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 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
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
Today's news that Anthropic is targeting a $2 Trillion IPO valuation got me thinking... The most promising companies in the world used to come public when valuations still had 10x, 50x, 100x or more growth potential. That’s no longer the case in most cases… If Anthropic's IPO valuation is $2T, they will need to grow to $20 Trillion to reach ‘just’ a 10x and that’s assuming no dilution, which we all should know likely won’t be the case. For perspective, $20T is nearly 4x the largest company in the world today. How does this make the wealth divide get even wider than it already is? The uber wealthy are funding the best-of-the-best private companies, getting substantial equity in the process, but only until the risk/reward no longer makes sense. It’s at that point these companies come public, resulting in everyday investors providing the exit-liquidity for pre-IPO investors & insiders. Rinse/Repeat hundreds of times over and wealth divide grows exponentially! Some won’t agree with me and that’s fine, but nothing good will come from an even wider wealth divide in the U.S. and world for that matter. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” and there’s no greater power than money, with the possible exception of blackmail, but that’s a story for another day…
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
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
Taking some profits on $NBIS and rotating into $IREN. I still love NBIS, but I think IREN has more room to run from here. CoreWeave’s latest earnings showed just how strong AI compute demand is, and I think that’s a great read-through for IREN heading into earnings. (Reuters) The $MSFT deal is already massive, but honestly I think that could just be the beginning. I’m expecting IREN to crush earnings and continue proving that they’re becoming a serious AI infrastructure player. Taking profits ≠ losing conviction. Just moving where I see more upside. 🚀
$SOFI is quietly becoming a much more valuable financial ecosystem. In Q2: SoFi Money + Credit Card spending reached a $28 BILLION annualized rate. Interchange revenue grew 55% YoY. Brokerage fee revenue grew nearly 2.5x YoY. The opportunity here isn’t just adding millions of members. It’s getting those members to spend, invest, borrow and keep more of their financial lives inside SoFi. read more
People are abusing Buy Now, Pay Later platforms and, in some cases, are using them to fund their entire lives, deferring payments on things like groceries and car insurance. It's insane! In the new video I just posted over on the reaction channel, we’ll be taking a look at some extreme cases of how people are ending up in terrible financial situations because of BNPL. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvThi7McK00
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
Transferred funds from TD direct investing to Wealthsimple just last year so my all time % reset. This is why the all time is similar to my 1 year performance right now.
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
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
I’ve been using my income funds to help pay for my vacation to Poland 🇵🇱 I have what I call the Four Horsemen and they are $OVL$TDAQ$GPIQ and $QQQI / $XQQI and a few satellite positions! Not Financial Advice!
Great earnings call from $NU im a little late to the party couldn’t post about it when it was going one but glad to see the profit hit 1 billion finally and people paying attention to NU again. Definitely think the companies still got room to grow and I am very bullish but I am definitely watching both $MELI’s fintech platform expansion, and the moves they make within the industry. Also I am watching the moves NU is going to make in the next few months/year or two, and which way/ways the company decides to go next. I’m curious to hear everyone else’s thoughts on the earnings call and your target price for NU.
This is why I love dividend investing! ❤️ Made almost $150 in cold hard cash today without having to lift a finger. 💰 How much did you get paid this week? Let me know in the comments! 👇
Got inspired by @matt.41 and @edsam to upgrade one of my calculators. You can now choose Monte Carlo (Statistical) as the simulation method and set the strategy’s: - Expected return - Volatility - Yield - which we keep constant, since I think that’s what many people try to target and maintain This lets you see how much is being spent and reinvested. And if you want to see the implications of applying the "4% rule", you'd just set the expenses to 4% of your initial portfolio. https://karyungtom.com/monte-carlo-retirement-calculator/read more
Oil has been climbing again as tensions around the Iran conflict continue yet stocks are holding up surprisingly well. How and why., it’s because the market already knows about the war. When the conflict first started, investors had to anticipate, higher oil, higher inflation, slower economic growth, more uncertainty which caused the initial shock. But doesn’t get hit twice by information it has already priced in. Some sort of new shock would have to hit in order for prices to react something not seen before during the war like oil going well over 100$. And that’s one why I believe the Nasdaq will reach an all time high before mid terms. Also: heres a snipe on nasdaq from earlier this week ;)⬇️ 🐯read more
The “Power of 3” Personal Finance Strategy Part II My personal finance thesis: Real financial security should be measured by sustainable cash flow coverage of core living expenses — not by asset values alone. After 30 years of studying personal finance, managing and operating large businesses, I’ve come to believe many people are using the wrong scorecards. A portfolio can rise. A house can rise. Net worth can rise. Income can rise. And yet real financial security can still be getting weaker. Why? Because we do not live inside our brokerage statements. We live in the real world of: - housing costs - food costs - healthcare costs - utilities - insurance - taxes - transportation - and changing purchasing power Wealth matters. Assets matter. Net worth matters. But if those measures are not connected to actual living and living expense coverage, they can create a FALSE sense of security. A person can have a larger portfolio, a higher home value, and a bigger nominal net worth — while at the same time having less real purchasing power and less durable financial security. That is why I use this measure: Financial Security Coverage The question is simple: How many times does your sustainable cash flow cover your absolute core living expenses? In my view, that is one of the clearest and most important measures of real financial security. --- Why traditional wealth measures can mislead In recent years many people have seen: - stock portfolios rise - home values rise - retirement balances rise - nominal net worth rise Someone may say: - “I hit $1M in my portfolio.” - “My assets doubled in five years.” - “My net worth is up massively.” That may all be true in nominal dollars. But the more important question is: Has your real financial security improved at the same rate? Often, the answer is not nearly as much as they think. Because while asset prices rose: - inflation eroded purchasing power - living costs rose - insurance rose - healthcare rose - taxes rose - replacement costs rose So yes, statement values may be higher. But if the cost of sustaining your life rose sharply too, then the practical meaning of that wealth may be far smaller than the headline number suggests. This is the illusion of nominal wealth without purchasing power awareness. Asset growth matters. But wealth should not be measured only by what it is worth on paper. It should also be measured by the cash flow support and life coverage it can provide in the real world. --- My framework: Financial Security Coverage Financial Security Coverage = Sustainable Cash Flow / Absolute Core Living Expenses My target is 3.0x. If my absolute core living expenses are: - $7,000 per month - $84,000 per year Then my target is: $84,000 x 3 = $252,000 So I target $252,000 in sustainable, after-tax cash flow capability. Not gross income. Not paper gains. Not one-time wins. Not inflated asset values. Not temporary market strength. Sustainable. Durable. Net cash flow. Why 3.0x? Because in my view that is where you have: - essential life coverage - contingency - flexibility - meaningful margin of safety - cash flow left over to save, invest, and compound wealth - near-complete financial durability under stress testing At 1.0x, you are covering life. At 2.0x, you have meaningful breathing room. At 3.0x, you have what I consider durable financial security. Sharp readers will realize that reducing the denominator — expenses — is one of the fastest ways to improve security. --- Reality check In my view, many people are operating between 0.85x and 1.15x core living expense coverage. That means they are: - below full coverage - right at the line - or only slightly above it This is why so many people feel pressure even when income looks decent or assets have risen. A small disruption can destabilize everything: - medical costs - car repairs - rent increases - insurance increases - income loss - tax changes - business slowdowns Any honest personal finance framework has to begin with empathy. Most people are not failing because they are reckless. Many are struggling because they are living with very little margin. That is a STRUCTURAL issue. --- Definitions matter ABSOLUTE CORE LIVING EXPENSES: The essential costs required to maintain life at a durable baseline: - housing - utilities - food - healthcare - insurance - transportation - minimum debt service - essential household expenses - baseline taxes This is not luxury. This is not status spending. This is the number required to keep life functioning. SUSTAINABLE CASH FLOW: This should be after tax, durable, and repeatable. Examples: - reliable salary - durable business income - pension income - recurring rental cash flow - recurring distributions - conservative portfolio income assumptions It should exclude or heavily discount: - one-time gains - temporary spikes - windfalls - irregular bonus dependence - speculative cash flow - unrealized paper gains A lot of people look secure on paper. Far fewer are truly secure in cash flow. --- The second layer: Direct and Indirect Cash Flow I now think the most accurate version of Financial Security Coverage should include both: 1. Direct Cash Flow The sustainable, after-tax cash flow you receive now: - salary - business income - rental cash flow - pension income - recurring distributions This answers: How well is my life covered by the cash flow I currently produce? 2. Indirect Cash Flow The sustainable cash flow your assets could support: - stocks - bonds - retirement accounts - taxable portfolios - other investable assets A simple proxy is a conservative withdrawal rate such as 4%. If someone has $2,000,000 in investable assets: $2,000,000 x 0.04 = $80,000 If core living expenses are $84,000, then: $80,000 / $84,000 = 0.95x This answers: How well could my life be covered by the cash flow capacity of my assets? --- Why this is a better measure of wealth Most people measure wealth by: - portfolio value - home value - net worth - income Useful, yes. Complete, no. A better question is: What level of sustainable life support do my income and assets actually provide? That is why I believe Financial Security Coverage is a more accurate and more important measure of wealth and security than asset values alone. It translates both: - income - assets into the one metric that matters most: Coverage of Real Life And unlike nominal balances, it forces us to think about: - inflation - purchasing power - changing living costs - market volatility - income durability - resilience under stress --- Why tracking it Year over Year matters This framework becomes more powerful when tracked annually. Year-over-Year changes in: - direct cash flow coverage - indirect cash flow coverage - total living expense coverage reveal what is really happening and a far more accurate measure of Wealth and Financial Security If the ratios improve, it may mean: - income is strengthening - assets are becoming more supportive - purchasing power is holding up - expenses are becoming easier to carry If they deteriorate, it may mean: - inflation is outrunning cash flow - expenses are rising too fast - income is less durable than expected - assets are worth more nominally but support less real life - financial security is weakening despite appearances This is the difference between paper progress and real progress. --- How I interpret the ranges Below 1.0x — financially exposed Cash flow does not fully cover core living expenses. 1.0x to 2.0x — functioning but VULNERABLE Essentials are covered, but margin is limited. 2.0x to 3.0x — real RESILIENCE Core life is well covered, contingency improves, and optionality begins. Above 3.0x — robust SECURITY and compounding power This is my target zone: real coverage, real flexibility, real resilience. Moving from 0.95x to 1.15x matters. Moving from 1.15x to 1.50x matters. That is real improvement. --- My conclusion After 30 years of personal finance study, I believe this: Wealth should not be measured only by asset values. Security should be measured by sustainable cash flow coverage of core living expenses. And the most complete version of that measure includes both: - Direct Cash Flow — what your life produces today - Indirect Cash Flow — what your assets can support tomorrow Track both. Measure both. Watch them year over year. Because the real question is not: What are my assets worth on paper? The real question is: How well can my finances sustain my life, now and in the future, in a world of changing costs and changing purchasing power? That is why I use Financial Security Coverage. And my target is 3.0x. That is my thesis. My definition of Financial Security: https://link.blossomsocial.com/7uYa/ir4906pb Expanded post on cash flow: https://link.blossomsocial.com/7uYa/i0eun8py Expanded post on tracking living expenses: https://link.blossomsocial.com/7uYa/qkgdki8p Financial Control Part I — Emergency Cash: https://link.blossomsocial.com/7uYa/k3e80c3w read more
TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN 💸 The margins are just too good to pass up! 🤑🤑🤑 Especially when you consider the loyalty of the new wave of investors who dismiss the negative impacts of high fees, who ignore the structural drags on performance, who believe high distributions are more than a feature (they are not) and who ultimately are content paying more fees for lower return. Imaging being able to build an inferior product, sell $32 billion to consumers and be able to cash out $2.3 billion. 👀 Capitalism is alive and well!! I’m thinking of bringing back floppy discs and rotary phones. 🙌 As I’ve said in previous posts/comments - the CEOs of high fee ETFs thank the finfluencers for their marketing efforts and YOU for your loyalty! 🙏 (PS. I’d expect to see more transactions like this to follow as more of these CEOs cash out before the next downturn and before investors wise up. It seems there’s no rush on the last point.) 🤷♂️ $SPYI$QQQI$BTCI$IAUIread more
Hey everyone that follows me or interacts with me here in Blossom. Today I decided to make a branding name change on both my YOUTUBE and BLOSSOM identity. And I wanted you all to be aware in case some of you think after I change it - that someone is trying to copycat my account. THEY ARE NOT - THIS TIME. It's LEGIT! So... over the past year, my youtube has grown substantially and the ecosystem of everything i create in my YouTube channel and even my persona here in Blossom has become bigger than just ME - PERRY. my "PIIVERSE" brand has become the identity of my entire INCOME INVESTING STRATEGY videos, posts, and talks. As such, I have already made the change in my YouTube (from the old PERRYPII) and now here in Blossom (from the old PERRYF) an aligned handle of PIIVERSE. My YouTube channel now looks like https://www.youtube.com/@PIIverse and my Blossom handle is now @piiverse Transition is never easy but making this name change to PIIVERSE and aligning it across channels is strategically important. SO..... WELCOME TO THE PIIVERSE :)
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