Hey everyone me kevin here wow, i am super excited to be hosting another episode of the meet kevin show. We are going to be talking to somebody who has been professionally working in the stock market since 1982 started at the age of 21, but actually worked in stocks and even running for options. Exchanges before that in high school and out of high school, been a hedge fund manager for 25 years, but is no longer. A hedge fund manager has nothing to gain from this gamestop crisis.

That happens but or happened, but is frustrated over what did happen and has a lot of insights into exactly what went down and i'm super excited to invite mark on mark introduce yourself shout out your twitter and then we'll get right into some questions. Well. First of all, thanks for having me my twitter is at alder lane eggs and that's my only social media, gig and um, i'm very active on twitter. I have, i have no other, i'm not on facebook or any of this other stuff.

It's too confusing for me, plus they spy on you on facebook, but i'm an individual investor. Most people know me as someone who short stocks, but i've. I've made most of my money in my life on longs, but i go after really bad people who do bad things to either companies specifically or individuals. You know i've been all over the subprime stuff.

Many years ago, drugs um some people. I go after end up in prison, but this gamestop uh, robin hood reddit thing has been bothering me since really since day one and it's it's sort of gotten a little overheated lately. So i figured i'd, grab a bet and try to make a difference and see what i could do to help some people out, because it's it's an absolute mess out there. It's an absolute mess, but tell me, is: is the stock market rigged or was this circumstance rigged? Yeah? That's a that's a good question when you think of it is you know the market? The market, i wouldn't say, is completely rigged.

This circumstance was beyond rigged. I think most most people, um institutions and and big guys, would doesn't mind when joe six-pack loses they. They assume they know less than institutions or so-called sophisticated investors, but you know i've i've sort of found the opposite to be true, and i think what happened in the robin hood, gamestop meme stock fiasco is the wrong guys were making an awful lot of money and The leveraged players were on the absolute wrong side of this trade, and you know i i tried to get people to focus on the uh switch flipping incident because that's to me where the crime is and was unless on all the other. You know conspiracy, theorists and, and even with this sec report that came out, i was warning people that it's going to be a big, nothing burger, that it will be nothing that no one will get anything out of it except pissed off, and that's probably exactly what It's been because they focused on things that don't really even matter and no one even cares about, and you know, there's little bullet points and it's oh by the way, we're sorry, a million people with the average age of 19 lost money.

But by and large the markets worked and the markets didn't work. The markets didn't work at all, and so tell me about that. What why do we think that the markets didn't work be? Is it because of uh, so many transactions going through dark pools during the time of this game stock fiasco? I believe the sec report referenced that 88 of transactions, uh went through dark pools or off exchange orders, 55 percent of those being transacted by citadel at the height of the crisis there at the end of january is. Is this a potential? Is this a potential issue? Should we care about dark pools? Is this a distraction or are we looking in the right place to say? Ah there could be something going on here.

Well, you know. That's, that's that's really a good question and that's that's the excellent point. Everything to me, including dark, pulls it's all a sideshow. It's all a sideshow for what really went on like in the old days, if you will, or or back in the day as i would say, you know, there's buyers and sellers and you match orders whether it's electronic, whether it's done through a human, whether it's in A light pool, dark pool grape pool naked pool, it doesn't really matter, you're, just matching buyers and sellers, and if things get too heated at any point in time, they should just halt the stock, just cool things off for 10 minutes or 20 minutes or an hour Or a half a day till everyone gets their senses back line up buyers and sellers and go at it again, but citadel always seems to be in the middle of this.

What i will call nonsense and they are over leveraged. They are extremely leveraged, they're, too big to fail. They have their hands everywhere, they're in market making trading specialists they're in hedge funds and when you have your hands on all sides of every trade, and you make no matter what forget payment for order flow. That's just part of the circus.

That's just that's just part of the sideshow. What happened if there was too much if there was too much pressure in the tank to slow it all down and relieve pressure the stock, the stocks were going up and they were going up a lot and the wrong people were short. The stocks and the the right people, the wrong people - i mean the the man was short, the stocks and joe's six-pack was long and and and the losses were extreme and the gains were extreme. But to me the markets, if they're free and if the markets work.

If you're right, you win, and everyone should be happy for people who win if you're wrong and you lose, you lose and everyone's sad if you lose. But but you know, people who play these are not 12 year olds, everyone's an adult. You know you sign forms you give them your social security number. It's not.

You know. I always, i always say something hold on one. Second i'll read it yeah, absolutely yeah! That's that's fascinating! It's it's a market for adults! That's a good point! We want to get so so i have something here. It was the quote of the week in the saturday new york times april 15 2000, which was, i guess it's 20 21 years ago, and it says quotation of the day.

The lesson is going to be: the market is not a game. The market is not a casino, it's a serious thing for serious people and if you're wrong be be prepared to lose, and that was my quote. General partner of rocker partners a hedge fund and it was 20 21 years ago, wow. So what i said 21 years ago holds today and, and so that's fine, so people are in it.

But if you make a bed, if you like gamestop you're, like emc or you like, overstock you're, like whatever you want to like you like chartreuse hair, if you, if you make an investment or you make a trade and you're up, you do not deserve to be The victim of a systematic risk or leverage or margin failure by your broker, which happens to be robin hood, who happens to collect and get its revenue from citadel who's, the trader. It's just not right, it's just it's just it's just it's just terribly wrong, and that to me is the issue. Nothing else matters to me other than what went down that day or that week or or the events that led up to the halt on one side, because i've never ever ever seen. Anything like it and and nothing has happened and there have been no changes to ensure it won't happen again and if it and it sounds like yeah, if you don't mind first time, it sounds like for you.

The issue isn't so much hey: let's try to analyze where short interest disclosure went wrong. Let's try to find out how bad the spreads are when we're in dark pools. Uh! That's that's! Who cares? Okay, it's five cents here, whatever that's a small part of the issue? Okay naked shorts, they happen, then they get cleared or they're legal loopholes. Whatever small part of the issue, okay stocks get halted, they're automated triggers for halting small part of the issue.

Short interest disclosures all over the place, small part of the issue it sounds like for. For you, what you're saying is the the big issue and correct me if i'm wrong, but it sounds like out of all these things. The biggest issue is actually that robin hood or and other brokerages should have been open for business, so that if retail investors together chose to keep this momentum rally moving, they would have had the opportunity to do so, a hundred percent and - and and it's and it's Worse than that and the part that's worse, is you know when you, let's just keep staying on joe six-pack one zero six pack opens up an account of robin hood. They open up a counter robin hood, because they're captivated by their screwy ads that you get to trade for free and they buy into the democratization the stock market totally fine.

Everyone should participate in the stock market, everyone's entitled no worries, but if robin hood is not financially sound and doesn't have their house in order and doesn't have proper risk controls and doesn't have proper track of their margin and their counterparties and or people who they do, Business with aren't watching them properly, it sets up joe six-pack to get absolutely screwed and who gives a rat's ass about dark pools or or we execute the commissions better if you're buying a stock at ten dollars, and you think the stock's going to go to 50. Do you think, do you give a about paying a nickel more? Who cares? I mean who gives a it? Doesn't matter, it's all a sideshow to get you not to look at what really went on, because for the so-called nickel you saved or the two cents or the faster execution or whatever the hell. They call it the payment for flow, whatever happened. If you lose 130 points because they flicked the switch and you got hosed - that's debilitating okay, that's ptsd causing! If, if, if not bankrupting to you, that is the issue.

Let's not! Let's not worry about stuff that doesn't matter or tin, foil, hat crap or naked shorts i mean naked shorting is patently illegal for individuals and institutions illegal. You can't do it. It's totally legal for market makers when things get going as i've explained and there's loopholes in it. Is it right, probably not, but it's the law, so these guys operate these market makers under the letter of the law.

So if they don't have to borrow the stock, they won't borrow the stock because it saves them money because they don't have to pay borrow fees and if a bunch of people go after them and say naked shorting, naked shorting, naked shorting, naked shorting, they'll simply go And say: hey shut up, it's not it's totally legal! Here's where it's legal and everyone who makes that claim will immediately be discredited right right, i mean, i believe, there's a the loophole. Is a good faith loophole that as long as they're making a good faith effort to try to find the shares they're allowed to make it short, essentially right, but that's also why we're getting a lot of these things cleared like they fail to deliver they clear out Within a day or two uh, but what's interesting to me is - and i think this is where, where i've got the big questions for you is if, if the nscc came in and increased margin requirements on these clearing houses and then subsequently the brokers, whether it's apex, Clearing which then trickles down to m1 finance and weeble or robinhood clearing trickling down to robinhood. Isn't it the nscc, who should be blamed uh rather than the brokers or or should the brokers have been able to power through this to make sure that they did whatever they could to make sure that trading was available for their clients? Well, it's a it's. A good question and a good point, and - and i will just simply back up and say until someone and i don't know if it's congress or the senate, the sec completely just punted on this thing, find out the absolute facts of yeah.

What was robin hood's financial state going into this thing in the middle and in the end, then, when vlad got on tv vlad the lemonade salesman got on tv and said everything's. Fine. There is no finance issue. There is no problem.

He clearly didn't tell the truth, or he didn't know - i don't know which is worse and - and everyone gets after citadel and for good reason about what went on they just don't care about joe's six-pack. They they could care less. They care about themselves. They care about making money, that's all they care about, and they make their spreads so before anyone can assess blame someone who has subpoena power to go over the trades and get emails and find out where everyone was in this process needs to get to the bottom Of exactly what happened that caused this switch to get turned off, because because i mean i trade stocks, why i'm a shitty trader? I trade stocks like old people, but i i invest in stocks.

I know where my margin and cash and capital is 24 7 in every second of every day. There's a little thing in the corner of your screen. That says where you are so, if that can be done on a brokerage level for an individual, i would think everyone at robinhood would know exactly where their finances are at every second, and when things start getting tight, i would think the head of risk would go To somebody and say, hey boss, we're going to have a problem in about an hour. We either need to raise margin, requirements for every on everybody or give everyone a warning or do something because we're gon na blow the up.

If this keeps going, you don't do it after the day is over, you, don't do it and tell people everything's fine, and you come up with some situation at three in the morning and completely destroy people the morning the next day, the report indicates that hedge funds Were also behind the buy side of this and that market makers were not hedging option trades implying they knew this was going to happen, so people can deal with the truth, and people can deal with adversity what they can't deal with and what really starts to get People going is when they think they're being cheated when there is a cover-up when they're getting lied to, especially when people who have less are being pushed down by people who have more. That is what drives people up the wall and and given what went on and given were what month is this october? That's month, 10. This happened in january, given that this happened nine months ago, and there are no answers. I have yet to hear a plausible reason or of what happened and why this went down.

I for one, though i have zero position in any of these names and have never had a position in any of these names and have never been compensated by anyone on any of these names or citadel or robin hood or anybody. I think it is so outrageous that i will take my gravitas if you will and lend it to these people to try to help organize them and move the needle. So the facts can be brought out and then, when the facts are out, then let's play the blame game because i don't know if it's tennis, you know who knows exactly what went down and who influenced who to flick the switch. It sure wasn't me and it had to be sure, had to have been someone with great great great power.

It's either the new york fed the new york fed through citadel. Something went down to cause something that i've never seen, and anyone who i know has never seen. We've seen halts in stocks, we've seen halts in exchanges, we've seen five-day seven day, ten day one-day halts, but you never halt one side of a trade ever you've. Never seen that and it's and it's such an extreme event, there should be an explanation that makes sense that can be backed up now anecdotally.

On top of this melvin, who was probably a day or two from going out of business citadel, miraculously gives him two billion dollars and ken griffin says he's one of the greatest investors of his generation. Plotkin is a smart guy, but he's an over leveraged, arrogant, greedy fellow he's, not one of the greatest investors of the generation he's probably one of the worst and if he was so good, why wouldn't citadel have given him money on day one? Why wouldn't ken griffin give him some of his billions on day one? He only gave him money when he was going to go out of business and if his largest customer, which is robinhood, was financially scrapped. Simply why didn't citadel give the money to robin hood? That way, this whole situation would have kept on flowing and if melvin had to go out of business and would have been down 99 and they would have taken the stocks to a thousand so be it, then the free markets would have worked. Then these things would have cleared out, the shorts would have all covered, the longs would have sold and then we'd be back to equilibrium.

But it's not what they allowed to happen. It's not how it worked. They they jerry-rigged it. They fixed it in a way where joe's six-pack got destroyed.

In these things, a lot of people got destroyed and because the people who got destroyed don't give money to politicians and don't pay a lot of taxes and don't have a lot of influence and are by and large, faceless people. You know don't care, they don't care. I care because i hear the stories and the stories are sickening and i'm a regular, i'm a regular guy and it's it's just bothersome, so qui question for you. What would you say if let's say you were talking to vlad and, and he said hey, you know what, on the 27th we're still trading gamestop, we increase margin requirements.

We send out those disclosures like hey, like we got to have more margin, requirements or whatever and then the next morning that morning the 28th uh you you get a notice from the uh nscc or whatever that your depository requirements are. You know uh three billion dollars or two billion dollars or whatever it is this this large number and you're looking going well crap, we got a 300 million dollar credit line that we didn't have drawn. We have all this money available. We thought we'd never have to use this.

The odds of this are you know, one in five million or whatever they say it is uh. What what do you? What do you do at that point? If you know the stock market's opening in three hours? What what would you have wanted to see happen at that moment and what would you say to vlad if he had that sort of defense? Well, i think what you should do is get them on with me and you can get ken griffin on with me as well. I think that would be good and and when i take off, i agree. First of all, first of all i would say you're in the customer facing business, your customers are by and large unsophisticated new investors, where you say democratization of stock market.

So if you are financially insecure as robin hood was, and you have no risk controls and you have a problem - that's your problem homes and you need to fix it. Your problem should not result in your customers getting destroyed, so the first thing you do is go for emergency funding. You go to the new york fed and say we have a problem. I'm the ceo of this company and i've messed up.

I over i miscalculated or our risk department miscalculated our margin. What should we do right and then the new york fed will say just you're, not trading today right halt. All all operations will either shotgun merge you with e-trade right. Well, you'll just be a division of e-trade, going forward or you'll get an infusion and we'll start trading.

What you won't do or what you shouldn't do, or what you should never do is destroy your customers. So you can live to fight another day and three months later go and go public and become a billionaire. That's what you don't do or you go to your counter parties and say we need three billion dollars for a week till this blows over, and then you raise marginal requirements to all your customers to 100. You basically take people off margin and say if you have to sell, sell if you have to cover cover, if you have to buy you buy, but you guys have put us over a barrel through all this trading and our risk controls failed us substantially.

So we didn't know this and we're sorry, but we're not going to kill you our customer to for our benefit and and last i looked destroying your customer who you get, who you get through the door through super bowl, ads and all sorts of all sorts of, And you say we give you zero commissions and you know you have stars and bars going across their screen all the time. What you don't do is you don't destroy people because you have failed at your job and and and you don't do that and you don't keep you know, kicking the can down the road to kill people. That's not the business you're in you. Do not yeah recruit people and get people on the promise of free commissions where they're actually up and up a lot on the trade to then turn around and destroy them.

I mean that that that, to me is, is: is a crime? That's a high crime. To me now what what is the capacity for a broker to to go to the fed? I mean, i don't think brokers. Remember, banks uh, i mean, can, can they borrow from the fed or or do you think they should have just gone like you said to citadel or others, because i think the argument make is very interesting. This don't destroy your customers.

They should have done whatever possible. They could have you know if they were able to raise uh whatever it was the two or three billion dollars they raised within a matter of 24 hours to 48 hours. Why not have done it within three hours or gotten someone to bridge you that loan for for 48 hours or whatever, if, if ken griffin is handing out a two billion dollar check to melvin who's failing, i don't see how ken griffin couldn't have handed a two Billion dollar check to robin hood and robin hood amongst its investors, where you say when we get through this we're going to go public in three months and you're all going to become multi-billionaires off this thing. You know why not do it that way and if worse, comes to worse, there's precedent for this when bear stearns failed when bear stearns failed over the that weekend in 2008 or nine or whenever it was you just woke up that day and bear stearns was part Of jp morgan - and you don't think e-trade would have taken all the robin hood accounts.

Of course they would have probably yeah you don't think td would have taken them. Of course they would have so come the next day right at 8am eastern time. There is an announcement: robin hood has ceased operations. Robin hood cannot meet its margin requirements.

Robin hood accounts are now part of e-trade. Every robin hood account is now an e-trade account. Don't worry, ladies and gentlemen, everything's fine, but your account is now at e-trade or td or fidelity or whoever anyone would have taken these accounts. But robin hood is a business because they couldn't keep track of their margin properly and couldn't keep track of the risk properly and couldn't tell people the straight story shouldn't be in business, especially when you recruit people customers based on free trades, where you get money on Where your revenue is payment for flow, that's a whole nother subject matter for another day and and you go and screw people and the way out in the fix.

The fix, under any circumstance in the richest nation in the world, should not be destroying your customer that that just cannot be the answer. That is a complete fail and not only is a complete fail. There's been no explanation of why it happened and, and and you know when i up and whenever i make a mistake, whether it's with my wife or my kids, even my dog or investments, i say i it up. I made a mistake here right.

I am sorry right. I screwed it up right. I drove the car too fast. It ended up in a ditch.

I got a speeding ticket. I shouldn't have gotten the dwi, whatever the hell. It is. Oh i've never gotten a dwi by the way.

Whatever it is. You say you screwed up: there is no one admitting here that they screwed up everyone. You know the government says: oh the markets work perfectly. Oh the shorts weren't that bad, oh, the individual investors should pay more attention it it.

You know we have this grand event where a flick, a switch, gets flicked, but no one made any mistakes. No one did anything wrong, it was it was. It was all the cosmic shuffle and i i just hate it because again i know a lot of people who lost a lot and i get dms. And i hear the stories - and i know some of these people and it's sickening and it's sickening because the rich got a whole lot richer.

Robin hood went public. The guys who were invested in robin hood made a fortune greasy-haired vlad. The lemonade salesman is worth a billion or whatever the hell he is, and he really really really screwed up and how you screw up and then go and make a fortune on top of it to screw your customers and you screw people who can least afford to Lose money to me is just it's just it's just really bad. It is criminal in in in my mind and and no one wants to put their neck out and no one wants to say this is wrong.

No one wants to say you know, let's get behind what the hell really went on, because the next time this happens in a downturn or something like that, then the system's really going to shake and and and again i hate it so much i'll say you know. I have nothing to gain. I have plenty of money. I don't have anything to sell anyone, not in the advisory business and not running a trading service.

I could care less. I care about people, i care about innocent people getting screwed. I care about a system. That's broken, i care a bunch about a bunch of billionaires who want to shift the blame elsewhere and i care and and and other people should should chime in as well and just say this is a deal.

You know this is this: what went down it's interesting too? The point you make about uh citadel not having to worry, for example, about pr, whereas robin hood does very interesting, distinct distinction. I want to ask you if, if you were going to start a brokerage, would you use payment for order flow? What would you do differently if you were going to offer trading services uh that that you know maybe robinhood in your mind or other platforms, should wake up to well? The first thing in general is: nothing is ever free, nothing is free. So when people say free trading, someone should say: what's the catch and and and now people can understand what the catch is, so a disclosure maybe like by the way we're making this in payment for order flow off of each transaction whatever. Well, i think that you know the disclosure's there, but you can make disclosures so confusing that people are in such a hurry to trade.

No one ever reads that stuff. You know whenever i sign up for anything on the internet. You know you, you go all the way down and you just check the box agree. No one ever reads that stuff.

What what what should go on is someone like you when you get your hair color normal or someone like me should just simply say look. This is a risky ass, gig right? What you're doing is high risk. You can lose all your money if you're wrong. You can also make a lot of money so understand that when you sign up and if you get a margin account which you probably shouldn't do since you're just starting out like you, don't give a 16 year old, a brand new ferrari, you give them something.

That's beat to because you don't need them busting up a 250 000 car, and you say this is the game, but on on my end you know like interactive brokers is legit fidelity's, legit, e-trade's, legit t-t-d is legit. They don't have these kind of problems, they don't have these kind of issues. It's only robin hood. It was specifically order flow, so sorry cut out there for a second.

For me, go go ahead, you know it's it. You know it can then stem back to this payment from order flow deal and there's a lot of things and it gets sort of complicated and i have dark theories about what fidel. What citadel does with this payment of order flow and not, and none of the examples are good um i just i just don't i just don't like it. It led to something that was really bad and something historic and - and it led to these hearings, which were nothing more than just kangaroo court folly, and it led to these congressional hearings were horrible.

They were a joke. I mean the the limited questioning the best. The best question seemed to get the least amount of time, and the most nonsense got the most time. It's a disaster, but congress being a disaster is no surprise.

Well what and so go ahead. It should td, ameritrade and fidelity if they're using payment for order flow, should they get rid of that or or is this just a matter of hey robinhood, you guys were the ones that had it the worst uh. You know you, therefore, you guys uh, you should uh make it right. Payment for order flow is illegal in a lot of countries and probably should be illegal here.

There's no reason for it. There's just there's just no simple reason for it and this whole concept, the better execution, is just for it's just it's just not right so so it should probably just absolutely go away and things be made more simple, but but there's a but there's a weave behind. All this - and this is what really bothers me - a lot of these individual investors are a lot sharper than than than professionals give them credit for, and they work a lot harder and professionals give them credit for, and they had some asshat on the cartoon network, which I call cnbc the other day and someone asked him about this. Stockholm called upstart and this guy could not say what upstart did the the interviewer asked him.

What business upstart was the guy couldn't even ask couldn't even answer the question. He would have been a lot better off saying i own the stock, because the stock's going up - and i have no clue what they do - the average you know robin hood player or the person who's behind the meme stocks. You can agree or disagree with their basis for why they're in it, you can, you can say that makes sense, doesn't make sense. You can lose your ass, whatever that's all fine, but at least they have a reason to be in it.

They at least have a reason you don't have to agree. You don't have to disagree. They can make or lose this clown who got on cnbc who's in quotes a professional he couldn't describe in one sentence. What upstart did not one sentence in this in this video of this clown got viral and things like that, and it's a perfect example of just because you're, a so-called professional people think that they're smart but 9 out of 10 of these guys, i wouldn't trust feeding A dog and and the individual who at least does the work and has the sense.

I have more faith in them than i do in these institutions. But yet the institutions are given the benefit of the doubt because guys show up wearing fancy clothes and they talk a big game and they have an ivy league education and they, you know, have diplomas on their wall. But they don't know they're just in something because something's moving and and to me, this all stems back to the people with the money pushed down on the people who don't have the money when things go bad and and when leverage is involved and people's controls. Don't work, it gets really bad, it gets really bad and - and all i really want is the truth to come out and it will eventually come out because i'm not a give up.

Guy and other people, i think, will will join in when the truth comes out and people realize what happened guys should be made whole and and people who screwed this up should pay a heavy price, a real heavy price. What if the sec doesn't assign blame? You know what, if the sec says: hey, you know what the nscc they had the right to raise margin requirements and if the brokers decided they were going to go to position close only then then they have the right to do that and uh there you go. That's that's the game does. Is i mean that doesn't feel right, but uh? It seems like that's potentially, what's going to happen, what's your reaction to that, i think what you're saying is a given.

I think i think, from this sec report. It's clear they're going to back up 15 yards and punt it as far as they can they're, gon na, say yeah. You know this could have been done better and yeah. That could have been done better.

I mean, i think, that's a given if you, if you count on the sec for stuff like that you're you're wasting your time. My point or points or or view is between the people involved in these stocks and whether it's the reddit crowd and i'm not a reddit guy or whether various groups or things someone says, there's between a million and five million people who are affected in this. Who are who are players in this space? My hope is that there is some form of organization amongst these people and there's nothing wrong with it, whether it's a union or a group and and and there's been some talk of - let's just say, the nra - has 5 million members and the one thing about the Nra - and you can agree with guns, you can disagree with guns, you can agree with any of it, they're all unified in message, and they get a lot done because they're highly organized and they use their funding to lobby and make change and or protect their rights And and they all move as one and they're unified. So if this group, you know whether you're in gme or amc or you're, in the mean stocks or right or whatever, if this group were to organize and have leadership, that would say if everyone kicks in five dollars and or we have fundraisers, we can hire lobbyists And take our message to senators and congressmen, and as five million people or four million people or whatever the number is, you can rest assure rest.

Assure 93 of us are going to vote in the next election yeah, i'm being deadly serious. That's a good point! I'm being serious because elections matter and people can vote and ken griffin only has one vote and everyone in this group can have four or five million votes and if the difference between control of the congress is eight seats in representatives and the difference in the senate Is even if this group gets together and says, if you don't pay attention to us, we're going to vote and you either vote with us right, because we have a serious issue or we'll do our best to vote you out and there's are some races that i'm Sure are very, very, very close and that's the only way you can really get people's attention to work for and lobby for you that's the way it works. That's what citadel does citadel gives all sorts of money to all sorts of guys to defend their interests, to make sure joe six-pack is pushed down sufficiently, that they don't have a beef and when companies had too much of a threat against labor labor got unions. But the hard part's done, there's a huge group out there, they're just unorganized and everyone has a different - has a different issue.

So i mean that's. That would would be a start. Yeah, that's yeah, that's a very good point, just uh, actually assembling and and getting the power of that retail investor together. What would you say, though? There are some lawsuits now against uh class actions, for example, now tied together against robin hood uh, suggesting potential collusion, even between like robin hood and citadel uh.

You know at that time and i'm wondering what is it that if retail investors were to get together that they should target, do they target the nscc or do they target people like citadel or do they target the robin hoods? Where was that potential issue, and at what point do you think this issue graduated to where, where maybe even other people got involved, i think earlier you mentioned the new york fed? Well, i'm speculating on the new york fed because i've been through a couple crisis. In my life investing wise i've seen russian debt crisis, i saw 911, i saw 2008, i saw bunker hunt in the silver fiasco. There have been crisises all the way along and the new york fed basically calls the shots, and the market was starting to have some upheaval when all this was going on, and i'm speculating that someone made a call to somebody and said. Basically, if you don't cut this out, one or more of us are going to go out of business because we're so leveraged i mean when you're leveraged at 1801.

I don't know the exact citadel leverage number but to be conservative, it's probably somewhere between 12 and 22 to 1., if you're leveraged at 20 to 1 and you lose 5 you're down 100 you're you're completely out of business. So when you're highly leveraged and things go, haywire there's great risk in the system and this deleveraging has never happened. So i think the blame is a fifth-inning phenomenon of who to blame, who exactly fell down where exactly the weak link or break was the first thing that really needs to happen, and i think it's easy, you know all trades are recorded. You know trades are done permanently, so everyone can figure out the trading, whether it's options or stock and emails are documented.

All these guys are on email retention, so all those are saved. So if you someone, has the energy to subpoena or investigate all of this stuff to get to the facts of the flip. Switching, not all the events of the stuff that came into the sec, the flip switching is, it is ground zero and if you can get to the facts of what exactly happened and the timeline behind it, when did robin hood know? When did robin hood know and cover it up, when did robin hood know and lie? Oh and i'm, this is speculation on my part, but this is the kind of stuff that i would dig in. If someone came up with a timeline that actually and accurately reflected of exactly what went on, then adults and lawyers can look at the timeline and say: here's where we had the break: okay: here's where nscc new york fed sec, robin hood risk citadel compliance.

This is where the failure was like when you have an airplane crash right. When you have black box investigations - hey you know here it. This is what caused it right. Black box, you go with forensics on the ground, you go with, whatever it is and and three to four months later they say a squirrel got caught in engine, one which caused a fire which blew the gas line which lit up the you know blank blank blank And the wing fell off right right, yeah and it seems like that's uh.

That seems a lot to be less whole nscc thing with their margin requirements uh. You know leading to this position close only, but what i want to know is what i mean. We don't think anything's going to change here. Uh, you know, organizing the retail crowd, not an easy feat.

What should individual investors do to protect themselves going forward? Should they participate in these momentum rallies? Should they buy a better subscription for short interest data? What should they do individually and practically uh to protect themselves? Okay, um, i like to say that people do more and spend more time researching where they want to go for dinner than they do on the stocks they own, and i think i think it's true. I think if, if you own a stock, you should be able to explain to a 10th grader or a 9th grader in a paragraph or less, why you own it, and i think you need to understand why you own it. I think you need to have a mental discipline that, if why you own it changes, i always say thesis creep, is fatal. If you own a stock for a certain reason, and that reason changes you should probably sell.

If that, if that reason gets better, you should probably buy more if the reason stays the same, you should probably sit, but you should definitely know what you own and be responsible for what you own and be responsible for your own money and not rely on others. Don't list you can like me, you can hate me, i don't really care, but if i say something you can trust me but verify it for yourself that this actually makes sense and you buy in and and everyone's responsible for everything and you should not have fomo Or yolo or whatever it is, and that just because something's going up doesn't make it good and just because something's going down doesn't make it bad. But you have to be responsible for yourself and you have to be responsible for your own money and and and when things and when things ex the the switch thing go, you have to say. I got it right and i'm proud of myself that i got it right and and and take comfort in that and if you're wrong, you got it wrong.

You take the blame and you try to own it. This is why yeah. This is why i got it wrong and i'll try to do better next time: yeah yeah uh, what about uh the market? How do you feel about it? Where do you think we're in the market? Do you think we're coming up on a on a crash? Did we just lose all the negative catalysts uh? You know the supply chain. Fear is going to go away and get better or things just going to get worse here with inflation than otherwise here's the good thing about me.

I completely don't give a about the market. I don't look at, i mean i know. What's going up, i know if it's going down, i know what the issues are. I am singly focused on specific names and specific things.

Because can you shout those out? Well, i'm going to do all sorts of of caveats with these names, but you know when when the world was coming to an end last, whatever was march or april - and i bloomberg did a story about me - i said it's. The most bullish. I've been in probably a dozen years, because when cnbc aka, the cartoon network is on tv begging for the government to shut the market down, that's the most extreme sentiment indicator there ever has been, and i thought people were so negative and i've been through these disasters Before that the government's interest, it's a huge government interest to keep the market up and to keep people in the market and the market is sort of the economy, the supply chain stuff. You ask i pay attention to, i always say something, and i think people should should think of this.

Always folks. Shortages are followed by gluts and gluts are followed by shortages and when all this supply chain stuff figures out everyone's going to be going from worrying about inflation, to worrying about deflation, because once everyone's able to produce all the chips they want and all the lumber that People are needed and all the plastics that are needed once all the shortages are out of the system and people are cranking on production they're going to over produce, so no one can ever get it right. It's either you have to over produce or under produce, and that's what's going to happen so shortages which are now are going to be followed by gluts and when there's gluts it's going to be followed by shortages again, and it's been going on through the test of Time so with all that stuff, that's why i really could care less. I don't pay attention to it and and the government with the taper and the tight - and you know my they're, basically always throwing money at things so sort of like plan plan accordingly.

So if the market crashes it crashes, if it goes up, it goes up. Everyone's been fighting the rally forever. Everyone's been fighting the market forever. We have the opening, the closing you know it's just every sound bite they try to get to people, but if you find situations that you really like, i mean that you really like and you hold them.

You can do very well over time and, if you think simple, if you think simple and you believe in it and you have basis for believing it, i think you can do really. I think you know you can do really well and and joe's expat can do really well better than these institutions. What do you think about crypto? I could care less a crypto, i'm not a crypto player and i'm not a crypto player very simply because i've had no one be able to explain it to me in a paragraph or less and the people who are long crypto. I give them a lot of credit, i'm happy for them.

I'm happy they've made a lot of money and to the victor go the spoils. I just didn't see it and i've never understood it and i'll only be involved in stuff that i can explain and understand, and - and i have no problem - i don't know bitcoins six - you know bitcoins i mean they should just they should trade bitcoin in thousand dollar Increments, why they even bother with with you know, if something's at 62 000.. I don't even know why it bothered with 62 333, just say 63 000, so to all those people. I i'm i'm thrilled as can be for them and if that's and that's what floats your boat, god bless, you god bless you any real estate, you into real estate, all real estate's, all right, it's! Okay, okay! So uh! What would you say mostly stocks and bonds or what bonds are boring, have no interest in bonds? Bonds are bonds aren't for shouldn't, be for anybody.

I must i'm so what? What are the names you were going to give some caveats. Yeah yeah, i know you were going to give some caveats. You know not financial advice, you could lose money right, but you want you want to shout out some of your names. Well anything i say you can lose money.

I think you should verify yourself and whatever i talk about, i own an awful lot of, because i don't own many things. I only own three or four things, but i'm i'm extraordinarily concentrated, which i don't advise. You do at home and you can lose all your money and you may lose all your money on these, even though i don't think you will and they're, and these are financially sound companies. But i don't want to show like something: gamestop amc tesla.

No, i'm not in any of those um okay, but i think i always try to think of i'm only going to mention i'll mention two names, but i try to think of big problems, big problems and companies that can have a solution and something that i, like. A lot - and i like this - a lot - is a company called enovix. It's simple as envx it's about a 21 stock, it's been as low as 12, been as high as 28.. It's a it was a spec.

It was a stack last year and the stacks done well innovix. The chairman is a guy named tj rogers and now he's 80 years old and i've known him probably for 25 years, and he is a mean nasty, he's a great he's, a great guy, but to work for him. I would rather gargle with battery acid. He is a tough, tough, tough man, here's your church, which is what they do.

They they work on batteries. Well, no, no! I'm just going to describe the guy who's who sits on top. He he's a guy who i will invest with or or follow anywhere he's hugely successful, but he is not a candy ass. He is a rough.

He is a rough tough customer. He doesn't put up with any anyone who works, for him is is quite good, so nfx is changing, is coming up with something new in batteries. Mobile batteries and it's basically instead of batteries being made of the the gunk people are used to this battery, is based with silicon, and it essentially has twice the power with the same size and it doesn't get hot, and if you can get a battery for mobile Applications, whether it's phone watch glasses, um medical devices, that has twice the capacity at the same size, you really have something, and i've been there a few times. I've seen these made.

I know they work, i've seen them in products. The question is going to be yield and these are made in the united states in fremont they're, going to be announcing a second plan. Why do i say they're made in the united states, and why is that important? Because i think mobile batteries with everything that's going on in china and taiwan are going to become sort of a national security thing. And it wouldn't surprise me, since the government gives tesla all sorts of breaks, that the government doesn't make batteries uh a national security thing and start starts to give battery companies breaks.

So i think between glasses, which or goggles which some people think the market for glasses. Going forward is bigger than cell phones and smartphones and watches and other i think, demand here is unlimited and who was that person that was uh? Was it tj or the herald or who was it? Tj rogers? I think oh he's the chair. Okay, chairman of the board, got it he's the chairman. I think harold's a solid guy, there's a head of operations, a guy named cam and i think he's a superstar and and snap or snapchat or whatever they call themselves.

They announce that they're getting in the goggles business and i think the battery they're using for their goggles is going to be anavixes, and i think that can be a huge deal. So i think in the world in this world, where mobile is going to be a bigger and bigger thing batteries, it's not the applications. The applications are out there and the software's out there, but it's the battery, which is going to enable the up the application. If you don't have the power to run a device with the cool applications, you might as well not buy the device.

I mean i can't see, but would i get goggles? You know that have some cool stuff to it, probably not, unless i could trade stocks on the goggles without looking at the phone or do other things that are cool. So it's it's sort of a device, that's looking for a killer application and i think the market is huge. I think the company can be huge. I think it's a three billion cap now and if these guys get it right, they could become the qualcomm batteries.

So i own it i own an awful lot of it. I own some higher, i own, some lower um. They have cash, they have no debt, but the trick is going to be the yield in making these batteries if they get above an 80 yield. I think the stock can be a home run.

I think it can just be an absolute home run, so i i would, what does that mean? 80 yield, i'm not a battery expert. So so these things are made like semiconductors are made because it's made on silicon. So if they're mass produced and it's basically wafers that get cut with stuff put in, they then get tested at the end of the at the end of the line and if at least 80 percent work we're going to have a home run if 90 percent work We're going to have a grand slam, because not all these are going to come off the the line and work if your yields are in the high 90s we're going to have back to background slams. So these you know these aren't your typical batteries where you roll that black stuff up um this.

You think i found a picture here: uh yeah yeah, that that could be something like that: yeah and uh. I'm just i'm, i'm a huge believer. So my buddy greg reyes were neighbors in montana. They had battery day in july and we both went there for battery day and reyes used to run a 32 billion dollar company.

So he knows he's seen a lot of stuff. He said it was the single best presentation he's ever seen when they demonstrated the battery walk through the plant, how they're made and the applications, because, because literally the whole thing with the iphone and or laptops, is battery, and if you can buy a dell. The new dell laptop in a basically the battery they can say this, gives you two days of battery life two days and you take this thing on the road and you don't have to worry about charging this thing or your iphone. Instead of 12 hours is 20 or it's 12 hours and they have five times the power applications.

Huge shift, yeah huge shift. So so they said they said a lot. The joke in the iphones is that this new 5g or there's even more 5g. What's it called you're you're, seeing more tech, the 5g uw or whatever oh gosh yeah, so they keep coming out with the new bands yeah.

It's really right. The super fast it's on the phone, but it's basically turned off. It's basically turned off because it would drain. So much power, you'd you'd, have to constantly be recharging, your phone sure and and the concept they say with the goggles.

Is you know a lot of people you know drive. You know looking at their phone, a lot of people walk down the street. Looking at the phone and they cross and they get hit by a bus, but if you had something you know eyewear or sunglasses and you're at the beach, you can be doing all sorts of stuff. You could be texting, you could be emailing, you could be trading stocks, you could be doing everything and and no one would know - and that's a good point and if you get the right application that doesn't kill the battery and it would totally kill the batteries out There now you know, we, you know reyes and i send an email to tj who we know and say when you get yourselves involved in these devices like it used to say intel inside, you should say enovic's inside because hey there, you go because it's a selling Point because the battery is so good, so i think it's great it's either going to be.

You know, folks, when we do this in three years. This is either going to be up 10 to 15 times or it's gon na be a six dollar stock cause. Something didn't work, but but that's the point make make no mistake: i'm shooting for the grand slam here. This is not.

This is not for the faint of heart. It's it's an aggressive name. It's an aggressive company. I think the guys are really good.