Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Boy, we have a good one for you today. Welcome to the Move the Chains podcast. I am your host, Jason Jacoby, along with salt to salt and pepper. We go salt and pepper a little bit. Mark Boyer. Mark, how you doing today?
Speaker 1 00:00:14 I'm doing great. Super excited to have our guests, Adam Johnson, here with us. And that's gonna be, it's gonna be a good time together. Looking
Speaker 0 00:00:21 Forward to it. Absolutely. Absolutely. He, so Adam Johnson is the founder and author of bullseye brief.com, a weekly investment letter, which explores American ingenuity through actionable stock picks. He also manages the American ingenuity portfolio at Kensington Investment Council. Previously, he anchored several daily programs at Bloomberg Television, interviewing CEOs, heads of state and prominent investors during his three decade career on Wall Street, which I can't believe it's been three decades. Adam, you look younger than me. Thank you. So he has traded stocks, options, and oil for ING Asset Management, Louis Dreyfus and Merrill Lynch. He graduated from Princeton with a degree in economics and he resides in the beautiful New York City and enjoys cooking, skiing, and shooting, which I wanna talk about a little bit later. Yeah, love the love a lot of those things there. Oh yeah. But a brief backstory into Bullseye Brief before we kind of get into Adam and his story and how he's moved the chains.
Speaker 0 00:01:19 So, bullseye brief, again, ex explores and invests in American ingenuity. I wanna bring that home a little bit more. So, you know, greatest country in the world, a lot of an ingenuity in companies going on. So he manages a portfolio of 35 to 40 publicly traded US equities with a significant runway for growth. These are dynamic US companies propelling the world forward across multiple industries. So excited to dive into that. And some of these sectors of focus include energy, healthcare, industrials, and technology, new positions into the fund based on individual merit. And each shares three defining attributes. Great story, compelling data, and identifiable catalysts, upside targets and downside alerts are determined in advance to manage risk reward. And since launching in 2016, the portfolio has significantly outperformed the s and p. So, well done, Adam. Good to go. We're excited to have you. Welcome Adam Johnson.
Speaker 2 00:02:15 Alright, Jason and Mark. Thank you. Great to be here.
Speaker 0 00:02:20 Glad. Awesome. Thanks so much for, for, for joining us now wanna kind of dive into your backstory a little bit. So you're in New York City now, but why don't you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and, and kind of your childhood and, and how you ended up at, at a, the wonderful School of Princeton.
Speaker 3 00:02:37 Yeah, boy, what a wonderful place that was. So, I was born in Chicago. My folks actually from Iowa, they were the first ones to ever leave the farm. And, and eventually dad got transferred to New York. So I grew up in Connecticut, was lucky enough to go down to Princeton. And you know, the amazing thing about going, going to a place like Princeton is you, you end up meeting professors and people who change your life. And my econ 1 0 1 prof is a guy named Alan Blinder, if that sounds familiar. He's the former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. And one day after class, I went up to him and I asked him question and he said, remind me your name again. And I said, well, sir, it's Adam Johnson. He said, Adam, what's your major? I said, well, sir, I'm a pre-med, so it's probably gonna be molecular biology.
Speaker 3 00:03:27 And he said, I think that's a bad idea. Wow. I said, well, why? He goes, well, you're the only one who comes up to me every day after class and ask questions. I think you like economics and you should be an economics major. And you know what, it it, I mean, it's funny because in that moment, it, it just totally changed. I said to him, well, you know what's interesting, professor? I said, the cool thing about economics is it, it gives you this language to understand how the world comes together and interacts. He goes, that's what an economics major would say. Hmm. So with that, I literally changed my mind, never looked back. And as an economics major, it was pretty logical to go to Wall Street and found myself Trading oil, eventually trading stocks and options, and then going on as a guest on CNBC and Fox in Bloomberg.
Speaker 3 00:04:19 And eventually Bloomberg in about 2008 after I've been trading for 20 years, said, would you ever join us as a full-time TV person? Because the world's imploding again, 2008, 2009. It was crazy. And they needed people who could speak from experience. They didn't want journalists, they wanted people, you know, who were actually in the, in the trading, et cetera. And so I spent five years in front of a camera. I loved it, but I missed being in the business. So I launched Bullseye Brief and out of Bullseye Brief, which is my investment letter, has come the money management business and the Bullseye American Ingenuity Fund. So it's, it's, it's been a, a long, wonderful and circuitous ride as life always is. Yeah. And I feel privileged to, to be here and talking with you guys and, and effectively running two businesses now.
Speaker 0 00:05:12 That's amazing. So you said you went in as pre-Med, how, yeah. So what was the thought process behind that? I mean, that's a, that's a seismic shift, but did you have a passion for, for that going in you loved health and fitness or health? Well,
Speaker 3 00:05:25 You know, it's, it's funny how things, how things work. When you find you're good at something, you tend to do it and you enjoy it because you're good at it. And I had an aptitude for science as a kid, and I got straight A pluses in every science class I ever took until I got to Princeton. But yeah, I, I loved it and it just seemed so obvious to me. And as a kid, I would volunteer at the local hospital and I'd talk to nurses and doctors and I don't know, know, it just, it just felt right and it felt right until my eyes were opened by a great professor who realized that, you know, there's not just one version of Right. And so I think for me, economics and now markets and running money and, and being in that flow, that is for me, I think more right than being a doctor would've been. I think I'd have been a great doctor. I wanted to be a surgeon. I'm, I'm precise, I like using my hands. I mean, like we said, I like to cook, I like to paint, but I think I am probably better off being a portfolio manager than I am being a doctor, even though I think I would've enjoyed that too.
Speaker 1 00:06:36 So how long did that take? So I mean, you, you made it sound like you made that decision pretty quickly, but was that hard? I mean, did, was that what It wasn't, it was super easy. You just, were you, next day you were going to economics.
Speaker 3 00:06:47 Yeah, well, you know, when something feels right, you know yourself, you know, when you know who you are and you're comfortable in your own skin, I think it's easy to make decisions or easier. Yeah. And the way he said it, it just seems so logical. And I thought, how could I go against that kind of logic? I mean, I literally, yeah, as I walked down the stairs of Mash 1 0 3, the big lecture hall of Princeton, it was just crystal clear. And I came into, I mean, literally, and, you know, I didn't go into that, that economics class that day thinking, well, my life's about to change, but you know, that sometimes that's the way life works.
Speaker 1 00:07:23 Yeah. Happened that quick.
Speaker 0 00:07:25 It's kinda interesting. So you, so you doctor, right. Helping people more, maybe more physically and, and internally where now you're helping people in a different way. So you're still helping people right. Through, through actionable insights and, and you're, you're helping people make money, you know, learn, educate themselves about economics, how the world works, how it's all kind of comes together. So that's pretty, pretty fascinating. Pretty cool.
Speaker 3 00:07:47 Yeah, I think so, and people have asked me before, you know, what was it about economics? You know, that comment you made? Well, economics gives you this language for understanding how the world comes together. Here's how I see it. And I had already formulated this at Princeton, but it didn't gel until that comment from the, from the professor Alan Blinder. So there's a guy in Australia who raises sheep, and then he shears the sheep, and that produces wool that another guy ships to a port that another guy or gal puts into a ship, and it's sent to China. So still more people can turn that wool into yarn and then weave it into sweaters. And ultimately that sweater gets put in yet another ship and sent to a place like New York where it ends up in a store, we'll call it Ralph Lauren, that is a publicly traded company, ticker rl.
Speaker 3 00:08:42 And then there are investors who consider buying that stock. And there are analysts who help you come to that decision. Well think about all the different social human professional interactions that converted the wool in Australia to the sweater on Madison Avenue and all that stuff. All those millions of interactions over, you know, a long period of time, months, et cetera, get distilled into a single thing called a stock price that back in the day was traded on the New York Stock Exchange. And of course now it's traded, you know, online. Yeah. And the distillation of all those processes, to me is incredibly exciting. And the stock price is just the final distillation, that final point at the bottom of a very long and complicated triangle. And I wanted to be, at that point, I wanted to be at the tip of that pyramid. And so that's what ultimately took me to Wall Street. And for me that was more exciting than, than repairing people's bodies as, as wonderful as that is. And as essential as that is it just, for me, the way I'm wired, I wanted to be at the tip of that, that, that, that, that point.
Speaker 0 00:10:03 Interesting. So talk about your journey to New York City. So obviously it's the epicenter, financial epicenter of the world and in my opinion, but Yeah. Had you been there prior to, like, during your, your coursework at Princeton? So you kind of already knew, hey, when I'm done, I'm gonna go there. Sure. There were internships maybe along the way. So how was that transition? Was it a culture shock a little bit? Or was it just smooth sailing? No,
Speaker 3 00:10:26 No. And I'll tell you why, because my dad was in advertising, and if you remember the show Mad Men, right? Remember that show, right? Yeah. Well that was my dad.
Speaker 3 00:10:37 It was a little crazy. You actually died at 48 Heart Attack because I'm sorry. You know, the way those guys were portrayed in that show. I mean, that was kind of how my dad lived. And every Friday night mom, this is back when I was 7, 8, 9 years old, and my sister was two years younger than I'm mom would get us all dolled up. I had to put on a blue placer and a tie as a kid, and we'd go into my dad's office, you know, this is the seventies, and we'd meet 'em, and then we'd all go out and do a family dinner literally every Friday night. So, and you know, when mom and dad would sit at the table and, you know, have a few cocktails for a few hours, I mean, it was the seventies, right? Yeah. He was badman. Yeah. And, you know, an advertising guy.
Speaker 3 00:11:19 And so my point is that New York started to feel very comfortable at a very young age, and it never really occurred to me that I would do anything other than go to New York. I mean, I, you know, I assumed I, you know, would do med school somewhere, but it, it never occurred to me that I would live ultimately anywhere other than New York. And so yeah, Princeton to, to New York was, was pretty obvious. I'm sitting in my New York apartment right now as we do the podcast, and I've been living on the Upper East Side ever since I graduated. So, you know, maybe I'm a creature of, of happy, maybe I just know what I like, but it feels pretty good.
Speaker 0 00:11:57 So, so on your walk and talks in the morning that we see on, on LinkedIn, which I love by the way. So how, how long is the journey to the office walking Well,
Speaker 3 00:12:07 Right through Central Park? So it's, it's great. The office is 54th and sixth and right in the heart of it, which I really love. You know, all the big law firms, a lot of the money management Neuberger Berman is, is, is right there. Gosh, I'm trying to think across the street. Well, you know, just, just, just name any large money manager, you know, all the banks, general, Mizuho Securities, Morgan Stanley, I mean, on and on and on. Sullivan and Cromwell, right? I mean, all, everybody's right there. And so to be right there on sixth Avenue in the thick of it, I love that. I love getting up in the morning and putting on my, I took my tie off for a podcast, but you know, I put on, I put on a tie every day and you know, it's like your armor, right? And I walk through the park and doing the walk and talk helps me get my head in the game. It also brings people to the bullseye brief.com website and, you know, and they, they, they sign up, you know, for a 45 day trial. And all of a sudden, you know, then it's up to me to to, you know, to win them over because I put a new stock pick out every week. It's a ton of work. Okay. I do love it. And yeah, just, I love being in the game.
Speaker 1 00:13:23 Yeah, it's really good. Those are good. I enjoy watching those. And then you're talking about New York, you know, having lived the way you, you grew up, you mentioned your dad and so forth. And just from the other side, when I, I thought I was talking to you earlier about how, you know, my wife and I played for the Jets. I went and played for the Jets for a few years, the early nineties. And being from, being from SoCal, which is where we live here, it was an incredible culture shock to go into New York. You know, just the, the people were, you know, they're just direct to the point, you know, Hey, this is how it is, you know, what kind of sandwich you want. You know, I mean, what do you want? What do you want? They want, you gotta be quick. You gotta be quick to go, if not, like, Hey, move on. You know, this guy can't make a decision. So it's pretty intimidating from the outside, but, so that would've had to be a big advantage for you to having grown up and, you know, lived in the area. But boy, I sure love that place. Once you, once you get used to it, it is an incredible place to live. I, no question about it.
Speaker 3 00:14:20 That's so true, mark. And whenever I go away on vacation, you know, I, I don't care where, where it is. A few years ago I went to Vietnam right before Covid. It was, it was amazing. It was such an eye-opening experience or, you know, skiing in Colorado or I've clients in Dubai, so I'll go visit them in Dubai. So, you know, some really neat places to go. But that morning when I get up and I'm going home, I'm so excited.
Speaker 1 00:14:49 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:14:50 Just
Speaker 0 00:14:51 That's great.
Speaker 3 00:14:52 We're going back to New York, you know, I mean Yeah. Going back, it's the capital of the universe. I love it. Yeah. So it's the best for me. Definitely not for everybody. It's, it's, it's right for me.
Speaker 1 00:15:03 I love it. I learned, I learned to love it. It was really fun. And I missed that part. It's fun to go back. And last time I went back, actually, Jason's wi, oh, Jason, his, his wife is my third daughter. So she was born right when we were in, in New York. But anyway, back, you know, just those times where we've gone back and visited, I just tell 'em, look it, when they're harsh, when they're direct to you, just be direct back and they'll be your best friends for the rest of your life. And that's where the, you, we've had long-term relationships there because you just gotta, you just gotta get in and be a part of it. It's fun. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:15:33 So well said.
Speaker 0 00:15:35 And I had no idea who, who, who Mark was. And my family's from New York. So my, my dad's side's from Brooklyn Bay, bay Ridge area and Brooklyn. And my mom's from Levittown on Long Island. So, and then my dad used to, to run the Waldorf Astoria, the Carlisle, and really in Schrager Hotels back in the nineties.
Speaker 3 00:15:54 Oh boy, that's,
Speaker 0 00:15:56 Yeah. So I used to, used to spend a lot of time, I think it was the St. Maritz's Condominiums, which was on sixth and Central Park South, I forget exactly, but I think it became the Ritz Carlton now. That's
Speaker 3 00:16:09 Correct.
Speaker 0 00:16:10 Yep. So I walk
Speaker 3 00:16:11 By every day. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:16:12 Yep. Exactly. So very fond. A lot of family there still. So maybe next time we'll have to meet out for a meal or something next time we come out our treat. Of course. But, but anyway, back to back to your story. So 1988, right? Was your first year kind of on Wall Street, you were at Merrill Lynch as an analyst, correct? That's, that's where you started there?
Speaker 3 00:16:36 Yeah, mortgage-backed securities.
Speaker 0 00:16:38 Wow. Wow. So
Speaker 3 00:16:40 My senior, my senior at Princeton was creating a more, creating a beta for, you know, an index Right. For mortgage back securities. And ironically, the conclusion of my own research was that risk and reward were out of sync. And that mortgage backs didn't really work over the long haul. And how ironic that I ended up working. I didn't even follow my own advice. I went to Merrill Lynch, joined their commercial mortgage-backed securities group. They laid me off in nine months because they couldn't write enough mortgage-backed securities. I got re rehired by another group and, you know, then mortgage-backed securities ended up blowing up, you know, the world in 2008. I mean, it's just so funny. That was my first job. Yeah. Was, and, and my, and, and my thesis, I guess was right. You know, it didn't work because you can't model prepayment risk. You know, when, when, when rates go down and people refinance, they just, you know, what you thought was cashflow from the bond, all these people paying their mortgages suddenly doesn't exist. 'cause they prepay their mortgages since they're gonna refinance at lower rates. So that, that was the, that was the thing about mortgages and mortgage backed securities.
Speaker 0 00:17:57 So, so in your time in New York City, I mean that's again, the epicenter. I mean, you dealt with, you know, nine 11, the, the.com bubble Yep. 2008 and then even all the way up to Covid. So during, during your time, is there anything that, that you would tell yourself when you first got in that you've learned through those hard times? I mean, I can't imagine. I mean, again, being the epicenter, the financial epicenter of the world and, and going through those times, was there anything that you learned specifically?
Speaker 3 00:18:24 Yeah. Stick with it. You know, probably no different mark from, from your sticking with it in, in football. Right. You know, from little league to junior high to high school to college to pros the sacrifice that I'm sure you had to make along the way to, to keep going to the next step, I mean, to playing the pros for, you know, as long as you did. Yeah. I can't, can't even imagine the sacrifices you made and stick with it. And, and, and I would say yes, Jason sticking with it, and by the way, that includes sticking with New York. I am so sick and tired of over the years having heard people say, well, that's it, it's, you know, it's, it's all over for New York. No, it's not all over for New York. That's, you know, people said that back in nine 11, oh my gosh, you know, this is it.
Speaker 3 00:19:14 We'll, we'll never recover from this. And of course we did. They said that in oh eight, you know, in the housing crisis. Oh no. New York is toast. They said it in Covid. Oh yeah. People will never come back. Oh yeah. Well go to the restaurants now. And, and, and of course they're saying it about commercial real estate. Oh, no one's ever gonna go back to an office. Please gimme a break. You know, it just, the naysayer. And you know, you, you see that in the stock market too, where, where people say, oh, this company's awful, and the shorts jump all over it, and then suddenly, you know, a quarter two later, you know, it's not so awful anymore. So I am an eternal optimist. I think that's a healthy way to live your life. I think it's also a much more productive way to be a long-term growth investor, which is what I am. I mean, that, that's, you know, an ingenuity, right? Yeah. So, yes, to answer your question in a long-winded way, stick with it.
Speaker 1 00:20:07 Yeah. Perseverance. You're right. Dead, dead on, man. Perseverance. You have to have that to, to really succeed in life. It's sometimes it's not easy and you gotta dig down and go, but there are times though, when, and I'd like to hear from you, like when you have to make some slight adjustments or things that change, maybe maybe circumstance, circumstances change or whatever. When are, when are, how do you navigate those, Adam, to where, yeah, you were thinking this, but maybe it's changed, you know, when do you make that, you know, that slight adjustment or you know, any, to continue to move the chains? Any, any examples of that where you've had to do that?
Speaker 3 00:20:44 Yeah, I'll give you some personal examples, but also to just frame it, I think that the greatest changeup any of us has ever seen, those of us who love to watch football, and I'm an Alabama fan, I love Nick Saban, but right. I mean, several years ago when Nick Saban, you know, basically benched Jalen Hurts at halftime in the, that was amazing. The national championship game to bring in Tua Togo velo, I mean, great example. Wow. But guess what? Jalen Hertz was having a bad day. Yeah. And so they switched and, and he had just ironically won the national championship the year before, but Nick Saban had the vision and the guts to pull Jalen bench, him put Tua Togo velo in who had a great second half. And suddenly Alabama wins two years in a row. And then amazing Wow. Loyalty. The next year, Tua gets hurt and Ja Jalen goes back in and does a great job and takes him to the national championship again.
Speaker 3 00:21:39 So, yeah. Wow. Yeah. But in, in terms of my own, having to change it up and make, you know, the hard decision. So the past two years have been very hard for anyone who owns stocks and or bonds. It's, it's been especially hard for growth investors like me, I've had some very, very strong years up significant double digits, as you know, you know, you can't talk about performance and you can't cite specific numbers per FINRA specifications. Right. So we'll just leave it at that. But I've had some very good years and then I, you know, over the past year, it was really hard and I was down a lot, and I would've been down even more had I not pivoted in the middle of the year. And that was really hard to do. And I think that's what you're getting at. So I had to sell at a loss, a big loss.
Speaker 3 00:22:44 And, you know, I, I put my own money where my mouth is, right? It's not just client money, it's my money too. So I had to sell at a loss, some wonderful, wonderful little growthy stocks that nobody cared about because they weren't making money yet. And so, you know, if you're not making money and rates are going up, that's a death. No, for two reasons, because you're probably a money consuming company. You need to go out and do more financings, higher rates. That means your cost of capital went up. And more importantly, number two, those future earnings that we're all looking for have to get discounted back to the present at a higher rate when rates go up. And that means you're willing to pay less for the stock today. So it was a double whammy. It was crushing so many of these wonderful little stocks that, again, nobody cared about.
Speaker 3 00:23:29 So I sold them, I sold them at a loss. And eventually what I did is I rotated higher up onto the quality curve, and I started buying, well, you know, I already owned the big obvious ones, the magnificent seven, the Microsofts, Googles Apples. What I started doing was buying the sort of next group down salesforce.com, Palo Alto software, other big junky companies that I thought would rebound, you know, that may one day be the next Googles and the next Facebook. So that, for me was a shift higher up on the quality curve. I also did something I've never done before, which was I added a handful of what I call normalization stocks that were all down Bank America trading at eight tenths of book value. I don't really think of Bank America as an American ingenuity play, but guess what? At, at eight times or at eight tenths of book value and the way they run their loan books and manage risk, it's actually an ingeniously run bank.
Speaker 3 00:24:36 So guess what? That's going in there. And, and, and so I added some of these other names, Delta Airlines. You wouldn't ordinarily think of Delta Airlines as an American ingenuity story. Well, mark, Jason, actually, if, if you don't know it, let me tell you why it is, they have figured out how to segment the cabin into 35 different price points. It's not just first class business, class, premium and economy. It's, do you want an aisle, do you want a window? It's, do you wanna reserve your seat now? Do you not, do you wanna carry another bag? How far out in advance do you wanna go? Are you gonna apply points or are you not gonna apply points? It's also the fact that 10% of the revenues come from cargo. The belly of the plane is very active for Delta Airlines. They service parts and service not only their own planes, but other airlines.
Speaker 3 00:25:28 So they have a third party maintenance business. And what I, two other things they do that I think's ingenious, they basically make a billion dollars every year from Amex by just selling surplus seats so that Amex can give those seats as rewards to Amex customers. And then the other thing that Delta does is they own a refinery in Philadelphia. Hate to say that Philadelphia Eagles jets, but right outside Philly, actually very near the stadium. They own this refinery, and that's their hedge for jet fuel. So guess what? Delta Airlines, an ingenious company that there's so much that they do that defines American ingenuity. Guess what? Delta Airlines is in the American ingenuity portfolio. So I, you know, I had to pivot higher on the quality curve, and I also introduced some, some less risky, little more predictable cashflow type companies. And, and, and that was certainly something that really changed the way I think about the portfolio in the past year as a result of rising rates. Because I will tell you right off the bat, I didn't think that rates would ever have the impact on all assets, stocks, bonds, everything else. I never thought that that rising rates would, would have such an impact. But they did. And you know, I mean, last year, right, first time in, what was it, 55 years or something that stocks and bonds went down together.
Speaker 0 00:27:01 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:27:02 To that extent. You know, so anyway,
Speaker 1 00:27:04 Just destroyed the 60 40 idea or 70 30 right's. Just the balanced portfolio got wiped out last year. It was crazy. But thanks for the, the reason I ask, I mean, that question is, you know, perseverance is so important, right? I mean, it's important for us to hang in there, but there are times then where you have to pivot, and I love that word pivot. And, and you gotta change maybe your direction just based on circumstances or whatever's going on. And, and the other thing I would, I would guess is that you, you're not making those decisions just on your own. I'm sure you have a team of people that you get, you get, you know, wisdom from other counselors, people that have work with you, that you guys have kind of decided. Correct. Is that, is that right? As you make those decisions? Yeah. So important for, you know, just, just talking about our guests, you know, sometimes, you know, make sure you get counsel and think through people that are maybe even, I don't know if anybody's smarter than you, Adam, but you know, maybe there's some people around you that are pretty smart too, that you are, you glean some insights from making and making those pivots. You know what I mean? So sometimes that's important. I guess that's the, that's the point there.
Speaker 3 00:28:07 Yeah. I tell you one plus one equals three, right? Yeah. Know you, you, you put two smart people in a room together and chances are they're gonna come up with something that neither one of them would've come up with on his or her own. And that's, yeah. The notion of teamwork and one plus one equals three. I'm fortunate enough to have a couple of partners in California where you guys are really
Speaker 1 00:28:30 Wow.
Speaker 3 00:28:31 Long Beach area. Yep.
Speaker 1 00:28:32 Long Beach
Speaker 0 00:28:33 Hour from us. 45 minutes from us. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:28:36 Yeah. Okay. And so just being able to talk to those guys, or even when, when, when new clients potentially, you know, wanna come in to just have, have, have the depth and the expertise. Simple thing. Like, you know, someone else answering the phone and saying, well, I'm sure Adam would love to speak with you. Are you available tomorrow at 10? He's in meetings right now. Right. You know, 'cause I can't do everything, you know? Yeah. Something as simple as that. Or all the paperwork of setting up new accounts setting or talking to my partners and saying, Hey, I'm, you know, thinking about adding X, Y, Z to the portfolio. Am I crazy? Right. You know? Yeah. I mean all that stuff, one plus one equals three. Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1 00:29:25 That's good.
Speaker 0 00:29:27 I definitely think, especially for us, again, pivoting this last, this last year and a half or so, again, with the, the rates increasing at the rate that they did and seeing the bond market and how that reacted and having to explain that to clients, like what, you know, I mean, I know a lot of people that, and maybe not, weren't our clients, but specifically that you hear about that weren't able to retire because they maybe didn't pivot before. Or again, like the 60 40 portfolio went out the window. But yeah, I think something that Mark and I have talked a lot about, so we, we love, again, we love growth companies. Again, depends on the client, the, the goals, income needs, all, all that. But I think for us, we love the, the dividend growth sector as well. Which a lot of those, those big tech companies can start slotting into Microsoft. Even Apple started to pay a dividend. But Bank of America, home Depot, whoever it may be, there's, there's been some opportunities for us, again, having to make the hard choices. Like maybe there's some growth companies that we loved prior to, and then when rates rose like they did, maybe we had to pivot a little bit. And, and then having to explain that to clients is, it's not always easy. But again, life's, life's not easy. I think that's something that we've had to talk about here.
Speaker 3 00:30:43 Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I think
Speaker 1 00:30:44 That's part of the, I think that's part of the perseverance too, because it's perseverance, you know, you hang in there, but even you hang in there with making little adjustments along the way that helps you to continue to hang in there. But you've gotta be smart at times, right. To, to adjust the game plan or whatever, to, to keep moving forward. So I love hearing that about Adam. 'cause that's exactly what he's talking about to do at that time. It's really
Speaker 3 00:31:07 Well, and, and, and so I'll, I'll, I'll give you another way that I, I try to kind of bracket risk and, and, and stay focused. One of my mentors of many years made a comment way back when he said, you're only rational once and it's before you buy the stock because Right. You fall in love. True. Right. And you make excuses for it. Oh, well, you know, it's only one quarter and, you know, no, maybe I do. So he said, set a price target before you buy the stock. You know, what do you expect will happen? What do you think will happen? Where could it go? And also set a target on the downside, which inevitably for me is, you know, somewhere around down 30, 35%. I mean, you know, if I buy a stock at a hundred and it drops to 65, I gotta say, this is not working.
Speaker 3 00:32:01 I'm down 35%. Is is there something wrong with the company? Is there something wrong with the market? The sector Is something changed? Or is, is this just volatility? And, and so, you know, at that downward alert, I'll either cut it or I'll look good and hard and say, no, I think I actually am gonna hold it. I might, I might even buy just a tadd more. Yeah. But, you know, having those downside alerts, it just, it forces you to be honest with yourself, number one. And then number two, having the upside target ensures that whenever one of my stocks hits its target, I always, and I'm eating, always sell half
Speaker 0 00:32:40 Mm
Speaker 3 00:32:41 It did what it was supposed to do. Yep. Now I'm buying stocks where my goal is to typically double or triple the investment over a 2, 3, 4 year period. So if I buy a stock at a hundred, you know, chances are I've run the numbers and I figured out why. Or I think it can go to 2 75 or 300. Right? Yeah. So, you know, it's a practically triple and it may take three years. Fine. Yeah. If it goes there, I will sell half. And think about it, you say, oh my gosh, you're selling your winner. Well, if I tripled my money on a stock, and by the way, if, you know, if you have a portfolio of 35 stocks and they're weighted two to 4% of capital at cost, you know, the 3% stock that you bought has tripled. It's now in theory 9%. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:33:35 And so you should be selling it because it's now 9% of your portfolio. That's too much. Right. So you should sell half, take it down to four and a half. It's still more than you had when you bought it initially. Right. So it's not as you hate it, but you take that money off the table and then you can go put it into something else. Which is why I like to have the bullseye Brief newsletter looking at a new pick every week. So that there's always this pool of potential names that I can put into the, the actual managed account portfolio. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:34:08 So I gotta ask this question, Adam. 'cause I know Mark and I dealt with this, especially during the post covid rally, right. Where stocks just went screaming through the roof. Yeah. Somebody like yourself who does the thoughtful, actionable research, you know, bottom up analysis of the companies you're looking at all different things. Like you, we talked about earlier, the different facets of, of how you pick a company. Did it ever bother you? It bothered me when you'd have everyone and their mother thinking they're stock pickers back then. Because I mean, at that point, after that, you know, the march collapse or 35% or whatever, it went down, you know, all of a sudden the markets scream back, you know, two, 300% if you're in those big tech stocks. Nasdaq did, did you ever have that feeling where people would be like, oh, like I, I made so much money on this. Oh, I'm such a good stock picker. I feel like everyone became stock pickers after that. So I actually really appreciate the tough times. 'cause everyone goes, well, you know what, maybe I actually didn't know what I was talking about. So I need people like Adam. I need people like, you know, John, the advisor down the street, whoever it is. Did you ever get that kind of feeling or,
Speaker 3 00:35:13 Well, I'm, I, I'm, I'm gonna say yes, but I resist the temptation to go there. You know, God bless if, if, if you can, coming out of a horrible, horrible downdraft for the market and the economy, if you can actually have the guts to put money at work, whether you're lucky or you're smart and you make money, God bless. You know? Yeah. I mean, God bless you. That's,
Speaker 0 00:35:39 That's wonderful.
Speaker 3 00:35:40 I'm thrilled that you made money. What I think people find over time is that it's really hard to do. And yes, if you do the work and you're smart and you're disciplined and you know, you're a little bit lucky, you can outperform. I mean, I, I've outperformed, I've, I've proven that. And, and it, again, it's a lot of work. And that's where I think, you know, active management work, you know, active managers like us, actually, you know, we earn our keep because we can say it wasn't just this one golden six month period where I did really well, but actually look at the past six years, seven years, eight years, whatever it's been, and whatever your story is, it might be that you outperform. It might be that you equal perform, but you have significantly less volatility. Great. That's a story to tell too. In my case, I'm volatile, but I do outperform typically significantly on the upside when I have the wind at my back. So, you know, I I, I would never begrudge anyone for having done really well and even talked about it. It's okay. Nothing wrong with patting yourself on the back and, and, you know, saying, yeah, I did well there. I mean, guys spike the ball when they, you know, when they score, you know? Yeah. Enjoy the moment. You know,
Speaker 0 00:37:01 I think, I think Mark, mark got ultra excited over there when you mentioned active management. He, we talk about that all the time. We're really big on that. So, yeah, absolutely. So let's talk Oh, go ahead, mark. Sorry.
Speaker 1 00:37:15 I was gonna say, I think that's really important and he makes some great points there. You know, I think back, Jason, you're too young, but you know, Adam and I both went through the late nineties and that, that the.com thing, right. When everybody was a genius until they weren't. Yeah. Right. That was, that was unbelievable. So that was, I'll
Speaker 3 00:37:36 Never forget Mark, I was in a cab. I was going to a straight little Italian place. It doesn't exist anymore, called Vico. It was on Madison between 90th and 91st. And so I'm in the cab, and, and of course back then it was all cash. You know, it wasn't like, yeah. You know, you,
Speaker 0 00:37:53 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:37:53 I mean,
Speaker 1 00:37:54 You know what cash is. Jason
Speaker 3 00:37:56 Cabs taking credit cards was a new thing.
Speaker 0 00:37:57 No
Speaker 3 00:37:59 Concept. Now you do your phone, but yeah, it was cash and you gave the guy a 20 look at you like, oh, you only have twenties. But I remember the guy said, you gotta buy some Yahoo. He's telling me you gotta buy Yahoo. Oh, really? Oh great. I mean, that was no joke within three weeks of the top. And then everything just got crushed. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:38:26 I got a fun story with that one too. Same thing. About three weeks before the crash, I went to my mom and dad's house for dinner. My wife and I, I, we, you know, she invited us over. So my mom's at the time, 75, and she does know, knows nothing about stocks, but she, you know, she, I was helping her with some of her, a small ira, whatever. And she says, mark, a guy at church is saying that I need to be buying, you know, she named off a couple names that I'm like, she's never even known. She has no idea what those companies even do. Right. And anyway, I said, mom, you're good. And anyway, long story, we walk out, I told my wife, I said, I think we're at the top of the market. 'cause even my mom's talking about buying stocks. And it's like, it's just, that was just, and it was just like you said, you're same guy. It was, it's, you can't follow call. It can't follow the crowd. It's important to have active managers that are really researching these companies and know what they're doing and live through the hard times too. It's really, so that's why it's important to have good people around you that know what they're doing and have some experience that you can get information from and, and, you know, other teammates that can kind of help you be successful. So important.
Speaker 3 00:39:33 Yes. A hundred percent.
Speaker 0 00:39:35 So let's talk American ingenuity. Your, your forte here. So looking forward, let's say 2020s, since we're in the 2020 era right now, decade thoughts on kind of the big industries, industries that maybe you're looking at. Again, I, I don't want to like give away your, your bullseye brief picks. Again, not, not what I'm trying to do, but just something that maybe you're looking at kind of five, 10 years down the road, whether it be AI, chips, robotics, healthcare. Would love your insight on that.
Speaker 3 00:40:05 Yeah. Well, I'll tell you right off the bat, one of the things that hasn't worked, and I've had to cut it, clean energy, it's been a disaster. Mm. Just nothing from ChargePoint to Sunova to, I mean, just on and on. So, interestingly, while clean energy is something that should fit the American ingenuity Yeah. Orientation brilliantly. Right. You know, American ingenuity, the people, companies and technologies driving the world forward. Yeah. That's how I define it. But clean energy hasn't worked. I'll tell you what is working. And this should not come as a surprise. Logistics, right. As as the world has pivoted to e-commerce. Yeah. As companies have decided to go asset light. And they, they contract out to third party service providers. You know, if you're Nike, you, you don't wanna manage your own warehouse. You let people who manage warehouses, manage your warehouse. In fact, they handle all the shipping and everything and returns and everything else.
Speaker 3 00:41:10 Subcontract. So logistics has become huge. Tied into logistics is automation because a lot of these new warehouses actually are, if not fully automated, partially automated. So that has been an exciting convergence and will continue to be a very important theme. And I could give you a number of stocks, but I can't give it all away. No, we don't want it. Logistics, robotics, automation, computing power, artificial intelligence creates a significant need for more computing power. I mean, NVIDIA's chips are capable of 30 trillion calculations per second. Oh my gosh. And to run a powerful AI platform, you need multiple chips. Yeah. They're doing that many calculations. I mean, it's really something else. And so there are a number of different ways to play. I hate to say play, that sounds kind of, what's the word? Cavalier. I'm gonna play computing power. But no, I'm going to invest in computing power.
Speaker 3 00:42:19 I'm going to express a view that we need more computing power in the portfolio. I want to leverage that theme, which is an important concept. The same mentor that I talked about who said, you know, set, set, set a target before you buy the stock while you're still rational. Used to ask a a question, single question for every person he interviewed. And the question was, how do you make the most amount of money on Wall Street? And the answer that got you the job was find a theme and leverage it. So, you know, that's what we're talking about. These themes that then allow me to go out and find a specific stock that will leverage that theme, that will express that view. Whether it's Nvidia in artificial intelligence, I'm giving you a few names now. Whether it's symbiotic, ticker, SYM in automated warehouses. In fact, symbiotic has a contract to automate all of Walmart's 47 distribution facilities around the country.
Speaker 3 00:43:23 And what they do, robots would blow your mind. A truck pulls in, a robot goes in and pulls the pallets off a robot, takes all the shrink wrap off a robot, breaks apart the pallets. A robot puts all these things onto the shelf. A robot retrieves them, A robot puts together the new palette, a robot balances it. These are all different robots. Yeah. I mean, it's mind-boggling. And I've been to some of these warehouses. It's, it's beautiful. It's ballet. It's it's robot ballet. Wow. And that's a big business. Their backlog, by the way, they, they're gonna do a billion in sales this year and their backlog is 11 billion. So they have 11 years worth of sales already in backlog. Which is why they are ramping up and creating basically three different simultaneous production lines so that they can service 11 years in three years. Right.
Speaker 3 00:44:18 'cause they'll have three times a case anyway, companies like that. So if you believe that e the intersection of e-commerce, third party asset, light business models make sense and robotics and automation streamline productivity, then you would naturally want to find companies that bring all that together. And symbolic is a great example of a company that does exactly that. If you want to make the statement that artificial intelligence is something that's propelling the world forward, you would certainly wanna own Nvidia among certainly many other chip related companies. Or even a company like Xcels, ticker, ACLS that embeds silicon wafers with ions. And that's how you basically make chips. And now there is significantly more need for the ability to embed silicon with ions. 'cause we need more chips and they have to be more dense. And there's only one company that's better at every, other than every other company in the world at doing that. It's called Excellus. Wow. Right. You know, there are ways to leverage these themes. And we do that as stock pickers by, you know, finding these uniquely positioned companies and then comparing to all their competitors and running the numbers and who does it best. And maybe even talk to some of the customers. And you know, that's the work people talk about. Well, have you done the work on it? You know? Yes. I've done the work. Right. This is,
Speaker 0 00:46:01 So do you think part of your, of your ingenuity story or the ingenuity story that you're looking at is the deglobalization of supply chains. Do you see that kind of impacting innovation and growth as well? I mean, look, I, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but Mexico's our biggest trade partner right now. Right? So maybe bringing factories back, whether it's maybe not stateside in the US yet, or it's Mexico, it's Canada, whoever it may be. Obviously we had the U-S-M-C-A deal that went through a few years ago during the Trump administration. But do you see that kind of playing apart? 'cause obviously for, for us, Taiwan's Semi was one of my, my favorite companies a few years ago, right? World's largest chip foundry I believe. So obviously with Taiwan and then the China, you know, invading Taiwan piece, people get nervous. And, and then also just seeing how the supply chain worked during Covid and how it was kind of disrupted and broken. They opened factory in Arizona, but now they're having trouble hiring qualified workers. So they're having the Taiwanese come here to train Americans on how to do it. Right. Do you see, I, again, this is a lot, but is, do you see that kind of playing into the ingenuity piece as well? Kind of and, and helping the ingenuity piece?
Speaker 3 00:47:15 Yeah. Reshoring certainly that's, that, that, that's good for a company like symbiotic. It's also good for a company like Prologis. The largest PLD is that ticker, the largest warehousing REIT in the world. Yeah. They have the equivalent of Mark, you'll appreciate this, 57,000 football fields worth of warehousing space. Oh my God. That's
Speaker 1 00:47:40 Insane. That insane
Speaker 3 00:47:43 Football fields. Yeah. And so, and and by the way that stock's trading now, like 18 times funds from Operation FFO, which is like the earnings version for REITs. Yeah. And that's how you always look at REITs and, and, and has a good, good healthy yield that probably will get your attention. And their occupancy, by the way, is 98%. And all the lease renewals that they're negotiating are up 8%. So for all the gloom and doom in commercial real estate, there's a winning story. It's down because the alos have hit anything that is real estate related. But yeah, that's, that's an interesting name and one that Jason, I think gets at what you're talking about, which is reshoring, we need more space. If we're gonna reshore manufacturing, we need more warehousing space to store all this stuff before you actually manufacture it. And all that's being done in, in, you know, again, that plays into the third party logistics that, that, you know, I mentioned, so there's a convergence. So, you know, you and I, this is what we're talking about. One plus one equals three, or in this case, one plus one plus one equals four because Right. So, you know, you and I coming up with, with these ideas together, you know, and that's part of the process.
Speaker 1 00:49:01 Love that Adam re give me a lot more calls or talk, you know, people asking about gold. You know, I think, you know, commodities in general, things like that, you know, when there's any kind of issues around geopolitical issues that happen, people always, you know, if you're watching Fox News or whatever, you know, seeing you on tv, but the commercials are all the gold bugs jump, jump out and, you know, you buy gold. Do you have some thoughts on that? Anything that you could share wisdom wise in the, the commodity space and gold in particular?
Speaker 3 00:49:34 Yeah. Don't waste your time. Okay. If the highest inflation in 50 years, if chaos on Capitol Hill, if the uncertainty of two presidential front runners who may not even get to election day one for health. Yeah. Yeah. If two major wars, Russia, Ukraine, and you know, Israel, Gaza, if all, oh, and by the way, an ongoing inability to create a budget Yeah. In this country, if all of these things happening at the same time can't push gold above $2,000 to a new high, why would you ever buy it?
Speaker 1 00:50:24 Yeah. I love that. That's a great,
Speaker 3 00:50:28 Why would you ever buy it? Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:50:30 Yeah. Makes no sense. Yeah, yeah. I agree with you. Yeah, that's, yeah. So I wanted to hear from you 'cause that, that, that solidifies what we've been talking about, Jason with some, some people with in our clients. But anyway, it's good. What about bond market? Adam? What do gold,
Speaker 3 00:50:48 I'm sorry Gold sorry to mark. Gold is bet on the end of the world. And guess what? That trade has never paid off.
Speaker 1 00:50:57 Yeah, that's very true. Very true. Very true. Yeah. What do you think interest rates are headed from here? What do you thinking on that? You know, we've had a little pullback this week. Yeah. Lower. Yeah, lower you like fixed income. I mean,
Speaker 3 00:51:10 I think we have conquered inflation. I'm not saying that it it, that it's fully done, but I think we, we have conquered it. I mean, think about it. Producer places, the PPI producer, price index producer prices are now down to about two and a half at the high. They were 11.7. Yeah. So from 11.7 down to two and a half consumer prices, CPI were as high as 9.1. They're now 3.7 and expected to fall to about 3.4. Next Tuesday the 14th, we get that next CPI report. So I think we have conquered inflation. It still is higher than we'd like, you know, CPI, we really wanna down around 2%. That's sort of the fed's target and we're not there yet. But the Fed hiked rates by, you know, 550 basis points. And I think Jerome Powell has correctly said, you know, it does take time for all those rate hikes to percolate through the economy.
Speaker 3 00:52:15 So that's why they're sitting tight. But I I, I do think we've conquered inflation. Interestingly, oil by the way, is backed down to 75 bucks because the world is well supplied that helps. Food inflation has backed way off. It's still going up. I mean, you know, it's, it's dis inflating because it's going up. But at a lesser rate, you know, people understand, you know, the difference between disinflation and deflation. Deflation means prices actually fall. Yeah. That very rarely happens. In fact, it usually only happens during recessions and depressions. So you actually don't want prices to go down, you just want them to go up at a lesser rate, which is called Right disinflation. So that is what's happening now. And that's good. Supply chains have normalized. Now two things need to happen. We need to stop seeing people get raises because that's inflationary by definition number one. Well, actually three things. People need to stop getting these crazy raises. I mean, AUPS truck driver makes 180 grand a year. Wow.
Speaker 1 00:53:21 Wow.
Speaker 3 00:53:22 We need to stop seeing that. We need to see home prices. Correct. Because housing is 30% of the CPI calculation. So as long as home prices stay high, that keeps rents high and home prices high. So we need to see that back off. Even though you kind of hate to see your home worth less, we actually would better served by it. And then critically, we need to see some sort of discipline out of Washington. They just keep spending money. It's crazy. I mean the Intel foundry that's gonna be built in Ohio is being built in part with a $3 billion grant from the federal government. Come on. It's intel. They can afford the billion and yet the government's gonna give 'em a grant for 3 billion. Guess who's paying for that grant? All of us. That's why we deficit. So the federal government needs to stop spending money. And by the way, both sides of the ILE are guilty. Right. It used to be only Democrats were quote unquote, remember during Reagan, the those spend as tax and spend thems spend. Well actually the Republicans are doing the same thing. A hundred percent.
Speaker 3 00:54:24 Yep. That's because every politician, whatever, you know, shade of, you know, red or blue, he or she is, wants to get reelected. And the way to get reelected is just throw money at people. Right. So yeah. So we, we need to see all those things happen for inflation to keep going down. But I do think we've conquered it and that means interest rates will go down. By the way, and I know I'm rambling, but I will make this point. If you look at Fed fund futures on the Bloomberg terminal, what you'll find is that there's only a 10% chance of another rate hike, and yet there is a 100% chance of two rate cuts by next June. Yeah. So it's not just me saying, oh yeah, rates are going down. The market believes that rates are going down from here.
Speaker 0 00:55:12 And last, I think last week you were met, you were talking about, again, just on the, the subject of interest rates. A lot of people look at the, the 10 year treasury rate. It was kind of hovering around 5%. Obviously we've had a 50 basis point drop from from that point. Yep. But you brought up a really remarkable point. I think just in terms of looking beyond that at the 30 years. So if you wouldn't mind just kind of rehashing that, I know again, the markets have had quite a rally over 5% last week We had a 50 basis point, you know, yield correction kind of. So yeah. Thoughts, thoughts on that? I thought that was a really interesting point you made on, I think it was LinkedIn that I saw, or Fox business actually. Fox Business maybe. Oh,
Speaker 3 00:55:49 Well thank you. Admittedly, I cannot take credit for that. I was simply repeating what I had heard. And this is why it's important to have a pack of traders, investors, analysts, et cetera, whom you can talk to the, again, one three. Yep. I'm a long-term investor. Alright. But I talk to the very aggressive day traders in Chicago, the Chicago futures trading crowd because they look at the world very differently. And I want that perspective. And what they told me three weeks ago, the guys who by the way, go back to the 19, 1970s, they were the first rate traders in Chicago. These are the guys who created interest rate futures, right? So you wanna listen to what these guys have to say? Wow. They've been doing it 50 years and they said the 30 year needs to hold 5 15 5 spot one five. I said, why?
Speaker 3 00:56:44 They said that's the contract high. That goes back to 2007. So even though Fed chair Jerome Powell had basically said two meetings ago, yeah, we're gonna just sit tight, the futures market needed to probe and not take Chairman Powell at his word. So the futures market probed, it went higher, it went up to 5 15, 3 times over about two weeks. And that was two weeks ago. And the future traders in Chicago said that's very good because the market has taken the 30 year to the contract high, the highest it's ever traded at going back to 2007. And it held three times and now the future's market can back off. It's comfortable that it has pushed the edge and, and and, and it didn't go past it. And so that was a signal to basically cover shorts in the bond market. And within two days, by the way, did you see that?
Speaker 3 00:57:50 I think it was Jeff Gunlock and Bill Ackman and it might even have been Bill Gross, the Bond king from pimco. I'm not sure about Bill, but my point is, notable investors who basically said the same thing. And when you see notable investors of very different disciplines, Chicago futures traders and big hedge fund guys and bond traders all saying the same thing. Cover your shorts in the bonds. Yeah. You need to pay attention. And that allowed stocks to rally. We had a 5% rally in stocks last week. So that was the series of dots. And I can't take credit for having figured that out on my own, Jason. It was just conversations with a lot of people. And that's why you have that, that pack and why you have allies and why you pick up the phone and talk to them.
Speaker 0 00:58:37 I love that. I love that. Good stuff. Alright, so got got a few, a little, I wanna get kind of personal here in terms of some of your passions outside of, of, of trading, outside of economics. So you're a part fan, right? So talk, talk to us a little bit. I'm,
Speaker 3 00:58:57 I'm a what? What's
Speaker 0 00:58:57 That? You're a part fan, right?
Speaker 3 00:59:00 Parus. Oh yeah, sure. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:59:01 Parus, yeah. From Cuba, right? So cigar guy. So that's D number number four.
Speaker 3 00:59:08 Yeah. Parus Series D number four. That is the best cigar ever. I used to buy 'em from Cuban L's before Covid. I'd get a box of 25 for 225 bucks, which, you know, I I think is you reasonable right? You know, seven, eight bucks a spar, right? No, no tax. No shipping. Well, cuban lss.com no longer sells them at two 20. I mean, they're like double, it's like four 50. And I've seen them as high as, 'cause the price moves, you know, it's a market like any other, you know, I've seen them over 500 bucks for a box. So I don't do that anymore. Now I found a great place, Los Lianos Das Polyus out Charleston and they, they make, they roll these great Churchill cigars, so they're like seven inches, my 50 ring gauge, really big 50, you know, 64 7 inch. Yeah. And yeah, 25 is is like 150 bucks.
Speaker 0 01:00:04 Okay.
Speaker 3 01:00:05 So that I guess very reasonable. So yes, I I, I have more of those than I should, but I'm a very good customer.
Speaker 0 01:00:17 I love it. And then, so favorite, favorite ski spot in, in Colorado or in the world?
Speaker 3 01:00:24 Oh, hands down Aspen Highlands. Okay. You know, Aspen gets all the flash. If you take the bus 12 minutes down into the valley and then up the hill, you go one ridge line over and you're at Aspen Highlands. It's the best. I think it's the best skiing in the country. And they also have the bowl. And so you take the snowcat, you take the highest lift up, and then you get in a, in a snowcat that takes you another mile up the ridge line. You get out, you put your skis on your back and you hike in a straight line on a very narrow ridge. It's, it, it's a little freaky sometimes it freaks me out. I just look straight ahead. If you fall, you're in a world of hurt. Yeah. And you walk up the spine of the ridge and you get to, I think it's about 14,000 feet, which is freaking high.
Speaker 3 01:01:16 Yeah. And it's, I believe the highest liable point in Colorado. Well, Arapahoe Basin, a basin is maybe nominally higher, but, but it's just this one little place where you go at a basin for that height. When you're on the top of that, that Aspen Highlands Bull. I mean, you are just looking out at the world. It's, it's really exciting. And by the way, even if you're a fast skier, it'll take you 40 minutes to get down to the lift. That's the best at the bottom of that bull. It's just so vast. And, and I mean, you look at the far side of the bowl all around the edge and the people are like that because it's so vast. They're like little ants, you know? I mean, and they're all just going down like that, you know, finding their own, their own lines down and it's, ugh. I just love that.
Speaker 0 01:02:10 Have you done Telluride yet?
Speaker 3 01:02:13 Yes. Which I think got its name I was told when I was out there because they used to say to hell, you ride, that's true. Hell you
Speaker 0 01:02:21 Ride. Yeah. Right. Very true. Very true. I used to live up there, so that's obviously close to my heart. I love it. And spent a lot of times up there in the back bowl and it's fun. Oh great. So I would haven't done Aspen yet. I still wanna do Aspen at some point, but have to take your word for it.
Speaker 3 01:02:37 Yeah, Aspen. Aspen is awesome. I mean, I know it's flashy, flashy and, you know, Hollywood celebs and all that. But yeah, get over to Aspen Highlands and you'll, you'll just have a magical experience. By the way, the best restaurant is ski restaurant of anywhere in the world is at Aspen Highlands. It's called Cloud nine.
Speaker 0 01:02:58 Okay, that's great.
Speaker 3 01:03:00 And so it's, it's, it's a party. They have two seatings and you wanna get up early that morning and ski hard because when you walk in there for the one o'clock seating, you're done.
Speaker 0 01:03:10 You're not going back. You are gonna
Speaker 3 01:03:12 Party and you are gonna party hard cloud nine at Aspen Highlands.
Speaker 0 01:03:17 Okay. Alright. And then last thing, and Mark has any questions, but talk to us a little bit about, about your, your other passion used to painting, right? Painting and, and shooting. So how did, have you always been a painter? You painted those? No way. Yeah.
Speaker 3 01:03:32 All of them. Yeah.
Speaker 0 01:03:33 Yeah. Wow. Wow. Those are beautiful.
Speaker 3 01:03:36 No thanks. Yeah. I love to paint. When I was a kid, you know, I mentioned my, my madman dad. Yep.
Speaker 3 01:03:46 Who was a very creative guy. His hobby was woodworking. He turned the basement of our house in Connecticut into a wood shop. So I grew up in his wood shop and I kind of fooled around with wood a little bit, but I just, strangely, naturally, I don't know how I just gravitated towards painting. And so when I was a kid, you know, my parents didn't buy us toys, they would just say, well go down to your father's shop. And you know, mom would say, go down to your father's shop and get some wood and some string and glue and go make something. And ditto for my sister. And 'cause mom liked to sew, so my sister learned to do that stuff. And, and mom was also a great, great cook, but I just naturally gravitated towards the painting. And so I've literally been painting since I was a kid. And yeah, we, we didn't have normal toys. We just, we made our own toys or we, we got creative.
Speaker 0 01:04:40 Well, you're a magnificent painter. I mean, I can see 'em behind. That's incredible. Amazing. Do you sell those things?
Speaker 3 01:04:45 I, I used to. Yeah. Now, now I just sort of keep 'em for myself. But yeah, I, I really enjoy it and it's very therapeutic and, and a and a good, a good counterbalance for the headiness of running money and the pressure of running money and trying to pick stocks and, you know, run spreadsheets and all that. I think, I think it's important to, you know, for me anyway, to have a, a creative outlet. And for me that's cooking and, and painting.
Speaker 0 01:05:16 Alright. So I, I like, I like to eat. What do you like to cook? What's your favorite dish? What's your best dish?
Speaker 3 01:05:24 Short ribs, bra, short ribs. Single best dish. Yeah. Yeah. It's real. You, you want me to know how you wanna know how to do it? I'll tell you. Yeah. It's really easy. Yeah.
Speaker 0 01:05:32 Real quick. Yeah.
Speaker 3 01:05:33 Real buy buy the, buy the ribs. You know, the big, the big ribs, you know it's got the meat wrapped around the rib. Short ribs. You're going to basically put them in a dutch oven, you know, which is the big heavy round oven with the heavy top. Creates the pressure, put 'em in there with some olive oil, get the sides real, real dark, real quick, take 'em out. Then put onions, carrots, and celery in there. You're gonna cook that down. Eventually you're going to add some tomato paste and some garlic. Stir that up, then add some flour. That will thicken it up to that. You're then going to add a bottle of red wine and some chicken stock. And now all of a sudden it's real stupid. And you say, what happened? It was so pasty and great, now it's like soup. Yeah,
Speaker 0 01:06:24 Fine.
Speaker 3 01:06:25 You're gonna braise, weaning you cook with pressure, heat, a lot of heat and, and fluid. That's what brazing is. You take those ribs that you, that you brown put them in that fluidy stuff, put the top on, leave it on the stove for 45 minutes at a very high heat. Okay. Take it off and, and the, and and, and the fluid will cook down by half. You then put it in the oven at like 350 degrees for four to five hours. This is the perfect meal to make on a great football Sunday. Right. You start that thing at like noon and it cooks and, and just fills the house all day with that aroma. And you're watching football. And then at like five o'clock cocktail time, maybe start it before then. And what you do is I also will mash some potatoes, you know, just put little new potatoes, boil 'em a little bit of cream, some butter, some Parmesan cheese, stir it real hard, take a bowl, put the fresh mashed potatoes in the bowl, then reach in, grab one of your bra short ribs. Put it on top. At this point that watery fluid is, is super thick. Likes like super thick 'cause it cooked down and just lale that over the top. So mashed potatoes, bra, short ribs, the brown sauce. That is delicious ish.
Speaker 0 01:07:47 That sounds amazing. Did you get on that down? I, I actually remembered that. Absolutely. We need to make that, I want you want you come to your house. Okay. Come to your house. We'll make it one day. So go along with that Favorite restaurant, favorite restaurant in New York City.
Speaker 3 01:08:03 Bill Bouquet hands.
Speaker 0 01:08:05 Okay.
Speaker 3 01:08:06 Although, although tonight I think I'm gonna get some margaritas with my girlfriend. But, but yeah. Bill 60th. Okay. It's a free, free ad for go. Okay. It, it's a really cool French place. They do this thing called Cajun Chicken. It's a chicken breasts with kind of a hot sauce on it and it comes with a salad and fries. So it's a full meal. It's like 38 bucks and get a glass of rose. It's French, everybody's beautiful. The music's great. It's right there in Midtown. They've been such a success. They have one out in Sag Harbor now in the Hamptons. Oh wow. They've got one in Dallas, I think they've got one in Atlanta. They might even have one in Las Vegas. I'm not positive. And I've heard that they're considering opening one in Dubai Billbo, BILB Oe t They started by a French guy and a buddy of mine who's not French, he's Swedish. He was actually the national champion squash player of Sweden back in the day. Wow. Wow. Yeah. And, and they started this French restaurant together and, and now it's, I mean Oh yeah. And they've got one in Palm Beach too. Bill bouquet. It's awesome.
Speaker 0 01:09:19 Bill Bouquet. Okay. If you're all listening or watching this, go check it out at those different locations. Support Adam's friend. It sounds amazing.
Speaker 3 01:09:27 Yeah. I go there once a week, sometimes a joke. It's New York, everybody eats out, you know? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 0 01:09:36 Exactly. Mark, any other questions for Adam before we let him go enjoy time with his girlfriend?
Speaker 1 01:09:41 No, I think we covered a lot and I appreciate your time, Adam. And so you spend a good amount of time here with us and what, what a what a treasure chest of wisdom and thoughts provoking and things. I mean, I, I'm just, you know, what I heard was, you know, lots of things. I mean, in regards to stick with what your giftings are. You, you were fortunate years ago at Princeton that, you know, and a professor cared enough to tell you the truth. And it's good to have people like that in our lives, right? To say, Hey, you should be in economics and, and you adjusted quickly. I mean, it was, it was thought maybe that might be, 'cause you know, you wanted to be a, maybe a surgeon or whatever, but man, you, you adjusted quickly, which makes sense. 'cause now you do that now, I mean, where you have to adjust, like to the point, there's perseverance you've hung in there through your career. Yeah. But then with people around you, you know, gaining wisdom, asking questions, there's just comes a time where, you know, you maybe need to, to persevere longer term. Hey, I gotta make an adjustment here. And, and you did that, you know, recently, and it's just a lot of good insights. Those are some of the key things that I heard today in regards to moving the change forward. And I think that's really good wisdom. What about you Jason? What'd you hear?
Speaker 0 01:10:54 Absolutely. Perseverance is key. I think you kind of wrapped it up great, but, but Adam, I think your story is inspiring again. I think a lot of people especially, so I'm, I'm 33, so I'm, I'm still, I mean, I think I'm old, but I guess I'm still young on the, on the spectrum. You're not old, but, but you know, I, I just remember, I just remember, you know, graduating college and I was a sociology major in college. I didn't know what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be. I know I loved people, I loved serving people. I loved, again, growing up in that, you know, restaurants and hotel hospitality type of world. But I, I really didn't know what that meant at the time. Sure. Again, having people in your life that are gonna push you and, and utilizing the, the unique background, the Mad Men background that you had, or the background I had or Mark had kind of forms you into who you are and, and develops that character within you.
Speaker 0 01:11:52 And then obviously God-given talent. I mean, obviously you're very talented in multiple things besides the pictures behind, jeez, God, wish I could draw like that or paint like that. But, but, but yeah, I, I think that's the thing is like, is, is you were adaptable, you persevere, but you were adaptable as well. I mean, analyst options, trader, oil futures, equities, I mean, you've, you've kind of done it all. So again, I think your story's inspiring and and we really appreciate you taking the time. Well, you didn't have to do that. So, Adam, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We appreciate it. Oh gosh.
Speaker 3 01:12:23 Well thank you. I'm, I'm humbled and, and just I'm so glad that we were able to be together, so thank you.
Speaker 0 01:12:30 Good time. Absolutely. And we'll link, we'll link the Bullseye brief website, your bio, we'll link that stuff in the, in the episode information there. But, but Adam, anything else you wanna leave the audience with here today? I know you're an internal optimist, so give us like a good quote or something, you know, to take with us as we, we finish out the week here.
Speaker 3 01:12:51 Keep going.
Speaker 2 01:12:55 Well, wherever
Speaker 3 01:12:56 You're going, keep going. Never give up. Tomorrow's gonna be better than today. I know we've been talking football, but you know, Wayne Gretzky, don't, don't skate to where the puck is. Skate to where it's going. Think about where you wanna go. Think about who you wanna be, think about the people that matter in your life. Prioritize all of that. And, and just keep going. Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:13:20 That's good.
Speaker 0 01:13:22 That was perfect. Thanks
Speaker 1 01:13:22 For helping us. Thanks. Thanks for helping us move the chains. Adam. Blessing to have you on.
Speaker 3 01:13:27 Hopefully we move the chains today.
