Fellow regards,
Shit hit the fan today with POET. The CFO made a serious and incomprehensible blunder by breaching a confidentiality agreement with their most important customer (Marvell/MRVL via Celestial AI). He publicly named them and shared order/shipping details, which apparently violated the NDA. All he had to do was stfu and wait, but instead Marvell canceled the orders, the stock cratered ~34-50% today, and the whole thesis took a massive hit and is at risk.
Leadership matters more than tech sometimes — even if the company’s Optical Interposer is solid and ultimately necessary for AI infrastructure, trust and credibility with partners/investors are everything. This was an uncontrollable, unforeseeable own-goal that no one saw coming. Fortunately, the stock is basically back to where it was before last week’s run, before we knew the CFO would be a dumbass.
I’m glad I trimmed some on the way up. I started buying more LEAPs at market open like a true regard (see slide 4) but my trusted friend advised me to get out because the thesis looked broken and the risk/reward had flipped. We could easily see this thing taking another 50% haircut over the coming weeks. Rebelling against my regarded nature, I listened. Today I realized a bunch of profits from the sales I made on the way up and some additional trimming.
Proof from today (slides 5 and 6):
• Realized P&L screenshots showing the week’s gains (over +$124k past week in one view, including all poet sales
• Portfolio dropped to ~$535k today (down 34% and 275k (lmao)), but that’s still up massively all-time (see last slide).
• All Poet sold today was sold for solid/substantial gainz
Thank you to everyone who genuinely checked in on me today. I promise you, I’m doing completely okay (honestly better than ever), your concerns and prayers should be with those who are much less fortunate than me. First of all, you have to actually buy and sell to realize losses or gains, so I didn’t “lose” $275k today — I never truly had it. It was just an imaginary number on a screen, unlike the profits I locked in on the way up. Margin went from ~$50k up to ~$65k briefly during the aforementioned regarded buying, but now I’m sitting on ~$70k cash liquid and already reinvesting into other strong assets.
Zooming out: I’ve been investing since 2020 thanks to a full scholarships that covered undergrad and grad school, so I never had that crushing debt burden. I once lived out of my car for over a year, took heavy bags as an AMC ape early on (when I invested literally all of my money into it), and learned the hard way what pain feels like in this game. I’ve learned to embrace and appreciate it, as nothing in life could teach us more. Once I get thru this finals season (yes I’ve been trying to study all day during this lmfao) I’m graduating with over $500k net worth, only about $125k in total loans (student, car, etc.), heading into big law, and planning to use what I’ve learned and built to make a real impact in affordable housing and enable people to reach their full potential like I’ve been able to. $500k is a shit ton of money — going from sleeping in my car to this position in life has me incredibly grateful. “Losing” 275k is irrelevant when considering all of that.
I broke the classic “if it’s good enough to screenshot, it’s good enough to sell” rule by posting at the literal top — classic top signal. I will now learn from that too and never do that stupid shit again lmao. Fortunately, I’ve also seen and learned from (thanks to Kamikazee Cash) too many regards who blindly double down when things have materially changed, driven by emotional attachment or just wanting to be right, and I’m grateful I didn’t fall into that trap this time (thanks to my friend). Everything in life is a test to see how much you can learn. No regrets — this was an unforeseeable event. I’ll make the money back over time without a doubt by continuing to stack and sticking to my process.
Still holding a substantially smaller (but still meaningful) position in POET in case management figures its shit out and delivers on the technology long-term (Slide 3). But de-risked hard, and locked in the foundation for generational wealth.
Lessons reinforced:
• Trim on the way up
• Don’t chase round numbers
• Poor Leadership/governance can sink even incredible tech
• Trust your process and zoom out when things seem bad short term
• Always be open to learning and adapting your mindset as necessary. We learn the most from life’s toughest challenges.
Appreciate the community. We all eat crayons sometimes (they’re soo colorful and look appetizing) but we keep learning no matter what.
I hope its arousing to see my loss porn :) (just stay on the first slide only). Fund still otw soon 😎
TL;DR: POET thesis arguably broken + stock that was about 50% of my port dumped. Trimmed earlier, realized solid profits, portfolio still at ~$535k (massive all-time gains). Learned a lot, no realized losses, still bullish on process and life. Grateful for the journey and the regards looking out.
**UPDATE** officially cashed out 25k! Outside of 5k last year, I had never withdrawn from Robinhood before, instead investing virtually all my money. One small step for regard, one giant leap for regarded kind