MM # 290: How to Prepare for 2026: Top Investing AI Tools, Next Year's Political Outlook & Best Banking Stocks

Summary

Market Mondays Episode #290: How to Prepare for 2026 – End-of-Year Investments & What to Expect Next Year (Dec 23, 2025)

Episode Overview

In this special end-of-year episode of Market Mondays, hosts Rashad, Troy, Jabbar, and Ian Dunlap take a deep dive into strategic investing for 2026. They recap 2025 performance, outline key market lessons, forecast critical market events, and share actionable steps for building lasting wealth in the coming year. Mixing candid personal insights, hard-hitting investment advice, and engaging banter, the panel equips listeners with a powerful blueprint for navigating volatility, seizing opportunities, and staying disciplined as seismic economic and political shifts loom.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Biggest Investing Mistakes to Avoid in 2026

• Failure to Accumulate Shares: Not making the personal decision to acquire thousands of shares in quality companies is deemed the biggest potential mistake (09:53).
  • “Number one, is not making the decision... to acquire two or three thousand shares for yourself.” — Ian (09:49)
  • Find a way—next year could be as pivotal as 2020.
• Lack of Clarity (Freedom Number): Not defining a “freedom number” (the amount you need for financial independence) and aggressively investing toward it.
  • “Double down on what your freedom number is and put a lot of cash into making that a reality.” — Ian (10:10)
• Distractions and Social Media Noise: Overconsumption of social media reduces focus and discipline.
  • “You probably need to spend 60% less time on social media in 2026.” — Ian (10:55)
• Trading on Hearsay: Chasing rumors or influencer tips without proper technical or fundamental understanding is risky.
• Overtrading and FOMO: Short-term success often leads to reckless strategies like overtrading and gambling on options.
  • “People are treating their broker's account like it's FanDuel or DraftKings and it's not.” — Jabbar (12:44)
• Not Having a Plan: Approaching investing without a structured, articulated plan is a recipe for setbacks.

[Notable Quote]

“You have to be disciplined about this. You actually have to know—knowing is important... Because the more understanding you have, the more conviction you have...”
— Jabbar (13:09)

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2. The 10 Steps for 2026 Success (Rashad’s Blueprint) [13:49–19:45]

Rashad provides a detailed, actionable checklist for 2026:

1. Create a Budget
   • Use apps like YNAB, Monarch Money, Rocket Money/Capital, Every Dollar, Pocket Guard, Good Budget, or go pen & paper.
2. Automate Dollar-Cost Averaging
   • Invest consistently each month, ideally timed with paycheck.
3. Open/Increase Retirement Account Contributions
   • Benefit from tax savings; review and update beneficiaries.
4. Commit to Education
   • One documentary a week, one book every 60 days (suggests reading "The 12 Week Year").
5. Break Goals Down (Micro-Years)
   • Weekly and biweekly milestones, actionable steps, frequent accountability.
6. Business Networking Trips
   • Commit to two business trips for networking (“traveling accelerates your growth”).
7. Health & Diet Discipline
   • Work out 4x a week, monitor nutrition.
8. Dedicate 3 Hours/Day to Increasing Earnings
   • Start a business, get a new job, invest in skills.
   • “It’s going to take at least three hours a day…” — Rashad (19:02)
9. Limit Social Media to Max 1 Hour/Day
   • More time for high-return activities.
10. Efficient Operation/Evaluation
    • Run your life/business with intention and discipline.

[Notable Quote]

“If you want to change your life, sometimes you got to do drastic changes.”
— Rashad (19:05)

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3. Macro Outlook for 2026: Cautious Optimism Amid Volatility [25:30–35:10]

• Asset Accumulation ("Asset Hoarding") is Key: 2026 is described as a must-win year for aggressively accumulating quality assets, especially tech and index funds, ahead of anticipated market turbulence.
  • “Now you’ve got to be an asset hoarder... This has to be a deep accumulation year.” — Troy (25:55)
• Deregulation and AI Spending: Deregulation tailwinds are boosting AI, data infrastructure, and financials; persistent infrastructure and data center spending to continue.
• Big Tech (Hyperscalers) to Remain Dominant: Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, etc. continue to drive growth.
• Prepare for Pullbacks and Recession Fear: There is widespread expectation of a significant market dip or correction by late 2026/early 2027, though the market should end positive for most investors.
  • "Your job is to accumulate as many assets as possible." — Ian (25:58)
• Long-Term Mindset > Short-Term Anxiety: Focus on decade-long horizons rather than annual performances to capture true wealth-building.

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4. Key Sectors & Stocks for 2026

Technology

• Mega-cap Tech: Microsoft, Nvidia, AMD, Micron, Apple, Tesla, etc.
  • “Rotation is an act of suicide… You have to hyper invest into the mega cap tech.” — Ian (94:17)
• ETFs: SMH for semis, MAG7/MAGS for mega-cap exposure.
• Robinhood as a 2026 Play:
  • "I think Robinhood is set up... What they're building is loyalty." — Jabbar (74:45)

Financials

• JP Morgan (JPM): Remains the top banking stock pick.
  • “JP Morgan has had a record year… one of the banks that are safe of almost any crash...” — Ian (50:13)
• Citi as a Sleeper: Strong performance and potential deregulation benefit.
• Deregulation Tailwinds: Easing regulations and likely buybacks bode well for bank profits.

Commodities

• Gold: Strong hedge, benefiting from inflation/debt fears.
  • “Gold is an asset that... benefits from times when people are losing confidence in the dollar.” — Rashad (47:52)
• Copper: The overlooked infrastructure metal to watch as data centers and AI expand globally.

Other

• Private Equity: Early investing in pre-IPO/pre-tokenization opportunities still largely gatekept.
• ETFs as Entry for Small Investors: For those with less capital, ETFs like SMH or XLF mitigate single-company risk while participating in sector upside.

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5. The Importance of Research, Continuous Learning & AI Tools

• Panelists leverage AI platforms for research:
  • Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity (89:00–92:20)
• Recommend building “human intelligence” first, then using AI for efficiency.
• "If I can learn it, I can teach it... So I'm always trying to learn..." — Jabbar (89:42)

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6. Questions from the Audience: Practical Guidance

Asset Allocation & Diversification

• Splitting Exposure: For those new to private/VC investing, panelists suggest a 50-25-25 split across public stocks, private investments, and crypto. (97:55–99:31)

Roth vs. Options vs. ETFs

• Start with Ownership: Max out Roth for tax advantages; own shares of best-in-class companies or broad ETFs before venturing into options trading.
  • “Should options be your first thing? No, no, no.” — Jabbar (101:07)

Portfolio Adjustments As Returns Grow

• Move Gains to Safer Assets: As you profit on high-risk names (e.g., Palantir), rotate to safer ETFs to reduce drawdown risk.
  • “As you accumulate more money, you want to put it into safer buckets or safer assets.” — Troy (107:12)

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7. Politics, Regulation & Social Landscape: Watch the Shifts

• 2026 Midterms: Political outcomes will heavily influence regulatory/tax environment and market sentiment.
  • "The biggest thing to watch for next year is the political landscape, because that's going to determine the economic landscape for sure." — Rashad (64:50)
• Powell Out, New Fed Chair In: Unknown appointee = major variable for rates, inflation, and investor confidence.

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8. Wealth, Mindset, and Community Advancement

• Accountability and Community: Build brokerage/investing groups, double down on collective asset ownership, and network with intent.
• Long-term Vision & Discipline: Repeat: Time in quality assets beats timing and noise.
• Service to Others: Real experts want you to win—execute advice, avoid decision paralysis, and ignore naysayers.
  • "You have to have a pre-determined target in your long-term and short-term investing journey." — Ian (112:23)
• Panel’s Personal Reflections: Panelists stress the power of teamwork, humility, and being receptive to growth and criticism.
• Wealth-Building Mindset:
  • “Freedom for your family has to be the goal.” — Troy (115:08)
  • “If you want to get rich, stop bullshitting on social media.” — Troy (114:19)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Asset Accumulation
  "Asset hoarder. Asset hoarder. This has to be a deep accumulation year." — Troy (25:58)
• On Discipline & Overtrading
  “Treating your brokerage account like FanDuel...you've gotta be disciplined.” — Jabbar (12:44)
• On Avoiding Distraction
  "You probably need to spend 60% less time on social media in 2026.” — Ian (10:58)
• On Investing Mindset
  "If you're not willing to hold for 10 years, you're just talking...Hold for five years minimum, ideally 10." — Ian (31:12, 39:04)
• On Working Smarter & Harder
  “Do more, so I can pay you more, there you go." — Troy (23:22)
• On Future-Proofing
  "There is no more safety in corporate...everyone is going to be forced to be an investor and entrepreneur." — Troy (39:35)
• On Research with AI
  "If I can learn it, I can teach it. And so I'm always trying to learn because I'm always trying to teach." — Jabbar (89:42)
• On Owning, Not Renting, Wealth
  "We have to start having conversations about owning a large percentage of companies." — Troy (44:21)
• On Health Insurance Costs & Spending
  "If you haven't been where someone's been, don't challenge them on something you haven't experienced." — Rashad (78:49–80:45)

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Important Timestamps

• Biggest Mistakes to Avoid in 2026: 09:43–13:37
• 10-Step Blueprint for Success: 13:49–19:45
• Market Outlook & Asset Hoarding: 25:30–35:10
• Tech Sector Conviction & ETF Strategy: 40:11–44:18
• Gold/Copper & Commodities Discussion: 45:14–49:24
• Biggest Bank Plays (JPMorgan/Citi): 50:01–54:03
• Impact of Deregulation: 53:25–54:03
• Political Risk and Fed Outlook: 64:50–67:16
• Using AI for Research: 88:58–92:20
• Portfolio Building & Asset Allocation: 97:02–99:31
• Retirement Investing vs. Active Trading: 100:09–104:39
• Panel Reflections & Year-in-Review: 71:14–85:20
• Closing Insights and Advice: 119:02–124:43

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Final Takeaways

• 2026 is FOR action, not passivity—prioritize accumulating quality assets (especially tech, financials, and well-chosen ETFs).
• Discipline and consistent execution will separate winners from losers during heightened volatility and macro uncertainty.
• Ignore the noise and short-term fads—build conviction through research, use AI to your advantage, and focus on a decade-long strategy.
• Community and accountability matter—investing together multiplies impact; wealth is a team sport.
• The best time to prepare is now—review the actionable blueprint, set goals, and commit to intentional wealth-building for you and your family.

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[Closing Thoughts]

“You deserve to be rich. Get the book. You deserve to be wealthy. Lock in.”
— Ian (119:29)

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Next episode airs January 5, 2026—Bring two friends and get ready to take your investing to the next level!

Transcript

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[Rashad]

For me, entrepreneurship has always been the way.

[Troy]

Investing is important because it's the only.

[Ian]

Way you are going to be able.

[Troy]

To get rich and wealthy for your family. We can close the wealth gap by working together.

[Rashad]

Market Monday is the biggest investment show ever. My life has literally changed since watching eylad.

[Troy]

When you can make people money, you can add value.

[Jabbar]

They're going to be forever indebted to.

[Troy]

You and I promise you this year I'm gonna make y' all even more money.

[Jabbar]

Well, did we keep our promise? Do we make you more money this year?

[Ian]

Big facts.

[Jabbar]

Big facts man. Happy Monday. Welcome back. Hopefully everybody is sitting in a comfort of their own home or somebody else's home or listening at work. Man. It's been a hell of a 20. 25 market Mondays is here we live y'.

[Ian]

All.

[Jabbar]

How y' all feeling? How y' all feeling? Chat what's up Chad?

[Troy]

What's poppin Shoddy Troy Greetings and salutations. How y' all feeling?

[Jabbar]

Great man.

[Ian]

How you good man. Happy to be here.

[Jabbar]

Hello for 25 my brother.

[Ian]

For sure 26.

[Jabbar]

Even better God willing, scaling looks likely.

[Ian]

Perpetual scaling, perpetual scaling.

[Troy]

But don't give up all your rights in the scale.

[Jabbar]

Please, please, I'm begging you, please. Valuable lesson, man. It Christmas week. How we, how we feeling? We got any shopping anxiety? Where we at with this?

[Ian]

Yeah, I'm going Muslim next year.

[Troy]

Teach me my brother, next year.

[Jabbar]

You said 1 1%, right?

[Ian]

For real?

[Troy]

5%. Any anything, any percentage, my lord. Peace to the God. I'm to all of it.

[Jabbar]

Now remember all that money cap.

[Troy]

Those are capital gains.

[Jabbar]

Oh man, we, we are here. Shout out to all the kids that are home from school. Shout out to the parents that are off from work. It's that time of the year. We're closing out the year. Last episode of Market Mondays. Weird because I know next Monday we're gonna be sitting like, yeah, what are we supposed to do?

[Ian]

Enjoy the family friendship.

[Jabbar]

That's a fact shot. How you feeling?

[Rashad]

Good, Good, man. Shout out to everybody out there checking in with us. We got a busy week. Closing off the year strong. We got. We got a blackout 10 o' clock on Wednesday. Carry champion.

[Ian]

Hey, legend icon be a guest blackout.

[Rashad]

And then Thursday is Christmas, but we gotta. We got a special bonus episode that we're gonna put out midday 12 o'. Clock. So while you home, if you want to just tap in real short, like 30 minutes. But when we were in, when we was in Senegal, we interviewed a real estate developer and we actually put it on Instagram and talk. But like remember that tour we took at a million dollar penthouse?

[Troy]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Rashad]

That guy that gave us the tour. So we actually sat down with him and he, and we spoke about not just Senegal, but just investing Africa, real estate, the whole, the whole thing. So we're gonna put that out on Christmas Day. 12 o' clock in the afternoon on Christmas Day. Like I said, you got time. You, you know, home got some downtime in between the basketball games. Check it out. So that's going to be out and then after that then we take off next week, no content. There's no Eyl, there's no Market Mondays. There's no blackout.

[Ian]

No stuff.

[Rashad]

Yeah, no nothing.

[Ian]

Nothing.

[Rashad]

Next week, Next week is the, is the, the down week for us. We. We black out really. And then we come back January 5th with all new back at it. So yeah, man, tap in all, all this week we're gonna. It's gonna be good shows. Market Mondays, blackout. Like I said, Jerry Champion. Thursday we got the, the brother from Senegal real estate developer really doing his thing. And while you have time next week we're going to talk about different things that you should do to prepare for 2026. But catch up on some old episodes and subscribe. Subscribe to the audio podcast Market Mondays. Earn your leisure blackout. Subscribe to the audio podcast when you're in your car driving.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

Or watch the YouTube and, you know, take some time to think about 2026.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've been cooking up too. We got, we saw some, some dope pieces over the past couple weeks. So we got some dope stuff. More content on the way in 2026. Shout out to everybody that pulled up to the class on Thursday. We, we went over some things, man. Shout out to Dahudo, shout out to Steph, shout out to Austin. Incredible class. We was in there for three hours, man, and showed what happened in 2025. They said, I, I tapped into my end of Rashad and Ian and I said, yo, sometimes you just got to do that. You gotta top down show name. So we did that. And shout out to everybody that's in Red Panda as well. Or just that cup clothes. Crazy.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Jabbar]

It's been a hell of a year, man. So let's make sure that we turn 26 into something even more incredible.

[Rashad]

Yeah, for sure. So let's get into it first and foremost. Yeah. Happy holidays to everybody that's observing. Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, to all the Israelites out there. Any holiday that you observe during this, this course of time, you know, if you observe it, then hopefully you have a joyous time with your family and then we won't be seeing you guys to New Year. So Happy New Year's in advance also.

[Ian]

Absolutely.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before we get started, man, y' all know how this works.

[Rashad]

Oh, Ian, you want to say something?

[Troy]

Yeah. Red panda trading tournament, January 5th.

[Ian]

Be ready.

[Troy]

I know you got the holidays.

[Ian]

Happy holidays. Salute.

[Troy]

That starts January 5th. But until the new year, I'm off.

[Ian]

The grid spending time with family and friends. So if you send me a message.

[Troy]

About investing, I probably will not reply into the new year.

[Ian]

If I made you money, please put. You got some chat. Red Panda.

[Troy]

Let me get some pandas in chat.

[Ian]

And let's play an amazing show.

[Jabbar]

I want a lot of you guys in chat. A lot of pandas in chat, man.

[Ian]

Yep.

[Troy]

Listen, the first time.

[Jabbar]

Yeah. We can't take these moments for granted. All right, y' all know how this works, man. This is our disclaimer. Our content is a tendency to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It's very important to do your own analysis. Before making any investment based on your own personal circumstances, you should take independent financial advice from a professional connection with or independently research and verify any information that you find on our show and wish to rely upon whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise. Do the research, Continue to do the research. Share the research. Show love. Let's build community. Let's build our brokerage accounts. Let's build wealth. Let's do it together, man. We all we got.

[Troy]

Oh, we all we got. But if you calling about a Christmas gift or a favor and we not family or friends, believe the rumors online.

[Ian]

I don't have no money.

[Jabbar]

No, you got some random calls.

[Ian]

What I got.

[Jabbar]

I got a few random calls. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a little busy.

[Troy]

What.

[Jabbar]

About the karate tournament right now?

[Ian]

Nope.

[Rashad]

Yes, sir.

[Jabbar]

Remember when? Oh, real quick. Happy, happy heavenly birthday to my grandmother. Today's hero have been her birthday. Happy birthday. I know my parents are watching, so happy birthday.

[Rashad]

Happy birthday. God bless. Okay, let's get into it. Also, Nvidia, the emails have been sent for group A. Please respond if you have not responded yet. The Group A trip, Group B, we will be sending emails but the Group B, that trip is in the spring. So you, you have time. But we'll be sending the emails to group B also too very soon. And we'll also be sending correspondence for the mastermind in D.C. but the group A, everybody that got that email, check your email. Double check your email. Most people responded. I think there's only like a few people that have not responded. So yeah, we'll be following up with you whoever did not respond. But make sure you respond so we can have an accurate headcount for that. Okay. What are some of the biggest mistakes investors can make in 2026?

[Troy]

I want to be very honest and get back to the old style of.

[Ian]

How I used to be things and.

[Troy]

Super blunt about it. Number one, is not making the decision.

[Ian]

Next year to acquire two or three thousand shares for yourself.

[Troy]

Personally, I know some people are going to say I don't have the capital to do it, but find a way because I think next year is probably going to be the most interesting year in investing that we've had probably since 2020. Number two, double down on what your freedom number is and put a lot of cash into making that a reality. They just told you they're working like crazy. Shout to the interviews y' all got coming out. I won't say nothing, but they are working hard. Magic Johnson told you at Invest fest.

[Ian]

They Gary Vee working hard.

[Troy]

Peter to every top entrepreneur is busting ass right now and that's because there's going to be a seismic change that comes in 26 and 27. Now is not the time to play or get comfortable with every success you have accumulated from 2020 through now because you're going to need more in 26 and 27. Lastly, I will say you got to.

[Ian]

Block out all the noise.

[Troy]

All that noise is online. I would say this. And Rashad and I talked about it on Blackout. Troy does an amazing job of it, of staying off social. You probably need to spend 60 less time on social media. In 2026, Jake Paul ran up a hundred million and Anthony Joshua ran up 90, but he got to pay 45 in taxes. These big numbers are being thrown around for a reason. So I'm begging you right now, lock.

[Ian]

In for 2026 and I want everyone.

[Troy]

To put in chat.

[Ian]

What is your freedom number for 2026? What do you guys think biggest mistakes are?

[Troy]

Let's just talk like it's us.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, biggest mistakes. I think trading off a hearsay, like it's like that meme stop craze, but a little bit more elevated than that. It's like, yo, I, I saw this company, I heard them say this company, let me just invest in it. Not really knowing anything from a technical side of like just, I'm just doing it. I think a lot of times when people get early success, they think that, that short term success can lead into long term wealth strategy and they start doing things like overtrading, start taking, you know, same day options trades. Not having any idea, just trying to replicate the feeling of, of what they had in that short term win. And that's when people lose money. And we're seeing that more and more and I think if we don't get it right, if we're not disciplined, if we don't have a proper approach, if we don't have a plan, it's only going to get worse because, and even when talking to Vlad and we're talking about predictive markets, people are treating their broker's account like it's FanDuel or it's DraftKings and it's not.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Jabbar]

And so you, you've gotta, you gotta be disciplined about this. But you actually have to know knowing is important. Like we can overstate it and we can, it's important to know what you're investing in. Yes. Get to a thousand shares. Let's start with getting to five and understanding what the company you just invested in does. Right. Because the more understanding you have, the more education you have around it, the more conviction you have when people start to doubt what you're saying. I'm only speaking from experience.

[Ian]

Right.

[Jabbar]

Like literally, you've seen this over the past six years. We say something. I'm not budging on that because I believe in what I'm saying. And if, if, if it's a great company that doesn't have a great year, fine. But a lot of times these are great companies that are having great years because there's conviction, education behind it. So be disciplined in it. Don't gossip, trade. Right. Really understand what you're doing and why you're doing it.

[Troy]

Shoddy.

[Ian]

What you think, top mistakes that people can make in 2026.

[Rashad]

Well, I wanted to do something. I actually put together a list of things that people should do.

[Troy]

Okay.

[Ian]

I love it.

[Rashad]

Yeah. Because I think that that's important to kind of have some level of a blueprint. Biggest mistake, I think, is not not having a plan. So with that being said, I put together 10 things I think everybody should do in 2026. And that's the first thing, is put together a budget and few budgeting apps for you if you're interested. Y, N A B. You need a budget. Monarch money, Rocket money, Capital money. Every dollar. Pocket guard, Good budget and simplify by Quicken. So, I mean, you could. What I used to do is just pen and paper.

[Ian]

Yeah, right.

[Rashad]

I think that's the best way. But if you actually want some level of like digital help in it, those are all sites that you can use or apps that you can use for budgeting. That's the first thing. The second thing is to set up a systematic dollar cost averaging plan to invest every single month, especially if you're first starting out. So whether that's the 15th traditional, usually it should be around the time you get paid. So if you get paid on the 12th and try to do it on the 15th, set up a retirement account if you don't have one. And if you do have one, try to contribute more so you can benefit from the tax savings from that. Review all your beneficiaries. That's important.

[Ian]

That's a good one.

[Rashad]

Not just life insurance, but also even like your bank account and brokerage account and anything that you have that's going to get passed on to somebody. Review the beneficiaries, keep the beneficiaries updated because you never know. Commit to one. Commit to your education. I recommend one documentary a week and one book every 60 days. So, so that would be that. I don't think that that's too hard to accomplish. Especially you can listen to audiobook, but the average person, they said doesn't read any books a year. And I think the average CEO reads like two books a month.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

So if you, if you start to really dedicate to one book every 60 days, that's six books a year. You're off to a good start. And like I said, the documentary, I think the documentaries, they just expand your horizon and have you think a little differently. And there's so many great documentaries that you can just find on YouTube and Netflix. So one documentary a week, one book every 60 days. Map out your goal for the next 12 months, but do it in a. I think everybody should read the book 12 week year.

[Ian]

Yeah, that's a really good book.

[Rashad]

You don't just map out your goal and just say I want to make a hundred thousand dollars, I want to make $500,000. That's not really a goal, that's a wish. There's actually a systematic way to actually go about that. We broke this down at EY University, but that book actually explains it how the purpose of the book is that you, you break the, the year into micro years.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

You have like goals, like weekly goals, bi weekly goals. That helps you get to the goal go quicker. And then you actually have to list the action steps of how you're actually going to accomplish the goal. Because like I said, you make. I'm gonna make $5,000 a year. What does that really mean? That doesn't. That that's not a goal. Like I said, that's a wish. You gotta actually list out the actionable steps that you need to take to make $500,000 a year. Then you got to hold yourself accountable on a short term basis, preferably weekly, to see if you're actually hitting those numbers or not. So everybody should, should commit to that.

[Jabbar]

Or have accountability partners in there.

[Rashad]

Yeah, for sure. Commit to two travel trips this year for business and networking purposes solely. So vacation I don't think should be a top priority. If you listen to a variety of different billionaires, a very common theme is that they said that they have not taken vacation a long time. They didn't take a vacation for the first 20 years. Even now, like, I don't really take too many vacations. We travel a lot, but it's for business work first.

[Ian]

Yep.

[Rashad]

Map out what I mean. Of course Invest Fest should definitely be on your list. But map out where you're going to go this year because you got to get out your comfort zone, you got to get inspired and you got to meet new people. And traveling really does help accelerate your growth. So two, two business trips this year. Set a diet and workout plan. Vitally important. I think you should be working out at least four times a week, one hour a day.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

And work eating is just as important. Me, myself, I just stopped eating after 8 o'.

[Ian]

Clock.

[Rashad]

You gotta really be conscious of the food that you put in your body because it definitely plays a part in your productivity. Commit to three hours a day of earning more money. Now this might be something that a lot of people might have some level of pushback, but if you want to change your life, sometimes you got to do drastic changes. And I'm not saying anything that I personally didn't do myself, but I feel like everybody, most people need to find ways to make more money. So it's only three ways. You either start a business, you get another job, or you invest in your education. You're actually picking up a new, a new skill or you have a higher level degree that's going to. Either one of those things is going to require extra time out of your day. So like I said, I'm going to be honest with you. It's going to take at least three hours a day to be completely honest. It's probably going to take more, but we'll start with that. You're gonna have to commit at least three hours of your day over learning something to learn something to work on your business or actually just to get a new another job. But you got to make more money because if you don't have the money, then you're not gonna be able to invest. So that's a big one. Then the last thing is what you said before. Try to limit your social media time to one hour a day max because a lot of that is hindering your ability to grow because you're spending too much time on social media. So Those are my 10 things that I would advise people to do for 2026. If you want to change your life business wise and, and make more money, you have to run an efficient operation.

[Ian]

I love the list.

[Troy]

And even for you hot earners need a budget. Even for you high earners, you need to learn something else because the way this economy is going, they're forcing everyone to be entrepreneurs.

[Ian]

So whether you're in corporate or your.

[Troy]

Entrepreneur, you're going to have to evolve.

[Ian]

And learn new skill sets.

[Troy]

Like, like this is a new era of entrepreneurship that we're in now, you can't take that 80s style of playing.

[Ian]

Basketball and use it now into the era that we're in.

[Jabbar]

I don't think you can take the 2020 style.

[Troy]

It's a D. It's like two lifetimes almost.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Jabbar]

I mean, you think about the people and a lot of entrepreneurs that we saw step into the space, the game plan that they had. And during that pandemic, it doesn't exist anymore. So how do you adjust? How do you figure out a new way? A lot of people haven't figured out a new way or they're in the process of trying to figure out how to do it right. So, like, and I know people, like, will watch social media and like, oh, I'm inspiring to do that or look at them. They've done that. A lot of them don't have a plan.

[Troy]

They don't.

[Jabbar]

They didn't have a budget. Right. And so now it's like, how do I save myself from showing the people? Exactly. I'm back to where I started, which is tough.

[Troy]

And I know they say you got to learn how to build a plane on the way down, but that's that. They say to entrepreneurs, and I give you real advice. You have to have the plan to.

[Ian]

Make sure that the plane flies for a long period of time before you launch it.

[Troy]

They'll tell you a lot of BS that does not work. This is why the show is so valuable. They'll tell you that. Opposed to what to invest in, what systems to build, what coding software to implement into your business, what agents to build into inside of your business, and be careful of the business advice that you take. Because a lot of people who are starting to skate into this category because the entertainer thing didn't work and they see a bag here. Be careful to who you listening to as well.

[Ian]

Respectfully.

[Troy]

To everybody.

[Jabbar]

Respectfully, but please.

[Ian]

Yep.

[Rashad]

Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, that's my. That's my. That's my 10.

[Jabbar]

So. So that 10 inside there. If they're not doing those things, that's the biggest mistakes.

[Rashad]

Yeah, well, I mean, like I said, the mistakes is. Is not having a plan. So that was my segue. Because you could say, like, you don't have a plan. But then it's like, well, what does that mean? Once again, that's like having a goal.

[Jabbar]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

Like saying, like, oh, such a goal. Have a plan. What is a plan? What. What's the point? Well, that's the plan.

[Jabbar]

There goes your plan.

[Rashad]

That's a plan. That's not. That's not the only Plan. But that would be a plan that I would recommend that I think. And look, you might not be able to accomplish all 10 of those, but fall short 7.

[Jabbar]

Which one's gonna be the toughest for you?

[Rashad]

For me? Yeah.

[Jabbar]

I'm gonna go with number 10.

[Rashad]

Well, social media is my occupation, so that's a little different. So unless you. There's always, there's always differences if you earn, if you're an influencer.

[Jabbar]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

You can't, you can't be on social media one hour a day if you, if you earn money from social media. But, but most people are using social media. They're not, they're not, they might not necessarily escape earning money. They're not earning money or it's not their occupation. So that's the thing that, you know, it's definitely harmful for sure. Regardless, even if it is your occupation, it's harmful. Like it's a lot of harmful things, but it's a necessary evil for the time being. And there's some good, There's a lot of good on social media.

[Jabbar]

I'm almost at the point with Sundays. I don't, I don't go on at all.

[Ian]

That's smart.

[Troy]

But to my team, I love you, but if I'm paying a premium in my brain and produce more for me so I can pay you more, that's all the conversation we got to have. Everyone's, everyone wants the high end high ticket. Are you delivering a high enough return to where it's easier to continue to pay a high ticket.

[Jabbar]

Do more so I can pay you more. There you go.

[Ian]

Absolutely.

[Troy]

I shouldn't even have to, but I.

[Ian]

Love my team, so it's not to.

[Troy]

Y', all, but if you're working with people, deliver such a high return that they don't even have and that. And to solutions. If you can figure out for a corporation how to implement agents, AI or agentic copy or marketing or sales or investing, that's how you're going to get.

[Ian]

To 2 and 3 million in a year easily.

[Troy]

There's not enough people who are having solutions around many ideas. And you can just scour threads, Instagram, Twitter, and see some of those pain points and just do what we did. Hey, give it for free. A lot of y' all hate the intern. Like I love when Kanye even said, I want to go intern for Louis Vuitton. People thought he was crazy. Well, it helps to learn the system if you give it away for free. Now you have your results and the results that you can then take to a new client. And then charge them 100 grand for it. 300 grand.

[Ian]

1.5.

[Troy]

Get the result first.

[Jabbar]

Yeah. Learn to create the plan. Develop a skill. Leverage the skill. Execute on it. Do it.

[Rashad]

Book recommendation. You deserve to be rich.

[Jabbar]

Come on, stop it.

[Rashad]

Y' all know that you deserve to be rich. New York Times bestseller, by the way. And in one of those six books. Few book recommendations, but one, you deserve to be rich definitely is up there. Like I said, the 12 week year. I think that's something that's very helpful and beneficial if you're trying to really maximize how to actually format setting goals and being more organized with your life.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Business Ego is the enemy. Shout out to Great book. My brother Jabbar, he gave us that book six years ago. He brought a gift and that was the book that he gave me. Great book. I suggest anybody in business because a lot of times people are trying to do something and be solo entrepreneurial, like solopreneurs. And then like, I can do it.

[Ian]

I can do it. I could do it.

[Jabbar]

I could do it. Do it together.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Jabbar]

Figure out how you can do it and scale together. Find somebody that has a skill set that you don't, a strength that you don't, and figure out how to build together.

[Troy]

So what is the Any book by Cal Newport is in on time efficiency as an entrepreneur.

[Ian]

Amazing. Amazing.

[Rashad]

What is the outlook for 2026 in the market?

[Troy]

It's going to be tumultuous, but I think it'll end positive.

[Ian]

And then 2027, then we'll have iceberg slim show up.

[Troy]

The most important lesson that I need you guys to know for 2026, whether.

[Ian]

We have a deep decline or we're.

[Troy]

Flat, your job is to accumulate as many assets as possible. Now you got to be an asset hoarder. Like, if it's accumulation time. For those of you who believe in microstrategy, if you believe in that, then.

[Ian]

It'S time for you to pile in.

[Troy]

If you believe in bitcoin, it's time.

[Ian]

For you to pile into that.

[Troy]

A lot of you are asking about SpaceX. Okay, well, let's cover Microsoft first. Your index funds first. But this has to be a deep accumulation year. And also too, now is not the year for you to learn more. And I know he just said that, but in the market, we've given you.

[Ian]

What to invest in.

[Troy]

You have to deploy more capital there. The sense that I get from every person that I talk to and no one knows what the free fall cause is going to be. But everyone I talk to knows that there's going to be a free fall.

[Ian]

At some point in 26, going into 27.

[Troy]

And here's the part that no one's going to tell you, no one's going to save you when you're in desperation, because no one really gives a. That's why most people who have information, they're quieter than ever in gatekeeping. There's not many people telling you, even with SpaceX. Thank God for Vlad, but look how much pushback they gave him on tokenization of pre IPO assets. We got this market down, but they're going to block you out. The VC and the angel deals, why? Private equity deals, why?

[Ian]

Because they don't want you to have access to it.

[Troy]

They want to keep that 1%. It's like, well, we gave you all the stock market, you can have that, but the 700 gainers that you can get before it even hits the market.

[Ian]

We don't even want you to touch that.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, I think that's why this is such an important time, such an important show, such an important moment. 2026, I'm optimistic about it and there's a couple I always talk about catalyst events and things that can have the market move. I think if you look at the hyperscalers, the Metas, the Amazons, the Microsofts of the world, Google's Tesla, I think from what we've seen in 2025 and what their future projections are for 2026, I think the CapEx story still is the same. You ask yourself the question, are they going to spend less or are they going to spend more? And the answer is more. And if we're talking about infrastructure, are we talking about spending less? Are we going to be talking about spending more? We're going to be talking about spending more. Deregulation is a word that keeps coming up and I think it plays a major part into the story of 2026 in terms of AI. Specifically when we talk about Jensen and our battle, our race to make sure that we stay ahead of China. You said the deregulation is going to be the biggest issue. Right. If it takes us six weeks to build or six years to build a data center and it takes them two days to build a hospital, that's going to be a problem for us in the future. We have to figure out how we can get these things happening faster to the point where now AI deregulation is going state by state. So you start to see the early signs with that deregulation helps the AI industry. But it also helps the financial industry when we talking about banks and we'll, we'll talk about those a little bit later. So that's a tailwind that I think helps the market. When you, you talk about autonomous and ev. This is the year for Tesla so it show improve. So that's another event. I think the new Fed chair. Right. This is not going to be a person who is going to be, you know, someone that's going to set the economy back or you would think if, or they wouldn't be selected. So, so that is one. The, the China story with Nvidia is another one. I think that first half of the year I'm super optimistic. I think we're going to have another positive year. I know we're pacing, we're pacing at 17 right now or just under it. So it would be three years and potentially of 20% gains. Now that's happened once before and I was listening to Tom Lee earlier, he was like, we've seen this happen in the 90s when we're talking about the Internet. And then that fourth year was actually one of the better years out of the four. Obviously we know what happens in 99 and 2000. But I'm optimistic about the market. I, I saw Oppenheimer had a S p target of 8,100 and then there was, you know, S p raise of 7,100. But that median is like 7, 700. Which, which tells us again that we potentially will be sitting at another 11 to 13% gain for the S and P. Yeah. Which is, I mean just above average, which is good. So I'm optimistic about it. I think toward the end of the year we, we may see some tailwinds that might turn the market a little bit negative. Obviously this is a midterm year. We already spoke about how markets perform in midterm years as government changes and political offices change. So we'll be looking toward that in November. But I think we start off the year pretty well.

[Troy]

And you got to.

[Ian]

Be more focused on the decade targets as a gym. I think too often people get too caught up in how a year is going to do.

[Troy]

Opposed to if you really want generational wealth, if you're not willing to hold.

[Ian]

For 10 years, you're just talking, you're.

[Troy]

Missing on too much upside to care.

[Ian]

About what it was going to happen in a quarter or six months.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, and I, I don't, I say that because I don't want people to be fearful. Right. Like they keep hearing about this crash. They keep hearing about we're going to recession and then it doesn't happen and then you don't do anything because you kept listening to what people were saying. So.

[Troy]

Well, we hit recession in 22 and they changed the definition of what it was. But that was an immense buying opportunity. Just like they won't print the fit reports now.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Jabbar]

And look at the returns out of that from 22. Right. You're talking about again, three years or potentially 20 gains. So you, you can't. The recession if, if it, if it does happen. Right. Or let's say we have a downturn. We just got to be prepared for that because that's when people are going to make money. That's the exact time when you should be investing. Like, okay, here we were prepared for it. We got our entry prices, whether it was in futures and options or if you're just buying equities. Now we can grab those shares that we want at a price that we want and let's watch those returns over the next 2, 3, 5, 10, 20 years.

[Rashad]

Somebody said in chat, they said, do you think Netflix is gonna pass over a hundred dollars in Netflix? We talked about this on Blackout, but obviously, you know them coming into the podcast game, they made a lot of news last week. They signed a bunch of podcasts, including Breakfast Club and Joe and Jada's show. And then they also had the fight with Jake Paul. And we're gonna call it a fight. The event, technically. Yeah. With Jake Paul.

[Jabbar]

Anthony. Joshua.

[Rashad]

Anthony Joshua. So Netflix has been making a lot of news this whole entire year. But that was one of the questions is, is it going to pass over a hundred dollars anytime soon?

[Ian]

Yes. I mean, I think that's an easy target for them to hit.

[Troy]

But I think the fallen of Netflix.

[Ian]

Is a canary in the coal mine for what's to come.

[Troy]

But the reason why I keep telling people to double down now because you.

[Ian]

See all the companies doing it.

[Troy]

Troy, you just brought up infrastructure and data centers. But even for Paramount to come back and say, well, Larry Ellison would personally guarantee you're okay. So when people ask what's a moat? Netflix having that fight this weekend and all the investment that they're going to put into future content to now become our generation's version of cable, is them building a moat in front of our face? Will they go back to 100?

[Ian]

Yes.

[Troy]

Are we going to still see the 35, 40 year over year gains? Probably not. But could they eke out 15 to 20 gains? Yes. Is Netflix a buy?

[Rashad]

Yes.

[Troy]

They are the verb in the category and probably One of the best run companies in the media space. Like, you look at what everything Netflix.

[Ian]

Has done.

[Troy]

Disney has dropped the ball on what they should have done. Now, there's a lot of regulatory reasons and personal vendettas inside of why. But would I get back to 100?

[Ian]

Yes. Hope for the long term. Yeah, you got, you'll be fine.

[Jabbar]

You gotta. You gotta hold Netflix. I mean, Netflix is coming to an interesting time. Obviously, the stock split happens and then the, the potential merger here. It's interesting because this is their quarter. Like, this is the quarter where you. You start to see what they're rolling out for their future. Obviously, another fight. More live sports. With the NFL happening on Christmas here, more. Stranger Things is. Is. Is blowing out all of its expectations, but inside of that, they got the Diddy documentary. Like, I know we can say what we want, how we feel about it, but you're Talking about over 3 billion views for a documentary that you didn't even expect to be on the docket.

[Ian]

Yep.

[Jabbar]

And so that tells you, all right, this, this, there's growth here. People are really watching that. And people are subscribing at records. And then you go into the. The Iheart deal and it's like, okay, well, what. That's significant because now they want to be a part of your daily life. Right? Because when you watch Netflix, you watch a show, you're done with it in a day. Well, how can I become a part of your daily life if I don't have sports every day? What are people doing every day? Well, a lot of people are listening to podcasts on a daily basis. Yeah, they have the video component. You're probably watching that on a daily basis or at some point during your week. So if I can be part of your weekly schedule as opposed to, hey, Stranger Things is. Is done. I watch it all. Or switch.

[Rashad]

Seasonal.

[Jabbar]

It's seasonal. I'm done with it. Remember when Narcos was a thing? We were, you know, we're done with that in a weekend. How can I become part of your everyday ritual if I can't do it in live sports, I'm gonna do it in something that is also entertaining you, which is podcast, which is a huge business. Obviously, you know, we're a part of that business. The. The growth is there, the potential is there. This merger has kind of curveballed it a little bit, but I still like Netflix long term. I mean, I got a few positions in Netflix.

[Ian]

Hope for the long term. Yo, but we've been screaming the same thing like, just hold. Be Faithful to your portfolio. So you can be free put it in chat.

[Troy]

None of this three month, six months. Everything has to be five years. Like everyone in tech is playing 20 and 30 year games right now. Larry Ellison is personally guaranteeing billions of dollars for the benefit of his son. And people are worried about a three month run. Hold for. I've been telling you since beginning hold for five years, stay inside. Because a lot of y' all who popping it on the gram, you're hurting right now. Derek just told you, I can see who living through the business. You got lifestyle businesses and then guess what, they keep raising the prices on everything. Yeah, that no lifestyle games.

[Jabbar]

The Larry Ellison thing is, I mean we've been talking about him for a year now in terms of the moves that he's making, obviously from Stargate. And then with TikTok quietly like all the news with the Paramount potential merger with Warner Brothers, you know, they got approved and now they got 50 ownership in TikTok which you know, kind of said like if you look at who's doing the cloud server for TikTok, it was Oracle in 2020. They got that deal. They were going to be the leader to be an investment. But him saying, Look, I'm putting 40 billion up guaranteed is interesting because two weeks ago when the CFO of Netflix was on, he said that that was not part of the deal. Two weeks later, now they got a personal guarantee for 40 billion which tell you how important to them having that network is in terms of spreading the messages that they want, have a control of the messages that they want and having media. So one thing that the Ellison group, and I say group because David is the son at the head of Skydance in Paramount, Larry is obviously the dad and head of Oracle. They don't have a media army the way that they want to. Right? And I told during that class, look, Paramount does not make money. Skydance does make some money, but not enough to have this merger. Where were they going to get the back end? Dad said, look, I know I'm worth 250 is 40 guaranteed. Full cash deal. All cash deal.

[Troy]

Because in the next election if you can go back into that White House.

[Ian]

And say, well I can get you.

[Troy]

36 more million viewers per month, that'll secure the financing that you need for.

[Ian]

The other ventures to go.

[Troy]

Well, this is war games. That's why I like the tone that you. It's like it is not time to play at all. Notice. And the people who sold off their companies in the last few years, the.

[Ian]

UFC selling was Interesting. Then Dana ended up in the White House and on the board of Meta. Meta's involvement in the White House.

[Troy]

Vince McMahon walking away. But then they cut his legs from underneath him and told every little secret. That was the first Diddy doc to lower the valuation. Please, I am begging you. Because you don't know when we gonna end the show. Just one day we're just gonna pop up and like it's been fun. Deploy capital into the best assets on earth. Hold for five years minimum, ideally 10. They are changing the world in front of us. There is no more safety in corporate.

[Ian]

How this should be.

[Troy]

And it's unfortunate, but everyone is going.

[Ian]

To be forced to be an investor.

[Troy]

And entrepreneur given the wave of AI they have invested.

[Ian]

They're going to invest $2 trillion into AI. You can't afford to sit on the sideline.

[Rashad]

No, that's a fact. Another question. Is Micron better than amd?

[Troy]

Buy both, have a financial threesome. We're not doing this. Have a financial threesome or foursome, put in video in there and have a blast. All of them, all of them get to 10,000 shares.

[Jabbar]

I know why you asked the question. I understand the question. The answer is in the beginning of this episode of understanding what you're investing in and understanding that those two companies do two different things, right? So like when we're talking about AMD, we're talking about a company that makes GPUs and CPUs, when we're talking about Micron, Micron curates the memory for those GPUs and those CPUs they actually work together, right? So if you're investing in amd, look at who their memory partner is. If you're investing in Nvidia, look who their memory partners are. That's how you start to stack the companies, right? So you got to have the understanding, right? I wouldn't say, hey, is it ASML or is it amd? Well, those companies don't function if they don't have ASML to create the machines for TSM to manufacture, right? So it's different roles, different spots inside of this cycle of AI that you gotta understand. I'm doing both. Of course I'm doing both. We talked about AMD throughout the year. Micron obviously is, is hit its all time high again today.

[Troy]

So yeah, man, go watch every episode we've answered and, and not to that.

[Ian]

Person who asked the question, because you.

[Troy]

Solid but a bunch. Y' all ain't been faithful in y' all real lives, so why are you finna act like you singularly focus on the stock. Buy both AMD and video. We didn't told you that. The gamut of what now is the. Okay, this the real game. Can you put 50 of the money that's coming in into the assets? It's gonna make you money forever.

[Ian]

So you can talk like this.

[Troy]

That's the real game. No Flex, just put the money into the assets. Do like you do. There's a reason some of y' all are telling you little size.

[Ian]

I'm sick. Yeah.

[Troy]

Present on the 26th, AMD, Nvidia, Microsoft, buy everything because they're buying up everything.

[Jabbar]

That's. And you know what? This is like part of the. The. Those learning lessons that you. You get inside of your profession. Like, so when I was teaching, patience was one of those things that I had to have with students.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Jabbar]

And so a lot of times I'll get a text like, yo, yo, yo, Troy, what's the next one? And I'm like, yo, we told you, like on market Mondays micron for two years, it was $82. It was 79. It's at 276AMD when it was crashing. I'm like, yo, no, just stay there. Don't worry about number. Number two could be a winner. Number two could be a winner. That was at $80. Here we are at 215. It's happening.

[Troy]

Like, it's happening, right?

[Jabbar]

So the next one is the one we already said. You know what I mean? So, like. But that goes inside. And I spoke about this the other night was like, what type of investor are you? I think people need to put curiosity in the. The categories of what type of investor.

[Ian]

They'Re going to be.

[Jabbar]

Curiosity in the sense of, hey, you know what? AMD is a great company. Nvidia is a great company. But what makes those companies great? Like, are there companies that are assisting them in this run that they're having? Like, who are they using for connectivity? Who are they using for memory? Who, like, who is manufacturing for them? That type of curiosity will lead you to companies. Right. That can also scale with them. Right. Because if AMD is going to have blowout numbers, which I think they will next year, and Nvidia is going to continue to have blowout numbers, which I think they will next year. The China sales about to go online in February, then these companies are going to benefit as well. That's, that's just the level of curiosity you got to have as an Augusta.

[Ian]

Go ahead, Rashad.

[Rashad]

I've seen somebody put in chat for people put in Chat because the question, the question is valid as far as like you might not even have enough capital to really Deploy. That's why ETFs are good. So SMH is an ETF where you can not only invest in Nvidia and TSM and Broadcom and mu, but also AMD and ASML and Intel. So if you're interested in kind of seeing which one you want to pick, you can take the pathway of investing in the individual stock, but you can also invest in the ETF which invest in all of those companies in different level of percentages. So that's another way to go about it also.

[Jabbar]

And we've told them that a thousand times.

[Troy]

We have to start having conversations about.

[Ian]

Owning a large percentage of companies.

[Troy]

The boycott thing is good.

[Ian]

Shout out to Dr. Bryant or Jamal Bryant, Pastor Bryant.

[Troy]

But the boycott and they're not owning something as a community means nothing because guess what, the other retailers feel the same way. They just ain't said nothing. Like I feel you on that. We've told you. Rashad told you ETF is AMD or Micron. I saw the question, is gold gonna go to 4, 800, may take to January or February. But gold is at an all time high. Gold, silver, platinum, everything's going palladium. Palladium is going up, commodities are going up. But we can't just want the information to be gate kept from us and then get the information and not execute at the highest level I get. We want reparations.

[Ian]

This is it.

[Troy]

This is it. I'm only screaming this to you because next year is going to be serious.

[Jabbar]

Y'.

[Rashad]

All.

[Troy]

Like when you're talking to people, when you're talking to people that have net worth above 50 million, 100 million and they're worried why are we moving slow? Like we know all the answers. We need to decide next year what company as a community will we own 40 of, then get to the board meetings to change the board.

[Ian]

We didn't answer these so respectfully and this is what love. I'm just passionate about this because this is my art, just my passion.

[Rashad]

Talking gold definitely had a blowout. Yeah. Speaking of gold and it did hit another high and it's been, just been going up all year. It's kind of not really fell. It's been, it's been like on an upward trajectory. And you know, gold is an asset that obviously benefits from times when people are losing confidence in the dollar world worldwide and inflation is still high and national debt is all time high and all these different things that you Know we talked about that before the Mike Novogradz conversation that we had earlier when, when they, they were still running for president and it was either between Trump or Harris. That was last year. But that prophecy has been fulfilled. But a lot of people think that goal is still the best alternative asset outside of stocks. Even some people prefer it more than Bitcoin because of the historical track record that is had as far as gold has been around but 6,000 years and traded as currency and hasn't, you know, went off the face of the earth yet. And it's still to this day is still, you know, value all over the world. No matter where you go in the world, you can, you, you can pull out some gold and they're going to take it. So what's the outlook for gold?

[Ian]

It'll still be positive next year as, as we go in.

[Troy]

If there's any fear concern gold will have its value this year.

[Ian]

I think gold is up 49, silver.

[Troy]

84, platinum up 68.

[Ian]

The S P is roughly around 17. That in turn tells you so also.

[Troy]

The one year bond down 13, two year bond down 16, five year bond down 15, 10. You're down 10. In Japanese bond market that carry trade is over with. There's a lot of international concern. So gold should probably have a better year.

[Ian]

It is a hedge.

[Troy]

One of the things in Dalio's prophecy.

[Ian]

About the umbrella all weather strategy that.

[Troy]

He did get right and nail on.

[Ian]

The head is the investment into gold.

[Troy]

Some exposure is good, whether it's through God or you trade the gold future.

[Ian]

Or having physical gold, even though that.

[Troy]

Carries some limitations into how much you.

[Ian]

Can have, it is a great hitch into the market. And that way if your tech portfolio is driving down your gold, alternative currency portfolio should be going up.

[Jabbar]

I'm with you.

[Troy]

The game is simple, just the execution.

[Ian]

Is the hard part.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, somebody just put something in chat though, was dope. When I was talking about their curiosity, somebody said what about copper? Like that's the type of thought process is like, okay, if we're talking about metals, that type of thinking is like, all right, that's somebody who's on his way. Right. Because when you think about copper, well, why would that be something that a commodity that I would look into? Well, if we're talking about infrastructure and we're talking about connectivity, what type of metal is going to be inside these data centers? What's helping with that connectivity? What has a thermal capacity to have that type of power run through it? See what I'm saying? So like yeah, that would be something to look into as well. Going into not just 26, but if these data centers are being built not just here domestically, but internationally throughout the world, that's going to be something that's going to be needed. So make sure, if you're not looking at Copper, put it on your, put it on your watch list. I'm only saying because, I'm saying, yeah.

[Ian]

Copper's currently at 540. Now the future for it is backslash. HG on think or Swim. But it's also had a record year. It's had a record year and that gives.

[Jabbar]

So like when we see that it makes sense, it's like, okay, we can understand why that would have a record year. If we're talking about this revolution and we're talking about the expansion and infrastructure of it, right? Which is why a company like Oracle Falls is like, yeah, if you build it, they'll come, but we got to build it. And in order to build it, these are the pieces that are going to help build it.

[Rashad]

And banking stocks, if you had to invest in one banking stock going forward, what would it be?

[Jabbar]

I know what you're gonna say, bro, tell me. I know what you're gonna. I'm like, you're gonna say J.P. but go ahead, give your reasons. I'll give my, I'll give it the.

[Ian]

Proponents, yes, JP Morgan.

[Troy]

And it's solely because like if you go. Rashad brought up a great point to watch documentaries, right? Because it's. And preferably older documentaries because there's a lot more truth and it wasn't pushing one viewpoint. When you look at the history of banking, even if you go back to the Titanic classic movie, but the part that gets left out is who got assassinated on that trip and what happened after that trip, right? So fundamental to the infrastructure of America's money cycle and banking cycle, JP Morgan became the leader and due to whatever back channel reasons they've been allowed to usher in the stablecoin era for banks and have enough involvement inside of crypto where they, I think they'll be safe. While other banks, mid sized banks in.

[Ian]

Particular probably will hit a rough patch.

[Troy]

A lot of times it's not just about the efficiency of the business. But when Rashad and Troy are telling you about networking, one of the biggest parts of NETWORKING is the VC in a government relation cycle that stands for.

[Ian]

20 or 30 years.

[Troy]

JP Morgan has had a record year, even though Jamie Dimon is trying to find a way to leave and run president. Run for president, which I don't know.

[Ian]

If he'll win that. I don't think so.

[Troy]

But one of the banks that are safe of almost any crash and that has been selected since Warren Buffett is now stepping away next year is J.P. morgan. It doesn't.

[Ian]

And I think it's a great institution.

[Troy]

For some of the things that they do.

[Ian]

But it's because of that VC and infrastructure, government related reasons why they'll be fine next year.

[Jabbar]

Yeah. JP is a leader in investment banking, in trading, in commercial banking and asset management. And so those are four good reasons why you would do that. I'm gonna give a sleeper. Somebody in the chat said I was gonna put pnc. I'm not putting pnc. I could have. Goldman would have been another one. But they had an incredible year and maybe people haven't watched this chart but I, I'll give you time to look at it. Now go look up City's chart. Cities had an incredible year. It's probably had the best year out of any of those financials. Again, when we talk about the deregulation that could happen, financials are going to be the direct beneficiary of it. Quick, quick notes for you. Right. So heavy regulation. Here's what happens. It forces banks to spend billions of dollars on, on reporting audits, stress tests and legal overhead. If you have deregulation, that means there's going to be more money for the banks which means there's going to be more money for shareholders because they potentially will have buybacks. It also means that they're going to be more loans that are going to be issued and there's going to be different measures for credit which means that small business, well, businesses are going to have more loans. So these financials, if you listening to like CNBC or Bloomberg and they keep telling you about 2026, it's the year of financials. It's the year of financials. It's because there's something happening with deregulation.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Jabbar]

And they know that and they're trying to tell you but they can't tell you. So I'm telling you that's why they saying it. So I would look at. Obviously JP is number one clear cut. I like City as a sleeper though.

[Ian]

They had one of their best years in a long time.

[Jabbar]

A long time.

[Ian]

Quiet.

[Jabbar]

And it was quiet too. It was a quiet one. Yeah. But it, and I'll, I'll go shy's route if you're looking at an etf. Right. And I know they put State Street, I mean XLF would be. Look inside xlf. Look what the holdings are. Look what the allocations are. See what the. The top three or four are. It should give you a sign.

[Ian]

And somebody asked about bank of America.

[Jabbar]

I see that just now.

[Ian]

Yeah. If Jamie steps away, Brian Moynihan probably should be the person that they poach to come over to jp. Don't text me if you're a jp because I know y' all got your internal candidates, but I think Brian Moynihan is a great player on a not so great team in terms of the stock. So it's gonna be a tricky year these next two years, man.

[Troy]

That's why Rashad acquired Rashad.

[Ian]

She's executing.

[Troy]

When my boy get to being quiet, he back editing the videos himself. I never shot yo back in his duffel. Troy ain't saying nothing. It's go time. If you miss 2020, 2026 is going to be an eventful year for you. Business wise, stock wise, investment side, private equity.

[Rashad]

What do you think the biggest things that could potentially happen in 2026?

[Ian]

I think we'll start to see the start of the fall of one of.

[Rashad]

The.

[Ian]

Major tech CEOs.

[Jabbar]

I, I. Okay, okay. I know where you're going with that. I'll say. I'll say this because I watched Sam Altman speak last week, and I'm not convinced that they're not gonna figure out a way to make them go public.

[Ian]

He.

[Jabbar]

He doesn't want. He said that he doesn't want to. He knows that at some point he'll have to, but he knows the stress that comes with it. He doesn't look forward to it. It's the one thing that he doesn't want to do. But the reliance that a lot of these companies. Right. And the uncertainty that a lot of these companies are facing are due to open AI, whether it's Oracle, even Nvidia. Right. Like, can. How can they fulfill this to make sure that they're making profit? I think the open AI going public. I think the IPO market will be the big story. If we see SpaceX come on board here in 26 or 27 or early 27 anthropic, one of the. Somebody's gonna become a publicly traded company at some point in the near future.

[Troy]

Why do you think he isn't looking.

[Ian]

Forward to going public?

[Jabbar]

His words, the reporting. The reporting part.

[Ian]

Wow.

[Jabbar]

Which is, again, so you have those type of answers lead to more uncertainty. Right.

[Troy]

I don't know who Sam Altman's PR person or crisis management person is, but you need to find your Olivia Pope. Because if you mismanage this like one way to expose an opponent because he's made a lot of enemies. If I know you aren't as talented as like in that a class, one of the things to do is to get you to.

[Ian]

And this is maybe Eli doing on.

[Troy]

The back channel since he stole part.

[Ian]

Of that from Elon.

[Troy]

Just to make you go public so you can report, so we can see what you're really doing and what the margins really are, so we can know.

[Ian]

How to attack you.

[Troy]

It's best not to make enemies. I know a lot of people like to take that beef angle. And now it's the thing. It's like, well, white entrepreneurs beef too. But one of the best things you can do for the viability of your business is to have a moat of partnerships opposed to having a moat of.

[Ian]

Enemies trying to enforce themselves upon your territory.

[Jabbar]

I, I'll throw this out to both of you. I'll. I'm interested in. Is he. I mean, I know we said Vlad, right? CEO of the year. The real, the real, the real the Vlad Tennis.

[Rashad]

Vlad Tennis.

[Jabbar]

Wouldn't, wouldn't, wouldn't Sam Altman be in the conversation as well? If you think about, from this standpoint, think about the deals he's made in the past six months. Renegotiating the Microsoft deal, right? Getting more control there. Broadcom deal, Nvidia deal, AMD deal, Oracle deal. And he still did like that's a lot in six months for a private company.

[Rashad]

He's done a lot. But there's also no benefit of him really going public. People go public to know, raise the valuation of their company and to, you know, make a lot of money. And I mean, they're doing that going private. You know, they're gonna have a trillion dollar valuation privately. So it's not really, it's an unusual situation. But I also think that there's a lot of downside for the go public ones. They're not really making money like that. And once you really start to see the numbers, it could look, you know, so it's like what happens if it goes public and the stock just free falls with.

[Jabbar]

That was interesting. You know, I'll take, I, I'll make a point on that. And then what, what's your thoughts on that in terms of like where he's at in that CEO of the conversation?

[Ian]

I think you can make the argument. And I've been a fan of Open AI for since 2021. I am very concerned.

[Troy]

Like, okay, as you're building, I don't Want to get into a war with billionaires and deca billionaires when my net.

[Ian]

Worth is sitting here on paper.

[Troy]

So some of the deals that he's made. Great. You can also argue, though, you're assigned to somebody who signed to somebody who signed us. You're playing that game of everyone's getting to your intellectual property, and now they're trying to recreate the version of the magic that you have. What he has is absolutely magical. It's. It's empowering. This whole AI revolution. If you don't play it well, Microsoft and Oracle and Nvidia will be a.

[Ian]

Bigger beneficiary to it than you.

[Troy]

But in a running for CEO of the year, Absolutely. I just think that his management needs to get him under control because he's acting like Elon. But Elon, after he amassed 400 billion.

[Ian]

That'S too soon for that.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, because.

[Troy]

And to say as a CEO, you don't want to face reporting like what the are we talk.

[Ian]

What?

[Troy]

Zuckerberg would have never said that when it was the facebook.com before Sheryl Sandberg was there. So you're saying you don't want to get in the league and you don't want Garnett or Wimby to guard you. You don't want to report why that sounds asinine when you just told the public that you have chat GPT help you raise your baby. Why don't you want it to report when it can do all the reporting for you? That's crazy to me to say.

[Ian]

This is my passion talk.

[Jabbar]

That's your passion talk. I mean, there's a lot. They were. They were. They brought up the. The idea. Right. If Microsoft is a beneficiary, a direct beneficiary of OpenAI. If you look at how Microsoft has been trading or how it's been over the past six months specifically, it's kind of been moving sideways, in a sense. And so is that a telltale sign of how OpenAI will increase revenue for companies we don't know? I mean, 2026, there's a lot on the line for that space, and they're like, right in the center of it. So we'll see.

[Ian]

Microsoft to program to be. No pun intended.

[Rashad]

But Mayweather money looking funny in the light.

[Jabbar]

Allegedly.

[Troy]

Shout out to my boy.

[Jabbar]

Money. Money may count on the.

[Rashad]

On the.

[Jabbar]

On the court side, but my brother.

[Ian]

I love you dearly. Shout out to the team, but not in front of hov. Not that.

[Jabbar]

Please, please, please. Respectfully, children here.

[Rashad]

But. But I think the biggest thing to watch for next year is the political landscape, because that's going to make it. That's going to determine the economic landscape for sure. They already positioning themselves to, you know, fight that midterm battle is going to be interesting because it's a highly contested situation right now, and it's, it's heating up. And I think that, you know, everybody's positioning their, their base. And when you see Mandani win the election in New York, that's a telltale sign as far as a, you know, socialist, that that's winning in the most important city in the world. And that would be good for, for Democrats, but maybe not, because every Democrat is not willing to push that line like he's willing to push a hard line. And the Democrats, for the most part, they're not really willing to go that far. But then you see, you know, J.D. vance, he was on the turning, Turning Point conference. Nicki Minaj was there also. But, you know, he was, he was pushing a hard line. He said, look, if you're a white male, you no longer have to apologize for being white. So they pushing a hard line on their, on their end. So everybody's playing to the, to the. Well, the Democrats, not really playing, but the Republicans have definitely played to the fringes of their base in the effort to rally support and rally the troops for not just J.D. vance's presidential run. Erica Kirk endorsed J.D. vance is pretty unprecedented. It's not even. He's not even running for president three years. He endorsed somebody three years before the presidential run. I think a lot of people are kind of, kind of, you know, nervous about this political landscape. So if the Democrats come in and they take back and they take over the House, there's going to be a lot of push for regulation, and there's going to be a lot of push for everything that Trump did to try to undo that. And that's going to have an impact on the markets for sure. If the Republicans hold, then I guess it's just businesses, as usual. But he has also weaponized all government agencies in a way that has never been done before. And he's controlling not just the Justice Department, FBI, things of that nature, but he's controlling monetary policy and he's putting strong pressure on. He's. He has his hands and it's only going to get worse. And the new Fed chair, us said something, he was like, he's not gonna do something that could ruin the economy, but he might do something that could ruin the economy by not trying to do something that's going to ruin the economy. Because it's like if you just do something because somebody tells it so. None of these branches of government was ever supposed to be beholden to the President. That's what makes America like, you know, a democracy, on paper at least, is because the President just can't say somebody lower interest rates because I want you to lower interest rates because I need, I need the stock market to go up or do this or do that. But now Project 2025, it wasn't just about DEI. It was about really centralizing power in a way that we've never seen before. And that's exactly what he's doing. And that's why they could release the Epstein files and just have Chris Tucker and Michael Jackson, but not have him. Because he's telling the Justice Department, this is what I want you to do. He's telling the irs, this is what I want you to do. He's telling the FBI this is what I want you to do. He's telling the CIA this is what I want you to do. But he's also, Jerome Powell's been fighting them. Once Jerome Powell's going, he's going to be telling, he's going to control monetary policy. He's going to be telling the Fed chair do this, don't do that. And that's extremely dangerous. And that could really cause tremendous in the economy. When you just making decisions based off of what a president wants to do for his approval ratings, especially when it's.

[Ian]

Short term and thought I can see.

[Troy]

If he was thinking let's level the economy to be okay for the next five or six years, he's thinking three.

[Jabbar]

Months for maybe true social and that that's why it's important. And I think the word of the night for me is is that deregulation, please. Right. I think 100 agree with you. Like if there's a switch in power then November, I mean you're going to see a drastic shift in the market. I think another piece that I kind of left out and it just is this tariffs piece. So like this tariffs potential reversal.

[Ian]

Right?

[Jabbar]

We'll see what the Supreme Court says, right? Dude, is the money that was allegedly supposed to be taken from tariffs, is it going to be getting back to companies because it was deemed illegal? That is another segue to say, okay, catalyst event for companies that are actually going to have more revenue than they thought they but going to originally the Fed chair piece is interesting and I got to give Jerome Powell an a standing ovation for the job he did, man. Because he weathered the storm, not the storm of Trump, but the storm of coming out of co. When we thought a recession was coming and it was short lived, definitions were changed, but he was able to bring inflation down. He was obviously able to bring interest rates to a level that we didn't think was possible two to three years ago. And now he's going to be out of here. And so now that the idea is like, how lower can we go with these Fed rates? That would be an interesting story to watch. I know that they're, they're projecting that there might be two in 2026, but we'll see. We don't even know who the Fed chair is to even like project what they, they might or what they're willing to do.

[Rashad]

And as Jerome Powell also said, economy has slowed and the mass deportation has played a part in negative impacts on the economy. Just said that was going to happen. And we still haven't really seen the full effects of that, but there's still effects to be felt from that. Immigration policy is, has a negative impact on the economy. The immigration policy doesn't have a positive impact on the economy. Has a negative impact on the economy and it's only going to have a more negative impact on the economy. So that's not me talking, that's Jerome Powell. Take it up with him. But this is just what year one.

[Ian]

Yep. It feels like it's been three.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, we got, we got, we got a long time left in this, this term.

[Ian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's gonna be the Democratic presidential superstar to run against J.D.

[Rashad]

I mean it's gonna be, it's gonna be Gavin Newsom. That's. I don't think there's anybody else. I mean Westmore has the outside chance, I think, but all roads are leading to Gavin Newsom. He's positioning himself to be the, you know, anti Trump and you know, aggressive, not the typical Democrat. The, you know, guy that goes on all the smoke and curse can, you.

[Troy]

Know, you can't change character halfway through the movie.

[Rashad]

No, you can. Of course you can. Trump did it.

[Ian]

Trump was an the entire time.

[Rashad]

But Trump was a Democrat.

[Troy]

Yeah, but he told you he'll run Republican. Gavin is playing bad boy when he was not that before.

[Ian]

Too late.

[Troy]

You should just be who you are.

[Ian]

She'll lacking show lacking unfortunately what Polly Mock is that. Let's look, let's look here.

[Troy]

He'll get the nomination but like when.

[Ian]

That race happened shellacking you ran California to the ground. That's tough. That's tough. That's a Job. I wouldn't want diverse.

[Rashad]

Diversify your citizenship, man. That's important. Look overseas.

[Ian]

Hello.

[Rashad]

The writing, the writings on the wall.

[Ian]

Yes.

[Rashad]

Turning Point, usa. Nicki Minaj.

[Jabbar]

Oh, I'm gonna.

[Rashad]

This Queens get the money.

[Jabbar]

I'm just gonna remain here. I'm just gonna stay right here.

[Rashad]

You gotta do what you gotta do.

[Ian]

No, you don't.

[Jabbar]

Outside Jamaica, Queens and they raised me right.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

When the IRS come, you start to.

[Jabbar]

See people not prayers up, man. Seriously. All jokes aside, prayers are. I'm not sure what. Who that was up there was Nicki Minaj.

[Ian]

That was that.

[Jabbar]

I thought they like who cloned everyone.

[Rashad]

Something that we take very seriously. So, you know, hopefully she can get the help.

[Ian]

Man.

[Rashad]

She definitely called the boy an assassin. On the stage with somebody who's. That was husband actually got assassinated wild.

[Ian]

And notice the non correction too.

[Rashad]

Yeah. She called him an assassin. That was. Wow. But I guess we all make mistakes.

[Ian]

For sure. I've made many.

[Rashad]

Yeah. All right. Having said that, who.

[Ian]

Who's the greatest female rapper all time there?

[Rashad]

Lauren Hill. Not even close.

[Ian]

Jersey.

[Rashad]

Big Jersey.

[Jabbar]

She the greatest rapper.

[Ian]

Can't put Nikki up somewhere, y'. All.

[Troy]

And you know that.

[Jabbar]

That's because of the recent events.

[Ian]

Come on, bro.

[Jabbar]

I.

[Troy]

That was.

[Jabbar]

Was that.

[Ian]

That's crazy.

[Jabbar]

I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this.

[Rashad]

Talk about year year in review. I'll let both of you talk. But I know you did your. Your class and you showed, you know, some of the gains and the stocks that you have picked in the performances and all that. So that was an Eyl University. If anybody is not familiar with anyone diversity, man, you gotta you behind the eight ball on that. Because there's a lot of people making a lot of money in that situation right now through the options class investment, real estate, so much stuff going on. But talk about that.

[Jabbar]

How about you? How about your portfolio, man? Do well?

[Rashad]

Did okay.

[Jabbar]

I take. I take pride and watching my people win. Yeah, man, we had an incredible year. 2025 was an incredible year. It was a year of focus. It was a year of discipline. It was a year of, as I called it, using my teammates. And so 2023, I had. When we did Market Mondays Live in Chicago was the first time I had said I'm using AI to help me in my research. And at that time was anthropic. And I was using it around earnings and having it read through the earnings reports and getting information and scouring for what analysts were saying. And that's just been intensified as chat gbt and all these GPTs got better than the research and the data became even better. Gemini obviously being the most accurate and the returns were reflective on that. Right. So we put a top five or top six that we thought would benefit from the tailwind of AI in 2025. And I mean the numbers speak for themselves. Then we put up on our last post where I mean from TSM to Nvidia AMD when no one was talking about it and it was getting beat up, up 66%. We had Eli Lilly in there. I know Ian, that's one that huge on and we got those at great prices. ASML when it got down to 650 we had been in these positions just at the right time. Obviously in the option space when we're talking about percentage from the equity growing, you're talking about 50, 60. Now when you have option calls on that, you know, that's when you see that the 300, 400, 500 returns that these people are getting. In fact I saw somebody today in Eylu that is a almost 2000% on micron 2. I don't even have a 2000% micron call. They got two of them which is incredible. It just talks about the, the level of execution that people are do doing inside of eyu but in market monies as well. You know like people are getting information whether it was from a few weeks ago when it was Fabrinet or Scandis or it was Caterpillar, people are executing on that information. And so I put out the 2026 list for, for companies and I'll give one. Can I give one cool or do you want me to give all of them? Even one? I'll give them one. So we had some, some returning companies. The one that I did add this year in 2026, which I think is going to have a phenomenal year is Robin Hood. I think the, the, the story of how it's pulled back here over, over the past couple months is well overblown. I think Robin Hood is set up in terms of the population, who they serve, how they're over delivering for that population and that population is seeing returns and coming back. What they are building is loyalty. Right? This is, this is important especially in branding. You want to have a core group of loyal supporters and they've done that with the younger demographic. Especially inside the worlds of options trading. What speaks even louder to it is the fact that they've added predictive marketing into it. Right. So now you're talking about young people are doing sports betting that he sees that space and he says, how can we be in this space in a way that can be productive for our site? There you go with predictive marketing. You go on there. Now there's sports predictive marketing inside of it. I think it's going to be incredible segue for them that's going to add more revenue. But I think inside of brokerage accounts for the future, right? So we're talking about those, those Trump accounts. Like who there's going to be a brokerage that's going to have to benefit from that. We're looking about the, the brokerage of the future who, when we talk to kids and we talk to a lot of young adults. In fact, I got a meeting tomorrow. When I asked them what brokerage they use, it's not the first time question. It's not even question who they use, right? Like I feel like, wait, I'm using this and they're using that. I had to go back. I said, let me just open up my Robinhood. Just so when I'm trying to teach these young adults, I'm teaching them on the platform that they know. And overwhelmingly it has been Robin Hood. We talk about deregulation again, that word. They'll benefit from that, right? Outside of the options trading, which is huge market for them, predictive trading, huge market for them. We didn't even talk about crypto yet. And a lot, a lot of young people and people of all ages are using Robinhood to trade crypto. It was one of those places that accepted it first had brokerages around it and financial institutions around them figuring out how they can do it so they can add it to, to their institutions. I like Robin Hood. In 2026, it was one of my. I put 12 companies in there, but that was one of them for sure.

[Ian]

Go ahead, Rashad.

[Rashad]

No.

[Ian]

No.

[Troy]

I would just say though, for those.

[Ian]

Who y' all counter Lily out. What a mistake. What a mess.

[Troy]

I had a personal conversation with a friend who probably they had a three million dollar position in.

[Ian]

Lily and March exited.

[Troy]

I should show the text, but I.

[Ian]

Don'T want to embarrass you.

[Troy]

You told me Lily was not told my friends to get into this and here we go. I know it's a popular thing to then criticize, but like one of the most important investing lessons is to listen to the people who are doing better.

[Ian]

Than you in that space.

[Troy]

That's why, like when Mike Novograd take.

[Ian]

Me out of it because I've been free since 2016.

[Troy]

Take Mike Novogratz. I went through all those Comments last weekend of the people who were criticizing, like, well, he got this one thing wrong. He gave you 70 things that was right.

[Rashad]

And. And people. And people that I'm gonna let you finish. But it's funny you say that, because I was thinking about that today because we did it. We did the Aquaman interview. And one of the clips, a few of the clips went viral. One of the clips, he asked me how much I paid for health insurance. And I'll tell him, like, almost $2,000. I rounded it up. But same. And there's a bunch of people in the comments. Like, one person went as far as, like, he's lying. There's no way you pay $2,000 for health insurance for two people who's why. And then they like, yo, you know this. That don't even make any sense. And you know what I realized is that have you ever seen Robert Smith in the comments saying, like, that's not true. That can't be true. Have you ever seen people in the comments saying, like, oh, no, that's impossible. That can't be true, because they will say it and they all follow us. Or have you ever seen Gary Vee in the comments saying, no, that can't. That's not true. That's not possible. I'm not listening to somebody that, like, if you haven't been to where somebody else has been to. But it's only the people that. Only people that comment on that is the people that are not qualified to talk on it. That's the craziest part about it. Like, you would think, all right, somebody that's really true. Billionaire, they can give some insight. Somebody at least worth, you know, 100 million can give insight on it. Like, nah, you paying too much for health insurance, bro. I haven't seen one person that's worth more than me say, like, yo, you paying too much for health insurance. That's crazy. But out of the. Oh, the whole message, that was the one thing that people got out of it was like, yo, that can't be true. What is he doing? You don't even know what he's talking about. He's paying to you. You have never even paid for health insurance. You don't even own a business.

[Troy]

And on top of that, that's how I know you're not paying your child support either. No, let's be real. Because the health services and health insurance part is separate from the actual fee if you pay. And your entrepreneur, you know, the 2000 at a certain level, depending on what. What station is like, exactly you go.

[Rashad]

By the state, you go by the deductible. You go. But you add the dentist to dental and like it's a whole different factors that go into it. But people are saying, looking at like, yo, that's, that's the most dumbest, it's the craziest thing that they ever heard in their life, bro. And I'm like, you telling me something you don't even. I used to work in insurance, bro.

[Jabbar]

I paid 2500amonth right when I so like I most people, if they work right, health insurance comes with the fact they're full time employee, right? Oh, I only paid $10. Whatever it is that come out of your paycheck. I took a leave right before I we. I left completely from, from education. I took a leave for a year. They were like, all right, well it's a leave without pay. Well, we'll leave without pay. I don't get paid. And I got to pay my own health insurance. Family of four. 2500amonth. That was in 2020. That now probably up to 2800 3000amonth.

[Ian]

Come on, man.

[Jabbar]

Come on, man.

[Rashad]

And that's why when Jadakiss said that go to jail just to get their teeth fixed. And now they don't even have dental in jails anymore. So it's like there's a reason why he said there was a joke when it was a. It's a punchline. But there's a reason why he said people go to jail just to get their teeth fixed because they can't afford to get their teeth fixed.

[Jabbar]

Marlon said cobra. Yup.

[Rashad]

I got to see somebody who was like, yeah, they probably got a seventeen thousand dollar deductible. That's a fact. Like when you that health insurance. This is. I'm tying this in back to Eli Lilly. This is. We have a crisis in America, especially if you're a self employed person. It's extremely difficult. That's why that whole what they call Obamacare, which is really called the Affordable Health Care act, you had to go through the portal. It wasn't a perfect system, but it was designed for people that did not have health insurance.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

If you don't have health insurance provided through your job and you got to get it on your own, it's extremely difficult. And like you said, it also goes by your zip code, where you actually live, what kind of, what kind of dental plan you want, what kind of health plan you want. You a variety of different things. If you're self employed, if you're an employer. So People commenting on things that have no idea what they're talking about. It's just like I just thought about that today. I'm like damn, I never seen no nobody rich in the comments.

[Troy]

Any country where it would be beneficial for them to tear us down, they don't have a pushback on that.

[Rashad]

But tying that in Red Panda, what I was going with, this is red Panda, you know, that's institution and one of the good things about Panda is that it actually, you know, tells you different buy prices for stocks and obviously Eli Lilly was one of them. So talk about Eli Lilly and just talk about just a year interview as far as like what even you might have learned. Like, you know, it's always good to. I think everybody continues to learn as you get older. Maybe new new technology that you might have picked up AI stuff like that. Like what's your what's your year recap look like as far as, you know, red Panda and how you've actually maybe you know, changed or grown in in your philosophy on economics.

[Troy]

Great question is, is I'm have been doing what, like follow what the countries and capital deployers with the most money do.

[Ian]

They're doubling down on their current stance.

[Troy]

So Nvidia knocked it out the park. Apple, despite my criticism of Cook knocked it out the park. And next year he's going to be gone. Then you'll go back and clip that up about him leaving and he should leave will look prophetic. Lily one of the greatest run institutions in America. Iconic run. Like the big lesson is not to find something new but once you have an elite talent to double down and triple down and put more into it. Oklahoma City is not looking to find another Shay. They're looking to put more money into Shea. The best same thing here. There's no reason to make a market Tuesdays just make market Mondays better. Stock club better. And I'll say this too respectfully I get because sometimes I watch the clips.

[Ian]

Too and I'd be like I hate them to right. I had some moments. I'm like man, shut up.

[Troy]

But it would behoove you to listen to what I say the first time. If I made you money, please put yes in chat. And that's not from a place of arrogance because you trying to belittle me or tear me down ain't made you no more money.

[Ian]

That's not.

[Troy]

My net worth is just exponentially grown. I just don't show it, don't flash.

[Ian]

It, don't floss it.

[Troy]

But the thing that I've learned more than Anything and I had a conversation maybe two weeks ago with somebody who's at fund to fund. He was like your next goal has to be 2 or 300,000 shares in your primary position.

[Ian]

Interesting.

[Troy]

Then he showed me his account with 6 or 700,000 shares and some corporate.

[Ian]

And I'm like with the now you.

[Troy]

Picking up 4 and 8 million a quarter and not saying a word and notice to your point Rashad, it's the criticism from those who are not at a certain level yet but those are.

[Ian]

Above are quite quiet as they're quiet.

[Troy]

What they just quietly executing because they realize that the noise ratio that you.

[Ian]

Get on social media is not even worth the return Her Mosi killed it this year her Moses Getting quieter in 2026 More automation of content but on the back end he's quiet. Him and his wife are quiet. Grant is still posting but he's quiet.

[Troy]

They're all doing the back deal with.

[Ian]

The government and inclusion into bitcoin and real estate.

[Troy]

It is accumulation of asset time.

[Ian]

Who gives a if you don't like.

[Troy]

My I take take my advice and get you rich. When they all met me, I was rich even on amd. I just said they need to reformat let's have a conversation. AMD was my pick in 2018. Okay.

[Ian]

Got 9, 000 shares of that we.

[Troy]

Don'T separate the talking from who got.

[Ian]

It for real next year I promise you.

[Jabbar]

I I think it's. It's important though even in the conversations right? Like even if you and I don't agree on me you wish. I I don't agree with y' all on something and y' all don't agree with something. At least it invites dialogue. Like the dialogue itself is like all right, I hear that side. I hear that side. And you can make your own decision.

[Troy]

And even if you don't agree, if the Vatican agrees, that's what matters. If Vanguard and Black Rock agree, that's what matter. The Internet chatter don't matter dog get the Vatican. Say it matter. It mattered.

[Rashad]

Notice.

[Troy]

Notice when I said that about Tim Cook. Nobody from Apple, Nvidia, Black Rock, State Street Piper ever said I was wrong. It's just a bunch of ran up.

[Ian]

To CNBC and took what I said.

[Jabbar]

Quick question, quick question. Because I got Lily in in my 12 Is this your pastor? You GLP do we get pill form familiar in 2016?

[Ian]

Just oh, they're gonna find a way to sell you the crack for sure.

[Jabbar]

All right. Yeah I got it in my predictives like I think that happened in 26. Okay.

[Rashad]

And we are. And we are going to take some questions soon, too, because this is the last show of the year. And you know what's crazy, too, is that the, like, you know, shout out to all my Dominicans and Cubans and Puerto Ricans. But, you know, it's a little frustrating when you work with somebody and then, you know, you know, people can't start. They. They conveniently can't really understand or speak English when the invoice comes and it's time to. And it's like, that's the most frustrating thing in the world when you actually doing business with somebody and let's do business. And I know. I know that you can speak English because you. We've been speaking English the whole time. But then it just gets extremely confusing. It gets confusing at that point. That's when it gets confusing.

[Jabbar]

I'm not even.

[Troy]

This proceed.

[Rashad]

That never happened to you before.

[Troy]

Oh, yeah. And don't even know Spanish.

[Jabbar]

Oh, Spanish was the link. Okay.

[Ian]

Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure.

[Troy]

Or. Or the other side of it is that I think I'm owed more from you conversation. The entitlement conversation.

[Ian]

Oh, for sure.

[Jabbar]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's part of it. The. When they realize what you're doing, The. The price go up on it.

[Troy]

On the.

[Ian]

On the job, everything.

[Jabbar]

Oh, yeah.

[Ian]

Oh, of course on everything.

[Jabbar]

Yeah. It looks like he can afford it. Yeah.

[Rashad]

They start running around. They start running around in circles with the word salad. And that's not making no sense to a fifth grader. You can't even understand what he talking about.

[Jabbar]

And no, no, no, no.

[Troy]

I'm like, okay, we can circle back to it at the top of the year. No, I pay my now.

[Jabbar]

I got my translator.

[Rashad]

You got to keep a translator at all.

[Jabbar]

Keep your headbutts in, man.

[Rashad]

Keep a translator.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, I know what you said.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Troy]

But your review the market has done incredibly well.

[Ian]

Yeah, it's done incredibly well.

[Rashad]

All the ones.

[Troy]

Even bitcoin is tech.

[Ian]

For those of you who don't know bitcoin is tech, even though they've had a little bit of trouble. Invest in tech. I've been to the same thesis. Nothing.

[Troy]

When you have a great plan, you.

[Ian]

Don'T got to change it.

[Troy]

That fade away for Jordan worked.

[Ian]

Even when he was on the Wizards.

[Troy]

The triangle offense worked. Keep investing. But my new thing for next year, I'm gonna be.

[Ian]

I'm gonna do the shoddy. I'm gonna be way more quiet. Cool. I got you.

[Jabbar]

You're gonna be way more quiet.

[Ian]

Oh, for sure.

[Troy]

To my social media team. Post everything for me before I send.

[Ian]

Out a bounty on social media for what I pay for me to be quiet.

[Rashad]

Send a bounty. What the Bosa. What, what, what AI. What's your top three AI sites that you're using for investing?

[Jabbar]

AI sites or gbts. So my research starts. Obviously, I do my own reading, and those have been part of this EYL journey. Yeah, I know. I got like, 15 publications that I used to usually read. I don't read them all as much anymore. So I start with my own human intelligence first, and then I'll find a topic. This is that curiosity that I'm talking about in terms of investing. And it usually goes to Gemini first, just because of the idea of them being the Internet and their GBT having the most accurate answers. And then I have Claude for specific questions, and then I have Chat GBT for other questions. And so I combine all that research, and then I combine the human intelligence, and then I go teach from that.

[Rashad]

On your computer?

[Jabbar]

Yeah, yeah. So. Oh, well, Chad GBT on the phone called on the computer. Gemini on the computer. But if I. I mean, if I got to use my phone, then I'm using my phone. If we're on the run sometimes we, you know, we drive around a lot. We're going to meetings, we're going to interviews. I'm doing the research. You see me in the car, like, I got my headphones on. I'm not even listening to music. I'm just reading, trying to figure out the next thing. How. How can I learn the next thing? Because my thing is, like, if I can learn it, then I can teach it. And so I'm always trying to learn because I'm always trying to teach. And so that constant, like, cycle of what's next, what's new? Where are we looking? All right. Bet I gotta learn that because I gotta teach that. I know Monday people are gonna be relying on it. I know in Eylu they're gonna be relying on relying on it. So I better know what I. What I'm doing here. And so that research happens every single day, all day. I know you said three hours, but.

[Ian]

I'm like, all day.

[Troy]

Like, if you don't want to be.

[Ian]

Broke, invest your life's time into mastering this.

[Jabbar]

It's crazy.

[Troy]

A lot of people are trying to master business, master investing in the business.

[Ian]

That have mastered business.

[Jabbar]

You, you would. You would think that I'm trading, like, daily, and I'm not, like, I'm just really just watching the market, seeing the.

[Rashad]

Trends, they said, what's the difference between Chat GBT and Claude?

[Jabbar]

So Chloe, it gives more of a scaled out answer for me. The other day I, I was talking about, you know, why GEV being a part of a Saudi infrastructure development will benefit it in 2026. And it's going to give me a bunch of different reasonings with, with Chat gbt. It gives you general answers, but then it shows you where to get the research from. Once I start getting those, like down to the nitty gritty specifics and it starts talking to me about different companies and giving me specific answers, then I'm like, all right, where can I take that? Then the last place, I didn't even say this but, but the, the perplexity part is like, all right, let's throw this in there. Let's see what they come back with now, right? Because now I don't search now I think I got the whole Internet, to be honest with you, right? Like if I got Gemini, I got Chat gbt, I got Perplexity, I got Anthropic, I pretty much have scoured the, the, the entire web. And it does it for me in a more efficient way. Rather than reading the, the 15 that I read, I probably read about five or six every morning. Five or six, maybe seven. And that's the business insiders, the CNBCs, the Bloombergs, the Wired, Wall Street Journal, seeking alpha market watch. So I'm doing those and then I'll, I'll go to my, I call them my teammates now because I think we make it all star team. And the proof is in the pudding after we see the returns that we did this year.

[Ian]

I know you addressed the software side. You cooked on that to add to.

[Troy]

You got to invest more into the hardware too, like for the, for the audience, especially if you're trading. And I talked about this before, but.

[Ian]

Like one of the biggest breakthroughs that.

[Troy]

I will talk about that I've had.

[Ian]

Is with the advancement of chips.

[Troy]

So I got my desktop building 22.

[Ian]

I made significant upgrades to it this year. You may want to improve that chip.

[Troy]

Stack that you have for your trading. So even if you can shave off.

[Ian]

A millisecond or a half second of.

[Troy]

Speed to see, especially if you have bigger contracts to see when the market is turning over to the downside, it.

[Ian]

May be the difference between you clearing.

[Troy]

70 or 80 thousand dollars in a.

[Ian]

Day and losing 80 or 70 thousand dollars in a day.

[Troy]

So in combination, and once again, it's not my thought, it's what every tech company on Earth is doing. Build your own personal Data Center. Take 5,000 or $10,000 into a custom computer for investing in trading.

[Ian]

You're going to see exponential returns there. In addition to the tips he gave on a software and AI side, somebody.

[Jabbar]

Said, what's up with Uber? I'm. I'm still in Uber, y'.

[Ian]

All. Uber.

[Jabbar]

I got the call out to 20, I think 27 or 28. I asked you about the pill form of the GLP and the FDA just approved WeGovy for the first weight loss pill. So noble. Got it first.

[Troy]

Who got it first?

[Jabbar]

For the record, make. Make America great.

[Rashad]

As we move into 2026, are you still comfortable concentrating heavily in mega cap and tech? Are you actively rotating to other areas?

[Ian]

Rotation is an act of suicide. Great question from Kristen. I appreciate you. No, you have to hyper invest into the mega cap or tech.

[Troy]

Like even the arguments we're having, Nvidia.

[Ian]

Amd, Micron, Bitcoin, all the cryptocurrencies.

[Troy]

Cryptocurrency is tech. It's just a sub sector of tech. The answer has been given to you. We don't give a about most commodities. We don't care about.

[Ian]

The German DAX. The Euro 50 is underwater. Tech is the way to invest. So even if we go into a Route 26, 27, it would be an immense buying opportunity for and the government has put a lot of money into the investment of the data centers and AI. And I told you guys this four years ago, invest in tech. America runs on tech.

[Troy]

It's the only advantage we have outside.

[Ian]

Of our military presence.

[Troy]

And if we lose this in China, it's over with. But even all the American companies have found a way to invest in China or India to make sure that if America falls, they still have a pillar.

[Ian]

Of success in other continents. Hyper concentration.

[Jabbar]

Stay there. Don't go nowhere. Stay right there. The answer is no. Stay with the tech. Say in that the, the max. Like I said, the max. Seven are going to lead the way. And interestingly enough, I mean they all have kind of been in this consolidation phase to a certain extent. Right. Obviously Broadcom had that crazy one. They're not even part of seven, but Broadcom's had a run. Nvidia is kind of like settled in this, this one 75 to 185 range. Microsoft, same thing. Apple had a nice run up. Amazon is back to, you know, Amazon things. It's why I don't do options trades on them. But I own the stock. And so yeah, the, the meta pulled back. We saw it's it's trying to get over 6, 670 now there's opportunities, man, and the spend is not going to stop, the innovation is not going to stop. And they all understand what's at stake. So yeah, I'm still there. And all the hyperscalers.

[Ian]

Yeah. Hope for the long term. For the long term.

[Troy]

I gave you the answer the first time, y'.

[Rashad]

All.

[Ian]

Just because it was me saying it, some of y' all don't want to hear it. I gave you that answer first time.

[Jabbar]

And big year for Tesla too, I think. Big year for Tesla. It's a pivotal year for Tesla.

[Ian]

Another tech company.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, well, they, they put them in the, in the seven.

[Ian]

So yeah. SpaceX, another tech company. Yeah.

[Jabbar]

There's an ETF, there's a Max 7 ETF if anybody's interested in that. It's a Mags, Mags.

[Troy]

Nike and Free Fall.

[Rashad]

Somebody asked a question, they said, how would you propose an asset allocation from a percentage perspective between public markets, private market, private markets, crypto. And when should you branch off from a public. If public is number one? I'm not sure what that means. But assuming that you have the ability to invest in private markets, what kind of percentage would you allocate towards a private market, public market and crypto? Actually, I was sources the other day, somebody said like 60, 40, 20, something like that is what they said on the 60. No, 60, 20, 20. They said they put 20 of their money into private companies. They put 60 of their money into like mainstream stock market. Then they put 20 of their money into.

[Troy]

You said 60 for what?

[Rashad]

I was. He said he put 60. Say he put 60 of his money into stocks, like regular stocks, Apple, S P, stuff like that. Yeah, he pushed, I think 20. Don't. It was like moderate risk 20 into like venture capital, high risk, venture capital type, you know. And then I think it was like another 20% into like maybe assortment of other more aggressive portfolio like crypto, stuff like that.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, it was interesting because his theory was he's such a person that has a high risk tolerance that if he didn't have it that way, the allocation, it would just be all high risk. So he tries to discipline himself again, discipline keyword by. By having that strategy which I was like, that makes a lot of sense, you know yourself.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Jabbar]

You know what type of investor you are.

[Ian]

It's a great allocation. We'll be splitting hairs. I would just say 50, 25. 25, 50 stocks, 25 private companies that are A players and B players and then 25 cryptocurrency because the. The stock should draw down the lease, meaning you should lose the least amount of money. Some private investments can go to zero, shout out to the founders who capital went to zero. And then crypto currencies can have immense drawdowns too. But I think 50, 25. 25. But that Dan's brilliant. So I like, I like the allocation.

[Rashad]

Somebody said, where should I start?

[Troy]

2Tech2 index, VO, VTI, Microsoft, and Apple.

[Ian]

Hold for five years. If it don't work, I get you 25 grand. We're not gonna ask these questions anymore. Respectfully.

[Troy]

But if it don't work, and I hope it don't work, so I can give you 25 grand, but do VTI.

[Ian]

Microsoft, Apple, I'm playing this game with y'.

[Troy]

All.

[Jabbar]

We're not doing this in 26. We're gonna leave this at in 25.

[Ian]

This just for entertainment purposes only. I'm in a really good space.

[Troy]

Yo, green pineapple juice back. All right, I'll act mad. It's hard to be upset when you.

[Ian]

See your enemies, like, end up in ruin. I don't even have a vitriol no more. I just want peace and love.

[Troy]

But if you don't love me, I love you still.

[Ian]

But it'd be funny when them bankruptcy files pile up like that. You should let me help you, my brother.

[Rashad]

Allegedly, somebody said, is it better to max out a Roth now or put it in an option call stock or index fund?

[Ian]

Sure. What you think?

[Jabbar]

You know what? I have an opinion on it.

[Ian]

Yep.

[Jabbar]

There's a guy who, who actually practice for 13 to 14 years on giving financial advice. So I'm.

[Troy]

Are we doing a three man weave? I'll see.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's. I mean, again, it's about risk tolerance, right? Like, if you haven't. If you haven't opened a brokerage account, if you don't have any. If you haven't invested in indexes or ETFs, and you don't have any shares in any company, should options be your first thing? No, no, no.

[Ian]

It shouldn't be.

[Jabbar]

I don't encourage it because that tells me. And I've gotten a few texts about that recently. Like, yo, what's the next option plan? I'm like, yo, do you have any shares in anything?

[Ian]

You have to own first.

[Jabbar]

Let's just own, like that. That people forget that part of the strategy is like, look, yes. Set your table, right? And based on what you have in terms of your indexes and your ETFs. Look, inside there, right. Get ownership in those companies. Right. So if you own SMH and you have Nvidia, there's a stack there, right? SMH is, is a semiconductor etf. Nvidia is leading that etf. You own that. All right, well, now let's look. If we believe in that company, we believe in the ETF that's powering it. All right, well, let's see if we can make some money on the growth of that, that actual company. So that's when the option contract comes into it. So a lot of times, I would say 95 of the times I actually own shares of the companies that I trade options in or I'm getting the option contract with the intent to eventually, hopefully, And I know 99 of the times you don't exercise. But I've, I've come into some situations where it's like, all right, this is pretty ideal. I can get a discounted price here. We've already taken out our equity, we've taken out our initial investment. Let's get some shares at this kind of price. But shot your advice would be what.

[Rashad]

I mean, it's not mutually exclusive. I mean, as far as the question was should you do a Roth or should you and do options, or should you do stocks or should you do index funds? But with the Roth, I mean, you can do index funds, stocks, theoretically you could even trade options.

[Troy]

But I wouldn't trade options and features.

[Ian]

But I wouldn't recommend it.

[Rashad]

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend it. But the, the Roth is the actual vehicle. So inside of that vehicle, you gotta pick what you want to invest in. So you can definitely invest in an index fund, ETF or stocks inside of your Roth. So you can, you can, that, you can actually do both. And the whole benefit with the roof is that it's retirement plan. So it's not like a, not, it's not just a regular investment. It's an investment that's tied to your retirement. But the benefit is that, you know, when you take it out, you're not going to be taxed on, it's going to be tax free when you take it out. That's the benefit of the Roth. So, yeah, you definitely want to set your foundation up early. So yeah, definitely start, you know, investing before you start trading. Definitely have, you know, a retirement plan. If you don't, if you do not have a retirement plan, you should just open a retirement plan for tax purposes. Just also for, you know, long term planning, diversified, you know. Yeah, it's really not even, you don't even Necessarily have to diversify your portfolio, but you're diversifying your age ranges of when you actually potentially need money. Because you can invest in QQQ in a regular brokerage, you can invest in QQQ in a retirement brokerage. So that's not necessarily diversification on your investments, but it's definitely diversification on your portfolio because they're different as far as you know where it's actually going to be taken and the taxes, the tax structure is going to be different on it as well. So yeah, definitely start, start there. But a retirement is good if you don't have a retirement plan. A retirement plan is good if you don't. If the number one thing for you is not to necessarily get a tax break this year, if you can go without that, then the Roth is good because it's definitely more beneficial not to pay taxes later on. But like I said, if you need a tax break, then you do it traditional. But it's good to just have money and never have to pay taxes on it again.

[Ian]

Yeah, brought you.

[Jabbar]

All right. Reach out to chat. No, we're not trading with margin. We're not doing that.

[Ian]

Retirement portfolio. No.

[Jabbar]

No, not trading options with margin either.

[Ian]

No, I'm not.

[Jabbar]

And somebody asked about do I, do you have multiple accounts? I, I do have multiple brokerage accounts. Just to simplify it. Inside of my E trade and obviously EY University, y' all seen that. So in E trades where I, I have my options account, Fidelity, I have my indexes and inside of my Schwab swap, yep, I have my shares. So I got AMD Shears there, I got some Micron shares there, some Apple shares there. So the shares just sit there. And then we got the E trade for the options.

[Ian]

Yep. Same thing on the feature side. Ninja trader short term Schwab long term swing trade account for future futures. Separate Schwab account for Xander and myself because the temptation will be to trade or invest out of them all. Biggest mistake you can make. That bucket has to be allocated for that one thing. So.

[Jabbar]

Try for the great grandchildren. There you go.

[Ian]

There I go.

[Rashad]

45 year old woman, 401k recommendations with fidelity it's is an on age target plan. I feel poor but not missing out. Been investing in my 401k for 20 years. All employers, I guess they're asking what, what to invest in. But you said Target day plan. That's, that's, that's the easy route. So I think you already know the answer. Just got to do it.

[Jabbar]

Nothing to it, but to do it.

[Troy]

And what number would it take for.

[Ian]

You not to feel poor? Good question. Yeah, send me a dm and on Instagram, I'll put you in stock club. And bless you. Nobody else, just that person.

[Rashad]

Somebody said, thanks for the picks. I'm up 156 on Micron and 184 on Palantir. I own 14 stocks, three ETFs. Should I take profit and add to the ETFs or keep buying individual stocks?

[Ian]

It depends on which individual stocks you have.

[Rashad]

Well, Palantir I got. He said Palantir Micron for two for sure. But I guess he's looking at it like if he made that much money on Palantir safety.

[Ian]

Yeah, deployment ETFs will be a smart move because you'll have less drawdown now.

[Troy]

Then that's other part too. Like, as you accumulate more money, you.

[Ian]

Want to put it into safer buckets or safer assets. So, yeah, ETF should go down 15 to 20% worst case. So, yeah, park your money there if you've made a significant amount of money.

[Jabbar]

Palantir is interested too. When you look at the drawdowns that have happened over definitely in November and December, volunteers, I mean, another one of these ones that's just kind of, you know, we can talk about how the valuation looks on it and it's overpriced, but it hasn't really just fallen off a cliff. Kind of just been like settling. But yeah, the. You want to get safer as riskier assets. You've made money off of them, put them into safer ones.

[Ian]

Yeah, I think Microsoft, Palantir, I feel they're just hovering where they should be. I think we, we had like price discovery, tremendous upside. And then I think we're settling in back into a normal range. And for those who may have started investing this year, these games were not normal.

[Troy]

Not normal.

[Ian]

This was not a normal year by any stretch of the imagination. Palantir, Microsoft, even Netflix before they did the 101 split. It's like a tremendous year, Lily. Tremendous year.

[Rashad]

What.

[Jabbar]

What company performed best for you this year?

[Ian]

You said what.

[Jabbar]

What company performed best for you based.

[Ian]

On return or based on dollar return?

[Jabbar]

I just return. Yeah, everybody's literally.

[Ian]

Because I knew Lily was gone.

[Jabbar]

Lily.

[Ian]

Yeah, Lily, like, what's yours?

[Rashad]

I probably my Micron, but somebody said they have 500 on Palantir, calls $70 strike price should they exercise?

[Jabbar]

All right, so this is, this is tricky because I don't know how much money you got in there. I don't know if you took out your original investment here's what I've done. I like to see the equity go up by over a hundred dollars. So in this example, if you have a 70 call and it's trading at 170, you're up to a hundred dollars. That's a good sign. Then I start to look at the fundamentals of the company. Could this company actually get back down to 70 in a company like Palantir, which has been, I mean it's well documented how overvalued it is. Could it in a pullback, in a correction, could it get back there? It could, it could. How much you're in profit will, will determine it if you do it. But also I think what people need to realize in order to exercise, you have to have capital. So in, in order explain the whole thing.

[Rashad]

Because they don't know. They might not know.

[Jabbar]

Yeah. So he's talking about exercising the option. So an option contract, right. It gives you the ability, right. The right, but not the obligation to own 100 shares of an equity at a strike price. So this person's talking about the strike price of $70. Right. So we well past that, Mark. Yeah. I don't you, what, what's, what's Palantir trading at?

[Ian]

Let me look real quick. 193.

[Jabbar]

120 above the strike, which, I mean you're up 500, which is great. So you could have the equity from exist selling that call or you could have a hundred shares at seventy dollars. So in order to do that you would need one hundred shares times seventy. That would be like seven thousand dollars to buy a hundred shares. Once you buy those shares. Right. You got it at that 70 value they already have baked in 120 each share. So 120 for each. So you're at like $12,000 now you're gonna like, oh wait, I paid seven to make 12. Yeah, but I mean you're gonna have that for a long term position now.

[Rashad]

Right.

[Jabbar]

If it's a company that you believe in long term will be here, then you do it. Some people, most people, I said like 97, 90 to 99% of the time people say I just want to sell my contracts and take the profit. Sometimes in the case like I've had where Nvidia was up a thousand dollars, I'm like, all right, well is Nvidia ever going to get back down to 19 or $20? Probably not. And if it did, the entire world's in trouble.

[Ian]

Right.

[Jabbar]

If I can own a thousand shares at this number, you do it because you've taken out your initial investment, it's past a hundred percent. All right, perfect. Then what's your next metric? Is it if it passes 300, is it 400? And then you slowly say all right, well I'm gonna save these two just in case. This is something that I wanted to keep in my long term portfolio. I actually did that on Friday with Broadcom. I had the 150 call. Broadcom got up to, I think it was like 3:60 at its peak was at 412, got down to 350. I'm still over a hundred dollars in, in, in the difference. It's like 200. I'm like all right, same thing. Do I want this in a long term portfolio? Is this at a point where I can see it ever getting back to can we take advantage of this now? Is this going to be one that's going to be leading the future in the AI space? Absolutely. Add it to the portfolio.

[Ian]

And just for my investors and traders, you have to know what percentages you're going to hit in advance. You can use Chad, GPT, clar, Perplexity, any finance app to give you an estimate for where it should be going. But you have to know before you get into the game if you get 515 when you're going to exit, you have to because if not you're going to be up 300 and either short.

[Troy]

Size yourself out of another 100 return.

[Ian]

Or stay in too long. You see a drawback. You have to have a pre determined target in your long term and, and short term TR and investing journey and.

[Jabbar]

And you have to have a belief in what you're doing. That's why I say it's important. And I, I told this story of, you know, Micron wasn't something that was like oh this is, this is definitely going to be a short thing or you, how, why do you believe in it? Number one, I did the research. But number two, when we went to gtc the first thing I did was look up, I'm like, who's here? What companies are represented here? Because there's a reason they're here. They either partner with them or they're part of the plan to help them scale their business. Micron we saw like all right, bet this is a confirmation. The option call that I had that the contract that I had was down 50%, 56%. I have it documented, right. No one cheered at that point. Everyone was skeptical, like oh my gosh, I can't believe this. What do we do? What do we do? I Said, we're going to sit tight. We believe in this company. We understand the story. That same contract ended up being up 590.

[Ian]

Yeah, right.

[Jabbar]

But, you know, sometimes that's just how it goes. But having conviction in what you believe in and the research that you've done and understanding the. The entire ecosystem, that happens. But if I didn't believe in it, then it would have been easy. I'm selling this. I'm down 50 of my money.

[Ian]

I'm out of here, frontline to work. And I agree. Troy and Rashad, I know you said three choices all day, but, like, be real if you want to get rich in America. Now, in this window that we have.

[Troy]

Stop bullshitting on social media, trying to catch a vibe, being outside. Y' all hate it when I said that.

[Ian]

Don't go outside for a number of years. Oh, no one wants to do that. Be broke.

[Jabbar]

Those are your options. That's the option.

[Troy]

And it's the crazy part. You'll catch the vibe from doing the work and being great at the work. You're chasing the wrong goals.

[Ian]

Yo.

[Troy]

You want to be lit and be seen and also double down on the work. And those who have not done it, they will tell you quietly they regret.

[Ian]

Not doubling down on the work. The work becomes the fun.

[Troy]

And hanging out with your friends and.

[Ian]

Your family and that you have to have purpose.

[Jabbar]

Yeah.

[Troy]

The purpose can't be to put other.

[Ian]

Family names on your chest like a brand.

[Troy]

The goal has to be freedom for your family. But do what you want. I'll tell you, been on the side of freedom.

[Ian]

Oh, my God. So much fun. So much fun.

[Jabbar]

You stress the wh in horror just now.

[Troy]

Do what you want, though. Then we turn around and talk about them. Blackout. They won't even give us a. A true equity partnership in none of them houses.

[Ian]

We could be friends of the brand or acquired aligners on social media, but.

[Rashad]

All right.

[Troy]

But if we took over a company.

[Ian]

And we owned the majority shares as a community, we can then say something. But people don't want to own to that level. You just want enough to. And that's fine. But we have to elevate past this. We really do.

[Jabbar]

2026 is upon us.

[Rashad]

Somebody says, start. Start a stock learning group with Invest Fest Intendees. We've been locked in dissecting Ian slides ever since. Any other topics you guys suggest we study to become stronger investors?

[Ian]

Every episode of Market Mondays Classic where we drop the album every. Every week for five years.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, we're going on six now. Yeah, Somebody. Somebody just Asked any options? I'm down on. Yeah, I'm down on Tesla. I'm down on Not Tesla, Netflix, Uber, a few Oracles. Those are the. Off the top of my head for sure. That's why we buy time.

[Ian]

Yep. The greatest thing you can do is have time on your side. Investment. Yeah.

[Jabbar]

And the only choice. Expensive going out that far. Well, it's going to cost me more if I go short term to get chopped.

[Ian]

Yep. Yeah. Yep.

[Jabbar]

You choose.

[Rashad]

Spread the word. Tell his friend to tell a friend, you know, 2026, if they. If they want to, you know, really get back on track. Some people fall off the wagon every once in a while. But when we do the next show, it will be in two weeks. Try to invite two friends to. To watch Market Mondays that maybe are not watching currently. Everybody can do that and we can make some real change. So let's try to invite two friends. Tell a friend. Yeah, tell a friend for the next next Market Mondays, let's try to have each person bring two people.

[Jabbar]

I'm gonna come back 26. I'm coming back with my picks for 26. That's what I'm gonna do.

[Ian]

If you want my picks, they're gonna be in stock club only go to join redpanda.com.com and join the game.

[Jabbar]

I didn't think that's how that was gonna go. I thought she was gonna say, yeah, I'll throw a few in there.

[Ian]

I'm not.

[Troy]

I gave enough. I gave him video and everybody collectively.

[Rashad]

Oh.

[Jabbar]

All right.

[Troy]

Like, what was this at in 21, bro? Like, I'll be seeing something like the remakes of our stuff. I'm like, you didn't like that?

[Jabbar]

The remix? Yeah, this is the remix.

[Troy]

You didn't like that? You didn't know what an asset, a liability was prior to.

[Rashad]

But.

[Troy]

Okay, 2026, new move.

[Ian]

Be quiet. Oh, man.

[Jabbar]

Okay, I got y'. All. I'm gonna get like, a couple.

[Rashad]

No stock call tomorrow.

[Jabbar]

No, no, no stock. I got y'. All. I got you. I got. I'm gonna throw out five Top of the year.

[Ian]

Give you prophecy on my first joint, all named out.

[Jabbar]

All right. Ian's gonna talk me out of this.

[Ian]

All right? Forget it.

[Jabbar]

Forget I said it.

[Ian]

No, that'd be his private equity side. Okay, okay. But, yeah, it's been great.

[Jabbar]

It's been real, man. 2025 has been real. Blessings and mercies on all you and your families. You know, lives are being changed, families are being changed, communities are being changed. All from conversations. And that's. That's the most important thing. The impact has grown this year. People's brokerage accounts have grown, which means their life decisions have grown more than 20.

[Ian]

26.

[Jabbar]

26.

[Ian]

Y' all double down. You deserve to be rich. Get the book. You deserve to be wealthy. Lock in, yo. And I'm only talking like this because of what is coming. Like, and the people I talk to.

[Troy]

I'm gonna be real. I'm gonna give y' all some inside ball. Our group chat been so quiet because how hard we working? Like, I just send a text. Yo, y' all good? How y' all feeling? Blu Ray working Everybody at Charlemagne. 200 piece. Work, work.

[Jabbar]

Hey, yo.

[Troy]

All this about hey, yo. 200 million work. That's pause.

[Jabbar]

Nah, you. You stopped and you said work, work. That's crazy. That was crazy. Yo, shout out to Charlotte.

[Troy]

It's amazing to see your friends and peers get to cooking. And how long Charlamagne Burnham Breakfast Club and how long he been doing Black Effect? These are all decade half decade holes. Been on Breakfast Club 15 years. Charlemagne probably. Oh, 700. The 200 is great. He owes 700 for what he's done for that company over there.

[Jabbar]

Powerful. Yeah. Any the Forbes article? Forbes piece was dope. I think he just dropped the interview with Angie. I'm definitely gonna check that out.

[Ian]

Yeah, I'll check that out.

[Jabbar]

Yeah. Incredible moves that he's making, man.

[Rashad]

Salute to Charlamagne, man. I spoke to him. You know, he's definitely a good.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

Good. A good dude. And he talked about a lot of that invest fest last year with Steve Harvey when he was talking about his. His roadmap, his vision for lack effect and everything that he had going on. A few months later, that's a few.

[Troy]

Of Rich Paul pressure.

[Ian]

Oh, God.

[Troy]

Charlemagne.

[Ian]

Oh, my.

[Troy]

Junior Bridgman, God rest his soul. It's a few people who would engage.

[Ian]

You some lifetime gems like just go execute Charlemagne here.

[Troy]

Magic Johnson.

[Ian]

Oh my.

[Jabbar]

Yeah, don't forget about that.

[Rashad]

Doing his numbers. Doing his numbers, man. So.

[Jabbar]

All right.

[Troy]

But yeah, man, appreciate everybody said an all episode grinding. Yo, the new final cut new MacBook.

[Jabbar]

I'm telling you, we gotta. I gotta. I gotta do this before we go, man. Nephew, happy birthday to not say it's gonna be his birthday next week. We won't be here. His happy birthday. Now everybody that has a birthday around the the holidays, happy birthday. Anybody that's lost one during the holidays, condolences. I know it's a tough time. Prayers and thoughts go out to you and your loved ones. But yeah, definitely. Happy birthday yeah.

[Rashad]

Birthday to my son on the 28th, my brother on the 29th, Sean on the showing.

[Ian]

Even though you don't celebrate Christmas, there's.

[Rashad]

A few people that's. That's born around the end of the year. So shout out to all the end of the year birthday days out there. Yeah, Enjoy. Enjoy it. And thank you guys for rocking with us all year. Appreciate you, man. Thank you for, you know, your ongoing support and your ongoing viewership and love.

[Ian]

Yep.

[Rashad]

Tap in in 2026. Let us know what guests that you would like to see. Let us know any new. You know, you asked for the ticker, we added the ticker. So let us know how we think. How you think we can improve programming. We can add. Let us know any suggestions are welcomed. And yeah, man, hopefully everybody made money this year if you didn't, for whatever reason, there's always opportunity in the future. So we headed into this new. Into this new year. It's a lot going on, but you can only control what you can control. So take your education serious, tap in, and we'll see you in 2026. Blackout watch. Blackout. Blackout Wednesday. Earn your leash on Thursday.

[Ian]

Yeah, absolutely. From the bottom of my heart, love y'. All.

[Troy]

Despite hobby, acting and temperamental.

[Ian]

That's for entertainment purposes. Life is good. God is good all the time.

[Troy]

But I love y' all dearly. First episode of the year. Just put all the stocks that you want prices for.

[Jabbar]

I'm gonna.

[Ian]

I'm gonna throw y' all some alley oops this year for sure to start the year right.

[Jabbar]

This money be made. This money. We're gonna make it. And we're gonna make it together. Let's build our brokerage accounts. Let's build our community. Let's build together. Let's win.

[Troy]

Work.

[Ian]

Pause.

[Troy]

Robin Hood. Work. Go peep that Vlad interview. He and I feel you on stocking. You ain't gonna hold us. But he looks so poised. And the boy look like he about to be president. They about to have a great year. Oh, my God. Black called me. I got an idea. Tournaments.

[Jabbar]

All right. Stock stock of I'm g. Get my. I'm Before I go out before. No, I'll wait next year.

[Troy]

No, I'll give it to him.

[Jabbar]

Pause my stock of the year for 26. Yep.

[Rashad]

No, no, wait till.

[Jabbar]

I'm gonna wait till next year.

[Rashad]

All right, y' all put in chat.

[Troy]

If y' all want him to give it tonight.

[Ian]

Cliffhanger.

[Troy]

I'm media training. Tune in two weeks.

[Jabbar]

January 5th, 2026. Now we out. Y' all y' all be good. Love is love y'.

[Ian]

All.

[Troy]

I'll leave it there Itchy. Pay them invoices too please.

[Ian]

Please.

[Jabbar]

Net now for real.

[Troy]

Thank you. Looking maybe Q2 because the restructuring of the government debt. What that got to do with you?

[Jabbar]

Net now thank you.

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