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Here’s our livestream notes from Tuesday.

Be sure to tune in on Friday, August 1st to the Rich Habits Radar — our new weekly podcast episodes covering the biggest headlines and happenings impacting you and your money!

We’re excited to begin reporting on the most consequential market-moving news on a weekly basis to you all — starting Friday, August 1st.

See you there!

A quick breakdown — in case you don’t have the time.

Meme stock mania is back — please be careful.

Over the last several trading days we’ve experienced a flurry of “meme stock mania.” Starting in early-July with Opendoor Technologies (OPEN) experiencing a +400% rally due to a short squeeze, meme stocks all around have also rallied.

Uhh, what’s a “short squeeze” and why didn’t I buy these stocks?!

A “short squeeze” occurs when a stock price rises rapidly in reaction to “short sellers” being forced to cover their short positions by buying shares of stock on the open market.

When a “short seller” goes “short” on a stock, they’re essentially betting the stock price will go down. To place a bet like this, they borrow shares of stock from someone else, sell those shares at the current market price, wait until the price falls, buy the shares back, then return the borrowed shares back to the entity they borrowed them from.

Borrow, sell, price drops, buy back at lower price, return shares — keep the difference as profit.

When the price rises instead, the short seller is forced to buy back the shares they sold short at what is now a higher price — causing them to lose massive amounts of money depending on how high the price goes. These retail meme stock traders are looking for the “most shorted” stocks by hedge funds, buying their stock in mass in hopes to drive the stock price up — causing a “short squeeze.”

And this is all happening as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 are hitting record highs.

Today’s Rich Habits Newsletter is brought to you by Public, the investing platform that combines a broad range of asset classes with the tools you need to build and manage your wealth. 

From stocks to bonds, options, crypto, and more—it’s all here. You can even generate fixed income with a suite of yield accounts. If you’re looking for more than just a place to trade, discover the investing platform that’s as serious about your money as you are. 

👉 Episode 127: How to Pay Less in Taxes w/ Karlton Dennis

In this week’s Monday-morning episode of the Rich Habits Podcast (linked here) — Austin and Robert sat down with tax strategist and entrepreneur Karlton Dennis to break down how the wealthy legally lower their tax bills, what the average person is missing, and what you need to know about the new tax legislation just signed into law.

Karlton has built a massive audience by making smart tax strategy simple — and in this episode, he holds nothing back.

Here’s what they covered…

If you’ve ever felt confused about taxes or frustrated by how much you owe — this is the episode for you.

👉 Q&A: Hedging Against the “September Slump,” LTC Insurance, & Taxes on Worldwide Income

Here’s a link to the Q&A episode that was posted this morning. We’re delighted to have Austin back!

We answered questions from: Shiho N, Luke S, Sean M, Gregg P, Richard E, AJ, and Evan M.

You can submit questions for these 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!

Google’s Search business is not dead.

After non-stop chatter of “ChatGPT will replace Google Search,” and “No one is going to use Google Search in the future,” we clearly see this continues to be proven wrong. Alphabet reported quarterly revenue of $54.2 billion for their Search and Ad business — equating to a whopping $208 billion in Search and Ad revenue over the last 12 months.

The chart below should put into perspective just how resilient this business segment is for Alphabet.

Additionally, Alphabet reported total revenue of over $90 billion — an increase of +12% year-over-year — with $34 billion of that being realized as profit. That’s a 38% profit margin! Unbelievable.

During their earnings call, Sundar Pichai announced their intention to spend $85 billion in capital expenditures throughout 2025 due to continued demand for their Cloud business segment — which has now generated $49 billion in revenue over the last 12 months.

Nvidia makes up 8% of the S&P 500, the highest ever on record.

Dating back to 1980, there’s never been a stock whose market cap has made up more than 7.6% of the S&P 500’s total weighting — until now. Nvidia now represents nearly 8% of the total weighting of the S&P 500.

As a reminder, the S&P 500 is a market cap-weighted index. This means as a company’s market cap grows (stock price goes up) their “weighting” in the index increases as well. For example, the “Magnificent Seven” make up a combined 33% weighting in the S&P 500, despite only being 7 out of the 500 names included in the index. The other 493 names make up the remaining 67% weighting.

So what’s going on?

Essentially, the world’s most valuable company is outpacing its peers. Nvidia’s stock price is up +27% year-to-date, compared to the rest of the Magnificent Seven’s mid-to-high single digit returns during the same period of time. When you’re pioneering the future of AI, things like this happen. In my humble opinion, Nvidia will become a $10 trillion dollar company by the end of the decade.

It’s so interesting to reflect upon who was in “first place” over the years — IBM, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, and Apple. Haha, could you imagine IBM being the world’s most valuable company today?

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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice or a recommendation for any investment. The content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Public Disclosures: All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC.

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