🏛️ PBMs, not pharma, are the real drug-price target
Chamath's read on where drug-price enforcement actually lands: follow the dollars and the culprits are the pharmacy benefit managers, not the manufacturers. The FTC issued compulsory orders this week demanding the PBMs turn over their business records, and Chamath calls that the one thing Lina Khan got right — investigate then regulate the middlemen. The tradeable read-through is regulatory and margin risk at the vertically integrated PBM owners rather than at the drug makers.
0
CONVICTION
peaked 35.7 EMBER
DORMANT
band
▼ SHORT CVS
expression · bearish politics-market
PARTIAL
outcome · R +13.9% · α -14.4%
2024-05-19
window closed
⚖ Why this verdict
fully deterministic — evaluate.py replays this from daily closes; nothing below is editable or hand-set
- Window: 2023-05-19 → 2024-05-19 — first mention + 12-month horizon, then the window locks.
- The call: ▼ SHORT CVS (primary play). CVS fell 13.9% over the window → direction-adjusted R = +13.9% (the call made money).
- Benchmark: holding SPY over the same window returned +28.3%
→ α = +13.9 − (+28.3) = -14.4%
— what this call made or lost against just owning the index. This is the number the verdict uses.
Stock-selection read: +42.2% — did CVS move the predicted way relative to the market. The two only differ on a SHORT: this call was right about direction relative to the index but still cost money versus holding it.
- Rule fired:
· HIT — R ≥ +10% AND α ≥ +5▶ PARTIAL — R ≥ +5% OR α ≥ 0· MISS — everything else
- Credit: supporters of a PARTIAL earn 0.5 each, opposers the inverse — this feeds the scoreboard weights. supported: Chamath | proxy-sensitive: CI→MISS (-35.2%); UNH→MISS (-11.3%)
Conviction timeline
bands: green ≥ 65 · watch ≥ 45 · ember ≥ 15
Plays vs SPY · % since first mention (2023-05-19)
Plays
| expression | symbol | kind | relevance | rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ▼ SHORT | CVS | stock | PRIMARY | owns Caremark, the largest PBM — the direct target of the FTC's compulsory orders |
| ▼ SHORT | CI | stock | adjacent | owns Express Scripts, the second of the big three PBMs |
| ▼ SHORT | UNH | stock | adjacent | owns OptumRx; largest but most diversified of the three, so least single-point exposure |
Mention log
Chamath
politics-market w=1.02 · n=96
· E129 (2023-05-19) · explicit_prediction · strength 2
▶ 1:01:23
SUPPORT
“So to your point, Sacks, the FTC has been worried that what Friedberg said has been happening, but the real sort of middlemen manipulator in this market are the pharmacy benefit managers. And so this week, she actually issued compulsory orders to the PBMs and said, turn over all your business records to me. I'm going to look into them. That makes a ton of sense.”
Who built this conviction
each voice's total force on the score — supports and opposes from every mention, weighted exactly as the replay applied them · share = % of all mention-driven movement
⏳ decay drained -30.0 over the idea's life — that's time passing, attributed to no one
Score events
| episode | kind | Δ | after | note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E129 2023-05-19 | init | +35.7 | 35.7 | E129 born by Chamath (explicit_prediction x2) [w=1.02] |
| E130 2023-05-26 | decay | -1.4 | 34.3 | E130 silent |
| E131 2023-06-02 | decay | -1.4 | 32.9 | E131 silent |
| E132 2023-06-10 | decay | -1.3 | 31.6 | E132 silent |
| E133 2023-06-16 | decay | -1.3 | 30.3 | E133 silent |
| E134 2023-06-24 | decay | -1.2 | 29.1 | E134 silent |
| E135 2023-07-01 | decay | -1.2 | 28.0 | E135 silent |
| E136 2023-07-09 | decay | -1.1 | 26.8 | E136 silent |
| E137 2023-07-14 | decay | -1.1 | 25.8 | E137 silent |
| E139 2023-07-27 | decay | -1.0 | 24.7 | E139 silent |
| E140 2023-08-04 | decay | -1.0 | 23.8 | E140 silent |
| E141 2023-08-11 | decay | -1.0 | 22.8 | E141 silent |
| E142 2023-08-18 | decay | -0.9 | 21.9 | E142 silent |
| E143 2023-08-25 | decay | -0.9 | 21.0 | E143 silent |
| E144 2023-09-01 | decay | -0.8 | 20.2 | E144 silent |
| E146 2023-09-22 | decay | -0.8 | 19.4 | E146 silent |
| E147 2023-09-29 | decay | -0.8 | 18.6 | E147 silent |
| E148 2023-10-07 | decay | -0.7 | 17.8 | E148 silent |
| E149 2023-10-13 | decay | -0.7 | 17.1 | E149 silent |
| E150 2023-10-20 | decay | -0.7 | 16.4 | E150 silent |
| E151 2023-10-27 | decay | -0.7 | 15.8 | E151 silent |
| E152 2023-11-03 | decay | -0.6 | 15.2 | E152 silent |
| E156 2023-12-08 | decay | -0.6 | 14.6 | E156 silent |
| E157 2023-12-16 | decay | -0.6 | 14.0 | E157 silent |
| E158 2023-12-23 | decay | -0.6 | 13.4 | E158 silent |
| E159 2023-12-29 | decay | -0.5 | 12.9 | E159 silent |
| E160 2024-01-06 | decay | -0.5 | 12.4 | E160 silent |
| E161 2024-01-13 | decay | -0.5 | 11.9 | E161 silent |
| E162 2024-01-19 | decay | -0.5 | 11.4 | E162 silent |
| E163 2024-01-26 | decay | -0.5 | 10.9 | E163 silent |
| E164 2024-02-02 | decay | -0.4 | 10.5 | E164 silent |
| E165 2024-02-09 | decay | -0.4 | 10.1 | E165 silent |
| E166 2024-02-16 | decay | -0.4 | 9.7 | E166 silent |
| E167 2024-02-23 | decay | -0.4 | 9.3 | E167 silent |
| E168 2024-03-01 | decay | -0.4 | 8.9 | E168 silent |
| E169 2024-03-08 | decay | -0.4 | 8.6 | E169 silent |
| E170 2024-03-15 | decay | -0.3 | 8.2 | E170 silent |
| E171 2024-03-22 | decay | -0.3 | 7.9 | E171 silent |
| E172 2024-03-29 | decay | -0.3 | 7.6 | E172 silent |
| E173 2024-04-05 | decay | -0.3 | 7.3 | E173 silent |
| E174 2024-04-12 | decay | -0.3 | 7.0 | E174 silent |
| E175 2024-04-19 | decay | -0.3 | 6.7 | E175 silent |
| E176 2024-04-26 | decay | -0.3 | 6.4 | E176 silent |
| E177 2024-05-03 | decay | -0.3 | 6.2 | E177 silent |
| E178 2024-05-10 | decay | -0.2 | 5.9 | E178 silent |
| E179 2024-05-17 | decay | -0.2 | 5.7 | E179 silent |