Happy Tuesday,

Angelo here! Welcome to New Money, where we go over weekly tips to help you build your wealth, one dollar at a time.

Today’s edition:

• What I'd actually buy after opening a brokerage account.

• Why boring investments built my wealth.

• SpaceX joins Nasdaq 100, Apple's $30B deal, and more…

Read time: 2 min 30 seconds

🍎Wealth Tip of the Week

Congratulations!

You finally opened your brokerage account.

Then you realize: Opening the account was the easy part. 

Now you actually have to decide what to buy.

VOO? VTI? Nvidia? Tesla? Crypto?

Everyone seems to have a different answer.

I'm not going to tell you there's one perfect portfolio.

I'm just going to show you what worked for me and why my portfolio looks completely different today than when I first started.

1. Build The Boring Part First

When I first started investing, I thought the whole game was about picking the right stocks at the right time.

Buy low. Sell high. Find the next winner before everyone else.

So I did what a lot of beginners do. I bought individual stocks. I tried day trading. I even traded options.

I lost a lot of money. And I was constantly stressed.

Eventually, I realized I didn't want investing to feel like gambling anymore. 

The more money I had invested, the less I wanted to gamble with it.

Today, around 70% of my portfolio is still invested in broad ETFs and index funds. They're not exciting but they let me sleep at night.

They own hundreds of companies and rebalance themselves over time.

I don't have to guess which company wins next. I simply keep investing month after month.

Ironically, the investments I spent the least time thinking about ended up making me the most money.

2. Build Your Portfolio Like A House

When you build a house, you don't start with the roof. You start with the foundation.

It's not the exciting part, but it's the part holding everything else up. I think your portfolio should work the same way.

Around 70–90% of my portfolio is the foundation:

• Broad ETFs

• Automatic investing

• Long-term investing

That's the part I expect to own for decades. It quietly grows while I get on with my life.

Then comes the fun part.

The remaining 10–30% is where I invest in ideas I genuinely believe in:

• AI

• International markets

• The space economy

• Memory and semiconductor companies.

• Eventually, nuclear energy

Those investments keep me curious. But they never replace my foundation.

They sit on top of it because I never want one prediction to determine my future.

The foundation builds wealth. The rest is where you can have fun.

3. Stop Looking for a Perfect Portfolio

Before buying your next investment, ask yourself:

⬜ Do I already own a broad index fund?

⬜ Is my investing automated?

⬜ Am I adding this because it strengthens my portfolio...

⬜ Or because it's the investment everyone is talking about this week?

If you answered "No" to the first two questions, I'd start there before looking for your next stock.

This is where I see a lot of people get stuck. You compare VOO against VTI. Then someone recommends QQQM. Another person says SCHD.

A week later you’re  watching another YouTube video hoping someone finally gives them the answer.

Meanwhile, nothing gets invested.

If I were starting over today, I'd keep it incredibly simple:

VOO. It gives me exposure to the 500 largest companies in the U.S.

Instead of trying to figure out whether Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, or Amazon will be the biggest winner, I own all of them. That's exactly what I wanted my foundation to do.

VXUS. It gives me exposure to companies outside the U.S.

For years, almost all of my money was invested in America. That worked really well. But over time, I realized I didn't want my future tied to one country alone.

The U.S. won't outperform forever. VXUS gives me exposure to the rest of the world, so my portfolio is built on more than one economy.

QQQM. It gives me a little more exposure to technology and innovation.

AI. Cloud computing. Many of the companies are shaping the future.

I'd rather own a basket of companies building the future than spend my time trying to guess which one will come out on top.

Together, these ETFs became the foundation of my portfolio.

Everything else I invest in, whether it's AI, the space economy, memory and semiconductor companies, or eventually nuclear energy is built on top of that foundation.

Because I'd rather own the casino than gamble inside it.

If you want to see everything else I'm investing in, including my individual stocks, you can see my full portfolio here. 

👉 See My Full Portfolio Here 

Your first portfolio doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be strong enough

that you'll still own it 20 years from now.

If you opened your brokerage account today, what would make you hesitate more?

Finding the "perfect" ETF... Or finally making your first investment?

💬Quote of the Week

📉 Market Recap

Check out some of the biggest stories shaking up money, markets, and momentum this week.

👉 SpaceX officially joins the Nasdaq 100

Over 200 investment products with $800 billion in assets track the Nasdaq 100, meaning funds must now buy SpaceX to mirror the index. If you own a Nasdaq 100 fund you now own a small slice of SpaceX automatically. 

Wallet Impact: If you hold a Nasdaq 100 fund like QQQ you now have SpaceX exposure whether you wanted it or not, though only about $1 for every $100 invested.

👉 Waymo is expanding fully driverless rides to four new cities

Waymo is launching fully autonomous operations in Denver, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Tampa, joining a network of over 10 cities where anyone can hail a driverless ride 24/7. It is also testing a new Hyundai vehicle to grow its fleet. 

Wallet Impact: Self-driving is quietly moving from experiment to everyday reality. This matters for two reasons. If you drive for Uber or Lyft as a side income, this is the long-term threat worth watching. 

👉 China may let its top AI firms buy Nvidia's advanced chips again

Beijing is reportedly planning to let Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek buy a limited number of Nvidia H200 chips, possibly fewer than 200,000 total. It signals a thaw after China previously withheld approval to protect its domestic chipmakers. 

Wallet Impact: Nvidia had effectively lost the China market entirely, so this limited reopening matters, but it is small and cautious. Beijing may approve less than half of what these companies asked for. 

👉 Apple commits over $30 billion to Broadcom in its largest US manufacturing deal ever

Apple is deepening its partnership with Broadcom to produce more than 15 billion US-made chips, including a $1.5 billion expansion of a Colorado facility. Broadcom stock jumped nearly 5% on the news. 

Wallet Impact: This is a bet on US chipmaking becoming a long-term theme. If you hold a broad index fund you own both of these companies and benefit from deals like this. The bigger picture is that building chips domestically is becoming a major priority. 

👀 In Case You Missed It

Here's exactly how I'd approach reaching that milestone if I were starting from scratch today.

 🌱More ways I can help build your wealth

See y’all next week 🫡

Angelo Castillo

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