Cody

NFA Stacking cash rn and throwing less in the market than usual. I think the market has room to drop more here and I want to be able to take advantage of good buying opportunities if they come and limit my risk. Last year around this time spy saw a 10ish% drop and now we’re about 5ish% from ATH with more variables at play. Market does weird things and is unpredictable so who knows what happens. Just kinda what I’m thinking right now. I’m not taking a gamble and I’m staying in the market just adding less for the time being. I’ve been wanting to build up my cash anyways to be better prepaid for emergencies and any opportunities that come along.

I bought Archer Aviation (ACHR) at the 2021 SPAC peak. It hit around $11.90 a share intraday. I bought 840 shares for exactly $9,982. **I remember the exact number because my girlfriend asked what I spent ten thousand dollars on and I said "the future of transportation."** She said "you drive a 2017 Civic." I said "exactly." Today those shares are worth about $2,730 at $5.09. I'm down 73%. I have that number memorized. I check it before coffee. I check it after coffee. I check it during meetings where I'm supposed to be listening. The pennies matter to me now. I have been through six theses on Archer. Thesis one: they're the next Tesla of the skies. Midnight eVTOL is revolutionary. (Stock dropped 60%.) Thesis two: the Stellantis partnership and United Airlines order will bring massive scale. (Still mostly pre-production.) Thesis three: FAA certification milestones are coming any quarter. (More paperwork, more delays.) Thesis four: Midnight test flights progressing and international deals expanding. 2025 was supposed to be our year. Thesis five: defense programs with Anduril and the big liquidity raise validate the tech. Averaged down aggressively. Thesis six (March 2026): first eVTOL to get 100% FAA acceptance of Means of Compliance. White House selected partners in Texas, Florida, and New York for H2 2026 air taxi operations. US and UAE pilot programs on track for passenger-carrying flights this year. Stellantis credits rolling, Serbia partnership, NVIDIA AI collab, Anduril powertrain deals expanding. This time it's actually different. Meanwhile, my coworker Dave bought an S&P 500 index fund in 2021. He's up around 35-40% with zero stress. He checks his portfolio once a month, has actual hobbies, and brings the same turkey sandwich to work every day. Dave will be fine. I spent our anniversary explaining why the latest FAA update was actually bullish. She left me last month. Said I was "emotionally invested in vertical takeoff" and our relationship had "no lift." She wasn't wrong. Look, Archer lost $618 million last year. Production came in well below targets. Cash burn is real. But we have nearly $2 billion in liquidity now and actual pilot programs starting in 2026. I bought more shares this morning. Dave asked how much I'm down. I told him "I'm long-term." He just nodded and went back to his sandwich. I feel like a strategy. Early. Not wrong. Early. Still not selling. The flying taxis are coming. Right? 🛫💸

I bought Rivian stock on IPO day. November 10, 2021. $172 a share. I bought 58 shares. That was $9,976. I remember the exact number because my girlfriend asked what I spent ten thousand dollars on and I said "the future of transportation." She said "you drive a 2017 Civic." I said "exactly." $1,000 invested at IPO is now worth $149.06. I have that number memorized. I check it before coffee. I check it after coffee. I check it during meetings where I'm supposed to be listening. The number changes by pennies. The pennies matter to me now. The thesis was simple. Rivian was the next Tesla. They had the Amazon delivery vans. They had the adventure truck. They had the factory in Normal, Illinois. I told people the factory was in a town called Normal. I thought that was meaningful. A sign. The future of transportation, built in a place called Normal. The factory produced 24,337 vehicles in its first full year. Tesla produced 1.8 million. I called that "room to grow." I have been through six theses on Rivian. Thesis one: they're the next Tesla. (Stock dropped 40%.) Thesis two: the Amazon vans are the real play. (Amazon cut the order.) Thesis three: the R2 platform will be the mass-market breakthrough. (Delayed 18 months.) Thesis four: the Georgia factory changes everything. (Paused indefinitely.) Thesis five: Volkswagen's $5 billion investment validates the technology. (Stock kept falling.) Thesis six: Uber robotaxis. This is the pivot. Every time the stock drops, I find the new thesis. I don't look for it. It finds me. I open Reddit. I open the Rivian subreddit. Someone has written a post titled "Why this is actually bullish." It has 400 upvotes. I read it. I agree with it. I was going to agree with it before I read it. The agreement is the point. The DD is the prayer. My cost basis is $172. The stock is $14.06. I am down 91.8%. I could have bought a used Rivian R1T with the money I've lost on Rivian stock. I have not done the math on this. I'm doing it now. Yes. I could have bought one. A 2022 with 30,000 miles. I would have the truck AND the remaining money. I drive a 2017 Civic. My coworker Dave bought index funds. Dave is up 34% over the same period. Dave brings a sad lunch to work every day. Turkey sandwich. Same sandwich. Dave will retire at 65 with a comfortable nest egg and a lifetime of turkey sandwiches and he will never know what it felt like to be early. I am early. I have been early for four and a half years. At some point early and wrong have the same return on investment. But they feel different. Wrong feels like a mistake. Early feels like a strategy. I feel like a strategy. The Uber partnership was announced Tuesday. I texted three people. One was my brother. One was a guy from the Rivian subreddit whose real name I don't know. One was my girlfriend. My ex-girlfriend. She stopped asking about Rivian in 2023. She stopped asking about anything in 2024. The stock jumped 10%. It gave half back the same day. But for eleven minutes I was only down 81% instead of 85%. I called that momentum. I took a screenshot. I still have the screenshot. Rivian will build robotaxis for Uber. Rivian has not built a profitable vehicle for anyone. Rivian lost $38,784 on every vehicle it delivered last year. That's not my number. That's their 10-K. But I don't think about it that way. I think about it as investment in scale. Scale means you lose money faster until you don't. Uber needs thousands of autonomous vehicles. Rivian needs to not go bankrupt before 2027. These are complementary needs. That's a partnership. That's synergy. That's the pivot. Dave asked me yesterday how much I'm down. I said "I'm long-term." He said "it's been four years." I said "Tesla was down 80% once." He said "Tesla was also profitable once." Dave went back to his sandwich. Dave doesn't understand pivots. I bought more shares this morning. This is the pivot.