1) As I mentioned at the end of yesterday's e-mail, I led a team of six other volunteers driving five ambulances from Germany to Ukraine.
We're part of a group of 64 people driving 52 ambulances on a trip organized by a wonderful charity, Ukraine Focus.
I'm often asked about the risk of spending time in a country at war. This is my seventh trip to Ukraine in the past three and a half years, so I've given it a lot of thought – especially when I've brought my parents, sister, and friends on some of my trips here.
Like investing, it's important to think rationally – not emotionally – when evaluating risk...
Every day, there are heartbreaking stories about Russian missiles injuring and killing Ukrainian civilians. These aren't just dramatic headlines – it's reality.
At the same time, it's important to understand that Ukraine is an enormous country – 10% larger than France – with a population of roughly 40 million. And nearly all Russian strikes are along the eastern front and in the capital of Kyiv.
In the rest of the country, it's quite safe. A visitor might never know the country was at war. That's why, this morning, we dropped off the ambulances (see the photos below) – and most of the volunteers are going home – long before we got to Kyiv.
In reality, our team's greatest risk wasn't getting hit by a Russian missile – it was a car accident. Driving a large, unfamiliar vehicle on strange and often narrow roads for up to six hours a day, while jet-lagged, is no picnic.
Sure enough, when we arrived in Prague on the first day, a member of my team made a left turn right into a bus that was in his blind spot.
Fortunately, no one was hurt. But it cost a few thousand dollars in damages and erased four hours of our afternoon as we dealt with the police and looked for a garage to inspect the ambulance.
It was a good reminder that the greatest risks are often the most mundane ones. And, like with investing, the perceived risk is usually much greater than the actual risk...
Every day, there are worrying headlines that relate to the market. We hear that AI is crippling industries, gas prices are hitting all-time highs, mortgage rates are through the roof, governments are shutting down, and more.
But it's important to take a step back and tune out the noise. As I've said many times, investors should stay focused on the long term.
2) Two of my favorite speculative stocks – electric-aircraft maker Joby Aviation (JOBY) and airplane-engine lessor Willis Lease Finance (WLFC) – are down 60% and 12% year to date, respectively, and are trading near their 52-week lows.
I first wrote about Joby at the beginning of 2023, on January 18 and January 19. The stock was around $5 back then and soared to more than $20 in August 2025. But it has taken a full round trip since then, trading this morning around $5.26.
As I look back at my 2023 investment thesis, it's still fully intact. I continue to think it's an excellent investment idea – albeit a speculative one.
The company has almost no revenues, so its stock can trade anywhere (as we've seen). That means any position in the stock should be sized accordingly.
One of the main things weighing on Joby's stock right now is out of its control. It was supposed to start commercial service earlier this year between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which I expected would be a major catalyst for the stock. But the Iran war has put those plans on hold.
When the war ends and Joby can begin flying passengers, I think the stock could rip.
For more of my latest thoughts on Joby, check out this interview I did last week:
3) In the same January 2023 e-mails, I also wrote about electric-aircraft company Archer Aviation (ACHR), which I didn't like as much as Joby.
I feel even more strongly today after reading this short report posted by user "specialk992" on Value Investors Club (for members only). Here's the executive summary:
I believe Archer Aviation belongs in a "frauds, fads, and failures" short book, or for those who do pair trades or believe in the eVTOL [electric vertical takeoff and landing] space could be offset against being long some combination of JOBY and/or BETA Technologies (BETA).
In short, Archer has significantly missed a large proportion of its financial, operational and developmental milestones since going public in the SPAC [special purpose acquisition company] boom of 2020-2021. Despite this, Archer retains a liquid public stock trading over $100 million per day and a (pro forma for upcoming share issuance to Boeing) market cap of around $5 billion, so there is plenty of meat left on the bone despite a near $5 stock price. I believe that ACHR is hopelessly behind its key eVTOL competition and will continue to dilute shareholders to support its enormous cash burn.
ACHR was a $2 stock trading near cash value in late 2022 and 2023 and I believe it could return there again. In a less forgiving market, ACHR could perhaps be an eventual zero as it is unclear when or if its key eVTOL aircraft or announced hybrid autonomous defense aircraft will be commercially available.
After analyzing the company, specialk992 concluded:
While it is always scary to short a promotional single-digit-stock-price equity in a bubbly environment, in my opinion, Archer stands out as a company which has failed to deliver on its promises but still has a multibillion-dollar market cap and an enormous cash burn that will likely necessitate significant further financing. I do not know whether the eVTOL space will prove to be viable, but if it does I believe Joby and Beta are far more likely to succeed.
While I did not spend a great deal of this writeup on their defense efforts, my personal belief is these are largely promotional announcements to keep their stock price up in the face of continuing failures in their primary eVTOL program.
eVTOL represents yesterday's bubble and as speculative investors focus on AI and drones, Archer may struggle to raise financing as the market sees either their competitors get their aircraft certified by the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] first or the entire eVTOL space continue to push out timelines and Archer misses its stated goal of flying passengers at the LA 2028 Olympics.
4) I recently covered the bull-bear debate on Willis Lease Finance in my September 17 e-mail. In only 15 trading days since then, the stock has tumbled 27%.
For insight, I turned to my friend who's bullish on the stock. I asked him if the selling could be due to rising interest rates. He replied:
WLFC is actually positioned very well for higher rates. As of June 30, they had gross debt of $2.35 billion, and all of that is fixed rate with the exception of $437 million on a revolving credit facility that charges interest 1.875% above the one-month secured overnight financing rate.
They have some incredibly low fixed rates on their West V and West VI A debt at 3.23% and 3.1%, respectively. And their recent convertible debt deal has a 2.5% rate. So we estimate their current overall cost of funds is under 5%.
Further, they have an interest-rate swap position that will produce gains in this rising rate environment. Lastly, the lease rates on their aircraft engines continue to reprice higher, so the increasing lease revenue will more than offset any increase in funding costs. In addition, a higher rate environment debt is more costly to airlines, so they are more likely to lease versus purchase engines.
We think the decline in the stock price is very disconnected from current fundamentals and has likely been driven by downward pressure on FTAI Aviation (FTAI) and other aviation-related stocks that are more negatively impacted by high oil prices.
5) Shares of SpaceX (SPCX) have been ripping, which puts it even more firmly on my list of "Stinky Seven" stocks to avoid.
People will look back and marvel at the foolishness captured in this Financial Times article:
Investors whom SpaceX has previously approached about financing its multibillion-dollar chip purchase said they only received a short two-page deal memo with pictures of outer space and an arrow pointing out that the company was going to build data centres "somewhere in the universe."
Bond investors are getting nervous, as this other FT article notes:
A measure of credit risk at Elon Musk's SpaceX rose to a record high while its bonds dropped after the rockets-to-AI group's new plans to raise $40 [billion] in debt to buy Nvidia chips spooked investors.
The spread on SpaceX's five-year credit default swaps rose to 194 basis points on Wednesday after the FT reported on the fundraising plans, meaning it now costs $19,400 annually to protect $1 [million] of its debt against default. The [credit default swap] began trading in June at around 110 [basis points].
Investors were also selling SpaceX's debt, pushing the yield over Treasuries on its 2056 bond up 0.09 percentage points on Wednesday to 2.36 percentage points, according to MarketAxess data. The so-called spread, a measure of the premium investors demand to hold the bonds rather than ultra-low-risk US government debt, registered 1.75 percentage points in June.
Best regards,
Whitney
P.S. I welcome your feedback – send me an e-mail by clicking here.
P.P.S. As I mentioned above, we handed over most of the ambulances to the Ukrainian military this morning. We shook hands and traded patches with these brave men:
