Author: admin

I’ve never run a marathon, but I admire those who do. They train for months, pacing themselves, managing injuries, fueling smartly. And when race day comes, it’s not about speed alone — it’s about endurance.

Investing is the same. Day traders sprint: short bursts, high risk of burning out. Marathon investors pace themselves. They understand compound interest is the steady heartbeat that carries them across the finish line.

And here’s the kicker: markets throw hills at you. Inflation spikes. Policy shifts. Pandemics. The sprinters often collapse. The marathoners adapt, slow their pace, but keep moving forward.

The reward isn’t just finishing the race — it’s finishing with energy left to enjoy the victory lap.

📊 Lesson: design your portfolio like marathon training — sustainable, disciplined, and paced for the long road.

🔗 NYT on Marathon Mindset

Every morning before I head to the gym, I check the mirror. Not because I’m vain (though I won’t deny flexing once in a while), but because mirrors lie. Lighting, angle, posture — all can trick you into thinking you’re stronger or weaker than you really are.

Markets have mirrors too. Charts, analyst opinions, even Twitter threads are reflections, but they’re never the thing itself. They distort. They exaggerate. They flatter. Sometimes they humiliate.

The real danger? Confirmation bias. You’ll tilt your head until the mirror tells you what you want to see. A bullish investor finds a “cup-and-handle.” A bearish one sees a “head-and-shoulders.” Same chart, different reflection.

The discipline is learning to question the mirror. Step back. Change the lighting. Compare reflections across multiple sources.

Because if you invest based on the mirror’s flattery, you may not like what reality shows you when the shirt comes off.

🔗 Investopedia on Confirmation Bias

I was standing on the NYC subway the other day, packed shoulder-to-shoulder in a rush-hour car. A guy sneezed, someone else was juggling a bag of groceries, and the train lurched forward like it was being piloted by a caffeinated roller-coaster operator.

Here’s the thing: on the subway, your nose could end up anywhere. You sway, stumble, rebound off strangers, and somehow manage to stay upright. Trying to predict exactly where you’ll land on each jolt? Impossible. You just ride the rhythm.

Markets in consolidation phases are the same. Crowded. Noisy. Messy. People push and pull in different directions. The volatility isn’t clean trendlines — it’s sudden jerks, delayed jolts, and unpredictable stops.

Back in grad school, I obsessed over higher-order derivatives: velocity, acceleration, jerk, snap, crackle, pop. On a train, you feel all of them in your knees. In markets, you feel them in your stomach. One moment you’re stable, the next you’re thrown against the door because liquidity dries up or a rumor ricochets through headlines.

This is why the “Subway Index” is my new mental model for chop:

• Velocity → overall market direction. (Train’s still moving downtown.)
• Acceleration → momentum when things speed up.
• Jerk → sudden volatility spikes (you stumble into the guy with the groceries).
• Snap, Crackle, Pop → the hidden layers of turbulence that nobody warns you about until your coffee spills.

You can’t forecast every lurch. But you can widen your stance, loosen your grip, and know the ride isn’t forever.

🔗 For a technical refresher: Investopedia’s piece on Volatility reminds us that it’s not the enemy — it’s the environment.

So next time the market feels like a subway car with no handles, don’t panic. Bend your knees, breathe, and remember: you’ll still get where you’re going, even if your nose has a few unexpected close encounters along the way.

My sister has this giant cookbook that weighs as much as a dumbbell. Inside are hundreds of recipes — some simple, some intimidating. What I love is how often she ignores the recipes. She’ll swap cumin for coriander, or double the garlic just because she feels like it. And most of the time? The dish turns out great.

Markets, it turns out, are the same way. Everyone wants a recipe. “Buy this ETF, add two scoops of tech stocks, sprinkle in some bonds, bake for 10 years.” But just like cooking, investing isn’t about rigid instructions. It’s about taste. Judgment. Improvisation.

The data-driven quants will tell you that if you follow the formula, you’ll be fine. And formulas matter — don’t get me wrong. But there’s a reason two chefs can follow the same recipe and end up with completely different meals. One understands the texture of the ingredients. The other just reads the steps.

In finance, the “texture” is context:

• A P/E ratio means one thing in a bull run, another in a liquidity crisis.
• A balance sheet can look rock-solid until you realize half the assets are tied up in a sector-wide downturn.
• Diversification is healthy… unless your supposedly different holdings are correlated like identical twins.

Cooking teaches you that substitution isn’t cheating — it’s wisdom. If you’re missing saffron, you don’t give up on the dish. You adapt. Same with investing. Can’t access that hyped IPO? Fine. Maybe there’s an overlooked mid-cap stock serving the same macro trend.

📖 For flavor: Michael Pollan’s Cooked explores how food is never just chemistry — it’s culture, history, and instinct. Swap “food” for “markets” and you’ve got the same truth.

So here’s my takeaway: don’t treat the markets like a microwave meal, blindly pressing buttons. Treat them like a recipe you’re allowed to riff on. The best portfolios aren’t followed to the letter — they’re seasoned to taste.

I grew up playing chess with my younger brother. He was reckless, lunging knights into enemy lines, sacrificing pawns without a blink. I was methodical — patient, positional, obsessed with control of the center. Funny thing is, the markets feel like a perpetual chess game between those two impulses.

Every investor faces the same dilemma: do you play like my brother, gambling for a quick tactical strike? Or do you play like I did, grinding out tiny advantages, waiting for the midgame to clarify the endgame?

The problem is, markets don’t tell you which game you’re playing until it’s already too late. Sometimes that “sacrificial pawn” is just noise — a bad trade you should shrug off. Other times, it’s the foundation of a larger combination you didn’t see coming.

If you’ve been following this blog since the Day 5 guitar analogy or Day 9 cold shower, you’ll know I love borrowing metaphors from everyday life. Chess isn’t perfect, but it nails one crucial truth about investing: position matters more than prediction.

Think about it: a grandmaster doesn’t calculate every possible move to checkmate. That’s impossible. Instead, she improves her position little by little — developing pieces, controlling squares, reducing weaknesses. In finance, that’s diversification, liquidity management, and conviction sizing.

👉 Here’s where it gets practical:

• Don’t obsess over the exact next move (timing a single trade).
• Do obsess over shaping your board (your portfolio structure).
• Accept that some trades are pawns. Disposable, experimental. Others — your queens and rooks — deserve protection and patience.

And every once in a while? Sure. Be like my brother. Throw a knight into the chaos. That’s where Moonstakes live — risky, wild, potentially portfolio-changing. But just like in chess, if your entire game plan is chaos, you’ll be back in the box before you know it.

📖 For more: if you want to dive deeper into how chess strategy mirrors decision-making under uncertainty, Garry Kasparov’s How Life Imitates Chess is a worthwhile read.

Markets, like chess, are infinite games. You don’t win them — you play them well enough to keep playing.

Last night I walked past a jazz trio on the corner of Bleecker Street. The sax player leaned back, eyes closed, letting the bass and drums pull him one way, then yank him another. There was no sheet music in sight. Just risk, rhythm, and the courage to keep playing.

That’s volatility. Most investors hate it because it feels chaotic. But jazz isn’t chaos — it’s improvisation. It’s tension and release, dissonance resolving into harmony. Markets work the same way. A sudden dip in tech stocks? That’s the drummer throwing in an off-beat fill. A crypto rally? That’s the sax riff that came out of nowhere.

Here’s the secret: good jazz musicians don’t just react; they anticipate. They know the scales, the modes, the structure — and then they bend it. Traders should do the same. Study the fundamentals, understand the macro backdrop, and then… be ready to riff when the market throws a surprise chord.

Volatility is the solo. Discipline is the rhythm section. Without both, the song falls apart.

So next time your portfolio feels like it’s all over the place, remember: maybe you’re not drowning in noise. Maybe you’re just in the middle of a jazz set, waiting for resolution.

🎷 Lesson: Don’t fear volatility — play it like jazz.

🔗 Want a deeper dive into why volatility isn’t your enemy? Check Investopedia’s overview of volatility as a concept.

Crypto doesn’t know what it wants to be.

One week, it’s “the future of money.” The next, it’s “digital gold.” Then suddenly it’s a tech platform for decentralized finance, or a cultural movement about memes and monkey JPEGs. Currency? Asset class? Technology? Cult? Depending on the day — and who you ask — it’s all of the above.

That’s the problem. Or maybe the opportunity.

The Adolescent Phase

Every major innovation goes through an identity crisis. The internet did. In the early ’90s, some people thought it was a glorified fax machine. Others called it a toy. A few visionaries saw the seeds of what it became, but even they couldn’t have predicted TikTok dances shaping geopolitics.

Crypto is in its messy adolescence now. It’s gangly, overconfident, acne-ridden, with bursts of brilliance and frequent mood swings. That makes it frustrating to outsiders, thrilling to insiders, and dangerous for investors who mistake immaturity for stability.

Look at the phases so far:

• 2009–2012: Crypto as currency (Bitcoin pizza day, cypherpunk manifestos).
• 2013–2017: Crypto as speculative asset (Mt. Gox, ICO mania).
• 2017–2021: Crypto as cultural movement (NFTs, memes, Reddit-fueled rallies).
• 2021–present: Crypto as infrastructure (DeFi, smart contracts, tokenization).

Each identity is partially true. Each leaves scars.

🔗 The History of Bitcoin’s Early Days
🔗 The ICO Bubble Explained

Why This Matters

Markets hate uncertainty. But paradoxically, it’s uncertainty that creates alpha. If everyone knew what crypto “is,” prices would already reflect that. The chaos is what creates opportunity.

Think about Tesla. For years, it wasn’t clear whether it was a car company, a tech stock, or an energy play. That identity crisis made shorting it attractive — and going long even more attractive, if you believed in the bigger vision.

Crypto is in the same liminal state. The very fact that people can’t agree on whether it’s money, gold, or infrastructure is what gives savvy investors their edge.

The Three Futures

So where does this go? I see three possible arcs:

1. Currency Future
   In this version, Bitcoin becomes a true medium of exchange. Lightning Network scales. Governments (grudgingly) accept stablecoins. Your morning coffee is priced in satoshis, not dollars.
   Likelihood? Low to medium. Regulation and volatility are enormous barriers. But don’t dismiss it entirely — Argentina and Turkey already show what happens when fiat collapses.

🔗 Bitcoin and Hyperinflation

2. Asset Future
   Here, Bitcoin cements itself as digital gold. Ethereum becomes digital oil — powering transactions but not replacing fiat. Institutions allocate 1–5% to crypto as a hedge, just like gold. Your portfolio’s volatility spikes, but so do your returns.
   Likelihood? High. This is already happening with ETFs and pension funds dipping their toes in.

🔗 BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF Filing

3. Infrastructure Future
   This is the most radical: crypto as the invisible plumbing of the internet. Not currency. Not gold. But rails. Payments settle on-chain. DeFi eats parts of banking. Smart contracts quietly power logistics, IP rights, even your Spotify subscription.
   Likelihood? Medium, but growing. It requires scaling, UX improvements, and regulatory clarity. But if it happens, it’s the biggest TAM (total addressable market) of all.

🔗 Ethereum’s Role in Web3

The Identity Crisis Is the Alpha

So what’s an investor to do?

First, don’t get lost in the labels. If someone says, “Bitcoin is dead because it failed as currency,” they’re missing the asset and infrastructure cases. If someone says, “Ethereum can’t scale, so it’s worthless,” they’re ignoring its developer network.

Second, play the uncertainty. Instead of betting on one identity, structure your portfolio across them. Hold some BTC as “gold.” Hold some ETH as “infrastructure.” Maybe a small allocation in stablecoins or payment-focused projects for the “currency” scenario.

Third, remember this: identity crises are temporary. Eventually, the market decides. The internet found its center. Tesla (sort of) did too. When crypto grows out of adolescence, the opportunity window will close.

Why This Feels Familiar

This isn’t just about crypto. It’s about investing in anything new. Railroads, electricity, radio, the internet — all of them went through this phase where nobody knew what box to put them in. The best returns didn’t go to the people who demanded an answer too early. They went to the ones who could hold ambiguity without flinching.

Crypto’s identity crisis is noisy, confusing, and exhausting. But if you can lean into the noise instead of running from it, you might just catch the upside of its adulthood.

For now, the smartest move might be to sit with the uncertainty. To embrace the awkward teenage years. To accept that the market itself doesn’t know — and that’s the whole point.

Because when the identity crisis resolves, it won’t be called “crypto” anymore. It’ll just be called the system.

🔗 Store of Value

🔗 Smart Contract

The “streaming wars” are basically one long investing case study. On the surface, it’s just TV shows, subscriptions, and too many reboots of Spider-Man. But beneath it? A masterclass in diversification.

Netflix is the quintessential growth play. For years, it poured billions into content, betting on subscribers as the only metric that mattered. It was sexy, aggressive, and for a while, unstoppable. Then came the cracks: rising debt, slowing user growth, competitors poaching eyeballs. Suddenly, the single-engine jet started sputtering.

Disney, by contrast, has the most eclectic portfolio in entertainment. Theme parks. Cruises. ESPN. Marvel merch that makes your nephew’s Halloween costume a balance-sheet line item. So when streaming hits turbulence, Mickey doesn’t panic — he leans on the parks or the Mouse-ear hats.

So what does this mean for you?

1. If your portfolio is all Netflix — shiny, high-growth, single-focus bets — it might soar, but you’re also exposed to single-point failure.
2. If you’re more Disney — a mix of “parks” (stable dividend stocks), “franchises” (blue chips), and “streaming” (growth plays) — you’ve got ballast. You can ride out storms.

This isn’t to say one is better than the other. Growth-only strategies (Netflix) can outperform for a while. But when the cycle shifts, it’s the diversified models (Disney) that prove resilient.

The takeaway is simple: don’t be Netflix. Be Disney.

🔗 Related reading: How Disney Survived the Streaming War
🔗 Related reading: Netflix’s Growth Story Hits a Wall

Remember the party of 2021? AMC, GME, and the rest of the meme-stock crowd rocketing like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Reddit was the dance floor, Twitter the DJ, and for a while it felt like Wall Street itself had been hijacked by a flash mob.

But like every party, the sun eventually rises. The champagne goes flat. The music cuts out. And suddenly you’re left with a pounding head and a portfolio that looks suspiciously lighter.

That’s the meme stock hangover. 🍾➡️💤

Here’s the thing: hangovers aren’t the end of the world. They’re a painful reminder that euphoria isn’t a strategy. The lesson isn’t “don’t party.” It’s “know when to leave.”

• Chasing hype may feel good in the moment, but it rarely survives the morning light.
• Fundamentals matter more than hashtags.
• And no, your cousin’s “DD” thread wasn’t the same as due diligence.

So if your brokerage app still smells faintly of stale beer and regret, take heart: you’ve graduated. You’ve seen what hype can do. And next time? Maybe drink a little water between shots.

🔗 For context: A Timeline of Meme Stocks

🔗 SEC on Game Stop

Back on Day 5, I compared investing to playing guitar — specifically tuning. But music isn’t just about tuning; it’s also about timing. You can play the exact same notes as Hendrix, but if your tempo’s off? Forget it. You’re just a guy with an out-of-sync Strat.

Markets work the same way. You can study fundamentals, chart patterns, or narrative arcs all day long, but if your entry and exit timing are off, you’ll look like an amateur even if your thesis was right. That’s because rhythm matters.

🎸 In jazz, musicians talk about “swing” — that tiny delay or acceleration that makes the groove feel alive. In markets, that swing shows up as microstructure: liquidity flows, volatility clusters, the invisible rhythm section of price.

I’ve learned (the hard way) that you can’t brute-force tempo. You have to practice with the band — meaning, sit with the market, trade small, and feel how it moves before you solo. If you just storm in like an overcaffeinated drummer, you’re gonna get thrown out of the set.

Here’s the beauty: once you’ve got rhythm, you don’t need to hit every note. A well-timed chord change will carry you further than a hundred sloppy scales.

👉 Today’s takeaway: Theory is necessary, but rhythm is money. Learn to listen before you play. And when you find the groove? That’s when trades start to sing.