 Welcome to the After Hours podcast by My Investing Club. I'm Harry and I'm thrilled to be joined by my co-host James. In tonight's episode, we'll be discussing some of the most important topics affecting the investing world today. We'll be taking a deep dive into current market conditions as well as sharing our thoughts on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and its potential impact on the global economy. Additionally, we'll be offering our unique perspectives on the upcoming events that may affect the markets and discussing some of our current trades in the small cap market. So grab a drink and tune in as we explore the latest developments in the investing world. What's going on guys? We're back with another episode of the After Hours podcast. It's going to be a different one today. We're going to hit on some key points first and then we're going to talk a little bit more about small caps. Just because in the overall markets, there's not a ton going on as we sit right now. It is Sunday, February 26th. Dubai came down last week. We had some down days, but we're still in this weird balancing around phase. If you guys haven't watched our last episode, we talked about our predictions for where things are going. We're just right now, it's going to take a little while until we have some sort of catalyst to drive us one way or another. I think right now, I think a lot of investors and stuff, I was just talking with a friend earlier is that I think a lot of investors right now can lose a lot of money by trying too hard to position themselves one way or another because we're going to have these days where things bounce or have these days where things get collapsed a little bit further than we think. If you look at the overall market after inflationary periods, we tend to have these cycles of just bouncing around. I had a great conversation with a friend who has been in equities for a long time and he said that there's just going to be this massive push now towards value stocks versus growth because it's going to be too hard right now and we're not in a period where growth stocks and growth companies are really going to be skyrocketing like they used to. I don't think we're going to see a Netflix or even a Tesla style move in a lot of different stocks for a while. We're going back to that old school Ben Graham value, good PE kind of mindset. Stock price day-to-day, I think things have definitely changed and as you still see guys like Warren Buffett are still buying equities in good companies that he has long-term vision for. We're in this interesting period right now but what do you think, Aaron? Yeah. No, I agree with you. I think after the last podcast, none of us were really right or wrong on our predictions. It just kind of has stayed in this lull, you know what I mean? I also think that we're kind of coming out of this phase where in the bear market I find that the bounces are really, really good for the overall market, you know? We're in this point of like depression and then all of a sudden we get this big bounce and everyone's like super optimistic again and ready to trade again and ready to go long again and like shorts are covering and they're like, fuck this is it, you know? And then we go back down into this like kind of like depression phase where it was like the COVID market was like all green, all the time. There was like no depression, like stocks went up, people are like, yeah stocks are supposed to go up. Like you look at Dave Portnoy, Dave Portnoy was like, you know, he looked like a genius in that COVID market because he's like, this is what I do, stocks go up, I'm a great trader, like this is it, you know? Like I'm not even worried if things are like, you know, going down and now when things go lower, people start to panic and they're like, oh no, not again. So like, yeah, I think that like where I just think we're just going to be in this lull. I think we're going to go, in my opinion, I still stick that we kind of need to shake out a lot of like longs and really hit that big, big, depressionary point in order for us to be able to kind of go higher again. And you know, again, we're coming out of this like junk stock rally where stocks like Meta and Netflix and everything that was like pretty much jumped and like thrown in the trash, you know, over the past year, you know, have kind of rebounded a little bit and people are like, okay, maybe we're back to normal. And then all of a sudden we start going lower. So I think with the overall market, we're going to go lower. As far as my overall trading, we kind of like briefly touch on this before we started recording, but I've been working on some swings, you know? I've been working on, you know, trying to position myself as best I can, you know, for any market condition. And the past week I found was really junk, you know? I talked to a lot of long traders and MIC, everyone kind of reaches out to me. And what I said to them was that, you know, listen, guys, there's no need to be, you know, putting your foot on the gas right now. Like, why are you pressing so hard? Right? And the reason why they're pressing so hard is because obviously they want money, right? But this game is, you know, more opportunity driven than just money driven. Right? You know, you're going to make a lot of money when opportunities pop up. And when opportunities don't pop up, you know, you're not going to be able to make as much money, you know, or any money at all. Right? Because it's such an opportunity driven game. So for me, you know, I'm just looking to press hard when the opportunities are there. I did a couple of podcasts ago. I was saying to you, you know, opportunities are here. I'm pressing hard. You know, this is my market. This is my market. And what was interesting in what I kind of found is that from December to January, when the market was rebounding, you know, I had an extremely good month, just like I did from kind of November into December, just like I did from June into August, those were the best months for me. And if I look at that, you know, right now on the spy, that was the time when spy was rebounding. That was the time when everyone was optimistic. Once we got up to that kind of like 416, top of the 420 range, I found small caps started to slow down. So for me, that was just a signal to slow down, right? And for me, I've always wanted to, my goal this year was to get into some swings. I know we talked about our goals for the future in January. That was my goal. So I was like, you know what, instead of trying to press hard when the opportunities are not there, I'm going to go work on a new strategy. I'm going to wake up at the same time every morning. I'm going to still look at main chat. I'm going to still talk to people, still give my, you know, hot stock watch list, still give my recommendations. But I really wanted to work on a new strategy. So that's what I've been kind of doing over the past week and a half is work on some new strategies, work on getting better and working on positioning myself for the best kind of period and the best, you know, positioning that I can, can get at, you know, in the current type of market, right? Yeah. I think it's funny that we're kind of bought because, you know, for, for times when you're doing really well, it's funny. It's kind of times that I'm doing really well too, because we need, I need, you know, as a short bias guy who's looking to take like a chunk of a move, I need, I need stocks to run. I need, I need people to have some sort of that euphoric feeling that stocks are going to go up. And right now we're having this period of like stocks are running, but not very far and not very hard. And, you know, the range is in there for me to really take advantage. You know, stocks aren't really coming down as much because I don't think there's as much sellers. I don't think there's as much real active retail participants when we have these big downturns and just like, you know, again, when stocks are ripping to new highs, we get those big moves up and those big moves back down because there's people involved. And I think right now, unfortunately, like I, you know, today, I, I spent all today just re-inputting the data, like all my trades from this year. Um, I've been trying to adjust a few things, seeing like how, how can I adjust during slow periods or during hot periods? And we're just, I think, I think this is going to be a big year of it's not going to be as slow as 2022. But I, and I think there's going to be more opportunity, but I think it's going to be a big year of learning how to adjust during periods of slow times because this could, this could be a long time. And, and I don't think the overall markets are going to change this like this bouncing around for until there's some sort of catalyst. Again, that's going to drive it one way or the other. You know, if you look at banks, um, you know, JP Morgan, all these major banks are still sticking to the fact that we're going to have, you know, potentially 20% more downside on the S&P. And it's very possible. I mean, we really haven't gotten quarter one earnings yet. I think we're going to, and I think it's going to, I don't, I don't know yet because I don't think it's shocking. It's not going to be a shock to me when quarter one earnings suck for most of these companies. We were just talking about Walmart and Home Depot, right? You just brought that up. And, and when you look at Amazon or any retail stores, I think, I think earnings are going to be down, but that's as a, as a person like me who's just, you know, who's not a, not a genius. I don't think that's crazy to assume. So who knows? You know, those, those numbers could be priced in, um, or we shocked the hell out of people and we come in hot on CPI or we come in, you know, jobs claim something is something has to, to really shock people to, I think, kind of alter the direction of the, of the indexes or the indices or S&P. And I think it's just going to take some time until we kind of figure that out. So in the meantime, when he says, just addressing yourself and all that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, um, they're like, you know, it's always, it always seems to be like, you know, as far as kind of like large caps go is that we, we really do need to shock people and we really do need to, um, in my opinion, like there's got to be like a change, right? Like it seems like inflation numbers come out. It doesn't necessarily send the market lower because people aren't really surprised, right? And, you know, everyone knows that there's hot inflation. And in the same thing that we talk about all the time, we go out and we see people spending lots of money. But I mean, to me, it's like, is it people who are consistently spending a lot of money or is it people who are treating themselves to that once a month? And that's the thing that, you know, I think is the hard part is that there are a lot of people in this world that like to go out, that like to go to restaurants and live that kind of lifestyle of, of doing that type of stuff, you know, the bottles, the champagne, the whatever, but is it like, this is their once a month type thing? This is like their treat day on the weekend, or is it consistently, you know, these same people going out and spending money? And from what I have seen, you know, when, when I talk to people, I'm like, oh, like you come to this restaurant a lot. And they're like, no, it's kind of like our treat night. And I would, when I, when I listen to them say that, I'm like, okay, like, okay, like they're, you know, treating themselves, whatever, they still have kind of like, you know, that room left in their budget to kind of go out and treat themselves. But here, from what I found is that a lot of people stayed in for Valentine's Day, which was something that I noticed was a very current theme. I noticed that too. Yeah. Because I, where I live, I have a sushi restaurant right in my building, like underneath me. So I, I'm kind of like the, the building that faces like the parking lot and all the building, like all the businesses and stuff like that. So I was watching and I noticed a lot of people picking up sushi and sometimes when I saw the sushi owner, I was like, yeah, did you guys like do really well for Valentine's Day? How'd that go? And she was like, surprisingly, we did super well. And she said the theme this year seemed to be a lot of people were eating in a lot of people were doing that date night, which was very interesting. I noticed that. And also the when I booked reservation for the steak restaurant that I didn't end up going to because my girlfriend ended up like having like a class someone super late till 9 30 when I was kind of booking that she was like, yeah, like this year we don't anticipate a lot of business. So we're actually closing the kitchen at 9 30 and closing the restaurant at 10, which I thought for Valentine's Day was super, super weird. Yeah. So to me, it's like, I feel like a lot of businesses are just like bracing for it. And it hasn't really happened yet where it's like people are like, wow, we're really slowed down, right? Yeah. But I think it's coming where a lot of people get to the point where they're like, we don't even want to treat ourselves because it's either too expensive or they can get the same experience staying in that they didn't really that they probably had too much of during COVID. Yeah. And now they're kind of like settling back in and saying, OK, well, we can stay in like those stay at home date nights seem to be really popular right now, you know, well, it's funny, like even for me and like I'm a huge foodie, I love going out to eat, you know, and thank God, like spending, you know, a couple hundred bucks on dinner doesn't I don't really sweat it, but I've stopped doing it a lot because it's just it's gotten to that point where it's outrageous. And I think that it's going to start catching up to people. I just forgot, you know, we went out just yesterday, you know, we had drinks and some tacos and something small. And you know, it's like 150 bucks, like it's just like an expensive day for just eating tacos and a drink or two, right? So it's going to start catching up to people. And I think people are going to get sick of it. I don't but I don't know if like you're going to see this massive drop in spending until again, like I keep saying there needs to be something that shocks people. Like I was just looking like one of the last times the VIX was at the all time highs was COVID was when all the when the stocks were collapsing and news was coming out about COVID and we didn't know what it was. People were scared and people were confused. And I think that's when spending stopped because people didn't know nobody knew what was going to happen, right? So I think we almost need some sort of catalyst that way. Me personally, I think it's going to have to do with the war in Ukraine. I think it's going to have to do something with that. I think we're in this weird period where President Xi is now meeting with Putin, talking about supplying Russia with weapons to help them when they're in their war campaign, you know, Biden and all of our government is still giving weapons to Ukraine, still promising to defend them. And I think that that's going to be something that could come in and spook the market or change its one direction, whether there's a peace plan or whether there's going to be a more of a plan of attack and more of a declaration of real war. Kamala Harris came out and did indicate that Russia had committed crimes against humanity. So I think the language has shifted. I think that we're starting to head towards more of a period of like we might be involved in what we hate to say is World War Three. So I think I think that's kind of where my head's at as far as like the overall market and overall people. Nothing's going to change until something catastrophic or something big happens that just takes people's emotions up, you know, kind of by surprise. So yeah, I think I think in the US we have a lot coming up, man, we have the elections coming up next year. We can we see kind of the economic shift in in in policy shifts and all these different presidents and all the candidates. So, you know, it's going to be a really bumpy next year or two, I think. Yeah, I would say that. Yeah, I definitely agree with you that whatever happens with the market, it's going to be really based on this war. I definitely agree with you there and I feel like it's just keeps getting more aggressive for like no reason, you know, like everyone keeps, everyone keeps amping up the tone and amping up the tone and amping up the tone. And it's just like, holy shit, guys. Like we went this week from talking about, you know, the state of the Union and stuff like that, and those type of topics to, okay, Russia might look at using nuclear weapons here, you know, that is a big shift, you know, and, you know, it's one thing to send tanks or whatever. But when you're full on starting to talk about nukes, I mean, that's pretty scary. And if he launches a nuke like spy to zero, you know, like, we're talking about that with Alex this week too, is like, if he goes out and says, Oh yeah, I'm going to nuke, I think he would be the new North Korea. And I also am weary because it's like where would China throw their support between, you know, for Putin, who has just used a nuke? I mean, would they become like the new North Korea with all these sanctions and stuff like that, you know? So it's going to, in my opinion, really determine, you know, it's going to come down to this war. And which is also kind of scary for us too. I mean, like, Russia goes out and nukes, like what's our future look like, right? You know? And so I think it's a weird time. Do I think he actually would? I don't know, like, I think it's ballsy, but he also says like, if we're losing this war, you know, that is going to be our last resort. So I think what we should do is start trying to, instead of escalate, escalate, escalate, we have China coming in and whatever, you see all these leaders like Justin Trudeau, he threw this big rally where he was standing behind Ukraine and we saw Biden and Kamala Harris and everyone come out and just take their sides and be so aggressive and so polarizing and just so crazy, you know? It's like, this isn't rallying up a political base, you know? And that's what all these feel like is like, it feels like just another Democrat rally or another Republican rally where there's rallying up their base and like rallying up the troops. And it should be, okay, we're looking for a way to solve this, you know? But no one's looking for solutions and everyone is just amping up the aggression, everyone's amping up the tone and everyone's just going crazy. So to me, I just feel like what we should be doing is, is, you know, looking for a solution, you know, and no world leader currently right now, I feel is looking for a solution. You know, they're stocking the war up and they're fighting and they're doing this. But I think if, if, like if Biden could find a solution to this war, you know, that would put him him in a such a great place for reelection. Whereas from what it seems like, he wants to ignore finding solutions to problems at the moment. And he wants to just, you know, keep letting them go like the Ohio train derailment, right? He never went down there. He never showed up. When Trump said, Okay, I'm going to go down there. I want to help these people. Then they're like, Oh, well, we might do some funding, you know? So I think, like, you know, like addressing problems and talking about problems and feeding into the aggression is one thing. But, you know, if you can fix things and if you can solve things, that's what makes you a really good leader, I feel. Yeah, I think, I think the stage is set for elections coming up. I think we know where the two heavy hitters and Biden and Trump stand. I think that, you know, Biden is staying on his plane of, you know, we're defending Ukraine. I think the US has an idea and they want a regime change in Russia and I think that they wanted to use the economic benefits of Russia to help this country. So I think that we're going to stay, I think Biden is going to stay on this course. I don't think that they're necessarily seeking, I don't want to say that they're not seeking peace. I think if there was a peace deal out there, of course, I would like to assume that they would take it and they would kind of push for that as well. But I think that if you look at history in times of economic struggles in this country, wars are generally would help take us out of it. You know, we get to pay a lot of these companies a shit ton of money to make weapons, you know, to produce and manufacture things for the military, you know, and it kind of is a nice distraction for the American people to see that we're supposed to be united on this front in a war. I think they're just having trouble unite everyone on this front, whereas Trump is taking the complete polar opposite is saying we need peace right now and we need to pull America out of this war because it's not our war. And he's now, you know, visiting Ohio, he's visiting all these places saying like, you know, he's putting America first. So I think that that's the stage right there. And it's just going to be which base and which side kind of go, you know, want what's what they want for the country going forward. You know, I think as far as China goes, I think they're going to be pretty, it's going to be interesting to watch because they know deep down they know that they need America just as much as we need them as far as economics go. And I think that, you know, China doesn't want to doesn't want to no one wants to start a nuclear war and do it. If I had to put my life savings on it, I don't think there's going to be any news launched. But I do think there's going to be a cold war and I think it's going to be a lot of sanctions and a lot of a lot of things which can change economics in this country. Right. I mean, with China starts overcharging us for everything and starts putting all these sanctions on on certain technology, you know, costs will rise here and that will affect American stocks. So I think I think basically, like we're going to be having these conversations for a while just saying, where do we go in the war? And I don't I don't think things changed until the presidential election happens. And I don't think we have a clear cut direction at least. If it if it isn't Biden and Trump, and it's someone like, you know, Gavin Newsom and DeSantis, like, who do you think would take that? So this is kind of my thought. I just the other night I was out there with some friends, we were talking about this, I think so. DeSantis, Nikki Haley, I think they're going to run for the Republican Party. DeSantis has not announced that I believe Nikki Haley has Gavin Newsom has not announced anything. I don't think Gavin Newsom is going to run against Biden. I don't really see that. I think Gavin might try later on. But I think that I think what's going to be the one to watch is DeSantis versus Trump. Don't think Nikki Haley has the base yet as much as I don't hate her. But I don't think she has the base. I think DeSantis is someone that he's taking the route of he's not attacking Trump right now. So what worries me for the Republican Party is that DeSantis is going to take too much of the shine. And that Trump is going to take too much of the shine for more independent voters. And I don't necessarily know if a Republican voter can I mean a Republican can win this next election. And if Trump ends up running as an independent per se or whatever, I don't think he can win either. So again, I think it's going to really come down to how bad the country is and how much the Republican Party can ban together if their person isn't in problem with Trump though is that so many people hate him even Republicans. So so I don't know. I'm not really sure what's going to happen. And that's the only thing for me that causes concern is like, I can't give a confident description of where I think the market's going because I don't we don't know what's going to happen. And as much as I hear people complain daily about how bad things are and how crappy things are. I don't know if it's Trump first Biden again, I'm not sure if they're going to they're going to swing their vote. You know, so I know that's what that's what worries me and not saying I want any one particular person in my personal focus going into the next election is which candidate is going to put out the best policy for controlling spending. I think that America as a country needs to get their debt under control. I think we need to control this printing machine that we've created. And I think that we need whoever's going to work on unifying us together because we're at a point right now where there is some radical left and some radical right and whoever's going to really push us all into one direction that that's who's going to get my vote. Yeah, no, it is very radical. And I feel like every, you know, every single like just candidate or whatever is just so like so extreme. And it's like, well, you know, like, on the right, like, it's all about kind of like, we're going to, you know, we're going to like limit some of like the extreme far left and like the LGBTQ type of stuff and like the gender transformation and kids and stuff like that. And like, I feel like those issues are like, like those issues are talking about daily on the right. And like, they're issues that don't really necessarily affect everyday people, you know, I feel like the right needs to start talking about more issues that affect everyday people instead of like these kind of scenarios where and like, I definitely agree. Like, I feel like, I feel like we should definitely like keep like the sexuality and the stuff like that out of the classrooms. I feel like, you know, if my kid's going to school, you know, I don't want a kid in grade five learning about like all this kind of like, you know, sexual stuff and like identity wars and like all this type of stuff, just go learn your arithmetic. And, you know, I feel like figure this type of stuff out when you get older. But, you know, it still comes down to the fact that, you know, a lot of people like really don't care about that stuff. And people really care about one thing right now. And that is the money in their pocket. And I feel like that is going to be the issue that drives, you know, everyone. But we need to just stay focused on that instead of, you know, focused on like inflation and focused on, you know, consumer spending and jobs and like the economy. I feel like that needs to be their main focus. Whereas like talking about some of this far left extreme stuff is what kind of gets meant hot water. Because every time they talk about the economy, they have to add in this like gender thing or this LGBTQ thing or like this random thing that people are like, what the fuck? Like where this come from? You know, so I feel like that's like a main driver for a Republican win, which like it should really be a slam dunk Republican win Republican election. But it's just so split right now. And everyone on the right seems to be on the further right. And everyone on the left seems to be on the further left. And all these people are like, I'm not going to change my vote. No matter how fucking bad it is, they dig their heels in the ground and they're fucking stubborn. So, you know, it's going to come out another 50 50 scenario. And just like the midterms, everyone thought Republicans had a slam dunk in the midterms, but people are so stubborn right now. Used to change that, you know, it's crazy. Like if you look at like the the elections in the US before, like they were never always this close. Now it feels like every single election is a fucking nail biter, right? You know, and everyone thought, oh, Republicans have a slam dunk, the economy, shit, everything, shit, whatever. But people refuse to change now. Like they're so stubborn. I think you're going to have a low, like record low voter turnout this year because so I'm someone like I don't I don't lean a hard one direction or another. I have this mentality of country first, whatever is best for the country and whoever I think is best for the country time. And it puts people like like me in a hard position because there's in my opinion, we've hit this point of it's really hard to find a good candidate. I think that there's I'm waiting for a dark horse. I think that it's going to be interesting to see if someone comes through and really just outshines the other candidates. This guy, Vivek Ramaswamy, I think that's I pronounce it right. He's going to be my dark horse. So I think might come come shine through a Republican candidate, but we'll see. I mean, we truthfully, I mean, we don't we don't know right now, and I think it's just it's too early to make crazy predictions. But, you know, I think we're just going to keep monitoring the market. We're going to keep monitoring these people, especially as elections get closer. And we'll touch more on that, you know, so, you know, without getting too political. But I think it's a really important thing because it does impact the future of our economy and the future of the stock market. So, you know, I mean, this is kind of an interesting podcast because again, right now we're in this kind of weird space where there's just not a ton happening. So we're just monitoring, we're just kind of going through and everything. And, you know, if there's anything that you guys as listeners really want to hear from us on the slower weeks, you know, please do let us know. Yeah. You know, we always appreciate you guys listening and and we hope to continue getting you guys coming back. Yeah. And I feel like the slower weeks are, you know, the slower week should be really where you're finding those leaks in your bucket, you know, that that's what these should be used for is like finding those like weeks in your P and L bucket, you know, because that's when they get exposed the most, right? Like if you look at how you're trading in a hot market, you know, and that's why me and James do so well is because we have the range. We know exactly what we're looking for. Things work right away. All these things that, you know, happen for us, you know, but I feel like in a slow market that exposes your bad habits, that exposes your your little demons. I know there's like this thing on Twitter that was called like the demon finder or whatever, where, you know, at the end of the day, you know, goes out and finds those type of demons. And for me, I just I really feel that, you know, these times are what make or break you as a trader. Something like we see people like, you know, bow talk about scalping in any market or things work in any market, which is very, very true. Like you can put bow in a hot market, slow market, hot market, slow market, and he'll be able to do just fine because that's the way he trades and he's a scalper. But if you are someone who likes to take a little bit more of the move or, you know, you're someone who likes to slowly like pyramid or position themselves into a scenario, it's a little bit of a tricky spot to be in, right? So for me, you know, I'm just focusing on getting better and like fixing those leaks in my bucket and everyone has them, right? And I think that's what, you know, helps me really, really the most, you know, and also I feel, you know, if maybe it's best to go out and create a new bucket as well, you know, and then fix those leaks later too, because, you know, maybe you have one bucket that works really well in the hot market, and then you have this other bucket where you're like, shit, in a hot market, I can make money in a slow market, I can make money. And, you know, you're really paying attention and just going day by day. I think that's what's helped me the best, you know, that's what helps us get better is just, you know, monitoring what's going on and looking at the patterns and just, you know, just doing as best we can. Yeah. And I think, I think markets like this right now kind of really attest to, you know, how important it is to perform when there is good times, you know, like right now, going back through my 2023 data and stuff. And, you know, without over-optimizing, like there's there's certain, certain trades that if I took better, if I executed better to the system that I trade, you know, maybe these slow times wouldn't feel so bad or so different because I would have made up a lot more leeway and I would have, I would have made a lot more money to be honest. So, you know, I think it's always important, like you said, go back, you know, don't over-optimize, but definitely see where you can fix and what you can do to be better and, you know, recognize mistakes, recognize what you could have done and then go from there, you know, and that's it. So, you know, hopefully we, like again, hopefully we, things change and things pick up, but if not, we're going to still be here executing every day. So, yeah, yeah. So thank you guys. We've kind of come up on our half hour, 45 minute mark. And, you know, like I said, if there's anything you want to hear, please let us know in the comments and we will see you guys, you know, next week. Yeah, for sure. All right. See you guys.