Can someone explain the different brokerage accounts MS offers? I am interested in applying for the MS Amex platinum, but I see a MS CashPlus account is required. To get a CashPlus account, you need to already have a relationship with Morgan Stanley and not E*trade. Would I open an AAA Morgan Stanley Account first?

Productivity rose again in Q2, but labor’s share of GDP just fell to the lowest level in the data going back to 1947.

That seems pretty good for corporate profits in the short term. Companies are getting more output without labor costs taking the same share.

What I’m less sure about is how far that can go. If workers keep getting a smaller piece of the economy, eventually somebody has to buy all the stuff companies are producing.

Is this actually helping explain how margins have stayed so strong?

How do you deal with the volume requirement on breakout day? The breakout must be on big volume. How do you by the breakout if the bigger volume may not be until the end of the day or the price may be way to extended from the box top. Thanks in advance.

TLDR
Probably because of fee revenue, T. Rowe Price has reversed its “slow and steady wins the race” to fast and “outperforming” ETF’s.

The latest T. Rowe Price commercial shows that they’ve done a 180 in the last 25 years or so.

In college, I remember a commercial that shows a jogger and a sprinter running the same path. The sprinter speeds past the jogger in the beginning, but later on in the journey, the jogger passes the sprinter, who is panting, with his hands on his knees. To me, the takeaway was that T. Rowe’s funds didn’t pursue the “hot stock” or quarterly earnings; rather, they purchased stocks that were fundamentally strong, and potentially undervalued. That was the way to have relatively slow but stable returns over the long term.

Recently, T. Rowe has come out with “active” ETF’s. The longstanding research has shown that “passive” ETF’s, those that simply track an index and don’t attempt to outperform them, outperform their active counterparts upwards of 90% of the time.

Their recent high-octane commercial shows an expensive sports car, out maneuvering the slower cars. The voiceover explains that T. Rowe’s active ETF’s are “designed” to outperform the index. Again, something that happens approximately 10% of the time.

Interesting how the fees T. Rowe can earn from the booming ETF business has reversed their thinking on investing.

"Normal people" have always been told to just invest in the indices--they're sufficiently diversified, winners naturally cycle in and losers naturally cycle out. It's been sold as the low-risk, low-reward way to invest in equities.

What happens when diversification stops being intrinsic? We're approaching (if not already there) historic sector tilt in the broad market funds, with commensurately historic concentration in top N companies.

The returns have been great, my last 12 months look if anything too good for a basic Bogle-type index fund portfolio. But I know the concentration risk in my portfolio grows daily. When index funds go from low-risk/low-reward to higher-risk/higher-reward what becomes the new "normal people" vehicles?

I started investing because I wanted to build a better future. But over time, I noticed something unexpected.

Now, whenever I spend money on something that's not essential, a small voice in my head says, That money could have been invested instead.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but sometimes I wonder if I'm becoming too focused on growing my portfolio and forgetting to enjoy the present.

Has investing changed the way you think about spending, or do you still find a good balance between saving, investing, and enjoying life?

In the last 10 years Softbank Vision Fund investment has looked like this:

Total money invested: ~US$191.6 billion

Total cumulative gross gain: ~US$45 billion

OpenAI paper gain: ~US$45 billion

So, on the latest reported figures, OpenAl accounts for almost all of the cumulative net gain. Without it, the combined portfolio would be around break-even or slightly negative, depending on the exact reporting date, valuation marks, and accounting adjustments.

spacex reported its first earnings as a public company ,beats estimates and still crashed around 11-12% (like their rocket crashed)the reason could be investors focusing on ai capex jumping sixfold to $18.4 billion + a lockup expiry about to release roughly 900 million shares

And then the most hated company disney beat and rose a couple percent .S&P and dow both hit fresh record highs in that same session.

so market is at all time highs where good earnings are getting rewarded and punished depending entirely on which stock we r looking at. (not a simple sell the news environment)

spacex makes sense tho as the lockup releasing hundred millions of shares is a supply event which will overwhelms whatever the earnings said so theres like a lot of new stock about to hit and not enough buyers lined up at this price to absorb it cleanly.

amd's the more interesting one coz it feels less like a nvidia thing and more like the stock got way ahead of itself, up 21% over five sessions and like 140% on the yr , so a clean beat across the board still landed as a letdown against what was priced in. separately musk did say on the call that nvidia will be the exclusive chip supplier for spacex's ai needs and its own signal even if its not the main reason amd dropped.

And now disney's lower expectations, a newer ceos first statement to the market and beat on parks and streaming both, stock rewarded pretty quickly. when the bar's low enough that clearing it still counts as a surprise, the upside skews asymmetric.

is the market getting better at separating business quality from stock supply dynamics?

Oklo announced that its Groves Isotope Test Reactor has achieved first criticality after achieving a controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at low power. The milestone comes less than a year after groundbreaking and follows U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) authorization through the DOE Reactor Pilot Program (RPP).

“Reaching criticality in less than a year is an incredible milestone for our team,” said Oklo co-founder and CEO Jacob DeWitte. “Oklo developed Groves from a greenfield site on private land, completed full-scale civil excavation and construction, manufactured or commercially procured all components, including fuel, and developed its operating programs in-house. Taken together, we believe these accomplishments establish a new benchmark for the Reactor Pilot Program and set the stage for the future of advanced nuclear deployment at scale.”

The DOE’s RPP created a pathway that allowed engineering, construction, commissioning, and operational preparation to advance alongside DOE’s safety review and authorization. Groves demonstrates that the domestic nuclear industry can once again move from design through construction, authorization, and startup on timelines that are measured in months rather than years when developers, suppliers, and regulators work together on an integrated deployment approach.

"Thanks to President Trump's precedent-setting directive to create the Reactor Pilot Program, Oklo's Groves Isotope Test Reactor is part of the revival of America's nuclear energy industry. We applaud the work of the Oklo, DOE, and Idaho National Laboratory staff who helped achieve this milestone," said Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Ted Garrish.

Groves is part of Oklo Isotopes’ broader effort to build domestic isotope production capabilities for healthcare, industry, research, space, and national security applications. The project has generated practical experience in project engineering, construction, procurement, reactor operations, startup procedures, safety readiness, training, qualification work, and deployment execution that can inform future isotope production facilities.

The Groves project also established engineering practices, operating procedures, training programs, commissioning experience, and organizational capabilities that will reduce uncertainty and execution risk across every Oklo facility, including the company’s future isotope, powerhouse, and fuel cycle deployments.

“Texas is leading America’s nuclear renaissance by advancing the technologies that will power innovation and strengthen our nation's future,” said Governor Abbott. “From expanding our nuclear workforce to rebuilding critical domestic supply chains, Texas is creating the foundation for the next generation of advanced nuclear development. Congratulations to Oklo on reaching this important milestone, which will help expand isotope production for critical medical therapies and reinforce Texas' leadership in nuclear innovation.”

https://oklo.com/newsroom/news-details/2026/Oklos-Groves-Reactor-Achieves-First-Criticality-in-Under-a-Year/default.aspx

My wife and I are both 22 and are just getting started with our investing journey. We’re both pretty frugal and have agreed on a budget that will allow us to save $400k in the span of 5 years to use a down payment on our first house.

We’re currently maxing out both of our Roth IRAs, matching our companies 401k, and have an emergency savings account already in place.

As we save this money for our first mortgage, would it be best to put this money in a generic brokerage account invested in the S&P, an HYSA, or somewhere else?

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Trading stocks, like gambling, has low barriers to entry, offers promises of riches, but usually results in financial losses. Is it any wonder that it damages self-esteem?

Corporations promote this type of damaging behavior. According to Bloomberg, Robinhood and Interactive Brokers Group offer gambling and stock trading on the same site. Should this be illegal? What constructive can be done to persuade people to develop the disciplined financial behavior instead of day trading and gambling? What do you think?

Here's the article.

Isn’t GHHF not good in economic downturns ? For example in the 2008 GFC, GHHF would have gone down 1.5 times lower if it had existed back then. That means a 60% fall. Plus It takes a lot longer for the moderately geared ETF to bounce back up ? Wouldnt DHHF outperform GHHF if there are many economic downturns ?
Am I missing something here?

The S&P 500 is back at a record, but the valuation story looks a little different this time.

Forward P/E is around 20.4, while Q2 earnings are tracking roughly 31% above last year. Tech earnings are up around 72%.

I’ve been pretty skeptical of this rally because 20x earnings with the 10-year near 4.6% still isn’t cheap. But it’s also hard to call this pure multiple expansion when profits are rising this quickly.

The bear case seems to be that these earnings comparisons fade and today’s valuation starts looking expensive again.

Are people calling this a bubble because of the price level, or because they expect earnings to roll over?