Your Portfolio Has Winners and Losers Right Now. Do You Know Which Is Which?
Invested In Us | Issue 18 | Week of March 16, 2026
A few weeks ago, markets were green. The Russell 2000 was up 7%. The S&P had just crossed 7,000. “Momentum” was the word of the month.
That feels like a different era. This week we break down what’s actually happening beneath the headline numbers, why the S&P 500 is hiding a much bigger story, and the one question every investor should be able to answer about their own portfolio.
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State of Capital
As of last week, the S&P 500 is down roughly 3–4% year-to-date.¹ The Russell 2000 has given back almost all of its gains and is basically flat on the year.² And the mood across markets has gone from cautious optimism to something much more tense.
But here’s the thing most people are missing right now. The headline numbers — “the S&P is down,” “the market is struggling” — they’re hiding something much more interesting.
Inside the S&P 500, the energy sector is up more than 25% year-to-date.³ Meanwhile, financials are down significantly — banks and lenders pulling back from certain strategies as interest rates stay elevated and uncertainty grows.³
Same index. Completely different outcomes depending on which sector you’re looking at.
And that’s worth sitting with for a second. Because the S&P 500 tracks 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S., but it doesn’t treat them all equally. Energy companies make up less than 5% of the index by weight, yet they’ve dramatically outperformed everything else this year.³ If you only looked at the index-level number, you’d never know that.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield closed around 4.28% last week, up from below 4% just a few weeks earlier.⁴ That move matters because the 10-year influences everything from mortgage rates to how much it costs for companies to borrow money. When it rises, it puts pressure on valuations across the board — especially for growth stocks that depend on future earnings.
This is the part of markets most people don’t see. It’s rarely one story. It’s dozens of different stories happening at the same time, inside the same indexes, pulling in different directions. And the investors who understand that have a major advantage over the ones just watching the headlines.
Policy & Economics
There’s a lot happening at the macro level this week, and all of it connects back to the same theme: uncertainty is expensive.
The Fed, Inflation, and the Word Nobody Wants to Hear
Inflation is still running around 3% annually — roughly 50% higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.⁶ That gap is one of the key reasons policymakers remain cautious about cutting interest rates, even as the labor market weakens.
A federal judge recently dismissed a case challenging Federal Reserve authority, reinforcing the independence of the central bank and Chairman Jerome Powell’s ability to guide monetary policy without political interference.⁵ That matters because in an environment this volatile, the credibility of the institution making rate decisions is itself a stabilizing force.
But the real concern right now is a word economists have started using more frequently: stagflation.
Stagflation is what happens when inflation stays elevated while economic growth slows and unemployment starts to rise. It’s one of the hardest environments for policymakers to navigate because the tools you’d normally use to fight inflation (raising rates, tightening financial conditions) can also accelerate the slowdown. You’re fighting the disease with medicine that makes the patient sicker.
We’re not officially in stagflation. But the conditions are lining up in ways that make the conversation unavoidable.
Energy, the SPR, and Why Global Markets Still Matter
The United States just committed to releasing 172 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve — roughly 40% of what’s currently in the tank.⁷ That’s part of a larger coordinated effort by 32 IEA member nations to release a combined 400 million barrels, which represents about one-third of the IEA’s total government-controlled emergency reserves.⁷
That’s a massive move. And it tells you how seriously governments are taking the current supply situation.
Tariffs and geopolitical tensions are compounding the problem. When companies face higher costs for energy, materials, and imported goods, those costs get passed along to consumers. That keeps inflation elevated even as the economy slows — which loops right back into the stagflation concern.
Now, today’s energy situation is fundamentally different from the 2008 oil crisis. Back then, the U.S. was heavily dependent on imported oil. The shale revolution changed that dramatically, turning America into one of the world’s largest energy producers and exporters.⁸ That’s a structural advantage we didn’t have before.
But oil is still a global commodity. Events thousands of miles away still move prices at your local gas station. And that brings us to a concept worth understanding.
The Petrodollar — and Why Some Countries Want to Change the Rules
The petrodollar system refers to the long-standing practice of conducting global oil transactions in U.S. dollars. This has historically reinforced demand for the dollar as the world’s primary reserve currency — which affects everything from the interest rates we pay to the purchasing power of our savings.¹¹
Some countries, including Iran and China, have been exploring the idea of settling energy transactions in other currencies, particularly the Chinese yuan. If that practice were adopted widely, it could gradually challenge the dollar’s dominance in global trade.¹¹
That’s not happening overnight. But the conversation is real, and it’s worth understanding because the dollar’s reserve status is one of those things most people take for granted until it starts to erode.
The Cost of Conflict
Estimates suggest the current military engagement is costing roughly $1 billion per day.⁹ Sustained over a full year, that would add up to approximately $350 billion — nearly 40% of the roughly $1 trillion annual U.S. defense budget.¹⁰
That matters because the United States is already running large deficits, and rising borrowing costs compound fiscal pressure over time. The cost of war isn’t just measured in human terms. It shows up in bond markets, interest rates, and ultimately in the federal budget that funds everything else.
The Breakdown
Income vs. Appreciation — and Why It Matters More Than You Think
When you buy an asset (whether it’s a stock, a rental property, or a small business) there are really only two ways you make money from it.
The first is income. This is cash that the asset generates while you hold it. A business makes money by selling products or services. A dividend-paying stock distributes a portion of its profits to shareholders. In real estate, income usually comes from collecting rent. The asset pays you for owning it.
The second is appreciation. You buy something at one price, and over time, the value goes up. You sell it later for more than you paid. That’s it. It’s that simple!
Most investments combine both. A rental property might generate monthly income from tenants while also increasing in value over the years. A dividend stock pays you quarterly while (hopefully) the share price climbs.
But here’s where investors get into trouble: expecting one type of return from an investment designed for the other.
If you buy an appreciation play and expect it to generate steady income, you’ll be disappointed. If you buy an income-producing asset and expect it to double in value in two years, you’ll probably be frustrated. The investment isn’t broken — the expectations are.
Understanding what type of return your investment is actually designed to produce is one of the most important disciplines in investing. It sounds basic. But misaligned expectations are responsible for more bad decisions than bad markets are.
The Property Playbook
Core, Value-Add, and Opportunistic — Know What You’re Getting Into
In real estate, investors typically categorize deals based on risk profile and strategy. And these categories matter a lot, because the range of risk in real estate is enormous. A fully stabilized apartment building and a ground-up development project are both “real estate,” but they have almost nothing in common from an investment standpoint.
Core properties are the most stable. These are fully renovated, fully occupied assets generating reliable cash flow — the kind of buildings investors sometimes call “trophy assets.” The returns tend to be steady and predictable, but modest. You’re not swinging for the fences. You’re collecting consistent income from a high-quality asset.
Value-add properties require some kind of improvement. Maybe the building needs renovation. Maybe the operations need restructuring, or the leases need to be renegotiated, or the property needs rebranding. Investors take on more risk, but the upside is that active management can meaningfully increase the property’s value over time.
Then there are opportunistic deals. These are usually the highest-risk strategies in real estate — ground-up development, distressed assets, complex permitting situations, large-scale redevelopment projects. Sometimes it literally starts with digging a hole in the ground and building something entirely new.
I always tell my real estate students this: don’t take opportunistic-level risk while expecting core-level stability.
That misalignment is exactly where investors get into trouble. Greater risk can produce greater rewards. But only if you actually understand the risk you’re taking, you’ve planned for the downside, and you’re not fooling yourself about what category your investment falls into.
If you’re curious about how real estate fits into your broader financial picture, that’s something we work through in our consultations at NJK Wealth Management.
The Conversation
Two investors can own the exact same index fund — same ticker symbol, same expense ratio, same everything — and have completely different experiences of the market right now. One of them works in energy and sees their sector up 25%. The other works in banking and watches financials slide. Same portfolio. Different emotional reality.
That disconnect is actually one of the most important things to understand about markets. The number on the screen isn’t the whole story. It never is. Behind every index is a collection of industries, sectors, and companies that are all responding to different forces at the same time. Some are thriving in this environment. Some are struggling. And the mix changes constantly.
The investors who get this (who understand that “the market” isn’t one big thing moving in one direction) tend to make better decisions. Not because they can predict what’s coming, but because they don’t overreact to a single number that was never designed to tell the full story in the first place.
We spend a lot of time in this newsletter talking about what markets are doing. The numbers, the sectors, the macro trends. That stuff matters. But the thing that actually determines whether any of this helps you build wealth over the long run is much simpler.
Do you know what you own? Not the ticker symbol. Not the name of the fund. Do you know whether your investments are designed to produce income or appreciation? Do you know what sectors you’re exposed to? Do you know whether you’re taking core-level risk or opportunistic-level risk?
Most people don’t. And that’s not a criticism — it’s a gap that exists because nobody taught them to ask those questions.
That’s why we started Invested In Us, and that’s why we built NJK Wealth.
If you’ve been reading this newsletter and thinking “I should probably get more serious about this,” you’re right. And we’re here when you’re ready.
→ Schedule a call with NJK Wealth Management: No minimums. No commissions. No judgment. Just a real conversation about your money.
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