Boomers Held Bitcoin ETFs Through a 54% Crash but the S&P 500 Rose 16%

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas praised bitcoin ETF holders for holding through a brutal drawdown, noting that lifetime cumulative net flows sit at $55 billion, down from a peak of $63 billion but up from a low of $50 billion. He called it “incredible intestinal fortitude from the Boomers given they saw a 50% drawdown”. But the scoreboard tells a different story. While retirees clung to their bitcoin ETFs, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) rose 15.5% over the past year, meaning the loyalty being praised kept those investors out of the best broad-market stretch in a decade.

Boomer Loyalty Trade That Missed the Rally

Bitcoin traded as high as $126,296 in October 2025 and as low as $57,717 in July 2026, a peak-to-trough drop of roughly 54%. It is down 34.4% over the past year and last changed hands near $76,850. MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR | MSTR Price Prediction), the closest listed proxy for concentrated bitcoin exposure, has been hit harder: shares are down 60.5% over the past year at $132. Meanwhile SPY sits at $762, up 11.8% year to date.

Macro Factor That Matters Most: 10-Year Yield

For SPY over the next 12 months, the single most important variable is the long end of the Treasury curve. The 10-year Treasury yield touched 5% on September 15, 2026, a 99.6 percentile reading against the past year and up from 3.97% in February. The Fed funds upper bound moved to 4% on September 17, reversing part of the easing cycle that carried equities higher earlier this year.

Roughly a third of SPY sits in mega-cap growth names whose valuations are most sensitive to the discount rate. A sustained move above 5% on the 10-year would pressure those multiples first. The fundamental question is whether the Fed tolerates yields at this level or resumes cutting to protect growth. History rhymes: the last time yields punched through 5% in late 2023, SPY dropped roughly 10% in eight weeks before Powell’s pivot rescued it.

Fund-Specific Signal: NVIDIA Is Now the Whole Story

SPY is no longer diversified in the way most Boomer investors remember it. As of the March 17, 2026 fact sheet, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) is the top position at 7.58% of net assets, followed by Apple at 6.66%, Microsoft at 4.91%, Amazon at 3.64%, and both Alphabet share classes combining for 5.39%. Roughly a third of SPY rides on a handful of mega-cap names. The 0.0945% expense ratio is the cheapest way to own the index, but you are effectively buying a concentrated AI infrastructure bet.

That is the number to monitor: NVIDIA’s weight in the next quarterly SSGA fact sheet. If NVDA’s share of SPY climbs past 8%, the fund’s fate becomes tied to one earnings cycle. Watch NVIDIA’s data-center revenue guidance each quarter and the hyperscaler capex commentary from Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta. A single downside surprise from any of the top four would show up in SPY within days. If the concentration bothers you, the power, cooling, and networking suppliers behind the buildout are a way to own the trend without leaning on a single chip vendor, and we lined up seven of them in a free AI infrastructure report.

What to Watch Next

The macro signal that matters is the 10-year yield holding below 5%. If it breaks decisively above and the Fed refuses to cut, SPY’s mega-cap engine loses its valuation cushion. MSTR has bounced 35% in the past month and bitcoin is up 18% off the July low, which is why cumulative ETF flows rebuilt from $50 billion back to $55 billion. Balchunas is right that the holders showed discipline. He is just measuring it against the wrong benchmark.

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