Good morning, investors. I’ll be on stage twice today at Robinhood’s HOOD Summit in Houston — come find me for a live recording of Full Signal or my panel discussion on risk-taking in the age of the AI trade.

💡 Reader note: I’ll also be speaking at Silvia Investor Summit in New York City on October 7-8th. Over 1,000 independent investors will convene to hear directly from public market CEOs and macroeconomic experts.

Opening Bell Daily subscribers get 25% General Admission tickets with code BELL25.

Seats are going fast — register here to lock in your spot.

Americans have rarely felt this bad about the economy while stocks felt this good.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index has sat below 60 for more than a year, even as the Nasdaq climbed to record highs. Federal Reserve data explains the split, because nearly all of the stock market's windfall has landed with the richest 10% of households.

Through August, there were only 13 months in the past 40 years when sentiment sat below 60 while the Nasdaq was up 20% or more from a year earlier. 

Twelve of them came in the last 13 months.

The lone exception was August 2011. Otherwise, readings that grim arrived alongside bear markets, as gloomy consumers and falling stocks moved together in 2008 and 2022.

Sentiment hit an all-time low of 44.8 in May, undercutting the 50.0 reading from June 2022. That same month, the Nasdaq was up 41% from a year earlier.

The Fed's Distributional Financial Accounts tell the story. 

Household holdings of stocks and mutual funds rose $14.1 trillion between mid-2025 and mid-2026, and the top 1% collected $7.4 trillion of it.

The next 9% took $5.2 trillion, and the 50th to 90th percentiles added $1.4 trillion.

The bottom half of the country gained just $90 billion, or 0.6% of the total.

The wealthiest tenth now owns 88.1% of directly held stocks, while the bottom half owns 0.6%. For most households, a record-breaking stock market does not mean anything.  

These figures exclude 401(k)s and pensions, where many middle-class savers keep their equity exposure. But a retirement balance decades away doesn't cover this month's bills.

Wall Street's scoreboard keeps rising, and most Americans aren't on it.

All other US-traded gold and silver ETFs store physical metal overseas.

Y’all Street takes a different approach.

YSAU, the Y’all Street Physical Gold ETF, and YSAG, the Y’all Street Physical Silver ETF, are designed to give investors exposure to physical gold and silver with the metal stored entirely in the US at Texas Precious Metals Depository.

The accessibility of Wall Street, with a distinctly Texas approach to ownership.

Know what you own and where it is.

🛢US and Iran held separate mediator talks as Mideast oil exports hit war-time highs. President Trump rejected an earlier Iranian ceasefire proposal, keeping Brent crude elevated as fears of a Strait of Hormuz disruption climb. (CNBC)

🏦 The 30-year Treasury yield touched its highest level since 2002 at 5.61%. Traders are unwinding the rate-cut trade on the back of sticky inflation and record deficit issuance, pushing long-duration risk assets to a stress test they haven’t seen in decades. (Yahoo Finance)

🚀 Anthropic disclosed AI's "existential risk to humanity" in its IPO prospectus. It filed the unusual language this week, a rare acknowledgment that the technology could pose civilizational-level danger. (CNBC)

🤖 Trump gathered with AI leaders and floated self-regulation as the way to handle the technology's dangers. The White House sit-down with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Microsoft floated a light-touch framework over mandatory federal rules. (Yahoo Finance)

Jessica Inskip is the director of research at StockBrokers.com and one of the most followed investment voices in the industry.

We sat down to discuss the paradox of record-high stocks and surging bond yields, risks to hyperscalers, and the opportunities she likes best in the AI trade.

Tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

🗓 September 30, 1981: The 10-year Treasury yield hit its all-time peak of 15.84% as the Fed Funds Rate sat at 17% and inflation ran near 11% under Fed Chair Paul Volcker.

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*This material must be preceded or accompanied by a prospectus. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing.

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