【Joseph Carlson】美股财报季最强前瞻：SpaceX、奈飞、Meta、特斯拉

【Joseph Carlson】美股财报季前瞻：SpaceX、奈飞、Meta与特斯拉 主讲人首先对比了SpaceX高达2.56万亿美元估值下的不对称风险与亚马逊AWS的确定性，同时指出特斯拉154倍市盈率严重脱离停滞的基本面、完全靠Robotaxi叙事支撑。相比之下，经历45%大幅回撤、估值压缩至19倍PE且被误读为“用户参与度危机”的奈飞，被视作堪比此前ASML遭情绪错杀后的绝佳买点；Meta则展现出单价与曝光量齐飞的顶级变现能力，但资本开支指引仍是短期波动焦点。此外，节目严厉抨击了对冲基金大佬Brad Gerstner在电视上极力唱多AI却暗中将旗下90亿美元基金仓位砍至三年新低的言行不一，并揭露了ESPN为博彩广告暴利彻底沦陷的公信力危机。 SpaceX当前估值达到2.56万亿美元，星链Connectivity业务年增65%，但相较市值相近（2.83万亿美元）且过去12个月创收7750亿美元的亚马逊，SpaceX极高的估值倍数面临明显的投资机会成本。 (5:00) 奈飞经历45%大幅回撤后，动态市盈率压缩至19倍的历史低位；虽然市场过度悲观解读其所谓“用户参与度危机”和裁员6%，但公司官方备忘录已重申全年度业绩指引不变。 (15:00) Meta展现出强悍的变现能力，最新季度广告单价上涨12%且广告展示量增长14%，整体广告收入强劲增长27%，尽管市场短期可能因AI资本开支指引上调而出现恐慌。 (18:18) 特斯拉动态市盈率高达154倍，过去两年交付、利润和现金流基本停滞，估值几乎完全由落地缓慢的Robotaxi叙事支撑，其防御性显著逊于马斯克旗下的SpaceX。 (21:12) 对冲基金经理Brad Gerstner在电视上极力看多AI，但其管理的90亿美元旗舰对冲基金过去数月却频繁减仓，AI风险敞口降至三年最低点，暴露出严重的言行不一。 (30:00)

Joseph Carlson 在美股财报季加速披露之际指出，当前市场对人工智能资本支出见顶的焦虑正在升温，但投资者应穿透短期负面叙事，聚焦估值匹配度与商业变现本质。 SpaceX 的三大支柱与高估值机会成本 (2:29) SpaceX 的业务可拆解为卫星通信（Starlink）、火箭发射与 xAI 智算云三大板块。其中 Starlink 表现最为突出，营收同比增长 65%，凭借低轨卫星技术绕开传统电信网络，并在商业客机机载 Wi-Fi 领域快速铺开；发射业务在赚取外部费用的同时，为 Starlink 提供了低成本组网支持；xAI 则以弹性极高的 90 天短期合同向 Anthropic 等机构出租算力。但 Carlson 强调，SpaceX 估值达 2.56 万亿美元，而过去 12 个月营收仅约 120 亿美元（预期远期营收 400 亿至 500 亿美元），相比之下，市值同为 2.83 万亿美元的亚马逊过去 12 个月总营收达 7750 亿美元，仅 AWS 云业务收入就达 1480 亿美元且具备长单黏性，投资 SpaceX 面临极高的机会成本。 奈飞“参与度危机”叙事与低估值错杀 (10:00) 奈飞股价自高点回落 45%，前瞻市盈率压制在 19 倍，逼近 2022 年被抛售至 17 倍的低位。当前市场深陷负面叙事框架，将华纳兄弟探索收购案取消、总时长公布频次减少，以及管理层提到 2000 亿小时体量下增速放缓至 2% 伴随千人裁员等事件，统统曲解为被 YouTube 蚕食的“参与度危机”。Carlson 将此比作一年前 ASML 因管理层坦承关税宏观不确定性而遭单日暴跌 10% 的错杀，指出奈飞在裁员前 6 天明确重申全年业绩指引在轨，且自由现金流收益率达 3.8%，认为其本质上应享有 24 至 26 倍 PE 的估值水平。 Meta 的变现能力与特斯拉的基本面背离 (18:18) Meta 近期财报展现出强劲的“变现能力”而非传统定价权：过去四个季度广告单价加速上涨（最新季度上涨 12%），且伴随展示量激增 14%，带动广告总营收增长 27%。尽管管理层可能进一步上调 AI 算力基建的资本开支指引并引发短期恐慌，但 Carlson 认为其业务护城河足以穿越 CapEx 扩张周期。反观特斯拉，目前动态市盈率高达 154 倍，但近两年营收基本持平、交付量与利润萎缩，Robotaxi 叙事落地缓慢且面临 Waymo（周订单超 50 万）和中国车企的激烈竞争，酷炫特技演示也缺乏短期商业化监管许可，财务基本面与极高估值严重脱节。 机构言行不一与 ESPN 媒体底线失守 (24:47) 科技对冲基金投资人 Brad Gerstner 在电视专访中高调唱多 AI、援引 Anthropic 营收暴涨反驳泡沫论，但其实际掌控的约 90 亿美元旗舰对冲基金 Altimeter Partners 已大幅减仓套现，风险敞口降至三年最低，而其唱多的只做多基金规模仅 5.93 亿美元，暴露出机构“台前唱多、台下砍仓”的言行脱节。此外，Carlson 将本周“翻车”事件归咎于迪士尼旗下的 ESPN：因抗议赛事转播全面植入博彩广告并掩盖赌瘾成瘾危害，资深调查制片人 Nicole Noren 愤而辞职。博彩平台正效仿传统药企，利用天价赞助费买断主流媒体与名人的批判声浪，标志着主流商业媒体道德底线的失守。 本周财报与资金动向折射出市场在狂热叙事与宏观担忧之间的剧烈撕裂。Carlson 建议投资者警惕机构大佬公开唱多背后的实质减仓行为，在面对特斯拉等脱离基本面的高估值标的保持谨慎，同时逢低把握 Meta、奈飞及穆迪这类现金流确定、因短期叙事被压制的高质量资产。

投资博主Joseph Carlson在本周美股财报季前瞻中指出，市场正处于对人工智能资本开支见顶与估值泡沫的高度焦虑期。他强调投资者应穿透叙事噪音与机构大佬的言行不一，重点聚焦真实业务变现能力与估值安全边际。 SpaceX估值溢价与亚马逊的机会成本 (5:00) SpaceX的业务由卫星通信（Starlink）、火箭发射以及整合xAI的算力租赁三大板块构成。其中Starlink展现出最强劲的运营势能，营收同比增长65%，正通过低轨卫星网络颠覆传统电信并加速切入航空Wi-Fi等企业级市场；xAI算力业务则借助行业算力荒，通过高溢价的90天短期租赁快速变现。然而，SpaceX在过去12个月营收仅约120亿美元的基数下，估值已被推高至2.56万亿美元。Carlson对比指出，相近市值的亚马逊（2.83万亿美元）同期已创造7750亿美元营收，仅AWS云业务便贡献1480亿美元，是SpaceX中长期远期营收目标（400亿至500亿美元）的三倍以上。在极端估值倍数下，押注SpaceX伴随着巨大的机会成本，财报重点将取决于马斯克对商用订单推进与xAI现金流能力的叙事支撑。 奈飞叙事错杀与ASML式的逆向投资机会 (10:00) 奈飞在股价自高位回撤45%后，前瞻市盈率已压缩至19倍，接近2022年暴跌大底时的17倍水平，自由现金流收益率为3.8%。当前华尔街深陷于奈飞正面临“用户参与度危机”且遭YouTube蚕食的悲观叙事中，将其收购华纳兄弟探索未果、减少公布观看时长频率以及裁员千人等事件全部做负向解读。Carlson将奈飞当下的处境类比为一年前的ASML：当时ASML在强劲财报后仅因管理层坦承地缘政治导致2026年能见度不明而暴跌10%，随后却为长线买家创造了巨大的超额回报。事实上，奈飞在已达2000亿小时观看时长的庞大体量下仍实现2%微增，并在财报前夕的内部备忘录中重申全年度指引完好无损。Carlson认为，优质高利润资产在此类情绪错杀下具备极强的重估潜力。 Meta变现护城河与特斯拉的高估值迷思 (18:18) 在科技巨头中，Meta展现出了极具韧性的变现能力。其平均广告单价在过去四个季度加速上涨并在最近一季度录得12%的同比增幅，同时广告展示量亦激增14%，推动广告总收入攀升27%。这种在扩大广告库存的同时逆势提价的能力，得益于AI智能代理工具与推荐算法带来的转化率提升。尽管财报可能伴随资本开支指引上调所引发的市场纠结，但Carlson认为其深厚护城河值得穿越周期。与此形成鲜明反差的是特斯拉，其动态市盈率高达154倍，但近两年营收基本持平、交付量与净利润下滑，估值完全由商用落地缓慢且面临严苛监管的Robotaxi愿景支撑。在面临Waymo等成熟对手内卷的背景下，Carlson直言特斯拉酷炫的工程演示缺乏短期变现路径，基本面支撑远弱于SpaceX。 机构言行割裂与媒体公信力的商业塌方 (24:47) 华尔街在AI资本开支焦虑下面临多空博弈，科技投资人Brad Gerstner的公开表现暴露出机构大佬的言行割裂。Gerstner在全美电视直播中大肆驳斥AI泡沫论、宣扬Anthropic等企业的营收飞跃；但在实际仓位管理中，其旗下规模约90亿美元的主力对冲基金数月来频繁卖出、将风险敞口砍至近三年最低，而公开唱多所依托的只做多基金规模仅有5.93亿美元。此外，节目将“本周翻车事件”授予迪士尼旗下的ESPN。随着资深制片人Nicole Noren抗议离职，博彩平台通过天价赞助金全面渗透体育转播并收买媒体话语权，使传统媒体丧失了针对赌博危害的客观调查与监督能力，暴露出商业利益对媒体公信力的系统性侵蚀。 本周财报不仅覆盖了主讲人近四分之一的个人持仓，更是下周更大规模超级财报周的风向标。投资者需警惕管理层与对冲基金经理受利益驱动而释放的口头叙事，在AI基础设施投资可能引发的利润率波动中，紧扣企业底层的自由现金流与估值合理性。

[18:18] Joseph Carlson: Even though they're not directly raising prices, Meta is creating an environment where they get more money from more of their customers while selling more inventory at the same time. [21:12] Joseph Carlson: I can't just buy stocks of stuff I think is cool. I have to buy ones that I think I'm going to make money. [33:59] Joseph Carlson: And you have to realize, if a Disney-owned brand, supposed to be family-friendly, can accept gambling in the manner that ESPN has, fully embracing it, then literally any company can.

[0:00] Today on the Joseph Carlson Show, we get into the second week of earnings season, and this is where things really start to ramp up. For example, we have companies like SpaceX and Netflix and Meta and Tesla all reporting over the next couple of days, plus a lot of other ones. We have GE and Spotify, Lockheed Martin, we have Bloom Energy, and many other interesting companies reporting this week. Now, I'll be going through giving you my thoughts on what's going to happen. What's going to happen with SpaceX or Netflix? What I think investors should be expecting this week? week because we have many investors that are becoming a little concerned about the AI build out. This is where it seems to be hitting some type of critical peak. Like just on Friday, there's a lot of people talking about how this is going to devolve into Black Monday, a big sell-off today. It doesn't look like that's happening, but there are growing concerns about the AI bubble, when things will finally start to break, what's going on with CoreWeave. Even some of the biggest promoters of the AI wave, people like Brad Gerstner that are on the inside, has taken a lot off the table. He's reduced his exposure for specific concerns in protecting his clients' gains. We'll be looking at an interview where he explains why he's doing this. So we have all of that to get into, plus the fail of the week, which in this case is ESPN. A decorated ESPN reporter recently quit because she doesn't want, quote, blood on her hands. We'll be looking at what ESPN has done to compromise its own values in the fail of the week. So this is going to be Qualtrum.com. The Qualtrum membership, I believe, is the best value membership on the market today. Not only do you get access to Qualtrum.com and the entire stock analysis suite, after building the software layer of Qualtrum, I didn't stop there. I also built a custom Netflix-like library for exclusive content. For example, the most recent exclusive video here is a full October portfolio update. It's about an hour and a half long. I go into an entire thesis overlooking the markets. Before that, I have an hour-long deep dive on the machine behind Wall Street, an incredible And in addition to all of that, included in the membership price is a moderated Discord community that I own and I'm in every single day discussing stocks. So you also get access to that. When I list off the things that this membership includes, most people assume it will cost around $40-$50 a month. It's $10 a month with a seven-day free trial, cancel any time, or you can get an annual plan for around $8.50 a month. Try it out now, risk-free, and I'll see you on the Discord. Now, to start things off, I want to jump into some of the biggest companies reporting earnings this week. And I'll start off with tomorrow aftermarket close. That's where we get into SpaceX and Netflix. Now, let's first go ahead and jump into SpaceX. SpaceX is conceptually one of the most complicated companies on planet Earth, but if we look at the actual numbers, we can try to simplify things here. Avenue by segment. There's only four bars here because there's literally only four quarters worth of data that we have. It's a brand new IPO, but we can look at the data here. We have three different categories, connectivity, space, and AI. Out of these three businesses, I believe the connectivity is actually the best business. This is where you get into them providing internet access with low orbit satellites all across planet earth. I have two Starlinks. I have the Roam and then I have the plug them into USB or into a power outlet. And then in 10 minutes, you have high speed internet connection. enough to stream movies, play games, do whatever you want. It's incredibly reliable. It's easy to use. You just need to have a clear view of the sky. Starlink is the real deal, and that is their connectivity. This has massive implications because up until now, there's been a couple of big cable telecom companies that have really controlled that category, and Starlink presents a brand new risk to them, a brand new growth avenue. It's also going to offer internet to places that just could not get internet before. It wasn't feasible. And they also have massive with lots of airliners to have high speed internet in commercial airplanes and so on. And you're gonna see massive growth there because it's just a huge untapped market. Amazon is a competitor in Starlink. They have their Leo. It's not really as proven as Starlink yet, but they are well on their way. So it's not gonna be a complete monopoly. This is going to be a shared market, but it's still a very strong one for SpaceX, and they have the huge lead here. So I would say out of these three categories, I'm the most bullish on SpaceX. connectivity. Now connectivity is this bottom dark blue part, 65% revenue growth year over year. So super fast revenue growth. The next one that we get to is space. Think of this as like the Uber for space. They're just taking rides and letting people use it to launch satellites, whether or not it's a private company like Amazon or whether or not it's a government entity, they're going to allow for transportation and take a fee for doing that. But I wouldn't look at this as an isolated category because what they're doing really helps out with their connectivity business. So these are Then you have AI, which is the XAI platform. It's now part of the company. They have essentially a neocloud business, allowing companies like Anthropic and Google to rent space on their clouds and infrastructure that they've built out [5:00] The reason they're making so much money is they're not tying their customers into five-year agreements or even long-term contracts. The contracts that the AI category is signing are mostly 90 days. So Google or whoever could get out of these contracts relatively fast. And Elon with SpaceX knows the demand is so huge right now, these guys are not going to cancel their contracts. They're not going to say, hey, our 90 days are up. We want to get out. They're just going to keep paying and they're paying far above market rates for the ability to cancel. So this is a very lucrative business. When I look at this business overall, the AI business is going to be the fastest growing by far. But it's also the one that's the most questionable long term. settle down a bit. Again, they aren't really tied to these long-term multi-year contracts. But in any case, in the next couple of years, it's going to make a fortune. When I look at the business, my biggest complaint about SpaceX is just the opportunity cost. For example, when we look at the market cap, it's at a $2.56 trillion market cap. It's around $2.5 trillion. In the last 12 months, the company did $12 billion of revenue. Now that's going to go up fast. It'll go up to $40 billion or $50 billion. But even if we round up a lot, let's say to $50 billion, I can buy whatever investment I want. And we have this opportunity to buy SpaceX at a $2.5 trillion valuation, and it's at $40 billion in revenue. Or we have Amazon. another opportunity that investors could consider that is a very similar company at its core. Amazon also trades at roughly the same valuation. All right, it's a couple hundred billion dollars more, but it's at 2.83. So you have 2.56 versus 2.83. Amazon is slightly more expensive in total market cap. But when you look at the amount of revenue that Amazon's doing, Amazon's not doing 40 or 50 billion. Amazon is climbing towards a trillion. In the trailing 12 months, they've done $775 billion in revenue. Now you may say that's low margin retail, but it's really not. A lot of that revenue comes from higher margin businesses, service-oriented, or even ones that are more technology-focused, subscriptions, things just like SpaceX's Starlink, and things just like SpaceX's AI. Again, a lot of the revenue from SpaceX is coming from renting out servers. Well, Amazon has a pretty big business in renting out servers as well with Amazon Web Services. And if we look at just AWS, this company has done $148 billion. So even taking away everything else, all the retail, all the ads, all the logistics, AWS alone, which is like XAI, but I would say it has even a bigger mode because AWS is not a neocloud. It is IT infrastructure that companies build their entire business upon. Just this business alone is three times the value of SpaceX's $40 or $50 billion hypothetical revenue growth over the next year. And again, this is just a portion of Amazon. It's actually a minority of their total revenue. Now, maybe that doesn't bother you, but I think it's important to really understand this. So I made a visual just to illustrate the differences in the level of revenue these two companies currently generate. We have it right here. The best way that I could visualize this is actually just stacking SpaceX's revenue on top of Amazon's. so that you can see just by comparison where it would fit. So if Amazon was to acquire Amazon, SpaceX, let's say they were to buy the company somehow, even though they couldn't because valuation is so high. But if they could, this is how much revenue SpaceX would add to Amazon. That charcoal sliver there, that's what Amazon would technically gain in revenue if they acquired SpaceX. Now, I understand SpaceX is growing really fast, much faster than Amazon overall. And SpaceX has a lot of opportunities to grow into. But a lot of that growth is currently being priced into the market cap to the extent that when I look at these two different opportunities, I actually think it's the real deal. I think it's a great company. I still prefer my dollar going towards Amazon. Going into this week, I don't believe anybody's going to judge SpaceX on specifically what valuation metric it trades at. I don't think anybody's looking at the P.E. ratio or the price to sales. They're looking at commentary of whether or not Elon Musk is growing and its connectivity, whether they're closing commercial deals, whether XAI is signing more deals, growing revenue faster and enough to justify their huge CapEx expenses. is all going to be around the direction of the business. And so long as it continues going the way that it has, I think investors will be fine. Now, next we get to tomorrow aftermarket close, the same time as SpaceX. We're also going to have Netflix drop their earnings results. Now, Netflix is a company that I'm actively bullish on and invested in. I'll show you in the portfolio. We have it here as the eighth largest position. It was a larger position, but Netflix has gone through a 45% drawdown. Now, there's something very interesting going on with Netflix. If we company. It's trading at a 19 forward P.E. ratio. Now, this is getting strikingly close to the P.E. ratio that Netflix traded at back in 2022 after the major sell-downs. [10:00] Remember the big drama? Netflix dropped 70%. They were losing subscribers. Bill Ackman sold out of the stock. YouTubers were making the rise and fall of Netflix videos. It was all very dramatic. So during this time period, Netflix got down to a price to earnings. of around 17. Okay, this was a price to earnings that at the time, I thought that about the worst case scenario was likely priced in the Netflix. There's already so much negative sentiment in the stock, so much skepticism about Netflix's future. Now the stock, of course, recovered. Netflix started to gain subscribers again, and they started to gain them fast. Their password crackdown was a massive success. And of course, they introduced an advertising tear that broadened the array of ways that Netflix can make their plans and monetize their platform. So Netflix stock went from around a 15 up to around a 50 PE ratio. And then we had a change in narrative. Netflix tried to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. It didn't work out. They canceled the deal. And that got investors thinking that maybe they have an engagement problem. A narrative, a story has taken over. The story goes like this. Netflix is a struggling company that needs engagement, that's being destroyed by YouTube. And every bit of evidence that we look at is interpreted through that lens. So everything you see in the news from Netflix, oh, is that an engagement problem? Is that an engagement problem? Everything is interpreted through the lens of Netflix is struggling. It needs engagement. So no matter what it does, That's a sign that it's lacking in engagement. For example, Netflix tried to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. Well, that wasn't to bolster their library and make it so that they have a more diverse content slate. That's to mask their problems with engagement. Netflix stopped reporting their watch time as frequently as before. That isn't because they're looking at quality of engagement and they're doing more live events and things that don't translate to as much watch time. No, that's not the reason why. The reason why is because they're trying to hide their engagement problems. This is what the market looks at. existing narrative. Everything is filtered and massaged until it fits in that narrative that is the engagement issue. And we've seen the stock valuation crumble, going from around a 60 PE ratio right back almost where it was in 2022. And this is where the market in some cases will give you really good opportunities. For example, there's another company that I really like. It's ASML. I'm a proud owner of ASML. It's one of my favorite companies that I own in my portfolio. One of the best return profiles I've had in my portfolio for the amount of time I've been invested in it. But part of the reason I had such particularly good returns on ASML was because I took advantage of another story. Another narrative about ASML. See, ASML about a year ago reported earnings and their earnings, from what I could tell, were rock solid. They were super good, but the stock fell 10 percent. Stocks fall 10 percent on great earnings only when there's some type of narrative that investors don't like. And that's exactly what happened here. ASML in July 16th, 2025, reported great numbers. I think they beat on their revenue and their earnings per share, but the management had more Thank you. the tone of the call, they said, "While ASML beat Q2 revenue and profit estimates, management cast doubt on 2026 growth visibility, stating they could not confirm growth for 2026 at this stage." Now, when management says we can't confirm growth, the market was like, "Whoa, hold up. We can't guarantee growth. They can't confirm it." Well, that's crazy. We're going to sell out of this stock. But if you actually look at what the management said, it wasn't even that bad. They're basically saying, we don't know what Trump's going to do. Maybe Trump will do something. We can't confirm it because we can't control... President Trump. We didn't know what's going to happen with the tariffs, with the export controls, with any type of geopolitical concern. This was during a time where tariffs were being slapped on and on. Tariffs that are 30% taken on one week and taken off the next. So management was just saying like under normal conditions, we're going to grow just fine, but we can't guarantee it because we don't know what's going to happen. That's all they were saying. That one line that management said caused a 10% sell-off in one of the best companies in the world on something that was completely short-term. And this is where you get opportunities. I bought the stock after that sell-off. It bolstered my gains in ASML. It was sub $700 share prices that we were buying at that time. Many people in the community reaped huge rewards by taking advantage of this one little mention from management that threw the entire stock off. Now, I don't believe these situations are identical, but I do believe they're similar. We have the same type of situation where management has said something that the media a severe engagement issue with Netflix. And this is the phrase right here. This is what's being talked about. Meaning in that world, all revenue is equal, all profit is equal, all engagement is equal. And all engagement is not equal. So we are, first and foremost, we are growing engagement. [15:00] We're growing on 200 billion hours of watching. We grew 2%. in our last announcement. But 2% is not what people are hoping for out of you, right? They're used to double-digit growth, at least certainly in revenue, and to some extent even in viewership, they'd expect more. This is my... So here we have the setup for this line that the CEO of Netflix says that causes all of these issues. This is my point about the growth in general. Yes, overall, we're not growing as fast as I want us to. And we're working on making that move faster. We are... That's it. That's what he said. That's what all of these concerns recently have been based on. And remember the filter. Once there is a strong narrative like there is for Netflix, everything is filtered through the lens of that narrative. For example, Netflix recently announced that they're laying off 6% of their employee base, which is around 1,000 jobs. So this is a big cutbacks, right? 1,000 jobs is meaningful, enough to mention in the news. But how do investors interpret this? Well, of Netflix is desperate. They're losing engagement and now they're cutting back jobs. It's all viewed through a very negative term. Netflix is going down. So we have the valuation of the company going down. Now, what do most of them leave out? What the actual memo said when they did these layoffs. They sent this letter out to every employee in the company. Our business is strong and growing and we remain on track to deliver our full year forecast. So six days before this earnings, Netflix reaffirmed their guidance from management that they're going to meet their full year forecast. This should be positive news. Should be a good thing. Netflix management just said, we're still on track. We're still growing. Nothing has changed with our projections. But the market looks at this and goes, ah, they're laying off employees. That must be bad news. But is that really the case? Are layoffs really a terrible sign for a company? Sometimes, but not all the time. In fact, sometimes it really doesn't give us any signal at all. One of the times that Netflix did layoffs was in 2022. They laid off 450 employees. There's a good batch of employees at the time being laid off. And the stock proceeded to go up 400%. So in that case, layoffs may have been a good sign. Maybe it was a precursor to a massive rise in stock price. Now, looking at Netflix, I don't think all the concerns are completely invalid. In cases like this, they usually aren't. There is a level of confusion and uncertainty with this company, and I think that should be priced into some extent. The counter that I would give is that when you're looking at situations that are somewhat uncertain, like in the case of Netflix, there's a lot of uncertainty. I always come back to the valuation and try to ask myself how much of this is already priced into the stock. Netflix is at a 19 Ford PE. 3.8% free cash flow yield. When I go into this report with Netflix, I'm holding my full share of the company. I feel good about my position and I enter it with cautious optimism. I think it's going to be good, but with Netflix, there's no guarantees. It is a bit of a coin flip of how the market will react after earnings. There's always a chance it'll go down four to seven percent. That seems to be the territory of where Netflix trades. So it's a bit of a coin flip going in, but I believe it's only a matter of time until this one gets re-rated higher. I think Netflix is PE stock, not a 19. It may trade below a 20 for some time, but over time I believe that they're going to prove that they're profitable enough, they're secure enough of a business, they're a high enough margin business, and reliable enough that they deserve a mid-20 PE. Next we move on to Wednesday aftermarket close and we get into Meta and Tesla. Let's go ahead and take a look at Meta. Meta is an interesting company because you view it as more of an auction company, but they have real pricing power. The prices of advertising on Meta's products continually climb every single quarter. Here's the average ad price year over year in the past four quarters. It went from Q2 2025 plus 9%, then plus 10%, plus 6%, plus 12%. Last quarter, it was plus 12%. So Meta is getting more money per ad on their service. Now, this is not because they're showing fewer ads. In fact, the opposite is true. They're showing more ads. getting more money per ad while showing more ads. Ad impressions are up 14% year over year. The average ad price is up 12%. Total advertising revenue is up 27%. It's a very powerful mix when you have a product that the price is getting higher and you're selling more and more of them every single quarter. Now I would call this pricing power, but that gives you the impression that Meta is like raising prices, like they're the ones deciding, as if they're a software company, what advertisers will pay. It's just advertisers bidding against themselves. So instead of pricing power, I would refer to this as monetization power. Even though they're not directly raising prices, Meta is creating an environment where they get more money from more of their customers while selling more inventory at the same time. And they are doing that intentionally. They are doing it by making higher returns on their advertising, making it easier to advertise on their product, more gentic tools to create more targeted ads. They're making their service more entertaining. So people stay on them longer, watch more ads in the process, and those ads convert better. And I think in this case, monetization power is better than pricing power. [20:00] because this isn't a situation where meta has a captive audience and they are just edging the price up quarter after quarter. No, they are making the entire environment better, their products better, their services better. They're showing more ads and people are willingly paying more money for it. The meta numbers are insane. Their daily active people growth continues to grow. Their advertising impression growth continues to grow every single quarter. You can even see it start to speed back up in 2025. These are all the different regions. The revenue by geography is So this company is growing in every quadrant of planet Earth. They're making money everywhere where people have internet connections. Meta is widely adopted with different products across the globe. All of this looks amazing. But with this quarter, I think investors are going to go, all right, the business is amazing. Muse is amazing. All of this looks good. But how much money are you spending on CapEx? I think they're going to raise their CapEx guidance again. I think it's going to potentially spook investors. That's the big calculation I make this quarter. but investors will be scratching their heads of whether or not Mark Zuckerberg is really spending too much on CapEx. And for me, I think this one is well worth holding through the CapEx cycle. Now, moving on from Meta, we have Tesla reporting Wednesday aftermarket at the same time. And Tesla is an interesting one. A lot of people love Tesla because they love Elon Musk. In my case, although I appreciate what Tesla's done and I think they design great cars, I'm not interested in the company. I've really never been interested in Tesla to a huge extent, mostly because of the valuation. That's been one thing that's kept me out. For example, right now, Tesla trades at a 154 Ford PE ratio, which is crazy considering the company has a revenue that's been flat for about two years. Their car deliveries have gone down. rebates. Their net income is down year over year to a huge extent. Their free cash flow also has been flat for a couple of years. None of these metrics look particularly good, but for some reason it trades at four or five times evaluation of Netflix. That doesn't make much sense to me. When I look at Tesla, it's all based around the RoboTaxi theme that again, the story here is so powerful. Tesla's will all turn into robotic vehicles that can safely pick up passengers and drop them off, and it will kill off Uber. Now, that's been promised for years. And what we're seeing is the actual rollout of RoboCaps. It's much slower, much more methodical, much more red tape than investors had anticipated previously. And I think that's to be expected. When I looked at Tesla, I did not think it was going to be one month where because Tesla's taken over. And I don't see that narrative happening today. So this quarter, I think, is going to be more of the same. It's going to be a heavy focus on narrative over fundamentals, people that are glued to the storyline. If it were me and I was going to pick between investing in Tesla and SpaceX, I would pick SpaceX. I think that the product is much more unique and defensible. I think it has a far bigger technological moat, and I think it's just less competitive. Tesla's having to deal with other car companies. Chinese companies, ones that are really good at making autonomous vehicles. Uber's already integrating multiple brands into their network. Waymo's already expanding into multiple cities. They're all over the place doing half a million rides per week. So this is already a highly competitive category that Tesla's operating in. So while Tesla's a cool company, I believe that SpaceX is a much more interesting investment, much more defensible than Tesla. I did, however, appreciate the Roadster demo. Thank you. It is insane to see a car jump up and do a kickflip and then land. It is just insane. Anybody that says that's not crazy, I think you're very biased because that is insane to see. Or to see one driving up a wall upside down. All of that is incredibly impressive. But I believe the reason the stock fell 3% or 4% after this presentation is because for it to be meaningful to investors, there needs to be some type of commercial application. Or even theoretically, commercial application in the future. And as much as I searched, I just don't see it. I don't think you're going to be able to buy cars that can jet up and potentially land and crush another vehicle anytime soon for street legal use. I think that local governments may have a few reservations before allowing that thing to be on the road, amongst a lot of other practical limitations. So while it's incredibly impressive, I personally enjoy these demonstrations a lot. I always look forward to Tesla and SpaceX demonstrations. It still doesn't convince me to buy the stock. I can't just buy stocks of stuff I think is cool. I have to buy ones that I think I'm going to make money. Ones where I think that the future isn't already priced into the stock and so on. With Tesla, I believe it's going to be more of the same. More of a heavily narrative driven quarter with little focus on the fundamentals. Now next, we have to talk about Moody's reporting Wednesday before market open. This one hasn't been an one of the best companies in the market. And I actually believe right now, that it's a particularly strong investment. [25:00] When I look at Moody's, I just don't see the weaknesses that the market is concerned about. Moody's has proprietary unique data that they are They are integrating with enormous amounts of APIs in different businesses. The quality of their data is becoming paramount. They offer something unique, which is the trusted name of Moody's. When I look at this quarter, I think that Moody's is far more predictable than most companies reporting this week. I think it's more predictable than Netflix or Meta or Tesla. I also believe, looking out 10 years, that this company is still in a great position. It's likely going to have very attractive returns. So going along this week, we'll keep track of these earnings, seeing how they come in, because it's a precursor to next week, which is the biggest week in the market. While around 23 to 25% of my weighted holdings are reporting this week, around 55% are reporting next week. So that's also going to be huge. And this also is a time where investors are concerned about the AI trade. One of the investors that is seemingly concerned about the AI trade, even though he says he's kind of not concerned about it, is Brad Gerstner. Let's go ahead and take a look at this interview where he tries to outline what he thinks is important to pay attention to. We talked about this maybe a month ago, right? the AI revenues justify the CapEx build-out? I mean, frankly, it goes back to the conversation I had with Sam Altman on my podcast last October when I asked him the question, how can you make a trillion dollars of spending commitments when you have 13 billion in gap revenue? Well, what happened this year is revenues exploded higher, right? Remember, the forecast for Anthropic at the start of this year, $30 billion. Now, a lot of the reports have him doing at least $100 billion. We'll get into that. So far in this interview, Brad Gerstner is painting a very highlighting that the AI growth has been understated before. He's trying to say to the doubters that you've doubted before and look how much the revenue's grown. Painting this as really not slowing down, that the AI trade is continuing on. a little bit today. But the fact of the matter is AI revenues exploded higher this year. And now we're in this phase of consolidation. People are starting to worry is open source commoditizing the frontier labs or the revenue sustainable. And at the same time, then they're hearing in the marketplace that things may have slowed down. So that plus higher rates, plus some of the political stuff going on in the background, background has people scared. I will tell you, I'm on the I'm on the more positive side of this. But people are scared because of interest rates. around, but Brad is on the more positive side of this. I think it's good. We have this churn in the market. It avoids bubbles. OK, you're more positive. You're on the more positive side. But your actions suggest that you are getting more cautious, don't they? I mean, you've taken your exposure down. Yes. I mean, I did, you know, a presentation at the All In Summit about a month ago. I said I had taken my exposure down to medium, small. I think I had shared that with you just the week before then. He's bullish on the AI trade. He's trying to say to the doubters that they've doubted before and it's only grown faster, but then asked about his own positioning. And he said he's taken his positions down to medium small a month ago. And we continue on talking about what he's doing with his own positions. bit. And it turns out there were even more fears that came along, inflation rates, et cetera. So our exposures are the lowest they've been in three years, right? Over the course of the last couple of months. The lowest they've been in three years. How can you then profess how sort of positive you still are? Now, this is the issue I have with this interview. Brad goes on and without even talking about his own portfolio or his own exposure, paints this big positive picture about the AI trade. saying how things are moving in a great direction, how the doubters have been wrong before and that revenue has exploded higher in every case, how there's still so much demand and on and on and on. But then when the host here, which does a great job, the host asks him about his own exposure, what Brad is doing with Brad's portfolio. He goes, well, I'm actually at medium small exposure. And then later he says, well, I've actually taken my exposure down to the lowest in three years. So Brad is actively hitting the sell button on his hedge fund. Sell, sell, sell, exit this position, trade out of this stock, trade out of this one. I don't want to be in this one right now. But then he goes on to national television and he's like, ah, those doubters. They've always doubted these stocks before and they've always done great. The AI trade is booming. Everything's great. Right after, he says a month ago, he's lowered his exposure to the lowest in three years. Now, I'm glad that he was eventually transparent with his own trades after specifically asked about it. But you'd think that'd be the type of thing that you would start off with, what you're investors watching this. Now, Brad goes on trying to paint [30:00] this artificial dichotomy. Remember, I live in two simultaneous but different worlds. One world is I manage money for people in a hedge fund. And so my job is to make sure I avoid some of the drawdown. In my long only fund and in my growth funds and venture funds, we're investing for the next five to 10 years. So I'm telling you, when I look at 27 and 28, I'm even more positive and we can get into why. You see, Brad lives in two worlds. There's the one world where he's on TV he's kind of more of like a spokesperson saying that everything's good. The AI trade is on track. The doubters have been wrong before, and there's still so much demand. Look how fast Anthropik is growing. That's the one world he lives in. Then there's the other world where he's actually managing money and his positions where he's hitting sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. And he's doing that for his hedge funds. Now, the hedge fund world seems to represent his actual thoughts He tries to say, well, you see, I'm managing money in two different time frames. In the short term, that's like hedge fund stuff. But in the long term, I'm bullish on the AI trade. The issue I have with this is, first of all, he's on here to talk about what he actually believes is going on. He was asked specifically about the short term. So the host didn't say, where do you think AI is going to be in five years? No, the host said, do you think the concerns the market has today are valid about the short term concerns? So Brad was asked specifically about the short term environment, and he gave an answer that was glowingly positive. downs. The other issue that I have is that when we look at the size of capital that Brad's managing, this is the relationship here. The Altimeter Partners Fund, which is their flagship hedge fund, has about $9 billion in it. The Altimeter Long Opportunities Fund, which is long only, has $593 million in it. So his hedge fund, where he's been selling, is 15 times the size as his long only fund that he's referencing here. But he's talking about them like they're interchangeable. Oh, I have some investments that I'm selling in, some that I'm long only. It's kind of like they're 50-50. No, the huge majority of his money is in these hedge funds where he's been selling. That's like literally 90% of his money. There is a fragment or a fraction of it that's in a long-only fund. So where Brad actually is managing the bulk of his business, what he's doing with his actual business decisions based on his outlook today is reducing his exposure in all of these AI companies. And I think that that should be what he portrays. But he continues to try to kind of explain away saying this in the interview, how it But you have to acknowledge that there's going to be chop along the way. So it doesn't surprise me at all that we've had some of that chop, some of that consolidation. Why am I getting more positive? Why am I leaning in and maybe start buying over the course of the next couple of weeks? Because I'm seeing prices come in and start to get enticing. Well, I mean, Josh, that's... So here we see Brad use a euphemism. He calls selling in his largest portfolio, reducing his positions and exposure dramatically as chop. That's just a little chop. Market goes up and down. You know, why is that important to mention to the millions of people that I'm talking to on national television? Well, Brad, we're investors. We're wanting to see what your actual thoughts are. We don't want to see some type of muddled down public version of it. We want to see what you're actually thinking, what you're doing with your money. That's why people view these shows. That's why they view interviews. Now, I think it's fine if Brad went onto TV and said that even though I'm bullish in the long term, I've reduced my exposure because I believe the valuations are getting a little bit more difficult in the short term. That'd be completely acceptable. But going on to national this big bullish viewpoint and saying that you're leaning bullish while you're actively selling is super lame. Now, moving on, we get to the fail of the week, which in this case is ESPN, which is owned by Disney. And the reason that I'm highlighting ESPN as a fail of the week is because of this story and the broader story playing out here. This is about someone named Nicole Norin, a decorated ESPN producer who just quit working at ESPN. Now, I don't know her work at all, but apparently she's won some awards reporting at ESPN. She does a good job. And she decided to step down specifically because of changes happening to ESPN. So what are those changes? Well, basically, ESPN went from a company that was owned by Disney and had a very skeptical and even resistant outlook to ever endorsing or allowing gambling on their platforms. They looked at gambling as overall degenerate behavior that destroyed families and caused financial havoc on society, and so Disney did not want to align their brand with such a destructive activity. But with enough she stepped down, she did an interview highlighting her concerns about these companies as big as ESPN fully embracing gambling online. [35:00] And one of the big concerns is not only the direct effects of convincing millions of people to start gambling routinely. In and of itself, that's unbelievably destructive to society. To have tens of millions of new people get encouraged to gamble every single day, every single sporting event. It's like you can't watch any sporting event without being inundated with gambling ads. Major athletes are now signing agreements left and right. But even outside of that, there's a concern that's possibly even bigger. And that is the fact that when an entire industry is paying every advertiser huge amounts of money to advertise, it naturally shields them from all journalism and criticism. The only people who can really speak out on this right now are independent journalists. I empathize with people who work at large media companies. It's really risky in this landscape to speak out. growing movement of sports journalists, namely in the podcast space, who are not taking gambling advertising money. There are also people who are willfully blind right now. They care more about their 401k than they care about journalism. I've been working with a few partners to start a sports betting and gambling addiction content initiative. It's a collaboration amongst journalists, content creators, and non-profit health organizations to reach young audiences. So she's trying to do what she can to speak out against this issue. The fact that large companies are receiving enormous amounts companies. And anytime a company is receiving a large amount of sponsorship, they are far less inclined to have any type of truthful journalism that's critical of those sponsors. So, This is very similar to the type of problem we've seen with pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies are some of the biggest advertisers on television. So you have this relationship. When pharmaceutical companies can spend billions of dollars advertising on the airways, paying journalists huge amounts of money, that means that they are far less likely to receive critical journalism of their products, even when they're damaging. And now we see the same thing playing out with gambling. Almost everyone, seemingly, is in the pocket of some type of gambling organization's sponsorships. Every one of them that doesn't have their own product. I have other ways of making money besides taking on Polymarket. But believe me, They've tried. Kalshi has tried. My inbox is literally full of Kalshi and Polymarket contacting me, asking me to get on board. Even after I'm critical of them, like I did this big takedown, highly critical of them, they still want to advertise. They still want to pay me to change my mind and promote their product. They are relentless. They have more money than other advertisers. So it makes sense why so many creators are picking them up as sponsors. That also creates this environment where nobody can say anything negative. You just don't want to be negative about the company paying the bills. And that's not good for society. Big organizations that have held skepticism towards gambling are now being convinced to fully embrace it. For many years, there was a really strict line in the sand when it came to sports betting. Then the tide slowly began turning internally. It was very troubling for me to see normalization of betting and ESPN's complete acceptance of that. in. It worried me. I knew what gambling addiction could do to families. My grandfather... My father and one of my brothers were pretty much destroyed by gambling addiction. And you have to realize, if a Disney-owned brand, supposed to be family-friendly, can accept gambling in the manner that ESPN has, fully embracing it, then literally any company can. That is why they are the fail of the week. That's it for this episode. Hope you enjoyed. See you in the next one.