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
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
Below are 2 scenarios using $20K investment in the next 35 yrs. First would be invest the whole 20k and forget in the next 35yrs with 10% annual interest with 2% inflation. You will end up with $281,040.00 Second, you use your 20k to buy todays $HHIS and invest monthly dividends to a broad market with 10% annual interest rate and 2% inflation. Surprising, you will end up with $952,778.00 in 35 yrs plus whatever left in capital, given NAV erosion.
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 🙏
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
I own some Canadian Deposit Receipts (CDRs) for my short term 9-18month trades. These are securities that allow Canadians to buy internationally listed stocks with Canadian dollars and on Canadian exchanges. If you’re investing in US equity securities through CDRs like I have been, here’s something to think about as you optimize your strategy into the second half of 2026: CDRs are structured to remove/reduce currency fluctuation risk. But the strategy is net negative over time, which is why most suggest to hold the underlying security if you’re investing for the long run. However, when CAD gets stronger against USD, the mechanics of each security means you end up being exposed to MORE underlying shares. So why invest in CDRs now? 1 - RBC Asset Management has made the case for a flattening and strengthening of CAD through 2026 and into 2027, respectively. 2 - US stocks are on fire, having delivered some of the strongest returns YTD, and the driving factor of the current AI infrastructure build-out. Additional things to consider: - no options on CDRs - no after hours or premarket trading Highlighted CDRs of interest to me: $NOWS $GOOG $MTSU $LLY $MU $NFLX Do you own CDRs? read more
$XEQT$VFV$ZEQT$VDY If you’re holding these ETFs right now, congratulations—you’re a coward afraid to take risk, and you deserve the mediocre returns you’re getting. While you play it safe, the biggest breakout in precious metals in years is happening right in front of you. Keep playing it safe. Keep watching the opportunity pass you by. $MLM $BRAU $MGM $TRX $SM $GGD $USA $ALOY $USGG $UUUG $AREC $UAMY $NCX $Bread more
Google $GOOGL has updated its portfolio! Here are their top 5 holdings: SpaceX $SPCX: 551,189,500 shares Planet Labs $PL: 35,248,893 shares AST SpaceMobile $ASTS: 8,943,486 shares CME Group $CME: 3,484,020 shares ARM Holdings $ARM: 1,960,784 shares Revolution Medicines $RVMD: 2,946,619 I absolutely love it.. (Evan X)read more
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 🚀
🔥 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
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
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
Many people say Micron $MU is a super volatile stock. They're right about that. But they're wrong about something else. When the AI hype cools down, Micron doesn't. Why? Because of its insane diversification. Let me explain. Micron, along with $SKHY , Samsung, $DRAM, $SOXX, $SMH, $KMEM and $PSI, has a secret. It sells memory to other companies not focused on AI. Some examples are: Cars Rockets Personal Computers Quantum Computers Phones Robotics Some of those are the past. But ALL of them are the future. That's the crazy part. Micron won't run out of customers after the AI hype cools down, because they have all these as a backup net. Now that is a real good company with a real good long term stock. Truly (IMO) one of the greatest, most generational stock stories that is still being written. Thanks for reading, --Vishal, the 13 year old god investor, investing for the long term.read more
I’m making a couple portfolio changes. I decided to sell NFLX and NOW and use that capital to build up my ETF positions instead. With NOW, I still like the business and its long-term prospects, but I’m not as comfortable with the valuation anymore. One metric I pay close attention to is market cap divided by annual revenue. I generally prefer that number to be under 10, and NOW is well above that level for me. At this valuation, I think there are better places for my money. With NFLX, my concern is less about the business and more about the upside from here. I think the stock is now much closer to appropriately valued, which makes it harder for me to see the risk/reward being as attractive as it was when the valuation was lower. This isn’t me becoming less bullish on technology or growth. If anything, I’m becoming more intentional about how I get that exposure. I want to build a portfolio that is primarily ETFs with a handful of individual companies where I have the highest conviction. The cash from NFLX and NOW will go toward building up: 📈 VOO — broad-market diversification 🚀 SPMO — exposure to stocks demonstrating strong momentum ⚡ AIPO — my long-term AI/data-center power infrastructure thesis I still really like my core holdings, especially IGM, AMZN and SOFI, but I want ETFs to make up a much larger percentage of my portfolio going forward. The goal isn’t to own more stocks. It’s to own a better portfolio — one where I can participate in the next major winners without having to correctly predict exactly which companies or sectors will produce them.read more
It has a little bit of everything on my main portfolio I think. 😊 I also own $VOO, $IXUS, $IJR and $IJH in my Acorns app which is strictly to pay off my house in approximately 10 years. That's the literal purpose of that. Also got a Roth IRA with $VTI and $QQQM with Fidelity. $KRKNF also lives there but in the taxable portion because Fidelity is the only US broker that has this Canadian stock. :/ What do you think?
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!!
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
Here’s the 4th interview with David Steinberg, CEO and Co-Founder of Zeta Global. We talk Palantir x Zeta Global. Ronnie and I sat down with David to discuss what comes next for $ZETA. We cover... - The Business Intelligence roadmap. - Behind-the-scenes with Alex Karp. - The “smoke and mirrors” claims. - The Palantir $100M/yr uplift. - The OpenAI ad-placement. - GAAP profitability. We chat about it all – but most importantly, what is phase 2 of the Palantir x Zeta Global partnership... 🔗 Full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT1ybVGJU4w&t=42s Enjoy everyone. $PLTR$ZETAread 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
Look for someone who sounds really, really, really, really certain and definite about something NOBODY can actually know about the future (they love the word conviction/confidence). Here's some examples... The market WILL crash in 4-6 quarters. AI stocks ARE going to explode in 2027 Space IS the next trillion fdollar opportunity and, and, and these 3 stocks will be the winners (said super excitedly fast 😆). My DCF model says $tsla or $spcx will return 15% the next ten years. Modeling and forecasting is as accurate as using your literal foot to measure the size of a country . It may be in the 'ballpark', at best... The bigger the item to measure, the more inaccurate it will be with your foot. Yesterday, some friends and I were talking about leverage/margin use and how extreme these views on blossom were. That's the inspiration for this post and one of the key takeaways about the financial advice/takes we see on socials. I believe one of the biggest tells of bad financial advice is what it APPEALS to. If it's an appeal to your emotions, you better know the incentive of the one giving it. For example, fear gets a ton of clicks and engagement. GET OUT NOW!!!!!! Sell NOW!!!!!! This is the START of the CRASH!!!!! Do you know what else gets clicks and engagement... The opposite end of that spectrum.... EUPHORIA For example, THIS IS THE NEXT BIG THING GUYS!!!! (Yes, I am yelling 😂) $BTC is going to 500,000 next year! Buy as much (insert stock or ETF here) BEFORE it breaks out tomorrow!!!! What about uncertainty, the unknown, the cons of a stock, an ETF, a strategy? Uncertain and or balanced advice doesn't sell nearly as many subscriptions, as many products or get nearly as many clicks or engagement. It's the reality of our emotions driving action more than our logical side of our thinking. Thank you marketing tricks 🙄 Here's another good tell for terrible advice. It's anecdotal at best and never back by strong unbiased data and academic research. My favorite tell of bad advice is using short term performance or data for long term results or forecasting. I see this with people sharing a short term chart to explain why this is better than that. If I see ANY of the following things, I quickly label it as bad financial advice/content ... Emotionally inducing content... Does it make you afraid? Does it make you euphoric? Does it give you FOMO? Precise prediction content.... Is there an extremely precise prediction on market timing? Is there a precise prediction on price or the worst, the time and price slap to your intelligence. Urgency to act content.... Is there a deadline to buy a stock, a product, a referral code, etc? Incentive based content... Does it provide benefit to the creator? Are any conflicts openly mentioned and acknowledged? Extremist view content Does the content completely ignore uncertainties and negatives? And or does the content highlight only the positives OR negatives? Does it make too good to be true claims? Solid financial principles are rarely exciting and sexy and definitely never a get rich quick trick or tip. It's usually pretty low adrenaline pumping advice that your grandfather would give over a coffee ☕ It should sound more like... 'here's what we know... Here's what we don't know...Here are several possible outcomes or one of several possibilities.' Oh and by the eay, I don't know what I don't know about this topic. And if or when someone gets a prediction right, it doesn't automatically make them skilled. If enough people on blossom make enough predictions, somebody is going to look like a genius eventually. That doesn't give credibility to their advice or content. The question we need to ask about financial advice isn't, were they right (stock picks, leverage, cc ETFs, small caps etc) or did it anecdotally work for them.... It is, can they DEMONSTRATE that they can REPEATEDLY make these predictions BEFORE the outcome is known? So the next time someone tells you the market is definitely going to crash… or explode upward... or that AI, space, robotics, nuclear or some other shiny new theme is definitely going to rocket... Skip that content.... seriously Good financial advice is balanced, reasonable and can apply to different time periods and in different circumstances. And to generalize completely, the louder and noisier the prediction or claim is, the more carefully you should be checking for solid academic evidence. Have a great weekend everyone 😊read more
