TOPLEY’S TOP 10 January 30, 2025

1. Microsoft: Which Way Will Sideways Pattern Break? Up or Down?

StockCharts


2. Software ETF Below Highs

StockCharts


3. UPS Has Worst Single Day Ever…-40% from Highs

StockCharts


4. GOLD: New High Yesterday

StockCharts


5. Which S&P Sectors Hold the Most Cash?

Visual Capitalist


6. Healthcare: 2-Years of Underperformance

SentimenTrader


7. Factory Construction in the U.S.

Bespoke Premium


8. Military Spending has Almost Doubled Since the 90’s

Statista


9. Share of Religious Nationalism

Pew Research


10. You Want to Do Big Things

Via The Daily Stoic: You want to do big things. You want to achieve. You want to leave your mark on the universe. You want to conquer the world.

This is what Alexander the Great did—literally. And yet where did it get him? Marcus Aurelius took pains to remind himself that the man died and was buried like the rest of us. The band Iron Maiden has a lyric: “Measure your coffin / does it measure up to your lust?” As it happens, there is a much older poem–from Juvenal writing sometime between around 100 AD—who pointed out that in life, while the world was not big enough for Alexander’s ambition, in death, a coffin was sufficient.

No one is saying you should put all your drive aside, that you should not try to do anything. Clearly, Marcus Aurelius tried to be a good person, tried to be a good ruler, tried to be a good philosopher. But that’s the point: He measured his life not by the size of the monument he hoped they would leave to him (and there are some) but instead by the things he controlled.

In the end, it’s not about the empire you build or the fame that outlives you. It’s about the character you lived by, the person you were, and the impact you make on those who matter most. Aim high, but remember: your legacy isn’t measured in the grandness of your ambition—it’s measured in how you live each day.