Hego Damask

Event Driven Special Sits at pod shop. Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. NFA

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@acidinvestments Or, alternatively, c.$80m if he sells for $68.13 this year. Bit of a no brainer here, if you think he's incentivised to keep PayPal public then I don't know what to tell you.

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@Longroaderstar After taking some more time to digest, probs more neutral than positive - this puts more weight on 4-year data and will definitely be a topic at AdCom given the potential readthrough to all Huntingtin-related treatments

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@Longroaderstar Wondering why Bloomberg et al haven't picked up on this, should be material upside for $QURE

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@jbulltard1 @dalibali2 There quite literally is a clutch pedal, even if it doesn't connect to the gearbox like in a normal manual. Koenigsegg did the exact same thing in the CC850 and people were frothing at the mouth for it. Convenience of an auto in cities with manual feel for mountain roads is a win

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

It's a novel ITK inhibition mechanism, which is always going to be met with some caution at first, even if preclinical safety data is v strong. Prescribers likely will want more real world safety data before prescribing in 1L. Likewise, there's going to be so much existing competition in AD ($KYMR, $NKTR, generic Dupi, et al) at launch; seems far more realistic to underwrite 20%+ in 2L than tangible market share in 1L, at least for now. But who knows, on paper it definitely fits the efficacy benchmarks for 1L in my view.

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

Someone tell me why $CRVS isn't strong R/R at these levels (<$15/sh). Yes, they'll likely be 2L only in AD, but that's still a 3bn+ dollar opportunity, and at least 1bn risk-adjusted in the US alone. Rare that a biotech with data this promising trades at/below 1x risk-adjusted peak sales. Thoughts @A_May_MD @seedy19tron ?

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

That's what I'm getting - it seems like there's tangible optionality on top of the 2L AD story, but even if you discount EVERYTHING other than 2L in AD and apply a <30% PoS, that alone should represent triple-digit upside from current levels. What am I missing that the market is pricing in? Overdone competitive fear from $KYMR? Preference towards $NKTR in 2L? Overall concerns on data presentation and subsequent applicability to Ph3? Safety?

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

"It's supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it." - Jimmy Dugan

[Brett Caughran @FundamentEdge]

It is easy as a stock picker to blame the external environment. "My portfolio sucks because the market is all about AI and retail flows".

I had an experience with this early in my career that stuck with me. The investment team was bemoaning the macro driven market (this was '08/'09), citing high correlations as a challenge to L/S spread generation.

The head of the fund responded with a table of realized stock price dispersion, "our job is to, ex-ante, identify the winners and the losers...and I don't know about you, but I see a lot of spread potential in this analysis". The message was clear: winners don't complain, they figure it out.

This was a clear pattern I saw in the best PMs I worked with over my career. They didn't complain, they just figured it out. The job of a L/S PM is to find spread between longs & shorts, wherever it is.

They adapted to the market environment when necessary.

I saw this in real time when I was a PM at a large multi-manager. Sure, great PMs would have drawdowns as market conditions would change, but they were flexible when needed, flowing with the market regime to make money in new ways. Sort of the antithesis of the calcified value investor "I have one way of making money, buying cheap assets, and I'll go to my grave doing so".

And even in this AI & retail driven tape, there is plenty of evidence of dispersion. In my healthcare coverage of 152 names, 75 of them have of them have hit threshold returns this year (longs up over 25% and shorts down over 15%), only halfway through the year. A few of these are AI-influenced, but the vast majority are idiosyncratic and business/industry driven moves that could have been identified with the right research (of course, it's always clear in hindsight).

There is plenty of spread potential in this tape, you just have to find it.

(Caveat: it's insanely hard. But it should be, as the rewards to consistently generating 5%+ long/short spread in equities are immense. And I fully grasp that I am shouting this message from the sidelines, not "in the arena", so evaluate this message as such)

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@unemon1 Do you have a view on the company now? Turnaround still ongoing but at sub 2bn mkt cap should be becoming interesting to strategics...

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@canoebrookbl What's your downside thesis on $COGT?

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@ACapitalLP Smaller market caps you can have an edge, even if technical - take $PPGN, many of the larger event driven funds can't get into for fear of liquidity headwinds. The work needs to be done either way - and per John le Carré, a desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world!

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@ACapitalLP Pareto principle - 80% of returns will be made by 20% of positions, and of those 20% it'll be 80% made by 20% within that. With that said, for special sits absolutely better to know fewer stone cold. Can turn in a heartbeat (look at $ABVX or $IP) and you can play both ways.

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@taobanker Thoughts on whether recent selloff could pose a good entry opportunity? Market seems to be pricing in c.5% FCF growth over next 5 years when biz should be able to do 7%+ even after assuming c.10% volume decline for FY26E

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@orrdavid Seems like you’re getting a good chunk of these ($JFN especially) killed by tourism and cost of energy factor exposure, both of which are derivatives of Hormuz. If you believe that Hormuz will resolve imminently and concretely, seems like a good time to add size.

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@alixpasquet Incredible that this stuff is free. You're absolutely one of the greats, can't wait to see what the next decades hold for Prime Macaya.

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@alixpasquet you mentioned your memo on barriers to scale - would love to read, if at all possible. Thanks in advance, as always an inspiration.

[Brett Caughran @FundamentEdge]

As a junior analyst, do not, and I repeat *do not* use AI to write an investment thesis. Particularly if you are using said thesis to try to get a job.

Your job is to use AI to find creative ways to go incredibly deep on the key drivers of a business with AI, then create rigorous due diligence tracking systems for the key drivers. And FOR SURE highlight that work as part of your pitch. You are trying to highlight the tool as something that deepens insight formation on the business and the stock, not something that took a 40 hour process down to 2 hours and produced AI Slop. For so many PMs, this will be an automatic ding.

Create a “pitch pushback” agent to find logical gaps, anticipate questions, and get suggestions on coherent idea flow.

But the final product should be something that is 100% produced by hand.

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@alixpasquet Very much looking forward. Will there be a recording for us EMEA folks?

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@JoshuaKushner Now do $BATRK

[Hego Damask @DamaskCapital]

@ClarkSquareCap Looks great, congrats.