Alright, so we're back for an accountability check on my thesis for ABXX. ~C$4.5M of transaction/clearing fees were almost entirely offset by liquidity-provider credits, so monetization is still early. This is still being observed as a weak spot by shorts I suppose, but expected for a very young exchange. What's clear is that the business traction keeps improving: July volume doubled, open interest grew, physical deliveries are happening, institutional distribution is expanding, and ID++ / MarketOS keeps moving toward commercialization. So the question is no longer whether Abaxx can create activity. It obviously can. The question is whether if it maintains sustainable revenue, irrespective of incentives IMO. Mostly because the competing exchanges are still heavily in the incentives and they're decades older. I'd argue yes, especially given the global trends (specifically in China RE: paper gold trading). Still long. Still high risk. But the thesis is intact for me.
The advice I keep seeing on Blossom for young investors is that when you're young you can afford to take more risk, and in general I agree with that. Where it goes sideways is in how people put it into practice. Increasing risk usually turns into increasing concentration, and lately that means a few AI names or bitcoin/crypto. What concentration does is widen the range of what could happen to you, without paying you anything extra for it. You might hit it big and you might lose 80 or 90 percent of it, and both of those are very real possibilities. You could take your whole paycheque to a roulette table and put it on red. You have definitely increased your risk. But run that a million times and your expected return is negative, because the wheel has a green zero on it. Run a diversified basket of stocks a million times and your expected return is positive. Both are risky. Only one of them has something paying you to take the risk. Hendrik Bessembinder looked at 25,967 US stocks from 1926 to 2016 and found that only 42.6% of them beat one-month treasury bills over their lifetime, with just 4.3% of stocks accounting for all the net wealth created above T-bills. The median stock lost money. So when you concentrate, you're betting you're holding some of that 4.3%. The usual argument is that a 20 year old can afford to lose it, because there's plenty of time to recover. Personally I'd argue the opposite. If you're 20 and you lose $10,000, at 8% over 40 years that's about $217,000 you don't have at 60. That's the price tag on the bet, not ten grand. And most people are placing this bet inside a TFSA, which makes it worse. If you put $10,000 in and it falls to $1,000, you only get $1,000 of room back when you withdraw it. The other $9,000 of contribution room is gone for good. You can't claim the loss against anything either, since capital losses inside a TFSA can't be used to offset capital gains. I understand the appeal of treating it as bonus money and hoping you picked right. But if you buy something diversified and keep contributing, you put yourself in a good position without ever needing the home run.read more
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
Closed off all my positions before close. Project and prompt found in comments YTD performance +46.64% Last 3 months +22.21% Grok definitely outperforming $SPY and $QQQ Restarting next week with an optimized instruction set and a plan to increase the volatility. Might bench mark this against Claude + MooMoo connection.read more
The most bullish setup in markets isn't the price action. It's the $3 trillion sitting on the sidelines. U.S. retail money market funds just hit a record $3.05 trillion, up $202 billion year-over-year and tripled since 2022. That's not defensive positioning anymore. That's a generation of retail investors who missed the entire AI rally sitting in 5% money markets while the $QQQ went from $550 to $731. The chart is breaking out: $QQQ at $731 today, clearing the ATH consolidation box that trapped the index for weeks. RSI at 61, MACD crossing green and accelerating. The cuña descendente inside the box resolved to the upside with conviction. The mechanism: $3 trillion in cash doesn't stay in cash forever. When money market rates start falling, and they will when the Fed pivots, that capital has to go somewhere. Equities are the obvious destination. The rotation from cash to risk assets at this scale would be one of the most powerful tailwinds the market has seen. $700 is the floor. Lose it and the breakout was a false one. Hold it and the path to new ATHs opens with $3 trillion in potential fuel behind it. Does $3T in cash eventually chase this breakout, or do high rates keep it parked through year-end? 👇read more
If you could only buy one Mag 7 stock today which would you choose? $NVDA at $225 $MSFT at $495 $GOOGL at $345 $AMZN at $263 $META at $590 $AAPL at $305 $TSLA at $341 And why? At today’s prices I’m taking Meta 🤷♂️ read more
It’s officially been one month since I made my first post about starting my investing journey. When I made that post, I had just over $10,000 invested. Now I’m sitting at $11,575, which is about +$815 / +7.58% over the past month alongside my weekly investing. Obviously I’m happy to see the portfolio up, but honestly, the return isn’t even the biggest thing for me. I’m still learning a ton every week. I’m trying to get better at actually understanding the businesses I own, figuring out what their competitive advantages are, looking at the risks, and not just buying something because the stock is going up. I’m also realizing how easy it is to get caught up in the next stock everyone is talking about. Some days everything is green and I feel like I’m doing great. Other days the portfolio gets smashed and suddenly I’m questioning everything 😂 I’m slowly learning that one bad day doesn’t mean the company suddenly became a bad investment. A few things I’ve learned this month: • A green portfolio doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. • A red day doesn’t automatically mean my thesis is wrong. • Stock prices can move WAY faster than the actual businesses. • Conviction means a lot more when you actually understand what you own. • There will always be another stock that looks exciting. • Trying to perfectly time everything is probably a losing game. • Consistency is going to matter way more over the next 20–30 years than what happens this month. I’m still making mistakes, changing my mind, researching new companies and questioning some of my positions. And that’s honestly why I’m documenting all of this. I’m 25 years old. I’m not trying to pretend I’m some investing expert or stock guru. I’m just trying to learn how to build a portfolio that I can hopefully hold for decades and see where it takes me. Current core holdings: TSMC Broadcom Amazon ServiceNow NVIDIA QQQM XEQT I’ve also started building some smaller positions in companies I’m still researching and figuring out whether they deserve a bigger spot in the portfolio. One month down. $11,575 invested. Let’s see where this thing is in another month. 📈 Not financial advice — just documenting my own investing journey.read more
I’ve been running a very boring and conservative Balanced portfolio with a variety of ETFs (Index, Factor & a bit of CC) for the last few years. 😴 Since markets have been strong the past few years it’s given me more than enough to cover our expenses. 🙌 But with the popularity of CC/High Yield ETFs and so many finfluencer videos to learn from I thought I’d check a few out and see if it makes sense to jump on the ‘yield train’ to take advantage of these big monthly pay days! Before pulling the trigger though I thought I’d run the theory through a few scenarios using @karyungtom Retirement Spending Calcultor. https://karyungtom.com/retirement-spending-calculator/ We can’t know future return paths but we can run various assumptions based on past market performance and other tools like a Monte Carlo simulator. So let’s see what happens… CURRENT PORTFOLIO/APPROACH Plugging in my hypothetical $2M and setting my spending strategy to ‘Fixed Inflation Adjusted’ with the Withdrawal Rate = 4% starts me off with $80k for spending. Not bad! 👍 Let’s say my time horizon is 30yrs and Inflation = 2.5%. Using the ‘Historic Backtesting’ option (which pulls full history of SP500 data) I can see this Model was a near 100% SUCCESS RATE through all time periods (5-30yrs). ✅✅ But… Unfortunately I’m not comfortable running a 100% equity portfolio. Since im running a 60/40 portfolio I need to see what that looks like. THE BALANCED MODEL ⚖️😴 The only way to see the 60/40 Model using the tool is to change my simulation model to the Monte Carlo option. From there - I can keep the 100% equity option or change to a Global, 60/40, Conservative or even a Custom option by entering my own Return/Volatility assumptions. Before moving to my current 60/40 model I hit ‘Run Simulation’ on the SP500 (all equity) just to get a baseline result to compare other Models against. This showed a probability of 90-100% for the shorter timeframes but 88%-84% for the 25/30yr periods. Still - odds would be in my favour that our money would last! ✅ Moving to my Balanced (60/40) option I expected a lower success rate due to being more conservative but surprisingly the 25/30yr success rate jumped to 95-90%. A bit surprising - but I’ll take it!!👍👍 That said - I WANT A CASHFLOW MACHINE! 🏧 Even though above result showed that bonds improve my probability of success one PI Finfluencer suggested ‘bonds are useless’ and from all the CC ETF portfolios I see on Blossom I have to assume that 100% equity is much better for the CC ETF approach. Another Finfluencer suggest I need to ‘create a yield at least 3x bigger than my spending needs’. This would let me receive big monthly paydays to cover my expenses and the excess could simply be reinvested! I would ‘never have to sell a share’. Sounds great! Luckily - @karyungtom calculator lets me model all of this out and link to Return/Volatility assumptions based on the preferred asset allocation. So let’s take a look at… THE CASHFLOW MODEL 💰💰 Following the guidance of the Finfluencers I switched the model back to 100% Equity/SP500. This showed Expected Return = 10.5% and Volatility = 19.7% (both seem reasonable and inline). I guess I’ll just have to accept more volatility if I want to benefit from the high yields. 🤔 I referred back to the ‘Rules/Guidance’ I saw online for CC ETFs and saw I should have a mix of 15%+ and 30%+ yielding products. Based on that I set my models Distribution Yield = 25%. YES!!! On the Model’s $2M value a 25% distribution would mean a $500k per year PAYDAY! Now we’re talking! 🤑🤑 Let’s run it! …… WTF! The SUCCESS RATE stayed the SAME. 🤷♂️🤷♂️ The 25yr = 88% and 30yr = 84%. So the portfolio generated way more cashflow but since I only need 4% to cover my spending I now have to reinvest the excess to make sure I get the same result. Hmm. I guess Distribution Yields don’t influence actual longevity. 💡 What’s nice is the calculator actually shows this in the ‘Portfolio Path Table’. It even shows a hypothetical share count if you’re interested. Under this approach I guess I at least don’t have to ‘sell my shares’ right away since I’m receiving such big distribution. I guess that’s a bit of a convenience - but kind of offset by fact I have to figure out my reinvestments. 🙃 And wait - CC ETFs have much HIGHER FEES than the Tradtional Index/Factor ETFs I was using for my Balanced Model. 🤔 My model has a total cost of 0.5%. When I calculated the MER/TER of a CC ETF Model it was closer to 1.7%. I wonder if I should lower my Return to reflect the higher cost? I wonder if that makes a difference over 30 years? After all - 0.5% on $2M is $10k per year in fees and 1.7% is $34k per year in fees. Whatever 🤷♂️ - so I’m paying a bit higher in fees. I can go check out @smallbird.financial website later for his Fee Calculator. Let’s ignore fees for now and get back to my options for boosting my MONTHLY CASHFLOW… So far I have the same expected success rate and I’m just receiving cash instead of having to sell my shares but I’m paying a bit higher fees and have to make sure I reinvest all the excess cash that’s coming in. That hardly seems like much of a benefit but since I’ve seen these CC/High Yield investors pay for vacations, kitchen renos and new hot tubs with distributions I can probably afford to take a bit more out for spending right? So let’s see what happens… HIGH SPEND MODEL 🏧🏦 With $500k per year or over $40k per month coming in and a $2M portfolio I can probably just reinvest 50% and take 50% or $250k for extra spending. An extra $250k of spending buys a lot of living!! Let’s go!!! So since my Yield = 25% I can set my Withdrawal Spend Rate = 12.5%. After all - I got some ‘juicers’ now! I’m not sure what a ‘juicer’ is (seems made up) - but I’ll buy them anyway if it means I get an extra $250k! Let’s run it ….. AGAIN - WTF??? My first 5-10yrs looks fine - but by year 15 (when I’m only 65) it shows I’d have a 70%+ chance of hitting $0!! Year 25 = 88% and Year 30 = 90% chance of running out of money. 🤬 So success is NOT ‘impossible’ it just seems to be a lot ‘less probable’. Especially since this result is the exact OPPOSITE of my Balanced Model and 4% withdrawal that had a 90% SUCCESS RATE. So if I change - I get big paydays each month and don’t have to sell units but I have to take on more risk, pay higher fees, reinvest all the excess cashflow and accept that there’s only a 10% chance that my portfolio may still have some money by the time I’m 80?? Geesh - this is getting to be a lot to swallow. 😬 Maybe I missed something. Maybe this is better for SMALLER ACCOUNTS. I can change the portfolio value from $2M to $500k and maybe we can use it for our smaller accounts? Let’s run that… FML!! Changing the portfolio value did nothing. That’s also just a 10% chance of our money lasting 30yrs and a 90% chance that it runs out. ⚠️⚠️ Honestly - What’s going on? Ohhhh! You know what - this tool and calculator is probably wrong and just more ‘FUD’ because @karyungtom is one of those ‘growth’ investors. Maybe I should do what the other PI guys do and just block these growth guys. 😂 Then again - I guess the Finfluencers that I watched - despite their videos, spreadsheets and followers/sponsorships - may also just be learning too and also trying to figure this stuff out. So maybe I should take what they’re telling me with a grain of salt? 🤔 Either way - I get that these tools and calculators are all based on historic data (since future returns are unkown) - and they rely on a variety of assumptions and inputs - but just to be on the safe side and in case this analysis/approach is NOT totally wrong - I better take some more time to think and learn about portfolio construction, distributions and withdrawal strategies before I make a change to my actual portfolio. 🎯CONCLUSION As tempting as $40k / mth looks - given the trade offs seem to lead to a less certain/positive outcome I’m going to stick to my boring Balanced Model with 4% withdrawals because this data shows it has a higher probability of creating more sustainable longterm wealth. ✅✅✅ MY TAKEAWAY ‼️ Despite everything I’ve seen online about the high yield strategies I’ve always seen distributions as a ‘feature’ of a portfolio - not an actual strategy on their own or a reflection of quality or indicator of future returns. This exercise more or less would support that view. 🤷♂️ I can see the use case for some CC ETFs in certain situations but it’s important to consider all aspects. Currently I’m happy with the small % that I own (more as a way to capture volatility vs for the yield) so maybe I don’t need to ‘go all in’ on them and take more risk or pay the high fees across my entire portfolio? 🤔 Since we can’t control markets or returns - withdrawing too much too fast seems like one of the surest way to damage a portfolio’s longevity and we’re probably better to control what we can - asset allocation, strategy selection, fees and withdrawals/spending. ✅ Still happy to have gone through the exercise. Hope this helps and you consider doing the same type of analysis for your portfolio. 🤓 Perspective ≠ Prediction Stay open to learning and do what’s best for you! 😉👍 ————- PS. Whether you agree with my take away and analysis or not - it’s worth exploring @karyungtom tool and entering your own models/assumptions. It’s a good one! 🤓 . read more
If I had $100,000 to invest in the stock market TODAY, this is exactly how I’d allocate it. No ETFs. No cash sitting on the sidelines. No over-diversifying just for the sake of it. I’d put every dollar into the businesses I believe offer the best combination of growth, quality, valuation and long-term upside. Here’s the portfolio: SoFi | $SOFI — $20,000 Amazon | $AMZN — $16,000 Uber | $UBER — $14,000 ServiceNow | $NOW — $12,000 Netflix | $NFLX — $10,000 Zeta Global | $ZETA — $9,000 Brookfield | $BN — $8,000 Oscar Health | $OSCR — $6,000 Snap | $SNAP — $5,000read more
I see many beginners posting that they’re new to investing and don’t know where to start. 🤔 As someone who was in a similar situation just a few months ago and learned, here are the 4 ETF types (& ETFs) that are popular among long term investors 😃 : 1) S&P 500: US: $VOO / $SPY / $SPLG Canadian: $VFV / $ZSP / $TPU 2) GROWTH / TECH: US: $QQQ / $VUG / $VGT / $SCHG Canadian: $QQC / $HXQ / $TEC / $ZUQ 3) DIVIDENDS: US: $SCHD / $VYM / $DGRO Canadian: $VDY / $XEI 4) ALL IN ONE / BASKET / Global Exposure: US: $VT / $AVGE Canadian: $ZEQT / $XEQT / $TGRO / $VEQT / $ZGQ I noticed many people following this type of a basic / uncomplicated portfolio and are doing really well for themselves 🔥 For % allocation, you can divide evenly among the ETF categories or allocate a higher % based on your preferences. Just DCA regularly and you should be good. 😎 Some people even just put it all into an all in one etf like $XEQT. This is also a good approach - it is much simpler and it works. Ultimately, it comes to whatever you prefer 🙂 Oh and yea, there are overlaps, but I don’t think there is anything wrong in that though - it would just count as doubling down on good things. 💯 I’m sharing with you all what helped me, but don’t forget to do your own research too! 🙏🏼 read more
Just hit a cool little milestone in my portfolio: $90 in dividend income every single week. 💰 Although I'm not going to retire off that, I was thinking about all the different things $90 can pay for, and it's a pretty long list. To name a few: - A couple tanks of gas - 2 trips to Juan's Flamin' Fajitas with my wife - Most of our weekly groceries (those usually end up between $80-$100 per week) It's cool to see the list of things my passive income can pay for continue to expand. It won't be long (hopefully) until this portfolio is averaging $400 per month, and soon after that, $100 per week. That milestone is going to be VERY cool. How much dividend income are you averaging every week? Let me know in the comments! 👇read more
Got inspired by @matt.41 and @edsam to upgrade one of my calculators. You can now choose Monte Carlo (Statistical) as the simulation method and set the strategy’s: - Expected return - Volatility - Yield - which we keep constant, since I think that’s what many people try to target and maintain This lets you see how much is being spent and reinvested. And if you want to see the implications of applying the "4% rule", you'd just set the expenses to 4% of your initial portfolio. https://karyungtom.com/monte-carlo-retirement-calculator/read more
The only thing that matters is the work. The work is the only thing that will connect you to the life you dream about.. Every step moves you closer to your goals. $SPY$QQQ$BTC$ETH
The most important market event of the day might be a planning board meeting in a New Jersey theater. We will get there. First, the morning picture: futures are green and sitting on records, the VIX is asleep at 14, gold is holding near all-time highs around $4,437, oil is steady at $82, and the one thing quietly moving is the 10 year yield, creeping back toward 4.70 after last week's auctions. A calm open with the bond market clearing its throat. Empire State manufacturing at 8:30 is the first catalyst, and the new premarket options session on the mega caps goes live for the first time this morning at 7:15. Now the weekend homework, because it gave the bears their best week of material all year, and it deserves an honest reading. Let's start with the Wall Street Journal putting a number on the thing Burry has been shouting about. Big Tech's AI commitments are roughly $3 trillion larger than they appear, because the visible part, about $248 billion of lease liabilities and $356 billion of long-term debt, sits on the balance sheet, while $904 billion of leases not yet started and $1.52 trillion of purchase commitments sit in the footnotes. Alphabet alone carries $811 billion of purchase commitments. Read that again, the portion that's not on the Balance sheet is four times the size of the visible one. And Business Insider completed the thought with the sentence of the weekend "Nvidia gets paid upfront, the borrowers and their lenders carry the default risk, and because private credit is ultimately funded by pension money, the tail risk lands on households". Two weeks ago the question was whether the leverage existed. Now the question is who holds it, and the answer has an address. Then came the Jane Street number. Fifteen billion dollars lost in July, the firm's first down month in a decade, and the cause connects everything, which is a stake in Situational Awareness, the same fund whose margin call started this whole saga, plus wrong way Asian bets. The firm is fine, it has made over $40 billion this year and already cut the risk. But notice the blast radius. Aschenbrenner's leverage took down his fund, dented the best market maker alive, and taught them publicly that puts shaped for crashes do nothing in a slow bleed. When the most sophisticated players are learning hedge structure lessons out loud, the rest of us should take notes for free. Now, Vineland. Today the planning board hears Nebius's expansion case, and the last session packed the Landis Theatre with hundreds of residents, most of them opposed. One analyst called it the local zoning vote that could test a $40 billion AI story, which is exactly right and exactly the point. This is my largest position, so let me be precise about what today is and is not. The X bulls say the stock goes above $300 regardless of the hearing. I would put it differently, the long-term thesis does not need Vineland, but this year's guidance does, and guidance is what the stock trades on. Approval removes the analyst downgrade thesis in an afternoon. Rejection makes the next earnings call about timelines instead of demand. The consumer data deserves more attention than it got on Friday. The full retail sales detail is out and it is soft everywhere you look, down 0.6% on the month, the largest drop since May 2025, with non-store retailers including Amazon down 2.2%, the second largest decline in five years, and the control group that feeds GDP down 0.4%. This is the same consumer the retail earnings wave will testify about starting tomorrow. If Walmart and Target confirm what the government data is saying, the soft-landing math gets harder. Watch the guidance, not the quarters. Two asset notes worth your eyes. Gold sits near record highs while Bitcoin has broken down, a divergence the goldbugs are celebrating loudly. I hold no strong view on the theology, but the practical read is simpler, with hikes dead and real yields easing, gold is doing its job as the hedge against exactly the credit questions this market keeps asking. And Korea, the market that showed us forced liquidations three weeks ago, has quietly round tripped, EWY is up 35% from those overnight lows. The people who got margin called out of SK Hynix leveraged ETFs near the bottom are watching the recovery from the sidelines. That is the whole lesson of leverage in one chart. The washout was real, and so was the rebound, and only the unleveraged got to own both. One seasonal footnote before someone quotes it at you, midterm years historically bottom in mid to late September per JPMorgan's data, which argues the chop is not done. The same chart shows this year has ignored the seasonal script all summer. Seasonality is a tendency, not a timetable. I note it and position on evidence instead. The rest of the weekend tape, quickly. Alphabet has now fallen in 11 of 14 weeks, something it has done only twice in 22 years, in 2008 and 2011, and both marked bottoms. History leans one way, but the talent exodus that started this is not resolved, so I watch rather than catch. Druckenmiller bought IREN, and before anyone gets excited, it was $4 million, which for him is a sticky note, not a conviction. Retail money market funds just crossed $3 trillion, triple since 2022, and that mountain of cash earning 3.6% is the simplest explanation for why every dip keeps getting bought. And the WSJ reminded everyone that only 13% of active large cap funds beat their index over the past decade, One piece of viral homework to handle carefully. The thread claiming the Fed is secretly printing dollars to absorb Japan's $1.4 trillion in Treasuries is speculation wearing a mechanism. What is verifiable is that yen interventions have struggled, the BOJ has turned hawkish, and Japan's Treasury stack is the largest foreign position on earth. The plumbing story is unproven. The pressure is real. Watch the yen, skip the conspiracy. FOMC minutes come Wednesday alongside VIX expiration, which makes midweek the volatility window, retail earnings test the consumer against that ugly retail sales print, and Reddit joins the S&P 500. All of it is the undercard. Nvidia reports a week from Tuesday, and Warsh speaks at Jackson Hole three days later. Three trillion in the footnotes, fifteen billion at Jane Street, and a zoning vote in Vineland. What a way to open the week. Happy investing.read more
I know this concept gets brought up as a joke sometimes, but I just had a serious conversation with a beginner about it, so I’m inspired to offer some clarity. When people say covered calls have “capped upside,” I think two different ideas sometimes get mixed together. First, capped upside does not mean your entire portfolio return is capped. It refers to the upside of the underlying above the strike price during the life of the option. If you own something at $100, sell a call with a $110 strike and collect a premium, you can still benefit from the underlying rising from $100 to $110. Your return can be a combination of: Capital appreciation + option premium If the market moves sideways, the premium can help. If it falls modestly, the premium can soften the loss. If it rises but stays below the strike, you can participate in that rise while also keeping the premium. It’s only once the underlying rises substantially beyond the strike that you start seeing the opportunity cost of the covered call relative to simply holding the underlying. I think this matters because otherwise “capped upside” can accidentally turn into a strawman where people hear it as: “Covered call investors can’t benefit when stocks go up.” That isn’t true. The second point is why many people still favour simply owning the underlying for long-term investing. If you own an asset because you believe it has substantial long-term appreciation potential, repeatedly selling calls against it means repeatedly creating periods where some of that upside can be surrendered in exchange for premium. Sometimes that trade works very well. Sometimes the premium more than compensates you for the upside you gave away. But over a long investing horizon, an asset that experiences large upward moves gives you more opportunities to run into that cap. That is the actual trade-off. “Capped upside” doesn’t mean no upside. It means you are getting paid a premium in exchange for agreeing to give up some upside beyond a defined point.read more
I am selling all my $VEQT and switching to Wealthsimple direct indexing because it allows you to exclude certain stocks from your Index. Blackrock and Vanguard have separated us from thinking about how our investments can sometimes negatively impact the world without us knowing, because it’s all tucked away out of our sight. I strongly believe that if everyone stopped simply buying the index without considering business ethics we would have a much better world. I know everyone just wants to make money,the good news is that if we all started doing this then the more ethical companies values would go up gaining more of the pie as these unethical companies fall out of the index. I switched to direct indexing for all my Canadian and US index funds , essentially building my own ETF that is similar to VEQT, but I have carefully went through and exluded all Gambling Companies, any Oil & energy companies that don’t invest in renewables ($XOM Exxon Mobil, $CVX Chevron etc.) , as well as anything else that is obviously contributing to the degradation of our society and making us sick here in North America with processed garbage. ($MCD, $COLA, $PEP etc…) If there are any other companies you find that are hurting our people, please let me know in the comments and why they don’t deserve our investment. I know $PLTR seems like a troublesome one I may have to exclude. Together we can make the world a little bit better. read 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
This is why I love dividend investing! ❤️ Made almost $150 in cold hard cash today without having to lift a finger. 💰 How much did you get paid this week? Let me know in the comments! 👇
Bank of America just screened the AI trade for stocks that have fallen at least 20% from their highs but are still rated Buy by its analysts. The list includes names across memory, cloud, data centers, power and AI infrastructure - including MU, CRWV, ORCL, VST, META and others. What makes this interesting is that these aren’t just random beaten-down stocks. BofA is specifically looking for companies where the long-term AI thesis may still be intact despite the recent selloff. I’m not buying all 16 - but this is exactly the kind of list I want to study when the market gives us a reset. Which one would you research first? https://www.instagram.com/stockswithpawan/reel/DcHj2nqAo6h/read more
If a stock (or a whole sector, like memory) that has been surging dips, and there is no change in the overall fundamentals/thesis, that's the time to buy. Everyone was saying "memory is dead" just because of a sell off that was largely caused by margin calls and leveraged trades in Korea. I'm really glad I didn't listen to them and bought the dip. Block out the noise and do your research, people. $DRAM$SKHY$STX$MU$SNDK
For those who were early in… 👇 $NVDA $MU $AAPL $AMZN $MSFT $NFLX $META $V Etc. What were you looking for and saw that lead you to believe that it had the potential to be a good stock ( and clearly was! 😉) Let me know! Thank you 📈🙏👇 Let me know 👇❤️read more
On August 15th 1971 President Nixon took the U.S. Dollar off the gold standard and became the Petro Dollar Buy hard assets to hedge currency debasement $GLD $SLV $BTGD Land $BTCread more
