Bitcoin Is Just Getting Started, Says Billion Dollar Investor | Moez Kassam

Moez Kassam is the co-founder and CEO of Anson Funds, one of Canada’s top-performing hedge funds. In this conversation, we break down how he trades hype and momentum, why he went from bitcoin deals to bitcoin believer, and the lessons from putting $1 billion into bitcoin treasury companies. We also discuss the AI trade, Korea’s memory boom, long activism, prediction markets, and SPACs. ======================== Arch Public is an agentic trading platform that automates investment strategies across Stocks, Commodities, ETFs and Crypto. Whether you’re rotating into AI & Gold, allocating to the S&P 500, or accumulating Bitcoin, Arch Public executes your plan 24/7 without ever taking custody of your assets or funds. Sign up today at https://www.archpublic.com, and start your FREE automated trading strategy! ======================== GalaxyOne is a financial technology platform built for people who want their cash working harder. → https://go.galaxy.app/HMiq/pompGalaxy Premium Yield is an investment note issued by Galaxy Digital LP and guaranteed by Galaxy Digital Holdings LP. It is not a bank deposit, is unsecured, and is not FDIC or SIPC insured. U. S. accredited investors only. Cash deposits held at Cross River Bank, Member FDIC. Securities products are not FDIC insured, not bank guaranteed, and may lose value. GalaxyOne Crypto is not FDIC or SIPC insured. Terms apply. ======================== Sleep better with Fitnexa SomniPods 3 — ultra-thin sleep earbuds built for all-night comfort. With 42dB of noise cancellation, sleep tracking, and personalized AI insights, they're designed to block out noise and help you actually rest, whether you're a side sleeper, a light sleeper, or dealing with a snoring partner. Use code POMP10 for 10% off at https://www.fitnexa.com. ======================== This episode is brought to you by Investor Health — clinician-prescribed protocols for weight, metabolism, energy, and longevity, delivered to your door in 48–72 hours. No office visits, no referrals. Plans start at $149/mo. Learn more at http://www. InvestorHealth.com/pomp. Investor Health is a telehealth platform, not a medical provider. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Individual results may vary and treatment requires evaluation by a licensed provider. ======================== 0:00 - Intro1:11 - Chasing hype, momentum & dealmaking6:34 - Bitcoin: from deals to believer9:02 - Bitcoin treasury companies & Strive’s preferred15:40 - AI hype & sky-high valuations17:53 - Private AI deals, tokenized stocks & 24/7 trading21:23 - Trading against ChatGPT24:50 - Finding your edge (SpaceX vs small caps)28:46 - Korea, memory stocks & record put buying34:27 - Short selling vs long activism42:35 - Why Moderna could fall45:16 - Prediction markets & social media sentiment51:44 - Space & SPACs54:56 - Canada, trade wars & funding Olympians

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

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• 1:00Speaker 02

  And that's what happened with Bitcoin. And I'm looking at today, I'm like, oh my God, these things are at 70, 80, went over 100,000. We were there, but you start to notice when things go up in a big manner. And yeah, we've had a lot of volatility over the years and we've had a couple of cycles, but there is an inherent group of people who, you know, are going to keep this thing going. And it's not just before it was a bunch of people talking about the road, Silk Road and underground and this and, you know, anonymity. Now you've got major institutions that have adopted it, put them on their platforms. And, you know, this is something that's here to stay for sure.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  What's going on, guys? Today we have a great conversation with Moaz Kasam. He is the co-founder and CIO at Anson Funds. And in this conversation, it is going to be one of the most entertaining investors that we've ever had on the podcast. In this conversation, he's going to talk about Bitcoin, AI, space, what he does by chasing momentum, why some of the legacy financial advice he may have heard about investing could be wrong, how he thinks about countries like Korea versus the United States versus Canada. And then we get into what he is doing in terms of shorting individual names, what investment ideas he's excited about, and what you should be considering for your portfolio as well. This conversation is full of all sorts of types of alpha. I think you're going to enjoy it. Here's my conversation with Moez. All right, Moez, most people, if you went to like an economics 101 or personal finance class, they would say the number one rule is to stay away from all hype. Do not chase hype.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  You have made a killing chasing hype, chasing momentum. And I think that you've actually understand how this stuff works and figured out not only how do you enter into these trades, but also how do you get out of them? Can you talk a little bit about maybe your approach to looking at technology hype cycles and how you play this stuff?

• 2:37Speaker 02

  Well, it's funny, you know, you say that the rule of thumb is to stay away from hype. It's not stay away from hype per se, but it's make sure on the other side of the hype is that at the end of the day, you know, all that glitters is not always gold. And you know what I tell people at the end of the day is anything that has too much hype around it, that's when you want to be walking away. So you know what? We're around stuff that has hype, but it's understanding and being objective about it. So when I tell everyone, if you're ever at a party and someone's talking about a new theme or idea, you look at the stock charts around and they're all screaming high. And the idea can be great, but how much of that is already priced in? The idea is you want to be objective and patient because whenever there's hype, there's, you know, movements back and forth, and there's an ability to make money as long as you're patient.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  So really what you do is you're looking for the idea right before it becomes consensus. And what ends up happening from my understanding is you guys will put these positions on and as they become, you know, significantly hyped up, that's when you're basically like, all right, now's our time to get off the train.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know what? It's, it's not as simple as that, but the idea is, you know, trying to get in early, but also recognizing when the music is too loud because it's musical chairs and it always stops at some point. And the idea is not just about riding the train, but understanding sentiment, understanding who is getting in, how many people are around and how loud is that music playing to say, listen, you don't have to get all the way to the ninth inning. If you make seven innings, you can, you can have a pretty good return on whatever theme you're looking at.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  You manage a couple billion dollars. You are the best hedge fund manager in Canada, as I always tell you. I know you're a very good investor and I think that you now have seen kind of the evolution of financial markets where it used to be very institutional driven. Now you have retail investors and the retail investors, they're very well informed. They have the ability to communicate with each other on the internet and they drive a lot of momentum into names, but also out of names. If the kind of something is a fallen darling, then all of a sudden, you know, that can punish these stocks as well. How's that changed the way that you invest in the market?

• 4:41Speaker 02

  It's, it's a great observation. You know, things have really shifted since COVID, right? The retail investor is more informed. There are a lot more people, people are trading all around the world. You know, speculation is rampant, but it's, you know, seeing what happened during that time period with GameStop and AMC and all that is that you need to be very patient and, you know, not go in too quickly and not exit too quickly, especially if people who are shorting a lot of stuff around retail. Like we do a lot of, you know, buying and underwriting of deals, but also when we think things are too frothy or, you know, there's the me too companies, we'll sort of look at that on the short side, but things can go up a lot faster and a lot longer and a lot higher than you think.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  So it's really about being prudent around risk and allocations.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  So if most people looked at like your resume, they would be like, oh, Moez is a hedge fund manager. If somebody came to me in the street and was like, hey, do you know Moez? What does he do? I'd be like, no, he's a deal maker, which I think is, you know, they're similar, but they are two distinctly different things. And what I think is unique about you guys is you have a big pool of capital, but you also have this like deal making, you know, kind of component or interest. Can you talk about why putting those together, the capital pool plus the deal making has made you guys so much money over time?

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, with the deal making, you can turn over a lot of deals, especially in this NASDAQ world where there's just so much liquidity where, you know, we do run about two and a half, three billion US dollars, but we're underwriting deals multiple billion dollars a year. And it's just about understanding structure and deals and around where hype and themes are. So we're looking, people go, how are you going to make money tomorrow? And I go, honestly, I have no idea, but there's always some theme, whether it's autonomous driving, whether it's crypto, whether it's cannabis, whenever there's hype inadvertently, there's all the companies moving together, liquidity, a lot of deals will be had at that time. And so for us, it's just about identifying what the themes are. We never really identified the theme of I'm going to figure out what's going to be big,

• 6:39Speaker 02

  but I can identify it as it starts to percolate and then take advantage of that and then start to understand the system, you know, as a generalist, what people are looking for, what's going to make it continue higher and, you know, what the pitfalls and headwinds are going to be, and then start looking at what companies are going to resonate with the average or retail investor.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  The, the reason why I think I am so sympathetic to your approach is because it is kind of like a retail investor in the sense of they are not usually experts in any one field. They have a good pulse on quote, quote, the market. The market may be conversation online, it may be actual individual stocks, like they're just obsessed with this and so they're kind of watching. They don't have as strict, you know, bureaucracy of like, we have to go to a huge risk department, got a big investment committee. And so there's a little bit more of like that deal making approach of, hey, if I see something good, I can strike quickly. I think you guys still have all the risk management, et cetera, but you have that ability to move quickly. And then you have gone theme by theme by theme over the years, like AI, space, Bitcoin, like you have exposure to this stuff.

• 7:43Speaker 03

  Maybe let's start with Bitcoin in particular. Somebody on your team told me you did not like Bitcoin when it first came out and kind of you first heard about it. But then in the last couple of years, maybe have loosened your stance and become a little bit more excited about Bitcoin?

• 7:56Speaker 02

  No, no, I'm definitely a fan of Bitcoin, but you know, just to take a step back, you know, I'm actually based in Toronto. And when Bitcoin first started becoming a thing and people wanted to get into equities, all the companies actually started listing in Toronto and there aren't a lot of hedge funds in Toronto. So we were naturally very exposed to what became Hive and, you know, we were the original fund who backed Mike Novogratz around Galaxy. And so, yeah, we did it from a deal perspective, but then I started to appreciate the nuances of Bitcoin and, you know, the worry around the world and, you know, inflation and this and that, and like, you know, is there an actual theme around this that's sustaining? And I have become definitely more of a believer where before it was just deal related. Now I believe Bitcoin has an inherent value and it's here to stay.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  You know, what's interesting is I used to tell people, get off zero. That was like my big calling card, if you were, and I would just like, look, take $5 and buy some Bitcoin. And if it's in your portfolio, even if it's five bucks, you're going to pay attention. It's going to be on the screen, you're going to see it, you're going to kind of get a feel for it, maybe you'll end up putting more money into it. You kind of did the same thing. You got off zero, but not because you went and bought Bitcoin because the deals came. And then as you got exposure to the deals, it feels like maybe that pulled you down the rabbit hole and you started to learn more about it?

• 9:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's funny. I, I tell the story, when I launched my fund, I went to a bunch of super high net worth guys and, you know, they could ability to invest millions of dollars. And I said, just give me 100,000 because then I'm on your, I'm on your map. You're going to have to start looking at me. And if I do well, you're going to be like, why do we only have $100,000 in this? And that's what happened with Bitcoin. Bitcoin, we're investing and I'm sad, like, you know, we were looking at it was 100, 200, 500,000. And I'm looking at today, I'm like, oh my God, these things are at 70, 80, went over 100,000. We were there, but you start to notice when things go up in a big manner. And yeah, we've had a lot of volatility over the years and we've had a couple of cycles, but there is an inherent group of people who, you know, are going to keep this thing going.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  And it's not just before it was a bunch of people talking about the road, Silk Road and underground and this and, you know, anonymity. Now you've got major institutions that have adopted it, put them on their platforms and You know, this is something that's here to stay for sure.

• 10:02Speaker 03

  Let's talk about what you guys did in the Bitcoin world recently. Uh, you backed some of the Bitcoin treasury companies. Uh, you did converts, you did equity. I mean, you guys were kind of a player in all of this. What are some of the lessons that you took away and maybe like, what was the best deal you did? And then what were some of the, the things that you wish you hadn't done?

• 10:19Speaker 02

  No, I think, you know, when the, the, what's called the DACH, the treasury companies, you know, people started saying, hey, listen, which started with, you know, Sailor and MicroStrategy. And they said, listen, instead of buying Bitcoin, let's buy a leveraged way to play it. And then, you know, with the, you know, new aged around perpetual preferreds, you have an ability to get a levered return on Bitcoin through some of these DACHs. And then everybody, what you realize is the first mover advantage is huge. So the first few guys who did it, um, you know, BMNR, guys who came out Vivek Ramaswani around, around Strive. Those people, you know, have a way higher adoption. And then suddenly everybody wants to get in the mode, you know, you were early, we did very well with you.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  And then at the end of the day, you've got 74 companies coming and every day we're looking at a bunch. And it went from us giving 20 million, 50 million. Eventually we gave a billion dollars to, uh, you know, treasury companies last, in the last 18 months. But you realize the later you are and the louder the music, the worse that the deals are, that they aren't. There's too many guys trying to hold up that many names, but also everyone's trying to get away with this get rich quick. Oh, I can do this. I can do this. And everyone's saying, I've got a treasury company. And so you realize there's something around being early. And then there's something around trying to catch the momentum at the end where you really need to avoid.

• 11:36Speaker 03

  What I think is interesting is, uh, see, you put a billion dollars to work across all these companies over 18 months. Now, people here, if you manage two or three billion, they're going to think that you've got, you know, 30 to 50% of your fund invested in treasury companies. That's not the case. You, you, uh, you're recycling some of the capital, like there, there's other components of how you're, you're doing that. But let's just say that you put a billion dollars to work there. You started with the equity and the converts and kind of the companies themselves, but I think you were one of the either largest or, uh, one of the big investors in Strive's recent SATS, S A T S.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Which is their preferred equity, similar to, uh, Stretch or, um, S A T A. What are you guys excited about with these preferred equities?

• 12:15Speaker 02

  You know, this one is a very unique opportunity, in my opinion, is that you, you know, all the treasury companies have now trading at big discounts to their underlying NAV. And people are like, oh my God, we should just buy them and do activism, which we do as well. But because they were put on with such bad covenants, in order to get rid of a management team, you had to pay three, four, five forward earnings of that team, which takes away the discount. You know, Strive, it was set up by a very legit group of people. It was really thought out, uh, guys who have had a huge backing, Matt, um, Vivek in that field. And they traded a multiple of NAV and they've got a lot of euphoria behind them. And so they were really the second player to do a perpetual preferred.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  And the interesting part for us is there's a little bit of an arbitrage where they need to do a big underwriting. In order to do that with institutional investors or yield guys, it ends up coming at a bigger discount. So these things normally trade at a hundred and have a yield of like 13%. This one, you know, just got issued at 90. And then the idea is it'll slowly gravitate towards a hundred. And at that point, we'll probably start exiting as the retail guys come in. But, you know, they put aside 18 months of cash flows associated with the earnings. They've got a 15% yield. And, you know, a lot of guys are underwriting, where is Bitcoin going to be? And they're saying, you know, they're in their models 30 to 50% up in the next year. And then you're like, wow, this really can have the convexity, the vortex to keep going.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  And so the idea really is, uh, they need initial capital. That initial capital, they basically allow for institutional investors to come in at a lower price point, entry price. And that starts the flywheel. And then as it moves up, this is a good example, I think of where you're like, hey, we see something early. We like it, we understand the risk reward. And then as it gets to par, well, par is par, right? Like there's not really a return in the holding the thing. You're not in it for the 13% yield or 15% yield. Maybe that's nice for a period of time, but really what you're trying to do is you're trying to drive a double digit percentage return off of the actual like capital appreciation more than just the yield. Is that right?

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. That's a good observation. So we'll look at it underwriting a 20% IRR because we'll be in it for a shorter term period. And get 90 to 100 in the span of a month, then maybe we'll keep some for sure. But we're not fixed income players. The idea is buying it institutionally and then taking it where all the retail guys come in. And that's sort of what we did with Morgan Stanley when they did the original, uh, MicroStrategy deal or Barclays and Cantor have done it with these guys. And it's a, it's a great opportunity for us, but I also believe, you know, even the retailer, net investor buying it at 90 to 100. These things have a pretty good return profile for everybody.

• 14:58Speaker 03

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• 15:44Speaker 03

  What, what do your investors talk about when they talk about Bitcoin? Are they excited and they're like, hey, let's go get more exposure to this? Or they kind of like, hey, that was cool, but now this AI thing is like sucking the wind out of, you know, kind of the market. And so like, why are you spending time on Bitcoin? What's the sentiment in those conversations?

• 15:58Speaker 02

  You know, our investors are somewhat agnostic to how we do it. They sort of like the, you know, approach that we sort of will go anywhere like, and the idea is we don't pretend to be, you know, one type of investor and only look at one type of security or one industry is that we can, our advantage is just, we have our, our eyes wide open. We understand sentiment, we understand euphoria and we understand not taking a lot of risk. And there's a lot of ways to get to the top of the mountain. And so for them, it's sort of, you know, if we say we like Bitcoin or we don't, they don't really care. And the problem is I used to always tell people what I liked. And then someone would go and make that trade associated, but then I would change my mind in a few weeks. And then I feel bad because they're like, oh, what happened? I'm like, oops. So now I just try and keep things as general as I can.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  All right. Now let's talk about AI. There's obviously this like very persistent, long-term trend. I think people are very excited. There's a lot of different ways to play it though. You can go and you can buy the hyperscalers, you can go and get into the components. There's obviously all the land, all the Bitcoin miners are switching over to HPC. Like when you look at AI as a, as a macro trade, if you are a general trade, where have you guys played? And what have you been not excited about?

• 17:04Speaker 02

  You know, as I mentioned it earlier, whenever the music is too loud, it's probably not a good time to be investing. And the entire world is talking about AI and a hundred percent they should be. Cause the disruption, adoption, all that, 100% is legit. It's changed my life, it's changing everyone's lives, even people who didn't think they could ever do it. My parents who barely know to use a computer, you know, I loaded the new bought, uh, dot from ChatGPT. And it's just, you know, it just starts looking at their email and calendar and it's just amazing the efficiencies that you can get. But when you look at the valuations associated with some of these companies, you know, it reminds me when I first started trading was like the dot com boom.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Everyone talked about the disruption, which was true, but it was all about Yahoo and X site and AOL and all that. No one realized at the end of the day, the winner was AOL, which came out of nowhere. That it can be the same thing now with all the disruption we're seeing. Are we really ready to pick who the winner would be? And should a company in the second, third inning of where the technology is heading be worth $2 trillion? And into my mind, how are you going to pick? Someone could literally come out of nowhere, you know, as we're seeing that to the, uh, the evolution of this and disrupt the whole industry. And that's why you, you're seeing a lot of weirdness around the ecosystem, right?

• 18:22Speaker 02

  You have Nvidia and you have the data centers and you have the chips and the, everything is one big, you know, circle right now where it's all interrelated, inter-party stuff. It gets me a little, you know, um, reserved into taking big bets, but the momentum is there. So we're happy to structure deals around it, but am I here to say categorically, I know Anthropic or, you know, whomever will be the winner? You have no idea and, and the valuations are very rich to make those types of bets today.

• 18:53Speaker 03

  Let's talk about ChatGPT or OpenAI and Anthropic maybe as a good example. So like one, they're in the private market. So have you guys ever been incentivized or, uh, kind of tempted to go and start investing in privates? Uh, but two is if you look at Anthropic, like the other day in some of the tokenized or like perp, you know, kind of future stuff. It sold off like, I don't know, from 2 trillion down to like 1.6 trillion or something, right? I mean, like pretty significant movement in the price in like a matter of like two weeks. And so. Do you ever get tempted on the private side? And also, like, do you guys go play in tokenized stocks or perps or anything like that?

• 19:30Speaker 02

  We definitely play in all, in all aspects, but I'm telling you, I see every private offer, every secondary. It's crazy out there. It's the Wild West and everybody's investing in these random SPVs that have fees on fees. And, you know, Anthropic's been a little more prudent in the way they've approached their structured holdings. But around OpenAI, around any of these companies, it's like one set of investors. And then there's a hundred layers below it of SPVs charging one in 10 and two in 20. And, you know, everyone's like, oh, I own this. I go, do you own it? Are you on the cap table? And 95% of the time they're not, because that's literally the original Silicon Valley or major venture type funds. But you've got all these family offices and new groups being set up just for the purpose of taking advantage.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  But to me, it's, that's where the music's playing a little loud. And, you know, there's a lot of money being made off all these things. And, you know, as that starts to trickle or come back into the system, that's, there could be a lot of stress on it.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  I forget which hedge fund it was, but they, um, maybe it was Ken Griffin or somebody had said, you know, I want the guy who wakes up early on Sunday morning and, uh, lives in London and will go and play online poker because he knows he's going to take advantage of the East Coast people who are just getting home drunk. And so like understanding an edge, um, perps and tokenized stocks, the promises they're going to trade 24/7. Right now, most people think of the stock market as, you know, normal hours, Monday through Friday. Have you guys started to think about or look at like, what are you going to do overnight? What are you going to do on weekends? Like, is there an opportunity to kind of be one of the first institutions to go play in the like off hours?

• 21:10Speaker 03

  Or there's just not enough liquidity and, you know, anything that is like weird like that kind of scares you early on?

• 21:15Speaker 02

  We've started to dabble in it, you know? Eventually the Ken Griffins, the others of the world, like that's their, their world automated trading and all that. We're never going to be able to compete from a technology basis. Whereas our advantage is really understanding sentiment and seeing something go wrong. You know, we started playing, now you get equities that are about to get listed. So when SpaceX was about to get listed, SK Hynek was about to get listed. It's all very active in that market and at night weird stuff happens where there's a little bit of a move and everybody's playing on margin as soon as someone tricks, tips some, you know, some type of, um, stop loss to sell. There isn't a lot of liquidity and somehow these things can go down 10, 15% in a matter of an hour. And that's when we'll sort of take advantage. We have guys who are monitoring through the night.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  We're pretty good at the, you know, 4am pre-market through, you know, when the regular market opens and right to 7pm. But yeah, now it's a different world as we're going to head into a one hour break and then keep going. So we're looking at it and we're taking advantage where we can, but we're not systematic traders. It's more, I see, I see something's gone wrong and we could like, we can turn it around in a few minutes and get into the market and start buying.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  How do you guys make, uh, decisions, right? Like, uh, one, you've got a big personality, two, uh, you're very good at what you do. Three, for anyone who doesn't know, they should go follow you on Instagram. Munching Moez is an incredible follow. Your Instagram stories is like better than anything on television.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  But I have to imagine that you're not up 24 hours a day. So something gets dislocated at, you know, 2am. How do you guys make decisions internally of like, do they have to call you and wake you up? Or is there kind of like pre-given instructions? Like just talk through, you know, you're opportunistic, but there's got to be some overlay of decision-making on like what opportunities to take and what not to.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's an interesting thing that's constantly evolving for us in that, you know, we sort of operate amongst a pod structure. So there's a bunch of managers within our group that are doing different things at different times. But I'm the CIO, the Chief Investment Officer, so I'm usually the one overlaying. Most people have autonomy to do a certain amount of trading on their own size, volume, et cetera. But, uh, after it gets to a certain size, they need to call me. I don't really sleep a lot, which is kind of an advantage where I'm just sort of living and breathing this world. And, you know, people think it's crazy, but for me, I, I love this life. I love the action of the market, the intellectual honesty of every day, knowing whether you're right or wrong and not being able to, you know, spin it in another way, right? You're either right or you're wrong. The money's there, it's not. You've lost, you've won.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  And so I'm always watching this stuff, but guys know to call me at all hours. I wake up in a second, I'm ready to go. I keep a Bloomberg literally beside my bed. I just.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  Do you really?

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Literally like, it's like one foot out because my wife would kill me if it's beside the bed. So I can literally roll out and then move to two feet away. And there's a machine with six screens ready to, ready to go, which happens like three, four times a night, I find.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Really?

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  So like, when you get one of these phone calls in the middle of the night and it's something like a trader calling you, what are they calling for?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  They're like, hey, this just happened and instantly, I don't need to think about it. Like I already know what they've told me and I'll know this other than like, because there's no real information that comes out in the middle of the night. Most of the time, something went wrong with somebody else and we're taking advantage of it. So you asked how, you know, AI is, you know, changing our business landscape. Now I've noticed when there's like reports come out, there's like a short report or a buy report. And you'd read the report and then read the assessment, say is there new information? How are people reacting to it? Nobody reads the report anymore. So what they do is they just drop it into Claude or they drop it into ChatGPT. And then there's a little bit of a summary at the end. And then it says, oh, this guy has this right or that right or might have gotten this or XYZ.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  We know most of the names that are in the momentum world. So all I'm doing now is looking at the reaction and looking at with the summary of what Chappy ChatGPT or Claude says. And I know if they've got something wrong, we'll take advantage of it then. Because the people who are listening to them are trading based on that outcome, believing that it's 100% right. And we're finding, you know, 75% of the time, there's something that they've missed or 10, 15% of the time, they've got the whole thing wrong.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  So really what you're almost doing is you're trading based off of what ChatGPT is telling everybody else.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  And you find that so far to be a pretty good strategy.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, but people say, oh, you're going to be out of a job soon. I say, I go, I think my job and our returns are going to actually get better because everyone else is becoming effectively a robot. They're just listening to another instruction. And if you can be objective and understand why people are doing what they're doing, you can then take advantage of that situation.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  Hmm. Now, uh, in the AI trade, there's companies like SpaceX SI, I think is now the official name, which is supposed to be merging with Tesla, at least that's the rumor. Do you look at things like, okay, hey, there's a 50% odds that they're going to merge these companies? Tesla is likely to be the one that is acquired, therefore it has to be traded at a premium. And so you'll like, go try to like arb that type of stuff? Or is that too like insider Wall Street type stuff? And you're more so like, that's not momentum and so we stay away from it?

• 26:21Speaker 02

  You know, for us, people look at our numbers and we've had very, very, very good performance.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  I've seen them. They're very good.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. And they go, are you the smartest hedge fund in the world? And the answer is no, because I'll avoid situations like Tesla and SpaceX for the most part. Because it's too, there's too many people looking at it, right? Every major fund in the world has four people who worked within that ecosystem and they know how to have the network better, to have a better educational guess about where something's going to go than us. But step down a few levels down to this world of, you know, Bitcoin treasury companies or, you know, autonomous driving, small cap, things like that. It's a lot of retail investors and us, you know, the larger funds are running the same systems we are, but they have a box that says above 5 billion, above 10 billion or must trade 100 million a day.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  And we have the same system, but we'll say, I'll look at a small company and I know I have a distinct advantage there versus trying to figure out if SpaceX is going to buy Tesla.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  So let's say their box is above $5 billion market cap, it has to trade $100 million a day. What is your box? Like how low, will you look at a $50 million company?

• 27:27Speaker 02

  You know, the problem is we, you came from, from humble beginnings. See, I'm always reaching over to pick up the quarter, probably for not always the, you know, the, the best outcome. But I'm, if someone shows me a free $5, I'm like, oh, I, I, I sweat if I can't get it. But generally, you know, we're trying to look at $100 million company. Plus we're trying to put at least four or five million bucks to work. It's just not worth it for, you know, a company of our size to make two, 300 grand on something. The opportunity, I still love making it, but the opportunity cost is too high.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. And what, you know, I've seen you write very large kind of, uh, eight figure, nine figure checks, right? So like, if you'll go from a $5 million check up to a $100 million check, that's very, you know, pretty big university you could play there.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no. So that's the beauty is I say, well, listen, we're open to anything. People are like, what kind of stuff will you invest in? I go, if you can show me a way where I can wrap my head around how we're going to make money here, we're happy to take a look at it. And it doesn't matter what it is, where it is, you know, especially when we develop partnerships with people. If you, if I make money with you once, chances are then I know you get your, you've got luck on your side or you've got a good head on your shoulders and it's way more likely for us to convert and do it again.

• 28:31Speaker 03

  Now, uh, this strategy of being a bigger fish in a smaller pond is usually not what people want to do. Most people want to go up, right? They want to be the small fish in a big pond and they want more capital, more, uh, uh, kind of liquidity. You've been somewhat disciplined. I mean, yes, you, you have moved up, but you're, uh, explaining this box. And it comes back to the idea of like the guy in London who wakes up early to pick off the, you know, the drunk Americans. You kind of know where your edge is and you have been pretty disciplined in staying in that box.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think that's the truth is that, you know, people say, you know, oh my God, look how much money you've raised, you're two and a half billion dollars. And I go, we've made, we've made $3 billion. We haven't really taken in any new money. We get net redemptions every year because we don't market. Now, if someone wrote me a check, I usually just cash it, but we're not doing that. Go and take meetings and go to conferences and try and get money. I did that forever when I needed to. Now I'm better off sitting with my team, looking at ideas. And, you know, if we make a 10% return, that's hundreds of millions of dollars on its own. There's no point raising it. And the idea is we're getting the returns we're doing and getting the situations that we can have an impact because of the size we are.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  You become too big and, you know, you're then, I have to have an opinion on Tesla and where SpaceX is going.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  Hmm. Now, um, let's talk about, uh, the country of Korea. You, uh, just your reaction alone tells me that you're interested. Why is Korea so important?

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Korea is a fact, you know, I've been, I don't really sleep because I've been literally playing Korea for the last six months, eight months. And Korea is literally the engine around this whole trade, right? All the memory companies between Samsung and SK Hynek just on their own, they control the game in terms of memory. And, you know, these companies have gone from relatively been obscure to some of the biggest companies in the world, now trillion dollar businesses. People don't even realize that Samsung put out their last earnings. It was the largest earnings in the history of the world in a quarter. And people, half the people don't even know, they think Samsung's a TV guy.

• 30:36Speaker 02

  And, you know, these are huge companies that trade, we, obviously they're big market caps, but there was so much rampant speculation around the names. They went from a boom to kind of in this bust, but the earnings for these companies looks insane over the next few years. But again, I get a little bit of hesitation because these are trillion dollar businesses that people should know very well. What advantage do I have on that? Not a lot, but I do understand sentiment. And now that everyone has thrown in the towel, we're going back into Korean names right now.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  Because as we've seen this AI sell off, you know, it's funny to me. I, I recently wrote this piece about, um, we're 2% off the S and P all time high. And people are acting like we're in the global financial crisis. I mean, literally this past weekend, people were predicting Black Monday, October 19th, 1987, we're going to get it again in 2026. And, uh, the number one data point that I saw, which, uh, I don't think a lot of people realized Friday, last Friday, second largest, uh, put buying in history. Nasdaq was third largest put buying in history. So first question I go to, well, like, what if the stock market doesn't go down, it goes up? Isn't everyone going to have to just go cover all that stuff? And it looks like that is much more likely going to be the outcome, you know, so far this week.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  To me, that is almost like you get paid for just not going with the crowd, which I think a lot of hedge fund managers are very nervous about. And in a world where information spreads at, you know, the speed of light, it does feel like people emotionally are much more prone to these like panics. And everyone wants to be the smart guy who calls the top of this market.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  No, it's an interesting observation. Like I told you, our, our world is, you know, we see people zig, we zag. And so anyone's put buying, time to get out of the puts and go the other way. And so everybody was talking about the AI trade being the greatest thing in the world. We kind of stayed away. And then now everyone's like this, it's murder ink out there. You can't buy anything. So Core Weave, like, oh my God, Core Weave is going bankrupt, which is, you know, obviously trades at a high book of value, but it wasn't going bankrupt in a day. And they go, we've never seen as much put buying in Core Weave in one day. I had the Citadel guys in to our office on Thursday. And in the morning, they go, we've never seen as much put buying in the last night. I go, it's time to buy, time to buy Core Weave. And we bought Core Weave on the Thursday and then it ripped eventually. And I'm like, you know what? And everyone was like, okay, we gotta get back into Core Weave. I go, time to get rid of Core Weave.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  And so you're seeing that, that now you're getting paid a good amount of money, you know, to buy some of these companies at cheap multiples of you believe they even have a future, a couple of years of earnings.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  What do you think, uh, the average holding period is for a position for you guys?

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Days, weeks, months?

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Uh, I would say it's weeks to, weeks to months. The larger the trade we're in for longer, but we're turning over a lot of deals. We're turning a lot of stuff around sentiment. And, you know, well, some companies will hold for, you know, a couple of years, but some, you know, are, are literally around the momentum. So I, I was talking to my team and they go, you really want to get into the memory trade? I go, everyone's gone risk off, they don't want it. I go, I'm not playing the long-term game here, but as things stabilize, you'll get a 10, 15% jump in a matter of days or a matter of weeks. And at that point I can just re-rate and get out.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  Now, um, when I think about, uh, kind of these shorter, uh, holding periods, the first thing that I think about is how much money you think is the most that Anton Fund ever made in a single day?

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Like what was the best trade?

• 34:02Speaker 02

  I remember once we played an arbitrage around the National Bank of Greece during a recap, which was a long time ago. And we, we, we made like $80 million in that day, which was huge way back then. We, we have days where we make, you know, there's a big, cause we're very conservative on the way we mark things. So we don't take it unless there's liquidity and the, the positions unlocked. But, you know, we have days where we can make, you know, two, three, four percent, but it's very rare. Like we're, we're more singles, doubles, that, that sort of our world, you know, just sort of stay under the radar. As long as we get a lot of at bats, we know we've got a high batting average and we're just going to keep pounding those out, single, double, single, double.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  Now, uh, with the Bank of Greece, uh, when you see a huge move like that in a single day, do you just immediately get out and say, hey, we'll take our money and IRRs off the charts and see you later?

• 34:47Speaker 02

  We're pretty objective. You know, I tell companies that we're, you know, we're, we're here for a good time, not a long time, you know what I mean? Like, but we're going to be your friend, right? We're there when you need us. And as things get good, that means you don't really need us anymore. Let us exit because inadvertently there are going to be trip up, trick up, hiccups, et cetera. And then we'll be back to be there again. So I say, guys, some people get offended. They go, why would you sell? We're here for the, and I go, listen, this is not our game. If you have everyone acting the way the management wants you to act, you know, you're, you're not going to do well. Where I say, listen, you've got a few guys who are doing X, a few guys doing Y, a few guys doing Z, you know, we'll be around, but at least we'll be there when you need us the next time.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  When we go and we look, uh, forward, everyone is very obsessed with the short sellers. We've seen the Michael Burrys of the world that have become famous, the housing trade, all that stuff. You used to do a lot of single name short selling, not as much anymore. Maybe explain why you don't do that, but then also talk about this idea of long activism rather than short activism.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, short selling is a, is a hard game, especially we've been in this, you know, perennial bull market, you know, it's very difficult to short. So yeah, people look at Michael Burry and, you know, guys like that, but most people who short are gone, you know, I worked with guys.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  Michael Burry is a Substack writer.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but I mean, like in terms of their ability to, you know, you know, get capital, people are all, you know, remember same thing for institutional investors. Everyone's chasing the idea. If something hasn't worked, they don't want it. So nobody says, oh, I need to short now because it's, it's, it's time is going to come. They're like, this hasn't worked for years. I don't want it anymore. I don't really know any managers who are really short. They just buy puts and they have hedge strategies or they short a basket. No one actually is trying to short to make alpha, which inadvertently should make it easier, right? It's the opposite of the zig and the zag. No one's avoiding it and everyone's avoiding it. Time to look at it. But because it's more difficult, yeah, we've kind of pivoted away. And as you get bigger, it's not as much money to be made, singles shorting.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  And then, you know, like the volatility we've seen since, you know, the COVID era is immense. So you really got to be careful. So, you know, short activism is important to the market and people have done somewhat well, but in a, in a, when the wind is facing the other way, it's very hard to go in that other direction. So yeah, we've, we've started a, um, a group doing long activism where again, there's a lot of super smart, massive companies doing this, you know, Elliott, Starboard, et cetera. We're running the, again, running the same system, but instead of saying above $5 billion, $10 billion, we can look at a billion and below. And inadvertently we can have a larger stake where there's a lot of retail investors

• 37:21Speaker 02

  fragmented and start working with management teams or trying to affect change that can yield that type of return on an absolute basis and on a IRR basis to make it worth a while for us.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  I hope you're enjoying this conversation, but before we continue, most of you know, I live in New York City and when I try to go to sleep, it is noisy as hell outside. There's trucks, there's sirens, there's all kinds of noise, including people just yelling and screaming for no damn reason late at night. That's why I'm so excited to tell you about the Fitnexa SomniPods 3. These are earbuds that you sleep with and they're actually built for sleep, not just for music. They've got up to 42 decibels of total noise reduction. So if you've got a snoring partner, city noise, or you just can't shut off your brain at night, these are built to cancel that all out. They're ultra thin and if you're a side sleeper, you're not fighting a bulky earbud all night. There's a private alarm built in too, so you can wake up on time without waking up whoever's next to you. And I know some of y'all, y'all got people next to you.

• 38:16Speaker 03

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• 40:14Speaker 03

  You know my favorite Elliott story ever?

• 40:17Speaker 02

  No.

• 40:17Speaker 03

  Argentinean warship.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  Story?

• 40:19Speaker 02

  No.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  He, uh, he one time, I think he had, uh, Argentinean bonds and he bought them, you know, 25 cents on the dollar or whatever. And, uh, I forget all the exact details, but basically he was like, well, you gotta pay me back par. And they were like, uh, no, we're not going to do that. We'll strike some deal. He just didn't like the deal terms. And so he hired essentially mercenaries and they went and they confiscated an Argentinean warship like in a port. And he was like, that's my collateral. And he had like a showdown with the government. And I remember reading that, just being like, do you understand what a gangster you gotta be to play? Not only the kind of arbitrage and short and, you know, do, but to go up against the government and then be like, by the way, we're taking our collateral. I mean, that is a different game that is, you know, if you're looking at momentum and sentiment,

• 41:05Speaker 03

  going after the warship, it feels like a whole different ballgame that most people just aren't prepared to do.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I don't think we're at that level to going into seize, uh, seizing ships. I'm, I'm guessing that story is a little more nuanced than, um, than what you're saying. But, um, the idea is trying to work with management teams and saying, listen, we all have the same objective. To the most part that we want the stock price up and we're saying, you know, either divesting a certain asset or doing a buyback or, you know, going and making another acquisition or just putting yourself up for sale, sometimes is the best thing to do. And, you know, and sometimes you get management teams that are appreciative of them and sometimes you don't. And the idea is saying, listen, we're willing to go to bat. We're willing to, you know, try and affect change through board changes or through making a little bit of noise.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  We think it's important and I think there's a little more, it's a little more fragmented on the smaller end of the market.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  What is the best long activist campaign that you've had? Like where have you guys really gone and spent a lot of time and you've seen the impact?

• 42:05Speaker 02

  You know, we've, we've had some success in, uh, in Canada. Uh, we, uh, REITs, you know, real estate has been terrible and inadvertently when everyone's zig, we zag, we've done there. Clear channel in the U S, you know, getting the companies to, you know, put on, um, a campaign, like putting on a campaign to bring more awareness of what could actually happen. And then getting either management changes or them to act on bringing on certain people around the, the board or divesting of assets or buying stock back or putting themselves out to sale. It, it works a lot of the times, but it's a lot of effort right now. You know, we're in one campaign right now with Lionsgate, the big, uh, movie producer. And, you know, it, it's, it's got a great runway. It's got a great stable business.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  They, they've done well and the, the big campaigns going on, but these things take time.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  Well, what is the argument for Lionsgate? Like, what do you want them to do?

• 42:55Speaker 02

  You know, ideally you think a company like that, you know, either needs to find a way to get the price up. They, they should be, you know, the, everything is consolidating in that world. You've seen the, everything around Netflix, everything moving to streamers. There's a lot of people that would appreciate this business. And the idea is if you ran a proper process, it's probably worth a lot more than where it's trading at today.

• 43:15Speaker 03

  And so you want them to sell the business?

• 43:17Speaker 02

  That would be in an ideal world, yes.

• 43:18Speaker 03

  And why do they not want to sell?

• 43:20Speaker 02

  You know, I, I think they, they're trying to do the right thing. They're exploring the, exploring, um, what's out there. But inadvertently, everyone thinks that they're just about to have something great, right? So they'll talk about the pipeline of new movies coming and, but, you know, sometimes, you know, a bird in the hand is worth more than, you know, more in the bush.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. Uh, Moderna, you, uh, you think is, uh, not going to do well?

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Moderna, yeah, again, was the, was the belle of the ball, the darling during COVID. And, you know, again, I try and stay away from these huge, huge businesses, but again, sentiment always seems to find me. And Moderna's been on a tear up, you know, a hundred percent in the last little while. They've announced, or it's a really nuanced thing where they basically said that they were running, uh, a trial around, you know, a nuanced cancer treatment and they have-

• 44:09Speaker 03

  They cured cancer, I heard.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  That, exactly. That's the perception out there that they've been able to cure every cancer and the stock is trading as such. And they haven't released the details associated with the efficacy of the trial. And so they're going to do that in the next 10 days, but no one, everybody was short the stock because they believed it to be overvalued before all this came out. It's for sure worth more than that point, but it's probably not worth another hundred percent. But every smart manager I've talked to who's in that healthcare biotech world says, I already lost money. I'm not shorting it or I'm going to short it just before, or it's too risky. But it's pricing like, like you said, the retail perception is it's solving all cancer. And so for me, it's like, you know, buy on rumor, you know, sell on news. The earnings, in my opinion, should mark the end or even before it.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Cause there's a lot of guys who play the momentum and they don't want to wait for the binary outcome either. So they start selling a few days before. So, you know, it's our-

• 45:01Speaker 03

  You're short it going into the earnings and basically they go to trade down.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  The readout, yeah.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  And so the readout happens and the idea is that, you know, it won't wait till the 31st or whatever. It'll happen in the next few days, in my opinion.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  Now, uh, what if they did cure cancer?

• 45:17Speaker 02

  You know, that's why you gotta be, you know, we're doing-

• 45:19Speaker 03

  You got a little nervous there.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  Sure. And, and, but again, you know, what do we do? Will we play an expected value game? And we're not going to be a hundred percent right. We're not going to be a hundred percent wrong. It's, you know, where are, where does the expected value lie? And so for me, like you said, there is a chance that somehow, you know, and again, you realize that your limitations too. What do I really know about efficacy and data around cancer? Not a lot, but I'm good at understanding the different players around it and who owns what. And there aren't a lot of legit bigger institutions sticking around here. So they already believe it's overvalued and it's a lot of retail guys going crazy, talking about solving full cancer. And remember, this is a weird one because it's, a lot of people are emotional when it comes to cancer, right? They know someone with cancer, this and that. They want to believe that these guys are going to be the holy grail.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  But it's affecting their judgment on if it's a good investment or not. I want to cure all cancer, but at the end of the day, is this going to be the guy to do it? And are you getting paid, you know, the right price for the risk you're taking?

• 46:20Speaker 03

  Let's talk about prediction markets. Uh, I find it very interesting if you look at them as a source of information. Um, now there's not a lot of liquidity in many of these markets. So you gotta be careful that, you know, one guy's just not in there manipulating the market inadvertently. But, uh, I think the promise of these is that we should be able to build much more, uh, clear pictures. So for example, if there are markets on a bunch of individual data points going into an earnings report, you should be able to see, well, what does the market think if Tesla's going to beat on car deliveries or not? Is, you know, Tesla going to beat on EPS or not? And as you kind of build out this profile, it's kind of the wisdom of the crowd. Is that all bullshit? Or do you actually think that the prediction markets can be a source of information for you guys?

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Uh, I love this prediction market stuff. I think the people, I say the, the reason people do things is around incentive. So if your incentive is aligned, you know, things follow through. And so now people have an ability to bet on stuff where they have a distinct advantage. And it's weird because it's a lot of insider trading and things, people are doing that. But for me to see it, I know the, the people putting up the money, irrespective of where they got them or not, it's incredibly accurate. And so it's better than polling data, like when I'm looking at voting and elections. It's better than anything because the guy you're asking about the Tesla car delivery is probably a guy who's physically working on Tesla car deliveries and making those bets is what you're seeing all the time.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  So for me, it's extremely telling to see where prediction markets are versus other things. And we use it to our advantage all the time.

• 47:50Speaker 03

  I, I've talked to regulators about this, right? Like if you are, uh, let's say for, just use a, uh, uh, illustrious, uh, example, illustrative example.

• 48:01Speaker 03

  You work at the windshield manufacturer. You have no clue about anything to do with Tesla other than your business, which is private, has produced more windshields than last quarter. You probably, you don't have to be Albert Einstein to think that, hey, maybe they're going to be delivering more vehicles. And so you don't have information about their company, but you are taking your day to day job and you're using it to invest in the market. Is that insider trading? I don't know. Like this is where regulators got to figure this stuff out. And then it's like, okay, well, uh, how deep does that go, right? Cause what if you're not the actual, uh, uh, company that is a vendor to Tesla? What if you're the component manufacturer that sends it to someone who's then the vendor?

• 48:41Speaker 03

  And so you start getting in this weird world where like people have way more information than they've ever been able to express. And so it sounds like from a hedge fund manager standpoint, like you don't care where the information is coming from because that's not you. You're just looking at it from a data standpoint and understanding how to actually invest your capital based on what the prediction markets are saying?

• 49:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, like we're looking at it as one variable to making investment. Then if something seems, we're not going to just, if I see someone, you know, buying up Tesla deliveries, it's not going to make me want to buy Tesla stock, but it is going to affect my calculus around the situation. You know, going down into the- You know, that black hole of is it allowed or ethical or legal? I got no idea, right? But I know the people who are playing in that generally have better information than not. And so the truth is, what we're seeing there is what happens with larger funds all the time, right? They're, they're looking at Apple. They don't really look at Apple. They're looking at every chip supplier and every little silicon chip and silicon piece and this and that. And they're speaking with all the other guys and then they're

• 49:43Speaker 02

  pumping it into a model and they're getting, figuring out better information where I don't have that ability to do. So I don't really make a prediction on Apple.

• 49:50Speaker 03

  Well, they also are looking if Tim Cook, you know, walks out of the office and goes left or right every Thursday. You know, does that mean that earnings are going to go up or down or how long the Fed chairman?

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, or they're watching the tail number or how many times he's flying here or doing that. There's a lot of interesting ways that people are, you know, deriving data, but for us, I'm, I'm a participant who just watches everybody else and then I'll make a decision based on the output.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  So you're, you're using it as information, but you guys are not participating in terms of, you're not actually investing in the prediction markets themselves?

• 50:16Speaker 02

  No, we don't invest in prediction markets.

• 50:18Speaker 03

  Okay, let's talk about social media. Although you are prolific on Instagram. And for those that don't know, it's highly entertaining. You have to go and follow.

• 50:25Speaker 02

  It's around, it's around food and fun. So people say, you know, why do you do this? And I say, I just love, you know, socialization. I love meeting people. So I have this, my Instagram at munching Moez. I'm munching M O E Z. Um, and it's just stories around food and fun and interesting people. And, you know, once in a while it's an investment theme and stuff that we're doing.

• 50:42Speaker 03

  All right, chef. What do we got here?

• 50:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, we like to showcase chefs, you know, show different types of food, different types of things going on and I enjoy it. But some people say it's too much, but you know, you gotta have.

• 50:52Speaker 03

  It's incredibly entertaining. I love watching it. Um, but social media, most people are not on Instagram using social media. Uh, given that you guys will do long activism, do you guys use social media in any way? Do you guys put out reports? Do you, uh, think that social media can be a piece of driving returns for the hedge fund?

• 51:09Speaker 02

  We, we use the data around social media. We don't really use social media ourselves to put out a report or anything like that. You know, we're governed, you know, SEC regulations, O S E regulations in Canada. So we don't really, we just stay away from that world. But, you know, if we're, we're looking at retail investors, right? We're looking at sentiment and in order to gauge sentiment, you have to really understand what people are thinking. So we have software and analytics that sort of looks at, you know, how many people are talking positively about a name negatively? And when there's a divergence and when things are really, you know, turning on an uptrend or downtrend and taking advantage of that. Cause the retail guys inadvertently all go online and chat about it. And then you can just start to find patterns. And that can help you with your decision-making process.

• 51:54Speaker 03

  Hmm. What, what do you think has, uh, over the last five years, six years with all of these changes that generally I think of democratized access? Giving people more participation. There's always fintechs that now are empowering access to the market. What are the downsides? Like, is it just like more gambling in the market may not be good for the individual investor?

• 52:11Speaker 02

  I think the downside is people believe they have an advantage more than they do because they think they have access to information and news and other people. But guys like us, you know, funds are successful because we're taking advantage of that euphoria. Like I link, I, the, the, I, the imagery I give is that, you know, we're like the casino, right? Someone else is coming in and making these bets. And yeah, once in the while, uh, once in a while a guy is going to hit a slot winner or get blackjack. But for the most part, people leave that game a little more disgruntled than when they came in.

• 52:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, it makes sense. Uh, space, you guys have started to spend more time on as well, kind of one of these themes that, uh, was contrarian, starting to become consensus. Obviously SpaceX IPO has helped with that. What are you guys doing there? What are you interested in?

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, you know what? The, these are big themes going forward, but you know, everyone gets way too excited too early. So, you know, we were there underwriting a couple of names and a couple of, uh, on that theme. But, you know, everyone's extrapolating that, you know, we're going to be in space and driving cars and doing all this in short order. And it doesn't seem that's going to be the case. And so these things are more nuanced and they're more boring. Cause there's not, there's no data and news every day. Like this is a theme that may work out over time, but you can't have 10% of your money in, in these types of names. It's just, it's too speculative in nature and it's too long of a period to underwrite.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  We're going to be driving the cars in space. I don't know if you heard that, right? Just like put all the themes together and, uh,

• 53:42Speaker 02

  And the thrusters will take you up there.

• 53:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, you flip the car, drive, drive over traffic, whatever. Are you, are you going to buy, uh, one of the Teslas that can jump over traffic?

• 53:50Speaker 02

  You know, I, I drive a Mini Cooper, you know, I, I sort of like.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  Do you really?

• 53:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do. A convertible Mini Cooper. And so I like just whipping around.

• 53:56Speaker 03

  Oh, convertible. Okay, sorry.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  That's like four grand more, but, um, the idea is, you know, I like the maneuverability of being around a go-kart. I'm not really a car guy per se, but I appreciate the, the technology and you know, the genius around the R and D. And, and I was one of the first guys. People always talked about shorting Tesla and I go, you can't call it a car company, right? This is a technology company first around the batteries, then around autonomous driving. There's always something, but you know, valuations are pretty deep now. So it's hard to say that it's value. But again, I come back to, I got no advantage one way or the other on something like that.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Sorry about SPACs. Uh, SPACs seem to have had a heyday, went away, now have come back. What is your?

• 54:38Speaker 02

  Gone back down again.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. What, what is your current, uh, evaluation of the SPAC market and something that you are excited about, not excited about?

• 54:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, you know what? It's funny. The, the SPACs move with sentiment. And so SPACs were all the rage at one point during COVID and then it came back down and, you know, we, we've done a SPAC together and you know, SPACs were getting hyped up the last six months, but you know, you mentioned the S and P is only 2% below its all-time high. The momentum name is not in the same world. So Russell names and I W M and they're all down 20, 25%. And when you go risk off on more of the momentum retail world, it hurts the SPAC market. So SPACs have gone back down to being where they were speculative. They're trading above their treasury, but what they were yielding based on their money in the bank to now being pretty cheap, where you got guys like Michael Klein,

• 55:27Speaker 02

  who's, you know, been one of the godfathers in the SPAC world, you know, it's had unbelievable exits. Only got to actually have bigger exits in the last few years and his things were being bid up. And suddenly that, that a lot of them have come back down to treasury. So we're looking at names that you have bigger sponsors, guys who have a huge network, access to good financing. That's an interesting one where like, as you know, SPACs, your risk is only back down to treasury. So, and you can lever them up at a, at a decent level with the bank because you can't really lose a lot of money. So we're, we're, we're nimbling again on the SPAC market itself.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  All right. Um, when you look out over, uh, I don't know, next 10 years, you're based in Canada, advantage or disadvantage?

• 56:07Speaker 02

  Well, we're kind of in a trade war right now, but, uh, you know, I.

• 56:10Speaker 03

  We're going to get to that in a second. From an investor standpoint, like I, I could make an argument that you're not into like day-to-day craziness of like every single guy, uh, with an ideas coming in through your office. Cause they have to go to Canada to come see you. Uh, at the same time though, it's this virtual world. It's like you can jump on Zoom, you know, quickly. So like, how do you think about location as an advantage or disadvantage?

• 56:30Speaker 02

  Uh, I think it's an advantage in that, you know, you, you're not in the circus every day. When you're sort of in the circus, you don't realize you're in it. So we're one step removed that we can be in any time.

• 56:39Speaker 03

  Bay Street.

• 56:40Speaker 02

  We're on the bay. Yeah. The bay, we're right, literally physically on Bay Street in the, in the Brookfield. Like literally, I, I never thought I'd be there, but we're literally at the, at that level where, you know, everything's around us, but it's Canada. It's just banks and resource companies. Nothing really for us to do in Canada. 90% of what we do is in the U S. And so it's an advantage because you get a lot of people who are smart, who started in Canada, and then they want to go abroad. They work in New York, Hong Kong. And then they want to come back and start a family because Canada is a great place. And then there aren't a lot of hedge funds to work at. So we get it. Unbelievable people that we can hire and bring a part of our team. And that's an advantage we see. But also when you get a new industry, Canada is a little easier to start.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  So that's where the cannabis companies came. That's where the crypto companies came. And because there's not a lot of hedge funds involved in these new types of markets, you know, we're probably the first and only call. So we do pretty well from that perspective as well.

• 57:33Speaker 03

  All right. So I know you know, uh, Ford, what, what was, uh, Premier Ford?

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  Is that right? Premier Ford. Uh, Trump down here in the U S, him and Ford, they've been going jawing at each other back and forth. Maybe we just strike like a little peace deal between you and I to then bring to them and say, hey, America and Canada should get along.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  It's, it's not a bad, it's not a bad, uh, thing to do.

• 57:52Speaker 03

  You guys want to join up? You, you want to join America?

• 57:54Speaker 02

  I, I don't think we want to join America. We appreciate you being a good partner and our, our next door neighbor. But, uh, you know, I think we, we both do better as, uh, independent.

• 58:02Speaker 03

  Kevin O'Leary, fellow Canadian, he says, uh, maybe the Canadians just want to become American.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  Kevin and Kevin O'Leary is my neighbor in, in Muskoka, which is the best place in the world to visit. It's like the Hamptons times 10. If anyone wants to come visit, we, we throw live music parties four nights a week, but we talk about this and that. You know, obviously Kevin has a lot of stuff around the joking, but he, I think he appreciates what Canada is. And, you know, obviously he, he has a, a big successful show here. But Canada is a great place. We've got a great thing, but we're also ready to be a great partner. And obviously, you know, your president has identified certain things that a lot of countries aren't stepping up in regards to defense and in regards to, you know, their obligations.

• 58:42Speaker 03

  Chain, immigration, the whole thing.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  But like, you know, we're better off being friends than foes, I believe.

• 58:47Speaker 03

  100%. And I think that, I, I don't want to speak for anybody else, but like, I think that most Americans understand that. And, uh, uh, it's almost this like, uh, hey, let's all get on the same page. And then being friends and a united front is obviously very helpful, especially in a world where we have shared adversaries who, you know, maybe not be, may not be as excited about, uh, the powers that can come from a united front of, uh, all the, uh, Western hemisphere countries.

• 59:13Speaker 02

  No, for sure. There's, it's a game being played, you know, eventually you just gotta, you gotta work through it and you know, like, it's like brothers. At the end of the day, sometimes you fight, sometimes you don't, sometimes it's longer, more protracted. And, but eventually you get back and you realize we have such common interests that we're better off being on the same side.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  Did you cry when the U S won the Olympic gold medal in hockey?

• 59:31Speaker 02

  I was not happy for sure. I was there and, um, I made a bet and I go, you know what? You bet on your own team. You don't need to like, there's just, you're going to be happy either way. But I, they, as they played that first period, I was like, we're going to win this game. And I, you know, now with this interactive world, you can make more bets at the time. And I go, this is going to get better and better.

• 59:47Speaker 03

  No.

• 59:48Speaker 02

  To the end, but you know, you can't win it all, but, uh,

• 59:51Speaker 03

  You DMed me. I don't know if you remember, I, cause I posted, I said, if America beats Canada and the gold medal hockey, uh, you guys got to become American. And you just responded, which is LOL.

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  But, but here's the thing is I, I do think, um, maybe we're all ended. So you do a lot of philanthropic stuff. Um, one of them, which I think is probably the coolest thing that you do, uh, is you support a lot of the Olympic athletes, right? Explain a little bit what, uh, you and your family do there.

• 1:00:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, we, we have a foundation. We, we, instead of calling it a foundation, we call it an equity fund where we're looking to provide equity, but we're looking to get a return on equity. So using the same hedge fund strategy model in philanthropy. And so, you know, in Canada, we don't get a lot of philanthropy around sports and athletes. And I'm on the Canadian Olympic board. And, you know, I, I was talking to athletes who are on the board and they go, man, you don't know how hard it is. We, we, we do so well and we get no support. I'm like, there's never like, half of them are on welfare and they're getting 18,000 or $20,000 a year. But people don't understand that in the business world or just general, generalizations that go on in Canada. And so I'm like, listen, why don't we identify athletes who are heading to the medal, heading to the Olympics within the last six months to a year?

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  And provide them last mile funding. How can, you know, how can they go from what we call, we call great to gold? And saying, listen, if we got you extra coaching, if we got you to an extra regatta, if we got you better technology, how much better can you do? And I said, listen, I'll just pilot it myself and myself and my partner Adrian Rocka, we did it with our own money. And then we, we expanded and expanded and we showed that, you know, we sponsored 10% of the athletes, which weren't even the best. Cause the best already had real sponsors. They didn't need extra money. And we got 30% of the medals. And then we repeated it in the, uh, in the Winter Olympics. And so now we're bringing more awareness, but it's fun because we have guys internally in our office, they're crunching the data.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  They're looking at this and say, oh my God, these guys are crushing it with old skates or an old bobsled or without going to nine events a year. Imagine if we can turn that headwind into a tailwind, what can they do? And so we're really excited about that.

• 1:01:55Speaker 03

  I love it. All right. Where, uh, other than munching Moez on Instagram, where can we send people to find out more about, uh, Anson?

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, and, and sonfunds.com and we're on, we're on the social media, Twitter, this and that, or LinkedIn. We're, we're all over. And we're, we're happy to engage. People throw ideas at us and we'll respond. And we're happy to open kimono on the stuff we're doing. It's sort of, it's enjoyment. I sort of love this, uh, love this world.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  I love it. All right. Thanks for doing it. We'll do it again soon.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Thank you.