Today is US CPI day, which could very much set the tone going into next week's FOMC meeting. Consensus is 3.4%, same as the previous month's number, however be sure to look out for core CPI. If core CPI falls or beats analysts expectations, then the case for not hiking should become more clear. Only a peace deal and a lack of protectionist policies will bring inflation down.
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? $VOO$SCHDread more
📊 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
Today was another powerful day in the market, and I wanted to share a glimpse of what I was able to accomplish alongside my trading community. The positions shown here are: $AMD$475 Call – Sept. 18, 2026: +$251,500 $NBIS$220 Call – Sept. 18, 2026: +$224,000 $INTC$89 Call – Sept. 18, 2026: +$121,250 $ASTS$54 Call – Sept. 18, 2026: +$77,250 That’s approximately $674,000 profit But before anyone looks at these numbers and thinks this post is about showing off, that is not my intention at all. I’m not posting this to make anyone feel behind, to compete with anyone, or to make trading look easy. I’m sharing it because I know there are people here who are learning, people who are trying to understand options, and people who sometimes need to see that patience and discipline can eventually produce results. The money is not the most important part of this post. The process is. Behind every profitable position is analysis, preparation, patience, risk management, and the willingness to sit through uncertainty without allowing emotions to control the decision. And just as important, there are losing trades and lessons that never make a screenshot like this. Trading is not about winning every trade. No trader can do that. What matters is learning how to manage risk when you’re wrong and knowing how to capitalize when your analysis plays out. ⚠️ PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE LOOKING AT THE POSITION SIZE I especially want beginners to understand this. The screenshots show 100 contracts, but that does not mean anyone following my setups should be taking a position anywhere close to that size. These are positions in my own account based on my personal capital, account size, risk tolerance, experience, and trading plan. I never want someone to look at my results and feel like they have to match my position size in order to participate. Whenever I drop a setup inside my trading community, I make it clear that 1 or 2 contracts is okay for someone who has the appropriate account size and understands the risk involved. The number of contracts you trade should make sense for your own account, not mine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking 1 contract, 2 contracts, or even sitting out if the setup doesn’t fit your risk plan. The goal is not to trade big. The goal is to trade smart. Please don’t see a large position and think you need to duplicate it. You don’t need 100 contracts to become a successful trader. You need to learn how to identify quality setups, understand your entry, manage your risk, respect your stop, take profits when appropriate, and remain disciplined. Options can produce significant gains, but they can also produce significant losses. Never risk money you cannot afford to lose, and never copy another trader’s position size simply because you see a large profit on a screenshot. My goal with sharing these trades is to show what preparation and execution can look like, not to encourage anyone to take unnecessary risk. If you’re still learning, start small. Learn the mechanics. Understand the Greeks. Understand expiration and implied volatility. Learn how to manage a position before worrying about making a large amount of money. Build the skill first. The money comes second. And above everything else, I give God the glory for allowing me to see another day, another opportunity, and another successful trading session. 🙏 A PRAYER OF GRATITUDE 🙏 Heavenly Father, thank You for blessing me with another day, another opportunity to learn, work, grow, and provide value to the people around me. Thank You for the wisdom, patience, discipline, and strength You continue to give me. I don’t take any success for granted. I know that every opportunity, every lesson, and every new day is a blessing. Keep me humble when things go well, teach me when things don’t go according to plan, and continue to guide my decisions. And Lord, I also pray for everyone reading this post. Whatever season they are currently in, please give them strength, wisdom, patience, and courage. Bless their families, their businesses, their careers, their finances, and their goals. For those who are struggling, give them hope. For those who are learning, give them understanding. For those who are waiting for their breakthrough, give them patience. And for those who are already blessed, remind them to remain humble and grateful. May everyone reading this continue moving forward, one step at a time. Amen. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.” – Proverbs 3:5–8 I’m grateful for today, grateful for the lessons, grateful for the people who continue to support me, and most importantly, grateful for the opportunity to keep learning and growing every single day. To everyone working toward their own goals, keep going. Your journey may look different from someone else’s, and that’s okay. Stay patient, stay disciplined, stay humble, and keep putting in the work. Success doesn’t happen overnight, but every day you choose to learn, improve, and keep moving forward, you are building something. I pray that the days ahead bring you peace, wisdom, progress, and many reasons to smile. May we continue to grow together, celebrate each other’s wins, learn from our losses, and never forget to be grateful for how far we’ve already come. Here’s to more growth, more wisdom, more discipline, and better days ahead. 🙏 God bless you and your families, and thank you for being part of this journey with me. ❤️ This post is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to copy these trades. Options involve substantial risk, and position size should always be appropriate for your individual account and risk tolerance. read more
You buy a dividend stock on Monday. The dividend pays Friday. You get nothing, and you assume something went wrong. Nothing went wrong. You bought on the wrong side of one date. Four dates run every dividend. Only one of them decides whether the money is yours. 1. Declaration date. The company announces it's paying, how much, and when. 2. Ex dividend date. This is the one that matters. Buy on or after it and the dividend belongs to the seller, not you. 3. Record date. The company checks its books to see who actually owns the shares. 4. Payment date. Cash lands. Often weeks later. This is what catches people who learned the rule years ago. The ex date used to sit one business day before the record date. US settlement went from two days to one on May 28 2024, and the ex date moved onto the record date itself. So the old "buy the day before the record date" shortcut is now wrong, and it quietly costs people the exact payout they were buying for. One caveat, because none of this is free money. On the ex date the stock typically opens lower by roughly the dividend, since the company just committed to handing that cash out. Buying the day before to grab a payout isn't a strategy. It's a wash with a tax bill attached. Worth knowing so the date doesn't surprise you. Not so you can game it. Educational, not financial advice. Just my read.read more
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 doesn't mean that I would ever support the IDF or ICE. You can't just make assumptions like that about people.
Trump says the US is not looking for a deal with Iran and oil prices will not fall until midterm elections $OIL Oil is surging to its new highs of the day This comes after Treasury Secretary Bessent says "I am the house now" and “you can bet against me if you want” CPI tmrw..
This is one of the first mental models an investor needs to correct—and it can ultimately determine whether you survive in the markets. In the eyes of a serious portfolio manager, risk is not synonymous with volatility. Academic finance often defines risk through price volatility: the greater the price movement, the greater the risk. We are given a long list of metrics and Greek letters to quantify it. But anyone who has traded real money through multiple market cycles will tell you something very different: Volatility is simply the market breathing. It can be uncomfortable, but volatility itself does not necessarily destroy capital. What destroys capital is permanent loss. These are two fundamentally different concepts that textbooks often treat as if they were the same. What Is Permanent Loss? Permanent loss is not a stock falling 5% today and recovering 5% tomorrow. That’s volatility. That’s noise. That’s simply the market functioning. Permanent loss occurs when your capital is committed to an investment thesis that proves fundamentally wrong—and there is no realistic path for the market to eventually correct the mistake. Perhaps you misjudged management. Perhaps the company’s balance sheet was far weaker than you thought. Perhaps a structural disruption permanently impaired the business model. Or perhaps an unexpected event destroyed the underlying economics of the company. If the business deteriorates permanently and the stock never recovers, that is real risk. The risk isn’t the movement in the share price. The risk is the permanent destruction of underlying value. Where Experience Creates a Different Mindset This is why experienced investors can react very differently to market movements. A seasoned PM might barely react to an 8% decline in a stock in a single day. If the investment thesis remains intact, the price movement may simply be noise. But the same PM could lose sleep over discovering a structural flaw in the original thesis. Meanwhile, a novice investor may watch every red and green tick with their heart racing, while completely missing the fundamental problem buried inside their investment thesis. What you fear tells you a lot about your level of experience. Risk Also Lives in Position Sizing There is another dimension of risk that is often overlooked: position sizing. The same investment thesis expressed through a 3% position and a 30% position represents completely different levels of risk. Many investors don’t lose because their directional view was wrong. They lose because they were right about the long-term thesis but sized the position so aggressively that they couldn’t survive the path to being right. The market can remain irrational longer than your capital—or your risk limits—can tolerate. That’s why thesis risk and sizing risk must be managed separately. You can have a high-conviction view and still take a small position. Conversely, a seemingly low-risk investment can become extremely dangerous if you size it too aggressively. Confusing these two dimensions of risk is a form of slow-motion self-destruction. How do you think about risk? And your immediate answer is volatility, Sharpe ratio, beta, or standard deviation, you may sound technically competent—but still think like a beginner. A portfolio manager will respond something closer to: “I care about the probability of permanent capital impairment, and whether my position size allows me to stay in the trade long enough for my thesis to play out.” That answer demonstrates something much more important than familiarity with risk metrics. It demonstrates that you understand how capital actually gets lost. Once you internalize this distinction, much of the fear surrounding markets begins to disappear. Because you finally know what deserves your attention: Don’t obsess over every price movement. Focus on what can permanently impair your capital—and make sure your position size allows you to survive the journey.read more
I was chatting with an AI system they was built into my banking app. I am very clear with my finances and I am responsible as far as I know. Long story short: I asked it why I couldn’t save enough money to reach my goal and it told me (paraphrasing) “you don’t make enough to reach your goals that quick. Sorry🤷🏾♀️” I WAS SIIIIICCCKKKKK I CLOSED THE APP AND WENT TO BED!
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 $1,000/month, you didn't actually get ahead. You just upgraded your lifestyle. For me, building wealth is about intentionally directing money toward things that can grow over time, ETFs, stocks, real estate, and other investments instead of constantly upgrading my lifestyle. You don't have to live like you're broke. You just have to stop spending all your income away, you can enjoy life AND build wealth. The trick is making sure you're doing both. 😀 Cheering everyone on.read more
📊 Stocks fell for a third straight session as Treasury yields and oil both pushed higher. The Dow dropped 0.77%, the S&P 500 shed 0.48%, the Nasdaq fell 0.64% and Canada's S&P/TSX Composite slipped 0.60%. 📱 Apple ($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_eminoread more
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
The market will test you. There will be red days. There will be stocks you wish you bought sooner. There will be times when doing nothing feels like the wrong move. But I think the biggest advantage most investors have is simply time. Keep investing. Keep learning. Keep adding when you can. You don’t need to get every trade right. You just need to keep playing the long game. 10 years from now, I’d rather look back and be glad I stayed invested than wish I had started. What’s one stock you plan on holding for the next 10+ years? $VTI$XEQT$VOO$VFVread more
Started the journey of building my income portfolio just over 3 months ago and I just cracked over $1000 in dividends. I’m currently 95% of the way to my goal of $1000 per month in dividends. Almost There.
Let’s get a discussion going - if you were to build a 3 fund portfolio using of ETFs only Mine are $VTI $AOTG $XLE Drop yours in the comments? 👇read more
There is SO MUCH value in the market right now Some stocks trading at under 20x '27 earnings: Meta | $META -> 19x Broadcom | $AVGO -> 19x Oracle | $ORCL -> 18x Uber | $UBER -> 16x Applovin | $APP -> 15x Vistra | $VST -> 15x Nvidia | $NVDA -> 14x Some incredible ones right now are being priced at crazy discounted prices compared to their future earnings Are you buying any of these names? read more
17 days after selling McDonald's ($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
