Interesting post. Agree on the long side but have to watch the valuation.
On the short side, agree with general thesis but it can take a really long time to play out (and hence shorting via puts may not yield)
While AI automation is real, diffusion into enterprises will take a LONG time (even after 20 years of AWS, public cloud is at less than 20% adoption globally). Lots of these Indian outsourced serve dinosaurs which still deploy mainframes.
You waiting for both to hit at once? Looking at EPFR data, offshore flows into Mainland/HK have been insane since late '25—we're talking 2-3x sigma moves. It’s the first sustained pivot since COVID. That + strong RMB... feels like a sentiment shift, no? Hard to call the tipping point tho, esp w/ Takaichi winning. Just made the Taiwan situation way messier.
1. This is a generational change in tech, there is an increased risk that new AI-native tollbooths might disrupt some of this list. More specifically, hyperscalers will try to bundle many of those in their cloud offering
2. Ability of Claude to choose between tollbooths depending on price of the alternatives is a risk to some names in the list - agents are also cost minimizers and migration engines
3. It is essential to monitor the actual adoption of these tollbooths by Claude (guessing for now is OK)
Great piece thank you. You mentioned INTU and ADBE. Just curious why you wouldn’t bet against them or NOW or CRM, etc. CRM apps I’ve seen written on Molt or whatever it’s called now are exceptional.
I wouldnt touch any of these companies their valuations are so stretched out it’s ridiculous
Fair point, but I'm already very short SPY via options, so think of this as an augment to that bet on multiples
which segments of index puts are a good value (moneyness, maturity)?
Do you use longer dated (1Y+) puts here or roll shorted dated ones?
Also cflt got picked up by ibm
Hey alex, great post. What are you watching before sizing up the longs? Thanks
Interesting post. Agree on the long side but have to watch the valuation.
On the short side, agree with general thesis but it can take a really long time to play out (and hence shorting via puts may not yield)
While AI automation is real, diffusion into enterprises will take a LONG time (even after 20 years of AWS, public cloud is at less than 20% adoption globally). Lots of these Indian outsourced serve dinosaurs which still deploy mainframes.
any thoughts on hk market？
not rn, I’m long some of the tech here and there, but mostly out of the market until a) they fix the banks, b) we find some resolution wrt Taiwan.
You waiting for both to hit at once? Looking at EPFR data, offshore flows into Mainland/HK have been insane since late '25—we're talking 2-3x sigma moves. It’s the first sustained pivot since COVID. That + strong RMB... feels like a sentiment shift, no? Hard to call the tipping point tho, esp w/ Takaichi winning. Just made the Taiwan situation way messier.
Some thoughts on the bot stack list:
1. This is a generational change in tech, there is an increased risk that new AI-native tollbooths might disrupt some of this list. More specifically, hyperscalers will try to bundle many of those in their cloud offering
2. Ability of Claude to choose between tollbooths depending on price of the alternatives is a risk to some names in the list - agents are also cost minimizers and migration engines
3. It is essential to monitor the actual adoption of these tollbooths by Claude (guessing for now is OK)
CFLT got acquired by IBM on Dec 8th. So do we buy IBM instead of CFLT?
Great piece thank you. You mentioned INTU and ADBE. Just curious why you wouldn’t bet against them or NOW or CRM, etc. CRM apps I’ve seen written on Molt or whatever it’s called now are exceptional.
Thoughts on constellation software?
no view