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Stocks YTD 2026: Rotation, Profit Taking, and Capital Self-Deportations

Creatix / February 19, 2026 Best-Performing Stocks YTD in 2026 According to recent market data tracking stock performance from January 1 through mid-February: Top YTD Gainers: KOS (Kosmos Energy Ltd.) — ~+90% (Energy sector) FSLY (Fastly, Inc.) — ~+85% (Tech/Internet) TROX (Tronox Holdings plc) — ~+82% (Basic Materials) DHX (DHI Group, Inc.) — ~+76% (Tech) VAL (Valaris Ltd.) — ~+75% (Energy) … plus others in energy and tech showing strong double-digit gains. ( Stock Titan ) Characteristics of this outperforming cohort: Energy & cyclical sectors lead , unknowns benefiting from higher commodity prices and stronger global demand. Small- and mid-caps are prominent , showing higher volatility and room for large percentage moves. Worst-Performing Stocks YTD in 2026 On the downside, some stocks are lagging significantly: Top YTD Laggards: CCXI (ChemoCentryx) — ~-80% – steep biotech selloff CALY (Topgolf Callaway Brands) – substantial loss U (Unity Software) – tech weakness L...
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Therians: The Next "Mini Big Thing" and Golden Opportunity for Entrepreneurs

Creatix / February 19, 2026 Social media scrollers worldwide in early 2026 are noticing the now-familiar combo: animal masks + tails (“gear”) + running/jumping on all fours (“quadrobics”)—and the label "therian" attached to it. This  looks like a sudden bad, but the therian movement is older than the internet. What you’re seeing is a classic pattern: a long-running subculture finally finds a high-visibility format, then splits into identity, aesthetic, and even sports, creating a huge business opportunity field for clever entrepreneurs.  1) What “therian” actually means (and what it doesn’t) A therian (short for therianthrope ) is typically described within the community as a person who identifies as a non-human animal in a deep, integral way, while still understanding they are physically human. ( El País ) What it doesn’t mean (but often gets confused online): Not the same as “furry.” Furry fandom is centered on anthropomorphic animal characters and costuming/art as a hobby;...

The New Golden Rule: 10% in gold.

Creatix / February 17, 2026 The New Golden Rule: 10% of Your Portfolio in Gold For decades, conventional wisdom suggested keeping a small allocation to gold — maybe 2% to 5% — as “insurance.” But the world has changed. Persistent deficits, geopolitical fragmentation, monetary experimentation, and structurally higher debt levels have altered the macro landscape. In this new era, it may be time for a revised principle: The New Golden Rule: Keep 10% of your portfolio in gold. Not 50%. Not an all-in bet. A disciplined, structural 10%. Let’s explore why. 1. Gold Is Monetary Insurance in an Era of Monetary Experimentation Since 2008, central banks have expanded balance sheets at unprecedented scale. The era of quantitative easing (QE), near-zero rates, and aggressive liquidity injections permanently changed investor psychology. Gold performs one critical function:  It is no one else’s liability. Unlike bonds, it carries no default risk. Unlike cash, it cannot be printed. Unlike equities,...

Top 5 Mysteries of the Big Bang

Creatix / February 17, 2026 The Big Bang is often described as the moment the universe began. But in modern cosmology, it’s more precise to say that the Big Bang describes the early expansion of the universe from an extremely hot, dense, and unusually smooth state. We have strong evidence that this happened. What we don’t have are answers to some of the deepest questions surrounding it. Here are the five biggest mysteries that still keep cosmologists awake at night. 1. What Caused the Big Bang? The Big Bang theory works beautifully when describing the universe after it began expanding. But rewind the clock all the way back to time zero, and current equations break down. General relativity predicts a “singularity”, a point of infinite density and temperature. But infinities in physics usually signal that a theory has reached its limits. To understand what truly happened, we likely need a theory of quantum gravity , something that unifies quantum mechanics and gravity. Until then, we d...

Winter Olympics: Top 10 Things You Probably Don't Know

Creatix / February 16, 2026 1) The 2026 Winter Olympics Have Set a Modern U.S. Viewership Record The Milano-Cortina Games are averaging roughly 26.5 million U.S. viewers across NBC broadcast and streaming — about a 93% increase over early Beijing 2022 numbers. More than 200 million Americans have engaged with NBCUniversal winter coverage this season. Strong storytelling, marquee events, and digital access have reignited national interest. 2) Winter Sports Debuted at the Summer Olympics Before the Winter Games existed, figure skating appeared in 1908 and 1920, and ice hockey debuted in 1920. 1924 Winter Olympics was originally labeled “International Winter Sports Week” and only later recognized as the first Winter Games. Since 1994, Winter and Summer Olympics have been staggered two years apart. 3) The First Winter Olympic Gold Medalist Was American Charles Jewtraw won the 500m speed skating event in 1924, earning the first gold medal in Winter Olympic history. His victory permanently l...

Partially-Conscious Robots: Coming Soon?

Creatix / February 15, 2026 Why We May Not Be That Far from a Conscious Robot — Especially If Its “Mind” Lives in the Cloud For decades, the image of a conscious robot has been cinematic: a metal body with a glowing artificial brain inside its skull. But that picture may be technologically outdated. If consciousness is not a mystical substance but an emergent pattern of integrated information processing, then it does not require all computation to sit inside a head. It may require architecture, integration, embodiment, and continuity streamed over a computer server, not a single "brain". And that changes the timeline dramatically. The Substrate Shift Human consciousness runs on biological substrate — neurons, glial cells, electrochemical signaling. But many researchers argue that what matters most is not the biology itself, but the pattern of computation and integration. If that’s true, then a robot’s body could act as: a sensor platform, a motor system, a local reflex proces...

Your Brain on Chocolate and Romance: The Neuroscience of Valentine’s Day

Creatix / February 14, 2026 Happy Valentine’s Day!  Marketing mixes chocolate and romance. Let's take a look. I. The Neuroscience of Chocolate: Why It Feels So Good Chocolate is not just candy. It is a neurochemical event . When you eat chocolate, especially dark chocolate, several things happen: 1. Dopamine: The Motivation Molecule Sweet and fatty chocolate activates the brain’s mesolimbic reward system , the same circuitry that responds to winning, sex, novelty, and social approval. The key player is dopamine. Dopamine is anticipation. Desire. The signal that says: “This matters. Do it again.” Chocolate’s combination of sugar and fat is evolutionarily powerful. Your brain evolved in scarcity. Dense calories meant survival. So the circuitry is ancient and strong. 2. Endorphins and Opioid Signaling Chocolate stimulates endogenous opioid systems, contributing to that warm, comforted feeling. That’s why chocolate is often associated with emotional soothing. 3. Serotonin and Mood Carb...

From the Wedge to AI: Why Technology Expands the Economy—and Never Contracts It

Creatix / February 13, 2026 Every major technology has triggered the same fear: this will replace humans. However, across the full arc of human history—from sharpened stones to artificial intelligence—the opposite has always happened without exception. We don't think this time will be any different. The economy will keep expanding. Smart humans will need to continue learning and adapting.  Technology (tools and methods) always expand the economy. It never contracts it. This isn’t optimism. It’s arithmetic. 1. The First Machine: The Wedge The earliest technologies were not grand inventions but geometric insights . A sharpened stone (a wedge) allowed a human arm and hand to do more work than biological muscle alone. Cutting meat, shaping wood, breaking bone, building shelter: each action became faster and cheaper in energy. The result wasn’t unemployment among hunters. It was surplus : More food with less time More time for toolmaking, teaching, cooperation Larger groups sustained on...

Job Creation in 2025 Was Anemic, but Could've Been Worse. Is 2026 Starting Strong?

Creatix / February 12, 2025 When it comes to job creation in the US, there are very good years, very bad years, and anemic years like 2025. Supposedly, 2026 started strong in January, but it is hard to trust the January numbers knowing that there are estimates subject to revision. The revision in 2025 was quite dramatic. Initially, it had been estimated that the economy had added  +584,000 jobs (as initially published). This was re vised down to only  181,000 jobs (seasonally adjusted).  Yes, that means that  403,000 fewer net jobs were created in 2025 than initially reported. This is an almost incredible and unprecedented 69% downward correction.  To be sure, we have had worst years in the US in the last 25 years. When recessions hit, net job losses hit the millions. Below are the numbers from 2000 through 2025. The list shows how many jobs were added (gained) or lost each year since 2000. Take a good look:   2000: +1,948,000 2001: −1,763,000 200...

Robotics and Space: The Economy Will Expand in The Next 50 Years

Creatix / February 11, 2026 Every time humanity expands production capability, the economy expands to bring capacity. The lever expanded muscle. Steam expanded motion. Electricity expanded productivity. The internet expanded information. In the next 50 years, two forces will converge: AI robotics and the space economy . Together, they are poised to expand the economic frontier again in a big way; structurally. I. Robotics: The Expansion of Labor Robots are not just machines. With AI, they become smart labor . For the first time in history, intelligence itself, not just muscle, can be scaled. Factories already run with industrial robots. Warehouses deploy autonomous systems. Surgical robots assist doctors. Agricultural robots harvest crops. AI systems design chips, optimize logistics, and discover molecules. This will only continue growing in the near future .  What changes over the next 50 years is not the existence of robots; it is their pervasiveness . As hardware costs decline ...

Super Bowl Halftime Show - Alternatives Will Become the Norm

Creatix / February 10, 2026 After Super Bowl 50 and Bad Bunny's historic record-setting Puerto Rican tribute, the halftime show crossed a line it can’t uncross: fragmentation of choice. The spectacle kept getting bigger, louder, more expensive, and paradoxically, less universal. The very success of the halftime show exposed its central contradiction: the bigger the audience, the harder it becomes to please anyone in a meaningful way. What we’re seeing now isn’t decline. It’s expansive   fragmentation —the same force that reshaped media, retail, and entertainment over the last two decades. And fragmentation doesn’t shrink markets. It expands them. The Core Problem: Mass Appeal Is a Myth The Super Bowl is the last true mass-audience event remaining in American culture. But music culture no longer works that way. Rock fans, hip-hop fans, and Latin/reggaeton fans don’t merely have preferences; they have identities, histories, and expectations that can’t be compressed into a single 12-...