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What are the world's biggest investors actually saying right now? And what can we learn from the legends who came before them?
Every episode, we go source-by-source through interviews, reports, and predictions from investors like Cathie Wood, Ray Dalio, and Stanley Druckenmiller—plus deep dives into the timeless lessons from trading legends like Jesse Livermore and Paul Tudor Jones.
No speculation. Just verified quotes, specific predictions, and the strategies behind the world's greatest money minds.
This is Money Men.
Okay. What a week. $600,000,000,000 evaporated from tech stocks in three days, then most of it came roaring back by Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit $50,000 for the first time in its hundred and thirty year history. Bitcoin crashed to $61,000 and bounced back to 70,000 in forty eight hours, and I covered some massive stories on the show this week from Elon Musk's $1,250,000,000,000 merger to the $50,000,000,000 crash that rocked the pharma world.
Josh Stanton:Today, I'm recapping everything that happened this week. The episodes I covered, the stories I didn't get to, and what you need to be watching for this upcoming week. Because next week is absolutely loaded with economic data that could move markets in a big way. But before I dive in, this show is for entertainment and education only. I am not a financial adviser.
Josh Stanton:Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own research and consult a licensed professional before making any financial decisions. Alright. Now let's get into it. So I've got four main stories this week, each one covering a major thing happening in the markets right now.
Josh Stanton:And let me just run through each one and give you the key takeaways in case you missed them. I kicked off the week with Elon Musk's bombshell announcement, which was SpaceX has acquired x AI in a deal valued at $1,250,000,000,000. That's $800,000,000,000 for SpaceX plus $230,000,000,000 for x AI combined into a single entity. And Musk stated goal for this merger reads like science fiction. Put AI data centers in orbit powered by the sun.
Josh Stanton:The memo Musk released was wild, by the way. You wanna go check it out. It's on He said this marks not just the next chapter, but the next book in SpaceX and x AI's mission. He's talking about harnessing millions of the sun's energy, which is a lot, by the way, just so you know. Humanity becoming multiplanetary and building what he calls the most ambitious vertically integrated innovation engine on and off Earth.
Josh Stanton:And so the core insight from that episode is that Musk is solving AI's energy crisis. Every major tech company is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on infrastructure, and they're all hitting the same wall, which is power, which is electricity. Data centers need massive amounts of electricity. They're draining local power grids, in fact, and communities are starting to push back, and permits are getting much harder to get as well. And so my solution is literally out of this world.
Josh Stanton:His claim essentially is within two to three years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space. And try to think about that. Unlimited solar power, no night cycle, no cooling problems because you're in the vacuum of space. No community is complaining about noise or power consumption. Space is called space for a reason.
Josh Stanton:There's room up there, and Musk plans on taking advantage of it. I also covered the bear case of this as well, which because that's what I have to do. Is this genius or is it SolarCity two point o, a bailout disguised as a merger? And try to remember that Musk orchestrated Tesla's acquisition of SolarCity back in 2016 when SolarCity was struggling. Shareholders sued claiming conflict of interest.
Josh Stanton:Now we have x AI, which must start in 2023 and has been burning through capital at an insane rate like a billion dollars a month. It's getting absorbed into SpaceX, which is the one company in his empire that's actually printing money. Electric called it exactly what it looks like, a bailout. Tesla shareholders are already suing over the $2,000,000,000 investment in x AI, and the clear conflict of interest concerns as well. Musk sits on both sides of this deal.
Josh Stanton:You have to remember that. But here's the bottom line, which I landed on. If this IPO happens in June 2026, which is rumored to be, it could be the biggest tech IPO in history. Love Musk or hate him, he's building something no one else is even attempting. Orbital data centers, a million satellites, AI that can actually do things, not just generate text.
Josh Stanton:And then on Tuesday, I did a deep dive on Kathy Wood's latest predictions from her January 2026 interview and Ark's Big Ideas report as well. And the predictions are extremely bold, which we can obviously expect with Cathie Wood. She's calling for a Goldilocks economy, is gonna be 5% GDP growth with falling inflation at the same time. Bitcoin is going to go to $1,200,000 as she predicts, and Tesla's going to hit $2,600. So let me put those numbers in context.
Josh Stanton:Bitcoin today is around $70,000. She's calling for a 17 times increase. That's pretty insane. Tesla is around $400. She's calling for a more than six times increase of that share price.
Josh Stanton:These aren't modest predictions. These are moonshots. Okay? And the key insight from that episode is that 90% of her Tesla price target comes from robo taxis, not car sales. She's not betting on Tesla selling more model threes or model y's.
Josh Stanton:She's betting Tesla solves full self driving and becomes a transportation platform. Try to think Uber, but without the drivers. That's where the $2,600 share price is going to come from. Her Bitcoin thesis rests on what she calls the digital gold narrative plus institutional adoption. So if Bitcoin captures just 5% of global investable assets, and she thinks it will, that's what she's saying, the math gets you to 1,200,000.0 per coin.
Josh Stanton:And I also broke down her three deflationary forces as well. We got energy costs which are falling because of renewables and improved efficiency. Then we have shelter costs, which are about to fall because of increased construction and normalizing rents as well. And then China is exporting deflation to the world by dumping cheap goods. She thinks these forces are stronger, a lot stronger than tariff driven inflation.
Josh Stanton:So then, of course, I looked at the bear case, and this is the same investor, we have to remember, whose ARC Innovation Fund crashed 75% from its peak. It's the same person who said Zoom would hit $1,500, and it's at $74 now. She said Teladoc would revolutionize healthcare and the stock is down 90%. Her track record on individual calls has been brutal. We have to keep that in mind.
Josh Stanton:But here's what I also acknowledge. She was right about Tesla early when everyone said it was gonna go bankrupt. She was right about Bitcoin when banks were calling it a scam and rat poison. She built a $60,000,000,000 fund from nothing, absolutely nothing. And the question isn't whether Kathy Wood is smart.
Josh Stanton:The question is whether her timing is right this time. Being directionally right is not enough in markets. We know that. Valuation and timing matter the most. And then on Wednesday, I covered Palantir's q four twenty twenty five earnings, and these numbers made Wall Street's jaw drop.
Josh Stanton:$1,410,000,000 in revenue, 70% year over year growth, 57% operating margins, a billion dollars in US revenue in a single quarter. And CEO Alex Karp went on the earnings call and made what might be the most arrogant statement of the earning season. They are end of one. That's what he said. They are end of one.
Josh Stanton:In translation, there is no competition. We are the only one doing what we do. Let me break down the numbers because they are really remarkable. So US commercial growth grew a 137% year over year. That's their business selling AI software to American corporations.
Josh Stanton:It's exploding right now. Total revenue for 2026 is guided at $7,200,000,000, a full billion dollars higher than what analysts expected. The rule of 40 score, which measures growth rate plus profit margin came in at a 127. Anything above 40 by the way is considered excellent for a software company. Hundred and twenty seven is in a completely different stratosphere.
Josh Stanton:I also spent time on who Alex Karp actually is because understanding the CEO helps you understand the company. He's a philosophy PhD from Stanford, which you may not have known. He wrote his dissertation on political theory, and he practices qigong every morning. He's actually been photographed. This is kinda crazy.
Josh Stanton:He's been photographed carrying a sword at work. He's extremely eccentric. He lives in a barn in New Hampshire rather than in Silicon Valley. And the man is, as I said, extremely eccentric in ways that most tech CEOs are not. But the results speak for themselves.
Josh Stanton:He co founded Palantir with Peter Thiel right after nine eleven with a specific mission, which was to help the US government find terrorists using data. Now the company has almost a half $1,000,000,000 deal with the Navy to modernize shipbuilding supply chains. They're deploying AI drones on battleships. The Pentagon trusts them in ways they don't trust other tech companies because they've just been around for so long. But of course, I had to cover the bear case as well, which is we have to look at this.
Josh Stanton:39 times forward revenue is crazy valuation by any traditional metric. The stock has run up massively and a lot of good news is already priced in. Customer growth is actually slowing even as revenue accelerates as well, which suggests that they're relying on expansion revenue from existing customers rather than winning new logos. And there are also serious ethical questions around the ICE contracts as well. We have, immigration surveillance and the general surveillance state concerns that follow Palantir everywhere right now.
Josh Stanton:But if you're looking for proof that AI can generate real profits and real growth, not just promises and spending, Palantir is exhibit a. This is what an AI company looks like when it's actually monetizing. Then on Thursday, we covered the Novo Nordisk crash. $50,000,000,000 gone in a single trading session. So Novo Nordisk, which is the Danish pharma company giant behind Ozempic and Wegovy, which is the company that basically invented the weight loss drug revolution, watched 18% of its market value disappear in hours.
Josh Stanton:And here's what made it absolutely wild. So after the crash, their new CEO Mike Duster got in front of investors and essentially said this, it gets worse from here. His exact words with this, people should expect that it goes down before it comes back up. He literally told shareholders to expect more pain. And so for a company of Novo's size, that's $50,000,000,000 in market cap totally vaporized.
Josh Stanton:Looking at 2025 performance overall, the stock is down 50% from its highs. Then they released 2026 guidance showing sales down five to 13%. Analysts were expecting a small decline of around negative 1.4. The actual guidance was 10 times worse than what Wall Street expected. That's not a miss by the way, that's a disaster.
Josh Stanton:So what happened to causes? Well there were three things that converged at once, and I broke down each one of them. First we had Trump's Trump Rx deal. So the administration negotiated directly with pharma companies to bring down drug prices for government programs. Novo agreed to an 85% price cut on Wegovy, so from a thousand dollars a month down to a $149 a month.
Josh Stanton:That's great for patients for sure, but it's devastating for profit margins. Second, the competition is winning. With Eli Lilly's next generation weight loss drug showed a 28.7% average weight loss in phase three trials. That's better than anything Novo has right now, and Lilly is eating their lunch on the innovation front. And then third, we have compounding pharmacies are selling knock off semaglutide, which is the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, and they're selling it for $200 a month compared to a thousand dollars for the brand name.
Josh Stanton:These compounding pharmacies exist in a regulatory gray area by the way, but they're real competition that's taking volume right now. I also presented the bull case, which is that volume could potentially make up for price cuts. So here's the math. Wegovy Pills sign ups hit 170,000 in the first four weeks after launch. If you cut prices by eighty five percent but reach 10 times more patients, you could theoretically break even or even come out ahead.
Josh Stanton:Obesity is a massive market. Forty percent of American adults are obese. If everyone can now afford weight loss drugs, maybe the total addressable market expands enough to save the business. On the flip side, we have the bear case, which is margins are getting crushed from every direction right now. Competition is winning on clinical results, knockoffs are winning on price, and even with the sell off, Novo is still not cheap relative to the declining earnings trajectory.
Josh Stanton:So then beyond the four main episodes, a lot happened in the markets this week that I didn't have time to cover on The Daily Show. So let me just run through the big ones. The market story of the week was the whipsaw in tech stocks. Tuesday through Thursday was absolutely brutal. It started when Amazon announced $200,000,000,000 in AI capital expenditure planned for 2026.
Josh Stanton:That number was about 40% higher than what analysts expected, which was already considered aggressive. The stock immediately crashed 10%. Pre market trading was a bloodbath, so by the time regular trading opened, the selling accelerated across the entire tech sector. We had Microsoft confirmed similar spending levels as well. Meta piled on, we had Alphabet's numbers that reinforced the trend too.
Josh Stanton:The Wall Street started asking uncomfortable questions. Is this spending justified? What's the payback period on a $200,000,000,000 investment in data centers? When does all this AI spending start generating returns? What if they're all making the same massive mistake at the same time?
Josh Stanton:The uncertainty triggered a cascade of selling tech stocks lost $600,000,000,000 in market capitalization in seventy two hours. The Nasdaq had its worst three day stretch since April. Software stocks got absolutely crushed with the S and P software and the services index dropping 15% in just over a week. Then Friday happened, which was a complete reversal like someone flipped a switch. The Dow crossed 50,000 for the first time in its hundred and thirty year history.
Josh Stanton:S and P five hundred rallied 2% in a single session. Nvidia bounced 8%. Amazon recovered most of its losses as well. So what changed between Tuesday and Friday? And the honest answer is nothing fundamentally changed.
Josh Stanton:The spending numbers are the same. The uncertainty is the same, but what did change was sentiment. The market processed the information and decided this is an arms race. The companies that don't invest in AI infrastructure are the ones that will be left behind. That will be the blockbusters of the AI era.
Josh Stanton:The panic sellers got absolutely destroyed. Again, this keeps happening. Retail investors watch the news, they see red numbers, they panic at the bottom, they sell everything at the worst possible price, and then watch helplessly as prices recover without them. Meanwhile, smart money is buying the fear. Then we also had another story with Ray Dalio, who's the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund.
Josh Stanton:He made waves this week with his warning about what he's calling a capital war. His thesis is that countries are increasingly weaponizing capital flows and currency as tools of geopolitical competition. The US and China are in a financial cold war is what he's saying. Europe is caught in the middle of this as well. Everyone is using sanctions, tariffs, currency manipulation, and capital controls as weapons right now, and this creates systemic instability in global financial markets and drive demand for safe haven assets, which is why we're seeing gold going through the roof.
Josh Stanton:In fact, as I'm recording this, gold is almost back over $5,000 an ounce, and that's not a coincidence. When someone like Dalio, fifty years of experience navigating global macro, he built a $150,000,000,000 fund. When he starts talking about capital wars, smart money pays attention. And here's what else is interesting about gold right now. Now normally gold and stocks move inversely.
Josh Stanton:When stocks are strong, gold is weak and vice versa. But right now, both are near all time highs. That tells you investors are hedging. They're bullish on risk assets, but worried enough about tail risk to hold insurance. Then we had Stan Druckenmiller in the news as well.
Josh Stanton:He's widely considered one of the best macro traders in history. He made a significant portfolio shift this week. He rotated out of Microsoft and into Amazon. This is notable because Druckenmiller doesn't move money around casually. He famously worked with George Soros during the British pound trade that made a billion dollars in a single day.
Josh Stanton:His track record over forty years is basically unmatched. The logic here seems to be that Microsoft's AI story is fully priced in. The OpenAI partnership, Copilot integration, Azure growth, the market knows all of it. Amazon AI story is less understood. AWS is quietly the backbone of most enterprise AI deployments, which many people don't know about.
Josh Stanton:Amazon has custom AI chips as well. They're investing heavily in infrastructure, but that story hasn't fully translated into the stock price yet. So when the best macro trader alive shifts capital, it's worth paying attention to his reasoning. Then we had the software sector bloodbath, the S and P 500 software and services index, which eventually dropped by 15% in just over a week. This is one of the worst stretches for software stocks in recent memory.
Josh Stanton:Multiple names were down twenty, thirty, even 40% from their recent highs. The sell off was driven by a combination of factors. Disappointing earnings from several names that missed estimates or guided lower, fears about AI disruption or traditional software business models. If AI can write code, what happens to software development companies? If AI can automate workflows, what happens to enterprise software?
Josh Stanton:This sector could be a value trap or a buying opportunity. The best software companies will adapt to AI, and they're not gonna be replaced by it. We know that. The question is, which ones? Alright.
Josh Stanton:So here's what to look out for this upcoming week. Next week is absolutely stacked with economic data. Any one of these releases could move markets significantly. So let me just walk you through everything that's coming and why each one matters. The January employment situation report drops midweek instead of the usual Friday because the government shutdown delay.
Josh Stanton:Economists are expecting around 50,000 jobs added in January matching the pace we saw in November and December. The unemployment rate is expected to hold around 4.4%. But here's where it gets really interesting. So the Bureau of Labor Statistics is releasing the annual benchmark revision with this report. This is when they reconcile their monthly estimates with the actual hard data from state unemployment insurance records.
Josh Stanton:So according to Barclays economists, the revision could show a downward adjustment of approximately 1,000,000 jobs from the March 2025 baseline. 1,000,000 fewer jobs than originally reported over the past year. So try to let that sink in. If that revision comes through, it means the labor market was significantly weaker throughout 2025 than anyone realized. All those job reports showing 200,000 plus gains and having everyone celebrate a resilient economy, some of those gains were phantom jobs that get corrected in the revision.
Josh Stanton:By the way, this matters hugely for Federal Reserve policy. The Fed has been operating under the assumption that the labor market is resilient. That's one of the key reasons they felt comfortable keeping rates higher for longer. So if a million jobs disappear in the revision, it fundamentally changes the calculus on rate cuts. Weaker labor market means more room to cut rates without stoking inflation.
Josh Stanton:On the other hand, it could spook markets into thinking recession is closer than anyone realized. It's a double edged sword basically. So we all need to watch the market reaction closely in the first few hours after release. That will tell you which narrative is winning. Then we have consumer price index CPI for January drops Friday morning at 08:30AM eastern.
Josh Stanton:This is the inflation reading that makes or breaks rate cut expectations. So Bank of America economists are calling for both headline and core CPI to come in at point 3% month over month. That translates to approximately 2.5% year over year. This would be a pickup from recent months when we were seeing cooler readings around point 2% monthly. So why the expected increase?
Josh Stanton:Well, there's two main factors. First, we have tariffs. So Trump's tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China are starting to flow through to consumer prices. When you put a 25% tariff on goods crossing the border, importers pay that tariff. They pass it on to distributors who pass it on to retailers, who pass it on to consumers.
Josh Stanton:That's how it works. The tariff shows up as higher prices on the shelf. We're at the beginning of this pass through process, not the end. And second, there's the January effect. Every year January sees a bump in measured inflation due to seasonal price adjustments.
Josh Stanton:Companies raise prices at the start of the new year. Health insurance premiums get adjusted upwards. Rent prices increase at lease renewal. It's a predictable seasonal pattern that still shows up in the headline numbers. So CPI comes in at point 3% or higher, that's bad news for anyone hoping for rate cuts soon.
Josh Stanton:The Fed is not going to cut rates if inflation is accelerating. They're being crystal clear about this by the way. If CPI comes in at point 2% or lower, expect a strong relief rally. The market wants rate cuts so badly right now. Any data that supports that narrative will be embraced enthusiastically.
Josh Stanton:This is gonna be a volatile day. So Friday the thirteenth, CPA report at 08:30AM, Valentine's Day weekend approaching as well. The market is going to be emotional. We know that. So then retail sales for December finally gets released after being delayed by the government shutdown.
Josh Stanton:This matters because consumer spending is roughly 70% of The US economy. The consumer is the economy. If consumers are pulling back and spending less, that's a warning sign. If they're still spending robustly despite inflation and uncertainty, it supports the soft landing narrative. We also get the employment cost index, the ECI for q four on Tuesday.
Josh Stanton:This measures how much companies are paying for labor, including both wages and benefits. The Fed watches this extremely closely because wage inflation leads to price inflation. If companies are paying significantly more for workers, they pass those costs onto consumers through higher prices, which leads workers to demand even higher wages. It's called the wage price spiral. A hot ECI reading above expectations would be concerning for inflation hawks.
Josh Stanton:A cooler reading would be welcome news. And then we have the Fed speakers throughout the week. So we have Christopher Waller speaking Monday afternoon, Beth Hammack and Lori Logan on Tuesday, Stephen Moran Thursday evening. Each of these speeches is an opportunity essentially for Fed officials to signal how they're interpreting the incoming data and try to listen for any shifts in tonal emphasis. If the speakers sound more dovish than expected, more willing to consider the rate cuts, markets will rally for sure.
Josh Stanton:If they sound hawkish and concerned about inflation, markets will pull back. These speeches aren't just academic exercises, they're real time communication from policymakers that move billions of dollars. And then on the earnings front, we have Coca Cola reporting Monday morning. It's not a sexy tech stock, that's for sure. It's not something that's gonna move the Nasdaq, but it is a bellwether for consumer staples and discretionary spending globally.
Josh Stanton:Coke sells products in virtually every country on Earth. So if their guidance is weak, if they're seeing softening demand or margin pressure, it tells you something worrying about global consumer health. If their guidance is strong, it confirms the consumer is holding up despite inflation and uncertainty. So here's the bottom line for next week. So jobs report Wednesday with potential million job benchmark revision.
Josh Stanton:CPI Friday expected to run hot from tariffs and the January effect. Retail sale sales Tuesday. We have employment cost index, the ECI. We have multiple Fed speakers. Any single one of these could be a market moving event.
Josh Stanton:All of them together make next week one of the most important weeks for economic data we've had in months. If jobs disappoint and CPI runs hot, expect volatility across asset classes. We could see a meaningful correction. If jobs hold up reasonably well and CPI surprises to the downside, expect a relief rally. The markets want to go higher.
Josh Stanton:They definitely do. It just needs the data to cooperate. So pay attention next week. This is not a week to zone out. Set your alerts for Wednesday 08:30AM and Friday 08:30AM eastern as well.
Josh Stanton:Watch the reaction. Watch the Fed speakers, and whatever you do, don't panic sell at the bottom like everyone else. The panic sellers always lose. Alright, that's our recap for the February. We're gonna be back on Monday for more stay sharp out there.