What's up, guys? I'm an early retired

quant trader and I want to help you

think about how to manage your personal

investments in this rapidly changing

geopolitical environment. Let's get into

it. So, I want to start by saying that

the conventional wisdom that the S&P 500

always goes up 8 to 10% annually is just

American propaganda. It doesn't have to

go up 8 to 10% annually. It has

historically, but mostly because the

United States has gone from a regional

power to the global hegeimon, the

superpower of the world. The United

States pushes this propaganda because

they want you to invest in their country

and they want you to park your

hard-earned cash. And it's the same way

with the real estate industry within the

United States, how they'll always say

things like home ownership is the

American dream and oh, it's a right of

passage. Renting is just making your

landlord rich. You know, like things

like this are just propaganda to get you

to make a 5:1 leveraged bet, the biggest

purchase of your life and have it be on

American soil. So, you're locked in and

you have to continue to work to pay off

your mortgage. That's why home ownership

is pushed so hard as well in the United

States. So, you probably know this, but

the stock market loosely tracks the

economic health of a country. The stock

market generally goes up as the GDP

grows in the country. And that's not

going to completely track, but over a

long enough time period, that's

generally true. The reason they can kind

of decouple from time to time is because

the stock market also prices in

sentiment, bullish or bearish sentiment,

because people are using the stock

market to attempt to frontr run the

actual economy. So the stock market can

kind of drift up if it's bullish and it

can kind of drift down if it's bearish.

But over a long enough time period um

the the stock market generally converges

with the actual health of the country.

And so when you talk about where to

invest your money uh you are believe it

or not placing a geopolitical bet on the

future economic health of that country.

More and more especially today deciding

where to invest simply boils down to

geopolitics. And that wasn't true over

the last h 100red years or so as a US

citizen because the US was separated

from the Eurasian land mass and they

generally just experienced slow and

steady growth. With the rise of China

and us entering this new multipolar

world, there is a serious risk of that

trend actually ending. So as an example,

Japan was projected to surpass the

United States in total GDP in the 80s. A

lot of people probably wouldn't remember

this, but they were on a trajectory

where they would overtake the United

States. And you saw this in pop culture

and things like Back to the Future 2

where Marty McFlyy's boss was a Japanese

dude. And you saw it with things like

Nakatomi Tower in the Die Hard films.

There were a lot of illusions to fear in

the West that Japan was going to become

the new global hgeimon. But then what

happened, right? The United States made

Japan sign the Plaza Accord, which Japan

really had no choice but to sign because

Japan is basically a vassel to the

United States. And that's basically

where the Japanese economy peaked. And

then it basically stagnated and crashed

for multiple decades, the lost decades

as they say. It took 35 years for the

NIK to catch up to where it was back in

1990. You know, it's an example of a

developed first world country where an

investment would have gone nowhere for

35 years. That can certainly happen to

the United States as well. The lesson to

learn is that no matter how productive

the country is and how dedicated the

citizens of that country are, at the end

of the day, it boils down to

geopolitics. The United States is the

more powerful country and Japan is the

vassal state to the United States. So

the United States was never going to let

Japan, their own vassel, overtake them

economically. And so once Japan reached

roughly 70% of the US GDP, the United

States just came out and said, "All

right, we're going to make you sign this

treaty and twisted their arm and

basically put Japan in its place." And

when China's GDP reached roughly 70% of

the US GDP, that's also when the United

States decided that they're going to try

to twist China's arm to put China in its

place. And this is just geopolitics. A

lot of people get lost in the weeds

about, oh, what what does the Plaza Cord

do? Oh, wait. So, you're pegging the

currency or oh, so you're you're rolling

short-term bonds into long-term bonds

and they're focusing on the wrong thing.

The idea isn't to get lost in the

details of what's happening in economic

policy because economic policy can be

interpreted in so many different ways.

The greater point is that you can put a

black box over the event where the

inputs to the black box is which country

is more powerful and the output to the

black box is the more powerful country

is going to get their way. So business

between the two countries moving forward

will now benefit the more powerful

country. And sure it may sound cynical

but if you study history this is true.

It really boils down to understanding

which countries are positioned better

and are more powerful and investing in

those countries. And so it's no surprise

that the United States and the S&P 500

is the most performant stock index in

the world over the last 50 plus years,

over the last 100 years in fact. And it

raises the questions of should I invest

in China as they may supplant the United

States. But first, let's talk about war.

Since we are at war in Iran and we're in

uncertain economic times, if we talk

about World War I and World War II, it

may surprise you to find out that the

United States stock market actually

performed well over both World Wars. And

it may seem unintuitive because the

world is at war, but the United States

was well positioned and they were

producing a lot. And and in terms of how

businesses measure GDP and which

companies are represented within these

indices, it makes sense that the United

States stock market did well. So war can

actually boost GDP. Of course, it

depends, right? Uh the UK, their stock

market collapsed during World War II,

and that would make sense seeing as

Germany was dropping bombs all over them

and a lot of business came to a

screeching halt. But again, the United

States is geographically blessed. It's

protected by two vast oceans with allies

to the north and the south. And they

were able to remain relatively unscathed

through both world wars. The only real

attacks on US soil are Pearl Harbor and

9/11. Neither of them really made a huge

dent on the US GDP. So, we're entering a

multipolar world now with a rising China

and Russia evolving into being the

junior partner. And a lot of people

don't realize this, but every single

thing the US does in terms of foreign

policy is about China. Is about trying

to prepare the chessboard so that they

have the upper hand in the cold war

against China. So Venezuela was mostly

about China. A lot of people were

talking about oil. The US is

self-sufficient in oil. The US does

fracking and has huge reserves. They're

not too concerned about oil. This isn't

2004. The US primarily wants control of

Venezuela so that they can control oil

shipments to China and Russia so that

they can choke out their rivals if they

need to and Cuba as well, right? Cuba is

heavily dependent on Venezuelan oil. If

the US can reclaim Cuba, it's just one

less threat in their sphere of

influence. It's similar with Iran. Yes,

people will say, "Oh, this was all about

Israel." Two things can be true at the

same time. And when you're making

geopolitical decisions, you are often

attempting to kill multiple birds with

one stone. But it was also primarily

about China. Iran sends most of their

shipments of oil to China. And so if the

US can get control of Iran, then now

with Venezuela and Iran, the US is

slowly creating choke points where they

can choke out oil to China. And why does

this matter? Well, China with its 1.3

billion people is still heavily

dependent on oil. They attempted to get

around this with the belt and road

initiative, but that's had some setbacks

and they still heavily require shipments

of oil to pass through the straight of

Mala, which is a major choke point and

the US still has the superior navy to

China. So if these tariff wars and if

this cold war really escalates and goes

from an economic war to a kinetic war,

the first chess move that the US can

play is to choke out oil shipments to

China through the straight of Mala. And

China understands this. So as you know,

there's a lot of back and forth between

the US and China over tariffs and then

China says, "Well, we produce almost all

the rare earth, so we're going to cut

off rare earth minerals to you." Being

able to choke out China by saying,

"Well, we control Venezuela and we

control Iran. we're gonna cut you off

from oil. Now, these are all attempts to

reer raise. They're all points of

leverage and this wider negotiation

between the US and China. And lastly,

there's Greenland, right? A lot of

people think, "Oh, this is a Trump

thing. Trump's just crazy." It has

nothing to do with that. Like, a lot of

these things are deterministic. People

have been talking about this for

decades. Basically, with global warming,

the ice caps are melting. So there are

new sea lanes around Greenland that are

now available that are more efficient in

terms of shipment routes for all these

different countries and uh Russia builds

these icebreaking ships. The sealanes

are going to evolve in this new world.

The US doesn't want to lose their

advantage so they're trying to establish

ground in Greenland. Coincidentally,

Greenland also has a ton of rare earth

minerals. And in this new world where we

try to move away from fossil fuels and

we try to move towards EVs and more

green energies, a lot of them are

dependent on these rare earth minerals.

It's also important for satellite

coverage, right? So there's multiple

reasons why now it's so important. I

don't even think Trump cared about

geopolitics before he became president.

He told this stuff by his adviserss. For

those of you who think that Trump is

this lunatic who's just suddenly got

obsessed with trying to annex Canada and

and Greenland, it's because those have

become now important geopolitically in

this rivalry between the US and China

and Russia. That's the main thing that's

changed in the last decade or two with

China entering the WTO. They've had this

meteoric rise. They can now supplant the

United States. So everything we thought

was the peaceful world order, it was

always just predicated on the fact that

the US was the undisputed global

hedgeimon. So international law was

basically just US law. You know, it was

all a mirage the whole time. The idea

was just that if people didn't follow

international law, the US would come in

as the global police and make them

follow it. And now that we don't have

one undisputed global hegeimon and we're

entering this period of great power

rivalry, we're seeing that it was always

a mirage. It's just might makes right.

And so China takes the South China Sea

and Obama can't do anything about it. 20

years earlier, the US would just push

China out of there. 20 years earlier in

the 1990s when China was making threats

to invade Taiwan, Bill Clinton just

floated an aircraft carrier out there

and just went like that. And then the

Chinese are really big on saving face,

but they they just had to back off. The

difference in military might was so so

vast that there was nothing China could

do. Now Obama can't just do that. You

see China practicing these military

drills around Taiwan and the United

States just can't do that anymore. Why?

Because in the last 20 years, China has

built up their navy and their their

general defense to the point where

military strategists put a war in Taiwan

at about 50/50 as to who would win

between the US and China. And China

practices asymmetric warfare. So even if

their military technology isn't on par

with the US, they are focusing

asymmetrically on only technologies that

would help them win a war in their

backyard. So they have a ton of

short-range missiles that can reach all

the way to Guam, the first and second

island chain. It's reached the point

where the US can't police the South

China Sea as effectively anymore. And so

they're asking Japan and South Korea to

boost their defense spending to try to

kind of lock arms with the US to keep

China contained. So back to finance,

right? China is trying to overtake the

United States in technology. The person

who has the technological advantage is

going to win the wars of the future. You

see this most recently with the AI race

and you see China's neck to neck. So

with the release of deepseek you saw

that the entire US tech sector collapsed

and the Chinese Hangen tech index

rallied. So you see there's a zero sum

nature between people investing in the

US tech sector versus China's tech

sector. And you also should know that

the entire US economy is

disproportionately led by tech giants

like Apple, Microsoft. And so when the

US tech sector crashed, the entire US

stock market crashed, you're seeing that

this AI tech war is going to determine

in many ways whether money is going to

flow to the US or China. And yes, with

the release of Deepseek, you saw Chinese

stocks like Alibaba rally aggressively.

That's people switching teams and

saying, I don't think the US has this. I

think China might overtake them in the

AI race. And so you're seeing this tech

arms race play out live in the financial

markets. So that said, do I think that

you should hedge and put half of your

money in Chinese tech stocks? I would

say no because China is run differently.

It's an authoritarian country. So people

in China can tell you they view their

stock market more like a casino because

the state can intervene a lot more. In

the United States, there's more of a

checks and balances between different

points of power. But, you know, as you

saw with Jack Ma and Ant Financial, the

CCP can just step in and create new

regulations to stunt certain companies

if they want to. and they can

unilaterally, you know, just provide

subsidies to another company and make

them a state champion. They can do

things like just step in and dilute

shares and this sort of creates a lot of

corruption and uncertainty in the

Chinese stock market. Yes, while that

can lead to outperformance, it can also

lead to underperformance. But more to

the point, this relationship where the

stock market tends to track the health

of the economy and the GDP growth is a

little looser in in China as compared to

the United States. It's also why the

Chinese are so obsessed with real estate

because real estate is a is a hard

tangible asset. You own it, you live in

it. So the Chinese Communist Party can't

just dilute your shares of your real

estate. And that gives the Chinese

people more sense of security. So you

see that even with the Chinese diaspora

across the world in Toronto and

Vancouver, how they bought up all the

properties, a lot of economic policy is

upstream to culture. And it's also why

the Chinese are really big on gold

because they don't trust their stock

markets. And so that pretty much leaves

real estate and precious metals as

primary investment vehicles. So what

happens if China wins the Cold War and

they take over technology? They win the

tech arms race. Will China's Shanghai

composite go to the moon in the US S&P

500 crash? No. At least that's not what

I think would happen. I think it's about

50/50. Who would win in the cold war

between the US and China in this trap?

And I think that if China wins, China is

very practical. They're businessmen. So

I think that they would want to give the

US a soft landing because the US is a

big consumption market and they would

want the US to still be successful so

that they can continue to do business

with the US. So I think that the center

of economic power would move to China

and unequal treaties will now be signed

that favor China which is what the US

had been doing to Japan and other

countries while they were the global

hedgeimon. And so you would see a

certain amount of a brain drain from

Silicon Valley to Shenzen and things

like that. people would start learning

Mandarin Chinese and trying to work for

uh you know Alibaba and places like

this. But the US stock market, the S&P

500 would perhaps go from returning 10%

annually to 5% annually. And with the

UK, that's about how much they make on

their index, right? The Footsie, right?

The Footsie averages about 5% annually.

The US will no longer be the king of the

world, but your investments will still

have positive returns. You know, you can

sort of use the handoff of the baton

from the UK to the United States as a

precedent to understand how that might

happen. There was packed bratannica in

the past in the 1800s. And once the UK

got bombed out during World War II, they

owed so much money to the United States,

they couldn't maintain their empire

anymore. They handed the baton to the

United States. And then we got PAX

Americana. That's when the US stock

market really took off post World War II

and the UK sort of stagnated. And so I

think that that's a reasonable precedent

between what could happen between China

and the United States. Because aside

from all of this tough talk by world

leaders, the world is mostly run by

billionaires. The billionaire class or

as Chimath put it 150 or so of the most

powerful families. Those people are not

these jingoistic nationalistic people.

The these people are independent of

nation. They have pride not in their

nation. They have pride in their

families and their family crest or

whatever. And so these people all work

with each other and it's in their

interest to have these powerful

countries work together because that

makes more money for them and

subsequently for us normal folks too. So

in conclusion, where's the best place to

put your money in a rapidly changing

geopolitical world? I think the United

States continues to be the best place to

put your money. Yes, you could try to

cherrypick individual Chinese tech

stocks. That may work out for you, but

it may not too because investing in

stocks in China is seen more as gambling

because of the unpredictability of how

this how the state has control over

these individual companies. And if you

invest in the US, you're either going to

win the the cold war with China and

continue their dominance and average 8

to 10% annually or they'll lose, but

China will probably give them a soft

landing and they'll average about 5%

annually from there. And at that point,

you can decide whether you want to

diversify into certain Chinese tech

companies or other places. And as far as

diversifying internationally into other

countries, I generally don't like that

play. I generally try to just allocate

my money into the strongest countries in

the world. And the reason is because, as

I've said previously, it's all just

might makes right. It's dog eat dog. All

of these economic policies and treaties,

it's just noise. What's really happening

is the strong countries are just

bullying the weak countries and so the

money will always flow up to the strong

countries. That's how this works. Anyone

who's done business knows that people at

the top are ruthless and they got there

because they're ruthless and so they're

going to always push for self-interest.

You're either going to invest in the US

or China if you want the best

performance. And that's why the United

States stock markets, you know, like S&P

500 always outperforms international

funds. Yes, there are years where

international funds like last year 20

2025 international funds outperformed

the S&P 500 and that that can happen

here and there that that'll happen in

the one-off year but on average the S&P

500 is going to outperform the aggregate

international funds that represent other

countries for the reasons I outlined

because the United States is the most

powerful country most dominant country

in the world. They're going to brain

drain other countries. So the smartest

Indians in India are going to come to

the United States to to become the CEOs

of US tech companies and so on. We're

going to skim their top 01% and brain

drain them and have them work in the

United States. That's what you can do

when you're the most powerful country in

the world. So what about

diversification? People might say, "Oh,

well even if international exposure

lowers your overall performance, maybe

it'll diversify. So it'll like smooth

out the bumps to to improve your risk

risk adjusted returns." Sure, I can

understand that argument, but generally

speaking, even internationally, the

United States is so powerful and they

already have their tentacles all over

the world. So, you already have

international exposure when you own

Coca-Cola, when you own McDonald's. You

know, if you go to Thailand, you'll see

a strip mall with a Starbucks and a

McDonald's. And you think their local

coffee chain can compete with Starbucks

or their local hamburger chain can

compete with McDonald's? The strong eat

the weak. the amount of power and

experience that the United States has in

these businesses, they can out compete

local businesses easily. That's why

China had the requirement where US

companies can only be in China if

they're majority owned by local Chinese,

right? Cuz China understood that it's it

was wise of them, frankly. You know, in

the same way that that Facebook and Mark

Zuckerberg just gobbled up WhatsApp and

just gobbled up Instagram, if there's

ever a rising threat, the more powerful

company will just choke it out or

acquire it. And so, I'm generally not

worried about international

diversification. The US already gives

you international exposure. And so, I

continue to believe that simply being

invested in the S&P 500 over the next

few decades will continue to be where

you can get the best riskadjusted

returns even as the geopolitical

environment continues to evolve. Whether

China wins the Cold War or the US wins,

investing in the US still has the

highest expected value for the reasons I

outlined. If the US wins the Cold War

with China, having bet on the US the

whole time will have given you the best

returns. If China wins, the US will get

a soft landing. Their annual returns

will flatten a little bit, probably down

to 5% or so annually. And at that point,

it might make sense for you to

selectively buy a few of the state

champions of China like Huawei or

Alibaba or 10 cent. That's how I'm

playing this this whole geopolitical

game. All right. Well, if you want to go

over your own personal investment and

early retirement strategies, I have a

Calendarly one-on-one call link in bio

if you want to book a call with me. And

uh let me know if you disagree in the

comments. Take care.