The Dow was up 537 points yesterday while the Nasdaq fell — my dad's Coca-Cola and Boeing portfolio is now outperforming my AI semiconductor picks. Thanksgiving is going to be rough.

My dad has owned the same three stocks since before I was born. Coca-Cola, Boeing, some paint company. He doesn't know what a GPU is. He thinks "the cloud" is a weather thing. He has never once used the word "thesis" in a financial context.

His portfolio was up yesterday. Mine was not.

Dow gained 537 points. Coca-Cola hit an all-time high after raising guidance. Boeing jumped 5% on positive free cash flow for the first time in years. Sherwin-Williams — literal paint — surged 8% on an earnings beat. Meanwhile the Nasdaq dropped, the semiconductor index is officially in a bear market, and my carefully researched AI picks are bleeding out daily.

I spent six months building what I thought was a sophisticated tech portfolio. I read white papers on HBM demand. I understood the DRAM pricing cycle. I could explain the difference between NAND and NOR flash memory at a party (I did not get invited to a second party). And all of that knowledge has been outperformed by a man who picks stocks based on "I like their products."

I know this is temporary. I know Big Tech earnings this week could flip everything. I know the fundamentals of AI infrastructure spending haven't changed. But right now, today, my dad is winning. And he's going to bring it up. Not directly — he's too polite for that. He'll just casually mention that "Coca-Cola had a nice quarter" and look at me with that face.

Is anyone else's boomer-stock parent outperforming them right now or is this just a me thing? And more importantly — should I actually be buying Coca-Cola?