I don’t think the greatest investment story of the past 30 years has been about the market.
I think it’s about the way we consume information.
There was a time when most of us watched the same evening news, read the same newspaper, and ended up the next morning discussing the same stories. We weren’t always in agreement, but we typically reacted to the same information.
Today, you and I can be in the same room, open our phones, and walk away with completely different ideas about what’s happening in the world. One is convinced that AI changes everything. Another thinks a recession is imminent. Another can’t help talking about Bitcoin. Another believes it all depends on the next election.
Maybe that’s why investing seems harder today.
Every time I open my phone, someone seems to know what’s going to happen next.
Every time I catch myself getting pulled into too many directions, I come back to the same basic principles.
I’m probably not going to guess better than the market, and I’m probably not going to time it any better, either.
Diversification still works.
Missing the market’s best days remains incredibly costly. Nearly half of those days have historically occurred during bear markets, when investors are often most tempted to pull back.
And despite everything we’ve been through, the market has historically rewarded the people who stayed invested. It has been positive in about three out of four calendar years. That doesn’t guarantee anything for tomorrow, but it’s a good reminder that headlines and markets often tell two different stories.
Michael Saylor’s “Strategy” sold 216 M$ worth of Bitcoin.
Strategy sold 2,225 BTC at an average price of $60,773, generating about $135 million.
Just one week earlier, the company sold 1,363 BTC at an average price of $59,256 $ for about $81 million.
Over the past two weeks alone, Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for a combined total of $216 million.
These sales are part of Strategy’s new Bitcoin monetization program, under which the board authorized the company to monetize up to $1.25 billion of its Bitcoin holdings while keeping the vast majority of its BTC.
Strategy still holds 843,775 BTC, acquired at an average cost of $75,476 $ per Bitcoin.
Fort Knox holds about 147 million ounces of gold. More than half of America’s total reserves. Hundreds of billions of dollars stored in a single vault in Kentucky.
The last complete physical audit took place in 1953.
The “audit” from 1974 that everyone talks about was just a visit. They opened a section for a small group of members of Congress and journalists, showed a few bars, took a few photos, and shut the door.
No full count. No independent weighing. No purity testing on each bar. Nothing that even comes close to a real verification.
That was more than 50 years ago.
The Treasury says internal reviews are conducted and the books are balanced. Maybe that’s true. But this is public gold. It belongs to the American people, and no independent party has verified it in more than half a century.
Germany physically verified and repatriated its gold. The Netherlands did the same. The technology exists to audit each bar individually with serial-number tracking, analysis tests, and tamper-evident seals, without compromising security.
If everything is in order, trust in America’s reserves is strengthened.
If it isn’t, we deserve to know.
There’s a bill in circulation that would require an independent audit every few years. That shouldn’t be controversial.
MICROSOFT $MSFT SUPPRIME 4 800 POSTES, ET SA PROPRE DIRECTRICE DES RESSOURCES HUMAINES A TENUE À PRÉCISER QUE L'IA N'EN EST PAS LA RAISON
The layoffs affect about 2.1% of the global workforce, mainly in sales and the Xbox gaming division, according to an internal memo from the head of HR, Amy Coleman.
“Let me be direct as well: the roles cut today are not being replaced by AI.”
Microsoft also launched this year a voluntary buyback program for long-tenured employees. About a third of the nearly 9,000 eligible workers accepted it, which explains why this year’s layoffs are less significant than those of last year, when Microsoft eliminated a total of 15,000 jobs across two waves.