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What Is The Rich Habits Network?
The New York Times wrote about the Rich Habits Network for a reason: it's where 980+ members invest in venture-backed companies like SpaceX, Apptronik, and Perplexity before they go public. 35+ deals closed.
Everything the Rich Habits Podcast can't fit into an episode — deals, coaching, research & 8 hours of video courses for 980+ members and counting.
We’re currently running a deal for one private company:
A neurotechnology company building brain-computer interface technology, the same broad category popularized by Neuralink. The company is focused on restoring communication and digital control for people with severe motor impairments.
A quick breakdown — in case you don’t have the time.
⭐ Equity ETF flows are blowing past almost every year on record.
⭐ Episode 181: the biggest wealth trap to avoid.
⭐ The hyperscaler’s AI capex boom is backed by massive backlogs
⭐ Retail investors just dumped chip stocks at 20x the normal pace.
Market Overview
As of Market Open 8/6/26
ETF Winners & Losers
Chart of the Week
Equity ETF flows are blowing past almost every year on record.
This chart shows cumulative daily equity ETF flows by year, and 2026 is blowing away most historical comparisons. Through roughly the same point in the year, equity ETF inflows are already running near the top of the last decade’s range and tracking close to the strongest years on record.
That matters because price alone does not tell the whole story. A market can hit all-time highs because a few stocks are moving higher, or it can hit all-time highs because investors are still consistently putting new money to work. This chart points more toward the second version.
The interesting part is that this has happened through plenty of reasons to be nervous. Investors have dealt with tariffs, Fed uncertainty, AI CapEx worries, semiconductor volatility, and a sharp momentum unwind. But the flow of money into equity ETFs has not broken.
That is usually a sign of durable demand. It does not mean the market cannot pull back, and it does not mean every dip should be bought blindly. But it does show that investors are not treating this rally like something they want to sit out.
When flows are this strong, the market has a built-in support system. There can still be volatility, but as long as fresh money keeps coming in, sellers have to fight against a very steady bid.
Today’s Rich Habits Newsletter is brought to you by Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build your portfolio for the long haul with stocks, options, bonds, crypto, and more.
Beyond the assets, Public integrates AI in ways that are actually useful. You can get real-time context on why a stock you care about is moving, instant earnings call summaries—you can even build a custom index from a prompt.
In Case You Missed It…
In this week’s Monday-morning episode of the Rich Habits Podcast (linked here) — Austin and Robert break down the five most expensive words in personal finance: “I’ll start when I’m ready.”
Here’s what they covered…
The Cost of Waiting Is Brutal — Investing $100/month starting at 23 can grow to over $775,000 by age 65, assuming a 10% average annual return. But if you wait until 33 and invest $300/month, you end up around the same place — despite contributing more than twice as much of your own money. That’s the power of starting early.
“I’ll Start When I Make More Money” — This excuse sounds responsible, but the math says otherwise. The amount matters less than the habit and the time horizon. You can always increase the contribution later — but you can’t go back and recapture ten lost years of compounding.
“I’ll Start When I’m Out of Debt” — Not all debt deserves the same urgency. Credit card debt at 22% should be attacked aggressively, but lower-interest debt like student loans, mortgages, or car loans does not have to stop you from investing. The framework: get the employer match first, fund the Roth IRA, then decide how aggressively to pay down manageable debt.
“I’ll Start When the Market Calms Down” — The market never feels safe in the moment. There is always a reason to wait — inflation, elections, interest rates, recessions, tariffs, or volatility. But the best days in the market often happen right next to the worst days, and missing just a handful of them can destroy decades of returns.
The Start Now Checklist — Austin and Robert lay out a simple playbook: name the excuse, start with what you have, automate the transfer, stop using financial news as a reason to delay, and remember the real cost of waiting. The best investors don’t rely on willpower — they build systems that force consistency.
The bottom line: nobody who built real wealth wishes they waited longer to start. Open the account, set up the automatic transfer, put the first dollar in, and let time do the heavy lifting. The biggest wealth trap is not a bad investment — it’s a good excuse.
Here’s a link to the Q&A episode that was posted on Thursday. We switched up our scheduling this week!
You can submit questions for episodes by asking them inside of the Rich Habits Network, replying to this email, or sending us a DM on Instagram.
The Rich Habits Podcast is available on Spotify, Apple, iHeart, YouTube, and wherever else you get your content!
Austin’s Callout
The hyperscaler’s AI capex boom is backed by massive backlogs
Microsoft, Oracle, Alphabet, and Amazon all told investors a similar story last week: demand for AI infrastructure is still bigger than the capacity they have available.
That is why capex plans keep moving higher. Microsoft is projected to spend $225 billion by 2027, Oracle $90 billion, Alphabet $308 billion, and Amazon $350 billion. Those are massive numbers, and they will weigh on free cash flow in the short term.
But the other side of the chart is what matters. Each of these companies is sitting on a much larger backlog than their expected capex spend. Microsoft’s recent backlog was $678 billion, Oracle’s was $638 billion, Alphabet’s was $514 billion, and Amazon’s was $496 billion.
The market keeps asking whether AI spending has gone too far. This chart makes the other side of the argument: the biggest companies in the world are still trying to catch up to demand. If they can turn today’s spending into long-term cloud and AI revenue, this CapEx cycle may end up looking less like a cost problem and more like the foundation for the next major profit pool.
Robert’s Callout
Retail investors just dumped chip stocks at 20x the normal pace.
After aggressively buying semiconductor and memory stocks in May and June, retail flows sharply reversed in late July. According to Citadel, selling reached roughly 20x the two-year average.
That is a huge move. This was one of the hottest trades in the market, and retail investors went from chasing it to dumping it almost overnight.
But here is the important part: the trade did not die. Over the last few days, chip stocks have ripped back, the AI trade has come back to life, and the S&P 500 returned to fresh record highs.
That is why this chart is so interesting. It shows how fast sentiment can flip when a trade gets crowded. Retail investors sold hard right into the weakness, but the market quickly reminded everyone that a sharp sell-off does not always mean the bigger trend is over.
For everyday investors, this is the hard part. The scariest moments usually happen when the chart looks the worst. But if the long-term story is still intact, panic selling can do more damage than the actual pullback.
The lesson is not to ignore risk. It is to avoid letting a few ugly trading days force a bad decision. The AI and semiconductor trade may stay volatile, but the last few days showed there is still plenty of demand when buyers step back in.
The Rich Habits Radar
👉 AMD fell despite record Q2 revenue as investors punished semis
👉 SpaceX reported its first public earnings & beat estimates
👉 Anthropic signed a $10B compute deal with Volta
👉 Joby Aviation reported Q2 earnings and beat revenue
👉 Palantir jumped after revenue nearly doubled and raised full-year guidance.
👉 The S&P 500 hit a fresh record high as the AI trade roared back to life.
👉 The Dow closed above 54,000 for the first time during a record-setting rally.
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