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THE WATER COOLER
The Big Three
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#1: Oil Supply Crunch Could Spike Gas Prices This Summer
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The Iran war has choked off oil shipments through a critical Middle East waterway, dropping physical oil supplies to 5% of their normal levels. Summer travel season is starting right now, and analysts warn that a sustained shortage could push fuel prices sharply higher at the pump.
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The Raw Truth: If you are driving to work, hauling the kids around, or planning any kind of road trip this summer, this hits you directly in the wallet. Gas prices creeping up even 30 or 40 cents a gallon adds real stress to a budget that is already stretched thin. Watch your local prices closely right now and consider filling up before any major holiday weekend travel. |
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#2: Meta Cuts 8,000 Jobs in Major AI Pivot
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Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, just laid off 8,000 workers as it shifts its money and focus toward artificial intelligence. The company says it is falling behind competitors in the AI race and needs to restructure fast.
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The Raw Truth: This is not just a Silicon Valley story — layoffs at major tech companies ripple out fast, hitting contractors, vendors, and the communities around those offices. It is also a loud signal that AI is reshaping the job market right now, not someday in the future. If your job involves any kind of content, customer service, or data work, this is the moment to start asking hard questions about where your industry is headed. |
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#3: SpaceX Files for Stock Market Debut
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SpaceX, the rocket and satellite internet company, has officially filed to go public on the stock market under the ticker SPCX. It is shaping up to potentially be the largest IPO in history.
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The Raw Truth: Here is what matters for regular people: a massive new company hitting the stock market creates buzz, hype, and pressure to chase the shiny new thing. Do not do it. Hot IPOs almost always cool off fast, and chasing them is how average families lose money they cannot afford to lose. Stick to your boring, beautiful S&P 500 index fund and let the speculators gamble — that is the whole game. |
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"The secret to investing is there is no secret. Buy a diversified portfolio, keep costs low, and stay the course."
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TRACKING YOUR S&P 500 INDEX FUND
The Ownership 10
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Your 401k S&P 500 index fund — whether you know it as VOO, FXAIX, or the Vanguard Institutional 500 Index Trust — owns all 500 of these companies. When they win, you win.
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The Heavy Hitters — Working Hard for You Today:
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Intel Corporation (INTC) 🟢 Up 7.36% — The company reported it lost less money than people feared, which gave investors a big sigh of relief today. They make the computer chips that power laptops, desktops, and a whole lot of the devices sitting in your home right now. |
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GE Aerospace (GE) 🟢 Up 5.22% — They made more money than people expected from building and servicing jet engines, which sent the stock climbing today. They build the engines on most of the commercial planes you board when you fly somewhere for work or vacation. |
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General Motors Company (GM) 🟢 Up 4.83% — They sold more trucks and cars than people thought they would this quarter, and that good news pushed the stock up today. They make Chevy, GMC, Buick, and Cadillac — the trucks and SUVs you see in every driveway and parking lot across America. |
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Boeing Company (The) (BA) 🟢 Up 3.34% — Some encouraging news about their factory getting back on track after a long stretch of problems gave investors a reason to buy today. They build the planes that most major airlines fly, so when you board a flight, there is a solid chance you are stepping onto one of theirs. |
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Tesla (TSLA) 🟢 Up 3.25% — Drifting along with the broader market today after a strong run lately. They make the Tesla electric cars you see charging in parking garages and driveways, and they also sell home battery systems that store solar power. |
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The Benchwarmers — Having a Tough Day (But Still on Your Team):
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Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) 🔴 Down 3.86% — The price of oil dropped today, which almost always drags this stock down with it. They pump oil and natural gas out of the ground and refine it into the gasoline you put in your car at the pump. |
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Chevron Corporation (CVX) 🔴 Down 3.00% — Sliding down for the same reason as the rest of the oil companies today — the price of crude oil fell and took the stock with it. They are one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world, and their name is probably on a gas station near you. |
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Walmart Inc. (WMT) 🔴 Down 2.50% — They warned that rising costs from new import taxes could make their prices go up and squeeze their profits, which made investors nervous today. They run the Walmart stores where millions of Americans buy their groceries, household supplies, and just about everything else every single week. |
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Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) 🔴 Down 1.86% — Sliding along with Walmart today as people worry that higher import costs could hit big retailers hard across the board. They run the Costco warehouse stores where families buy groceries, gas, and giant boxes of everything in bulk to save money. |
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Halliburton Company (HAL) 🔴 Down 1.58% — When oil prices drop, companies stop drilling as much, and that is bad news for this stock since drilling is their whole business. They are the company that shows up with the equipment and crews to help oil companies drill new wells and pull oil out of the ground. |
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Takeaway: Five companies are winning today. Five are hurting. Your index fund holds all 500. You never have to pick the right one. You just have to stay in. That is the whole game.
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YOUR MONEY
The Household Dashboard
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| Item |
Today |
Status |
| National Gas Avg (AAA) |
$4.56/gal |
🔴 1¢ up today |
| DC Gas Avg (AAA) |
$4.67/gal |
⚪ flat today |
| 30-Year Fixed Mortgage |
6.36% |
🟢 Trending |
| S&P 500 YTD Return |
see Scoreboard |
🟢 Still growing |
| Credit Card APR Avg |
22.30% |
🔴 Record highs |
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Gas is rising — national average hit $4.56 and ticked up another cent today, so fill that tank right now before it climbs any higher this week. |
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Credit card APR is sitting at a record-high 22.30% — every dollar of balance you carry is getting torched, so throw any extra cash at that card today, even if it is just twenty bucks. |
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YOUR RETIREMENT
The Scoreboard: Daily vs. The Long Game
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| Investment |
Today |
5-Yr Return |
10-Yr Return |
| S&P 500 — VOO / FXAIX / Vanguard 500 |
🟢 +1.03% |
🟢 +86.0% |
🟢 +319.2% |
| Nasdaq — QQQ |
🟢 +1.66% |
🟢 +107.3% |
🟢 +611.8% |
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The TV wants you to panic about the red dot on the left. The green numbers on the right are your real story. Stay in.
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The Mailbag
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"Rock, I printed out the new Raw Truth Roadmap yesterday and taped it right to the fridge. I executed Step 0 in five minutes, and we already had the cash to cover the $2,500 Buffer for Step 1. We are officially standing at the starting line of Step 2, staring down $58,000 in credit card and truck debt. I am completely fired up and ready to go scorched earth. The problem is my husband. We make $135,000 a year, and he looked at the Roadmap and laughed. He refuses to give up his golf weekends and says we 'deserve' our big summer beach trip because we work hard. He says the debt isn't an emergency as long as we can make the monthly minimums. How do I force him to look at the spreadsheet and understand the math?" — Brenda, Seattle, WA
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I need you to hear me clearly: Put the spreadsheet away. You cannot math a human being into changing their behavior.
You are asking how to force him to see the numbers, but the numbers aren't the problem. The problem is that he is completely comfortable being normal. Normal in 2026 is making six figures, driving a financed truck, carrying a massive credit card balance, and pretending everything is fine because the minimum payments clear the checking account every month.
He doesn't feel the emergency because he hasn't felt the pain. But as a former first responder, I can promise you this: ignoring the smoke doesn't mean the house isn't on fire.
Here is the raw truth about marriage and money. You are a two-person crew. If one of you is rowing toward freedom and the other is rowing toward the golf course, your boat is just spinning in circles. You cannot drag a grown man across the finish line of Step 2 against his will.
So, how do you fix it? You stop attacking the golf weekends and the beach trip. When you attack his stress-relief, he just gets defensive. Instead, you sit down at the kitchen table tonight, look him in the eye, and cast a vision.
You ask him one question: "What does our life look like if we didn't have $1,200 leaving our checking account every single month to pay for the past?" Talk about Step 4. Talk about the "I Quit" fund. Ask him what it would feel like to walk into his job knowing he has three months of cash in the bank and zero payments holding him hostage. You have to make the vision of total freedom more attractive than the temporary dopamine hit of a summer vacation.
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You don't need a spreadsheet right now. You need a partner. Stop fighting over the math and start talking about the future. Once he sees the vision, the golf clubs will collect dust on their own. Now go have the hard conversation.
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Send questions to [email protected]
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THE MILLIONAIRE MANUAL
Cosigning — The Favor That Can Wreck Your Future
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Someone you love is standing in front of you asking you to sign your name on their loan, and saying no feels like a betrayal. But here is what nobody tells you before you pick up that pen.
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The moment you cosign, that debt shows up on your credit report as if it is 100% yours — not half, not a little, all of it. If they miss one payment, your credit score takes the hit, your ability to buy a house or refinance shrinks overnight, and the lender comes after you first because you are the one with the better credit. The average cosigned loan that goes bad does not just cost money — it costs the relationship too, because now there is a financial wound sitting between you and someone you care about. One missed payment on a $15,000 car loan can drop your credit score 80 to 100 points and haunt you for seven years.
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The Move: Tonight, before you say yes or no to anyone, pull up your free credit report at annualcreditreport.com and look at what you are already carrying. If you have any debt of your own, any at all, the answer to cosigning is no — full stop, no guilt required. If someone needs a cosigner it means the lender already decided they are a risk, and you are being asked to absorb that risk for free. Instead of cosigning, have a real conversation about what they actually need: sometimes a $500 or $1,000 gift or loan directly from you is cleaner and does not tie your financial future to their payment habits. If you feel you absolutely must help, put a written agreement between the two of you — amount, payment date, what happens if they miss — before a single signature goes on anything. The one thing you can do in the next 24 hours is text or call the person asking and say 'I love you and I need 48 hours to look at my own finances before I give you an answer.' That pause alone saves more relationships and credit scores than anything else I can tell you.
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Protecting your financial future is not selfish — it is the only way you stay in a position to help the people you love.
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BACKPAGE
The Wacky Corner
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In 1994, Quaker Oats — yes, the oatmeal people — paid $1.7 billion to buy Snapple from its three founders, thinking they were buying the next Gatorade. They had zero feel for Snapple's quirky, word-of-mouth magic, so they yanked the beloved distributor relationships, pulled the weird radio ads, and basically suffocated everything that made the brand work. Three years later Quaker dumped Snapple for $300 million — a loss of about $1.4 billion in less than three years, which works out to losing roughly $1.3 million every single day they owned it. The CEO who greenlit the deal, William Smithburg, was pushed out shortly after. Meanwhile the original founders watched a billion dollars of their legacy get incinerated because a giant corporation thought size and polish could replace authenticity.
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Lesson: Lesson: Owning something real beats chasing someone else's hype — and if you can't understand why a thing works, don't bet the house on fixing it.
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🇺🇸 To the overnight grocery stocker who empties a full pallet and faces a hundred-foot aisle alone at 2 a.m. so families can grab what they need without a second thought — we see you.
Love y'all. Attack that debt. Keep those contributions running. The plan does not change.
See you on the road. — Rock (Craig)
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