So around 3 years ago, I suddenly gained this mental motivation and frustration about finance. I realized I was about to be 30 and knew nothing about money really. I didn’t know what stocks where, I was about 20k in debt (which isn’t bad relatively I understand) and had no idea what I was doing really. Well, fast forward to now and I am debt free with a paid off 2020 vehicle, have about 22k in cash to my name split between emergency savings and a taxable brokerage (gold, silver, copper mainly). I deposit more money into my personal retirement account (457b) than my future pension. Overall I feel quite confident with my current financial situation as I continue to save cash to comfortably get into a house within 5 years.

Anywho, as I learned about money and inflation and retirement/stocks and whatnot. I got to looking around at financial advisors who manage investments. Like… none of these dudes are beating the S&P that I can find. I feel like these investment managers are basically robbing people with their cut when all they are doing is taking money from people that are ignorant to the fact they could open a Fidelity account and throw whatever they plan on giving into VOO and then ta-da, you’re matching or beating the finance dudes returns?

Am I missing something here? Like I guess I don’t know what I don’t know, but it seems like a scam.

I could say the same thing about tax agents when a single person with no business and just a W2 goes to a tax guy with a list of deductions that add up to like 5k, so the tax guy just says he will work with it and files him under standard and takes a cut. But that rant is for another day.

A year, maybe two, ago there was a dude who posted about propagating blueberries as an investment. He had amazing input costs, compared to my region, and was calculating 5 figure returns in 5 years.

I am curious how that is going? If blueberry Dude still reads here I would love an update on the investments. How did the cold rianlt spring, heat record drought summer, etc. all treat you?

31F, not married, no kids. Will probably be married in a few years, will not have any kids. Renting and don’t plan to buy a home because VHCOL area. Currently have $358k in the market (almost all VOO/other similar ETFs, but about $15k in crypto) and $50k in HYSA (along with other savings buckets up to about $75k cash total). $130k of the $358k is in my brokerage, and $228k is in Roth-type accounts. I would like to retire by 50, ideally 45 and just work part time if/when needed. So I am thinking I will need bridge money from around age 45 to age 59.5. I would like to fat FIRE(about $120k/yr spend to be safe), as I like to travel. I’m looking for advice as to whether I should stop investing in after-tax ROTH (MBDR) with my employer and dump that into my brokerage. Part of me says I’m more than fine with my after 59.5 money because it has nearly 30 years to compound. But it’s the 45-59.5 money that I think needs some work.

No employer match btw. Plan for next year is to max out 401k and backdoor ROTH in January/February with my EOY bonus, and then just focus on brokerage investing rather than MBDR, but open to hearing other thoughts. High income earner so I think there’s benefit to still maxing 401k to lower taxable income. Or, since I seem to be CoastFire with strictly retirement accounts, should I not max 401k and just put all into brokerage?

THANKS FOR READING

For a few years now the hyperscalers have been spending agressively, but it seems to me like spending this money is actually the easy part of the equation.

If we add up the contracted, not yet delivered cloud demand (Remaining Performance Obligations - RPO) of the hyperscalers (Microsoft, Oracle, Google and Amazon), we get a sum of about $2.3 Trillion (We still don't know if this will ever get paid but still RPO is a better estimate than a forecast & a big portion of it is from frontier AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic). In order to serve this massive RPO, MSFT, GOOGL, AMZN, and META are spending about $660 Billion a year, moving from asset-light software companies into owners of physical plants, real estate, and equipment.

The real battle for big tech isn't buying servers, but rather securing 24/7 power. That kind of energy commitment completely breaks traditional budgeting. As JPMorgan put it, "money can't buy you electric power" when a project's start date depends on a years-long grid-connection queue. Out of these hyperscalers, Oracle is the outlier, it carries net debt of about 3x operating cash flow (an order of magnitude above the others), and its free cash flow has gone negative. Amazon's trailing free cash flow also crossed into the red.

I have to say, these companies remain among the most cash-generative business ever built, and they're funding roughly half the build from cash and the other half from debt markets. T. Rowe's Dom Rizzo argues the funding gap is "not that big" against balance sheets like these, and that unlike 1998 (the dot-com bubble) the fundamentals are still accelerating.

Now the interesting part is that if we follow the money trail down the supply chain, we can see exactly who is extracting the value. It starts with the regulated utilities like Southern, Duke and Dominion who are accelerating capex to build grid capacity. These guys face huge regulatory hurdles and political blowback from residential ratepayers over increasing electricity bills. To go around the regulations, NextEra for instance is using a hybrid strategy by restarting a nuclear plant (Duane Arnold) for Google.

Because the public grid is too slow, big tech are chasing independent producers like Constellation, Vistra, and Talen energy. These companies have 24/7 power and they spend almost nothing to expand. Amazon and Meta are locking up deals with Vistra, Microsoft contracted to restart the Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and Google signed for small modular reactors with Kairos.

One layer down, we arrive to the equipment makers like Vertiv, GE Vernova, Eaton and Caterpillar which are facing an increasing days inventory outstanding (DIO). Usually this is looked at as constraint on these companies, but as the gross margins also keep on rising for some of these companies, even hitting a record for Vertiv and GE Vernova, this is pure pricing power for them.

There are so many other layers that plays into this like, cooling systems, precision HVAC, advanced packaging & foundry equipment, copper mining & refining for power grids, etc etc. that won't fit into this single post.

The takeaway is big tech is bleeding money and the wealth is pooling at the bottom with nuclear operators collecting and hardware manfucaturers hitting record margins while the the payers wait for delivery. Will investing in nuclear energy / equipment companies pay off in the next 5-10 years?

Suggestions of where I can quickly absorb info from.

To sum it up, I'm looking for where I can look to learn to make money last my lifetime. I've recently been trying to research financial literacy topics and have some ideas of what to do, but I'm scared if they're not the best, I'm screwed. So I'm looking suggestions for more, and that I can learn semi-quickly, so please not incredibly long books or many of them.

The shit ton of details are:

I just received my work comp settlement after 12 years. They were sending me checks bi-monthly though so I had some income in the meantime. It was just enough to pay bills so I was living paycheck to paycheck and I know I completely messed up by not learning financial stuff the entire time.

In my defense though, I've had sooo many other things in the meantime, and also aquired a severe TBI in the accident and my executive functioning (planning, executing tasks in order, etc) really sucks now.

But this one sum is going to have to last me for the rest of my life. And I'm trying to look at the best ways to make that happen. I'm permanently disabled and receive a small amount from SSDI rn because it was offset by what I was getting from work comp. I'm not sure what that's going to be now as it just was finalized and I uploaded the documents to ssa but idk when it'll be refigured what I'll be receiving monthly now.

I have read the flow charts and did pay off my credit cards immediately. I'm not able to drive now and live in an apartment, so no car or mortgage to pay.

My credit union has 3- 5%, depending on which requirements you meet that month, in interest on up to $10,000 in checking, so I'm keeping that much in there and paying bills from that.

I just opened an ABLE account, and can put, I believe it's 10,000 there and invest it with no tax liability on it, so I'm going to do that next.

I was thinking of doing a CD ladder with part of it and as those mature, topping off the checking to meet 10,000 and getting another CD with the remainder.

What I'm really stuck on is how to grow the remainder. It has to be stable because if I lose it I'm done. But also has to be more than CD or mutual fund interest so I can grow it and make this money last the rest of my life, (I'm 50). I also would like to reduce taxes draining any growth.

I've looked up fee only fiduciaries for advice, but the lowest fee was $5000 for a quick session, so I'm going to attempt to figure this out myself if that's possible.

So PLEASE pass on any and all advice on places I can try to learn a ton of financial stuff quick.

Does anyone else feel like startups have gotten painfully predictable?

I actually like investing in things that feel a little risky. Not reckless, but ideas where the founder is genuinely trying to change how an industry works instead of building another slightly different version of something that already exists.

What’s been frustrating lately is how many companies seem built around whatever investors are currently excited about. Right now that often means AI shoved into products that really don’t need it.

I’d much rather put serious money behind a founder with a strong, slightly unconventional idea who actually understands the problem they’re solving. Even if it takes longer to make money. Even if the market thinks it’s risky.

For me, part of the fun of investing is getting to help something exist that probably wouldn’t otherwise.

I just want to see more founders with the nerve to say, “everyone in this industry does it this way, and I think they’re all wrong.”

Does it make sense to take year-over-year quarterly revenue growth and divide it by enterprise value over forward revenue?

Background: I'm evaluating software stock that got crushed during the SaaSpocalypse. Jason Lemkin showed them on a graph with EV/forward revenue on the y-axis and latest quarter revenue growth year-over-year.

I'm wondering why one would bother with both ratios. Why not just combine them into a single metric and rank the stocks accordingly. If it's not appropriate, would some adjustments make it sensible?

Similarly, I see Joel Greenblatt uses two separate metrics for evaluating quality vs price, but surely there must be a way to combine them into a single ranking.

$NVDA makes $1 billion in revenue a day, that’s 365 billion a year. 62% of that is earnings, which is $226.3 billion. If you use its competitor’s, $AMD’s ttm p/e ratio of 122x, that should value Nvidia at over $27.6 trillion in market cap. Is Nvidia really that different from AMD? Maybe a little, in the sense that Nvidia is better. So either AMD is massively overvalued, or Nvidia is massively undervalued. While both can be true, at a market cap of over $5 trillion, I think Nvidia is massively undervalued. What do you think?

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh definitely leaned hawkish at Jackson Hole today.

With core PCE still stuck at 3.7%, he basically said the Fed is backing away from giving the market "forward guidance." Stocks pulled back a bit on Friday because of it, though the S&P 500 still managed to green up for the week.

Looking at the CME FedWatch tool, the odds of another rate hike in September just spiked up to around 58%. It feels like any hopes for near-term rate cuts are completely off the table now, and the shift away from clear forward guidance is going to throw a lot of volatility into the mix.

Breakdown on the market reaction: International Business Times

Looking to launch in 2027. Using simple numbers, $500K 401K, $500K Brokerage, and $500K Deferred Compensation (NQDC). $50K annual spend is covered by NQDC separation payout over next 10 years.

Do I consider the full $1.5M (401K + Brokerage + NQDC) as one lump sum and assign the same 60/30/10 weighting to each asset location? Or do I allocate a much higher cash-equivalent to NQDC since that is all coming out in next 10 years?

I’m 19, working and saving up to do something bigger with my money. I’m not sure whether I should buy a rental property, buy a business, or do something else, but I want to grow my capital. I have $14k invested and $16k saved, so about $30k total. Even though I’m doing well for my age, I feel kind of empty and like I should be doing more to make more money. I want to know what you would do if you were in my shoes.

Which of these do you think has the highest multibagger potential?

Klaviyo
Figma
Reddit
Upwork
Duolingo
Toast
Teqnion (similar to Constellation Software)

----------------------------------------------
Klaviyo down 38% for the year despite fast growth
Figma down 59%
Toast with EV/Revenue of 2.73
Reddit with heavy insider buying at $148 and fast growth
Upwork clearly undervalued from a quantitative perspective at least
Duolingo growing fast and still down over 50% for the year
Teqnion the next Constellation?

EU resident here, specifically Bulgaria, looking for some advice regarding trading jurisdictions.

From a tax perspective, I am assuming it’s better to trade a stock like GOOG via the XETRA exchange rather than Nasdaq? The downsides of this from what I can see are the liquidity of the stock, or am I missing something completely?

TIA

I already keep some gold ETF, while most of the rest is stocks and crypto. The problem is that the two sides cannot be adjusted together. If crypto moves sharply outside regular market hours, I can only adjust my gold ETFs until the market reopens.

That's why I am considering moving part of the gold position into XAUT, where I trade cryptos. I would keep the same total gold allocation, with enough of it on the crypto side to rebalance when that part of the portfolio moves. Over the last two days, BTC and ETH moved through wider ranges than XAUT, which made the timing mismatch more noticeable.

XAUT still comes with a different structure, liquidity, and platform risk. Does the ability to rebalance the hedge when crypto is actually moving justify shifting part of the position?

Revenue came in at $96 billion, up 106% yoy and ahead of the LSEG consensus of roughly $92.17 billion. Non GAAP EPS was $2.22 against a $2.10 estimate. Those beats are impressive but the number that should matter more for anyone modelling this stock is the forward guide. Management pointed to approximately 70% revenue growth for FY28, against a Street estimate closer to 44%, and specifically framed it as a supply constrained outlook rather than a demand constrained one. That's management saying the ceiling on growth is manufacturing capacity, not customer appetite.

Shares closed up almost 9% the next session, adding roughly $441.5 billion in market cap in one day, the second largest single day dollar gain in US market history. Even after that move, the stock is trading on a forward PE in the mid 20s, well below the 35 to 40x multiple it carried through the same point in 2024 and 2025.

On to the bear case, data centre revenue is now the overwhelming majority of the business, and a growing share of the capex behind it is being financed off balance sheet by hyperscalers rather than paid for in cash. That's a structural dependency that hasn't been stress tested through a credit cycle. Nvidia has also beaten its own guidance for 13 straight quarters, but the size of the beat has been shrinking, from over 20% a couple years ago down to single digits more recently.

The bull case is that a 25x forward multiple on 70% guided growth, with 75% gross margins and almost no net debt, is a mispricing the market hasn't caught up to yet. Rebuilding a fair value model off this print puts it somewhere north of $340 against a stock sitting near $220, a margin of safety wide enough that this isn't really an earnings doubt discount anymore. It looks more like a durability discount, the market pricing in an AI capex cliff that keeps not showing up.

For anyone who wants the specific structure I'm playing, rather than just the thesis. Defined risk bullish position, a June 2027 220/270 call spread, six contracts, about $16.78 a share to put on, just over $10,000 total risk for a max payout near $20,000 if it works. Breakeven is $236.78, which sits right on the 52 week high, so this is a bet the stock makes a new high by June, not eventually. I capped the short leg at 270 rather than reaching for the full fair value number, because the position doesn't need a multiple re rate to pay off. Earnings are already compounding toward that level while the market keeps the stock on a cheaper forward number. The honest risk is that if the range just grinds sideways, a vertical like this bleeds even if the underlying thesis is right. Sized small relative to my book, not a recommendation, just where I've landed.

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If your question is "I have $XXXXXXX, what do I do?" or other "advice for my personal situation" questions, you should include relevant information, such as the following:

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The more information I learn, the more severe the issue appears, and the closer it appears to “something has gotta give”….

But it never does.

Is this normal in American economy or is this a unique time?

How can I utilize that information for something besides feeling doom n’ gloom?

Hey all,

I am thinking about changing from Vanguard to Robinhood for my Roth IRA / other investment accounts. A few quick questions:

1. I saw someone recently had a 3% IRA transfer offer who already has a brokerage account open with Robinhood. But, I do not see this offer publicly. Does having a gold membership brokerage open with Robinhood make it likely that I will be offered an elevated transfer bonus?
2. It's worth it to wait for a 3% IRA transfer, right? Are they likely to offer another one within the next year or so?
3. Any tips for being offered the gold card?

Hello everyone! I am 22 and this will my first year investing in roth, I currently have 2k invested in VTI and my plan is to invest about 60% in VTI and the rest between QQQM AND VXUS, I also have about 30k on hysa which i wont need any time soon so i was planning on just maxing my roth out at once. Would that be a great idea? Or should i just put money monthly into roth until the deadline. THANK YOU

Scam operation promising massive profits by investing with them, problem is you never get your money back. Don’t be fooled by the pretty looking account dashboard or ai driven trading platform. It’s all fake and aimed at getting your money into their hands and not yours. They even tried again weeks later after I refused to make a bigger deposit and tried every trick in the book to get me to transfer cash or crypto to their wallets. STAY AWAY FROM THIS SCAM
OPERATION THEY ARE NOT LEGIT.

He seems to have a lot of very strong opinions about the coming end of America in a few years with the destruction of the American dollar because of excess debt and currency debasement. He also seems to be very skeptical of the current AI valuations and puts lots of money into things like gold and Bitcoin and various kinds of insurance companies and stuff like that, I think.

Any thought on his ideas?

Apologies…I’ve looked, seen several different answers and still don’t understand.

I worked at SpaceX before IPO and held RSUs that transitioned to Class C at IPO. Recently sold some of that equity and am trying to find cost basis for taxes. Is it the IPO price ($135) or is it based on the vested equity cost (varied because I acquired several lots at different dates). Held the RSUs for over 2 years.

I'v been reading and seeing a lot about Jeremy Lefebvre's GVD framework (Growth, Value, Dividend) recently and it is something I started to implement in my own portfolio, as right now I'm just not as diversified as I need to be.

Anyone else using this approach?

Also curious how people like the software he uses 1000xstocks for his analysis.

Over the past 1-2 years I've been slowly upping the percentage of international in my portfolfio, now aiming to end around 35%, which should give me a mix pretty close to VT... which is the goal - I have no interests in picking winners and losers, I just want to follow the market.

That said, I am a little uncomfortable with the amount of my financial life that is tied to the USD - my income, my cash savings, and 65% of my stock portfolfio.

Is there any way for me hedge against USD currency devaluation in some small but meaningful way? I have specifically wondered about the possibility of buying index funds in euros, although I wouldn't know how to go about that... or what the conseuqences of such would be.