Yes, dear reader, while honest citizens were weeping over their crypto portfolios and questioning the existence of free will, Tether was calmly expanding its Bitcoin hoard like a paranoid squirrel with a billion-dollar inheritance. Close to nine thousand Bitcoin-no, not a typo, not a hallucination, though given the price swings, one could be forgiven for thinking so.
Apparently, this happened in 2025, amidst what they call “volatile market conditions.” Volatile. A polite word for chaos, if you ask me. Still, people kept trading. Steadily, even. Across the globe. Binance, naturally, was at the center of it all. A very important center, indeed. One wonders if anyone actually benefits from all this, beyond the exchange itself. 🤔
Over the past three years, the market has strutted about like a hypnotized jester unshaken by the collapse of empires-temporary setbacks mere flickers in an otherwise unbreakable mirror. But beneath this veneer of invincibility, an unease stirs, like a suppressed whisper beneath a grand chandelier. And while no herald from the prophets has yet sounded alarms of imminent doom, the specter most likely to terrify the market in 2026 is not some digital innovation or sudden technological revelation, but a primal, relentless force: inflation’s ghostly grip tightening around the economy’s throat, dragging yields upward as lamenting bonds cry out for mercy.
Among the notable decliners, we find the Chinese electric vehicle makers, Nio and Xpeng, their futures resembling the precarious tightrope of fate, where gains can swiftly turn to losses. Nio, having danced closely with the specter of success just yesterday, found itself retreating, albeit still basking in the warmer glow of the week’s overall performance. Meanwhile, the real estate-linked stocks, those vulnerable entities sensitive to the whims of interest rates, like Prologis, also faltered, weighed down by the heavy burden of Fed minutes and the looming presence of 10-year Treasury yields hovering near 4.14%.
Though their charts of market dominion overlap, the disparities in their fiscal burdens, breadth of holdings, and recent tempests may sway investors toward divergent shores.
Let us examine their vital statistics, though numbers often lie like diplomats at a banquet.
This triumph ended a seven-day outflow streak-a veritable financial exodus of £1.12 billion-that had left investors clutching their portfolios like a Victorian maiden clutching her pearls. A welcome respite, if you’ll pardon the pun.
VEA’s got more assets than a widow’s inheritance – $260 billion to SPDW’s $33.5. Same 0.03% fee, but VEA’s yield’s higher, if you’re into that sort of thing. Both funds twitched like corpses in a morgue when the market coughed – betas of 1.03 and 1.06. Five years back, they’d both taken bullets: SPDW down 30.23%, VEA 29.71%. Close enough to call it a tie in a knife fight.
Lo! The venerable Mr. Crypto Whale, a sage of the digital realm, unveils a logarithmic chart-a sacred scroll-foretelling a $210,000 peak in 2026. “Cycles don’t lie!” he proclaims, as if the market were a fickle lover who always keeps her promises. 🧙♂️✨
On September 30, Hood River’s portfolio acquired 1.51 million shares of Tower Semiconductor (TSEM 2.07%), a transaction that crystallized into $109.22 million of marketable intent. This 1.29% stake in their $8.47 billion constellation of American equities elevates their holdings to 152 celestial bodies-a cosmic portfolio where Tower now orbits as a bright, if peculiar, star.