This week wasn’t “crazy.” It was predictable. The market just dressed it up with noise so people would trade their emotions instead of their plans. Every day had a new mini-drama, a fresh hot take, and another reason you were supposedly late or behind. But the uncomfortable truth is simpler: most of what trended was distraction, and most of what mattered was quiet.

What the market got wrong wasn’t a single number. It was the narrative. It kept acting like price movement equals new information. Like every red candle means the story is broken. Like every green candle is permission to chase. That’s how investors end up exhausted, overtrading, and calling it “risk management” after the fact.

And this is exactly why Lululemon matters right now. LULU has been punished so hard since January 2024 that people aren’t analyzing it anymore, they’re reacting to it. Some are calling it permanently broken. Others are trying to bottom-fish because “it can’t go lower.” Both are emotional. Both are how you get trapped.

What actually mattered this week was the scoreboard, not the timeline. Demand, margins, inventory discipline, guidance tone, and whether the market is finally running out of sellers. The stuff that doesn’t go viral because it doesn’t spike dopamine, but it’s the stuff that decides whether a drawdown becomes a recovery or dead money.

That’s what this issue is built around. In The Pragmatic Playbook, I’m going deep on Lululemon’s brutal drawdown and the only question that matters now: what would it actually take for LULU to make a real U-turn in 2026, and how do you engage without getting chewed up.

🧊 Greenland, Trump Takeover Bid, Denmark: What Happens Next
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed interest in acquiring Greenland has stirred a significant geopolitical controversy. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark and strategically important in the Arctic, with valuable minerals and military positioning. Danish officials and European allies have strongly rejected any attempt to control the island without Denmark’s consent, and leaders emphasize that matters concerning Greenland must be decided by Denmark and Greenland themselves. Critics warn that any attempt to seize control — even symbolically — could seriously strain NATO and treaty relationships, while some Greenlandic politicians suggest direct talks with the U.S. might happen without Denmark, although legal barriers remain.

📺 Should You Buy Netflix Stock After Its Recent 32% Plunge?
Netflix’s stock has pulled back about 32% from its mid-2025 highs, presenting what some analysts see as a rare buying opportunity for long-term investors. The company leads globally with over 300 million paying subscribers and is investing in live sports and other premium content to attract both subscribers and advertising revenue. Its pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery assets could deepen its content moat, but regulatory and integration risks remain. While Netflix faces challenges, buying at a discount in a business with strong fundamentals and industry positioning could appeal to patient investors.

💻 Nvidia Now Requires Full Upfront Payment for H200 AI Chips in China
Nvidia has tightened sales terms for its high-end H200 AI chips in China by requiring buyers to pay the full amount upfront with no cancellations or refunds — a shift reflecting regulatory and geopolitical uncertainty around semiconductor exports. This adjustment moves financial risk onto customers and highlights broader challenges for tech companies operating in a divided global landscape. With continued strong demand for AI infrastructure, how Nvidia navigates these conditions in key markets will be critical for growth and supply-chain strategy.

AI has changed how consumers shop by speeding up research. But one thing hasn’t changed: shoppers still trust people more than AI.

Levanta’s new Affiliate 3.0 Consumer Report reveals a major shift in how shoppers blend AI tools with human influence. Consumers use AI to explore options, but when it comes time to buy, they still turn to creators, communities, and real experiences to validate their decisions.

The data shows:

The most effective brands are combining AI discovery with authentic human influence to drive measurable conversions.

Affiliate marketing isn’t being replaced by AI, it’s being amplified by it.

Download the full report to see what this means for your brand.

A 59% drawdown doesn’t just hurt your portfolio. It hurts your pride.
Because at some point you stop asking “what’s the setup?” and start asking “what if I’m the idiot who believed the story?”

That’s the Lululemon experience since January 2024. Not a clean crash. A slow, grinding bleed that makes a premium brand feel uninvestable. And the market’s favorite conclusion right now is lazy: “LULU is broken.”

Here’s the part that matters. If you misread this as a falling knife, you’ll stay frozen and buy back when it finally feels safe. If you misread it as a bargain just because it’s down, you’ll get trapped in dead money and spend 2026 arguing with your own patience.

So I’m not treating this as a “cheap or expensive” debate. I’m treating it as a U-turn setup question: what would it take for the stock to stop trending down and start rebuilding trust?

LULU didn’t get cut in half because the company suddenly became trash. It got cut in half because expectations were priced for perfection… and then the home market blinked.

The latest numbers tell you exactly where the market lost confidence:

This is the core story of the drawdown: softening in the Americas + margin pressure + inventory creep creates a setup where investors stop paying up and start demanding proof.

And then uncertainty piled on. Leadership transitions, board noise, activist involvement… whatever you think about those, markets hate ambiguity. The chart isn’t the truth. It’s the crowd’s mood. And the mood since 2024 has been: “Show me.”

Here’s what makes the “LULU is over” narrative sloppy: the brand is still very alive outside the Americas.

While the home market cooled, international growth has been doing real work:

That doesn’t erase the Americas problem. But it tells you the product-market fit hasn’t vanished. The business is rotating, not dying.

This is the part most investors don’t price correctly: Lululemon doesn’t need to go back to hyper-growth to recover. It needs to regain credibility.

Credibility is a boring word, but it’s everything here. When the market trusts the margins again and believes inventories are under control, it stops valuing LULU like a regular retailer and starts rewarding it like a premium brand again.

Also, buybacks matter more when valuation is compressed. Not because buybacks magically fix fundamentals, but because they can support the floor once the business stops leaking. In a beaten-down stock, disciplined repurchases can become a quiet tailwind.

But don’t get it twisted. None of this is enough by itself.

A recovery doesn’t happen because “international is strong.”
A recovery happens when the market stops seeing deterioration at home and starts seeing stabilization.

A real LULU U-turn needs two things:

Not perfection. Not a miracle quarter. An inflection.

This is where investors get stubborn. They want to “feel smart” by buying before the chart improves. That’s how you become liquidity.

Tape confirmation looks like:

The best turns don’t announce themselves. They start quietly, when nobody wants to believe again.

This is the part I’d keep in my notes and review every quarter, because it removes emotion.

If those start flipping green, the recovery isn’t a hope. It’s a process.

This is not buy/sell language. This is how you avoid acting like a tourist.

I don’t chase day one. I wait 48 hours. If it holds most of the move and doesn’t fade immediately, that’s often institutional sponsorship. If it spikes and bleeds out, that’s usually emotion.

I watch the next 5 sessions. Stabilization and quick reclaiming of ground can signal absorption. Continued sliding and new lows mean distribution is still in control.

This is my favorite outcome if the scoreboard improves. Sideways after a long downtrend can be the market absorbing shares. It’s boring. Boring is where real entries come from.

The market doesn’t need you to be right. It needs you to be disciplined.

I’m open-minded, not married to a narrative. Here’s what would make me more cautious:

If those happen, you don’t argue with the market. You respect the signal.

Lululemon can recover from a 59% drawdown, but not because “it’s down a lot.” That’s not a thesis. That’s a coping mechanism.

A recovery happens when the business stops leaking in the Americas, margins stabilize, inventory gets cleaned up, and guidance shifts from defensive to confident. Then the tape confirms it: lower lows stop, bad news stops working, and the stock starts building a base.

The biggest mistake investors make with names like LULU is emotional timing. They wait until it feels safe, then buy after the move. Or they buy too early because it “can’t go lower,” then get worn down by a slow grind and sell right before the inflection.

This is the playbook: don’t chase the story. Track the scoreboard.
Because when LULU turns, it won’t send you an invitation.

Imagine this. You open your phone to an alert. It says, “you spent $236,000,000 more this month than you did last month.”

If you were the top bidder at Sotheby’s fall auctions, it could be reality.

Sounds crazy, right? But when the ultra-wealthy spend staggering amounts on blue-chip art, it’s not just for decoration.

The scarcity of these treasured artworks has helped drive their prices, in exceptional cases, to thin-air heights, without moving in lockstep with other asset classes.

The contemporary and post war segments have even outpaced the S&P 500 overall since 1995.*

Now, over 70,000 people have invested $1.2 billion+ across 500 iconic artworks featuring Banksy, Basquiat, Picasso, and more.

How? You don’t need Medici money to invest in multimillion dollar artworks with Masterworks.

Thousands of members have gotten annualized net returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8% from 26 sales to date.

Explore offerings

_{*Based on Masterworks data. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd}

The market has a talent for turning normal volatility into a personal insult. A stock drops, the timeline panics, and suddenly you feel like you’re behind, late, or “missing something.” That’s usually when people overtrade, chase reassurance, and confuse activity with progress. The fatigue isn’t just from price moves, it’s from constantly letting the crowd set your emotional temperature.

This week’s reminder is simple: stillness is a position too. My edge doesn’t come from guessing next week’s move, it comes from preparing for the few moments when the scoreboard actually turns. When a name is in a drawdown, I don’t try to outsmart the pain, I wait for proof that the slope is changing. If it feels like you’re behind, you’re not. You’re just early to the part where discipline starts paying.