Friends,
This issue is a one-off departure from regular Moontowers because I have some updates to share.
In October of 2022, I co-hosted an in-person session of Pitbulls (then StockSlam), a mock trading simulation based on the training I received at SIG. It was a serendipitous evening. Serial tech entrepreneur Emi Gal was in attendance.
Emi reached out to me in late December. He explained his stellar ride up in the crypto markets…and how he gave much of it back. After coming to StockSlam (fun fact: he won the night he attended), he realized he didn’t a have a process around his trading decisions. He asked for coaching.
Hmm. I actually get asked this a lot. And I always decline. But based on my limited interaction with him thus far plus reading his website, I can remember telling Yinh — I’m gonna do this because I think I’m going to grow from being around someone like Emi.
As McConaughey says, greenlight.
We became fast friends.
In the months that followed, Emi and I had weekly sessions where I explained my options trading framework to help him improve his process around trading crypto options. As a software engineer, Emi was able to rapidly turn the framework into a suite of tools that I had imagined but didn’t have the expertise to build outside the professional infrastructures I had been accustomed to.
The tools are the instruments in a cockpit. The same lens I used as a full-time options trader. Armed with both the dashboards and a step-by-step manual for using them, Emi immediately recognized that we had a solution for ourselves that others would also want.
And just like that…moontower.ai is born!
What is it?
moontwer.ai is a web-based analytics package to help people who use options to make better decisions. It’s core offering is a set of charts and tables that present cross-sectional and time series volatility measures in a coherent, concise way.
In addition to the analytics, a subscription includes access to the discussion forum as well as any content or live events I do to help users match the tools to their goals.
When you are invited to the beta, you will receive free access (whether you sign up as a paying customer or not) to:
- MoontowerGPTA custom GPT with all published Moontower writing embedded (every night it updates based on updates to any of my web properties).
***There is an upgrade in the works that will allow the GPT to query the database on its own so you can ask questions like “I’m interested buying downside protection, where is it priced attractively?” and it will retrieve relevant charts.
[The upgraded version, MoontowerStrategist (idk, name is tbd) will either be paywalled or implemented like the co-pilot button on perplexity.ai which gives you limited tokens per day]***
- The Moontower Primer
This primer is an indispensable companion. It organizes the tools into a logical flow to be used as a funnel for prospecting and evaluating option trades within the context of your goals.As a teacher, I hope one of the most satisfying aspects of the primer is how it binds the tools to an overarching philosophy about the nature of markets. Trading and investing are fundamentally about risk transfer, and the lens you are about to adopt promises to level up your thinking about edge broadly.
The primer is made up of 2 units.
1) The Conceptual Framework
2) The Practical Flow — how the tools serve the frameworkThe Primer will be dripped out as an extra Moontower issue for all subs weekly for the next couple months.
In summary
A moontower.ai subscription includes:
- analytics
- community
- education access
Signing up for early access (whether or not you convert to a paying sub) includes:
- Basic MoontowerGPT
- Moontower Primer (you also get this as a free or paid sub to moontower.substack)
What happens now?
- You sign up for early access. Click here
- This puts you in the waiting list for the beta. (Gamification fun: If you refer others you will jump many spots in line.)
- In February, we will start inviting the waiting list to the beta. We are following the “ship MVP, iterate quickly” playbook. I’ll be doing sessions or recording to help users onboard. We understand “do things that don’t scale” and I will be hand-holding until I can distill what parts of the hand-holding can be streamlined.Once you are invited to the beta you will have full Primer access as well as free access to the GPT regardless of whether you convert to a paying sub.
Beta invitees are eligible to sign up for $99/month billed annually (reg price will be $149/month billed annually)
Who is this for?
We see the target audience as being a barbell.
- The ProsumerThis is a retail investor who already uses options but wants to improve their trade selection and decision-making by using a volatility-aware approach. This requires the type of education and tools that we provide. I am still privately showing this stuff to professional option traders (who are not our target since they already have what they need) and many of them are like “that’s awesome, I’m going to incorporate chart X into our dashboards”. Go for it.
We have zero interest in selling this to people who don’t need it or people who have no options experience. I’d sooner delete my substack than give car keys to a toddler. I’m not taking people from zero-to-one in options.
If you already trade options a bit and want to upgrade your thinking and performance, only then you should check this out.
- The pro trader who is not an option nativeIf you use options when you manage investments as a PM or RIA but don’t have a professional options background this is very much for you. If you run a fundamental pod at Point 72 you probably have access to a terrific options strategist in-house. But if you are managing an emerging $250mm long/short fund and use options, you’ll want to see this.
A quick reflection
When I started on the this internet writing journey it was without any real goal. I am an avid learner and started the letter to share whomever cared. In the beginning it was lots of mental model type stuff you find on the web. Addicted internet citizens find that stuff cringe but when you first learn about it feels fresh. Like reading Taleb for the first time.
If it’s cringe its just overplayed. A victim of its own success. In hindsight, I was accidentally audience-building by arbitraging abundant online wisdom to offline people who are either too well-adjusted or too busy to read the internet all day in-between broker calls.
But it was a 10-12 hour week commitment on my part to write the letters. You might think “damn, it takes you that long to write these things” to which I’d say
- Umm, sadly this doesn’t include my first capture of the ideas and notes
- Writing is hard for me. There’s no shortcut. You could do it too if you’re a compelled masochist.
I started writing original content when I’d weave my own thoughts into these curations and realized people didn’t think what I was writing was common knowledge. What I’ve learned, is the grooves in trader thought patterns press a different record than the grooves in others’ thinking. So people interested in cross-disciplinary lenses liked reading this stuff.
This created a virtuous cycle of affirmation and more original writing. Still, I had a pang for something hands-on. I wrote a series of posts structured as Socratic walk-thrus , I helped coordinate several in-person Pitbulls/StockSlam events, and had meetings about games or app possibilities.
The entire time I was following my instinct that if I’m creating value, even for free, the dots will be connected in hindsight. Well, moontower.ai, besides being the dashboard that I wanted for myself, is the application to put the concepts I’ve been writing about for over 5 years to work.
Like I said earlier, we launch as an MVP. But we are going to give users a glimpse of the pipeline. I’m really stoked about what we’re building. The synergies with my weekly writing will bring even more practical examples to Money Angle. I’m fortunate to have found a complementary partner in Emi who has technical chops and business experience to spare. I can focus on what I love to do — teach and craft analytics.
Wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t write online, which revealed an audience that cared about the things I knew about, leading to an audience to invite to StockSlam, where I could meet an awesome friend, who could partner on bringing something special to life.
PSA
On Friday night I was supposed to take the boys to the Warriors-Mavs game as their Xmas gift. The game was postponed because Warriors’ assistant coach Dejan Milojevic died Wednesday from a heart attack at a team dinner. He was 46 years old.
I turn 46 this year. Hits home.
In light of the news, Stanford cardiologist Dr. Maron reminds us that “About half of the people who die suddenly from a heart attack or cardiac arrest never had a symptom before.”
Dr Maron recommends:
a coronary artery calcium scan to find out if you’ve got this disease brewing inside your arteries.
“ He went on to say that the scan is even more important for those with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, or a family history of heart disease. Insurance often doesn’t cover that test because there hasn’t been a clinical trial on it but Dr. Maron says there have been thousands of papers showing why it is beneficial. He says that the test is relatively inexpensive.”
You might remember last year that I asked Emi’s company Ezra to sponsor the letter. Ezra does full-body MRI scans for early cancer detection. Emi convinced Yinh and I to do this last year. And it took convincing because I was concerned about digging into incidental findings. On balance I decided the risk/reward here is in favor of being proactive. By far best defense against cancer is early detection.
The experience with Ezra is easy peasy.
And non-obvious benefit — by getting them done regularly (annually, bi-annually) you are also building a baseline for them to track changes and any large deltas are things that you want to be aware of.
If you want to learn more:
- On Incidental Findings by Emi Gal
- Full-body MRI scans are getting popular. A doctor weighs in on the pros and cons (Fast Company)
If you want to book an appointment go to Ezra.com.
Use code MOONTOWER250 for $250 off.
Disclosure
After getting to know Emi and going through the scans I asked Ezra to sponsor the letter for a month in early 2023 and to let Yinh and I invest in the private shares. Emi agreed to both.
I realize in this age of pump, this can be a reason to discount my recommendations. My stance against those accusations — you have the causality backwards. It’s here because I believed in it first. I have protected you and myself from some would-be sponsors (at one point you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a crypto marketer) which would have been selling bits of trust for a quick buck.
Ethics aside, that’s a bad trade. Although, I’m not denying there’s at least some price for everything. I mean for enough money I’ll tell you Moontower THC-Infused Tequila might make you smarter. And you wouldn’t fault me for it because, let’s be honest, that be cool af).
☮️
Stay Groovy