Justin Mateen(@justinmateen):Two trading days after this post, $AMZN is up 19.8%, adding nearly $500B in market cap. Today was its best day since 2012 and the largest one day market cap gain in Amazon’s history. A few friends, and even my doctor mentioned they bought it after seeing the post. The result is nice. The more interesting part is how I structured the risk. Most of my short term options returned 10x+, despite the stock moving less than 20%. For years, I’ve used options to create venture like return profiles in public markets. Options are leverage, but not all leverage has the same risk profile. I learned the hard way when I blew up my trading account when I was 13. Margin can force you out at the worst possible time. Long options and call spreads let you know the maximum loss upfront while retaining highly convex upside. The tradeoff is that they can expire worthless. This doesn’t mean you have to play small, in fact my AMZN position has notional exposure equivalent to several million shares, but before entering I assumed the entire premium could go to zero and made sure the potential loss is tolerable. I typically keep long term exposure through stock and LEAPS, then add shorter term call options when I see a major catalyst. If the timing moves against me but the thesis remains intact, I roll down the strike, or extend my time frame to give myself a higher chance of hitting the target. The goal is maximum asymmetry. I typically structure positions with the potential to return 20x to 30x while defining the maximum loss upfront. Wiping out my trading account in my early teens sucked, but taught me a lesson I will never forget: being right is not enough. You have to size risk so you can survive being wrong on timing, and get back up to try again with an emotionless smile on your face.

2026.08.01 00:54

Two trading days after this post, $AMZN is up 19.8%, adding nearly $500B in market cap. Today was its best day since 2012 and the largest one day market cap gain in Amazon’s history. A few friends, and even my doctor mentioned they bought it after seeing the post. The result is nice. The more interesting part is how I structured the risk. Most of my short term options returned 10x+, despite the stock moving less than 20%. For years, I’ve used options to create venture like return profiles in public markets. Options are leverage, but not all leverage has the same risk profile. I learned the hard way when I blew up my trading account when I was 13. Margin can force you out at the worst possible time. Long options and call spreads let you know the maximum loss upfront while retaining highly convex upside. The tradeoff is that they can expire worthless. This doesn’t mean you have to play small, in fact my AMZN position has notional exposure equivalent to several million shares, but before entering I assumed the entire premium could go to zero and made sure the potential loss is tolerable. I typically keep long term exposure through stock and LEAPS, then add shorter term call options when I see a major catalyst. If the timing moves against me but the thesis remains intact, I roll down the strike, or extend my time frame to give myself a higher chance of hitting the target. The goal is maximum asymmetry. I typically structure positions with the potential to return 20x to 30x while defining the maximum loss upfront. Wiping out my trading account in my early teens sucked, but taught me a lesson I will never forget: being right is not enough. You have to size risk so you can survive being wrong on timing, and get back up to try again with an emotionless smile on your face.

Justin Mateen@justinmateen

2026.07.30 00:28

The market is being stupid on META and AMZN again. Buy both, and sleep well. Read this for confirmation… META should not be down 8% after hours. They grew revenue 28% at enormous scale. The headline EPS miss included $3.6B of legal and severance charges. On a normalized basis, EPS was approximately $7.35, well above consensus. The market keeps treating higher capex as a negative. It has this completely backwards. AI demand is supply constrained, so productive capex is future revenue capacity. META will increase earnings drastically and use it internally, or lease excess supply and make a large arbitrage either short term or long term. In all cases, it’s a massive win. In Amazon’s case it is spending today to unlock years of high margin (40%+) AWS revenue tomorrow. Capex ROI is likely around 30%. AMZN has a clean setup going into earnings tomorrow: AWS grew 28% last quarter, its fastest growth in 15 quarters. Amazon has a custom chip business (to bypass NVDA and increase margins) that passed $20B ARR and is growing triple digits. AWS generated nearly 60% of Amazon’s operating income last quarter. This percentage will continue to increase, even if we get an increase in prime membership pricing which happens every 4 years, and has not happened although we are in year 4 and due for an increase if you believe in patterns. Perhaps tomorrow? There are many data points that support cloud AI demand is accelerating. My bet is AWS reaccelerates sharply to 40%+ the second half of 26 as new capacity comes online. 45–50% in Q4 is very possible if the capacity ramp hits, which means earnings estimates are far too low. AMZN average EPS for 2027 is $10.09, but I would not be surprised if they do $14+ EPS. AWS is worth more than the current market cap of AMZN. Full disclosure I have meaningful positions in both companies and believe both META and AMZN will at least double to 1,000+ and $450+ respectively by 2028.

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