August Portfolio Update YTD = 20.42% vs 12.81% (S&P 500) My portfolio is split into two parts: core long-term holdings that I accumulate and rarely sell, and moonshot/high-beta stocks where I’m more active with tactical trades. My moonshot strategy is much more dependent on macro conditions, market momentum, and hot themes, so positioning can change quickly. I like to keep this 10% of my total portfolio. My core portfolio also includes ETFs like $VFV$QQC , $VCN , $VDY and $ZGLD . I like ETFs to make up around 10-20% of my total portfolio, acting as the foundation and helping lower overall risk. As a stock picker, I still want a healthy balance in case my individual stocks don’t perform as well as the broader market. Over time, I plan to gradually increase my ETF exposure toward 50% of my portfolio due to increased volatility in the market. Top 3: $AMD — AI is increasing demand for powerful server CPUs. As AI agents handle more tasks, data centers need more processing power. AMD benefits from growing EPYC server demand and continued market-share gains against Intel. $GOOG — Gemini is becoming a bigger part of Google’s products and revenue. Google Cloud keeps growing, more companies are using its AI chips, and YouTube remains very strong. Google owns many pieces of the AI ecosystem. $MU — AI data centers need huge amounts of memory, keeping demand strong and supply tight. Micron is spending heavily to increase production, while future growth could also come from robots, vehicles and other AI-powered machines. Bottom 3: (new buys) $KLAC — Makes the inspection equipment chipmakers use to find tiny defects during manufacturing. As AI chips, HBM memory and advanced packaging become more complex, manufacturers need more inspection steps, creating higher demand for KLA’s tools. $MRVL — Builds custom AI chips and the networking technology that moves data between GPUs, CPUs and memory. Growth is being driven by hyperscaler custom silicon, faster AI networking, optical connectivity and its expanding NVIDIA partnership. $CRDO — Makes high-speed connectivity chips and active electrical cables that connect servers, GPUs and switches inside AI data centers. As AI clusters get larger, Credo benefits from the need for faster, lower-power and more reliable connections. Moonshots: $NBIS — AI companies need more computing power, and Nebius is rapidly building data centers to meet that demand. Its partnership with Nvidia, growing customer base and plans for much more capacity give it a long runway for growth. $RKLB — Rocket Lab is growing beyond simply launching rockets. Electron launches bring steady business, its space systems division keeps expanding, and Neutron could unlock much larger missions, government contracts and satellite launches if execution goes well. $AAOI — AI data centers need faster connections between their chips and servers. AAOI makes the optical equipment that moves this data. Demand for its faster 800G and 1.6T products is rising, while the company is expanding production. Not financial advice; always do your own research. 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
Thank you everyone who shared a question for our previous episode of Financial KarMoe with @karyungtom and I (Moe). We'll be recording our episode 15 on Monday evening, and would love to follow the same format as last episode by going through your comments/questions. 🙂 [https://www.youtube.com/show/VLPLfxYbxI9o498?sbp=QAE%3D] Please feel free to ask your questions in the comments and we'd be sure to cover them in our next episode (time permitting). 🫡
Just not at this valuation 🫡 I’ve spent a lot of time trying to grasp the things that were discussed during $SPCX earnings call this week, and I have to say, I’m now looking at SpaceX and its AI segment from a completely different angle I think what SpaceX is trying to achieve could unlock a completely new category of "orbital utilities" that most investors are not seeing the full potential of right now. Stay tuned for my next long article this Sunday on @bdinvesting’s newsletter and here on Blossom 🚀
Slowly creeping up on $200k. I am overly excited but also nervous. If it wasn’t for a family member pushing me towards investing I wouldn’t take it as serious as I do now.
For years, @mr.financial was a passionate dividend growth investor, spending countless hours researching companies, analyzing financial statements, and building a portfolio of individual stocks. But after years of experience—and several different seasons of life—he made a decision that surprised many investors: he sold every individual stock and embraced broad-market index ETFs. In this video, he shares the lessons that completely changed his investing philosophy. From understanding how your risk tolerance evolves over time, to realizing the hidden cost of constantly watching the markets, he explains why simplicity ultimately won. He also reflects on the importance of mastering investing fundamentals before chasing the latest trends, why most investors overestimate their ability to outperform the market, and why building wealth should ultimately create more freedom to spend time with the people who matter most. On a more peesonal note, Mr. Financial is one of those YouTubers and content creators whom I have so much respect for and have learnt from. I highly recommend giving him a follow on YouTube and Blossom. What portioj of your portfolio is in ETFs versus stocks? 🙂 For me 100% is in ETFs. Video link below: https://youtu.be/-ZeFoxo9UlIread more
Here’s something to think 🤔 about if Democrats do take over the House: what will happen to the stock market if Democrats go after those companies that are making a huge profit at the expense of the American taxpayers? Sundance or Paramount , Google or Alphabet, Apple, Tesla, Blackrock. Meta. And others? What if they investigate the companies to see if insider trading has occurred? What about market manipulation? Just a heads up that come January 2027, some tech companies and other companies may be in the hot seat. American voters may turn out to be the worst thing to happen to the stock market
Since the common starting point shown, Purpose Bitcoin CAD ETF Currency Hedged (BTCC) has held up best with a -46.78% total return, substantially outperforming both Strategy (MSTR) itself and the MSTR-focused income ETFs. Among the income strategies, YieldMax MSTR Option Income Strategy ETF (MSTY) has performed best at -68.65%, followed closely by Harvest Strategy Inc. High Income Shares ETF (MSTY.TO) at -69.80%. Harvest Strategy Inc. Enhanced High Income Shares ETF (MSTE) has been the weakest at -79.66%. Importantly, the underlying Strategy (MSTR) returned -75.12% over the same period. That means YieldMax MSTY outperformed MSTR by 6.47 percentage points, while Harvest MSTY.TO outperformed MSTR by 5.32 points. In contrast, MSTE underperformed MSTR by 4.54 points. The largest difference is versus Bitcoin itself: BTCC outperformed MSTR by 28.34 percentage points, YieldMax MSTY by 21.87 points, Harvest MSTY.TO by 23.02 points, and MSTE by 32.88 points.
In 2021, $SOFI traded at $22.76. Today, it trades at just $18.38. Meanwhile, the business has completely transformed. 2021: - 3.5M members - 5.2M products - $1.01B adjusted net revenue - $30M adjusted EBITDA - $484M GAAP net loss Today: - 15.8M members - 24.4M products - $1.2B adjusted net revenue in Q2 alone - $358M adjusted EBITDA in Q2 alone - $157M GAAP net income in Q2 alone The stock is still about 19% BELOW that 2021 price. The business isn’t even remotely the same. I still think $SOFI is drastically undervalued. read more
🔥 On Saturday over 2,000 Blossomers came out from all across Canada for an incredible day of learning and connection! I was shocked to see close to 1/3 of folks travelled from outside of Toronto to join us, huge thanks to everyone who made the trip! ⚡️ The energy during the day was absolutely buzzing and it was so awesome to meet so many members of the Blossom community! Special shout out to Blossom's Creator of the Year @jacobb and Blossom's Rising Star @nettspend who won our community-nominated Blossom awards 👏 🌱 Blossom has grown from an idea, to an app, to a movement and BlossomCon is the biggest testament to that. To see 2,000 folks from all different walks of life take time out of their weekend to connect, learn, and build financial literacy together is exactly what Blossom is all about and I am so fired up to keep building for this amazing community 💕 😍 Can't wait for BlossomCon Vancouver and New York!!! (https://www.blossomsocial.com/blossomcon2026) 👏 Special shout out to the Harvest ETFs team for being our Headline sponsor for the 3rd year in a row and to all our amazing sponsors for making this event possible 🙏
I am currently 47 years old. Unfortunately in that time frame I have lost a lot of family members. Some (most) were accidents, some to age, some to cancer, and one to suicide. That’s 11 deaths total. Only 1 person out of 11 had a will. When you are grieving the last thing you want to do is close an estate up. It’s even harder if nothing has been prepared in advance. After the initial shock of the death settles (the phase where everyone is usually nice), greed comes through in a most alarming manner. I’ve watched people turn into monsters. Make sure you have a will!!!! or people will fight.  I know most people hate thinking about their death or their spouses death but honestly it’s just a fact of life. I’ve personally been the executor of 2 estates now. This is my advice: 1. If your young get life insurance. If you’re retired it’s not worth it. 2. Make sure you have a will. 3. Make sure you have a personal directive. 4. Make sure you have a power of attorney set up. 5. If your married make your spouse the beneficiary of your TFSA and RRSP(has to be done through the account not the will), they will roll into the spouses account without taxation. 6. If you’re married, and you own a house, make sure both names are on the title, joint tenant, NOT tenant in common. This activates right of survivorship on property and doesn’t have to go through the estate. 7. If you’re married, both people should have their name on all the vehicles, joint, otherwise it’s a headache after death. 8. Buy a file folding system. I have a plastic one that has a clasp and handle. 9. Put EVERYTHING in this file folder that would be needed if you died tomorrow. a) all land titles B) information on house insurance so it can either be eventually canceled or name changed over. C) your will (or the location of your will),  power of attorney, and personal directive D) the information for your car, car insurance, and registration on vehicles. E) information on life insurance. F) all current year papers needed for filing your taxes. Because the survivor will have to do it and will need that information. G) where your household bills are. ALL OF THEM, electricity, gas, Netflix, magazine, subscriptions everything you can think of that is in their name. Because you are going to have to cancel them. H) their credit card information where to contact to cancel the cards I) birth certificate, SIN numbers, marriage, license, etc. J) information on all your investments accounts, bank accounts, etc. K) anything else you can think of for your situation If you’re married, I’d have one box per person. When you die, the funeral home will issue many death certificates. And your lawyer will give you copies of the will. These will be needed to change over any accounts. Everything else goes through the estate which is taxed and the lawyers take their fees so I’d avoid this as much as possible especially if you’re married. This is why having property in both people‘s names is so important because it doesn’t have to go through probate. I am widowed now and I have my black file folder and my two remaining children know if something happens to me, all they have to do is grab the folder. Everything they need to take care of my estate will be located in this folder. At the beginning of every year, I open this file up and go through everything to make sure it’s up-to-date. If you are young and do not own much or can’t afford a will, you can draft one up but it must be handwritten to be classified as a legal document. You cannot type it out!! If you’re not worth much, everything will most likely be sold to pay your bills and cover your funeral expenses. But you can state who your executor will be in your handwritten will.  Disclaimer I’m not a lawyer or an accountant and this is not legal advice. Talk to a lawyer and talk to an accountant. Make sure everything is set up for you and your situation. These are situations that I personally ran into. Good luck Also I’ll add in. IF you have a lot of assets make an appointment with your accountant first. They will tell you how to properly set things up. Then take that information to your lawyer. read more
A late night gift for fellow investors on Blossom who might be starting out their journey… this is a post about all the wonderful tools I use to research and monitor stocks, ETFs, Market News, Sector rotations and Insider/institutional Trading activity. I call it my investment tech stack, and here is my list: 1. OpenInsider Every Form 4 filing in one clean searchable database. When a CEO buys $1M of their own stock on the open market this is where I see it. I actually go on every week and look at open market purchase activity especially when it’s a cluster and then research those companies further. openinsider.com 2. Whale Wisdom 13F institutional holdings tracker I use it to track the hedge funds I like so I know what Driehaus, Hood River or Renaissance are holding and what they just bought or sold. It’s how I found many amazing small caps early on like ONDS, BBOT, ATAI, etc. Updated every quarter after the 45-day filing deadline and I will use it to write up my post about “Going Behind Enemy Lines to Uncover What happened with Situational Awareness’s rise and fall” in about 10 days when they submit quarterly filings. whalewisdom.com 3. Unusual Whales Ok this one I have deep love for, it’s how I landed SO MANY successful options trades and I check it every day for UOAs. I subscribe to the premium version for full access. Options flow and congressional trading tracker. When unusually large options activity hits a ticker before a catalyst Unusual Whales catches it. Also tracks what your elected officials are trading, make of that what you will. 😏 unusualwhales.com 4. Quartr Beautiful App that delivers Earnings calls, investor presentations and transcripts in one place. I use this to listen to management on quarterly earnings calls, I can search through transcripts for specific keywords and it pulls press releases for companies you track faster than any other source. I used it to write my post on banks exposure to private credit. quartr.com 5 .Portfolio Visualizer This one is Amazing for backtesting to see if logic held up historically, correlation analysis, factor exposure. When I want to understand how two assets move relative to each other this is where I go. My posts on ETF correlation were built using this tool. portfoliovisualizer.com 6. Seeking Alpha I love this platform and I subscribe to the premium version for full access. The best Sector dashboards, earnings calendars, and analyst reviews. The Seeking Alpha screener is where the sector ETF performance data in my rotation posts comes from and it does it through a great user experience. seekingalpha.com 7. FinViz My morning ritual, covers futures, sector heatmaps, screeners, and technical data. If you’ve seen any of my Before the Open posts a lot of that data is sourced from Finviz. It’s simple, to the point and free. Finviz.com Now for my favorite sources of market updates and news: 1. Barron’s I think it’s on of the most thoughtful long-form financial journalism sources available to retail investors. barrons.com 2. Bloomberg Breaking market news and macro analysis. This one is the only news app where I have notifications on 😅 bloomberg.com 3. WSJ The paper of record for business and economics. Primary source journalism on Fed policy, corporate earnings and geopolitics. wsj.com 4. Motley Fool Good for accessible company-level analysis. I read it for perspective not a primary source. A tip on here is how I got interested to look into INTC again in March and went in at $49 which turned into a Multibagger by May. Fool.com 5. Substack It’s an amazing jungle of great writers and if you can find the ones that have real substance you’re in for some great insights. I’d recommend “The Dark Side of The Boom” exceptional financial analysis. The Holy Grail of Platforms for me though is SEC EDGAR. Nothing for me replaces reading through official filings, pulling data out of balance sheets, reading about business segments, company risks, and understanding how a company is progressing YoY/QoQ. The bulk of my posts as you guys might already know are sourced from data points I traced back to a primary source filings like 10-Q, 8-K, 13F. The tools help me find the signal and I usually confirm everything from filings. So, there you have it my full stack of tools in one posts, if you found this useful I invite you to follow my account for more. Have a great weekend!read more
I'm the guy who did what you're not supposed to do: Several years ago, I was a space nerd and I had full conviction in a tiny, $2B market cap company: $RKLB I actually invested around the time of the IPO, building a modest position when the price was hovering between $10 and $15. Then, the speculative covid bubble burst, and the price plummeted to around $4 for a very long time. Being down 60%, I didn't panic sell. In fact, I doubled & tripled down several times. My final position was 5,500 shares at a cost basis of $5.95 USD. At the time, this was half my contribution room in my TFSA, which worked out to ~$42k CAD. There are many stories where a huge bet like this doesn't pan out, but in my case it succeeded tremendously. At RKLB's peak price, my TFSA was valued at $1.1M... as it stands now, my port is worth just under $800k as of this post. Dealing with both a hypervolatile portfolio and hectic life circumstances have numbed me to the day to day fluctuations of the market. At least, that has been my personal experience. I have had days where my portfolio is up almost $200k and days where I was down over $100k. These single-day fluctuations are greater than my annual salary at my day job. Crazy to think about, but I have been able to maintain a mental disconnect between the numbers on the screen and my day to day emotions. Have I trimmed? Yes. I sold 500 shares when RKLB was around $130. This doubled my initial investment and I only gave up 9% of my total position. I know the wise thing to do is to de-risk further, but RKLB is still my biggest conviction play and I am willing to let it ride as I don't need the money right now. If you want my future long-term picks, those would be $GRAB and $KLAR . The proceeds of my 500 share RKLB trim primarily went into these two stocks. Yes... I am still trying to beat the market. Stock picking generally doesn't work out in the long run, but I am having fun and I am confident in my theses for these two companies. I'll make another post in the future regarding my reasoning, so please follow if you find this stuff interesting or if you want to laugh at me if I lose it all. 😆 read more
YTD Total Return (as of Aug 7, 2026): Nasdaq 100 cluster 🥇 TDAX (TDAQ Lift ETF) +15.80% 🥈 QQQ (Invesco QQQ Trust) +15.75% 🥉 XQQI (NEOS Nasdaq 100 High Income) +13.27%, yield around 19 to 23% S&P 500 cluster 🥇 XSPI (NEOS S&P 500 High Income) +11.80%, yield around 15 to 18% 🥈 SPY (SPDR S&P 500 ETF) +11.79% 🥉 TSYX (TSPY Lift ETF) +8.35% XSPI basically matched SPY while also paying out high monthly income, that's the one to watch. XQQI capped too much upside during the tech rally. TDAX's leverage worked in its favor, but TSYX got hurt by volatility decay during the spring pullback.read more
I've gotten many messages over the past few months from people asking to look at their porfolio. Usually when I see a portfolio I see many individual stocks making up a large % of a porflio, my first response is always to buy low cost index funds. I dont want to come off harsh but I feel the definition of investor arrogance is believing you're smarter than the market. Believing you can consistently pick winning stocks while outperforming millions of other investors including professionals with teams of analysts and access to far more information than you. The data says otherwise. • Around 80–90% of actively managed U.S. equity funds underperform the S&P 500 over a 15-year period. • These funds are run by professionals with teams of analysts, company access, and institutional research, yet most still fail to outperform a simple index fund. One thing you'll notice on social media: people love posting their biggest stock winners. Far fewer people post the stocks they lost 50%, 80%, or even 100% on. There's a reason why mutual funds and actively managed funds have historically underperformed against index funds..because even well paid fund managers with their teams cant beat the market overtime. For the record, I still own some individual stocks. My portfolio is roughly 93% ETFs and 7% individual stocks. I enjoy researching companies, but I also recognize the odds are stacked against consistently beating the market. That's why the foundation of my portfolio is broad-market ETFs not stock picks.read more
After reaching the critical level of 10,000 followers (KTS #21 😉), we decided it was TIME to share the knowledge and our daily actions with incredible detail and insight on an adaptive platform that could handle stocks and options while sharing the specific tools that we use to monitor. A platform that would allow us more proximity with our community in a fun, interactive learning environment that can simplify the complex - all while allowing us to share even more content with more depth and latitude. Since launching this website in February, our most dedicated and invested followers have had the chance to enjoy: 📖 Weekly, relevant KTS posts - so 24 new KTS posts (without length restriction! 😂) 📝All of our trades & rationale (which have been transitioning in new areas and asset classes 😉) 🧙 Our views on this high period of volatility to be expected in the final stage of the meltup phase of the Real Estate/Banking crisis cycle ⚒️Access to our full tool suite (see our pinned post) These members have formed the first tranche of subscribers and have enjoyed incredible insights on the current state of the real estate/banking crisis cycle while observing the major accumulation in secular trend hidden gems 💎. These members have also been privy to how we are investing in a crosscurrent market where some equities are buys and some are sells. As we continue to transition the portfolio as inflection point peaks are set, we also share how to embrace the bear by demonstrating how to profit when markets head in the opposite direction. Ask yourself, why should the Wall Street Wolves be the only ones that earn outsized returns over a short period of TIME when markets fall? 😂 Our members have also been incredibly patient and resourceful with us while we were improving and fixing the usability of our website. And we are extremely grateful and thankful for their input. 🙏 Now we have a website loaded with content so it’s TIME for us to come back here, on Blossom - where this amazing journey started - as a genuine offer to further your financial acumen along the learning curve faster in this critical TIME. This was supposed to be the year of the most volatility, remember? 😉 So I intend to start posting content on Blossom again. 🤑🌊🏄 And I heard I won a Blossom award while away? So thank you to Max and for whomever is behind that! 🏆🙏 Our goal is, and will always be, to help you all learn and apply strategies to realize absolutely amazing, double-digit annualized returns. I want you to WIN 🏆 I will resume giving insights on our current view of the markets with our brand of proven unconventionalism (please tell me you finally discovered commodities by now? See our first post from March 9, 2024: “They are telling us so what are you waiting for?” post! Natural selection is alive and well! 😂🤣 Speaking of which, I see the conventionalists are still preaching their gospel in full force mode, right here on Blossom! 🤢🤣 As a gesture of the good TIMES of the past, I am sharing one of the KTS posts from the website - and in true Beskar fashion….. a true gem 💎 It’s also the very first KTS posted on the opening of our website. I find it particularly…..TIMEly! 😂 And it will give my conscience resolve. 😎👍 So here you go! https://www.beskarcapitalkts.com/featuredktspost The conventionalist script is everywhere - now more than ever as the institutions line up the retail bagholders. Regurgitated by the masses everywhere… investors are indoctrinated to think that the best investment strategy is to buy and hold a dilutive aggregate index fund to generate a meager average annualized real return of 9% - without any respect for the real estate/banking crisis cycle. We’ve proved it to ourselves countless TIMES over. With over 35+ years of investing experience, we know that an active investment approach can outperform with the right tool for the right market. Adapting is critical especially when markets are in a process of setting inflection points. 😉🏆😎 We have now reopened the membership window again: https://www.beskarcapitalkts.com/ I always give you my best! This is the way! 🌊🏄 Beskar read more
Like to be diverse in my holdings … picked up some more Silver and Gold the other day from my spot. Silver grabbed at 60 an ounce (bullion) Gold I grabbed at 4140 and ounce (coin)
Congratulations to Jared on achieving the rising star award. We finally met in person today and he definitely made my experience super enjoyable! Thanks Jared you deserve it!!
What a ride life is. My wife and I have gone through the hardest of times the past 3 years and all of a sudden life alters. Since June we’ve had the birth of our baby girl, sold the family farm, bought our new home mortgage free and invested a large chunk including front loading an RESP for our daughter. Sometimes the hardest times come before the most beautiful moments. #blessed 🙏
Drawing lines, marking zones, or stacking indicators isn’t enough to build a consistent and profitable trading system. A real trading system means you actually understand how the market moves, identify clear setups, and, most importantly, manage your risk with strict discipline. Without these, you are just gambling. To build a lifelong, profitable trading system, you need to go through a proven process: Step 1: Learn a Rule Set (Find Your System) Learn a defined rule set, aka your core trading system. There is no single "holy grail" strategy. Charts only move one way, but there are endless ways to extract profit from them. Choose a strategy that fits your personality and lifestyle rather than blindly copying someone else. In the end, you must craft a system tailored to you. Step 2: Case Studies Once you have your rule set, start reviewing historical examples. Find past setups that delivered strong moves and entries, then analyze what they had in common: • What was the story behind the move? • How could you have traded it? • Take multi-timeframe screenshots and place them side-by-side. Do this for at least 75 different trades across various markets. (The more, the better) Step 3: Backtesting Fire up a spreadsheet and log every trade you take during backtesting. Track your wins, losses, break evens, Secured R:R, Max R:R, and ticker symbols. The more detailed your data, the better. • Aim for at least 100 backtest trades across different pairs, markets, and sessions before analyzing your performance. • Continue backtesting until you feel total confidence in your edge (preferably up to 1,000 trades). Step 4: Live / Forward Testing Now it’s time to trade live market action. Forward testing is a crucial part of the journey, as it replicates real execution and sets the tone for your live trading. I strongly suggest using a demo account or trading with very small position sizes until you hit 100 live trades. Keep logging your data with the same precision as your backtests. Forward test until trading feels effortless and natural. Step 5: Scale and Refine Once you are confident in your process and executing with discipline, congratulations. You have built a profitable system. Keep doing what works, and never stop logging your data. Continuous tracking is the only way to adapt and stay sharp over time.read more
🦋 The Golden Butterfly: Could This Portfolio Have Survived Every Major Market Crash Since 1929? Imagine investing $100,000 the day before one of the worst stock-market crashes in history — then watching it fall 30%, 50%, or during the Great Depression, almost 90%. Most portfolios assume one thing: over time, stocks go up. The Golden Butterfly Portfolio asks something very different — what if we built a portfolio designed to survive almost anything? Depression, inflation, deflation, banking crises, rate shocks, pandemics, even environments where stocks and bonds fall together. Despite the whimsical name, it's one of the more serious attempts ever made to engineer resilience into a portfolio. ⸻ 🦋 What Is the Golden Butterfly? Popularized by Portfolio Charts, the Golden Butterfly is a simplified evolution of Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio, built from five equal parts: U.S. large-cap stocks (20%) $VOO$SPY$VFV, U.S. small-cap value stocks (20%) $AVUV, long-term U.S. Treasuries (20%) $TLT, short-term U.S. Treasuries (20%) $SHY, and gold (20%) $GLD$IAU$ZGLD. In short: 40% stocks, 40% Treasuries, 20% gold. *At times up to 60% Treasuries with $PTLC The logic isn't prediction — it's response diversity. Each asset reacts differently to economic regimes: stocks benefit from growth, small-cap value adds a long-term equity premium, long Treasuries thrive in deflation and crises, short Treasuries provide stability, and gold responds to inflation and monetary stress. Instead of asking "what will happen next?", the portfolio assumes something unexpected will happen — and you already own the response. ⸻ **A note on the numbers below:** The Golden Butterfly is a modern construct, and reliable backtested data for it generally only goes back to the early 1970s (gold ownership was restricted for U.S. individuals until 1974, and usable small-cap value data doesn't extend to 1929). The 1929–1932 figures are a rough hypothetical reconstruction based on how each asset class is known to have behaved, not a verified historical backtest — treat them as illustrative, not precise. ⸻ 💀 1929–1932: The Great Depression Stocks collapsed nearly 90%, turning $100,000 into about $11,000. The Golden Butterfly didn't exist yet, but its structure gives us a reasonable sense of how it would have behaved: only 40% of the portfolio is exposed to equities, so the stock sleeve would have fallen from $40,000 to roughly $4,400, while the remaining 60% — bonds and gold-like exposure — wouldn't have collapsed anywhere near as hard. Putting it together, the portfolio would likely have seen a total drawdown in the range of **$100,000 → roughly $70,000–$80,000** (about 20%–30%), versus stocks' 89% collapse. The key difference is structural: no single asset class defines survival. ⸻ 🔥 1973–1974: Inflation Shock Stocks fell roughly 45%, turning $100,000 into about $55,000. In the Golden Butterfly, the 40% equity sleeve would have fallen to about $22,000, long Treasuries would have struggled against inflation, short Treasuries would have held their value, and gold — newly legal to own and entering one of its strongest runs — would have risen sharply enough to offset much of the damage. Net result: **$100,000 → about $80,000–$90,000**, a 10%–20% drawdown. Rather than being destroyed by inflation, the portfolio absorbed it through gold. ⸻ 💻 2000–2002: Dot-Com Collapse Stocks fell roughly 48%, turning $100,000 into about $52,000. The equity sleeve would have dropped to about $20,800, but falling rates lifted long Treasuries, short Treasuries stayed steady, and gold added further diversification. Estimated outcome: **$100,000 → roughly $75,000–$85,000**, a 15%–25% drawdown — losing about a fifth to a quarter of value instead of nearly half. ⸻ 🏦 2008–2009: Global Financial Crisis This is the most important case. Stocks fell 55%–57%, turning $100,000 into about $43,000–$45,000. Inside the Golden Butterfly, the equity sleeve took a real hit, but long Treasuries surged, gold acted as a crisis hedge, and short Treasuries held steady — bringing the estimated drawdown to just 15%–20%, or **$100,000 → roughly $80,000–$85,000**. The contrast is stark: stocks alone landed near $45,000, versus roughly $82,000 for the Golden Butterfly. That's the difference between forced panic and controlled rebalancing. After the crash, bonds were high and stocks were low, which mechanically pushed the portfolio toward selling strength and buying weakness — exactly the behavior most investors struggle to do on their own. ⸻ 🦠 2020: COVID Crash Stocks fell about 34%, turning $100,000 into about $66,000. The equity portion would have dropped sharply, but Treasuries rallied and gold held or rose slightly, bringing the estimated drawdown to 12%–18%, or **$100,000 → roughly $82,000–$88,000**. Even in a crash this fast, diversification reduced both the speed and the depth of the damage. ⸻ ⚠️ 2022: Stocks and Bonds Fall Together This is one of the hardest environments for any diversified portfolio: stocks fell about 25%, but bonds dropped too as rates rose sharply. In the Golden Butterfly, stocks fell, long Treasuries fell, gold only partially offset the damage, and short Treasuries provided some stability — landing the estimated drawdown at 18%–20%, or **$100,000 → roughly $80,000–$82,000**. Even when diversification partially fails, no single asset dominates the destruction. ⸻ 📊 The Unified Pattern Across All Crashes The pattern across every era is consistent: stocks alone can fall anywhere from 40% to 90% depending on the crisis, while the Golden Butterfly typically falls in the 15%–30% range regardless of what kind of crisis it is. A $100,000 stock portfolio can become anywhere from $10,000 to $60,000 depending on the crash; a $100,000 Golden Butterfly typically becomes $70,000–$85,000. Different crises, same outcome — losses get distributed instead of concentrated in one place. ⸻ 🌦️ Enter Ray Dalio's All Weather Portfolio The All Weather ($ALLW) strategy is built on a similar idea: economic regimes rotate, so portfolios should be balanced across them. Compared to the Golden Butterfly, All Weather is more macro-balanced while the Golden Butterfly is simpler and more equity-heavy — but both aim at the same goal: surviving multiple economic environments rather than betting on one. ⸻ 🥊 The Key Structural Difference Two things separate them. First, growth exposure: All Weather typically holds less equity than the Golden Butterfly, making it the more conservative of the two. Second, inflation protection: All Weather spreads that job across both gold and commodities, while the Golden Butterfly concentrates it in gold alone. ⸻ 🚦 Where PTLC Fits In PTLC $PTLC introduces a different mechanism, $VOO that automatically rotates 50%-100% into treasuries after 5 day draw down, it has averaged 10%+ over the last 5 years, giving away some upside in exchange for a built in circuit breaker (see one of my previous posts)— trend-based risk control. Instead of always holding equities, it can reduce exposure during downtrends, which raises an obvious question: can that improve one part of the Butterfly? ⸻ 🦋 Golden Butterfly 2.0 Swap large-cap equities for PTLC (trend-based large caps), and the portfolio becomes: PTLC, small-cap value, long Treasuries, short Treasuries, and gold. This changes behavior, not philosophy — but it comes with trade-offs. It tends to do better in prolonged bear markets and worse in fast reversals, and can lag during strong bull markets. ⸻ 🧠 The Real Genius of the Golden Butterfly The portfolio isn't trying to predict anything — it assumes multiple types of failure will occur over time, and spreads the job of handling them accordingly. Stocks handle growth, bonds handle deflation, gold handles monetary stress, small-cap value adds equity diversification, short Treasuries provide liquidity, and PTLC (optionally) adds trend defense. ⸻ 🏆 Is It Better Than the S&P 500? Wrong question. The S&P 500 wins in long bull markets. The Golden Butterfly wins in survivability and behavioral stability — because the real constraint most investors face isn't return, it's whether they can stay invested after a crash. ⸻ 👴 Why This Matters Most in Retirement A 50% drawdown isn't just a paper loss — it's a withdrawal crisis. A $1,000,000 portfolio falling to $450,000 forces withdrawals from an already-damaged base, which is exactly what sequence-of-returns risk means in practice. The Golden Butterfly softens this by ensuring something is always available to sell without locking in the worst possible losses. ⸻ 🦋 Final Thought Most investors ask, "What will make me the most money?" The Golden Butterfly asks a different question: "What structure survives the widest range of disasters?" Since 1929, markets have survived depressions, inflation shocks, bubbles, crises, pandemics, and rate shocks — and through all of it, no single asset class survives everything. So the portfolio doesn't try to find the winner. It just makes sure no single loser can destroy you. It doesn't try to win every crisis. It just tries to keep flying. *The pre-1970s figures in this piece are illustrative reconstructions, not verified historical backtests, and all dollar figures are estimates rather than precise historical data. This is not investment advice.* read 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
Please help us make it better and fill in our feedback form. This is so so helpful for us to see trends and make the improvements needed to make this event the best in the world 🎊 https://forms.gle/gPRshwXUktRoPuBcA
Wealthsimple has a feature called “Portfolio Pulse”whereby you can be that proverbial “fly on the wall” and look into the private portfolios published anonymously. I found this to be a very interesting exercise. I reviewed the top 100 portfolios but examined in detail the top 10. #1 is $49,148,421.83 #2 thru 10 range between $15,147,052.02 to $8,767,708.57 As more investors elect to publish their portfolios the more we will get to see, but after looking at the top 100, there is a repeatable common portfolio structure to all of them and I developed a quick method to examining them into categories. This method you can actually use to examine Blossom portfolios. This is regardless of account type like 401K, RRSP etc. and more about being able to understand the portfolio as a “whole” and how it is “constructed”. So let’s start. Core → Satellites → Concentration (Risk Character). 1) Core = the “engine” Ask: What’s the #1 holding (or top 2–3 combined)? This tells you what the portfolio is really about and the investor. Common cores: - Broad index core (US/global equity ETFs) - Factor core (quality / low-vol / dividend-tilt style ETFs) - Theme core (tech/semis/innovation basket) - Single-name core (one stock dominates) If you can identify the core in less than 10 seconds, you’re already ahead in portfolio diagnosis. --- 2) Satellites = what it’s “tuning” Satellites are the positions that sit next to the core and change the risk/return personality. Typical satellite buckets: - Growth / Theme tilts (tech, semis, AI, platforms) - Income / defensive tilts (dividend ETFs, more defensive-style exposures) - Real assets / REIT sleeve - Currency/cash proxy (large USD or CAD allocation acting like “liquidity bias”) - Additional factor overlays (value, momentum, small-cap, etc.) Key intuition: Satellites usually explain the “why,” while the core explains the “what.” --- 3) Concentration = the “how risky is this?” reality check Don’t overthink it—just eyeball concentration: - Diversified: no single position dominates; many meaningful holdings - Moderately concentrated: top holdings matter, but it’s not “one bet” - Highly concentrated: one name (or one theme) is doing most of the work This matters because two portfolios can both be “growth,” but one is *one big bet* and the other is *a diversified growth tilt.* --- The 6 portfolio types this creates (simple labels) Once you’ve identified Core + Satellites + Concentration, you can usually label the portfolio quickly: 1) Index + Tilt - Broad equity core + a few purposeful overlays. 2) ETF Ladder / Multi-Core - Multiple big ETFs spanning regions/styles (often US + Canada + international + value/RE). 3) Theme Basket - A theme is the core and dominates the holding list. 4) Single-Name Conviction - One stock is the core; the rest are supporting actors. 5) Income / Defensive Overlay - Dividend/income/defensive exposures are prominent, even if equity-heavy. 6) Core All-Equity (near-passive) - Mostly one or two broad all-equity ETFs, with minimal satellites. --- A quick 30-second “portfolio read” checklist When you open holdings: 1. Circle the core: What’s #1 (and #2/#3 if close)? 2. Label satellites: Are the other big lines income/defensive, theme, real assets, or currency? 3. Check concentration: Is it diversified, moderate, or dominated by one bet? If you do this consistently, you will start to be able to see the patterns, the portfolios will stop looking like a bunch of tickers, and you start to see them by their architecture, structure, core, shell, diversification, allocation, and risk and then you will see by the daily and annual returns how these portfolios performed against the macroeconomic and market conditions and WHY. Only then can you call yourself an investor, when you can examine a portfolio and determine its structure, risk and the alignment of its return against the current economic and market backdrop.read more
if you hold $MSTE then watch my interview Phong Le, CEO of $MSTR - he answers every possible question you could have, watch here: https://youtu.be/ks2i176-se8
Friday closed out a strong week. S&P 500 hit a record close at 7,757.64 (+0.62%), Nasdaq jumped 1.3% to 26,690.62, Dow added 0.28%.  All on a weak jobs report; markets read it as the Fed staying on hold, and traders took a September hike off the table entirely.  S&P is up 3.6% and Nasdaq up 5.2% over the past two weeks, chips leading the bounce-back. Markets closed for the weekend, but curious how everyone’s positioned heading into next week. Rate-hold trade feels crowded already.
