--- title: 'How to Invest in 2026 After the Stock Market Drop' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=XfR-4TPmjSI' video_id: 'XfR-4TPmjSI' date: 2026-08-01 duration_sec: 625 --- # How to Invest in 2026 After the Stock Market Drop > Source: [How to Invest in 2026 After the Stock Market Drop](https://youtube.com/watch?v=XfR-4TPmjSI) ## Summary The video explains why global markets experienced a sharp sell-off at the start of 2026, triggered by President Trump initiating a conflict on February 28, which pushed oil prices higher and sparked recession and stagflation fears. The speaker argues that the crash was amplified by a debt-driven economy where margin calls forced investors to sell all assets, including safe havens like gold and bonds, to raise cash. He then outlines an investment strategy for 2026: stay invested, buy dips with dollar cost averaging, avoid excessive margin debt, and diversify with index funds, international stocks, and precious metals. ### Key Points - **Markets Drop Triggered by Conflict** [00:02] — President Trump initiated the conflict on February 28, causing markets to fall due to surging oil prices and fears of recession or stagflation. - **Why Safe Havens Also Fell** [00:29] — In a debt-driven global economy, stocks, bonds, and gold all fell because investors faced a liquidity crunch and sold across all asset classes to obtain cash. - **Global Debt Explosion** [00:43] — Global government debt grew from about $20 trillion 25 years ago to over $111 trillion by the end of 2025. - **Debt Bubble Requires Inflation** [01:08] — The current economic model needs the stock market, wages, and tax collections to keep rising to prevent the debt bubble from popping. - **Mortgage Analogy** [01:22] — A $300,000 mortgage is easier to service when income rises from $100,000 to $150,000, illustrating how inflation helps service pre-existing debt. - **All Debt Categories Exploding** [02:30] — Mortgage debt, student loan debt, and margin debt have all shot up; margin debt chart extends to February 2026. - **Margin Debt Explained** [03:12] — Margin debt is money investors borrow to invest; it works if the market goes up with certainty, but volatility and black swan events make it risky. - **Margin Calls Force Selling** [04:41] — If account balances fall too low, brokerages auto-sell positions to recover borrowed money, so investors scramble for cash and sell assets. - **Selling What You Can, Not What You Want** [05:07] — Investors, institutions, and countries sold stocks, gold, and Treasury bonds to raise cash during the liquidity crunch. - **Ceasefire and Predestined Trajectory** [05:50] — If the war de-escalates and the liquidity crunch ends, markets should revert to the pre-existing trajectory of a growing debt bubble and rising prices. - **No Prolonged Recession or Deflation** [06:33] — The numbers don't work in a debt bubble; money printing can cure recession/deflation in months but will cause future inflation. - **Stay Invested and Think Long-Term** [07:17] — Don't try to time the market; be an investor, not a trader, and maintain a long-term mindset. - **Buy the Dips via Dollar Cost Averaging** [07:43] — Dips are buying opportunities; DCA removes the guesswork and avoids trying to time the bottom perfectly. - **Avoid Excessive Margin Debt** [07:57] — Borrowing too much to invest is a big liability and stress; smart people get into financial trouble this way. - **Diversify with Index Funds and Metals** [08:21] — An S&P 500 index fund or ETF is essential; add international stock funds and precious metals like gold and silver. - **M2 Money Supply Keeps Accelerating** [08:49] — The M2 money supply has risen and accelerated over 60 years, explaining persistent inflation and rising prices. - **S&P 500 and Gold Long-Term Trends** [09:16] — The S&P 500 has trended upward for 30 years due to more money circulating; gold has crushed S&P 500 performance and requires more devalued dollars per ounce. ### Conclusion The speaker argues that despite short-term volatility, the debt bubble mathematically forces long-term inflation and rising asset prices; his 2026 playbook is to stay invested, buy dips through DCA, avoid excessive leverage, and diversify including gold and international funds. ## Transcript invest in the stock market in 2026. So, here's what you need to know. President Trump initiated the conflict on February 28th and it caused the markets to fall. Surging oil prices, which is a big input cost for just about everything, from farming to manufacturing to shipping to AI, brought about justified fears of recession or stagflation. And that sends just about everything down. Stocks went down, bonds went down, out. Okay, why did everything fall? Aren't bonds and gold supposed to be a safe haven? Now, this is what you need to understand. Like, this is critical. We are living in a debt-driven global And I want to show you an example of sovereign debt or government debt. So, you see how back 25 years ago government debt was around 20 trillion dollars. This is globally. And now it's exploded to over 111 trillion. So, these figures are up until the end of 2025. Okay, so because of this debt bubble, by design, they need inflation. They need prices to keep going up. So, the current economic model needs the stock market to go up, needs wages to go up, needs tax collections to go up in order to prevent the debt bubble from popping. So, listen, I just want to give you an example that everyone can understand. Let's say that you have and house, you got a $300,000 mortgage on your home. And you make, let's just say $100,000 a year. Okay, we'll keep the numbers rounded simple. Now, in this scenario, you can comfortably service your monthly mortgage payments, right? Mortgage of 300,000, your income is 100,000 a year. But, if you get a pay cut down to, let's just say $70,000 a year, then you're going to be much more difficult for you to keep up with your mortgage payments, right? Compared to when you were making $100,000 a year. So, I don't think I need to explain that any further. Like, you understand. Now, if you have a $300,000 mortgage and your income increases from $100,000 a year to $150,000 a year, then it's going to be much easier for you to keep up with your mortgage payments, right? That's because your income has inflated. And the pre-existing debts, of course, it stayed the same. So, your wage inflation has helped your economic situation. And it's going to be the same concept with our economic model. So, there's all this debt out there. We need inflation. We need higher prices. We need more tax collections in order to maintain the ability to service all the understand that. Now, you have to understand that it's not just government debts that's been exploding higher. It's mortgage debts, student loan debts. They've all been shooting up higher. And also, what you're looking at right here is margin debts. So, this chart goes all the way up to February of 2026. Margin debts is money that investors borrow to invest. So, essentially, money. So, I want to give you an example. Let's just say that I have a million dollars in my brokerage accounts. And then in that case, I can buy $1 million worth of stocks, right? But the thing is that I can borrow additional money. So, let's just say that I want to borrow an additional $300,000. It This is in the case that I want to invest with more than what I have. So, if I know with certainty that the market is going up, then yeah, it would be in my best interest to borrow money and invest as much as possible, right? However, no such certainty exists in short time frames because of volatility or even black swan events, you know, whatever they may be. investor and you borrowed a whole lot of money to invest. same thing. You need the price of your investments to go up, otherwise you're going to run into debt problems. If your investments stay flat, you know, you're going to lose money on paying interest on your margin debt, right? going to be in trouble, especially if you borrowed a lot of money. Now something like this happens and the markets fall and your investments are you know, investments that you purchased with borrowed money. you going to do? Many people are going to sell you know, because they don't have a choice to lower or eliminate their Essentially, what I'm saying is that investors are looking for cash to cushion their investment accounts. Because if I borrow money in my margin debts, then I have to maintain a certain balance within my accounts, otherwise the brokerage will automatically sell some of my positions in order to ensure that the money that I borrowed will be paid back. So that's called a margin call. people get margin calls and they're scrambling for cash. And it in order to obtain that cash, people are going to have to sell whatever they can, not what they want. So for example, let's just say that you physical gold, okay? stock market accounts and then you need to post money within 48 hours. You know, going to sell your rental property in 48 hours? Or are you going to sell your your gold because you're going to sell what you can, not what you want. So you have no choice. Investors, institutions, and countries were selling their stocks, they're selling their gold, US Treasury bonds, you know, across all asset classes to obtain cash. It was a liquidity crunch environments. Now, I just want to say that I'm shooting this video during the two-week ceasefire. And if this war truly de-escalates, and there's no longer a severe liquidity crunch, and people are no longer scrambling to sell across the board and obtain cash, then we're going to revert back to the predestined trajectory. The trajectory that debt bubble expanding, investment prices rising, and more inflation. Again, this is all by design. So, this is not a hunch. This is a mathematical design. We cannot have a prolonged recession. We cannot have deflation. The numbers don't work in a debt bubble. And I just want to say that if we do run across those stay there for long, because it's easy to cure with money printing. You know, that'll stop a recession or deflation within a matter of months. that's going to come back to bite us in the future with inflation and then but at least we live to fight another day, right? So, you may not agree with how this economic model or macro environments operates, and nor do I, but this is the world that we live in, and I've accepted that. And I don't want to be left behind financially. So, now I want to give you my opinion on how you should invest in 2026, especially in the event of de-escalation of the Iran war. You know, once we return to our normal trajectory, which is inevitable. Okay, so the first thing is you have to stay invested. Like, don't try to time the market by going in and out. You know, don't be a trader, be an investor. Have a long-term mindset. And I'll tell you, take advantage of dips. Buy the dips. Take advantage of the volatility, because again, in the long run, it's all designed to just go long run, it's all designed to just go up. And dips are buying opportunities. And when you buy the dips, do not try to time the bottom perfectly. You know, just dollar cost average in DCA in and take the guesswork out of it. again, you're not going to get the most terrible price either. But if it's a dip, then you're getting an opportunity to buy at a discount. And this one is very important. Please don't borrow an excessive amount of money to invest with. You know, that's a big liability, a liability and stress that you do not want. Trust me. So that's that's how a lot of smart people get into trouble. And I don't want to see you get into financial trouble. So please avoid excess margin debt. And please stay diversified. An S&P 500 index fund or ETF is essential, in my opinion. So I would not have all my money in US stocks. I would buy some international stock funds or ETFs. And I would definitely buy some precious metals, gold and silver. You know, I think those are essential to a well-diversified portfolio in 2026 and going forward. And I just want to show you some charts so that you can see what I'm talking about. This is the M2 money supply, how much money is out there over the past 60-something years. So notice how it just keeps going up, clearly. And it's accelerating. You know, oh gee, no wonder why we have inflation and prices keep going up, there's more money out there. There's more money out there in existence. market, the S&P 500 over the past 30 years. So notice how it just keeps going because there's more money circulating out there. Again, which is, you know, that's going to be essential to keep the debt bubble from popping. And I want to show you the price of gold over the past 30 years. And it just keeps going up. Just take a look. And now you know why. It simply takes more devalued dollars or devalued fiat currency to buy an ounce of gold. And just so you know, gold has been crushing the performance of the S&P 500 for quite some time. And that blue line is the performance of the S&P 500. And gold. So it's actually not crazy to include fact, looking at the historical performance, you would be crazy not to include gold in your portfolio. Listen, if this is all making sense to you, then I'll tell you come join me on my Patreon sites because this is just a high-level And we just talk about investments over there to learn, to bounce ideas, and what's to come. I'm going to leave a link for you down below. Please subscribe. Thank you for the support, and wish you a very nice day. Take care.