Honestly, the U.S. stock market is a threshold that most ordinary people will never cross in their lifetime. Yesterday, I was chatting with an older buddy. He’s been working for ten years and investing in A-shares for just as long. As for U.S. stocks, the Nasdaq Index, the S&P 500, or QDII, he’s only ever seen or heard about them in the news—never actually touched them. He said that in the past, all he did was follow tips, look at candlestick charts, read the news, and chase highs while cutting losses. After 10 years, when he calculated his returns, they were so low that he might as well have just put the money in a savings account. A regular, hardworking person who’s never used Google once in their life, never watched YouTube even once, and can’t afford to buy a single share of Apple. Paying for the most expensive memberships, watching the most ads, and numbly living out their days in the algorithm-driven feeds of Douyin, WeChat Channels, and Xiaohongshu. I didn’t respond. Because I know, for most people, that’s just how it is.