Transcription
[music] [music] Welcome to the report. The question this week: Bitcoin is nearing an inflection point. What is Mike thinking? It is May 6th, 2026. The market is up 36% from some of the lows. This is the longest bare market rally on record. You've looked at the previous two. Mike, you're still heavy cash, not fully deployed in crypto, but we got 80K Bitcoin looking like a magnet in that 80 to 85K range. We're also going to look at the, um, the 2022 charts, what we see in funding cohorts, how this compares to 2022 because I think you are broadly and have been talking about on the TDR. This looks a lot like '22. I want to check in with you today and see if that is still true. We're going to look at NASDAQ correlation, all sorts of things. Stick around to the end, listeners. We're going to actually talk about the scenarios that Mike is watching and, uh, the trap for both the bulls and the bears that he foresees and the price points that he is looking at next.
Um, Mike, I feel like listeners who've been following your work and the TDR podcast are dialing in this week and they are seeing Bitcoin above 80K and they're wondering, what is Mike thinking right now? Like, is he getting a little bit nervous? Do you feel like you've got some explaining to do in today's episode?
>> Um, yeah, a little bit. So, I would say, you know, where, where's my head at right now? Um, I would say that we've been on the, the right side of the market here for a long period of time. And I'm starting to feel like I'm on the wrong side of the market. And the, the reason for that is this bare market rally. You know, kind of how we, we hinted at the intro of today's report, this is the longest. So, like, kind of since really over the last month or so, we've extended into a period that is longer than you would typically see a, a bare market rally. Um, and really what I'm doing is going through the process and just kind of like looking under the hood of everything that's happening in the market to try to get a better grip. Um, to say, okay, is this actually like a new regime? Did we, did we bottom, uh, in February, which would be like the earliest period that we've ever, you know, hit a, hit a low in a cycle? Um, is there something that's like showing me in the data that this is durable and it's not a bare market rally? And, and I think that's really what we're going to kind of go through today. Uh, because yes, I think it's fair to say like, you know, a typical bare market, bare market rally would last around, you know, 2 months or so and you'd probably get a 30% plus move out of that. We are starting to stretch to higher on the, the actual move and in, in terms of length now. And so we're, we're now just like coming right into some really interesting price points and interesting inflection points. I think the next few weeks are going to be very, very telling here.
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Okay. So this was the key point here. You said that this is the longest bare market rally in terms of days recorded over the last two market cycles. So you're talking about this is longer than from February, I suppose, February 5th to now, we've been in bull market territory. Let's say, uh, mini bull market territory inside of a, of a, a bare market. And this has lasted longer than it did in what, 2021, 2022, and also longer than what, 2017, 2018?
>> Correct. Yeah. So, um, it's pretty typical to see these moves down. We came from 126 down to around, uh, 84K or so and then rallied up to to 97. So, that was, you know, roughly two, two-month period. Um, very standard bare market rally. Then we, you know, came down off of that. And what you would typically see is, you know, okay, another bare market rally, roughly 2 months or so, and then, you know, that's kind of when you start to see the, the cycle start to play out from there. This is different. We've extended an extra month here. Um, what's not different is we, we've had periods in past bare markets where it took longer to hit to go to a low and then go to a lower low, right? So, that, that, that can still play out. We've seen periods where it took 6 months in, in bare markets for that to play out. U but I would say is what is different is to see, you know, things sell off and then to have more of a, what looks like a more durable, starting to look like a more durable rally, um, over a longer period of time. So I think that is like the main thing that's that's different and I think what we can go through today is really like, is what's happening under the hood here? Has the cycle, has our new regime started or is it still really just a bare market rally, is kind of, kind of where we're at, I think.
>> Let's talk about all these things then. Um, so to get a sense of how strong this price move is to the upside, you've taken a look at the, the PER's open interest, you've taken a look at, uh, the funding rates, and we did some of that last week as well, and you indicated that the, the traders were still shorting this market. We got to check in on that, see if that's still true. And there, there was the question of whether that's smart money. And then you're also looking at, uh, liquidations and you're also looking at the spot volumes. So put some of these metrics together for us and, and tell the story of what you think the market's doing.
>> Yeah. So leverage is increasing in the markets. Right. So this is the chart we're looking at here. Um, this is perpetual futures open interest and we can see we kind of had a, a brief, you know, flush kind of after the October highs and we've been in an uptrend, uh, since that time and starting to get closer to all-time highs in terms of, uh, open interest.
>> And leverage can either be short or long, right? It's just leverage.
>> Correct. Correct. Yeah. So, this is, you know, a similar move to what we saw, um, last, last bare market back in 2022. And yes, exactly what you're saying. Like this is just telling us there's more units of risk that are now, you know, entering the market and that, that sort of looks similar to what we saw in the last bare market. So that's one, one thing to look at. Now we need to really understand like what, you know, how is that, how are those units of risk positioned in the market? That's what this funding rate data, uh, is giving us. We talked about this last week. We've seen, um, traders, you know, consistently positioning for weakness, right? Paying, paying to be short the market, paying a premium to do that, um, at the highest rates that we've seen so far in, in this bare market. And that hasn't really changed. We, we kind of came, we saw like a little, you know, brief spike into, um, into funding rates going long over the weekend and they're now back, uh, short significantly short again at these kind of higher elevated levels in, in the early 80s. So, um, to me, like, you know, we kind of zoomed out on the, the funding rate data just to sort of get a higher level view and what, what's interesting is, you know, traders are actually have been positioned more negatively so far in 2026, um, than in any other bare market that, of, of this data set that is only, this is only going back to 2021. Uh, but 30, almost 39% of the trading days this year have had negative funding, uh, rates, uh, attached to them. So, you know, it's, it's telling us that the trading, uh, trading community, people that are, you know, in the perfs markets are positioned, you know, for weakness and, you know, the question there is like, is that the smart money? You know, what's really going on? We're not making a claim that it's smart money. We're just saying that positioning looks very similar to 2022 and I want to understand, okay, how severe is that positioning and then what is that, you know, what is that doing to the market? Is there actual, is there actually a, a durable bid in the spot markets underneath this that's, you know, creating these short liquidations and then that's just like feeding reflexive move on the price? You know, how much of this move should we be attributing to kind of like this just positioning in the market versus like a real organic, durable, um, kind of new regime?
>> Okay, so the traders are still thinking that this is like 2022. In fact, they're even more convicted on this being like 2022 sort of, you know, short than they were in 2022. And the question that you, you have in this report is the price rise of Bitcoin above 80K. What explains that? Is that explained better by some sort of a, a short squeeze of some of these highly convicted traders getting liquidated? And do we see that in the PERS and, and, um, you know, funding rate activity, or is this actually some new buyers, some secular bullishness kind of driving the price upward? I think that was the first core question of the report. So what did you find?
>> So, you know, it looks to me like there's definitely, you know, plenty of short liquidations, right? When you have that, that much positioning, uh, short and the price goes up, obviously those shorts are getting liquidated. The exchange has to buy back the, the Bitcoin. And so, this is like reflexively pushing, pushing the price up. So, my conclusion is like, yes, this is definitely playing a role. Um, and again, pretty typical for what we would, we would look for in bare market periods. And I think the next level of that analysis is to say, okay, let's look at the spot market. This is where, you know, price discovery tends to be a little bit more durable and let's look at what's going on there. And what, what I see there is just weak spot, spot volumes. Um, that doesn't have to be, you know, necessarily bearish. Um, but as you can see in the chart, like when you come out of a, a bare market, you do get like a pretty big spike typically, um, in, in actual on-chain volumes, trading volumes on centralized exchanges and on-chain, and we, we are not seeing that right now. So, so to me, like the way I think about this is there's, there's not a ton of sellers, right? So, when we were back, back in the early part of the, the, um, the bare market, there were not a lot of buyers. It was clear there weren't a ton of, ton of buyers in the market. Um, but, and we started to see the sellers just kind of take over the market. And now what we're seeing is like, there are more buyers in the market. Is it the type of buying that we would expect to see in like a true, like, you know, regime shift, you know, going into a bull market? I'm not, I'm not sure about it cuz I'm just not seeing like that kind of on-chain, um, trading volume that I would, I would like to see.
This, this chart that you just pulled up here is giving us a little bit of a deeper view into this. Um, this is a spot volume delta and it's just measuring the, uh, difference between buying and selling activity and it's really highlighting periods where, um, either sellers or buyers were more aggressive. And we're looking at a 14-day moving average of this. And we can see on the far right side there, we have, you know, we've gone into the green zone, which is telling me that there's more, um, you know, buyers are more aggressive than sellers at, at, at this stage.
>> And the question is like, is this a new regime? Because it's, it's not uncommon to see this flip green during a, uh, during a bare market. Um, and really the question is again, is this a new regime? If it is a new regime, it would be kind of like, you know, the earliest period that we've seen that type of, uh, that type of move happen. Um, and, and that's kind of, that's kind of my view on what's happening, I guess, in the spot markets. There were like, as you can see in this chart, there were some major flushes in 2022. There were six of them that, um, that reached like down to, uh, 3,000 or so Bitcoin of a flush. We've only had about three of those so far in this, this current bare market. Um, so, um, so again, like to me, what I'm seeing here is not a lot. The, what's happening at the margin to me is that there's just not a ton of sellers at these price points that we've been, we've been hitting over the last few weeks. Do we start to see sellers as we push into, you'll get closer to the 200-day moving average, which Bitcoin, you know, does typically retrace to during bare markets? That's, that's kind of the next, um, question to, to be asking. That's, that's a 85K, the 200-day moving average, which we'll get to some of these numbers, um, later. But this is to me the setup. You have a lot of, you know, speculative positioning. Shorts think we're going down and on the margin, it just looks to me like there's more buyers and sellers, but it's not like a, it's not a ton of activity in the market just yet. We can also look at the, the ETF flows to kind of get.
>> Well, before you get there. Okay, so just to summarize where we are. So we've seen these flushes in 2022, uh, the same flushes that we're seeing now. Now this one does appear to be longer than the 2022 ones, to your point, but you are still not seeing the, uh, the new regime change, bull market energy that you'd expect to see in, in spot markets if this indeed was a new regime. But let me ask you the question. And this gets into the other charts that you pull up with respect to ETF flows and Michael Sailor. What if the bull market energy is actually coming from ETF flows on the institutional side and also the micro, Michael Sailor stretch perpetual buy? And so that's not, that's why we're not seeing that same energy on the spot volume. It could be that it's, it really is the story of the institutions that are bolstering that demand and that's where the, the beginnings of a bull market actually are. So when you look at ETF flows and when you look at what MicroStrategy is doing, uh, does that change your opinion at all? Could it be, could it be that this is institutional driven demand that that's the undercurrent of these bull market forces?
>> Uh, yeah, so the, the ETFs definitely have been strong. I, I would say strong in the sense that we're not seeing a ton of outflows. And, and I think this chart kind of, kind of shows what's going on here. This is just showing, you know, the, the net flows over each 30-day period, each 30-day trading period, uh, since the ETFs have been trading. And we kind of segmented it by year as well. So, you can see 2024 was like by far this the strongest, you know, period here. That was the first, the first year the ETFs came out. There were no 30-day periods where there were actually net outflows. 2025 was a little bit weaker, but we had some, you know, strong periods, uh, in there, especially coming out of, um, coming into out of the tariff, uh, sell-off last year. And when you move to the right side of the chart and you start to see 2026, yes, there's been some, uh, returning flows into the ETFs and, and we're not seeing a ton of outflows, but it still just looks kind of, uh, it's still pretty, pretty like subdued in, in my opinion. So, so from the ETF perspective, like I don't necessarily think that's, you know, that's not like the, the burst of kind of like flows that I, that I'd be looking for. It's also not, not weak, right? It's not super negative. We know that, um, you know, Sailor's been in the, the market with that, uh, with the stretch product and that's, that's also a new thing. So, like these are all the, I think the new things this, this bare market is, okay, now we have a longer, um, you know, bare market rally, 3 months versus typically around two months and we know we've known that there's a new buyer in the market, Sailor, and then you have the ETF. So, those are, these are kind of the three, the three things. We did have something with Sailor yesterday where during their earnings call, he, um, you know, hinted at selling Bitcoin to fund some of this. So, like that'll be interesting.
>> The first time ever, right? There was like some crack in the, I will never sell Bitcoin narrative that he's been talking about for so long.
>> Yeah. And, you know, it's kind of an interesting thing because the, I think the narrative and, and the perception is, is he's, he's able to raise cash with, uh, by by issuing shares of stretch. Well, he also has to, if he's able to rise raise cash to buy Bitcoin, well, now he has to actually sell Bitcoin to pay the dividends on those. Um, that can still work. It doesn't mean, you know, you know, it does have this like sort of Ponzi-like structure to it, um, which can work if Bitcoin just keeps going up and you don't get caught up in that. Um, so, so we'll see. I think it'll be interesting to see how the market starts to receive. I think it sold off a little bit when that kind of like hit the, hit the newswire. Um, and we'll see, kind of going forward and also like, it's just hard to project what the demand for that product will be and to try to model forward. He has been buying a lot, but it's, it's difficult to kind of model that, that forward.
>> So you summarize it this way. You're finding, uh, you're struggling to find clear signs of durable strength in the bull market energy right now because you got perp interest, it looks like it's 2022, the same sort of thing happening, spot market subdued, Bitcoin ETF putting in some decent numbers, but still not strong numbers. They're just, they're 2, they're 2.8%, 8% off their, their peak AUM in Bitcoin and, but they're lacking the, the burst here. And it does seem like maybe strategy, I mean, it can't sustain the bid forever on these stretch type products and with, with Michael Sailor hinting that maybe they have to sell some Bitcoin actually in order to, um, you know, give, uh, funding back to dividend payments, maybe that's kind of cracking, that's eroding. So, that's, you're seeing weakness there. You're not seeing a sustained bull market here. I mean, pair that with some of the market structure data that we've been talking about in previous weeks.
>> Yeah, we've just been updating this, you know, really on a weekly basis and trying to monitor how coins are are rotating out there. It's been my view that like this is playing out, but it hasn't really played out the way you would expect it to play out to kind of hit that, you know, durable macro low for a cycle. Uh, my view has been that this, this cohort, we highlighted the, you know, the 10% decline in the 92 to to 108K holder cohort and that's about, it's down about 10% right now in terms of the, the coins held by that, the people that bought at those levels from where it was, uh, when Bitcoin peaked and I still think that cohort needs to, the coins need to be recycled a little bit more there. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't have to play out this way, but the catalyst for that would be for for Bitcoin just to, you know, kind of chop, continue to chop up or come down from these current levels and really just kind of chop up both bears and bulls, you know, in this process is typically what you, uh, see during, during bare markets and, and people get kind of caught in, in these moves. So the question that's the question for me is like, is this just really a bare market rally and somewhat of a, a trap for these bulls, you know, when we come, if we come back down again, you know, are the people that, that didn't want to sell, is that sort of the thing that gets them to, to kind of release the coins and start to kind of create that churning process again? That's, that's really what I, what I'm focused on. What we've seen play out so far is similar to, uh, 2022 again, in that the, the holdings are are concentrating in the 66K to 78K cohort. Um, that looks similar to like what happened about 6, 7 months into the last bare market. Holdings were concentrating in the 29K to 34K cohort, but the cohort that actually picked up the most coins was like 18 to 21K. So, you know, the catalyst for that move is a drop. You know, it doesn't mean you have to have it. Uh, but to me, that's what would really help to set like a more, you know, solid foundation for us to then, you know, really kind of move into a new regime.
Let's talk about this chart because this, this one actually surprised me. Um, Bitcoin is the most correlated to the NASDAQ that it's ever been. And you go all the way to 2017 and we show, uh, 2026 as 0.48% 48% correlated, um, which is, well, that's the coefficient, the correlation coefficient I should say, which is the most correlated it's ever been. Um, Bitcoin gets more correlated to NASDAQ during bare markets, doesn't it? It, it's almost like it performs as a, as a worse NASDAQ, a worse QQQ during bare markets, but it still is correlated to them. So, if stocks go up, Bitcoin also goes up, just in a more muted fashion.
>> Yes, that's, that's historically what's, what's played out. The, you know, the exception is maybe 2020, which was, um, you know, a bull market year for Bitcoin. It was, it was moderately correlated to, to NASDAQ and in those years, but the years it's been most, um, correlated has been 2022 and 2025. So far this year, we've been even more correlated, um, in this year. And, you know, NASDAQ just made a, a massive move, like a, like 25% move or so here since, um, early April. Um, that is, you know, you kind of got to step back a little bit from that. Bitcoin has gone up 36% or so over, over the same period. Um, we'll see, you know, if you look at, like, that, that big of a move for NASDAQ has only happened previously during, you know, coming out of like a major, uh, correction, recession. And so coming out of 2008 and also coming out of the, uh, the dot bubble, we had that type of a move over, you know, this short of a period. But every other time that, that it's happened historically has been during a, you know, late cycle bare market rally. Um, there, it's, it's been very interesting because a lot of this is positioning as well. I think in the, the tradey markets, you had hedges unwind. It's been a lot of like systematic buying and things like this. So, it's, it's, it's, it's also very much a moment of truth, I think, for, you know, the, the tradey markets and, and where we're going to go here. What I've been kind of focusing on there is the, the Mag 7 and, you know, for the bull market to really stay intact, I really think this is an AI story. And so, the Mag 7 is something to watch for because it's been actually underperforming. Only, I think two or three Mag 7 companies have actually reached all-time highs as NASDAQ rallied back to all-time highs. That's kind of interesting to me because, um, that's like 40% of the, the, the S&P 500, right? Is, is so basically every 40% of every passive flow that's going into markets is going into those companies. So you would expect, um, there to be a little bit more, uh, behind that. And I think for the bull market to continue, it's an AI story and those, those companies really need to, need to, uh, kick into gear here. And we'll see, you know, we'll see if Bitcoin ultimately starts to, to lead things down from here. Um, but it's just interesting to me that this correlation typically is stronger in bare markets. It's been the strongest we've seen so far in, uh, in 2026.
>> Yeah. I guess to what extent do you think Bitcoin right now is just being pulled up by the strength of the NASDAQ and, you know, just QQQ rocketing and so at some level, you know, um, if you think that's true, if you think it's just the, the reason Bitcoin is moving up is just because NASDAQ is, is moving up, then you're kind of, to buy Bitcoin at these levels, you're kind of making a bet on NASDAQ continuing because if it doesn't, I mean, the correlation still stays intact, except you're going in the, in the down connection.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, um, you have to kind of ask yourself, kind of zoom out and ask yourself, okay, what is, what has gotten baked into price discovery, you know, over the last month or so? And, you know, what, what is the future outlook of all, all of this looked? Have we frontloaded too much? And has the positioning unwind, created a setup now where there's really no hedges in the market, retail flows have been really strong. Um, and are we kind of like set up here in a, in a, in a more of like a, you know, house of cards type of setup where everything good has been priced in, all of the war fears, people have sort of chased the move. Now, where's the next, you know, marginal buyer coming, you know, from, from this level and I think you can apply that same framework to Bitcoin at these levels. Uh, we made a pretty big move. Fear and greed index is now into like a neutral territory. A lot of positioning on one, you know, with, with short liquidation. So, it looks like somewhat there's somewhat of some of this is like a technical, you know, positioning, you know, rally. And so, I think this is kind of the, the moment of truth. And, um, we'll see. I think these next few weeks are going to be really interesting just to kind of monitor, uh, what's happening.
Let's talk about the, the short run and the critical price zones for Bitcoin to keep an eye on. So, you write this from a momentum perspective. Bitcoin is currently overbought on the 14-day RSI. The last time it was at this level was 97K. Folks probably remember that. That was on a brief bull market rally. And then the time before that was 126K, which was the top. So the RSI is saying, hey, like a lot of energy. I, we're not sure if it's totally justified. And then you've got some critical zones to keep an eye on. And, uh, I want to talk about those and then maybe we'll get into the, the overall trend, like the, you know, Bitcoin 50-week moving average here. But what are the critical zones in your mind?
>> Yeah. So we are, we're now above the short-term holder, uh, cost basis, roughly. We think roughly the ETF, uh, holder cost basis. We're, we're just above those levels. So that's a, that's a key level and we've, we've, uh, moved above that. Uh, the next one is 85K. This, this is probably like the major kind of line, uh, moving forward here. That's the 200-day moving average. Um, and it's also where the largest cohort of dip buyers entered the market, kind of early in this, this bare market. This was like during that period when we went up to, you know, from 84 to 97K or so. So there's like a lot of supply. There's a lot of Bitcoin supply there. It's also the 200-day moving average. Um, and then the third and final one, which I would say is like, you know, how you would get to like a, a confirmation that we've entered a new bull, bull market would be the, uh, 95K. That's the, the 50-week moving average. Um, and so 85K, 200-day moving average, we historically will touch that, you know, in, in bare markets and we haven't touched it yet. So, so that's certainly possible. Um, and then we'll see, we'll see from there. The next, the next big one will be getting at back to that 50-week moving average, which, you know, we can see in the chart there. Um, this usually takes much longer, you know, to play out. It plays out when we get that cross later in cycles. Obviously the cross happens, you know, after you've already bottomed, right? So, so that's the, that's the hard part.
>> Um, but if you buy, if you buy at those levels, you're still buying, you know, typically at an early stage of, of a bull market. So that would be 95, 95K. Um, and yeah, we'll see. I mean, like I said, this, the next few weeks are going to be really interesting. It feels very similar to me, like to the period where we went up to 97K and the sentiment shifts and there's a little bit of a reflexive move to that. There's, there's, um, you know, I'm keeping an eye on stablecoin, you know, supply as well. That tends to like bring liquidity into markets and that can be a bit of an indicator. Um, stablecoin supply has been kind of roughly flat since, uh, since we peaked in October. We kind of came down a little bit and then we did come up a little bit and we're now leveling off again. So, keeping, keeping an eye on that as well. And, uh, we'll see, you know, like this is the, the battle of bulls and bears. We're, we're right at the edge of it here.
So, 85K would cause you to pause if that was sustained for a while and, and, uh, you'd have to say, "Okay, this is maybe more bull energy than I thought." 95K, that would be above the 50-week moving average and that would be full-out bull market confirmation right on the chart. That's how it's, um, previously happened. So, um, you're expecting it not to reach those levels and, and certainly not to sustain those levels. Let's talk about how you are playing it and a possible scenario that, uh, that maybe is your base case for what comes next. I think in order to, like, it would be inaccurate to paint you as, um, bearish right now because, like looking at the portfolio, we won't get into all the assets. That's for TDR Pro members, but you're basically 50% cash, right? Which means you're 50% deployed and that's not exactly bearish, is it? Uh, yet you do have that dry powder waiting for a, um, a larger dip. You're not expecting that the cycle, you, that we've, that we've reached bottoms yet for Bitcoin. So, can you talk about how you're playing it and the scenario that you end with, which is the scenario where Bitcoin does, uh, trade for a while in this zone and then take a dip into some correction territory where it gets back to its fair value. How are you playing this?
>> Yes, the, the way I'm playing it is, you know, we always want to be in the market. I don't think you ever want to just be out of the market completely. Um, I just think that's really hard and messes with psychology. Um, the way I'm playing it is, you know, we came down, we bought some, um, when we first came down and my view at the time was that this is too early and like we're, it looks like, you know, we're probably going to re, actually go into more deep value, uh, territory. This was, you know, back in February is what we were saying. Now that we have, uh, extended to a three-month rally, I think the way that the thinking is shifting here is that we may not see the deep value zone. You know, because we're consolidating and shopping in such a, you know, for a longer period of time that is helping to create a stronger base, uh, for, for Bitcoin. And, you know, it would be very rare for me to just like take off from here. Uh, what I think where my sort of, uh, where the probabilities are starting to point to me is that, you know, 85K or so looks like it's going to be really hard to clear that zone. And you mentioned, you know, Bitcoin on the RSI, it's already over, it's already overbought at 70 levels. You know, it's pretty rare to just like stay in that zone for, like, a really long period of time. There's usually a mean reversion. So where does that mean reversion take us? Does it take us, you know, back into like our fair value zones down below 65K or so? I think that, you know, we're gonna test those levels again. It would be very rare for me to like just go to 60 immediately, V.B. bounce out of that and then just take off. So, I, I feel like the market will always go back and test certain zones. So, that's kind of like my base case is like, you know, 85K or so. Let's keep an eye on that. Let's see, you know, what happens thereafter. We may not even get there. We'll, we'll see. And then, you know, how do we start to trade if we start to kind of mean revert? Is that like a vicious sell-off or is it just a grindy type thing? If it's a grindy type thing, then I think you can start to build the case that we did bottom at 60 and, and we may kind of like get, get down to those, you get back into the 60s or get close. Um, but I think that's kind of how my thinking is shifting now that this is like going on, you know, dragging on for a little bit longer.
I'm just curious if we get there to the fair market value zone, which you have said, uh, from the beginning of this, is a 65K and below, and you've made some purchases there. If we get there.
>> Is Michael NATO a buyer in the fair, uh, value zone or once we get there, if we do get there, are you going to wait for deep value territory?
>> Yep. Yep. We will see. We will see. [laughter] We have to. I, I wish I knew. I wish I knew and I'll get killed.
>> Depends on the structure, right? It depends on what you're seeing at the time. Is that how you?
>> That's, that's kind of how I'm assessing it. I, I think, you know, something I've been thinking a lot about is I don't know if you're familiar with the, uh, the marshmallow test. This is like a psychology experiment with children. And for people that are not familiar with this, it's a psychological test with children. And what they're trying to do is like determine your ability to defer gratification. And it's an interesting test. They put a kid in a room. They give him a marshmallow and they say, "If you can sit for 10 minutes without touching the marshmallow, we'll give you a second marshmallow." And they leave the room and then the kid will sit there and most of these kids will just eat the marshmallow. I feel like we're in like the, the part of the market where people want to eat the marshmallow right now.
>> Yes.
>> And, you know, typically patience does play out and kind of, you know, waiting for a fat pitch. So.
>> You want to, you want to be that second kid. You want to get two marshmallows rather than just one.
>> You want to defer the gratification. I, I think, I think we're still in a market where you want to defer the gratification. You know, we, we'll see. I think we're, we're, we're at an inflection point here and, and we'll see how things shake out.
All right. Well, hopefully, uh, listener, you can pass the marshmallow test, uh, with Michael and I. Um, got to say, maybe, maybe let's do this as a call to action this week. Uh, we've been enjoying the comments. Of course, if you're not subscribed across all platforms where TDR streams, go do that. So, if you're on Spotify, go subscribe to YouTube. If you're on YouTube, do Spotify, vice versa. Also, leave us a comment with how you're playing this. I think we'd be interested to hear how the audience is absorbing this analysis and, uh, how you guys are playing it. So, let's do that on the week. Of course, got to end with this. None of this has been financial advice. This is an investor journal. We're on the journey alongside you.
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Until next time, stay curious.