Today's number,

120 million. That's how many dollars

Alex Co-op spent on a Colorado compound,

which used to be the home of a silent

monk community. Palunteer Investor

relations say they support the

transaction, but have requested that the

vow of silence be made transferable.

Welcome to Profy Markets. I'm Edson. It

is January 7th. Let's check in on

yesterday's market vitals. The major

indices all posted strong gains. The Dow

notched its first close above 49,000.

The S&P 500 also hit a record closing

high. Meanwhile, oil prices gave up

Monday's advance. And finally, gold,

silver, and copper extended their

rallies. Okay, what else is happening?

The biggest celebration of consumer

tech, the Consumer Electronics Show or

CES, kicked off in Las Vegas this week.

It is an opportunity for tech companies

to showcase their latest innovations.

And so far, it is Nvidia that is

dominating the headlines. Nvidia's CEO,

Jensen Huang, opened the event with an

announcement that their most advanced

chip yet, the Reuben model, is in full

production. He also introduced AI models

for autonomous vehicles. and he said,

quote, "The chat GBT moment for physical

AI is here, and it appears to be

happening fast because Mercedes-Benz

will begin shipping cars with Nvidia's

technology this year." So, lots

happening at CES. We wanted to get a

sense of what else is happening. So, we

are speaking with someone who was there

right now, Alex Heath, author of the

Sources Newsletter and host of the

Access podcast, joins us from Vegas.

Alex, welcome back and happy new year.

Happy new year, Ed. I am doing CS like I

always do, which is I try to avoid the

show floor as much as possible, but uh I

am managing to head over there right

after this conversation. But I've I've

gotten a good lay of the land from the

hotel rooms and restaurants where all

these meetings are happening, which I

it's actually like the shadow CS. It's

this like the second show that happens

at all the hotels on the strips that I

on the strip that I find to be much more

interesting. But yeah,

>> I I've never been to CES. For those who

like don't know what it is, what what is

it? What's going on over there?

>> I mean, it started as the place where

Apple and all these companies would show

off their new, you know, hardware and

gadgets, right? And then all the tech

companies got big and started doing

their own events. And I would say in the

last decade especially, it's been more

regulated to a lot of companies outside

of the US that see as an opportunity to

kind of make a splash here uh in in

North America to start the year and a

bunch of smaller startups uh and a lot

of vapor wear and a lot of bloware uh

and stuff that will never ship or never

never see the light of day. Um but you

know if you squint you can see real

things. It's just gets increasingly

harder to do that every year is my my

experience.

>> So far, what are the real things that

you've seen? We're seeing headlines over

here about what Nvidia is doing,

>> uh, specifically their Reuben chip and

the, um, the plans with AI enabled

cores. That's what I'm seeing here in

New York. What are you seeing? What's

real at CES right now?

>> Apparently, the Nvidia autonomy thing is

real. I mean, they're shipping uh Jensen

said on stage yesterday uh Monday to

kick things off that uh they'll be

shipping with Mercedes and Q1 in the US.

I'm not sure how big of a pilot that is

actually, but I I would say that was the

thing that a lot of people were buzzing

about around all the cocktail parties uh

in the evening after Jensen's keynote

was it are you know is Nvidia going

really for Tesla and full self-driving

and competing with Elon? who is a one of

if not you know top three or four

biggest Nvidia customers of of GPUs

right and the read I got was actually

that uh Nvidia doesn't see autonomy as a

business for itself in its own right

necessarily right because they're open

sourcing the underlying model they're

wanting it to be a little bit more of

like an Android type approach where they

work with a lot of different uh car

manufacturers

I think it's a way for them to get data

which Jensen talked out a lot on stage

and inform the way that they build

future chips for their customers. I

think they do things like autonomy or

robotics, not because they see those

verticals as a business akin to selling

GPUs, but because the more specialized

and vertical they go in certain domains,

the more they learn and it's a flywheel

that then informs the way that they

develop their bread and butter. And I

think that's a thing about them that

maybe is not more broadly understood,

but I was just hearing from Nvidia

employees and other people in in the AV

space last night is that uh they're not

actually coming for you know Whimo's

launch here. Uh and I thought that was

pretty interesting.

>> Yeah, that is interesting. And you know,

look at the stock Nvidia's stock today

which is basically flat actually kind

slightly down. And I don't know if

that's anything to do with what's been

said at CES, probably not. But what

we're basically seeing is that they've

come out with this pretty big deal news

announcement, at least as an observer. I

mean, the video of a Mercedes driving

around on Nvidia's AI seems like a big

deal, but the market appears to be

either already pricing that in or it's

not that interested. Um,

>> maybe the market understands what I was

saying, just that it's not it's not

going to be a big business for them. uh

and that it's also early, right? And

they're they are behind Tesla

tremendously in terms of like the data

that that FSD has and all of the miles

that Teslas have driven uh which Elon

was quick to jump in and point out on X

I saw after the keynote. The only other

real fun piece of gossip here after day

one at CS is uh the timing of that

Jensen keynote and I don't know if you

got to watch the whole thing. It was

unusually rushed feeling, unusually like

um I don't know, there were like

technical difficulties. He had to stop

and start. Um it wasn't as polished as

he normally is. Uh and the rumor here in

Vegas is that that whole thing was very

hastily thrown together to upstage AMD,

his uh I believe cousin Lisa Sue, right?

Uh of AMD, who was doing the actual

CEO's uh the actual mainstage CS keynote

later that evening. And so you'll notice

like Nvidia wasn't on the official CS

stage. They were doing their own thing

at at the phones and blue. Uh and he did

the official keynote I believe last year

to kick things off. And like you know

Lisa is doing it this year and AMD is

kind of having a moment. She brought out

Greg Brockman from OpenAI. And I think

they wanted I think there's still that

super competitive dynamic and he wanted

to upstage her as is the fun gossip out

here. Based on what you've seen so far,

would you say that there is a an

overarching theme to the pitches and the

presentations that we're seeing right

now? I would assume last year it was AI.

I'm sure it's still kind of AI this

year, but but if you could sort of

describe what the theme is, what are

people aligned on? a lot of AI

wearables, a lot of like rings that you

talk to and leave, you know, voice notes

into. Uh, AI glasses, display glasses.

Meta is here in a pretty big way talking

about their glasses. A lot of robotics,

most of which to me looks like

vaporware. Most, you know, it wouldn't

be CS without all these, you know, demos

of humanoids like doing things in

kitchens or whatever. And like I've seen

that so many times that it just kind of

I'm numb to it. And until I start seeing

these robots like out in the real world,

I just don't believe it. Uh, and so

there's a lot more of that this year,

people seem to I mean Jensen was saying

this in the keynote. I think he said

like the chat GPT moment for physical AI

is coming. He's been saying that for a

while. It does feel like things because

of how good the models are getting that

things are starting to converge and

maybe we will actually see a real kind

of robotics even humanoid type moment. I

don't know if it's going to be this

year, but there's a lot of companies

here showing that off, at least the

demos of it. The only other big thing

and this is happening when we're

recording on Tuesday later tonight is

Lenovo is uh here in a very big way

which the number one PC uh maker in the

world and they've not really had a big

CS presence and they're a pretty low-key

company but you know we've got hundreds

of millions of devices and uh they are

taking over the sphere and announcing

this big you know AI product offering

for all of their PCs that chains

together a lot of different AIs and

partners like a notion or perplexity

whatever to create this proactive more

natural language contextaware AI on your

PC. Um, and so a lot of people focusing

on how do we take AI out of the chatbot

and actually put it into either your PC,

your wearable, your car, a robot, and

make it a little more useful than just

talking to a chatbot.

>> Yeah, just slightly pivoting here. Um,

something that happened while we were

gone for break that we haven't been able

to cover which I want to bring up to you

now is this deal between Nvidia and

Grock, this chip startup. Nvidia bought

the company for $20 billion, its biggest

purchase ever.

>> Fake bought it.

>> Fake bought it. So that's the other side

to this. They frame it as a a deal, this

licensing agreement. It looks a lot like

a acquisition to me, I guess. Please

take it away. what is actually going on

here?

>> I call these reverse aqua hires and I'm

glad that the name has actually stuck

since I coined it about a year and a

half ago. But it's these thing, it's

this stuff that big, you know, the big

tech players are doing where they take

the key talent from a lab, do a

non-exclusive IP license for the tech

because they don't actually care about

the tech, they care about the talent,

uh, and leave the kind of flaming husk,

if you will, of like the thing left

behind. And I think Grock's in a little

bit of a different spot because they

have a pretty fast growing um lucrative

cloud AI inference business that they're

going to continue to run and they've got

a ton of GPUs and I think they'll have a

lot of in inbound there cuz there is

just still so much demand for that. But

yeah, Jonathan Ross the founder and his

kind of core technical team going over

to Nvidia to you know from my

understanding address what Nvidia sees

as a huge issue which is you know it's

it's GPUs are very good for training but

AI inference which is running AI in the

real world in production right so when

you prompt chat GBT that is doing AI

inference uh they they're behind there

their latency is not very good um

there's all these startups like Grock

was spinning up to take that market and

the workloads are moving to inference

they're moving to production all the

things we were just talking about,

Lenovo, the robots, that's all

inference. And so I think they see that

as the next major wave for their

business. And Jonathan and the team

there will help them fix those issues

with latency for for inference. But

yeah, that deal is super unusual

unusual. I mean, I I reported in sources

it happened in under 10 days. Uh Jensen

wired the money early. He wanted it done

before the new year, probably for tax

reasons or something or maybe because he

was just antsy. I don't know.

uh and uh went from like really not

knowing Jonathan, the founder of Grock

at all to doing the deal in like a

matter of just a few months. So Jensen

is in founder mode 100%. And when you

look at all the cash that Nvidia has on

its balance sheet and the rumors about

them looking at other deals, I expect

this is just the beginning. I expect

they'll keep doing deals. Maybe not 20

billion, but I think they'll keep doing

big deals.

>> So interesting that we keep seeing this

theme that there is exactly you say the

reverse aqua hire theme. Um, I mean,

just thinking back to Microsoft and and

Inflection where the same thing

happened, um, and they have this deal

and then all of the talent goes over to

Microsoft and then what do you know? The

founder of Inflection is now the CEO of

Microsoft AI. And I assume something

similar is going to happen with Jonathan

Ross. Something so interesting that you

reported is that he told you that they

had no intention of being acquired. He

said, I read the quote that you

reported. He said to you, quote, "We

have no intention of being fake acquired

or real acquired for that matter." He

literally predicted precisely the

opposite of what happened.

>> Yeah.

>> What do you make of that?

>> I mean, I love it. You know, if a

founder tells me something like that and

I have the ability to remember, that's

the thing. I was like, it's harder to

remember these days. But when I

remember, oh, I had this conversation,

they said that, I dig it up. And yeah,

this was

>> over a year ago. You know, it was

actually the same day that Google

reverse Aqua hired Character AI, which

was something people have probably

forgotten about by now, but was another

one of these multi-billion dollar deals.

And um yeah, I asked him about it in the

interview that day and he was like,

"Yeah, we're not going to be fake

acquired." And then you know what? Uh I

$20 billion had something different, you

know, to say about that. I guess

everyone has their price, right?

>> Exactly. It seems like this this

continues to be the theme where as the

founder of an AI company, you're saying

we're going to take over the world.

We're going to take on big tech. we can

do it ourselves. And then someone shows

up with a ridiculously large bag of

money at which point you kind of shut

the [ __ ] up and take the money and you

go home.

>> I mean, we were talking about all this

just we were talking about all these,

you know, AI researcher comp packages

over the summer, right? With which Meta

was doing. Jonathan, the founder of

Grock, is probably considered top three

to five greatest minds in the world on

on chips. He's the only he invented the

TPU at Google. Uh he's invented the

Grock chip and now he's working at

Nvidia. So he's one of the only leaders

to have touched all kind of three major

major chips and uh I think he's for

Nvidia that's worth it.

>> Yeah. Um just final uh question before

you go. It's a new year 2026. If you had

to make predictions about what we will

see in the tech sector maybe like the

technology of the year. It sounds like

robotics is getting a lot of attention

>> uh at CES, but maybe it sounds like you

don't believe it it's going to really

come to fruition. What would be your

predictions for uh technology in 2026?

On the hardware side, I think AI

wearables we're only going to keep

hearing more about. I think we're

getting that here at CES. It's going to

start trickling out more. I think we

maybe will see a tease from OpenAI what

they've been up to with Johnny IV maybe

by the end of the year. And yeah, I

think Meta will ship stuff. Apple will

maybe tease stuff. Uh Snap will release

their glasses, the consumer version.

>> I do think that's on the hardware side.

That's the biggest thing I'm looking at.

And also all these like AI rings and

pendants and that's just everywhere here

at CES and I expect that to only get

bigger.

>> Okay, Alex Heath, appreciate your time.

Enjoy Vegas. And don't do too much

gambling. I know you love I know you're

a gambling man.

>> I'll be at room later tonight. Yeah, you

know me.

>> I love it. Okay, thanks Alex.

>> Thanks.

>> We'll be right back. And if you're

enjoying the show so far, be sure to

like and subscribe to the Prof Pod

YouTube channel at the link below.

We're back with Profy Markets.

Nova Nordisk launched the first ever

GLP1 pill this week, marking a new

chapter for obesity treatment in the US.

The Wiggoi pill is available now and it

costs between $149 and $299 per month,

which is a fraction of the price of

injectables. The company says that the

combination of lower pricing and easier

dosing could open new possibilities for

more than 100 million Americans living

with obesity. The stock is up 5% since

that announcement. To help us break down

what this means for Nova Nordisk, we're

speaking with Jared Holtz, healthcare

equity strategist at Mizuo. Jared,

thanks for joining us on Profit Markets.

>> Great to be here. Thanks a lot.

>> So, this GLP1 pill

uh has been launched by Novon Nordisk.

You can buy it today. Uh seems like

quite a significant development. Let's

just start with your initial reactions

to this move. Yeah, for sure. I've been

keeping a really close eye on on the

development of the oral pills for

obesity just given the fact that the

category the broader GLP-1 category is

expected to be north of 100 billion,

right? And and we know that the orals

are going to have a big piece of that. I

think when you go back and you kind of

consider some of the data sets that

we've seen out of Nova Nordisk, out of

Eli Lilly and others, it's been spotty

at times for the pill because the the

mechanism or the delivery is a little

bit different and we already have

awesome drugs on the market. So, it's

tough to know exactly where these are

going to fit, but it's a consumer

product at the end of the day, right? So

by virtue of that, the market is going

to be massive even if the drugs aren't

that great, I think.

>> Yeah. What are the differences between

the pill and the needle besides the

delivery? Is is the pill less effective?

Does it work differently in the body?

What's the difference?

>> I think the main thing is that the

halflife of the pill is so different

than the injectable, right? When you

take the the once weekly injectable,

you're looking at at a product that is

incredibly efficacious for most of that

week. And at the the back end of that

week, sometimes the effect waines a

little bit and patients that are on the

product get a little bit hungrier and

their side effects actually dissipate,

which is good and bad. And then when you

take it again, you kind of restart the

cycle. here when you're taking these

pills every day. I think there there's a

there's an issue here with can your body

absorb enough on any given day to kind

of really do the same um have the same

effect as the injection from an efficacy

standpoint without having the detriment

of side effects. because some of the

side effects that we've seen in the

pills have been worse, but we also

haven't really seen what a real life

patient may experience, which is to say

taking very small doses for a while

before then titrating up to higher

doses. We we really haven't seen a trial

run, I don't think, by any company

that's ideal or really will mirror what

we see in real life, which are patients

probably either opting to take the pill

because they're not that heavy and they

don't need a high dose or that have

already lost a lot of weight by taking a

drug from Novo or from Lily and kind of

just want to stabilize their w their

weight. We don't really know how this is

all going to work out, but there are

tens of millions of patients out there

that are that are kind of like in the

addressable market here. So, it I'm not

really sure it matters.

>> Yeah. Yeah. The the pricing is quite

interesting, too. Uh between 149 and 299

per month. Uh that's a fraction of the

price of the uh injectable. Uh what do

you make of that pricing? Well, the

injectable prices are coming down too.

So, I think in 6 months, 12 months, the

there might be a little bit more par.

Um, I think that the pricing allows

patients to get on it, especially those

that are going to have to pay out of

pocket, right? And that that's the

biggest piece of this is are do we do we

think that all of the patients that are

eligible are are going to get insured

for it? Likely not. But if your doctor

is willing to write a prescription for

it, even if you're not covered, for less

than 200 a month, you can get access. By

the way, the price of gyms in the United

States is well north of that for decent

ones, right? There are there are crappy

gyms that you can that you can uh go to

monthly for for less, but the good ones

are a lot more. So, if your if your

whole objective is to sort of just lose

10 lb, 20 lb, I think these injectables

are going to be, you know, very

significant really quickly. And that's

why I think it's super interesting for

Novo to be in this spot.

>> What do you think of the competition

that we're seeing in the oral uh GLP1

space? Eli Liy, for example, I know is

working on their own pill. What is the

competitive landscape look like? And

what do you think this means for Novo

Nordisk shareholders compared to say Eli

Liy shareholders? Well, it's really

interesting because when you look at

both when you look at the stocks

specifically, the expectations around

Lily's Oral or for Gibron and then the

oral we go out of Nova Nordis, the the

chasm between the two couldn't be

bigger, right? You've got one company

that's north of a trillion dollars in

market cap predicated mainly on their

GLP-1 drugs, whether it's the oral or or

the injectable and and obviously they

have a lot more in their portfolio, but

the stock movements on the back of

obesity have been the most pronounced by

far. Then you've got Novo Nordisk, which

is, you know, as of two weeks ago was

trading close to a 5-year low. So the

expectation gain between the two is so

pronounced as though no one thinks that

this oral we go is going to do anything

but or for glyip run is going to be

incredibly successful. So it's got to I

think it's going to be much more similar

than different and I think the data sets

are actually from an efficacy and safety

standpoint not that different either.

When the when the Lily data first came

out investors weren't that excited about

it. The stock dropped about 15 to 20%.

And then over time as the company kind

of explained how the trial worked and

the design and and how they put patients

on the drug, we we all became more

comfortable. But I think the

expectations around Novo specifically

are really really low. And I think

that's good. That's good for the stock.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean this and

this will be the final question. The

we've seen the hype cycle of the GLP1

industry kind of run its course. it sort

of hit that peak and then suddenly

people kind of went, "Oh, maybe this

isn't going to happen the way we thought

it would." Um, and it sort of waned

again and it's definitely reflected in

the stock price of Nova Nordisk. Do you

think that we could be in for a reversal

again? Are we about to maybe hit another

phase of interest and excitement for

this industry?

>> Yeah, I I don't really know where we are

in the cycle. I mean I it felt like

midway through last year the the waning

aspect that you talked about was right

and then as we got further in the year

with or forgi data Lily hitting a

trillion in cap metah getting acquired

by fizer in that bidding war which was

very strange and then the structure data

at the end of the year. I think we're

we're still in a pocket where I think

there's a lot of excitement. But what

could get excitement for Novo

specifically would be if the Oro GOI

started to take off and the market share

disparity between it and Lily kind of

compress us a little bit. That's what's

really going to take Novo up.

>> Okay. Jared Holtz, healthcare equity

strategist at Mizuo. Jared, really

appreciate your time.

>> Great to be with you. Thanks a lot.

Well, GLP-1 drugs have come a long way

since they were first introduced,

believe it or not, in 2005. It was

originally intended to treat diabetes

and then we learned it could treat

obesity too. Then Ompic came along, then

Wiggoi, then Munjaro, then Zepbound and

now we have reached a point at which 1

in 8 Americans currently use GLP1. So

that is more than 40 million people.

It's more than the population of Canada.

Now, many people have said that we might

have hit peak GLP1, that yes, GLP1s

might be a big deal, but maybe they're

not as big a deal as we once thought.

However, we believe that this story is

actually just getting started. Because

our view is that despite the incredible

adoption we've seen over the past few

years, the reality is GLP1 still face

significant barriers to entry. And of

those barriers, one of the biggest is

the fact that in order to take it, you

have to stick a needle in your leg. Now,

for some people that might not be a big

deal, but for many people it is a big

deal. In fact, it is a big deal for most

people. It turns out 63% of adults say

they experience some level of needle

phobia, i.e. they hate needles. And of

those needle phobes, more than half say

that they will actively avoid having

their blood drawn because of needles.

Meanwhile, roughly a third of them say

they actively avoid getting vaccinated

because of needles. So if a third of the

entire adult population isn't getting

their blood drawn because they're scared

of needles, well then the obvious

question is what percentage of the

population isn't taking GLP-1 drugs for

the same reason? Is it also a third? Is

it half? Is it higher than half? What we

have here is a seemingly small and

uninteresting issue, which is in fact a

pretty gigantic issue. And as of this

week, with the release of this new pill,

that issue has been eliminated. You can

now take a drug that helps you lose

dramatic amounts of weight. And it is

functionally no different from popping

an Advil. That is a really big deal. And

when you live in a country where 40% of

the population is already obese, you

have to think that that 1 in8 number is

about to go way higher. Now, to be

clear, Nova Nordisk isn't the only

winner here. As we've discussed, Eli Liy

is also getting approval for their

weight loss pill, which will likely

launch in the next few months or so.

There are also plenty of Chinese

companies that are working on their own

GLP-1 pill. that this is becoming a

crowded space and our point here isn't

to just go and buy Nova Nordisk. No, our

point is a lot broader than that. Our

point is that GLP1s are just getting

started right now. Or at least that is

our thesis. And now that this pill is

out, now that it is readily available

across the US, that thesis will be put

to the test.

Thanks for listening to Profit Markets

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