Blossom — Social Investing Community

Market News · 3m

Blasé Market + Bravado Policy = Recipe 4 Disaster

While doing my Saturday morning reading, I came across something that got me thinking...

A couple BofA analysts said... "Markets stop panicking when policymakers start panicking, but no panic anywhere despite the highest 30-year yield since June 2007 and spiking commodities," "Blasé markets" and "bravado policy" are "a recipe for volatility,"

What does that mean exactly? It's essentially describing a highly dangerous economic situation where both investors & policymakers are dangerously overconfident, ignoring mounting risks until it is too late. Taken a step further, it means that the combination of investor complacency and political arrogance creates the perfect conditions for a severe financial crisis.

Could we potentially be in this situation today?
Well... Forced to choose where we are in the 'Stock Market Cycle' today, I'd go with 'complacency'. ✔
I guess that leaves us with the policy question, namely is there "political arrogance"? 🤔...
'Recipe for disaster' anyone!?!?!? Food for thought... read more

14 views

The Market Matrix

@themarketmatrix

Market News · 🔥 Hot

1,002 views

Ronan

@ronan

ETFs · ⭐ Featured

Complete ETF/Sector/Asset Investment List

Since so many people ask how to invest in this sector, or this country, or this asset, I’ve decided to make a comprehensive guide on how you can invest in specific areas. This is NOT portfolio advice, simply information about tickers that you can research yourself. Save this for later so you have a list of ETFs to come back to!

Canada:

$XIU $XIC $ZCN All expose you to the TSX in Canada. These ETFs consist of all top Canadian companies and access to our national stock exchange.

$VCB $VGV $VLB $VAB $VSB $VSC $XBB $XCB Expose you to Canadian bonds; whether it be long-term, short-term, corporate, government, etc.

$VDY $XEI $CDZ Expose you to Canadian dividend companies

$XRE $ZRE $VRE Give access to Canadian REITs

$ZEB $XFN $RBNK Lets you buy the Canadian banks

USA:

$VFV $ZSP $XSP $XUS $HXS Lets you buy the S&P 500 (learn about hedged vs. unhedged in my other post)

$XQQ $HXQ $ZQQ All give you access to the NASDAQ 100

$IWR $VO $VOE $VOT $IJH $SCHM Lets you buy US Midcaps

$IJR $IWM $VB $VBR $VBK $SCHA Lets you buy US Smallcaps

$DIV $SPYD $RDIV $DHS $VIG $SCHD $VYM $DGRO $SDY Give access from small to high dividend US companies

$VTI $ITOT Lets you buy the whole US market

$TLT $IEF $VGIT $GOVT $SHY $VGLT Give access to US bonds

$XLC $XLY $XLP $XLE $XLF $XLV $XLI $XLB $XLRE $XLK $XLU All give you access to each sector in the S&P such as financials, energy, healthcare, etc.

International:

$XEQT $FEQT $VEQT $ZEQT Give you an all-in-one exposure to Canada, US, emerging and global markets.

$VEA $IEFA $SCHF $SPDW $EFV $EFA Give access to general international exposure

$EWJ $EWU $EWC Gives direct access to developed international countries

$INDA $MCHI $EWT $EWY $EWZ $EWW $EIDO $EWM Gives direct access to emerging international countries

Assets:

$KILO $PHYS $CGL Let’s you buy gold directly through ETFs

$SVR $HUZ Let you buy silver through ETFs

Savings/Interest:

$CASH $HISA $PSA $HSAV Access to Canadian savings and interest payments

$HSUV-U $PSU-U $HISU-U Access to US savings and interest payments

There’s so many ETFs I didn’t go into with dozens of categories, but this should give you some basic starting point to look into your ETF investments. This is simply the starting point, when choosing your investments always research the ETFs, what they provide to you, their fees, your goals, your risk, and what you’re looking to get out of investing.

As always do your research and happy investing!

Subscribe to the newsletter: relatablefinance.substack.com read more

299K views

The Market Matrix

@themarketmatrix

Market News · 3m

This stock is going viral on FinX.. and for a reason.

The oil tanker sector has been the root of generational wealth this year.

Who has balls of steel to short it here..?

I mean something has to give.. right?

$BWET

8 views

Nick

@realnickstrategy

Community · 1d

ZetaLive 2026

Hey guys!

I’ll be going to ZetaLive 2026 this year in New York City. This will be one of the world’s largest AI marketing events, ever…

I’ve been invited to some interesting conversations and discussions.

More specifically:

- Analysts discussion
- Creator tour of HQ
- Open venue interviews!

Expect a lot coming from me over the next month leading up to and during ZetaLive. I’ll have the opportunity to chat with some big Wall Street names, CEOs, and other executives of leading companies.

I can’t wait to share with you, the community this unique opportunity.

Looking forward to this.

Keep in mind - my entire investment journey publicly started here, on blossom. Literally, anything is possible!

Blossom is by far, the best place for investors to start and bloom into something unique!

Talk soon,

Nick.

$ZETA read more

1,324 views

Lamar

@aleitheia712

Beginner Investors · 11m

Article I Wrote on Medium

I just wrote this article on Medium about the AGI investment opportunity and the AI buildout. If you have some time, I would appreciate it if you gave it a read and provide any feedback, if you have any. Thanks.

https://medium.com/@thoughtswithanonymous/the-biggest-investment-opportunity-of-your-lifetime-is-here-7425a1c03fc8

34 views

Paul Santori

@paulsantori

Passive Income · 🔥 Hot

Enjoy Life!! 🌸☀️🌊🏝️🐟🐠

Regardless of how you invest, the goal is to have more free time to enjoy!!

6,334 views

Tim

@tim_emino

Beginner Investors · 🔥 Hot

From Fortnite to Blossom?? My journey so far 🫣

I’ve gotten to know a bunch of you through Blossom events, messages, and just being around the community, but I realized I’ve never actually shared much about myself or how I ended up here.

For those I haven’t met yet, I’m Tim, I’m 20, and I work as an intern on the Brand Partnerships team here at Blossom.

My journey here has been a pretty unconventional one.

Growing up, my entire world was gaming. I started playing Fortnite competitively at a pretty young age, eventually playing professionally and getting signed to some of the biggest organizations in esports, including Overtime.

Then, before high school, I decided to walk away from it.

I had spent so much of my childhood behind a computer that I wanted to experience a completely different side of life. Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with business.

From flipping cars, to running Amazon FBA, to starting and eventually selling a landscaping business, I was constantly trying something new. Some things worked, a lot didn’t, but I loved figuring out how to build something from nothing.

That same curiosity eventually led me to investing.

I became fascinated by the businesses behind the stocks. How they made money, why some companies won while others didn’t, and ultimately where I wanted to put my own money.

That interest eventually led me into finance and most recently private equity. For a while, I thought I’d stay on the traditional finance path.

Then I joined Blossom.

It was a completely different direction, but looking back, it brought together pretty much everything I loved: investing, entrepreneurship, technology, and building.

And it’s genuinely been some of the most fun I’ve ever had.

I’ve gotten to work on things I never expected to be doing at 20, travel across the country for BlossomCon, and learn firsthand what it takes to build a company.

But easily the best part has been the people.

Working alongside @tigertim , @maxstocks, @brandon , and the rest of the team has given me some of my favourite memories. Everyone here genuinely cares about what we’re building, moves insanely fast, and still manages to have a ton of fun doing it.

The culture being built at Blossom is something really special, and I’m incredibly excited to see where we take it.

I also want to hear from you guys.

If there’s anything you love about Blossom, think we could do better, or want to see us build in the future, drop it below or shoot me a message.

I’d genuinely love to hear it, and you’ll definitely be seeing more of me on here :)read more

2,920 views

Lamar

@aleitheia712

Beginner Investors · 3d

Blocked

People, let's try to have intellectual discussions on this platform when we have differences in opinion. I learn from arguments, but unfortunately someone just blocked me for a simple argument over a company I'm invested in and bought this morning. Surprise, it's $PLTR bum bum bummm.

I don't agree with everything Palantir does. Does it worry me? Yes. Would I consider divesting in the future? Yes. I have openly talked about my issues and conflicting feelings regarding Palantir and Alex Karp on Blossom. But financially, the company has been good to me, and I can't pass opportunities like this up. That's the reality. That doesn't mean that I would ever support the IDF or ICE. You can't just make assumptions like that about people.

3,324 views

Moe

@moementumfinance

Personal Finance · 35m

We Both Borrowed to Invest through Smith Manoeuvre

What does the Smith Manoeuvre actually look like when you’ve been doing it for years? In this video, @kgcottawa and I go beyond the theory and share our own real-world experiences implementing the Smith Manoeuvre—including how we got started, why we decided to use it, how we invest the borrowed money, how we handle the HELOC interest, dividends, taxes, and adjusted cost base, and what we would do differently if we were starting over.

💰 We also open up our portfolios and share the numbers behind our strategies. Kyle walks through his Smith Manoeuvre portfolio, including his Scotia STEP setup, roughly $141K of net deposits, his XEQT position and individual Canadian stocks. I also share my own Smith Manoeuvre portfolio, which is now worth roughly $242K against approximately $141K of borrowing, with the portfolio invested primarily in $XEQT. We discuss why we both favour long-term investing, why we’ve experienced periods where the portfolio was in the red, and why a strategy like this requires the ability to stay invested through major market declines.

🧾 We also get into some of the less exciting—but extremely important—parts of the strategy: tracking interest, tax deductions, eligible dividends, return of capital, adjusted cost base, keeping records clean, and working with professionals when you're dealing with leveraged investing. This is not a “get rich quick” strategy, and neither of us is presenting this as financial or tax advice. It’s simply a transparent look at how two investors are approaching the Smith Manoeuvre with their own money, what has worked for us, what hasn’t, and what we’ve learned along the way.

If you’re considering the Smith Manoeuvre—or already doing it—we’d love to hear from you: Would you rather start with smaller monthly amounts, or invest a larger lump sum upfront? 🤔

⚠️ Disclaimer: This video is for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflects our personal experiences. It is not financial, investment, mortgage, or tax advice. Leveraged investing involves significant risk, and everyone’s circumstances are different. Consider speaking with qualified professionals before implementing the Smith Manoeuvre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flADDmGrLmYread more

292 views

BD Investing

@bdinvesting

Beginner Investors · 🔥 Hot

Why Rate Hikes Won’t Kill the Bull Market

Why Rate Hikes Won’t Kill the Bull Market

The Fed raised rates 9 times from 2015–2018 — stocks still climbed.

Here’s why history could repeat. ⬇️

https://bdinvesting.substack.com/p/why-rate-hikes-dont-always-kill-bull?r=1fden7&utm_medium=ios

1,934 views

Will W

@williamwang23

Beginner Investors · 4d

But Life Is Expensive...Is Often An Excuse.

I'm sure we've all heard some sort of phrase along the lines of...
“Our parents could buy a house on one income. Today, two incomes can barely cover rent.”

And honestly, there’s some truth to it.Housing is more expensive. Groceries are more expensive. Cars, childcare, insurance, and basically everything else costs more than it used to.

But I also think there’s another side to the conversation that we don’t talk about enough.

A lot of us have quietly increased our standard of living without realizing how much it’s costing us.

Think about what the everyday folks are paying for....
• $4–$8 coffees several times a week
• Restaurants multiple times a week
• Food delivery because we don’t feel like cooking
• Two expensive vehicles sitting in the driveway
• A $100+ phone plan for the newest device
• Amazon packages arriving every other day
• Gym memberships we barely use
• Concerts, sports, vacations and weekend getaways
• Buy-now-pay-later purchases spread across multiple accounts

None of these things individually make someone financially irresponsible.

It’s the accumulation.

The problem is that modern consumption is incredibly easy.

Want dinner? Tap an app.

Want a new phone? Finance it.

Want new clothes? Put it on a payment plan.

Want a vacation? “Book now, pay later.”

Want something from Amazon? It can be at your door tomorrow.

Our grandparents didn’t necessarily have better financial discipline because they were inherently better with money.They simply had fewer ways to spend it. Today's middle class is living like the rich back compare to folks in the 1950s. Our standard of living has increased so much...

There was no algorithm constantly showing you things you “need.” No monthly subscription for every possible form of entertainment.No food delivery sitting two taps away. No ability to finance practically anything. And definitely no Instagram convincing you that everyone else is living better than you.

Meanwhile, someone can have a $700 car payment, $150 phone bill, $200 in subscriptions, $500 in restaurants and another $300 in random spending…

…and then wonder why they can't save $20,000 for a down payment or invest any $

Yes, the cost of living has changed.

Yes, housing affordability is a serious problem.

But personal spending habits still matter.

If your income increases by $1,000/month and your lifestyle immediately increases by $1,000/month, you didn't actually get ahead.

You just upgraded your lifestyle.

For me, building wealth is about intentionally directing money toward things that can grow over time, ETFs, stocks, real estate, and other investments instead of constantly upgrading my lifestyle.

You don't have to live like you're broke.

You just have to stop spending all your income away, you can enjoy life AND build wealth.

The trick is making sure you're doing both. 😀

Cheering everyone on.read more

5,372 views

Gareth soloway

@solow

Beginner Investors · 51m

Beyond Nvidia: 5 AI Bottleneck Stocks

Jensen Huang made a comment recently about Nvidia's supply limits that completely changed how I'm looking at the AI supply chain.

Everyone knows Nvidia makes the best GPUs, but a GPU is basically a paperweight if you can't get high-bandwidth memory, cool down the rack, or pull enough gigawatts off the local grid.

$NVDA growth isn't constrained by orders—it's constrained by the physical bottlenecks holding up the deployment of AI factories.

Here are 5 bottleneck suppliers sitting directly in that supply chain path that I've been researching:

$MU (HBM3e & HBM4) — High-Bandwidth Memory is still one of the tightest bottlenecks in advanced AI chips. Without dense memory stacks right next to the logic die, compute stalls.

$VRT (Liquid Cooling & Power Management) — As racks push past 100kW per cabinet, air cooling physically fails. Liquid cooling isn't an upgrade anymore; it's a structural requirement.

$ETN / $SBGSY (Grid & Power Infrastructure) — Data center capex is running into a wall of power availability. Power transformers, switchgear, and microgrids are where deployments are getting stuck.

$TSM (CoWoS Advanced Packaging) — The bottleneck often isn't silicon wafer production—it's Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate packaging capacity.

$CRDO / $AVGO (Custom ASIC & High-Speed Interconnects) — Moving massive datasets between thousands of GPUs requires specialized retimers, switches, and custom silicon.

I'm not jumping headfirst into all of these blindly, but I'm watching the infrastructure bottlenecks much more closely than the headline chipmakers right now.

If the whole world is building AI factories, the companies supplying the power, cooling, and memory infrastructure are sitting in a very unique position.

Would you rather own the primary GPU designer here, or build a position in the bottleneck infrastructure around it?read more

102 views

Scott S @scottsinvesting

Beginner Investors · 1h

Potential Impacts from Net Equity Outflows...

First off, what does this mean exactly? 'Net equity outflows' occur when investors collectively withdraw more capital from stock funds and individual equities than they invest...

Over the past month or so, U.S. equity funds experienced a sharp acceleration in outflows, with the most recent week alone totaling $32.27B, marking the largest outflow since December of last year.

Why is this 'potentially' a big deal? Net equity outflows tend to increase market volatility while driving asset prices lower. For those using margin, this can lead to forced liquidation cycles as well. Cue warning horn!

The so-called experts whose opinions I've read say this was likely driven by rising oil prices & ongoing inflation concerns. No doubt those played a role, but plenty of other contributors as well IMO (i.e. job losses, spiraling debt, rising rates, etc., etc.). Simply put... Things are a mess IMO!

No telling if the net equity outflows seen over the past month will continue, but it's worth paying attention to IMHO. I don't make the rules; I just play the game...
Happy investing everyone!read more

214 views

Abhishek Patel

@abby4402

Dividends · ⭐ Featured

Long-term investing goals

📊 Long-Term Investing: The Power of Thorough Analysis

When it comes to long-term investing, understanding the fundamentals of a stock is crucial. It’s not just about jumping on trends; it’s about making informed decisions based on solid data. This chart breaks down the essential financial statements—Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Cash Flow Statement—that every investor should analyze before committing to a stock.

🔍 Balance Sheet: This tells you about the company’s financial health, specifically its assets, liabilities, and equity. A healthy balance sheet is a sign of stability and resilience.

💸 Income Statement: This shows the company’s profitability by detailing revenue, expenses, and profits. A strong income statement indicates a company that’s generating profits, a key factor for long-term growth.

💰 Cash Flow Statement: This reveals how the company manages its cash, from operations to investments and financing. Positive cash flow is essential for sustaining operations and fueling future growth.

By mastering these fundamentals, you can make smarter investment choices that stand the test of time. Remember, successful long-term investing isn’t about timing the market; it’s about time in the market, supported by thorough analysis.

$VGT $TXN $QQQ $AAPL $META

#InvestSmart #LongTermInvesting #FinancialLiteracy #StockMarketAnalysisread more

562K views

Dividend Empire @dividendempire

Passive Income · 🔥 Hot

🔵🤯 Harvest Preliminary File for 6 ETFs + 1 AIO!

A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT from Harvest, and it looks like they will be releasing soon some new single stock ETFs and an all-in-one ETF of their very popular High Income Shares ETFs! 💥

Harvest ASML Enhanced High Income Shares ETF (ASME)
Harvest Berkshire Hathaway Enhanced High Income Shares ETF (BRKE)
Harvest Intel Enhanced High Income Shares ETF (INTE)
Harvest IonQ Enhanced High Income Shares ETF (IONE)
Harvest Micron Enhanced High Income Shares ETF (MUHE)
Harvest SK Hynix Enhanced High Income Shares ETF (SKHE)

.. and what you've been waiting for!

Harvest All-In-One High Income Shares ETF (HONE)

This will be what many passive income investors would be looking at, for a simple way to gain direct diversification in one ETF product.

The initial holdings will include the following:
- Harvest Canadian High Income Shares ETF (HHIC)
- Harvest International High Income Shares ETF (HHII)
- Harvest Diversified High Income Shares ETF (HHIS)

There's no mention of what the allocations will be, but I would assume that HHIS would be the largest slice, followed by HHIC and then HHII. My random guess might be similar to BIGY where it'd be approximately 45% HHIS / 30% HHIC / 25% HHII?

By bundling these all together, you would get a basket of 45 total holdings:
- HHIC has 10 Holdings
- HHII has 15 Holdings
- HHIS has 20 Holdings

Typically these are filed about a month before they finally start trading, so we can likely expect this to come out somewhere towards the end of October at the latest.

➡️ What would be your guess or desired allocations of the 3 ETFs? Comment down below!

.read more

794 views

Vinayak Bahety

@vinayakbahety

Market News · 1h

OIL JUST WENT NUCLEAR, HERE'S WHO WINS!

Oil surged from the $70s to over $100 a barrel as US-Iran tensions escalate near the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global crude. Goldman flagged $120 as a real possibility if this keeps up.

Who bleeds: airlines and transport (fuel costs hit fast), consumer discretionary (less spending money for everyone), manufacturers (higher input costs).

Who wins: energy stocks like XOM and CVX, higher crude means higher margins.

The bigger risk: rising oil is inflationary, and that complicates Fed rate cuts, a headwind for the broader market, not just energy-adjacent names.
This is a sector-wide, not stock-specific, event. Balance matters more than picks this week.

164 views

Nate

@hoodnate

ETFs · 2d

💰 Dividend Debate

If you had $100,000 to invest for the next 20 years, would you rather:
A) Build a dividend portfolio and collect income along the way
B) Focus on growth stocks and worry about income later
I personally lean more toward growth while I’m younger, but I can definitely see the appeal of building a portfolio that eventually pays you every month.
What’s your choice? A or B? And why?

$VOO $SCHD read more

3,802 views

Ranjan

@ranjan2906

Technology · 1h

OpenAI - No IPO in 2026

Sam Altman said no IPO for OpenAI in 2026 as it is not the right moment and they need to focus on safety and alignment.

Looks like a negative new for markets. If all frontier models are now coming out in a chorus to slow down AI advancement and there are actually reports of an agreement which has been reached, it would be a net negative for all chip stocks and even all the neo cloud data center stocks would be impacted.

Thoughts?

$NVDA $AMD $AVGO $MRVL $NBIS $CRWV $IREN

134 views

Maxwell

@maxstocks

Technology · 🔥 Hot

👀 Thoughts on AI Doomerism?

Every day there's another headline about how AI is going to kill us all... with Sam Altman recently delaying the OpenAI IPO and implying that AI has a 10% chance of killing everyone by the end of the decade.

Every time I see this kind of stuff I somewhat wonder how much of it is a real risk vs a marketing play to pump the stock...

One Bloomberg opinion piece calls it "AI Panic Marketing": basically the message that "we're building a powerful, godlike AI that could end the world" is a form of advertising.

On the other side, more than 1,000 employees across the frontier labs signed a letter this summer warning that competitive pressure was preventing anyone from slowing down, so I'm not really sure what side I'm on

What do you guys think?

1,272 views

Jasper

@jaspxr

Market News · 2h

🚨 📊 WEEKLY MARKET WRAP: SEPT 8–12 🚨

🔴 Dow -1.89% → 52,573
🔴 S&P -1.2% → 7,657
🔴 Nasdaq -0.96% → 26,333
🟢 VIX +5.46% → 16

Mag 7
🟢 $TSLA +0.93%
🔴 $GOOGL -1.16%
🔴 $NVDA -5.54%
🔴 $AMZN -0.88%
🟢 $META +5.83%
🔴 $MSFT -2.82%
🟢 $AAPL +1.21%

Big Movers 🚨
🟢 $AMD +11.72%
🟢 $ARM +6.52%
🔴 $PLTR -7.1%
🔴 $SNOW -6.97%

Broad weakness hit Mag 7 and cloud stocks. $AMD's 11.72% rally was the standout. Supply chain recovery or guidance? read more

164 views

Mark Jones

@majgreen58

Passive Income · 1d

$129K dividends. Boring week. Still printing. 💸

$129K dividends and almost $20K/month 😂💸

Weekly cash flow chaos report 📊🔥

Not much to report this week.

No big moves.
No panic selling.
No “this has to be the bottom” speeches to my phone. 😂📉

Just staying boring and buying:

🍫 CHPY
🧱 BLOX

Fresh numbers:

💰 All-time dividends: $129,857.86
📈 Monthly run rate: $,9970.81/mo
🧾 Yearly run rate: $23,9730.76/yr
🔥 Yield: 25.53%
🤡 Yield on cost: 28.28%

Almost $130K all-time dividends and basically 20 k a month projected income.

Which is wild since I only started this journey in April.

This week’s lesson:

Sometimes the move is not making a move.

Just feed the beast, stay patient, and don’t let boredom become your portfolio manager. 😂💸

Not financial advice — just a clown with a spreadsheet documenting the experiment in public. 🤡📊

CHPY/BLOX holders… are we smart, stubborn, or building a yield monster in the basement? 👇🔥read more

1,444 views

Nathan Tafoya

@natet3

Technology · 4h

What’s your thoughts?📈

I’m curious what everyone else thinks about it. How are you guys feeling about AMD long term? Are you still buying at these levels, just holding, or do you think there are better opportunities out there right now?

242 views

Russ Knopf

@rustyram78

Dividends · 6d

I Never Eat There, but I Just Bought the Stock.

17 days after selling McDonald's ($MCD), I bought it back. But not because I'm lovin' the food…

I first started buying MCD during the COVID crash in our taxable "overflow" account, at as low as $132, and ended up with 11 shares at a cost basis in the mid-$180s.

Then our 20-year-old roof took storm damage, and we needed a new one, so we sold all of our McDonald's at $279 to help pay. But what surprised me most was that I missed owning it!
This past Friday, I was working at the DeKalb, IL post office, and I could see a McDonald's from where I was. Every single time I looked up, people were going in and coming out. Then around lunch, two postal employees came back carrying McDonald's bags and drinks. That did it. On my lunch break, I sold some VTI and started a McDonald's position again.

What's funny is that I almost never eat there. The only time I really do is at the airport, when we leave the house in a hurry and need something quick and cheap before boarding. But I don't have to be a customer. I just have to notice everybody else is.

One thing I'm really lovin' is how former McDonald's CEO Harry Sonneborn famously said, McDonald's isn't in the burger business. It's in the real estate business.

About 95% of the restaurants are run by franchisees who pay McDonald's rent and royalties, and McDonald's owns most of the land they sit on. That's why it has a very high 46% operating margin and 49 straight years of dividend raises (soon to be 50 years and a Dividend King this fall).

One of McDonald's tasty twists is negative shareholder equity on paper, which sounds scary. It's not for two reasons:

First, they've paid out more in dividends and buybacks over the years than they kept, and that's what drives the number below zero.

Second, and what I find fascinating, is that all of McDonald's real estate is on the books at what they paid for it. So let's say they bought a corner lot for $700K in 1976, and it's worth $20 million today — the balance sheet still says $700K. McDonald's has a massive amount of hidden net worth that no ratio I know of shows.

But I do have a bias I'm working through. Part of me wants to wait for $180 again, but that's dumb. The company earns more now than it did when my average cost was in the $180s.
A more profitable business shouldn't sell for the same price it did five years ago. So instead of anchoring to an old price, I'm looking at what I'm paying for the earnings today:

P/E, or price-to-earnings (showing how many dollars you're paying for each dollar of earnings), is about 20.8. Its average over the last nine years is about 26, so currently you'd pay $20.80 for every $1 of McDonald's earnings.

Free cash flow yield, which shows you the exact percentage of actual cash a company makes compared to what its stock costs, is 4.3%. Its median is 3.15%.

Dividend yield is 2.9%. Its 5-year average is 2.3%.

By all three, this is the cheapest McDonald's has been in years.

So, why is it down? U.S. traffic went soft. Lower-income consumers are pushing back on prices, and CEO Chris Kempczinski said on the last call: they don't have a strategy problem; they simply didn't execute at the level they needed to in the second quarter. I give him credit for honesty, but that's a strike against him, and I think his leash just got a lot shorter.

And if you haven't seen the video of him eating the Big Arch burger, you have to watch it here. He got roasted because it looks like the man has never held or eaten a burger before! If things don't turn around soon, I think they'll replace him.

But there's another thing you might not know: McDonald's corporate can recommend a price, but the franchisees don't have to follow it.

Kempczinski said U.S. restaurants haven't consistently executed the discount strategy, and only about 60% to 65% of the system had put in the "under $3 menu," which is supposed to include 10 items. Thousands of independent owners, each doing their own thing. It's like herding cats, for better or worse.

Turning around McDonald's is like turning around the aircraft carrier I served on, the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74). It can't change direction like a small boat. It's slow, but once it turns, it turns. These things take time, and that's why I'm buying with confidence.

What pushed me into buying was that parking lot in DeKalb that looked packed every time I looked at it. But the data says something different. U.S. same-store sales rose just 0.8% last quarter, and every bit of that came from higher checks — people spending more per visit — while fewer customers actually walked in. Placer.ai measured McDonald's U.S. visits down 4.5% from a year ago.

So the lesson is that a busy lot doesn't tell you if it's busier than last year, and it turns out it wasn't.

And on top of that, according to Inc., about 36% of McDonald's visitors come from areas where the median household income is under $50,000. Those are the people getting squeezed hardest right now, and they're the same customers McDonald's fumbled with its value menu. That looks like a broke-customer problem and a management problem, and both are fixable.

I've been hearing since high school in the 1990s that McDonald's is finished. The Super Size Me documentary. Fitness fads. Fast casual dining. Now it's GLP-1s. It's 2026, and McDonald's is still growing, still profitable, and still the biggest restaurant company on earth. This looks like another in a long line of cycles, not a broken or dying business.

Two things I'm watching, and if these break, I’ll reconsider adding more:

U.S. guest counts. They need to stop falling and turn positive over the next few quarters. If traffic is still negative a year from now with a new value menu fully rolled out, then I was wrong, and it's structural.

The October dividend raise. This would be year 50, and a solid raise of around 5% tells me management is confident. A token raise of 1% to 3% would be a warning.

My plan: I'm buying in my Roth IRA, and I intend to never sell. Tax-free compounding, theoretically forever. In the $250s, I keep adding. The lower it goes, the more aggressively I buy.

I don't use it. But I'm lovin' it. How about you?

This is from the FREER weekly newsletter, which you can check out here 👉 https://dapper-dividends.kit.com/posts/i-never-eat-there-but-i-just-bought-the-stockread more

2,916 views

Zain @zains

Beginner Investors · ⭐ Featured

Beginner’s Guide to Stock Market Terms

One of the best parts about the Blossom community is how open everyone is sharing knowledge and experiences.

To make things easier for anyone just starting their investing journey, here’s a simple glossary to help understand and simplify various terms.

Common Terms:

Dividend: A share of a company’s profits paid to shareholders, usually quarterly.

Ex-Dividend Date: The cutoff date by which you must own a stock to receive its next dividend.

ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund): A fund that holds multiple stocks or bonds, traded like a single stock.

Covered Call ETF: An ETF that owns stocks and sells call options to generate extra income (higher yield, limited / capped upside).

Earnings Report: A company’s quarterly financial performance summary.

EPS (Earnings Per Share): A company’s profit divided by its number of shares.

Market Cap: A company’s total value (share price × number of shares).

ACB: The total amount you’ve paid for an investment, including the purchase price plus any fees or commissions.

Book Value: The value of a company according to its financial statements (assets minus liabilities).

Yield: Annual dividend as a percentage of the stock/ETF price.

Liquidity: How easily an asset can be bought or sold without impacting its price.

Volatility: The degree of price fluctuations in a stock or market.

Index: A benchmark of stocks (e.g., S&P 500, Nasdaq, TSX).

Bull Market: A period of rising stock prices and optimism.

Bear Market: A period of declining stock prices and pessimism.

False Breakout: When a stock’s price moves above (or below) a key level, making it look like a new trend is starting, but then quickly reverses back.

P/E Ratio: Price-to-earnings ratio (stock price ÷ EPS), used to assess valuation.

Blue Chip: Well-established, financially strong companies with a track record of stability.

Diversification: Spreading investments across assets to reduce risk.

Broker: A platform or firm that facilitates buying and selling investments.

Limit Order: An order to buy/sell a stock at a specific price or better.

Market Order: An order to buy/sell a stock immediately at the current market price.

Bid/Ask Spread: The difference between the highest price buyers offer and the lowest price sellers accept.

Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA): Investing a fixed amount regularly to reduce the impact of market swings.

Capital Gain/Loss: Profit or loss from selling an investment for more/less than its purchase price.

IPO: When a company first sells shares to the public.

Index Fund: A fund designed to mirror the performance of a market index.

Short Selling: Selling borrowed shares, hoping to buy them back cheaper.

Margin: Borrowing money from a broker to buy investments, which amplifies gains and losses.

Margin Requirement: The minimum amount of your own money (equity) you must maintain in a margin account to open or keep a leveraged investment position.

Margin Call: A demand from your broker to deposit more funds or sell assets because your account equity has fallen below the required margin level.

Time Horizon: The length of time you plan to hold an investment before needing the money. Short horizons = more risk-sensitive, long horizons = more room to ride out volatility.

Stock Split / Reverse Split: A split increases the number of shares (e.g., 2-for-1) while lowering the price per share. A reverse split reduces the number of shares (e.g., 1-for-10) while raising the price per share. Your overall value doesn’t change just the math.

Long (Being Long): Buying a stock or asset because you expect the price to go up.

Short (Being Short): Selling a stock you don’t own because you expect the price to go down, so you can buy it back cheaper later.

TER: The total yearly cost of owning a fund, including the management fee plus other costs like administration, audits, and legal fees.

MER: The annual cost that a fund charges for management (includes any leverage costs if used).

Management Fee: A portion of the MER that goes directly to the fund managers for running the fund.

Withholding Tax: A tax deducted on dividends/distributions from foreign investments (e.g., U.S. dividends to Canadian investors face a 15% withholding in TFSA/Non-Registered accounts).

Total Returns: The full picture of an investment’s performance, including both price gains and dividends/distributions.

CAGR: The average yearly growth of an investment over time.

NAV: The price of one share of a fund (stock or etf)

NAV Depreciation: When the fund’s share price goes down over time.

Mutual Fund: A pool of money from many investors used to buy a mix of stocks, bonds, or other assets.

Bond: A loan you give to a company or government, and they pay you back with interest.

Asset: Anything valuable you own that can generate money.

Portfolio: Your collection of investments.

Option: A contract that gives you the right (but not the obligation) to buy or sell a stock at a set price.

Future: A contract to buy or sell something at a set price on a future date.

REIT: A company that owns real estate and pays investors income from rent.

Alpha: A measure of how much better (or worse) an investment did compared to the market.

Beta: A measure of how much an investment moves compared to the market.

Sharpe Ratio: A way to see if returns are worth the risk taken.

Hedging: Protecting your investments from risk.

Rebalancing: Adjusting your portfolio back to your target mix of assets.

FCF: Free Cash Flow

Understanding these terms makes investing far less intimidating.

If anyone feels other terms should be included, please share in the comments.

I’ll update this post so we can build a complete beginner-friendly resource together!

*Sorry tagged a few etfs for reach 🫣read more

344K views

Brian Tong

@brtong

Market News · 6h

Congrats we all hit a new milestone

$VDY $SPY

412 views

SmartReversals @smartreversals

ETFs · 10h

NQ_F: Lower highs since June have brought the price to test the 20WMA. A big move is coming. When the 20WMA is breached, the 40WMA zone follows (-9% if it happens). With Fed rate hike probabilities at 86%, caution is key, and losing 29,027 would be a major warning signal. NDX $QQQ $SPY

614 views

Blossom

@blossom

🐝 Daily Buzz: September 9, 2026

📊 Stocks fell for a third straight session as Treasury yields and oil both pushed higher. The Dow dropped 0.77%, the S&P 500 shed 0.48%, the Nasdaq fell 0.64% and Canada's S&P/TSX Composite slipped 0.60%.

📱 Apple ($AAPL) fell about 1.75% by mid-afternoon after unveiling the iPhone Duo, its first foldable phone. The reaction fits a pattern where Apple shares have more often sunk or gone flat after product launches in recent years.

🏪 Casey's General Stores ($CASY) tumbled 14.24% to $629.03 despite a fiscal first quarter beat on both lines. Same-store sales grew slower than a year ago and prepared food, grocery and fuel gallons all missed estimates. Management held its fiscal 2027 outlook.

💎 Signet Jewelers ($SIG) popped 17% in premarket trade on adjusted earnings of $2.19 per share against a $1.74 FactSet estimate. The jeweler also raised full year earnings guidance.

🔋 Lithium Americas ($LAC ) rose more than 4% after JPMorgan upgraded it to overweight on higher long-term lithium price assumptions. The bank set a $6 target, implying 100% upside from Monday's close.

🛢️ Brent settled up 3.36% at $101.21 and WTI gained 3.25% to $96.05, the highest settle since May for both, as U.S.-Iran tensions stoked supply fears. Yields climbed too, with the 10-year at 4.857%, its highest since November 2023, after Treasury said it will triple its longer-dated buyback to $6 billion. August PPI lands Thursday and CPI Friday.

👨🏻‍💻 Researched and written daily by @tim_emino read more

4,178 views

Rad

@brownsugar

Milestones · 11h

Reached my 2026 goal!

I wanted to wait until the end of the year to post this, but I’m too excited today. I reached the 50K portfolio goal,I set for myself for 2026! 🎉

What you don’t see behind this number is everything that happened this year.

I got laid off, went through multiple interviews, landed a new job, and ultimately moved back in with my family because the commute from where I lived was just too much. Everything changed at once, and I’ll be honest, some days it’s been really hard to even get out of bed with the anxiety and depression that came with all the uncertainty.

As a single-income person in my 30s, it’s been tough. Moving home has sometimes felt like I’m taking steps backwards, but I’m trying to see it as an opportunity to stabilize, save aggressively, and build toward my future.

Five years ago, I didn’t understand ETFs or investing. I learned through Blossom, countless YouTube videos, and of course @joyeeyang my go-to is XEQT btw!

For anyone just starting out, or feeling like they started later than they should have, remember: everyone is on their own journey. You don’t see the layoffs, sacrifices, family situations, setbacks, and adjustments behind someone’s portfolio.

If you’re showing up and investing whatever you can, that is enough. ❤️

I’m usually so focused on what’s next that I forget to acknowledge how far I’ve come. So today, I’m letting myself be proud.

$50K.

Next chapter: Road to $100K.🚀
read more

762 views

Dividend Master @wealthtrades

Dividends · 1d

10 ETFs I'd be comfortable buying and holding for decades without worrying 😴📈💰

$VOO Vanguard S&P 500 ETF
$QQQ Invesco QQQ Trust
$SCHD Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF
$VIG Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF
$OVL Overlay Shares Large Cap Equity ETF
$SPYI NEOS S&P 500 High Income ETF
$FDVV Fidelity High Dividend ETF
$DIVO Amplify CWP Enhanced Dividend Income ETF
$QQQI NEOS Nasdaq 100 High Income ETF
$SCHG Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth ETF

Which here is your top pick? 📈👇read more

3,114 views

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