'd experience some type of pullback in February. And here we are, we're getting a pullback. And I think it's important to Put everything in context where the sectors that you and I invest in are up quite a lot this year, and they were up a lot last year. And so it's natural to have some of these pullbacks. I had talked about this idea of knowing what you own being important because I think when you look at these periods of volatility, which, you know, I mentioned for For institutions, especially for hedge funds that are, and in particular pod shops where you've got teams of portfolio managers and analysts that are managing some capital and have really tight risk limits and they've got to manage factor risks as well. Days like this are bad for them, right? And so you're going to have, because they're running leverage, you're going to have exaggerated moves where people have to de-risk and things start moving down. It also doesn't help that you have Bitcoin, which I haven't been invested in in a long time. The last time I ever owned Bitcoin, I think I sold at $64,000. My average was like, true story, I think my average was like $5,000 and I held the entire way and sold what was at that point a near-term top. But yeah, crypto selling off with Bitcoin at $73,000, which is lower than When Trump entered the presidency, that's not good for risk assets because at the end of the day, like all this stuff is to varying degrees correlated. And so there's going to be investors out there, if you can imagine, who have some space exposure and maybe some crypto exposure. And if they're getting hit on one thing, then they might be more apt to sell the thing that they're up in. And So that's what typically happens when you have sell-offs where correlations, meaning co-movement, goes to 1, where everything kind of moves together because you have people who are selling one thing to stay alive or to cover margin. And that's why you'll see assets across the board sell down. And so for example, T1 Energy, which I'm involved in, that's off quite a bit. And, you know, AST SpaceMobile is off quite a bit. Those are 2 big winners. But if you look across, whether it's space industry or some of the other high beta names like next generation nuclear names, they're all down pretty much the same levels. I mean, for Q1 Energy, that one's down 17.5%. And another favorite which is focused on batteries is EOS, and that's down 17.5%. So not not anything out of the ordinary. And, you know, I think as people on Twitter always look for something to explain the move, sometimes you just have a healthy pullback. And so of course there is some concern about the potential for a conflict in Iran, and those headlines didn't help earlier today. But, you know, I think what sparked the recent pullback has been Anthropic's like new software tools or, and concerns that people have around software names in general, that AI perhaps is going to disrupt that entire industry. And so I was just looking at the software ETF and that thing has been an absolute disaster. I think it's almost at a point now, it's almost about to reach the levels back in April 2025 when we had those tariff scares. But yeah, like I said before, you know, as you get de-risking in a heavy way in one particular area of growth in the markets, then it can kind of trickle into other areas as well. So today is not out of the ordinary. And I think, as I said before, it's important to know what you own because oftentimes, and I'm guilty of this too, like if you if someone like presents you an interesting idea and, you know, you take a look at it, or sometimes you don't, you might just, it sounds good enough and you just buy a small position. Then whenever volatility hits, that position is usually the first one that you sell because you don't really know much about it and it's not something that you have conviction in. And, you know, maybe it was just a trade, but then you, you know, at the first sight of volatility, you might hold onto it, but then if things go down even further and your portfolio is taking a pretty big hit, Then you might. And so there's quite a few people when you look out on Twitter, there's like these traders and they'll they'll be in a position; they're down ten twenty percent on a particular name and like oh this is bad something you know the company needs to do something and you know they blame everyone but themselves and then they sell and they lose money and that's the big difference for. Folks who actually understand what they hold. And so if you have a drawdown of 10, 15, 20%, you are more likely to hold that position. And if anything, you're, if you liked it at, you know, a price of let's say $130, you're going to love it at $100. And so when you actually understand what you own, that might give you the conviction to add at those times during a drawdown, or at least hold. And so, you know, I was joking with someone. There's like a few people on the ASTS hashtag where they talk about, you know, that they're down and this is bad and they're selling out. And that's what we call like negative gamma. When if you don't know something, you end up buying it high and then you end up selling it low. And so you don't do yourself any favors by Losing money on those types of trades where you don't really understand what's going on. So, and then I got this other guy. Let's see, Tim Stobirski. The news about AT&T choosing Amazon Leo for fixed satellite internet is contributing to this. No, that's not, Tim. I hate to break it to you, but the entire sector— let's take a look. For those that don't know, AT&T announced a partnership with Amazon Leo. They are gonna use Amazon fixed wireless to then connect enterprise customers that are far away from fiber coverage or wireless coverage. And so it's a very different market. And obviously Amazon LEO is complementary to what AST SpaceMobile is doing. Imagine Starlink fixed wireless to home and then Starlink direct-to-cell. Those are 2 different things. Amazon LEO is competing with Starlink direct-to-home. fixed wireless. And so that news today, some people were trying to point fingers like, oh, that's what's causing the stock price to be down. I don't think so. I mean, I guess perhaps at the margin for some people who don't really understand the company, who own it, but they don't understand it. I guess some people may have sold, but if you look at the space sector, I mean, Rocket Lab's down 14%, Redwire's down 13%, Planet Labs 13%. Intuitive Machines, 17%. Carmen, 15%. Even like some of these popular defense names like Kratos, which does some space stuff too, is down 15%. So again, like people are going to try to find reasons why a stock price is down, but yeah, it's the market is down. All the growth names. I mean, you look at some of these quantum names, IonQ is down 11.5%. Ridgeti's down 10%. And so it's not, you know, it's not just space companies. I mean, so what was interesting is Jim Chanos, who's been pretty negative on data centers because he thinks it's a bubble, he threw a bomb today, or maybe it was yesterday, but he tweeted that, oh, if these data centers in space become a reality, then there's no terminal value for data centers on Earth, which makes zero sense to me. It could crimp some of the potential growth, but we're far from that. Like the, as I mentioned before yesterday, the cost per kilogram has to come down quite significantly for space data centers to be competitive with data centers here on Earth. But that said, you know, all those names are down huge. Like Cipher is down 19%. IRON's down 17%, MARA 11%, NBIS is down 12%. And so yeah, there's, I mean, AMD, which beat and then raised guidance for next year, or sorry, for the next quarter, although that didn't meet the wild expectations that people had or the whisper number. I mean, that's down 16.5%. And so I think today is pretty healthy. You have some profit taking and consolidation, You know, one of the things to look out for in terms of market sentiment, and I was thinking about this the other day, I didn't tweet about it, which maybe I should have, but when people start coming up with new ideas, like, okay, this, like for example, I have an investment in Kraken, which does, which provides, you know, sonar aperture and also battery systems for underwater Underwater unmanned vehicles, and so that's a pretty interesting company. I think it's great to own like a merchant supplier of the guts basically for all these UUVs which are going to proliferate. But but then you know on Twitter there was like some tweets over the past two weeks where it's like hey check this new stock out this is the next Kraken or for AST too it's like hey here's the next space stock it's the next AST or T1 Energy here's the next one. the next thing that's, you know, like T1 Energy. And when you have that type of euphoria to look for like the next best thing, and I'm not like poo-pooing any of those ideas, but that kind of gives you a sense of where the market is in terms of euphoria and perhaps being overextended sometimes. And so, you know, similar to the bottom indicators that we talk about, sometimes there are these top indicators where If people are euphoric and every idea is working, then maybe it's time for the market to pull back. And so I think we're seeing some of that now. And so, you know, today I talked about how I bought some AST, I bought some upside and some stock as well. And T.1 Energy, I did the same, especially, you know, down here I added. And, you know, one other thing I wanted to talk about, is the fact that, you know, people are like, well, how do you have this endless amount of capital? I don't actually have limited capital, but I do trade around a small part of my portfolio. And so I think I mentioned before, like up to 5%, it's really even smaller than that. It's more like typically I may trade around 2, 3%, if that. And that usually would be in a tax-advantaged account that I have where the implications are not As punitive because obviously if you have capital gains, you've gotta pay taxes on recognizing those. And the, you know, I will trade some of my cash position around as well, but typically, you know, for AST SpaceMobile, for example, like I don't, I'm not touching well over 90% of that position because it, I have a very low cost basis. If anything, if I do sell, it will be in the tax advantage account, but More often than not, I'm just not trading that position. Now, from time to time, I'll trade options, and I might trade some stock, maybe a few thousand shares here or there, which I've tweeted about. And sometimes people are like, "Well, you never sell," and I don't really advertise when I sell stuff. I mean, today, for example, I did I did tell people like, "Oh, I had this small position in Power Bank," and I actually ended up selling it because I wanted to consolidate it down into ASTI. And so I mentioned that. But I don't, I guess one thing I didn't want, I don't want is for people to think that I'm a really active trader and I'm just like whipping massive size around, which I'm not. I'm usually a, you know, buy and hold person. And from time to time, like I will monetize options, for example. And so I guess it was like a few weeks ago, I had an AST, you know, speculative option position, which did quite well. And The proceeds from that was like, you know, a few million dollars. And so I, that's when I bought stock back in Hasty because I was like, oh, I was able to increase the stock that I have in the company. And so I will have some trading positions, you know, I'll talk about little speculative ones, but generally speaking, I'm not, I don't really trade entire positions around. And so But yeah, and I don't want people to think like I'm giving signals of this is when I'm going to sell and this is when I'm going to buy. And I typically, I mean, it's kind of in a joking way, but in fact too, like when I tweet out like, oh, I bought the dip, I actually do buy those dips, but I just don't telegraph like when I might sell some things. And I don't know, maybe I should at some point, but more than anything, like I'm really just focused on fundamental research and just sharing news about ideas and, and my levels of conviction for those ideas. And so, um, I try to stay away from like being one of these guys who give signals of when to buy and when to sell. Um, but yeah, the, I will say for, for what it's worth, like, you know, some, some of us, we talk about Reddit and the ESG space mobile Reddit when it gets really negative and when some of the longstanding bears get upvotes, then that's usually a pretty good Bottom indicator, just like the coupe bottom. And so I think those, from what I understand, I haven't looked at the Reddit today, but someone was telling me that it's flashing all the indicators. And so the sentiment there, I think, is pretty bad, which usually means like we're pretty close to a bottom, a tradable bottom, if that. So, but yeah, I think as I was saying before, I mean, today this we're having a lot of big moves. I mean, I was just looking at the factor. in Bloomberg and value is up like 2%. Dividends, dividend yield stocks are up 1.8%. Companies that buy back shares, 1.6%. And then momentum is down 4.5%. Growth is down 2.5%. 3-month EPS revision. So companies that keep revising up earnings, that's down 2.2%. And so yeah, there's a lot of factor movements today and You know, it's, I think it's pretty healthy. And for an individual investor, it's important. I keep, you know, pounding the table on this, like, do not trade or invest in margin. Stay within your means. Just have a cash account. Like, don't, you know, obviously sometimes you got, it's good. I have a margin account and you need that to facilitate stuff. Like if you're exiting something or you want to buy something ahead of time, But I don't really run margin, and quite candidly, I can't run margin because I permanently have my assets at E-Trade. And funny enough, like they give you no margin relief on companies like ASD Space Mobile or T1 Energy. So they actually keep me from doing bad things even if I wanted to do bad things. And so that's good. I also have an account at a high-touch broker, and they actually let me margin ASD, but I would never in a million years. extreme of doing that. Because the thing about margin, and I've talked about this, you know, it's, is that it can be a good tool if used very judiciously and at right moments. Meaning, you know, you, if you really think you have edge or you think there's a big price dislocation, then you might utilize margin, but you've gotta be very disciplined about it. You gotta have an entry point, exit point, or if it's, if it goes against you, you're gonna close out. Last thing you want to do is be on margin for extended period of time, And then you eventually get tapped out because using margin against high beta stocks is the quickest recipe for ruin because things will go well. But then, I mean, think about all the crypto traders who were leveraged long Bitcoin at $120, $100, and it just kept going down. Like they got fully liquidated and lost more than they probably expected. And so I think it's important to stay away from margin. And the reason why you do that is for days like today where, yeah, things are down and it sucks, but it's not as if you've got to meet some margin call and hopefully you have some capital laying around and you're able to take advantage, right? Because for those hedge funds that are running really tight risk limits, they've got to de-risk, degross, and that's why you see these outsized moves. And volatility as an individual investor where you're not reporting to LPs or you don't have margin, you can be on the offense. You can take advantage of some of these dislocations and obviously in particular names that you understand very well. You have a good fundamental point of view and you believe, you know, if you, we joke about it, but if you like the stock at 100, you're going to love it at, of 90. And so as it moves down, for any investor, you hope for the ability to buy even lower, right? And so, and the other thing I would mention is in days like today where let's say you had a, let's say you had like, I'm just making numbers up, you had $100 in a low conviction name, you had $100 in a high conviction name, and both are down, or your high conviction name is down 20%, the low conviction name is down 25%. Well, you can use days like today to consolidate your position. You can sell the low conviction thing that's down 25, and then you buy more of the high conviction thing that's down 20. And so in that regard, you're upgrading the positions that you hold, right? And so that's also another way to take advantage of volatility. I mean, I'll be honest, like today I'm very tempted, like I have these Vodafone calls these LEAPS 2027 that are $15 and $17 calls that are up 3.5 and 3 times. And I'm very tempted to monetize some of those and deploy elsewhere, but then I still have conviction in that trade, so I'm going to continue to hold it. But I don't know, there might be a time, you know, we're down today, but we could be down tomorrow and down the day after that. And there might be a time where I break the glass and monetize some of those to deploy elsewhere. But yeah, I think in days like today, it's just a reminder that you celebrate the good days, but you also have to be prepared for the big drawdowns. And what's funny is I think some of these accounts that are on Twitter, maybe it's for engagement or whatever it is, but they'll celebrate that you're down And they'll say, I told you so. They'll do all these things to, I guess, try to make you feel bad, even though they're trying to make themselves feel good. But it's funny because like, I don't think any of the, and I'm talking about like AST in particular, or even this applies to Q1 Energy, like for people who bought it too, or AST for people that your average is $5 or $6 or $7. These people are trying to, you know, take the piss outta you. It's like, I don't care. I don't care. Like there's, yes. I think someone was saying, well, given potentially the charts, if this continues, the stock could go to $70. Yeah, it could. If the world ends, all stocks could go to zero. I get it. But I have conviction in this and I'm a long-term holder and this is just a feature. This is part of, you know, if AST was down 30 or 40% while other stocks were down 10%, then yeah, there's certainly A problem because there's something company-specific that's going on. But if the company is down 13% and the entire sector is down, let's see, anywhere between 11% and 18%, that's just beta. It has nothing to do with the company. It has everything to do with just risk-off across the sector. And so I think it's important, especially for these people that are fixated on why is a company moving, you know, in particular without kind of, you know, looking at that in a vacuum without looking at the rest of the sector. Yeah, the entire sector's down. It's just part of being invested in space. And so I think, as I mentioned before, I do think space overall is going to be and is a huge theme for this year. And so for those people who you know, have been sitting on the sidelines or may have missed it. Like, here it is. Here's an entry point. You know, can things go lower? Sure. But if you're looking to invest, you know, this is probably a good place to start. And I think it's important to understand what your time horizon is because someone mentioned, you know, don't invest money that you can't afford to lose. And that's true. And it's almost like real estate, like in New York, or California, which is where I lived before as well. You have this thing where if you buy a home, and it doesn't matter any part of the cycle, if you buy a home, if you have a 1 or 2-year view, then you certainly could be buying the top. But if you are living in any of those markets for at least 5 years, any purchase, whether it's at the top or it's in the middle, or maybe it's even at the bottom, obviously in the bottom would be ideal, but if you have a 5-year view, you're going to be fine in New York or California real estate because that typically is going to perform no matter what, even through various cycles, right? And so I think the same thing can be applied to stocks that could have good fundamental outlooks with significant opportunity. Yeah, you might buy something at the top and you might be down 10, 20, 30%, and that doesn't feel good. But if you're looking at things on a long-term basis, you're going to be fine. And I think I remember like so many conversations with people when AST was trading at 6 and it went to 7 and 8 and they're like, oh my God, I missed it. And, you know, someone bought it at 12 and then it drew down to like 10 and they were angry with themselves. And now look back, I mean, it's like the company You know, today is moving more than the entire stock price was back then. And so I think it's good to have perspective and just, you know, put, when you're, when you have days like this, sometimes the best thing to do, and yeah, I mean, you don't even have to do anything. Sometimes the best thing is just not do anything. But anyway, I'm going to see, oh, the other point. And if anyone has questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments below. But the other thing is that when you do have these periods of drawdown, the stuff that is working, like kind of the marginal ideas, like oftentimes those will get hit pretty hard. And so yeah, it's important to remember, like if you have a portfolio and you have a bunch of marginal ideas and they're quick trades, You gotta be careful because like in periods of big drawdowns where you don't really know those names well and they're not high conviction, those can hurt you, right? Because then those are the ones that you'll have this drawdown and then you kick it out because you really don't understand the name. And then yeah, you feel bad afterwards and that's capital that could have been used to apply to more high conviction stuff. But But like I said, you know, that also when you do have these drawdowns and the good and the bad names are going down, for any of those, it's almost like you can correct your mistakes. You can sell some of the lower conviction stuff and consolidate into higher conviction names. But anyway, let me see. I don't know if there's any comments here, but yeah, today I guess for what it's worth, like I bought some AST you know, some I bought a little early, but then I bought on the way down. Added some upside as well. I bought some T1 Energy. I bought a little bit of Bridger and some Strata Critical as well. These are all names that, you know, I've been following for quite some time. I also added a little bit of Velo, which is a very small speculative position, but that thing is so volatile that that's one name that I just like pretty much trade around. And yeah, and I did add some Kraken as well today, which it's finally come back down a bit. But anyway, yeah, that's all I had to say pretty much. I'm going to see if there's any questions or comments. Just look here. Here's a question. To tap into your institutional perspective, what constraints do funds face to load up on risk in these moments? Does retail have an edge in these moments? What constraints do they have? Well, if you're a hedge fund, I'm just talking about like a typical large multi-strategy fund that has pods. Pods will be a portfolio manager and maybe 1 or 2 analysts or or it could be a pretty big team. It could be like 10 people. The constraints are that, you know, can they load up risk in these moments? Well, I mean, the overall market indices aren't down that much, but then high beta names are down quite a bit. And so the constraints are that that fund might, that pod may be down 1 or 2% already. And so do they take a chance and And by the way, they might be, you know, maybe 80% deployed versus their risk limit. But do they, as a portfolio manager, you know, is this going to last? Is there going to be more of a drawdown? And if so, do I buy now and then a further drawdown happens and I make things worse? Or do I de-risk today to live another day and see if things get worse tomorrow or the day after? And then maybe I can, you know, deploy. And so it's pretty tough. I mean, because there's, it's almost like damned if you do, damned if you don't type of thing where these guys, they're probably down quite a bit. I mean, imagine like the big hedge fund names that everyone was in. I mean, it's, there's probably a whole host of software names that hedge funds own, which they're getting absolutely clobbered on. And so, and yesterday, if they were long you know, part of the book, software names, and they were short, which, yeah, I don't know how many institutions are short space stocks. I mean, clearly there's pretty decent short interest, but if they were short space stocks, they got completely reamed yesterday, right? And then today when space stocks are down, they're like, oh great, you know, the space stocks are down, so my shorts are working. And then they look at their software names, which are down again. And so they're in a bad place, right? And so when you're an institution, and this is on the hedge fund side, It's tough because you have to make good moves every single time, right? There's very limited room for mistakes. And if you have drawdown limits of, you know, at some firms they supposedly say, oh, you can, you have a drawdown limit to 12% or 10%, which is pretty high. You might have an initial drawdown limit of 5% and then they cut part of your capital and then at 7% they cut And then after maybe 10%, you're basically done, you're tapped out. And if you can imagine like your own portfolio, how much— obviously you're not running a market-neutral book, you're probably just long a bunch of high-beta stuff. Being down 5 to 10% is pretty easy just in a day or two, right? And so imagine working under those constraints. Obviously you're going to be short stuff, which usually will work for you, but sometimes you're on the wrong side. You might Your longs might be getting clobbered and the shorts might be going up in your face. And so that's why managing money on the hedge fund side is really, can be really difficult and it's very stressful. And so days like today where it's like, oh, me, Joe Schmo with an individual portfolio that's not on margin and has some cash lying around, I can go deploy or if I want to, I can dial up risk. The way you might dial up risk is If you're in, I'll just make one, you know, if you were in AST SpaceMobile, you might sell some stock and then you buy some calls with that capital, right? And so that's one way to dial up risk while not having, you may not have any funds laying around, but you monetize some of your position to dial up risk. I'm not saying that's what you want to do, but that's one way to do it. Or, you know, you might sell some low conviction names and buy higher conviction names, you know, whatever it is, right? But for you as an individual investor, it's not like you have a risk manager looking over your shoulder and you gotta worry about people on your team, like keeping their jobs, all these things. And so it's very stressful. It's not, I don't envy anyone in the industry, but if you're young and you're good at it, then it's great and it's a great way to learn investing. And obviously people can and do make quite a bit of money, but it's also super stressful and you age very quickly. And so I don't miss that industry at all. I'm having more fun doing this and hanging out with all you guys. But yeah, in moments like this, there are times, by the way, like if you have a huge market crash and if the CIO of the firm is, and the chief risk officer is managing that firm, improperly, they may go out to PMs and say, hey, you know, then this, this may, this, you know, whether it was like the US getting downgraded, the credit rating, this is like back in 2012, the tariff announcements, which for the astute hedge funds, they were like, okay, this is the time to go on the offense, right? Like this is an overreaction by the market. They may come back, you might get an order from up high to say, hey, deploy risk now. Because we think this is a good opportunity to take advantage of dislocation. But yeah, it's tough. It's not easy. And in a time like this, as a hedge fund manager, a portfolio manager, you have to make— you've got to weigh your decisions. Like, do you go on the offense now or is it too early? If you're down already a few percent and you're getting close to your risk limits, do you take that risk? And deploy now, or do you cut risk and live to fight another day? And so when people get their capital cut, that's pretty bad because if you imagine, let's say you're running a book that's, I don't know, $500 million and then you're down 3 or 4%, and then you're pretty close to your risk limit of getting your capital cut. So let's see, let's just say you're down 5%, so you're down $25 million. And if you go another 2%, let's say like, you know, you get your capital cut in half, right? So let's see. So if you were down, let's say you're down $37.5 million, you get your capital cut to $250 million. So it's hard to dig outta that hole. Like if you're down $37.5 million and you only you're only working with $250 million of capital, then that watermark is really hard to get over. And so that's why it's almost like the guys, the hundreds of teams that a Millennium or Citadel will go through, only a very few will have longevity. And those are, you know, you almost have to be a psychopath to make it through. And that's, by the way, like these large multi-strategy firms. Not everybody operates this way. And of course you have hedge funds that are not multi-strategy and they might be more like a small family, more operating like a family office or something. But yeah, that's, I mean, it's, and that's why you see exaggerated moves in stocks sometimes when risk overall is getting degrossed. Degrossed means if a hedge fund is running at 2, 3 times leverage and things are not working for them, they might tell the people who make investing decisions, it's time to degrowth. Degrowth meaning we're going to go from 3 times leverage. So if you had $500 million of AUM that you're managing and the fund is deploying $1.5 billion of long and shorts, that's 3 times leverage. And they're like, hey, we're going to degrowth because Things are not going well and I want you to degrowth by one turn. So we're going to go from $1.5 billion to $1 billion of deployed capital. That means you're covering your shorts and you're selling your longs, right? And so that means liquidity in general is coming outta the market. And that's why some days where things are pretty bad, you'll see short, heavily short names up on that day and of course popular names down. 'Cause oftentimes that's hedge funds that are covering their shorts and they're selling their longs. And so, you know, for example, in the financial crisis, there were many days like that where it's clear some hedge funds were degrossing, or sometimes it's just one hedge fund. Like you'll see one, you'll see moves exaggerated in a handful of days and it's because, oh yeah, that fund is degrossing or they're in big trouble. And I remember In 2008, that's like when that was part of the, that was the soup du jour. That was the soup of the day where people would look at holdings of various hedge funds and go attack them, right? Like if you knew that some hedge fund was not doing well, you might go see what their longs were. And of course, you know, you heard like them pitching their shorts and then people would try to induce more pain. and profit from that, which is kind of crazy. But that's, I mean, on the flip side of that, you also, from a risk management point of view, you would do that to save your own ass. 'Cause it's like, okay, do we have overlap with that guy? And if we do, we need to get ahead of their selling. 'Cause if they're, that place is shutting down or they're in trouble, I don't want to hold the same things they're holding. And so people went through that analysis. But let me see. There's a few other comments here. On these larger drawdowns, does it make sense to move some shares into leaves for a little extra juice? Yeah, it can. You could certainly do that. But of course, like you've got to have a point of view. Like you have high conviction. You think this is the right level to do it. And so you might do a little of that. And by the way, like. It's not a binary thing. It's not like I'm going to sell my entire position and put it all into this. You can do something small, like just, and sometimes it's good on days like this where it's like, well, I don't have conviction to do anything, which is fine too. Or to make myself feel better, I might do 1 or 2% or 3% of my position just to feel like I've done something and mentally have this like this check mark that on that day I did something and it was good, or it could, of course, it could end up being bad. But I think on larger drawdowns, what this person's saying, you know, sell some shares and own LEAPS for a little extra juice. Yeah, you could do that. It's— but just know that, you know, you're increasing your risk. And then of course for LEAPS, depending on if they're in the money or out of the money, you know, it's a different trade than than obviously owning the stock. Let's see, Francisco didn't add Rocket Lab. No, I did not add Rocket Lab, although it is tempting, but I'll let you know if I do. By the way, I haven't really held Rocket Lab. I've owned it from time to time, but for me, you know, I have the highest conviction in AST Spaceball. It's not a knock on Rocket Lab, but I think these stocks have such high correlation in relationship to one another. If you own one, it's almost like you own the other. And so increasing exposure to, or, you know, allocating risk to Rocket Lab, for me it's just like, well, I kind of own the space sector now. So I tend to not really own it, but I will trade from time to time. Let's see, what's your current view on IREN? which is heavily down today. I don't really have a view on the data center names, honestly. I'm not going to speak to it because I haven't followed them, and for me to tell you anything would be bad because I'm just not educated on those things. But yeah, I mean, they're all down. They're all down quite heavily, but it's no different than the other tech sectors. I mean, you can pick almost any ticker. It's like Palantir down 13.4%. Robinhood down 10%. AMD down 17%. I mean, you pick any ticker and it's down. Let's see. Like, yeah, I guess some of these software names have bottomed a little bit, but yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't have a, sorry, I don't have a view. There is Jim Chanos who obviously is a bear on the sector and I guess he's you know, trying to add more misery by saying, well, if these space companies are able to build data centers in space, then the terminal value of these data center companies is zero, which is absurd. Doesn't make any sense. And we're so far away from that becoming a reality, although I think it's going to happen. But if you look at these projections of how much compute power, you know, AI applications need, then I think there will be demand for all these data centers here on Earth and in space. And obviously, It's not going to be a straight line and there's going to be bumps along the way, maybe an overbuild. I mean, I think the biggest concern that people have is similar to the dot-com bubble where people were overbuilding optical networks and fiber and all this other stuff because the demand for carrying data was up into the right and it was never ending. And then of course the bubble burst and And all those companies got completely demolished. Um, I think it's, um, and famous last words, I think it's different this time. Um, in, in the sense that, um, you know, back then the, the businesses that were raising money and, and, you know, they were very questionable ideas during the dot-com boom, whether it's, you know, selling pet food online or whatever it is, right? Whereas I think the, I think we all see the real practical use of AI today. And so I think it is quite different. But yeah, you're probably going to have periods of overbuild or demand that is overly optimistic. And so there's going to be some pullbacks and I think that's quite natural. But yeah, sorry, I don't have a strong view on iron. Let's see. What's your read on the market? Are we getting into a bearish trend? This fall today is so crazy. What's your new bottom for ASTS? My average is $70. I don't know. I'm quite bullish on space, the space sector. Again, I'm not following some of the other sectors as closely. You know, can we continue to fall? Sure, we could continue to fall. Could we get to $50? I don't think so. I think given all the catalysts that are lined up and the interest around space and of course the SpaceX IPO, but then the real the real meat, which is launch of commercial service and military awards. I think we are pretty— I think 100 is kind of the level, the support level of the company. Obviously we're trading just under that, which, you know, it's like anything in and around 100 is good to me. I remember back in the day when we were all celebrating that 20 was like the new support level, which was back in the first part of 2025. Then we consolidated there for a really long time. I think right now we're kind of doing that until some of these other things kick in. But yeah, are we in a bearish trend? I don't think we are for the markets. I think there definitely is movement around where people want exposure or not. I mean, for example, software, obviously there's a lot of unknowns there, and so people are selling first and figuring it out later. There's credit. Credit is like a very hot topic. And I, for better or for worse, I own Pagaya, which has exposure to the credit markets. And there's a lot of concerns there around consumer credit. And so that stock has taken a pretty big hit, but I own warrants and so I'm pretty much set and forget on those. I'm still up quite a bit on those, but unless unless things change, you know, the company has continued to execute even in the face of all these concerns. And so yeah, we'll see. But I don't have a negative view of the market. I think these pullbacks are healthy. And, you know, we have obviously, I guess I'll just say a small thing. We have a new Fed chair that's potentially coming in and people have this view that, you know, this guy has said hawkish stuff before and he's perhaps going to be really bad for the market. It's possible. I mean, anything's possible, but I think Donald Trump, and I'm not trying to be political or anything, but I think for him to have picked this chair that, you know, this new Fed chair probably has to have the same point of view in terms of bringing rates down and being somewhat accommodative, even though historically that's not been the case. And I think some of the folks who have pushed back and said, well, look at Powell, when he came in, we thought that he would be friendly to Trump. And then he ended up being balanced, which is good. Like he was independent. And I think obviously that was in the first Trump administration. I think this time around they've learned some lessons. And so for him to have nominated the current Fed chair, nominee, I would assume that that guy has pretty much said like, hey, I'm going to be loyal. When you say jump, I'll say how high. And so I don't think this guy's going to be hawkish in any way, shape, or form. Because I think if you look at, for example, some of the politicians like Mark Rubio, he went from being completely anti-Trump to being 100% on board with this administration. So I don't think we're heading into a period of a hawkish Fed. And if you look at some of these alternative measures for inflation, it looks like inflation's still continuing to come down. The only concern I have is commodities where obviously there's a ton of speculation in silver and gold and some of these other metals, but just like crypto and you're seeing quite a bit of speculation taken out of those areas. So yeah, I'm actually pretty constructive on markets and we're going to continue to have some of this groping around for direction, but I think it's pretty natural. And like I said, like as a retail investor, volatility is your friend. It allows you to get good entries. It also allows you, if you're a trader or you know, if you're looking to trim things, it allows you good exits too. And so that's a good thing. Does macro impact when a company may announce news or do they typically not care? Macro usually does not. Now that said, like companies are aware, and so if there's, if it's a really bad time, they might save some news for a better time. But in general, I think most companies, and of course they're limited, they're there are kind of some constraints, like if there's material news, then they have to release that within a certain period of time. And so it may not be up to them. But generally speaking, I think most companies will release news as it comes. And so, but you know, if there's some really bad days, then perhaps they might hold off. In a tax-advantaged account, does low cost basis matter more than total share count considering How IRAs are structured. In a tax-advantaged account, your cost basis doesn't really matter. It matters in a sense of, you know, picking lots to trade or things like that. Because what matters is how much money you put into the account, your contributions, and then how much at the end, you know, when you retire, how much are you taking out? And then Uncle Sam gets their share. So it doesn't really matter. But for tax— for non-tax-advantaged accounts like cash accounts, If you are someone who trades stuff around, you need to keep very good tabs on your cost basis and how your brokerage, whether it does it automatically, but ideally you want to have control over what selecting tax lots, right? And so I'll give you an example. Like if you have owned AST SpaceMobile for many years and your cost basis is 5, and then let's say like you trade a few shares, you buy a few recently, let's say you buy some today at $98 and then maybe a few days from now you're like, okay, I want to sell some shares just to monetize some of the gains. You absolutely need to go into your brokerage app and select the shares that you bought for $98 because then if you sell it at $110 or $120, you're going to pay short-term tax, but then short-term capital gains, but it's going to be on a small amount. It's going to be for the difference between you know, $120 and $98. So that's what, that's like $22. You want to do that versus paying long-term capital gains on, if your cost basis was $6 and you're selling at $120, that's a really big capital gain. And even your long-term capital gain treatment of that, you're still going to pay a pretty hefty chunk, which then, you know, that's money that comes outta your investment account that you would've paid to Uncle Sam. And so it's important to manage your tax lots. I'm sure most of you guys know this, or hopefully you do. If you haven't or you don't know, be sure to look up information on managing your tax lots. Also understand which your— what your brokerage, you know, what system they use. Because oftentimes you can pick like last in, first out, first in, first out, or optimal. There's a setting like automatic for maximizing Tax efficiency, like E-Trade has that, for example. But yeah, that's something that you should certainly pay attention to. And there are times when, you know, it might make sense to sell long-term capital gains on stock because maybe you have a long-term capital loss that you recognize in the year. And so there's a lot of intricacies in managing that. So anyway, I'm going to stop there. I just wanted to Just checking with people. Oh, here's another question. What's your take on the delay of shipping the next batch? So I've talked about this quite a bit. There is a backup down at Cape Canaveral. And so you have Artemis that's going on and then the Crew Dragon Falcon 9 launch that's happening as well. And so, and I believe there's like some construction going on. So the amount of launch pads and processing facilities that are owned by SpaceX are limited because they're doing some of their own stuff. And obviously we just had this, or not we, SpaceX had this anomaly with one of their Falcon 9 rockets. And so they have to investigate that a bit. So yeah, this is just part of owning a space company. We will not ship a batch down there until they're ready to receive and process it. And so, so yeah, it's, it's, we're just waiting for that. I mean, obviously the near-term, the near-term launch is going to be Blue Origin New Glenn 3 and FM-2, which will be towards the, or no earlier than the end of this month. And then I assume it's my, I mean, it's just my base case that I think we'll probably get 1 to 2 additional launches before March 30th. 31st. But so that's 4 in total. But there's a chance like maybe it slips and you get 3 and then 2 come pretty quickly after that. And so, yeah, I think that's kind of where we are. It is what it is in terms of the traffic that's down there at Cape Canaveral. And the thing is, is like you don't want to throw your launch providers under the bus and say, hey, we've We've we're ready to ship this batch, and then but we're going to wait because they can't process it. You know, you want to be on the good side of whoever you're using, whether that's SpaceX or or Blue Origin or Israel for now. But that is it. I'm going to end the space today. I've got for I had like a number of things going on, and of course our daughter. Is, she has a fever today unfortunately, but she's feeling better. So I need to go and check in on her. But yeah, thanks for joining everyone. And yeah, just be calm. Like this is just normal stuff, that normal noise in the market to me, that is. And so I think it's important to remember that a lot of the stocks that I assume you are involved in since you're listening to this, are up pretty significantly for the year. And so having these drawdowns happens, and it's just a part of the process. So anyway, thanks everyone for joining, and we'll talk again soon.
[00:51:50] Speaker A: 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. We're doing something very, very big, and I think we need to know that we can really affect a billion lives. AST SpaceMobile is the only company that has proven technology to deliver cellular broadband connectivity directly from space to the Every day is more. People will just basically turn 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. Listen.
[00:52:53] Speaker B: Mmm, waffles.
[00:52:54] Speaker A: Mmm, waffles.