Looksmaxxing
Yes, I just followed up two investment theses on mental health with a thesis on a borderline mental disorder. That's called a "flywheel" folks.
Koorbwodaem isn’t here to “support what we believe in”. We find other ways to accomplish those goals. We’re here to identify the dominant societal trends —for better or worse. Because the truth is, we are but a small small cog in the system. Whether we agree with the trend or not, if the sheep begin moving in the direction we expect, other sheep will follow.
Clavicular
It hurts me to be giving this misguided youth press, but here I must (I don’t think he’ll mind, as of writing he has about 225,000x as many followers as I do). He has become the (lightly-hammered) face of looksmaxxing. If you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry, that aligns you with me just a few weeks ago. Google him.
The simple takeaway is, he has become the unofficial face of looksmaxxing, and he is blowing up everywhere in pop culture. And while he is taking the practice of maxxing thy looks to an obvious extreme, we must still appreciate the attention given to his cause. While the average looks-improver may not be taking a hammer to the face anytime soon, I am lead to believe a world where AI is doing more and more of the “dirty jobs” (poor Mike Rowe), is going to be a slightly more superficial world than the one we knew prior.
Brotox
Clavicular is the gateway drug to one of the secular changes driving this investment thesis; “getting dolled up”, is apparently no longer just for the women. Botox treatments, yes “brotox”, are up over 100% year over year. But that’s not the only signal at play here:
~52% of American men currently use facial skincare; ~68% of US Gen Z men use it regularly (Global Cosmetic Industry 2024 survey).
Google search volume for “men skincare routine” up ~857% over five years through 2024 (Exploding Topics).
~7% of all cosmetic surgery patients in 2024 were male, and ASPS flags this as a trending-up line item. Top male procedures: submental lipo (jawline), blepharoplasty, gynecomastia reduction.
And this actually brings us to a tangential player in the botox market, Evolus (ticker: EOLS). Evolus’ main product is a botox competitor called Jeuveau. And on their most recent data, Jeuveau has shown to be the fastest growing neurotoxin in the world, and even grew significantly last year, a year in which botox injection growth was flat.
The most interesting thing about Evolus for us — investors looking to take highly asymmetric concentrated bets — is the direct exposure we get to this particular wave of looksmaxxing. The alternative, botox, requires us to hold shares in Abbvie. Abbvie is a wonderful company, but doesn’t give us a exposure to the specific trend we’re isolating here as well as Evolus does.
The other name worth considering here is a Swiss company called Galderma (ADR ticker: GALDY). This is certainly a larger company than Evolus, but, it gives you a similarly highly-targeted exposure to neurotoxins/neuromodulators (Galderma’s flagship newest product is Relfydess which is a truly differentiated botox-like product. Combine that with Galderma’s two or three other botox-like products and you have a very concentrated portfolio towards our theme here.
Everyone wants a chiseled jawline
One of the universal requests of the aspiring looksmaxxer is a sharp and defined jawline. And sadly, its one of those things that most people would admit its easy to feel like its “never good enough”. This isn’t great on mental health (flywheel!), but is certainly good for business. Businesses, like InMode. InMode (ticker: INMD), has developed a variety of tools/methods for addressing issues like those that desire a more chiseled jawline.
Look, they show a bunch of scientific papers on their website. I’m, skeptical, to say the least. But this is not really the investment thesis. The question is not: do these methods actually improve one’s jawline by any significant measure and for any significant amount of time? The question is: will people pay lots of money to see if these methods have a positive impact on their jawline? Perception is reality, in markets and in life. My guess is over these next few months and years, more people will be willing to try new methods that are at least designed to have such outcomes —and in that realm, InMode seems to be leading the way. For what its worth, its not just jawlines they’re addressing, but the entire body in different ways.
Ozempic Body
GLP-1’s are here to stay. Never mind what they’re doing for weight loss, they’re gaining new indications by the month. At this rate, these may be the most lucrative drugs of our lifetimes when its all said and done. Regardless, we’re here to focus on the weight loss component and ties to our looksmaxxing theme.
One of the downsides of quickly losing a lot of weight is what’s being referred to as “ozempic body”, the loose skin associated with the sudden change. Enter an extremely small-cap name in our basket, Apyx Medical (ticker: APYX) which sells a proprietary approach to skin-tightening and body-contouring.
Another name similar to APYX used to offset the “ozempic body” is Establishment Labs (ticker: ESTA) which offers a true surgical solution to body augmentation post significant weightloss.
We need to of course include an actual GLP-1 maker in this group and for that we’ll go with the most concentrated name which is Novo Nordisk (ticker: NVO).
The Basket
As we will often do, we really look to marry quantitative signals with discretion on our long-term investment theses. I’ve added two more names not mentioned above to this basket that I think fit the beauty theme. One established player you will know well and another small-cap name. The stocks we’re targeting in this theme and market cap are as follows:
INMD— InMode ~$913M
EOLS— Evolus ~$347M
HIMS— Hims & Hers Health ~$6.25B
APYX— Apyx Medical ~$120M
ESTA— Establishment Labs ~$2.0B
GALDY— Galderma Group ADR ~$40.1B
NVO— Novo Nordisk ~$180B
Unlike some of our other baskets, the range of market-caps here is truly enormous. So I’ll leave it at that, you can determine how you’d approach sizing the individual components of the basket.
What I will provide is some additional color on how I’m approaching it. I’ve sized the positions in descending order as such: NVO, INMD, EOLS, HIMS, GALDY, APYX, ESTA. A little more color, that positioning is through stock for GALDY, APYX, and ESTA. And a mix of stock and options on NVO, INMD, EOLS, and HIMS. And finally, the NVO position I decided to take a significant portion of the risk through Jan 2027 and Jan 2028 far OTM calls.