Welcome Friends, 

Here’s an assortment of posts shared this week on Trends with Friends. Let’s dive in…

EXPONENTIAL EVERYTHING

Howard Lindzon returned to Phoenix following a two week road show. He shared his key takeaways citing “exponential everything,”

My brain is on overload as I process what I saw and heard the last two weeks meeting with so many great founders and investors in the media, crypto and fintech sectors. The pace of everything feels up and the mood is better. Obviously, I am seeing the data and prices all day long from Stocktwits and we have been sharing this pickup each week on ‘Trends With Friends’ and ‘Momentum Monday’.

While I love writing here everyday, it is my two weekly podcasts where I ramble with my smart friends, mostly unprepared, where I can really flesh out all my ideas and obviously hear ideas from my smart friends.

It feels like we are in a moment of ‘exponential everything’. I have no idea how long it lasts. Maybe it is just the beginning. I am calling it Real Time 2.0. Here are some quick examples:

I rarely used Uber eats or Doordash a year ago. I thought it was for the yoots. Now I think it is genius. I laughed at the idea of self driving a few years ago, now I see Waymos everywhere in Phoenix. I could not imagine living without Google Search or Google Maps a year ago, but I use Apple Maps a lot, my son Max uses chat GPT and I use Perplexity often. I was not using YouTube TV a year ago and now it is my go for end of day content, ahead of Netflix. The WSJ says ‘Everyone is Watching Podcasts On YouTube’. (use archive.ph to read it in full). Longevity chatter is everywhere. I take creatine now (it is said to have wide benefits) and many vitamins. I went from 0 to 60 on this new habit over the last year. I am considering a weight vest even though all I think about is losing weight! We went from smoking to vaping and Zyn pretty damn fast and are surrounded by sports betting seemingly overnight.

Read Lindzon’s latest here.

THIS WEEK IN AI

Michael Parekh reviews Nvidia’s earnings, Google’s legal woes, Meta’s enterprise AI offering and more in this week’s AI Summary.

It’s a must read.

STAY BULLISH, FRIENDS

Larry Thompson closed his latest piece with 3 words — ”Stay bullish, friends.” 

He writes, 

As permabears continue to scream about a supposed narrow market that’s in a bubble, their constant complaining ironically makes it a known risk and by its very nature, a less significant one.

Fortunately, while these folks obsess over problems, bull markets quietly go about creating solutions.

The bull market beneath the surface is already addressing this “problem” by broadening participation across the market… So, let’s take a look.

$EQAL – Russell 1000 Equal Weight

This ETF holds roughly 1,000 stocks equally, representing over 90% of the total U.S. equities market cap.

$QQEW – Nasdaq 100 Equal Weight

Even the giant tech companies, when equally weighted, are hitting new all-time highs.

Once again, this looks a lot more like a base breakout than a bubble but hey, let me know if I’m missing something.

PRIME CUTS

Phil Pearlman shares how to beat seasonal weight gain this holiday season. 

Many of you reading this today are familiar with the idea of Seasonality when it comes to the stock market.

For those not familiar, markets have seasonal tendencies that often play out but not always. For example, November through January tends to be the most bullish consecutive three month period of the year.

Here is a chart from page 149 of the 2025 Stock Trader’s Almanac owned and edited by my pal Jeff Hirsch. Jeff is the bonafide ax of stock market seasonality.

On a monthly basis and over the last 75 years, stocks average a 4.4% gain over this 3 month period. Not too shabby.

Further, it is when the market does not follow the seasonal tendency that we should really pay attention.

There are also seasonal tendencies when it comes to body weight and we are right now entering the most bullish period of the year for weight gain.

From Thanksgiving through New Years Day adults in the US tend to gain more weight than they gain for the entire year. 

Here is a chart I have posted before that was originally published by Helander et al in the New England Journal of Medicine that shows the seasonal weight change tendencies over the course of the year in the US, Japan, and Germany,

Notice, in the US, how weight gain begins to increase just before Thanksgiving and runs through Christmas and into the new year.

Similar to the market commentary above, personal weight change is the most meaningful when it does not follow seasonal tendencies.

In other words, if you can keep your body weight flat or even lose a little weight during this weight gain season, then you are really onto something!

Read Phil’s full post here.

THIS WEEK IN CHARTS

Charlie Bilello’s weekly chart review includes dozens of great insights. Here are the notable charts and themes, 

1) Inflation Isn’t Going Away

While the rate of inflation may have moved lower over past few years, it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

That much is clear from the October CPI report, which showed Overall CPI moving up to 2.6% and Core CPI (excludes Food/Energy) moving up to 3.3%.

This was the 42nd consecutive month with Core CPI above 3%, the longest period of elevated inflation in the US since the early 1990s.

This is the longest period of elevated housing inflation since the late 1980s/early 1990s.

2) The Bond Has a Message for the Fed

It’s been two months since the Fed first cut rates and the 10-year Treasury yield is 76 bps higher, moving from 3.66% up to 4.42%.

That’s very different behavior than the start of previous cutting cycles where the 10-year Treasury yield either moved lower or stayed roughly the same.

What is the bond market saying to the Fed: a) you may be done with inflation but inflation is not done with you, and b) the road back to the easy money policies of the past will not be an easy one.

See more charts here.

WELLNESS IN WEST TEXAS

Ted Merz shared a terrific profile of John Maloney detailing his time as President of Tumblr, thoughts on AI and wellness in West Texas. 

Merz writes, 

John Maloney, the co-founder of Urban Baby and former President of Tumblr, splits his time between Bushwick and a former Texas ghost town 30 miles from Marfa.

John bought property in Valentine, Texas, a hamlet of 73 residents, with the idea of developing a wellness retreat for startups and creatives that could help revitalize the town.

Valentine is a 12 minute walk from the famous Prada “store” outside Marfa, a town put on the map by Donald Judd. The late artist started buying land there in 1973 and his art installations have become a cultural mecca.

John wants to tap into the vibe of the rugged landscape of West Texas and the cultural scene near Marfa and Terlingua, another ghost town south of Big Bend Ranch State Park.

The region’s growth has also been driven by the decision of Jeff Bezos to base his Blue Origin rocket project in Van Horn, thirty miles north of Valentine. Bezos started buying property in 2004 and now owns more than 400,00 acres.

Read Ted’s full post here.

TOP CLICKED LINKS

Here’s a sneak peek of Tadas Viskanta’s top clicked links this week on Abnormal Returns… 

TRENDS WITH NO FRIENDS

Trends With No Friends sifts through the noise and discovers stocks above $1B market cap with high relative strength and low social following.

The publication shares 52-Week Highs and Lows sorted by followers on Stocktwits. 

Why is high relative strength and low social following important?

Stocks that are outperforming tend to continue to outperform. Stocks that have a low social following are, by definition, undiscovered by the crowd. Stocks that have both Relative Strength and Low Social Following can really outperform as more investors discover them.

This week, Trends with No Friends featured… 

Universal Technical Institute ($UTI), Aris Water Solutions ($ARIS), Amer Sports ($AS), RB Global ($RBA), Despegar.com ($DESP) and more.

THIS WEEK’S EPISODE

And in case you missed it… Howard Lindzon, Michael Parekh, JC Parets and Phil Pearlman are joined by Joe McCann and Ryan Rasmussen to review meme coins, speculation in culture, Bitcoin, Solana and more on the latest episode of Trends with Friends. 

Tune in today.

GET IN TOUCH

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