Dear Financial Samurai,
I am noticing individual stocks getting blown up left and right lately while the S&P 500 struggles to stay even. Names such as UNH, MSFT, many SaaS companies, gaming stocks, bitcoin, and even gold and silver are seeing double digit percentage losses. The only two stocks holding up in my portfolio are Google and Apple, which are quasi monopolies.
The sell-offs in individual names are starting to make me concerned the broader index could see the 10% correction I have been expecting. At least President Trump’s pick of a new Fed Chair, Kevin Warsh, somewhat calmed markets that looked ready to sell off again before the announcement.
Warsh was a banker at Morgan Stanley before serving as the youngest member on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011. So if we go through another financial crisis, we will at least have an experienced steward at the helm. He does not seem like a Fed Chair who will easily kowtow to anyone. And yes, he also married into the Lauder cosmetics family.
Real Estate As A Safe Haven
The one asset class I have not seen correct so far this year is real estate. Instead, I am seeing a lot of newly listed homes here in San Francisco go into contract quickly. One three bedroom, two and a half bath, 2,525 square foot house was listed on January 12, 2026 for $2.495 million and closed on January 29, 2026 for $4.05 million.
A 60% overbid is nuts. So is the final price for a regular-sized house with only three bedrooms. At least it sits on an almost double lot at 4,617 square feet, which reminds me of a post I wrote about buying a home either on a large lot or with views.
I think you should choose one or the other compared to a home with no views on a standard lot. Now that I am in my third year of owning a home on a large lot with two kids, I am firmly choosing functionality over views.
With the expected IPOs of OpenAI, SpaceX, and other tech companies this year, perhaps buyers are trying to get ahead of a massive liquidity wave that could flood our real estate shores. As I argued in a previous post, housing affordability has actually improved significantly for stock investors over the past three years.
How is the real estate market looking in your neck of the woods? If the stock market goes nowhere or declines this year, real estate will likely dramatically outperform as it did in 2018.
ARMs Are Some Of Us
On the topic of real estate, a 7/1 ARM I took out in December 2019 is finally resetting in December 2026. I was initially sad that my 2.65% rate is coming to an end. After running the numbers and estimating the new payment, I am no longer upset.
Since roughly 95% of all homebuyers take out 30 year fixed-rate mortgages, few of you will care about ARM holders. But since I started Financial Samurai in 2009, and since I took out my first ARM in 2005, I remain confident more homeowners would save on interest expense and be in better financial health by choosing ARMs.
Based on my mortgage borrowing history, I have saved over $300,000 in interest expense by exclusively using ARMs for all my properties over the past 21 years. With this remaining mortgage, I plan to let it ride and buy myself a side of milkshake as a reward for saving money the next time I am at McDonald’s.
If you are part of the rare minority with an expiring ARM, check out my post: Why Letting An ARM Reset Can Be Smarter Than Refinancing.
Definition Of Low Income Or Poor
In other news, Yale University announced it will pay full tuition for any accepted student from a household earning less than $200,000 a year. Hooray. In addition, students from households earning less than $100,000 will also receive full coverage for food, lodging, books, and other expenses.
In other words, Yale believes households earning under $200,000 are considered low income or poor, which is actually pretty cool once you get past the labels. For those families not living in expensive coastal cities, know how rich you truly are!
Only about 4% of applicants will get accepted into a school like Yale. However, given the growing war for talent, I expect other private universities to spend more of their endowment money to provide significant discounts to high school students going forward. That is great news for families paying for college.
I have been paying heavy taxes for decades and saving aggressively in my kids’ 529 plans since 2017 and 2019. It never occurred to me that our expenses could actually go down once they attend college. Maybe you have thought the same way. If this trend of expanding aid to higher income thresholds continues, we may not have to work as long or worry as much in the future.
See: $200,000 Is Now Considered Low Income Or Poor
Continuing Strong With Our New Year’s Resolutions
Like most people, I want to lose weight. Sadly, most resolutions die by February. So I decided to publish a post about how I finally lost the last 10 pounds after wanting to do so for over 20 years.
The key was embracing the economist within and behaving like a rational actor in a high-inflation world. By combining my love of personal finance with the desire to get healthier, the weight naturally came off.
Since you are reading a personal finance newsletter, if you also want to lose weight, I think you will appreciate this post: Lose Weight By Embracing Your Inner Economist.
To your financial freedom,
Sam
P.S. I went to the post office yesterday to mail signed copies of my USA TODAY bestseller, Millionaire Milestones, to a few lucky readers. To take advantage of the promotion, check out my Empower Free Financial Consultation review post, which shares my experience and instructions. Empower is a long-time affiliate of Financial Samurai and I used to consult there part-time in person from 2013-2015 in their San Francisco office.
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