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The Biggest Problem in Investing Right Now



Financial product ads are often unconcerned with the truth, or in the words of philosopher Harry Frankfurt, they are full of bullshit. You’re probably susceptible to it. A 2022 study found that younger, high-income men who are very confident in their own financial knowledge are more likely to fall for financial bullshit.

The financial products that get advertised the most aggressively tend to be the most profitable for the firm selling them. If it’s highly profitable for them, you can generally infer that it’s less profitable for you. You’re funding the profits. But the thing is, if you know what to look for, and what to avoid, you can actually use this to your advantage.

——————
*Meet with PWL Capital*

*Timestamps*
00:00 – Intro
00:54 – Financial Advertisements: Mechanisms and Impact
04:20 – Private Assets
10:50 – Margin
13:05 – Options Trading
15:42 – Thematic ETFs
18:00 – Covered Call ETFs
20:01 – Avoiding Financial Bullsh**

*References*

*Avoid Online Scams
I will never reach out to you on social media platforms or WhatsApp to give financial advice. These are scammers trying to commit fraud.

*Check out the Rational Reminder Podcast*
YouTube channel @rationalreminder
Podcast website
Rational Reminder community (forum)
Apple Podcasts
Spotify

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The SEC’s Proposal for Semiannual Reporting


Many large companies support the proposal including business associations, oil & gas, and pharmaceuticals. Eli Lilly, for example, stated that, if the rule is adopted substantially as proposed, it anticipates electing to file semiannual reports on Form 10-S while continuing voluntary quarterly earnings releases. A joint letter from Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Gilead, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, Roivant, Viatris, and Zoetis similarly supports optional semiannual reporting and says some of the companies currently anticipate electing Form 10-S while continuing voluntary quarterly earnings releases.

ExxonMobil also supports the proposal. Its letter argues that investors increasingly rely on earnings releases, presentations, and Form 8-K filings rather than the Form 10-Q itself. ExxonMobil also proposes an optional new Form 8-K item through which companies could file first- and third-quarter financial statements and related information without preparing a full Form 10-Q.

Industry associations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, MassBio, The National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Nareit), the Aerospace Industries Association, and the Retail Industry Leaders Association all publicly expressed support for the proposal. 

One of the most important supportive letters comes from Financial Executives International’s Committee on Corporate Reporting. FEI CCR says its members include “approximately 50 chief accounting officers and corporate controllers from Fortune 100 and other large public companies, representing more than $19 trillion in market capitalization.” In a survey of CCR members, 58% said they would most likely elect semiannual reporting, while 42% said they would most likely continue filing quarterly. Among those leaning toward semiannual reporting, all said they would continue issuing voluntary quarterly earnings releases.

That is a critical data point: could almost 60% of large (Fortune 100) companies elect semiannual reporting, moving their quarterly reports to purely earnings release processes? While better than nothing, the content, legal liability, assurance and comparability across issuers for earnings releases are markedly lower than those of a Form 10-Q.

[Targeted] AmEx Offers: Accor Luxury Hotels, Spend $500+ & Receive $100 Statement Credit


The Offer

No direct link, targeted offer

  • Get a one-time $10 statement credit by using your enrolled eligible Card to spend a minimum of $500 USD in one or more purchases on room rate and room charges at select ALL Accor Hotels Luxury Properties in the US and globally from 8/3/26 until 11/2/26

Our Verdict

Other regions got ALL Accor as an American Express transfer partner and we get this. Useful if you have an upcoming stay but not a big enough discount to change booking behavior really. 

View more Amex offers here & if you have any questions about American Express offers then read this post.

Non-QM HELOCs – MortgageDepot


Our specialty is offering  Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOCs) for all types of borrowers: self-employed, unemployed, retired, investors, and any property owner who cannot go the conventional route.

HELOCs

Core Structure:

  • 2, 3, or 5-year draw periods
  • Interest-only payments for the first 10 years
  • 20- or 30-year total loan terms

Alt Doc & No-Income Options

Conventional lenders rely heavily on tax returns, but we know that doesn’t always reflect the full picture. Our HELOC programs include Alternative Documentation (Alt Doc) options.

  • WVOE (Written Verification of Employment)
  • Profit & Loss Statements (P&L)
  • Bank Statements (personal or business)
  • DSCR (Debt Service Coverage Ratio for investors)

Maximum CLTV up to 75% depending on the documentation type.

No-Income HELOC Option (Yes, Really)

For qualified borrowers, we also offer a No-Income Verification HELOC.

  • Owner-occupied properties
  • Up to 60% CLTV
  • Minimum 640 FICO

Investor-Friendly HELOC Solutions

Real estate investors are a big part of what we do.

  • No-ratio investment options
  • DSCR qualification (no personal income required)
  • Lienient underwriting for rental portfolios

Our HELOCs are available for a wide range of borrowers and property types:

  • Primary residences
  • Second homes
  • Investment properties
  • Foreign Nationals eligible

Loan Amounts:

  • From $25,000 up to $3,000,000

Reach out, and we’ll connect you with a Heloc loan specialist to go over your scenarios.

 

 

How Much Time Do Your Employees Spend Botsitting?


Benjamin is a consultant who advises government agencies on technology partnerships. He signed up for an AI scheduling agent, expecting it to buy back his time. When we interviewed Benjamin, he told us how he envisioned a clutter-free calendar, fewer interruptions throughout his days, and an end to the soul-crushing back-and-forth of scheduling meetings. What he got instead was a second job: managing the agent he’d hired to manage his calendar.



Scott Bessent is ‘sick of hearing about’ the K-shaped economy and declares it’s over



Scott Bessent has some good news for consumers this morning: The K-shaped economy is officially over! Consumers on the lower end of the income spectrum are no longer being left behind by their richer counterparts, he insists.

The Treasury Secretary said he is “sick of hearing about this K-shaped economy,” during a CNBC interview yesterday, adding: “I can say here definitively, the K-shaped economy is over.”

Instead, Bessent said U.S. households are in a C-shaped economy “where the lower end of wage earners are finally calling it back, just like they did in President Trump’s first term.”

Bessent said the bottom 25% of workers have seen a 2% real wage gain. That’s likely a reference to Treasury data for 2025 that showed blue-collar workers saw growth of 1.7% in the first five months of Trump’s presidency.

The Treasury Secretary also pointed to White House policy under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (such as no taxes on tips or overtime, as well as reduced taxes for seniors on Social Security) as having a meaningfully positive effect on household finances. The act, described by the White House as the biggest tax break in history, purported to give Americans earning between $15,000 and $80,000 an average tax cut of 15%.

The bill also promised to increase tipped and overtime workers’ take-home pay by $1,500 a year, and has reportedly increased after-tax income for a typical two-child family by $7,600 to $10,900.

Bank of America has also observed that some elements of the K-shaped economy are beginning to close. In a note last week, chief U.S. economist Aditya Bhave wrote that consumer spending (excluding gas) has ceased to be K-shaped on a year-over-year basis—at least it had been for the previous fortnight.

There are three reasons for this trend, Bhave wrote: stronger job growth and/or lower tax withholding, June’s drop in gas prices, and the fact that the gap really opened up in June last year, meaning the base effect was favourable for the gap to reduce.

“With everything that we’re seeing in the media, it’s difficult to discern” economic upsides, Bessent added.

Broader data is yet to agree

Nonetheless, the data does not yet fully support Bessent’s theory. On the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, for example, both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have suggested that the Iran war’s knock-on effect on gasoline prices has almost entirely canceled out the promised windfall.

Likewise, wage growth by income percentile data doesn’t support the notion that the K-shaped economy has ended. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta evaluates a 12-month moving average of wage growth by income quartile on an hourly basis. Its June update found the lowest quartile of wage distribution saw growth of 3.6%, while the top 25% of earners saw growth of 3.9%.

At no point in 2026, per the Atlanta Fed, has median wage growth for the bottom percentile of earners exceeded that of the top percentile. The quartile that has seen the most growth throughout 2026 has been the third.

Likewise, current drivers of wealth gains (notably, equities courtesy of the AI boom) are concentrated among higher earners. Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, wrote in June that 75 cents of every spent dollar generated by the equity rally flows through the top income quintile. “If we are counting on the stock market to sustain the consumer economy, we are leaning on a channel that deepens the K-shape rather than offsets it,” he said. “When it comes to overall spending, no matter which estimate of spending concentration you use, the wealth-effect channel is more skewed toward the top.”

In a note Thursday, BNP Paribas’s markets team echoed: “Equity holdings are concentrated among higher-income individuals, where the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) tends to be lower, but the overall gains have been much stronger.”

MPC measures the extra income a person spends rather than saves, and while this tends to be lower among higher earners (because their basic needs can be met by a smaller percentage of their income)—that doesn’t mean their consumption isn’t what’s powering the economy.

“The K-shaped economy—with the well-to-do thriving and everyone else lagging—remains firmly intact,” Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi wrote last month. Citing Fed data, he highlighted for the 12 months ending in the first quarter of 2026, outlays by earners of $200,000 a year or more grew an estimated 6.5%—nearly 4% in real terms. Meanwhile, outlays by those in the bottom 80% were unchanged after inflation.

NVIDIA vs Micron vs AMD: AI Chip Inventory Risk Explained



AI chip stocks like NVIDIA, Micron and AMD are all facing inventory-related questions, but the risk is not the same for all three.
In this video, we explain why NVIDIA’s $119 billion supply commitment may be about securing future AI demand, why Micron’s 2026 HBM supply is already sold out, and why AMD’s $8 billion inventory is getting more investor attention.
We cover:
What inventory means in simple terms
Why higher inventory is not always bad
NVIDIA’s supply commitment and AI demand
Micron’s HBM memory demand
Why AMD’s inventory days matter
What investors should track in AI chip stocks
How hyperscaler AI spending impacts NVIDIA, AMD and Micron
If you invest in AI chip stocks, this video will help you understand why inventory risk needs to be read company by company, not as one sector-wide headline.
#NVIDIA #AMD #Micron #AIChips #Semiconductors #StockMarket #Investing #AIStocks #NVDA #AMDStock #MicronStock #ArtificialIntelligence #TechStocks #Finance #indmoney

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Biggerpockets Pro Members Can Now Turn Home Equity Into a Flexible Line of Credit With Aven


Home equity is one of the biggest, most underused assets most investors have. It’s sitting there, tied up in the walls of a property, while cash-out refinances take weeks and traditional home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) come with paperwork, appraisals, and closing costs that can make the whole process feel like more trouble than it’s worth.

That’s the gap Aven is trying to close. BiggerPockets is excited to welcome Aven as our newest Pro perk partner, and the timing makes sense: More investors are looking for ways to access capital without taking on a new mortgage or waiting weeks for funds to hit their account.

What Aven Actually Is

Aven’s core product is a credit card backed by a home equity line of credit. In practice, that means you get a card you can use anywhere, for anything, but the credit line behind it is secured by your home’s equity rather than your credit history alone. Because the line is secured, Aven can typically offer rates well below what you’d find on a traditional, unsecured credit card.

For homeowners, that opens up a few practical use cases:

  • Consolidating higher-interest debt onto a lower rate
  • Funding a renovation or repair without pulling cash out of a deal
  • Covering a large expense without applying for a separate loan
  • Having a flexible credit line on hand for whatever comes up

The application process is designed to be fast and mostly online, which is a meaningful shift from the multi-week timelines that have historically come with home equity products.

Why This Matters For Real Estate Investors

Investors tend to have more of their net worth tied up in property than the average homeowner, which also means they have more equity sitting idle. A tool that makes that equity easier to access, without refinancing a low-rate mortgage or taking on a second loan with a lengthy approval process, is worth understanding, even if you don’t use it right away.

That doesn’t mean a HELOC-backed credit card is the right fit for every situation. Like any credit product secured by your home, it’s worth understanding the terms, the variable rate structure common to HELOCs, and how it fits into your overall financial picture before applying. But for investors who want more flexibility with the equity they’ve already built, it’s a tool worth having in the toolbox.

The Pro Perk

Here’s where the partnership gets interesting for BiggerPockets Pro members specifically: If you apply and get approved for the Aven card, Aven will give you a $400 statement credit when you spend $400, the same amount as an annual Pro membership.

It’s one of a growing number of Pro Perks we’ve added because our members told us they wanted more than education and tools. They wanted partnerships that put real money back in their pockets.

Worth a Look

Aven joins the lineup of Pro Perks built to help members put their real estate investments to work in more ways than one. If a lower-rate, home equity-backed line of credit is something you’ve been curious about, this is a straightforward way to see what you qualify for.

Click here to see if you qualify for the Aven card.

Terms and conditions apply. Approval for the Aven card is subject to Aven’s underwriting criteria, and statement credit terms are set by Aven. Review the full offer details before applying.

CFTC Orders UBS Financial Services To Pay $8 Million Over Shortcomings In Anti-Money Laundering Oversight


On August 3, 2026, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it had filed and settled charges against UBS Financial Services Inc. (NYSE:UBS), a registered futures commission merchant. The action centered on the firm’s failure to properly oversee the setup and functioning of systems used to monitor transactions for potential money-laundering risks, specifically those involving foreign-currency wire transfers.

Under the settlement, UBS Financial Services must pay an $8 million civil monetary penalty.

It also agreed to cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and related CFTC rules.

The regulator noted the firm’s representations about remediation efforts already underway or completed in connection with the matter.

According to the CFTC order, the problems spanned the period from January 2019 through June 2023.

Deficiencies in how the firm configured its surveillance tools and managed related data practices meant that thousands of foreign-currency wires moving through retail customer commodity accounts either received inadequate review or were left out of anti-money-laundering monitoring altogether.

Early in that timeframe, the firm relied on a manually prepared report.

That report did not capture every relevant foreign-currency wire and was not designed to detect patterns that might indicate suspicious activity.

Officials determined the firm knew about these weaknesses because they had already been identified in earlier enforcement actions by other regulators and a self-regulatory organization.

In 2021 the firm switched to an automated system intended to review all wire transactions for signs of suspicious activity.

However, it did not correctly configure the data feeding into the new platform.

As a result, the monitoring function’s effectiveness was compromised for a substantial period.

The CFTC’s action formed part of a coordinated set of resolutions announced the same day by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Those related matters addressed broader Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering program failures at the firm, including inadequate monitoring of large volumes of foreign-currency wires and shortcomings in customer due diligence.

FinCEN assessed an overall civil money penalty of $125 million against UBS Financial

Services for willful violations—the largest such penalty ever imposed on a broker-dealer under the Bank Secrecy Act.

Payments to the other agencies, including the CFTC’s $8 million, are credited against that total.

The firm admitted the Bank Secrecy Act violations in its resolution with FinCEN.The CFTC expressed appreciation for the assistance provided by FinCEN, the SEC, and FINRA.

The case underscores the importance regulators place on supervision of transaction-monitoring systems, particularly for products and accounts that can facilitate cross-border fund movements.

Persistent gaps in such controls can leave institutions vulnerable to misuse and deprive authorities of timely information about potentially illicit activity.

UBS has stated that it cooperated with the various regulators and has made substantial investments to strengthen its anti-money-laundering controls in line with industry standards.

The settlements require ongoing remediation steps, including independent reviews and look-back analyses in some of the parallel actions, aimed at identifying any previously undetected suspicious transactions and further enhancing compliance frameworks.

This enforcement outcome serves as a reminder that financial firms registered with the CFTC must maintain diligent oversight of the systems and processes supporting their anti-money-laundering obligations. Failures to properly implement or supervise those systems, even when earlier warnings have been issued, can result in significant monetary penalties and additional compliance obligations.



Ready for Growth? Take These Strategic Next Steps for the Fastest, Lowest-Risk ROI


Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Key Takeaways

  • Companies that say they’re ready to grow are usually just ready to spend — and scaling a weak strategic foundation only accelerates its weaknesses.
  • Real growth comes from six strategic moves, not bigger budgets: mapping the true customer journey, sharpening personas, investing in advocacy, de-risking positioning, protecting differentiators and enforcing trade-offs.

Your business is ready for growth. You are past the launch phase. You have hired your first employees. You are ready to grow monthly revenue. But how? What are the next steps with the best ROI for the right kind of growth?

Many companies, new and long-established alike, say they are ready to grow, ready to hire more and ready to open a new office or expand into a new market. Few are actually prepared for it.

Being unprepared for growth is rarely a matter of effort. Growth stalls because of misdirected investment — too many companies spend on ads, sales pushes and visibility campaigns without first repairing the strategic foundation underneath.

If your company is serious about growth, and not just activity for the sake of hard work, these six moves will deliver the fastest and most sustainable return.

Secure the base with a customer journey map that reflects how buyers actually decide

Growth accelerates when friction disappears. Most customer journey maps are built on internal assumptions rather than real customer behavior. Even ideal customer personas do not move in a straight line, and your strategy should not assume they do.

A useful journey map accounts for continual market disruption, the decision moments that matter most and how those moments shift over time. It captures current buying patterns, points of friction and capacity gaps that slow conversion from consideration to purchase.

Ask yourself where prospects drop off — and how those drop-offs are quietly capping the ROI of every dollar you spend on marketing, brand and PR.

Clarify your customer personas or keep guessing

If you are talking to everyone, you are persuading no one. Personas that are too generic — or that ignore the emotional drivers behind real decisions — produce generic messaging. And generic brands do not scale.

The most valuable personas go beyond geography, buying power and reachability. They surface the behavioral and emotional drivers that move a customer from “nice to have” to “cannot live without.” Brands that invest in understanding those drivers waste less spend and sharpen their targeting, messaging and positioning.

Invest in advocacy, not just more acquisition

Your fastest growth channel is already paying you. Existing, satisfied customers are one of the most undervalued growth assets in most companies. Yet too many brands overspend on acquisition while under-investing in the customers who could sell for them. A Google review or the occasional testimonial does not count as advocacy.

Real advocacy starts with a system. Identify which customers are the most credible ambassadors for your brand. Figure out what would motivate them to advocate publicly. Then design an advocacy program with incentives that align with — rather than undermine — their credibility.

De-risk your market position before you scale it

Scaling a weak position just accelerates failure. Growth amplifies whatever already exists — strengths and gaps. Before you invest more in acquisition, ask whether your positioning is genuinely clear or simply convenient to your current operations. Would the market miss your brand if it disappeared tomorrow?

De-risking means stress-testing four things: relevance, differentiation, value and credibility. Brands that skip this step tend to confuse awareness with demand — and pay for the mistake at scale.

Protect your real differentiators before competitors copy them

If it is not protected, it is temporary. Most brands assume they are differentiated until a competitor or new entrant says the same thing, only louder. True differentiation is more than a claim. It is a position that can be clearly articulated, is hard to replicate and is reinforced across every touchpoint in the customer journey.

If your value proposition can be copied in a week, it is not defensible. The goal is ownership of the position, not dominance of the awareness game.

Enforce strategic trade-offs

The most important question in any growth plan is also the hardest: Where do we say no?

Strategic trade-offs sharpen positioning, create clarity inside and outside the company and ultimately drive growth. Brands that scale well are intentional about what they will not do. They focus on the efforts that reinforce what the brand is for, and resist the distractions that dilute it.

Trying to be the brand for everyone reduces your capacity to be the brand for anyone.

Growth is a strategic decision, not a spending one

The brands that scale fastest grow with intention, guided by a winning strategy. Real growth requires alignment between customer experience, clearly defined positioning and defensible differentiation.

Growth does not start with spending more. It starts with deciding better.

Key Takeaways

  • Companies that say they’re ready to grow are usually just ready to spend — and scaling a weak strategic foundation only accelerates its weaknesses.
  • Real growth comes from six strategic moves, not bigger budgets: mapping the true customer journey, sharpening personas, investing in advocacy, de-risking positioning, protecting differentiators and enforcing trade-offs.

Your business is ready for growth. You are past the launch phase. You have hired your first employees. You are ready to grow monthly revenue. But how? What are the next steps with the best ROI for the right kind of growth?

Many companies, new and long-established alike, say they are ready to grow, ready to hire more and ready to open a new office or expand into a new market. Few are actually prepared for it.

Being unprepared for growth is rarely a matter of effort. Growth stalls because of misdirected investment — too many companies spend on ads, sales pushes and visibility campaigns without first repairing the strategic foundation underneath.