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 $4 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.
Table of Contents
H.E.A.T.
Wall Street still doesn’t get it when it comes to “meme” stocks and the retail revolution……
News vs. noise: the “meme” story everyone is missing
Noise: Everyone still thinks “meme stocks” means another GameStop-style short squeeze in a dying business.
That was 2021.
News: Retail evolved. The “meme” label now mostly means asymmetric thematic names — companies sitting at the intersection of a story the internet can spread and a catalyst the market can price fast. It’s not “distressed retailers”… it’s cutting-edge themes where retail can be the price-setter.
And Wall Street has adapted in two big ways:
Market plumbing got sturdier (but not invincible).
After the 2021 chaos, regulators pushed fixes like T+1 settlement (faster settlement reduces some clearing stress vs. T+2).
But the bigger point: the system didn’t become “safe.” It became more monitored.Institutions now track retail like they track the Fed.
Retail flow data is mainstream on desks now (Vanda Research is one widely cited source). In one 2025 risk-off episode, Vanda estimated ~$4.25B of new retail buying in five days, with flows heavily into big tech and QQQ. That’s the market telling you retail is no longer a sideshow — it’s liquidity that matters.
So here’s the real takeaway:
The new “meme trade” isn’t about bullying shorts. It’s about retail identifying themes early — then forcing the market to reprice speed, scarcity, and narrative.
The Retail Advantage (and why it’s real)
Wall Street still has advantages: access, management calls, sell-side channels, capital.
But retail has three edges that are getting stronger:
1) Speed of narrative discovery
Retail doesn’t wait for initiation reports. Retail lives where themes are born: social feeds, niche forums, Discords, Substacks, YouTube, GitHub, conference clips, product drops.
2) A “swarm research” model
A thousand obsessives can collectively do what one analyst can’t:
scrape filings, patents, job posts
track supplier relationships
catch product/contract breadcrumbs
map the ecosystem faster than an investment committee ever will
3) AI turns chaos into signal
The weapon isn’t “ChatGPT picks stocks.”
The weapon is: AI compresses research time — summarizing, cross-referencing, generating checklists, and stress-testing narratives so you can focus on judgment.
The Guidebook: how retail becomes the new smart money
This is the practical playbook — built for real humans with day jobs.
Step 1: Build your “Theme Radar” (top-down first)
Your goal is to maintain a living list of 10–15 themes that the market is funding right now.
Examples of what tends to work in “meme 2.0” regimes:
energy security / electrification supply chain
defense / drones / autonomy
nuclear / uranium / grid resilience
AI infrastructure picks-and-shovels
space / satellites / connectivity
critical minerals / reshoring bottlenecks
Rule: If you can’t explain the theme in one sentence, it won’t spread.
Retail wins when the story is simple enough to travel.
Step 2: Convert themes into a hunt list
For each theme, you want 20–50 names across:
leaders (the “obvious” winners)
enablers (suppliers / picks-and-shovels)
under-owned small/mid names (where the asymmetry lives)
“call option” names (cheap equity stories with real catalysts)
Your edge: Wall Street often starts with valuation models.
Retail can start with ecosystem mapping.
Step 3: Filter for “Asymmetry DNA”
Meme 2.0 names tend to share a few traits. You don’t need all of them, but you want a cluster:
scarcity: low float, tight supply of shares
volatility: options activity exists (or could appear quickly)
attention: rising mentions before mainstream finance picks it up
catalysts: an event clock (earnings, product launch, ruling, contract, policy)
survivability: enough cash/runway so the story can live long enough to spread
explainability: a narrative that fits in a tweet without lying
Step 4: Use AI like an analyst — not like a fortune teller
Here are copy/paste prompts you can use.
Prompt A — “Turn news into an investable map”
You are a buy-side analyst. Read the text below.
Extract tickers/companies mentioned and implied beneficiaries.
Identify 3 first-order winners, 3 second-order winners, 3 losers.
List the next 5 questions that must be answered to invest responsibly.
Give a catalyst timeline (days/weeks/months).
Give a “what would break the thesis” checklist.
TEXT: [paste article]
Prompt B — “Detect play-acting vs real adoption” (works for theme stocks too)
Build a 10-point scorecard to determine whether this company is truly benefiting from [THEME] or just using buzzwords.
Require evidence: KPIs, margins, backlog, customer wins, capex, hiring, product telemetry.
Prompt C — “Reverse engineer what would make this go viral”
Write the bull case for this stock as if you were trying to make it go viral online.
Now write the bear case as a short seller.
Now list the 3 data points that would settle the argument fastest.
Step 5: Follow “smarter money” online — but with a lie detector
Yes: X, YouTube, Discords, Substacks can surface themes early.
But they’re also where pump-and-dumps live.
Use this credibility filter:
Do they post entries AND exits, or only victory laps?
Do they show position sizing, or only “conviction”?
Do they change their mind when facts change?
Do they cite primary sources (filings, calls, docs) vs screenshots?
Do they manage risk, or just sell adrenaline?
The meta-rule:
If someone’s “process” is mostly excitement, you’re their exit liquidity.
Step 6: Execute like a pro (risk rules that keep you alive)
Retail doesn’t lose because of bad ideas.
Retail loses because of position sizing and no exit plan.
A simple framework:
Core vs. optionality: own a few high-conviction themes as “cores,” express the rest with defined-risk structures (Options?)
Pre-write your sell rules:
sell some into strength (reduce cost basis)
exit if the catalyst fails
exit if the story breaks (not if the price wiggles)
Keep hedges on: index hedges, cash buffer, or non-correlated ballast — so you don’t get forced out at the worst moment
The “Meme Stocks 2.0” watchlist checklist
When a stock starts trending, run this before you buy:
What’s the one-sentence narrative?
What’s the real catalyst clock? (date + event)
Does the company survive 12–24 months without heroic financing?
Is the float tight / is positioning crowded / is options liquidity there?
What would make the story die instantly?
Where are you wrong — and how will you know fast?
What’s the plan if it gaps +30% overnight? (trim rules)
What’s the plan if it gaps -30% overnight? (stop/hedge rules)
The bottom line
GameStop was a historic stress test.
But the real legacy is bigger:
Retail participation didn’t disappear — it matured.
The battlefield moved from “save the mall retailer” to theme-driven asymmetry.
Wall Street now watches retail flow the way it watches economic data.
The message is simple:
Don’t chase the ticker. Chase the theme — and build a process that turns attention into research, and research into disciplined risk.
News vs. Noise: What’s Moving Markets Today
The “Great Rotation” Head Fake (and the Trade Wall Street Can’t Ignore)
NOISE: Every time value rips for a week and small caps go vertical, the hot take machine fires up: “The Mag 7 era is over.” “Tech is dead.” “Buy the Russell and chill.”
NEWS: This looks a lot more like positioning + mean reversion than a durable regime change. Rotations can run hard and fast… and still be a head fake if the underlying drivers (liquidity, passive flows, earnings gravity, and “real” scarcity) don’t confirm.
1) Growth → Value: Head fake until proven otherwise
Yes, cyclicals and “real economy” have been leading… and that matters. But style rotations don’t equal a new market—especially when they’re happening after months of crowding in one side of the boat (mega-cap growth) and a multi-year hangover in the other (industrials/materials/energy).
Here’s the tell:
If value leadership is real, it won’t need a constant stream of “macro fear” headlines to keep going. It will persist through quiet tapes.
If it’s just a squeeze/rotation, it tends to fade the moment the market gets even a whiff of “growth is fine + rates aren’t exploding + earnings still favor the giants.”
In other words: value can win… but it has to win on fundamentals, not just flow.
2) Large → Small: the indices look “good”… but the small-cap index is full of landmines
Small caps can absolutely outperform in a Goldilocks-ish tape—especially when breadth improves and the market starts paying for domestic exposure + operating leverage again.
But here’s the part retail (and even pros) mess up: small-cap indices are not “small-cap quality.”
The Russell is loaded with companies that are:
structurally unprofitable,
highly levered into higher-for-longer rates,
chronically dilutive (constant equity issuance),
and one bad quarter away from becoming a refinancing story.
So yes: play the small-cap move, but don’t marry the index.
How to be “picky” in small caps (the cheat code):
Screen for positive free cash flow (or a clear path to it within 12 months).
Demand pricing power (gross margin stability is the giveaway).
Avoid “rate junk”: weak interest coverage, near-term maturities, heavy floating-rate exposure.
Look for operational torque: companies where a small revenue lift drops disproportionately to earnings because the cost base is already built.
Bonus points: insider ownership, net cash, and a product that’s boring but essential.
The opportunity is real. The index is sloppy. Stock-picking is the whole ballgame here. See above on meme stocks.
3) Why the Mag 7 mathematically can’t do poorly if the market is going up
This is the part that gets missed in every “rotation” narrative.
Even if you hate the Mag 7… they’re too big to fail quietly. Not politically—mathematically.
Here’s the simple mechanics:
When the biggest names are a massive chunk of the index, their drag has to be offset by everyone else.
That can happen for short bursts (and it has—breadth has been improving).
But for the market to trend higher—not just bounce around—eventually the largest weights need to at least stop bleeding.
A quick way to think about it:
If ~30–40% of an index is concentrated in a handful of mega-caps, and that cohort is down meaningfully, the “other 60–70%” has to be up a lot more just to keep the overall index moving higher. That’s possible in a surge… but it’s hard to sustain without the mega-caps stabilizing and participating.
So the base case in an up tape is usually:
Mag 7 doesn’t need to lead every day — it just can’t be a persistent anchor.
That’s why the cleanest bull markets often look like this:
Broad participation (small caps/cyclicals catch a bid)
AND mega-caps quietly regain their footing
AND the index grinds higher on multiple pillars, not one
4) The real “must own”: commodities — specifically metals
If you want the portfolio insurance that also has real upside, you don’t get it from narratives… you get it from scarcity.
You can’t print copper. You can’t QE a new uranium supply chain. You can’t do “financial engineering” on a power grid buildout. That’s why metals aren’t just an inflation hedge—they’re a reality hedge.
And right now, the setup is straightforward:
Growth vs. value can rotate weekly.
Stocks vs. bonds can whipsaw on headlines.
But metals are levered to the one theme that doesn’t care about your feelings: the physical world is getting more expensive to build.
Why metals belong in the “core” (not just the trading book):
They hedge policy error (especially when the bond market is the enforcer).
They benefit from deglobalization + reshoring + defense buildout + electrification.
They tend to like a weaker dollar and a world where investors question “paper” promises.
And they give you exposure to real demand even if the equity factor tape is playing games.
If you want to simplify it:
Gold = trust hedge (policy + currency + credibility).
Copper / aluminum = electrification + grid + industrial rebuild.
Uranium = energy security + baseload reality.
Select miners = torque (but only if balance sheets aren’t a dumpster fire).
Bottom line
NOISE: “Value is back. Small caps are the new leadership. Tech is finished.”
NEWS: The rotation is tradable, but it’s not “new era” until it proves it can persist. Small caps can work—but only with selectivity. And if the market is going higher, the Mag 7 can’t stay weak forever.
If you want the position that doesn’t require perfect headlines, perfect CPI prints, or perfect politics: own metals (I’d wait for a pullback if you don’t already have a position). In a world that’s re-learning scarcity, the hardest assets are the easiest hold.
Friday’s NY Fed “rate-check” on USD/JPY (reportedly on behalf of Treasury) is the kind of plausible-deniable market signal that often precedes yen intervention: you don’t spend reserves first—you try to scare the shorts in thin liquidity and let positioning do the work for you. The tell here isn’t just USDJPY wobbling—it’s the message: Washington is willing to be involved in shaping FX outcomes at the same moment Japan is wrestling with a JGB credibility problem (yields spiking after politically driven fiscal chatter) and the BOJ is still sitting at 0.75% with inflation running hotter. If this turns into actual MOF/BOJ action, the near-term setup is classic: violent USDJPY air-pockets, short-covering squeezes, and spillover into UST duration via the Japan→global term premium link. The bigger takeaway is more uncomfortable: if Treasury is implicitly OK with dollar weakness, that’s a tailwind for hard assets and non‑US diversification, but it’s also a headwind for Main Street purchasing power—a weak dollar can re-light the “affordability” problem even if reported inflation prints are improving. What to watch this week: Tokyo-session price action around the prior “line in the sand” levels, MOF language, any follow-through in JGB volatility, and whether the dollar sells off even as yields rise—that’s the market voting “policy/credibility risk,” not “growth scare.”
A Stock I’m Watching
Today’s stock is Iren (IREN)….
IREN is a perfect snapshot of what “meme stocks” have evolved into: not a dying retailer + short squeeze, but an asymmetric theme that retail can discover faster than Wall Street because it lives at the intersection of crypto miners, power, and AI compute. The bull case isn’t vibes — it’s that IREN is trying to graduate from “bitcoin miner” to AI cloud capacity landlord, and Microsoft just handed it credibility with a five‑year agreement worth up to $9.7B for AI cloud capacity using Nvidia’s newest GPUs at IREN’s Childress, Texas site — with a 20% prepayment that helps de‑risk the buildout. To actually deliver that capacity, IREN paired the story with a $5.8B hardware deal with Dell, with deployments staged through 2026 — which makes this a real-world execution trade (power + cooling + delivery timelines), not just a ticker with a catchy narrative. And that’s exactly why it fits the “meme stock 2.0” template: a simple storyline retail can repeat, a massive TAM, and price action that can go vertical when the crowd shows up — IREN just closed around $56.68 on heavy volume. Treat it like the new retail edge: own the theme, respect the volatility, and track milestones like a hawk.
In Case You Missed It
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.