The lesson from 1969 is that the smartest money rarely rings a bell at the top. It just quietly steps back.

This year, the quiet stepping back is measurable.

Corporate insiders sold $77.6 billion of their own companies’ stock in six months, an 11-to-1 ratio of selling to buying and the fastest pace in about 20 years. At the same time, everyday investors bought a record $1 trillion of ETFs, and the Fear & Greed Index dropped to 37. The people who see their companies’ numbers first are stepping back, the crowd is stepping in, and in my 20+ years in finance, I learned to always ask which one knows something.

And the market is only half of what I need to show you this week, because the economy underneath it is splitting in two. On one side, the AI boom is minting fortunes. Memory chip stocks are up as much as 500% in a year, six giant tech companies (including Nvidia, SpaceX, and Amazon) sold $244 billion of bonds to fund the buildout, and a record 33% of American household wealth now sits with people 70 and older.

The other side is quieter, and it’s compounding. Household debt just hit a record $18.8 trillion, roughly 74% of new credit card debt is paying for groceries and emergencies at 20% interest, 49% of young adults live with their parents, and 69% of people told asset manager Schroders that retirement is out of reach for their entire generation. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment reading sits at 44.8, matching the lowest level ever recorded. Stocks near record highs, and the worst consumer mood in history, at the same time. Both numbers are true because they’re measuring two different Americas.

I’m never telling you to quit the market like Buffett did in 1969 (he’d tell you himself that time in the market beats timing the market for regular investors). I’m telling you to do what he actually did. Notice when prices run ahead of value, hold cash so you can act when others can’t, and let the crowd’s mood work for you instead of on you. This issue shows you how, with the data, the moves I’m making, and the traps I’d avoid.

In this issue, you’ll learn about America’s $18.8 trillion debt problem, the AI warning signed by 16 Nobel Prize winners, this earnings season’s winners and losers, and why I’m buying CrowdStrike $CRWD.

📬 Here’s what’s in today’s issue:

Part I — Big Picture (What You Need To Know)

(1) Market & Economy Breakdown

(2) 5 Things You Need To Learn

Part II — What The Market Is Telling Us

(3) Market Psychology, Signals, and What’s Next

(4) Interest Rates & Real Estate

Part III — Investment Research & Analysis

(5) Insider Trading Alerts

(6) My Stock Picks & Research

(7) The Smartest Trades I See Right Now

Part IV — Financial Playbook (What To Do Right Now)

(8) A Valuable Lesson (People Learn Too Late in Life)

(9) My Tips & Advice

(10) You Asked, I Answered

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(1) Market & Economy Breakdown (And What It Means For You)

What happened, why it matters, and what’s next.

Markets

1. Beijing-based startup Moonshot released Kimi K3, an open AI model it says rivals the best American models at half the price or less. The Nasdaq had its biggest dip of the week on the news.

2. Chip stocks are close to a bear market. The PHLX Semiconductor Index is down 19% from its June peak, and Micron closed below a $1 trillion market value for the first time in six weeks (it has lost $407 billion since June 25, more than Qualcomm and Marvell are worth combined).

3. The Nasdaq-100 has swung 1% or more in 20 of the last 26 trading sessions. That level of daily movement matches what we saw during the dot-com bust.

4. Corporate insiders sold $77.6 billion of their own companies’ shares in the first half of 2026 (per EPFR), an 11-to-1 ratio of selling to buying and the fastest pace in about 20 years.

5. Even good news is getting ignored. TSMC reported a 77% jump in profits and pledged another $100 billion of US investment, and the stock barely moved. Big AI spending used to push stocks up. Now it makes investors nervous.

6. SpaceX $SPCX fell to $125, down 41% from its June high, and closed below its $135 IPO price after aborting a Starship launch. The company has erased over $1 trillion in value in a month.

Economy

7. US public debt topped 100% of GDP for the first time since World War II. Debt held by the public reached $31.7 trillion by mid-July, and the CBO projects 120% of GDP by 2036 without changes.

8. The job market is cooling. June added only 57,000 jobs, and the entry-level job market is the weakest in 37 years, with 13.3% of new workforce entrants unable to find work.

9. Consumer sentiment sits near record lows even after a two-month bounce. The University of Michigan reading of 44.8 matches the lowest level ever recorded, and the people hurting most (lower-income households, non-college workers, non-stockholders) reported the steepest drops.

Personal Finance

10. Household debt hit a record $18.8 trillion, and credit card debt hit a record $1.28 trillion. Here’s the part that matters. About 74% of new card debt came from emergencies and basic bills (groceries, utilities), and the average balance carrier owes $7,886 at roughly 20% interest.

11. The wealth divide is widening. A record 33% of US household wealth is now held by Americans 70 and older, 49% of young adults live at home (up from 37% in 2019, per the WSJ).

Housing

12. Pending home sales fell 5.4% in June (per the NAR), 55% of homes are now selling below their list price (per Redfin), and mortgage rates rose to 6.55%, the highest since August 2025.

What This Means for You:

In my 20+ years in finance, I learned that markets rarely give you one clean warning. They give you a dozen small ones, and most people ignore all twelve.

Look at what this week actually showed us. The people with the best information (corporate insiders) sold $77.6 billion of their own stock, an 11-to-1 ratio of selling to buying. The people with the least information (retail investors) bought ETFs at the fastest pace in history. When the sellers know the companies and the buyers know the ticker symbols, I pay attention to the sellers.

I warned you about SpaceX weeks ago, when the stock was riding pure hype after its IPO. If you listened, you avoided a 41% drop. The lesson is worth repeating because it applies far beyond one stock. The IPO worked because only about 5% of shares were available to trade. Small supply plus huge demand equals an inflated price. Next month, the lockup expires and the supply of tradable shares could roughly quadruple. Basic economics tells you what usually happens when supply quadruples and demand stays the same. Never buy an IPO before its first lockup expiration. You’re paying a price set by artificial scarcity.

The same momentum that carried tech up is now carrying it down. The Nasdaq-100 has swung 1% or more in 20 of the last 26 sessions, and TSMC grew profits 77% and got ignored. When markets stop rewarding good news, the crowd’s mood has changed, and mood moves prices faster than earnings do.

Underneath the market, the economy is splitting in two. Stock gains are funding superyachts at the top (every $1 of portfolio gains adds about 5 cents of spending), while at the bottom, 74% of new credit card debt is paying for groceries and emergencies at 20% interest. A record share of wealth sits with Americans over 70, while half of young adults live with their parents. The government is doing what households are doing, spending more than it earns, and its debt just passed 100% of GDP for the first time since World War II. Everyone, from the family kitchen table to the US Treasury, is borrowing to keep up appearances.

These pieces connect. Heavy government borrowing plus $244 billion in tech company bonds pushes yields up. Higher yields keep mortgage rates near 6.55%, which freezes the housing market, which keeps young families renting, which keeps them from building wealth, which widens the divide that has 69% of people believing retirement is impossible. One chain, top to bottom.

Here’s what to do with all of this info. Keep buying broad index funds like the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF $VOO on a schedule, because momentum swings punish people who chase and reward people who stay steady. Hold 3 to 6 months of cash so an emergency never lands on a 20% APR credit card (that single habit separates the two sides of this economy more than income does). And treat any stock priced on a small share float and a big promise, the way SpaceX was, as entertainment money only.

(2) 5 Things You Need To Learn

The biggest ideas & trends to pay attention to.

📬 Today we analyze:

1) Top Economists Issued a Massive AI Warning

2) 3 Economic Numbers That Tell Us Where We’re Headed

3) The K-Shaped Debt Crisis No One Is Talking About

4) AI Winners and Losers

5) The Market’s Biggest Winners Are Also Its Cheapest Stocks

But first — Which side of the economy do you feel like you're on?

The Top Economists Just Issued a Massive AI Warning

More than 200 prominent economists, including 16 Nobel Prize winners, signed a statement titled “We Must Act Now,” organized by Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson. The signers now number close to 2,000 and include people from the political left (Paul Krugman), the right (Niall Ferguson, Tyler Cowen), tech (Reid Hoffman, Eric Schmidt), and government (Jason Furman, Gita Gopinath, Gina Raimondo).

The statement itself is short. AI may become far more powerful within 10 years, could transform the economy more than the Industrial Revolution did but in a fraction of the time, and could displace jobs on a large scale while also lifting living standards. The signers want economists and policymakers to start building rules and institutions now, before the wave hits.

The fight over the statement is more revealing than the statement. Stanford’s John Cochrane pushed back hard, arguing that regulators who act before they understand a technology usually strangle it (he points to how regulation crushed nuclear power). MIT’s Daron Acemoglu, who signed, argues the current race toward artificial general intelligence is effectively an agenda for replacing human workers, so steering it must be a first priority.

Here’s why this matters for you. When people this smart, this credentialed, and this politically opposite all agree that something enormous is coming, the debate is no longer about whether AI changes the economy. The debate is about who gets protected when it does. Watch for taxes, job programs, and AI rules to become the biggest political fights of the next decade, and expect markets to swing on every one of them.

My advice is simple. Make yourself hard to replace (learn to work with AI tools now, while it’s still an advantage instead of a requirement), and make your portfolio benefit from the trend you can’t stop. Owning a broad index fund like $VOO means you own the AI winners automatically, whichever companies they turn out to be.

The 3 Economic Numbers That Tell Us Where We’re Headed

The Census Bureau reported that builders broke ground on homes at a 1.43 million annual rate in June, up 19% from May. Before you celebrate, most of that bounce came from apartment construction recovering after a terrible May. Permits (the paperwork builders file before future construction) fell 3%, which tells you builders don’t trust demand while mortgage rates stay near 6.55%. Housing starts measure what builders did last month. Permits measure what they plan to do next. And right now the plans are shrinking.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that import prices rose 0.3% in June even though fuel got cheaper. Prices on goods from China jumped almost a full percentage point, the largest monthly increase in more than 18 years. Cheap Chinese goods have quietly held down American inflation for decades. If that era is ending, the Federal Reserve’s inflation fight gets harder, and rate cuts get further away.

The University of Michigan reported that consumer sentiment climbed almost 10% for a second straight month, boosted by lower gas prices. Here’s the context that headline skips. The reading sits at 44.8, which matches the lowest level ever recorded in the survey’s history. A two-month bounce off the floor still leaves you on the floor. Survey director Joanne Hsu also warned the improvement may fade because most interviews happened before oil prices turned back up.

Together, the three numbers describe an economy that is functioning but fragile. Housing can’t restart while rates stay high, imported inflation is creeping back, and the consumer mood is bouncing between “record low” and “slightly above record low.” My advice is to plan your finances for a slow economy, keep your emergency fund full, and treat any big purchase that requires borrowing at today’s rates with extra caution.

The K-Shaped Debt Crisis No One Is Talking About

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that total US household debt reached a record $18.8 trillion, after growing $740 billion in a single year. That one year of new borrowing roughly equals the entire economy of the Netherlands.

The scariest numbers hide inside the credit card data. Card balances hit a record $1.28 trillion, and the average person carrying a balance owes $7,886 at an average interest rate around 20.7%. That means about $1,632 a year in interest alone, roughly $136 a month that buys nothing and pays down nothing. And people aren’t charging vacations. Per Bankrate’s survey data, 41% of card debt comes from emergencies and 33% from daily basics like groceries and utilities. Three-quarters of America’s card debt is survival debt.

Student loans show the same pattern. With pandemic protections gone and missed payments hitting credit reports again, 9.6% of student loan balances are now 90+ days late, the highest ever recorded. Car payments average $738 a month, and serious auto loan delinquencies (payments 90+ days late) sit at 5.2%, concentrated among borrowers with weak credit.

Here’s the pattern underneath it all. Higher-income households are borrowing for mortgages, meaning debt attached to an asset that grows. Lower-income households are borrowing at 20% interest to eat. Same country, same year, two completely different financial lives. The housing trap makes it worse. Millions of homeowners locked in 2.5% to 4% mortgages years ago and can’t afford to move at today’s 6.55%, which freezes supply, keeps prices high, and pushes more families into renting and card debt. It’s a loop.

One honest piece of context. The Fed’s debt service ratio shows households spend about 11.3% of after-tax income on debt payments, below the 13.2% peak before the 2008 crisis. In total, America can afford its debt. The problem is that “in total” hides the bottom 40%, whose burden is far heavier.

My advice depends on which side of this you’re on. If you carry card debt, attacking it is the single best investment available to you (paying off a 20% APR balance is a guaranteed 20% return, and no stock offers that). If you’re debt-free, your strong credit is becoming more valuable as everyone else’s weakens. Protect it, build your emergency fund, and keep investing.

AI’s Winners and Losers

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna wrote in a shareholder letter that clients are shifting their tech budgets toward servers, storage, and memory ahead of expected price increases, and that cybersecurity concerns distracted spending during the quarter. Those two sentences, released with early results, set off one of the wildest days of the year. IBM fell 25%, the worst day in the company’s history, and there’s now boardroom talk of splitting the company apart.

The same two sentences made other investors rich. SK Hynix rose 27%, Dell rose 7%, Sandisk rose 5%, and cybersecurity stocks moved up across the board. Money leaving IBM moved straight into the companies on the right side of that spending shift. Meanwhile software names like Adobe, ServiceNow, and Oracle had another rough day.

The equipment makers keep confirming the trend. Dutch chip-equipment giant ASML reported record orders and raised its sales guidance for the second time, and Aehr Test Systems rose 30% after its results. Right now the pattern is simple. If you sell the physical stuff AI is built from (chips, memory, servers, equipment), you win. If you sell software that AI might replace, you lose.

But the IBM reaction carries a warning for everyone. Krishna’s letter restated trends the whole market already knew, and it still erased a quarter of a 100-year-old company in six hours. When well-known information moves stocks 25% in a day, emotion is setting prices. Expect more days like this all earnings season, in both directions.

My advice is to never hold an oversized position in any single stock through its earnings report in this environment, no matter how confident you feel. Diversification isn’t exciting, but IBM shareholders just learned what concentration costs. And if you own the AI winners, remember the same crowd that moves a stock up 27% on two sentences can reverse it on two different sentences.

The Market’s Biggest Winners Are Also Its Cheapest Stocks

Bernstein Research analyst Mark Newman is highlighting something strange about this market. Memory chip stocks are the year’s biggest winners, and they’re priced like companies about to fail. SK Hynix rose over 500% in the past year, just raised $26.5 billion in its US listing, and trades at about 7 times earnings (meaning you pay $7 for every $1 of annual profit, while the average big US stock costs 3 to 4 times more). Sandisk and Micron, the two biggest first-half gainers among established S&P 500 names, sit in the cheapest 20% of the entire index.

The cheapness reflects history. Memory chips have always been a boom-and-bust business. Prices spike, everyone builds factories, supply floods the market, prices crash, and past busts have bankrupted companies and wiped out investors. Newman argues that today’s low prices are effectively predicting an imminent collapse in profits, and that the market has stopped believing memory earnings can last.

Here’s the bull case, and I find the demand side of it compelling. Past memory booms were capped by phone and PC makers, who couldn’t pay endlessly higher chip prices because shoppers wouldn’t pay endlessly higher device prices. AI data centers have no such ceiling right now. Memory is the foundation AI runs on. The chips powering AI can’t complete a single task without it, and the world currently can’t make enough of it. In my 20+ years investing, I’ve never seen buyers accept price increases the way data centers are accepting them today.

So you have a genuine fork in the road. If the skeptics are right, these stocks are cheap for good reason and the crash comes on schedule, like every cycle before. If the bulls are right, the market is badly mispricing the most important components of the AI age, and these stocks have room to run even after 500% gains. I’ve learned that believing “this time is different” is expensive, and occasionally correct.

Here’s how I’d handle it. If you want exposure, size the position small enough that a 50% drop wouldn’t change your life, take some profits on the way up, and never touch the leveraged ETFs launching around these names (those tools turn volatility into losses even when the stock goes sideways). Cheap and safe are different words for a reason.

What This Means for You

The economists’ warning, the earnings chaos, and the debt report are all describing the same force from different angles. Two hundred economists say AI will transform everything. Earnings season proves the market believes them, rewarding anything that builds AI (memory, servers, chip equipment) and punishing anything AI might replace (IBM, legacy software). And the memory stock debate shows even the winners aren’t trusted, priced at 7 times earnings because everyone remembers past busts.

Meanwhile the economic data shows the cost of all this landing on regular households. Import prices are creeping up, which keeps the Fed cautious, which keeps rates high, which freezes housing, which is one reason household debt hit $18.8 trillion with three-quarters of new card borrowing going to emergencies and groceries. The AI economy is minting fortunes at the top of the market while the bottom half of the country borrows at 20% to buy food. Consumer sentiment sitting at record lows while stocks sit near record highs is the same fact stated twice.

The pattern to remember is that transformation creates a divide before it creates broad wealth. Electricity, cars, and the internet all did this. The people who owned the transformation got rich early, and everyone else caught up slowly or fell behind. Your job is to be an owner, even a small one.

My advice runs in this order. First, kill any 20% interest debt, because no investment beats that guaranteed loss. Second, automate investing into a broad index fund like $VOO so you own the transformation without betting on which company wins it. Third, if you buy individual AI names, keep positions small and expect 25% single-day swings to keep happening all earnings season. That’s the market we’re in right now, and it’s normal.

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3. Market Psychology, Signals, and What’s Next

4. Interest Rate Forecast & Real Estate Outlook

(3) Market Psychology, Signals, and What’s Next

The psychology, signals, and data pointing to where the market goes next.

(learn all of the benefits here!)

(4) Interest Rate Forecast & Real Estate Outlook

What’s next for mortgages, housing, and your money.

Interest Rate Predictions

My prediction is that mortgage rates hold roughly steady near 6.5% in the weeks ahead, stuck in the same range they’ve occupied for months. Freddie Mac’s weekly survey just showed the 30-year fixed at 6.55%, up from 6.49% and the highest since August 2025.

Two giant forces are canceling each other out. Inflation is improving (June CPI cooled to 3.5% headline and 2.6% core, both better than expected), which should pull rates down. But the war in Iran keeps flaring, oil jumped from under $68 to about $79 a barrel, and Treasury yields climbed on renewed inflation worry, which pushes rates back up. Until one force wins, rates go nowhere. I don't expect the Fed under Chairman Kevin Warsh to cut until inflation's path is clearly settled, and the strong-enough job market gives him no urgency. If the Middle East calms and oil retreats, I'd expect rates to drift toward the low 6s later this year. If the conflict escalates, 7% is back on the table.

The Housing Market

The housing market keeps tilting toward buyers, slowly. Inventory has held above 1.1 million homes for four straight weeks, the longest streak since November 2019. The median list price is down 2.3% from a year ago and has sat below year-ago levels every week since mid-January. Price cuts crossed 100,000 listings for the first time in 2026, and 55% of homes are selling below their list price (per Redfin). Meanwhile pending sales fell 5.4% in June (per the NAR) because rates at 6.55% still choke affordability. Renting keeps getting relatively cheaper, with the median asking rent down for 35 straight months to $1,692. The Realtor.com midyear forecast expects home prices to rise just 1.2% this year, slower than inflation and wages, which means affordability improves quietly even without a rate drop. The freeze persists because millions of owners hold 2.5% to 4% mortgages and won't trade them for 6.55%, which strangles supply and keeps the whole market stuck.

For home buyers. My advice is to stop waiting for a dramatic rate drop that isn't coming soon and start negotiating, because 55% of sellers are already accepting below list. Get quotes from at least three lenders, ask sellers to buy down your rate instead of cutting price (a rate buydown often saves you more monthly), and budget at today's 6.55%, treating any future refinance as a bonus.

For sellers. Price honestly from day one. Over 100,000 listings just cut their price, and buyers can see your days on market. A home priced right in week one sells for more than a home that chases the market down for three months. Small concessions (covering closing costs, a rate buydown) close deals faster than price cuts of the same dollar amount.

For investors. The rent-versus-own math favors landlords holding, since 35 straight months of falling rents squeeze new deals, while frozen supply protects the value of properties you already own. I'd underwrite new purchases at today's rates with zero appreciation assumed, and I'd watch late 2026, when possible Fed cuts could unfreeze the lock-in effect and bring both supply and buyers back at once.

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5. Insider Trading Alerts (Following the Smart Money)

6. My Stock Picks & Research

7. The Smartest Trades I See Right Now

(5) Insider Trading Alerts (Following the Smart Money)

The latest insider trades from politicans, billionaires, and CEO’s, worth paying attention to.

(learn about all of the benefits here!)

(6) My Stock Picks & Research

Stocks I believe have the strongest long-term growth potential, including what I’m buying now and what I’m watching for a better price. (With my research, ratings, and buying plan).

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(7) The Smartest Trades I See Right Now

Unusual options activity showing where the smart money is placing its biggest bets.

(learn about all the benefits here!)

8. A Valuable Lesson (People Learn Too Late in Life)

9. My Tips & Advice

10. You Asked, I Answered

(8) A Valuable Lesson (People Learn Too Late)

Financial lessons most people learn too late in life.

Warren Buffett has repeated the same rule for fifty years. Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. Most people can quote it. Almost nobody notices that right now, both halves apply at once, because this market has greed and fear living side by side. Individual investors are 44.9% bullish and buying record amounts of ETFs, insiders are selling their own stock at an 11-to-1 pace, and the Fear & Greed Index sits at 37. A split market, on top of a split economy, with a record $18.8 trillion of household debt underneath.

We know how this setup ends, because 1929 already showed us. The people who came through 1929 in one piece shared a single trait. They owed nothing. The crash wiped out the borrowers first (investors buying stocks with loans lost everything in days), and the decade of quiet farm debt that built up underneath the boom is what turned a market crash into a national depression. The survivors owned what they owned outright, kept cash, and got to spend the 1930s buying what everyone else was forced to sell.

A century later, the same pattern is forming again. Fear is creeping back, the economy is dividing, and the most expensive kind of debt (20% APR credit cards) is growing fastest while paying for groceries. Whatever the market does next, the math of who survives it hasn’t changed since 1929.

Debt decides who gets to hold on, and cash decides who gets to buy the bottom.

None of this tells you the exact day anything breaks, and I’m never pretending it does. History hands out patterns instead of dates, and the pattern says the same thing every cycle. The people who get hurt are the ones carrying expensive debt and chasing whatever just went up.

So here’s what I’d do, in order. Kill any credit card debt first, because paying off a 20% balance is a guaranteed 20% return and nothing in the market beats it. Build 3 to 6 months of cash so an emergency never lands on a card. Keep buying a broad index fund like $VOO on a schedule, through the fear and through the greed, because steady buyers win every decade of market history. And if you own the hot names, keep the positions small enough that a 25% single-day drop (which just happened to IBM, a 100-year-old company) changes nothing about your life.

You can’t control the market, the Fed, or the economy. You can control your debt, your savings, and your buying schedule. Those three choices decide whether the next few years make you richer or leave you further behind.

(9) My Tips & Advice

My goal is to help you make smarter decisions with money, investing, and life.

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(10) You Asked, I Answered

What paid subscribers are asking, and what you need to know too! (Send me your questions and I will answer them!)

Q: Is a recession coming?

The data says slowdown, without saying recession. Unemployment is a healthy 4.2% and GDP is growing 2%, but job growth slowed to 57,000 in June, the entry-level job market is the weakest in 37 years, and delinquencies are at their highest since 2017. Plan your money for a slow economy (full emergency fund, no new expensive debt), and you'll be fine in either outcome.

Q: Why is consumer sentiment at record lows while the stock market is near record highs?

The stock market reflects the financial experience of people who own stocks. The richest 10% of Americans own about 90% of all stocks. Consumer sentiment reflects the financial experience of everyone, including the half of Americans who own no stocks at all. These groups are living in different economies. Asset owners have seen their portfolios climb and their homes appreciate. Everyone else has seen rent, groceries, and insurance costs rise faster than their wages. The gap between the two experiences is now the widest on record, with the University of Michigan sentiment reading of 44.8 matching the lowest level ever. Both numbers are true. They just measure different groups of people.

Q: Is AI a bubble like the dot-com era?

Some parts of the AI trade look like a bubble. Stocks moving 25% in a day on restated information is a sign that emotion is setting prices. Memory chip stocks trading at 7 times earnings after 500% gains suggests the market doesn't trust the profits to last, yet is still chasing the stocks higher. The difference from 2000 is that today's AI leaders have real revenue, real profits, and real products. They can still fall 50% or more. The likely outcome is a painful reset that eventually recovers, instead of a total wipeout. Own the whole market through index funds and you capture the winners without betting on which company survives the volatility.

Thanks for reading and joining 113,000 subscribers who trust our newsletter to get smarter with money. I spent 20 years in finance so you don’t have to. My goal is simple: to help you build wealth, make better decisions, and protect your future.

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I spent 20 years in finance learning how money works. My goal is simple, I want to help you build wealth, make better decisions, and avoid costly mistakes.

America turned 250 this year. In 1776, nobody could have pictured cloud computing, AI chips, self-driving cars, humanoid robots, or medicine designed to restore damaged cells. The next 250 years will produce changes that feel just as hard to picture today.

Some future leaders may come from companies that barely exist. Others may grow inside businesses we already know. Alphabet has search, cloud computing, YouTube, Android, Gemini, Waymo, and quantum research. Amazon has cloud computing, logistics, advertising, AI services, and access to hundreds of millions of customers. Nvidia supplies much of the computing power used to train and run advance…

Read more

Too much track got built too fast. Companies borrowed fortunes to lay rail ahead of demand. When the boom collapsed, the railroads kept running for a century. The early investors went broke. A technology can change the world and still lose you money if you pay the wrong price.

I’ve been thinking about that story all week.

The S&P 500 just finished its best quarter since 2020. The Nasdaq jumped 21%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gained 87.8%, the biggest quarterly gain since the index began in 1994. And the Bank for International Settlements (the central bank for central banks) just issued its most serious warning yet. Today’s AI buildout looks like earlier technology booms that ended in painful busts. Canals. Railroads. The internet. Each one changed everything. Each one also bankrupted the investors who arrived late and paid too much.

I predicted this rotation out of big tech weeks ago. The Mag 7 lost $2.3 trillion in June alone, the largest monthly loss ever for the group. Microsoft is down over 20% this year. Meta is off about 15%. Meanwhile, chip stocks like Sandisk gained over 850% and Micron more than tripled. Investors are changing their minds about what matters. And when that happens, the investors who notice first win. The ones who cling to yesterday’s winners get stuck with the losses.

In my 20+ years in finance, I’ve seen this pattern three times. The script is always the same. A real technology creates real excitement. Excitement attracts real money. Real money creates a bubble. The bubble pops. The technology survives. The late investors do not.

This issue is about where we are in that script, and what to do before the next act begins. Today we break down the greatest chip rally in history, the serious new warning from central banks, and why cheap oil might signal recession.

📬 Here’s everything in today’s issue:

Part I — The Big Picture

(1) Market Breakdown & Takeaways

(2) 5 Things You Need To Understand

Part II — What The Markets Are Telling Us

(3) Market Psychology & What Comes Next

(4) Interest Rates & Real Estate

Part III — Investment Research

(5) Insider Trading Alerts

(6) Stocks Beating the Market

Part IV — What To Do Now

(7) Practical Tips & Advice

(8) The Lesson Most Learn Too Late

(9) Your Questions Answered

(1) Market Breakdown & Takeaways

What happened, why it happened, and what’s next.

Markets

• The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed out their best quarter since 2020, with the S&P up 15% and the Nasdaq up 21% in Q2.

• The Dow gained 13% for the quarter and posted its best first half since 2021, helped by Alphabet joining the index and pushing it to a new all-time high on Monday.

• Small caps were the surprise winner. The Russell 2000 is up about 22% this year, its best first half in 35 years.

• The Mag 7 shed $2.3 trillion in value last month (the group’s largest monthly loss ever), with Microsoft posting its worst month since December 2000 (down about 20%).

• Bank of America says 7 of its 10 market peak indicators have now been triggered.

The Economy

• The June jobs report missed big. The US added 57,000 jobs, about half of what economists expected, and April and May were revised down by a combined 74,000.

• Wages grew 3.5% over the past year while inflation ran 4.2%. Paychecks are buying less every month.

• Traders are pricing in at least one Fed rate hike by year end under new Chair Kevin Warsh, and Bank of America now forecasts three hikes (September, October, and December).

Global Markets, Crypto & Commodities

• The Japanese yen hit its weakest level against the dollar since 1986 (about 162 yen per dollar), pressured by rising US rate expectations.

• Gold posted its worst quarter since 2013 as the stronger dollar pushed it down.

• Bitcoin fell to a nearly two-year low near $58,500 before bouncing back above $61,000, and it lost 14% for the quarter.

Personal Finance

• Trump Accounts launched Saturday, giving babies born 2025 through 2028 a $1,000 head start invested in US stock index funds. Parents have to open the account to claim it (at trumpaccounts.gov).

💡 Andrew’s Analysis:

Prices show one of the best quarters in years. Investor mood shows something different. The S&P 500 just posted a 15% quarter while the Fear & Greed Index sits at 32, deep in fear territory. That gap between price and mood is the single most important thing to understand right now.

Here’s what’s going on underneath. The rally has narrowed and rotated at the same time. Chip stocks like Micron, Sandisk, and Intel carried the market to records while the old leaders (Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Apple) fell hard. Semiconductors now make up a record 19.7% of the S&P 500. In my 20+ years in finance, I’ve learned that when one sector becomes the whole story, the market gets fragile. A crash could still be far away. The margin for error shrinks either way.

The jobs report added a second crack. Slower hiring, downward revisions, and 507,000 fewer people reporting work in a single month as the share of Americans in the labor force fell to its lowest level since March 2021. Wages are growing slower than prices, which drains spending power from every household. Meanwhile, the Fed is leaning toward raising rates into this slowdown because inflation is still running above 4%. That combination (a cooling job market plus a hawkish Fed) is where markets have gotten bumpy in past cycles.

Then look overseas. The yen at a 40-year low matters more than most American investors think. Trillions of dollars in global trades are funded with cheap borrowed yen. When the yen snaps back, those trades unwind fast. We saw a preview in the summer of 2024, when a sudden yen rally triggered a brief global market meltdown (the Nikkei fell 25% in about a month and the S&P dropped 8%). When the yen has a problem, everyone has a problem.

Here’s what to do with all this information. First, when the market keeps climbing like this, betting against it is a losing game, but chasing it after a huge run is risky too. The middle path wins. Keep buying your index funds on schedule (a simple S&P 500 fund like $VOO or $SPLG) and let the market’s direction sort itself out.

Second, check how much of your money is tied to tech. If big gains turned chip stocks into most of your portfolio, sell some winners and move the money into other areas. That way you sell high without guessing the top.

Third, hold some cash. With rates this high, cash pays you to wait, and it lets you buy quality companies at a discount if BofA’s peak indicators prove right. Owning an umbrella before it rains beats trying to predict the storm.

(2) 5 Things You Need To Understand

The biggest ideas & trends to pay attention to, and where they’re heading next.

📬 Today we analyze:

1) 🏆 6 Months Down — The Biggest Winners and Losers of 2026

2) 🤖 The AI Boom Just Got Its Most Serious Warning Yet

3) 💸 Money Is Leaving Tech — Here's Where It’s Going

4) 📈 The Greatest Chip Rally in History (And What It's Telling Us)

5) 🚩 Cheap Gas Might Be the Most Dangerous Signal in the Market

🤔 But first — Are you buying chip stocks after this huge rally?

🏆 6 Months Down — The Biggest Winners and Losers of 2026

The S&P 500 finished the first half of the year up over 9%, the Dow gained 8.9% for its best start since 2021, and the Russell 2000 soared 22% for its best first half since 1991. On the surface, that’s a market winning everywhere. Underneath, the stocks leading the market completely changed.

The companies that led for years fell behind. Microsoft dropped over 20% this year and Meta fell about 15%, dragging the once-untouchable Mag 7 to an average loss of around 3% while the broad market climbed. The new leaders are memory and storage companies. Sandisk gained 858%, Micron rose 304%, and Intel climbed 278%, with Western Digital and Seagate also among the biggest gainers. Chip and hardware stocks filled most of the S&P 500’s top ten. And the worst performers (Intuit down 60%, CoStar and Accenture both down over 50%) fell on fears that AI will eat their business.

There’s a timeless lesson here. Markets reward whatever is getting better faster than expected, even when the underlying business is ordinary. Intuit grew revenue 10% and still lost 60% of its value. Micron was a sleepy commodity chip maker and it more than tripled. The market prices change, and it prices it before most people see it coming.

Looking ahead, Wall Street expects another strong earnings quarter. FactSet’s consensus calls for 23.1% earnings growth in Q2, which would be the second straight quarter above 20%, and Goldman Sachs notes that analysts raised estimates during the quarter (they usually cut them). My take is simpler. When the leaders change this much at the halfway mark, the second half usually belongs to stocks the first half ignored. Industrials gained about 20% this year while nobody was watching, and healthcare and financials led the market in June.

My advice is to check how much of your money now sits in this year’s winners. If a stock tripled or quadrupled and grew into a huge share of your portfolio, sell some and spread the money into quality areas that got left behind (healthcare, industrials, financials) or a fund that holds all 500 S&P stocks equally, like $RSP, which just hit a record high.

🤖 The AI Boom Just Got Its Most Serious Warning Yet

The Bank for International Settlements (known as the central bank for central banks) warned this week that today’s AI buildout looks like earlier technology booms that ended in painful busts. Canals, railroads, and the internet all changed the world. They also all attracted more money than near-term profits could justify, and in the BIS’s words, those episodes “ended with an eventual reversal in investment, inducing economy-wide recessions.”

The railroad example is worth remembering. In the 1800s, railroads did transform America. They also bankrupted a huge share of the investors who funded them, because too much track got built too fast. The technology won. The early investors lost. A technology can change the world and still lose you money if you pay the wrong price. The internet repeated the pattern in 2000. Cisco was the most valuable company on earth, the internet kept growing for 25 years, and Cisco still hasn’t returned to its 2000 peak.

What makes this cycle riskier, per the BIS, is concentration and plumbing. The five biggest hyperscalers are on track to spend over $1 trillion on AI from 2025 through 2026, tied together by debt and circular financing deals (chip makers and cloud giants invest in AI labs, and those labs turn around and buy their chips and computing power with the money). US stocks make up an outsized share of global markets, so an AI-led repricing here would spread worldwide. And the global economy is unusually dependent on this single investment boom to keep growing.

The BIS itself says AI may still deliver the productivity gains markets expect. So the takeaway is to prepare for turbulence, and to position for it now. Don’t let any single stock or theme grow into a huge share of your money, and favor companies with real earnings over companies with real stories. Micron earns huge profits and its stock is cheap compared to those profits (it trades around 8x forward earnings versus 20x for the S&P 500), while plenty of AI stocks are priced on promises they haven’t kept yet. When I worked on Wall Street, the phrase we used was simple. Price is what protects you when the story breaks.

💸 Money Is Leaving Tech — Here’s Where It’s Going

Meta announced plans to launch a cloud business and sell its excess AI computing power. Meta’s own stock jumped 9% on the news (investors like the new revenue). Chip investors read it differently. If the biggest buyer of computing power has extra to sell, the industry may have built more AI capacity than it needs, and the chip sector fell 6.7% on Wednesday as the selling spread to chip stocks across Asia overnight. When the biggest buyers start acting like sellers, pay attention.

Here’s the part most people are missing. While tech wobbled, a version of the S&P 500 that counts every company equally hit a record high. Money is moving inside the market, out of chips and giant tech companies and into healthcare, industrials, and financials. That’s healthy as long as it stays gradual. It means investors still want to own stocks. They just want different ones.

The debate for the summer is whether this is a normal quarterly shuffle or a lasting change in which stocks lead. Higher interest rates argue for the lasting change. When rates rise, investors pay less for profits promised years in the future (which describes most expensive tech stocks) and more for profits arriving today (which describes banks, insurers, and industrial companies). With Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack warning that rates may need to go higher to bring inflation down, the math favors the cheaper companies earning money right now.

My advice is to aim for balance. Keep your main index funds, put some new money into the sectors catching this shift ($XLV for healthcare, $XLI for industrials, $XLF for financials), and stop adding new money to whatever has already tripled. You don’t have to sell your winners. You just have to stop feeding them.

📈 The Greatest Chip Rally in History (And What It’s Telling Us)

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gained 87.8% last quarter, the biggest quarterly jump since the index began in 1994. That beat anything the dot-com era produced (the previous record was 67.8% in early 2000). The index has roughly doubled this year, and we’re only halfway through it.

The fuel is real. AI data centers created a shortage of memory chips, and prices exploded because new chip factories take years and billions of dollars to build. Micron earned $1.91 a share in last year’s fiscal third quarter. This year it earned $25.11. That’s a 1,215% jump in earnings, and the stock’s rally pushed its market value past $1 trillion, making it one of the most valuable companies in the world. The companies that make chip-building equipment (Applied Materials, KLA, Lam Research) all doubled or more.

But the swings are getting wild. Micron dropped 13% in a week, then jumped 16% two days later. The whole sector fell hard early in June. Harvard economists Robin Greenwood and Andrei Shleifer studied a century of market booms and found that fast price gains, bigger daily swings, and newer companies beating older ones are the classic markers of booms that later collapse. All of those markers are showing right now.

Here’s how I’d handle it. If you own these stocks, sell some shares to lock in profit, and decide today at what price you’d sell the rest (make that decision before the market makes it for you). If you don’t own them, buying after an 88% quarter means paying the highest prices in history. Sometimes the best investment is the one you don’t make yet. The chip industry has repeated the same cycle for decades. Shortages create profits, profits create factories, and factories create the next oversupply. Nothing about AI changes that cycle.

🚩 Cheap Gas Might Be the Most Dangerous Signal in the Market

OilPrice.com analyst Gail Tverberg made a case this week that runs against what most experts believe. She argues oil could fall below $40 a barrel even with the Strait of Hormuz still restricted. Everyone expected $150 oil when 20% of the world’s supply got choked off. Instead, prices keep sliding (WTI crude is now near $68, down almost 20% in two weeks). Her explanation is uncomfortable. Demand may be dying faster than supply.

The chain works like this. Oil powers everything, so when the economy slows, oil demand falls everywhere at once. Factories burn less diesel. Trucking shrinks. Airlines cut routes. People drive less. In a real recession, the drop in demand can overwhelm any supply shortage, which is why deep recessions have crushed oil prices in the past even after an early spike. Cheap gas in that world is a symptom of sickness.

There are honest reasons to doubt her. China stepped out of the world oil market and is living off its massive 1.4 billion barrel reserve. A batch of pre-war oil finally sailed out of the Strait and added temporary supply. And the US keeps draining its own emergency reserve, now below 330 million barrels. All three of those supports are temporary, and most banks expect prices to recover as they fade. Tverberg’s warning is that prices won’t recover if the economy breaks first, and the recent rise in bankruptcies supports her case.

My advice is to watch the right gauge. Gas prices tell you almost nothing by themselves. Watch trucking volumes, jobless claims, and corporate bankruptcies alongside oil. If oil keeps falling while those get worse, that’s recession behavior, and it’s time to protect your money first (keep more cash, favor steady dividend-paying companies through a fund like $SCHD, and build your emergency fund to 6+ months of expenses). If oil falls while those hold steady, enjoy the cheap fill-up. Cheap gas can mean supply is healthy or demand is dying, and the price alone won’t tell you which. The economy behind the price will.

💡 Andrew’s Analysis:

All five stories this week come down to one problem. Too much money chasing one idea. The first-half review shows a market where chip stocks filled most of the top ten. The warning from the central banks' bank explains why that pattern has ended badly for 200 years. The move out of tech shows careful investors already edging toward the exits. The chip rally shows the excitement at full volume. And the oil story reminds us that while everyone stares at AI, the real economy underneath (jobs, wages, trucking, demand) is quietly weakening.

History repeats one pattern in every boom. Booms die when too much borrowed money and too much crowding into one idea meet a slowdown. We have record crowding (chip stocks at 19.7% of the S&P 500). We have rising debt (the circular AI financing deals the central banks’ bank flagged). And a slowdown is creeping in (57K jobs, wages trailing inflation, oil demand fading). That’s a description of rising risk, and rising risk changes how you should behave even when prices keep going up.

So here’s what I’d do. Sell some of whatever has run the most and spread that money into areas that got left behind. Own more than one country (Europe’s markets hit all-time highs this year while everyone ignored them). Keep 6 to 12 months of cash earning today’s high rates. And keep investing on schedule, because the biggest mistake in every boom is putting everything in at the top, and the second biggest is pulling everything out and missing the years of gains that often come first. A boring, repeatable process beats brilliant, one-time predictions. Every time.

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3. Market Psychology & What Comes Next

4. Interest Rate Forecast & Real Estate Outlook

(3) Market Psychology & What Comes Next

The psychology, signals, and data pointing to where the market goes next.

Fear & Greed Index: Bearish (but fear this deep often comes before gains)

The Fear & Greed reading is bearish. The index sits at 32, in fear territory, up from 25 a month ago but far below the 77 reading from a year ago. The index blends seven market signals into one number from 0 to 100 that measures the market’s mood, where 0 is maximum fear and 100 is maximum greed. Right now, three of its seven inputs sit in extreme fear.

The most concerning inputs measure what investors are actually doing with their money. Across the whole market, far more shares are being sold than bought, and that measure sits in extreme fear. Investors are moving money into bonds instead of stocks, and that measure sits in extreme fear too. And demand for bonds from risky companies has dried up, meaning lenders are backing away from anything unsafe. Lenders usually spot trouble first, so that last one matters most.

Here’s the twist. Extreme fear during a rising market is often a buying opportunity. Warren Buffett built his fortune being greedy when others are fearful, and readings this low have marked better moments to buy than readings near 77 (which is exactly where we were a year ago, right before the Mag 7 lost trillions). Fear at 32 with the S&P near records tells me investors have already protected themselves, stayed skeptical, and kept cash on hand. Crashes rarely start when everyone is already braced for one.

AAII Investor Sentiment: Bearish

The AAII sentiment reading is bearish. The survey has asked individual investors the same question every week since 1987 (where do you think stocks go over the next six months). This week, bulls collapsed 13.6 points to 31.4% while bears jumped to 42.3%. Pessimism has now sat above its historical average for 21 straight weeks, which is a long stretch of gloom.

Regular readers know I read this survey backwards. The crowd tends to be most negative near market bottoms and most positive near market tops, so heavy pessimism is often good news for future returns. But 21 straight weeks of above-average pessimism during a record-setting rally is unusual. It tells me everyday investors never trusted this rally, which means there’s still cash on the sidelines that could push stocks higher. It also means the mood can’t get much darker before it starts acting as a floor under prices.

My advice is to keep your emotions out of it. When the crowd is this gloomy, most of the panic selling has already happened. Stick to your schedule, and treat any fear-driven dip as a chance to buy quality companies at a discount instead of a reason to join the panic.

Technical Analysis: Mildly Bullish

The technical picture is mildly bullish. The S&P 500 closed at 7,483, and buyers keep paying higher prices over time, which keeps the short-term trend pointing up. The next test sits at 7,570, a price ceiling where sellers have shown up before. A clean move above that level would be a fresh green light. A rejection there likely means the market moves sideways for a while. The medium and long-term trends both still point up, which is why I give the charts the benefit of the doubt.

The Nasdaq-100 shows the same picture with more strength. It rates positive across short, medium, and long timeframes, with a price floor at 28,500 and a ceiling at 30,500. Rising trends mean buyers keep stepping up, and that behavior usually only ends when a floor breaks. We haven’t broken one.

Bitcoin is the outlier. It rates negative across every timeframe, sitting near $62,600 after bouncing off its lows, with a floor at 60,800 and a ceiling at 66,000. The pace of its decline is slowing, which is the first step toward a bottom, but the trend still points down and it’s still down 44% from a year ago. My advice is to wait for proof before buying.

Economic Indicators: Bearish

The economic indicators are bearish. They show an economy that’s still growing but under real strain. Inflation (CPI) sits at 4.2%, more than double the Fed’s 2% target, and it’s the reason rate hikes are back on the table. Unemployment is low at 4.2% and GDP growth is positive at 2%, which keeps recession talk premature for now. The 10-year Treasury yield at 4.44% is normal by historical standards but heavy for a stock market priced this richly.

Consumer sentiment is the loudest warning. At 44.8, it sits at the very bottom of its entire historical range. American consumers have never felt worse in the history of this data. When wages grow 3.5% and prices grow 4.2%, people feel poorer every month even with a job, and consumer spending is about 70% of the US economy. A consumer this sour eventually spends like it.

The combination to watch is hot inflation plus a cooling job market plus a miserable consumer. That mix ties the Fed’s hands and squeezes company profits from both ends. It’s the single biggest reason I’m keeping my expectations for the second half of the year modest.

The Big Picture: Neutral (Leaning Cautious)

Putting it all together, I grade the overall picture neutral with a cautious lean. Prices are bullish (rising trends, record highs, a historic quarter). The mood is bearish (fear at 32, AAII bears at 42%). The economy breaks the tie, and it’s showing warning lights (inflation stuck above 4%, a 57K jobs month, the worst consumer sentiment ever recorded, and a Fed talking about raising rates).

Markets often keep rising while everyone worries, and that’s exactly what’s happening now. The bear case needs a trigger (a rate hike that surprises, an AI earnings miss, a sudden snap higher in Japan’s currency). The bull case needs nothing except more of the same, because skeptical investors holding cash are future buyers. That’s why fearful rallies tend to keep grinding higher until the economic data actually breaks.

My advice is to respect both sides. Stay invested, because the trend is up and betting against it has been expensive for two years. But spread your money across different sectors and keep cash on hand, because 7 of 10 peak indicators and record crowding into one sector mean the cost of being wrong is rising. Set up your money so you don’t need to be right about the next 6 months to win the next 10 years.

(4) Interest Rate Forecast & Real Estate Outlook

What’s next for mortgages, housing, and your money.

Interest Rate Predictions

I expect mortgage rates to stay flat in the mid-6% range in the weeks ahead, holding between 6.4% and 6.6%. The Freddie Mac 30-year fixed rate just ticked down to 6.43%, a 7-week low, helped by falling oil prices and progress in the Iran ceasefire talks. The weak June jobs report gives rates a little room to drift lower, but inflation above 4% and a Fed leaning toward raising rates put a hard floor under them. I don’t see a meaningful drop coming this year, and I’d plan your finances assuming rates near 6.5% are the new normal for now.

Two things could change this fast. Oil and the Middle East. Rates followed oil down as the ceasefire held. If fighting reignites and oil spikes, inflation expectations jump and mortgage rates jump with them. Watch crude oil prices if you want to know where mortgage rates go next. The link is that direct right now.

Real Estate

The housing market just did something it hasn’t done since its data began in 2017. Realtor.com reported that national asking prices fell 2.5% from a year ago (to a median of $430,000), the steepest annual drop on record, after months of steady declines. And here’s the healthy part. Sales are rising anyway. Pending sales grew for a seventh straight month, new listings keep rising, and the 26-month streak of homes taking longer to sell just ended. Sellers cut prices, buyers showed up, and deals got done. Homes are selling again instead of sitting, and a moving market beats a frozen one.

The country has split in two, though. Since the 2022 peak, asking prices fell 7.3% in the West and 3.5% in the South, but rose 10% in the Midwest and 12.6% in the Northeast. Austin asking prices are down almost 10% from a year ago while Providence and Indianapolis keep climbing. National headlines are almost useless now. Your market is the only market that matters.

My advice for each group:

Buyers, you have real bargaining power for the first time in years. Home prices are rising slower than inflation (and have for 11 straight months), which means homes are getting cheaper compared to everything else you buy. About 19% of listings carry price cuts, and homes sit 53 days on average. Negotiate hard in the South and West (Denver, Phoenix, and Austin have the most price cuts), and get quotes from 3 or more lenders, because a rate just 0.25% lower saves tens of thousands of dollars over 30 years.

Sellers, price honestly on day one. The data shows realistic pricing sells homes, while overpriced listings sit and force bigger cuts later.

Investors, falling prices plus 6.5% borrowing costs means a deal only works when the monthly rent is high compared to the purchase price. Look where inventory is still tight and prices still rise (the Midwest stands out), and be patient. This market rewards buyers who wait for sellers who need to sell.

👉For daily insights, follow me on X /Twitter; Instagram Threads; Facebook; or BlueSky (and turn on notifications)

5. Insider Trading Alerts (Follow the Smart Money)

6. Stocks Beating the Market

(5) Insider Trading Alerts (Follow the Smart Money)

The latest insider trades worth paying attention to.

Rep. Gil Cisneros Buys Eli Lilly

Rep. Gil Cisneros, a Democrat from California, disclosed a purchase of Eli Lilly $LLY in the $50K to $100K range. The purchase was made June 10 and disclosed July 2. Cisneros is an interesting buyer. He’s a Navy veteran who won a $266 million lottery jackpot before entering Congress, and he sits on the House Armed Services Committee, which gives him visibility into federal spending, though drug pricing policy is the lever that matters most for Lilly.

The stock itself is a giant. Eli Lilly makes Mounjaro and Zepbound, the blockbuster GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and weight loss, and it’s one of the largest healthcare companies on earth. The GLP-1 market is projected to reach over $100 billion within the decade, and Lilly and Novo Nordisk own most of it. A politician buying a steady, profitable drug giant while tech wobbles and rates rise fits the exact shift we covered in Section 2. Healthcare is where nervous investors hide.

I own it and rate it an 8.5/10. Lilly’s lead in weight-loss drugs is enormous and hard for competitors to copy, it has a deep pipeline of new drugs behind it, and it benefits as money moves into healthcare. The main risks are drug pricing politics and a high price tag, so I’d buy a little at a time instead of all at once.

(6) Stocks Beating the Market

Stocks gaining the most momentum and what’s driving them.

1) Bending Spoons $BNDS up +40% on Wednesday 7/1

Bending Spoons soared 40% on its first day of trading Wednesday, closing at $40.50 after pricing its IPO at $29 and reaching a market value of about $25.7 billion. The Italian tech company buys aging digital brands (it now owns AOL, yes that AOL, plus Evernote, Vimeo, and Eventbrite) and squeezes profit out of them with lean operations. A 40% first-day jump shows huge appetite for profitable, unflashy tech in a market tired of companies that lose money on big promises.

I’m out for now and rate it a 6/10. The buy-and-improve model is smart, but big first-day jumps like this often fade, and everyday investors who buy the excitement usually overpay. I want to see two quarters of public earnings before trusting the price.

2) Abivax $ABVX up +39% on Tuesday 6/30

Abivax surged 39% Tuesday after the French biotech announced strong trial data for its ulcerative colitis treatment. Positive late-stage results in a large market (millions suffer from inflammatory bowel disease worldwide) can turn a small biotech into a takeover target or a commercial success story.

I’m out for now and rate it a 6/10. Small biotech stocks jump or crash on single studies, like lottery tickets, and I don’t buy lottery tickets after they’ve already paid out 39% in a day. Great for traders, wrong for wealth builders.

3) Ouster $OUST up +29% on Monday 6/29

Ouster popped 29% Monday on a deal to supply lidar sensors to AIM Intelligent Machines. Ouster makes the laser-based eyes that let machines see, and self-driving construction and mining equipment is a real, growing use beyond the crowded self-driving car race.

I’m out for now and rate it a 6/10. Lidar has a big future (machines that drive themselves need eyes), but the industry has burned shareholders for years with losses and constant new share sales that shrink each investor’s slice. I need proof of lasting profits, and one contract isn’t that.

4) AeroVironment $AVAV up +11% on Thursday 7/2

AeroVironment jumped 11% Thursday after winning a $500 million US Army contract, stacking on top of a 17% surge Tuesday when its quarterly results crushed expectations on booming Defense Department spending. The company makes small military drones (including the Switchblade), and drones have become the defining weapon of modern war. Defense budgets worldwide are rising, and drone spending is rising faster than the budgets themselves.

The long-term setup is strong. Every conflict of the past three years has proven that cheap drones beat expensive traditional hardware, and AeroVironment is the clearest way to invest in that shift. Its market grows every time a country rewrites its military plans, which is happening on every continent, and it now holds a record amount of signed orders waiting to be delivered.

I’m buying it and rate it an 8.5/10. Record orders, a lasting change in how wars are fought, and a fresh $500 million contract prove the story. The price is high, so I’m buying gradually and adding more when the price dips.

5) Applied Materials $AMAT up +11% on Monday 6/29

Applied Materials soared 11% Monday after Cantor Fitzgerald and KeyBanc raised their price targets. The company sells the machines that make chips, which means it profits from every new chip factory built, no matter which chipmaker wins. Every new factory announced (including the $500 billion Korean hub) needs its equipment.

I’m watching it and rate it a 7.5/10. Selling the tools of the AI boom is the right place to be, but Michael Burry has been betting against chip stocks, and the sector just finished an 88% quarter. I love the business and dislike today’s price. It goes on my list of stocks to buy when prices fall.

6) Charter Communications $CHTR up +9% on Monday 6/29

Charter rose 9% Monday after Bloomberg reported talks with SpaceX to create a consumer phone product. A satellite-powered phone offering could give the cable giant a genuine growth story after years of losing internet customers to fiber and wireless competitors.

I’m out for now and rate it a 6/10. One reported conversation with SpaceX doesn’t fix a shrinking core business carrying heavy debt in a rising rate world. Show me a signed deal and customer growth, and I’ll look again.

👉 For daily insights, follow me on X /Twitter; Instagram Threads; Facebook; or BlueSky, and turn on notifications!

7. Practical Tips & Advice

8. The Lesson Most Learn Too Late

9. Subscriber Questions Answered

(7) Practical Tips & Advice

Tips to help you make smarter decisions with money, investing, and life.

Read more

He spent the next ten years on the outside, far from the spotlight, building other things. He built NeXT. He bought Pixar. He learned what he needed to learn. Then he came back and changed the world.

He came back and turned Apple into the most valuable company on Earth.

The best returns in life often come from the moments that feel the worst.

This week felt bad. The Nasdaq fell four days straight. The chip index dropped 8%. Bitcoin hit a 20-month low. And the Fear & Greed Index sank to 25, deep in extreme fear.

I’ve felt this exact feeling before. In 2020, the market crashed 34% in a single month. The Fear & Greed Index hit 2, about as scared as the market ever gets. I bought index funds while everyone around me sold. Two years later, those buys had doubled. Every fear spike is a little different, and this one has its own causes. But the math of fear works the same way every time. When everyone agrees things a…

Read more

Then he watched his friends get richer while he sat on the sidelines. The temptation grew too loud. So he climbed back in, near the very top, and when the bubble burst, he lost a fortune. One of the smartest humans who ever lived later said he could “calculate the motions of the stars but not the madness of men.”

I thought about Newton this week as SpaceX went public in the largest IPO ever and made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. I thought about him as inflation hit a three‑year high and the Fed quietly replaced the promised rate cut with a rate hike. And I thought about him as chip stocks, the very heart of this AI rally, cracked hard.

The biggest risk to your wealth is not the market crashing. The biggest risk is your own psychology. It is the urge…

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This week, the flash was AI. Marvell up 32%. Micron crossing $1 trillion. Nvidia unveiling a new PC chip. The crowd watched the flash. Meanwhile, the bond market was pricing in a Fed rate hike. The 30-year Treasury yield hit 5.2%. Mortgage rates jumped. The dollar strengthened. The cost of money went up while everyone was watching the magic trick.

Stocks fell. Bonds fell. Gold fell. Bitcoin fell. All in the same week. That almost never happens.

When everything drops at once, it’s not about any single company. It’s about the plumbing under the whole market. The price of money is going up, and that quietly resets the value of everything else. The…

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Kevin Warsh was sworn in as Fed Chair last week. His inflation problem is smaller (3.8% and climbing). His political pressure is larger. And his bond market is already at 5.19% on the 30-year.

That’s a number most investors never look at. The yield on the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond. Last week, it hit 5.19%. The highest since July 2007.

I want you to think about what July 2007 was. It was 12 months before Lehman Brothers collapsed and took the global economy with it. The bond market knew something was wrong long before equity markets did. It always does. Bonds are the financial system’s smoke detector. And right now, that detector is going off.

I’ve been flagging this for weeks in this newsletter (if you’v…

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“The market,” he said, “is never wrong. But it’s almost always early.”

I was fresh out of school. I didn’t fully get it then. After watching cycles come and go, it makes a lot more sense.

The market doesn’t price today. It prices tomorrow. And sometimes, it gets so far ahead of itself that today’s reality becomes almost unrecognizable when you compare it to what the market is implying.

This week is one of those moments.

The S&P 500 hit an all-time high. Cerebras Systems, a company that isn’t profitable, raised $5.5 billion and surged 68% on its first day of trading. Investors priced in a future built on AI, data centers, and technological transformation.

But here’s what’s actually happening in the present.

Inflation hit 3.8% in April. Wages grew only 3.6%. For the first time since 2023, the cost of living is rising faster than the average American’s paycheck. The 30-year Treasury yield just hit …

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Here’s the contradiction you need to sit with this week. The S&P 500 just hit an all-time high. Consumer sentiment just hit an all-time low. At the same time. In the same country. For the same people.

The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index, a survey that’s been running for 74 years, just posted its worst reading in recorded history. Worse than the 2008 financial crisis. Worse than COVID. Worse than the double-digit inflation of the 1970s. And yet your brokerage account has never looked better, as long as you own the right five tech stocks.

I’ve spent over 20 years working in banking and finance, and I’ve never seen a gap this wide between how Americans feel and what the market says. This week, I’m going to show you exactly why that gap exists, how long it can last, and what you should do before it closes.

Because it will close. It always does.

Here’s what’s happening beneath the surface. Gas just crossed $4.50 a gallon nationwide, a 50% jump since the Iran war started. Real wages just went negative for the first time in three years. Consumer debt, both credit cards and auto loans, just hit all-time highs. The spring housing market just posted its worst performance in years. And Jamie Dimon, the most powerful banker on the planet, just warned publicly that a bond crisis is coming.

And yet the market is at record highs.

This week’s newsletter is about understanding both worlds at once. The world your portfolio sees and the world your paycheck feels. Once you understand both, you’ll know exactly where to put your money and, just as importantly, where to pull it out.

This week, we break down why stocks are hitting records while consumers are cracking, why the bond market may be the real danger, and how energy shocks, AI, and solar could shape the next decade of investing.

📬 In today’s newsletter, we look at:

Part I - Market & Economy Update:

1. Analysis & Outlook

2. Important Finance News

Part II - Investing Research:

3. Insider Trading

4. Top Stocks Right Now

5. Today’s Trade

6. Market Sentiment (Fear & Greed Analysis)

7. Macro Technical Analysis

Part III - Tips & Advice:

8. Advice, Lessons & Recommendations

9. Final Thoughts

10. Your Top Questions Answered

Hope you’re enjoying this newsletter — it takes a week to research and write so please help support our journalism and:

1. Hit the LIKE button❤️ on this post and share this newsletter on social media (or with friends & family):

Share

2. 🙏Become a paid subscriber! (learn about the benefits here) (Get a free 30-day trial with this link):

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Part I - Markets & Economy Update

(1) Analysis & Outlook

📈 Everything You Need to Know (in 1 minute):

1. Inflation hit 3.8% in April, the highest in three years, beating the Wall Street forecast of 3.7%. Gas prices are up 50% since the Iran war started, and they drove most of the jump.

2. Real wages fell 0.2% year-over-year, the first drop since 2023. Workers got a 3.6% pay raise on paper, but inflation wiped it out completely. Paychecks are shrinking in real terms.

3. Consumer debt hit record territory. Auto loan and credit card delinquencies are at all-time highs. Total auto debt crossed $1.68T and credit card debt hit $1.33T.

4. Consumer sentiment hit a record low at 48.2 on the University of Michigan index, yet the S&P 500 is at all-time highs. The gap between Main Street and Wall Street has never been wider.

5. The spring housing market stalled. Sales rose just 0.2% in April versus an expected 3% jump. The national median home price hit a record $417,700 while mortgage rates climbed back above 6%.

6. Bond yields are climbing fast. The 10-year Treasury yield reached 4.45%, markets are pricing in zero rate cuts until late 2027, and there’s a 42% chance of a rate hike by early 2027.

7. Copper prices hit a record $6.41 per pound, up 40% year-over-year, driven by the AI data center building boom.

8. Tech and AI stocks are carrying the market. The S&P 500 hit record highs, but only because a handful of big tech names are carrying the weight. Equal-weighted returns are running at about half the headline number.

9. Semiconductors are on a historic run. Intel is up 239% year-to-date and Sandisk is up 558% year-to-date. The PHLX Semiconductor Index is up 55%+ from its March lows.

10. The Iran war is accelerating clean energy adoption. Over $3B flowed into renewable energy ETFs in April alone, the biggest monthly inflow since early 2021.

💡 Andrew’s Analysis & Advice:

Most people think a rising stock market means a healthy economy. Right now, that idea isn’t true.

Here’s what’s actually happening. We have two very different Americas sitting side by side. In one America, tech stocks are breaking records, AI spending is exploding, and chip companies are putting up some of the best single-year returns in stock market history. In the other America, gas is $4.50 a gallon and climbing, real wages just went negative for the first time in three years, and consumers are drowning in record debt.

This is the K-shaped economy at its most extreme. And if you’re not watching both sides of that “K,” you’re missing the full picture.

The Iran war is the thread connecting all of it.

When the Strait of Hormuz closed, it didn’t just spike oil prices. It set off a chain reaction. Higher oil meant higher gas. Higher gas meant higher inflation. Higher inflation meant the Fed couldn’t cut rates. No rate cuts meant higher mortgage rates. Higher mortgage rates froze the housing market. A frozen housing market hurt consumer confidence. And crushed confidence threatens to slow spending, the engine of roughly 70% of the US economy.

During my 20 years working in banking and finance, I watched how fast one shock could ripple through an entire economy. This is one of those moments. The energy shock has become an inflation shock, which has become a consumer shock, which now threatens to become a growth shock. The chain isn’t done yet.

Here’s the number to watch above everything else. The 10-year Treasury yield is now at 4.45%. That stat isn’t just a bond market number. It drives mortgage rates, auto loans, credit card rates, and the cost of borrowing for every business in America. The last time yields pushed to this level, it triggered the tariff pause. Markets are fragile at these levels. And the bond market tends to know before the stock market does. When bonds are stressed, stocks eventually follow.

But here’s what makes this moment so unusual. The stock market isn’t listening, at least not yet. The S&P 500 is at record highs. The Nasdaq is up nearly 17% over the past month. Why? Because AI is doing something extraordinary.

The AI supercycle is real, and it’s not hype. Chip stocks like Intel (up 239% this year) and Sandisk (up 558% this year) aren’t just riding narrative. They’re riding real revenue and real profit growth. This is not the dot-com bubble, where companies had no earnings. Micron is on pace for $77 billion in operating profit this year. Samsung just reported an 8x jump in quarterly operating profits. These are real numbers tied to real demand.

But here’s the risk that most people aren’t talking about. When one sector carries an entire index, the whole market becomes dependent on that sector continuing to deliver. Two things could derail this rally quickly. First, any sign that Big Tech is slowing its data center spending. Second, any escalation in the Iran conflict that pushes oil toward $110 or $120 per barrel and drives bond yields to dangerous new levels.

Here’s the bigger-picture connection most people are missing. Copper prices just hit a record high at $6.41 per pound, up 40% from a year ago. That’s not random. You can’t build a data center without copper wiring. The AI buildout is so massive it’s driving real commodity demand at scale, which adds to inflation pressure, which keeps the Fed from cutting, which keeps mortgage rates high, which keeps the housing market frozen. Everything is connected.

Now think about this differently. The very same war that’s crushing American consumers is also speeding up the clean energy transition. Over $3 billion flowed into renewable ETFs in April alone. South Korea doubled domestic EV sales in a single month. EU leaders are getting “more aggressive” on electrification. The energy shock is forcing every country to rethink oil dependence, and that rethinking could reshape global investment for the next decade. The Iran war may ultimately be remembered as the accelerant that pushed the world off oil faster than any climate policy ever could.

What this means for you:

First, don’t confuse a rising market with a safe market. A narrow, tech-driven rally is fragile. When five stocks do most of the heavy lifting for an entire index, there’s not a lot of cushion if one of them stumbles.

Second, watch the 10-year Treasury yield. If it pushes toward 5%, expect real pressure on rate-sensitive sectors like real estate, utilities, and consumer discretionary.

Third, clean energy exposure belongs in almost every long-term portfolio. The question isn’t whether solar and storage win the energy race. It’s how fast. The $3B+ flowing into renewable ETFs in a single month is the market telling you something.

Fourth, if you’re a worker, the math is brutal right now. With real wages negative and inflation above 3.5%, you’re losing ground every month you stay at your current pay level. Negotiating a raise or switching jobs isn’t optional advice right now. It’s survival.

The story of this market isn’t just about AI stocks hitting record highs. It’s about two worlds pulling in opposite directions. The question isn’t which one wins. The question is how long they can stay apart before they collide.

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(2) Important Finance News

📬 Today we look at:

1) What Hantavirus Means for Investors

2) How Can Stocks Be at All-Time Highs When Americans Feel Worse Than Ever?

3) Why the Bond Market Is the Most Dangerous Place in the World Right Now

4) The Best Cities for New Graduates in 2026

5) The Energy Revolution Nobody Is Talking About

🤔 But first, what do you think?

1. What Hantavirus Means for Investors

What was supposed to be a dream vacation turned into something far darker for the roughly 150 passengers aboard the MV Hondius, a Dutch cruise ship. The World Health Organization confirmed a deadly hantavirus outbreak on the vessel with three passengers dead and at least eight cases confirmed. Authorities across more than a dozen countries are now tracking down passengers who disembarked before the outbreak was identified.

The strain confirmed on the ship is the Andes variant, the only known type of hantavirus capable of spreading from person to person through close physical contact or shared utensils. Flu-like symptoms can appear anywhere from one to eight weeks after exposure, and there’s currently no approved vaccine or targeted treatment. Health authorities from South America to Europe are evacuating and quarantining passengers on government aircraft, and the Hondius is being diverted to the Canary Islands.

Health experts are moving fast to calm concerns. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated clearly that hantavirus is “not another COVID” and stressed the low overall public health risk, noting that person-to-person transmission remains rare even with the Andes strain.

The financial fallout, however, is already real. Royal Caribbean fell over 2%, Carnival dropped over 2%, Norwegian Cruise Line dipped under 1%, and Viking Holdings fell nearly 2%. The cruise industry is already fighting surging fuel costs and weaker bookings tied to the Iran war, so a deadly disease outbreak during peak summer booking season is about the worst timing possible. Norwegian recently warned that “softer travel demand and geopolitical uncertainty are weighing on bookings,” and that was before this headline hit.

On the flip side, Moderna shot up nearly 12% on day one and another 12% the following day after confirming it has been conducting early-stage hantavirus vaccine research. Analysts at Evercore pushed back, calling the move “sentiment-driven rather than fundamental” and noting that hantavirus represents a “structurally small market” with low incidence rates. Other pharma names like Inovio and Novavax also spiked, despite having no active hantavirus programs.

What this means long-term: This outbreak reveals something important about investor psychology four years after COVID. The “pandemic fear trade” has become a replicable playbook. When an outbreak headline hits, biotech names with any connection to the disease surge, and travel stocks sell off, regardless of whether the fundamental risk is high or low. Knowing this pattern gives you an edge. The next outbreak, whenever it comes, will follow the same script.

The deeper issue for cruise stocks isn’t one virus. It’s that the sector is getting hit from multiple directions simultaneously: high fuel prices, geopolitical uncertainty reducing international travel demand, and now disease headlines during peak booking season. These stocks deserve caution, not blind averaging down.

My advice: If you own cruise stocks, review your position sizing against a backdrop of sustained multiple headwinds. For pharma, never buy a biotech stock purely on outbreak headlines without confirming that the company has an actual product in development at a meaningful clinical stage. Sentiment trades on outbreak news are fast-moving and sharp in both directions.

2. How Can Stocks Be at All-Time Highs When Americans Feel Worse Than Ever?

The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index just posted its second consecutive all-time low, hitting 48.2 in May, down from 49.8 in April. This is the worst reading in the survey’s 74-year history, worse than COVID-19, worse than the 2008 financial crisis, worse than any prior moment of economic upheaval captured in the data.

And yet the S&P 500 is at an all-time high.

The preliminary May reading cut across all income levels, age groups, education levels, and political affiliations. About a third of survey respondents pointed to gas prices. About 30% mentioned tariffs. What’s driving the anxiety isn’t hard to identify. Gas is above $4.50 nationally, inflation just hit its fastest pace in three years, job growth is “near zero” per Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and large-scale layoffs from companies like Oracle, Citigroup, and UPS have dominated headlines.

Corporate earnings this week put ground-level detail on those numbers. McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski called the environment “challenging” and said consumer conditions may be “getting a little bit worse,” pointing to high gas prices squeezing lower-income households. Whirlpool reported a greater-than-expected quarterly loss and said the company experienced “recession-level industry decline” in the US as consumer confidence collapsed in late Q1. Maersk, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, said $100 per barrel oil is costing them roughly $500 million per month and that some of those costs are flowing to consumers. From fast food to home appliances to global freight, the message is the same. The American consumer is under serious pressure from multiple directions at once.

And yet stocks are at records.

During my time on Wall Street, I saw this kind of divergence before. Housing data was flashing red for months before the 2008 stock market caught on. The market has a historical habit of ignoring bad news until it absolutely can’t anymore. The gap between how Americans feel and what their portfolios show has never been wider. But gaps like this don’t last forever.

What this means long-term: Consumer spending accounts for roughly 70% of US GDP. When consumers pull back meaningfully, corporate revenue falls. When revenue falls, earnings follow. When earnings fall, stocks follow. The lag between sentiment and stock prices can stretch for months or even longer. But they always reconnect. The question isn’t whether this divergence closes. It’s when and how hard.

My advice: Consumer discretionary stocks, companies that sell things people want but don’t need, are the most exposed sector right now. Companies with exposure to lower-income consumers face the biggest direct headwind. Companies that serve higher-income consumers or sell essential goods and services are far better positioned. Look at your portfolio and honestly ask how much discretionary consumer exposure you’re carrying into what could be a significant spending slowdown.

3. Why the Bond Market Is the Most Dangerous Place in the World Right Now

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, speaking at a Norges Bank Investment Management conference in Oslo, warned that the world is heading for “some kind of bond crisis” unless governments address their surging debt levels. The Wall Street Journal reported that Dimon said he doesn’t understand “how the world running deficits like this isn’t inflationary” and acknowledged the damage may already be done.

The numbers behind the warning are staggering. The US government has spent $1.17T more than it has collected in fiscal 2026 alone, a fiscal year that only started in October. That deficit is running at a pace that would be alarming in a recession. We’re not in a recession. We’re doing this in a period of full employment. And every dollar of deficit spending adds to a debt load that markets are increasingly nervous about financing at current yields.

Here’s why the timing is so critical. The 10-year Treasury yield is now at 4.45% and climbing. Iranian drone strikes on UAE energy infrastructure are pushing yields higher. Markets are now pricing in zero rate cuts until late 2027 and a 42% chance of a rate hike by early 2027. If the 10-year pushes toward 5%, we’re looking at 7%+ mortgage rates and structural damage to the housing market that could last years.

The feedback loop Dimon is warning about is dangerous and well-established in economic history. Higher deficits fuel more government borrowing. More borrowing pushes yields higher. Higher yields increase the government’s interest expense, which widens the deficit further. A wider deficit requires even more borrowing. And on it goes until the market forces a reckoning, usually through a rapid spike in yields or a credit-rating downgrade.

I’ve been saying for months that the bond market is the metric to watch above all others in 2026. If you took that seriously, none of this week’s data surprised you.

What this means long-term: A bond crisis isn’t just a government balance sheet problem. It would hit every American household. It would push up the cost of mortgages, car loans, credit cards, and business borrowing. At its most extreme, a bond crisis can trigger a currency crisis, which historically leads to severe recessions and decades of reduced living standards. The countries that have experienced them, Argentina, Greece, Turkey, never fully recover their prior trajectory.

My advice: Position your portfolio for a “higher for longer” interest rate environment. That means favoring shorter-duration bonds over long-duration bonds, which get hit hardest by rising yields. Reduce exposure to dividend stocks that compete directly with bonds for income-seeking investors. Consider Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities as an inflation hedge. And if you carry variable-rate debt of any kind, lock in fixed rates wherever possible before the next potential hike. The time to prepare for a bond crisis is before it arrives, not after.

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The national debt had hit 106% of GDP. The country had just spent more money fighting World War II than anyone had ever spent on anything. Economists warned of a generational burden. Newspapers described a fiscal catastrophe. Politicians promised sacrifice.

And then something no one predicted happened.

The soldiers came home. They got married, bought houses, had children, and built careers. Factories that made tanks retooled to make washing machines and cars. The middle class expanded faster than in any era in American history. Growth and inflation together dissolved the debt burden over the next 25 years without anyone even trying. By 1970, the debt-to-GDP ratio was under 30%. By 2008, it was below 40%.

Here’s the problem.

This Thursday, the U.S. crossed that same 100% threshold again. And none of those escape hatches exist today. There are no millions of soldiers coming home to build a new economy. Manufacturing isn’t surging. The population is aging, not growing. The federal deficit isn’t a wartime emergency that ends when peace is declared. It’s structural. It’s permanent. And it’s compounding.

The government is now spending $1.33 for every dollar it collects. Interest on the debt eats one in every seven federal dollars, more than the entire defense budget. The Congressional Budget Office projects the ratio hits 120% of GDP by 2036 and 175% by 2056 without major changes in policy.

That’s the backdrop to everything else happening right now. Gas at $4.39 a gallon. Oil at $126 a barrel before pulling back. The UAE quitting OPEC for the first time in 59 years. 81,000 tech workers losing their jobs in just four months. And Big Tech pouring $725 billion into AI this year with some companies unable to explain what the return will look like.

After more than 20 years in finance, I’ve watched debt crises develop slowly, then fast. The pattern is always the same: the warning signals are quiet for a long time. Then they stop being quiet.

Imagine a child born in 1946. The war is over. The debt is massive. But that child grows up in the greatest economic boom in history. By the time they turn 30, debt has been cut in half. They buy a house. They build a career. They retire with a pension.

Now imagine a child born today. They inherit $31 trillion in debt. The government spends $1.33 for every dollar it takes in. Interest payments are bigger than the defense budget. And instead of paying it down, we keep adding to the pile.

That child will not get the same boom. They will get higher taxes, higher interest rates, and a government with no room to help in the next crisis.

This week’s newsletter gives you the full picture, including what to do about every piece of it. This week, you'll learn why debt at 100% of GDP changes everything, how to position for higher oil prices that aren't going away, and which AI stocks actually make money versus those just burning cash.

📬 In today’s newsletter, we’ll look at:

Part I - Markets & Economy Update:

1. Analysis and Outlook

2. Important Finance News

Part II - Investing Research:

3. Insider Trades

4. Top Stocks Right Now

5. Today’s Trade

6. Market Sentiment (Fear & Greed Analysis)

7. Macro Technical Analysis

Part III - Tips & Advice:

8. Advice & Recommendations

9. Final Thoughts

10. Your Questions Answered

We hope you’re enjoying this newsletter — it takes a week to research and write so please help support our journalism and:

1. Hit the LIKE button❤️ on this post and share this newsletter on social media (or with friends & family):

Share

2. 🙏Become a paid subscriber! (learn about the benefits here) (Get a free 30-day trial with this link):

Subscribe now

Part I - Markets & Economy Update

(1) Analysis and Outlook

📈 Everything You Need to Know (in 1 minute):

1. The U.S. national debt just crossed $31.27 trillion, now bigger than the entire American economy for the first time since 1946. The debt-to-GDP ratio hit 100.2%. This is the same level we saw right after World War II.

2. More than half of Americans — 55% — say their finances are getting worse. That’s the highest number since Gallup started tracking this 25 years ago. This is now the fifth straight year things have gotten worse, not better.

3. Gas prices surged to $4.39 a gallon. That sounds normal until you hear this: it was under $3 before the Iran war started on February 28. That’s a 42% jump in just two months. Diesel hit $5.64. California drivers are now paying over $6 a gallon.

4. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment reading hit 49.8 — the lowest ever recorded. Lower than the 2008 financial crisis. Lower than COVID. People are scared about what’s coming.

5. The United Arab Emirates announced it’s leaving OPEC on May 1. This is a huge deal. The UAE has been in OPEC for 59 years. Now it’s walking away because Iran keeps attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that a fifth of the world’s oil passes through.

6. Big Tech earnings came out this week, and they tell a confusing story. Alphabet crushed it — Google Cloud grew 63%, and AI demand is so strong they doubled their capital spending to $36 billion this quarter alone. Amazon’s cloud grew 28%. Apple posted record services revenue at $31 billion. But Microsoft dropped 5% because investors got nervous about its $190 billion AI spending plan. Meta said it doesn’t even have a clear plan for its AI spending.

   1. JPMorgan downgraded Meta to Neutral, cutting its price target to $725. The reason? All that AI spending with no clear payoff yet.

7. Tech layoffs are accelerating. Oracle cut 30,000 jobs (18% of its workforce). Meta is cutting 8,000 more on May 20. Amazon has cut 30,000 total. Microsoft is offering buyouts to 7% of its staff. Over 81,000 tech workers have lost their jobs in 2026 alone. That’s more than half of all the cuts from all of 2025.

8. The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady between 3.5% and 3.75%. The vote was deeply split — four committee members dissented, which hadn’t happened since 1992. Jerome Powell’s term as Fed Chair ends May 15, but he says he’s staying on the board while Trump’s legal attacks on the Fed get resolved.

9. Airfares jumped 15% in March. Delta says fuel costs will cost it $2 billion more this quarter alone. Airlines are raising bag fees by $10 to try to cover it.

10. Spirit Airlines is shutting down. All flights canceled. A $500 million government rescue deal fell apart. The budget airline couldn’t survive years of financial trouble plus higher fuel costs.

11. Trump is raising tariffs on European Union cars from 15% to 25%, accusing the bloc of not complying with a trade deal signed last year.

💡 Andrew’s Analysis & Advice:

The Debt Story

The U.S. government is spending $1.33 for every dollar it collects. This fiscal year alone, we’ve borrowed $1.17 trillion more than we’ve taken in. The deficit is heading toward $2 trillion. Interest on the debt now makes up 14% of all federal spending. That means one out of every seven dollars the government sends out goes straight to paying interest on money it already borrowed.

I’ve seen debt crises develop over my 20 years in finance, and the pattern is always the same. Debt at these levels doesn’t blow up overnight. It grinds. It slowly eats away at the edges — higher interest rates on your mortgage, your car loan, your credit cards. More of your tax dollars going to bondholders instead of roads, schools, or your social safety net.

The Congressional Budget Office projects this hits 120% of debt-to-GDP by 2036 and 175% by 2056 if nothing changes. For context, Japan is at 260% and they’re still functioning, but they’re also the country that invented their currency. The U.S. controls the world’s reserve currency, which gives us more wiggle room than most countries. But that cushion isn’t unlimited.

The New Energy Reality

The Strait of Hormuz is the most important oil chokepoint on Earth. A fifth of all global oil passes through that narrow waterway between Iran and Oman. Iran has been attacking ships there since the war started. The result? Oil spiked to $126 a barrel this week. Goldman Sachs now forecasts $90 oil by year-end if things normalize, but $100 or higher if they don’t.

UAE leaving OPEC is the biggest energy story in decades. OPEC just lost its third-largest producer because the group couldn’t protect that producer from attacks. This breaks the cartel’s unity in a way that can’t be undone. UAE now has freedom to pump as much oil as it wants, no more quotas, no more waiting for Saudi Arabia’s permission.

The energy shock is rippling everywhere. Toymakers are seeing material costs surge 15% within three weeks of the conflict starting. Airfares jumped 15% in March alone. Diesel hit $5.64. The average American family is now spending an extra $200 to $300 a month on energy costs compared to before the war.

But here’s the twist: the same shock that’s crushing consumers is speeding up clean energy adoption faster than any policy could. Why? Because $100 oil makes solar and wind economically obvious. When energy gets expensive enough, alternatives become cheap by comparison. The UK Energy Secretary put it well: “The era of fossil fuel security is over, and the era of clean energy security must come of age.”

An AI Bubble Question

Big Tech earnings reveal something critical. Alphabet and Amazon are printing money from AI because they sell AI infrastructure — cloud computing, chips, models. Google Cloud grew 63% year-over-year. They have a $462 billion backlog of cloud business waiting to be delivered.

Meta and Microsoft are burning cash on AI without the same business model justification. Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in the earnings call he “doesn’t have a very precise plan” for the AI spending — just “a sense of the shape.” That’s not confidence, that’s guessing. JPMorgan downgraded Meta because the spending is accelerating without clear returns.

This is the tell. When I look at $725 billion in combined AI spending across Big Tech this year, I see two different bets. Companies with vertical integration — making chips, models, and cloud services all in-house — are winning. Companies just building data centers and hoping demand shows up are on thinner ice.

The tech layoffs tie directly into this. Oracle cut 30,000 people to free up $8 to $10 billion for AI. Microsoft is cutting to fund $190 billion in AI capex. These aren’t random reorganizations. They’re reallocation of capital from human workers into machine workers. The question is whether the machines will generate enough return to justify the switch.

The Consumer Split

Here’s where it gets uncomfortable. Americans are split in half right now. Half are getting crushed — 55% say their finances are worsening, the highest ever recorded. Energy costs are up 10 percentage points. Gas prices are the main driver.

But the other half? They’re still spending. Delta Air Lines CEO said premium consumers are “growing immune to the headlines and not putting off their plans.” Apple’s services revenue hit a record $31 billion. People who own stocks and real estate are doing fine. People who just work for a living are hurting.

This is the political reality. 55% feeling worse off is a number that has consequences at the ballot box. The cost of living is now the #1 financial concern for 31% of Americans. That hasn’t happened by accident.

What This Means for You

Three things stand out from all this data.

First, energy infrastructure and commodities are where the money is right now. BP more than doubled its profit. Shell announced its largest deal in over a decade. Caterpillar raised its full-year forecast because AI is driving demand for power equipment. The energy shock isn’t going away soon.

Second, AI infrastructure (specifically cloud and semiconductors) is still the place to be, but pick your spots carefully. Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Nvidia are printing money. Meta and pure-play AI companies without clear revenue models are more precarious.

Third, watch the consumer carefully. If gas prices stay elevated, if airfares keep climbing, if energy costs keep eating into paychecks, the spending boom that has held this economy up will eventually crack. The S&P 500 is at record highs while 55% of Americans feel worse off. That disconnect can’t last forever.

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(2) Important Finance News

📬 Today we’ll look at:

1) U.S. Debt Just Became Larger Than the Economy

2) 55% of Americans Say Their Finances Are Getting Worse — Highest in 25 Years

3) The AI Bubble Enters Its Next Phase

4) Tech Layoffs Hit 81,000 So Far in 2026

5) Gas Will Stay Above $4 for a Long Time

🤔 But first, are you worried about U.S. debt hitting 100% of GDP?

1. U.S. Debt Just Became Larger Than the Economy

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget confirmed this Thursday that U.S. debt held by the public officially crossed 100% of GDP as of March 31, reaching $31.27 trillion against an economy generating $31.22 trillion in annual output, the first time this threshold has been crossed since the end of World War II.

The last time America was here was 1946. But here’s what most people don’t know. That post-WWII debt got resolved fast. Military spending collapsed when the war ended. The economy boomed. Growth and inflation together pushed the debt-to-GDP ratio from 106% back under 50% in just over a decade. By 2008, it was below 40%.

None of those escape hatches exist today. The government is spending $1.33 for every $1 it collects, running a nearly $2 trillion annual deficit. Interest on the debt consumes one in every seven federal dollars, more than the entire defense budget. The Congressional Budget Office projects the ratio hits 120% of GDP by 2036 and 175% by 2056 without major policy changes.

Why it matters for you: Higher government debt pushes borrowing costs up for everyone over time. As Washington competes with businesses and households for available capital, mortgage rates, car loans, and credit card rates all get pulled higher. And every interest rate increase makes the government’s debt burden heavier, creating a feedback loop that becomes harder to break the longer it runs. The CBO estimates that a 0.1 percentage-point rate increase costs $379 billion over 10 years.

The U.S. still holds the world’s reserve currency, giving it far more runway than Greece or Italy ever had. But that cushion isn’t unlimited, and economists at MIT and Brookings have begun saying clearly that the long-term trajectory for borrowing costs is up.

My advice: Think of government debt as a slow tide that raises the cost of everything in the economy. You don’t need to panic, but you do need to adapt. Hold assets that benefit from or protect against higher rates (TIPS, real assets, commodities). Reduce variable-rate debt (credit cards, adjustable mortgages) where possible. And understand that the fiscal math of the United States is going to affect your cost of living and your investment returns for the rest of your life.

2. 55% of Americans Say Their Finances Are Getting Worse — The Highest in 25 Years

Gallup released data showing that 55% of Americans say their financial situation is getting worse, the highest share recorded in 25 years of tracking this question, surpassing both the 2008-09 financial crisis and the COVID-19 recession.

Five consecutive years. That’s how long more Americans have reported worsening finances than improving ones. This isn’t a blip. It’s a trend.

The top financial concern, cited by 31% of respondents, is the cost of living. Energy costs are now the top concern for 13% of households (up 10 percentage points from last year, the highest since 2008). Gas hit $4.11/gallon by the time of the poll and has climbed to $4.39 since. Before the Iran war started February 28, gas was under $3 a gallon. The University of Michigan’s final April Consumer Sentiment reading came in at 49.8, a record low. One-year inflation expectations jumped to 4.7%, the sharpest monthly rise since the April 2025 tariff shock.

Here’s what this actually means for the economy: Consumer spending drives roughly 70% of U.S. GDP. When 55% of the country feels financially squeezed, they pull back. They eat out less. They delay big purchases. They cancel vacations. That shows up in Q1 GDP data, where consumer spending already slowed even as business investment (AI-driven) carried the growth number. The gas price impact hasn’t fully worked through the system yet. Diesel at $5.64 hurts truckers and supply chains. Petrochemical prices are rising, meaning the cost of plastic, medicine, and consumer goods will follow.

My advice: Build your cash reserves now, before conditions deteriorate further. A 3-6 month emergency fund isn’t just prudent personal finance right now. It’s a hedge against a worsening economic environment. Pay down variable-rate debt aggressively. Review your budget and identify the 2-3 largest discretionary expenses you can trim. And if you’re investing, rotate toward defensive, income-producing assets (consumer staples, utilities, healthcare, dividend payers) and away from consumer discretionary names that get hit hardest when household budgets tighten.

3. The AI Bubble Enters Its Next Phase

Despite record capital spending, AI’s biggest players are seeing revenue growth lag the pace of investment, raising questions about timing and returns that the market has been reluctant to ask out loud.

JPMorgan estimates roughly $5 trillion will flow into AI infrastructure by 2030. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft alone plan about $670 billion in 2026. Add other players and total AI capex runs near $725 billion for the year. That investment level, relative to GDP, exceeds nearly every major capital cycle in American history.

And yet, Alphabet reported 63% year-over-year cloud growth this week. Amazon cloud rose 28%. Both beat estimates handily. So the bull case isn’t wrong. AI demand is real and growing. The problem is the gap between what’s being spent and what’s being earned, which is still wide. Meta raised full-year capex to $145 billion. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts he doesn’t have “a precise plan” for how spending generates returns. Microsoft announced $190 billion in AI capex and fell 5% despite beating estimates. JPMorgan downgraded Meta to Neutral, citing accelerating spending with unclear payoff timelines.

Here’s the historical parallel I keep coming back to. In the late 1990s, telecom companies laid thousands of miles of fiber optic cable. Internet demand was real. But spending ran so far ahead of actual demand that most companies went bankrupt before the payoff arrived. The fiber was eventually used, years later, by a different set of companies. The parallel isn’t perfect (AI demand is more immediate than late-90s internet), but the financing structure is worth watching closely. The AI buildout is being funded through corporate bonds, private credit, and junk debt that ultimately tie back to retirement accounts and pension funds. That exposure looks manageable today. If returns take longer than expected, it starts to look different.

The Magnificent Seven now make up over 30% of the S&P 500. That means the performance of 7 companies increasingly drives the retirement accounts of millions of Americans. That’s a risk most people haven’t fully absorbed.

My advice: Don’t abandon tech, but be selective. Favor companies where AI generates direct, measurable revenue today (Alphabet and Amazon in cloud, Nvidia in chips) over those still building toward a future payoff. And maintain real diversification outside tech in energy, healthcare, financials, and international markets. Thirty percent concentration in 7 stocks is not a portfolio. It’s a bet.

4. Tech Layoffs Hit 81,000 So Far in 2026

81,272 tech workers lost their jobs in the first four months of 2026, more than half of the 124,201 cuts logged in all of 2025, and it’s only early May.

The individual company numbers are striking. Oracle cut 30,000 employees (18% of its global workforce) in March to free up $8-$10 billion annually for its $50 billion AI investment plan. Amazon cut 30,000 across multiple rounds, its largest workforce reduction ever. Meta is cutting 8,000 more on May 20, on top of 1,500 from its VR division in January. Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts targeting 7% of its staff. Snap cut 16% of its workforce in April.

The pattern is unmistakable. These companies are trading people for AI infrastructure. They’re spending tens of billions on data centers, chips, and models, and cutting headcount to protect margins and fund the buildout. Forrester Research estimates only 6% of positions will be automated by 2030, so this isn’t the apocalyptic AI-replaces-everyone story many fear. It’s a capital reallocation story. The employees paying the price aren’t being replaced by robots. They’re being cut to fund a bet that AI will make the remaining workforce more productive.

My advice depends on which side of it you’re on:

If you work in tech, my honest advice is to build skills at the intersection of AI and your specific domain. The workers being retained are those who can leverage AI tools to do more. The ones being cut are those whose roles are being restructured away. Start positioning yourself now, before the next round.

If you’re an investor, read the layoff signals carefully. Short-term markets sometimes cheer job cuts as margin improvement. But this time results are mixed. Meta and Microsoft fell despite cuts, because investors are increasingly skeptical that cutting jobs solves the core question of whether AI spending will ever pay for itself. 81,000 high-income job losses in four months also ripple through housing markets and local economies in ways that don’t show up immediately in GDP data.

5. Gas Will Stay Above $4 for a Very Long Time

The Iran war isn’t just a temporary supply disruption. It’s a permanent restructuring of global energy markets, and investors are only beginning to price it in.

Brent crude briefly topped $126/barrel on Thursday before pulling back to $117, as President Trump rejected Iran’s peace proposal and reinforced the naval blockade. WTI is trading around $105. Goldman Sachs raised its Q4 Brent forecast to $90/barrel as the base case, $100 if the Strait of Hormuz stays blocked through July, and $120 in the worst case. Citigroup warned Brent could hit $150 if the blockade runs through June. ING strategists called the UAE’s OPEC exit “a significant setback for the cartel.”

The most significant development this week wasn’t the price move. It was the UAE quitting OPEC.

The UAE announced Tuesday it’s leaving OPEC and OPEC+ on May 1, ending a 59-year membership. The reason is simple. The Iran war has exposed how dangerous dependence on the Strait of Hormuz actually is. The UAE has been under Iranian attack. Its shipping has been threatened. Being inside OPEC with production quotas made sense when you could ship oil freely through the Gulf. When you can’t, the quotas become constraints without benefits.

This is the biggest fracture in OPEC’s history. OPEC’s share of global oil output fell from 48% to 44% in two months. With the UAE gone, it falls further. The cartel’s ability to manage prices is weakening at exactly the moment the world needs supply stability most.

The winners in this new energy order are clear. Oil majors outside the Gulf, South American producers, LNG exporters, and pipeline infrastructure companies are all positioned to benefit. BP more than doubled its profits year over year. Shell made its largest acquisition in over a decade to buy Canadian oil assets. South American drillers could unlock 2 million more barrels/day at sustained $100/barrel prices, per Rystad. U.S. LNG exports are near record levels.

And here’s the long-term angle most people miss. This war is the most powerful clean energy accelerant in history. Pain at the pump creates political and economic momentum for alternatives that decades of policy couldn’t generate. In 2025, renewables outpaced electricity demand growth for the first time, triggering the first drop in fossil fuel generation since 2020. The Iran war may end. The lesson it’s teaching, that concentrated supply chains around a single chokepoint are an existential risk, will reshape global energy investment for decades.

My advice: Own the near-term energy shock (oil majors, LNG, pipeline infrastructure). And position for the long-term transition (renewables, energy storage, grid infrastructure). Both sides of this trade have multi-year legs.

💡 Andrew’s Analysis & Advice:

America is being squeezed from five directions at once, and each squeeze is making the others worse.

The Iran war drove oil prices up, which drove inflation higher, which hammered consumer sentiment to record lows. That same inflation makes the Fed’s job impossible, keeping rates elevated and limiting the government’s ability to stimulate a slowing economy. The national debt crossed 100% of GDP, meaning every dollar of deficit spending and every point of higher interest rates deepens the fiscal hole faster. And Big Tech, sensing AI is the only growth engine left, is pouring hundreds of billions into infrastructure by cutting tens of thousands of workers, a reallocation bet the market is increasingly uncertain about.

This is structural stress, not cyclical stress. Cyclical problems (a temporary recession, a one-time shock) resolve themselves. Structural problems (debt at 100% of GDP, permanently disrupted energy supply chains, AI not yet paying for its own buildout) require deliberate action to fix. And the political will to take that action is absent.

The investor’s playbook for structural stress is different from the playbook for cyclical stress. Don’t wait for things to “return to normal.” Normal has changed. Position your portfolio for a higher-oil, higher-debt, higher-rate, AI-driven economy. Hold energy. Be selective in tech. Reduce consumer discretionary exposure. Build cash reserves. And invest in skills at the AI frontier in your professional life, because the workforce is being permanently restructured.

Normal has changed. Position for the new normal.

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Part II - Investing Research

3. Insider Trades

4. Top Stocks Right Now

5. Today’s Trade

6. Market Sentiment (Fear & Greed Analysis)

7. Macro Technical Analysis & Predictions

(3) Insider Trades (from Billionaires, Politicians, and CEOs):

When people with deep knowledge, such as politicians who set policy, executives who run the company, or legendary investors, put their own money on the line, pay attention.

1) Iperionx

Iperionx $IPX is a U.S.-based advanced materials company developing a patented, lower-cost, lower-emission process for producing titanium, one of the most critical materials in aerospace, defense, medical devices, and clean energy. Most global titanium supply has historically come from Russia and China.

On April 29, 2026, Todd Hannigan (Executive Chairman) purchased 480,000 shares at $4.33/share for a total of $2,077,784. He now owns 26,562,798 shares, a 2% increase in an already massive personal position.

This is the largest of the two insider trades by dollar value. And for a small company trading at $4.33/share, a $2+ million open-market purchase from the Executive Chairman is a powerful statement.

The thesis is straightforward and timely. The Iran war, rising U.S.-China tensions, and a government-driven push to reshore critical manufacturing are all creating urgent demand for domestic titanium. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and SpaceX consume large quantities. The U.S. defense and aerospace industries cannot afford to depend on adversary nations for this material. Iperionx’s process reportedly produces commercial-grade titanium at lower cost and lower carbon emissions than traditional methods, two selling points that matter to both cost-conscious defense buyers and emissions-conscious energy customers.

Looking ahead, the key catalysts are customer offtake agreements with major aerospace and defense buyers, government contracts, and successful scaling of the production process. If even one of those materializes at scale within 12-24 months, the stock at $4 could look very different. The tailwinds of defense spending, critical minerals reshoring, and supply chain security are all pointing in the same direction.

2) Zenas Biopharma $ZBIO

Zenas Biopharma $ZBIO is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing antibody therapies for immunology and rare diseases. As a pipeline-stage company, its value is entirely in what its drug candidates can become.

On April 29, 2026, Leon O. Moulder Jr. (CEO) purchased 60,000 shares at $17.79/share for a total of $1,067,200. He now owns 2,246,122 shares, a 3% increase.

Here’s why this trade demands attention. Moulder isn’t just any biotech CEO. He’s the executive who built Tesaro, the oncology company that GlaxoSmithKline acquired for $5.1 billion in 2019. He has a proven track record of building clinical-stage companies into major exits. When someone with that record puts over $1 million of personal money into the company he leads, the signal is hard to ignore.

Clinical-stage biotech is high-risk by definition. These companies live and die by trial results and FDA timelines. But CEO insider buys at this scale in biotech carry one of the strongest predictive signals in all of investing, because the CEO knows the pipeline better than any Wall Street analyst. What might Moulder know? Upcoming clinical data, regulatory progress, or interest from larger pharma companies. Any of those could move a $17/share stock significantly.

Looking ahead, if Zenas’s lead immunology programs generate positive trial data, the stock at current levels could look very cheap in retrospect. Immunology and rare disease drugs command premium pricing and strong market positions once approved. And given Moulder’s background, the longer-term scenario many investors are watching is a potential acquisition by a larger pharmaceutical company looking to expand its immunology pipeline, much like Tesaro was for GSK.

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(4) Top Stocks Right Now

1) Atlassian $TEAM up +29.6% on Friday 5/1

Atlassian $TEAM surged +29.6% yesterday after delivering a strong earnings and revenue beat driven by accelerating cloud and data center growth, its best single-day move in months and a clear signal that the AI era is creating new tailwinds for enterprise software companies.

Atlassian makes the tools that engineering and product teams run on daily, Jira for project tracking, Confluence for documentation, and a growing suite of AI-powered collaboration products. When companies deploy AI across their organizations, they need better infrastructure to manage the resulting complexity and coordination. That’s Atlassian’s exact value proposition, and it showed up clearly in this quarter’s numbers.

The cloud migration story is paying off. As customers upgrade from server-based Atlassian products to cloud plans, they pay higher recurring fees, driving revenue growth and margin expansion. Data center growth was a standout this quarter, showing even large enterprise customers who haven’t moved to the cloud yet are willing to pay up for Atlassian’s on-premise solutions.

Looking ahead, Atlassian’s total addressable market runs into the hundreds of billions as AI agents and workflow automation create new demand for project coordination software. The company is embedding AI (Atlassian Intelligence) directly into existing products, which deepens customer lock-in and supports premium pricing. If enterprise AI adoption keeps accelerating through 2026 and beyond, Atlassian stands out as one of the clearest software infrastructure beneficiaries.

Read more

In the months before Pearl Harbor, the stock market rallied. Investors told themselves the war would stay overseas.

In the weeks before the 2008 crash, everyone laughed at the idea of a housing collapse.

Humans confuse calm surfaces with safe waters.

Right now, the surface looks calm. Stocks are up. AI stocks are booming. But underneath, the data tells a different story. Consumer sentiment hit an all-time low. Inflation is speeding up. A war in Iran is disrupting global energy. And Michael Burry just found a $1.7 trillion accounting illusion hiding in your 401k. This issue connects every dot.

Most people think the biggest risk right now is a crash. They’re wrong.

The biggest risk is believing everything is fine.

Because when markets go up during rising inflation, falling confidence, and increasing layoffs… it doesn’t mean the economy is strong.

It means something is out of balance.

And imbalances don’t last.

In this issue, I break down why inflation is likely to get worse before it gets better, expose the $1.7 trillion earnings illusion hiding in your 401(k), explain why the housing crisis just deepened, show you where the smart money is moving, and give you the exact steps to protect and grow your wealth through the chaos.

📬 In today’s newsletter, we’ll look at:

Part I - Markets & Economy:

1. Update, Analysis, and Outlook

2. Important Finance News

3. Chart of the Day

Part II - Investing Research:

4. Insider Trades

5. Top Stocks Right Now

6. Today’s Trade

7. Market Sentiment (Fear & Greed Analysis)

8. Macro Technical Analysis

Part III - Tips & Advice:

9. Advice & Recommendations

10. Final Thoughts

11. Your Questions Answered

We hope you’re enjoying this newsletter — it takes a week to research and write so please help support our journalism and:

1. Hit the LIKE button❤️ on this post and share this newsletter on social media (or with friends & family):

Share

2. 🙏Become a paid subscriber! (learn about the benefits here) (Get a free 30-day trial with this link):

Subscribe now

Part I - Markets & Economy

(1) Update, Analysis, and Outlook

📈 Everything You Need to Know (in 1 minute):

1. Inflation re-accelerated to 3.3% in March — gasoline prices surged a record 21.2% in a single month, the biggest one-month spike since the 1960s. The Iran war is the root cause. That one category accounted for nearly three-quarters of the entire March inflation reading.

2. The Iran war has removed roughly 500 million barrels from global markets in ~50 days — about $50 billion in lost oil production. That’s equal to all the fuel the world’s international shipping industry burns in 4 months. Peace talks collapsed this weekend, and the U.S. Navy has now begun enforcing a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

3. Consumer sentiment just hit its lowest level in recorded history. The University of Michigan survey has never been this low. 65% of Americans say rising prices are outpacing their income. 39% are now using credit cards to buy groceries.

4. March home sales fell 3.6% to 3.98 million (annualized) — the worst number since mid-2025. The spring selling season got off to its worst start in recent memory as high costs and war-driven uncertainty froze buyers out.

5. Airfares jumped 15% year-over-year in March. Delta, United, American, and Southwest all raised checked bag fees by $10. Delta alone faces over $2 billion in added fuel costs just this quarter.

6. Tech layoffs are accelerating fast. Meta is cutting ~8,000 employees in May (10% of workforce), with more cuts planned later this year. Snap cut 16% this week. Block cut 40%, with CEO Jack Dorsey saying AI is “doing a lot of these jobs better and less expensively than humans.”

7. Michael Burry found a $1.7 trillion “earnings illusion” hiding in tech stocks. After reviewing over 1,000 annual reports, he says tech earnings are overstated by 42% due to improper accounting for stock-based compensation. Companies flagged include Meta, Palantir, Shopify, CrowdStrike, and Workday.

8. AI chip demand keeps accelerating — and supply can’t keep up. TSMC posted profits up 58% year-over-year, raised its full-year forecast, and confirmed AI demand is “extremely robust.” ASML said demand is outpacing supply. Cloud providers are committing $600B+ to data centers this year alone.

9. Apple named a new CEO. Hardware chief John Ternus takes over September 1. Tim Cook becomes executive chairman after growing Apple from ~$330 billion to $4 trillion — a 12x increase over his tenure.

10. Psychedelic drug stocks surged 17-42% after Trump signed an executive order fast-tracking FDA review timelines for LSD, psilocybin, and ibogaine treatments. $50 million in federal research funding is attached.

11. China’s solid-state EV batteries are entering mass production in 2026. Greater Bay Technology just moved these cells off the lab bench and onto the production line — with 2x+ the energy density of current lithium-ion batteries and a potential driving range over 620 miles per charge.

💡 Andrew’s Analysis & Advice:

The most dangerous thing you can do right now is assume things are fine.

Global uncertainty just hit its highest level in recorded history. Not during 9/11. Not during the 2008 financial crash. Not even during COVID. Right now. And yet, the S&P 500 is near all-time highs. Consumer sentiment just hit an all-time low. The gap between what markets are saying and what people are feeling is the most important financial story of 2026.

I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. Through my time at Wall Street banks — through war cycles, credit crises, and irrational exuberance — I’ve learned that the moments that feel the most stable on the surface are often the most fragile underneath. Here’s how to read what’s really happening right now.

One War. Every Problem.

The Iran war, now entering its 8th week, is the engine behind almost every major economic problem on this list. Follow the chain reaction that most people aren’t tracking.

The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly 20% of the world’s oil and LNG supply. Iran’s disruption of that shipping lane removed 500 million barrels from global markets in 50 days. That’s $50 billion in lost oil production. As a result, gasoline prices surged 21.2% in March alone — the biggest single-month spike since the 1960s. That one number drove nearly three-quarters of the entire March inflation reading.

But here’s what most people miss: energy is an input cost for everything. Airlines pay more for jet fuel (Delta’s fuel bill jumps $2 billion this quarter). Construction crews burn diesel, which means PVC pipes cost 50% more and homebuilding stalls. Trucks carrying groceries burn more fuel, which creeps into every price on every shelf. The downstream effects on food, shipping, and agriculture haven’t fully hit yet. What we’ve seen is just the opening act.

Harvard’s Linda Bilmes estimates the total war tab could reach $1 trillion over the next decade. The Pentagon’s current bill is already understated. And the real costs — veteran care, rebuilding, compounding debt — arrive later. These are costs being handed directly to the next generation.

Real Wages Are Losing. Here’s What That Actually Means.

Since January 2021, cumulative consumer prices are up about 26%. Real hourly wages, after adjusting for inflation, grew only about 1.4% over the past year. That gap is the economic reality that 65% of Americans are expressing when they say rising prices are outpacing their income.

When 39% of Americans use credit cards to buy groceries, that tells you something critical. Savings are depleted. Debt is rising. The consumer spending that keeps the economy running is now running on borrowed time — literally. If real wages don’t outpace inflation and grow more quickly, this isn’t just an uncomfortable stretch. It becomes a spending contraction that hits corporate earnings hard down the road.

The AI Boom Is Real. So Is Its Dark Side.

While inflation erodes purchasing power for most Americans, something remarkable is happening on a parallel track. The AI spending boom is not slowing down — it’s accelerating.

TSMC posted profits up 58% year-over-year and raised its full-year forecast. The shift from generative AI (which answers questions) to agentic AI (which takes actions and completes tasks) is pushing chip demand to levels where supply can’t keep up. Cloud providers are collectively spending $600B+ on data centers this year alone. In my two decades in finance, the rule of thumb was always simple: follow the capital. And right now, capital is flooding into AI infrastructure at a pace we’ve never seen.

But here’s the uncomfortable flip side. Michael Burry — the investor who shorted the housing market before 2008 — just dropped a bombshell on tech investing. After reviewing over 1,000 annual reports going back a decade, he found a $1.7 trillion “earnings illusion” in Nasdaq 100 stocks. The cause? Tech companies give employees stock as pay — a very real cost — but many haven’t been fully accounting for it in their reported earnings. Of every dollar of GAAP-blessed earnings per share, shareholders actually receive only about 83 cents of real value. Companies flagged include Meta, Palantir, Shopify, CrowdStrike, Datadog, and Workday.

If Burry is even half right, the stocks sitting inside millions of 401(k)s and index funds are worth less than their price tags suggest. This isn’t a reason to panic. It is a reason to think carefully about what you own and why.

Apple’s Leadership Transition Is More Significant Than It Looks

Tim Cook handing the CEO role to hardware chief John Ternus on September 1 isn’t a routine transition. It’s a strategic bet on where the next era of tech gets won.

Cook grew Apple from a $330 billion company to a $4 trillion one — a 12x increase. But the company has stumbled into AI, failed to break into new hardware categories (the car project was quietly abandoned, Vision Pro has found few buyers), and has repeatedly delayed its most ambitious Apple Intelligence features. Ternus — the man responsible for the M-series chips and the physical design of every Apple product — is taking over at a moment when hardware plus AI, not software alone, may define the next competitive moat.

If Apple can position itself as the device layer that runs AI privately and securely — something no competitor is doing at scale — it could define the next decade of consumer technology. That’s the bet. It’s not guaranteed. But it’s worth watching closely.

China Just Changed the Future of Transportation

Greater Bay Technology, backed by China’s GAC Group, just moved all-solid-state EV batteries from the laboratory to mass production — targeting GWh-level output in 2026. These batteries carry 2x+ the energy density of current lithium-ion cells, a potential driving range over 620 miles per charge, faster charging, and dramatically improved safety. They don’t catch fire under stress tests.

When economies of scale kick in over the next 3-5 years, these batteries make internal combustion engines look like dial-up internet in a fiber-optic world. China already produces solid EVs in the $10,000-$15,000 range. Add this battery technology, and you’re looking at a global disruption of the $3 trillion automobile industry that’s moving faster than most investors have priced in. The companies positioned early in rare earth supply, battery materials, and EV infrastructure are going to benefit enormously.

My Advice

The right move isn’t “all in” or “all out.” It’s knowing what risks you’re running and positioning with intention.

First, protect against inflation. Cumulative 26% price increases since 2021 have already eroded significant purchasing power. Cash sitting in a low-yield account is losing real value every day. High-yield savings accounts paying 4-5%, Treasury bills, TIPS, and energy ETFs all provide inflation protection that most people are ignoring.

Second, stay in AI infrastructure selectively. Distinguish between the picks-and-shovels plays — TSMC, ASML, memory chip makers, data center power providers — and the AI-branded companies with more press releases than revenue. The former are benefiting from a real, structural capex cycle. The latter carry much higher valuation risk.

Third, audit your tech concentration. If your index fund or 401(k) is 80-100% in big tech, run Burry’s question on it: are those earnings real, or are they adjusted figures that overstate actual value? A little international exposure, some value stocks, and dividend payers can meaningfully reduce your risk without sacrificing long-term growth.

Fourth, watch housing as a leading indicator. When housing prices crack, consumer confidence typically follows. March’s home sales at their worst level since mid-2025 is a warning sign. A crack in housing would hit bank stocks, consumer spending, and the broader economy faster than most people expect.

Fifth, think in decades on EVs and rare earths. The solid-state battery breakthrough isn’t a 2026 story — it’s a 2028 to 2033 story. The companies building that infrastructure right now — rare earth producers, battery material suppliers, EV charging networks — are early in a decade-long trend with government-backed tailwinds.

Final thought: Uncertainty is at a record high. Markets are near all-time highs. That paradox is both the defining risk and the defining opportunity of this moment. The investors who understand both sides of that equation, and act deliberately, are the ones who build real wealth through chaos.

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(2) Important Finance News

📬 Today we’ll look at:

1) Inflation Is Back — and the Worst Is Still Ahead

2) The Iran War Is Making America's Housing Crisis Even Worse

3) The Stock Market Is at All-Time Highs. Consumer Sentiment Is at All-Time Lows. Who's Right?

4) AI Adoption Is Real, and So Are the Layoffs

5) The Ticking Time Bomb in Your Retirement Accounts

🤔 But first, Do you trust the current stock market rally?

1. Inflation Is Back — and the Worst Is Still Ahead

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week that the March Consumer Price Index came in at 3.3% year-over-year — the highest reading in nearly two years, and well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target that hasn’t been met since February 2021.

The single biggest driver was gasoline. Gas prices surged 21.2% in March alone — the largest single-month percentage increase in records dating back to the 1960s. That one category accounted for nearly three-quarters of the entire March inflation reading. And it’s almost entirely a product of the Iran war disrupting the world’s most critical oil shipping lane.

The part that should concern you most is what hasn’t happened yet. When energy costs spike, they take weeks or months to bleed into food prices, trucking costs, manufacturing, and retail. The 3.3% reading may actually be the low point before things get harder. Even before March’s surge, a separate Fed-favored inflation gauge showed a 4.1% annual rate over the three months ending in February. The pipeline of inflation is still filling up.

Cumulatively, prices are up about 26% since January 2021. Real hourly wages, after adjusting for inflation, grew only about 1.4% over the past year. That gap — 26% price growth versus 1.4% real wage growth — explains why 65% of Americans say rising prices are outpacing their income, and why 39% are using credit cards to pay for groceries. When people use credit to buy food, it signals savings are depleted and spending is running on borrowed money.

The Fed’s situation is difficult. It needs high rates to fight inflation — but high rates slow economic growth, crush housing affordability, and squeeze borrowers at exactly the moment they can least afford it. There’s no clean exit from this corner.

My advice: Treat inflation as a permanent feature of your financial planning, not a temporary inconvenience. Assets that have historically outpaced inflation — stocks (selectively), real estate, commodities, and inflation-protected securities — deserve a larger share of your portfolio. If you’re holding cash earning below the inflation rate, you’re losing purchasing power every single day without making a single bad decision.

2. The Iran War Is Making America’s Housing Crisis Even Worse

The Iran conflict is worsening one of America’s most severe housing shortfalls, driving up costs across virtually every building category at a moment when the market was already under extreme pressure.

PVC pipe prices have surged over 50% since the conflict began. Aluminum is spiking after Iranian strikes in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain disrupted Gulf-region supply chains. These materials show up in nearly every residential and commercial project — in plumbing, window frames, HVAC systems, and electrical conduit. When input costs jump like this, developers face three choices: absorb the loss, raise prices, or stop building. Most are choosing the last two.

Projects that were already strained by labor shortages and tight financing are stalling or getting cancelled outright. The only construction segment holding up right now is data centers — where AI demand creates enough urgency and profit margin to absorb higher costs. Every other sector is taking a hit.

Billionaire developer Stephen Ross, the man behind Hudson Yards, called housing affordability “the biggest issue going forward” this week. He acknowledged that Trump’s $200 billion mortgage bond initiative is a step — but said it’s “not enough” to fix a problem this structural. The housing shortage in America — already estimated at 4 to 7 million units before this war began — is getting worse, not better.

March existing home sales came in at 3.98 million annualized — the worst reading since mid-2025. The spring selling season, which is typically the strongest of the year, got off to its worst start in recent memory. With 30-year mortgage rates still hovering around 7%, first-time buyers are locked out. With construction costs rising and financing tight, builders aren’t filling the gap fast enough.

My advice: If you’re waiting for housing prices to fall sharply, the math isn’t working in your favor. The supply shortage is structural and getting worse — not better. For investors, residential REITs and single-family rental operators continue to benefit as millions of would-be buyers remain permanently sidelined in the rental market. For renters planning to buy eventually, extend your timeline and build savings aggressively in a high-yield account while rates stay elevated.

3. The Stock Market Is at All-Time Highs. Consumer Sentiment Is at All-Time Lows. Who’s Right?

The stock market’s strong performance may be built on shakier ground than most investors realize — a concern that crystallized around bombshell analysis published by Michael Burry, the investor who famously shorted the 2008 housing bubble.

Burry published findings this week showing that Nasdaq 100 tech earnings have been overstated by 42% over the past decade. After reviewing more than 1,000 annual reports from the period ending fiscal 2025, he identified a $1.7 trillion “earnings illusion” tied to improper treatment of stock-based compensation. Companies pay employees partially in stock — a real cost — but many tech firms haven’t been fully counting that cost when reporting their adjusted earnings. “Of every dollar of earnings per share that GAAP blesses, shareholders see only 83.49 cents,” Burry wrote. Companies he flagged include Meta, Palantir, Shopify, Datadog, Workday, CrowdStrike, and Zscaler.

This comes on top of a market that’s already running hot on two forces that may not last. First, AI chip demand has caused Micron’s 2027 earnings estimates to surge from $19 to $101 per share since last October. Second, the Iran war has boosted energy company earnings forecasts by roughly one-third since late February. Both forces could fade — and if they do, valuations that look reasonable today could start looking stretched fast.

The contrast with how ordinary Americans feel is stark. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index just fell to its lowest reading in the survey’s history — a survey that dates back over 70 years. A CBS News poll found 63% of Americans say the economy is “bad” — even with unemployment at 4.3%. Markets and consumers are telling completely opposite stories about the state of the economy. One of them will be proven right.

My advice: Don’t over-concentrate in any single sector. If your portfolio is 80% or more in big tech, rebalancing toward value stocks, dividend payers, and international markets reduces risk without sacrificing long-term growth potential. More importantly, understand what you actually own. The S&P 500 today is heavily weighted toward a handful of AI and tech names. Know what’s inside your index fund

.

4. AI Adoption Is Real, and So Are the Layoffs

Artificial intelligence has become the leading stated reason for corporate layoffs in 2026 — a dramatic escalation from where things stood just a year ago.

AI accounted for 25% of all tracked U.S. layoffs in March — up from just 5% throughout all of 2025 — according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Snap is cutting 16% of its full-time workforce, with CEO Evan Spiegel citing AI-enabled streamlining. Meta is cutting roughly 8,000 employees in May, with more cuts later in the year, as the company’s Metaverse bet unwinds into an AI pivot. Block cut 40% of its workforce, with CEO Jack Dorsey saying AI is doing many jobs “better and less expensively than humans.” Salesforce, Oracle, Atlassian, and Pinterest made similar announcements with similar language.

At the same time — and this nuance matters — AI is genuinely delivering real results. A Morgan Stanley report published this week found that one-quarter of all S&P 500 companies reported at least one quantifiable AI impact in Q1, up from 13% a year ago. Bank of America says AI saves them the equivalent of 2,000 software engineers. Hasbro cut concept-to-prototype time by 80%. Altria reduced marketing content creation time by 50%.

Both things are true simultaneously. AI is replacing real tasks. And some companies are using “AI” as convenient cover for restructuring they planned anyway. Whether the reason is genuine or strategic may not matter to someone who just lost their job.

For workers, the message from engineering professor Ahmad Banafa is blunt: “It’s not gonna stop. This is just the beginning.” The window to build AI skills is open right now — but it won’t stay that way.

My advice: If your role involves writing, coding, analysis, customer service, or any language-based, repetitive process — build AI fluency now, not later. The workers who learn to work with AI will have far more leverage than those competing against it. Get certifications. Use AI tools daily. For investors, companies successfully deploying AI to reduce headcount have a direct path to expanding profit margins — watch for operating leverage improvements across finance, tech, and communications sectors in the next few earnings seasons.

5. The Ticking Time Bomb in Your Retirement Accounts

Multiple economists and investment managers are warning about a brewing risk at the intersection of private credit markets and the life insurance industry — a risk that could directly affect millions of Americans through their retirement savings.

Private credit — lending done by private funds rather than traditional banks — has grown into a nearly $1.8 trillion market. Life insurance companies became some of its biggest participants, pouring roughly $849 billion into private credit funds by 2024, according to Federal Reserve researchers. That’s more than double what it was in 2014. They did this to earn enough return to fund the annuity payments — steady retirement income — promised to their policyholders.

That setup worked when markets were calm. Now, stress is building. More investors are trying to exit private credit funds than are entering. Redemption requests at business development companies are rising. And because private credit is, by design, opaque — you can’t assess these holdings the way you can with a public stock or bond — it’s genuinely hard to know how bad the exposure is.

Andrew Milgram of Marblegate Asset Management warns of a potential “doom loop.” If enough retirees surrender their annuities out of fear, insurance companies must sell private credit assets into a weak market, pushing prices lower, creating more fear, triggering more surrenders — the same amplification mechanism that deepened the 2008 mortgage crisis. Economist Eileen Appelbaum put it plainly: “The lack of transparency surrounding private credit funds makes it impossible to evaluate just how vulnerable they are.”

The industry pushes back, noting that insurers primarily hold investment-grade private credit, not speculative loans. JPMorgan’s Aaron Mulvihill called the current selling “driven by fear, rather than fundamentals.” Both assessments can be true at once.

My advice: If you have an annuity or plan to buy one, ask your advisor specifically what assets are backing it and whether the insurer has meaningful private credit exposure. Any investment product labeled “private” or “alternative” carries less transparency and more liquidity risk than public market equivalents. Know what you own. If you’re nearing retirement and reliant on annuity income, this is exactly the kind of question a qualified financial advisor should help you answer before a stress event forces the issue.

💡 Andrew’s Analysis & Advice:

The Iran war drives energy costs up, which re-accelerates inflation, which erodes purchasing power, which pushes consumers toward credit — and stressed borrowers increase default risk in private credit markets. That same war drives up construction costs, deepening the housing shortage. The market sits near all-time highs on earnings that may be partially inflated, driven by forces (AI chip demand and war-driven energy profits) that could prove temporary. And companies are using AI to cut costs and workers at exactly the moment when consumer income is under its most pressure in years.

Five separate stories. One economic reality. The widening gap between what Wall Street is reporting and what Main Street is experiencing is the defining financial story of 2026.

My advice:

• Move idle cash to a high-yield savings account or short-term Treasuries earning 4-5%.

• Check whether your index fund is more than 50% concentrated in tech stocks.

• Ask your financial advisor about your annuity’s underlying asset exposure.

• Start building AI skills now — certifications, tools, daily practice.

• Prepare for summer travel costs to run 15%+ higher than last year and budget accordingly.

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(3) Chart of the Day and Deep Dive

The Chart That Shows Chaos Is Here to Stay

💡 Andrew’s Analysis & Advice:

Stop and really look at this chart.

The World Uncertainty Index — a GDP-weighted measure tracking global economic and geopolitical uncertainty across more than 140 countries — just hit 105,000. Not 40,000, where it was during 9/11 and the Iraq War. Not 60,000, where COVID briefly pushed it. One hundred and five thousand. We are in territory this index has never seen before.

And yet, the stock market is near all-time highs. That’s the paradox you need to understand.

What this chart is actually measuring: Sourced from Ahir, Bloom, and Furceri and distributed through the Federal Reserve’s FRED database, this index tracks how often the word “uncertainty” and related terms appear in quarterly economic reports from the International Monetary Fund — across every major economy, weighted by their share of global GDP. When the number rises, it means the most senior economic decision-makers in the world are explicitly saying they don’t know what comes next. At 105,000, they’re saying it at a volume never recorded in the index’s 30-year history.

Reading the timeline: 9/11 and the Iraq War pushed the index to roughly 40,000 in the early 2000s. The 2008 Global Financial Crisis kept it elevated but never beyond that level. COVID spiked it to around 60,000. The current reading is nearly double the COVID peak and more than double any previous reading in history. Something genuinely different is happening.

What’s driving the spike: Three forces are compounding at the same time. The Iran war has disrupted global energy markets at a scale the International Energy Agency called “the greatest global energy security threat in history.” AI is accelerating economic disruption faster than governments and policymakers can track or respond to. And geopolitical fragmentation — countries building separate trade networks, technology ecosystems, and financial systems — is eliminating the predictable rules-based global order that gave investors a stable framework for decades.

The historical pattern: When uncertainty spikes sharply, three things tend to follow. Businesses delay capital investment — they wait to see what happens before committing to hiring or expansion. Consumers pull back on big purchases like homes, cars, and travel — exactly what March’s housing data confirmed. And markets eventually price in the uncertainty through volatility, typically after a period of denial that can last months.

Based on the Fear & Greed Index sitting at 68 (Greed) and markets near all-time highs, we appear to be in that denial phase right now. The surface looks calm. Underneath, individual investor sentiment surveys show nine straight weeks of more bears than bulls. Short interest across the Russell 3000 is at a 15-year high. The market’s surface and its internals are telling very different stories.

The long-term lesson this chart teaches: Every previous spike in the uncertainty index — 9/11, 2008, COVID — eventually resolved. Markets set new highs after each one. The investors who held through those periods, or added to positions during them, captured the best long-term returns. Uncertainty is the price of entry for the best buying opportunities. The chart doesn’t predict a crash. It predicts volatility — and volatility, managed with discipline, is how wealth gets built.

My advice:

Hold some defensive assets. Gold, short-term Treasuries, and money market funds act as shock absorbers in high-uncertainty environments. Even a 10-15% allocation reduces portfolio volatility meaningfully when conditions get rough.

Diversify globally. No single country is immune to consequences at this scale of uncertainty. International developed markets and select emerging markets offer both relative value and exposure that’s uncorrelated with U.S.-specific risks.

Don’t try to time the market. The paradox of peak uncertainty is that markets move in counterintuitive ways. The single best action for most long-term investors is maintaining a diversified portfolio while avoiding panic-driven decisions triggered by headlines.

Think in decades, not quarters. The chart has been running for 30 years. Every spike resolved. The people who positioned for that resolution — patiently, deliberately — won. The people who let fear drive their decisions during the spike often missed the recovery entirely. That’s the timeless lesson hiding inside the most alarming chart in finance right now.

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Part II - Investing Research

4. Insider Trades

5. Top Stocks Right Now

6. Today’s Trade

7. Market Sentiment (Fear & Greed Analysis)

8. Macro Technical Analysis & Predictions

(4) Insider Trades (from Billionaires, Politicians, and CEOs):

When people with deep knowledge, such as politicians who set policy, executives who run the company, or legendary investors, put their own money on the line, pay attention.

Read more

This week tested every ounce of patience you have.

Inflation jumped to 3.3%. GDP nearly flatlined at 0.5%. The Fed is suddenly talking about raising rates again. And over 60,000 Americans lost their jobs in March.

If you’re feeling confused, you’re not alone.

But here’s what most people miss: the loudest headlines almost always hide the clearest opportunities.

During my years on Wall Street, I learned that markets don’t reward those who react fastest. They reward those who understand what’s actually happening beneath the noise.

This newsletter cuts through the fear. You’ll learn exactly what this week’s data means.

This week's issue is one of the most important I've written: we cover the hottest inflation reading in two years, the Fed's surprise shift toward rate hikes, the GDP collapse to 0.5%, 60,000+ job cuts driven by AI, and why Q1 earnings could flip the script on everything …

Read more

Most investors alive today have never lived through a real stagflation cycle. They’ve read about it. They’ve studied it. But they’ve never felt it.

They’re about to.

The Iran war started in late February. Oil has jumped 40% since. Gas crossed $4 a gallon. Inflation is headed to 4.2% — the highest in the G7. The hiring rate just hit its lowest point in 15 years. And the Fed — stuck between fighting inflation and protecting growth — may be about to raise rates for the first time in years.

Your grocery bill is about to get worse. So is your gas tank. And your mortgage. And your job security.

I warned you about this three weeks ago.

If you're scared, you're not alone. The data says almost everyone is.

Right now, the Fear and Greed Index sits at 19. Extreme Fear.

The S&P 500 just posted five straight weeks of losses. Oil is above $111. Recession odds are approaching 50%. The Mag 7 — Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Tesla — just had their worst quarter in years.

Nothing feels fine right now.

This is the part of the cycle where people make emotional decisions and call them rational.

Do not do that.

This isn’t just a bad quarter. It’s a regime change. It is a repricing of the world around higher energy costs, weaker hiring, tighter money, and rising geopolitical risk. And the investors who understand that early will have an edge that most people will not.

And those who understand what’s happening — and act on it — will be in a very different financial position one year from now than the ones who wait for the news to get better.

This newsletter isn't about fear. It's about clarity. This issue breaks down exactly what's happening, why it matters, and — most importantly — what you should do about it right now.

I cover why the US economy may be entering its first real stagflation cycle in decades, what a 19 Fear and Greed reading means for you, which sectors win and which lose in this environment, and the exact moves that give you the best shot at building wealth.

📬 In today’s issue:

Part I - Markets & Economy:

1. Update, Analysis, and Outlook

2. Important Financial News

3. Chart of the Day [Deep Dive]

Part II - Investing Research:

4. Insider Trades

5. Top Stocks Right Now

6. Today’s Trade

7. Fear & Greed Analysis (Market Sentiment)

8. Macro Technical Analysis & Predictions

Part III - My Tips & Advice:

9. Actionable Advice & Recommendations

10. Final Thoughts & Lessons

11. Your Questions Answered

This newsletter takes a week to research & write so please help me and:

1. Hit the LIKE button❤️ on this post and share this newsletter with friends and family:

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2. 🙏Become a paid subscriber and get smarter with your money! (learn about the benefits here) (Get a free 30-day trial with this link):

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Part I - Markets & Economy

(1) Update, Analysis, and Outlook

📈 Everything You Need to Know (in 1 minute):

1. The S&P 500 fell for a fifth straight week — its longest losing streak since 2022 — closing Q1 2026 as the worst quarter since Q2 2022. The Nasdaq fell ~7%, the S&P 500 fell ~5%, and the Dow fell ~4% for the quarter.

2. The hiring rate fell to 3.1% in February — the lowest since April 2020. Job openings dropped to 6.9 million. US companies announced 60,620 layoffs in March, up 25% from February, with employers mostly blaming AI.

3. The OECD raised US inflation to 4.2% for 2026 — the highest in the G7. Global growth is projected to slow from 3.3% in 2025 to 2.9% in 2026.

4. Iran rejected all US ceasefire terms and set five conditions, including international recognition of its authority over the Strait of Hormuz.

5. Oil surged past $111/barrel on Thursday after Trump’s speech signaled weeks more of Iran conflict, marking an 11%+ single-day jump — oil’s biggest single-day spike since April 2020. Oil is now up ~40% since the war began in late February.

6. Gas hit $4.08/gallon nationally this week — the first time since August 2022. That’s a ~35% spike in a single month.

7. The Dow entered correction territory (down ~10% from its February ATH). The Nasdaq is down ~13% from its October peak. The MSCI All Country World Index dropped 9% this month alone.

8. Mag 7 tech stocks are down ~8% as a group since October. Microsoft had its worst Q1 since the 2008 financial crisis (down 25%). Meta is down 29%. Nvidia is down nearly 20%.

9. Visa, Mastercard, and Amex each fell ~20% in synchronized selling pressure. Eli Lilly shed 17% on pharma tariff concerns.

   1. Europe is breaking away from Visa, Mastercard, and US financial infrastructure, fast-tracking a Digital Euro and building alternatives to Microsoft Office.

10. Iran struck two major aluminum producers over the weekend — Emirates Global Aluminium and Aluminium Bahrain — sending aluminum to a 4-year high. Alcoa soared 8% and Century Aluminum jumped 7%.

11. Helium prices doubled in a month as Qatar’s LNG exports halted through the Strait. Helium cools AI chip-making equipment. South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix are running critically low on reserves.

12. Recession odds are rising fast. Goldman Sachs put them at 30%. EY Parthenon at 40%. Wilmington Trust at 45%. Moody’s Analytics at 48.6%.

13. Mortgage rates climbed to 6.62%, up from 5.99% in February, pushing homeownership further out of reach.

14. SpaceX filed confidentially for an IPO targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation — potentially the largest public offering in history, raising up to $80 billion.

💡 Andrew’s Analysis & Advice:

This isn’t just a bad week. This is a regime change.

After 20+ years in finance, I’ve seen corrections, crashes, panics, and recoveries. And I’ll tell you this: the most dangerous market moments aren’t the ones that feel catastrophic. They’re the ones that feel slow. Uncertain. Dragged out. This is one of those moments.

The War Is Rewriting Every Assumption

When the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February, Wall Street analysts told you not to worry. “Geopolitical shocks are short-lived,” they said. That was over a month ago. Today, oil sits above $111/barrel. Gas crossed $4/gallon for the first time since 2022. And Tuesday’s brief market rally on peace talk rumors got crushed the very next day when Trump’s prime-time address Wednesday night made clear there’s no clean exit in sight.

The Strait of Hormuz is the world’s energy chokepoint. About 20% of global oil and LNG flows through it. It’s been closed since the war started. And that single fact is rippling through every corner of the global economy — like a slow shockwave.

Here’s what most people don’t appreciate: the shockwave moves from east to west. JPMorgan’s head of global commodities research compared this to COVID-19, unfolding sequentially. Oil tankers from the Persian Gulf reach Asia in 10-20 days. Europe hits the wall in 20-35 days. The US is last in line, 35-45 days away. Asia is already rationing fuel and canceling flights. Europe hits full impact by mid-April. The US hasn’t felt the full force yet.

Tech’s Slide Is About More Than the War

Let’s be honest, tech was already expensive before a single bomb dropped on Tehran. Near-record valuations. Soaring AI spending. A market questioning whether that spending would ever translate into proportional profits. Then the war started. Oil above $110/barrel means the biggest tech companies, set to spend over $650 billion this year on energy-hungry data centers, suddenly face a major cost problem. Microsoft is down 25% for the quarter (its worst since 2008). Meta is down 29%. Nvidia is down nearly 20% from its October peak.

But here’s what the crowd is getting wrong, this doesn’t mean tech is dead. It means tech was overpriced and is now getting repriced. That’s actually healthy. And as the Chart of the Day shows this week, the Mag 7’s P/E premium versus the rest of the S&P 500 has collapsed from 100%+ at its peak to just 30% — a 10-year low. Great companies getting cheap isn’t a tragedy. It’s an opportunity — for those patient enough to wait for the right moment.

The “Buy the Dip” Reflex Just Got Burned

For three years, investors were trained like Pavlov’s dogs: market dips, you buy, you win. That reflex is getting punished now. This selloff is more drawn out and less dramatic than the quick crashes investors have grown accustomed to. Kevin Gordon at Charles Schwab captured it well this week: “Ironically, that’s keeping people from feeling they can buy the dip.”

And that hesitation is costing money. The investors who wait for certainty always arrive too late.

But the uncomfortable truth is this: more pain could still be ahead. Iran rejected all US ceasefire terms this week. Société Générale’s Michael Haigh warns that if the disruption lasts a few more weeks, global oil inventories could fall to historic lows — and Brent crude could hit $200/barrel. At $200 oil, we’re not talking recession risk. We’re talking recession certainty.

The Hidden Casualties: Aluminum and Helium

Oil isn’t the only commodity in crisis. Iran’s attacks on Emirates Global Aluminium in Abu Dhabi and Aluminium Bahrain over the weekend knocked out two of the Middle East’s largest producers. Aluminum surged to a 4-year high — up 12% in its biggest monthly gain in eight years. Aluminum goes into cars, homes, packaging, and electronics. Higher aluminum costs feed into inflation in places you’d never expect.

Then there’s helium — the story almost nobody is talking about. Qatar supplies roughly a third of the world’s helium. Helium is the critical coolant for AI chip manufacturing. With Qatar’s LNG exports halted, helium prices have doubled in a month. South Korea (home to Samsung and SK Hynix, the world’s two largest memory chipmakers) is running low, with reserves potentially drying up by June. If helium runs out, AI chip production slows, AI hardware gets scarce, and every AI valuation story gets repriced downward. Pull one thread. The whole sweater unravels.

The Consumer Squeeze Is Just Getting Started

Gas at $4.08/gallon isn’t just an inconvenience. JPMorgan calculates that if gas stays near $4 through year-end, it will drain roughly $100 billion from consumer purchasing power. That money comes from somewhere. Either you cut spending elsewhere, or you dip into savings. Both outcomes are bad for the economy.

Diesel is even worse — up 44% since the war began, now at $5.42/gallon. That hits truckers. Truckers hit retailers. Retailers hit you. The inflation you feel at the grocery store in May started with a tanker that couldn’t get through the Strait of Hormuz today.

The OECD raised its US inflation forecast to 4.2% this week. The USDA projects food prices to rise 3.6% this year. Beef, fish, vegetables, and baked goods are all headed higher. Fertilizer, which largely ships through the Strait of Hormuz, is getting scarce, threatening crop costs for months ahead. The squeeze is real, and it’s barely getting started.

The Hiring Reality Check

The job market served up its worst reading in 15 years — and this data was collected before the Iran war had time to fully filter through. The hiring rate dropped to 3.1% in February, the lowest since April 2020. Job openings fell to 6.9 million. Layoffs jumped 25% in March. Powell told Harvard students this week: “There’s no denying that it’s a challenging time to enter the labor market.”

This is stagflation’s defining characteristic: a weak labor market that the Fed can’t rescue with rate cuts because inflation is running too hot. The two standard tools work against each other. That’s what makes this era genuinely difficult.

Europe’s Quiet Breakup With US Financial Infrastructure

One underreported story this week: Europe is accelerating its break from US payment networks and financial systems. What was a deliberate 2030 target for the Digital Euro is now moving faster. As of February, 130 million users across 13 European national payment systems are already linked in a cross-border network charging fees far below Visa and Mastercard. Europe is also building its own alternative to Microsoft Office. This is long-term structural pressure on US payment giants whose international transaction revenue depends on a fragmented, US-centric global financial system.

The SpaceX IPO

Amid all the gloom, one story stands apart. SpaceX filed confidentially for an IPO targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation and up to $80 billion in capital — the largest public offering in history if it hits those numbers. Saudi Aramco’s record 2019 IPO raised $29 billion. Last year, the entire US IPO market raised $44 billion from 202 companies combined. SpaceX wants to beat both.

Up to 30% of IPO shares may be reserved for individual investors — triple the typical allocation. If you’ve ever wanted to own a piece of the space economy before it fully takes off, the June listing window could be your moment.

My advice:

Defense (protect wealth now):

• Own energy. The only S&P 500 sector up in 2026 — up 39% this quarter. Oil stocks, LNG players, and natural gas companies are the direct beneficiaries.

• Rotate into defensives. Utilities, consumer staples, and healthcare hold up in stagflationary environments. Not exciting — but they protect what you’ve built.

• Pay down variable-rate debt now. With a 52% chance of a rate hike by year-end (futures markets this week), every floating-rate obligation gets more expensive. Act before the Fed does.

Offense (position for the recovery):

• Build your Mag 7 watchlist. The P/E premium is at a 10-year low. Dollar-cost average in — don’t try to time the exact bottom.

• Stay selective, not heroic. Do not buy everything just because prices are down. Buy only what you would be happy to own for years.

• Watch the ceasefire signals. Any credible peace move sends oil lower and stocks sharply higher. Have your shopping list ready. Speed will matter.

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(2) Important Financial News

📬 Today we analyze the impacts of:

1) Trump's $2.2 Trillion Budget

2) The Uncertainty Loop Paralyzing Our Economy

3) The Only Two Catalysts Moving Stocks

4) Winners and Losers From the Iran War

5) America’s Inflation Problem Just Got Worse

6) The Fed Might Raise Rates for the First Time in Years

7) The Job Market Is the Worst It's Been in 15 Years

🤔 But first, the Iran war has been running for over a month now, how long do you think it will last?

1. Trump’s $2.2 Trillion Budget

The White House released its proposed 2027 federal budget this week, and the numbers are historic. The proposal calls for $1.5 trillion in total defense spending — a 42% jump from current levels and the largest single-year increase in military spending since World War II. The full budget totals $2.2 trillion, with $1.1 trillion for the Pentagon and another $350 billion for munitions stockpiling and defense industrial expansion.

To fund the buildup, non-defense discretionary spending gets cut by 10%, roughly $73 billion. The hits are deep and broad. The Small Business Administration loses 67% of its funding. The EPA drops 52%. NASA is cut 23%. Public schools lose $8.5 billion. Affordable housing construction grants ($1.3 billion) get eliminated entirely. Job training for at-risk youth, broadband access programs, community disaster preparedness grants, scientific research funding, rural small business loans — all on the chopping block.

Important context: This is a proposal, not law. Congress controls the budget, and lawmakers have historically rejected Trump’s deepest domestic cuts while approving military increases. Think of it as a window into White House priorities — not a confirmed roadmap.

Why this matters long-term: The US already carries $39 trillion in federal debt. This budget assumes 3.5% GDP growth this year — the Congressional Budget Office projects under 2%. It also assumes 10-year Treasury yields fall to 3.5% by 2027. They sit at 4.35% today. If those assumptions miss, the fiscal math collapses and the debt load grows heavier.

The signal is clear regardless of what Congress passes. Defense spending is going up. We haven’t seen military buildup on this scale since WWII. Companies that supply the military — weapons systems, munitions, ships, missile defense, cybersecurity — are in a multi-year structural tailwind. Cuts to clean energy, education, broadband, and science funding, meanwhile, are long-term headwinds for those sectors.

My advice: Defense contractors like Lockheed Martin $LMT, RTX $RTX, Northrop Grumman $NOC, and General Dynamics $GD build the exact weapons systems, missiles, and ships this budget prioritizes. During the post-9/11 defense buildup, these stocks were among the decade’s top performers. History may be rhyming.

2. The Uncertainty Loop Paralyzing Our Economy

Here’s the core problem facing the US economy right now: nobody can make a decision because nobody knows how this ends. And when nobody decides, nobody invests, nobody hires, and nobody grows. That’s the loop.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Société Générale’s Michael Haigh warned that if the Hormuz disruption lasts another couple of weeks, global oil inventories could fall to historic lows. Morgan Stanley noted that “the whole ecosystem is more capital constrained than people think it is,” with energy and shipping constraints making AI data center construction harder and more expensive.

There are thin green shoots. Trump said Tuesday that Iran had reached out for a ceasefire. Iran’s president issued a rare open letter calling the war “costly and futile.” The UAE is reportedly weighing direct involvement to help reopen the Strait with UN backing. Goldman Sachs’ Jan Hatzius suggests that if the Strait reopens by mid-April, the US might see only a 0.4% economic contraction — slow growth, not a full recession.

But the fork in the road is razor-thin. Haigh warns Brent could hit $200 if disruptions spread further. Private credit is under strain. AI investment is showing early cracks. Higher energy costs are just starting to reach consumers. Deloitte’s downside scenario sees AI investment actually falling in 2027-28, unemployment hitting 6.5%, and GDP contracting in back-to-back years.

During my years in banking, we had a saying: uncertainty is the enemy of capital. Capital doesn’t disappear — it hides. It waits for clarity. When clarity arrives, it moves fast. The investors who prepare during uncertainty are the ones who win when resolution comes.

My advice: Think in scenarios, not predictions.

Scenario A (war ends soon): oil falls, stocks rally hard, tech leads the bounce — have your watchlist ready.

Scenario B (war drags on): oil climbs further, inflation accelerates, recession becomes reality — double down on energy, defensives, and cash.

Hedge both with some energy exposure and some defensive positioning. That’s the play right now.

3. The Only Two Catalysts Moving Stocks

Right now, the stock market is essentially controlled by two things: AI anxiety and Trump’s social media posts. Not earnings. Not GDP. Not Fed meetings. A Truth Social update or an Anthropic blog post can move the entire market in minutes.

One boutique hedge fund — Anaconda — told Bloomberg this week it has given up trying to trade around Trump’s announcements. CEO Renaud Saleur said Trump “changes opinion 10 times a day” and the implications are “not manageable.” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld wrote in Fortune that one prominent investor called it “impossible to trade in financial markets without getting into the mind of Trump” — more important than any macroeconomic indicator.

Last week, cybersecurity stocks dropped after a report that Anthropic’s new model poses “unprecedented cybersecurity risks.” Oil futures moved sharply on a Trump post Monday. This is not normal market behavior.

The TACO trade is losing its power. For the past year, every time the market feared escalation, Trump would back down — “Trump Always Chickens Out” — and investors learned to buy the dip on every Trump threat. But Thursday, when Trump extended the Iran ceasefire deadline by 10 days, markets didn’t rally. Oil surged to $110/barrel instead. Israel threatened escalation. Iran rejected talks. The market finally stopped believing the bluff.

My 20 years in finance taught me that the investors who trade on headlines consistently lose to the investors who trade on fundamentals. Headlines create short-term noise. Fundamentals determine long-term direction.

My three rules for navigating this market right now:

1. Write your investment thesis before the news arrives. Know why you own what you own. When a post contradicts your thesis, you’ll have a framework to evaluate it instead of panic-selling.

2. Size positions for volatility. If a 10% drop in a position keeps you up at night, you own too much of it.

3. Keep a shopping list ready. The best buying opportunities come when the news is scariest. The investors who bought during the 2020 COVID crash or the 2022 rate-hike selloff made fortunes. The next opportunity is being built right now.

4. Winners and Losers From the Iran War

Everyone knows the obvious moves — energy up, airlines down, defense up, tech down. The real edge in investing comes from finding the non-obvious winners and losers hiding behind the headlines.

The hidden loser nobody’s talking about: helium. Qatar supplies roughly a third of the world’s helium, and helium cools the machines that make AI chips. With the Strait of Hormuz closed and Qatari energy exports halted, helium prices have doubled in a month. South Korea — home to Samsung and SK Hynix, the world’s two largest memory chipmakers — is running critically low, with reserves potentially drying up by June. If that happens, chip production slows, AI hardware gets scarce, and semiconductor stocks face a supply-driven hit that has nothing to do with earnings or AI sentiment. This is a supply chain crisis hiding inside a geopolitical crisis.

The sneaky inflation driver: plastic. Plastic is made from petroleum. Oil is up 40%+. That means water bottles, packaging, medical supplies, garbage bags, car parts — all getting more expensive. Since plastic packaging touches nearly every consumer product, you’ll feel it at the grocery store before you understand why.

The surprise winners: off-price retailers. This is one of my favorite recession playbook trades, and it’s playing out in real time. Higher shipping costs and supply chain chaos are causing big retailers to receive inventory too late to sell it profitably — so they’re dumping it cheap. TJ Maxx, Ross Stores, and Burlington scoop that inventory at steep discounts and sell it to bargain-conscious consumers pulling back on spending. Burlington jumped 4.1% this week. Ross popped 3.75%. TJX climbed 2.5%.

The aluminum miners. Alcoa $AA and Century Aluminum $CENX surged after Iran struck the Middle East’s two largest aluminum smelters. The supply crunch was already severe from tariffs and the Strait closure. These attacks made it worse. Near-term, aluminum producers have a genuine tailwind. Long-term, watch China — the world’s largest aluminum producer — which could flood the market if prices rise too high.

The timeless lesson: In every economic downturn, consumers trade down. Restaurants to groceries. Groceries to store brands. Department stores to discount chains. That pattern is as reliable as gravity. TJX $TJX, Dollar General $DG, and Costco $COST historically outperform in downturns — and this one is no different. Know which direction the money flows before it happens, not after.

5. America’s Inflation Problem Just Got Worse

The OECD issued its starkest warning yet this week: the US is on track to have the highest inflation in the G7 in 2026, projected at 4.2%. That’s up from 2.6% last year and nearly double the Fed’s 2% target.

For context, the OECD’s projected 2026 inflation rates for other G7 members are: UK at 4%, Germany at 2.9%, Canada at 2.4%, Italy at 2.4%, Japan at 2.4%, and France at 1.8%. The US leads them all — by a meaningful margin.

Two compounding forces are driving this: the Iran war’s energy shock and Trump’s tariff policy. The effective US tariff rate sits at roughly 10.5% — the highest since World War II — meaning imported cars, electronics, and clothing are already more expensive before you factor in energy costs.

The downstream impact is everywhere. The USDA projects food prices to rise 3.6% this year, with groceries up 3.1%. Beef, fish, vegetables, and baked goods are all headed higher. Fertilizer — much of which ships through the Strait — is getting scarce, threatening crop costs further down the road. Gas is already up 35% in one month. And even if the war ends tomorrow, energy infrastructure damaged across the Middle East could keep prices elevated for months.

What 4.2% inflation actually means for your wallet: Your dollar buys 4.2% less every year. Wages need to rise 4%+ just to stay in place. Fixed incomes (bonds, pensions, savings accounts) quietly lose real value every single month. And the Fed is stuck — unable to cut rates to support a slowing economy without risking an inflation spiral.

My inflation survival playbook:

• Commodities: Oil, metals, and agricultural commodities rise with inflation. Energy ETFs give you diversified exposure without picking individual stocks.

• Real assets: Hard assets hold value during inflationary periods better than financial assets. Industrial and residential REITs are worth watching.

• TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities): Bonds that adjust with inflation, so your return keeps pace with rising prices.

• Avoid long-duration bonds: Fixed coupon payments lose real value as inflation rises. Short-term Treasuries and money market funds offer far better protection right now.

6. The Fed Might Raise Rates for the First Time in Years

A month ago, the futures market priced in a 96% chance of one or more Fed rate cuts by September. This week, CNBC reported that flipped: traders now see a 52% chance of a rate hike by year-end — the first time that probability has crossed 50%.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said this week: “I could see circumstances where we would need to raise rates.” That’s significant coming from a historically dovish official. Governor Christopher Waller — one of the strongest advocates for cuts just months ago — said the Iran war’s inflation risks swayed him to hold steady in March. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly warned that even the March dot plot (showing one more cut expected this year) might be misleading, saying it “risks conveying a false sense of certainty.”

The core dilemma is brutal. The Fed has already cut rates by nearly 2 percentage points since September 2024, bringing the target range to 3.5%-3.75%. A growing number of officials now believe they’ve hit “neutral” — the rate that neither stimulates nor restricts the economy. Cutting further from neutral while inflation runs above 4% would be like pouring gas on a fire.

Three paths and none of them are clean. Raise rates: fight inflation but risk tipping a weakening economy into recession. Hold rates: hope inflation cools on its own while the labor market deteriorates. Cut rates: support growth but risk an inflation spiral back to 2022 levels. That’s stagflation’s defining cruelty — every option has a cost.

What this means for you:

• Variable-rate debt is now a liability. Pay down credit cards, HELOCs, and adjustable mortgages before the Fed moves. Every month you wait could cost you more.

• Short-duration Treasuries and money market funds are paying real yields. Lock in competitive returns without taking duration risk.

• Banks benefit from higher rates. Net interest margins widen when rates rise — regional bank stocks tend to outperform in rate-hike cycles.

7. The Job Market Is the Worst It’s Been in 15 Years

The Labor Department reported this week that the hiring rate dropped to 3.1% in February — the lowest since April 2020. Excluding the pandemic’s worst months, it’s the weakest reading in more than 15 years. Job openings fell to 6.9 million. And employers announced 60,620 layoffs in March — up 25% from February — with most companies citing AI as the driver.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Harvard students this week: “There’s no denying that it’s a challenging time to enter the labor market.” That might be the understatement of the year.

Gallup found that just 19% of college graduates believe it’s a good time to land a quality job — down from over 70% in 2022. University of Michigan surveys show grads are more pessimistic today than at any point in the past four years. Over 40% of recent grads now view socialism positively — roughly double the rate from the 2010s. That’s not just politics. That’s the sound of an economic promise breaking.

Here’s the long-term reality most people aren’t ready to hear: white-collar hiring is set to stay weak through 2026, and AI is accelerating the erosion of entry-level roles. Data entry, basic research, customer service, administrative work — these were the stepping-stone jobs for new graduates. AI is eating them first, and eating them fast.

My advice:

• If you’re employed: Build skills AI can’t easily replicate — leadership, creative strategy, complex judgment, relationship management. People who work with AI tools will outlast people who compete against them.

• If you’re job-hunting: Niche down. A specialist in a specific domain always outlasts a generalist in a tough market.

• If you’re investing: A weakening labor market is a leading indicator that consumer spending is next to drop. Rotate away from discretionary spending stocks (restaurants, retail, entertainment) toward consumer staples and essential services.

💡 Andrew’s Analysis & Advice:

All 7 stories point to the same core truth. The U.S. economy is entering a period where war risk, inflation risk, policy risk, and labor market weakness are feeding each other.

We are entering an era of stagflation. High prices and low growth. Energy shocks feed inflation. Inflation forces the Fed to hike rates. High rates kill job growth. This is a classic economic trap. Do not panic. Wealth is built during recessions. Build cash reserves. Avoid bad debt. Buy high quality assets when others sell in fear.

This is not just a bad-news cycle. It is a regime shift. A world that was priced for falling inflation, friendly Fed moves, and AI-fueled growth is being repriced for scarcity, conflict, caution, and tighter money.

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(3) Chart of the Day [Deep Dive]

The Greatest Valuation Reset In A Decade

💡 Andrew’s Analysis & Advice:

This week’s chart is one of the most important visuals you’ll see this year.

It tracks the Magnificent 7’s price-to-earnings (P/E) premium relative to the remaining 493 companies in the S&P 500. In plain English: how much more expensive the biggest tech stocks are compared to everything else in the market.

Here’s what the chart tells you at a glance.

At the peak in 2021, the Mag 7 traded at a roughly 100% P/E premium to the rest of the market. Investors were willing to pay double. The AI boom, pandemic-era hypergrowth, and near-zero interest rates created a combination that pushed valuations to near-record territory. The market was essentially saying: “These companies are so much better than everything else that they deserve to cost twice as much.”

Today, that premium has collapsed to just 30% — the lowest point on this chart’s 10-year history.

And that’s a number worth stopping on.

Why this happened is important context. The Mag 7 weren’t just caught in the Iran war crossfire. They were genuinely overvalued entering 2026. The war added two structural headwinds that are specifically tech-negative: rising energy costs (data centers are enormous energy consumers, and oil above $110/barrel makes running them significantly more expensive) and a broad risk-off rotation that pushed capital toward defensives. Microsoft had its worst quarter since 2008. Meta dropped 29%. Nvidia fell 20% from its October peak.

The valuation compression was inevitable. The war just accelerated the timeline.

Here’s what most investors are getting wrong about this chart. They’re either panicking out of tech (and selling at the worst time) or assuming 30% is the floor (and buying too early). The chart doesn’t tell you where the bottom is. What it does tell you is that the margin of safety in big tech has improved dramatically. A 30% premium is far more defensible than a 100% premium.

In 20+ years of investing, I’ve watched this pattern repeat: great companies fall out of favor, valuations compress, and eventually the fundamentals reassert themselves. The investors who bought Apple in 2013, Amazon in 2016, or Nvidia in 2019 bought when the crowd had given up on the story. That’s always when the best entries appear.

The long-term AI thesis remains intact. AI is still going to reshape every industry. The Mag 7 companies are still going to be at the center of it. The debate isn’t if — it’s when the market recaptures that.

My advice:

Think in time horizons.

6-month horizon: Be cautious. The short-term technical picture is still negative (more on that in Section 8). More pain is possible if oil climbs further or the war escalates.

3-5 year horizon: These valuations are starting to look genuinely compelling. The entry point you have today would have been unimaginable 18 months ago.

The strategy for this environment is dollar-cost averaging — investing a fixed amount at regular intervals rather than trying to call the exact bottom. You don’t need to catch the lowest price. You just need to be buying near it, consistently, while the crowd is still scared.

The bottom line: the Mag 7 are at their cheapest relative valuation in over a decade. That’s not a “buy everything today” signal. It’s a “start watching, start planning, and start building a position gradually” signal. When the tide turns, it turns fast. You want to already be in the water.

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Part II - Investing Research

4. Insider Trades

5. Top Stocks Right Now

6. Today’s Trade

7. Fear & Greed Analysis (Market Sentiment)

8. Macro Technical Analysis & Predictions

(4) Insider Trades (from Billionaires, Politicians, and CEOs):

When people with deep knowledge, such as politicians who set policy, executives who run the company, or legendary investors, put their own money on the line, pay attention.

1) Palo Alto Networks $PANW

CEO Nikesh Arora bought $9,999,977 of stock on 03/27/2026.

Palo Alto Networks $PANW provides AI-powered threat detection, cloud security, and network protection to enterprises worldwide. Arora knows the company’s pipeline, win rates, upcoming contract renewals, and competitive position better than any analyst on Wall Street. He’s not doing this for a tax benefit. He’s betting nearly $10 million of his own money because he believes the stock is undervalued right now.

The macro backdrop also supports this trade. The Iran war has dramatically increased cyber-threat activity across critical infrastructure globally. Anthropic’s new AI model generated fresh cybersecurity concerns just this week. As AI becomes more capable and more embedded in enterprise systems, the attack surface expands — and the demand for Palo Alto’s platforms grows with it.

Arora is also executing a “platformization” strategy — consolidating multiple security tools into one subscription model — which drives high switching costs and recurring revenue. Once a company is fully on the Palo Alto platform, leaving is enormously disruptive. That’s a durable competitive moat.

Long-term outlook for $PANW: The global cybersecurity market is projected to exceed $500 billion by decade-end. The AI agent economy creates entirely new categories of cyber risk and entirely new demand for enterprise security. CEO buying $10 million of his own stock during a market downturn is a conviction signal that’s historically among the most reliable in investing. Arora’s $10 million bet says the dip is a gift. Hard to argue with.

2) Iperionx Ltd $IPX

CEO Anastasios Arima bought $1,793,110 of stock on 03/30/2026.

Iperionx $IPX is a critical minerals company focused on domestic titanium production — a strategic metal that goes into military aircraft, missiles, submarines, medical devices, and advanced manufacturing. CEO Anastasios Arima bought $1,793,110 worth of shares on March 27, 2026, increasing his ownership by 4% to nearly 13 million shares.

The timing is extraordinary. Trump’s proposed budget calls for the largest US military buildup since World War II. Every fighter jet, missile system, and naval vessel depends heavily on titanium. The US has historically imported most of its titanium supply — a vulnerability that the Iran war has made glaring. Domestic production of critical metals is now a matter of national security, not just economics.

Arima buying $1.8 million of Iperionx shares while the Pentagon requests a $1.5 trillion budget is a calculated bet: defense spending will flow to companies that can supply critical domestic materials. That’s a powerful thesis with a long tailwind behind it.

Long-term outlook for $IPX: The domestic critical minerals story is one of the most compelling multi-decade investment themes of this era. Geopolitical fragmentation — accelerated by the Iran war — is forcing every major economy to onshore supply chains for materials that matter militarily. Companies that can produce titanium, lithium, and rare earth elements domestically have years of demand growth ahead. High risk given the company’s size, but the macro tailwind is powerful and the CEO’s conviction is evident.

3) Zenas Biopharma, Inc. $ZBIO

CEO Leon O Moulder Jr bought $1,021,140 of stock on 03/31/2026.

Zenas Biopharma $ZBIO is a clinical-stage biotech company focused on immunology and inflammation — conditions with massive unmet medical need and proven commercial potential. CEO Leon O. Moulder Jr. filed a purchase of $1,021,140 worth of shares on March 31, 2026, a 3% increase, bringing his total to over 2.1 million shares.

In clinical-stage biotech, a CEO buying over $1 million of his own stock is one of the strongest signals available. Moulder knows the pipeline, the upcoming data readouts, and the regulatory landscape better than any outside analyst. He’s not making a routine purchase. He’s making a conviction call with his personal capital.

The immunology and inflammation space has produced some of the most commercially successful drugs in pharma history. Humira generated over $200 billion in lifetime sales. Dupixent is still growing at $14+ billion annually. A successful drug in this category could be transformative for a company Zenas Biopharma’s size.

Long-term outlook for $ZBIO: Clinical-stage biotech is high-risk by nature — most drugs fail before reaching market. But when CEOs buy $1M+ at these price levels, it often precedes positive clinical data or regulatory milestones. Watch upcoming pipeline readouts closely. The immunology TAM is massive and the CEO’s money is on the table.

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(5) Top Stocks Right Now

1) Kodiak Sciences $KOD up +74.8% on Thu 3/26

Kodiak Sciences $KOD surged +74.8% last Thursday after revealing strong clinical trial data for its treatment of diabetic retinopathy — a leading cause of blindness in adults with diabetes. The results confirmed the company’s approach can produce meaningful improvements in patient outcomes, a major milestone for a biotech working in one of the most underserved areas of ophthalmology.

Diabetic retinopathy affects tens of millions of people worldwide. Current treatments require frequent, painful injections directly into the eye — a compliance challenge that leaves many patients undertreated. Kodiak’s pipeline is targeting extended dosing intervals without sacrificing effectiveness. Strong trial data in this space can move a small biotech dramatically, and that’s exactly what happened here.

Long-term outlook for $KOD: The global diabetic eye disease treatment market is projected to exceed $15 billion by the early 2030s. An aging global population and rising diabetes rates ensure a growing patient base. If Kodiak’s results hold through later-stage trials and reach regulatory approval, the upside from today’s price could still be significant. High risk given the clinical stage, but the data is a genuine catalyst worth monitoring.

2) Navan $NVAN up +43.3% on Thu 3/26

Navan $NVAN, the AI-powered business travel and expense management platform (formerly TripActions), jumped +43.3% last Thursday after reporting strong earnings and upbeat 2027 revenue guidance. The company beat Q4 expectations and gave investors a confident forward outlook — a rare bright spot in an otherwise difficult environment for technology stocks.

Navan helps companies manage employee travel and spending through an intelligent platform that automates booking, expense reporting, and policy compliance. With businesses looking to cut costs without eliminating travel entirely, an AI-driven platform that finds savings automatically while reducing admin work is exactly what CFOs want right now.

Long-term outlook for $NVAN: Corporate travel and expense management is a large and growing market, estimated at $50+ billion globally. As companies increasingly demand proof of ROI on every dollar spent, tools that provide real-time visibility into travel and expense data become non-negotiable. Navan’s strong guidance signals confidence in winning more enterprise contracts. Worth watching as a long-term AI-plus-SaaS growth story.

3) Argan $AGX up +37.9% on Fri 3/27

Construction company Argan $AGX surged +37.9% last Friday on a fourth-quarter earnings and revenue beat, with guidance topping expectations by a wide margin. Argan builds power generation facilities — natural gas plants, renewable energy projects, and industrial infrastructure.

In a world where AI data centers are consuming unprecedented amounts of electricity, and where the Iran war has made domestic energy infrastructure a national priority, a company that builds power generation capacity is exactly what the market is rewarding. Argan’s backlog of projects reflects real demand, not speculation.

Long-term outlook for $AGX: The energy infrastructure buildout is one of the decade’s biggest investment themes. AI data centers require massive, reliable power — and the US grid simply isn’t built for the demand that’s coming. Companies that build power generation facilities quickly and at scale have years of contracted backlog ahead. Argan’s guidance beat signals the pipeline is healthy and growing. Power generation construction is set to be one of the most in-demand services in the US economy for the next 5-10 years.

4) Penguin Solutions $PENG up +13.4% on Thu 4/2

AI infrastructure company Penguin Solutions $PENG rose +13.4% yesterday after beating Q1 expectations and raising its full-year outlook — impressive performance in a market where tech is broadly under pressure. Penguin Solutions provides high-performance computing infrastructure, including the complex systems that power AI training and inference workloads.

The company’s raised guidance is the key signal. It means demand for AI compute isn’t slowing — it’s accelerating. Even as investors question the ROI of AI spending broadly, the companies building the infrastructure layer continue to win contracts and grow revenue.

Long-term outlook for $PENG: AI infrastructure is one of the most durable multi-year investment themes in tech. Every large language model trained, every AI agent deployed, every enterprise adopting AI tools runs on infrastructure like what Penguin Solutions provides. As AI moves from experimental to embedded, the infrastructure layer becomes critical and recurring. The company’s raised guidance says the demand environment is real, not speculative.

5) United Therapeutics $UTHR up +12.5% on Mon 3/30

United Therapeutics $UTHR rose +12.5% last Monday after a nebulized (inhaled) version of its blockbuster drug Tyvaso delivered improved results in a second Phase 3 clinical trial. Tyvaso treats pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) — a serious and often fatal condition affecting blood flow through the lungs.

United Therapeutics has built one of the most durable franchises in rare disease. Tyvaso is already a multi-billion dollar drug. A new delivery format (nebulized vs. inhaled powder) that shows better clinical outcomes expands the addressable market and extends the drug’s commercial life — both powerful long-term value drivers.

Long-term outlook for $UTHR: Rare disease is one of the most attractive niches in biotech — pricing power is high, competition is limited, and patients are loyal to treatments that genuinely work. United Therapeutics also carries a long-term moonshot: xenotransplantation (genetically engineered pig organs for human transplant), which could eventually open an entirely new multi-billion dollar market if regulatory and clinical hurdles are cleared. The Tyvaso trial data this week is near-term validation of a company executing well across multiple fronts.

6) Symbotic $SYM up +12.2% on Tue 3/31

Symbotic $SYM surged +12.2% last Tuesday on a new warehouse automation partnership with Associated Wholesale Grocers — one of the largest wholesale grocery cooperatives in the US, supplying thousands of independent grocery stores across the country.

Symbotic builds AI-powered robotic systems for warehouse automation. Its systems move and sort inventory at speeds no human workforce can match, at a fraction of long-term operating cost. As inflation raises labor expenses and supply chain disruptions create a premium on operational efficiency, warehouse automation moves from competitive advantage to business necessity.

Long-term outlook for $SYM: Warehouse automation is a massive, secular growth market projected to exceed $80 billion globally by 2030. The grocery sector — high volume, razor-thin margins, constant pressure to reduce costs — is exactly where automation ROI is most compelling. Symbotic’s Associated Wholesale Grocers partnership deepens its footprint in a category where adoption can cascade quickly once competitors see the efficiency gains. The long-term pipeline for $SYM is one of the most compelling in the robotics space.

7) CoreWeave $CRWV up +12.0% on Tue 3/31

CoreWeave $CRWV climbed +12.0% last Tuesday after securing an $8.5 billion investment-grade term loan backed by its compute hardware — an industry first. CoreWeave provides GPU cloud computing infrastructure specifically designed for AI training and large-scale model inference.

Getting an $8.5 billion investment-grade term loan backed by hardware as collateral is a landmark moment for the AI infrastructure sector. It signals that capital markets are now comfortable treating AI compute infrastructure as a real, financeable asset class — not just a speculative technology bet. For CoreWeave, it means access to growth capital at better terms than most AI-adjacent companies can achieve.

Long-term outlook for $CRWV: CoreWeave is positioned as a GPU-focused alternative to Amazon, Google, and Microsoft cloud for AI compute workloads. Its specialization gives it a performance and cost advantage for AI training specifically. As AI demand grows and hyperscalers struggle to keep pace, specialized GPU clouds fill the gap. The $8.5 billion loan extends its competitive runway significantly. Long-term, the question is whether it can scale fast enough to defend against trillion-dollar cloud providers. Near-term, the demand environment is strongly in its favor.

💡 Andrew’s Advice:

AI infrastructure keeps winning regardless of market sentiment. CoreWeave and Penguin Solutions both rose on earnings beats and raised guidance — proving that demand for AI compute is real and growing even as the broader tech sector struggles. These are the "picks and shovels" plays: while investors debate which AI company ultimately wins, the companies building the infrastructure they all need are compounding their businesses.

Efficiency and automation are the playbook for a high-cost, inflationary environment. Symbotic's warehouse automation win is a direct response to rising labor costs. Companies that help other companies do more with less are structurally advantaged when margins are under pressure everywhere.

The war creates second-order winners that most investors miss. Argan's construction surge — driven by energy infrastructure demand — both trace back to the same macro backdrop. In every major geopolitical shift, the best trades are often two steps removed from the headline. Train yourself to look there first.

Healthcare and biotech are becoming the new safe haven. Kodiak Sciences, United Therapeutics, and ongoing acquisition activity across the sector all reflect a rotation toward recession-resistant, non-correlated growth. When the macro gets ugly, healthcare keeps delivering — because people don't stop needing treatment because the stock market is down.

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(6) Today’s Trade

The options market is where the smartest traders place their biggest bets. I monitor options flow activity daily.

Virgin Galactic Holdings $SPCE

Virgin Galactic Holdings $SPCE is a commercial space company working toward bringing paying passengers to the edge of space on suborbital flights. After years of development delays, funding challenges, and intense competition from Blue Origin, the company is trading just above its 52-week low of $2.13.

This week, something interesting caught my attention in the options market. Call volume in $SPCE hit 33,654 contracts — 7x the average daily volume and, more strikingly, 40x put volume. Traders are focused on two expiration months: May 15, 2026 (targeting the 3.50 strike call) and July 17, 2026 (targeting the 2.50 strike call, with most July activity appearing to be buys, while some traders close short call positions at the 2.50 strike based on open interest analysis). Both Jefferies and Susquehanna downgraded the stock on consecutive days this week — making the scale of bullish call activity even more unusual.

Call-to-put ratio: 40 to 1. This is an extreme skew toward upside bets. At this ratio, someone sees a catalyst that the stock’s beaten-down price doesn’t reflect. Whether that’s a partnership announcement, a funding development, or simply speculative positioning ahead of news — the options market is sending a signal worth noting.

My take: I’m cautiously bullish on this options play — not because $SPCE’s fundamentals are strong (they’re not), but because 52-week low prices plus a 40-to-1 call-to-put ratio plus unusually high volume equals a setup where a small positive catalyst could create outsized short-term upside. This is a speculative, high-risk, short-duration trade. Size it as a small, defined-risk position. Don’t let the call volume size convince you to overcommit.

Long-term outlook for $SPCE: Commercial space tourism is a real market, but Virgin Galactic faces intense competition from Blue Origin and operates in an environment where SpaceX — about to launch the world’s largest IPO at a $1.75 trillion valuation — is the dominant force. Long-term, $SPCE needs a meaningful improvement in its financial position and a clear path to recurring revenue before it becomes a compelling long-term investment.

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(7) Fear & Greed Analysis (Market Sentiment)

How do you cut through the noise and understand what’s really happening? The secret is to look at the feelings people, the actions of investors, and the facts about the economy.

Current Reading: 19 — Extreme Fear.

This is a negative/bearish short-term signal, but also a historically important contrarian indicator for long-term investors.

A reading of 19 means almost every major sentiment indicator is flashing red at the same time. The S&P 500 is trading below its 125-day moving average (negative momentum). The NYSE is generating far more 52-week lows than highs (negative price strength). Market breadth is weak — far more volume flowing into falling stocks than rising ones (extreme fear). The put/call ratio is elevated — investors are buying protection at a high rate (extreme fear). Safe haven demand is high — money is flowing into bonds over stocks (fear). Junk bond spreads are widening — investors are fleeing risk (extreme fear).

The macro backdrop explains every single indicator. The Iran war, oil above $110/barrel, inflation heading to 4.2%, rising recession odds, and a weakening labor market have all hit the market simultaneously. That’s an unusually high concentration of fear catalysts in a short period.

But here’s the insight that separates smart investors from the crowd: Extreme Fear is historically one of the best times to start building positions. Warren Buffett famously said: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.” The principle is right, but the timing matters.

In my 20+ years in banking and investing, I watched this pattern repeat: the moments of maximum fear — September 2022, March 2020, December 2018, February 2016 — were the best entry points of each cycle. Not because the bad news suddenly disappeared. Because the bad news was already priced in. Nearly everyone who was going to sell had already sold. That’s called exhausted selling. And exhausted selling tends to precede recoveries.

A reading of 19 is not a “buy everything today” signal. It’s a “start planning and building your shopping list” signal. The war could escalate. Oil could push to $150. Or a ceasefire could come this weekend. You don’t know. But what history tells you clearly is that markets at Extreme Fear levels are statistically closer to bottoms than tops.

One year ago, the index was at 12 — even deeper fear than today. Investors who bought there significantly outperformed. The same opportunity may be building now.

My advice:

• Fear & Greed below 15: Consider that a “maximum fear” zone where deploying cash methodically is historically rewarded.

• Fear & Greed recovering toward 25: An early signal that the worst selling pressure has passed.

• Fear & Greed recovering toward 50 (Neutral): Recovery is underway. You should already be invested, not trying to buy the exact bottom.

Current events and macro align perfectly with this reading. The Iran war, rate hike fears, and layoff news are all contributors. When — not if — those fears begin to ease, this index will recover. And it tends to move faster than most investors expect. The time to prepare is now, not when the news gets better.

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(8) Macro Technical Analysis

Technical levels matter because they’re where millions of traders have programmed their buy and sell orders. When key levels break, algorithms kick in and magnify moves.

1) S&P 500

Short-term trend: Negative.

The S&P 500 is showing a negative technical picture in the near term, though there are early signs that the pace of decline is beginning to slow.

The index has broken upward through the ceiling of its short-term falling trend channel — which counterintuitively means the rate of decline is slowing, not that the index is surging. However, the recent double top formation at around 6,797 broke cleanly through support, and the downside target of 6,620 has now been met. The formation signals further potential downside before any meaningful recovery.

Support sits at approximately 6,340. Resistance sits at approximately 6,720. The index is currently caught between these two levels, neither breaking out convincingly nor collapsing further. Medium-term is Positive. Long-term is Positive.

In plain English: the worst of the selling pressure may be starting to exhaust itself in the short term, but the chart hasn’t turned bullish yet.

2) Tech Stocks

Short-term trend: Negative.

The Nasdaq-100 is in the clearest and most bearish technical position of the three assets analyzed this week. The index is in a confirmed falling trend channel — meaning investors have been selling at progressively lower prices over time, a textbook negative signal.

The Nasdaq broke down from a head and shoulders formation at around 24,736 — one of the most reliable bearish formations in technical analysis — triggering a sell signal. The downside target of 24,126 has been met, but the formation signals further downside potential. Support sits at 23,000. Resistance sits at 24,700.

Medium-term is Hold. Long-term is Positive.

Don’t try to catch this falling knife yet. The head and shoulders breakdown in the Nasdaq is a serious signal. Respect it. The medium-term “hold” rating suggests the worst of the decline may pass before getting dramatically worse — but near-term, the path of least resistance is still lower.

3) Bitcoin $BTC

Short-term trend: Neutral.

Bitcoin is at a critical technical decision point. It has broken through the floor of its short-term rising trend channel and marginally breached support at 67,300. An established break below that level would signal further downside. However, volume was high at prior price tops and low at prior price bottoms — a pattern that slightly weakens the bearish signal and suggests the breakdown may not be confirmed.

The overall near-term assessment: neutral/hold.

The key number to watch is $67,300. If Bitcoin holds above that level, it may stabilize near current prices. A clean break below $67,000 opens the technical door toward $64,000 and potentially lower. Given the macro backdrop — risk-off sentiment, Extreme Fear reading of 19, and stock market weakness — Bitcoin faces correlation risk with equities in the near term.

4) Macro Analysis (what this means for you)

The near-term picture is negative across the board. The mid-term picture is improving.

All three assets this week tell a consistent story. The Nasdaq is in the worst shape — confirmed falling trend, head and shoulders breakdown, no near-term reversal signal. The S&P 500 is marginally better — still negative, with some early deceleration of selling pressure. Bitcoin is in neutral territory — not confirming a recovery, but not collapsing further either.

These technical readings align directly with the Fear & Greed Index sitting at 19 (Extreme Fear). Markets that have been sold aggressively for five consecutive weeks tend to show exactly these patterns: falling trend channels, oversold momentum indicators, and broken support levels. The question is always the same: is this the exhaustion phase, or is there another leg lower?

The macro overlay is the missing variable no chart can capture. The Iran war and its impact on oil prices, inflation expectations, and risk appetite is the single driver behind all of these technical moves. No head and shoulders pattern can tell you when the Strait of Hormuz reopens. But charts do tell you where prices are relative to key levels — and right now, we’re in oversold, extreme-fear territory where the risk/reward for patient, long-term investors is starting to improve.

The interconnected signal: The Fear & Greed Index at 19 plus the Nasdaq’s head and shoulders breakdown plus the S&P’s decelerating trend channel plus Bitcoin holding (so far) at 67,300 all point to the same conclusion. We’re likely closer to a short-term floor than a continued freefall — but confirmation hasn’t arrived yet.

My plan: Stay patient, stay informed, stay positioned defensively in the near term — and keep your shopping list updated. When the technicals turn and the sentiment shifts, the move will be fast. You want to be ready before it happens, not scrambling after it starts.

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Part III - My Tips & Advice

9. Advice & Recommendations

10. Final Thoughts & Lessons

11. Your Questions Answered

(9) My Advice & Recommendations:

1. Uncertainty is the real enemy. When no one knows how the war ends, capital hides. When you can't predict the outcome, focus on positioning. Build cash reserves. Avoid bad debt. Own assets that thrive in multiple scenarios.

2. Energy is the only S&P 500 sector in positive territory in 2026 — up 39% this quarter. Oil stocks, LNG players, and natural gas companies are the direct beneficiaries of the Iran war's supply shock. If you have zero energy exposure right now, that's a gap to close.

3. Own the second-order winners, not just oil. The crowd buys energy stocks. Smart money buys helium and aluminum. Helium prices have doubled. Aluminum hit a 4-year high after Iran’s attacks. Buy ETFs like $HEL (helium) or stocks like $AA (Alcoa) and $CENX (Century Aluminum). These are the hidden supply chain bottlenecks that will keep inflating for months.

Read more

A war hits oil. Oil hits inflation. Inflation traps the Fed. Higher rates hit borrowers. Weak borrowers expose bad lending. Then people wake up and call it a recession.

That is the real story right now.

A lot of people still think this is just another bad news week.

It is not.

This is what it looks like when a geopolitical shock turns into an economic shock, then starts leaking into markets, rates, housing, and credit. The danger is not just oil at $100 plus. The danger is what high oil does next.

It raises costs. It revives inflation. It freezes central banks. It pressures weak balance sheets. It reveals what was fragile all along.

In this issue, I'm breaking down exactly what's happening, why it matters, and what you should do about it. I’ll show you how the Iran War just became an economic world war, why oil may stay high for years, why recession fears just hit 48%, and the private credit cracks that echo 2…

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That’s how much market value has disappeared in the past month alone.

And Oil topped $100. GDP growth got revised down to 0.7%. The Fear & Greed Index sits at 20. Extreme fear.

Markets do not crash because of one headline. They crack when several weak spots collide at once.

That is what is happening now.

But what if the biggest risk right now is not the market drop?

What if the bigger risk is that most people still do not understand why the market is dropping?

The real story is not just that stocks fell and $2 trillion of market cap that vanished. The real story is that the economy grew at half the pace we thought, inflation is still running hot, and America is borrowing at a pace that should scare anyone who cares about rates, debt, or the future of the dollar.

Most people think this is just another bad week. It may be the start of a much harder decade.

Slowing growth. Rising inflation. A war disrupting energy and food supplies. The consumer is tapped out. The government i…

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This week, something eerily similar began unfolding.

Oil just posted its biggest weekly gain in the entire history of futures trading. Thirty-five percent. In one week. At the same time, the U.S. lost 92,000 jobs. Wages rose while employment fell. The Fed is frozen. Stagflation, the economic nightmare that defined the 1970s, is back on the table.

Stagflation happens when prices rise while the economy stalls.

We haven’t seen it in a generation. But this week, the ingredients came together perfectly. Oil up 35%. Jobs down 92,000. The Fed stuck between fighting inflation and helping growth.

Meanwhile, Anthropic, one of the world's leading AI companies, published new research this week showing that AI can theoretically handle 96% of tasks in Computer & Ma…

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Fast forward to this past Saturday. The U.S. and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury. Iran’s Supreme Leader is dead. The Strait of Hormuz—the world’s most important oil chokepoint—is effectively closed. It feels like we’re watching a history documentary in real-time.

But here’s the thing most people get wrong: panicking is the only guaranteed way to lose money.

The question isn’t “Is this 1973 all over again?” The question is, “What do I do with my money right now?”

Warren Buffett always says to be greedy when others are fearful. Right now, Wall Street is terrified. The conflict in the Middle East has closed the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices are spiking. Tech stocks are bleeding out. People are running for the exits. But if you listened to me a few weeks ago, you already knew this was c…

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Then the gasoline tractor arrived.

Within a single decade, the horse-powered economy collapsed completely. The horses didn’t fail. They didn’t make mistakes. They simply became obsolete — overnight, at a scale nobody predicted, and with a speed nobody was ready for.

Fast forward to 2010. Blockbuster had 9,000 stores and $6 billion in revenue. They charged massive late fees because their customers had no other choice. Then Netflix offered a better way. Blockbuster couldn’t adapt without killing their own profits. By 2010, they were bankrupt.

In 2007, Nokia controlled 40% of the global smartphone market. By 2012, it was nearly worthless.

That’s not a cautionary tale about bad management. Nokia had great engineers and billions in R&D. It’s a cautionary tale about what happens when the ground shifts beneath a company and they c…

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The stock market is near all-time highs, but the job market is at recession levels. The Fed says inflation is cooling, but the dollar is at four-year lows. Tech companies are spending $700 billion on AI, but their stocks are crashing.

Welcome to the Great Contradiction of 2026.

This week, the data got too loud to ignore. GDP missed badly. The trade deficit hit $901 billion, one of the largest since 1960. Job openings collapsed to 6.5 million, the lowest since September 2020. And 1 in 4 unemployed Americans have been searching for work for over six months.

The uncomfortable truth? The jobs data is lying—real unemployment is much worse than reported.

The official numbers say 4.3% unemployment. The real story is in the 242 applications per job opening. It’s in the 35% drop in entry-level postings. It’s in the long-term unemployment that keeps rising three years after the pandemic “ended.”

Most investors are looking at the wrong metrics.…

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In 2007, housing prices had gone up for so long that most people genuinely couldn’t imagine them falling. In 2000, internet stocks had climbed for so long that most people couldn’t imagine a crash. And in 2024, AI stocks had surged so long that most investors couldn’t imagine a world where the AI trade becomes a liability.

This month, the market started to imagine it.

The S&P 500 flipped negative for the year. The Nasdaq has bled for four straight weeks. A single startup’s press release wiped billions off wealth management stocks. The government admitted 2 million jobs never really existed. And the US national debt is on a path to hit $64 trillion within a decade.

This isn’t a correction. This is a reset. The rules of the last two years are changing. And the investors who recognize that early will be the ones b…

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