Takeaway: This webcast airs live on Tuesday, July 13 at 1:00PM ET. Replay will be available after the broadcast.

Throughout July, Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough will be joined by four leading investment strategists for a special Real Conversations series, The Great Reopening: Investing Implications In A Post-Pandemic World.

To lead off our webcast series, Keith is joined by none other than Mike Taylor, Portfolio Manager at Critical Mass Partners. From Delta-variants to “garbage stocks,” you won’t want to miss the replay of this pro-to-pro discussion.

Below we have transcribed a key excerpt for your convenience.

For access to the rest of our "The Great Reopening" interviews, click here.

Transcript

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Taylor: What an amazing time this has been. This is what I love about this business. Even though I've done it for twenty years successfully, you still never get everything right. The goal is to be wrong enough, yet right enough to still make money.

That has been the case, but it hasn't been without some scraps. So we can just dive right in to the Delta Variant and what's happening right now.

The Delta Variant is not actually really a big deal. It's not that much more transmissible, maybe not at all, and it's not really more dangerous, maybe not at all. Think of these variants as akin to influenza. Every single six months there is a different strain of influenza virus attacking one half of the hemisphere or another, and it changes almost every single year. 

And it's not because one is more virulent or transmissible or dangerous, it's just chance. That's how viruses will frequently work. It is just chance. That's what we are working with right here with the Delta Variant and Lamda, and there will be Zeta and all the other ones.

Right now floating around, I am certain there are literally billions of variants. And just through probabilities and odds just like influenza, one will gain hold in a population, spread, and then fizzle out. That's what we're really looking at. 

MORE INSIGHT WITH MIKE TAYLOR

Mike currently manages a portfolio with over $1 billion AUM at Critical Mass Partners. A virologist by training, Mike worked in drug development for a number of years and has traded within the healthcare sector for over two decades. Prior to Critical Mass, Mike was a Portfolio Manager at Citadel.

You can also watch Mike's recent "Hedgeye Investing Summit" interview with Keith, HERE. They discuss COVID data inaccuracies, the macroeconomic environment, and Mike's two best long ideas.