My guest today is my good friend, Luke Lango, the Senior Investment Analyst at InvestorPlace. InvestorPlace is an investment and financial news website that provides millions of individual investors with access to free stock picks, options trades, market news, and actionable commentaries. Luke jumped into the startup world while in college at Scoutables, a Sports data analytics business founded by Mark Goodstein, a former Dodgers GM. When he discovered fintech and finance, he found his true passion and decided to go all in and began his time at InvestorPlace. Luke regularly rates as one of the top stock pickers in the world by numerous outlets, and has developed a strong reputation for leaning into his technology background and “big picture” investment philosophy to regularly identify next-generation, small-cap stocks with huge upside potential. Indeed, over the past few years, he has identified many up-and-coming growth stocks well before they were household names, like Advanced Micro Devices (1000%-plus returns), Shopify (1,000%-plus returns), Tesla (1,000%-plus returns), NIO (1,000%-plus returns) and Chegg (2,000% returns). He believes that technology – whether it is around us today or being developed from current technology – can compound exponentially, change lives and alter generations of wealth. In our conversation we cover a variety of very important topics including the geopolitical instability in Europe, the impact of the Federal Reserve policies, the difference between the stock market and the economy, the importance of energy sovereignty, advice for evaluating crypto, and much more. We begin our conversation discussing the Federal Reserve. Luke gives an in-depth breakdown of how the Federal Reserve policies and decisions impact the markets. Luke explains why the Fed's policies are the most important factor in determining where the markets are headed. We go on to discuss why the Fed is likely to act dovish in the face of the current geopolitical landscape. Our conversation transitions to discuss the disconnect between the economy and the stock market. Luke discusses stock market is a discounting mechanism that looks into the future and how that is connected to the future prospects of the economy. We finish our conversation about economics by discussing the parallels between the COVID financial crisis and the Great Recession of 2008. Our next major conversation topic was centered around the intersection of geopolitics and economics. Luke breaks down the ramifications of the geopolitical instability in Europe will have on the markets. We focus on discussing Putin’s possible motives and why the economic volatility will most likely be contained within Europe. We also discuss a couple of black swan events that may cause contagion effects. Our next topic of discussion focused on how to navigate a bear market. We also touch on how bear markets and tough times drive innovative cycles. Our conversation transitions to understanding how to evaluate crypto. Luke gives advice on strategies and frameworks he uses to assess crypto investments. Our final major topic centered around energy and the importance of energy sovereignty. We discuss why the European energy crisis could be a watershed moment to drive innovation and growth for clean energy from solar, hydro, to nuclear. We wrap up our conversation around energy by discussing the importance of energy sovereignty and the impact it has on geopolitics to economic prosperity. Please enjoy my conversation with Luke Lango. -- ParaSwap: If you want to make a swap at the best price across the DeFi market, check out https://untoldstories.link/paraswap. ParaSwap’s state-of-the-art algorithm beats the market price across all major DEXs and brings you the most optimized swaps with the best prices, and lowest slippage. -- This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co