When Elon Musk called the U.S. dollar "hopeless," many assumed he was simply making headlines. |
Others believe he was pointing toward a financial project that could soon reach millions of Americans. |
Learn why some investors think it could become one of the biggest financial stories of the year. |
👉 Get the full story. |
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📊 BONUS: The Portfolio Math for a Rough Friday ⚖️Tonight's numbers, the income calendar, and what today's selloff means for how you size positions.
Tonight's Numbers
4.71% — where the 10-year Treasury yield closed Friday, its highest level since January 2025 and up for a fourth straight session.
$100+ — the price of Brent crude Friday, back above the century mark for the first time in two months on Middle East supply fears.
~35% — the probability futures markets now assign to a rate hike, not a hold, at next Wednesday's Fed meeting, up sharply from two weeks ago.
Friday gave long-term holders a real-world stress test, not a hypothetical one. Stocks fell, oil spiked, and the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.71%, all on the same day, with Jerome Powell's Federal Reserve meeting Wednesday to sort out what it means. That is the kind of session portfolio construction is actually for: not predicting when it happens, but making sure no single sector can do outsized damage when it does. Position sizing is the boring cousin of stock picking, and here is what it means for your portfolio: it mattered more than either headline this week. A portfolio with 40% sitting in a handful of AI-adjacent names felt Wednesday's earnings misses very differently than one where the same names made up 15%. Neither approach is wrong on its face, but only one of them was a choice made in advance, rather than a drift that happened one strong quarter at a time. The same logic applies to the bond side. When yields rise the way they did this week, income portfolios overweighted in long-duration bonds take a bigger mark-to-market hit than those laddered across shorter maturities. It is the same lesson 2022 taught the hard way, when U.S. stocks fell about 18% and the broad bond index fell about 13% together, the worst combined year for a traditional balanced portfolio since 1937, because both halves were leaning the same direction at once. A ladder, and a mix of sectors, is what limits how much any one afternoon can take from you. For anyone drawing income from a portfolio rather than just building one, the sizing question extends to cash. A retiree who keeps a year or two of planned withdrawals in short-term holdings does not have to sell into a week like this one to pay the bills; a retiree who does not, does. That distinction rarely matters in a calm month. It matters a great deal in a week when the Nasdaq absorbs its worst two-day stretch in a month and the 10-year yield jumps to its highest level since January 2025 on the same days.
Income Watch Declared: Duke Energy raised its quarterly dividend 1.9% to $1.085 per share this week, and Costco lifted its quarterly payout to $1.47 from $1.30. Ex-dates ahead: Paychex (PAYX) and Fastenal (FAST) go ex-dividend Tuesday, July 28; Constellation Brands (STZ) follows Thursday, July 30. Yield check: The 10-year Treasury closed at 4.71% Friday, the highest since January 2025, a useful benchmark against any income ETF's trailing yield when deciding where new money goes. |
Tomorrow's CalendarTuesday, July 28 — Consumer Confidence Index, plus PAYX and FAST go ex-dividend.
Wednesday, July 29 — The Fed's rate decision, with markets split between a hold and a hike.
Thursday, July 31 — GDP and PCE inflation data, the two reports most likely to settle the hold-versus-hike debate.
Does a week like this one change how you'd size a single sector in your own portfolio? Hit reply, I read every one. — Randy Cole, Editor
Tomorrow's Fed-week calendar is set, and PAYX and FAST go ex-dividend Tuesday. Our SMS desk flags anything that changes before the market opens. Get the free text alerts — two to three texts a week, opt out anytime.
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