I know most, if not everyone who reads this is an investor in equities as they should be. But everyone needs to add as much as possible to equities over the coming years. Even with market volatility, and even if we have another bear market. Every advisor should be telling their clients to add on every pullback. And please tell your kids, relatives, friends and anyone who will listen that if they do not invest in equities, the odds of them falling way behind in their retirement and standard of living is going to be devastating. Why? Because AI is here. Unemployment is starting to go up organically, even as the economy is steaming ahead, and corporate profits are racing higher.

If you have not read the news, Amazon just laid off 14,000 employees because AI has made it more efficient and cost effective. Basically, AI is doing the same job as 14,000 employees were at a fraction of the cost. As we all know, an employee is the largest cost to a company, so the fewer you have, the better. This is great for corporate earnings and great for stockholders, but not so great for the unemployed. UPS lad off 34,000 and Salesforce did 4,000. Goldman Sachs laid off 1,300 employees, which is about 4% of their employees. And the list of companies announcing layoffs is growing every day.

10-30-25-WMT

One could do a case study on Walmart. Over the years I have found Walmart to be a bit boring, but not anymore. They’re using AI in a very efficient manner, reducing overhead – meaning employees – and producing outstanding earnings. Look at that chart of (WMT) – that’s as pretty as it gets.

What if over 2-5 years from now unemployment is much higher, but companies are throwing off a 6, 8, 10, or even a 12% dividend due to massive profits? If you have not been heavily investing, start today. For those who are not invested, let’s hope they haven’t missed the boat.