In a chaotic world, how should one invest?

To know how to invest, you need to deeply analyze what kind of situation the world is currently in and what the future trajectory might be.

First of all, the current chaos is mainly triggered by the "US-Iran conflict." So how did this conflict start? Setting aside rumors and conspiracy theories, the direct reason is that Iran supports Hezbollah, Houthi rebels, and Hamas, engaging in small-scale proxy wars (not discussing right or wrong, only interests, because the US also does this), and then developing nuclear weapons—this would cause the US to lose control in the Middle East, and make US allies in the region gradually shift towards Iran due to the military threat posed by Iran.

Therefore, Iran is the key battleground. If the threat from Iran is thoroughly resolved, and Iran's influence in the Middle East diminishes from that of a big brother to a minor player, then the trilateral alliance of China, Russia, and Iran cannot form. The US's strategy of encroachment would then follow a sequence: Iran, Russia, and finally, focusing all forces to encircle the remaining Middle East, which would essentially unify the world—other countries would either have already submitted or have no power to resist. But if Iran's influence isn't eliminated and it continues to expand in the Middle East, then China and Russia won't be so easy to remove, and the US will still be constrained by another power, unable to act freely.

Currently, the US holds an absolute advantage in military power, which is not offset by Iran's sporadic counterattacks. But absolute military superiority doesn't mean using force is the best solution. America's optimal strategy is to threaten with military power and destabilize the economy, disrupt people's livelihoods, and pressure the opponent into submission—that's the principle of "winning without fighting" in Sun Tzu's Art of War: "Win by stratagem, then by alliances, then by force, and finally by siege."

But Iran isn't stupid. It knows what the US fears most—not military retaliation, but soaring oil prices. The US isn't afraid of fighting anyone; it fears domestic unrest. In the past decades of war, almost all US troop withdrawals weren't due to defeat but because of overwhelming domestic pressure. You can see the US as a "decentralized organization with multiple independent wills" rather than a unified, ironclad will.

In the US CPI index, oil prices directly and indirectly impact many areas—directly energy, and indirectly gasoline, transportation fuels, household energy use, etc. This impact is much larger than in China. So when oil prices surge, the US CPI index jumps sharply, inflation becomes uncontrollable, and Trump's goal of significant rate cuts becomes impossible—if inflation is this high, how can they keep injecting liquidity into the market? If large-scale rate cuts can't be achieved, then the interest payments on US debt will be unsustainable—this expense already exceeds US military spending. If it can't be reduced (which it already surpasses military expenditure), the US will have to keep issuing new debt to pay it off, causing total debt to keep increasing; as the total increases, interest payments will grow, eventually reaching a critical point.

Iran isn't claiming to be "very resilient." If the US didn't have systemic weaknesses, Iran would have surrendered long ago. Iran is betting on the impact of oil prices, Trump's goals, the systemic vulnerabilities of US debt, domestic American resilience, and midterm election pressures. It endures because it’s a race of who can hold out longer—who runs out of patience first, who can hold more, will have the upper hand in negotiations. Iran bets that the US can't drag this out too long, so it endures the hardship first, forcing the US to make concessions to quickly resolve the issue.

So, where's the key to this problem? It's whose bottom line is thinner—US or Iran. Objectively, Iran is the one on the defensive, with domestic unrest, currency devaluation, and multiple internal conflicts that require suppression to manage. The US, despite the pressures, still has many cards to play. Trump's approval ratings are at a new low since taking office, but the midterm elections are still months away, and the US debt crisis has more time before it collapses. The only difficulty might be that the CPI numbers in the coming months look bad, slowing down rate cuts—this isn't comparable to Iran's turbulent situation.

Therefore, I don't believe the US-Iran conflict will turn into a prolonged war like Russia-Ukraine. As long as the US doesn't repeat the Iraq scenario—solving the conflict in two months and then getting involved in internal civil war—it's mainly about controlling the Strait of Hormuz, preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and weakening its regional military threat, rather than installing a new regime or risking internal explosions with multiple factions. Once they’ve learned from past mistakes, this can be resolved quickly.

Given this, now is a good time to "buy risk assets," because once the US achieves its goal, oil prices will drop sharply, and the US will immediately cut interest rates to reduce debt service costs, leading to a surge in risk assets. Someone asked me yesterday whether to buy the Nasdaq after it fell so much—why not? Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are also good buys. The US-Iran conflict presents a buying opportunity.

This conflict is now at the tail end, with only a few months left at most. If you still refuse to enter the market, you’ll miss out on the opportunity to buy many high-quality risk assets that are being unfairly sold off.