Gyroscopic Investing

Hey, everyone. As some of you know, I have in-laws that are Ukrainian. Unfortunately, none of them are really into finance.

Nonetheless, I got to thinking about how the PP would fared in protecting a Ukrainian investor from what is perhaps the most extreme real world conditions that one could experience.

I asked Gemini Pro to do deep research on this topic, and it came up with an interesting research paper. The tl;dr is that while paper assets for the Ukrainian investor were devastated, the gold portion of the PP really saved the day.

Yes, I know some people are wary of reading AI generated content, but the essay it compiled is a genuinely interesting read. Please take a gander!

Smith1776 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 10, 2026 6:53 am I asked Gemini Pro to do deep research on this topic, and it came up with an interesting research paper. The tl;dr is that while paper assets for the Ukrainian investor were devastated, the gold portion of the PP really saved the day.

Yes, I know some people are wary of reading AI generated content, but the essay it compiled is a genuinely interesting read. Please take a gander!

Very interesting. A year or two ago I had an ESL student from Ukraine and at her request spent an entire teaching session explaining how Americans think about investing, what the different asset classes are, etc. She said that in Ukraine they don't have any of these things (stocks, bonds, ETFs, 401(k)s, etc.). Apparently they do / did have some kind of stock exchange and some bonds, but how liquid and trustworthy are / were those markets even in the best of times?

If here in the States we have an "American Tailwind" (as Warren Buffett calls it), many other countries have their own special headwinds...