SKEPTIC’S GUIDE TO INVESTING

Please text and tell us what you like The midterms are over, the market is already making big bets, and we’re not convinced the reaction tells the full story. We zoom in on one of the most crowded trades right now: AI stocks tied to data centers, chips, and cloud buildouts. The rally makes headlines, but we look at the less glamorous constraints that can hit returns fast, like permitting delays, l...

Please text and tell us what you like The election is over, but the real repricing starts the next morning. We sit down with fresh eyes and a skeptical mindset to sort signal from noise across the geopolitical flashpoints that can hit your portfolio first and your news feed second. We walk through how the midterm power shift could change incentives around Iran, including what de-escalation might l...

Please text and tell us what you like You can memorize every budgeting rule and still feel a knot in your stomach when it’s time to make a money decision. That gap between knowledge and action is where financial therapist Lindsay Brian Podvin shines. We sit down with Lindsay, the creator of Mind Money Balance, to talk about financial anxiety, the psychology of money, and why shame and perfectionis...

Please text and tell us what you like The market looks calm on the surface, but the undercurrents feel anything but normal. We’re watching prices float near highs while energy costs stay elevated, treasury yields remain a headwind, and the S&P 500 dividend yield sinks below 1% a level that should make any long-term investor pause. So we ask the uncomfortable question: are we living through a t...

Please text and tell us what you like Most investing advice is built for speed: quick takes, hot stocks, and headlines that make you feel like you’re falling behind. We slow it down and ask a better question: what do the wealthiest families do to stay wealthy through every market cycle? We’re joined by Mark Miller, Managing Director of the Hilton Family Office and CEO of Hilton Tax and Wealth Advi...

Please text and tell us what you like Sub stack for Jack Duval http://tarotfso.substack.com/ The market can look quiet right up until it doesn’t, and that gap between calm prices and messy reality is where investors get hurt. We sit down with Jack Duval, CEO and CIO at Bantam Inc., to unpack why he sees today as a “neo-medieval” investing environment, one defined by weakened states, sharper econom...

Please text and tell us what you like A summit can feel like a market event, but that doesn’t mean it’s an investing opportunity. We take a skeptical look at the upcoming Xi Trump meeting and ask the uncomfortable question: are we getting a deeper US China relationship, or just better lighting, bigger delegations, and a fresh round of “deliverables” designed for headlines? We walk through how thes...

Please text and tell us what you like You can save for years, do everything “right,” and still feel stuck because your money never creates real momentum. We sit down with Lane Kawaoka, a real estate investor and founder behind a private equity platform with over $2B in assets, to unpack how he goes from a first rental purchase to a scalable strategy built around cash flow, sensible risk, and repea...

Please text and tell us what you like A new CEO at Apple is never just a leadership story, it’s an investing story. We talk through what it could mean now that Tim Cook is retired and Apple hands the reins to John Ternus, a longtime product development leader. If you’ve felt the iPhone cycle has turned into small upgrades and big marketing, you’ll want to hear our take on whether a product-first C...

Please text and tell us what you like Tariffs make great sound bites, but they get messy fast when your “target” is your closest trading partner. We dig into the sudden surge of U.S. hostility toward Canada and ask the question that matters for business owners, investors, and anyone watching North American supply chains: did we pick the right fight, or did we just tax ourselves with extra steps? W...

Please text and tell us what you like The Walker Cup has a way of making golf feel urgent again. Put the best amateurs in the world on a true links course like Lahinch, add wind off the Atlantic, and suddenly every choice matters: club selection, shot shape, patience, and how you handle the moments when you’re not the one hitting the ball.  We’re joined by John Riley, co-writer of The Last Amateur...

Please text and tell us what you like “One fifth of Venezuela’s oil” is the kind of line that makes people stop scrolling, but it also hides the most important investing question we can ask: are we talking about reserves in the ground or production that can actually flow to market? We walk through why that distinction matters for oil prices, energy stocks, and anyone trying to make sense of geopol...

Please text and tell us what you like A new savings idea for kids can be both smart and messy at the same time. We dig into the so-called Trump accounts, a proposal aimed at children born between January 2025 and December 31, 2028, and why the core concept is hard to argue with: get money invested early, let compounding growth work for years, and give families a real runway for college costs, a fi...

Please text and tell us what you like You keep hearing that someone in Washington wants lower interest rates. The real question is whether they can actually deliver them where it counts: the 10-year, 20-year, and 30-year Treasury yields that feed into mortgage rates and broader financial conditions. We take a skeptical look at the idea of using Treasury bond buybacks to influence long-term interes...

Please text and tell us what you like The fastest way to blow up a portfolio is simple: get overly confident and shove a giant percentage into one “sure thing” sector. We take a calmer route and talk through how we actually weight industries when the market feels stretched, rates feel unpredictable, and every headline tries to pull you into an extreme. Our core point is discipline: stay mostly neu...

Please text and tell us what you like A $500 billion AI funding headline can sound like destiny, but we’re more interested in the mechanics and the weak links. Steve Davenport and Clem Miller trace the AI investment chain from money-losing model builders to the very real world of data centers, semiconductors, and the energy required to keep it all running. Then we ask the uncomfortable question th...

Please text and tell us what you like Oil doesn’t move on headlines, it moves on incentives, constraints, and timelines. We walk through the latest US-Iran-Israel-Gulf dynamics and translate the geopolitics into practical investing questions: what does Strait of Hormuz risk really mean for crude prices, inflation, and energy stocks, and what should a long-term investor do with all this volatility?...

Please text and tell us what you like SpaceX as a public stock looks like the future, right up until you try to price it. We open with the hard reality of volatility: a run from the IPO around the mid-100s to roughly 250, then a slide back near the low-100s. That swing forces a grounded investing question: what, specifically, drives value here over the next few years, and what is just narrative? W...

Please text and tell us what you like A 21-mile-wide passage can move the world’s energy markets, and the Strait of Hormuz is the clearest proof. We sit down to unpack why this chokepoint keeps returning to the center of global geopolitics, oil shipping risk, and investor anxiety and why trying to treat it as “just a strait issue” quickly turns into a much bigger Iran question. Clem Miller lays ou...

Please text and tell us what you like A Senate primary in Michigan comes down to fewer than 10,000 votes and suddenly the whole midterm map feels more fragile and more interesting. We sit down to make sense of what Al Sayed’s narrow win on the Democratic side could mean in a working-class, auto-industry state where turnout, identity, and cost of living decide elections. We talk through why calling...

Please text and tell us what you like Tariffs are back again, and the part that should grab your attention is not the headline rate. It’s the way the justification keeps changing. We walk through how the administration appears determined to land on a broad 10% tariff, then sends trade lawyers searching for whatever statute can support it, even if the fit feels awkward and short-lived. We trace the...

Please text and tell us what you like Oil markets do not just run on supply and demand, they run on geography. When a single chokepoint turns into a pressure valve, investors feel it fast through crude prices, inflation prints, and sudden risk-off moves. We sit down with Clem Miller to unpack why Iran’s leverage around the Strait of Hormuz keeps expanding, and how the Houthis in Yemen can extend t...

Please text and tell us what you like Micron has become the default “AI memory” ticker for many US investors, but we’ve been asking a different question: what happens when a Korean heavyweight like SK Hynix becomes easier to buy through a US-traded ADR, and why has it often traded at a discount in the first place? We take that curiosity and turn it into a practical investor framework: compare the...

Please text and tell us what you like OWN Explainer Video: https://youtu.be/MSD8Msi7qcY The S&P 500 is supposed to be “the market,” but what if its biggest blind spot is the people actually running the companies? We bring on Haran Bakta, CFA, founder behind the OWN ETF, to walk through a different way to build an index: weight companies by insider ownership so leadership has real skin in the g...

Please text and tell us what you like AI is sucking up the oxygen in markets, but the real question for investors is simpler and tougher: what has to go right for trillions in spending to turn into durable profits? We sit down with Steve Gattuso, CIO at Courier Capital and longtime CFA leader, to map the “AI gates” we’re watching so we can tell the difference between real progress and a story that...