Brian Haskin

Investment industry executive. I study and write about leadership, personal growth, and the power of community.
Alum of @USC and @ChicagoBooth.

[Dave Kline @dklineii]

Major career cheat code: Do what you said you would do. No reminders. No follow up. No excuses. Just boring, consistent reliability. It doesn't take talent. It takes commitment and care. Be the rare person who always delivers. Good intentions don't equal great results.

[Brian Haskin @BrianHaskin]

Hard to find real wisdom like this! Read it. Bookmark it. And come back to it often, especially when you’re feeling any sense of FOMO.

Thank you @gnoble79 for sharing this timeless “one-pager”. 🙏

[George Noble @gnoble79]

I was 26 years old when Peter Lynch handed me this.

April 28, 1983. I was the auto and retail analyst at Fidelity.

Peter was in his prime, on his way to building the greatest mutual fund track record in history:

29.2% annual returns for 13 YEARS STRAIGHT, growing Magellan from $18 million to $14 billion. The Babe Ruth of investing.

I'm looking at the principles he had typed up on a single sheet of paper that I've kept in my files for 42 years and I believe now is the perfect time to revisit them again.

Let me walk you through a few:

Rule 1B: "You need an edge to make money. Do not rely on a combination of hope and good luck."

Today's retail investor has no edge. He has Reddit, Robinhood, zero-DTE options and a TikTok algorithm pushing him into whatever stock just ripped 200% the day before.

That's hope and good luck wearing a fancy costume.

Rule 1E: "Purchase stocks like one would purchase a business."

Tesla trades at over 360 times earnings on a business deteriorating in real time, Oracle has $206 billion in liabilities against $39 billion in equity, MicroStrategy is a leveraged Bitcoin holding company priced like a software firm, and don't even get me started on SpaceX, that piece of garbage you'll be able to trade tomorrow...

Nobody in their right mind would buy these as actual businesses. They buy them as stories, narratives, and lottery tickets.

Peter would have called it the same way I do - these are not investments. They are speculations. GAMBLING.

Rule 1G: "Study the balance sheet and cash flow statement."

The hyperscalers spent over $380 billion on AI capex in 2025. Goldman says the measurable productivity payoff does not arrive until 2027 at the earliest.

Oracle just reported NEGATIVE $23.7 billion in free cash flow for fiscal 2026 while borrowing at a pace that would make a leveraged buyout firm nervous. The cash flow statements are screaming but nobody is reading them.

Rule 1I: "Avoid the long shot."

This one cuts the deepest.

The entire market has become a long shot.

OpenAI is projected to post roughly $74 billion in operating losses in 2028 ALONE while priced for transformation tomorrow. Bitcoin treasury companies are multiplying off thin air.

The retail investor of 2026 is making one long-shot bet after another and calling it a portfolio.

Rule 3A: "When the fundamentals change, sell your mistakes."

Tesla's fundamentals have changed.

California registrations are down 24% year over year and inventory days went from 10 to 27. Musk himself admitted on the last earnings call that Hardware 3 cannot achieve unsupervised FSD, breaking a promise made to 4 million customers.

The fundamentals have screamed change. But the stock is still at $385.

The mistakes are not being sold. They are literally being doubled down on with leverage.

Rule 3I: "A 30-50% profit in 12 months is great. Mediocre in three years."

Today's retail crowd expects 30-50% in a WEEK. Then they wonder why they get wiped out the second the hype stops.

And my favorite - Rule 3J: "Develop your own style and stick to it."

That is the entire game right there.

I developed mine sitting across the hall from Peter Lynch in 1983, watching him work, reading his notes, getting my own research handed back to me covered in his pencil marks. Then in 1984, my first full year managing money, I ran the #1 mutual fund in America. The Fidelity Overseas Fund was top 2 for the next six years running.

I did not get there by chasing narratives. I got there by following the sheet of paper you are looking at right now.

42 years later, this single page contains more wisdom than every Fintwit thread, CNBC segment, and Wall Street price target combined.

Peter retired in 1990 with the greatest mutual fund record in history. Then he sat down and wrote books explaining exactly how he did it.

Only a few "investors" these days read them.

And almost nobody is reading the balance sheets, the cash flow statements, or studying actual businesses today either.

They are chasing AI, crypto, and whatever pumped yesterday.

The wisdom on this page is timeless and it's more important than ever.

[Jeffrey Currie 🆔++ @CommodMkt]

The abundance illusion.

Carter admitted the scarcity. It was honest. It was politically fatal.

Every Administration since drew the obvious lesson: never admit to scarcity. Talk the price down. Release the reserves. Call it abundance and hope the problem resolves itself. It has worked for the past 50 years.

839 institutional investors. Record two-thirds expect oil prices to fall further. Even retail: oil ETF shorts exceed longs for the first time ever.

The template is working.

It has always worked. Until the buffer runs out.

SPR 415→349mb. Global stocks drawing 6mb/d.

That’s not supply responding to price. That’s inventory responding to price. And inventory, unlike production, has a floor.

You cannot destock your way to energy security.

See my latest note https://t.co/ktBpOCEf1U

[Hedgeye @Hedgeye]

🇺🇸 Here's what $39 trillion in debt really means:

If we confiscated every dollar of U.S. corporate profit ($3.8T/year), it would take over 10 years to pay off.

Sell every ounce of gold ever mined: $32 trillion. Still $7 trillion short.

Liquidate every Bitcoin in existence on top of that: $33.5 trillion. Still $5.5 trillion short.

If we confiscated every dollar of federal tax revenue ($5.3T/year), it would take over 7 years to pay off, assuming zero spending.

The debt is 71% of every home in America, or 30% of every publicly traded company on Earth.

The debt grows by $7.2 billion a day, or $84,000 a second.

This is a problem.

[Brian Haskin @BrianHaskin]

⁦@SpiritAirlines⁩ planes sitting idle tonight. Missed opportunity to take the no frills end of the market from Southwest.

[Ethan Kho @ethanrkho]

This guy beat the market for 17 straight years trading a sector many investors have written off post-2008

Derek Pilecki (@gatorcapital) runs a financials-only fund. 21%+ annualized.

His edge? A corner of the market many investors moved away from after the GFC.

We cover:
- Why he expanded from 25 → 40 positions and returns went UP
- His counterintuitive rule: buy higher, not lower (positions get LESS risky as they rise)
- The Robinhood call — bought late 2023, rode it to a multibagger
- Why he's quietly watching FactSet, Morningstar & Verisk right now
- His view on private credit risk (and why he disagrees with Jamie Dimon)
- How he uses AI to analyze more stocks without losing his edge
- Why markets chronically underreact to good news — and how to exploit it
- The brutal career reality no one tells young PMs about

Highlights:
00:00 Intro
01:06 Derek's +21% annualized return track record
02:50 Fundamental business change vs market noise in Robinhood
05:25 Portfolio construction: Concentration limits and adding to winners
09:09 Sourcing alpha and identifying three-year doubles in financials
12:44 Developing edge through repetition and management team cycles
14:16 Why the post-GFC regime fundamentally changed bank underwriting
17:07 Assessing tail risk and leverage in the private credit market
21:23 AI-driven market dispersion and identifying moaty businesses
24:11 Why shareholder base turnover matters for timing broken charts
29:37 Integrating AI into fundamental research and SEC filing analysis
35:39 Risk management: Permanent capital loss vs mark-to-market volatility
37:12 Capacity constraints: Optimizing for returns over AUM scale
50:39 Career risk and the reality of active money management

[Brian Haskin @BrianHaskin]

What’s wrong with this picture? 🤔

[Anthony Scaramucci @Scaramucci]

Let me walk you through what happened one hour before Trump announced the five day moratorium on Iran strikes.

$1.5 billion in notional S&P E-mini futures contracts. Four to six times normal activity.

One hour before the announcement.

Simultaneously, $192 million in crude oil futures purchased at the same time.

They made between $300 and $400 million dollars off those trades.

Trump claimed he spoke to an Iranian official to negotiate the moratorium.

The Iranians said that person doesn't exist and the conversation never happened.

This is not the first time.

It has happened multiple times. He says something. The trade goes on. He says another thing. The market moves.

But whatever you call it — they are laughing at you and they are laughing at me while they do it.

Hunter Biden sold a painting and Washington lost its mind.

These people are making hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars trading on information that only exists inside the most powerful office in the world.

I think we are dramatically underreporting how much money is actually being made here.

This isn't politics anymore.

This is a financial operation running out of the White House.

[Ben Hunt @EpsilonTheory]

While Trump dodged the draft, Robert Mueller volunteered for the Marines after graduating Princeton. He was awarded a Bronze Star with combat V, rescuing a wounded Marine while under fire. He was later shot in the thigh, awarded a Purple Heart, and returned to lead his platoon.

[Anthony Scaramucci @Scaramucci]

Let me explain something that nobody in Washington wants to say out loud.

Deficit spending is an unfunded tax liability. You are going to pay the man one way or another. That is just math.

And our politicians have decided to collect that debt in the most pernicious and regressive way possible.

The inflation tax.

Instead of standing up and saying — here’s what we spend on the military, here’s what we spend on social services, here’s what you owe — they don’t have the courage to do that.

So they take it from your savings account while you’re not looking.

And here’s what makes me genuinely angry about it.

The working poor don’t fully understand what’s happening to them.

My parents bought their house for $16,000. That same house is worth $400,000 today.

They think they got rich. They didn’t get rich. The dollar got weak.

You’ve got $100,000 in your bank account. You feel secure. But that $100,000 has the purchasing power of maybe $10,000 from 1971.

That’s the trick. That’s always been the trick.

And the people it hurts most are the ones who can least afford to lose.

[SCOTT WARNER @ScottWarner18]

The best single game performance I’ve ever seen from any baseball player in my entire life.

Shohei Ohtani in Game 4 of the 2025 NLCS.

At bat: 3 for 3 with 3 HRs, 3 RBIs and a walk.

On the mound: 6 shutout innings with 10 Ks and only two hits.

Insane.
https://t.co/mXJbCOBef5

[Cyber Hornet ETFs @CyberHornetETFs]

Most people think "digital assets" means going all in.
We disagree.
75% S&P 500® / 25% crypto
Confidence first. Long term always.
Join the swarm - January 30 🐝
#JoinTheSwarm #CyberHornet #ETFs

[Chris Latham @EchrisL]

Mike Willis, CEO of @CyberHornetETFs, discusses Nasdaq ticker BBB, the firm's fund that combines tracking both the S&P 500 and Bitcoin.

[Nico @USC_Nico]

The Godfather of the 4-2-5, 21 years as head coach @ TCU. Gary Patterson has multiple years with top 5 defenses.

He’s our guy now and we are all hoping for a successful tenure @ USC. ✌️

[Eric Balchunas @EricBalchunas]

Cyber Hornet filing for S&P Crypto 10 ETF (CTX), which (i think) could be first S&P-linked spot basket. THE RACE FOR CRYPTO BASKET ETF SUPREMACY IS HEATING UP..
Holdings breakdown: Bitcoin (69%), Ethereum (14%), XRP (5%), Binance Coin (4%), Solana (2%), TRON (1%), Cardano (0.5%), Bitcoin Cash (0.4%), Chainlink (0.3%), and Stellar (0.2%).

[Cyber Hornet ETFs @CyberHornetETFs]

Investors know there’s comfort in numbers.
That’s why the S&P 500 feels familiar.
Start with a foundation people already trust.
Then add measured crypto exposure on top.
You don’t have to go all in to participate.
Confidence comes from balance, not extremes.
#ETFs #Bitcoin #ForThePeopleByThePeople

[Cyber Hornet ETFs @CyberHornetETFs]

Two things jumped out to us.

The United States now ranks third globally in Bitcoin holdings, which says a lot about how institutional this asset has become.

Even more interesting is how quickly corporate adoption is showing up.

Trump Media already ranking 21st worldwide highlights how fast new players can reach scale in this market.

Bitcoin is no longer a fringe asset. It is showing up on balance sheets at every level.

#Bitcoin #DigitalAssets #Crypto

[Cyber Hornet ETFs @CyberHornetETFs]

Attention #Bogleheads. The S&P Just Found Its Wild Side.

Get your BBBs, available at @Vanguard_Group : https://t.co/xYdMKC6vAX

Click here for fund disclosures https://t.co/6a3BcNTRKN

The Fund does not invest directly in bitcoin or other digital assets, nor does it maintain direct exposure to “spot” bitcoin.

[Cyber Hornet ETFs @CyberHornetETFs]

Bitcoin Energy. S&P Stability.

Get your BBBs, available at @Vanguard_Group : https://t.co/xYdMKC6vAX

Click here for fund disclosures https://t.co/6a3BcNTRKN

The Fund does not invest directly in bitcoin or other digital assets, nor does it maintain direct exposure to “spot” bitcoin.

[USC Football ✌️ @uscfb]

easy to get confused 8⃣0⃣