💰 📫 In Earnings We Trust | Monthly Digest #65

💰 📫 In Earnings We Trust | Monthly Digest #65 | May-26

Published: Thu, 06/04/26

Updated: Thu, 06/04/26

Sweat Your Assets Monthly Digest - End of May 2026

Market Barometer
Quotes of the Month
Posts
YouTube

1) MARKET BAROMETER - In Earning We Trust

How did May treat you? If you own a diversified portfolio, the honest answer is probably: pretty well. Possibly better than you could expect, given everything going on in the world right now.

The S&P 500, America's big index of 500 large companies, finished May at a record high, up around 5% on the month alone. Global stocks broadly followed.

So what drove it? Simple, really: companies made more money than expected. Not a little more — by the biggest margin in over four years. Profits were up, revenues were up, and analysts who had been quietly nervous about the year are now quietly upgrading their forecasts.

Markets love nothing more than a positive surprise, and May delivered several.

Now, if you're thinking "but the world is a mess right now," you're not wrong. The US and Iran are still in an uneasy ceasefire. Oil prices were all over the place before calming down. AI stocks continue to do things that would have seemed implausible three years ago. And yet, markets went up. This is a useful reminder that markets are not a live broadcast of world events. They're a collective bet on future profits — and right now, those bets are looking confident.

Bonds are a different mood entirely. The 10-year US Treasury yield — think of it as a thermometer for how worried investors are about inflation — finished May at 4.45%. That's up, not down.

What it's telling us is that inflation hasn't been fully tamed. The US central bank (the Fed) kept interest rates on hold at 3.50–3.75%, and the idea of rate cuts this year is quietly being pushed to "maybe 2027." Not dramatic, but worth noting if you have a mortgage or any bonds in your portfolio.

Gold has been the drama queen of the asset class world this year. It hit an all-time record above $5,600 back in January, then spent May cooling off around $4,500–4,550. Still historically very high. What's holding it up? A mix of geopolitical nerves, a weaker US dollar, and the general sense that some people would rather own something physical and shiny than trust a government's balance sheet. Hard to argue with, frankly.

Bitcoin hovered around $73,000–74,000. The headline of the month: Strategy Inc. — the company run by Michael Saylor, arguably Bitcoin's most famous cheerleader — actually sold some Bitcoin. This is the investing equivalent of your vegan friend ordering a steak. Markets noticed. It doesn't mean Bitcoin is doomed, but it does suggest the "never sell" crowd is evolving its thinking.

The VIX, a measure of market nervousness, sometimes called the "fear index", sat at a calm 15. Low fear. Which is either reassuring or a little suspicious, depending on your temperament. Mine leans slightly suspicious.

My takeaway: May rewarded people who stayed invested and didn't overthink it. That said, this rally is being driven by a fairly small group of tech and AI companies. If you zoom out, the average stock isn't doing nearly as well as the headline numbers suggest. Stay invested, stay diversified — but don't mistake a calm surface for still water underneath.

Market / Asset	Value	Notes
S&P 500	7,600	Record high; +5.1% on the month
MSCI World	4,800	Global stocks rose; non-US helped
Bitcoin	$73K	Consolidating, Strategy sold BTC
Gold (spot)	$4,524/oz	Off January record ($5,600+); still elevated
VIX	15.3	Low fear — calm, perhaps too calm

10-Year Yield 4.45% Rising — inflation still a live issue

Oil (Brent) §94 (bbl) Volatile on US-Iran ceasefire news

2) SWEAT YOUR ASSETS - QUOTES OF THE MONTH

"The quality of attention determines the quality of experience. Two people can live the same life. One experiences boredom, the other discovers richness and meaning. The difference is not wealth, status, or possessions, but the ability to truly notice." — Marcel Proust

"The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists." — Benjamin Graham

"Being busy is a form of laziness — lazy thinking and indiscriminate action." — Tim Ferriss

3) BLOG POST:

The Pale Blue Dot: A Compass for Chaotic Times

In 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft turned its camera back towards Earth from 6 billion kilometres away. What it captured was a tiny, pale blue dot — our entire world, suspended in a sunbeam. Carl Sagan's reflection on that image is one of the most powerful perspective checks ever written. This post borrows that perspective for chaotic times: markets, geopolitics, ego. When things feel overwhelming, zoom out. Way out.

Read the full article

Markets Don't Move in Straight Lines: Bull and Bear Cycles Through the Lens of the Nataraja

Everyone knows the bull and the bear — the two animals that have come to represent rising and falling markets. But there's a third symbol worth knowing: the Nataraja, the Hindu god Shiva in his dancing form, representing the endless cycle of creation and destruction. It turns out to be a surprisingly good model for how markets actually work — not as a straight line up or down, but as a rhythm. This post explores the pattern beneath the price chart.

Read the full article

Practice Makes Perfect. Reps First, Mastery Follows

There's a classic experiment where a pottery teacher splits her class in two: one half spends the semester making one perfect pot, the other just makes as many pots as possible. Who produces the better work by the end? The "quantity" group, by a mile. The lesson: you can't think your way to mastery — you have to show up and do the reps. This applies to investing habits, saving discipline, and frankly most things worth getting good at.

Read the full article

4) YOUTUBE EPISODES

Why Most Investors Stay Average — Howard Marks Explains

Here's an uncomfortable question: if everyone is trying to beat the market, why do most people end up with average results at best? Howard Marks has a clear answer: most investors think at the same level as everyone else, which means they reach the same conclusions and make the same moves. To do better, you have to think differently. Not just differently, but correctly differently (there's a crucial distinction). This video breaks down what Marks calls "second-level thinking" and why the mere act of being contrarian isn't enough on its own.

Watch it Now

You Can't Judge a Decision by Its Outcome — Howard Marks on Intelligent Risk Taking

We've all done it. Made a questionable call that worked out brilliantly, then congratulated ourselves on our excellent judgment. Or made a sensible, well-researched decision that went sideways, and felt like an idiot. Howard Marks has a simple but deeply inconvenient message: the quality of a decision and the quality of its outcome are two different things. A good process can produce bad results. A bad process can get lucky. This video is about learning to judge the former, not the latter — which is the only thing you can actually control.

Watch it Now

Until next month,

Sweat Your Assets,

Alessandro Baroni

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