The Market is Setting Up for Unreal Move‼️

Holy smokes. This ain't no dang joke, 'cause we're back from vacation. Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a minute. It seems like it's been forever, but I am back from vacation. Happy to be back with you guys. We have a lot to get into in this video here today. So many developments in regards to market, in regards to stocks, all that good stuff.

If you didn't know, I was on vacation. I went to Miami and then went to Playa de Carmen, which is like an hour south of Cancun. So, just had an unplugged vacation. I highly recommend it to all my workaholics out there. Take at least one unplugged vacation a year. It's phenomenal. And then you get back and you're like, "Ready to can't wait to get back on the grind." No, while I was on vacation, it was very interesting in regards to market. I posted this on my X page. You ever want to follow me on X? I always have it linked in the description area, all my videos. But I posted this before I went on vacation. I said, "Public account before unplugged vacation. It's at 3.753 mil." I said, "Let's see where it's at when I get back." Like, it should be interesting, right? And, uh, here it is. $3.829 million. So that means the public account gained about $76,000. Means all my portfolios combined for easily six figures or multi-six figures while I was gone. Which means, peace out, folks. It was a nice video. And, uh, I'm going back on vacation. What is the point of being here? Like, if we can just, you know, make all that money while we're gone. Let's just go sip piña coladas all day, right? I could never leave you guys. I'm, I'm, I'm too addicted. Okay. Too addicted.

So a lot to get into in today's video. I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona right now. Not back in Vegas yet. My mom's about to turn 65, so I got to stay out here for her 65th birthday, but, uh, we will get back. If you didn't know, Scottsdale, very pretty area. Uh, come visit sometime. I grew up in Arizona. I live in Vegas nowadays for the last 10 plus years, but Arizona, always love Arizona. It's very pretty. A lot of people think it's just like sand and desert. No, it's more than that. Okay. Okay.

So, wow, do we have a lot to get through in today's video. Okay. So crude oil, uh, very strange, like, just strange stuff going on in the market in general, right? Like with everything that just happened in Venezuela, people are like, "Oh my gosh, crude prices are going to plummet now. This is great news." Yeah, crude's actually up in the past 5 days. Like, that's the typical market for you. Everybody expects one thing, uh, and something else happened. It's like, really? Okay. Crude oil is actually, uh, up. That's interesting. In the last 5 days.

The 10-year, meanwhile, uh, Trump essentially announced some things that could potentially bring the 10-year down significantly, mortgage rates down significantly, and yet we're not really seeing mortgage rates budge so far. That could change in the next few months, but as of right now, nothing's really changed. The 10-year hasn't really moved almost at all in the past 5 days. That's pretty much asleep right now, right?

You have some stocks just making some crazy moves already this year. Look at The Cheesecake Factory. This is a stock I've talked about a lot the last couple years. If you're a big fan of the channel, you know I talk about cake a lot. Look at cake so far year to date. Keep in mind, I'm recording this video January 12th. January 12th, Cake stock is already up 17% for the year. It's on a rocket ship. It's like, how is that stock moving so big? We'll talk about things like that in this video here today.

Look at a stock like Elf Beauty. And keep in mind, the market's, you know, up a little bit so far this year, but it's not even close to what these stocks are up. Look at Elf Beauty. Elf on a Shelf is up almost 14% already this year. 12 days. 12 days into the year. That's not even 12 trading days in the year. We're just 12 days in general into the year. Like, what is going on? Estee Lauder stocks already moved almost 7%. Right. Once again, it's January 12th. Like, this is wild.

Look at the big dog, Amazon. This is one of my, my top picks for 2026 in regards to big tech stocks. Amazon, I'm expecting a great year, and so far it started out as a great year. Already up over 7% year to date. The big dog is rolling. Amazon was sleepy last year. I don't think it's going to stay sleepy this year. I think it's going to be a great year for Amazon stock, and we'll see if it is. But so far, it's looking like it's going to be a great year for Amazon stock. Already up 7 plus%. Congratulations to any Amazon shareholders out there.

Look at Celsius Beverage. Celsius Holdings up over 16% so far this year. This is another one of my top picks for 2026. If you watch the video I put out, the last video I recorded on this channel was this video right here, "Five Stocks to Buy Now, January 2026." Looks like about 127,000 people got to see that, and, uh, thank you for everybody that checked it out. Uh, that was one of the five stocks I posted in that video. It was actually the second stock of those five stocks as I spoke about there as an incredible opportunity. And yeah, it's off to the races. Already a 16% move so far this year, 12 whole days into the year.

Meanwhile, we have other stocks out there showing a lot of weakness. It's not like the whole market's strong. It's not like all stocks are strong. There's plenty of stocks out there that are showing weakness. Look at AMD. AMD, this stock's down about 5% so far this year. Like, what is going on with AMD, right? Like the big announcements, everything that Lisa Su showed off last week. It was a huge week for AMD in regards to news last week. And yet AMD stock is just, it's a really weak stock price right now. 5%. Might not stay that way, by the way, in regards to AMD, but it is like that right now.

Look at a stock like American Express. This stock's down over 2 and a half% so far this year. T-Man came out, talked about he wants to cap credit card interest rates, uh, at 10%. We'll talk about if that's like a death knell for a stock like American Express, a credit card company, right? Very important subject.

SoFi. This has significant ramifications that some people might be aware of or might not be aware of in regards to SoFi and how this could change things in regards to SoFi. SoFi is actually not really doing anything so far this year, despite, despite a lot of these other stocks that are kind of more growth plays, risk-on plays, just absolutely ripping so far this year. And so it's just asleep, right?

Look at a stock like Adobe. Adobe's been a horrible stock the past 5 years. It was a horrible stock last year. And so far this year, it's starting out horrible again. 5.8% down year to, you know, already this year. It's so weak. Like, it's incredible how weak Adobe stock is. And the business is better than it's ever been. The profitability is better. The balance sheet, income statement, all that good stuff.

Look at Salesforce. This is a stock that's been incredibly weak the past 5 years. Had a horrible year last year. It's already started this year bad. Down about 2% so far this year. These stocks are very weak. And it's like, what is going on here? Like, why are some of these stocks so weak? Why are others so strong, right?

So, in today's video, we got a lot of stocks to discuss. Uh, we got a lot of market dynamics to discuss and what the market is setting up for, 'cause I think that's a very important subject to get into now that I'm back from vacation. And there honestly, one thing and one thing only, I need from you guys. I just need you to hit that little thumbs up icon. If you haven't already hit the little thumbs up button on this video, please do so now. And to everybody that's already done it, you didn't even need me to ask for it. Thank you so much. You guys are the best. And, uh, additionally, if you want to be subscribed to the channel, you can certainly subscribe. If you want to say hello to me, say hello in the comment section. I'll be hearting comments and responding to some of you guys and all that good stuff.

Also exciting, today we're finally, literally today, we're finally opening back up the private group. It has been closed for a long time. I know a lot of you guys wanted in there. It's been closed for quite a while. Um, we're opening it back up today. That will be the pinned comment to apply to join in there. Access to all my course curriculums, access to the private Discord chat, exclusive weekly videos, see the moves I'm making in my big dog portfolios, all that good stuff. That will be the pinned comment down there. I don't know how long we'll keep the private group open for, but it's going to be open right now. Okay, I'll just put it like that. All right, that will be the pinned comment down there. Alrighty.

So, I want to start out here with the big news that just kind of broke in the last 24 hours or so, right? Jerome Powell, the Fed releases a statement. And the reason being is T-Man now is have basically doing an investigation in regards to the Fed spending on, you know, new buildings and things like that, right? And so some people look at that as a play as it's just Trump trying to push Jerome Powell out before his, his, um, term is over, essentially, right? And JPAL's out this year, no matter what. But it seems like Trump's trying to do something to get him out earlier. That's a view, right? And this is interesting because this is something honestly unprecedented that we've never seen in regards to a president trying to pretty much like force out, without saying he's forcing out, somebody like a Jerome Powell, right? And it's interesting the way the markets just looking through this. Like, you would in past markets if you said, uh, the president's going to do something like this and then, you know, the, the chairman of the Fed is going to come out with a public video and everybody's going to be able to see this. Like, if you said this was going to happen in past years, ladies and gentlemen, the, everybody would say, "The market's going to freaking tank. Are you kidding me? This thing's going down to Chinatown. What are we talking about here?" Right? And yet the market just looked right through this. No, no big deal, right?

And I thought I would show you guys like why the market's kind of looking through something like this, right? This is a perfect example. This is a group chat with a couple friends. These friends are not really in the financial markets. Uh, but one friend sends the video, right? He saw it on X, uh, of Jerome Powell, right? And his friend says, "He's spot on in my opinion." Other friend says, "He is an idiot." Right? Um, both these friends both voted for Trump, but one is super far on the right. Uh, I'll let you guess which one that is. One's a little bit more toward the middle. And so, this is becoming a political subject, right? And since it's getting more into politics than the market, the market ends up just looking right through it. Like, okay, this is just politics, right? It's not the market's not worried about it from an actual market standpoint. It's just thinking about this as it's a political related subject, and we're going to deal with it the way we deal with political related subjects, which is, we don't care. We don't care. And so that's what the market's doing right now. Right now, very important, everybody understands like the, like, why is the market just treating this as this? Okay, listen. The market believes that regardless of the outcome of the situation, that the path of the Federal Reserve is going to stay the way it's going to stay and nothing's actually going to change here. They're going to do some investigation into this, and they're probably not going to find anything of, of substance in terms of like removing Jerome Powell or something like that. And the Fed's going to stay in their place that they're going to stay. And if they're going to lower rates two to three times this year, that's what they're doing regardless of this investigation and whatever happens here. Like the path is the path in terms of lowering interest rates from here or staying, staying the same. And so that's what the market, the way the market's viewing it, right? And honestly, I can't say the market's wrong. I think the, the market's kind of viewing this in the right way, right?

Now, this is more impactful when you understand the dynamics of the market in terms of Wall Streeters, right? Wall Street is the people that control the money, right? Um, if, I'll put it to you like this, okay? In 2026, it's going to be a much harder year to shake the market. Shake the market meaning the Wall Streeters all sell out. Okay. The reason it's harder to shake the market in '26 and '25 is '25 we had a few major spikes of volatility, obviously the biggest one being kind of, you know, from like the end of February into April, right? In the liberation day and all that drama, huge spike in volatility. And so '25, especially the beginning, like the first half of '25 was really a year marked by big volatility. When you come off of a year of big volatility, it's hard to get the next year to be super volatile as well. Possible, but very difficult, extremely difficult, right? And also, if you look at Trump's first term, he had kind of a cycle of one year volatility, the next year not volatility. One year volatility, the next year not volatility, right? So if you looked at '25, a very volatile year with some insane moves, you could look at '26 as kind of that's an off year in terms of volatility, right? And then you could look at '27, maybe we have another spike up in volatility again. And then maybe '28 is actually a pullback in regards to volatility, right? And so I spoke about that in this video here. Uh, looks like about 93,000 people got to see it. My predictions for best stocks in 2026 and overall market performance. I spoke about like my expectations in regards to volatility. I don't think unless we get a black swan event of some kind, like which is, you know, those could come, but those are hard to come by, a black swan event, right? Outside of a black swan event, it's hard for me to see a spike up in volatility like we had in '25. That was an insane spike we had in April of 2025. For to get that sort of, I think the VIX went 50, 60 level. I would say less than a 10% probability, if not less than a 5% probability, that happens in '26. The only way you're really getting that, you need a black swan event to happen, which those are always possible. It's just those very rarely ever happen, right?

You look at the VIX and the proof is in the pudding. It's not like I'm just throwing out opinions like this is facts, right? The VIX is down 22 plus% the past three months. Now think about everything that's transpired and all the worries over the past three months. The whole Venezuela situation, right? That just comes out of nowhere and people, "Well, what in the world? We got all the Fed drama, right? We got Trump wanting to do an investigation here. That's a whole dramatic situation." And also, a lot of the, the members in the Federal Reserve are starting to become more divisive and starting to become, uh, you know, different differing opinions now at this point in time. So, you have Fed drama all over the place. You have China, Taiwan. You know, people are looking at some of the military moves China's making and it looks more and more aggressive toward Taiwan, but at the same time, people have been talking about China, Taiwan for years now at this point in time, right? It's just looking like people are getting a little more worried in regards to some of the military actions China's taking around Taiwan right now, right? You have this whole Greenland situation, um, where US might want to try to take over Greenland and NATO is going to talk about protecting Greenland. Like that's a weird situation, but that's a big thing that's talked about right now. You have the Supreme Court decision in regards to tariffs and are they going to keep the tariffs on? Are they going to take them off? All that sort of stuff in the past 3 months, right? And then also next Fed leader. This is all going on. These are major significant things and yet volatility is dying. Volatility is completely dying despite all that wildness, craziness, all that drama, all that talk on X, right? These are all subjects that are talked about daily. Tons of views. "Oh my gosh, this is so big." Right? And yet the market says, "Huh? What? Oh, Venezuela. Oh, Fed. Oh, Trump? Oh, what? Huh? Doesn't care. Does not care." Right?

Now, that leads me to a bigger point. Right? If you watch the reaction channel, and I'm sure a good amount of you guys watch the reaction channel also. Jeremy Lefay makes money. I'll, I'll put out some videos likely on that channel this week as well. Right? If you watch that channel, what is the thing you took away from the last, you know, couple videos I recorded, right? Here's what you took away and here's why it matters. Wall Street is bullish on 2026. It's clear. It's clear in their price targets and all that, but they're scared about what? Q1. If you listen to all those Wall Streeters, the one thing they bring up is worries about Q1. Why? Because of all this. So, they're very, very worried about Q1. They're very, very concerned, right? And so, what ends up happening is if people are actually worried, sometimes they'll sell before you get to Q1, right? If you're worried about like, "Oh, you know, things might go left in Q1, blah, blah, blah," right? You end up selling before that particular time, and usually the move's already been made. And so to then get a big sell-off in Q1 is difficult.

And here's where it starts to matter with the economy. The economic data could be good. Could be good. I'd say high probability it's good. The economic data you're going to see over the next 2 to 3 months, my opinion is it's going to be good economic data. Right now, that could trump, no pun intended, that could trump everything else that happens over the next two to three months. And if so, you're off to the races. Now, the economic data. Why do I feel like that's pretty high probability of being good? Okay. I looked at the earnings and the guidance of obviously all the companies that, you know, matter to the market over the past, you know, that came out with their earnings. And a lot of those companies reported anywhere between Halloween and, uh, the end of November, right? There was nothing there from the numbers and the guidance that made you say, "Oh my gosh, the economy is in trouble." Like, "Oh boy, earnings are in trouble," right? The government shutdown that already came and went, right? And then a ton of government employees got a ton of back pay in regards to that situation. So, if anything, a ton of government people were, let's call it, pockets full in December, January, right? I just was on vacation. I went to Miami. I went to, you know, I had to fly into Cancun. Dude, I'd never seen the Cancun airport that busy. I've been going there for years. I never seen the Cancun airport that busy before. I'm talking about when we went and when we left, a zoo. An absolute zoo. We had to wait on the tarmac, uh, for quite a while to even, you know, get to, uh, you know, unload the plane. And that was even coming back to Vegas. Like, travel, every plane was maxed. There's no open seats anywhere on any of the flights we had to take, uh, throughout that whole trip, right? Uh, the resort we stayed at, little higher-end resort, I would say. But here's the thing, packed. I've never seen it that busy ever. And I've been going down there for years now, and I've never seen it that busy. It was insane. Absolutely insane. So, and then additionally, when you looked at the Black Friday numbers, the Cyber Monday numbers, um, Adobe Analytics looks over a lot of those numbers, it looked good. Like, it looked really good as far as spending goes. And then also just, and an anecdotally, or an antidotal, however you say that, right? Uh, you know, me being out there in the real world over the holiday season, dude, it was insane. So if you want to talk down the economy, I think it's going to be a very tough talk over the next few months, right? A year from now, things could change. Two years from now, who knows? Okay. But I think the economic data is going to be pretty dang good coming out for, you know, the government shutdown period. Like, we moved past that, and a lot of the government data never even came out in regards to that. So now we're going to start getting a lot of new, uh, data in regards to the economy, and I think it's actually going to look pretty good. Um, and then we're going to get into earning season. Guidances could surprise to the upside as far as the numbers that come out of these companies. Those could be, you know, I think good, but not maybe great. And because of the whole government shutdown, maybe that hurt numbers during that particular time when government employees weren't getting paid, right? But like, if you're a company and you're looking at your numbers, it might actually be significantly stronger than where we were at January, February, March of last year. And so you might end up in a lot of these companies going to report their earnings in February. So keep in mind, you'll get the big earning season. It's going to be February, uh, into March. Those numbers that you're going to come out as far as guidance is going in February, March, it might be pretty good, ladies and gentlemen. And so this is just something to keep in mind here. And, um, you, you might, you might get some good economic data, okay? And so if you get that good economic data, you could be off to the races in regards to the market and, and continue to push up. That could help small cap stocks, that could help even like the financials, that could help big tech. I mean, there's a, there's a lot of positivity that could happen in the next two to three months, unless you get a black swan event.

Now, that leads me to my next big point, which is people are still trying to go hard against betting against stocks, right? They're still in this mentality of like, "We're at the top. Um, stocks have peaked. Like, we're going to make a bunch of money betting against stocks." And so, I have Cava up here. Cava, Kava, Kava, Kava, right? Popular, uh, restaurant chain that's growing rapidly right now. And this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about while I was on vacation right now. Okay. So I'm at this pool. This was when we were in Miami. We stayed at a resort. It was called Noma. It was a Noma resort. Ate at the restaurant there, sushi restaurant. Noma was phenomenal. We ate there twice. Um, so I'm, I'm sitting right here, right? And I'm also swimming in the pool a lot. Swimming around. And then I get out of the pool and I'm just kind of like chilling. The beach is right over here. So I'm looking at the ocean and just kind of chilling, kind of drying off and stuff. And these two older gentlemen were sitting, were laying down back here. And also I hear the guy behind me, you know, he's talking with the other older guy. These guys are probably 60, 70, somewhere there. He's like, "I don't understand why CAVA stock keeps moving up. I think it's going to go down. It keeps moving up. Keeps moving up." And I'm like, you know me, like, if I hear stock talk, even though I'm on unplugged vacation, I'm like, "A freak. Like, what's this guy talking about back here? Like, what's going on here?" Right? And so he's talking about, "I think it's going to go down, blah, blah, blah." Next thing you know, he's on his phone. I think he's talking to a broker or maybe his financial advisor. I don't know. But he's talking to that individual and he's talking to him about put options. And he's like, "Okay, so I needed to go down to 52.50 to break even, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Right? Um, by this certain date, I think February or March. Then he's talking about maybe going short the stock, right? And so he ends up, it sounded like he made about an $80,000 move. I, I never could understand if he bought put options or he shorted the stock with the $80,000. If he bought put options, that's a, that's a lot of it's a lot of money to put in put options because obviously put options, you're going to expire. Like, those could expire worthless if the stock doesn't move to 52.50 by February, March, right? So, you know, he gets done and so I, I have to go over to him. I said, "Hey, you know, I'm sorry for eavesdropping, but listen, like, just be careful betting against a stock like Cava." And he's like, "Oh, why? You, you like them?" Um, and I said, "Yeah, you know, it's a dangerous stock to bet against." So, I started explaining to him momentum. I started explaining to him, you know, that they took the place of Chipotle, kind of people are looking for growth in regards to restaurants. I was trying to explain to him that everybody knows upcoming numbers are going to be garbage, but if they view it as a trough quarter, then it's going to continue to see momentum. And so, you know, it's just, you could, you could potentially make money there, but I'm like, the, the squeeze is going to be difficult. It's not like this is an easy thing to get that stock to go down under 52.50 by, you know, February or March, right? I said, you know, do whatever you want. I just want to explain to you kind of the risk there, right? And these gentlemen, they kind of sounded like they were from kind of more of the private equity world. And so, sometimes you get people that come from business success or private equity success and then they like to dabble in the market, right? And these are two different disciplines. Just like I have zero experience in private equity. So I could, I go into private equity? Sure, I could. But that's not my specialty. That's a whole different set of skills you have to have there. Same thing with the market. And so, you know, you want to know about my experience in market. I said, I've been doing this for 17 years now. I didn't tell them about my social media success. I didn't tell them about how much money I have. I didn't tell them about any of that, right? I like to just be low-key. Um, I just said, you know, I've been in the market 17 years. I've been investing. I know these companies very well. So, I just, you know, want to just kind of let you know that. I'm sure the stock has just continued to explode to the upside. And so, I'm sure he's probably wondering. He's like, "Man, who was that kid? Who was that kid?" I'm a 36, so I'm not really a kid, but, you know, if you're 60, 70 years old, I probably look like a kid to you, right? And so, he's probably like, "Who was that? Who was that guy that warned me in Miami at the pool, man? Somebody like, who was he, right?" Um, but that, that's a dynamic you have in the market. You still have a lot of individuals that are trying to bet against these stocks, and that ends up creating even short squeezes to the upside, right?

So, next up here, this is AI investor sentiment. We just had a big trend break, and that is we finally, finally, ladies and gentlemen, just broke, uh, as far as more people be, excuse me, less people bearish than usual. So usually you have about 31% of AI investors sent, uh, investors, uh, basically bearish on the market for the next six months. We just broke that trend. Now, 27%, 30% the last two weeks. So we're finally under usual. Now, listen, okay? If this trend continues to, let's call it, be under normal for the next two months, we could actually end up in problems in the second quarter to the third quarter of this year where the market actually breaks negative. Usually what happens is people get over to the bearish side or to the bullish side, right? Um, the bearish side is under historical averages. Usually had that for maybe 2 to 3 months, right? Everybody starts feeling good. They feel like we made it past all the risks, all the scary stuff, and then what happens is you run into trouble very shortly after that, essentially, right? And so there's just something to keep an eye on. But don't be surprised, like, if this for the next, like, let's call it 7 to 10 weeks, if we're under usual bearish, don't be surprised if we run into problems in Q2, Q3. Do not be surprised at all. So, just keep that in mind. I wanted to make everybody aware of that. Okay.

Now, you know, why is a stock like cake showing so much strength, 17 plus% year to date? Like, like, make that make sense, right? Explain that to me. Well, few things here, right? First off, we just had on January 7th, uh, Barclays maintained their underweight on cake stock, right? So even despite Barclays coming out and being negative on cake, it still is up 17 plus% year to date, right? And, um, you know, these individuals are just clueless about these companies and things like that. People think these analysts are so smart and they know so much. No, no, no. Listen, I'm showing you right now like what it takes to be a stock analyst on Wall Street, okay? You need to have a bachelor's degree in finance, econ, something like that, dude. Not hard. Not hard. Trust me, not hard. You need to have a CFA designation. Uh, is it a plus, but it's not even necessary. Piece of cake. Piece of cake. This is easy stuff. Okay. Technical skills. You need to be advanced in Excel. You need to understand Bloomberg terminal. Dude, put me to sleep. Easy. Analytical skills, in-depth business, industry, and market analysis. Dude, any college kid, uh, can do, do this stuff. Like, that's in business. Like, this isn't complicated crap, right? And then you need to be able to communicate well. Oh, wow. There's nothing about, "How's your portfolio done?" Are you an investor in the market? There's nothing of that, right? So, you have a bunch of these analysts that come out and say this and say that. These people are not even investors. They're not even investors. These stock analysts that come out and upgrade, downgrade stocks and all this, dude. Almost all these guys and gals aren't even investors. And a lot of them aren't allowed to be investors either because of conflicts of interest and things like that. So, they just like buy like a 401k. But it's not like this is like, "Oh man, this person was a great investor for 10 years and they proved that and then, you know, they become an analyst on Wall Street." It's not how it works. Like, usually what happens is these people graduate from whatever college with some econ degree, some finance BS degree, right? And usually work as an intern at one of these financial institutions. They kiss enough butt and they finally get upgraded to like very entry-level analysts or somebody that's just underneath the analyst that's helping them out with some of this research. And that's what it is, man. And so just understand when these analysts come out and make calls like, dude, these people don't even do this. Like, these are like, it's like the difference between like a guy who's analyzing NFL players and NBA players and soccer players versus the guys that are actually playing in the big games. I actually play in the big games. I'm actually in the Super Bowl every year. These guys are just on TV talking. They never even played in the game. They never made it to the pros. They never made it to the big leagues, right? When they have millions of dollars of their own money invested into individual stocks, they're, they're in the Super Bowl. They're playing the big games. But these guys aren't doing that. These guys and gals are not doing that. Okay? So, just understand that about these analysts.

Now, you look at a stock like cake, what's going on here, right? If you look from mid-October, the stock was $56, $57, right? In mid-October. By the time you started approaching Thanksgiving and kind of toward the end of November, the stock got all the way down to the low 40s, like $43, $44 a share, right? The reason this happened and then you had a massive bounce back is you had tax loss harvesting, which was part of it, right? You had some people that got in cake at some, you know, high 50s into the 60s and they had gains in their stocks. They're looking for something to write it off against. So you had some tax loss harvesting there, but also you had the government shutdown, which was leading a lot of people to worry about cake's comp store sales, North Italia, Flower Child, things like that, right? And potentially missing numbers. So that was a whole worry situation. And then right around here is when the government shutdown ended, right? And tax loss harvesting kind of got over in cake as well. You had a little bit here and there, but it wasn't anything major in regards to that. And look, it's cake up 37 plus%. Then you also had simultaneously right around here the holiday spending numbers start to come out, right? As in regards to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, it looked strong. So anybody that was predicting like, "Oh, the consumers got no money. They, they magically ran out of money. Like, money just all disappeared. They're not going to spend." Nope. That got taken right out. By the time you got to early December, like everybody was like, "No, people got money. Like they're out here spending like it's like it's last Christmas, right? Like it's insane." And so, and then ever since this year started, it's just been on an absolute ripper, ripper of a rally, right? But yeah, 37% this stock has now moved from those lows kind of around Thanksgiving, roughly. Right?

Now, you look at a stock like Duolingo. Little Dingo. Oh, brutal, man. Absolutely brutal. Like, Duolingo shareholders are just getting absolutely wrecked day after day, week after week, month after month. I mean, that's a stock that you look at the numbers and it's like, man, the numbers look great. Look at the user numbers. Look at the revenue. Look at the, you can even look at the EPS. Um, it looks great, but the stock just gets pummeled constantly. Every time you get a little hope in regards to the stock, it's just right down another 7 plus% here today. I believe the CFO is leaving the company. It's just, you know, it's just bad news after bad news, even though the numbers still look really good. Right now, if you've been following me a while, you know Duolingo is a stock I bet against last year when it was very popular and very hyped, right? And I bought put options on this stock that expired March 20th, 2026. I bought 20 contracts in total in regards to this, right? And I posted this on X here today. I said, "Duolingo stock was $343 on the day I posted this." Uh, Duolingo stock is now $164. But Duolingo stock was even higher when I actually initially placed this put option move. I believe Duolingo at that time was easily 350 plus, if not 360, 370. I was looking at the valuation. I was thinking kind of where the numbers were headed and then where the sentiment was headed, and I figured it was probably going, let's just call it very negative, right? And so let's take a look at where those put options are now as far as price go for that hedge, right? Well, for those 260s at that particular March 20th, 2026 date, the midpoint on those is around $97. Okay. So let's go ahead and do a little math. So 20 contracts and each contract, uh, represents 100, 100 underlying shares. So you got to take 20 times 100 and we're going to times that by $97. $194,000. Those put options now would be worth if I kept them. I made like 50 something% on them quick and I took my profit and I ran, and I regret it because I could have turned 30, you know, I don't know if the hedge was 30 something thousand. I could have turned into $194,000 if I just kept it a few more months, a few more months. $194,000. So time in the market is the most important thing. Put time in the market like, if, in regards to individual stocks, it's important, man. It's very important. Like the difference between you buying a stock a little too early or selling a stock a little too early, or calls or puts, dude, it can matter a lot. We're talking tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars of difference just in a matter of a few months. It's significant. That's on the upside and downside. For reference, I found the cheapest Ferrari Roma. You guys know I got a Roma in Vegas, right? The cheapest Roma on Ferrari's website. This one's got 3,300 miles on it. $189,000. So with those put options there that I bought $30 something thousand worth, you can now buy yourself a Ferrari Roma. Cash money. Cash money, man. There you go.

Now, next up here, Trump talking about he wants a 10% cap on credit card rates, right? This has, I'm worried about this from, I'm thinking about it in terms of, like, American Express and SoFi, two stocks I own, right? Um, first off, this might not go through. So do keep that in mind. Second, second to keep in mind here, it does have ramifications for the fact that if you have to cap at 10%, some people might not be able to get credit cards that could have gotten credit cards before because the model just doesn't work, right? It could also put some credit card companies into a model where they charge, kind of like American Express does, for certain credit cards and things like that, rather than give you a credit card for free, right, with no fee. Something to kind of keep in mind there. Um, and, you know, if we're thinking about how much a credit card company would allow, they might take that amount down. So, let's say before they would give a consumer $2,000 credit line. They might still give that person a credit card, but they might cap their credit line at $500 or something like that, or $700, right? So, it's something you got to consider, right?

Now, uh, American Express for me is a newish position, right? Uh, $55,000 I have invested in the public account here. Really haven't, you know, the position hasn't done anything for me as of yet. Uh, started buying right around Halloween. Bought some shares right after Christmas. And my plan is to continue to buy this one. We'll come back to American Express and my thoughts here in just a moment, right?

SoFi stock actually has a higher level of risk in regards to this if it does go through and they cap at 10%. And here's why. Okay. And so far, the stock has done me amazing. Up 220% up $91,000. Like, nothing but good things to say about it. But this does come with risk for SoFi. And here's why. SoFi was a stock that is a stock that they definitely benefit in a major way from the crazy high fees credit card companies charge. So, you know, it's very common place that if you have to pay interest on a credit card, it could be 25%. So if, let's say you're in that situation and then you get a little more financially literate, you start realizing somebody like a SoFi, you could take out a personal loan with SoFi, right? At maybe 10% rate, go ahead and use that money to pay off your credit card, which is maybe at 25%, and you just got a huge arbitrage there, right? That's going to make, you know, now you pay an interest of 10% or 12% through SoFi versus 25% for the credit card company. That's significant. That's like a lot of money, a lot of money difference. So SoFi definitely benefits from that 'cause people realize this. Word gets around like, "Oh, you got $8,000 in credit card debt. You're paying 26% to the credit card company. You should take out a SoFi personal loan. That's what I did." Blah, blah, blah, right? Um, and then that person goes ahead and does it. They pay off the credit card, right, with that money, and then they start paying SoFi. So then SoFi is now making money, and they just acquired a customer that might not have been a SoFi customer previously, right? Now they got somebody in the SoFi ecosystem. Maybe now they can sell them a savings account, a checking account, a future mortgage down the road, right? A car loan. They have a relationship because now that person has a loan with SoFi. So it's been phenomenal from a customer acquisition standpoint in regards to new customers or existing customers that maybe, you know, were had some sort of relationship with SoFi, but now they have another product with SoFi. So it is significant. But once again, is this going to actually go through? I don't think so. I think it's just one of those things that it's, it's more politics, right? It looks good. Like people are like, "Oh, yay, like credit cards, I don't have to pay as big an interest." Like, "I'm going to vote for Trump," you know, like, like it seems a little bit more of a political related play, um, than actually going through in regards to actually capping at 10%. But it's possible, and you just got to understand it does come with risk for a stock like SoFi in regards to if this actually goes through, it could hurt SoFi from that business standpoint in the future. So, just something to kind of keep in mind there. Um, it doesn't mean it's like, "Oh, it's the end of SoFi. Like, SoFi is done if this goes through." No, it doesn't work like that. But could it hurt potentially new customers in the future in regards to those numbers? It could. So, just keep in mind, but once again, that's, you know, not super realistic.

No, American Express. Okay. In regards to American Express in this situation, listen, American Express, this isn't even a big risk for American Express, okay? I personally carry two credit cards with me, right? One is Sapphire Reserve. That's a business credit card. So, I only use that as like an emergency credit card, but it's also for all like business expenses, but I keep it in my wallet, right? The real credit card I use is right here, American Express. So, I go do anything, I'm using my American Express all the time, right? People like me are American Express's customer base. Now, how much interest do I pay a year to American Express? The answer is zero. Absolutely zero. Right? Because I use my American Express. Okay? Swipe it here. Use it here. Use it here. And guess what happens? Uh, we, it gets paid off right away. We never even accrue any interest. We never pay any interest to American Express, right? We use American Express and we also pay to use their credit cards, but because we actually get much more benefit than we don't in regards to the situation because all the benefits American Express has, which, you know, I'm not going to tell you all that. If you want to look into that, you can look into that, right? And so American Express customer base is people like myself that are never paying, like we're higher income individuals, higher credit scores, like we're never paying that 25% interest. We never pay any interest. So it's not like American Express is making bank off of us because, no, no. Like that's not American Express's business model, really. They want to go after higher income. They want to go after somebody that's going to spend $100,000 a year on their credit cards, if not multi-six figures, if not seven figures a year. Big spenders, right? That's what American Express wants. Or people that are going to spend five figures, multi-five figures on their credit cards throughout a year because all those little fees is where they actually make a lot of money, plus the membership model, right? If you got American Express Platinum, I think they went from $6.95 to $8.95. My wife has that particular card, right? I have

That gold one, which I think they just went up on that one somewhat recently in the last year or two, I believe, on that one. And I think she said that one's like 3.45 a year or 3.95 a year, something like that, right? So they have kind of a little bit more of like like a Costco business model if you understand like how Costco business model works, right? Um and then you get a lot of benefits from it.

So for American Express, I'm like this is ridiculous. Like the fact that that stock sells off, I'm like I don't think people understand American Express business model just to be quite frank, right? No. Oh business model like Capital One, we're talking a little different here, right? Capital One definitely can have more risk in regards to this because Capital One counts much more on on what I would call at risk borrowers, people with low credit scores or no credit scores. My first credit card I ever got in my life way back in the day, 100 years ago, was Capital One cuz I was like, "Oh, I want to try to build my credit." And I don't think anybody else I had no credit and and you know, my parents didn't have credit. So, I was like on my own. So, it was like like how am I going to get like And guess who's there for me? Capital One. I think they gave me a $400 or $500 limit, right? That was my very first credit card I ever had, Capital One. And so a company like Capital One, they might be more at risk. They have a different clientele base than somebody like an American Express.

So I see America, I see Capital One down 6 and a half%. I actually think that business model should be down a little bit more. I see a stock like American Express down 4% today. I'm like that stock shouldn't be down that much, right? So different different you know and also once again this might not even happen. So we're talking about something that's like a maybe like I would call a lower probability than higher probability in regards to this right and so e American Express AXP for me is an easy buy. Like if this stock is weak in the short term here because of this worries I think we'll just look back and be like that was silly. What a great buying opportunity in regards to American Express. So, I would love to buy as many American Express shares as I could possibly get my hands on over this next bit of time. Right.

Next up here, it's a long video. Holy smokes, man. It's been a minute since I recorded video and like I I wish I brought some water out here or something. I got nothing to drink and I'm recording this talking non-stop at 42 minutes. My throat's going to I got some damage. Okay. Uh American Express trades at too low of a Ford P right now. We're around, you know, let's call it low 20s forward P for the stock. That's way too low given the protection of the business model and how great their clientele base is. This is way too low for the stock. Also, I think analysts are too low in their projections. They're kind of expecting like 3 4%ish revenue growth. I think America's Express is going to easily be 5% plus if not closer to 7 and 9% over the next couple years here in regards to revenue growth. I look at one, their membership fees just went up right on a few of their credit cards. That's going to help definitely boost revenue. No doubt about that. They're always acquiring new customers and additionally looks like spend out there is pretty strong and then also you have inflation all the time of in that you know we can call it 2 and a half to three and a half%. So you almost you're almost guaranteed to get a 2 and a half to three and a half% bump on revenue just based upon everything going up in price, right? Then you talk about maybe the consumer being a little better spot over the next year or two than they were over the last couple years. And then you talk about membership fees going on. And it's not it's not hard or impossible to see how American Express can grow, you know, revenue 6%, 7%, 8%. If not 9% plus, um, over the next few years. So, just something to kind of keep in mind there.

Okay. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, stay focused on the long term. In 26, there's going to be a bunch of short-term crap that happens. Stay focused on the long term, okay? We're going to talk over the next few days about AMD, about Adobe, about Salesforce, about Nike, about all these other stocks. Elf on a Shelf. We'll get into all those as well. Uh probably Celsius. Um so keep an eye out for reaction channel videos this week. Um I'll also probably put out another main channel video or two this week as well. So just be ready to rock and roll, folks. Uh we're getting back to busy times here. Okay. And we're starting off with a 44minute banger. Okay. Appreciate y'all for joining me. Uh once again, the private group is open for right now. It's open for right now. Okay. That is a pin comment down there. Access to all my course curriculums. become a master stock market, millionaire playbook, stock options mastery, dividend investing mastery, my valuation mastery, how to actually value stocks properly, right? Exclusive weekly videos from me, see the moves I'm making in my portfolios, we'll send you your steel membership cards, all that good stuff. Um, that'll be pinned comment down there. Much love and have a great