My Stocktoberfest Takeaways and Some Predictions...

Happy Sunday…

I am recovering from a couple full days on stage at Stocktoberfest. For the first time, we held our funds Social Leverage annual meeting the following day. This led to a larger mix of entrepreneurs, LP’s and Stocktwits community on the island to enjoy the weather, beach and content.

We had over 400 people in attendance and two tracks of content including our fast growing Investor Relations community…

One huge highlight for me was having my friend Yoshi, the founder of Alpaca in from Kyoto, on stage with Polymarket’s head of growth Mahdi Ali to talk prediction markets, crypto and tokenization. There are just a handful of people truly at the centers of this trend one of the biggest ever for what I call the ‘degenerate economy’. Yoshi and Mahdi are two of them. Joining them was my good friend Ethan Silver who is the securities expert of the ‘degenerate economy’ and has been council for Robinhood, Alpaca, Stocktwits and Polymarket. There was no media in the room and the conversation was epic. The speed of convergence in the global markets for predictions, crypto, tokens and trading are intense.

I spoke on stage with over 100 traders, investors and founders and one of my favorites again this year was Darren Rovell who recently founded Cllct (my daughter Rachel and I are personal investors). Darren has a unique eye for collectibles, backing startups (Pop-Up Bagels and Athletic Brewing) and is one of the best storytellers I know. Like most great investors he is insanely curious…

One of my favorite entrepreneurs we (Social Leverage) have backed is Paul Tran the founder of Manscaped. Paul gave a masterclass in growth, marketing and how the company is dealing with tariffs (so far). Tariffs are not something you just hear about on Twitter. They are absolutely crushing businesses across the country and creating havoc for forward planning. Paul shared his experiences and how he is steering Manscaped into a future that he believes will have continued tariffs…

It was really fun to have my kids (Rachel and Max) and Max’s girlfriend Amy in from London, and their entrepreneurial friends in the room to network for the three days. We also invited students from the business schools around the city.

Hundreds of stock ideas were shared over the two days on stage, so it is hard to pick a favorite.

I do think the more AI was discussed over the three days the more $GOOG ( ▲ 2.67% ) stood out as a long term winner. Though $AAPL ( ▲ 1.25% ) was not discussed that much, I continue to like the stock for how little it gets discussed yet how at the center of our lives it continues to be.

As for my favorite speculation idea it is the spread between Luckin 'Coffee in China ( $LKNCY ( ▲ 0.23% ) $11 billion) and Starbucks ( $SBUX ( ▲ 0.76% ) $90 billion). Luckin’ has beat back Starbucks in China and now entered New York. It has a scarred financial fraud history so that overhang will haunt them forever which is good for the company if the company runs clean.

Finally, I have much bigger plans for Stocktoberfest meets Coronado next October which l am already working on.

Have a great Sunday.