Welcome to the Risk Reversal Podcast, a special one, our annual mailbag, where we field questions from our listeners, our viewers.

We archive them. We put them into a Google Doc. We take a look at them. And then we effort to answer them. Dan, Nathan, how are you?

I'm doing great, guys. As you would say, we are recording this on the pen ultimate day of

2025. And, you know, normally on the months, you say December went like that, right?

2025 kind of went like that, you know? It was one of those weird years. You know, I'm kind of getting,

I don't know if I'm getting annoyed.

I'm getting bored a little bit with all the folks trying to kind of, kind of, you know, game out. Where are we in the late 90s? You know what I mean? Like, you know, we've talked about this, 95 through 99, 25% on average returns to the S&P 500. We knew there was this tech thing going on. It was going to change the world.

And so, like, I hear, oh, we're 97 or there was this tech thing going on. It was going to change the world.

And so like I hear, oh, we're 97 or 98 or this and that, whatever. I'm kind of sick of that.

I'm ready to get into 2026 and maybe to see a little bit more dispersion away from just the AI trade. I mean, one quick thought I have, guys, is that maybe the trade in 2026 is not about the picks and shovels.

It's about companies who are actually using this technology. I know this is something that you've

talked about specifically as it relates to Walmart. We're going to see this in a bunch of industries

where, you know, maybe it's health care, maybe it's financial services. There's a whole host of other things.

Maybe that will be the theme. And by the way, maybe that's something that causes multiple expansion, you know what I mean, outside the top 10 names.

We're going to find out. I mean, I would agree with you that the companies that are figuring out how to lever it and getting a return on their investment,

I'm glad you mentioned Walmart, because I do think one of the reasons Walmart trades the valuation that it does is because of their ability to lever AI. So I think the couple turns and multiple,

probably on the back of that. That's the best example. I think to a certain extent Facebook is an

example as well. But hopefully in 2026, we see some other companies sort of move to the forefront.

But with that said, let's get into our mail bag because we have a lot of questions we want

to get into.

The first question is weird.

There's so much volatility in the market right now, but the VIX is under 15.

...