r/investing

I was watching this unfold this morning. Bessent announced the Treasury is doubling its buybacks, explicitly to keep the 10- and 30-year from running. The 10y dropped to 4.64% then bounced back to 4.67% while I was looking. The 30y sat around 5.21%. Gold went through $4,550 on the futures, spot near $4,544.

The thing that bugs me is how many people are calling this money printing. It is not. The Fed is not even involved. A buyback is the Treasury buying its own bonds back, and it funds that by issuing new debt. Mostly short bills, because issuing new long bonds to buy back old long bonds would accomplish nothing.

So it is a maturity swap, not a debt reduction. Fixed long debt becomes short bills you roll forever. Total debt does not shrink. And the interest bill can actually go up, because if the short paper you are issuing costs more than the long debt you are retiring, every rollover costs more, not less.

What matters for gold is even simpler. The government is now saying out loud it cannot let the 10y rise. That is suppressing the symptom, not treating the cause. Suppress nominal yields while inflation is still sticky and real yields fall. Gold trades inverse to real yields. And this is also a signal about the dollar itself, which is where gold, with no issuer and no counterparty, wins.

I am not pretending it is a straight line. Japan ran yield control for years without the yen breaking. One day above $4,500 proves nothing. If inflation dies or the dollar strengthens for other reasons, this reverses.

But the reason I think today is a preview and not a top: they chose to suppress the symptom instead of doing anything about the deficit. Every step further down that road, more short issuance, a bigger interest bill, then the pressure to actually monetize it, is good for gold. Today is pricing step one, not the whole chain.

I hold gold, so I am biased. Check it yourself. The number that would make me reconsider fastest is the actual size of the buyback relative to the market, or how much of the funding is short versus long. What are you watching?

I got stocks. I got bonds. I got gold. I got crypto. But I was curious about alternative investment vehicles that some people might have. Lately my feed has been blowing up with pokémon cards and people at those conventions trading hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars value cards. So that got my mind going about alternative ways of generating alpha.

The Pokemon world seems too crazy and deep for a novice like me to start trying to get into. I come from the generation of pokémon red and blue on gameboy. I have no idea of the modern manifestation of pokémon. Lol. Grading and all the different graders and all the hacks and scams and fakes. Seems daunting to try to enter that world.

I've seen the services and websites where you can buy fractional shares of famous paintings from famous artists. But then upon reading reviews that seems like a iliquid money sink according to reviews I've read.

Some people do stamps

Some people do coins

Some people do regular sports trading cards.

So people do Legos

So I'm just wondering what if any alternative things you guys do As investments? Are there any things or ideas that I'm forgetting or missing?

If you stretch the timeline to 10-15 years or longer, 99.9% of arbitrageurs, quant traders and short-term traders don’t look good.

Returns get hit hard by mean reversion. A lot of them end up losing money overall. On top of that the constant stress messes with cortisol, sleep becomes shit for years, and the body takes real damage.

In the end it’s just not worth it.

The deeper problem is an epistemological mistake. They treat things that are fundamentally unknowable as if they were knowable. They mistake random noise for something their skill can consistently beat over long periods.

It’s basically epistemic hubris. Overestimating how far their own cognition can reach, and treating limited human rationality like it can fully control a complex system.

I have seen Besset and the treasury doing some unusual manuvers to prop bond yields, Japan and now long term bonds. I also see yields reacting positively/dropping. I am surprised IMO this should do the opposite. The government is manipulating yields, doesn't this look desperate? Prompting a negative market reaction and yields increasing.

Trump's meeting on crypto at the white house today injected a long-awaited surge in crypto. A lifeline really.

Trump has called on congress once again to pass the clarity act when they get back to work in September.

MSTR is up 12% on the news.

October is the supposed predicted date of bitcoin 4-year cycle.

Bitcoin has already touched in the $50s, which most models using the 4-year cycle predicted that the higher low of this cycle would be in the $40s-$50s.

Plus the stock market is a little bit sideways and there was that bonds buyback news that's just kind of gloomy news for the dollar - making gold and Bitcoin possible safe havens. Along with the normal bearish mid-term markets.

I feel like buying some MSTR in-the-money calls for September or October.

My kids are soon to be starting high school and the target investment strategies my 529s use are soon to be converting to more conservative funds. I am hesitant move the money and miss out on more years of potential gains. I understand the market could go in the other direction and I could lose money.

I have about $150,000 for each child in the 529 accounts. I have the means to pay any and all future tuition without needing the 529 so I am not afraid of dips in the market requiring me to pull money at bad times. I would like to use the 529s though for the tax savings and to use the other money for other things. Should I just keep the investment strategy fairly aggressive or just follow the target investment strategy? Anyone just keep investing throughout the time their kids are in high school and college?

I figure I can always use the funds towards potential grad school, kid's roth IRAs, or transfer the money to grandkids if I have money left after my kids finish college and any potential post graduate school.

I saw this Reuters number today and had to read it twice.

Anthropic was at about a $47B revenue run rate in May. Now they’re projecting $190–200B for 2028, and apparently those numbers are already part of the IPO valuation discussion.

That’s basically 4x the May run rate in two years.

Maybe they pull it off. AI growth has made a lot of crazy numbers look normal lately.

But $200B is a ridiculous number to be underwriting for a company that isn’t even public yet.

I have a financial advisor who manages
my retirement investments. I have $150,00 I want to invest on my own. I’m not risk averse, but I don’t want to monitor my investment every day. I have money in HYSA at ~ 4.05 % for a rainy day. Suggestions ?

I’m looking into a long term investing strategy and I am torn between growth and dividend growth. I am leaning towards dividend growth but would like some _perspective_ (NOT advice) from both types of investors.

For dividend growth investors:

1. have you found that your models are accurate?
2. has your portfolio had any major upsets? How did you deal with them?
3. have you found more stocks are better (diversification) or less (less to keep track of)?
4. how do you feel about taking lower asset growth for your current returns?

For growth investors:

1. how do you separate hype stocks from actual growth stocks? Or do you? If not, how do you manage the immense risk?
2. do you research industries or individual companies for growth? How do you choose stocks if you research industries?
3. do you have any plans for emergencies/cashing out? My long term plan is to turn dividend reinvestment off when I need cash, turning my portfolio into an income machine. How do you plan to cash out when this involves selling the assets, which are volatile?

Any comments/redirects greatly appreciated. Happy to have a discussion with anyone about this!

It's always interesting to look at hype and then actual earnings and revenue.

I look at Tesla who has a PE of about $320 and is never made its targets and is not particularly profitable and really subsist on hype. And the next great thing doesn't happen. They've been around long enough to perform and they haven't done it.

Then I look at Applovin very successful staggering margins consisting growth with a low PE. Double the revenue growth of Tesla. Healthy predictable reliable cash flow. And growing beyond their market of gaming into other areas.

Evidently robo taxis and AI robots are going to take over the world and everybody's going to buy them. The robo taxi market is targeting Uber and Lyft, but yet Tesla sells cars and robo taxis would displace that business supposedly. Right now their main business is making cars electric ones. And the competition is fierce and if China ever steps in, it's going to crush them.

Things that make you go hmmmm

I'm sure there's other examples of height versus reality. Seems to be hype is winning.

I’m 23 from the U.S and have around 20k saved up so far (I’ll be able to contribute more). I run a service business and that pays for all my other expenses like rent, car, food etc. What would be the smartest way to invest most of this? Looking at a roth ira but is there other investments I should consider. I’m completely new to all of this. I’d ideally like to be able to retire early and use this money before getting old lol. I wouldn’t mind higher risk if it means achieving my goal sooner. But again completely new and hopeful haha.

Recent reports indicate that Anthropic's valuation could be down a third from its peak just two months ago as DeepSeek and Kimi are rapidly closing the performance gap at a fraction of the cost.

Anthropic is likely spending continuously into falling prices with a product that gets commoditized in a few quarters before it's paid for. That's pharma without patent protection, and nobody pays high valuation multiples for pharma without patents.

If frontier models are commoditizing this quickly, how much is Anthropic really worth?

The whole lawsuit and capex deal are driving the price down so much, im going to keep on buying the dip as i think it is also a great long term hold, hoping to get my average shares into the low 500s. What do you guys think its share price will reach, or when do you think its could bounce back?

For example a colleage kid who don't have time to spend finding what stock to invest and why to invest that, so they just put in SP500

while a rich dude who have been trading for years they don't do that.. they invest specific stocks only, based on their analysis or strategy so they outperform SP500 at the end.

Hello, so I have 100k i want to invest. I am with BOA, and the Merrill advisors are onto me, lol. I asked about aggressive portfolios. The best numbers he gave me were 16% on the best year so far, which was 2025. 2024 was 15%, and 2023 was 14%. He said 80k can turn into 350k in 20 years. Im like, that's so slow for an "aggressive" portfolio? He lowkey made it seem like my strategy wasn't going to work out as good, and they monitor it way better, lol! 😅 he's telling me his clients with 100k invested made 7k last year. Isn't that extremely low for an aggressive portfolio? I could get more by just putting everything in the S&P-500 (VOO). I may want to seek another company for advisors and portfolios, or I may just invest it myself. You guys let me know what you think. Thanks.

I am 29 with no rent, debt or expenses and do not plan to buy a house in the next few years. I have maxed my IRA out this year, 7,500 in checking, 30,000 in a HYSA and 9,000 that I just put into an FXIAX fund. I just started investing like a month ago so am new to this. How would you/ allocate these numbers if you were me?

My advisor at Edward jones says not to invest right now. I have a large chunk of money that’s been sitting there for 4 months. They say wait until late fall to invest. Is that a good strategy? I feel I’m losing money by not investing any of it. Some could have gone up by 10%+ in the last 4 months.
Not looking for advice on what to invest in, I already know where I want to put the money. They just say it’s not a time to buy.

Thoughts??

EDIT: I’ve been persuaded and transferred my account to Robinhood

Hello I have an offer in my Robinhood app and I am considering moving from fidelity to them as I would get 3% on 126k, which to me is definitely a good amount. Any downsides to doing this aside from having to be with them for 5 years? Do I need Robinhood gold the whole 5years to maintain this bonus, or even at all?

Thank you

Soros’ reflexivity theory is playing out pretty cleanly with SpaceX stock.

Everyone has been bracing for the lockup unlocks and assuming “it has to drop hard when the shares come free.” That shared expectation itself shifted the price path ahead of time. By the time the actual unlocks hit, a lot of the selling pressure had already been priced in, so the damage wasn’t as severe as people originally feared.

You keep hearing the same line: “Once it unlocks it’ll crash through 100 real quick, then I can scoop it up around 90.”

When enough people are thinking exactly that, the risk stops being a pure future event. It becomes something the market has already started reacting to.

Expectations don’t just forecast the future, they help create it!

I’ve been looking at how some of these companies are valued compared with their actual revenue, and the numbers seem insane. SpaceX is valued at around 80–115× its revenue, Palantir is around 70–80×, and some AI, space, and nuclear companies are even higher. Meanwhile, a normal established company is usually closer to 1–3× revenue.
I definitely think this looks like a bubble, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will burst anytime soon. There is so much money pouring into AI, and everyone is afraid of missing out on the next huge company. The valuations could keep climbing for years, even if they already seem disconnected from reality.
What do you guys think? Are we in an AI bubble, and if so, how long could it realistically keep going? What do you think would finally cause it to burst?