⚠️ Warning: This post was vetted through AI. You may want to look away now. 😂 After experiencing the uninformed and unwelcome opinions of people shaming the use of AI, and, even more frustratingly, misrepresenting my financial situation, I decided to reread The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck*. It reminded me of something I already knew: Not every opinion deserves my attention. Fundamentally, I don’t participate in negativity, harassment or hate. I don’t need to convince everyone that my choices are right, and I certainly don’t need the approval of people who have decided they know my financial situation better than I do. But I did feel that the developing culture of AI shaming deserved my attention, not because I want to argue with the naysayers, but because I think there’s an opportunity to have a more positive, productive and inclusive conversation about it. I genuinely enjoy sharing my financial growth, milestones, lessons and journey here on Blossom. It’s one of the fun parts of this app for me. I’m excited about what I’m building, and I enjoy sharing the process with people who are interested in learning, growing and having conversations about money. And just to be clear: I don’t use AI because I’m illiterate, incapable or unintelligent. I was a professor in a dental department at a post-secondary institution. I know how to think, research, question information and form my own conclusions. Using AI doesn’t equal incompetence. It’s a tool. A tool that helps me organize my thoughts, be more productive, communicate ideas and accomplish my goals. And I actually think there’s something beautiful about that. Technology can make participation more accessible. It can help someone find the words they struggle to find, organize thoughts that feel overwhelming, communicate in a language they’re still learning, or simply make it possible to participate when life is busy. That feels more inclusive to me, not less. Of course, AI isn’t perfect. It can be wrong. It can misunderstand context. It can produce information that needs to be checked. That’s why I believe in using it responsibly: question it, fact-check it, protect your privacy and ultimately take responsibility for what you choose to publish. That isn’t giving up your intelligence. That’s using your intelligence to use a tool well. AI is here. It’s ubiquitous. And honestly, it has barely begun. We don’t shame calculators because people used to do long division. We don’t shame spreadsheets because people once balanced books by hand. So why are we suddenly treating the use of a new tool as a character flaw? Telling someone to stop using AI because it’s “not real” is about as logical as trading your laptop for a pen and paper, your smartphone for a corded home phone, and your GPS for a paper map. Technology changes. We adapt. And perhaps the most important part of all of this: The people who have reached out privately, with thoughtful messages, encouragement, curiosity and kindness, far outweigh the toxic noise. Those are the people I choose to give my energy to. AI isn’t going away. Neither am I. And I’m not going to spend my time arguing with people who are determined to misunderstand me. I’d rather keep learning, keep questioning, keep investing and keep moving forward. You don’t have to use AI. You don’t have to like AI. But you also don’t get to decide what tools someone else is allowed to use to build their life. And yes…AI helped me write this. 😉 I’m okay with that.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
This is what the portfolio is looking like today… Amazon $AMZN overtakes Meta $META to become my largest position, building up certain stocks I believe are undervalued as well. Keep stacking this week friends.
As I'm sure many of you know, Blossom added a new AI detector. I wanted to share some of my thoughts on AI and how I use it to help me create my Blossom posts and other content. If you haven't noticed already, the vast majority of my posts are written using AI. If that bothers you, no worries, you don't need to read my content. Here's how I use AI to help me create my posts: When I find a topic in my QAFP studies or have an idea I think is worth sharing, I talk through it into Wispr Flow for a few minutes. It always starts with an idea or an opinion that I have, and then I talk through that opinion or the new concept that I just learned. After that, I usually get an LLM to make my thoughts more understandable and clear while still trying to preserve all of the ideas and opinions that I have. I have no issue using AI this way because the topic, perspective and responsibility are still mine. It helps me turn a few minutes of rambling into something easier to read. I do see an issue with a large number of AI posts on Blossom and other social media platforms. For example, whenever I see em dashes and glaring AI-isms, I automatically discount the content that I read in those posts. The posts I discount are the ones where it feels like the person contributed almost nothing. The repeated phrases and perfectly balanced sentences are easy to spot, but the bigger problem is that the person did not bring a point of view of their own. AI can make a weak idea sound polished without making it worth reading. I am responsible for every claim I publish, whether AI helped arrange the words or not, and that responsibility matters far more to me than a detector score. How do you feel about AI-assisted posts?read more
President Trump says Russia will supply millions of tons of diesel to U.S. and global markets. 📊 Key Highlights: ⛽ U.S. diesel prices hit around $6.28 per gallon. 🤝 Trump reached a supply agreement with Vladimir Putin. 📉 The goal: Increase supply and bring fuel prices down. ⚠️ The U.S. temporarily eased sanctions on certain Russian diesel shipments. 🌍 BUT THERE'S A CATCH! Analysts question whether the deal will significantly lower prices, while Ukraine criticizes the move. 📈 Could this change the global energy market? 💬 What do you think? Smart move or risky decision ?read more
Why I Avoid Unprofitable Businesses Like $TE$IREN$CIFR$CRWV$SPCX 1) High Dilution Risk 2) High Stock Based Compensation 3) Highly Unlikely Future Promises 4) Impossible to Value in Times of Panic I want as low as downside volatility with and high upside potential, and I believe that is more achievable with a basket of highly profitable, high growth, low valuation metrics businesses read more
Thoughts on investing almost entirety of networth while young, to the point where I barely have the money to pay off credit card balances every month?🤔🤔🤔🤔
The greatest loss in 2026 is common sense. I dont like elon. Thats plain to see, but if I had to put a reason to it I would say it is because he is a salesmen first. Just a reminder that powerful people will say what is in there best interest first. We should do what is in our best interest first.
🚨 A DECADE of dividend investing 👨💼 My portfolio is now worth ~$2M 💰 And it pays me roughly $10,500 in dividends EVERY MONTH 💵 8 HIGH INCOME ETFs with ZERO PRICE DECAY that I own or plan on buying!📈🔥 $SCHD 🏆 Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF ~3.0% yield ~531% total return Pays quarterly Launched Oct 2011 $QDVO 🏆 Amplify CWP Growth & Income ETF ~11.2% yield ~52% total return Pays monthly Launched Aug 2024 $OVL 🏆 Overlay Shares Large Cap Equity ETF ~10.5% yield ~208% total return Pays monthly Launched Sep 2019 $SEPI 🏆 Shelton Equity Premium Income ETF ~7.9% yield ~27% total return Pays monthly Launched Sep 2025 $IDVO 🏆 Amplify CWP International Enhanced Dividend Income ETF ~6.1% yield ~114% total return Pays monthly Launched Sep 2022 $GPIQ🏆 Goldman Sachs Nasdaq-100 Premium Income ETF ~9.9% yield ~105% total return Pays monthly Launched Oct 2023 $XQQI 🏆 NEOS Boosted Nasdaq-100 High Income ETF ~20.2% yield ~21% total return Pays monthly Launched Jan 2026 $HAKY 🏆 Amplify HACK Cybersecurity Covered Call ETF ~15.0% yield ~48% total return Pays monthly Launched Jan 2026 *Bookmark this one* 🔖👇 read more
I recently came across a video comparing covered-call ETFs against the S&P 500, so I decided to run my own comparison using Canadian-listed income funds. 📊 Total Return: Oct 26, 2023 – Oct 8, 2026 Distributions reinvested, CAD 🥇 FTN: +292.8% 🥈 HCAL: +223.6% 🥉 GLCC: +193.3% Other strong performers: 📈 BK: +185.1% 📈 BANK: +168.8% 📈 HTAE: +148.3% 📈 TXF: +134.8% 📈 HDIV: +123.4% 📈 HTA: +115.9% 📈 HYLD: +108.3% For comparison: 🇨🇦 VFV (S&P 500 in CAD): +99.0% 🇺🇸 SPY (USD): +94.52% My biggest takeaway: Several Canadian income funds significantly outperformed the S&P 500 over this period, even with their income-focused strategies. I'm not saying high-income funds always outperform. I'm saying we need to look at total return, not just dividend yield or assumptions about covered calls. Would you choose these Canadian income funds over the S&P 500?read more
📈 THE BD INVESTING ANNUAL SUMMIT — OCTOBER 24 ( IN 2 WEEKS) We’re bringing the BD Investing community together LIVE in Toronto for 5 hours of investing education, market discussion, networking, food & more! 📍 Toronto 🗓️ Saturday, October 24 ⏰ 4–9 PM EST | Doors open 3:40 PM 🅿️ FREE Parking 🎤 SPEAKER LINEUP - Panels (fireside chats) Bilaal Dhalech — BD Investing AI Infrastructure • Is AI a Bubble? • BD Portfolio deepdive • 2027 Market Outlook & Predictions • Hot Sector Themes • The Road from $0 → $1M Azia Mery @aziamery & BD Financial Wellness for Beginners • Building Your First Portfolio • ETFs • Investing Do’s & Don’ts Shraddha Shah & Nathalie Valenzula Investing 101 • Dividends • Long-Term Wealth Building • Options trading 101 • Market Psychology & Controlling Emotions Adrian Bar — Canadian in a T-Shirt x BD @canadiantshirt Fireside Chat with BD • Current Investing Landscape • Taxes 🇨🇦 • Market Trends • Personal Investing Journeys • LIVE Q&A 🎟️ YOUR TICKET INCLUDES 🍽️ Free food & beverages 👕 BD Investing T-Shirt 🎁 Exclusive swag (Blossom , BMO , Wealthsimple) 🤝 Networking with investors & the BD community 🔥 FEW TICKETS LEFT — grab yours before we sell out! GET YOUR TICKETS — https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/bd-investing-annual-summit-tickets-1998125442988read more
What’s the most important thing you look for when researching a stock and finding a winner? What are the things that a stock must have in order for you to own it? Let me know below, i’m super curious!
Canada has lost a total of 110,000 jobs over the past two months, including 68,000 in September. Canada's unemployment rate also jumped to 6.5%. Not the be a bummer but Canada has gotten the worse of the trade war since it started. Something needs to give.
SCHD holders brag about the dividend. VOO holders brag about the growth. 10 years, dividends reinvested: $VOO : 316.5% $SCHD : 244.5% That's a 72 point gap. On $300K that's about $216K left on the table. SCHD's answer: a 3.2% yield vs about 1% for VOO. Cash in hand every quarter. In a rough year, that dividend check feels GOOD. My stance: I'm a growth guy. I want the compounding, not the coupon. Long-term buy & hold for me, I'll take the extra 72 points. But dividends aren't nothing. A payout that shows up rain or shine is real money. Which side are you on? The 3.2% yield now or 72 points of growth over 10 years? Where do you stand? 👀read more
Another week in the books. Other positions: $BN — 4.7% $NFLX — 3.8% This week: Bought more $BN at $36.92. No sells. Pretty quiet week overall... I’m still happy with how the portfolio is positioned heading into earnings season and continuing to build cash while I wait for better opportunities. read more
I saw this today and I thought this is great info for new investors, as it sums up what everyone needs to get right early on which is savings and investments aren't competing with each other, they just have different jobs. This is why: • Saving protects you: Emergency funds, high-yield accounts, and short-term cash belong here. Low returns, but zero stress when you need money tomorrow. • Investing builds wealth: Throwing money into broad market ETFs like ($VOO, $XIC, $VDY, $SCHD, $VEQT, and, $ZCN) is how you beat inflation over 10–20+ years. Volatile short-term, but compound interest does the real work over time. This is how to do it, in 5 steps: 1. Build a liquid cash cushion first. 2. Take advantage of any employer match if you have one. 3. Automate your monthly ETF contributions and let time (which is the most important factor here) do its thing. 4. Keep cash for peace of mind, invest the rest to stay ahead. Simple as that, don’t add unnecessary risks to your investments. 5. In 20 + years you will be a millionaire, you want it or not. How do I know this, because I lived it, I started later in life since it took me a while to find a real job, but I did it. Cheers!🍻 — This is for informational and educational purposes and it is not financial advice.read more
Originally published on Blossom on April 19th, 2024 Please find retrospective commentary at the end. Without a doubt, the most important step to evaluating the direction and magnitude of a company’s stock price over an investor TIME period is fundamental analysis. Sorry, technical analysts and order flow analysts. That’s not to say those approaches don’t have incredibly valuable insight.....even over the long-term and investor TIME periods. But, fundamental analysis requires a deep dive into the balance sheet for an understanding of leverage ratios (debt levels), growth rates in revenue, gross and net profit margins, free cash flows, share issuance, executive compensation, revenue per employee, price to sales, price to book, capital expenditure plans, on and on, etc. Now once we have all these indicators, we need to analyze the company trend in these indicators over TIME, relative to competitors, relative to other industries, or not relative to anything if a company doesn’t have a long enough history. NOW...we also have to keep in mind these ratios are constantly changing.....so we need to monitor these as well. @bradleytalksmoney on Blossom made an insightful observation the other day when doing a fundamental exercise on investing in Blossom and arriving at the conclusion that it’s just too early to be able to fundamentally handicap the company AND THAT YOU ARE REALLY MAKING A BET ON THE LEADERSHIP TEAM TO EXECUTE. And of course, we ALL want Max and the Blossom team to knock it out of the park! Congratulations again to their amazing work! This observation is so true. For all companies and their corresponding stock prices, a longer term INVESTOR (as defined by KTS #11) is really just buying into the capabilities, the vision, and the talent of the leadership team. If they’re not good, the company will suffer setbacks or even fail, and the stock price will follow. Conversely, a management team that can execute on plans to grow the company will see its stock price rise. And @stocksonthego2.0 is exactly right in always making sure you know what you own from a fundamental perspective. Oh geez..fundamental analysis is exhausting and sounds like A LOT OF WORK! It is. And there’s no escaping this. You really need to put the TIME in to understand companies – especially once you own them! You can’t do as Old Charlie used to say, “Buy a few great companies and just sit on your ass!” without staying on top of the fundamentals. After all, Ole Charlie/Warren frequently reversed course on huge investments they’ve made based on an initial fundamental analysis only to not sit on their ass and quickly scale down in a big way or just plain exit when the fundamentals change (e.g. Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, BYD, on and on). BUT – I have a Cliff Notes version for you that gets you close and takes into account a lot of it. Or for younger generations that don’t know what Cliff Notes even are, I have a Chegg or probably now, a ChatGPT easy button (pronounced today with a valley girl dialect “butt-in”). OK, OK, I couldn’t resist. RISING ANNUAL EARNINGS ESTIMATES FOR INVESTORS. There it is. Wall Street wants you to think the financial world is so complicated with endless computer screens and complex algorithms, jargon terms that make them sound like guru experts, premiums, durations, volatility, flows, accreditation, derivatives, risk tolerance, 60:40 models, allocation levels, etc. They want you to think it is overly complicated..... because it’s not. Think about that. They want you in the ocean, but without any life preserver so they can use their predatory behaviors like sharks. The reality is that there are a lot of dummies dominating that industry (not to disparage the several brilliant ones that I have learned to follow and read with the privilege to ride along – like a kid chasing an autograph). But there’s a lot of wealthy people tied to Wall Street that fell into dumb luck and consider themselves experts. Don’t buy it. If you really believe them to be authorities, then you are just taking the bait. That’s the mysterious world they want you to think it is. So recommended exercise for over this weekend: jot down the tickers for each of your holdings (spreadsheet is nice for electronic archival). Then, look back at the TREND IN ANNUAL earnings estimates over the past 3 years – PROVE TO YOURSELF that THE TREND IN EARNINGS ESTIMATES is HIGHLY CORRELATED to stock price movements. What you will see is that companies whose earnings per share rises, their stock price rises. If the earnings estimate trend is flat, then so is the stock price. If the earnings estimates are falling, so is the stock price. WOW! Really? Yes, really. In the end, it all is quite rational (despite periods of irrational markets or unloved/overloved stocks). You will see this correlation in virtually all your stocks and in virtually all stocks in the entire universe. So for INVESTORS, always know the direction of the change in ANNUAL earnings estimates. More coming on the trends in earnings estimates. Retrospective commentary - October 9th 2026 Beskar Capital giving Bradley a shoutout when he says something that makes sense! 🤣 We recently built a fundamental report card for our members – a new tool to assess the overall fundamental strength of their holdings. Anyone who mentions “Report Card” in the comments will receive a private message with instructions to receive a special discount on our website membership. 👍💸 Fundamental analysis has been relegated to the minor leagues in terms of consideration and importance in the investing social space. Exactly what we would expect during the meltup phase of the real estate/banking crisis cycle. Multi-year periods of easy credit will do that. But fundamental analysis is slowly beginning to come back into vogue as the credit tightens. As we said in the original publication of this KTS: there’s no escaping it. The cracks are starting to show. You can feel it. The environment isn’t as rosy as it used to be, and you’re starting to feel like you need more than a few posts from popular finfluencers to build conviction and buy a stock. You need something more solid. And you know it. KTS #65 is a mandatory re-read if you want to build a rocksolid foundation. Most of these finfluencers have no real idea how to assess a company’s fundamentals. I even came across a popular account on this platform that claimed $VST was a natural gas company. 🤣 You wonder if they ever do their own research! 😂 Anybody can make an AI text to hype you up on tech stocks with a story that sounds bullish and completely convincing……without any earnings. This is the meltup. A TIME when you may be better off LEARNING THE FUTURE 😉., which can save you a lot of money…🤑💸 Even when there are specific TIMES when minimizing the role of fundamental analysis is warranted and frankly a good idea, fundamentals must remain at the core of every successful long-term investor’s strategy. Knowing the type of market you are in with respect to the real estate/banking crisis cycle is key to understanding what comes next. I always give you my Best! 🏆 This is the Way! 🏄🌊 read more
300+ Cybercabs on the road in Austin right now. That's 8x fleet growth in 30 days. Dallas is next. The robotaxi story went from “someday” to “right now” FAST. These are steering-wheel-less cars. No driver. Actually doing rides. And it hasn't been pretty. CNBC called month one “rocky”: long waits, wrong dropoffs, regulators sniffing around certification. Bears: 395x trailing P/E. HSBC at $157. The future is priced in. This is a car company in a costume. Bulls: a real autonomous network, scaling in real time, and this is only the start. I'm a believer in the AI & robotics thesis. Long-term hold for me. But I'm not going to pretend the execution looks clean. Robotaxi is either the whole thesis playing out... or the most expensive test fleet in history. Where do you stand? 👀read more
On October 2nd, Micron cleared the level I was watching by a dollar twenty. This Friday it closed at 1,029.0, twenty cents under its floor. Same stock, same kind of line, opposite side. It wasn't the only name I graded. Eight stocks carried a level into last week: four worked, two were mixed, and two failed. Nvidia and $AMD both hit their ceilings early in the week, then gave all of it back. Something else flipped too. The chips that fell now have more room to their next ceiling than distance to their floor, but each one is still sitting under its central line. The software names that won are the stretched ones now. That flip, Oracle's cash problem and every level for the week ahead are in "The Money Didn't Leave. It Moved." on my newsletter. Chips with room, or software with momentum? 🤷🏻♀️ Not investment advice 🐝 read more
Volatility: how far a stock's price swings from day to day. A steady utility barely moves, while a name like $NVDA can swing 3% or more in a single session. Bigger swings mean bigger potential gains — and bigger potential losses. That is the price of admission for higher returns. Volatility is not risk itself, but it is how risk feels. Spreading money across an index ETF like $SPY smooths the ride. Not financial advice.
For context: $ZETA represents 17% of my portfolio at a $16.56 cost basis, up ~100%, and I haven't sold a single share. Tomorrow I'm publishing my complete $ZETA investment case, and here's a preview of what's inside: - Why ROAS sits at the center of the entire pitch - The data moat no competitor can replicate - Athena plus the OpenAI, Palantir, Snowflake, and AWS partnerships - My DCF and bear/base/bull scenarios running to 2031 I think $ZETA emains undervalued at $32.63, and this is a 3-5 year compounder rather than a 3-5 week trade, so stay tuned. It drops on my Substack tomorrow, subscribe so you don't miss it 👇 https://substack.com/@summitcapitalcoread more
Quick math before anything else. Monday a stock goes from $100 to $125. That's up 25%. Tuesday it drops back to $100. Down 20%. Two days later the stock is exactly where it started. Now run a 2x fund on that same stock. Monday it's up 50%, so $100 turns into $150. Tuesday it's down 40%, and $150 turns into $90. Stock: flat. 2x fund: down 10% 📉 (made up numbers, real arithmetic) Nothing broke there. The fund did exactly what it says on the label, because the 2x (or 3x) on a leveraged ETF is a promise about one single day. It resets every night and starts over the next morning. Hold it for a month and what you get is a string of daily bets stacked on top of each other, which can land a long way from double the stock's month. What follows from that: Chop is what hurts. Up, down, up, down grinds the fund lower even when the stock ends up right back where it began. A clean trend does the reverse. Two 10% up days in a row is 21% for the stock and 44% for the 2x fund, a little better than double. The extra exposure comes from swaps and futures, and these funds can cost more to hold than a plain index ETF. Inverse ETFs are the same machine pointed down. They chase the opposite of one day's move and reset the same way. And they've gone single stock. There are 2x funds built on $NVDA and on $TSLA now, plus a 3x fund on the Nasdaq 100 (the index $QQQ tracks at plain 1x). The myth to drop: "the stock doubled this year, so the 2x fund must have quadrupled." Maybe more, maybe a lot less. It depends on the path the stock took to get there, and the SEC and FINRA have each published an investor warning about exactly that gap. Ever held one of these for longer than a few days? Did it land anywhere near what you expected? 👇 Educational, not financial advice. Just my read.read more
I have been thinking about how to make this easy and actionable for anyone interested to learn about options trading and I thought there is no better way to start than by demonstrating what an option would look like if written out like a real contract between two people. In the following posts of this series I’ll cover the more technical stuff in detail, but for now I’ll keep this post fun, simple and without too much jargon… Strip it down and an option is basically a deal between a buyer (buying a right) and a seller (selling an obligation). So let's write a hypothetical options contract out. Take your time to read it, because all the terms you’ll need are sitting inside the contract. (strike, premium, expiration, underlying) ———— Draft CALL Contract Theoretical (this is just for illustrative purposes to help you understand the concept): I, Moe the buyer of this call option contract, reserve the right, but not the obligation to buy 100 shares of ABCD (underlying) for $50 per share (Strike Price) valid until 21st January 2027. In exchange for this right I agree to pay a premium of $1.50 per share. I, Mr. Market the seller of this option contract am obligated to sell 100 shares of ABCD for a set price of $50 until 21st January 2027 if the buyer chooses to execute the terms of this contract. For this I will receive $1.50 per share in premium. End of contract. ———— Now some quick context and basics to help land this for you guys: 1. We have two types of options contracts CALLS (option to buy when price goes up) and PUTS (option to sell when a price goes down) 2. All options contracts for stocks and ETFs are for 100 shares (you don’t pay price of share you only pay for the premium per share in the example above that would be 100*$1.5 to own the right to purchase the stock at $50) 3. Every contract has a strike price at which the buyer can exercise the contract to buy or sell the shares 4. Every contract has an expiration date after which if the holder doesn’t exercise it expires worthless and the seller keeps the premium. This is post one in a six post series, feel free to drop questions or feedback in the comments below and I’ll answer everything. Hope this was easy to follow for anyone looking to explore options and there is a real option contract example in the image attached.read more
