STOCKS - An Intro Tutorial & Ongoing Discussion - Money Matters

Stickin' with leadership, ain't nothing wrong with that. My 401k is all tech leaning, and it's done great. Best part is I haven't had to think about it, it just takes care of itself. A good reminder that it's oftentimes best to grab the winners and then get out of your own way.

That GEMI trade I posted Friday was a bad entry, fortunately I only took a small starter position. It does appear to be stabilizing, but the initial high vol move was immediately rejected, so I think this one, while it may grind higher, isn't going to do so with the rapid upside acceleration I had intended to underpin the trade.

TSLA printed a fresh all time high today, on the heels of news that their robo-taxis are now testing without human oversight drivers in the cabin. A step in the right direction to be sure, and a potentially quite major revenue driver, but what gets me most excited about TSLA are their Optimus robots and general leap into AI operated robotics.

Having come to use AI on a regular basis for many knowledge work tasks, I am consistently impressed by the technology, and have to believe that it's only going to rapidly accelerate, and its integration into robotic systems is going to be nothing short of a groundbreaking paradigm shift for humanity. Given TSLA's existing scale and distribution channels, and of course their willingness to take big leaps, I could see them doing exceptionally well over the next decade or two.

PS. On BSOL (Solana), here are some tidbits I've witnessed cross the newswires this past week:

Most blockchains would falter under a sustained internet-scale DDoS attack, causing transaction halts and network disruptions, but Solana withstood a massive assault peaking at 6 terabits per second over the past week—the fourth-largest ever recorded—while maintaining normal operations per on-chain data. This resilience demonstrates Solana's robust architecture.
Firedancer, a project three years in the making, has officially gone live on the Solana Mainnet. It has been operating for 100 days on several validators and has successfully produced 50,000 blocks. This marks a significant milestone, as prior testing demonstrated Firedancer's capability to process over 1 million transactions per second. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko acknowledged the transition, viewing it as the platform's move beyond its extensive beta phase.
Coinbase announced it will support DEX trading for all Solana tokens without requiring individual listings, streamlining access for users. This integration leverages Solana's high-speed network for decentralized exchanges. In the crypto space, such features could increase trading volumes on SOL-based DeFi platforms, reducing barriers and enhancing liquidity for emerging tokens.
For the second year running, Solana has been named the most-followed blockchain ecosystem worldwide in 2025, according to CoinGecko. The platform dominated the narrative mindshare, capturing 26.79% and ranking ahead of competitors like Base, Ethereum, Sui, and BNB Chain. This ranking is based on an analysis of CoinGecko's global website traffic (excluding bot traffic) collected between January 1, 2024, and December 14, 2025.