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The Moderna Miracle Trade

Happy Friday.

We’re live on YouTube and 𝕏.

The current thing in tech and business is Moderna’s stock crash after leaked vaccine trial.

Today’s Lineup

Summit Sotheby’s International Realty CEO & Principal Broker Thomas Wright at 12:00 PM
Marathon Fusion CEO Kyle Schiller at 12:20 PM
Whop Co-Founder & CEO Steven Schwartz at 12:30 PM

Run of Show

The Moderna Miracle Trade

Moderna stock has been on a wild ride, fueled by speculation that they “cured” cancer. Curing cancer is a broad term though, so the stock is moving as more details come out about exactly how efficacious their new treatments are. Their core idea, which they’ve actually been pitching since 2013, and they were accused of being the next Theranos in 2016 for, is personalized treatments for each cancer patient. Scientists sequence a patient’s tumor, identify mutations unique to their cancer, and manufacture an mRNA vaccine that teaches the immune system to recognize and attack those cancer cells.

It’s not a one shot solution though, the treatment is administered alongside Merck’s Keytruda, an existing cancer immunotherapy drug. The hope is that the combination can prevent cancer from returning after surgery and eventually work against many different types of cancer.

Early results were good, 49% reduction in relative risk of cancer recurrence or death compared to Keytruda alone. Then, in August 2026, Moderna announced that its much larger Phase 3 trial, involving 1,137 patients, had succeeded. But the company didn’t disclose the actual efficacy numbers. The market started immediately speculating about just how effective the treatment might be. The stock mooned as investors anticipated a potentially historic breakthrough. On October 22nd, the detailed results leaked two days before Moderna’s scheduled presentation. A medical publication called Oncology Central apparently published an article containing the embargoed clinical data ahead of schedule. Screenshots quickly circulated on X, and Moderna’s stock plunged roughly 26% intraday, eventually closing down about 18%. It’s not that Moderna has secretly failed the trial, the Phase 3 did succeed, but the results weren’t as spectacular as investors had hoped. Instead of the 49% reduction from the earlier study, it was only 42%. Still a huge step forward if you’re a cancer patient, but not beating expectations if you’re an investor. Also, the treatment’s biggest impact happened after 6 months, meaning it might be less effective against particularly aggressive, fast-growing cancers.

Then the story takes a bizarre turn. A fitness and gambling influencer named Shane Stoffer, better known as Togi, managed to time Moderna’s crash almost perfectly, flipping his entire position from betting on the stock to betting against it just hours before it plunged.

Here’s what happened according to Togi:

On October 4th Togi, whose real name is Shane Stoffer, was trying to speed up his road to $3M trading challenge. He said he noticed people online acting bearish towards Moderna.

“Everyone was turbo bullish on every stock except one. $MRNA, everyone and their mother could only talk about how over valued it is and how good of a short it was.”

He then decided to go against the crowd and bought Moderna calls. That night he had a dream that Moderna cured cancer and the stock went to $275, making his portfolio worth $11 million. He took it as a sign from God and continued buying, eventually putting $250,000 into the trade.

After the dream he asked Claude what it would take for Moderna to actually reach $275. That’s when he said he learned about Moderna’s cancer vaccine. Over the next two weeks, the stock went up 25% and Togi got worried that all the hype from the trial was already priced in.

Then he had another dream, this time that Moderna’s stock would surge 22%.

“I thought it was a sign from God that I was wrong about the top being in and that I should trust my original swap end of market on Friday plan.”

But when he woke up and checked his phone, Moderna was tanking, and his position was down nearly $200,000.

“My port down 200k almost had me fully in a panic, thinking, maybe the sell on the news was so obvious…. That they are selling days before the news.”

Originally, Togi planned to flip his entire position from long to short on Friday, October 23, betting that Moderna’s stock would crash after the trial results were released on Saturday. But the sudden drop convinced him to move up his plans.

“I got too scared that the dump would happen so soon that I’d have no capital left to flip the port short come Friday.”

So he sold his position at a loss, freeing up roughly $500,000 to bet against Moderna by buying put options ahead of the trial results.

Perfect timing for Togi. Shortly after, the results were leaked and the stock crashed by 26%. In Togi’s own words:

And the rest, is some giga stroke of luck history, the news broke early somehow????

The most likely outcome for all traders would be what I was destined for. Rock solid thesis blown up by some unlucky bs. Lucky my panic this morning got to my head enough to break my original game planIn hindsight, this entire saga was beyond obviousThanks for playing!NOT FINANCIAL ADVISE. IM JUST LEARNING AND GAMBLING. BUT ALSO PUT SUM RESPECT ON THE THESIS.

We’ll be discussing on the show today.

Clip Spotlight: PREDICTION: Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince says AI agents will change the business model of the Internet over the next decade:

"In five years, agent traffic is going to be 1000x human traffic."

"The Internet almost collapsed during COVID when traffic doubled."

"There's a lot more servers, routers, and bandwidth that has to get provisioned in order for that to work. The question is, who will pay for it?"

"My hunch is that something's got to change in terms of how the Internet works. Like some version of micropayments that every time you access a resource, your agent pays a ten-thousandth of a penny to be able to see the menu."

"Then there's probably some sort of trade where if you are willing to tell the restaurant what you're looking for, that price goes down, maybe it's free. In some cases, the site might actually pay you to come visit it."

"This will lead to the next version of advertising, which is how do you advertise to agents?"