1. Energy ETF XLE Beating XLK Tech ETF on One-Year Basis

Ycharts

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2. AAPL Triangle Pattern on Chart -Important for Tech/Mag 7 to Break Higher.

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3. VHT Vanguard Healthcare ETF Breaks Out of Long Sideways Pattern-4 Years.

StockCharts

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4. XLE Energy ETF Same Pattern…Breakout of 4-Years Sideways.

StockCharts

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5. Most Publicly Traded BDCs are Trading Below their Net Asset Value.

Financial Times

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6. Iran Top 5 World Oil Producer

Chartr

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7. Polymarket attracts record trading ‘world’ volumes as U.S.-Iran bets top $529 million

A prediction market about military strikes on a sovereign nation now sits alongside presidential election bets as one of the most-traded contracts the platform has ever hosted.

By Shaurya Malwa|Edited by Nikhilesh De

What to know:

• Polymarket has rapidly become a hub for betting on the U.S.-Iran conflict, with traders wagering on ceasefire dates, regime change and potential U.S. ground involvement.
• A contract on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leaving power by March 31 drew $45 million in volume, while a long-running market on whether the U.S. would strike Iran has amassed $529 million, making it one of Polymarket’s largest ever.
• Onchain analysts have flagged six wallets that made about $1.2 million by correctly betting on a Feb. 28 U.S. strike on Iran, intensifying scrutiny of potential insider trading as Polymarket promotes its markets as a source of real-time geopolitical insight.

CoinDesk

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8. Aging Population, Booming Real Estate and Equity Markets for Boomers.

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9. How Can Cuba Build So Many Hotels When Occupancy So Low?  Military Owns the Real Estate in Case of Democracy.  (You can’t make it up)

With Fuel Running Out, Cuba’s Tourism Is Collapsing-NYT

By Frances Robles and Vjosa Isai The Trump administration’s decision to cut off foreign oil to the island is devastating its tourism industry, a key source of income for a government being pushed to the edge.  Cuba’s state-run hotels are managed by Gaviota, a subsidiary of the military-run conglomerate GAESA, which controls the Cuban economy. That means Cuba’s best hotels and prime real estate are in the hands of military officials, Mr. Spadoni said.

“One key misconception is: How can Cuba build so many hotels when the occupancy rate is so low?” Mr. Spadoni said. “One thing people miss is that to the Cuban military, these are real estate investments more than tourism.”

Military officials are likely taking the “long view” by wanting to be in control of valuable properties should the Communist government transition to democracy, he said.

Some new luxury hotels, like the iconic Torre K in Havana, are largely empty.

In the past 15 years, the Cuban government invested about $24 billion in hotels, said Emilio Morales, a Miami-based former marketing official for Cimex, Cuba’s retail conglomerate, who now studies Cuba’s tourism industry and is a harsh critic of its government.

“There were many hotels, and in two or three and a half years, everything shut down or kept deteriorating,” Mr. Morales said. “They didn’t invest in the other sectors that support tourism, such as the energy grid itself.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/world/americas/cuba-tourism-travel-canada-trump.html

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10. States with Fastest Rising Incomes 2019-2024

Linkedin

1. War in Middle East-Volatility Index Down on 5 Day Chart.

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2. Oil Move Not Large by Historical Standards.

Bespoke It’s been a large move, but today’s gain would only rank as the 80th largest one-day gain in crude oil since 1984. Given the enormity of the military action, an even larger move in crude oil wouldn’t have been a surprise.

Bespoke Premium

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3. A Couple Numbers from Prof G Monday Newsletter.

-Tesla’s robotaxis have been involved in crashes at 8x the rate of human drivers. Waymo, by contrast, estimates that its vehicles get into injury-causing crashes 80% less than human drivers

Prof G Markets

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4. Bank Selloff–U.S. Banks Lent $300B to Private Equity Credit Providers.

Dave Lutz Jones Trading

A recent Moody’s report showed U.S. banks had lent nearly $300 billion to private credit providers as of June 2025. Banks loaned a further $285 billion to private equity funds and had $340 billion in unutilized bank lending commitments available

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5. Meta Balance Sheet Debt Up by $60B

The Wall Street Journal

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6. Record Buying to Record Selling in Small Cap

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7. Mecahnical Contracting vs AI…..FIX Comfort Systems USA HVAC Company (FIX) 5 year Chart +2134% vs. NVDA +1184%

Google – Morningstar

Ycharts

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8. Demographics is Destiny…We need Population Growth in U.S.

The Wall Street Journal

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9. 2025 Russia Gained Less than 1% of Ukraine Territory….Russian Killed or Wounded 400-450k

Perplexity

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10. U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) has a Budget that Would Rank in Top 10 as a Country in World.

Perplexity

1. 45 Years America Still #1

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2. One-Year Chart AMD +98% vs. NVDA +48%

YCharts

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3. The Mag 7 Premium is Gone

Chart Kid Matt

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4. Financials Closed at 5-Year Low vs. S&P 500

TrendLabs

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5. Hedge Funds Selling Stocks

The Kobeissi Letter

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6. Tech and Innovation Create Jobs

Spilled Coffee

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7. Fear and Greed Index

CNN Business

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8. Google Search “can’t sell house”

NoLimit

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9. U.S. Mortgage Rates Breaking 6%?

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10. Sarcasm self-defeats-Seth’s Blog

Sarcasm is an easy way to amplify feedback.

It has two hidden costs:

1. It reveals low status. People with power don’t need to use sarcasm to make a point. If you want to lead with status, using sarcasm undermines that goal.
2. It adds emotion where it’s not always needed. The emotion is an amplifier, but it often causes division and defensiveness.

If you have confidence in your standing and your idea, then sarcasm is simply getting in the way, because it undermines both. 

https://seths.blog/

1. Margin Debt Update

DAILY CHARTBOOK

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2. 5 Year Chart-S&P +91% vs. Bitcoin +35%

Ycharts

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3. Cybersecurity ETF CIBR -20%…Close to Liberation Day Lows

StockCharts

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4. XLF Financials ETF Closes Below 200-Day First Time Since Liberation Day Sell Off

StockCharts

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5. Net Outflows Crypto ETFs

Marketwatch “By Gordon Gottsegen  U.S.-based spot ETFs have sold a net of $2.6 billion so far in 2026. This contrasts with net buying of $4.3 billion in the same period of 2025. This is a $6.9 billion buying gap from 2025,” Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant, told MarketWatch.

MarketWatch

By this time last year, bitcoin ETFs had added $4.3 billion to the crypto market. This year, they’re pulling liquidity away. Photo: CryptoQuant

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6. Big Names Below All-Time Highs

Charlie Bilello

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7. The Weight Loss Winner Is…..LLY +220% vs. NVO -44% 3-Year Chart

Ycharts

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8. AI Cash Burn $218B

Chartr

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9. I Asked Perplexity About Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) for Mag 7

Perplexity

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10. Share of U.S. Adults Using Each Social Media Platform-Ed Elson

PROF G MEDIA

1. Consumer Staple Stocks and PEG Ratios-Prof G Newsletter

Prof G Markets

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2. Retail Investor Not Buying Bitcoin Dip….5 Weeks of Outflows from ETF

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3. MSFT -30% from Highs…Hitting Liberation Day Support Levels

StockCharts

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4. Software ETF IGV Hitting 2 ? Year Support Levels

StockCharts

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5. Private Equity’s Dry Spell Worse Than 2008 Crisis, Bain Says

By Preeti Singh

Bloomberg

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6. Is China Really Dumping US Treasuries?

Advisor Perspectives by Lance Roberts of Real Investment Advice, 2/23/26

However, just because China owns U.S. Treasuries does not mean it must have custodial holdings in the U.S. Look at the same holdings table and focus on Belgium and Luxembourg. In the November 2025 snapshot, Belgium shows about $481 billion in Treasury holdings, and Luxembourg shows about $425 billion. Those are massive totals for very small countries that are not building reserves at that scale

In reality, Luxembourg and Belgium are “hosting custody” for China. Just for reference look at the chart of US Treasury holdings of China and Belgium. Over the same period, while China’s holdings fell by $600 billion, Belgiums rose by $500 billion.

Advisor Perspectives

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7. Single Family Housing Construction -6.9% Year Over Year

Wolf Street

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8. Philadelphia Leads Job Growth in Large Metro Areas

The Philadelphia Inquirer

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9. Philadelphia Sees Largest Annual Increase in Home Prices

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10. Drinking 2-3 cups of coffee a day tied to lower dementia risk

The Harvard Gazzette Marked differences between caffeinated, decaffeinated drinks in analysis of more than 130,000 people

Mass General Brigham Communications

February 9, 2026 4 min read

Evidence from a study of more than 130,000 people suggests that two to three cups of coffee a day can reduce dementia risk and slow cognitive decline.

The research — published in JAMA and led by investigators from Mass General Brigham, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard — analyzed data from the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.

“When searching for possible dementia prevention tools, we thought something as prevalent as coffee may be a promising dietary intervention — and our unique access to high-quality data through studies that have been going on for more than 40 years allowed us to follow through on that idea,” said senior author Daniel Wang, associate scientist with the Channing Division of Network Medicine in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Wang is also an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard Chan School and an associate member at the Broad Institute.

“While our results are encouraging, it’s important to remember that the effect size is small and there are lots of important ways to protect cognitive function as we age. Our study suggests that caffeinated coffee or tea consumption can be one piece of that puzzle.”

“While our results are encouraging, it’s important to remember that the effect size is small and there are lots of important ways to protect cognitive function as we age.”

Daniel Wang

Early prevention is especially crucial for dementia, since current treatments are limited and typically offer only modest benefit once symptoms appear. Focus on prevention has led researchers to investigate the influences of lifestyle factors like diet on dementia development.

Coffee and tea contain bioactive ingredients like polyphenols and caffeine, which have emerged as possible neuroprotective factors that reduce inflammation and cellular damage while protecting against cognitive decline. Though promising, findings about the relationship between coffee and dementia have been inconsistent, as studies have had limited follow-up and insufficient detail to capture long-term intake patterns, differences by beverage type, or the full continuum of outcomes — from early subjective cognitive decline to clinically diagnosed dementia.

Data from Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study help to overcome these challenges. Participants repeated assessments of diet, dementia, subjective cognitive decline, and objective cognitive function, and were followed for up to 43 years. Researchers compared how caffeinated coffee, tea, and decaffeinated coffee influenced dementia risk and cognitive health of each participant.

Of the 131,821 participants, 11,033 developed dementia. Both male and female participants with the highest intake of caffeinated coffee had an 18 percent lower risk of dementia compared with those who reported little or no caffeinated coffee consumption. Caffeinated coffee drinkers also had lower prevalence of subjective cognitive decline (7.8 percent versus 9.5 percent). By some measurements, those who drank caffeinated coffee also showed better performance on objective tests of overall cognitive function.

Higher tea intake showed similar results, while decaffeinated coffee did not — suggesting that caffeine may be the active factor producing these neuroprotective results, though further research is needed to validate the responsible factors and mechanisms.

The cognitive benefits were most pronounced in participants who consumed two to three cups of caffeinated coffee or one to two cups of tea daily. Contrary to several previous studies, higher caffeine intake did not yield negative effects — instead, it provided similar neuroprotective benefits to the optimal dosage.

“We also compared people with different genetic predispositions to developing dementia and saw the same results — meaning coffee or caffeine is likely equally beneficial for people with high and low genetic risk of developing dementia,” said lead author Yu Zhang, a student at Harvard Chan School and a research trainee at Mass General Brigham.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/02/drinking-2-3-cups-of-coffee-a-day-tied-to-lower-dementia-risk/