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Cue this one up for your weekend.
@LynAldenContact returns to talk macro, the AI stock boom, housing, whether gold has peaked, the growing cybersecurity risks to Bitcoin, and her bull/base/bear cases for BTC in 2036.
Thank you for joining me Lyn!
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Trailer
00:55 Social media algorithm trap
5:52 AI bubble or boom?
12:28 Midterm crash ahead?
15:36 Weak gold outlook ahead?
25:40 The boring force moving markets
33:44 Could we see 3% mortgage again?
38:36 Gradual Print vs crisis
44:07 Will AI crack Bitcoin?
51:13 The $130K Bitcoin disaster
53:54 Digital credit and $MSTR
1:00:48 Lyn reflects on past calls
1:03:29 Orange Juice vs. private equity
1:11:24 Fading the bond bears
1:13:34 Bitcoin in 2036
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Dinner with an exec/friend at a large national property management company tonight. This person oversees ~150k apartments; access to an insane amount of data.
Current multifamily market in most of the country is worse than S&L, .com bust, or the GFC. Worst they’ve seen.
Class A mostly fine, decent rent growth. However:
- credit scores at class A have gone down meaningfully over the past 3 years.
- more people are paying rent via credit card.
- average bank account balance noticeably lower than even 2 years ago
- class A tenants stretched thin, living beyond their means. 20k comes in, 20k goes out every month.
- starting to see these renters move down a tier
Class B:
- simply too many apartments, we built too much new stuff. Ripple effect is enormous.
- fewer renters tomorrow than today. Same store foot traffic noticeably down year over year. Some markets down 40-50%
- considering dropping rents below $700 a month on some 1beds in major southern markets.
Class C:
- looking at degrading NOI. Rents aren’t growing for a long time, but expenses keep creeping up
- more renters are one missed paycheck away from disaster than they can remember seeing in decades
- tenants aren’t paying rent because they simply don’t have it
- wage growth has not kept up
Lenders:
- some major investment funds, household names, haven’t paid their mortgages in 2-3 years. Banks won’t foreclose because “X is a big client.” Mexican standoff.
- a roof leak gets ignored, becomes water damage, then mold, then a down building. Buildings are rapidly deteriorating as some owners choose cash preservation over funding losses.
- number of pre-foreclosure and REO deals is the highest as a % of total units they can recall.
- data providers know it’s bad, but they’re paid to sell optimism to owners/lenders. So every forecast is “it will probably get a little better next year maybe” and that gets regurgitated at investment committees all over.
I asked “how do you think this ends?”
“Not sure. My gut says slowly then suddenly, and things will get really bad. Been doing this 40 years, you can feel it in the air. But, there’s a chance it’s just a decade of tolerable pain. I’m praying for that.”
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The Great Wave isn’t just pretty.
It’s terrifying.
Look closer:
Three fishing boats about to be swallowed.
Mount Fuji, distant and calm.
It’s a visual metaphor for Japan itself.
A nation facing uncertainty at the edge of modernity.
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Passengers on a commercial flight captured the launch of Artemis II on camera
The plane happened to pass near the launch trajectory at the exact moment of liftoff, giving passengers a rare view of the rocket launch right from their windows.
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Listening to this may be the best 37 minutes you spend today
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Stanley Druckenmiller’s Best Stock Tips:
He ran Duquesne Capital for 30 years, averaging 30% annual returns with zero down years.
Here are the tips:
1) Follow Macro Trends First
Start with the big picture. Druckenmiller always considers interest rates, inflation, global liquidity, and geopolitical risks before anything else.
2) Focus on Long-Term Themes
Identify multi year trends like AI, energy, Data center and e-commerce
3) Bet on secular growth stories
Invest in companies benefiting from structural shifts
4) size up when conviction is high
Druckenmiller doesn’t diversify for the sake of it. If he believes in an idea, he goes big.
5) Focus on cash flow, Not Hype
Ignore flashy earnings beats. Prioritize businesses generating real free cash flow with scalable potential.
6) Find Overlooked Growth Stocks
For example, MercadoLibre's institutional ownership hasn't changed much since 2018, but the stock has massively outperformed, even better than Amazon
7) Strong Management
Founders with 10–20 years of experience often know the business best. If they still show ambition and energy, that’s a great sign.
8) Adapt to Changing Markets
Don’t cling to old strategies. What worked yesterday might flop tomorrow, you gotta be more fexlible
9) Don’t Count on Shorting for Big Wins
Druckenmiller has admitted he’s never made money shorting stocks over his 40-year career. He does it occasionally for fun or hedging—but the real money is made long.
10) Avoid Leverage:
Despite being a macro trader, he doesn’t rely on excessive leverage
11) Preserve Capital:
‘I’ve learned many things from George Soros, but perhaps the most significant is that it’s not whether you’re right or wrong, but how much you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.’
12) Cut Losses Quickly:
If a trade is going against you and the thesis breaks, exit fast — don’t hope it comes back.
13) Don’t be afraid to change your mind
“Every great money manager I've ever met has been incredibly flexible.”
Ha retweeted
Lyn Alden gave one of the clearest breakdowns of why the U.S. is on an unstoppable fiscal path—and why Bitcoin matters more than ever because of it.
@LynAldenContact walks through the numbers behind the federal deficit, interest expenses, Social Security, and the structural changes that happened post-2008. The short version? We’re in a new era. One where the government can’t slow down even if it wanted to.
The debt is compounding. The interest expense is rising. The trust funds are running dry. And the political will to do anything about it doesn’t exist.
Her phrase: “Nothing stops this train.” Not because of ideology, but because of math—and human nature.
This isn’t hyperinflation doom-talk. It’s a sober look at what happens when a system built on ever-growing debt reaches its limits—and why Bitcoin, with its fixed supply and transparent rules, is the opposite of that system.
Highly recommend watching this one all the way through.
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🚨 Japan, the U.S.'s biggest creditor is facing a crisis "worse than Greece".
Here's why this directly puts the U.S. and YOU at risk.
A thread🪡:
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Some Democrats, including my friend Rep. Ro Khanna, are asking why we aren’t putting the new AI data centers in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Actually we are doing that. The key to building new data centers is easier permitting and more power generation, both of which were effectively impossible under the Biden administration. The Trump administration is alleviating the bottlenecks. As the President says, we are going to “Drill, Baby, Drill” — and we are also going to Build, Baby, Build. I hope Democrats will cooperate with us on this agenda; let’s do it together for the betterment of the USA.
With respect to UAE, it’s important to understand that the deal has a matching investment provision, so UAE will fund the build-out of AI infrastructure in the U.S. at least as large and powerful as that in UAE. And in UAE, the vast majority of the compute will be owned & operated by American cloud companies, to serve the region as well as the Global South. These are America First deals that drive investment into the U.S., improve our trade balance, and lock in American technology as the global standard.
The alternative is for the U.S. to reject the resource-rich Gulf States and drive them into the arms of China, which is eager to sell them a Huawei+DeepSeek tech stack. And China won’t gainsay the opportunity by asking local partners why they aren’t building their data centers in Beijing or Shanghai instead. China will just fill out the purchase orders and ship the chips, making Chinese technology the standard. We shouldn’t let this happen. We still have a limited window to ensure American technology dominance in global AI infrastructure. Let’s seize it.
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Sec. Bessent just delivered the economic architecture equivalent of VP Vance’s NATO reset in Munich.
Vance reframed defense. Bessent is reframing Bretton Woods.
Forget the gossip—look at the systemic levers the U.S. has been moving since Trump took office.
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Elon Musk gave a VERY thoughtful response when asked about tariffs and why the US needs to be extremely careful - here was his warning:
"I think you need to be careful with tariffs. I deal a lot with supply chain issues, like the global automotive supply chain for Tesla, for example, is incredibly complex...
We've got a factory somewhere else that's making a part that goes into the car. Now, if that part's suddenly twice as expensive, it messes everything up.
So you want to have tariffs be predictable so that companies can adjust their supply chain. I think companies are more than happy to increase manufacturing in America. It's just that you can't do it instantly.
So if you put up giant tariffs immediately. And don't give companies a chance to, build factories in America, you've got to build a building, you've got to install equipment, you've got to train people... that doesn't happen instantly...
You want to have a ramp so that people companies can adjust and build the factories and train the people and get the equipment in place. Otherwise, you basically just shock the system and it breaks or bad things happen.
So I'm against sudden giant tariffs because it's an impossible response if you've got to move 1,000 tons of equipment. In some cases, collectively, millions of tons of equipment.
You just can't do that overnight. It's literally impossible. So I think we want to be thoughtful about tariffs."
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Fascinating interview with Alibaba’s founder.
Over the last 30 years, US corporations raked in obscene profits by outsourcing manufacturing,more than China’s four biggest banks combined.
And where did that mountain of cash go?
$14.2 trillion burned on 13 pointless wars, the rest handed to Wall Street.
Meanwhile,American infrastructure crumbles and working people get scraps.
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I uploaded Chapter 13 of Broken Money, called "Heavy is the Head That Wears the Crown," to my website for free reading.
It focuses on the US trade deficit and where a lot of it arises from, structurally:
lynalden.com/wp-content/uplo…
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Language models are changing how people shop online, with customers now asking AI chatbots for product advice instead of using traditional search engines.
Nearly 60% of online shoppers have begun replacing search engines with AI chatbots for recommendations, leading retail site visits from AI chatbots to increase by 1,300% during peak shopping periods.
Similarly, several travel companies reported AI-driven visits to their sites jumping 1,700% over the past few months.
Retailers are also adapting their strategies to ensure visibility in AI recommendations.
Instead of optimizing for keywords and backlinks, retailers are in the process of figuring out how to become the “answer” a language model gives – focusing on structured data, trusted content, and strategic visibility across forums, product reviews, and FAQ pages.
In response, online platforms are also retooling their experiences to help customers find what they are looking for without leaving their respective ecosystem.
For example, Amazon launched their AI shopping assistant Rufus that lets customers ask detailed product questions in natural language in the Amazon App, and Google integrated Gemini with its 45-billion-product shopping graph to offer personalized recommendations, search results, and deal tracking while chatting with Gemini.
