Before we get to a shocking review of Robinhood investors’ 3rd quarter scorecard, let’s start in orbit.
SpaceX continues to compress launch economics. As Falcon 9’s success revealed last Friday, boosters can routinely return to Earth and land vertically at Cape Canaveral, allowing the company to reuse hardware that legacy aerospace firms once discarded after a single flight.
Each recovered first stage reduces marginal launch cost and increases cadence.
That matters for three reasons:
First, launch frequency compounds learning. The more often a rocket flies, the faster engineering teams iterate. Failure becomes data. Data becomes design.
Second, cost compression expands the addressable market. Lower launch costs invite more commercial satellites, more defense payloads, and more private-sector participation. Space becomes infrastructure rather than spectacle.
Third, integration. SpaceX controls launch, satellite manufacturing, and a growing slice of low-Earth orbit connectivity through Starlink. Vertical integration captures margin and information flow simultaneously.
Private equity markets reflect that positioning. Pre-IPO shares in SpaceX have traded actively in secondary markets, with valuations reflecting both aerospace cash flow and satellite-network optionality. Institutional capital treats it as critical infrastructure with national security relevance.
When we speak with Matt Milner on Grey Swan Live! this week about private-market positioning, this is the backdrop. While public markets debate AI multiples, private capital accumulates long-duration platforms that control chokepoints.
SpaceX sits at the intersection of defense, communications, AI data routing, and sovereign capability. That positioning carries weight in a world where geopolitical friction and digital infrastructure increasingly overlap.
As you’ll see, it’s a good time to have this conversation with Mr. Milner…
Robinhood’s Lost Half-Decade
Retail traders returned from the holiday weekend staring at red screens.
The average Robinhood account returned –24.6% in Q4 2025, the third-worst quarterly performance in the past 6 years. That followed two of the platform’s strongest quarters on record and a sharp drawdown in the first quarter of 2025.
James Chanos estimates individual investors lost another $4–5 billion in January alone.
Since the meme-stock crest in mid-2021, many retail traders have effectively run in place. Nearly five years of trading, ten negative quarters, and heavy volatility have produced little cumulative gain.
Over the same stretch:
The S&P 500 advanced 59%.
The Nasdaq 100 rose 70%.
Gold climbed 186%.
Silver gained 200%.
Retail portfolios leaned heavily into high-volatility single names. Microsoft is down 17% year-to-date. Amazon is off 13.9%. Microsoft has not produced gains over the past two years.
All Magnificent Seven stocks are negative year-to-date and lag the broader market. (Source: Global Markets Investor)
Concentration Risk Returns
Retail investors nevertheless purchased a record amount of equities over the past three weeks.
Palantir and MicroStrategy remain favorites among retail accounts. Both delivered extreme price moves over the past twelve months – first higher, then lower.
High-beta stocks amplify gains during expansion and compress quickly when liquidity tightens.
That’s also why the past two years have seen big swings in tech stocks, but resource companies have been trending higher. They started out as low-beta companies and have started to take off as resource prices – such as gold and silver – have soared.
In the Grey Swan Trading Fraternity today, Andrew Packer issued a new trade on a resource company, noting that the recent volatility will likely act as a pause before the next leg higher. And he’s targeting a company with a new catalyst that could unlock growth, and even possibly a strategic investment by the U.S. government.
The Robinhood cohort leaned heavily into concentrated bets. The S&P 500 spreads exposure across 500 balance sheets.
Leverage, Liquidation, and the 10/10 Shock
Last Thursday, on Grey Swan Live!, Frank Holmes gave us a play-by-play of the sell-off in digital assets that started on October 10, 2025. Including, we might add, why that makes him especially bullish for the space right now.
Roughly $19 billion in leveraged positions vanished within hours. Bitcoin fell from approximately $122,000 to $105,000. More than 1.6 million accounts were liquidated.
Holmes describes the event as larger than the FTX collapse in absolute dollar terms. Binance reportedly tapped $188 million from its insurance fund to absorb bad debt.
The catalyst coincided with President Trump’s announcement of a 100% tariff on Chinese imports layered on top of an existing 30% rate. Broader markets repriced geopolitical risk. Crypto’s leverage structure magnified the adjustment.
Holmes noted bitcoin trades roughly two standard deviations below its 20-day norm, a statistical extreme observed only three times in five years.
In prior episodes, these sharp sell-offs preceded short-term rebounds over the subsequent 20 trading days.
The whole space remains volatile. Individual stocks and coins still trade as a bloc.
Corporate Digital Asset Treasury companies now hold over 1.1 million BTC — 5.7% of supply. The U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve holds approximately 325,000 BTC. Institutions added roughly 43,000 bitcoin in January despite price weakness.
Bitcoin remains roughly 45% below its all-time high. Leverage has contracted, which is good. Also good: institutional ownership has expanded.
Trade Blocs Form as Washington Reconsiders
A quick look at Trump’s efforts to realign global trade reveals an interesting development since last week’s Munich Security Conference.
Politico reports that Canada, Mexico, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and 11 Indo-Pacific nations are exploring a trade framework linking nearly 40 countries and 1.5 billion people. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is organizing discussions to connect the E.U. with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
If negotiated, supply chains could move goods across dozens of nations with lower tariff friction.
The E.U. is nearing what one ambassador calls the “mother of all trade deals” with India. The bloc signed agreements with Indonesia. India finalized deals with the U.K. and New Zealand.
Willingness to reduce tariffs and trade outside of U.S. markets is in part driven by Trump’s reset of security alliances and the amount of money the U.S. spends on NATO and European defense. It’s a trend worth keeping an eye on. (Source: SEMAFOR)
President Trump has signaled openness to revisiting USMCA. Cato Institute trade expert Scott Lincicome indicated that diversification may benefit non-U.S. economies and dampen future trade shocks emanating from North America, while limiting U.S. influence over time.
The Trump reset agenda is betting big that won’t happen.
Geneva, Hormuz, and Energy Risk
Iran’s foreign minister met with the head of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog in Geneva ahead of renewed nuclear negotiations with the U.S. Jared Kushner joined Steve Witkoff in leading the American delegation.
President Trump has threatened military action absent an agreement curbing Iran’s nuclear program. Warships and fighter jets have repositioned near the region. Iran announced the partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz for scheduled military drills.
Parallel talks seek a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Kyiv achieved its fastest territorial gains since 2023 over the past five days, according to AFP. U.S. warnings of secondary tariffs reduced Indian purchases of Russian oil.
Energy flows adjust to each of these developments in real time through shipping routes, insurance premiums, and futures pricing.
Public Mood and Capital Flows
Gallup was once the gold standard in polling.
If they remain credible, they released an interesting data set over the weekend that will likely play a role in a contentious midterm election this November.
Gallup reports that 62.1% of Americans describe themselves as thriving in 2025, down 2.7 percentage points from 2024. Yet, only 59.2% expect a high quality of life in five years, the lowest reading on record. We wonder how many of the 40.8% of the naysayers were trading on Robinhood…
Our goal at Grey Swan is to make sure we’re in the cohort of thrivers now, five years from now… and beyond.
To that end, folks who build durable positions tend to focus on balance sheets, cost structures, and who controls the pipes — whether those pipes carry rockets, data, oil, or dollars.
The headlines will keep coming. Your choices with your own money will help you decide which cohort you belong to. The thought is kind of empowering, don’t you think?
~ Addison
P.S. Last week, Frank reviewed some of the more important market trends impacting his portfolio of ETFs. Despite the short-term challenge to the stock market, economic fundamentals are in good shape early in this midterm election year.
Frank explained in detail how alternative data, like global airline demand, helps his team rebalance their portfolio of ETFs when market trends shift.
This week, we turn to a corner of the capital markets usually reserved for well-connected investors: the pre-IPO space. Companies like SpaceX and Anduril have caught our attention as investments, but they’re not officially publicly traded.
Our friend Matt Milner over at Crowdability has created a way to get access to these companies before they go public – and at the valuations where institutional investors are able to invest today.
So mark your calendar for this Thursday at 12 p.m., ET. More details to come!
