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March 29, 2023 https://youtu.be/LAKDcmyOgLM The three technologies that are coming together for the first time in history.1) Ecommerce Everthing 1/4 of USA sales today are done online.2) AI will allow big retailers to predict what you will want to buy, BEFORE you make the purchase. (Study Amazon's participation shipping program) It will also help pick and pack time, and maximize delivery routes.3) The rise of driverless vehicles to get products to us as quick as possible. Bots, cars, buggies, and drones will be delivering us products daily in the future. He's one of the most famous men in the investment world today... An entrepreneur... A philanthropist who's helped raise $10 million for inner-city schools... And a former hedge fund manager – who started with just $1 million from family and friends... And grew it into a collection of funds with more than $200 million in assets over the next decade. He's met with Presidents Clinton and Obama... has attended Warren Buffett's last 25 Berkshire Hathaway meetings in Omaha... and has one of America's most powerful financial rolodexes. He's been asked to speak at Google and the country's most prestigious business schools, such as Harvard, Columbia, and Wharton. His name is Whitney Tilson. And even if you don't recognize the name, there's a good chance you've seen his groundbreaking work. Tilson has appeared on the cover of Kiplinger's Personal Finance and has been featured in almost every serious financial news source: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, CNN, and The Washington Post, to name just a few. He's appeared twice on America's most esteemed investigative news program, 60 Minutes, (the only TV show Tilson's parents let him watch for most of his youth)... First, in December 2008, Tilson explained to Scott Pelley how the second wave of the U.S. mortgage crisis would unfold and why the stock market would soar – right before the biggest bull market in U.S. history. Then, in March 2015, he explained to Anderson Cooper a huge scandal within one of America's most popular home-improvement companies, Lumber Liquidators. Shares of the company fell nearly 80%, the CEO resigned, and Tilson made a fortune for himself and his investors. Over the years, Tilson has accurately predicted the decline of 88 different stocks, including three bankruptcies. He even helped oust the CEO at America's most famous rental car company. Incredibly, even more recently... Whitney Tilson called the exact day bitcoin peaked in value (December 18, 2017)... and the exact hour marijuana stocks would start their big collapse (October 15, 2018). He also predicted the exact day the market bottomed during the COVID-19 collapse in early 2020. There's probably not another financial analyst in the world who can make these claims. Tilson also bought many of the most valuable stocks in recent history long before they were household names... including: Netflix when it was $7.78 a share (since then, investors have seen gains worth more than 4,200%) Apple at a split-adjusted $0.35 (it's moved up more than 20,000% since then) Amazon at a split-adjusted $2.41 (it's moved up more than 3,200% since then) This is why CNBC once nicknamed Whitney Tilson "The Prophet" and why it's critical for you to take a few minutes to hear what he has to say today. In short, Tilson says three new technologies are coming together RIGHT NOW to reshape our country in a way we've never seen before. He calls this breakthrough "EoD," and if you've never heard of it, you soon will... Because EoD is about to hit a tipping point, and when it does, it's going to change EVERYTHING... From the way you eat, shop, and work... to the value of your home and where you live... it will radically alter the price you pay for everything. And that's just for starters. At a conservative estimate, EoD can put back more than $4,000 every year into every American's pocket, without having to buy a single share or option, or make any investment at all. And Tilson says that for those who know how to properly position themselves, the monetary gains will be extraordinary. In fact, according to him you could make more money over the long term by investing early in this trend than you've ever made from any other investment in your lifetime. And that's why today he's revealing, totally free of charge, an "EoD" investment, which he says every American should own, starting immediately. Unfortunately, however, Tilson says there's a downside to this story... EoD is also going to cause a lot of people to lose money, too. Dozens of well-known businesses are likely to go bankrupt. But the truth is, Tilson believes the positive effects of this radical development far outweigh the negatives. And that's why he's going public with the full story today. He says: "This is not something that 'might' happen. It's inevitable... 100% guaranteed to take place. In fact, it's already underway in multiple cities, including Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, and more. The only question is, when will it hit your hometown?" Today, Whitney Tilson will explain everything you need to know, including one of his favorite EoD investments in the world right now – revealed at no charge whatsoever. Stay tuned... Hi, I'm Whitney Tilson, and today I want to tell you about one of the biggest financial stories in America, which is not getting nearly enough attention in the mainstream press. Despite all the news coverage you see on hot technological breakthroughs... such as 5G, Internet and robotics... artificial intelligence and virtual reality... the blockchain and quantum computers... Most people are completely missing out on the big picture. As you'll see, we are at a seminal moment in American history. An enormous sea change is happening in our society as I speak. And it's critical for you to understand what's taking place. I must confess, to me this seems like déjà vu. I used these exact same words back in 2019, when I was pounding the table for the massive rollout of electric vehicles ("EVs")... Back when I made my presentation on EVs, almost no one was talking about EVs. You never saw an ad on television and rarely saw a Tesla on the streets. But since my last presentation like this, it seems like every other commercial on television is for a new EV set to come out... And when you look around your hometown, you're likely seeing more and more electric vehicles and charging stations all around you. Of course, Tesla stock shot up as high as 1,200% since my original story on the EV takeover. And shares of BYD, the world's largest EV manufacturer, have skyrocketed by more than 815%.I don't tell you that to "toot my own horn," as they say, but rather to prove a point... That same EV technology I accurately predicted more than three years ago is now converging with brand-new technologies to unleash what could turn out to be the biggest reset of our lives. I call it "EoD." In a moment I'll explain exactly what the term stands for and how you'll be set to benefit if you get in early. For now, however, it's important you know that EoD is becoming one of the most sought-after breakthroughs for some of the biggest companies in the world... From Google to Apple to Microsoft... Amazon to Walmart... even the biggest restaurants, like McDonald's... They'll all trying to win the race for "EoD." And it's not just me saying this. The Wall Street Journal reports that there's an "explosion" of EoD... Already, some of the world's smartest investors and money management firms have placed their bets, too... investing their money into the rising EoD trend. From global wealth manager T. Rowe Price... To Tiger Global Management, which has invested early in EoD... To investing giant SoftBank, which is already "in" on EoD... Every single month, new investments, breakthroughs, partnerships, and deals are announced. After hearing about EoD in investment circles for a while now, I decided to test it for myself – to see if it was real, or just a bunch of smoke and mirrors. So, a few weeks ago, I personally tested this EoD breakthrough. After seeing it with my own eyes, I was instantly convinced about the power this breakthrough holds. Now that I know this works, I also know it's about to change the lives of almost every single American. Today, you can be among the first to hear about the biggest change in America we've seen in many, many years. And I'll even reveal, totally free of charge, one of my favorite stock market investments to take advantage of the situation. You don't have to give me your e-mail address, your credit card, or anything like that. Just stay tuned. A year from now, I believe this story will be all over the news, but today, hardly anyone is taking it seriously. Let's get started... America’s Next Big GameChanger Is Here What most people don't understand about technology is that the really big disruptions – the ones that make people rich and change our lives – are almost NEVER the result of a single invention. Instead, it's the convergence of several new technologies, and often a new business model, too... Take personal computers ("PCs"), for example... They were first introduced in 1977 when the Apple II, the Commodore Pet, and Radio Shack's TRS-80 all made their debut. It was the advent of the hard drive (by IBM), integrated circuits, integrated computer systems, and other important breakthroughs, which made it all possible. PCs changed our world and created fortunes... Intuit's software let people do their own taxes, and the company's share price soared 15,800%. Cisco built hardware and software, and its stock went up more than 55,400% in less than 10 years. And Western Digital perfected PC hard drives – and shares went up more than 4,050% over the long term. The Internet (which went live in 1991) was also a combination of multiple breakthroughs... The Department of Defense's Arpanet technology first linked four computers together in 1969. And the advent of breakthroughs such as "packet switching," Transmission Control Protocol, and HyperText Markup Language, made the Internet a reality. And again, it made investors wealthy... Amazon is up more than 115,000% since the early days. eBay shares went up more than15,000% since going public. Booking Holdings is up 20,400% over the long term. The same thing happened a few years later with smartphones... Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone with a call to a nearby Starbucks in 2007. And it was all possible because of the convergence of technologies like high-speed modems, seamless roaming, GPS, digital imaging (which Sharp introduced in 2000), touchscreens (which IBM first put in a phone in 1992), and many more. And yet again – people got rich... Apple shares went up over 4,000% since the iPhonedebuted in 2007. Cellphone chipmaker Broadcom has seen its share price soar2,600% in 15 years. And Lam Research, which makes semiconductor processing equipment, is up nearly 3,000% in the last 20 years. Today, the same thing is about to happen again... A slew of new technologies is leading us to a new development that I call "EoD." In a decade or less, it will be hard to imagine how we survived before this transformation took place – just as today it's hard to imagine how we functioned before smartphones. And it's all going to happen much, much faster than almost anyone thinks. Let me show you what is rapidly unfolding... How it's going to make some people a fortune over the next few years and bankrupt others... While transforming our lives in ways that are almost unimaginable right now. Remember, I'm also going to give you, totally free of charge, one of my favorite ways to invest in this technological breakthrough today. I'll reveal the stock name and the ticker symbol in just a few minutes. I did something very similar not too long ago... Up Six-Fold In One Year... Back in 2012, I saw the convergence of the Internet, faster data transmission, and a new business model (on-demand streaming TV and movie services) in a company I'm sure you're familiar with, Netflix. I was extremely skeptical of this new model at first but wanted to learn more... So, I flew to California and had lunch with Reed Hastings, Netflix's founder and CEO. After learning more, I became a huge believer... And when the stock got cheap enough, I loaded up on shares in my hedge funds and went on CNBC, telling everyone how Netflix was a "screaming buy." A year later, the stock was up six-fold... the beginning of a run that ended up being an 8,791% gain in only nine years after I made that call. I think the situation before us today is very similar... Three incredible technologies are combining right now, for the first time in history, to form a tipping point... And very soon, EoD is going to completely transform our world. Here's what you need to know... How "EoD" WillChange Your Life "EoD" stands for Everything on Demand. Put simply... Everything on Demand, or EoD, is the future of getting everything and anything you want, at any time, delivered to your doorstep on demand – often in less than an hour. Now, many of you might think that I'm making a big deal about nothing... But most Americans simply aren't aware of what's coming. They don't have any idea of the billions of dollars being spent by some of the world's largest companies to own the "Everything on Demand" space. The co-CEO of a business called GoPuff summed it up nicely when he said... "When Amazon came out with two-day Prime [delivery], that was the most revolutionary thing. Now, people want [everything] in 20 minutes. In 10 years, people are going to want it in five..." Mark my words – being able to buy anything you want and have it show up at your door in under an hour will change everything... According to TechCrunch, a recent survey showed that fast and reliable delivery was the most important online shopping attribute among more than 8,500 customers... That's exactly the problem that "Everything on Demand" solves. It allows you to get anything you want delivered to you almost instantly. And sooner than most people think, EoD will become the norm rather than the exception. Think about it this way... Over the past decade or so, the digital world – things like movies, songs, and TV shows – has already moved to "on demand," producing huge winners... and devastating losers. No longer do you have to go to Blockbuster to rent movies... Instead, you can simply see everything you want instantly on demand, from your cable box or from Netflix. Of course, the movement of the digital world to "on demand" bankrupted brick-and-mortar stores like Blockbuster... While making anyone holding shares of Netflix richer than they imagined possible... Our favorite songs are no different. No longer do you have to go to Best Buy to pick up your favorite artists' CDs...You can instantly listen to everything you want from the Apple iTunes store... or any one of the music streaming service apps like Pandora or Spotify. This change to "on demand" in the music world crushed shares of retail stores like Circuit City, which went bankrupt... While giving shareholders of Apple huge profits... Now that same "on demand" breakthrough that forever changed the way the digital world works... Is about to make its way to the physical world – getting almost everything you want, bought online and delivered to you, often in less than an hour. Just like the digital world's transition to "Everything on Demand" produced huge winners, so too will the physical world's EoD revolution.Imagine... Soon, you'll be able to buy almost everything online... Pharmacy items, home improvement goods, alcoholic beverages, health and beauty products, cars – everything... And have it shipped to you, on demand, almost instantly... in less than 60 minutes. No more waiting around for days for a package to show up.No more paying attention to "tracking numbers" and delayed shipping that makes the e-commerce world so frustrating.Just a "click to door" speed of everything, delivered on demand, in less than an hour.Soon, people will even take EoD for granted... just as we take Wi-Fi for granted in any coffee shop. But during the transition, the level of infrastructure and technology changes that will be put in place to facilitate EoD will make even the best minds at NASA sit up and take notice. It's also 100% guaranteed to completely transform our daily lives. Just for starters... It will add 10 more years to your life to do the things you want to do, versus what you have to do. This is a big deal because in a recent survey, a whopping 80% of Americans felt they do not have the time to do what they want to do. It could put an extra $13,500 back into your and your family's bank account each year – without having to make a single investment! It will change the products you are used to... and the way you consume goods. It will dramatically change the way cities look and feel. And this is all just for starters. Now, it seems like every big tech company and delivery giant is racing to win the title for Everything on Demand. Consider what a top exec at Uber said when he claimed... Let me explain the amazing convergence of technologies that will power this EoD revolution... How The Convergence OfThree New Technologies WillChange The World To make EoD a reality, it'll take three very specific technologies – which are just now coming together for the first time in history. One of the three critical technologies hitting a tipping point right now is the rise of what I call "e-commerce everything." Now, you might think e-commerce is not a new technology. And in a way, you're right. E-commerce itself is nothing new. We've been ordering books from Amazon for nearly 30 years. But what many people don't realize is that the technology behind e-commerce got a huge jolt with COVID-19. Take a look at this chart of online sales over the past decade and a half... Online sales were rising slowly and steadily, year after year... and then COVID-19 hit, everyone was locked down, and e-commerce sales took off. Even people who had never shopped online before were forced to order the goods and services they wanted online. Groceries became a part of the mix, and now every national grocery chain offers online groceries... Even mom-and-pop stores across the U.S. are relying on tech to go online... It's crazy how this is all developing much faster than most people realize... Added up, more than a quarter of allsales in the U.S. happen online That 27% you see in the chart above was worth $10.4 trillion in 2020. By 2021, that number rose to $13 trillion. Just take groceries, for example... According to the CEO of Instacart, by 2025, 20% to 30% of consumers will make online grocery shopping "part of the way they run their household." That's a big deal. Because it means almost $3.75 trillion worth of groceries will be purchased online. For perspective, that's 8 times the entire Amazon retail business across the globe in 2021 – just from groceries. Just let that sink in. And now that the grocery frontier is crossed, the floodgates have opened for e-commerce "everything." From your pharmacy to home improvement, alcoholic beverages, health and beauty, wellness... You name it, you can now getalmost everything online Take cars, for example... A few years back, it would have been unfathomable to buy a car through anything but a classified ad or a dealership. Yet now... you can buy cars online and have them delivered to your doorstep the next day. You now have the option of never having to deal with the smug car salesman we all hate so much. In 2019, 825,000 cars were sold online globally. In the next two or three years, that number is going to hit 6 million. And people are now purchasing private jets, boats, and even French chateaus online. That's the beauty of technology. And that's where we are right now! This trend is already making some people rich... Over the past five years, the gains of the best-performing stocks in the e-commerce space are simply extraordinary... Shares of Shopify soared as much as 1,408%... Holding shares of Etsy could have returned more than 25 times your money, at 2,525% peak gains... The EoD trend is growing so rapidly, you don't have to wait five years... or even two years. Wayfair returned 1,129% in less than six months... Now of course, these are some of the best examples in this market. And it requires a ton of research to uncover such plays before they make It big... But that's the case with all new trends. So, that's the first part of EoD... "E-commerce everything" is taking over traditional retail – from cars, to groceries, to toys, to computers, to... well, everything. But remember, "e-commerce everything" is only a part of the real story. The second part is even bigger... How Retailers Are Able ToPredict What You'll Buy BeforeYou Even Think Of Buying It The reason why e-commerce is still less than 30% of all retail is its inability to give instant gratification to the consumer. Think about it... Ten years ago, you had to wait 10 days for an item bought online to show up at your doorstep. Two years ago, because of things like Amazon Prime, we started getting packages in two days. Not bad – but, if you're like me... it stinks having to wait two days for your items to show up. Well, that's about to change, because with EoD rolling out across the country, instant gratification is on the way. Sooner than most people think, you'll be able to have almost everything available on the Internet – delivered to your home in one hour. That's what Everything on Demand is all about. But in order to get all your items as soon as possible, the big retailers need to find ways to store all those items in local warehouses, as close to you as possible. It makes sense, right? It would be impossible to get you items instantly if they were stored 3,000 miles away in a warehouse. To get to the next level... e-commerce everything is quickly combining with another disruptive technology you've likely heard of before: artificial intelligence, or "AI." Specifically, AI will help with two critical tasks to make EoD a reality. First, AI is allowing "big retail" to harness data that will help them predict what you want to buy... way before you make the purchase. I repeat – right now, using data, retailers know what you will buy before you even think of buying it Although most people don't know this, a few years back Amazon was awarded a patent for a unique technology called "Anticipatory Shipping." This patent allows Amazon to ship a product even before an order is placed. Their system uses all the data from your prior Amazon activity – including time on site, duration of views, links clicked and hovered over, shopping cart activity, and wish lists. All this data combines to provide "decision support for speculative shipping of items." In plain English, that means the product is on its way to a warehouse an hour away from you... before you buy it. That's one way retail is harnessing AI to power Everything on Demand. But there's a second, more powerful way AI gets used, too. See, AI goes even further than just knowing which items to store in which local warehouses... To become the fastest among equals, top companies like Amazon, Google, and Uber are relying heavily on AI to optimize "pick and pack" times in the warehouses, delivery fleets, driver routes, and commute times. Here's something amazing most investors don't know... Research shows that the retail sector spending on AI's will go from less than $1 billion in 2020 to more than $40 billion by 2030. That's 40-fold growth in just 10 years. Can you imagine investing in a trend early enough that you could see 40-fold returns? But it gets better. Because the final technology will make the growth in EoD even more explosive... Where All The Smart Money IsHeaded Right Now... The final piece that makes EoD possible is the rise of autonomous delivery vans, humanoid robots, and delivery bots that are all programmed to get items from local warehouses to your doorstep faster than any human. Go ahead and laugh. It sounds crazy, I know. But remember, in 2019 when I predicted the rise of EVs, no one thought that was possible, either. Now look where we are – with Teslas, Ford F-150s, Rivians, even GM EVs in every town in America and EV commercials at every television break. Soon, there will be fleets of autonomous vehicles in the form of bots, cars, vans, buggies, and drones ready to deliver to you at a moment's notice. Sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, I know... But robots don't get sleepy behind the wheel and don't need to take smoke, bathroom, or food breaks. Autonomous delivery can happen every single second, every day, no matter the weather or time of year. And instead of just a pizza or a burger... you'll be able to order anything you need... a piece of stationary... a gardening tool... a mattress... even a car... and be assured it will be delivered to your doorstep in an hour or two. And if you think delivering in an hour is impossible... get this. Last year, a couple of Stanford dropouts launched a startup with a promise to deliver groceries in just 10 minutes. Amazing, right? You're able to order eggs and bread... and have it show up at your house in less time than it might take you to drive to the store! It took these founders just nine months to bring their startup to a valuation of $900 million. Just take a moment to consider the impact here – from $0 to nearly a billion dollar valuation in less than a year, all because they're applying Everything on Demand Music mogul Jay-Z recently invested millions in Stellar Pizza – a robot-powered restaurant started by former SpaceX engineers that makes pizzas on the move and delivers them within 30 minutes. Starship Technologies, the world's leading provider of autonomous delivery, raised $100 million from investors in just 30 days. Costco, which traditionally expects people to come to their stores, has spent over $1 billion to snap up an Everything on Demand logistics company. There's simply nothing bigger than EoD in the world of e-commerce today. That's why the money is pouring into this space... As I've shown you, some of the world's best fund managers and companies are investing in early-stage EoD startups... T. Rowe Price has placed its bet... Tiger Global Management has invested early... SoftBank is already "in" on EoD... Every single day, new breakthroughs, partnerships, and deals are announced. From startups to unicorns to trillion-dollar companies, everybody is in on the race to win Everything on Demand. EoD will make the e-commerce experience far better than what it is today. As Stanford economist Tony Seba reports: "I have looked back at disruptions going all the way back to Gutenberg. Every time there's a 10 times improvement in cost for the same product or service, there has been a major disruption. Every single time. I know of no case where 10 times improvement did not lead to disruption." And here's something completely crazy... When EoD hits every major American city, all your shopping, including the cost of goods, could be virtually... FREE How does that work? Let me show you some simple math... The average wage for an American in 2022 was $32 per hour. Now, the average American spends 10 hours per month shopping... yet the ability to order almost anything online and have it delivered in under an hour almost completely eliminates the need to drive to stores, spend time in line, and fight traffic on the way home. That's a huge benefit right there. And if all those shopping hours were switched to earning hours... that's $320, or $1,280 for a family of four. Think about it – just by optimizing EoD, you could have made enough money to take care of your family's utilities, gas, and grocery expenses for a month. And from all the cases I've seen, whenever a new technology brings about FREE or even a chance of FREE, it wins... every single time. But listen, that is just one way of saving with EoD. There are other ways that EoD benefits you. By not physically driving to the stores... You spend less on gas... You spend less on car maintenance... Your car insurance premiums will probably come tumbling down... And you get to save on parking and speeding tickets. In fact, for many people, the only reason they have a car is because of shopping. If the burden of shopping is taken care of, they don't even need one anymore. That's as good as another $894 back in your pocket. Every month. Now do you see why I'm so excited about EoD? When the Internet first came around, nobody ever realized how valuable the delivery of information could be. In the same way, most people might not realize how valuable the on-time, at-your-beck-and-call delivery of everything can be. Of course, it's not all rainbows and sunshine. The rise of EoD will come at the cost of something else. We've seen that happen with e-commerce. Even as e-commerce hit the $13 trillion mark, a whopping 56,000 brick-and-mortar stores closed in the U.S. And with that, almost 670,000 Americans lost their jobs... And as EoD helps e-commerce break its final barriers to entry... in the next two or three years, another 30,000 more retail establishments will be gone... and with them, close to 500,000 jobs. Yes, I know. It's not great. But that's what disruption does. And that's exactly why I'm reaching out to you... After hearing this presentation today, you have a choice: You can be left behind, hurt... and potentially lose your job as EoD changes the way we eat, shop, and work over the coming years... Or you can position yourself to be on the profitable side of the trend – by investing a portion of your money today in the companies that will roll out EoD across America. By acting today, and as EoD completely rolls out, you'll have already positioned yourself perfectly to profit from it, instead of just watching from the sidelines as some of the biggest companies that you know of completely disappear. Now... before you dismiss EoD as a "crazy" idea or "too far off," keep in mind that the first EoD services are already in place and operating today... Did you know, for example, that Walmart has teamed up with Nuro to deliver groceries in Houston? Nuro's already raised more than $2 billion for its technology. Investors include famous money managers and hedge funds like T. Rowe Price, Softbank, and Tiger Global. Walmart also uses the services of Waymo and Gatik to do deliveries in Scottsdale, Arizona. Amazon has a small delivery robot named "Scout" that has been making doorstep deliveries in Seattle... Irvine, California... Atlanta... and Franklin, Tennessee... Amazon's already launched one-hour delivery service in my company's hometown of Baltimore. Starship, which has raised almost $200 million from investors, has built a fleet of delivery robots that have already completed 1.5 million autonomous deliveries... in 100 different cities across the globe. These robots now cross more than 80,000 roads safely every day. Another fleet of delivery bots, which look like futuristic ice cream carts, have started sharing the bike lanes in Austin, Texas... Ford has a two-legged robot that can unfold itself from the back of a driverless delivery van and carry a package right to your front door. A Chicago-based company launched a smart, tamper-proof mailbox that not only collects packages but also facilitates package pickup by bots and drones... The company has already raised millions from investors hoping to get in early on the potential profits. Mark my words, smart delivery mailboxes will become an important part of every American home, just like the personal computer did. Microsoft is even working on drones that will be able to deliver packages to your moving car. I could go on and on. For example, CNBC reports: In Canada, the largest grocery chain, Loblaws, teamed up with logistics company Gatik. Already more than $120 million has flowed into the company. And they've already completed 150,000 autonomous deliveries with a 100% safety record. Many companies like UberEats and Deliveroo are already planning to go beyond just delivering food. In fact, the Wall Street Journal recently had this to say: And the government is doing its bit too… U.S. aviation regulators have finally approved a drone designed specifically for shipping packages in the U.S. Already, a company named Flytrex Drones, which raised $60 million from investors, has expanded into Texas, promising drone-dropped meals in around five minutes. Amazon is going to start drone deliveries by the end of this year in California. Walmart is already making drone deliveries in the U.S. and has made "Everything on Demand" service available to more than 4 million households. And when I say "everything"... I mean it. God forbid you get sick. But if you do, you can even get "organs on demand." It's crazy, but true. For example, did you know that a custom-made "Everything on Demand" drone delivered a kidney to a woman at the University of Maryland School of Medicine? The New York Times said... In North Carolina, pharma giant Merck has begun testing delivering Covid vaccines by drone... An industry magazine named Fierce Healthcare said... You get the picture. Thousands of people are already using EoD every day. And investment money from some of the smartest money managers and funds around the world is already flowing into EoD. This is the future – and the future is here... right now. Some of the smartest players in the world know this. They've already placed their bets on the future to make sure they're positioned to profit. Because here's the thing... This is all going to have INCREDIBLE life-changing impacts on the world around us. Consider... Massive Impact #1A Completely New Build-Out OfEvery Major American City... With EoD gaining in popularity, American cities will change dramatically... And while you may not see them, many of these changes are already starting now. Chances are, the best-kept secret of EoD is happening right now in your own town, and you have no clue about it... If you walk down a major street in any city or town here in the U.S., you might stumble across a storefront that looks, for all intents and purposes, empty... It probably has frosted glass windows and a door covered in branded stickers or QR codes. A sign outside directs you to download its mobile app to receive deliveries in 10 to 15 minutes. Behind thousands of obscured fronts just like this lies the future of retail – they're called "dark stores." These "dark stores" are local warehouses, or micro-fulfillment centers. See, the big retailers know that in order to get items to you fast, they have to store those items as close to you as possible. Many times, that means turning unused retail space into these "dark stores." So instead of taking up massive space outside of commercial districts, they are located smack in the middle of prime real estate. If you ever wondered how a meal you ordered from a restaurant chain that doesn't have a location near your home gets delivered to your door in 10 minutes... it's likely because of dark stores. Wendy's, Chick-fil-A, and other fast-food chains have dark stores that operate expressly to serve delivery orders in areas where they do not have stores. And while food delivery is where it all started, the dark store concept is spreading far beyond food. Jewelry retailer Kendra Scott turned 108 closed stores into micro-fulfillment centers in just a few weeks. Despite there being no Kroger grocery stores in Florida... a person in the Sunshine State can order from Kroger and expect groceries delivered in 30 minutes. Imagine the cost savings for Kroger... No renting out huge real estate, no land leased out for parking, no cashiers, no dealing with shoplifting, theft, or injuries to customers... In fact, the advantages of these dark stores are so massive, Amazon shut down its Whole Foods outlet in Brooklyn and turned it into a dark store. The move was so successful, they soon shut six of their massive outlets to the public and turned them all into dark stores. Even Walmart has started converting its supercenters into dark stores... And not for just its own products. A Walmart in Rochester doubles as a ghost kitchen for over 20 chains, including: Quzinos, The Cheesecake Factory, Cinnabon, Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, and more. The Guardian says: So, look around when you're out in the city next time... And mark my words: Your city will be completely rebuilt over the coming years – with many more of the dark stores popping up. Understanding how these dark stores will impact the economy could make you a ton of money going forward. Speaking of money, with EoD you can save thousands of dollars every year. Massive Impact #2You'll Save Nearly $13,800Each And Every Year Did you know that we Americans spend more time and money driving for shopping than we do for work? It's crazy, but true. We spend more time driving to malls... back and forth to get groceries... heading for quick trips to convenience stores... than we do sitting in morning and evening work commutes. But with EoD, and the ability to get nearly anything you want in an hour, you can say goodbye to all those hours in the car. That fact alone is going to put a ton of money back into your pocket each and every year. How much? Let me show you. Out of the 250 miles an American drives on average in a week... only about 40 are for the daily commute versus 120 miles devoted to shopping. When you consider rising gas prices, supply shortages, and car maintenance, the average cost per mile is about $0.80... So in a year you've saved over $4,600 just by not driving to shop. But that's just one way of looking at it... And remember what I told you earlier – if you converted all the time you spent driving to go shopping into productive hours, you put at least another $8,000 into your pocket. Then there’s this… A recent survey shows that Americans spend $50 more while shopping in a physical store versus shopping online. Even if we just go shopping twice a month, that's another $1,200 in savings. So there you go! With Everything on Demand, there will be no sitting in cars driving to stores... There will be no "additional" spending like grabbing packs of gum or Tic-Tacs while waiting for the cashier... Added up, you're looking at saving up to $13,800 each and every year because of EoD. And mind you, that's not even factoring in other expenses like parking costs, tickets, and lowered insurance premiums (now that you’ll be driving a lot less). There's more, of course... Massive Impact #3Biggest Shift In TheAmerican Dream The American Dream is why we all live in this great nation. It's our dream to own a nice house, drive a nice car, and earn a nice paycheck.But one aspect of that dream has shifted dramatically over the last 10 years – and thanks to EoD, it is going to virtually disappear in the next 10 years... I'm talking about personal car ownership. When EoD takes hold, many Americans – specifically seniors, who only keep a car for shopping – will choose to simply give up their cars. They won't need to drive to shop anymore. So why should they worry about car payments, insurance premiums, and gas prices? To illustrate my point, take a look at this chart which shows miles driven in owner driven cars... As the number of driverless delivery cars ramp up, the number of miles driven in personally owned cars will go down by almost 90%. As you can see, with EoD almost completely taking over, the need for owning a car vanishes for most people, who will choose to do without one... For them, car ownership will no longer be a necessity. It will become a luxury, or even a hobby... Just like it happened with horses when cars came along. Think of all the money you'll save in car payments... insurance... maintenance... and all of the other costs that add up. There's more, too... Massive Impact #4Your New Lease On Life Once EoD rolls out completely, it will completely alter the way you look at almost everything... For example, did you know the average person spends five years of his or her life waiting in lines? It's true. And with EoD on the verge of taking over retail... You'll get all those hours back as "free time" – to do as you please. Imagine using that time doing more productive things, or spending that extra time with loved ones... With more time at your disposal, and more money, believe me – your whole outlook on life changes. From the way you prepare the monthly budget... to the way you hunt for a house... to where you live. And the rollout is going to happen across America much faster than most people think... People always overestimate how long a revolutionary breakthrough like this will take to reach a massive scale, and that's the big mistake many are making today, too. Let me show you what I mean... Even The "Experts"Get It Wrong... Back in 1995, Microsoft founder Bill Gates knew more about personal computers than just about anyone on the planet. But he completely underestimated how fast the Internet would spread and disrupt our economy... and his business. In his 1995 book, The Road Ahead, Gates said: "The Internet has enormous potential, but it's important... that expectations aren't cranked too high." Gates' own people got nowhere trying to push him into the browser business. And Gates was lucky to correct his mistake quickly... because by 1996, Internet adoption hit a tipping point, as you can see from this chart... Incredibly, the same thing happens with EVERY big new disruptive technology. It creeps along slowly for a few years... and then... boom!... it hits a tipping point, when adoption rates go through the roof... much faster than what the "experts" have predicted. Back in 1985, for example, AT&T hired McKinsey, the world's leading consulting firm, to predict the adoption rate of cellphones. McKinsey's "experts" predicted the cellphone market would total 900,000 customers by the year 2000. But they were off by more than 100-fold... The actual number turned out to be 109 million! You see this again and again... Every time a truly disruptive innovation enters the marketplace, nearly everyone underestimates how quickly it will catch on and disrupt the status quo. The same thing happened when the iPhone came out in 2007... A Bloomberg analyst wrote: "The iPhone's impact will be minimal. Nokia and Motorola have nothing to worry about." Even Steve Ballmer, who had succeeded Bill Gates as the CEO of Microsoft, said: " There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." More recently... the same thing happened with Uber... Uber started in an apartment in 2009, and within just seven years, it was booking more rides than the entire U.S. taxi industry! And it all happened for one simple reason... the same reason EoD fleets will soon rule our streets... Economics. EoD will be way cheaper, and more convenient than physical shopping for both buyers and sellers. For buyers, we won't have to leave our houses to shop... And, because of all the super-fast delivery speeds, we'll have the same instant gratification of buying something in person. The sellers won't have to lease expensive store fronts or hire legions of retail employees. It's a win-win all around. The point is, anyone who tells you that fleets of autonomous delivery vehicles and delivery bots are going to take a decade or more has simply not studied the history of technological disruptions, is not paying attention to what's going on today, and does NOT understand the financial markets. Because, if there's one thing you must understand about making money as an investor, it's this: "The financial markets are always forward-looking." Investors always want to know – and invest their money into – what's coming next. And what we are seeing right now is a tidal wave of money moving into this space... All The Biggest Players AreMoving Into “EoD” Now For example, Amazon has ordered 100,000 electric vans, which will eventually be fully driverless, from Michigan-based startup Rivian. Amazon has also teamed up with European delivery company Deliveroo, and with GrubHub in the U.S. Google's Waymo ordered 62,000 self-driving Pacifica minivans. BYD, one of the largest EV manufacturers in the world, has partnered with Nuro to make its autonomous delivery vehicle. Shopify has tied up with Kiwibot to deliver in San Jose. That means any business using the Shopify platform to manage their online stores can add the Kiwibot app so their products can be delivered directly to customers. Tesla has invested heavily in DOJO, the world's most powerful AI training machine, which will be used to train autonomous vehicles and robots to get better with each trip. Uber has bought Postmates, and teamed up with Nuro for a 10-year delivery bot deal. Uber's also partnered with Rakuten and Stellantis to be at the leading edge of EoD. Google has invested $40 million in an EoD startup called Deliv that will deliver for companies like Best Buy, Home Depot, and Walgreens in hundreds of cities across the U.S. Google also introduced the Last Mile Fleet Solution to help improve EoD experiences for the end user and for logistic companies. FedEx has tied up with Nuro to deliver packages and parcels in the Houston area. The delivery bot has a cargo capacity of 500 pounds and a top speed of 45 miles per hour. Why? Because everybody wants things instantly. And if companies are able to deliver almost anything within "Everything on Demand"... their customers wouldn't shop anywhere else. Remember the company I mentioned that promises delivery in 10 minutes? When they delivered groceries in only 2.5 minutes... the customer tweeted about it. And that tweet became a billboard. Starship – the current leader in delivery bots – has already clocked over 2.5 million miles and makes an average of 10,000 deliveries every day for which they make 100,000 road crossings. Every single day. In some cities, these bots have become as much a part of the city as any other vehicle and don't even get a second glance. In the U.S. alone, 16 states have approved delivery robots – including Virginia, Idaho, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Utah, Arizona, Washington, and Texas. And 11 states and Washington, D.C. have approved driverless vans on the roads in cities and towns. Zipline, a leading drone manufacturer and operator, is teaming up with health care companies to deliver prescription medications and other medical supplies right to people's homes using a drone... The company has made more than 250,000 commercial deliveries, transporting almost 2 million medical products – including 650,000 COVID-19 vaccines. And this is just in America... In many places around the world, autonomous vehicles are advancing even more quickly.. In China, the express delivery market is the largest in the world. It accounts for almost 40% of the total delivery volume across the globe. Dada Group, China's leading local EoD provider, is offering one-hour delivery to customers in certain parts of China. Dada's on-demand retail platforms now partner with more than 100,000 merchants across a variety of categories. Walmart China offers one-hour delivery across all its stores. My point is, EoD bots and driverless cars aren't the future... they're here right now. That's why an industry report recently predicted that nearly $25 billion is up for grabs over the next four years in the autonomous delivery market... That same report shows that the growth in EoD could be nearly 10 times more than the overall economy's growth! But there's another point you have to understand, too... If you want to capture the biggest investment gains, you must act NOW! Already, early investors are getting rich... Look at some of these recent results... Aptiv, a company with 70,000 autonomous taxi rides in Vegas, is up more than 400% since November 2011... Uber went up almost 200% in a matter of 13 months... Walmart has seen the fastest growth in seven years – more than doubling investors' money... Qualcomm, which created a self-driving platform called Ride, was up more than 200% in less than two years... Baidu, which has logged more than 1 million miles on its self-driving platform, was up 285% in less than a year... Nvidia, the leading AV chipmaker, was up 5,040% in a recent five-year period... Tesla, the leading electric car maker, is up almost 1,000% over the past three years... Kroger, the company I mentioned earlier that's revolutionizing online grocery delivery, was up 190% in a little over 18 months... Pinduoduo, a company delivering fresh produce to urban areas across China, shot up 928% in a recent 18-month period... Now while we cannot guarantee what the future holds, these examples of the best-performing stocks are an indication of the potential for early movers. Similarly, chances are good that you could see historic gains when you get into EoD companies now. But how do you do that? Well, to position yourself properly, I strongly suggest you make four investments immediately... Investment #1Buy Shares Of Amazon(AMZN) Now Remember, at the beginning of this presentation I told you I'd give you the name and ticker symbol of a fantastic EoD company you should buy right away? That company is Amazon, which, as you know, is the leader in e-commerce. Now, many people think Amazon's massive growth phase is over. The truth is, Amazon has just scratched the surface. For the past couple of years Amazon has been silently making all the right moves to own "Everything on Demand." Today, Amazon has... Massive stakes in two shipping companies... A fleet of more than 80 ATR 72, Boeing 737, and Boeing 767 aircraft... More than 520,000 warehouse robots that work 24 hours, seven days a week, stopping only to recharge their batteries... 100,000 EV delivery vans that will be collecting data on each run to facilitate self-driving in the future... A fleet of FAA approved drones that are trained to avoid obstacles... Partnerships with delivery companies like Grubhub and Deliveroo... Thousands of "mom and pop" stores to do deliveries in local neighborhoods. An entire robo-taxi fleet that can be used for delivery on high-volume days like Prime Day... But the biggest weapon in Amazon's drive to become the leader in EoD is... AI-led data. Amazon uses its in-house Amazon Web Services to build "machine-learning models" for predictive analysis. Amazon gathers data on every one of its customers as they use the site. In addition to what you buy, the company monitors what you look at, the time you spend browsing, and more. This mountain of data is used to build up a "360-degree view" of you as an individual customer. And once Amazon knows your purchasing profile... the products you might want are shipped to a dark store an hour or two away from you. Right now, no one else is doing anything close to the scale at which Amazon is moving to own the Everything on Demand space. And the best part is... because of the bear market... Amazon is cheaper today than it has been over the past five years. That's why now is a perfect time to buy shares of Amazon. But here's the thing... Amazon is already nearly a trillion-dollar company. So while it will definitely continue to grow and maybe one day become the first $10 trillion company... It's going to take time because it's already so large. The good news is, there are several other ways to make a lot more money in the EoD space... more quickly. CICK HERE TO LEARN MORE Time to dig into a new teaser ad from Whitney Tilson that we started to see circulating a couple days ago… it’s an ad for Empire Stock Investor, which is the “entry level” paid letter at MarketWise’s Empire Financial ($49 for the first year, renews at $199), and it promises some big stuff — here’s the lead-in: “‘EoD Will Mint Millionaires in the Coming Months’ “‘EoD could put up to an extra $4,002 back in your pocket each year – without you making a single investment… “It could give you an extra 10 years of your life back to spend doing the things you want, with the people you want.. “‘EoD’ could be the best place for investors to turn small amounts into substantial gains in the coming years…” So what’s he talking about? Well, “EoD” is not the shorthand you might be thinking of — he’s not using that as shorthand for “End of Day,” like several of my early bosses (“Have it on my desk by EOD!”) … he uses that as an acronym for “Everything on Demand”. Here’s a bit from Tilson: “Everything on Demand, or EoD, is the future of getting everything and anything you want, at any time, delivered to your doorstep on demand – often in less than an hour. “Now, many of you might think that I’m making a big deal about nothing… But most Americans simply aren’t aware of what’s coming. “They don’t have any idea of the billions of dollars being spent by some of the world’s largest companies to own the “Everything on Demand” space.” Whitney Tilson lives just off Central Park, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, so he’s already pretty much in an “Everything on Demand” world — that’s the bargain you strike when you live in a mega-city, you get a tiny apartment and don’t have a car or a big enough pantry that you can shop at Costco, but you can get pretty much anything you need delivered to your doorstop in short order, day or night. It’s not quite “everything,” of course, and the businesses who provide this have come and gone over the years as people tried to figure out how to make it efficient, but the world is gradually trying to deliver the convenience and speed that our lazy hearts desire (in DC in the mid-90s, my favorite was the little orange scooters of Kosmo.com, who would go pick up movies from Blockbuster Vide for you and deliver them, along with a bottle of Advil and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, just what you need on New Year’s Day… they went out of business in the dot-com bust, predictably enough, but now DoorDash and UberEats are essentially doing the same thing, and inch closer to getting the business model right). As services get better, we want more… and companies spring up to provide that. Amazon promises free delivery in two days, which was a shockingly delightful leap forward when they announced Amazon Prime way back in 2005, and hundreds of millions of people sign up for that… and now they can do it in one day in a lot of cities, and sometimes in a few hours. If Dominos can get us a hot pizza in half an hour, we daydream, why can’t everything be on our doorstep before we finish an episode of Seinfeld? Tilson thinks that’s coming faster than we might have imagined. And he’s probably being too daydream-y on that front, just as he was overly optimistic three years ago when he was pitching the idea of autonomous driving ushering in a new era of Transportation as a Service (‘TaaS’) and the great savings that would come when you no longer needed to own a car. Here’s a bit more from the ad, to give you the general flavor: “Soon, you’ll be able to buy almost everything online… “Pharmacy items, home improvement goods, alcoholic beverages, health and beauty products, cars – everything… “And have it shipped to you, on demand, almost instantly… in less than 60 minutes. “No more waiting around for days for a package to show up. “No more paying attention to ‘tracking numbers’ and delayed shipping that makes the e-commerce world so frustrating. “Just a ‘click to door’ speed of everything, delivered on demand, in less than an hour. “Soon, people will even take EoD for granted… just as we take Wi-Fi for granted in any coffee shop. Are you getting our free Daily Update"reveal" emails? If not,just click here... “But during the transition, the level of infrastructure and technology changes that will be put in place to facilitate EoD will make even the best minds at NASA sit up and take notice.” Tilson says there are three big developments that will build this “EoD” future — the huge push for everything to move to e-commerce during the pandemic, which meant that even small businesses had to start to dip their toe into this technology; the power of AI to predict what you’re going to buy, and pre-position it close to you so that it’s ready for when you place the order; and the rise and spread (and falling cost) of autonomous and robotic technologies that can make delivery and fulfillment faster and more efficient, including autonomous vehicles and courier robots and even flying drone deliveries (the promise of drone deliveries was wildly overstated when Amazon first proposed it, years ago, and they’ve cut way back on investment in that area, but people are still trying to make it work). He also goes down the rabbit hole in talking about the cash, implying that you’ll effectively get all this stuff delivered to your home without even having to pay for it — and that’s just an argument that life will become much more efficient (if your time is valuable, then those hours you waste at the mall or the grocery store will be gone, giving you “money” back as you waste less time and spend less on gas, parking, etc.) Most fulfillment networks still depend on lots and lots of people who are willing to go to McDonald’s or Starbucks to pick up your order for a fee, but I guess we’re getting closer to the robot age… there are tons of experiments in delivery and fulfillment, with big investments coming from companies small and large, and that includes both specific buildouts of businesses who exist only in this “EoD” world, like the ghost kitchens we hear about more and more these days, (some ghost kitchens exist behind closed doors, making food under a dozen different brands for delivery apps to pick up… some allow companies to be more efficient, like Applebees using its kitchens to build a second business, Cosmic Wings, that exists only for delivery), as well as hardware and software to support a lot of autonomous technologies — from self-driving trucks that deliver your groceries, to autonomous wheeled coolers that bring snacks to college kids in their dorm. There’s definitely a lot of effort and money going into building this potential “EoD” future, whether that’s a revolution or an evolution… but, when it comes down to the actual investment ideas, what does Whitney Tilson think we should do? What are his “EoD” stock picks? Let’s dig in and check the clues for you, and we’ll see what answers the Thinkolator can provide. He transitions to the “you’re gonna get rich” part… “EoD bots and driverless cars aren’t the future… they’re here right now. “That’s why an industry report recently predicted that nearly $25 billion is up for grabs over the next four years in the autonomous delivery market… “That same report shows that the growth in EoD could be nearly 10 times more than the overall economy’s growth! “But there’s another point you have to understand, too… “If you want to capture the biggest investment gains, you must act NOW!” And shows charts of some of the huge winners in this space during the massive shift in demand caused by the pandemic, including autonomous car developer Aptiv (APTV), Uber (UBER) and others, though the charts all cut off conveniently close to the 2021 highs (they’ve all come down sharply since then, as you might imagine, but there were some big gains for a while)… before finally getting to his teased stocks. And as he’s done a few times in the past, the first stock he recommends is the “freebie” — his Investment #1 to profit from EoD is Amazon (AMZN), here’s he he puts that: “The truth is, Amazon has just scratched the surface. “For the past couple of years Amazon has been silently making all the right moves to own ‘Everything on Demand'” That includes the massive infrastructure investments you know about, the dozens of airplanes and hundreds of thousands of warehouse robots and delivery vans, but he highlights the data… “But the biggest weapon in Amazon’s drive to become the leader in EoD is… “AI-led data. “Amazon uses its in-house Amazon Web Services to build ‘machine-learning models’ for predictive analysis…. “And once Amazon knows your purchasing profile… the products you might want are shipped to a dark store an hour or two away from you. “Right now, no one else is doing anything close to the scale at which Amazon is moving to own the Everything on Demand space. “And the best part is… because of the bear market… Amazon is cheaper today than it has been over the past five years.” I’ve owned Amazon for about five years now, and I agree with Tilson’s general point — their huge investments in fulfillment networks and people to meet the unprecedented demand from the pandemic have hurt their financial results, at just the same moment that investors have shied away from betting on “growth,” so the stock is cheaper than it has been in years. It could fall further, of course, particularly if investors decide to value Amazon based on earnings or cash flow. Amazon reinvests everything into growth and improving the customer experience, they’ve never prioritized profits — investors have generally endorsed that view and the Jeff Bezos vision over the years, but not all the time, and we seem to be in a low-optimism period when it comes to AMZN shares. I expect it to work out well over time, I don’t think anyone is close to matching Amazon’s capabilities in e-commerce fulfillment, even though they’re likely to face continued pressure as Microsoft and Google try to take share from Amazon Web Services in the cloud space. I’ve been too slow to push more capital into my AMZN position during the last six months, but I did begin to catch up a little this week, nibbling on a few more AMZN shares. Tilson also makes the point that Amazon might not be the most exciting growth story in EoD, since it’s already a trillion-dollar company, so he’s looking for something a bit sexier… what is that? Here are your clues: “Investment #2 — Own ‘The Next Amazon’ “… in spite of its size, and because of the soaring market share, this company is already making Amazon very, very nervous. “That’s why I call this company ‘The Next Amazon.’ Just take a look at the numbers… “In the last decade, the revenues have compounded 82% a year, soaring from $24 million to nearly $4.61 billion in 2021…. “That’s a growth in revenue of over 91,100%. “During the same period Amazon revenue grew by just 669%…. “With e-commerce attacking the entire $25 trillion retail industry, it means this company has a mere 1% market share. “And with EoD poised to take e-commerce to the next level, I wouldn’t be too surprised if this company could do to Amazon what Apple did to Nokia, and what Tesla is doing to every traditional auto company.” Who’s Tilson pitching as “The #1 Way to Profit on the EoD Boom”? This is our old friend Shopify (SHOP). I’ve owned this one for quite a while, too — they won’t report until mid-February, and they were a massive pandemic darling that crashed dramatically when investor enthusiasm withered after 2021. You could have bought pretty much the same shares of the same company, with very similar fundamentals, for $180 in late 2021… or $30 in mid-2022, so you know intuitively that there’s no one price that magically makes sense with this stock, in the short term it all depends on how investors feel about the future and Shopify’s quarterly progress. Shopify’s business is creating what they call an “operating system” for retailers — they sell subscription software to retailers that allows them to sell online and build an easy e-commerce site, with lots of add-on modules that you can buy (including systems that let you easily sell your stuff on Amazon), and they also provide warehousing and fulfillment services to their retailers. The software subscriptions come in at very high margins, since it’s almost the same to develop software for 100 customers as it is for millions of customers, though some of their more usage-based services, including payment processing and fulfillment services, are less profitable or might be sold at a loss as they scale up. They have competition, but they have pretty much dwarfed everyone other than Amazon and made the Shopify store the default entry into the world of e-commerce for most entrepreneurs (and for large companies that want to build a direct-to-consumer retail business). Here’s what I wrote about them for our Stock Gumshoe Irregulars after the stock started to stabilize a little after their last quarterly update, back in October: Shopify (SHOP) seems to have finally reset to some degree, with growth stabilizing and re-accelerating a little, after several quarters of slowing growth, and they ended up with a smaller loss than had been expected. They also probably got a bit of a boost from the strong US dollar, since a lot of their expenses (employees) are in their home country of Canada, but most of their business is in the US. E-commerce continues to grow nicely, their gross merchandise value (the amount of sales made on Shopify’s platform) grew by about 11% from a year ago, and SHOP’s revenue grew 22% over that same time period. They also were out ahead of the “tech companies spend too much” worry a few months back, they had a mass layoff of 10% of their workers over the Summer, and they’re continuing to speak rationally about costs… we’ll see how that goes over a longer period of time, but right now the arrows are again all pointing up and to the right as investors begin to cautiously embrace SHOP again. This is a case where the underlying business is growing very strongly, the entrepreneurs and retailers who use Shopify continue to open new stores and sell more stuff, and buy more services from Shopify (they’re trying to offer a more compelling alternative to Amazon, including SHOP’s recent purchase of logistics company Deliverr). The big challenge remains Amazon, which has substantially refocused on providing merchant services in the past few quarters and which has the benefit of a decade’s investment in their fulfillment network — Shopify won’t catch up with Amazon, but they can offer a pretty compelling alternative for merchants, including giving those merchants more control. I’ve been too optimistic about SHOP’s ability to sustain its growth following the pandemic, but do love Tobi Lutke’s vision and the singleminded effort he’s making to build a better retail platform. Nothing here to really change my thinking about Shopify when it comes to valuation, they can clearly become profitable with this very large user base… but they’re continuing, in Bezos-like fashion, to keep the focus on building the business and improving the products, including with a pretty strong push now to sell in-person POS terminals that integrate online and offline sales management. I won’t make this a much larger position anytime soon, just because my portfolio is still probably overweight in these kinds of long-duration growth ideas, and those kinds of stocks really don’t have a “floor” in a crisis, but I’m happy to hold. I settled on some new “buy below” price levels for SHOP last year, following the global reset in valuations — right now, the shares are below my “max buy” price, so I wouldn’t talk you out of buying shares, but my more conservative “preferred buy” level is about $15 below where the shares trade today (and pretty close to where it bottomed out in September and October). Great company, I think they have a great future, but there’s risk… and it will almost certainly require patience. What else? Tilson says that “Investments #3 and #4 Own The Two Key Technologies For The Front End of ‘EoD'”… so what are they? “… my team and I believe there are two companies responsible for the most “critical components” of the delivery vehicles and bots. “The first company provides the computing power that quietly powers the legs (or wheels) of EoD. “The technology helps driverless delivery vehicles process large volumes of sensor data and make real-time driving decisions. The tech also helps EoD developers plan and map out routes and monitor the progress of delivery.” OK, so some kind of AI system that’s used for processing data for autonomous driving. What other clues do we get on this one? “This firm has already partnered with many of the leading companies in this space including BMW, Hyundai, Audi, and Uber, among others. “And now it’s expanding into EoD by supplying the tech for delivery bots in workspaces, sidewalks, streets, and even highways. “This technology helped a truck company deliver produce grown in Arizona to a wholesaler in Oklahoma – a distance of over 900 miles. “The pilot project was commissioned by AWG, the nation’s largest cooperative food wholesaler.” And apparently this is a stock that has already been a huge winner… “Since the technology was introduced in vehicles for the first time, the stock has been a 50-bagger. “But here’s the good news for you, right here, right now… “Because of the tech crash this year, the stock is currently “on sale” today – and I strongly recommend you take advantage. “Even if it just goes back to its recent high, you could more than double your money. But I think you could make many, many times your money in the next few years.” So who do we have here? This time Tilson’s teasing another longtime investor favorite, NVIDIA (NVDA), whose DRIVE system and hardware is used by a lot of the autonomous driving and trucking companies. And yes, their autonomous driving systems were used by that autonomous trucking pilot project commissioned by AWG in Oklahoma… the company doing that pilot was TuSimple (TSP), which has been an investor nightmare, but TuSimple uses “end-to-end” NVIDIA solutions… so I guess that’s a reminder that owning a “picks and shovels” supplier to autonomous trucking companies is probably a safer bet than owning an autonomous trucking company. That was the first “autonomous driving” stock I ever saw teased, by the Motley Fool’s David Gardner way back in 2014 (at the time the pitch was that it was “Warren Buffett’s nightmare,” because they were about to put auto insurer GEICO out of business). The company hasn’t made much money from the autonomous driving part of the business just yet, though they continue to build their partnerships and seem to be dominant in that market, but they have made tons of money from selling their gaming chips (both to gamers and to cryptocurrency miners) and their high-end accelerator chipsets for data centers. It’s hard to argue that anyone has a stronger position in the hardware that makes AI possible at this point… but NVDA is also usually a very popular stock, and it’s gotten back to “pretty pricey” again. Here’s part of what I wrote about NVIDIA following their last quarterly update, in mid-November: NVIDIA (NVDA) continues to see its business hold up a little better than expected, though there’s some worry about a decline in gaming revenue — whether that’s really a decline in gaming, or just the feed-through of a decline in demand from cryptocurrency projects (who have loaded up on gaming GPUs at retail in the past), I would hesitate to be certain. They have a better handle on their exposure to cryptocurrency projects now than they did a few years ago, when the collapse of Bitcoin and an inventory glut swamped the stock, partly because they’ve released some crypto-specific products, but some end-user demand is still a mystery. The big growth area continues to be data centers, which use NVIDIA’s high-end acceleration engines for AI processing, and just to speed up processing in general. There’s competition in this space, from AMD and incoming from Intel, and there’s some pressure because they’ve been restricted from selling their most advanced chips to the Chinese cloud giants (Alibaba, Tencent, etc.), but they have also developed a China-specific product to comply with those sanctions, and so far it’s not having a meaningful impact on revenues. In terms of the numbers for this quarterly update, it was “better than feared” but certainly not the typical “beat and raise” that investors in richly valued stocks usually hope to see. They “missed” on earnings (58 cents per share, much lower than the 70 cents expected), and their revenue fell from last year but was still above the analyst forecast. That was almost entirely due to a 50% drop in gaming sales, mostly because they pulled back on deliveries to let the inventory glut ease when demand dropped a bit (whether that’s crypto, or China, or just leery retail customers, we don’t really know). Their guidance for the fourth quarter was weak, too, but not dramatically so (they guided for $6 billion in revenue, the analyst forecast had been $6.14 billion). They’re in what is probably best described as a lull, they’ll probably have a little bit of growth from the third quarter into the fourth quarter, thanks to data center success and the growth of some of their smaller segments, like automotive, but it’s not going to be an instant snap-back to rapid growth. The way analysts see it now, NVDA will end up with earnings that drop about 25% this year, once we’re done with the fourth quarter, and then will likely bounce back to 2022 levels (about $4.40 in earnings per share) next year and grow 15-20% a year again going forward… that’s not written in stone, of course, but even that relatively optimistic outlook means NVDA is valued at about 35X forward earnings, which is about the maximum you’d generally want to pay for a company that can reliably grow earnings at 15-20% a year. That means the attractiveness of NVIDIA going forward swings on whether or not you can put that word “reliably” into the sentence. I think you can, but it’s a judgement call, so I’ll hold off on thinking about adding at these levels — I bumped down my “max buy” price to $173, given the lower earnings estimates for next year, but will keep my lower “preferred buy” at $118, and we’re still way above that. I’m a long-term holder of NVDA, and think there’s still a strong future to be built on their leadership in AI, visualization, metaverse-y stuff and gaming, but I’ll hold out some hope that we see a much lower price on a bad day. I’m not worried about NVDA’s performance operationally, they did see a drop in demand for gaming chips and professional visualization products, and China demand (and rules) remain a bit of an open question, but they’ve been through inventory corrections before and I expect they’ll do a reasonable job of clearing out the retail channels to make room for the always-in-demand high-end products they’re releasing right now. Nobody knows how the holiday selling will go, or what the economy will look like, but even if we see a slump in demand for the high-end gaming equipment I expect it will be temporary — NVDA thinks they’ll have smoothed out the supply and demand going into 2023, which seems pretty reasonable. Gaming is not becoming less complex, or less important, even though, yes, we might go through a period where even ardent gamers pause before buying a $3,000 GPU to upgrade their gaming PC. And the data center business, as has usually been the case recently, remains a very strong bright spot — gaming used to be NVDA’s largest business, but as of this quarter the data center business was more than twice the size of gaming. That’s sales of high-end GPUs that are used in data centers for high-intensity projects, including AI and language processing as well as more algorithmic stuff like recommendation engines. They had strong growth in that segment, up 31% year over year, and, even though Chinese sales dropped, they were even up 1% sequentially (from last quarter to this one). The stock has bounced back strongly as investors have started to feel a little happier this year, it’s up more than 30% in just the past three weeks, so it’s trading at about 45X forward earnings and is a bit above my “buy” range now. Analysts haven’t changed their outlook much at this point. We’ll get their next quarterly update in about a month, and I’m happy to keep holding. Next? “The other key technology you want to own is stock of a company that has recently tied up with a leading automotive producer. Together, they’ve spun off a new company that is completely devoted to all things driverless. “Since then, there has been no looking back for this tech company. And now it’s regarded by many to be the brains and nervous system of the autonomous industry. “In fact, after the spin-off, the company stock took off and rose a massive 307% in less than 18 months. “I believe the best is yet to come for shareholders of this amazing company, which is why I’m recommending you buy shares as soon as the market opens tomorrow morning. “By simply owning these two companies, you have the potential to make massive gains as autonomous delivery will power the EoD revolution all over the world.” This one we’re a little bit less certain of, but the best match is autonomous driving (and automotive electronics in general) hardware/software supplier Aptiv (APTV), which was spun out of first GM (as Delphi) and then separated from the rest of the Delphi powertrain business a few years back (Aptiv and Delphi split in December of 2017, though Delphi was later bought by BorgWarner and is no longer publicly traded). The best way to match up Aptiv to this clue is if you believe the key moment for them in this “EoD” business was when Aptiv partnered up with Hyundai in a 50/50 self-driving joint venture… mostly because that deal was finalized in March 2020, very near the precise bottom of the COVID crash. If you pick the right moment to buy during those few weeks when that deal was in the headlines, whether when it was announced or when the formal signing happened or when they announced the name of the joint business (Motional), you could very well have gotten exactly a 307% return 18 months later, in the Fall of 2021 when most tech stocks and “story” stocks were near all-time highs. Right now, Aptiv is doing reasonably well… analysts expect them to finish up the year with $3.35 in earnings per share, and think they’ll almost double that by the end of 2024, so the stock is trading at a forward PE of only about 23 — that’s a premium valuation compared to the broader market (the S&P 500 forward PE is about 19 right now), but not a dramatic premium, and they certainly have above-average growth right now. The catch, if you want to call it that, is although they pitch themselves as a leader in smart vehicles and autonomous technology, and in some ways they are (they were the first ones to use radar for adaptive cruise control, which is my favorite autonomous driving technology — though that was almost 25 years ago), the vast majority of their revenue right now comes for selling parts and systems that are built into regular old you’ve-gotta-drive cars (power systems, cockpit electronics, driver safety systems, even more mundane stuff like cable management). They are definitely investing in being a leader in electric vehicles and autonomous technologies, and in the steps that cars are taking to reach autonomous driving someday in the future, but they’re also an established auto parts supplier and they rely on sales of the existing cars that use their parts today… which means that if new car deliveries drop in a meaningful way, their revenue will probably also drop. Things look pretty good right now, but they did have some meaningful stock price drops in both 2016 and 2018 when the auto business wasn’t looking great. In some ways, APTV has been like a levered bet on GM over the past five years — when GM is doing great, APTV does more great… when GM collapses, APTV collapses more. That’s not necessarily fair or reasonable, though Aptiv’s history is as a captive auto parts supplier that was spun out of GM many decades ago (somewhat like Ford spun out Visteon), but it’s a reminder that their investments in future technologies and winning contracts for the autonomous vehicles of the future don’t automatically protect them if the cars of today don’t sell well. So that’s our best guess here. The most likely second-best guess, believe it or not, would be good ol’ Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), parent company of both Google and self-driving leader Waymo. Waymo has technically been spun off as its own company, (it’s not separately traded, it’s still an Alphabet subsidiary, but they’ve also raised some money separate from Alphabet via some private investments and partnerships). Waymo is not the main reason to buy Alphabet, of course, Alphabet’s business is still dominated by advertising (and they just got sued by the Department of Justice because that advertising business is so powerful), but it is certainly true that if you look at all the money-gushing businesses within Google, including the main search and ad platforms as well as YouTube, you can easily justify the valuation of the company even if you ignore the large Waymo business (which some outside investors thought was worth as much as $100-200 billion five years ago, though the estimates might well be lower in the current climate). In fact, Alphabet would probably be worth more if they fully spun out Waymo, given that it’s been a huge consumer of R&D cash for a decade. How does that match the clues? Well, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when you might want to say Waymo was spun off and what moment you’d say they partnered with various auto companies… but they started using the Waymo name and discussed it as a separate company subsidiary back in December of 2016. GOOG shares did not rise 307% in the 18 months following that, so that doesn’t match, though they did eventually go up roughly that much over the ensuing five years, to the peak in late 2021. If you want to look at the launch of Waymo’s possible autonomous delivery service, that was much more recent — Alphabet announced Waymo Via, including raising another $2.25 billion in outside capital, just as the pandemic was beginning to look “real” in early March, 2020 (though before Tom Hanks caught COVID, which was the REAL REAL moment that we realized it was a big deal). GOOG didn’t go up 300% in 18 months after that, either, but it did go up more than 200% if you bought near the March 2020 bottom. I’m not aware of any other meaningful self-driving technology companies that come close to matching those clues, so I’ll stick with Aptiv as our best guess here — and yes, Aptiv and Alphabet have both been teased by Whitney Tilson before, they were both part of the “TaaS” pitch for autonomous driving technology back in April of 2020. Hmmmm… OK, so Whitney Tilson hyped up Alphabet, Aptiv and NVIDIA as his primary plays on “TaaS” and autonomous driving three years ago… and now he’s pitching Amazon, NVIDIA and Aptiv (or at least, that’s what the Thinkolator concludes) as the key players in the explosion of “EoD.” Is he just re-using an investment theme that worked to bring in new subscribers, or is this his favorite idea right now? Well, he has liked most of the big tech companies pretty consistently, starting with his first pitch when he teamed up with Porter Stansberry to launch Empire Financial in late 2019 (he’s consistent, the five-stock “perfect portfolio” he touted then was Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B), Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG), Facebook (FB, now META) and Altria (MO)). I guess he’s pretty consistent with his favorites, especially for this entry-level newsletter, and those big guys are certainly good companies and popular investments. As of today, in case you’re curious, that five-stock perfect portfolio would be lagging the market a bit — Berkshire and Alphabet have beaten the S&P 500 nicely, but not enough to make up for the much weaker performance of the other three (META is the only one to have actually lost money, down more than 30% now). Here’s that chart, just FYI: