AM: Do you see any risks or challenges this year with Bitcoin?

CM: Yeah, there’s enormous risk with Bitcoin.[Because] if today someone said, Why is it worth $103,000? I would say that’s based on wild optimism because no one uses Bitcoin to conduct business today. Criminals use Bitcoin to conduct business today. That’s the reality of it. Some very avant-garde early adopters are using it, but most people aren’t using it yet. Have you seen those bank machines, the crypto machines in the convenience stores? I was in a store the other day and I said to the woman, “I’m sorry, has anyone ever used this machine?” And she said, “It’s been here for six months, I’ve never seen anybody use it.” Then she said, “No, wait. Someone actually put their drink on it about three days ago.” So I thought, the person who put all these machines out there really spent a fortune on them, but I think it’s gonna have to be a buy and hold. I think we’re going to have to be ready for extreme volatility because I think we’ll see $130,000, as I said, but I think we’ll also see $70,000 again in the next year or so. So be up and down.

AM: Okay. $70,000, as well.

CM: Yeah, it’s not gonna be a straight line at all.

AM: Okay, gotcha. Which happens first?

CM: I think the $130,000 happens first because we’re on the top of that wave, I think where we are right now.

AM: Okay. So you said 3-5% is a decent allocation for speculating on Bitcoin. What about the other 95-97% of our portfolio right now? Should people load into Mag Seven again in 2025 or diversify away?

CM: That’s a great question and if we own some of those tech stocks now, this Mag Seven, I think we should hold most of them because we’ve been rewarded for Tesla ( TSLA ) lately. It’s been unbelievable. But I think if you take the Mag Seven the last few years, take the Mag Seven out of the S&P 500, it’s only been averaging about under 8% a year. That means as this market starts to broaden out, there’s enormous opportunities in traditional industries, right? Consumer cyclicals is a huge place. There can be energy. We very much like banking. We like it quite a bit. So we wouldn’t double down on the Magnificent Seven right now.

AM: If we’re holding Mag Seven in 2025, then what picks do you have for retail investors?

CM: A couple that we like very much are Constellation Energy ( CEG ). We love it. And it’s simple because it’s a broadbased energy company. We like energy as a whole, and a lot of the larger funds are holding Constellation Energy. Interestingly, they dipped their toe in both pools because they signed a large deal with Microsoft ( MSFT ) recently to supply energy for for all the AI data centers. That means that they are guaranteed about a 30% runup in their stock over the next 12 months, in our opinion. So we like Constellation Energy quite a bit. Well, there’s a mining company we were talking about earlier, Newmark Mining. We love them. They’re doing copper, they’re doing gold. They’re one of the largest gold and copper miners in the world. Gold is a hedge against inflation, of course. We’re not really worried about the inflation play right now. What we’re really thinking about is the uses of gold and copper and manufacturing.

AM: And you mentioned financial services, too. What picks do you have?

CM: We like American Express ( AXP ) quite a bit. We like MasterCard ( MA ), not as much as we like American Express. And generally we don’t like the regional banks. The regional banks are scaring us a little bit. And here’s why. There’s about a trillion dollars of commercial leases that are coming due. Interest rates haven’t been cut enough yet and unfortunately we have some concerns. Our rush hour traffic’s lower because people just aren’t coming into town as much. Even though we are forcing companies to come back downtown. We see some of these buildings refinancing at higher rates with lower occupancy as a potential real headwind. You know, that’s a term we use, ‘headwind’. We don’t want to say potential crash, but a ‘headwind’ for the market. Unlikely that that would bring the market down and stop all this momentum. Therefore, we like the big banks, the big banks are continuing to get bigger. And we think most of the big banks that we’re used to are undervalued by about 10-12% this year. Why take on undue risk when you have that kind of runup in a very predictable stock.

AM: Fascinating. So in your book, there are a lot of tips on how people can invest based on their values . What’s one thing you could tell our audience today?

CM: I would say be informed. I think your audience knows how to use the internet as well as anybody does, use these tools that are out there now. I would say technology is the king and demand of your advisors, if this is important to me, I need you to prove to me how you’re vetting this appropriately.

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