Written by: The Smartin Team
The Continent of Leisure is Beating Us
I woke up and saw the Euro Stoxx 50 up 2.59%. Europe! The place where they take August off to look at rocks is suddenly the lead singer of the global economy. This immediately tells me the US market is a trap. When the people who invented the siesta are outperforming your expectations, it means the ground is about to fall out from under us. And yet, the SPY is sitting at 710.14, up 3.5%. The QQQ is at 648.85, up over 5%.
It’s disgusting. It’s an insult to my intuition. My gut is screaming “Sell everything and buy canned beans,” which, based on my track record, means we are probably heading for a five-year bull run that will make the 90s look like a bake sale. I’m doing the opposite. I’m staying in. I’m staring at these numbers until my retinas burn.
The Tech Overlords and the Quantum Fever Dream
Look at MSFT. Up 10% to 422.79. That’s a trillion-dollar company moving like a penny stock on a caffeine bender. NVDA climbed another 6.53% to 201.68, and AMD is chasing it at 278.39, up nearly 13%. But let’s talk about the real insanity: IONQ. It’s up 54.87% this week to 46.09. Fifty-four percent! In a week! I don’t even know what a quantum computer is. Is it a computer? Is it a cat in a box? I bought a toaster last week that doesn’t work, and meanwhile, people are 1.5x-ing their money on subatomic particles.
The Lynchian Reality Check
Peter Lynch would be having a coronary looking at these valuations. He always said to look for the story, but the story here is “number go up because I want it to.” If you look at these tech fliers, you have to ask yourself: where is the growth? If the PEG ratio looks like a phone number, you’re not investing; you’re participating in a collective hallucination.
The Debt Trap in the Basement
Then you have the “other” stocks. HOOD is up 26.62% to 90.75. COIN is at 206.33, up 18.22%. It’s a frenzy. But while everyone is partying, the energy sector is being treated like a skunk at a garden party. XOM is down 4.06%, CVX is down 4.06%, and OXY dropped a massive 7.35% to 53.79. People are fleeing “real” companies with “real” oil for digital coins and quantum dreams. When I see this kind of divergence, I start panicking about balance sheets. I start asking what is a good debt to equity ratio for a company that might actually exist in five years, because when the music stops, the companies with the big debt loads are the ones that get turned into spirit Halloweens.
The Meme Resurrection and the Retail Revenge
I saw GME up 4.91% to 24.55 and AMC up 28.28% to 1.86. Even BB joined in with a 25.58% jump to 4.86. It’s 2021 all over again, except I’m older, more tired, and my hairline has retreated further than the oil sector. TSLA is at 400.62, up 13.68%. At this point, TSLA isn’t a car company; it’s a psychological test. If you bought it at the bottom, you’re a genius. If you’re like me and you’ve been waiting for a “reasonable entry point” since 2014, you’re just a guy screaming at a screen in a dark room.
How to Survive This Without Losing Your Mind
If you want to know if these moves are sustainable, you need to check the Peter Lynch fundamentals. You can’t just buy because the Euro Stoxx 50 had a good day or because some guy on a forum told you “to the moon.” You need to see if the earnings growth actually justifies the price hike.
I’m currently “Post-Roasting” my entire portfolio. Every time I think, “I should buy NFLX because it’s down 5.67%,” I slap myself. Why is it down? Is the story broken? Or is it just a temporary dip in a great company? According to my new strategy of doing the opposite of my instincts, I should probably buy the thing I hate the most. Which, right now, is everything.
If you’re tired of doing manual math on companies like PLTR (up 10.59% to 146.39) or SNOW (up 7.26% to 143.98), you need a tool that doesn’t have a nervous breakdown every time the VIX ticks up. You need a fun stock market app that actually tells you the truth about the numbers.
I’ll be here, staring at IONQ and wondering if I can pay my rent in quantum bits.
👉 Download Smartin: Quick Stock Ratings on the App Store today