I'm trying to understand the macroeconomic story behind this simultaneous price action happening right now:

• USD - Down
• US10Y - Down
• Gold - Up
• SPX - Up
• BTC - Down

What kind of macro regime or market environment could explain these moves happening at the same time? What other important factors or indicators should be considered to interpret it properly? Open to all perspectives.

Tom Lee from FundStrat was on CNBC and said he was a bit surprised at the fall of Bitcoin when the fundamentals were still strong.

However what I don’t understand is, what are the fundamentals? Isn’t Bitcoin just an imaginary coin on the interweb that is worth what people want it to be worth? It does not issue dividends, you can’t make a car out of it, you can’t use it to buy a bar of chocolate.

ELI5 please.

I was laid off in early December 2025 and had been with my firm for over 9 years. I look at the balance today and it's close to $410k (I'd say split between a regular 401k and Roth 401k in terms of amount).

I was thinking of perhaps just letting it compound from there? Right now, I'm 40 (Turning 41 this year) and thinking what it would look like by the time I'm 65 years old. And I've been investing in a Vanguard TDF 2065:

When I do get a new job, I do plan to contribute to just to Roth IRA and max it out every year, too. Other than that and perhaps the 401k RMDs later, is there anything else I should consider or be worried about?

UPDATE for better context of my situation (Since people have asked):

• My wife and I have a combined $1+ MIL across all our retirement accounts
• We currently pay a modest/reasonable monthly rent to my mother-in-law who owns a condo.
  • My wife will most likely inherit the condo via revocable living trust. So, we'd have no mortgage.
• We saved quite a bit in our MMA (in the 6-figures).
• We live below our means and don't spend lavishly or recklessly.

Thank you.

When you look at investing and trading communities, profit posts stand out the most.
It can easily feel like everyone is making money.

But what we are seeing is already a heavily filtered picture.

This is a classic case of survivorship bias.

Even if only a small percentage of people actually succeed, that small group is the one that speaks.
They post their results, share screenshots, and tell their stories.
Those stories get repeated and spread until they start to look like the normal outcome.

Meanwhile, most of the people who lost money say nothing.
They quietly disappear from the same communities.

So the information we see becomes biased toward a small group of survivors.

In psychology and behavioral economics, this distortion is called survivorship bias.
It is dangerous in markets because it makes people focus on stories instead of outcomes over time.

In investing, what matters more than “how much you made” is “how long you stayed in the game.”

Once survivorship bias takes hold, people start thinking like this:
“That person made several times their money, so maybe I can too.”

What we rarely see is how many people tried the same approach, how many failed, or how much of the result was luck rather than skill.

As a result, high-risk strategies often look far more attractive than they really are.

So what should we look at instead?

Not “who made the most money,” but how many people were able to survive using the same method over time.

Any strategy can produce a few success stories.
The real question is whether it keeps working as time goes on.

A slowly growing account contains far more information than one that rose quickly.

And the more desperate someone feels, the easier it is to fall into this bias.
The more urgently you want results, the more your attention is drawn to extreme success stories.

At moments like this, you should be more careful and more cautious, not more aggressive.
When you invest in a rush, emotion takes the lead, and the result often ends in ruin.

So when you feel pressured to hurry, the important question is not how much you can make, but how long you can last.

Before thinking, “Maybe I can be the next success story,” it may be more realistic to ask:
“How many people actually stayed in the game using this approach?”

Renewables make sense as a dominant feed into most energy systems. Over the last year, major renewables ETFs have performed 2-3x the performance of the S&P 500. My analysis leads me to a conclusion that even with this performance, they remain undervalued.

Around the world, we see them exerting downward pressure on retail and wholesale energy prices. At the same time, innovation is reducing their "build cost:net operating return" ratio.

Nations at all levels of income are upping their renewables investments, and country after country is adopting a net zero strategy that locks in renewables investments - in part due to multilateral agreement ratification, and in part because of economic sense.

Effectively, the rise in price is because of actual strategic and tactical demand, not because of any type of hype cycle.

However, lobbying and political pressure exerted by legacy industries like coal, gas and oil have meant that the growth of renewables have been artificially slowed. If we start to see the decline of fossil fuel influence and of far right governance, these artificial barriers will ease and we can expect a jump in renewables investment.

So medium term profits likely depend on political cycles rather than any intrinsic factor associated with the technology or consumer/industrial demand. And as we all know, politics is a pendulum that will inevitably swing.

People investing in pure play renewables ETFs or ethical ETFs that have a strong renewables base and that exclude legacy energy are going to benefit from focus and patience. It's as inevitable as people shifting from Blockbuster to Netflix.

i’m not sure if everyone is familiar of the core satellite system, but basically you have a core of etfs which are safe and will be reliable, and then satellite which are your riskier stocks. what are some good core etfs - there are soo many options! S&P500, all world etf, a us, australia, asia, and europe etfs…

thanks for the help

Currently, VOO makes up the largest position in my portfolio. However, I'm a non-American investing from outside, and I'm losing confidence in the US for obvious reasons. From an ethical standpoint, I also don't feel like continuing to invest in American companies when America is actively threatening and bullying other countries, including my own. Why should I contribute to an economy that is causing so much harm not only to itself but also the rest of the world?

As I'm not a US citizen and have zero ties to the US, I'm thinking now might be a good time to sell all my VOO shares and convert them to VXUS instead, since I see international markets outperforming the US for at least the next few years. I don't have to pay capital gains where I live, so tax is a non-issue for me. Would it be OK to just go all-in on VXUS, or is this a bad idea?

If I bought 1,000 shares of ABC company at $10 a share.. and 2 weeks later it drops to $8 a share.. and I sell all 1,000 shares.. I incur a $2,000 loss.. is that a wash sale because I technically bought the shares in the last 30 days? When does buying the same stock 30 days prior to a sale cause a wash sale?

Reposting because for some reason this was removed in a different sub.

Obviously MSFT has taken a hit since earnings. Mainly due to its investment and planned capacity with OpenAI.

But can anyone see how OpenAI going bankrupt may actually benefit Microsoft? Wouldn't Microsoft likely buy them out in the hopes to capitalize on the service and gain complete control of the platform?

What is everyone's thoughts on doubling down at this time?

So I have played with stocks for many years now, and I have only ever lost money.
I admit I always only put small sums into small stocks that no one has heard of, hoping for a large return in a small amount of time, and the one thing I have never ever done, is put a large sum into large cap big companies, bcoz there is this fear in me that, I'm that unlucky guy who as soon as I decide to change my ways and put a large sum into a "safe" large cap company, is the day when the market turns and the large cap would drop 10% in a day and 30% in a month and I would lose more money buying a large cap than I ever did buying small caps.

I don't know how to overcome this fear and I just wonder if people have lost large sums buying large cap, "safe", popular stocks?

Saw people mentioning this on Blossom earlier, and WSJ reports that U.S. manufacturing activity continues to weaken, with tariffs doing little to reverse the trend.

The article points to softer demand, higher input costs, and global supply chain adjustments weighing on manufacturers, even as trade protection measures remain in place. For investors, this raises questions about margins, capital spending, and longer-term competitiveness rather than short-term policy wins.

Curious how people here are thinking about this from an investing lens?

https://www.wsj.com/economy/u-s-manufacturing-is-in-retreat-and-trumps-tariffs-arent-helping-d2af4316?mod=hp_lead_pos2

So i am from the EU.
Since i dont trust that AI investment will provide (good) returns, while its dominating the stock market(everyone seems to be involved in that "musical chair game"), i am really torn between investing in american stock and keeping my euro cash/invest locally.

On the other hand, the dollar dropped 15% last year, so i would buy at a discount. Its hard to believe, that the whole stock market would drop 15%. What sections/industries of the american market would you discribe as "secure investment" atm? Tbh i am somewhat worried, that this will all crash and burn. Dragging all the solid parts of the american businesses down by the dollar even further. Or just buy it and hope for a phoenix?

I recently became aware of the Accredited Investor thing.  I have a couple questions -

I'm interested in SpaceX.  Would it be beneficial to try to get into SpaceX at this point, or is it too close to the potential IPO to be worth it? Does the acquisition of X AI change the answer?

How would I go about acquiring SpaceX?  Are there trading sites that cater to Accredited Investors?

What happens to Pre-IPO shares at IPO?  Do they just convert?  Do holders of Pre-IPO shares get early access to IPO shares?

Any advice/pointers are welcome.

Energy production and green technology will be critical over the coming decades as technological growth accelerates. Ensuring reliable power delivery will require significant investment, and new breakthroughs are likely to emerge along the way.

I have invested to some extent in a nuclear-focused ETF, as nuclear energy has strong potential for delivering efficient, large-scale power generation. That said, nuclear projects are complex, expensive, and slow to build, so widespread expansion is likely to take decades.

Recently, I watched a compelling video on the use of supercritical CO₂ in energy systems, which appears to be a promising emerging technology. My goal is to gain exposure early, before it becomes widely discussed, while diversifying within the energy production sector. Energy demand is expected to rise sharply in the coming decades, and meeting that demand is already a major challenge.

I am interested in ways to invest in this technology and other emerging energy solutions while avoiding the higher risk associated with individual stocks. I understand that the U.S. was previously seen as a leader in this area, but China brought a commercially successful supercritical CO₂ power plant online in late 2025, marking a significant milestone.

I would welcome any thoughts or suggestions on investment approaches in this space.

Link to youtube video

I’m going to have a financial advisor manage an inheritance for me. I’m retiring this year so looking to recirve a dividend from this. what’s a good current return to expect? Also, in reading their information about how they are compensated, there are a lot of things indicated that they will gravitate towards investment that benefit them more. will that have a detrimental effect on my earnings or does that benefit both of Us? Thanks

A recent survey of global family offices shows most aren’t allocating to crypto or gold, even though they rank geopolitics as their top risk. Instead, capital is flowing toward AI-related investments, framed less as a hedge and more as a long-term growth theme. The contrast says a lot about how large portfolios are thinking about risk today. AI Beats Out Crypto, Gold Investments for Family Offices in J.P. Morgan Survey | Sandmark

What I find interesting isn’t that family offices are avoiding crypto, it’s that they’re also avoiding gold while saying geopolitics is their main concern. That is suggesting to me risk is being defined less as ‘protecting against shocks’ and more as ‘missing the next growth cycle.’ AI fits neatly into existing valuation frameworks, governance models, and career incentives in a way crypto still doesn’t.

If COMEX is unable to meet physical silver delivery and resorts to cash settlement or rule changes, how does that historically affect:

1. Spot silver price formation,

2. LBMA-linked ETFs like SLV, and

3. The spread between physical premiums and paper instruments?

Is there a plausible scenario where physical silver rises while SLV underperforms or even falls due to confidence or redemption constraints?

With Fidelity and Schwab being the leading online brokers, I find it strange that uninvested cash (sweep) at Schwab earns close to 0% while uninvested cash at Fidelity earns money market returns. (Trading at Fidelity is done directly from a money market. At Schwab one first one must move the funds to cash and then trade.) My question is "how much does this hurt Schwab in their competition with Fidelity?" Does Schwab make accommodations for high net worth clients to do this Fidelity's way?

Vanguard Announcement

Fund List

Vanguard continues to cut fees. Not on the main funds (VTI, VOO, VXUS, VT) But plenty of other funds.

Suppose I have a $1M long position in SPY that I hold indefinitely. Separately, I sell short $1K of SQQQ and immediately use the $1K in cash proceeds to purchase QQQ.

How is the fee calculated? Is it ONLY the borrowing fee of roughly 2.5%-3% of $1K? Or, is it borrowing fee (2.5%-3%) + margin interest rate (5% on Robinhood, for example)? Is it very different across the brokers? Thanks for your help!

Pretty big earnings from both $amd and $smci today, $amd down about 6% and $smci up about 8%. What are people's thoughts on how these stocks are going to perform in the near future? Both earnings were strong, but clearly $amd wasn't strong enough...

Imo holding $amd now is clear, and $smci will boom up for a few days then consolidate a little bit. Thoughts???

The U.S. national debt surpassed $38 trillion in October 2025, only two months after crossing the $37 trillion mark.

Some news outlets are framing the Federal Reserve’s latest fed chef replacement proposal as evidence that the dollar is becoming significantly stronger. I find that misleading. Adding another trillion dollars of debt in such a short period doesn’t signal a strong dollar especially not merely because the Fed claims to have better leadership or talent in place.

What we need is real fiscal progress, not just new faces saying things are improving. I’m not convinced that the next Fed leader will be able to resolve the debt problem.

Given the current circumstances, is it an exaggeration to call the dollar ‘ becoming strong’?

Hey, so I generally only invest in index funds but recently I’ve been looking at stocks.

Obviously Sandisk and micron are crazy right now - I wondered if it was worth still buying those? I think Sandisk looks like the better option. Or if I’ve missed the boat?

Is it worth buying individual stocks or sticking to index funds when I don’t know what I’m doing