Enlightenment - A Herold & Lantern Investments Podcast

How History, AI, And Prediction Markets Are Shaping Your Wallet

• Keith Lanton • Season 7 • Episode 47

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December 22. 2025 | Season 7 | Episode 47

We trace a line from the contested elections of the late 1800s to today’s market mood, then dig into AI-driven pricing, chip supply pinch points, prediction markets, and the real progress of robotaxis. The goal is to separate noise from durable drivers of earnings and risk.

• Parallels between 1876–1880 elections and present-day policy debates
• AI’s role in personalized pricing and margin expansion
• Market tone, rates, and a commodities surge led by gold
• Upcoming GDP, durable goods, and confidence data
• Earnings growth scenarios tied to stable policy and margins
• HBM-driven memory shortages and downstream effects
• Prediction markets inside trading apps and data value
• Robotaxis now, Tesla versus Waymo, and adoption questions

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** For informational and educational purposes only, not intended as investment advice. Views and opinions are subject to change without notice.

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Alan Eppers:

And now introducing Mr. Keith Lanton

Keith Lanton:

Good morning. Today is Monday, December 22nd, Christmas week. Hanukkah just concluded. Wish everybody a super happy holiday. As uh we have a holiday shortened week this week with uh only uh three and a half days of equity market trading, financial markets close Christmas Day, Thursday, December 25th, and we will be closing stock market at 1, bond market at 2 on Wednesday for Christmas Eve. Also, congratulations. You've uh made it through uh the day with the least sunlight as uh the winter solstice is passed. So now starting today, every day, we'll be getting a little bit more sunlight here in the Northern Hemisphere as we move through the winter. So as we approach year end, financial markets last week uh proved uh resilient. We had a uh AI scare on Wednesday, and financial markets rebounding uh towards the end of the week as we move here into what is uh traditionally a positive week for financial markets as the spirits are typically high, although certainly not a guarantee of upmarkets in the uh in the Christmas week. So this week what we are going to talk about this morning is we're gonna build upon what we had touched on last week, which was the 1876 presidential election, and we'll talk about the 1880 presidential election. We'll talk about how the 1880 presidential election, like the 1876 presidential election, had a lot of themes that were very similar to what we are experiencing today. Of course, not identical, not the same, but nevertheless important uh to study these precedents to understand the present and hopefully make better decisions in in different uh facets of your business as well as possibly uh your investment investing in your uh portfolio. We'll talk a little bit about how companies are using AI in order to uh be more efficient, and what being more efficient may mean is being able to price their products better to the detriment of you, the consumer. So the AI uh certainly helping these companies do better and helping you in your portfolio, but that might uh be coming uh at the expense of you as a consumer, and we'll talk about what's going on and how that's happening, talk about uh today's news as well, and we'll talk a little bit about technologies that have been uh the rage and then have passed us by, and then we'll talk about one technology that probably isn't getting as much attention as it should, that actually is here and now and being implemented, and we'll talk about the two companies that are the leaders in that uh technology. So dialing back to historical context, last week we talked about the uh 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden. Now you may remember that in 1876 we had a divided country that just completed the Civil War, and there was a lot of acrimony uh between two different factions, perhaps greater, but uh some similarities to what we are uh seeing today. And in 1876, we also had a president who had served two terms who had alluded to serving a third term, and that was President Ulysses S. Grant. Ultimately, in 1876, President Grant decided uh to adhere to the two-term tradition established by George Washington because there was intense political pressure against him for running for a third term, and a lot of that pressure was due to the historical precedent that Washington had set. But now, in 1876, without President uh Grant uh rerunning for election, the Republicans had put up Hayes for for the spot, and the election, if you may remember, was was awfully close. It was uh very much divided along uh lines in terms of uh some of the thoughts uh with respect to Reconstruction in the South and some other issues. And what had happened was on election night we had a tally of 184 votes for the Democrats, Samuel Tilden, and 165 votes uh for the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, and we had set up an electoral commission here in the United States to decide that vote, and there were eight Republicans on that commission and seven Democrats. So here we are going in here, and we had 184 to 165 Democrats leading. Republicans needed to get every single electoral vote that was outstanding, and at the end of the day, this commission awarded all those 21 votes to the Republican Rutherford B. B. Hayes, he became president by 185 to 184 margin. That sets the stage for what we're going into here in 1880, the next presidential election. After this uh very controversial election, President Hayes decided not to run again. But, interesting twist of uh fate, what did happen is we did have Ulysses S. Grant did seek a third term for the president, and he was the leading contender for the Republican nomination on just about every ballot up until about the 35th ballot. Now, back then these votes took place at the convention. The Republican and Democratic Convention didn't have primaries like we have today, so the folks at the conventions would decide who would be the nominee for president for the Republican and Democratic Party, and it took over 30 votes for them to decide that it would not be Ulysses S. Grant, even though he was the leader. So we do have this uh precedent where someone was seeking a third term. Again, it wasn't the law, it wasn't in the Constitution at that time, but nevertheless, we had a setup here where we had James Garfield running for president against the Democrat whose last name was Hancock. And what were the major issues of the day in 1880? What were the primary focus of the minds of the American people in 1880? Well, three of the top four issues were very similar to the issues that we're experiencing today. Number one issue in 1880 was tariffs. Yes, tariffs. This was also perhaps the biggest policy difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicans strongly advocated for a protective tariff on imports. They argued that high tariffs shielded American industries and workers from foreign competition, promoting prosperity, and high wages was their view. Sound familiar. Another major issue in 1880 was civil service reform and patronage. The desire to end the spoil system. What was the spoil system? That's where political winners rewarded supporters with government jobs, and this was particularly popular within the Republican Party. We certainly see these loyalty tests being imposed today, something that did take place before. And finally, the other major issue outside of uh what was also a key issue, which was the Civil War and Reconstruction, certainly a tremendous issue of the day as well, and different philosophies with respect to that. That's not something fortunately we share today. The other major issue outside of that was immigration, specifically Chinese immigration. And it was this was something that both parties philosophically agreed on. They had different views on how to implement curbs on immigration. Back then, the main source of concern was Chinese immigration and to restrict Chinese immigration amidst widespread anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States, particularly in the Western United States, where a large portion of the Chinese were concentrated. So perhaps you can see some parallels between 1876, 1880, and today's political environment, and perhaps there's some lessons we can all learn from that and perhaps make us uh that much wiser. So now, moving to 2025, almost 2026. I'm going to change here to what we see taking place in our lives today that didn't take place back in 1880 as far as I know, and that is what artificial intelligence is currently doing today, and how companies are using artificial intelligence to be able to more strategically price their goods and services. So if you go back to classic economics, if you ever took an economics course, or if not, explain it very briefly. Typically the price in markets for goods and services is set based on how much supply there is and how much demand there is, and where those two intersect is typically the point where you have a price and you have a quantity to meet that price. What if, what if I knew enough information about each of my individual customers such that I could determine, because I have lots of information on that person based on where they go on the internet, what their mail perhaps says, what purchases they've made before, what I've noticed them searching for, if I could create what I believe is a sub is a supply and demand line, not so much for the market, but for that individual customer. So for any good of service out there, we certainly see this with things like when you know new video games or uh video consoles come out, a hot toy, there are lots of folks who are willing to pay a lot more than the price that clears the market. What if I knew or had some inkling into that price? Well, perhaps what I could do is I could charge more to the people who are willing to pay more, and I still might be willing to charge less. I could still make a profit margin to the people who are willing to pay less. So I could actually increase my profit and sell more items if I had everybody's personal supply and demand curve in my database, and that possibly could be what the future starts looking like. Now, there are certain folks out there who want to regulate this to a greater extent, but as we as users start using services like ChatGBT, Google Gemini, perhaps Metas Lama, and we use that technology, those those those portals for artificial intelligence to do things like book vacations and shop online, what we may not realize is that these companies are using AI to gain a lot of knowledge so that they can help other companies squeeze more money from our wallets. Barron's talking about Delta Airlines starting to use AI to set fares for some domestic tickets. Retailers such as Home Depot are using AI to analyze data on consumers and then tailor prices based on the AI's knowledge. Royal Caribbean CEO Jason Liberty said recently that AI is managing 15 million price points a day, displacing human revenue managers over at Royal Caribbean. So AI has the potential to per to turbocharge personal pricing so that companies can charge different prices to different sets of consumers. Now, personalized pricing isn't new. We already pay different prices for many things airline tickets, home insurance, groceries, based on our consumer data, or perhaps based on our ability to haggle, like when you go buy a new car, the price you pay is uh somewhat tied to uh how successful you are at at negotiating the price of that car. AI is also a high-tech crystal ball capable of guessing what you might be willing to pay at a point in time. So based on your searches, perhaps uh AI is aware that your student or your your your son or daughter is gonna be studying abroad because of all the different searches that you've done in Barcelona. And therefore, the artificial intelligence knows that you pretty much would like to visit that child probably because you've been searching for airfares to Barcelona. The AI knows that at some point you're gonna become pretty price insensitive, that you are going to want to go. Now, some states are trying to put up guardrails. New York recently passed a law requiring companies to disclose that they're using algorithmic pricing, but the uh current uh presidential administration, the Trump administration, is trying to stop those moves, directing the Department of Justice to sue states that issue AI regulated regul AI regulations by putting those regulations into place, they are suing those companies. So, something to think about next time you use artificial intelligence and think about uh the pricing that you're seeing, and perhaps uh if you talk to your friends, you may discover that they're seeing different prices. We did talk about uh Instacart and what they're doing with artificial intelligence and how vastly different prices different consumers are seeing there using that service uh when shopping for uh specifically uh groceries. All right, so today, this morning, markets fairly quiet as we head into what's typically a quieter time in the in the markets as uh volume typically falls off going into the Christmas week. Major markets finished uh last week mixed. We did see strong showings from tech names on Thursday and Friday. An uptick in sentiment around the AI trade helped lift the SP and NASDAQ above their 50-day moving averages. And this morning, as I mentioned, headlines are quiet. No major economic data is being released today, although tomorrow we will see lots of data, which we'll talk about. And we have no company set to report earnings this week. We did have Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammock, an FOMC voting member next year, so she will be able to vote her opinion, told the Wall Street Journal that she expects rates to maintain unchanged for some months. A view that reflects last week's data and Fed commentary that did little to change the market's expectations for further easing. Taking a look here at the bond market this morning, we are seeing uh very little change anywhere along the curve. The biggest movement we are seeing by far is in commodities. Oil up uh over $1.20 this morning per barrel to $57.73, still at very muted levels from where uh oil had been trading just a little while ago. Uh that $57.83 is West Texas intermediate rent, uh, is at around $62 a barrel. Seeing modest uptick in natural gas as well. But we're seeing record highs in gold up $55 an ounce, silver up $1.36 an ounce. So gold, new record high, $4,457 now. Now it's up $70 an ounce. Silver at just about $69 an ounce, up $1.50, silver percentage move up 2.2%, gold up 1.6, palladium up uh 3.45%, platinum up 4.72%. So the commodities are certainly moving higher, being viewed as a uh hedge in the world of significant uncertainty, and the hedge gets less expensive as interest rates come down because holding uh commodities like gold and silver, you get paid nothing to hold them. So the alternative, for example, is if you hold treasury bills, if treasury bills are paying 5% like they were about a year ago, then your opportunity cost is five percent. If treasuries are now paying three and a half to three and three quarter percent, well, the opportunity costs to owning gold and silver is a lot less. Perhaps that's another factor driving prices of gold and silver higher. News this morning, White House NEC director Kevin Hassett, in an interview, said it is unlikely that the Supreme Court will offer widespread tariff refunds because it would be an administrative refund, he said, to get those refunds out the door. He said that to CBS News. The U.S. did seize another sanctioned vessel off the Venezuelan coast over the weekend. NBC News is reporting that uh Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu plans to brief President Trump on possible new Iranian strikes. Japanese officials have warned of sudden weakness in the yen. This is another another factor to uh take into your thinking. Here is what is going on with uh the yen, which has been weakening. Here in the United States, uh the uh Secretary of the Health and Human Resources, which is RFK Jr., is expected to announce a new immunization schedule for children that matches Denmark, which will result in fewer vaccinations. And uh Reuters reporting that Japan is planning to start its largest nuclear power plant, which uh had been shuttered after the earthquake there about a decade ago. So moving on to uh Barron's, let's talk a little bit about last week. Barron's pointing out that there was a lot of noise last week, but the market didn't do a lot of moving. We had a presidential address last week, no major policy announced, but nevertheless, President Trump offering an outline of some of the policies that he has uh already implemented. We had big concerns about artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence spending on Wednesday, uh big down day, uh, with reflect to those uh concerns. We had consumer inflation data come out last week, and we had consumer spending as well. We also had earnings from uh FedEx and General Mills. Now let's talk about this week. This week, tomorrow, we get the initial estimate of third quarter GDP. We're looking for this to come in at 3.2%, which would be down from 3.8% in the second quarter. We originally expected to get this data back in October, but it has been delayed due to the government shutdown, so it will be a little bit of a rear view mirror look. It's always a rear view mirror look when it comes to GDP, but we'll be looking back about six weeks further than we usually are, so it'll be interesting to see what effect that has, or if that data is a more muted reaction, but it is a significant data point, nevertheless. Also, tomorrow we get uh durable goods for October. Those are expected to drop 1.5%. If you factor out transportation, they're expected to rise three-tenths of one percent. And then uh tomorrow we also get consumer confidence for December. We're looking for that to come in at 91.7, which would be up about three points, but would still be at a very low historical level. And then just to uh reiterate, Wednesday markets, equity markets close at one, stock markets on Thursday closed as well. Now let's talk about moving forward into 2026. Barron's uh cautiously optimistic about uh what equity markets may do. What they said in the trader column is to focus on the lucky number 13. Why focus on 13? Well, that is uh currently what uh the consensus estimate for earnings growth is next year. So then that begs the question: is 13% achievable? If that's what uh the uh expert prognosticators are expecting. Barron's saying the short answer is yes, as long as Fed policy is stable, the economy grows, and profit margins continue to expand, and that is a key factor whether or not margins are able to expand. And a lot of the improvement in margins is coming from what we talked about, technology stocks, and specifically it's coming from AI pricing power, which we just alluded to. So we'll see if those companies are able to uh garner the AI, both to be able to do things more efficiently, perhaps with less people, and that comes back to the employment numbers that we talked about, but also be able to you know more target, specifically target the prices to individuals and be able to garner more revenue. So if earnings growth is there and companies can grow those earnings, that uh Barron says is something that potentially uh could lead to uh stable valuations and a continued uh steady upsurge in in markets. Now, one factor to uh focus on for Perhaps uh one more to add to the list of worries in 2026. Uh Barron's talking about the fact that we could see chip shortages next year. I mean this is being this this is being derived from not only uh data that they're gathering from clients and customers that are consumers of chips, but also from the recent uh reporting from Micron Technologies MU stock symbol, which reported blockbuster earnings last week that that easily exceeded estimates. But the tremendous performance highlights a key dynamic in tech hardware, they say, and that is that there is going to be a major memory shortage in 2026. It could even exceed the pandemic fuel chip supply issues in 2020 and 2021. And this clearly is good for memory companies, but could be bad for uh customers which offer a wide sweat of electronic goods. So memory chips have been commoditized, so it's hard to understand, I guess, on the surface, but we'll delve a little deeper into uh why something that has been somewhat commoditized uh could be experiencing such strong price volatility. And if you go back a little bit and take a look at Micron stock, that stock itself has been super volatile. In 2023, Micron sales declined 53%. But you look here in the current quarter in Micron projected revenue growth of 132%. So what's going on? Well, it goes back to uh artificial intelligence and the build-out of uh artificial intelligence data servers. So what is happening is these artificial intelligence data servers use very expensive high bandwidth memory. It's called HBM. And this type of memory is also used in association with the more common type of memory known as DDR, which is what uh you may see in your computers, that uh memory that is uh on your laptop, in your cell phone, on your on your home PC. So Micron can either make HBMs or DDRs. But what's happening is uh DDRs are a lot more a lot less profitable. HBMs are a lot more profitable, so what's happening is Micron and their competitors are shifting capacity as fast as they can to HBM because of the high profit margins that they experience in those products. In fact, Micron is sold out of its entire HBM production into 2026, and the fiscal 2027 order book is filling rapidly. The two largest competitors, the three of which make up almost the entire market, Heinox and Samsung, are also sold out. So to ease the shortage, Micron is starting to shutter some of its some of its plants that had been shuttered, they're starting to reopen them. But nevertheless, they are unable to keep up with demand, and they are starting to already experience shortages. This is partly the result of that for every one gigabyte of HBM that the memory makers lose the capacity for three gigabytes of DDR. So for every one HBM that they manufacture, they can produce three less DDRs. So what may we expect? Well, we may expect that there'll be too much chasing of memory chips relative to supply, and we could experience a repeat of 2020, 2021, when automakers, despite robust demand, were only able to sell 15 million cars because they couldn't get another, they couldn't get enough chips back then. So what can we expect in this shortage? Well, we can expect that memory prices will stay high for a prolonged period of time until Micron and their competitors and perhaps other entrants can start producing more chips to uh meet demand. Baron's suggesting that uh may take two years. And at that point, you can see a very precipitous fall in the price of uh memory chips, but we're talking two years from now. So as an investor, these trees will probably not grow to the sky. The question is how high will they grow? How far in advance will the market be pricing in uh earnings growth, and how far in advance will they be pricing in the supply that may come that may knock that growth in the future in terms of uh profit margins? And these are all factors that uh we have to weigh as investors, but as consumers and market participants in companies that consume memory, we need to be mindful of the fact that we may see a lot higher prices, and this will impact big companies like Apple and Samsung a lot less than it will impact the more downstream companies because they have already locked in their supplies with the manufacturers because they have tremendous demand. They're big customers, and they have already uh secured what they expect to need going forward. Barron's changing gears here to a completely different topic uh had a cover story. And the cover story talked about uh prediction markets, which is all the rage right now. So I think it's important to uh talk a little bit about what these are and how they might affect uh financial markets potentially. Prediction markets, if you're not familiar, are basically bets or some would say investments on whether or not something is going to happen, yes or no. Is President Trump going to run for a third term? Yes or no. Is Kamala Harris going to be the Democratic nominee in 2028? Yes or no? Are the Dallas Cowboys going to win their next football game? Yes or no? And you can combine these and say, you know, are the Dallas Cowboys going to win their next football game and you know, is you know, Prescott gonna throw for three or more touchdowns? And obviously, based on the more factors you combine, the bigger the payoff, the bigger the risk. And prediction markets are making their way into the financial services world because companies that uh are offering the purchases of investments are now also offering the purchase of the ability to participate in prediction markets. So this past week, NFL plan fans placed more than $200 million worth of trades through CalShi, which is the leading prediction market in the U.S., and the financial contracts like sports bets pay out depending on the outcome of each game. Now many of these trades are powered by Robinhood, which is a popular stock trading platform, meaning the viewers can use their NFL profits to buy shares of NVIDIA, Nike, Netflix, all from one app. It sees events contracts which allow clients to place money on yes or no predictions about coming events as a democratizing force in the world of finance. But that one-stop shop is raising uncomfortable questions across the world of wealth management. If the same app allows the same trader to place money on the outcome of a sports event and corporate earnings growth, then what is the difference between gambling and investing? Now, incumbents like Vanguard, known for its buy and hold approach, and Charles Schwab, which upended the world of retail investing in the 1970s, have steered clear of prediction markets. And Charles Schwab CEO Rick Worcester, speaking in November, said, I just don't want young people in our country to think gambling on Monday night football is the same as investing in stocks and bonds. The challenge I see with this is that investing over the long run pays off, and you have all dramatically enhanced the lives of our clients. This is Mr. Worcester speaking to a conference of financial advisors, telling them how investing has helped make clients successful, and he is fearful that allowing them to gamble on the same platform may therefore associate them with less success because the probability of success when you gamble is different than the probability of success when you invest over long periods of time in high-quality companies, at least based on historical, you know, uh historical averages. So the rise of prediction markets is uh testing the meaning of an investment. Vanguard is saying that prediction markets, especially sports outcome contracts, are primarily gambling and entertainment products are not aligned with Vanguard's mission to give investors the best chance of investment success. Also keep in mind that at the moment, 97% of all uh prediction market bets uh on the Cal Sheet platform, the largest platform, are tied to uh sports books or sports betting. Now, how do these companies make a profit? Are they bookies in the traditional sense, taking the other side of the trade, or are they doing something different? And typically the way the exchanges work is they connect customers on each side of a given contract. I think the cowboys are going to win, you think the cowboys are going to lose, and what they do is they take a transaction fee, typically 1% that is paid uh by each party in terms of how much the payoff is, and they basically uh facilitate the the bet between those two parties. If you're doing this transaction on Robinhood, well uh perhaps the company like Kalchi will take their one cent, and Robinhood will also take a cent, so your payoff or the total amount that can be won is 98 cents as opposed to as opposed to a full dollar. So 2% less uh in terms of payoffs. Now, some see prediction markets uh having merit when it comes to uh financial services, especially for those uh folks like asset managers and hedge funds who are looking to compile data. So those folks could see lots of uh potential gold, so to speak, in the data. The gold data itself is gold because you can see what is trending, you can see what bets are trending, perhaps bets on political events, perhaps bets on prices of commodities, perhaps bets on the prices of stocks. So some traders uh are carefully monitoring the activity on these sites in order to get insights into real-world financial decisions, which they would argue perhaps is distinctly different from the actual placing of the bets, but to be able to interpret what those bets are saying and then to glean that information and use that information in order to uh make decisions about longer-term investments. ICE recently told investors that half of the company's 10,000 institutional clients could be buyers of data from Polymarket, one of the big uh prediction market companies. Hedge funds have the polymarket app up and traders are using it for hot news. So suggesting that people who are trading oil and gas, cocoa, coffee, even interest rates are going to uh want to see that data and uh be able to uh have it at their fingertips so that they can perhaps make uh better decisions when it comes to uh to trading. Now, ultimately, what's going to uh take place is the uh CFTC, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, would would potentially have a say in whether or not the prediction markets are gambling or whether they're investing. Thus far, the CFTC hasn't taken a stand. The recent nominee to lead the CFTC, Michael Selig, said that he would look to see what the courts say. So these prediction markets, which currently embedded in uh these financial applications, not all, but some, we will be getting some clarification potentially from the courts, potentially from the CFTC, as to whether or not these ultimately are deemed to be investments or to be gambling. And this is something that could have a profound impact uh on companies that uh that offer financial services, financial advice, also profound impact on our country in terms of young men and women who perhaps engage in uh more, let's call it, uh more more more gambling, more betting, however you view uh investments versus prediction markets. Uh nevertheless, opening up this this to make it easier to place money on the outcome of uh an event. Perhaps at some point in the future this could lead to more gambling in the United States and uh potentially lead to problems down the road with uh folks who become addicted to gambling, and that's something to be super mindful of as a potential consequence of this market uh taking a greater share of uh Americans' wallets. Finally, I said I would mention a technology that has uh really been gaining traction, and we've seen lots of technologies that have attracted lots of interest that you know came and went, you know, some technology, some investment themes, things like the metaverse, nanotechnology, the blockchain, buy now, pay later, concepts like work from anywhere and companies that uh are able to tap into that, things like RNA technologies being all the rage. And it doesn't mean that these technologies won't be successful, doesn't mean that these technologies won't once again be you know the the investment theme de jour. But one technology that certainly has uh not only captured the attention of investors and not only uh been a theme that's uh sort of come and gone, but the technology is here and now, and that is self-driving. So if you've been to San Francisco or Austin, Texas, or Las Vegas, you may have seen Waymo cars looking like uh robots navigating the city. And what we are seeing now is that this technology is here and now. Perhaps if you have a Tesla and you have the self-driving technology, you'll see how much it's uh vastly improved from how it was just four or five years ago. And uh Tesla now is uh battling with the Alphabet and or or Google's uh Waymo for control of the robotaxi market. And Baron's saying that both companies have some things in their favor. Waymo right now is in the midst of raising $15 billion to uh value their uh Waymo division at about $110 billion. The robotaxi business right now for Waymo is operating in San Francisco, LA, Austin, Phoenix, and Atlanta. They are planning to expand to New York, Miami, and London and Tokyo. More cities mean more cars, which cost money, which is uh why uh Waymo may be seeking to raise funds. But cars are one advantage that Tesla has over Waymo. Tesla can produce millions of cars a year, and each Tesla rolling off the assembly line has the hardware required to run its most advanced self-driving cars and technology. Waymo, though, doesn't take a backseat to Tesla. It completes more than 450,000 fully autonomous cab rides per week. Tesla still has safety monitors driving along with its robotaxi riders in Austin, Texas. Waymo's progress is impressive. Tesla Bulls counter that millions of Tesla vehicles on the road feed data to Tesla, helping the company train its cars to drive themselves. Both company self-driving efforts are impressive, and this is the key for us as investors. Exactly how the robo taxi market will develop in the U.S. is hard to say. How fast it rolls out across the country. Now, these are the the real interesting questions is who will own the cars? Are we going to own our, you know, if we get to the point where we have self-driving cars, are we going to need to own a car? Or if we have cars driving around our neighborhood, can we just get one for hire relatively quickly? Or perhaps if we own a car, perhaps we could put it out to taxi and and revenue share when we are not using our vehicle. Who will insure these cars? How will they be insured, especially if we put them out on the uh road in a commercial sense as opposed to an individual sense? Will households eventually buy fewer cars, especially if they are not equipped with self-driving capabilities? And will we get to the point where uh where where cars uh are being robotically driven almost exclusively? All important questions. Uh, what is certain is that Tesla and Wayomo will be two of the key players, whatever comes next. But the fascinating aspect is this technology is here and now and improving every day, as opposed to lots of these other technologies, which are certainly impressive, certainly, certainly have uh lots of uh future potential, but this one is here and now, and uh we know who the two biggest players in the marketplace are, and we know that the barriers to entry are high. That's everything I've got.

Alan Eppers:

Thank you for listening to Mr. Keith Lanton This podcast is available on most platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. For more information, please visit our website at www.heroldlantern.com.

Sophie Cohen:

Opinions expressed herein are subject to change and not necessarily the opinion of the firm. Pest performance is no guarantee of future results. The information presented herein is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide personal investment advice. It is important that you consider your tolerance for risk and investment goals when making investment decisions. Investing in securities does involve risk and the potential of losing money. The material does not constitute research, investment advice, or trade recommendations.