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What’s your excuse now?

The stock market had a pretty boring year in 2024. The max drawdown was just 8.5%, compared with an average of 16% for the last hundred years or so.

There was only one addition to my famous “Reasons to Sell Chart,” which came during the summer. Only one month into the year, and we’ve got another reason to sell.

The AI trade has powered the market higher for the past couple of years. According to Professor Damodaran, 44% of the overall change in the S&P 500’s market cap from 2019 to 2024 came from the Mag 7 stocks. If their invincibility comes into question, as it did on Monday, then the market could be in for a rough period ahead.

On Monday, Nvidia’s market cap fell by $589 billion, the largest one-day loss in the history of the world.

Nobody knows how this will play out. Will this be another reason to sell? Or will this be the reason to sell? Time will tell. It always does.

Josh and I spoke to Alex Kantrowitz last night on WAYT to understand what’s going on and how the market is digesting this bomb.

Speaking of Nvidia, I’m really excited to share a new project we’re working on. All of the content that we create revolves around the market and the news of the week. We’ve spent very little time flexing the muscles that we’ve built at our day job at Ritholtz Wealth Management. That ends today. We have a new channel called Ownership by Ritholtz Wealth Management, where we’ll be showcasing the real-world matters that we work with clients on every day. 

In our first video, Josh speaks with our senior advisor, Joey Fishman, about equity compensation through the lens of the greatest wealth-creation machine of all time, Nvidia.

Apparently, 76% of Nvidia employees are millionaires, according to this one poll. More than one in three employees has a net worth in excess of $20 million. Nearly all of this was created by different variations of equity-based compensation, which can be complicated enough to make your head spin.

We do this sort of work day in and day out for our clients, and Joey and Josh do a great job of breaking it down in this video. If you have questions about equity comp, we have Certified Financial Planners® standing by. Reach out to us at [email protected] 

*The Yen carry-trade explosion. Member that one?