I’ve been a trader and investor for 44 years. I left Wall Street long ago—-once I understood that their obsolete advice is designed to profit them, not you.
Today, my firm manages around $5 billion in ETFs, and I don’t answer to anybody. I tell the truth because trying to fool investors doesn’t help them, or me.
In Daily H.E.A.T. , I show you how to Hedge against disaster, find your Edge, exploit Asymmetric opportunities, and ride major Themes before Wall Street catches on.
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Table of Contents
H.E.A.T.
I have been a bull for most of this year based on two things, virtually unlimited AI Capex and Fed easing. Last week brought doubts on both of those catalysts. This week we have NVDA earnings. Sometimes we get amped up over a company’s earnings and it turns out to be a nothing burger. Could be the same this time, but I think with everything that happened last week this one ought to be important……
In Focus: Nvidia’s Earnings May Be the Market’s Moment of Truth
Equity markets slumped last week as investor anxiety shifted from abstract fears about AI valuations to concrete concerns around Fed policy, tightening financial conditions, and the staggering debt load now required to fund the AI buildout. It was the first time in nearly a year that the two primary engines of equity strength—AI euphoria and rate-cut expectations—wobbled at the same time. Nvidia reports this week. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
Nvidia has become more than a stock. It’s the center of the most powerful growth narrative in global markets—generative AI, parallel processing, and the rearchitecture of the global data infrastructure. It’s also the single company most exposed to whether AI capital expenditure can continue to grow without breaking the credit market, exhausting cash flow, or cannibalizing equity valuations.
Here’s the math: AI capex is now estimated to hit $600 billion in 2026, up from ~$400 billion this year. Hyperscalers have already issued more than $75 billion in new debt this fall to fund it. Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google—firms once known for pristine balance sheets and massive buybacks—are now becoming inelastic buyers of compute and inelastic sellers of debt. Nvidia’s chips are at the center of that spiral. Its results this week won’t just reflect sales. They’ll reflect how much gas is left in the tank.
The irony? Nvidia’s fundamentals are still staggering. Gross margins are approaching 80%, net income has scaled 2,270% since late 2022, and data center revenue is up more than 1,300%. The business is delivering—faster than the market ever thought possible. But with $4 trillion in market cap gains over three years and its valuation now dragging half the Nasdaq with it, the question is no longer whether Nvidia’s beating numbers. It’s whether those numbers can keep pace with the weight of the expectations built on top of them.
Markets hate ambiguity. And that’s what last week brought. The Fed narrative shifted hawkish—just as government data delivery broke down. Without clean CPI, labor, or spending data, the market is left interpreting FOMC tone in a vacuum. And that tone has shifted toward a prolonged pause. That’s not the end of the world—unless growth is weakening, liquidity is tightening, and AI funding becomes a credit event. Suddenly, the weight of $1.5 trillion in forward AI spend feels less like optimism and more like a convexity trap.
Add in growing differentiation within the AI trade—Oracle CDS widening, CRWV drawing scrutiny, vendor financing debates reappearing—and this week becomes a test not just of Nvidia’s quarter, but of the sustainability of AI as the primary driver of the market’s valuation premium.
Bottom line: Nvidia could deliver blowout earnings and still sell off if commentary on hyperscaler spend softens, backlog slows, or orders shift down the curve. That wouldn’t mark the end of AI—but it might mark the beginning of real dispersion inside the trade. And if Nvidia misses, the market may be forced to reprice the entire AI capex ecosystem, from suppliers to power infrastructure to speculative GPU lessors.
This is the most important print of the quarter. Not because it will change Nvidia’s long-term dominance. But because it may clarify whether the AI trade still floats all boats—or whether it’s time to start screening for survivors.
Practical Takeaways: Positioning for the Most Important Earnings of the Quarter
1. If Nvidia Blows Out the Numbers (and Guidance Holds)
This would validate the idea that AI capex is accelerating into year-end and that hyperscalers are still buying aggressively, despite tightening conditions.
Winners:
Core AI infra suppliers:
$SMCI (servers), $MRVL (connectivity), $PLAB (packaging), $COHR (lasers), $ENTG (semicap filters)
High-convexity secondaries:
$PLTR (software spend), $CRWD (AI-driven security), $PATH (automation proxy)
GPU real estate / leasing proxies:
$SYM, $CRWV, $CIFR (but highly speculative and debt-leveraged)
Strategy:
Ride the “capex confirmed” wave: long the SMH ETF or build a basket of tier-2 AI names that lagged in the recent selloff.
Consider short-dated bullish ratio spreads for convex exposure with defined risk.
2. If the Print Is Strong, but Commentary Turns Cautious
This is the most likely and most dangerous setup. Nvidia beats, but management hints at order visibility softening or hyperscaler spend becoming more selective.
Losers:
Over-allocated AI secondaries:
$ORCL (vendor-financed exposure), $CRWV (credit risk), $AI, $PATH
Leveraged GPU lessors:
The “AI capex-on-credit” complex: $WULF, $CIFR, $IREN
AI infrastructure ETFs may see rotation out ($ROBO, $BOTZ)
Winners:
Secular enablers with margin leverage:
$ETN, $VRT, $CEG — companies that sell into the grid, not the hype
Quality semi / datacenter arms dealers:
$AVGO, $AMBA — less reliant on speculative AI
Strategy:
Fade the rally in overextended names that have no earnings power
Go long companies with real margin leverage to AI — power, cooling, memory
Start accumulating names in the AI stack trading near 52-week lows but with revenue visibility
3. If Nvidia Misses or Guides Down
This is the pain scenario — where growth decelerates, commentary acknowledges capex fatigue or backlog air pockets, and stocks tied to the AI trade break.
Immediate Losers:
$SMCI, $CRWD, $PLTR, $MRVL — heavily Nvidia-dependent
GPU-hosting / speculative infra plays like $CRWV, $SYM, $CIFR
AI SaaS names trading at 20x–40x sales
Secondary Impact:
$TSLA, $META, $GOOG — get hit on crowding and correlated tech flows
$ORCL — vulnerable on debt exposure and capex dependency
Winners:
Defensives: Healthcare ($CI, $LLY), food ($PG, $PEP)
Structured volatility: Long vol strategies, short gamma players
Rate-sensitive rotation: Utilities, grid infrastructure, select energy plays
Strategy:
Consider bearish put spreads on $NVDA or $SMH
Buy back long gamma / tail hedges you’ve been rolling
Watch the reaction in credit: widening in Oracle, Meta, MSFT CDS is a red flag
What to Watch in the Call
Backlog conversion: Is order volume being pushed into later quarters?
Customer concentration: Are AWS, Azure, or Meta reducing forward commitments?
Capex ROI narrative: Do hyperscalers still expect profitable ramp, or are questions emerging about utilization?
Inventory build: Are Nvidia’s customers front-loading purchases or pausing?
China revenue: Any risk from tightening export controls?
Positioning Map: What to Do No Matter What
Traders: Prep both a bullish and bearish trade on NVDA/SPX. IV crush will hit either way — use spreads or flys with well-defined risk.
Swing investors: Build long exposure into semis with pricing power, high cash conversion, and customer diversity. Trim speculative software with no FCF.
Macro allocators: If the print disappoints, expect real yields to rise and defensives to outperform. If the print lands and the Fed holds in December, equity beta stays alive through year-end.
Bottom Line
Have hedges in place
Perhaps look to get your long exposure through ratio spreads
Be careful out there. It is possible that some of the high flying stocks with no prospects of earnings for a long time are done, at least for now.
News vs. Noise: What’s Moving Markets Today
Strategy Cracks, Crypto Stalls, and the Margin Math Starts to Matter
The world’s largest corporate holder of Bitcoin — Strategy (MSTR) — now trades below the value of the Bitcoin it owns. Let that sink in.
As of last Friday’s close, Strategy’s market cap dropped to $59.9 billion, while its 641,692 BTC holdings were worth nearly $62 billion. For the first time in over a year, the stock trades at a discount to its own balance sheet. That $80 billion premium from late 2024? It’s gone. More importantly, so is the market’s faith that leverage and treasury math alone are enough to sustain the stock.
This shift isn’t just about crypto. It’s about a broader rotation in market psychology. Risk assets are being repriced — and MSTR is the canary. The AI trade is facing earnings scrutiny. The Fed has turned more hawkish than expected. And in the absence of fresh data, markets are confronting valuation and balance sheet questions they ignored for a year.
Strategy is being forced to raise capital to buy Bitcoin, not with profits, but through increasingly dilutive preferred offerings. Last week, it issued 7.75 million shares of euro-denominated preferred stock with a 10% dividend — at just €80 per share. Investors are asking hard questions about servicing $689 million in annual preferred and debt obligations. BTC yields nothing. The software business is barely material. What’s left is a leveraged BTC holding company — with structural fragility if rates stay elevated and BTC stalls.
Even crypto bulls have noticed. Noted short-seller Jim Chanos, who built a thesis around MSTR’s inflated premium to NAV (market value of BTC), closed his position last week, writing: “Let others chase the last leg… MSTR inevitably marches toward 1.0x mNAV.” It’s there now.
Who Loses from Here?
Common equity holders: The reflexive premium that pushed MSTR into hyperdrive is now gone. The bid under the stock was premium expansion — that’s now compressing.
BTC-tracking software equities: MSTR’s correction puts pressure on Metaplanet (Japan), RIOT, MARA, and other “equity-wrapped BTC trackers.”
DATs: Other digital asset treasury companies like BMNR
Who Wins from Here?
BTC itself: If you want BTC exposure, the market is telling you to own BTC — not the wrapped version with structural drag and payout obligations.
MSTR preferreds (with caution): STRF, STRD, STRC are all trading off but offer 8–10% coupons with defined seniority. For income-focused investors with risk appetite, these sit above common equity and may be worth watching.
Trade Ideas
1. Long MSTR Short Bitcoin
The opposite of what Jim Chanos and many others have been doing. Probably be a while before MSTR gets back to a big premium, if ever, but trading below the value of it’s Bitcoin could be an opportunity.
2. Long STRF or STRC, hedge with BTC or MSTR puts
You’re buying the yield, recognizing the risk, but protecting the downside with vol or delta hedges.
3. Long MSTR Short MSTY
Anyone who came to my webinar on Friday knows I don’t like traditional covered call ETFs, one reason being they limit upside. I especially don’t like them when the underlying stock has gotten crushed as short calls limit the ability for the inevitable snap back rally. A great way to play this here is long the stock, short the covered call ETF (note there may be borrow costs and you have to pay out the dividend).
Or……..
In Case You Missed It
Matthew Tuttle, a bitcoin investor and chief executive of Tuttle Capital Management, said: “I think people are starting to get worried that the Fed is going to be on hold at that meeting, which I think is at least part of today’s [Thursday’s] sell-off.”
He said that while the price of bitcoin has been falling, he has been “buying the dip”. “You know, I think intermediate term, longer term, I’m bullish,” he said.
However, he said: “When bitcoin got into the $120s, that was great, but that was too far, too fast, and just like anything else, you can be the biggest bitcoin bull ever, but you’re sitting on massive profits. And the old adage: take your profits before somebody else takes them from you — that applies to everything, including bitcoin. People like to talk about bitcoin as some magical asset, but it really isn’t.”
How Else I Can Help You Beat Wall Street at Its Own Game
Inside H.E.A.T. is our monthly webinar series, sign up for this month’s webinar below….
Why Covered Call ETFs Suck-And What To Do Instead
Tuesday December 9, 2-3PM EST |
Covered call ETFs are everywhere — and everyone thinks they’ve found a “safe” way to collect yield in a sideways market. |
The truth? |
They cap your upside, mislead investors with “yield” that’s really your own money coming back, and often trail just owning the stock by a mile. |
Join me for a brutally honest breakdown of how these funds actually work — and what you should be doing instead. |
What You’ll Learn:
🔥 Why “high yield” covered call ETFs are often just returning your own capital |
The H.E.A.T. (Hedge, Edge, Asymmetry and Theme) Formula is designed to empower investors to spot opportunities, think independently, make smarter (often contrarian) moves, and build real wealth.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the Chief Executive Officer and Portfolio Manager for Tuttle Capital Management (TCM) and are subject to change without notice. The data and information provided is derived from sources deemed to be reliable but we cannot guarantee its accuracy. Investing in securities is subject to risk including the possible loss of principal. Trade notifications are for informational purposes only. TCM offers fully transparent ETFs and provides trade information for all actively managed ETFs. TCM's statements are not an endorsement of any company or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. Trade notification files are not provided until full trade execution at the end of a trading day. The time stamp of the email is the time of file upload and not necessarily the exact time of the trades. TCM is not a commodity trading advisor and content provided regarding commodity interests is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation. Investment recommendations for any securities or product may be made only after a comprehensive suitability review of the investor’s financial situation.© 2025 Tuttle Capital Management, LLC (TCM). TCM is a SEC-Registered Investment Adviser. All rights reserved.