Poly Marks
Poly Marks is a humorous podcast where brothers Andrew, Matt, and moderator Joel explore Polymarket’s markets, share their betting mishaps, and debate trends with sibling flair.
Poly Marks
#24. Oil Up, Odds Down, Offramps Out
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Ep. 24 is another full-blown Iran board, with the guys zeroing in on the biggest market-moving development so far: the Strait of Hormuz is still effectively shut, the Gulf is jammed with stranded ships, and the economic fallout is starting to look worse by the day. Andrew runs point on the situation, walking through Iran’s strikes on Qatari LNG infrastructure, the oil spike, trapped vessels, and the ugly reality that even if America wants the strait reopened, mines and fear can keep commerce frozen long after the missiles stop flying.
From there, the discussion turns into a live portfolio review. Matt asks the big question: after loading up on long-dated no ceasefire bets and seeing them surge, is it time to peel some off or keep riding? The consensus leans toward staying patient. Nobody sees a clean offramp. Trump may want one, but Iran has no real incentive to fold quickly, and the broader regional dynamics make a quick ceasefire feel more fantasy than base case. The boys also revisit the “US forces entering Iran” angle, with Andrew arguing that if America wants to de-escalate, it may actually need to escalate first — and Kharg Island becomes a major point of discussion as a possible next target and strategic hinge.
The back half broadens into macro and markets. They talk through how a prolonged Gulf crisis could hammer the world economy, why oil bets are suddenly live again, and whether the administration has badly underestimated the difficulty of securing maritime flow. Then Joel finally cashes in his teaser from last week and brings up the IPO board: SpaceX, Databricks, Anthropic, and the wider idea that the White House and regulators may be trying to reopen the public-markets spigot while sentiment still holds. They finish with a Rubio check-in, noting that his 2028 odds keep climbing while JD Vance stays weirdly absent, and wonder whether Rubio’s foreign-policy glow-up is a launchpad or a future liability if Iran becomes a long war.
Hola hola. How's my fancy microphone from 2003? Does it sound good?
SPEAKER_02Not terrible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'll clean it up.
SPEAKER_00Marks potato.
SPEAKER_03Alright, well, welcome everybody to episode 24 of the Polymarks Podcast. I'm your host, Joel, here with my brothers Matt and Andrew. This is your weekly reminder that betting on the future is easier than predicting it. Um we got an exciting lineup this week. We're going to be getting some real updates from Iran. Again, he's on the ground in Iran. He's going to give give us the news there, and then we're going to be talking about a few different updates on the markets we've been looking at. I want to give the update from last week, who, for anyone who's listening, I'm going to talk about the IPO markets. But Andrew, start us off just kidding with about the ground news here. But uh what what are your thoughts on Iran and the markets that are out there?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's uh too cold outside to be in Iran. But uh things are popping off. Uh literally. Um there's been some big escalations in the Gulf. Uh just today I was sending you guys in the chat uh Iran has struck Qatar's uh LNG infrastructure to the tune of$20 billion worth of damage, I think was the tweet I saw today. Um generally more generally the straits are still closed, uh the Straits of Hormuz. Hundreds, if not thousands, of ships are trapped in there. I just saw today that some of them are running out of water and supplies and they can't get into port because the port facilities are closed or over um over capacity. Um crude oil, the specific golf crude hit$170 a barrel. Uh Brent oil hit$119 today, and uh West Texas hit I I don't know, 100 some, um or close there too. It's down a little bit, but all signs are, and we can start getting into it, bets if you want, but all signs seem to be pointing to like things are escalating. There are no easy off ramps from any of the uh participants currently, and what few oil products are getting through, uh, it seems to only be with people who are specifically aligned with the Iranian regime, i.e. China, maybe India, Russia, uh, but nobody who's on the side of America right now is being able to do any business in the Persian Gulf.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you know, I've got a couple Iran bets. The U.S. the one that's doing pretty well for me is the US Iran ceasefire by May. I took the no position, and that's gone up, you know, 40-50% because, like you say, it seems like things aren't slowing down. And uh, you know, Trump doesn't seem to be de-escalating Iran like we've talked about previously. It doesn't have a lot of reasons to de-escalate.
SPEAKER_04Um and well, I just sold my March seats fire bets because the no got up to 95. Uh, there's basically nobody who thinks this thing is gonna get settled before the end of the month at this rate.
SPEAKER_01So what let's let's take a step back there and let's take um a little ponder into my portfolio and you guys can give me your hints and advice. I'm actually up a lot of money now. It's one of my bigger bets I've ever placed was in um these ceasefire bets. And I took multiple spots. I took March, April, May, and June. All up, yeah, between 50 to like 30 percent. And I'm starting to think maybe should I peel off some of them? I think it kind of makes sense to cash out of March if it hits 95, etc. But what do you what do you guys think about some of these longer dated ones? The Mays, the Junes. Like I still feel like it's might be worth it to just hold on, even though I'm already up a decent amount, because uh, in a lot of ways this this show has become even more of a shit show than it was even a week ago and seems to be more entangled. But um, yeah, I guess like talking off ramps, talking how you think this is gonna play out. Should I hold? Should I hoodle? Or you guys think like uh maybe take the win and uh see what's next.
SPEAKER_04Is it pronounced hoodle? I always assumed it was Huddle. I thought it was Hodle.
SPEAKER_01I think uh either is appropriate when you're making up words, you know?
SPEAKER_03No, then um uh gifs gifts uh tell us that that's not the case. Or GIFs, sorry. Are you crazy? No, it's it's gifts. I think the creator's like, no, it's gifs, and everyone's like, yeah, okay, buddy. You don't get to decide how we pronounce it.
SPEAKER_01The internet decides, buddy. The internet decides, not you, not the creator.
SPEAKER_04Um, I mean, I think we are at a spot right now where A, I I wish I had those positions still, and I did buy them, and I chickened out after Trump started talking about the end of the war.
SPEAKER_01But which he's still doing consistently, right? I mean, he's still constantly being like, oh, this could end tomorrow or this might be around forever. I think BB said today, um, again, he kind of does his different thing in English and Hebrew, where it's like English, like, oh yeah, this could be over very shortly.
SPEAKER_04In his live press conference where he was definitely talking to real humans. Uh the internet said he was dead, guys.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I put a small window on it. He's dead. I've heard it. He's dead. And I'm still convinced that just because he's alive doesn't mean he didn't use AI at times. Anyways, we won't speculate on the other. No, I I assume he's a lot.
SPEAKER_04BB out end of the year is almost 50-50, board. I think it's crazy.
SPEAKER_01That means it's crazy to me. That's what's crazy. And I don't I don't know the internal politics that would make that happen, but it's very high. Um was gonna say, oh yeah, same thing. BB said, um, yeah, it's gonna take as long as it's gonna take, I think, in Hebrew. Um, so I mean, you're getting a lot of mixed messages from everyone because it seems like nobody hasn't nobody has an idea, right? And there I think a lot of people would like to see it end, but how? How do you end it? Uh Iran seems to be saying we're not gonna.
SPEAKER_04There's a lot of Middle Eastern politicians that talk one way in English and then another way in their native tongue. Oh, for sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm just I'm not trying to call him out specifically. I'm just saying there's different messaging going on lots of different ways.
SPEAKER_03I mean, in in terms of some of the long-term bets, I mean, like the ceasefire bets, you know, again, I I've had some do okay, and I think some of the long-term markets, you know, could be something to look at. But the long-term markets that I think are a little more interesting is the you know, US forces entering Iran by you know 2026, you know, or by the end of the year. Um, and you know, my that's been performing well for me as well.
SPEAKER_01Why don't you pull that up for us right now, Joel, and tell us where that's uh, what the market is, what you got in at and where you where you like it. Okay.
SPEAKER_03I will put it up on the screen here for our uh our YouTube viewers. Uh um yeah, so I I I bought the U.S. forces entering Iran by December 31st. I bought the Yes. Um I think I've kind of end of year, Joel? End of year. Um and it's up, you know, it's only up 22%. But that's one of the you know, exit strategies that also. So what did you get? What'd you get in it? What'd you get in Joel? And what is it at now? I got in at 55, it's at 68 right now that U.S.
SPEAKER_01So the market thinks there's a 70% chance forces enter in a random. But this is one of those broad ruled markets where ground war pretty much.
SPEAKER_03It's not a ground warfare invasion. It's it's will U.S. forces, special forces, whoever Delta Force come in and do something. That's that's I'd have to double check the rules, uh, but I believe this one is fairly broad. Um but generally, yeah, I I I think like that's one possibility, but it also seems like you know, the the odds of the ceasefire happening in the next three to six months are also relatively you know unlikely as well. Like the no's I I have the no doing relatively well.
SPEAKER_04So I think that this war has entered the phase uh for the Americans, at least where the only way to de-escalate is to escalate. And I think that that's gonna come in several forms. Maybe I should talk uh one bet that I have made and I like is Will Carg Island, which is the um the oil loading facilities in the middle of the Persian Gulf that you know they were built by uh foreign oil companies and they were, you know, then nationalized or whatever. But the infrastructure to build it is not something that could be easily replaced by the Iranians, even if they have the technical capacity to do it. Right.
SPEAKER_01And just uh give a quick update, Andrew, they bombed this last week, but did not bomb the infrastructure. The oil infrastructure is still a lamb round, and this is kind of the whole debate, right? Is like we're trying to shut down the oil infrastructure, which is not starting to happen, it hasn't really popped off fully yet.
SPEAKER_04But Qatar infrastructure And that oil infrastructure accounts for uh well something like 90% of their exports, and maybe not just in oil, maybe like in everything, like you know, 80 to 90 percent of their entire economy, uh potentially, you know, in terms of external trade goes through that island. So it's by far the biggest leverage point that they have, and is also probably one of the easier points that Trump could invade if he wanted to. Uh it's perfect for Marines uh, you know, storming the beaches. Um it's not easily resupplied or defended by the Iranians. And I mean I mean ultimately we've kind of got to the point in the war where has a m where we kind of have to decide has America really taken out the ballistic missile and drone capacity that Iran has to launch either of those, or has Iran been playing possible trying to exhaust the in interceptor missile infrastructure and is waiting for you know America to try and do something like this and has thousands of Shahed Shahid drones ready to launch at Karg Island the minute the Marines hit the beach.
SPEAKER_01Which I saw and it's obviously very hard to tell what's what's true with a lot of this stuff during the Fog of War, but I I saw something where it was like the number of drones and missiles filed by Iran where it was like hundreds the first few days and it dropped down to like the fives and tens, but then recently the last few days it's ticked up more, which suggests it's possible that that is, you know, that you know, Iran allegedly has been preparing this for 40 years, you know what I mean? And so they might have some of this long-term stockpiles that no one's really aware of because it's been deep in mountains for who knows how long. I saw some again, you're right.
SPEAKER_04It's it's all conjecture and sort of rumors and what's the expression? Wars and rumors of war. Like you know, it's it's you know, who knows if it's that's an old one for our Mormon friends who uh may understand maybe familiar with scripture. I think it's biblical, yeah. Yeah. But my my point is um I saw something that like Tajikistan, they have uh drone factories in Tajikistan, and now they're bringing home the production in this big convoy of trucks. Like, who knows what's true? Who knows uh if the regime is is really weakening? Um, it's really hard to do regime change from the air. I mean, they had to do over two months of strikes in Serbia to get them to pull out of Kosovo, you know, a much smaller country attacking an even smaller subsection of that country at the time. And uh Libya was something like 200 some plus days, right before the the Qaddafi regime fell. Like it takes a long time and a lot of you know. And that was like bomber.
SPEAKER_01Libya was like so under the radar. I feel like it like barely happened. I feel like I've figured it out after the the after the time, but this is like the issue because it's gonna potentially crash the world economy, you know what I mean? If we don't get the any of the oil moving, potentially involves some of our big allies like Japan, who's in the White House today, and some of uh America's enemies like China and Russia, yada yada. So yeah, this did you uh did you guys read that thread that I sent you? About the straight of Harmuz uh potentially being like a long-term player or whatever.
SPEAKER_04So shout out to John Conrad on Twitter who I really like um and um Trent Talenko. Um but John Conrad is he he's he was like a merchant marine captain for the longest time, and all he's done is talk about how, you know, sure the US Navy is a shadow of what it once was, but the real issue is that the merchant marine is basically non-existent for the American Navy. And in a hot naval war, like the most important thing is not like where your ships are and are they, you know, doing well in battle. It's like do you have the ability to get fuel to those ships just so that you can fuel them up and and you know right.
SPEAKER_01The sh the shipping lanes were were huge part of the world wars, right? Like who controlled right the ability to ship and move products around?
SPEAKER_04But, anyways, uh his theory is that Trump's actually not in a in a hurry to get the street straights reopened. In uh, again, Trump's a mafia boss style negotiator, he sees the straits being closed uh as obviously a problem for him. Uh that's why they're tapping the strategic reserve, right? Try and keep the oil prices low. Right now, uh sure oil's up, but it's ten dollars more a barrel in the UK than it is in Texas, right? And him not uh seeing his allies come to the rescue to try and open up the straits, which of course they can't do. But the fact that they're not lining up gives him a lot more leverage uh in these I don't know, I'm trying to say, but future negotiations potential negotiations, right?
SPEAKER_01Like they can say, hey France, you want you want special things, like you didn't know what you're doing.
SPEAKER_03I thought I saw something recently where like six sort of US allies had announced some type of support. Again, I don't think they're announcing putting ships or boots on the ground necessarily, but do you think that's what Trump is asking for from these allies?
SPEAKER_01The main big allies, UK, France, um, who else? But like they've come out, a lot of them have come out explicitly said we're not helping, we're not sending uh an aircraft carrier. I think UK said maybe, but France, other people have basically said this isn't our war, we didn't start it, we're not helping. Which, yeah, is uh kind of a change in a major I mean, I know they said no to Iraq too, but is kind of a major change as far as yeah, the NATO partnership.
SPEAKER_03It's yeah, and the and and the world economic alliance of like, hey, let's keep let's keep the the seas open for business. You know, there's a reason like they shut down the Somali pirates thing, you know, and them ransoming cruise ships.
SPEAKER_04I uh I got off on a bit of a tangent at work when I should have been working. But I looked up what that doesn't sound like us. I looked up like what the Canadian Navy currently is. Like we do not have any ships bigger than a frigate. And the frigate's like basically like only slightly bigger than like a local patrol boat kind of thing. Like we have zero destroyers and up.
SPEAKER_03And I I think we used to have three submarines until they shut all three down that were operating in the West Edmonton Mall, and then we now have zero.
SPEAKER_04Uh but I mean like that last time is like none of these countries can even really help out.
SPEAKER_01But well, France has aircraft carriers, so does UK. They have big ships. But they're just not willing, they're not willing to put them up for this.
SPEAKER_04But they also don't have like you can't just send a carrier and you need to send in a carrier group with a bunch of destroyers and maybe like some missile cruisers to to run cover for the carrier, right? And England and France don't have those things.
SPEAKER_01Are you sure? I mean, or is it just they only have like one of those? I'm sure that they have an air, I mean, I'm sure they have the potential, but it'd just be probably sending most of the sending all of them. If we look this up live, but I bet it's it's probably like, yeah, we'd be sending the majority of our Navy to go help. No, and you're right, you're doing it.
SPEAKER_03It's like you need you need the support because it's like we're in a time where it's like, well, if you don't have a bunch of ships going around and keeping this thing safe, one little drone boat is gonna, you know, possibly take out a carrier or something, you know. Like it seems implausible, but that's why they need the extra support. And like you say, that I don't think a lot of the American ships have backed up, right? And they have to go around the market, right? It's like that that's a big investment, you know, and and they're they're worried about more, you know, more of the Atlantic stuff and and keeping their ships there and and keeping their monitoring and safety there with Russia.
SPEAKER_04That's my basically basically nobody has the ability to solve this problem, either the Straits of Hormuz, which is obviously a huge problem, but no one's even really solved the Red Sea problem and and uh the Houthis in Yemen. Uh at least as long as Iran was able to get those missiles into uh uh Houthie territory, which they're probably not able to do right now, but when they were, there's nothing that even the American Navy can could do to make container ships sail through the Red Sea when sure it takes them a couple extra weeks to go around you know the the Horn of Africa. Uh they'd rather do that than risk taking a cruise missile into their ship.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so we've got off a little nice little tangent here. Um straight out her moose. I mean, straight up her moose. Like, so one of the bets I think me and you and you both have is will it be back to normal air to normal flows by April 30th? And we both have the no, and it's up a decent amount. And yeah, I don't see that changing. And I mean, I guess I I mean to go back to your initial point, which was you know, they have to escalate to de-escalate. I don't think there's a lot of appetite for that. Um, maybe Carg Island, maybe, maybe like a Marine Special Forces, but I don't think much more.
SPEAKER_04Um oh, I saw today my my favorite plane, the uh the A-10, the the Warthog, they're bringing that into theater to try and deal with these go-fast boats that are like even though Iran doesn't have a navy anymore, like it doesn't take much to just you know throw a mine on the back of a fast boat, zip out to the middle of the strait, uh, but they're gonna deal with that using the A10, which I'm sure you guys have seen that that uh plane. It's the uh the one that's the brr. Yeah, it's the brat. It's like the the the plane is built around a gaddling gun, basically.
SPEAKER_03Uh but it's really it goes low and a bullet in every square inch of a football field within a second, essentially, is is the amount it's shooting, right? But it's it's all within a a small targeted area and it will destroy anything.
SPEAKER_01Crazy.
SPEAKER_04So I mean they're they they have the the potential to do it from the air, but I think no, I don't think there's gonna be an easy way to Demilitarize the Straits of Hormuz without landing troops on Shoreside. And that obviously means that to get back around to your original ceasefire bets, Matt, like these mar these things are gonna get worse before they get better. And I think it's easy to keep all your money in those ceasefire bets, uh, knowing that there's no easy avenues to get out of this anytime soon.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and yeah, if there was a I mean, we we'd have to, if there's any major forces to go in, right? Like this again, that's not something they can do overnight. Like you'd have to hear about it, right? Obviously, they could I know they brought the Marines in from the Marines are called in, yeah. Yeah, the Marines are there. They brought those in from Japan or whatever. And yeah, something like Carg Island, maybe a shoreline, but something bigger than that, we'd we'd you'd have a lot of foreshadowing. Obviously, the market would move as soon as they said it. But um, yeah, I think in general, I I I still, I mean, not much has changed since we started talking about this two weeks ago. I still like the protracted uh bets. Um let's get something specific, Andrew. I know you had some oil bets um around um essentially this and and kind of the differences because we were dealing with Brent and WTI and all this different stuff, and what you like and whether you think this could really pop off like crazy numbers like 200 and stuff like that. Like I know it's only at 2% by the end of March, but do you like it? Or what do you like? Because I took a two yeah. You're supposed to have our oil expert on here, but I guess we'll have to settle for Andrew for today. Yeah, exactly. No, I took a few bets at like 120 and 130 by the end of the month. I thought it was pretty good uh potential ROI, Andrew. Um, what do you like?
SPEAKER_04So, I mean, the the problem is is I don't know oil markets, and it probably means I should stay away from these bets because they're already down a lot for me. But like the problem is that they're denominated in WTI, which is West Texas Intermediate, which is sort of the oil standard for American markets, um which currently has like a$10 uh per barrel difference between Brent oil, which is the European standard, which is obviously the most affected uh by problems in the Middle East. But, anyways, um I've took several bets from uh like 110 up to you know through a flyer on 200. You never know. Uh again, we talked about this last week. 25% of the world supply goes through the Straits of Hormuz, and it is not moving, uh, with the exception of, again, those ghost tankers and Russian and Chinese affiliated tankers that are not going through the normal shipping channels in the Straits of Hormuz. They are hugging tight to the Iranian coastline to get out of the Persian Gulf, which of course does not make other people want to go through those shipping channels, which are very tight, uh, when the only tankers that are getting through are avoiding those shipping channels. And of course, anybody that's not tightly uh aligned with the Iranian regime, um, you're not gonna be able to get out by hugging tight to the Iranian coastline.
SPEAKER_01Um Besson said something. I probably shouldn't bring this up because I'm not sure the details, but he said something about like he was gonna they were gonna make it like lower the sanctions to let them soil sell the oil. Is that directly from the ships on board? And I'm not even sure how they would do that. Um but it's like they seem pretty desperate to try to. I'm not sure who they were talking who was I see again. I should I shouldn't bring this up, but Besson was talking about it today. But it seemed like, and it's like, oh, okay, we could get like 140 million barrels, which is like you know, two weeks' supply or something like that. But I mean, it seems like they're pretty desperate here uh to do anything, you know, dropping the sanctions on Russia, etc., uh, to try to keep this down because that feels like that's the only way. Um, I mean, obviously this is already an unpopular war like we've talked about, but I mean if it dramatically affects the economy in America and you know, people's gas and the food prices, that's when people are gonna get really ticked. And I feel like that's kind of the um big pressure kind of from the back for for Trump and Bessett, etc. Because yeah, I mean it's unpopular now. What happens if oil goes to 200 bucks? It's gonna be extremely unpopular and the midterms will be really bad.
SPEAKER_04Well, the odds of the US hitting a recession are way up because I have that bet. Um, let me see if I can find it here. So I bought in at an average of 26 cents. It's uh up 25% since then. Um looking just around 33% currently. And that's all since the Iran has pot thing has popped off and the price of oil has gone through the roof.
SPEAKER_03I mean, all all time I'm looking, at least back to like 2000, you know, the price of the the crude oil that we're talking about, the CL has never gone above 125. So some of those long shot bets certainly seem possible, but you know, there's been I think other issues going on in the last 20 or 30 years. Yeah, no, I mean it's 200 is a long shot, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_04But also, I mean, local Dubai crude was at$170 a barrel. I saw it today.
SPEAKER_01Like that specific There was also a time a couple years ago where oil was negative dollars. Remember that craziness? And we're like, let's buy a tanker, we're gonna go somewhere and pick it up.
SPEAKER_03I just I just took a I just took a little taste on uh will crude oil hit over 120 by the end of the month. So I mean I'm making I'm making a long shot bet that you know it spikes to an all-time high by the end of the month. Uh short period of time, but um I I don't think it's crazy.
SPEAKER_04Fair warning, the way these markets resolve, it has to be at the end like trading end of the day. It's not just if it hits that specific number at any time. No, no, intraday highs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um okay, so that's that's pretty good overcap of where we like Iran, what we see, what the bets again. I'm sure we'll be talking about this again next week, because unless it magically ends. Um, but there is some gonna be some good discussions about the broader economies, things we've talked about in the past, you know, the AI bubble, um things like that. Joel, do you want to maybe hop into your little bit of your thoughts on the IPO market, what you like, what uh what especially this administration might be trying to push to try to help their uh cause a little bit?
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, I mean this was uh kind of in inspired by one of the y'all-in podcasts uh where they had some of the um CFTC, I think, and SEC guys on. Uh, you know, shout out to the besties. I think they were talking to me about it in the group chat uh recently. Uh but uh um, you know, I I thought it was very interesting because historically in the last few years, there's been a lot of pushback on mergers and there's been a lot of hesitance for IPOs, and there's a lot of financial and reporting burdens that come with uh initial public offering, which is what an IPO is, where you you initially you make your initial offer of public shares, become a public company. And these guys were basically saying, you know, that some of the questions, it's like, hey, do you think we should be reducing some of that regulation or reducing some of that reporting burden on these public companies? Because again, we even we see it and we talk about it a lot here, is where it's like people are betting on the quarterly earning reporting, right? And so you do see some shady markets where it's like some guy knows ahead of time or or they have these kind of shady concerns. Um, but they seem to be signaling that they want companies to be able to do IPOs. And so this market is IPOs before 2027. So essentially, which corporations will do an IPO this year? And you can kind of bet on any different market. For example, SpaceX is at around 90% right now, Discord is at 78%, uh, Cerebris, don't know that one is at 93%. You know, some of the ones that I think we could maybe talk about that are interesting are things like Andorl and OpenAI, Anthropic. But uh, you know, my little launch here, I I bought a little bit on the Databricks one, which was at 28%. Um, but I thought, you know, this is kind of uh an AI adjacent company who's doing a lot of the infrastructure stuff, has a steady stream of revenue. Um, I think they're you know one of the best position companies from from the little loose research I've done because of that positive cash flow and because of this positive messaging. Um so I took a little bit of a nibble on that because the market seemed low. But what what markets do you think are interesting, Matt?
SPEAKER_01No, I think I think the sentiment in general actually makes a lot of sense, and I think it's for kind of um multiple reasons, um, or or more just because of the broader market as well as the specific AI market that you might see a decent amount of IPOs this year. And yeah, again, reflecting back on some of the latest all-in podcasts that we all listen to, um, yeah, they're talking about the the revenue of Claude and the revenue of uh open AI and stuff, and it really is shooting off the charts. And so uh you might want to capture some of that upside while the numbers still look great, and while the broader market is still doing well, and it makes sense that companies like uh Databricks or some other of these smaller companies um that aren't gonna IPO for such a high number might want to get in as well because um yeah, if the market's to crash in the future, then then it really kind of screws them over. So I think it makes sense. I think I'm gonna kind of take a little bit further look into it. Maybe I'll haven't picked any winners yet. But I think the idea that you can see multiple people trying to IPO now while the market's generally hot, especially in these certain sectors, uh, I think it makes a lot of sense. And you're right, the regulatory burden or at least the um the perception of like the openness of as far as the SEC and the CFTC and all these different groups. Obviously, they they if they're encouraging it, it could probably happen.
SPEAKER_04Basically, since Lena Khan's been gone.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um, and and you know, but I think there's also interesting angles into and ways to be ahead of the news in terms of shorting some of these markets as well. Like, for example, when I look at the anthropic market, you know, back early February it was at 72%, you know, end of the year. So there was a lot of confidence in the market. It's now down to 37%, right? So if you were ahead of the news on uh some of the anthropic Claude stuff, which you know, you listen to our podcast. If you did the opposite of what I said, you might have been ahead of this and uh bet against anthropic uh when some of that Department of War stuff was happening um and banning Claude. So yeah, I mean Andrew, what are your thoughts? Do you think there's any um interesting things here that you've uh ever taken a look at?
SPEAKER_04I mean, I think by far the most interesting company from this list is SpaceX. I mean, I'm not sure if we ever really geeked out about SpaceX.
SPEAKER_03I struggle with internet. I'm I'm doing Wi-Fi hotspot right now because I live in an old house and I can't even get, you know, no matter which company I choose, I can't get consistent internet. So I'm ready to like shell out. What is essentially they force me to go premium? It'll be$150 a month for internet. But I think that's the only way I'll ever have consistent internet, and I live in the middle of a major city in Canada. It's great. And you have a hundred-year-old house, though.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but uh some of the neighbors have uh five-year-old houses.
SPEAKER_04Well, like you you are really speaking to what the value ad is that Elon has created. In that Rogers or tell us whichever one you have, Joel. But I've tried both they both suck for my house. But my point is is those are the two two of the richest companies in Canada. And why are they so rich? It's because it like it costs a lot of money to run fiber optic cable and to drill the length of Canada, which is a ginormous country, and because of you know entrenched bureaucracy in Ottawa, they've been able to maintain that monopoly and can command basically any price they want for Canadians to use cell phones and get internet. And consequently, we have one of the worst, you know, uh service-to-price ratios of you know any major advanced country. And what Elon Musk has been able to do is colonize low earth orbit almost single-handedly. Like the man owns low earth orbit and has an entire satellite communications uh infrastructure that can defeat the the Rogers and TELOS Monopoly and every other telecommunications company in the world. He can get around that because now everybody has uh a satellite, you know, a few hundred kilometers above their head.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I mean the service provided, I as I understand it, through weather and and remote locations as you could possibly think of, like the top of Everest or on a plane, is very consistent. And you know, I want to give it a shot. Um, I think, you know, to be fair to SpaceX, I think the they say they they offer$60 or$70 service um when you know when you rent the equipment essentially. Um they forced me into this higher package, I think, just because of the demand in the city. But with that, I would get, you know, like a travel thing, right? And I could take that out hiking or into in into the States and use it there, right? And so it it they do just have such a value add, like you say. And they're not just a rocket company anymore. They are a commercial success to telecommunications company, like you talk about. And so an IPO does make sense. Um, it's up, you know, 38% recently. Um, Discord was another one that I had thought about relatively recently, but I wouldn't uh look to get into it as much now because it's already gone up pretty high. But there's a lot of interesting stuff going on with these different IPO things, and I think it is a a positive sign for some of the financial markets. And I don't know, how do you guys think that affects some of your other bets? Like I I've gotten out of all the recession type positions because it doesn't seem like that's slowing down necessarily, but the oil and Iran stuff could affect that as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I would I I I guess in my mind, um you wonder if they're even gonna some of these countries are even gonna IPO if basically if they run out of time, if if this stuff doesn't get better with Iran. And I think that would be kind of the big concern because I do feel like there has been a long-term bubble that popped a few years ago, kind of after COVID, but it's still kind of blossoming up, and these tech companies are still, you know, incredibly huge. Um, and I know obviously like the Facebooks and the Googles are doing well in this competition, but I think the idea that they're gonna continue to just print all this money forever, um, you know, the world's changing. And um I yeah, I just I and considering how much they make up of the of the SP 500 now, right? When the these things are heavily into groups, um, yeah, I I definitely think there's a chance that people are trying to exit for the markets um and get this IPO going.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I mean like you say, I think a lot of the some of the bigger, older, more established companies may have issues, but there is a lot of interesting dynamic companies like personal fan favorite, just because I like Palmer is you know uh um Anderal, right? And and and it seems like they're a fast moving company where they're gonna be able to. If you're making drones, probably uh you might be one of the few people.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna be valuable for the foreseeable future as long as the governments are still around. So as long as long as people are still fighting, you might be really valuable. The other companies is who I work with.
SPEAKER_02They're printing the dollars, and as long as the the country's still around, that matters to some degree.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he's gonna scoop up a bunch of them. Well, to bring it back to where we started, yeah. If you do foresee Iran still going three months from now, the odds of Anderel uh IPO ing probably half a trillion dollars or something like that, you know.
SPEAKER_01Probably I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, I I don't know anything about their actual details, but you'd think it would have a huge premium.
SPEAKER_03The way I think about some of these two, and that I think you need to keep in mind, is you got to look at these companies individually. Um again, I don't I I haven't looked at Andorall in detail in terms of the corporate structure and who holds what shares, but I also like to think about who the founder and some of these big decision makers are. And you know, Palmer. To me, uh, even if anthropic is doing well, I think he wants to maintain a certain degree of control and ability to adapt that maybe IPOing wouldn't allow. You know, if it's like you got to disclose all these things and all of a sudden the reporters are foyering your your emails and and and you know, saying, hey, look, there's we've got proof that they're using what XYZ thing that we don't like, right? So I think you gotta look at both sides of these, and but I think there's a lot of interesting stuff going on. Let's see how my database does. You know, it's uh relatively flat right now, but I'm I'm hopeful that it's gonna go up. We'll see. Um, and another thing that I thought we could go maybe back on touch on in terms of updates that's doing well for me and is kind of adjacent to Iran is the Marco Rubio and the 2028 Republican nominee. That's up 100% for me. I bought in at 13 thanks.
SPEAKER_01Rubio, we've talked about Rubio a bunch. He's still going up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and and so like I'm in the long Rubio, but um, you know, I what are your guys' thoughts? Again, I doesn't JD hasn't come out come out of the hiding yet, so I haven't seen anything about it.
SPEAKER_01Well, he'd come out at least a little bit last couple days. Um, but I wonder if this is there a market for when Rubio passes uh JD as the favorite in the Republican because that would be interesting to see too.
SPEAKER_04Um here's an interesting um aspect of this though, because again, I I have Rubio as well as Republican nominee, which is up a hundred percent, but I bought in for some will Rubio be president? Uh that's a couple of weeks ago. Bought in at 15%, it's now down to 11, which I think speaks to how things are going for the Republicans.
SPEAKER_01Right. What's the because what's the Republican nominee versus the a Democrat's gonna win versus Republican? I assume that's switching. I'm not sure if there is a generic market like that. I think there was a one-one, but I mean if they're not, we can maybe should start it. On a smaller note, I put a small nibble on uh Tucker Carlson this week when I first heard him say something about wanting to go in the presidential campaign to debate Ted Cruz. And yeah, since then has doubled almost, and it's just kind of hilarious that he's now number three, or he has kind of been for the whole for a long time, but he is the nut like it's the the market is so shallow of like real contenders after Rubio and Vance that Tucker's the third on polymarket. Democrats are up to 57%.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's 57%, 44% for Republicans. Uh a lot in the last few months. It's relatively constant, it looks it's gone you know, down as low as only 53 and up to 57. So I don't know if that you know this is the interesting bets to make when you're doing a long-term thing like 2028, but I think the Rubio ones, like I would bet on a Rubio president at 11 cents. You know, I'm I've I talked about that last week. I haven't made a bet. I would kind of consider it again now, Andrew. As you say, it's gone down a little bit, but there's a lot of time. Um, and you know, I think in some ways, again, we're we have an international perspective here, but I think there's a lot of negative press, but there's also some some things that people are gonna argue, or maybe we'll uh if things turn out well here in the next couple years, can argue argue in retrospect were wins or big positives, right? If uh Operation Epic Fury ends relatively soon and they can declare it a big win, Rubio and the Republicans may have better shot in 2028, you know? And especially if Democrats win the midterms and then do nothing.
SPEAKER_04Can you even imagine like if three years from now, like they're fighting over some random mountains in Iran trying to get to Tehran? Like Republicans have zero percent chance of winning. If if if if if things are still on a war footing in Iran.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you say it sounds crazy, but at the end of the day, I mean, Russia and Ukraine, so like you mean, like, you know what I mean? Like, I saw mom and dad watching the news, and of course, it's all Iran on the ABC News tonight. And then, but I'm like, I remember when this was Ukraine four years ago, you know what I mean? And and now it's just in the background, nobody cares. Like, but but it could happen.
SPEAKER_04Speaking of Palmer Lucky, though, he just said the other day something that really kind of resent, you know, resounded. Resounded, reverberated, whatever term to say. He said that America could not stomach doing a D-Day right now. And like, that is so true on so many levels. There is a 0% chance that America would abide conscription right now. Like a draft. Like it would never happen.
SPEAKER_01Oh, Gen Z would love to get drafted. They would be really good. No, I think I I think I think I think legitimately one of the problems they have is that if they were to try to call a bunch of troops into Iran, you might have some almost some form of mutiny. You know what I mean? Like, like, you know. What's the number of those guys who are gropers essentially? You know what I mean? Like it's it's it's gonna be a problem. You know what I mean? Um yeah, I completely agree. There's not there's not uh an appetite for this type of stuff.
SPEAKER_04There's only so many soldiers, they're they're not gonna do a draft. And you remember what they had to do in Iraq, right? With like the the cult the reservists did the club the reservists. I didn't even realize that's the case. Called the reservists, and then also uh, you know, after people had done their tour, they'd done their thing, they'd done the thing they agreed on, they're said actually, you know, we're gonna stop loss you and send you back because we don't have anybody to fill your spot.
SPEAKER_01Crazy.
SPEAKER_03Um, interesting thing here. I mean, we've we've talked in the past about the sometimes lack of appeal of the long-term bets, you know, with like 2028 bets for the presidential winner. Just a kind of an interesting update here. It looks like it says now that you're earning four percent on whatever you put in um yeah, total positions on the market. So that does kind of change how you view this. But yeah, no, I don't think there's any other marketing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. Wrap that up on that. I think it is interesting. Kelchi, I think, did that first, and now it kind of makes sense because, like we said, there's not a lot of appetite for a long-term bet that doesn't have a lot of upside if you're not getting any return. But if you get a little nibble, 4%, it it kind of changes the whole structure of it. But um, yeah, that's a problem. Pretty good there, boys. That's it. Uh that will wrap it up for next week. We'll have a different take. It won't all be Iran again, but maybe mostly I ran again. All right, love you guys. All right, love you guys, nice boys.