InvestingWithBrandon

Retail investor: My coworker says the market is a bubble & he's been in cash for 3 years waiting for it to pop.
Me: How's that working for him?
Retail investor: Honestly he seems stressed every time we talk about it.
Me: Look at that chart. Find every moment somebody called a bubble. 2013, 2015, 2018, 2021, 2023. 2025. All of them.
Retail investor: They're all way below where it is now.
Me: & every one of those people felt smart for a few weeks & wrong ever since...
Retail investor: So bubbles aren't real?
Me: They're real. In 2000 the nasdaq $Q was down 75%,13 years to break even. That was a

Here's the covered call problem that NOBODY seems to be aware of...
(take a look at this chart of the Nasdaq $Q)
2022... down about 35%. The covered call guy thinks he is a genius as he helped pad his downside a tad.
Then look what this chart does next.
2023... +53%
2024... +26%
2025... +21%
2026... +20% YTD
Back to back to back to back. The 4 years that scaled everyone's accounts well beyond all time highs.
Except the covered call guy got CAPPED. Over & over. Shares called away, rebuy higher, cap again, called away again... all the way up 4 of the best consecutive years in recent memory. He c

Retail investor: I can't figure this market out. $Q was at $558 not that long ago & now it's pushing $744. Nothing makes sense.
Me: What do you think changed between those two prices?
Retail investor: I mean... something big must have, right? That's a 33% swing.
Me: Has the EPS growth been strong this year?
Retail investor: ...VERY
Me: So the market fell below fair value in April & at the same time EPS growth is VERY strong & you are shocked the market made a big move like this?
Retail investor: Honestly... when we say it that way it all makes sense. There is just so much noise online it's har

Retail investor: $NVDA is only up like 19% this year. It's done. Rotating out to find the next runner. Other stocks are going up way more.
Me: The stock's up 19%. What are the profits doing?
Retail investor: ...I mean, earnings have been strong I think?
Me: Record revenue. Massive EPS growth. The BUSINESS is having a monster year... the STOCK is having a quiet one. Those are two different things.
Retail investor: So why isn't the price moving?
Me: Because it ran hard for years & the price got ahead of the fundamentals. Now the profits are catching up while the price rests. That's what opportun

This is the best argument against covered calls I've ever seen & it's one chart.
$Q is the 100 biggest companies on the Nasdaq.
$QYLD is the exact same 100 companies... but it sells covered calls on them every month for "income."
Same stocks. The only difference is the covered calls.
If you invested $10,000 in each & reinvested all dividends/cash flow:
$10,000 in Q became roughly $66,000.
$10,000 in QYLD became roughly $26,000.
ALL distributions reinvested.
That's what capping your upside costs over a decade.
& when the market dropped, QYLD dropped right along with it. The premium didn't prote

The first 25k is the hardest
but... the first $100k is is a little easier than the first 25k
but... the first $1M is a little easier than the first 100k
but... the first $2M is a little easier than the first 1m
One you get one level the second comes faster
Trust me!

Humans like to have their trade thesis confirmed by the share price immediately mooing higher.
Sometimes that happens, but most of the time it does not...
This again is why i only do 1+ year options at a minimum because timing the market any shorter is VERY hard if not impossible in a consistent way.
This is also why Warren Buffett doesn't play games with short term stuff either...
Zooming out made me millions.

The best stock of a generation fell 94% first. Most people don't know that.
$AMZN, dot com crash. Roughly $113 down to about $5.50 by late 2001.
Down 94%. $100k became ~$6k. & this wasn't some junk startup... it was THE Amazon. The company that went on to change everything.
Two lessons off this one chart & they both matter:
First... even the greatest company in the world can fall 90%+ when you buy it at a bubble price. Amazon the BUSINESS was fine. Amazon at 1999's price was a 13 year mistake. This is why I stress the importance of valuations so much.
Second... the people who actually got rich

Retail investor: Nike $NKE just hit a 52 week low. That's gotta be a steal at these prices.
Me: Maybe. Let's actually check instead of guessing.
Retail investor: It's Nike. Everybody knows Nike.
Me: Brand recognition doesn't matter... Pull up the earnings. Are profits growing or shrinking over the last few years?
Retail investor: ...I don't actually know.
Me: That's the whole question. A falling price with growing profits is a dip. A falling price with falling profits is a company in trouble...
Retail investor: So a 52 week low means nothing by itself?
Me: Nothing. It's a price, not a value. W