If you focus on the markets regularly then it can get stressfull and mentally taxing. It's important to unplug and to separate your mental state from the markets as to make better decisions over the long term. This is one of the leading pitfalls for new investors so I regularly try to remind people to take a step away and concentrate your mental energy on other projects. What are some methods that you use to disconnect and separate mentally from the markets? Personally, I go for bike rides or go kayaking, I've also gotten back into painting and drawing which activates a different section of my brain. Stimulating your brain in different ways will help make clearer more rational decisions.
What is actually considered a “pretty damn good” investment return? And if you’re earning 20%, 30% or even 40%+ in yield, should you really expect that to continue? Welcome back to Financial KarMoe Episode 19, where @karyungtom and Moe tackle another round of investing, personal finance and FIRE questions from the Blossom community. This episode goes deep into what a reasonable long-term investment return might look like, why comparing investment strategies isn’t always as simple as comparing two numbers, and why a high distribution or yield doesn’t automatically mean a higher total return. 📈 We start by discussing the idea of a “good” return and why expected returns need to be viewed in the context of risk. We also talk about high-yield strategies, covered-call ETFs, market demand and why investors should be careful about anchoring their expectations to unusually high returns. 📊 We then get into what you should actually compare your investment to? Kar explains why comparing two investments can be useful when you’re trying to isolate the reason for a performance difference—but much less useful when the investments have completely different strategies, levels of leverage or objectives. We also tackle a question from a new investor who wants to understand what to do with a non-registered account. We discuss capital gains, Canadian dividends, interest income, tax-loss harvesting, asset location and the trade-off between optimizing every last tax dollar versus keeping your investment strategy simple. 🌎 And yes… we talk about XEQT again. 😆 Both of us explain why we’re comfortable with the simplicity of using a broadly diversified all-equity ETF across accounts, while also discussing how investors with larger portfolios might choose to get more sophisticated with asset location. 🏖️ Then we shift into an important FIRE question: What happens when you stop accumulating and start spending? Would we still hold 100% XEQT or equivalent all-equity exposure in retirement? We discuss cash wedges, bonds, sequence-of-returns risk, withdrawals, distributions and why the “right” portfolio may depend heavily on the size of your portfolio and your retirement timeline. 🚗 We also answer some very non-investing questions—including whether it makes sense to buy a new versus used vehicle, whether a $100,000 car is reasonable if it represents only 5% of your net worth, and whether leasing a newer vehicle can ever be justified as a lifestyle choice. 🤓 We even tackle the question: “At what point can you stop calling yourself a beginner investor?” 💡 Finally, we discuss whether investors should try to time the market, the role of portfolio lines of credit and borrowing to invest, and why you should NEVER blindly copy another investor’s strategy. Your income, expenses, emergency reserves, job stability, family situation, risk tolerance and financial goals can all change the answer. And we finish with an important message about investing disagreements: you can disagree with someone’s strategy without thinking they’re an idiot. Different investors can have different goals, timelines and expectations—and that’s part of what makes markets work. https://youtu.be/UzNkFYu9xnoread more
$HDIV the ultimate Response 😆. Nothing solves an argument quite like "look this has done well already". Do I think HDIV is a bad product? I dont know. probably not. But it does have have traits I dislike. Activly managed? Yep to an extent (they pick sub indexes) High fees? You know it! A whole 2.5%. Diversity? At least 100..... Unverified on a few holdings..... Thats good, but not as good as a simple $VFV. The fund is a few years old. And we think we have enough data to fight about.... The truth is that funds go up and down. They dont always go up and down together. So I compared $HDIV to $XEQT. In single year returns. Im not suprised that Hdiv has done well, But it is a poor argument to say it has and always will do well..... Ive decided that I will get the market average very early on in my investing. That means looking at others having fun on rollercoaster while I relax in the lazy river. Some times others will have more fun, sometimes they wont and in 30 years I can say I got the average, what ever that aveage is.read more
Tell me you’re financially stable without actually telling me… Ill start: My wife once said: “Can we take a break from having steak?” 😂 That’s when you know you’ve made it.read more
Social media can really mess with your idea of what’s normal. Especially a finance app like Blossom. Spend enough time on Blossom and you start thinking everyone has $300K invested, gets 3k in divdiends every month, maxes their registered accounts every year and knows exactly what they’re buying. I spoke to a 19yr old with 60k invested at Blossomcon in Vancouver...INCREDIBLE! Then you talk to people outside the finance bubble and realize… that’s definitely not the norm 😂 If you’re here learning about money, investing and trying to improve your financial situation, give yourself some credit. You’re already doing more than most people simply by caring about it. Don’t let the people ahead of you make you forget how far you’ve already come. Keep on investing everyone! Oh and speaking of social media if you're not following my wife @jesswang you should! Just made her first post the other day on here! read more
If you talk to @jesswang she will tell you that I have financial thoughts in my head all the time, so after 10yrs of investing in the markets, reading blogs, books, listening to podcasts etc and becoming a millionare at 30yrs old here are some of the finanical knowledge that we've gained to help grow wealth in Canada • TFSA: $7,000 of new room each year. Invest inside it and let your growth + withdrawals stay tax-free. (Wife and I at over 430k in TFSA, invest early!) • FHSA: Up to $40,000 lifetime. Contributions can reduce your taxable income, and qualifying first-home withdrawals are tax-free. (Never used this since we bought in 2021) • RRSP: You can generally contribute up to 18% of your previous year’s earned income, subject to the annual limit. Great tool when you’re in a higher tax bracket. (RRSP is maxed for us each year and we take the tax return and put it towards the following year again) • RESP: The government can add a 20% CESG on the first $2,500 contributed per child each year. That's up to $7,200 in grants per child over time. (My 4yr old has 30k and 2yr old has 11k, take advantage of the government match) • CPP: You don't have to take it at 65. Waiting until 70 increases the monthly payment substantially. (I plan take it at 70) • OAS: Same idea — delaying OAS to 70 can increase the monthly benefit. • Credit cards: Use them for convenience and rewards, not to carry debt. Pay the balance in full every month. (I use credit cards for everything, I have a wealthsimple cc 2% back on everything) • Housing: Don’t just ask, “What will the bank lend me?” Ask, “What payment can I comfortably afford?” (Get a broker, shop for rates, itll save uou money) • Investing: Keep it simple. Broad-market, low-cost ETFs can be an incredible long-term strategy. (4 ETFS make up 80% of my portfolio) • Emergency fund: Keep enough cash available that an unexpected expense doesn't force you to sell investments at the wrong time. Or just invest it into xeqt like myself lolol or keep cash... • Lifestyle: Every raise doesn't need to become a bigger house, newer vehicle or more expensive vacation. (We live pretty below our means still) • Savings rate: Try to increase it over time. Even going from 10% → 15% → 20% can make a massive difference. (Prior to keys our savings rate was around 65-70% with a peak or 78% in 2020 during covid) The Canadian financial system has a LOT of tools available.The hard part isn't knowing they exist. The hard part is actually using them. 🇨🇦 Speaking of learning about money and connecting with other investors… I’m hosting the first-ever Blossom Meetup in Saskatoon on Saturday, October 3rd! 🎉 If you’re from Saskatchewan (or anywhere else and want to make the trip 😂), come hang out, meet other investors, talk personal finance, and network. It’s FREE and everyone is welcome! Event link will be in the comments below! read more
I did something to my $600,000 portfolio this morning that made the word risk feel very different. I’ve been listening to The Income Factory, and there’s a lot of discussion about risk. Low risk. Medium risk. High risk. I’ve been investing for almost 3½ years, and I’m realizing there’s a big difference between saying I understand risk and actually seeing what it could look like. So I put some dollars beside it. If my $600,000 portfolio drops 20%: $480,000. I’ve lost $120,000 on paper. 30%? $420,000. That’s $180,000. 40%? $360,000. That’s $240,000. And then there’s 50%. $300,000. Imagine I handed you a bag containing $300,000 and said: “Here you go. Light this on fire.” I’m guessing you’d have a few questions before reaching for the matches. Of course, a market drawdown isn’t the same as lighting money on fire. I still own my investments. It’s a paper loss, and broad equity markets have historically recovered from major declines. But what if I panic and sell? Now I’ve turned that paper loss into a real one. And suddenly the bag and the matches don’t seem quite as ridiculous. That’s what has me thinking. Risk can look very different depending on what we own. A single stock has different risks than owning hundreds or thousands of companies. Dividend stocks can fall. VFV can fall. XEQT can fall. My GICs have different risks again. Different investments. Different risks. Different potential rewards. The question isn’t whether I can eliminate risk. It’s whether I understand the risk I’ve chosen to take. But there’s one more question that I think matters even more. What does it do to my plan? I’m 53. Retirement isn’t 30 years away anymore. I’m fortunate that I’ll have guaranteed pension income, so a major market downturn doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll have to start selling investments to fund my lifestyle. But what if I needed that portfolio? What if retirement was approaching and the $600,000 I was counting on suddenly showed $420,000? Or $300,000? Would my plan still work? I’m starting to think understanding risk isn’t simply being able to say: “I’m comfortable with a 30% decline.” It’s being able to say: I know what could happen. I know what it could do to my plan. And I know what I’m going to do if it happens. Try something. Take the value of your portfolio today and knock 30% off it. Look at the dollars, not the percentage. How does that make you feel? Now knock 50% off. And here’s the question I’m really interested in: Does your plan still work?read more
..... and counting.........using one single KTS #2 Tool. 😂🤣 And I told you exactly how to do it about two years ago. Seriously. Go check for yourself. Open your favorite accounts on this app right now and look at their all-TIME returns. I’ll wait. Nobody’s close. Most portfolios on this app? 😂🤣 In March 2024, I shared a simple ETF approach that could be used to READ, LISTEN to, and TIME the markets to achieve double-digit annualized returns. (KTS #2 – Follow the Sector.) On April 29, 2024, I bought one share of $XME and one share of $XES as part of the “This Is the Way” series to demonstrate the application of KTS #2. Here's yesterday's RE-POST of the original March 2024 post sharing the KTS #2 tool: https://www.blossomsocial.com/posts/KTS-2-Follow-the-Sector-RE-POST__POST-1788528588432-2Vw4Cx2V_qoQV3QbaHcPIAvML And here's the link to the "This is the Way" Series post: https://www.blossomsocial.com/posts/This-is-the-Way-Series-1-KTS-2__POST-1714389509714-79HySrJi_qoQV3QbaHcPIAvML Since April 1, 2025, these two subsectors have returned: $XME: +110% 🏆 $XES: +75% 🏆 While $SPY returned only half of XES and one-third of XME for a measly +38%. 🤢🤮 You could have simply followed my second KTS post and outperformed…….everyone. 🤑🤑🤑 Think about all the TIME you’ve spent building your portfolio since that date? 🤔 Think about how you are juggling the daily ups and downs of economic data, concerned about whether you should be in …. or out of the SpaceX IPO. Is the semiconductor rally over? Is Crypto a buy again? Is the Fed going to raise or cut rates? The country’s debt is unsustainable!?!?!? Silver & Gold are back???? What’s Michael Burry thinking? What’s BlackRock buying? Are software stocks back for good? What’s going on in the Middle East? China and North Korea!?!?!? Russia-Ukraine??? Whatever happened to the ESG movement? Is TRUMP just saying shit to keep markets propped up until the midterms? And is the SpaceX IPO – at the highest level of understanding – just Elon Musk selling a new crypto coin to the Teachers’ Unions??? 🤣😂 You think this helps you. But does it? Does half of what you read really matter? Maybe it’s interesting. Maybe you’d rather be catching every financial news development because it’s your passion. But is it necessary for portfolio outperformance? 🤔 The answer is no. No, it’s not. That should be music to your ears! 😀😃😄😁🙂😊 There are even popular members of this community who preach spending 50–100 hours researching a single company before investing 😂🤪🫨😳🤣😆. And their profile shows an all-TIME return of……………-1.65%! WTF!?!?? In the greatest bull market of their life 😂. Oh geez. Keep it up basement boy - maybe you’ll get there one day? 😂🤣 Meanwhile……. successful investors step back to see the big picture. They read the plan and the strategy we laid out. They see it playing out in real-TIME and are reaping the rewards of their intelligence – and got their weekends back. 😎 Answer this honestly. It’s April 29, 2024, and you get to run it again. Door 1: Buy XME and XES, close the app, and go live your life for two years. Door 2: Your “sophisticated” portfolio, your watchlist, your 100 hours of research, your swing trading. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!!! 😂 Which door do you walk through? 🤔 I’ll give you 5 minutes to digest that……even though it should only take you 5 seconds. 😂 Or maybe you’re buying XEQT, VFV and other passive funds? Do you even know how just ONE measly percent of outperformance impacts your retirement age? 🤔😅 If not, read this: https://www.blossomsocial.com/posts/Why-Outperforming-the-SandP-500-Index-Matters__POST-1712844746313-WeQtSmOp_qoQV3QbaHcPIAvML Look at the chart attached and tell me which sector you would have wanted to own over the last 18 months. I’ll tell you what: my first pick wouldn’t be the line at the bottom (S&P 500), but that’s just me. Wanna know the best part? $XME and $XES have chopped sideways for most of this year (2026) building potential energy….and STILL beat virtually everyone on this app. Now wait until that coiled energy converts to kinetic energy! 🚀👩🚀😅😂🤑🤑🤑 And the party isn’t over. I told you when I bought it..…and you had a 2-year window to enjoy my content for free and learn an alternative approach designed to outperform any type of market. The ones who could recognize the true value and listen are now members because they understand that they can outperform for the rest of their lives by stepping back and reading the market instead of the news within the context of the real estate/banking crisis cycle. They’re also the only ones who’ll know when $XES and $XME aren’t favored sectors anymore. Always remember that I want you all to win! But I can’t do it for you. You have to recognize for yourself that conventionalist propaganda will never allow you to outperform… and take the steps to change that. Learn about membership here: https://www.beskarcapitalkts.com/ Natural selection is alive and well. I always give you my best. 🏆 This is the Way! 🏄🌊 read more
We’ve been taught how to work for money. Not how to make money work for us. Someone recently asked me: “How do you keep adding money to your investments when you’re not working?” It made me realize how big the gap in financial knowledge is. Most of us are taught: Work → get paid → spend → save what’s left → repeat. And when you want more money? Work more. But there’s another way: Earn → invest early and often → compound → let your capital produce more capital. Once your money is invested, it can potentially work for you in several ways: 📈 Appreciation: investments increase in value 💰 Dividends & distributions: investments pay you income 🏦 Interest: your money earns interest 🏢 Business ownership: you participate in the growth of companies 🏠 Real estate: appreciation + potential rental income 🔄 Compounding: your returns start generating their own returns 🧾 Tax efficiency: you keep more of what your money earns 💻 Income-producing assets: assets can generate money without trading hours for dollars I’m retired, and so far this year, my investments have grown and generated roughly $200,000 in value and income. I didn’t work a 9–5 for that money. My capital was working for me. And this is the part I wish more people understood: The goal isn’t simply to save money so you can eventually stop working. The goal is to invest early, invest often and give your money enough time to compound, so eventually your investments can help pay you instead. That’s when your money can start buying something even more valuable than things: Your time. Time to travel. Time with family. Time to pursue what you love. Time to simply enjoy the life you worked so hard to build. We’re taught how to earn a living. We should also be taught how to build capital that can eventually earn a living for us. Were you taught this growing up?read more
With Candlesticks?…. Be honest now… 😂 When you pull up a stock or ETF and there are candles, volume, timeframes… Are you thinking…. “Yep. That definitely looks like a chart. And it’s going up and to the right.” 😂 In my newest investing basics video, I break down how to make sense of stock charts, without turning you into a technical analysis wizard and muddying the waters with complicated TA (technical analysis) jargon. And there’s one thing I REALLY want to help beginners understand about charts that could save you from making some questionable assumptions about what you're seeing…..Just the basics you actually need to know to get started. If you know the basics, what do YOU use stock charts for? Do you ANALYZE them before investing…. or mostly just glance at the price direction and MA’s? I’ve been working hard to make regular, beginner friendly videos …. if you watched the video, was it helpful and clear? And please let me know what you would like to see next! https://youtu.be/w5fKjYfRDdEread more
A simple one: Do you own at least ONE stock or ETF in the commodity space? (oil,gas,coal,uranium,gold,silver,wheat,rare earths, etc.) This is the Way! 🏄♀️🌊🏄♂️🌊🏄🌊
I’m a Millionaire. It Doesn’t Feel Like I Thought It Would. Here’s something that feels strange to say. By the traditional definition of net worth what we own minus what we owe our household would technically be considered millionaires. I’m not saying that as a flex. In fact, that’s kind of the point. When I was younger, a millionaire meant big houses, fancy cars and expensive vacations. Basically, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. If you just heard Robin Leach’s voice, congratulations …..you’re probably my target audience. But being a millionaire at 53 looks surprisingly… normal. We have investments and equity in our home. We also have a mortgage, and I still get up and go to work. What got me thinking about this was my friend @williamwang23 Will’s recent post about becoming a millionaire in his early 30s. That’s an incredible accomplishment. But what really stands out to me is that Will became curious about money early. He learned, saved, invested and, most importantly, gave his money time. I didn’t start DIY investing until I was 50. We saved and built home equity, but I didn’t become curious enough about investing and money until much later. And I have to give @moementumfinance Moe credit for the word curious. He talked about it during our panel at BlossomCon, and it really stuck with me. Over the last three years, I’ve asked more questions, learned more and become much more financially literate. I’ve also made mistakes. I’ve posted things that weren’t quite right, and people here have corrected me. I’m good with that. Being financially literate doesn’t mean knowing everything. It means being curious enough to ask questions and open enough to learn from the answers. I wish I’d figured that out at 30 instead of 50. Because Will and I might technically carry the same “millionaire” label today, but he’s given his money decades more time to compound. That’s why the number itself is so relative. Our goal is still to build a $1 million+ investment portfolio by retirement. On paper, our net worth could eventually be well into the millions. But we’re not planning a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous retirement. We want to travel, enjoy our time, help our kids when we can and have enough that money gives us choices. And maybe that’s the funny part. Technically, I’m already a millionaire. But we’re still working toward becoming what younger me thought a millionaire was. Not the mansion or the yacht. The freedom. The security. The choices. Maybe that’s what being wealthy really means. What does being a millionaire mean to you? read more
The investing world is an endless loop of critics, especially here... Value Investors judge Indexers ($XEQT , $VOO , $VFV ) "Why pay fees for hundreds or thousands of overvalued stocks? Pick discounted companies yourself." Indexers judge Covered Call Investors ($HDIV , $QDAY , $TSPY ) "Why pay higher fees and cap your upside just for monthly or twice a month distributions?" Covered Call Investors judge Single Stock CC Investors ($MSTE ) "Too concentrated! Too risky! Just buy the underlying asset $MSTR " $IBIT Investors judge $MSTR buyers "Too much leverage! Just buy Bitcoin." Bitcoin Cold Storage Holders judge ($IBIT ) holders "Not your keys, not your coins. Get a cold wallet." Cold Wallet holders... "Hackers just drained over $130 million from hardware wallets starting in July...damn" The truth? There will always be someone telling you that your strategy is wrong. Who cares what anyone else thinks. Do extensive research, and then invest the way that makes sense to you and your life. Happy Investing Everyone! 🚀read more
Am I qualified to talk about investing compared to people like Ben Felix and The Plain Bagel? Because surely they know more than me, just some guy! I have been seeing quite a few posts getting mad at "finfluencers," so I can only speak for myself, no one else. I am going to copy and paste a response I just gave to @etf.go because I think the critique is valid, and I simply want to provide more insight into my background. I know most of you just see some brown guy in a hat who never changes his clothing and spends all day with his wife and kids, and yes, I am definitely that. But I worked EXTREMELY hard to build a life I can live on my own terms without financial stress. I started Youtube because I was becoming depressed working for funds and banks in Canada (regarding their ETFs) and felt like I was just spending all my spare time making the rich....richer, which is why I started my Youtube channel, it was the final step in me living the exact life I wanted, a way for me to share everything I know, share everything I am curious about and learning about, and hopefully make a positive impact my family would be proud of. SImple as that, no more, no less. Attached is ETF Go's response to a post questioning finfluencers. It is a VERY valid critique, so there is no defending anything, and here is my response below: "To give you some insight into my background, I have been working in capital markets for over a decade. I have worked alongside every major bank and fund in Canada, as well as several in the US. I understand the industry inside and out because it was my job to know exactly how everything works. In fact, I walked away from massive six figure contracts to start my YouTube channel, since breaking the NDA terms of my contracts could lead to institutions possibly suing me for speaking freely. Some of these NDA are still in effect, even though I stopped working with the funds/banks over a year ago, all NDA's will be completely null by May 2027, so look for more behind the scenes insights then. I personally hold well into the high seven figures in Index ETFs like VFV, Covered Call ETFs, and single stocks. I sell absolutely no courses or consultation services. My private community is just $1 a month, which is strictly to keep out scammers who pretend to be me and to give back. I only partner with companies I have years of experience with, ensuring they do not push predatory products, basically companies that I personally have a minimum of 6 figures invested in for a minimum time horizon of 10 years. The main difference between Ben Felix and myself is his objective. He uses his channel to acquire high net worth clients for PWL, he is actively monetizing his Youtube audience and selling his services, I AM NOT. I run my channel because I have already achieved financial freedom and can afford to say exactly what I want, without needing to sell a course or charge for services. These are the facts. Over time, as you become more familiar with my actual track record, success rate, and work history, I am confident you will see this too. It is easy to assume I am just another guy who turned on a camera to talk about a topic he just discovered. The reality is I made a living as an expert investor and used to be a consultant for every major bank and fund everyone loves on this platform for over a decade. Now, my focus is simply simplifying finance so everyday investors can learn and succeed. I have the freedom to be who I truly am online and to not care about the opinions of funds, institutions, or even viewers. Because I do not need the money, I can simply share what I know, how I feel, what excites me or what cool new thing I learned and what I like, with the hope that someone out there finds value in it. I hope that helps you understand me a bit more!"read more
There's so much of it online, including on blossom, so I thought of a way to spot bad/garbage financial advice from finfluencers. Here is a list of common investing misconceptions and improper terminology. If you spot content with this... You know what to do with it! 🗑️ 1. 'My dividend income from an ETF' ... funds give DISTRIBUTIONS. Clear sign of an inexperienced investor 2. 'I made blank%' ... Is it total return? Is it price return aka capital return or is it dividend/distribution yield? Is it time weighted return, money weight return? Is it on initial capital invested or or or. Missing that detail makes the statement meaningless or even ....misleading 🗑️ 3. 'Dividends/distributions are "free money”'... It isn't free money... It comes directly from the stock/fund you're invested in. A clear sign of not understanding how companies and ETFs distribute cash. 4. 'My investment is in the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 etc '.... no, they are indices you invest in the index ETF or mutual fund. There is a difference. Not understanding what an index fund is, and how a product attempts to track it can lead to very poor fund selection. 5. 'ETFs are diversified'.... Factually misleading... it depends completely on the ETF... You need to look under the hood to know the underlying holdings and the effective number of stocks. You could own 5 ETFs of one stock each or a few in a certain sector. The product itself doesn't make it a diversified investment. 6. 'MERs don't matter' ... MERs are a huge determiner of future fund performance and wealth. For example, a 2% MER is 50% LESS total returns for the 'world market' over 30 years. Clear sign of garbage content when disregarding something we can control. This is a basic of financial hygiene. 7. 'A stock is cheap because it's down blank % or because it's down blank % from its ATH' .... Price does not equal valuation... Ever. If you're picking stocks, a falling price could mean many things, including a mature business in decline, permanent decline. 8. 'Risk is volatility' .... Volatility is only ONE form of MEASURING price variance. Returns, time, benchmark, etc needs to be taken into consideration. 9. 'Bonds are safe or bonds don't lose money' .... Bond prices fluctuate and can do so wildly. Bonds may be less volatile than stocks, however, they still carry the risk of losing money and volatility. 10. 'I'm up 20% because my portfolio is larger by 20%' ... Portfolio value can change from CONTRIBUTIONS ... You can lose capital on your investments and contribute more than you lost and say... Hey my portfolio is bigger so I made 20%. Without knowing if new money was added and how much... 11. 'I beat the market' ... 'My performance compared to this benchmark is' would be the accurate way to frame it. One needs to know their twr and the return of 'the market'. W ithout sharing their benchmark and risk metrics, its pretty meaningless... No receipts means throw it in the trash. 12. 'Taking profits' ... You mean realizing a capital gain 🙃 it's just a tax event guys. 13. 'Good company means a good investment' ... Valuations matter and not all good companies are good stocks and vice versa. 14 'Paper loss , paper gain... You mean UNrealized loss or gain. The gain and loss are just not material tax events, that's all. Your portfolio value is your portfolio value at that time nonetheless. Don't think it isn't important just because it's not yet a tax event. 15. "The market is going to crash when .... the market is going to rip when.... buy this ... sell this" .....Predicting market movements, up and down, the duration, start and end dates, essentially macro market timing, has been studied academically for decades. No one can predict the future as much as finfluencers claim.... we cant even predict the weather next season with any accuracy let alone the next few years! These aren't just pedantic corrections. The wrong terminology and concepts often reveals a lack of financial fundamentals and understanding of principles. It could also reveal poor intentions. For example, someone who says “my ETF paid me a 10% dividend” may genuinely believe they've received a 10% RETURN, when they could actually have a fund that distributed 10% while the underlying investment LOST value. That's a much more important mistake than simply using the wrong word.... Be careful with who you follow, the content you ingest. And don't just believe me blindly... Look up financial concepts/terminology if you're unfamiliar with it and build up your knowledge base... once you start connecting the dots... you'll quickly be able to spot a charlatan in seconds of reading a post. Happy Thursday Blossomers!read more
There have been a lot of posts on here lately about portfolio lines of credit, and a few people have asked me what I think of them. Personally I'm not touching one right now, and it comes down to two things. The first is valuations, and I'm not predicting a crash when I say that, since I'd never try to time one. But the way I see it, the stock market is already incredibly leveraged, and it wouldn't take that much to trigger a fairly large sell-off at this stage. When the whole system is already stretched, I'd prefer to not be leveraged at this point. The second is that I'm already somewhat leveraged, just not in the way people usually mean. I have some student loans sitting at 0% interest, and every dollar I invest instead of paying them down is essentially a dollar invested with borrowed money. At 0% that's a comfortable amount of leverage for me. Adding a second loan at 4% to 5% on top of it is a different decision entirely. Wealthsimple's portfolio line of credit is prime plus 0.5% for most people right now, which works out to about 4.95%, and 3.95% if you're at the top tier. FP Canada's 2026 planning guidelines put expected returns on a diversified stock portfolio at roughly 6.3% to 6.6% a year before fees. So most people borrowing at 4% to 5% are hoping to clear about 1.5% to 2.5% a year on the borrowed money, and that's the average case. On $35,000 borrowed, that's roughly $500 to $900 a year, before tax. I don't feel comfortable with the majority of people paying 4% to 5% interest to invest right now, because expected returns over the next number of years aren't significantly higher than that. You're taking a lot of risk for not much potential gain. Say you have $50,000 invested and you borrow another $35,000 to buy more, so $85,000 is in the market. If stocks drop 30%, which they've done plenty of times, your $85,000 becomes $59,500. You still owe the full $35,000, so what's left of your own money is $24,500. The market fell 30% and you fell 51%. The interest bill of about $1,700 a year keeps coming the whole time you wait for the recovery, and if the drop is big enough, the lender can ask for some of the money back at the exact moment you'd least want to sell. I'm not against borrowing to invest in every situation, and I don't think the people doing it are being reckless. Someone with a steady income, a long timeline and a rate well below what they can reasonably expect to earn can make a case for it, and that's their call to make. For the amount of upside on the table today though, I'll keep my leverage where it is, at 0%. If you're using a portfolio line of credit, what rate are you paying, and what return are you counting on?read more
I will roast your portfolio. Nothing is financial Advice. I am the furthest thing from a professional this app has to offer. I sleep at in an hour and a bit. so Hurry up and Happy sunday.
I see alot of lazy list on blossom. typicall it looks like this.... $QDAY .25 $SDAY 1.45 $CDAY 4.50 $BIGY 11.11 $ULTY 2.72 $MSTY .70 $HYLD 1.87 $HDIV 19.22 $QDTE 9.30 ......The list goes on! What did you add? Why only show the distributions? How does showing only one side of the picture help others make up there mind in an investing process? I have all these questions that really boil down to 1 thing. hype. This platform lets you slam a bunch of popular tags on a post that adds basically nothing to the conversation. If investing in yield products solved investing that would have happend already years ago. Instead of posting this why not a comprehensive show if total returns and how distributions landed you with a solid alpha? Because that take alot of effort, instead.... lists.read more
People, let's try to have intellectual discussions on this platform when we have differences in opinion. I learn from arguments, but unfortunately someone just blocked me for a simple argument over a company I'm invested in and bought this morning. Surprise, it's $PLTR bum bum bummm. I don't agree with everything Palantir does. Does it worry me? Yes. Would I consider divesting in the future? Yes. I have openly talked about my issues and conflicting feelings regarding Palantir and Alex Karp on Blossom. But financially, the company has been good to me, and I can't pass opportunities like this up. That's the reality. That doesn't mean that I would ever support the IDF or ICE. You can't just make assumptions like that about people.
I always see people making fun of the statement "Do your own research" or pushing back on people when they suggest it, and I've never understood that because "do your research" is probably the best advice anyone can give you. It puts the ball completely in your court. I remember it took years for me to even strike up the courage to put money into the stock market. Investing seemed so inaccessible to me. Like, what do you mean people just throw their money into the market and "hope it goes well"? I think maybe I was on a Reddit thread and I kept coming across that line, "do your research" and "start learning about the stock market". I realized I'd been waiting for someone to take me under their wing or to maybe find some course, or meet some stock broker on a plane, but I decided to just jump into it. At the time, it seems like a completely different language. P/E? Earnings report? Brokerage account? Liquidity? Margin? The first time I even looked at an earnings report I had no idea what I was looking at. When I first started researching, I thought I wanted to be a day trader, but as I started looking into it and the statistics, the success rate, the taxes involved, I realized I was more of a long term trader. I started watching Youtube videos, reading articles from Bloomberg, Reuter's, The Financial Times, Investing.com, joining Reddit threads, watching the Schwab Network, listening to the Motley Fool podcast at night. It was slow at first, but as I started to understand the terms, and see what one should not invest in - the mistakes and successes - I started to get excited. It was maybe 6 or 7 months before I bought $VNQ and $NVDA. Both of which I had decided on after looking at the holdings and past earnings reports for both of them, respectively. I spent months and months, thinking about both of these, looking at charts, watching interviews, talking to different people, watching videos on Youtube about people's investment theses before I decided to actually buy. So, I never took a course, it wasn't exactly one person who said, "Go, buy this". Each one was an investment thesis that had began through careful consideration, research, debating in my head, and slowly grew like a snowball. That has always stuck with me. Everything that I have ever bought has been after days, weeks, months, even years of reading up and trying to figure out everything I possibly can about $BTC, $CRWV, $DRAM, $NVTS, $AMD, $PLTR, you name it. Have I made some mistakes? Definitely. At the end of the day, research can only take you so far, eventually, you have to jump in the pool and start swimming. But the best advice I could give any brand new investor, is just start teaching yourself. Maybe not everyone is going to be quite to the degree of obsessiveness that I am, but I believe anyone can learn about investing and become a good investor. It's like with anything, the only things you really need are time, motivation, and hard work. Don't wait for someone to come around and try to sell you a fucking course, or think ChatGPT or Claude is going to make you a millionaire. If you REALLY want this, start reading, take the time, teach yourself. We are in the 21st century; we have a wealth of knowledge at our fingertips. So, go get it.
I’ve gotten to know a bunch of you through Blossom events, messages, and just being around the community, but I realized I’ve never actually shared much about myself or how I ended up here. For those I haven’t met yet, I’m Tim, I’m 20, and I work as an intern on the Brand Partnerships team here at Blossom. My journey here has been a pretty unconventional one. Growing up, my entire world was gaming. I started playing Fortnite competitively at a pretty young age, eventually playing professionally and getting signed to some of the biggest organizations in esports, including Overtime. Then, before high school, I decided to walk away from it. I had spent so much of my childhood behind a computer that I wanted to experience a completely different side of life. Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with business. From flipping cars, to running Amazon FBA, to starting and eventually selling a landscaping business, I was constantly trying something new. Some things worked, a lot didn’t, but I loved figuring out how to build something from nothing. That same curiosity eventually led me to investing. I became fascinated by the businesses behind the stocks. How they made money, why some companies won while others didn’t, and ultimately where I wanted to put my own money. That interest eventually led me into finance and most recently private equity. For a while, I thought I’d stay on the traditional finance path. Then I joined Blossom. It was a completely different direction, but looking back, it brought together pretty much everything I loved: investing, entrepreneurship, technology, and building. And it’s genuinely been some of the most fun I’ve ever had. I’ve gotten to work on things I never expected to be doing at 20, travel across the country for BlossomCon, and learn firsthand what it takes to build a company. But easily the best part has been the people. Working alongside @tigertim , @maxstocks, @brandon , and the rest of the team has given me some of my favourite memories. Everyone here genuinely cares about what we’re building, moves insanely fast, and still manages to have a ton of fun doing it. The culture being built at Blossom is something really special, and I’m incredibly excited to see where we take it. I also want to hear from you guys. If there’s anything you love about Blossom, think we could do better, or want to see us build in the future, drop it below or shoot me a message. I’d genuinely love to hear it, and you’ll definitely be seeing more of me on here :)read more
TL;DR Will re-buy in 35-45 days though. Since I started to document my investing journey on Blossom for nearly 3 years now, I’ve always been very transparent about my losses and gains, so I thought I would share a little more about my tax-loss harvesting plan with you! As you know, I thought that space stocks crashing 30% crash in early June was basically the greatest deal ever with some companies trading at more juicy metrics in a long time, so I bought even more (on margin, but not much) The thing is that space stocks kept falling double digits, so as my TFSA shrinks, so the collateral available on my margin. Plus the collateral decreased further as my $LUNR position shrank inside my margin too. I was getting more and more in the over-leveraged territory, but somehow, and for those wondering, I managed to never get the special call from Wealthsimple, but I was not far away 😅 My $LUNR position in my margin account ended up down around 60%. Small caps and space stocks have been hit hard by the SpaceX IPO, macro uncertainty, fears of rate hikes, etc. Meanwhile, $LUNR now trades at roughly a 3.5x forward P/S, while many other space stocks trade at significantly higher multiples around 75x ($RKLB) to 150x ($ASTS) and even 420x (hey $SPCE) $LUNR is also expecting positive adjusted EBITDA and roughly 4x revenue growth for full-year 2026. Btw, the stock has a $1.8B backlog which is more than half their market cap 🤦♂️ So yes, I still think $LUNR is insanely undervalued, which is exactly why I didn’t want to sell! This was for context. Earnings are still about 60 days away, I don’t really see the macro environment improving much before November and I currently have a couple of grands in losses I can potentially use for tax-loss harvesting. So here’s the strategy I chose: 1. I (temporarily) sold the $LUNR position in my margin account that was down around 60% to harvest the loss. 2. Since I can’t repurchase the same position within 30 days without risking the superficial loss rule, I’ll probably wait around 35–40 days just to be safe. 3. The risk is obviously that $LUNR surges higher during that period and I lose the chance to buy back at these levels. But if the stock falls I can potentially rebuild the position at an even lower price. Time will tell! 4. In the meantime, I continue to hold 400 shares of $LUNR in my TFSA. If $LUNR increases, so the collateral in my margin. Finally taking a decision on this feels like a relief. Sometimes you just have to take advantage of the opportunities you have to realize losses when it makes sense 🫡 Looking forward to re-increase my $LUNR in 35-40 days before earnings.read more
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Do you own at least ONE stock or ETF in the commodity space? (oil,gas,coal,uranium,gold,silver,wheat,rare earths, etc.)
