I haven’t actively traded since I retired four years ago. That changed on Liberation Day, when I was drawn back into the market, in hope of taking advantage of an expected crash. My short position, however, didn’t deliver much—Trump backed down too quickly on April 9 and I failed to realize the gain.
For most of May and June, I stayed on the sidelines while others were busy trading TACO. My thumb-sucking stopped when Trump managed to bomb Iran’s nuclear site and simultaneously avert a war. I was genuinely impressed by his ability to thread the needle. No U.S. president since Jimmy Carter had pulled off something like that.
I came to believe that Trump administration, working with tech entrepreneurs, could spark a major tech/AI-led boom in the U.S. market. So I started loading up on TQQQ in July. My current non-RE portfolio looks roughly like this:
- 90%: TQQQ/UPRO
- 10%: SHV/BND
It’s a sharp departure from my original retirement plan. If the Internet and mobile revolutions were 100-foot waves, the incoming AI revolution could be a 1,000-foot tsunami. The future arrived in Silicon Valley a couple of years ago—it just hasn’t fully spread to the rest of the economy yet.
Like the Internet and mobile boom, AI’s short-term promise may be overhyped, but its long-term impact is likely underestimated. For investors with a 10–20 year horizon and beyond, tech/AI seems a sure bet.
Of course, no one knows exactly who will capture the profits from this revolution. Back in the 1990s, people saw the Internet’s potential and went all-in on false promises like AOL, Yahoo, Cisco, Xerox, IBM, and Kodak, or even outright frauds like Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing. Many of those names didn’t survive. The true winners—the so-called MAG 7—were still beyond the horizon at the time.
I don’t know how many of today’s MAG 7 and hot tech/AI startups will still dominate 10–20 years from now. The greatest risk, however, is not taking the risk. Even though I can’t predict who will be the winners, it's likely they’ll become major components of QQQ—that's essentially my bet for the next decade.
All I can do now is to sit back and watch how reality unfolds.
