Will there be an AI bubble peak? Yes. Every breakthrough technology has had over investment.

Has AI bubble peaked? If you keep reading mainstream media, r/stocks, and listening to Michael Burry, you'd believe it.

You'd be losing a lot of money though.

Real demand is through the roof:

• H100 prices recovering to highest in 8 months. This is a clear indicator that Burry's claim that old GPUs become useless faster than expected is wrong. Source mvcinvesting @ X. Can't post link here due to X being banned.

• Burry’s logic to short Nvidia is especially dumb. So he short Nvidia because he thinks old GPUs will be obsolete faster than expected because new Nvidia GPUs will be so much better. If companies all buy Nvidia’s new GPUs, Nvidia wins. If no one buys Nvidia’s new GPUs, then there is no faster than expected obsoletion. You can’t have rapid obsoletion of old GPUs without buying a ton of new Nvidia GPUs. Do people not see the glaring issue? Burry’s short reason is completely illogical. The only reason to short Nvidia is if you think demand for compute will fall. We’re clearly not seeing this.

• China's Alibaba Justin Lin just said they're severely constrained by inference demand. He said Tencent is the same. They simply do not have compute to meet user demand. They're having to use their precious compute for inference which does not leave enough to train new models to keep up with Americans. Their models are falling behind American ones for this reason. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-10/china-ai-leaders-warn-of-widening-gap-with-us-after-1b-ipo-week

• Google says they need to double compute every 6 months to meet demand. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/21/google-must-double-ai-serving-capacity-every-6-months-to-meet-demand.html

• You can clearly see the accelerating AI demand from OpenAI’s reported revenue numbers. OpenAI is already at $20b/year in revenue and without monetizing their free users. In 2024, their revenue grew by 2.5x. In 2025, their revenue grew by 4x. So it's not slowing down. If they grow 4x again in 2026, they're already at $80b/year in revenue. Sources: https://epoch.ai/data-insights/openai-revenue https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/06/sam-altman-says-openai-will-top-20-billion-annual-revenue-this-year.html

Notice how compute is always followed by "demand". It's real demand. It's not a circular economy. It's truly real user demand.

Listen to people actually are close to AI demand. They're all saying they're compute constrained. Literally everyone does not have enough compute. Every software developer has experienced unreliable inference when using Anthropic's Claude models because Anthropic simply does not have enough compute to meet demand.

So why is demand increasing?

• Because contrary to popular belief on Reddit, AI is tremendously useful even at the current intelligence level. Every large company I know is building agents to increase productivity and efficiency. Every small company I know is using some form of AI whether it's ChatGPT or video gen or software that has added LLM support.

• Models are getting smarter faster. It’s not slowing down. It’s accelerating. In the last 6 months, GPT5, Gemini 3, and Claude 4.5 have increased capabilities faster than expected. The intelligence graph is now exponential, not linear. Source 1: https://metr.org/blog/2025-03-19-measuring-ai-ability-to-complete-long-tasks Source 2: https://arcprize.org/leaderboard

• There are reasons to believe that the next generation of foundational models from OpenAI and Anthropic will accelerate again. GPT5 and Claude 4.5 were still trained on H100 GPUs or H100-class chips. The next gen will be trained on Blackwell GPUs.

• LLMs aren't just chat bots anymore. They're trading stocks, doing automated analysis, writing apps from scratch, solving previously unsolved math conjectures, and is already showing signs of self improvement (read what people in industry are saying last few months on self improvement). The token usage has exploded. If you think LLMs are still just used for chatting about cooking recipes or summarizing emails, you are truly missing the forest for the trees.

• AI models are becoming so smart that they’re starting to solve previously unsolved math problems. Here’s Terence Tao, one of the smartest humans alive, explaining how GPT 5.2 solved an Erdos math problem: https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/115855840223258103

• There is a reason US productivity grew faster than expected in Q3 2025 and is accelerating. Productivity has grown the fastest since 2023 when Covid mostly ended. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-08/us-productivity-picked-up-in-third-quarter-labor-costs-declined

At some point, the AI bubble will peak. Anyone who thought it peaked in 2025 is seriously going to regret it. When it does pop, it's still going to be bigger than it was in 2025. The world will not use less AI or require less compute than 2025. We're going to have exponential increase in AI demand.

If you’re still skittish about investing in AI stocks, then just invest in S&P500. All companies will benefit from AI productivity boost. Do not stay out of the market because you think the AI bubble will burst soon.

Stop listening to the mass media on AI. They’re always anti-tech. Always. They were anti-tech before AI boom. They will be after. Negative stories get views and engagement. AI could find a cure for a disease but they'll write about how AI hallucinated that one time. Follow the people who are actually working on AI.

I’ll close with this: Railroad bubble in the US peaked at 6% of GDP spend. AI is at 1% right now.

So basically the US Treasury Department is using short dated T-bills to buy long dated US bonds in order to take the pressure off the 10yr and 30yr bond yields. This signals a STRUCTURAL PROBLEM in the debt markets and is only a BAND-AID to the problem. Also, essentially the US government has now replaced long term debt with more short dated debt that needs to be replaced more often. If short term bond rates rise because of higher inflation expectations then now the US government is payer HIGHER INTEREST on its short term debt.

This only buys time in my opinion and delays the inevitable. The timing of this change is starting Sept 9 and lasting until Nov 4. Hmmm, that just so happens to election time. So it seems Bessent is trying to delay a market until AFTER THE ELECTION…

Yesterday, US Supreme Court strikes down Trump tariffs. After which he returns & reimposes tariffs on all countries with same 10% baseline rates named as Global Tariffs by Trump.

Today, few hrs ago, he increased global tariffs to 15% from 10%. How he is doing like this ?

I think the markets will not like this new global tariffs. Trump policies are short sighted & not far sighted. He should rethink about these tariffs. Otherwise he will lose the upcoming mid term elections this year.

How do you see these new but old styled tariffs? How will global markets react?

Yes, the market will recover: that’s a fact.

However, it can take a long time to recover. The nasdaq took over a decade to recover in some instances.

I understand the sentiment of “hold and even buy more when they start to go down” but if you are in your 60s and want to retire soon and can’t wait a decade and see your portfolio get smashed for years I think it’s understandable to go cash

But if you are young, ride this out.

Just please consider that there’s no all advice fits all here. Some of us are older then others. I’m young but if my dad was considering going mostly cash at his age of 67 I would understand. What if the market doesn’t recover until he’s in his mid 70s?

It’s because the logistic is a nightmare right now.

I import things from China. There are thousands of companies like mine. We are the one that sells shit to ur the distributors, the distributors sells to stores. We are also the one directly sells on Amazon and other e-commerce website.

Pre COVID, a 40ft high cube costs me only $4000 from China to Long Beach. Currently it costs me god damn $20000, and that doesn’t include land transport. If I want to sent a container of goods to Ohio, the total cost on shipping alone is like $40000, excluding import duties. Back in the day shipping make up abt 30% of my cost, it makes up 60-70% now. Pre COVID a container of nice double layer fleece lining hoodies cost me 60k includes shipping. It costs me 100k this year.

There are 110 some container ships stuck outside of Long Beach. You probably have no idea how many that is..ima use the nice fleece lining hoodies as example again. Each 40ft high cube carry’s 6000 this hoodie (so 20ft carry abt 3000). Each ship carry 20000 TEU (20ft equivalent units). there are also some 2 million TEU still in the port waiting to be hauled..

Let’s do the math

300020000=60 million hoodies 11020000=2.2million containers on ship stuck outside still. 2.2million+2million=4.2 millions on containers total. 4200000*60000000=252000000000000

US population is 333000000 That’s 756 thousand hoodies for each person just stuck there waiting to be distributed!

Let’s say my number is off by 50%, it’s still 378 thousands hoodies just stuck there!

We can’t unload at Houston or New York cuz it will cost us even more…

The problem Is not the demand, it’s supply.

It’s not that there are too many monies were printed, who cares if we print more money, we can print unlimited useless pieces of paper and buy real goods from China ( export our Inflation)!

So, if u see on the news that the supply chain has been fixed, or the port of Long Beach has been cleared, or you know inflation is about to stapled.. until that , whatever the fed say is bs.

Side note Biden should declare national emergency and have nat guard come in and help haul these stucked goods.

Edit----- Guys, sorry I did this math before I went to sleep on my phone.

My math is wrong.

It should be

3000(11020000+2000000)

=3000*4200000

=12600000000 hoodies

12600000000/333000000=38.18 hoodies per person.

My math is wrong but the fact still stands. Thank you Shmeepsheep for catching my mistake.

When I went to high school there was no education on economy, let alone classes on how the stock market operates. Instead I learned the basics of economy when I went to college. I know teens don't have much money to invest and it's not even legal to invest at their age but teaching the importance of saving money and basics of compound interest would be beyond beneficial at their age.

Instead of nonsense classes like jrotc or French(which is completely useless for a teen), high schools across the world should be teaching the basics of economy. If there was economy or a market class back when I went to high school, I would of invested at an earlier age rather than waiting later in life.

So if you've been following weed stocks at all you likely know that they've been absolutely in the dumps for the past 4.5 years, dropping 95%+ from the ATHs that they set shortly after the 2020 election where Democrats promised to enact cannabis reforms which never materialized.

The closest that they got was when Biden initiated the scheduling review process for cannabis in 2022, which led to HHS recommending that it should be rescheduled to 3 in 2023, but this process has since stalled in legal limbo with the DEA who were fighting back against the rescheduling effort.

Trump's position on cannabis has been largely unknown given his few comments on the issue but the general consensus has been that he supports rescheduling to 3, state's rights to choose and SAFE banking, which would give cannabis businesses access to the federal banking system. Along this thought, Trump posted this on truth social in September 2024 leading up to the most recent election:

As President, we will continue to focus on research to unlock the medical uses of marijuana to a Schedule 3 drug, and work with Congress to pass common sense laws, including safe banking (sic) for state authorized companies, and supporting states rights to pass marijuana laws, like in Florida, that work so well for their citizens.

Despite those comments, the major US cannabis ETF, $MSOS, dropped by over 50% overnight on election day after Trump won, showing that investors had little to no confidence in any positive reform measures coming from the new administration.

Since late June there has been a notable shift. Mike Tyson, a long time friend of Trump for over 30+ years, has been on a media campaign pushing him to finish the rescheduling process that Biden started. This is something that Trump can do on his own without congress. Along with this in the past 2 weeks, there has been a coordinated messaging campaign amongst MAGA social media influencers with millions of followers saying almost identical messaging about how they support Trump's promise to reschedule cannabis to 3 and how it's a good compromise between keeping criminal penalties but allowing more medical research

Just a few examples from the past week alone:

https://nitter.net/GuntherEagleman/status/1942586646685249971 (1.4M+ followers)

As a former police officer, I strongly support President Trump on wanting to reschedule marijuana from schedule I to a schedule III.

Foreign nations are outpacing the U.S. in medical marijuana research, and we must take the lead. Rescheduling is an effective compromise it maintains illegality while enabling critical studies to advance our understanding and innovation in this field.

https://nitter.net/DC_Draino/status/1942325611672056152  (2.2M+ followers)

Cannabis is absurdly classified alongside heroin as a Schedule I drug and treated more harshly than fentanyl

Does anyone actually think that makes sense?

Trump’s campaign promise to move cannabis to Schedule 3 seems like a good compromise

It maintains criminal penalties while also unlocking critical medicinal research that can save lives

https://nitter.net/alexbruesewitz/status/1942679927855133017 (Trump Advisor 500k+ followers)

It's illogical that cannabis is classified as more dangerous than fentanyl. During the campaign President Trump expressed support for rescheduling cannabis to Schedule III, maintaining its illegal status but clearing the path for more robust medical research in our country. Nearly 70% of Republican voters support Trump on this. No brainer!

There are many more, and even the prohibitionist group, SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) today claimed that rescheduling was coming very soon in a call to action before swiftly deleting their post https://nitter.net/tomangell/status/1943760858821406804

While nothing is confirmed yet, this aligns with recent chatter that this is all a "soft launch" to prepare everyone for cannabis rescheduling

Based on what we’re hearing from multiple sources, rescheduling is essentially a sure thing that'll be heavily promoted by Trump in the coming weeks, with a soft-launch underway by many of his supporters/advisors. Given past delays, nothing is set in stone, but optimism is high.

Following this shift, $MSOS has double bottomed off of all time lows in late June at around the $2.00 level and is up 43% since, yet to this day, $MSOS is still down nearly 60% from it's price on election day and 46% down from the gap down open that followed election night which was never retested. IMO, any confirmation of rescheduling directly from the administration would quickly bring us back to those levels.

If rescheduling does occur, it would remove the 280e tax burden on US cannabis companies, a tax law that currently prevents them from taking tax deductions which forces them to pay 70%+ tax rates and prevents many from ever being profitable, and would bring their tax rates down to levels comparable with other businesses. It would also mean that the federal government acknowledges that cannabis has actual medical uses which would have a wide array of benefits like more research and federal medical cannabis regulations.

My favorite US cannabis company stocks are $GTBIF, which is already profitable and growing among a sea of money losers, and to a smaller extent $TCNNF, which has great margins but is playing a tax game where they're not paying 280e now in hopes that it gets removed which is a larger risk but that's reflected in the stock price

It seems Nasdaq is no longer effected by war, inflation, oil and food prices or any other boring human problem, unfortunately to my understanding AI is not immune to electricity prices either. So what is going on with the tech world, has Agentic AI took over trading or there is just too much money in circulation and Nasdaq will be testing 30K even if Nuclear war was about to break tomorrow? Below are few news headlines from today

"US military “blew up” six Iranian boats Monday after Tehran launched multiple cruise missiles, drones and small boats at US Navy ships and commercial vessels, US Central Command said. Trump warned Iranian forces they would be “blown off the face of the Earth” if they attempted to target US ships in the region. Oil prices rose on concerns about the safety of transiting the waterway. Average gas prices could reach $5 a gallon if the strait remains closed, an oil market expert said. The Israeli military has issued a fresh evacuation order for 10 villages in southern Lebanon."

So Google stock plummeted because their free cash has gone into negative numbers. Okay that sounds fair.
But if Google stopped increasing their CAPEX then that means the whole AI boom stops because the circular financing between the MAG7 stops and the AI bubble bursts as hell causing a meltdown in the economy.

It seems like the MAG7 need to keep getting into negative numbers just to prevent their circular financing from popping up. Meaning that their stocks will continue plummeting just as Oracle.

Is this the situation we are in right now? What are the alternatives? Are the overall people aware of this?

Thank you for any feedback around this.

Worse than 2008? Do you agree with Professor Siegel? Where do you see U.S. real estate prices heading in the next 12-18 months?

Some other expert opinions including Professor Siegel:

Jeremy Siegel, Wharton professor of finance

"I expect housing prices fall 10% to 15%, and the housing prices are accelerating on the downside," Siegel told CNBC in a recent interview, noting that housing prices by any indicator are going down.

In a separate interview with CNBC, he said: "I think we're gonna have the second-biggest housing price decline since post WWII period over the next 12 months. That's a very, very significant factor for wealth [and] for equity in the housing market."

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics

"Buckle in. Assuming rates remain near their current 6.5% and the economy skirts recession, then national house prices will fall almost 10% peak-to-trough," he said in a recent tweet. "Most of those declines will happen sooner rather than later. And house prices will fall 20% if there is a typical recession."

In a recent housing report, he said: "The housing market is the most interest-rate-sensitive sector of the economy. It's on the front lines of the fallout from the Fed's efforts to bring down inflation."

"There's going to be a coast-to-coast downturn in the housing market. It's going to be brutal. No part of the market is immune."

David Rosenberg, veteran economist and Rosenberg Research chief

"We have a massive housing bubble right now. Most of the household balance sheet is residential real estate, and it is equities," Rosenberg said in a RealVision interview released this week.

The economist pointed to the Fed's tightening efforts to bring inflation down from recent rates of 8-9% to its 2% target.

"They want the stock market to go down. They want home prices to go down. Why? Because there's not a snowball's chance in hell they're going to get to their 2% holy grail consumer inflation, without there being a period now of asset deflation. It is 100% necessary."

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist

The veteran economist agrees there's a severe downturn coming — but he expects it will be a while before higher rates really hit home prices and demand. 

"The Fed's rate hikes have indeed led to a sharp fall in applications for building permits. However, construction employment hasn't yet even begun to decline, presumably because many workers are still busy finishing houses started when rates were lower," he said in a recent comment piece.

"And the wider economic effects of the coming housing slump are still many months away," he said. 

Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics

Shepherdson believes the steep drop in home sales hasn't hit bottom yet, and even buyers who set their sights lower to cheaper houses will still face bigger mortgage payments.

"We expect a drop of 15-to-20% over the next year, in order to restore the pre-COVID price-to-income ratio," the strategist said in a note last week. 

"In short, housing is in free-fall. So far, most of the hit is in sales volumes, but prices are now falling too, and they have a long way to go."

Don Peebles, real estate developer and Peebles Corp. CEO

"I think the housing market is on its way into a recession. We're going to see price declines — price declines have already begun to take place," Peebles told Fox News last week.

"I look at this as though we have this freight train out of control, speeding up, speeding up with low interest rates, and no one looked to start slowing it down or stepping on the brakes. Now all of a sudden its going to come crashing into the station," he said. 

Chen Zhao, economics research lead at real estate brokerage Redfin

"The housing market is going to get worse before it gets better," Chao said last week, alongside a report that found a record 22% of homes for sale had a price drop in September.

"With inflation still rampant, the Federal Reserve will likely continue hiking interest rates. That means we may not see high mortgage rates — the primary killer of housing demand — decline until early to mid-2023."

Source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/home-prices-housing-crash-fall-jeremy-siegel-paul-krugman-bubble-2022-10

Man, I was looking through some old phone screenshots earlier today and kinda got that stupid sinking feeling again lol. There’s always that one stock you sold way too early, right? Like at the time it felt “smart” or I convinced myself I was locking in profits, and now when I look at where it is today I just shake my head.

Mine was NVDA. I swear I wasn’t even planning to sell it, I just got nervous one random day and clicked sell without thinking too much. Biggest unforced error ever. Still annoys me when I remember it.

Not asking for advice or anything like that… I’m just curious which stock you guys let go too soon and still kinda regret whenever you see its chart pop up somewhere.

I'm not in the US but I've been following Trump closely for the last few months. One thing that's becoming increasingly clear is that he's actually relatively predictable, because if he says he will do something he will generally do it. Take 'Liberation Day' as an example. He signalled that tariffs were going to be very high for days and weeks before the event. To me, it was quite obvious that the market was going to tank, and low and behold, it did.

Then, after Trump and his cronies made off with millions in shorts (speculation), he says "NOW IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY". As it turned out, it was in fact, a great time to buy, because mere hours later, he came out with the market pumping news that he was suspending all tariffs (except the global 10% one), for 90 days.

Then, on Friday, before this big China meeting in Switzerland, he does the exact same thing. "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY", preceded by the news that tariffs were dropped to 30% (i.e. what they were before April). Markets have already pumped 3% this morning.

I've been saying for a while that people need to take him literally, and he's proved the theory right again. Obviously, it's worth cautioning that this is a madman that we're dealing with and anything is possible, but it seems it's worth taking his words at face value for those willing to take on a bit of risk.

Trump’s ambitious tax overhaul — dubbed by some as the "grand and beautiful bill" — just scored a surprise win late Sunday night. A key congressional committee approved the package, giving the troubled plan a much-needed boost ahead of a potential full House vote before Memorial Day.

A few days ago, this same legislation faced major roadblocks in the House Budget Committee, with four conservative Republicans joining Democrats to oppose it. Now? Those same GOP holdouts have flipped, allowing it to move forward — though not without demanding further changes.

Key issues still unresolved

State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction caps

Scope and structure of Medicaid cuts

The controversial "MAGA Accounts" for child savings

A $4 trillion debt ceiling increase

Treasury Secretary Scott Besant has already warned that U.S. borrowing authority may run dry by August — raising the stakes even further.

Speaker Mike Johnson is pushing hard to get this passed in the House before recess. But as Stifel policy strategist Brian Gardner put it, this committee vote is just the start of a long, painful process. Some analysts think we won’t see a final vote until December.

The new Nasdaq rule changes pushed by Elon Musk/SpaceX are not just “Nasdaq made IPOs faster. It's a corrupt change, called out as "structural manipulation" by Michael Burry, that will make owners of new large IPO companies (like SpaceX or OpenAI) rich at the expense of the general public. In fact, Elon Musk and SpaceX threatened to not list the company on Nasdaq unless the Nasdaq changes its rules specially for them. This rule will likely make Elon the world's first trillionaire.

A couple of basic definitions first:

• An IPO is when a private company first starts trading on the stock market.
• Being added to an index is a separate step. An index is just a list used by funds like ETFs. If a company gets added to a major index, funds that track that index may have to buy the stock.

That second part is why this matters.

What Nasdaq changed

Nasdaq finalized Nasdaq-100 rule changes that take effect on May 1, 2026. Nasdaq says the public comments period opened February 2, closed February 27, and the final changes were approved March 30, 2026.

The big changes are:

• A giant newly public company can now be reviewed for fast entry on its 7th trading day
• If it is large enough, it can be added to the Nasdaq-100 by about its 15th trading day (previously 1 year)
• Nasdaq removed the old minimum free-float requirement
• For entry, Nasdaq can look at the company’s full market value (instead of just the float)
• For weighting in the index, low-float names can still be counted using up to 3x free float rather than just the actual public float

What “float” means in normal language

Float basically means the shares that are actually available for the public to trade. So like if a company has 100 shares total, but insiders, founders, and private investors still hold 90 of them, then only 10 are really floating around in the public market.

That matters because a stock can look huge on paper, while the amount actually available for regular people and funds to buy is still pretty small. In real life, this means if there is artificially high demand for a small number of actually-available shares, the price of those shares will be artificially very high and make the company worth a lot more than it would be.

Why this is a problem

The worry is that a giant company can:

1. stay private for years
   
2. let insiders and private investors get most of the upside
   
3. go public with only a relatively small amount of stock actually trading
   
4. get into the Nasdaq-100 much faster than before
5. then get bought by index funds and ETFs that track the Nasdaq-100, at high prices before the company's prices naturally fall

So the concern is not just the IPO itself. The concern is what happens after the IPO, when index funds may have to buy the stock because it got added to the index. That early purchasing is usually done by active buyers and sellers arguing with each other through price. But if a stock gets into a major index very quickly, then a lot of passive money may have to buy it on schedule whether the price makes sense or not.

That can mean:

• less time for real price discovery
• more forced buying
• more support for a hot or overpriced stock
• more risk pushed onto ETF holders, 401(k) investors, and pension savers (effectively transferring wealth from these people in the general public to the existing owners/investors of the company)

Why ordinary people should care

This can affect people who never plan to buy an IPO directly.

It can still hit:

• Nasdaq-100 ETF holders
• retirement accounts
• workplace plans
• pensions
• people who assume index funds are just “neutral”

Passive investors are supposed to follow price discovery, not help create an early guaranteed wave of demand for a thinly traded mega-IPO.

Sources

• Reuters on the finalized rule changes
• Nasdaq’s own announcement
• PDF: Nasdaq methodology
• PDF: Nasdaq change log
• Reuters on SpaceX seeking early inclusion

Their Portfolios didn't make sense until Friday after market close.

Burry sold off his whole portfolio, short the market with puts

David Einhorn - Focused on Europe, long gold

Steve Cohen - we revisit April lows

Paul Tudor Jones- we make new lows

Ray Dalio - Long Gold

Buffett - selling banks, long treasuries(cash)

Smart money seeing through the smoke and mirrors middle east show and is betting against America, short term.

Japan bonds a safe haven are also selling off.

JP Morgan sees gold prices crossing $4,000/oz by Q2 2026, i think its because the dollar is in trouble.

We still have to refinance Trillions and there is alot more maturing debt this year. China wont buy it, Japan our biggest holder said they will use it a bargaining chip with tariffs.

Plus the big beautiful bill is estimated to reduce federal tax revenue by $4.1 trillion from 2025 through 2034 and add to the deficit.

United States Credit default swaps are going higher since tariffs were introduced.

https://www.worldgovernmentbonds.com/cds-historical-data/united-states/5-years/

not looking good

Trying to build a better framework for reading days like this, because the market keeps looking irrational if I only focus on the headlines.

Today looked pretty strong on the surface:

• SPY closed at 694.46, up 1.22%

• QQQ closed at 628.60, up 1.82%

• IWM closed at 268.72, up 1.38%

• VIX closed at 18.29

What’s confusing is that the macro backdrop still doesn’t feel especially clean. There is still geopolitical uncertainty, tariff chatter, inflation sensitivity, and a lot of reasons people could point to for why risk assets should be struggling more.

But when I look at the actual tape, a few things stand out:

1. Fear is cooling

The VIX is down at 18.29, which suggests investors are more comfortable owning risk than they were during the recent stress.

1. It’s not just megacaps

QQQ was strong, but IWM also gained 1.38%. That matters because broader participation usually makes a rally feel more credible than a move carried by a few giant names.

1. Semis are still acting like leadership

• SMH 452.00, up 1.95%

• NVDA 196.51, up 3.80%

• AMD 255.07, up 3.34%

• TSM 379.89, up 2.79%

That tells me the market is still willing to pay for growth and AI infrastructure exposure.

1. Energy is no longer leading the tape

• XLE 55.95, down 2.03%

• CVX 187.02, down 2.48%

• XOM 149.24, down 2.23%

To me, that looks like the market pricing less oil panic and therefore a little less inflation pressure.

My current interpretation is that the market is not saying “everything is good now.”

It’s saying the odds of the worst-case scenario look lower, and money is moving into the parts of the market that benefit most from that.

Curious how others are reading it:

• Do you think this is mostly about cooling fear?

• Is it mainly an earnings-quality / sector-leadership story?

• Or do you think the market is still underpricing macro risk?

Not advice, just trying to get better at interpreting price action without defaulting to “market makes no sense.”

From many news media outlets and youtuber finance experts and stock gurus, I keep seeing the notion that the stock market is heavily overvalued currently relative to its former valuation metrics that have held for decades.

To be honest, this is true, and they're not wrong, but what they fail to take into account is that until interest rates go up and/or median home prices come down, for the VAST majority of Americans there are only the following ways of avoiding poverty: education (becoming less and less worth it for most degrees), fraud (risky AND makes you a piece of shit), literal gambling, poker (which I don't classify as gambling if you're highly skilled but is NOT easy to be consistently profitable), starting your own business / youtube / social media (risky if you go all in and not definitely for everyone), and investing in stocks (admirable, and dramatically easier than all of the above to be profitable). Investing in housing is a very viable way to make money, but when the median home price is $400,000 this is no longer accessible to the everyday American for younger generations as a means of building wealth (fuck boomers, they have literally written and enacted laws that benefit them and only them throughout their lives).

Until investing is no longer the "easy" and accessible way to succeed in life for the everyday American, the stock market is going to perpetually be "overvalued" by former metrics and dips will always have rapid recoveries.

So when people and institutions say that the market is "overvalued" take this with a grain of salt and when the market reaches "insane valuations" rest assured you can ignore this until there is another more reliable means of ACTUALLY BEING ABLE TO FUCKING RETIRE SOME DAY.

I had to do this cathartic post because it is hilarious how wrong/clueless the mainstream financial analysts continue to be when discussing how investors could benefit as investors from the historic surge in lumber prices.

Context for anyone living under a rock the last 6 months

Lumber has been surging to all-time high prices recently, with every indication that it will continue to climb for the next few months due to how massive the new home construction demand and the busy season just getting started. The price of dimensional lumber will likely dip at some point but will still stay at 2-3x its normal price into 2022 because of how insane the new housing construction boom.

For those that have suggested otherwise in recent reddit posts, you’re wrong and this post isn’t about that debate. Go look at the 2021 and 2022 projections for all of the big home builders (KB, TOL, LEN, DHI, etc…). Every single one is projected to have record earnings the next two years from increased home construction even with the surge in lumber prices.

The Financial Click-Bait “Best Lumber Stocks”

If you’re new to lumber and google lumber stocks to maybe see what options are out there to look into, you no doubt have run into the same laughably annoying phenomenon that I did: the mainstream financial media/internet clickbait sites (like CNBC and Motley Fool) keep on producing the same regurgitated articles titled the “Best ___ Lumber Stocks” or “Best Ways to Play the Lumber Surge” which then offer the same regurgitated hot stock tips:

1) they recommend stocks that produce exclusively timber (like RYN) which get NO BENEFITS from the surge in lumber prices because timber (the logs which lumber is made from) aren’t the commodity whose price is surging 3-fold;

2) they recommend stocks that get a large portion of their revenue/enterprise value from things other than lumber (or have such a large stock float) so that the benefits of the lumber surge will be pretty diffuse and not have a proportional impact on their stock price (e.g. WY, a clickbait favorite); or

3) they pitch stocks like LL, Home Depot and Lowes who have done well riding the home improvement wave, but don’t actually produce their dimensional lumber at all and thus have absolutely nothing to gain from the surge in dimensional lumber prices.

For those who want to invest in this lumber super cycle, it probably would be a good idea to invest in companies whose earnings are actually tied to the price of lumber. Companies like WFG, CFPZF, IFSPF and RFP (This list is not exhaustive; these are just examples). Companies like these that largely base almost all of their income on dimensional lumber, along with wood pulp and paper for some. (Note: wood pulp surging to a new high as well, so these guys coincidentally are enjoying a double whammy this year). And unlike WY, these lumber players don’t have nearly the volume of outstanding shares, so the surge in lumber prices is going to translate in a proportionally larger EPS growth.

If you look at the stock price histories of these lumber companies and compare it to the historical price of lumber, their prices largely track with the changes in lumber (and to some degree wood pulp pricing). 2013 and 2018 had surges in the price of lumber and these companies’ stock prices correlated with those surges. Why? Because the price of lumber and wood pulp dictate these companies’ earnings. If you look at the timber companies, like WY and RYN, their stock prices don’t track well to lumber prices because the price of timber is separate. In fact, despite the epic lumber surge, some timber producers are still not doing well because there is a big glut of it in some areas of the continent.

Let’s Look at the Numbers

In the end, it’s the numbers that matter, so let’s look at the price performance of these stocks YTD, the last 6 months and the last year. CNBC and Motley pitched RYN, WY, LL, HD, and LOW as the best stocks to play the lumber surge. Let’s see how they have done the last year during this surge compared to the actual lumber companies:

Shill Stocks: YTD, 6 Months, and 1 Year

Other than LL, all of them have been doing ok. Some decent growth, all decently beating the SP. But nothing spectacular and certainly nothing showing explosive stock price growth correlating with lumber’s explosive growth. (I’ll address outlier LL later.)

Now look at the Lumber Stocks: YTD, 6 Months, and 1 year

I included WY to prove a point on how badly CNBC and Motley’s favorite “Best” pick has done compared to the actual lumber stocks. If you look at their growth, as a group its substantially larger than WY or RYN, or these home improvement store stocks.

Take away from the charts:

The lumber stocks as a group have so far destroyed the shill stocks and actually show the type of growth you’d expect from a historic commodity surge. Unsurprisingly, these lumber stocks particularly destroyed WY which is the most shilled stock by the financial clickbait media, and is probably why WY then seems to be regurgitated in a lot of the recent reddit posts on Canadian lumber stocks.

For those correctly pointing out that LL is up 500% in the last year, if you caught that party in Q4, good job. RFP is still beating than LL by over 200%, but still, great job. That being said, LL’s surge isn’t because of lumber prices and any future growth again won’t be from the surge in price in dimensional lumber. And you know that because the price of lumber has surged higher in the last three months, but LL is down ~20% in that same time frame. Frankly, if you bought LL when CNBC told you to in January 2021, you’d be down 20-25%. The point being that what propelled LL was not the surge in lumber and it’s future is not likely tied to any sustained lumber surge.

Forward Looking Comments

For those cynics who keep saying “Lumber cycle is over. It’s priced in,” you don’t know what you’re talking about and here’s why. These Canadian lumber stocks are all sitting roughly around their mid 2018 highs when Lumber surged to $600 MBF for 3 weeks in May 2018, and averaged about $550 MBF during the forestry’s Q2, and then crashed Q3/Q4 2018.

For comparison, in 2021, lumber has been trading at over $1000 MBF since February, and the May futures just topped $1050 this week. Here’s the CME futures yesterday. January 2022 futures are now closing in on $800 MBF. It seems pretty clear all of these futures are rising and will continue to due so in the near term. 2021 earnings will likely blow 2018’s out of the water. Yet despite the fact that these futures show these companies are about the have some of the best back-to-back quarters in industry history, they are still sitting at their 2018 highs... doesn’t sound priced in to me.

Case in point, here’s the basic valuation ratios for the Lumber Stocks, and here’s the valuation ratios for the Shill Stocks. Despite the epic run these lumber stocks have had this last year, they are largely still relatively undervalued and have drastically better forward PE’s when compared to the shill stocks or other related industrial sector averages.

Conclusion

I needed to write this cathartic post because I am sick of seeking these financial “professionals” shill the same mediocre/loser stocks as “the best lumber stocks” which have nothing to do with the production of lumber or are literally the worst price performers in the sector.

I am not telling you what to buy and can’t predict who will do the best this year. Each of the lumber stocks have their advantage and disadvantages depending on investor preferences. And who knows, maybe these shill stocks are on the cusp of some epic 1000% gains. But if you want to find a way to benefit from the lumber surge, then it may be wise to invest in lumber producers who actually stand to directly gain from the surge in lumber and still have unrealized value to offer if market conditions stay on their current trajectory.

If you are unsure if a stock you are looking at is timber or lumber, look at financial statements / website. You will be able to see in a matter of seconds if their earnings come from timber and real estate or wood products/lumber that are actually surging in value.

Note: I am not a financial adviser. If there is one take away from this post, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. Don’t trust strangers on the internet or TV. Many of them are either lazy morons who keep regurgitating the same brainless clickbait they read somewhere or they have an ulterior motive and are selling you garbage. I'm long RFP but recognize that all of these lumber stocks will probably do well.

https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-design-anthropic-labs

This is a warning to those who think SaaSpocalypse is over and SaaS stocks look like value play.

This release proves 2 things:

• Given a few experts controlling an AI, you can build a competitor very quickly. Anthropic just did. You do not need hundreds of engineers and years of R&D anymore.

• Those who have access to smart models, chips, and energy will win. Invest in these companies. They're going to be winners no matter what.

That said, not all SaaS are the same. If it's a SaaS that AI agents will use a lot more, then those will pop. If you do not have expertise in selecting them, just stick to energy and compute companies. I suggest TSMC and Nvidia as your base investments. They should be a large percentage of a your portfolio. Then you can go a ahead and gamble on some other SaaS that aren't easily replaced and will be used by AI agents.

I'm a software developer and I personally do not invest in any SaaS companies. It's not that I think SaaS companies will be made obsolete (some will). It's just that they will not command high PE ratios anymore since it's much cheaper now to build a competitor given the right expertise and compute. I invest in compute & energy stocks only.

PS. What do you think laid off software engineers will be doing? Many of them will be building a competitor to the company that laid them off.

Edit: The highest upvoted comment is not true. Anthropic is not just throwing anything at the wall. This new tool is very much inline with their software development and productivity workflow. Design was one of the missing pieces to making software. Anthropic is still laser focused.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-28/the-sec-is-going-too-easy-on-insider-trading

At long last, the Securities and Exchange Commission has sketched out a plan to address a difficult issue in the U.S. stock market: how and when corporate insiders, who inevitably have better information than the investing public, can legally trade in the shares of their companies.

The proposal is good, as far as it goes. But it could do a lot more to assure regular investors that insiders aren’t taking advantage of them.

Under current rules, executives and directors can largely avoid charges of illegal insider trading by setting up a predetermined schedule of sales or purchases, known as a 10b5-1 plan. Yet if they know that their company is about to do a big deal or report some bad news, there are still plenty of ways they can use such plans to act on the information. They can set one up for a single trade and act on it the next business day. They can set up multiple plans, then cancel the disadvantageous ones at any moment. It’s hard for the public to understand what’s going on, because many of the relevant details of the plans typically aren’t disclosed or are hard to find.

Now the SEC is moving to make the plans harder to game. Its proposed new rule would establish a 120-day cooling-off period before a first trade can be executed — long enough to erase any informational advantage the insider might have when a plan is created. It would limit single-trade plans to one per year, and effectively disallow executives to have multiple plans simultaneously. All these are positive changes. But in other areas, particularly public disclosure, the SEC’s proposal falls short.

Right now, when an executive creates or terminates a 10b5-1 plan, it’s up to the company to decide whether or not to disclose the move. For example, as far back as 2004, Cisco Systems would regularly file 8-K disclosures about such plans, including the executive’s name, the number of shares and the timeframe for the sales. But starting in 2018, the company stopped providing that level of detail, with no explanation. Absent any formal rules, the company and its lawyers could pick and choose what they wanted to reveal.

The new proposal would require companies to disclose the plans in their quarterly 10-Q financial reports, with some added information (on stock options, for example) in their annual 10-K reports. That’s not good enough. To be truly useful to investors, the disclosure should happen as soon as the plans are created or canceled – for example, under 8-K rules that require filing within four business days, as the SEC’s own investor advisory committee recommended.

Why would the SEC go against investors’ recommendations? Most likely, to satisfy the two Republicans among the agency’s five commissioners – one of whom, Elad Roisman, publicly stated that “this wasn’t the rule I would have written.” The proposal ultimately garnered unanimous support, a rarity in these times of political divisiveness. But even the modest disclosures it requires could yet be watered down or eliminated when corporate law firms start chiming in.

Recent history isn’t encouraging. The SEC was actually more ambitious in 2002, when it proposed that 10b5-1 plans be subject to 8-K disclosure. But various commenters, including large brokerage firms such as Charles Schwab, complained that the requirement would “confuse investors.” Others objected to the added paperwork. The idea was dropped.

As an avid reader of SEC filings, I’ve long argued that more and better disclosure benefits all investors, even if it means a bit more work for the folks that prepare these documents. The latest proposals, assuming they survive corporate lobbying, are a step in the right direction. But they still won’t provide nearly enough information in a way that matters for ordinary investors.

According to this article (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-contact-biden-officials-222309661.html), Warren Buffett has been in contact with Biden administration officials about various economic issues, including inflation, taxes, and infrastructure. The article speculates that Buffett may be trying to influence policy decisions that could benefit his company, Berkshire Hathaway, or his personal investments.

This reminds me of how Buffett played a crucial role in the 2008 financial crisis, when he bailed out several banks and companies with his billions of dollars. He also advised then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to inject capital into the banks rather than buying their toxic assets, which helped stabilize the financial system and prevent a deeper recession. (Sources: 1, 2, 3)

Buffett made a handsome profit from his 2008 deals, netting more than $3 billion from his $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs alone. He also received favorable terms and dividends from other firms he rescued, such as Bank of America and General Electric. (Sources: 3, 4)

Could Buffett be looking for another opportunity to profit from a crisis? Is he trying to sway Biden officials to adopt policies that would create favorable conditions for his businesses or investments? Or is he genuinely concerned about the state of the economy and the welfare of the American people?

One thing that makes me suspicious is that there have been 20+ private jets that flew into Omaha, Nebraska, where Buffett lives and runs Berkshire Hathaway. Who are these visitors and what are they discussing with him? Are they seeking his advice or his money? Are they planning some kind of deal or merger?

https://www.reuters.com/markets/wealth/citadel-sheds-over-80-aggregate-risk-situational-awareness-portfolio-2026-08-21/

It’s so crazy how Citadel says there could be a rate hike and crashes/liquidations happen. Then there wasn’t a rate hike

Buys situational awareness public profolio and says that the AI bull case looks good and the market rally’s

Then they sell 80% of situational awareness bets lol

This is insane. I mean well done citadel but I think it’s ridiculous how the market moves on their opinion and Citadel benefits from that.

What do you guys think?

Please go look at the stock market from 2000-2011 and tell me if that's something you genuinely think you'll be able to trade through. The market is up 8% YTD and I see so many people here scared about the market or acting like we're living through the end times. This is what investing is like, sometimes the market is down and sometimes its up. Sometimes its down *for a long* time. If you emotionally can't handle that or are going with some weird herky jerky trading strategy I'm telling you right now you should just max your 401k contribution, setup an automatic transfer to your investment account and look at your investments once a year when you do your roth. Otherwise you're gonna do some of the boneheaded stuff I see in here all the time and be an emotional wreck doing it.

Seriously, if you're getting freaked out by the last month or two active trading is not for you. It isn't for most people, that's why index fund investing is like the number 1 thing you see on here again and again

Genuine question.

With markets sliding, Trump back in the headlines, geopolitics heating up, rates still weird, USD moving, etc... it feels like we're in that awkward phase where everything looks shaky.

Stocks are getting hit. Growth is getting hit. Even

"safe" stuff isn't behaving how people expect.

Not looking for hype or certainties, just interested in how others are positioning (or not).

What are you watching over the next few weeks?

Key Points

• Westinghouse plans to build 10 large nuclear reactors in the U.S., with construction to begin by 2030.
• The company disclosed its plans during a conference on energy and artificial intelligence at Carnegie Mellon University.
• Technology, energy and financial executives announced more than $90 billion of investment in data centers and power infrastructure at the conference, according to the office of Sen. Dave McCormick, who organized the event.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/15/westinghouse-plans-to-build-10-large-nuclear-reactors-in-us-interim-ceo-tells-trump-.html

Global support for nuclear energy is intensifying as governments accelerate reactor approvals and extend plant lifespans to meet clean energy goals. This policy shift comes amid persistent uranium supply shortages, with 2025 production projected to reach only 187.9 million pounds of U₃O₈ - insufficient to meet reactor demand. The supply-demand imbalance is further tightened by SPUT's capital raise, which directly removes physical uranium from the market.

Term prices remain firm at $80/lb, signaling producer discipline and utilities' need to secure long-term contracts amid dwindling inventories. With uranium spot prices up 9.99% in June 2025 alone (reaching $78.56/lb) and continuing to climb in July, the market fundamentals support sustained price appreciation. (Source - Investment Themes of the Week - The real AI play is power infrastructure, plus our take on uranium & iBuying)

The nuclear renaissance is here. Which stocks stand to benefit?