To The Moon

Hello everyone! Today i want to share some investing stories with you!

1 AI BOOMING

After a first half of 2026 dominated by blockbuster AI, semiconductor, and space IPOs, the market is entering a new phase. Strategists say the back half is shaping up as a rebalancing: mid-cap and overlooked sectors are preparing to test investor appetite as money moves beyond a handful of crowded mega-cap AI and chip trades.

$SpaceX(SPCX)$, which went public on June 12 on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker SPCX, has been the defining deal of the year. The Elon Musk-led company raised roughly $86 billion in its IPO, giving it a market value of nearly $1.8 trillion at listing and making it the largest IPO in financial market history. Excluding that offering, it still would have been the strongest U.S. IPO quarter since 2021, driven by billion-dollar listings in software, semiconductors, and fintech, according to Renaissance Capital.

Momentum is now building. EY's Global IPO Trends Q2 2026 report says U.S. IPO proceeds reached approximately $115.6 billion through the first half of 2026, a dramatic increase from the prior year, driven largely by a handful of mega-IPOs. The firm says that, if current pipelines convert and market conditions remain supportive, the second half of 2026 could rank among the strongest IPO periods on record, with investor interest spanning areas such as AI infrastructure and other strategic growth sectors.

"Investor sentiment in the near term is likely to be shaped by the outcome of several anticipated mega IPOs, with capital and attention expected to concentrate around these transactions," according to Rachel Gerring, EY Americas IPO leader. "In this environment, issuers should remain flexible around timing to successfully access the market."

Across industrial markets, AI adoption is accelerating, defense spending is increasing, and private capital continues funding category-leading companies at high valuations. Those trends are creating favorable conditions for IPOs and restructurings, according to a June 25 J.P. Morgan note, which says investors are increasingly willing to back growth tied to automation, software, and smart manufacturing while favoring businesses with clearer earnings visibility and infrastructure-like cash flows.

That demand is not limited to domestic names. South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix, a key Nvidia supplier, priced its American depositary receipts at $149 each on Thursday; they opened Friday at $170 on the Nasdaq. The company offered 177.9 million ADRs, raising about $26.5 billion in what would rank among the largest U.S. share sales by a foreign issuer.

Late 2026 is also the target for marquee tech and AI IPOs such as Anthropic, which is reportedly eyeing a valuation of around $1 trillion after a recent funding round valued it at nearly $965 billion post-money.

Several crypto and fintech firms, including Kraken, Blockchain.com, ConsenSys, and Dataiku, are also viewed as potential candidates. OpenAI has confidentially filed IPO paperwork with the SEC but has not set a listing date or final share price and is reportedly considering a 2027 debut.

General Atlantic's recent note on the "2026 IPO comeback" highlights the second half as the period when discounts narrow toward normal, mid-cap and underrepresented sectors emerge, and investors redeploy gains from mega deals into less crowded areas.

With U.S. IPO proceeds already surging on the back of a few outsized offerings, the test for the rest of 2026 will be whether momentum broadens into a more balanced calendar led by advanced manufacturing, defense, energy, and AI infrastructure.

2 Retirees have questions for financial advisers. Here's what they want to know.

Increasingly, retirees are turning to financial advisers for the first time to help navigate an array of issues as they step out of the workforce.

Nearly half want guidance on saving and investing after leaving their workplace retirement plan, according to a report published by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

Roughly a third want advice for what to do with the money in their former workplace plan, while nearly 3 in 10 want a withdrawal strategy that turns savings into retirement income. Others seek help with taxes, long-term care planning, debt reduction, or estate planning.

"Going from a dependable regular income to no income stream at all can be terrifying," said Andrea Billquist, a financial planner in College Park, Texas. "With this new retirement reality, many quickly realize that they have more questions than answers and identify that they would like advice and support to make the right steps."

5 common questions retirees ask financial advisers

Do I need to move my retirement account from my employer's plan?

Not always, but you may have a better selection of investments in a self-directed individual retirement account (IRA) you open at a financial services company like Vanguard, Fidelity, or T. Rowe Price.

Rolling over a 401(k) can be a strategic move to consolidate retirement savings. Most advisers will help you set up a direct rollover, transferring the funds directly from the old 401(k) or employer plan to an IRA, avoiding taxes and penalties.

"I walk people through rolling it into an IRA, leaving it in place, or splitting the difference, based on the actual fund lineup, not a blanket rule," said Jeff Judge, a financial planner based in Forest Hills, Md.

Will my savings last?

"Many retirees and near-retirees reach out for the first time because they're trying to answer one core question: 'Am I going to be OK?'" said Brenna Baucum, a financial planner in Salem, Ore.

"They are looking for clarity. They want to understand what they can spend, what risks they need to plan for, and whether their money can support the life they want to live."

A financial adviser would likely start by looking holistically at your total assets, such as retirement accounts, savings, outside investments, and real estate, including the value of your home.

Then they'd review your monthly budget and outgoing expenses, followed by your long- and short-term needs and goals.

Do you expect to travel initially? How's your health?

Considering all those factors allows a picture to emerge that can help the adviser create a plan to make your savings last and, importantly, recommend moves to continue to invest outside of your retirement accounts.

How much money can I pull out each year?

Tax-efficient withdrawal strategies are one of the biggest reasons new retirees reach out, according to Flavio Landivar, a financial planner in Coral Gables, Fla.

"One of the first questions new retirees ask themselves is, how am I going to actually replace my paycheck once it stops with the buckets of money I have accumulated over my lifetime?"

Most retirees worry about withdrawing money and hold back on spending, even when it might not be necessary. Nonetheless, the 4% rule is still the overall recommendation from financial advisers. That means you withdraw roughly 4% of your savings in the first year of retirement, and take the same amount, adjusted for inflation, every year after that. Some planners push that up to closer to 5%, depending on the client's personal situation.

They also typically suggest what investments to pull from, depending on the client's tax situation, while moving some funds into a more liquid cash account, such as a money market or high-yield savings account.

Retirees are typically encouraged to have at least a year's worth of living expenses in cash accounts to ride out market dips without having to pull from those investments.

When should I start my Social Security checks?

While most of his clients have done an admirable job building their nest egg, Michael E. DeMassa, a financial planner in Sarasota, Fla., is often asked for advice on the best time to start getting that government check.

"The conversation almost always starts with 'when should I start Social Security?'

One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to Social Security is claiming too early at a much lower benefit. Holding off on tapping your benefits until age 70 —rather than at your full retirement age, which ranges from 66 to 67 — lets you earn delayed retirement credits. Those add roughly an 8%-per-year annual increase in your benefit for each year until you hit 70, when the credits stop accruing.

3 Fed Chair Kevin Warsh Sends a Blunt Warning to Wall Street. What Should Investors Do?

When President Donald Trump helped push out Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, he was looking to replace him with someone who would lower interest rates and help prop up stock prices. However, the person he appointed to replace Powell appears to have a vastly different idea.

Instead of cutting rates as Fed chief at his first meeting, new Fed chairman Kevin Warsh kept rates steady while issuing a terse statement that ended with: "The Committee will deliver price stability." The implication of his message was clear: Not only are rate cuts off the table, but interest rate hikes are also more likely in the future.

This was also confirmed by the Fed Dot Plot, a quarterly graph that tracks where each Fed member predicts future interest rates are headed. The graph showed that the vast majority of members predicted rates to be steady or higher this year, with about half expecting at least one rate increase and a third expecting two or more hikes.

Warsh also indicated that the Fed will be less communicative and take a less active role in the stock market. At the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC's) June 17 meeting press conference, he said: "So I think financial markets perform best when they react to incoming data. I think the financial markets work less efficiently when they ask a question: 'How will the Federal Reserve react to that incoming information?'"

Warsh is looking to remake the Fed, and one thing he has made clear is that the Fed is not there to bail out Wall Street or help prop up stock prices. How this will play out will be interesting, and certainly goes in the opposite direction of the man who just appointed him to the position.

What should investors do?

Fed rate cuts have generally been good for stocks, with the market typically generating positive returns over the year following an initial rate cut. This isn't the case every time, and it doesn't always save stocks from falling into a bear market, but it generally helps them bounce back unless it is due to a severe recession, as we saw in 2008 with the housing bubble.

With the "Fed Put" off the table, the typical magnitude and duration of bear markets could change, as they have tended to be shorter in recent times. It isn't necessarily a bad thing to let the market sort things out for itself rather than being propped up by cheap money, but it is a change investors and executives will have to get used to moving forward.

My advice is not to shift strategies in response to these Fed changes. Most investors are best served by dollar-cost averaging into a core index exchange-traded fund (ETF) or two, like the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) or the $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$, over a long period of time. This is what ultimately will help create long-term wealth.

ETFs that track market-cap-weighted indexes benefit from a "survival of the fittest" dynamic, with successful companies naturally becoming larger portions of the index while weaker ones shrink or eventually exit. A less accommodative Fed would only reinforce this, making index ETFs even more attractive investments.