Weakening labor market
Higher gas prices
Higher borrowing costs
Higher utility bills
Is it possible for consumer sentiment to go negative?
06.03.2026 13:48
👍 22
🔁 2
💬 5
📌 0
Weakening labor market
Higher gas prices
Higher borrowing costs
Higher utility bills
Is it possible for consumer sentiment to go negative?
The private equity complex is in the midst of a pretty nasty crash
Current drawdowns from the highs:
Carlyle -25%
Apollo -39%
Ares -42%
Blackstone -43%
KKR -44%
Blue Owl -61%
The stock market's reaction to war is often counterintuitive
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/03/geop...
Animal Spirits: A Wave of Redemptions
Geopolitics vs the stock market vs AI
Is inflation risk back?
Is it time for a correction?
The optimistic view on AI
The most broken housing market in America
The private credit crisis of confidence & more
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/03/anim...
Higher gas prices
Higher interest rates
Lower stock prices
The market has spoken -- it doesn't want this war to last
Risk is off today:
S&P 500 -2.2%
Bitcoin -2.2%
Nasdaq 100 -2.4%
R2000 -3.4%
Gold -4.7%
EAFE -4.9%
Emerging Mkts -6.7%
Silver -8.9%
Some rules for dealing w/uncertainty:
Strong opinions, loosely held
Be skeptical, not cynical
Discipline matters more than optimization
If all else fails, simplify
Doing nothing is a decision
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/03/10-r...
Watched Terminator 7: Department of War tonight
Jon Connor and Kyle Reese get sent back in time to subtweet Sam Altman on behalf of Anthropic
A 42-year-old small business owner has a $2 million portfolio, no debt & no dependents
But he's miserable running the business
Wants to know if he can retire now and pull $170k/year in withdrawals
Is this feasible?
From a covered call strategy?
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/02/can-...
The unemployment rate is still 4.3%. It's not happening yet
lol
Doom is a wonderful sales tactic
It's a terrible long-term investment strategy
Some thoughts on why optimism remains the only logical long-term investment strategy even in the face of so much doom about AI:
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/02/opti...
Yes I will be doing to audiobook (a first for me)
I wrote a new book.
It comes out in May.
In some form or another I've been working on this one for 10+ years.
You can pre-order it now here:
lnk.to/riskandrewar...
Tech predictions this decade:
Crypto is going to take over the dollar
Everyone is going to live in the metaverse
NFTs are going to replace art
DOGE is going to save the govt trillions
I think it's totally fair to be skeptical about tech's AI forecasts
Animal Spirits: Everyone Hates AI
AI doom reaches new all-time highs
Is housing an AI hedge?
AI needs a better PR agent
A very weird stock market in 2026
The ex-US bull market
OpenAI vs Anthropic
Bitcoin is a software stock & more
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/02/anim...
Americans 55 & older now control:
45% of consumer spending
74% of the wealth
What does this mean for the next generation, the housing market or the stock market?
Some thoughts:
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/02/rich...
The AI downsides are obvious: job displacement, fraud, maybe Skynet, etc
How about some positives?
It's possible we need AI to fill the productivity gap that will be caused by the fertility crisis
It might be coming at the perfect time
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/02/pros...
Bitcoin still acting like a software stock
A 30-year-old owes $470,000 on his house with a 6.375% mortgage rate
Should he make early mortgage payments or continue investing in the stock market?
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/02/earl...
A west Michigan staple
Is it possible to bet on Polymarket that a 79 year old man will throw a temper tantrum today?
@bencarlson007.bsky.social's bookshelf game, impressive. Really need to get step up.
Oh and conversation was great too.
"When do Baby Boomers' homes hit the market?" is one of the most-asked questions clients/others ask. We go into that and a bunch more.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=utrU...
The ex-U.S. trade is finally working
Every major country is outperforming the S&P 500 this year
The gap since the start of 2025 is widening
Germany & South Korea haveoutperformed over the past 5 yrs
Will it last?
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/02/the-...
Bad things can & will happen
But it's important to recognize so many dire predictions from this cycle never came to pass
Spending 95% of your time worrying about things that happen 5% of the time is how to scare yourself out of markets that usually go up
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/02/some...
I’m still doing relatively novice stuff so I haven’t ventured out yet
Watching a movie from 2013 tonight to help me understand how the future will play out
$AAPL will own consumer AI. 2.5 billion active devices worldwide. Every app has to play nice and be interoperable with Agentic Siri upon launch.
They’re never the first product. Just the best.
And unavoidable.
Animal Spirits: Is AI a Mistake?
The doomsday AI jobs scenario
The Saas Apocalypse
The ex-US trade is working
Gen Z loves the stock market
The Millionaire Next Door take down
Pros & cons of prediction markets
Middle-aged dad milestones & more
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/02/anim...
My brother Jon passed away a year ago
I'm a midwesterner so I typically bottle up all of my emotions
But I wanted to share some thoughts on what I've learned about grief
It can be a lonely emotion but the way you work through it is with others
awealthofcommonsense.com/2026/02/some...
