Monday brief #1 ships 02/11/2026. Subscribe free
A short-biased investing newsletter. Two brothers and a finance guy.
Good news can be a sell signal. We find companies whose headlines are louder than their numbers, and we write it down before the next earnings print.
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The anatomy
The pop, then the paperwork.
Case study, not a trade we claim. BIRD (Allbirds / NewBird AI) announced an AI compute pivot on 15/04/2026. The stock rose 582% in a day. Below are the dated prices we have, in order, with the events that followed.
Market cap at the pop
~$21M to ~$148M
Before and after the 15/04/2026 headline.
Share sale
28/04/2026
At-the-market share sale agreement.
Q1 print
-$2.37
EPS, against -$2.31 expected. Loss wider than expected.
Debt to buy GPUs
~$50M
Convertible debt used to buy the compute.
1
Open short
1
On the watchlist
-86%
BIRD since the pop
5-10%
Max of active book, across all open calls
The board
Four names. Each card has the dated public prices we have, the status, and the thesis. The losers sit on the board with the same weight as the winners.
ADBE
Adobe
+1.2%
Against us at 16/10/2026
Down 30.8% YTD at 09/10. 13.5x trailing GAAP EPS. $25B buyback. Wells Fargo cut to Underweight, $225, on 12/10. The bull case is real: record revenue, cheap multiple. Our angle: we replaced Illustrator at our own company this year with an AI-built tool.
Move is measured from the reference price to $245.20 on 16/10/2026.
NKE
Nike
$37.30
On 23/10/2026, up from $34.36 on 07/10/2026
Q3 FY2026 revenue flat at $11.3B. Earnings down 35%. Consensus revenue falling again in FY2027. We are not short yet. We are waiting for the next turnaround-headline pop.
BIRD
Allbirds / NewBird AI
-86%
From $16.99 at the pop to $2.32 on 27/09/2026
Announced an AI compute pivot on 15/04/2026. The stock went from about $2.49 to $16.99 in a day, and market cap from about $21M to about $148M. The next day it fell about 30% to about $12. An at-the-market share sale agreement followed on 28/04/2026. Q1 loss was wider than expected. About $50M of convertible debt to buy GPUs. This is a case study, not a trade we claim.
RAD
Rite Aid
Ch. 11 ×2
Chapter 11 in 2023 and again in 2025, after a +42% ice cream day in 12/2019
12/2019: Rite Aid credited Thrifty ice cream for a Q3 beat. The stock rose 42% in one day, the biggest one-day move since 2015, and many called it a short squeeze. It was about +94% that week. Chapter 11 in 2023 and again in 2025. Wound down. Oli shorted it the Friday it popped.
Points are dated public prices, shown in order, not to time scale. The RAD chart shows percent moves because we do not have a dated price series for it.
The pattern
A headline lands. BIRD's was "we're an AI company now." The stock rose 582% in a day. Then we ask who sold into the rally.
The headline moved. The business did not. The Q1 loss came in wider than expected: EPS -$2.37 against -$2.31 estimated.
Then the paperwork. An at-the-market share sale agreement on 28/04/2026. About $50M of convertible debt to buy GPUs. $2.32 on 27/09/2026, -86% from the pop.
The pop takes a day. The drop takes a quarter.
The strategy
A headline is not a thesis. Every name goes through the same six checks before we write about it or put money behind it.
Is the headline louder than the numbers? If yes, we dig in.
Under 18 months of cash is a red flag.
An at-the-market deal, convertible debt or a shelf after a pop?
Who sold into the rally?
What are we paying for growth the numbers do not show?
"Now an AI company." Says who, and what did it cost?
House rules
Example: BIRD at the pop
Headline: an AI company now. Numbers: Q1 loss wider than expected.
No dated runway figure, so we do not score it.
At-the-market share sale agreement on 28/04/2026. About $50M of convertible debt.
No dated insider sales in our data, so we do not score it.
Market cap moved from about $21M to about $148M at the pop. No growth figure to set it against.
"Now an AI company."
No data means we had no dated figure to score, so the check is not marked.
What lands every Monday
One email, before the bell. Short, dated, the same format every week.
FromFalling Knife
ToYou
SubjectFalling Knife / Mon 02/11/2026
Example slot. A headline pops. We check revenue first, then runway, then dilution. Only then do we write.
Adobe. Record revenue, a cheap multiple and a bull case that is real. Our angle: we replaced Illustrator at our own company this year with an AI-built tool.
Not investment advice. Opinion of the authors.
Format preview. Not a live issue. Monday brief #1 ships 02/11/2026.
Latest posts
The writers
Oli is the contrarian. Nicklas is the risk manager. Fred checks the numbers.
The contrarian
Shorted Rite Aid on the ice cream day. Builds software with AI agents every day.
The risk manager
Runs the 80/20 book. Long-term money untouched, active money on tight risk limits. No stop, no trade.
The finance guy
Reads the filings and the cash runway before anything goes out. If the numbers do not hold up, the call does not ship.
We run a family consumer brand and build with AI every day, so we see incumbents getting replaced from the customer's chair. That is where we start a call: with the customer, not the analyst model.
Questions
A stock that drops hard after a rally and keeps falling. We look for names whose headlines are louder than their numbers, then write the call down before the next earnings print.
No. Not investment advice. Opinion of the authors. We may hold short or option positions in securities we write about and may trade them at any time without notice. Short selling can lose more than you put in. Do your own research.
Yes. We have an open short call on ADBE and we watch NKE. Each call is dated before the outcome is known, and losers stay on the board.
5-10% of our active book across all open calls, at most. Long-term money is never part of it.
We take defined risk first: puts and spreads, not naked shorts. Every position has a hard stop. A wrong call stays on the board with its date and its price.
Avoiding a falling knife tells you nothing later. A dated short puts the call on the record before the next print. When short interest is high and the float is tiny, we wait. Being right early is the same as being wrong.
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Stage by stage
Stage 01
The headline lands first. It is short, loud and about the future. The price ticks up, and the rally starts before anyone reads the numbers.
HeadlineNow an AI company
Press releaseExpanded partnership
HeadlineRecord quarter*
*Illustrative headline. Not a quote from any company.
Stage 02
Then the paperwork. A share sale is filed. The loss comes in wider than the headline. An analyst cuts the rating. The chart rolls over, and we ask who sold into the rally.
FilingShare sale filed
QuarterLoss wider than expected
AnalystDowngrade
Stage 03
The chart hits the floor. One knife sticks in it.
Most knives don't stop at the floor. We write it down before they get there.
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