There ought not to be "normal" like we were pretending it to be since Putin came to power. Unlikely to see another Gorbachev. Either someone he picked or someone who wants to be him are likely the next century's leaders. The West will simply not be able to trust them.
I don't think so... I bought my phone used from https://swappa.com/ for $74 a year ago, so even if it would break right now it would still be a lot cheaper... It's a Pixel 3 ... wish it had a MicroSD card slot, but besides that it works perfectly fine. I installed LineageOS on it without Google services.
While my portfolio is -15% YTD overall, BTC is -33% in a week.
It's not even remotely comparable. I even have some stuff (Shell) that have done really well actually.
Despite inflation, US dollar is strengthening, defense stocks are doing great. And commodities are also up and rising. I-Bonds are yielding 9%+ and TIPS are doing good.
You just gotta know how to navigate a bear market.
I bought my SHEL in January. +20% actually. I'm not even someone who timed it that well, I know somebody talking about how oil was oversold in 2020 when the price of oil hit negative $40 and bought into the exact valley.
Even then: SHEL is kind of a bad bet. I was expecting that Europe would try to be more dependent upon European oil, but it turns out that American Oil (XOM) was the real winner of the Ukraine / Russia conflict.
I've also bought into TIPS / I-Bonds as this inflation thing is getting worse. Hopefully those do well in the coming months (or maybe not, they're more of an "inflation hedge", in that I know they'll do good if inflation goes bad. No, not the "crypto" kind of hedge, I mean something that's _ACTUALLY_ tied to inflation and does better-and-better the worse inflation gets).
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The key in these times is to remember what does good during recessions and war. And keep your wits about you as well. There's plenty of good buys if you know where to look.
All those cryptobros buying in 2020 or 2021 for "inflation hedge" have their moment to prove their theories today. My inflation hedge, TIPS/I-Bonds, are yielding 9% right now. How well are your cryptos doing?