i'm betting on the US-China rivalry ;) let's chat about it sometimes

@escapevelocity yay! Any insight following Trump and Poutin's visits. I'm not sure China wants rivalry, more something like "control of a harmonious world"?

@ganlan I agree with that statement. For what I mean by US-China rivalry and related investments, check the intro of this article I wrote... https://kronicle.xyz/article/ad0c581c-8d20-4c89-ac6a-eb8671125b70/invest-in-flying-robots It's not about China wanting rivalry, it's about the US as a dominant power seeing another fastly rising power, and not accepting it. My thesis is the US will protect a subset of technologies deemed critical. AI, chips, robots, energy, and so on. What do you think?

@escapevelocity yes they ll protect for sure and do everything to avoid China getting this technology. But the reality is that whenever the US tried to block China, China developped alternative solutions within a few years. I guess that US will want to do something not to depend from rare earth and other battery materials.

@ganlan Yes, so the US is going to protect its local market with regulations, which I think do offer significant investment upside for few specific US companies. As an example, for humanoid robots, magnets and rare earth are critical bottlenecks where China has something like ~70% of the market. So I have been investing in a local rare earth mine in California, $MP (MP Materials). For battery, I've been investing in $SLDP (Solid Power), a solid battery company in Colorado.

@escapevelocity what do you think of this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdUosDhQmwQ

@ganlan Agree on some things, and disagree on others: - He is correct about inflation… if you are not properly invested, you are getting currency debasement, and you are falling behind. Although bad investments will kill you harder than inflation. - He’s right that the system is rigged in France (banks, commissions, etc.) - He is right on the power of compounding. Disagree: - I disagree that building a stock portfolio is a bad idea. I do think it is a good thing for many people (but not everyone). - According to him, you have to be a genius to beat the stock market. I know many investors outside myself who outperformed the stock market indexes significantly with active investing and trading. - He is saying the same thing that became the current dogma for the past two decades: be a passive investor, put everything in a world index, Bogle-heads style. It’s a seducing idea, and one that has worked for the past decades, and that can still work for some people willing to wait decades. But it’s now an idea everyone and their mother has. It’s an idea so widespread that passive investing is now 52%+ of inflows… it was 30% only 10 years ago, and in the low teens in 2000. I do think we are in the passive investing bubble, but it’s hard to time it. Some guys like Michael Green argue that past 55-65% passive flow, the market really becomes unstable. There is no price discovery anymore, and capital is getting exponentially concentrated in the mag 10. When the flows eventually reverse, it could be a waterfall. It’s a non-impossible hypothesis that ETFs could go sideways or be in a bear market for the next 15 years. It happened to Japan. My belief is that if one wants to create significant wealth, being completely passive ain’t going to cut it in 2026. And here is why I think that: the market never makes it easy for everyone to get rich; quite the opposite. And too many people now think they could be a passive investor and win. I might be completely wrong, and I’ll add that I have a bearish bias on many indexes due to other risks, hence why i’m an active investor.

@escapevelocity I agree with you. ETF is too widespread now. When an idea becomes widespread/mainstream then usually it is going to fall soon or later. This current market seems very high to me, so the bubble could explode much higher than the previous ones. As you say, usually the market will punish "normal" people and only rich and wise people will benefit from each crisis. I believe that most of the investors are using this ETF strategy, it was nice 10 years ago but i think this comes to an end. (too bad I did not buy...) Still, I think I'll keep placing some money on ETF on a monthly basis, better than doing nothing in long term.