Although they’re often derided as irrational, or gamblers, or YOLO traders, retail traders might be behaving perfectly rationally when you price in everything else that they’re buying: an experience, a status symbol, a digital good, belonging, entertainment, education, and more.

The basic thesis is that, in the years since the global financial crisis, in response to the weakened legitimacy of global institutions and rising market volatility and political uncertainty, people at all levels of power, and in ever-increasing spheres of life, make use of the logic of financial speculation.

The Ideological Investor does not abandon analysis but reorients it. Instead of treating geopolitics, technology, or culture as “externalities” to be hedged, they treat them as the primary drivers of value. This means integrating geopolitical intelligence into risk analysis, and treating AI not merely as an industry to bet on but as a structural... See more