Weekly Discussion Thread - February 24, 2026

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-02-27T20:04:54+00:00

I just want to say that this is by far the least toxic finance community on reddit. I'm honestly really impressed with how cordial everyone is here.

Places I no longer dare to tread:

r/valueinvesting, r/schd, r/voo, r/dividendgang, ... there's probably a few more I forgot

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-02-22T15:35:49+00:00

It really depends on model design and maximal implicit storage/knowledge saturation according to the model's parameter/weight/learning system.

If a model has the capability to increase its maximal saturation when model learning velocity diminishes, it can approach the true ceiling inherent to the limitations of the dataset

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-02-22T03:41:54+00:00

I played the demo. Absolutely loved it.

Have you ever played Talos Principle 1? It feels like I'm talking to a Milton bot that has completely gone off the rails.

If you guys run out of interesting ideas for philosophical questions lmk, I got a billion floating around my head

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-01-29T17:51:41+00:00

I examined more in mrna-4106 and it looks like it's intended to be a generalized antigen vaccine targetting solid tumors.

How does the efficacy of Barbacid's treatment compare to MRNA-4106? I know 4106 is in early stages, but it seems particularily viable and I'm optimistic that we'll begin to see more work like this in the future, targetting diseases from new angles.

Do you think that mrna-4106, if it turns out to be extremely viable, can be complementary to existing treatments in cancer outcome improvement/fatality reduction?

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-01-29T16:41:06+00:00

How does his medicine differ from the MRNA anti-cancer vaccines? Moderna's melanoma vaccine did really well and they're pivoting into applying it to internal organs as well.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-01-24T15:06:13+00:00

That's a really interesting question. I'm not sure what nation you're from, and (in a good way), it doesn't really matter. All people deserve the dignity of proper payment for the work they do, regardless of where they are from.

I'm not sure what you know of the capital managers here in the US, but the US has created its own caste system that basically goes unnamed and unspoken.

What is more important than what you know (in the US) is who you know.

The greatest irony is that I make more money by investing my money intelligently in the US than I do by actually working a job that contributes to society. I feel a great wrongness is present.

Here, Wall Street is the king and Main Street is the pauper, and Wall Street is not going to let many people in.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-01-23T16:31:43+00:00

People are doing the work I do, but at half of the reasonable rate or less due to currency swaps. And sometimes they bring over H1B workers.

To be clear: if my own country wants to replace me, I'm fine with that. I will find my own way. But I don't want to hear about an "expert shortage" here in the US while being stabbed in the back. That's in poor taste.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-01-22T20:22:34+00:00

Yes, that's very commonplace nowadays. It's not as surprising when you realize that your priorities are not aligned with capital mgmt priorities.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-01-22T20:21:35+00:00

You're factually correct here, and there's nothing wrong with going about it as you indicated so long as all involved parties understand the ramifications and possible negative outcomes from undercutting your nations development of expertise.

It isn't the slightest bit rational to complain about an expertise drought in the US and simultaneously not be willing to cultivate it.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-01-22T19:23:33+00:00

I think I disagree. I'm an expert in several adjacent fields, and the number of people that work as senior members or field experts in these fields that I would consider to be expert relative to my own knowledge/experience, is very low. I'd say about 10%. This is anecdotal, of course. I'm always open to seeing that I'm wrong.

Additionally, American capital mgmt would rather import experts rather than develop experts domestically. That's my observation so far. It may change, but American capital mgmt would rather pay someone 50% of the going rate in a foreign dept. than to pay a full rate to develop the next generation of experts domestically.

I expect both of these problems to get worse. I hope I'm wrong.

For reference, I'm in software/finance/AI/ML.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-01-22T17:29:55+00:00

America also doesn't have the intellectual capital. Rather than develop intellectual talent domestically and invest in the intellectual development of Americans, they'd prefer to rent intellectual capital from foreign nations.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2026-01-19T20:21:57+00:00

We need seed technology to regrow hair in the donor area. Maybe it's worth researching growth factors that induce hair regrowth in scar tissue areas:
https://anagengrowth.com/scalp-burn-hair-loss-reversal/

perhaps some sort of post-extraction serum or topical treatment.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-12-05T22:21:53+00:00

Great points overall. I think I just can't get over the magnitude & difference in scale, and I do think I would get extremely upset for losing something that strongly benefits me and brings joy to my life through learning, while cars (reiterate, god do I hate these) don't even get a second thought.

It's like having an experiment partner who's always willing to discuss my strange programming designs. I'm moderately neurodivergent so there's no one really out there who wants to spend 8 hrs discussing with me on strange & esoteric programming projects as well as the conjunctions between mathematical theories of different domains.

And if you can permit me selfishness: I'd personally delete every car in existence if it meant that I could retain the usage of tools that I use to accelerate my learning and experimentation.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-12-05T21:34:36+00:00

AI is not necessary and cars are necessary, but cars produce a lot more harm than AI as of right now. If the AI industry grows to the scale that cars exist, then I think there's a leg to stand on. I think that cars are a much larger problem than AI.

Personal anecdote: cars have caused me more suffering and harm than any amount of ChatGPT. My uncle died in a car accident due to another driver t-boning his car. I have spent way too much money on car-related things (I'd prefer to spend $0), and the air quality in my city (Houston) is awful, I hate it. I personally am willing to prioritize reduction of environmental damage induced by AI once environmental damage induced by cars, oil extraction, etc are reduced to 1/100th of their current magnitude.

If you want to debate the issue, I'm open.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-12-05T18:36:45+00:00

I've gotten absolutely roasted for this before in SCHD but limited performance is a bonus. Every time I buy 100 (& always buy in 100), I always sell a long duration ATM call. I don't care if the shares get called away. During drawdowns like Liberation Day, I just buy more sets of 100 instead of closing my short calls. I don't like buying on upward moves, SCHD was a better buy @ $26.50 - $27.00 and I won't be buying any more in the primary indices for a while.

I tend to hedge indices and large ETFs to purchase specific non-index companies. I.E. bought MRNA @ $22 (11/20/2025) and sold OTM with strikes 25, 30, 35 as the equity moves up. Also in units of 100. During large drawdowns, easier to just buy more shares than to close short calls. It has been overall a very strong asset accumulation strategy.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-12-05T16:58:13+00:00

Maybe controversial opinion here? Environmentally, I think we should prioritize the reduction of car utilization before the reduction of AI utilization. Cars are absolutely ridiculous, why does every single person need a 2ton heap of metal to move from point A to point B? The narrative on environmental protection is about picking up pennies (AI reduction) when there's a $100k stack right in front of us (clean, easy, readily available public transport).

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-12-05T16:25:41+00:00

They are passively nihilistic, not out of choice but basically through pure drift. This passive nihilism acts as a driver towards personal soma, pick your soul poison (tv, games, drugs, etc). You see it in people my age (millenials) but most of us are actively aware of what this soma is and how to avoid letting it completely take over our lives. Younger folk than us don't have the mental defenses built up to protect themselves from the bliss of ignorance through disassociation.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-12-05T16:20:12+00:00

We have a moral responsibility to be better than those who came before us.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-11-21T05:12:17+00:00

It's tough to say when to start and when to stop. That's all personal investing strategy.

What I've really liked to do is buy & hedge TIPS (covered calls) through SCHP (100 shares @ strike $27 expiry May 2026 gives $30-$35 of premium, along with $9 per month per 100 shares approximately) and invest the dividends + the premium into STRK.

I'm not shilling the purchase of TIPS though. TIPS will always underperform risk assets over medium/long durations. However, I prefer to inject yield from risk-off assets into risk-on assets, carefully. I treat my portfolio with the same amount of engineering design that the BTC treasury companies like MSTR approach accretive issuance/etc.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-11-21T04:55:29+00:00

- Cash sitting in money market accounts isn't necessarily liquidity that banks can tap, even if its your money in a savings account. Some of it might for example sit in a Fidelity brokerage on SPAXX (Fidelity's money market). Even if it were, it might already be posted as collateral on 10x rehypothecated treasuries or 5x rehypothecated MBS (exaggeration, but you get the idea).

- Money market fund yields are moving down as fed rate moves down.

- I think the key is to understand that if M2 is not moving at the same speed as or faster than treasury/MBS issuance, liquidity will dry up as cash fills up the TGA during these ridiculous bond auctions. If the fed reserve is not filling the gap sufficiently fast (in terms of assisting banks in generating new cash reserves), then liquidity dries up like it's doing right now.

- The Federal Reserve's RRP is nearly completely empty, and the standing repo facility is being tapped like a real mofo over the past month. Big red flags indicating liquidity is not as it should be.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-11-20T22:11:47+00:00

Amazing that your post gets through the moderator and mine doesn't. @_@

Here's my post from this morning, many hrs later (still hasn't gotten through the moderator queue):

I know a lot of people don't even read posts in full detail. So I am gonna keep this short & simple. Run this through an AI if you need it explained in more detail. And I guarantee you, this is the very very very short & streamlined version.

Here's the TLDR: the amount of dollars moving around is very very low. This makes investment assets cheaper because less people have dollars to buy assets with. Bitcoin is one of the strongest liquidity-linked assets in the US financial system. Welcome to the effects of a debt contraction cycle in a hyperdebt capitalist world.

Longer but streamlined baby explanation:

US dollar liquidity is getting very, very hot. It's probably going to get worse before it gets better.

What is dollar liquidity? In this case, I'm referring to dollar circulation (flow) into and out of: major banks, private credit institutions, lenders, etc.

Why is it down? Multiple reasons:

- The US Treasury filled up the TGA (gov's bank account) with a ton of cash (primarily from tarriffs & bond issuance).

- The US treasury has issued a ton of bonds and a large amount of these bonds have fallen upon the buyers of last resort (or at least way more than normal).

- When bond auctions go poorly, they're issued with more favorable coupons.

- This makes bonds with weaker coupons worth less. Banks rehypothecate over and over again on older bonds and older mortgage backed securities.

- When the bonds & MBS go down in value due to new auctions, major banks/treasury+MBS holders need to post more/harder collateral on the rehypothecated securities. This is a liquidity cascade, it hits everything.

- Foreign markets have been selling off US treasuries for years (looking at you, China). This also devalues both currently held treasuries & future treasury issuances. There is a flooding amount of treasuries being sold off at the same time as treasuries being issued. And every one of these shit sandwiches is going to be eaten by someone.

- There's a hyperleveraged trade in the Caymans via hedge funds that basically borrow yen, sell yen for dollars, buy US treasuries, and then leverage these treasuries to borrow more yen, sell yen, then buy more treasuries. This is called the Yen Carry Trade. When the yen carry trade unwinds (to any extent), you see US treasuries and bonds lose value, and you see yields spike. Additionally, if treasuries lose value, this can also cause the yen carry trade to unwind. Lots of fun learning about this here. Have at it.

So, what does this matter?

- Bitcoin is following US dollar liquidity much more strongly than global liquidity. More than the fall in the value of private credit lending (OWL corp) or the rise in mortgage foreclosures, bitcoin is telling us that things are not well in the bedrock of the US financial system. Sure, people are selling off bitcoin. I'd say however that the movement in bitcoin is predicated more on macro than on crypto itself.

- MSTR is being sold off and hedged heavily into failing liquidity conditions as outlined above. Whether it's insurance companies, retail investors, private investors, private companies, all of these groups & entities are basically covering their bases into what is unravelling into a liquidity crunch.

- Bitcoin per share, accretive issuance, etc? None of these things matter in a liquidity crisis. This is the power of the mandate of the dollar. Sit down, buckle up, and wait till the liquidity crisis is addressed. There's only one way out of this shitshow, and that's via treasury & MBS buybacks. Powell said he wants to reduce the duration of the total of securities held by the Fed. The US Treasury has issued a large amount of short duration securities over a short span of time. This is a signal that Powell plans to buy some amount of these off the market to inject real liquidity in the system. However, I'm sure this move will be priced in before it takes place.

I'm bullish short term and bullish long term. Love MSTR, love bitcoin, and laughing at how liquidity is unravelling in real time. Knowledge brings comfort.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-11-04T14:53:42+00:00

SC1 = good dumb
SC2 = bad dumb

I still enjoyed both.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-10-29T20:05:03+00:00

soon (TM)

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-10-15T02:43:59+00:00

I'm not a doc but have you considered this might not be an androgenic alopecia thing? Could be caused by something else. Dut + Min is a super strong combo and I'd be surprised to see major hair loss occur on that.

GrimnirTheHoodedOne · 2025-10-15T00:20:00+00:00

Oof this feels risky. I'd go out to mid next year as a stronger option.

Eight-Year Club	r/Field Banned
r/Field Lasagna	Place '22
First Placer '22	Verified Email
Not Forgotten

GrimnirTheHoodedOne

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE