Dear Financial Samurai,
Back so soon because I forgot to include the link to my latest post. That’s what happens when you write a newsletter with two kids climbing on you.
Here it is: Why Americans Are Richer, Happier, And Healthier Than You Think, on what I learned from the 3.7 million views and 1,400+ comments on my $408,000 budget tweet.
In the post I assess the feedback across five categories: 1) Grade school education, 2) Food consumption, 3) Taxes paid, 4) Housing affordability, and 5) Taking vacations.
Folks keep pointing out that Financial Samurai readers have a greater interest in personal finance, and are therefore likely more educated about money and wealthier. I 100% agree. That’s why I put together a Financial Samurai reader demographic page, where incomes and net worths run over 50% higher than the median. Learning more about money should make you wealthier than the average person over time.
But when you get commentary from 3.7 million views on the Twitterverse, 90% of those people are not regular Financial Samurai readers. They are regular folks spending too much time doomscrolling. In other words, they’re a better representation of America’s attitudes about money and those five topics than any Gallup poll or university survey could ever be. The sheer speed and mass exposure of the feedback is unparalleled.
So if you’re into social sciences and human psychology, you’ll enjoy this one. It is always fascinating to see the gap between what people SAY about money and what they actually DO.
The Danger Of Owning Bond Funds
Since this is a bonus newsletter and the 10-year yield is at 4.7%, let me point out the danger of owning a Treasury bond fund. When I consult with readers 1X1 about building a fixed income position, I encourage them to own individual Treasury bonds, not Treasury bond funds.
You own Treasury bonds to dampen portfolio volatility, potentially make money when stocks fall, and earn guaranteed income. But a fund like TLT or IEF has no maturity date. There is no point at which anybody hands you your principal back. Below is exhibit A, the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF, down 43% in price over the past five years.
That is a disaster for your portfolio, especially if you carry a 40% bond weighting like some retirees do. The bond portion was supposed to be your stress-free position, where you’d actually make money. Instead it lost you a lot of money.
Own individual Treasury bonds and you don’t lose money if you hold to maturity while collecting the coupons. Yes, if you’d stuffed your entire bond position into 20-30-year Treasuries in 2021 at abysmal yields, the market value would have cratered when rates rose. But you would not be down 43%, because you get 100% of your money back at the end.
The lesson is to build a Treasury bond ladder across different maturities. Here’s my tutorial on How To Buy Treasury Bonds. Although I use Fidelity as an example, it’s pretty much the same format across online brokerages.
Fundrise Moves Up VCX’s Lockup Period
Around 5:30pm EST on Friday, Fundrise sent out a notification that the VCX lockup is being moved up from September 14, 2026 to August 13, 2026, because “the lockup period has achieved its primary purpose of supporting orderly price discovery.” After more than four months, I believe that to be true, and I commend Fundrise management for the move.
This should be a net positive for VCX shareholders. The chance of the lockup expiring before VCX’s top holdings go public, notably Anthropic, now rises to about 90% from my initial 65% estimate.
A quick clarification, because plenty of people are conflating two different things. Bloomberg and CNBC reported on July 15 that Anthropic’s bankers, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan, have begun scheduling meetings with institutional investors. That is investor education, the pre-marketing that happens before the public S-1 drops. It is not the roadshow. Management is not yet on a plane.
I used to work on IPOs all the time at GS and CS. The global roadshow itself takes two to four weeks as management sees institutions in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. Then it takes several days for the bookrunners to decide who gets allocation and how much. It is a lot of jockeying back and forth, with many institutions feeling slighted when demand is high.
So come next weekend’s newsletter, if we still aren’t hearing that Anthropic management is out meeting institutional investors, the probability of the VCX lockup expiring first rises to 98% in my opinion. The calendar simply doesn’t leave room.
Bottom line, Anthropic IPOing after the VCX lockup expires is a net positive for VCX shareholders. If the IPO draws tremendous interest, which I’m 90% certain it will based on the wild spring 2026 SF housing demand I experienced firsthand, retail investors will hunt for ways to own Anthropic through other means. More than 20% of VCX’s portfolio is Anthropic. The logical conclusion is that some of that capital flows VCX’s way.
Of course, the future is unpredictable and there are no guarantees. What I’ve learned from investing over the past 30 years is that anything can and will happen. So not only must you stay humble and open to what could go wrong, you’ve got to stay open to the possibility that things go right.
Here’s my VCX NAV analysis once again. Fundrise is a long-time sponsor of Financial Samurai, and I’m an investor in Fundrise’s real estate and venture products.
To your financial freedom,
Sam
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Everything I write comes from firsthand experience since 2009, because money is too important to be left up to pontification.