SUCCESS

Apple TV’s Lucky ends with a heart-pumping finale as Lucky reveals a dangerous secret she’s been sitting on and gains an unlikely ally who kills to keep her alive.

Uber and Lyft spent the better part of the decade torching cash to win city after city, and investors punished both stocks every time losses widened.

It took years for the market to accept that spending was buying share that would eventually convert into pricing power. That same test is now playing out in a far less glamorous corner of the economy: secondhand clothes.

EBay Inc. (EBAY) shares have fallen roughly 15% from their May 2026 high as investors have grown nervous about how much the company will spend to defend fashion resale app Depop against European rival Vinted’s U.S. push.

Wells Fargo and Citizens both downgraded the stock in early August, warning Depop-related marketing costs could pressure 2027 earnings. The sell-off has persisted, even after eBay posted second-quarter revenue up 15% year over year.

The spending fight is playing out amid a takeover battle

The timing isn’t incidental. EBay’s board is simultaneously fending off a $56 billion unsolicited bid from GameStop chief executive Ryan Cohen, who has built a stake approaching 10% of the company and argued in his rejected offer that eBay’s marketing spend had grown bloated without producing user growth, according to CNBC.

EBay’s board called the bid “neither credible nor attractive” in a May letter filed with regulators, but Cohen has kept building his position and taking his case directly to institutional shareholders.

If the Vinted spending war keeps pressuring margins without a clear payoff, it hands Cohen fresh ammunition. If it works, it becomes the clearest evidence yet that eBay’s board was right to bet on its own strategy over a sale.

Morgan Stanley says the market is mispricing eBay’s Depop bet as Ryan Cohen’s takeover push adds pressure on eBay’s board.SOPA Images / Getty Images

Morgan Stanley says the market has this backward

Morgan Stanley disagrees with that framing entirely.

In a research note published Aug. 18, analysts led by Nathan Feather reiterated an overweight rating on eBay with a $127 price target, arguing investors are treating Depop spending as value-destructive while ignoring the size of the prize.

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The firm expects tactical pressure into eBay’s initial 2027 guidance but says the medium-term case has actually strengthened.

The argument leans on Vinted’s own record. The Lithuanian company used the same aggressive spending playbook to win market after market in Europe, especially the U.K., and it was valued at roughly $9 billion in an April share sale led by investment firm EQT.

Vinted’s monthly active users equal about 14% of Europe’s population, Morgan Stanley notes, while Depop’s U.S. penetration sits closer to 4%. That gap, the firm argues, is the opportunity, not the risk.

Rather than treat next year as one outcome, Morgan Stanley mapped four scenarios for how the spending fight could unfold, each with a probability attached:

Arms race (40% probability): Both companies keep escalating spend, pressuring 2027 earnings near term, but Depop is expected to end up with dominant U.S. share once the cycle fades, given it already has roughly 3.5 times Vinted’s domestic user base.

Relative peace (30% probability): Both sides signal willingness to spend but pull back on unprofitable advertising, producing a milder earnings hit while volume growth keeps compounding.

Vinted retreats (20% probability): Vinted can’t match Depop’s spending and redirects elsewhere, an outcome Morgan Stanley calls positive for the stock now and long term.

EBay retreats (10% probability): EBay decides winning the U.S. costs more than it’s worth and pulls back, offering near-term relief but ceding the category to Vinted for good.

Morgan Stanley calls the fourth outcome the least likely and the only true long-term risk, which is why the firm isn’t backing off the stock, despite expecting a rough initial guide.

History shows big spending doesn’t always win

The confidence rests on precedent, and the precedent cuts both ways. Vinted lost three straight rounds against Depop in the U.K. before finally outspending its rival roughly 3-to-1 starting in 2021, a bet that flipped the market and left Vinted with 25 times more U.K. users than Depop today.

Poshmark tells the opposite story. It went public as the top U.S. player in 2021, but marketing costs outgrew sales growth for two straight years, and it was eventually sold for $1.2 billion.

The lesson is uncomfortable for anyone hoping for a quick answer. This fight isn’t decided by who spends the most, but by who has the retention and product fit to make that spending compound.

EBay’s CFO, Peggy Alford, has already signaled some of Depop’s budget will come from reallocating existing marketing dollars rather than entirely new spend, a detail that softens the bear case but hasn’t stopped the downgrades.

The next few guidance cycles will show whether Depop’s early lead behaves more like Vinted’s U.K. win or Poshmark’s fade, and that answer will shape how much leverage Ryan Cohen has the next time he asks eBay’s board to reconsider.

Related: Innovative men’s and women’s jeans brand files Chapter 11

Transcript:

Caroline WoodsJoining me now, Dryden Pence chief investment officer at Pence Capital Management. Dryden. Welcome to the desk. Great to have you here.

Dryden PenceGreat to be here. Thanks for having me.

Caroline WoodsAll right. So Dryden stocks under a bit of pressure today. It seems like Iran very much back in focus. How much of a threat is that to the bull market right now?

Dryden PenceI mean I think we’re going to have problems with Iran. We’ve had problems there for 50 years. And until they finally resolve it, you know, one day it’s going to be one thing, one day it’s going. And no one’s really sure who’s in charge over there at this point. But it really comes down to world prices. And what’s remarkable about this is we’re at in this low 80s, at low 80s, the U.S. economy is doing all right under a little bit of pressure.

Dryden PenceBut all right, we look at it as $60 a stimulative. $80 is okay, $100 is inflationary and 120 would be recessionary. And so we don’t need as much oil through the Straits of Hormuz as we used to. U.S. only gets 2% of our oil through there. We don’t. And the world doesn’t need as much because you have two big pipelines that move 10 million barrels a day around the Strait of Hormuz.

Dryden PenceSo now the the shortage is really more like 4 to 5 million barrels a day. And that’s two of the great big large tankers. So overall, the U.S. is definitely not as exposed as we used to be. This isn’t going to be 74 where we’re, you know, lined up a gas station and the world is less exposed. So while we get this these ups and downs and this overreaction to every time a missile goes off or something like that, we don’t have as much exposure as the U.S. economy certainly does.

Dryden PenceAnd I think that that’s one of the resilience that we’re seeing in the markets, resilience that we’re seeing in the economy. We’re just not as exposed to it as we used to be.

Caroline WoodsSo oil is trading around $84, $85 a barrel right now. You see if that’s okay for the economy. But what about for the market. At what point does higher oil become a market headwind? The hundred dollar?

Dryden PenceI think if you’re sustained above 90, then you begin to worry because because, you know, Americans go to the gas station more than they go to the bank. They go to the gas station when they go anywhere else. So at $4 a gallon, which is about where we are, except in California, you know, at $4, it’s it’s stressful for people, but it’s not changing behavior.

Dryden Pence$5 a gallon. That’s demand destruction. And and behavior does get changed. And we’ve kind of been studying this for a long time. So right in here it’s stressful but it’s not destructive. Okay. So we get north of 90 for a sustained period of time. Then we got a problem.

Caroline WoodsWe’ll dig more into the consumer in just a minute. Because this is obviously a big week for retail as well. But sticking with the broader market doesn’t seem like oil is a headwind for you right now, not geopolitics. Also, keeping a close eye on bond yields, hearing a lot about that. Right now we have the 30 year trading around 5.3%.

Caroline WoodsWe have the ten year yield trading around 4.7%. How concerning is that to you.

Dryden PenceConcerning who it was regard to? There’s a moment where equity investors begin to look at the bond market as a good place to go. And to me that’s around the ten year at five. So if we see the ten year at five we pop up to that. I think that’s a that’s an opportunity. That would be a buying opportunity to be a time that you would look at, wanting to for, for retail investor, you know, for a lot of them give me a solid, say, five or a solid, say, 7 or 6 a.m. in pretty good shape.

Dryden PenceSo I think you’d begin to see that trade off on the retail investor side between equities and fixed income when the ten year hits about five. So we’ll close. But I think that I think also part of this whole situation with Iran, they worry bond yields are kicking up because people are worried about inflation. They’re worried about inflation because they’re worried about oil prices.

Dryden PenceBut if oil prices aren’t going to spike then and you’re not going to see this inflation pickup.

Caroline WoodsTo bond yields oil geopolitics not necessarily getting in the way of this market. What’s the strongest fundamental reason to believe this market can head higher than earnings.

Dryden PenceEarnings are at an all time high. And we’re continuing to see earnings growth in most companies, not just in the hyperscalers but also throughout the entire S&P 500. And so when you look at if earnings are at an all time high, so the market is going to be at an all time high. And as long as we continue to see this tremendous earnings growth as we see eye adoption go up, you know, you have 71% of the companies.

Dryden PenceThe companies are see improvements that are using I are seeing improvements in productivity. Labor productivity goes up. Profit margins go on. Profit margins go up. Earnings go up. And it’s all working its way through the system that people can be confident.

Caroline WoodsBut we’re at the tail end of earnings season right now. So in terms of how much higher that market can go from here, what do you think?

Dryden PenceWell 86% of the companies a, B in terms of how we think the market can go, you’re gonna kind of get these volatility moments. So I would expect a little bit of a pullback between now and the end of the year. But then back to at some point a return to another all time high. So I think we’re slightly higher at the end of the year than we are now.

Dryden PenceBecause if you just take a look at earnings growth it’ll math out to that. So so somewhat higher but not a lot higher than we are right now. But I think we’re going to get like a little dip. I’ve been saying for a long time by chips on dips. And so I think that that’s that’s been a good strategy.

Caroline WoodsWell you’re getting a chip dip today. Exactly. Funny enough, software stocks actually are rising as chip stocks are falling. What is the the tech strategy then. Is it just buying chips right now. What specifically do you like.

Dryden PenceI think I like so we do like the hyperscalers. We don’t think that story’s over with. We think when it gets right down to it, we’re having this massive multi-generational build out of technological infrastructure that allows us to use artificial intelligence to increase labor productivity and more and more adoption, more and more people. And we really kind of gone from proof of concept into rapid adoption.

Dryden PenceAnd so I think you’ve got really 1 or 2 more years now where almost anything that’s involved with the infrastructure around the AI build out is going to have a start to it. And I think that also anything that that gives us greater labor productivity. So we’re always looking for companies that are rapid adopters. We’re looking for companies that are providing the meat and potatoes or the bones of the AI infrastructure piece, because I think that that’s really going to it’s going to revolutionize our economy.

Dryden PenceThis is as big as the light bulb. This is as big as the transcontinental railroad.

Caroline WoodsSo which names do you like? Is it early adopters, which are the meat and potatoes.

Dryden PenceWell I think Broadcom is really a very key company. It’s it’s basically part of the infrastructure. Everybody’s using it. It’s very important to Broadcom is one that we like the most in terms of picks and shovels meat and potatoes basically all of this stuff. And then we like Microsoft a lot because when you look at how dominant it is in every business using it, every household having it, now you’re beginning to see that we’re a little slow, but now you’ve got copilot going, you’ve got Azure going all of these parts of that company.

Dryden PenceSo they almost have a have this ability to both, you know, build out both the software piece of it and the adoption of AI. So that’s that’s one of the favorite ones. And then obviously Nvidia and Nvidia is the choke point. I mean you have you have companies that are important to this. You have if you know, ASML makes, extreme ultraviolet light machines.

Dryden PenceThat makes the chips, the TSMC makes for Nvidia. So you have a triumphant of three companies that occupy choke points. They’re almost have you can’t have you can’t have a you can’t have AI without in video. You can’t have Nvidia without TSMC and you can’t have TSMC without ASML. So you take a look at this supply chain of companies that occupy these kind of little monopolies and choke points.

Dryden PenceThey’ve got earnings that are 2 or 3 years out. They they booked their demand for 2 or 3 years out. Show me a company that can sell everything it can make for 2 or 3 years in advance. 21 oh.

Caroline WoodsAre there any other obvious hyperscalers or Meg seven names that you should definitely own here? Outside of Microsoft and Nvidia?

Dryden PenceI think Apple, and the reason why we like Apple’s has some volatility around it. But you know, again, it’s one of those companies that everyone not everyone, but many, many people have an iPhone. It’s part of your daily life. No one, you know, until we all go throw our mobile devices in the river, they become an appendage.

Dryden PenceAnd so that’s the vehicle that we’re going to use to access all of this technology that’s changing our lives. So I look for companies that are absolutely essential in the consumer behavior that’s going on.

Caroline WoodsSo tech’s still very much in favor in terms of your strategy. But looking outside of tech because we have seeing been seeing this rotation into other areas in the market. What sectors look attractive to you at these levels?

Dryden PenceI like defense, I mean, the world is not going to wake up and sing Kumbaya. We’ve talked about the issue with Iran. We’ve talked about the issues. When you look at Lockheed Martin, you look at a company that has 2 or 3 things going on. First of all, we’ve expanded a lot of the high altitude anti-ballistic missile thing.

Dryden PenceWe’ve seen a lot of the Patriots in the current war that we have. All that’s got to be replaced. They’re the they’re the single provider of it. They’re also a single source contract for a lot of our missile defense systems. They’re they’re also the single contractor for the F-35. So when you take a look, they’ve got $230 billion worth of backlog.

Dryden PenceThat’s three years of their revenues. So you have, you know, this company that is absolutely essential to the defense of our nation and indeed pretty much all the Western world. So now Europe is going to have to start, increasing their defense spending. Everybody’s increasing their defense spending. And Lockheed Martin is going to be a key, recipient of that.

Dryden PenceAnd Raytheon is going to do very well to their key positions of that. So I look for for companies, I mean, you know, government pays these bills and, Lockheed Martin 5.2, cash flow and and you have three years of revenue. I think it’s a very strong, strong one to hold for a long time.

Caroline WoodsOkay, so tech check, defense check. What else?

Dryden PenceI think, you know, on the when you take a look beyond those we almost get want to get down into the company. And taking a look at companies that are going to be positioned to to really increase labor productivity. So you have some manufacturing companies that are doing that. But what you also have to look at is as this moves in to better efficiencies, see, on the retail side, I still like Walmart, believe it or not.

Dryden PenceAnd and the reason why is they’re very dominant throughout the country. And they’ve always been very good at wringing every bit of efficiency out of what they’re doing. So if they’re able to use AI, that’s great. They’re able to make things more efficient for the consumer. That’s great. They’re able to keep prices lower. They’re now the number two to Amazon on the delivery process and e-commerce.

Dryden PenceSo we like that.

Caroline WoodsYeah Amazon wasn’t one of your hyperscalers picks. So you like number two versus number one.

Dryden PenceWell well two different things. Right. So we love Amazon and we like Amazon a lot. They are actually what’s very interesting about Amazon is their ability as a company to implement I and employ they have more robots and they have employees. And so robotics and all of these things are important. When you think of just the masses of things, Amazon has to move around.

Dryden PenceThey’re able to lower their cost on their delivery thing. This is before you ever get into AWS. But just the the meat and potatoes of of just moving stuff through factories. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any of the videos of their delivery systems. You’ve got robots working as a hive, you know, going all over the place.

Dryden PenceIt’s quite fascinating. And so they’re one of the rapid adopters, and they’re doing it exceedingly well. And that’s lowering cost, increasing labor productivity, increasing profit margin, and then allowing them to deliver a better product to consumer at lower price.

Caroline WoodsI’m glad you mentioned Walmart though, too, because this is obviously a big week for retail earnings. Really kicking off with Home Depot today, that’s about 1% higher after its report. We have Walmart, target, Lowe’s, Ross stores all reporting. And then over the next couple of weeks, we’ll hear from a lot of the other discretionary names. What specifically are you watching for?

Caroline WoodsAnd would you bet on the consumer right now outside of some of the labor productivity plays and really kind of the eye plays within retailers, would you bet on the consumer right now?

Dryden PenceYou know, believe it or not, you know earnings are at an all time high and so is or wages and salaries if you take it. Wages and salaries are at an all time high. Now we’ve had some inflation and people aren’t slowing down. They’re spending they’re reallocating it. But the consumer is not slowing down. It’s being moved around a little bit.

Dryden PenceThey’ve got to pay a little bit more for gasoline. So maybe it’s a little bit less for something else. But in general we see the economy continuing to grow. And so we see the consumer continue to spend. If you give it American money, they’re going to spend it. And we have the coming into the back half of the year.

Dryden PenceWe have a lot of stimulus coming in from two things. So the great big beautiful bill, right. Well, it cuts taxes at about $630 billion. And then we had $150 billion in excess withholdings from last year. So when people are looking at it, they’re either getting a refund where they wouldn’t have before or their tax bill is a little less than it would have been.

Dryden PenceBut when you add up those two factors, that is about $730 billion of additional money that people have that they wouldn’t have had before, that’s almost as much money if remember those Covid checks where everybody got a check just for breathing? That was 830 billion. So weird. And we dumped it into a dead economy. We’re dumping 790 billion into an economy that’s running on all cylinders.

Dryden PenceSo I think the consumer’s going to stay intact.

Caroline WoodsSo who benefits from that from a stock perspective then. What’s a retail name that you would buy ahead of earnings. That’s not Walmart.

Dryden PenceThat’s hard almost. I wouldn’t say almost any of them. But I think a lot of the the luxury brands are going to do all right. Because yeah, they’re going to be fine. On the retail side, I think that you’re probably going to continue to see I think target will do okay, but I don’t think it’s going to be a blowout quarter for them.

Dryden PenceI think some of the other names you you’re going to begin to see people pull back a little bit. So you might see a little bit of a bid to, to the discounters, on that again, like, Walmart’s my favorite package, I think somebody else. But yeah, I try to concentrate. So I’m, I, I’m, I would bet that one before I would bet the others.

Caroline WoodsOkay. But overall you’re not necessarily leaning heavily into retail names outside of.

Dryden PenceNot and not not heavily into the retail. Okay. We we tend to we tend to. What I focus on on the retail side is the delivery chain of online shopping. So if you think about any of the companies that are involved in like, you know, what we do doesn’t change human being. We shop, right? It’s called retail therapy.

Dryden PenceWe spend our money. But then how we do it changes. So many of the companies that are involved with online retail are continuing to get an increase in that behavior. So it starts with obviously starts with Apple and Microsoft, but then it goes to to Amazon and Walmart and Shopify. All the companies involved in in that you see, I think is continuing to see stuff with Uber and DoorDash.

Dryden PenceThose become platforms at Costco. So these are all companies are involved in this consumer behavior of online shopping. And how do you pay for it? Will you pay for it with visa, Mastercard, American Express. And then it gets delivered by Fedex and UPS. So when you think about the behavior, you know, there’s like 22 companies that comprise almost 12.5% of total U.S. GDP.

Dryden PenceAnd they’re all involved with this with this ongoing piece. And so I think it’s it’s a it’s a big numbers equivalent, Great Britain’s GDP. Just take a look at those companies that are involved in how you execute an online retail purchase. Those are companies that have very strong demand across what they do.

Caroline WoodsWhat are you avoiding right now? What’s on the Dryden Pence no go zone at this point?

Dryden PenceI think the things that I want to try to avoid are companies that I mean, we because we look at individual companies and don’t want to come out negative on folks. But the bottom line, if you’re not investing in the future, you’re not going to be part of it. And a companies that are going ahead and instead of buying their own stock, they are they are, focused on doing what they do best, making that capital expenditure in the future.

Dryden PenceThose we like companies that are continuing to say, well, we’ll just buy our own stock. We’ll just do those. Those are companies I want to avoid because they’re going to miss the boat.

Caroline WoodsWhat’s an example?

Dryden PenceYou know, it’s it’s really hard to think of, of any that we have exactly today. But I worry about some of the banks. The banks are sitting there trying to trying to, you know, buy back their own stock, manipulate their pricing. So there’s, you know, list of some of particular, some of the smaller ones too. So I’m more worried about banks doing, doing that.

Dryden PenceThen, you know, we need to reinvest in what you’re doing. And we also like, like anybody involved in roads and bridges construction. So like caterpillar, you like you like companies that are involved in building out. We, we got to build roads and bridges in this country. You know, roads are deteriorated. So you take a look at some of the big engineering firms, that are important and that those that are publicly traded or like Vulcan Materials has almost, you know, I wouldn’t say monopoly, but bulk materials and Martin Marietta, they, the materials that we need for construction, no one is going to give you a permit for a new rock pit.

Dryden PenceRight. So you’re going to the government is going to have to buy rock and granite, those things and companies that already have those open pit mines. So it’s almost like a little monopoly. So those are going to have consistent earnings going forward over time.

Caroline WoodsCertainly a lot of picks there. Just to kind of wrap things up, if I’m a retail investor and I’m listening in saying, great, you’re still bullish, but by your end, if we’re only a little bit higher than where we are today and I have fresh money to put to work, why wouldn’t I put it in bonds with the ten year yield at 4.7%?

Caroline WoodsWhat is that? Well, make the case for.

Dryden PenceStocks, I think making the case right. I remember, you know, December 31st matters because of taxes. December 31st matters because I raised benchmarking to the end of the year. But for a retail investor that’s got money that wants to put it to work, I encourage them to think about a whole lot more than just this year. Think about next year because you’re, you know, we look at earnings are projected to grow by about 13 or 14% next year by 13 or 14% by the year after that.

Dryden PenceSo if earnings are going to continue on this path and the fundamental economy’s good, then the demand is fundamentally good. I wouldn’t worry about an arbitrary date on the calendar. I would worry about trying to find a reasonable entry point for a company that you really love, that you’re going to own for a long time. I think I encourage people to be investors rather than traders, and so particularly for retail investors.

Dryden PenceSo make a decision, find companies that you use that you like, the e-commerce companies or the technology companies that have these long drawn out things. Some of the construction companies, most federal government contracts for seven years and duration. And it doesn’t really matter when. So if you get a little dip between now and the end of the year for geopolitical overreaction, by the way, most geopolitical events are round trips in 45 days.

Dryden PenceYeah. So you get if you get an opportunity to buy between now and the end of the year, that’s a good thing to do. Or you just take a look at, put your money to work now and say, I’m making this investment not for next week, but for the next decade.

Caroline WoodsWell, you’ve given a lot of picks. So if I have fresh capital to put to work, where does my first dollar go from the picks that you gave today? Nvidia okay, I think this is a good time to pivot to our rapid fire rounds of this or that. First time playing. Quick questions, quick answers. Sure. No hedging if you can help it.

Dryden PenceI’ll try not to.

Caroline WoodsAll right. Here we go. Markets from here. More room to run or do for a pullback.

Dryden PenceShort term pullback and then running thereafter. So you get something short answer that something between now and the end of the year maybe a 5 or 7. And but that’s an opportunity because I think at the end of the year we’re higher than.

Caroline WoodsWe are now. So buy any dip or wait for a big pullback.

Dryden PenceI think you would anything you buy it anything of a 4 or 5 or below.

Caroline Woods4 or 5%, 4 or 5.

Dryden PencePercent.

Caroline WoodsWalmart or Target ahead of earnings. Walmart, Nvidia or Microsoft. Nvidia better for the market, strong economy and higher rates or weaker economy and lower rates.

Dryden PenceStrong economy and higher wage rates. Rather see the better. See the fed. Look at that raise because it’s too strong. They’d have to do something else because it’s to the.

Caroline WoodsFed for the rest of this year. On hold doesn’t even have to give you an option on hold. Bigger threat to stocks $100 oil or 5% on the ten year yield.

Dryden Pence$100 oil.

Caroline WoodsConsumer from here. Resilient or cracking.

Dryden PenceResilient as long as we don’t see $100.

Caroline WoodsWell, I CapEx still not enough or getting excessive not enough. Better IPO to invest in OpenAI or anthropic.

Dryden PenceWow, that’s a tough one. I would say OpenAI.

Caroline WoodsOpenAI or space X.

Dryden PenceSpace X.

Caroline WoodsSpace X or Tesla space X, y.

Dryden PenceSpace X is the future. It is the fact that they can cut. All right. I’ll take a second on this. Yeah that’s okay. We’ve been out of space X cuts cost of putting a kilogram into space. It was $20,000 in 2010. It’s $2,000 right now. When Super Heavy comes out in 20 2829, it’s going to drop to $20 per kilogram.

Dryden PenceWhen you do that, you open up possibilities that we haven’t even begun to think about. Space had really has has the monopoly now to getting lots of heavy stuff into low-Earth orbit or intermediate Earth orbit. And so they are the wave of the future. And the short answer is space X, and just be prepared to hold it for a while.

Caroline WoodsSpace X or Lockheed Martin.

Dryden PenceSpace X.

Caroline WoodsBetter confirmation of the bull market, broader earnings growth or broader market participation.

Dryden PenceBroader earnings growth.

Caroline WoodsStocks by year end. Higher or lower? Higher. How much higher?

Dryden PenceAnywhere between 1 and 5%.

Caroline WoodsFrom current levels. One word to describe how your feeling about the market.

Dryden PenceBullish.

Caroline WoodsAll right we’ll leave it there. Dryden pence thank you so much for your picks and your insights. Really appreciate it.

Dryden PenceThank you.

Caroline WoodsThat’s Dryden Pence chief investment officer at Pence Capital Management. If you enjoyed this street talk check out our full interview with Mark Newton. He says to stop waiting for the dips and outlines the stocks and sectors to buy now.

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Haters like to claim that too much screen time is unhealthy. They are wrong.
I absolutely love being on my phone. After existing all day long in the real world, there’s nothing like spending my night reading Heated Rivalry fanfic on AO3, scrolling through /r/NYCinfluencersnark and sending my friends TikTok edits set to sad Noah Kahan songs.

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See? My phone habits are extremely healthy. The only bad part is when a call interrupts my sacred screen time. But nothing will ever compare to when I used to get debt collector calls in college. They were the worst: intrusive and always left my stomach churning because I didn’t know how to handle them.
Let’s change that.
How should I deal with a debt collector call?
First, some quick context. Debt collectors are people or companies that try to get in touch with folks who owe specific debts and push them to pay those debts. And hearing from them is very common.
In 2017, the federal government found that about a third of Americans with credit files — or 70 million people — had been contacted by a third party attempting to collect a debt in the past year.
Usually, the debt collectors who call me are entities that have purchased my debt from the original lender “for pennies on the dollar,” says April Lewis-Parks, director of financial education at Consolidated Credit. They’ll make money if I agree to pay, and because they have skin in the game, debt collectors often get sneaky.
“A lot of them are aggressive in a way that is calculated to get you off-base or uncomfortable,” says Martin Lynch, president of the Financial Counseling Association of America. “They’ll say, ‘Hey, Julia, you owe us $3,500. Can you go get your checkbook?’”
Here’s the kicker: Depending on the origination of the debt, I might not actually be liable for it. Contradicting a debt collector may go against my people-pleasing nature, but I actually have a ton of rights here that I can — and should — exercise.

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Debt collectors are required to follow the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which forbids them from relying upon “abusive, unfair or deceptive practices to collect debts,” according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s website. They cannot harass me.
What does this mean in practice? For one, they’re allowed to contact me only between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. local time (unless I agree otherwise). For another, they can’t call me more than seven times in a week. And they’re generally not allowed to discuss my debts with anyone who’s not me, my spouse, my parents or my attorney.
They can’t use profanity, threaten violence, misrepresent themselves or claim they’re going to take action they legally can’t. While they can call me at work, they can’t keep calling me there if I tell them I can’t answer while on the clock.
“Debts get sold so often from one debt collector to another,” Lewis-Parks says. “If people get called or get letters, their job is not to go ahead and pay that debt. Their job is to investigate.”
According to Lynch, if a debt collector calls me, I should politely but firmly reply, “I’m requesting that you provide validation that you own the debt. You pass that along to me, and I’ll review it with my attorney. [Here’s] the best time to reach me.” Lewis-Parks suggests I take it one step further, saying that I would like to correspond by mail.
“It’s so important to not engage over the phone because you don’t want to get rattled and say the wrong thing or be pressured into anything,” she adds.
What to do after a debt collector calls
Within five days of my request for validation, a debt collector must send a statement including the name of the creditor I allegedly owe, an itemization of the debt, an end date for when I can dispute the debt and more. Once I get this, I can pull my credit report to independently confirm I owe the debt and the amount is right. I should also look up my rights (and maybe get in touch with a lawyer).
When communicating with a debt collector, Lynch says, it’s crucial to avoid acknowledging the debt is mine or — even worse — paying anything toward it upfront. By doing so, I may accidentally reset the statute of limitations and open myself up to legal action.
Lewis-Parks says most debts fall off my credit report after seven years, so if I’m near that point and don’t have a major purchase coming up where a lender will check my credit, I might want to wait it out.
On the other hand, “if it’s hurting your credit score terribly and it’s only been a year or two, and you think, ‘Gosh, if I could get this off my credit [report] and rebuild my credit so I can accomplish a life goal’ — whether it’s buying a car, a home, a boat, whatever — you have to weigh those options,” she adds.
Finally, if I do decide to pay the debt collector, I’ll want to negotiate in writing and have the company commit to reporting to all three credit bureaus once the debt is satisfied. Then I’ll need to follow up to make sure this actually happens.
The bottom line
Not all debt collectors are shady, but many intentionally mislead people so they can make money. That means I need to be very careful if I receive a debt collector call — I should ask for validation, confirm it on my own, consider the statute of limitations and request to communicate on my own schedule.
“You don’t make a payment, you don’t acknowledge that the debt is even yours,” Lynch says. “Stay cool. Stay calm.”

Basics of Cybersecurity for Startups: How to Prevent Breaches
Most brand-new software companies put all their focus into the build cycle and push off setting up baseline defenses until after the product hits the market. That gamble frequently backfires. Thoughtful cybersecurity for startups separates businesses that retain traction from those that collapse under avoidable data leaks. Early during launch phases, engineering teams dedicate every hour to shipping features, leaving debug endpoints and cloud permissions completely open. Automated internet scanners constantly probe public IP ranges for exposed development ports. When founders roll out a deliberate startup data breach prevention plan during week one, they safeguard early revenue, maintain user retention, and lock down intellectual property.
Early Cybersecurity for Startups Unlocks Revenue and Customer Loyalty
A major system compromise drains company resources far beyond emergency forensic bills. Customer confidence evaporates in hours, killing renewal talks on the spot. Real-world incident data shows that extensive data leaks can push smaller software vendors out of business within two quarters. In contrast, investing in cybersecurity for startups speeds up enterprise sales pipelines. Large commercial buyers mandate deep technical audits, immediately dropping vendors who fail to demonstrate tight internal data governance.
Smart operators tackle defensive hygiene early to avoid fatal commercial bottlenecks:

stopping extortion schemes before attackers encrypt critical production databases;
reassuring venture capital partners during late-stage equity due diligence;
satisfying mandatory regulatory benchmarks for early-stage companies;
guarding specialized machine learning datasets from exploitation by rivals.

Regular vendor assessments help teams control third-party vendor risk before integrating external payment APIs or tracking pixels. Making cybersecurity for startups a routine operational habit provides an unmistakable advantage during enterprise bake-offs.
How Engineers Integrate Application Security Best Practices Daily
Refactoring buggy software architecture after release burns massive engineering time. Engineering leaders implement a secure software development lifecycle to catch dangerous flaws during standard code reviews. By enforcing strict application security best practices, it’s possible to catch broken authorization and data parsing errors before code merges into main branches.
A disciplined engineering workflow runs through four core milestones:

System designers draft focused threat models before building backend services.
Dependency scanners are wired into daily builds to catch vulnerable libraries.
Developers apply API security basics to validate all incoming client payloads strictly.
Outside white-hat specialists conduct penetration testing for startups to uncover complex business logic oversights.

Automating these guardrails keeps weekly deployment velocity rapid. Treating cybersecurity for startups as an engineering priority prevents unexpected platform outages when malicious traffic hits public endpoints.
Critical App Security Architecture That Shields Customer Data
Single-page web applications and mobile clients give outside actors direct visibility into frontend logic. Dependable app security centers on strict server-side authorization, brief session lifetimes, and aggressive data hygiene. Engineers intentionally store minimal customer details in client caches, giving unauthorized interceptors nothing of value.
Modern cybersecurity for startups starts with the assumption that clients log in from untrusted coffee shop Wi-Fi connections. Teams must take every action that prevents a malicious actor from intercepting data or tampering with API requests in transit. That involves HTTPS enforcement, client-side integrity hashing, and up-to-date security certificates..
What Cloud Infrastructure Security for Remote Companies Looks Like in 2026
Cloud hyperscalers play a crucial part in modern SaaS architecture. However, vulnerabilities can pop easily between loose IAM roles and open database ports. A rigorous cloud infrastructure security strategy locks down internal subnets, disables unused cloud regions, and separates database clusters from public routing. System administrators eliminate default root credentials and mandate granular role policies.
Restricting access to internal tools requires routing traffic through a small set of fixed, trusted IP addresses. Technical leads often choose to buy dedicated proxy servers to build static IP allowlists for administrative panels, internal staging clusters, and database consoles. This setup ensures that only verified IP addresses reach internal environments, blocking brute-force login attempts from the public web automatically.
Network architects increasingly enforce zero-trust network access alongside proxy gateways. Rather than trusting internal network traffic implicitly, systems authenticate and authorize every individual transaction between microservices. Enforcing automated certificate rotations and mutual TLS between internal services prevents lateral movement across production environments if an attacker compromises a single container.
With engineers collaborating across multiple time zones, mature cybersecurity for startups replaces lax network access rules. Running traffic through dedicated network gateways provides full visibility across internal queries while keeping compromised home networks from infecting internal assets.
Running Effective Cybersecurity for Startups With Limited Seed Cash
Lean funding never excuses poor credential habits. In practice, strong cybersecurity for startups relies on administrative consistency and strict access boundaries rather than six-figure enterprise suites.
Founders eliminate common account takeover vectors through zero-cost internal rules:

deploying team-wide password management to eliminate credential reuse;
enforcing hardware keys or authenticator apps across all corporate email accounts;
organizing interactive employee cybersecurity training sessions focused on common phishing tricks;
granting access to every part of the shared infrastructure strictly on an as-needed basis.

Maintaining consistent cybersecurity for startups requires continuous monitoring as engineers deploy daily pull requests. Frequent updates naturally create minor drift in cloud storage permissions and service roles. Engineering managers routinely inspect third-party dependencies, review deployment logs, and verify access permissions. Lightweight compliance trackers help founders sail through vendor assessments when closing enterprise deals. Establishing security as an everyday engineering habit protects buyer trust and raises long-term enterprise valuation.
How Engineering Leaders Design an Actionable Incident Response Drill
No software stack remains entirely untouchable, making an explicit crisis response playbook vital for every early-stage company. Thorough incident response planning empowers engineering leads to contain intrusions quickly, reset exposed tokens, and keep production platforms online.
When an organization builds dependable cybersecurity for startups, staff execute a battle-tested recovery routine:

The on-call engineer quarantines compromised servers immediately and rotates database credentials.
The technical lead reviews append-only logs to locate the initial entry path and assess impact.
Founders communicate clearly with affected users and regulators using pre-established communication guidelines.
Engineers patch the underlying vulnerability before spinning up clean standby servers from isolated snapshots.

Founders who treat cybersecurity for startups as an essential engineering pillar protect their initial runway from sudden wipeouts. Clean technical hygiene keeps production systems online during sudden traffic spikes while giving enterprise buyers the confidence to sign six-figure contracts.
The post Basics of Cybersecurity for Startups: How to Prevent Breaches appeared first on Addicted 2 Success.

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