I'm Selling... Where I'm Investing in 2026

What's up you guys, it's Graham here. So 2026 is going to be absolutely insane. Like even though 55% of Americans say they don't have enough money to invest, stocks are still near their all-time highs. Some of the wealthiest people in the world are warning about an AI bubble, and home prices are out of reach for the vast majority of people. That's why it's extremely important that we break down exactly what's happening throughout stocks, real estate, cryptocurrency, and precious metals in 2026, where I'm investing my own money, including the one thing I am completely getting rid of, and then most importantly, how you can best position yourself, whether this turns into the next generational buying opportunity, or a painful reset that catches everybody off guard. Although before we go into that, if you appreciate these videos and you find them helpful, it would mean the world to me if you hit the like button or subscribe if you haven't done that already. That's all I ask, it helps out the channel more than you can imagine, and as a thank you for doing that, here's a picture of a clam. So thanks so much, and also a big thank you to Rocket Money for sponsoring this video, but more on that later. Alright, so what makes this year so different is that we're dealing with some rather unprecedented conditions that haven't really existed before today. Like this is the first time in years that the Federal Reserve started printing more money. Insiders are currently selling off their stocks at the fastest level since 2021, and by almost all metrics, nearly every single asset is trading at its most expensive price ever in history. That's why it's more important than ever to be very strategic about how you're investing in 2026, and only pick the investments that are most likely to give you the best returns possible. So given how we're near record highs, here's my own plan throughout the next 12 months and where I'm personally investing all of my money. So let's begin first with stocks. Without exaggeration, this was my number one best performing investment of 2025. Which was surprising considering that for the first half of the year, I was down a ton of money. And when it comes to this, here's my entire strategy. At this point in my life, all I value above all else is simplicity. I just want something, set it and forget it, that quietly grows and makes money in the background without me thinking about it. And when it comes to myself, that's index funds. For the last 5 years, I have been dollar cost averaging into a US broad market ETF that basically covers the S&P 500 along with larger mid cap stocks, a 20% allocation to international stocks, and a 5% allocation to emerging markets. Because I believe the rest of the world is soon going to catch up with the advancements that we're making here in the United States. Essentially, these three funds give me the diversification of riding the entire world stock market. And if long term growth does well, I make money. And if not, then I buy the dip, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise back in April when the S&P 500 fell below $5,000, the Nasdaq sold off to $15,000, and Bitcoin dropped to $75,000. Yeah, at that point, no joke, I went from being up a lot of money to seeing 7 bigger losses in my account. So what did I do? I kept buying even more. Even though I didn't use all the cash I had available, I was able to quadruple down on my buy in prices, knowing that it's better for me to buy in cheaper than more expensive, which is the exact opposite of what a lot of people think. Like I can't tell you how many times I see people cheering that the market's at an all time high, even though they're in their 20s, they're not retiring anytime soon. And all things being equal, it would be better for the market to fall so they could buy in cheaper where their money goes a lot further. Now, of course, that's not to say you should be waiting on the sidelines or trying to time the market for a dip to buy in. But it is to say that when the market does fall, look forward to it. Buy in even more. Don't fear it. Because as history has shown us, those have turned out to be some of the best buying opportunities of our lifetime. This is why today I'm up almost 40% on every dollar that I invested eight months ago for doing nothing else other than clicking a few buttons on my phone. And I did nothing differently than what I usually do, which is dollar cost average. If the market goes higher, I keep buying in. And if it drops, I buy in even more. Is it perfect? No. But if Warren Buffett recommends this strategy for the vast majority of people, I tend to think it's probably something worth looking into. Of course, in terms of where I expect the market to move over 2026 and when it might come crashing down, the honest answer is I have no idea and nobody knows. I mean, I know I've said it before and it's kind of cheesy, but it's true. The market can remain irrational longer than you could remain solvent, which basically means the market's going to outlast whatever you think it'll do. If you think it's going to go higher, it'll keep going higher than you ever thought was possible. And if you think the market's going to sell off, well, it could sell off until you run out of money. And then it's going to fall even further. The truth is sometimes the simplest approach is also the most effective. In over a 20 year timeframe, the S&P 500 has never once produced a negative result. So far. Although let's rewind for a second because there is another investment we need to talk about that I'm selling completely out of. And that would be the housing market. See initially, this is how I started my entire career back in 2008. And in the beginning, real estate was pretty much my only investment. Like I'd work full time as a real estate agent, save up all of my commissions. And then after months or even years of searching, I would find one deal, fix it up, I'd rent it out. And then I'd repeat the process over again. However, after a certain point, I realized it wasn't a smart idea to be a hundred percent invested in one asset class in one location. So in 2020, I made the conscious effort to start diversifying into other asset classes. That said, I never stopped looking at real estate. I was always keeping an eye out for the right deal. But besides refinancing into cheaper mortgages throughout 2020, I haven't found anything that's just a no brainer deal to buy. So now with prices at all time highs, instead of buying more, I've made the decision to start selling everything off. Why you might ask? Well, before we go into why I'm selling these properties, I want to pause for a second because this ties into directly how I think about risk. See, when the markets feel unpredictable and everything is at an all time high, the one thing you have direct control over is your spending. For me, this became extremely obvious when I started tracking my own expenses and realizing how much is quietly leaking out every single month. I'm talking about subscriptions I forgot about, charges that auto renewed at prices I didn't agree to. All of it just adds up. Like just the other day, I found that an old subscription renewed and the new price was 50% higher than the original price. Now, of course I called them and I got the money back, but that would not have been possible without our sponsor, Rocket Money. No joke, they're the platform that I've been using on a daily basis for years that aggregates all of my accounts in one place, helps me keep track of spending, and then sends me alerts anytime something seems unusual. I also really like how they allow you to manage all of your recurring subscriptions in one place and then you could cancel with just a couple taps. Like the average person is spending over $1,000 a year on subscriptions. And my bet is that you have no idea how much you're actually being charged. This is why Rocket Money has helped save its customers up to $740 a year when you use all of the app's premium features. And they've also helped customers save over $880 million in canceled subscriptions. So if you want to take control of your finances today, just head to rocketmoney.com slash Graham or use the link down below in the description to unlock even more features with premium. Again, without exaggeration, I've been using them on a daily basis for years and they have saved me a ton of money. So again, that link is down below rocketmoney.com slash Graham. Thanks so much. And now let's get back to the video. All right. So in terms of why I'm selling off all of my real estate, on the one hand, this is a really unique time for the housing market. Like monthly payments have more than doubled in the last five years. Some areas are seeing rather large price drops while others continue seeing nonstop gains. And throughout most of the United States, it's actually cheaper to rent than buy. So from an ROI standpoint, it makes sense in my situation to cash out and put that money to work somewhere else. However, on the other hand, I also just don't want the hassle of owning property in California anymore. Like prices have risen to a point where it's better to cash out. Expenses are increasing faster than I'm allowed to raise rents. And from a peace of mind standpoint, I do not want to deal anymore with contractors, management companies, and insurance companies. That's why in my situation, I don't want to be involved in real estate anymore. Does that mean it's bad for everybody? Of course not. If you have the hunger to go and find a good deal, fix it up and add value, by all means, go for it. It's just for myself. I value more time over more money. And real estate for me is not the best way to achieve that goal. This is why so far I have sold three properties in the last two years. My plan is to sell another two when I get them ready. And ideally long term, all I want is a primary residence that I live in myself. And that's it. Again, this is about optimizing more so for peace of mind than more money. Even though in California, it'd actually make more money selling out the properties and putting that money to work somewhere else. But we'll save that for another video. Anyway, in terms of the broader market, though, since this is a 2026 video, it's largely expected that mortgage rates will begin to decline, prices may begin to soften, but not collapse, and affordability may slightly improve for buyers. But not by much. So the general consensus seems to be more of the same. Although this next one is going to be quite different, and that would be Bitcoin. Honestly, this one's not for the faint of heart because it started the year at ninety three thousand, fell to seventy five thousand, then rose to one hundred and twenty five thousand and then settled around ninety thousand. Meaning if you bought once at the beginning of the year and then did absolutely nothing, you would have lost money. Now, even though Bitcoin's price swings like this are not unusual by any stretch of the imagination, seeing a year over year price decrease like this has so far only happened three times over the last 10 years. In terms of what's causing this, it appears as though we have the perfect storm all happening at the exact same time. First, there is a lot of leverage in the system so that when the price goes down, traders get liquidated, causing the price to fall even further. Second, more and more investors are moving their money away from risk assets and into safer investments. Therefore, less money is flowing into Bitcoin. And third, Bitcoin has already seen such a large price run up that it makes sense that some people are just taking their profits. This is why I only keep a small portion of my portfolio in a Bitcoin ETF that a dollar cost average into like I would any other stock. And since the price is down this year, I was able to tax loss harvest my big purchases to offset capital gains elsewhere. And then I'll continue buying back in once that 30 days is up. Beyond that, though, for purposes of transparency, the Bitcoin ETF, I got to say, has been my worst performing investment of twenty twenty five, even though when you zoom out, the holdings have still done pretty well. But year over year, not the best, unlike this next one, which would be precious metals. Now, I'll admit, I'm not a huge precious metals investor. I own a few ounces of gold that I've held on for over a decade. I probably have a few hundred silver coins that I've kept since I was a kid. I've got an ounce of platinum bullion from 1999. That's it. But it has been astonishing to see just how much precious metals have risen over the last year, like gold passing forty three hundred dollars an ounce, silver hitting almost seventy dollars, platinum reaching two thousand. In fact, a lot of you have been asking for me to make an entire video dedicated to silver. So here's what I have to say about it in terms of silver. It is driven by fundamentals like there's a lot of industrial use for solar panels, TVs and electronics that push prices higher. There's economic uncertainty that's causing people to put their money into alternative investments. Combine that with the fact that silver has been on a supply deficit for five years straight and you get a perfect storm for prices to keep going higher. However, even though precious metals have pretty much outperformed everything in twenty twenty five, when you adjust for inflation, silver is still below its nineteen eighty peak, which would place it closer to one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars today. So is it still a good investment? In my opinion, maybe a lot of people look at what's called the gold to silver ratio, which tracks how many ounces of silver buys you one ounce of gold. And when you see an extreme, this might indicate that either gold is overvalued or silver is undervalued. And right now, the chart shows that either gold has room to fall or silver has a little more room to grow, especially because they can't just go and create more silver in terms of gold, though. Again, historically, it pretty much tracks the price of inflation. And again, going back to the 1980s, when you adjust for inflation, gold is pretty much back to the point it was 50 years ago. So, yes, in short bursts, you can absolutely make a lot of money in precious metals. But long term, I tend to be a lot more optimistic in equities like stocks. But time will tell. And in terms of my last investment, I have one more failsafe to talk about, and that would be treasuries. Overall, I like to structure my portfolio in such a way where I can take advantage of any opportunity whenever it comes up. That's why I keep about 20 percent in the mix between tax free muni bonds and treasuries that earn anywhere from three and a half to five point three percent. This gives me a lot of peace of mind, knowing that if the market falls, I have the cash to buy back in and if it keeps going higher, well, that's fine, too, because I get monthly income. Yes, in hindsight, this did make a lot less money than I would have made just investing in the S&P 500. But it does give me a lot of peace of mind knowing that no matter what happens, it'll be totally fine. I guess I just put a pretty heavy price of peace of mind and stability to the point where I'm just playing at this point not to lose, not necessarily to maximize every single dollar, every place I can. That's why, in terms of what I think about 2026, here is my own analysis. Generally, I do worry that AI valuations are getting a bit out of hand. It seems a bit frothy. There's a lot more speculation than I like to see, but that is not stopping me from buying it because who knows what's going to happen or how long it'll last. Or maybe this is just the very beginning. So I'm not going to try to time the market. In terms of Bitcoin, I allocate about 10 to 15 percent of my entire portfolio into a Bitcoin ETF. This is an amount that I'm willing to risk. And if it goes to zero, you know what? So be it. But long term, I am optimistic that people are going to be looking for a digital store of value. I have no doubt the Fed will just continue printing more money. And over the next 10 years, as long as I'm not holding on to dollars, I'm happy. Beyond that, though, when I zoom out and I look at analyst expectations throughout 2026, the general consensus seems to be that we're not likely to see one asset class explode in price or an imminent collapse that's about to wipe everybody out. But instead, we're probably entering a time of lower, choppier returns, a little more volatility and fewer easy wins. At the end of the day, the future is likely going to reward consistency, patience and discipline. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I've just noticed that markets tend to punish people who chase headlines over leverage and try to outsmart everyone else, when in reality, the easiest way to come out ahead is to diversify, keep buying and don't panic when the market drops. So whether this year turns into the next generational buying opportunity or the one that tested everyone's patience, my strategy is going to be the exact same. Keep buying in consistently, diversify throughout index funds, and no matter what, hit the like button and subscribe if you haven't done that already. So with that said, thank you so much for watching. Don't forget to check out Rocket Money down below in the description to track your finances. Now is the best time to start. Really appreciate it. And until next time.