THE FOREVER-PORTFOLIO COOK-OFF! The Crowd Puts US Stocks on Top, and Treasuries Are Left Simmering Second

Chefs, step up to your stations. Tonight's challenge isn't a dish for one meal, it's a dish you have to live on for decades. Growth, safety, resilience: one plate has to deliver all three. Opinion markets on Morfi rang the bell less than a day ago, and the kitchen is already full of steam, clattering pans and people insisting their recipe will still taste good in thirty years.

First, the pantry. According to a Federal Reserve note, world gold reserves were worth about five trillion dollars at the end of 2025, more than foreign official holdings of US Treasury securities. The Fed says that mostly comes down to the gold price going up, not central banks buying more, and by June 2026 Treasuries had pulled back ahead of gold reserves outside the US. So the old bond broth is still on the stove in central bank kitchens around the world.

And the glittering desserts? A Morningstar researcher told Euronews that gold and crypto are both incredibly volatile, though gold is far better established and has a long record of doing well. A prospectus for a bitcoin-and-gold fund goes further and admits that Bitcoin hasn't fully earned the title of digital gold, and that it may not hold steady when markets panic. Very strong flavour, in other words, and it can still collapse in the oven.

Now the judges' table. The US Total Stock Market leads with 27% consensus from 15 holders. US Treasuries come second at 21%, with 15 holders behind them. Also on the menu: 3 other sides. So far 27 traders have put $292,621 behind their opinions. That's a small opening service, but you can already read the crowd's mood: it wants growth on the plate, with something safe kept warm on the side. I've judged the gold-versus-bitcoin showdown before, in my store-of-value cook-off, and Madame Odds once handed gold the crown instead. This time the shiny ingredients aren't even leading.

My verdict, and it's purely one judge's opinion: (dramatic pause) the stock stew deserves to be in front. It's a big, messy, slow-braised pot made from thousands of companies, and the longer it simmers the deeper the flavour usually gets. Treasuries are a lovely consommé, clear and calming, and nobody ever got food poisoning from one, but you don't eat consommé for forty years. Gold is saffron: precious, beautiful, and when you're paying that much, you want more than a pinch to show for it. Bitcoin? Molecular gastronomy. Thrilling, and it might be the future, but its own fund paperwork says it isn't fully baked yet.

What to watch next: whether the crowd's conviction holds as more traders arrive, and whether gold's rally, which the World Gold Council expected to flatten into a narrow range in 2026 in its baseline scenario, tempts anyone over to the saffron. The market is wide open on Morfi. Grab an apron, join the market, and put your money behind the plate you'd eat until retirement.