0:09
Live Fast and Leave Nothing Behind: Could Modern Medicine Dampen the Great Wealth Transfer?
At least you have your health … and as life expectancy increases, that might be all you have.
When it comes to how much money is expected to change hands over the course of the estimated $124 trillion Great Wealth transfer, the real number might be zero. People are not only living longer but staying healthy for longer, meaning retirement savings might be depleted to the point where leaving behind a significant inheritance won’t be the norm, according to Salvatore Capizzi, retirement industry expert and chief marketing officer at Dunham & Associates. “I call it the Great Wealth Mirage,” he told Advisor Upside. “If I’m only going to live 20-25 years after retirement, it’s probably not a big deal. But if I’m living longer, I’m depleting my assets.”
When graphed out, spending in retirement tends to look like a smile, an idea credited to David Blanchett, head of retirement research at Prudential. People start splurging on travel, cars, golf and other expensive items or activities after they exit the workforce. Then they start to slow down, lacking some energy and staying close to home, so spending takes a dip. But once they’re in need of more frequent medical attention or an elder care facility, the spending skyrockets back up, especially since the median cost of a private room at a nursing home is more than $11,000 a month.
Capizzi said that the traditional smile is fading, and that initial fun spending is never going to stop. “If 3D printers begin making knees better than the ones we’re born with, will I have any money to leave my kids?” he said.
- The average life expectancy in the US is 79 years old, with 81 for females and 76 for males, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
- Meanwhile, the target for a comfortable retirement keeps increasing, with Americans saying they’ll need roughly $1.5 million in savings before they stop working.
Keep it Simple. Boomers hold more than half the nation’s wealth ($90 trillion at the end of last year), so to ensure the sandwich generations get more than just a few crumbs, the solution is a fairly old and basic one, Capizza said: buy low, sell high. The stock market trends upward overtime, but it’s not a smooth increase; there are peaks and valleys in the short term. He suggested that a rules-based investment strategy that triggers holding more equities in up markets and less in down markets should provide greater returns than traditional buy and hold plans or dollar cost averaging, he argued. “The planning we’re doing right now is a 20- or 25-year solution to a 40- or 50-year problem,” Capizza said.
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3:21
Comcast Calls It Splits With NBCUniversal
Comcast isn’t fully cutting the cord, but it did buy a cable splitter. The media company said Monday it’ll spin off NBCUniversal from its broadband and wireless biz. NBCUniversal includes the streaming service Peacock; TV networks NBC, Telemundo and Bravo; EU media biz Sky; and Universal’s studios and butterbeer-serving theme parks.
Investors applauded the move, boosting the stagnant stock nearly 17% Monday morning before paring gains later in the day.
Comcast completed its takeover of NBCUniversal from General Electric in 2013, spending nearly $23 billion in two deals to acquire the whole company. Streaming was still in its early days, making a tie-up of content producers and distributors more appealing. The media landscape has changed drastically since then, with streaming finally overtaking cable and broadband in 2022.
And as more people cut the cord, analysts questioned whether content and distribution would be better off with different strategies and goals. Comcast has already started to slough off its media side, spinning off properties including CNBC, Oxygen and Fandango into a new company called Versant earlier this year. Now it’s fully committing to cutting its bifurcated business into two halves:
- Comcast’s broadband and wireless biz, which will be separated from the earnings pie, made up more than half of the company’s revenue last year. At the same time, the business has been bleeding customers as rivals including Verizon and T-Mobile take over more of the connectivity market. The other side of the pie consists of a 21% revenue slice from media properties, including NBC and Peacock, and smaller pieces from studios and theme parks.
- Separating the two halves could help Comcast develop each separately, especially as it puts more focus on streaming. NBCUniversal execs have said Peacock will turn its first profit in the second quarter, after the “Love Island USA” streamer has fallen far behind rivals including Netflix, Disney+ and Max — all of which have already become profitable. Peacock’s pinning its hopes on major sports events like the LA Olympics to set it up for future success.
Plot Twists: There’ll be no lack of small-talk topics at the media-focused Sun Valley Conference next week, where execs are known to discuss future deals on the golf course. Paramount is moving forward with its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox is scooping up Roku, and Nexstar is acquiring Tegna in a TV and local news tie-up. Some analysts think Comcast’s split-up sets it up to get in on the M&A action — Charter and Comcast could consider merging (Charter’s stock soared yesterday, too) while Netflix might be tempted to buy NBCUniversal after failing to nab Warner Bros Discovery. Comcast’s chairman said selling its businesses isn’t on his priority list.
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6:41
Japanese Yen Hits 40-Year Low as Market Bets on Fed Rate Hike
The last time the Japanese yen was this weak against the greenback, The Oprah Winfrey Show was making its national debut, and Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” was climbing toward the top of the charts.
Long considered a safe-haven asset during times of global volatility, the Japanese currency is causing jitters for foreign exchange investors and calling into question the popularity of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government and whether it will intervene. On Monday, the yen hit 161.97 against the US dollar, its lowest level since 1986.
“Intervention is right around the corner if we don’t see a quick correction,” Andrew Hazlett, a foreign-exchange trader at Monex, told Bloomberg. But that would be “only a temporary fix if they do not address the interest-rate differential.”
Amid weak economic growth and low inflation, the Bank of Japan kept interest rates near zero from the ’90s until 2024, when it began gradually raising them. Earlier this month, the bank increased rates to 1%, a 31-year high, in an attempt to fend off energy-driven inflation from the war in the Middle East. But across the world, the Federal Reserve is also expected to raise already-higher US interest rates this year, giving investors reason to sell the yen and invest in the dollar.
The Japanese government did intervene last month for the first time since 2024, buying more than $73 billion to support its currency. Still, experts remain convinced that Japan’s economy is back from its “lost decades”:
- “Don’t let recent market volatility distract from the long-term fundamentals. We think another stage of growth is likely on its way,” Kei Okamura, managing director at Neuberger Berman, recently wrote. “Japan’s recovery from the ‘lost decades’ of deflation and meager growth has been an on-again, off-again phenomenon.”
- The multi-decade low for the yen is “significantly out of sync” with Japan’s fiscal fundamentals and relative bond yields, Cameron Systermans, the head of multi-asset strategy for Asia at Mercer, recently told CNBC.
JGB Yields Climb: Japanese government bond yields have been rising substantially over the past year, with the 10-year now above 2.6%. That’s above the typical defined-benefit pension return objective and the return objective of many insurance companies in Japan, yet they haven’t begun repatriating capital, Systermans said. “It could just be that people are looking for JGBs to stabilize, and if that does prompt a lot of the Japanese asset owners to bring their funds back to Japan, that could act as a catalyst for yen appreciation.”
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9:48
Lights, Camera, HVACtion: European Heat Wave Fans Growth for Climate Control Industry
Empty streets, deserted public squares and swimming pools so packed that people were turned away like they were trying to get into hyper-exclusive nightclub Berghain. That was Berlin this past weekend, as the German capital turned into Death Valley with currywurst under temperatures reaching a record 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
It was part of a long-running European heat wave drawing attention to the fact that only 20% of the region’s homes have AC, according to the International Energy Agency. With heat waves becoming stronger and more frequent, the IEA estimates the number of air conditioners in the EU will more than double from 2019 levels to 275 million units by 2050. A handful of stocks, including US-based companies, stand to benefit.
Cooler Stocks Prevail
Europe is heating up at twice the rate of other inhabited continents because of its exposure to the fast-warming Arctic and changing weather patterns that push heat in its direction. That means Paris on the Seine will more frequently feel like Paris on the Sahara, and a host of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning companies are positioned to meet the resulting spike in demand:
- Citi analysts identified US HVAC stocks Carrier Global, Trane Technologies and Johnson Controls, up 15%, 6.5% and 4.8%, respectively, in the past month. They flagged Carrier, which makes more than a quarter of its sales in Europe, as likely to benefit most.
- HVAC has also proven a steady bet elsewhere in the world. Tokyo’s Daikin Industries, the world’s largest HVAC maker, is up 21% this year, and the AdvisorShares HVAC and Industrials ETF, which tracks the broader sector, is up 32%.
AI to HVAC: One firm to watch is South Korea’s Samsung Electronics. On a scorching 138% rally this year, thanks to its role in the AI memory chip ecosystem, the conglomerate is also going after Europe’s commercial and residential air conditioning markets. Last year, it acquired Fläkt, Europe’s largest HVAC company, and it’s developing a refrigerant-free cooling technology with Johns Hopkins University scientists that would eliminate the need for outdoor AC units, an issue for parts of Europe where older buildings weren’t designed with the technology (or other ventilation systems) in mind.
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12:36
Financial Advisors Are Finding Their Voice on Substack
Laid-off journalists aren’t the only ones finding an audience on Substack.
With minimal barriers to entry, financial advisors are using the newsletter platform to market their services and reach niche audiences outside of traditional sites like LinkedIn. While conversion rates from subscriber to client can be low, it’s a growing trend and an opportunity for advisors to expand their reach and meet new clients.
“The newsletter is a great place to spark a little interest for people, where they may say: ‘Oh, wow, I’ve seen myself in a similar situation, but I don’t know this or that, let me reach out,’” said Clifford Cornell, a CFP at Bone Fide Wealth. He publishes Yield to Maturity, writing about topics related to Gen Z and finance and after 18 months on Substack, he’s reached 575 followers. That growth he attributes partly to Substack’s referral program, where writers can recommend other newsletters to subscribers. His previous platform took a year to yield 150 subscribers.
For others, Substack serves existing clients. Matt Poyner, a former emergency medicine doctor turned CFP, writes Med School Money as part of his Canadian practice, serving physicians almost exclusively. He directs existing clients to his Substack when questions exceed meeting capacity. “They can read about it and think about it, then we can talk about it at the next meeting,” Poyner said. “I only have so much capacity to work with people one on one, so it gave me another medium to get good evidence-based information out there.”
Substack itself has grown rapidly since its launch in 2017:
- The platform had more than 20 million monthly active users as of 2025. There are more than 5 million paid subscriptions as of 2026, up from 2 million in 2023, according to the company (though this doesn’t necessarily represent unique subscribers).
- The top 10 finance newsletters on Substack earn more than the top 10 newsletters in any other category, according to a data analysis from the newsletter Really Good Business Ideas.
Keeping It Real. Stoy Hall, a CFP at Black Mammoth serving women, minority and LGBTQ business owners, says Substack has more access to this target audience, and lets him write authentically. “In some of my stuff, I cuss, I’m more myself. LinkedIn doesn’t really like that from an algorithm perspective,” Hall said. “You can’t be as vibrant and as bold in those mediums as you can on Substack.”
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15:31
Access to Alternative Investments Is Opening Up. Do Clients Care?
While private markets aren’t just for the largest investors anymore, not everyone is ready to put their money into the more opaque products offered there.
Alternative investments are expected to reach $30 trillion in assets by 2030, up from $10 trillion a decade ago, per data from BlackRock. At the same time, companies are staying private longer, according to S&P Capital IQ, with 84% of those generating $100 million in revenue remaining private. Such trends are increasing interest in opportunities beyond public markets, resulting in a wave of product announcements from big wirehouse firms and breakaway RIA platforms alike. Morgan Stanley Wealth Management opened its private markets fund to a wider pool of investors last week, by removing the accredited investor requirement and lowering investment minimums.
Advisors need to educate themselves (and their clients) about the unique risk and return opportunities that alternatives bring to the table before adoption will really pick up, but all signs are that the alternatives party may just be getting started. “Alternative investments are no longer a nice-to-have or a niche offering,” said Ed Swenson, president of RFG Advisory. “Wealthy investors are demanding them.”
Financial advisors on the ground are telling more of a mixed story about alternatives, with most seeing more “supply side activity” than organic client demand. Vincent DeCrow, advisor at Rise Investments, is not experiencing much client demand for private equity or more traditional private credit, such as direct private commercial lending. “There have been a series of valuation and related concerns in those two categories that have been keeping a lot of potential new investors on the sidelines for the time being,” he said.
That doesn’t mean alternatives aren’t important, most agreed, but they require careful consideration. “The doors have opened on alternatives and I am welcoming my clients in,” said Mitzie Wilson, wealth advisor at Farther. “The 60/40 model now has competition and is changing to 50/30/20, with the goal reaching 20% alternatives over time.”
Benjamin Bolen, head of wealth management for University Investment Services, agreed, noting customers aren’t asking for alts, but they are asking for what alts can provide. “2022 broke standard rules about stocks and bond correlation, because both went down, which isn’t supposed to happen,” Bolen said. “Investors are looking for greater stability and lower correlation. Alts provide this, and now they’re accessible to retail investors.”
Open Up. Earlier this month, RFG partnered with iCapital to give its advisors access to vetted alternatives managers across private equity, private credit, hedge funds and structured investments. “The vetted funds are important, but iCapital also brings solid educational tools that are going to be an important part of expanding the use of alternatives,” Swenson said. “Today, this is very much an 80-20 issue, where 20% of advisors and clients are doing 80% of the investing into alts.”
Swenson expects that dynamic to change as firms make vetted alternatives easier to access and advisors educate their clients.
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19:18
New Definition of Rich in 2026
Welcome Avatar! As you guys know, we’ve said as of 2026 that the vast majority will be happy with the following: Paid off home and $3-5M liquid invested. Assuming the standard and boring 4% rule that gets you $10,000 to $16,667 a month to spend. In addition to that, remember, this assumes you do nothing. If you’ve read us for more than a month, you know that we would wager practically everything on all of you working. Maybe you won’t work 60+ hours a week, but you’re going to do something (golf instructor, entrepreneur, passion project that pays $60,000 a year). So on and so forth.
Most people will read this and say “well $10,000 can’t afford a Ferrari”. That is true and actually proves our point. Who is richer. The guy who has to work 60 hours a week because he has a massive mortgage and a super car. Or. The guy who wakes up at any time on any day? Pretty easy to see where we’re going with this.
The aforementioned paid off home and $3-5M conceptually makes you time rich. If you hit this level of wealth, even if you’re earning less than your investment banker friends pulling in $800,000 a year… You won’t have a speck of jealousy.
You: Wake up go make a coffee. Hit the gym at 11am. Go back to the house. Go do your passion job/income stream for 4-5 hours. Go to sleep.
Banker: Wakes up well before market open. Commute. Checks to see all bills are paid. Puts on his “calendar”, one week vacation August 10-17.
Doesn’t take a lot of energy to figure out you’ll be happier and healthier in the first position. If you get bored of the time freedom, you can ramp up the work hours. If you get bored of the work as a banker… sorry, no one cares.
Last week we suggested a simple way to increase your status good purchases (source). We do not care how you spend your money. Just be smart about the order of events.
Time > Status Goods
Until you are time rich, the other stuff will prevent you from becoming free.
Read that a few times if you have to. No one. Absolutely no one who makes it as an entrepreneur would trade in their time freedom. That’s exactly why they end up leaving the corporate grind in the first place.
While we gave you a numeric set up, here’s the way to think about it. Before you can say you’re rich (based on wealth), you need to answer yes to all of these questions
Entry Level Rich
Outside of rare events (significant meeting, doctor appointment etc.) you can wake up with no alarm clock
You can dedicate your best hours to what is most important to you. Someone else isn’t deciding when you work. You decide
Any time you need to take time off, you can do it without asking anyone
Any family friend event? You can decide if you want to go or not
You can say no to work without causing you an ounce of stress (if you don’t like the person, or the Company, rationale doesn’t matter)
You can decide where you live
Conceptually, if you have a high net worth but fail to answer yes to all of this… we don’t think you’re particularly rich. The exception to the rule is you absolutely love what you’re doing.
The nitpickers will point at these questions and say stuff like “what about a huge deal” “what about a huge contract for a month of work” “what about family emergencies”. These are all one time events. None of them are consistent. If you get an offer to do something you want to do and know that it will be a grind… well you decided to do it. Extremely different from “I have to take this deal or else I might lost the house”
Where Can You Go at 11am on a Tuesday? Coffee shop/Beach/Park = Entry level rich. Regular golfing/tennis club? = Mid level Rich. Country club? = Definitely rich.
No where in here is “Have a $5M house with massive mortgage and a leased Lambo”
If you explain that to people in retirement age, they will look at you like you’re insane. In their world it was all about how many people you managed and who you knew. It had nothing to do with being Sovereign. Being sovereign is the present and future.
High Income W-2: Intuitively they know this. If you talk to a person making good money in a W-2 (say $500,000, higher up middle aged), they will say they don’t feel rich. It’s because of the above mechanisms: 1) they are time poor - best hours of day go to the Company, 2) at that level you’re always on and expected to respond to messages, 3) you can’t choose where you live - location poor, 4) negative health impacts and 5) limited friends/family as a percent of your daily hours
In a nutshell? They are lifestyle poor.
Don’t be the meme!
If you look at the meme closely, it’s missing an important piece. Money buys time. Time is money = old fashioned concept. If you understand that Money buys time, the entire goal is just getting “enough” as fast as humanly possible.
Both time and Energy are going to follow the same trajectory. You will get older. You won’t have as much energy at 20 vs. 80. No amount of peptides, HRT and biohacking will turn that clock back.
Don’t take the prior sections to the financial extreme.
24:57
‘Obsession’ Arrives On Streaming This Week As Film Tops $370 Million At Box Office
$370 million worldwide, that’s where “Obsession” sits after its latest box‑office run. The horror‑thriller, directed by Curry Barker and starring Inde Navarrette with Michael Johnston, has been pulling in steady ticket sales across markets, and now it’s moving onto streaming platforms this week.
The shift to digital means the film can keep its momentum without the usual post‑theatrical dip. Early streaming numbers suggest viewers are eager for the mix of suspense and psychological twists that set it apart from typical genre fare.
If you’ve been waiting for a fresh horror pick, this is the moment to dive in. It’s the kind of title that sticks with you after the credits roll, and the streaming release makes it easy to watch at your own pace.
25:56
How SpaceX wants to fuel Starship’s next phase with a Texas pipeline
SpaceX is beginning to lay the groundwork for an accelerated launch schedule for its Starship spacecraft.
The company will begin building a pipeline next month to bring natural gas to its Starbase complex, where it can be processed and converted into liquid methane to fuel the reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle. Ultimately, that could help the company meet its goal of as many as 25 launches per year, and perhaps allow it to exceed that number.
At present, fuel for the rocket has to be transported to the Starbase complex, a process that is both time-consuming and expensive. By running the eight-mile pipeline to the spaceport, SpaceX could lower expenses over the long run and speed up its launch cadence.
This may only be a temporary fix. Gwynne Shotwell, president of the rocket company, told CNBC earlier this month that SpaceX was considering drilling its own natural gas in the future. While challenging, that could further lower costs if successful.
SpaceX did not reply to a request for comment about the pipeline.
The basis for this new supply system began last August, when SpaceX filed engineering plans with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announcing its intention to build a liquefaction facility at Starbase to create the liquid methane required to send its rockets into space.
SpaceX has signed more than 100 oil and gas leases with property owners in Texas over the past three years. Starpipe, as the pipeline is being called, will reportedly originate on an 83-acre piece of land at the Port of Brownsville, which Reuters says SpaceX plans to lease from the city for 50 years.
While transporting natural gas to a processing plant at the base of its operations makes clear fiscal sense, some residents are concerned about potential environmental impacts. The area around Starbase includes sensitive wetland habitats.
This would not be the first time the company has faced those concerns. In 2023, the mid-air explosion of a SpaceX Starship Super Heavy launch spread debris over an area more than twice as large as Disneyland and may have been responsible for a 3.5-acre fire, according to a study from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The FWS noted, however, that it had not found any dead birds or other wildlife on National Wildlife Refuge lands near the launch pads. Those areas are designated as habitat for at least one endangered bird species.
SpaceX had a rocky start with Starship, but has since improved its success rate to 58%, with seven successful launches and five failed ones. Beyond the environmental concerns, the increased pace of launches is creating headaches for air traffic controllers in the region.
The company is counting on the booster to power many of its long-term goals, from launching space-based data centers and more Starlink satellites to supporting extraterrestrial expeditions. NASA has a multibillion-dollar contract with SpaceX to use Starship to land astronauts on the moon, and the booster is central to the company’s plans to send a crew to Mars at some point.
The rocket is massive, unlike anything that has been attempted before. Standing at 397 feet tall, 232 feet of which belongs to the booster, it uses 33 Raptor engines. Collectively, they give the spacecraft 16.7 million pounds of thrust, nearly twice that of NASA’s most advanced system.
To achieve that, however, a single Starship launch requires roughly 630,000 gallons of liquid methane.
Construction on the pipeline to bring in the natural gas needed to produce that fuel is expected to begin next month and continue through late January 2027.
30:04
6 Samsung phone features to turn on if you haven’t already
Samsung builds fantastic phones, but the company also has a habit of shipping them with some of their absolute best features turned off by default.
If you want to unlock the full potential of your Galaxy device, let’s take a few minutes to dive into your settings menu. There, you’ll find some incredibly cool features you should enable right away.
Imagine your friend’s phone is dying, or your wireless earbuds completely fizzle out right before a flight. If you have a modern Galaxy phone, you’re carrying around a portable wireless charging pad in your pocket. You just have to activate it first.
Go to Settings, scroll down to Battery, and tap Wireless Power Sharing. Toggle it to On, then flip your phone face-down and place the dying device right on its back.
We’ve all done it: A notification pops up, you reflexively swipe it away to clear your screen, and a split second later you realize it was actually an important text, email, or delivery alert.
Turning this feature on creates a digital paper trail for every single alert that hits your device. Open Settings, tap Notifications, select Advanced settings, and tap Notification history, then flip the toggle to On.
Once enabled, this screen will keep a chronological log of every single notification you received over the past 24 hours, even the ones you accidentally dismissed. If you ever wonder what an alert said, you can just jump back in here to read it.
If you’ve ever tried to play a podcast or music from your phone to a Bluetooth speaker only to have your audio violently interrupted by the loud chime of an incoming text message or a random game notification, this one’s for you.
The Separate App Sound feature isolates your audio streams so you can, for instance, set Spotify to play exclusively through your Bluetooth speaker or earbuds while your phone’s notification sounds stay local to the device’s actual speakers.
Head over to Settings, select Sounds and vibration, scroll down to Separate app sound, and select which app you want to isolate and where you want it to play.
Out of the box, pressing and holding the side button on a new Galaxy phone doesn’t actually bring up the power menu to turn your phone off. Instead, it launches a digital assistant.
Fortunately, you can reclaim your power button by going to Settings, tapping Advanced features, and selecting Side button. Under the “Press and hold” section, switch the setting to Power off menu.
While you’re on this screen, you can also customize what a double-press of that same button does. By default, it opens the camera, but you can set it to instantly launch any app on your phone, such as your flashlight or mobile wallet.
When your phone starts blaring a loud alarm or an incoming call in the middle of a quiet room, your instinct is usually to frantically fumble with the volume rocker or slide the decline button. Samsung has a much more elegant, physical solution built right in.
Go to Settings > Advanced features > Motions and gestures, then activate Mute with gestures. The next time an alert goes off at the wrong moment, you can instantly silence it simply by placing your palm completely over the screen or flipping the phone face-down on a table.
Many people plug their phone into a fast charger overnight, meaning the phone hits 100% battery capacity in an hour or two and then sits there cooking under maximum electrical pressure for the rest of the night.
This can degrade lithium-ion batteries rapidly, so if you plan to keep your phone for several years, you’ll want to limit that strain.
Open Settings, go to Battery, and tap on Battery protection. Turning this on gives you a few options, including Basic or Adaptive modes, which limit the time your phone sits idling at absolute maximum charge while you sleep.
