Title says it all really.

This is my first DD post on any company, be gentle.
Disclaimer: I am long RKT. This is not financial advice, and I am not receiving any compensation whatsoever from anyone for this post. I’m not a professional, I’m not even an amateur, this is a Wendy’s.
Sources used: RKT investor relations website and company website, RKT earnings transcripts, SEC fillings, the SEC EDGAR database, sea king al pha, whalewisdom, finbox, yahoo finance, stockcharts, openinsider, Zacks, google sheets.
​
Summary
Rocket Companies (RKT) is a fintech company that operates several brands including the flagship Rocket Mortgage. I think RKT presents an opportunity to buy serious value at a cheap price, because the market has not priced in the underlying fact that RKT is a tech company akin to Square, Paypal, etc.

• RKT has disrupted the lending industry and has embraced a fully digital ecosystem, which will continue to drive customer acquisition and retention in the future
• RKT spends considerable money and resources on UX/UI development, client experience, and marketing. This will also help drive their continued expansion into the lending market.
• The RKT “ecosystem” provides a “full cycle” solution for everything related to real estate transactions and insurance. They serve real estate professionals looking to generate leads, develop those leads, better serve their clients, and make every stage of real estate transactions smoother. From the client side, they similarly just make everything easier - it’s an app, it’s online, it’s doable from home and it’s not complicated. There’s an inherent advantage in what they’re doing here because closing on real estate transactions has always been something that’s complex, unpleasant, expensive, and not well understood. You need lawyers, you need agents, there’s a ton of paperwork, it sucks. RKT is changing all of that.
• RKTs balance sheet, income, and liabilities support a stock price several times higher than the current one in my opinion.
• RKT is currently stagnant in price, and the market appears to be pricing it like a traditional mortgage company, not a rapidly growing tech company (which they are).
• RKT has been around for decades (skips the startup costs that will provide barrier to entry for newer companies looking to do what they’re doing), but somehow seems to still be leading the tech charge in the industry. That’s a unique and potent combination in my opinion.
• RKT needs a catalyst to get the market to value it as a tech company instead of a lending company. Once that happens, and I expect it to sometime within the next year, RKT should approach an appropriate valuation such as 20x earnings. That’s an estimate I pulled out of nowhere, but is commensurate with the low end of P/E ratios for companies I see as similar to RKT.

Key Point - RKT is Priced Like a Legacy Mortgage Company
The average estimate for 2020 year end revenue is $15 billion, and the yearly earnings estimate average is $3.85 per share.
This estimate gives a ttm P/E ratio of just over 5.5. The sector median is something like 8-12, which makes RKT cheaply valued relative to the earnings it produces, even compared to the financial/mortgage sector. What’s key here is, I don’t think that’s really an appropriate comparison. I would place them more in line with companies like Square (ttm P/E ratio of 325x lol), PayPal (ttm P/E ratio of 69x, nice), or Fiserv (ttm P/E ratio of 24x). I used Zacks for all of these P/E ratio lookups.
Let’s assume RKT is conservatively worth 15x earnings, and that it hits the estimate of $3.85 eps. That would put its fair value right now at $57.75 per share. I think it’s worth more than that but, we all should do well to remember that it’s really only worth whatever the market will pay for it.
Key Point - Catalysts
This thing needs a catalyst. Right now I am loading up. I’m buying shares, I’m selling SHORT TERM covered calls to reduce basis on those shares, but I will be stopping the sale of those covered calls within a couple weeks most likely. The Q4 earnings announcement will be on 2/25. I am not sure that the actual earnings numbers will be enough to wake this thing up, although I expect them to be good. But if that announcement comes with discussion of their focus for 2021 and beyond, and gets the market thinking about them as a tech company first and mortgage lending company second, things will start to heat up. I don’t know when the real catalyst will hit that triggers the run-up, but I think it could start with the Q4 earnings call. I am looking at $21 as the floor for this stock, and I expect the price to double within a year. I will be acquiring OTM LEAPs, expiring next spring.
Supporting information and background follows.
The Business
RKT is in the business of providing solutions to financial transactions, including mortgage origination and refinancing, auto lending, and more. Specific subsidiaries and my simplistic view of how they interact:
Home Financing

• Rocket Mortgage - The mortgage company. This is a prominent “public facing” part of the Rocket ecosystem.
• Amrock - Amrock provides title insurance, property valuations, and other solutions. I see this as “supporting infrastructure” to keep clients within the rocket ecosystem where they would otherwise need to go elsewhere and is part of what makes RKT a one-stop-shop.
• Amrock Title Insurance (ATI) Company - basically does underwriting for Amrock. The “business end” in my simple understanding of the world.
• Nexsys - provides a streamlined approach to the closing process with their Clear Sign and Clear HOI technologies - taking care of closing day authentications and sharing of homeowners insurance information.
• Lendesk - Lendesk specifically provides solutions for the mortgage market in Canada
• Edison Financial - Basically the “front end” of Lendesk that Canadian clients would interact with.

Home Sale and Search

• Rocket Homes - Rocket Homes is a proprietary home search platform and real estate agent referral network. Basically this matches buyers, sellers, and agents, and is a key aspect of keeping clients completely working within RKT for all aspects of real estate buying/selling/financing.
• For Sale By Owner - A digital marketplace designed to let clients buy and sell real estate on their own. I think it’s absolutely brilliant that RKT owns this, but more on that later.

Auto & Personal Financing

• Rocket Auto - Supports rental and online car purchasing platforms.
• Rocket Loans - online personal loan solutions for clients.

Media

• Core Digital Media - a major advertiser in the mortgage, financial, insurance, and education sectors.
• Lower My Bills - this company is basically a “portal” business model that connects people with providers of various loan and insurance products.

Services & Technology Development

• Rock Connections - Basically a sales and support platform that handles appointments, prequalifications, generating leads, and data analysis among other things.
• Rock Central - I will generalize this as “business support”. HR, administration, etc.
• Rocket Innovation Studio - A tech incubator to gather and engage top talent and ideas.

Recent Acquisitions
RKT, through Lendesk, acquired Finmo back in October of 2020 (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rocket-companies-subsidiary-acquires-fast-182042594.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALnvnNBoglSnmMP0O61AqgXBJokNS53LjJYuG3NvYKhayp4I6ZH2RpfmFUbSsCAU4xmnBNGMTwiEG-Ly29EabVy1-OjPIGfkYoQ3389gn3Edebs9sIwWOy1tPzqjRwOwwGA_PWg0cNzEFCe7HBTilMwADUT_y0QxWw8vizWecGcv) Finmo is a rapidly growing Canadian digital mortgage platform and this acquisition I think was perfect - it shows RKTs dedication to embracing a fully digital experience, and making sure they’re the ones leading that charge.
Management
I do not have much to say here, aside from this. The RKT team is not the new kids on the block, they have decades of industry experience. Also, I value leaders that make people feel valued. And on that note, under CEO Jay Farner Quicken Loans has been in the top 30 of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for 17 consecutive years.
Financials and Growth
When it comes to the numbers, RKT is killing it. I don’t want to just spout a bunch of numbers that anyone can easily go look up so here’s a couple that stood out to me from the Q3 earnings announcement and related data:
$4.63 billion in revenue, which is 163% YoY growth.
From that revenue, they beat EPS estimates with $1.21 for the quarter vs $1.09 expected.
Net income was $2.4 billion which represents a YoY growth of 365%.
Closed loan volume YoY growth was 122% to $89B.
Net rate lock volume was $94.7 Billion (101% growth).
RKT has brought in $13.1 billion in revenue in the first 3 quarters and seems to be on track to close out Q4 with yearly revs above $15 billion.
That’s awesome but what I really like is that they pair this amazing growth with $3.5B cash on hand. That’s great because I want them to be able to scale as they grow, and make acquisitions as needed (see Finmo) to ensure they can keep that growth going without getting overextended and failing to capitalize.
RKTs ability to recapture clients is one of the keys to their future success in my uneducated opinion. Their recapture rate is 4.6x the industry average. The Q3 earnings transcript includes a statement by the CEO on how when interest rates fall, retention rate falls, refinance activity is larger. The high recapture rate RKT has serves as a natural hedge to their retention of existing clients because their recapture is so much higher than average in the industry.
Quick aside - RKT announced a $1 billion share buyback program. They’ll be able to repurchase shares from time to time starting Nov10 2020, ending in two years. I don’t love the idea of share buybacks because I think this can be detrimental to actual business growth for the sake of shareholder value. However, with the large cash position RKT has (and it doubled from December 2019 to September 2020) I think this is a reasonable way to deploy some of that cash for now.
Ok so what about valuation using DCF, free cash flow analysis, something like that? Honestly I’m not convinced this is as useful as some people make it out to be. It’s nice to know what the numbers indicate, but I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about an exact price target based on anything like this. That said, you can crunch the numbers yourself or check out something like the Finbox resources:
https://finbox.com/NYSE:RKT/models/dcf-growth-exit-5yr
I don’t believe that fair value estimate for an instant, but it's a part of the puzzle to consider. Finbox has various models you can check out, but it’s also just a nice place to view aggregate data other than directly from the SEC filings.
Product Channels
RKTs direct-to-consumer channel is their main source of revenue right now, but I think they will be successful in their efforts to grow their partner channels as well. Why do I say that? Numbers don’t lie:

• Direct-to-consumer Q3 growth: 131% YoY ($53.5B closed loan volume)
• Partner Network growth 127% YoY ($29.6B closed volume)
  • Adjusted Revenue for Partner Network is up 502% YTD vs 2019 ( see Q3 earnings transcript)

The partner network volume is a little over half of the direct-to-consumer volume but the growth rate is just so damn juicy. That revenue growth is hellathicc.
Current Market and outlook
Right now, rates are low. The average 30-yr mortgage fixed rate is 2.92% (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/mortgage-refinancing-surges-but-high-home-prices-stop-buyers.html)
I cannot say how long interest rates will remain low but I believe RKT is positioned to continue to grow regardless of what rates do moving forward. They just cover so much of the space, and they do it with a focus on applied technology.
Here’s some blatant speculation. I think as we move into 2021 and the vaccine becomes more prevalent, millennials will buy, sell, and borrow against real estate with renewed intensity. I think RKT is uniquely positioned to capture that market.
Positions: RKT shares. Cost basis of $21.14.

Disclaimer: I am long RKT. This is not financial advice, and I am not receiving any compensation whatsoever from anyone for this post. I’m not a professional, I’m not even an amateur, this is a Wendy’s.
Sources used: RKT investor relations website and company website, RKT earnings transcripts, SEC fillings, the SEC EDGAR database, sea king al pha, whalewisdom, finbox, yahoo finance, stockcharts, openinsider, Zacks, google sheets.
Summary
Rocket Companies (RKT) is a fintech company that operates several brands including the flagship Rocket Mortgage. I think RKT presents an opportunity to buy serious value at a cheap price, because the market has not priced in the underlying fact that RKT is a tech company akin to Square, Paypal, etc.

• RKT has disrupted the lending industry and has embraced a fully digital ecosystem, which will continue to drive customer acquisition and retention in the future
• RKT spends considerable money and resources on UX/UI development, client experience, and marketing. This will also help drive their continued expansion into the lending market.
• The RKT “ecosystem” provides a “full cycle” solution for everything related to real estate transactions and insurance. They serve real estate professionals looking to generate leads, develop those leads, better serve their clients, and make every stage of real estate transactions smoother. From the client side, they similarly just make everything easier - it’s an app, it’s online, it’s doable from home and it’s not complicated. There’s an inherent advantage in what they’re doing here because closing on real estate transactions has always been something that’s complex, unpleasant, expensive, and not well understood. You need lawyers, you need agents, there’s a ton of paperwork, it sucks. RKT is changing all of that.
• RKTs balance sheet, income, and liabilities support a stock price several times higher than the current one in my opinion.
• RKT is currently stagnant in price, and the market appears to be pricing it like a traditional mortgage company, not a rapidly growing tech company (which they are).
• RKT has been around for decades (skips the startup costs that will provide barrier to entry for newer companies looking to do what they’re doing), but somehow seems to still be leading the tech charge in the industry. That’s a unique and potent combination in my opinion.
• RKT needs a catalyst to get the market to value it as a tech company instead of a lending company. Once that happens, and I expect it to sometime within the next year, RKT should approach an appropriate valuation such as 20x earnings. That’s an estimate I pulled out of nowhere, but is commensurate with the low end of P/E ratios for companies I see as similar to RKT.

Key Point - RKT is Priced Like a Legacy Mortgage Company
The average estimate for 2020 year end revenue is $15 billion, and the yearly earnings estimate average is $3.85 per share.
This estimate gives a forward-looking P/E ratio of just over 5.5. The sector median is something like 8-12, which makes RKT cheaply valued relative to the earnings it produces, even compared to the financial/mortgage sector. What’s key here is, I don’t think that’s really an appropriate comparison. I would place them more in line with companies like Square (ttm P/E ratio of 325x lol), PayPal (ttm P/E ratio of 69x, nice), or Fiserv (ttm P/E ratio of 24x). I used Zacks for all of these P/E ratio lookups.
Let’s assume RKT is conservatively worth 15x earnings, and that it hits the estimate of $3.85 eps. That would put its fair value right now at $57.75 per share. I think it’s worth more than that but, we all should do well to remember that it’s really only worth whatever the market will pay for it.
Key Point - Catalysts
This thing needs a catalyst. Right now I am loading up. I’m buying shares, I’m selling SHORT TERM covered calls to reduce basis on those shares, but I will be stopping the sale of those covered calls within a couple weeks most likely. The Q4 earnings announcement will be on 2/25. I am not sure that the actual earnings numbers will be enough to wake this thing up, although I expect them to be good. But if that announcement comes with discussion of their focus for 2021 and beyond, and gets the market thinking about them as a tech company first and mortgage lending company second, things will start to heat up. I don’t know when the real catalyst will hit that triggers the run-up, but I think it could start with the Q4 earnings call. I am looking at $21 as the floor for this stock, and I expect the price to double within a year. I will be acquiring OTM LEAPs, expiring next spring.
Supporting information and background follows.
The Business
RKT is in the business of providing solutions to financial transactions, including mortgage origination and refinancing, auto lending, and more. Specific subsidiaries and my simplistic view of how they interact:
Home Financing

• Rocket Mortgage - The mortgage company. This is a prominent “public facing” part of the Rocket ecosystem.
• Amrock - Amrock provides title insurance, property valuations, and other solutions. I see this as “supporting infrastructure” to keep clients within the rocket ecosystem where they would otherwise need to go elsewhere and is part of what makes RKT a one-stop-shop.
• Amrock Title Insurance (ATI) Company - basically does underwriting for Amrock. The “business end” in my simple understanding of the world.
• Nexsys - provides a streamlined approach to the closing process with their Clear Sign and Clear HOI technologies - taking care of closing day authentications and sharing of homeowners insurance information.
• Lendesk - Lendesk specifically provides solutions for the mortgage market in Canada
• Edison Financial - Basically the “front end” of Lendesk that Canadian clients would interact with.

Home Sale and Search

• Rocket Homes - Rocket Homes is a proprietary home search platform and real estate agent referral network. Basically this matches buyers, sellers, and agents, and is a key aspect of keeping clients completely working within RKT for all aspects of real estate buying/selling/financing.
• For Sale By Owner - A digital marketplace designed to let clients buy and sell real estate on their own. I think it’s absolutely brilliant that RKT owns this, but more on that later.

Auto & Personal Financing

• Rocket Auto - Supports rental and online car purchasing platforms.
• Rocket Loans - online personal loan solutions for clients.

Media

• Core Digital Media - a major advertiser in the mortgage, financial, insurance, and education sectors.
• Lower My Bills - this company is basically a “portal” business model that connects people with providers of various loan and insurance products.

Services & Technology Development

• Rock Connections - Basically a sales and support platform that handles appointments, prequalifications, generating leads, and data analysis among other things.
• Rock Central - I will generalize this as “business support”. HR, administration, etc.
• Rocket Innovation Studio - A tech incubator to gather and engage top talent and ideas.

Recent Acquisitions
RKT, through Lendesk, acquired Finmo back in October of 2020 (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rocket-companies-subsidiary-acquires-fast-182042594.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALnvnNBoglSnmMP0O61AqgXBJokNS53LjJYuG3NvYKhayp4I6ZH2RpfmFUbSsCAU4xmnBNGMTwiEG-Ly29EabVy1-OjPIGfkYoQ3389gn3Edebs9sIwWOy1tPzqjRwOwwGA_PWg0cNzEFCe7HBTilMwADUT_y0QxWw8vizWecGcv) Finmo is a rapidly growing Canadian digital mortgage platform and this acquisition I think was perfect - it shows RKTs dedication to embracing a fully digital experience, and making sure they’re the ones leading that charge.
Management
I do not have much to say here, aside from this. The RKT team is not the new kids on the block, they have decades of industry experience. Also, I value leaders that make people feel valued. And on that note, under CEO Jay Farner Quicken Loans has been in the top 30 of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for 17 consecutive years.
Financials and Growth
When it comes to the numbers, RKT is killing it. I don’t want to just spout a bunch of numbers that anyone can easily go look up so here’s a couple that stood out to me from the Q3 earnings announcement and related data:
$4.63 billion in revenue, which is 163% YoY growth.
From that revenue, they beat EPS estimates with $1.21 for the quarter vs $1.09 expected.
Net income was $2.4 billion which represents a YoY growth of 365%.
Closed loan volume YoY growth was 122% to $89B.
Net rate lock volume was $94.7 Billion (101% growth).
RKT has brought in $13.1 billion in revenue in the first 3 quarters and seems to be on track to close out Q4 with yearly revs above $15 billion.
That’s awesome but what I really like is that they pair this amazing growth with $3.5B cash on hand. That’s great because I want them to be able to scale as they grow, and make acquisitions as needed (see Finmo) to ensure they can keep that growth going without getting overextended and failing to capitalize.
RKTs ability to recapture clients is one of the keys to their future success in my uneducated opinion. Their recapture rate is 4.6x the industry average. The Q3 earnings transcript includes a statement by the CEO on how when interest rates fall, retention rate falls, refinance activity is larger. The high recapture rate RKT has serves as a natural hedge to their retention of existing clients because their recapture is so much higher than average in the industry.
Quick aside - RKT announced a $1 billion share buyback program. They’ll be able to repurchase shares from time to time starting Nov10 2020, ending in two years. I don’t love the idea of share buybacks because I think this can be detrimental to actual business growth for the sake of shareholder value. However, with the large cash position RKT has (and it doubled from December 2019 to September 2020) I think this is a reasonable way to deploy some of that cash for now.
Ok so what about valuation using DCF, free cash flow analysis, something like that? Honestly I’m not convinced this is as useful as some people make it out to be. It’s nice to know what the numbers indicate, but I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about an exact price target based on anything like this. That said, you can crunch the numbers yourself or check out something like the Finbox resources:
https://finbox.com/NYSE:RKT/models/dcf-growth-exit-5yr
I don’t believe that fair value estimate for an instant, but it's a part of the puzzle to consider. Finbox has various models you can check out, but it’s also just a nice place to view aggregate data other than directly from the SEC filings.
Product Channels
RKTs direct-to-consumer channel is their main source of revenue right now, but I think they will be successful in their efforts to grow their partner channels as well. Why do I say that? Numbers don’t lie:

• Direct-to-consumer Q3 growth: 131% YoY ($53.5B closed loan volume)
• Partner Network growth 127% YoY ($29.6B closed volume)
  • Adjusted Revenue for Partner Network is up 502% YTD vs 2019 ( see Q3 earnings transcript)

The partner network volume is a little over half of the direct-to-consumer volume but the growth rate is just so damn juicy. That revenue growth is hellathicc.
Current Market and outlook
Right now, rates are low. The average 30-yr mortgage fixed rate is 2.92% (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/mortgage-refinancing-surges-but-high-home-prices-stop-buyers.html)
I cannot say how long interest rates will remain low but I believe RKT is positioned to continue to grow regardless of what rates do moving forward. They just cover so much of the space, and they do it with a focus on applied technology.
Here’s some blatant speculation. I think as we move into 2021 and the vaccine becomes more prevalent, millennials will buy, sell, and borrow against real estate with renewed intensity. I think RKT is uniquely positioned to capture that market.
Positions: RKT shares. Cost basis of $21.14.

By petriefly42 This is my first DD post on any company, be gentle.
Disclaimer: I am long RKT. This is not financial advice, and I am not receiving any compensation whatsoever from anyone for this post. I’m not a professional, I’m not even an amateur, this is a Wendy’s.
Sources used: RKT investor relations website and company website, RKT earnings transcripts, SEC fillings, the SEC EDGAR database, sea king al pha, whalewisdom, finbox, yahoo finance, stockcharts, openinsider, Zacks, google sheets.
​
Summary
Rocket Companies (RKT) is a fintech company that operates several brands including the flagship Rocket Mortgage. I think RKT presents an opportunity to buy serious value at a cheap price, because the market has not priced in the underlying fact that RKT is a tech company akin to Square, Paypal, etc.
RKT has disrupted the lending industry and has embraced a fully digital ecosystem, which will continue to drive customer acquisition and retention in the future RKT spends considerable money and resources on UX/UI development, client experience, and marketing. This will also help drive their continued expansion into the lending market. The RKT “ecosystem” provides a “full cycle” solution for everything related to real estate transactions and insurance. They serve real estate professionals looking to generate leads, develop those leads, better serve their clients, and make every stage of real estate transactions smoother. From the client side, they similarly just make everything easier - it’s an app, it’s online, it’s doable from home and it’s not complicated. There’s an inherent advantage in what they’re doing here because closing on real estate transactions has always been something that’s complex, unpleasant, expensive, and not well understood. You need lawyers, you need agents, there’s a ton of paperwork, it sucks. RKT is changing all of that. RKTs balance sheet, income, and liabilities support a stock price several times higher than the current one in my opinion. RKT is currently stagnant in price, and the market appears to be pricing it like a traditional mortgage company, not a rapidly growing tech company (which they are). RKT has been around for decades (skips the startup costs that will provide barrier to entry for newer companies looking to do what they’re doing), but somehow seems to still be leading the tech charge in the industry. That’s a unique and potent combination in my opinion. RKT needs a catalyst to get the market to value it as a tech company instead of a lending company. Once that happens, and I expect it to sometime within the next year, RKT should approach an appropriate valuation such as 20x earnings. That’s an estimate I pulled out of nowhere, but is commensurate with the low end of P/E ratios for companies I see as similar to RKT. Key Point - RKT is Priced Like a Legacy Mortgage Company
The average estimate for 2020 year end revenue is $15 billion, and the yearly earnings estimate average is $3.85 per share.
This estimate gives a ttm P/E ratio of just over 5.5. The sector median is something like 8-12, which makes RKT cheaply valued relative to the earnings it produces, even compared to the financial/mortgage sector. What’s key here is, I don’t think that’s really an appropriate comparison. I would place them more in line with companies like Square (ttm P/E ratio of 325x lol), PayPal (ttm P/E ratio of 69x, nice), or Fiserv (ttm P/E ratio of 24x). I used Zacks for all of these P/E ratio lookups.
Let’s assume RKT is conservatively worth 15x earnings, and that it hits the estimate of $3.85 eps. That would put its fair value right now at $57.75 per share. I think it’s worth more than that but, we all should do well to remember that it’s really only worth whatever the market will pay for it.
Key Point - Catalysts
This thing needs a catalyst. Right now I am loading up. I’m buying shares, I’m selling SHORT TERM covered calls to reduce basis on those shares, but I will be stopping the sale of those covered calls within a couple weeks most likely. The Q4 earnings announcement will be on 2/25. I am not sure that the actual earnings numbers will be enough to wake this thing up, although I expect them to be good. But if that announcement comes with discussion of their focus for 2021 and beyond, and gets the market thinking about them as a tech company first and mortgage lending company second, things will start to heat up. I don’t know when the real catalyst will hit that triggers the run-up, but I think it could start with the Q4 earnings call. I am looking at $21 as the floor for this stock, and I expect the price to double within a year. I will be acquiring OTM LEAPs, expiring next spring.
Supporting information and background follows.
The Business
RKT is in the business of providing solutions to financial transactions, including mortgage origination and refinancing, auto lending, and more. Specific subsidiaries and my simplistic view of how they interact:
Home Financing
Rocket Mortgage - The mortgage company. This is a prominent “public facing” part of the Rocket ecosystem. Amrock - Amrock provides title insurance, property valuations, and other solutions. I see this as “supporting infrastructure” to keep clients within the rocket ecosystem where they would otherwise need to go elsewhere and is part of what makes RKT a one-stop-shop. Amrock Title Insurance (ATI) Company - basically does underwriting for Amrock. The “business end” in my simple understanding of the world. Nexsys - provides a streamlined approach to the closing process with their Clear Sign and Clear HOI technologies - taking care of closing day authentications and sharing of homeowners insurance information. Lendesk - Lendesk specifically provides solutions for the mortgage market in Canada Edison Financial - Basically the “front end” of Lendesk that Canadian clients would interact with. Home Sale and Search
Rocket Homes - Rocket Homes is a proprietary home search platform and real estate agent referral network. Basically this matches buyers, sellers, and agents, and is a key aspect of keeping clients completely working within RKT for all aspects of real estate buying/selling/financing. For Sale By Owner - A digital marketplace designed to let clients buy and sell real estate on their own. I think it’s absolutely brilliant that RKT owns this, but more on that later. Auto & Personal Financing
Rocket Auto - Supports rental and online car purchasing platforms. Rocket Loans - online personal loan solutions for clients. Media
Core Digital Media - a major advertiser in the mortgage, financial, insurance, and education sectors. Lower My Bills - this company is basically a “portal” business model that connects people with providers of various loan and insurance products. Services & Technology Development
Rock Connections - Basically a sales and support platform that handles appointments, prequalifications, generating leads, and data analysis among other things. Rock Central - I will generalize this as “business support”. HR, administration, etc. Rocket Innovation Studio - A tech incubator to gather and engage top talent and ideas. Recent Acquisitions
RKT, through Lendesk, acquired Finmo back in October of 2020 (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rocket-companies-subsidiary-acquires-fast-182042594.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALnvnNBoglSnmMP0O61AqgXBJokNS53LjJYuG3NvYKhayp4I6ZH2RpfmFUbSsCAU4xmnBNGMTwiEG-Ly29EabVy1-OjPIGfkYoQ3389gn3Edebs9sIwWOy1tPzqjRwOwwGA_PWg0cNzEFCe7HBTilMwADUT_y0QxWw8vizWecGcv) Finmo is a rapidly growing Canadian digital mortgage platform and this acquisition I think was perfect - it shows RKTs dedication to embracing a fully digital experience, and making sure they’re the ones leading that charge.
Management
I do not have much to say here, aside from this. The RKT team is not the new kids on the block, they have decades of industry experience. Also, I value leaders that make people feel valued. And on that note, under CEO Jay Farner Quicken Loans has been in the top 30 of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for 17 consecutive years.
Financials and Growth
When it comes to the numbers, RKT is killing it. I don’t want to just spout a bunch of numbers that anyone can easily go look up so here’s a couple that stood out to me from the Q3 earnings announcement and related data:
$4.63 billion in revenue, which is 163% YoY growth.
From that revenue, they beat EPS estimates with $1.21 for the quarter vs $1.09 expected.
Net income was $2.4 billion which represents a YoY growth of 365%.
Closed loan volume YoY growth was 122% to $89B.
Net rate lock volume was $94.7 Billion (101% growth).
RKT has brought in $13.1 billion in revenue in the first 3 quarters and seems to be on track to close out Q4 with yearly revs above $15 billion.
That’s awesome but what I really like is that they pair this amazing growth with $3.5B cash on hand. That’s great because I want them to be able to scale as they grow, and make acquisitions as needed (see Finmo) to ensure they can keep that growth going without getting overextended and failing to capitalize.
RKTs ability to recapture clients is one of the keys to their future success in my uneducated opinion. Their recapture rate is 4.6x the industry average. The Q3 earnings transcript includes a statement by the CEO on how when interest rates fall, retention rate falls, refinance activity is larger. The high recapture rate RKT has serves as a natural hedge to their retention of existing clients because their recapture is so much higher than average in the industry.
Quick aside - RKT announced a $1 billion share buyback program. They’ll be able to repurchase shares from time to time starting Nov10 2020, ending in two years. I don’t love the idea of share buybacks because I think this can be detrimental to actual business growth for the sake of shareholder value. However, with the large cash position RKT has (and it doubled from December 2019 to September 2020) I think this is a reasonable way to deploy some of that cash for now.
Ok so what about valuation using DCF, free cash flow analysis, something like that? Honestly I’m not convinced this is as useful as some people make it out to be. It’s nice to know what the numbers indicate, but I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about an exact price target based on anything like this. That said, you can crunch the numbers yourself or check out something like the Finbox resources:
https://finbox.com/NYSE:RKT/models/dcf-growth-exit-5yr
I don’t believe that fair value estimate for an instant, but it's a part of the puzzle to consider. Finbox has various models you can check out, but it’s also just a nice place to view aggregate data other than directly from the SEC filings.
Product Channels
RKTs direct-to-consumer channel is their main source of revenue right now, but I think they will be successful in their efforts to grow their partner channels as well. Why do I say that? Numbers don’t lie:
Direct-to-consumer Q3 growth: 131% YoY ($53.5B closed loan volume) Partner Network growth 127% YoY ($29.6B closed volume) Adjusted Revenue for Partner Network is up 502% YTD vs 2019 ( see Q3 earnings transcript) The partner network volume is a little over half of the direct-to-consumer volume but the growth rate is just so damn juicy. That revenue growth is hellathicc.
Current Market and outlook
Right now, rates are low. The average 30-yr mortgage fixed rate is 2.92% (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/mortgage-refinancing-surges-but-high-home-prices-stop-buyers.html)
I cannot say how long interest rates will remain low but I believe RKT is positioned to continue to grow regardless of what rates do moving forward. They just cover so much of the space, and they do it with a focus on applied technology.
Here’s some blatant speculation. I think as we move into 2021 and the vaccine becomes more prevalent, millennials will buy, sell, and borrow against real estate with renewed intensity. I think RKT is uniquely positioned to capture that market.
Positions: RKT shares. Cost basis of $21.14.

Hello! Many companies are trying to expand their market share, especially in the app space, by offering cash or cash-equivalent incentives to new users. If one company offers new users a free stock/cryptocurrency/etc., and a competitor doesn't, then the company with the referral program will gain more market share. This gives you the opportunity generate a nice chunk of change by signing up for a bunch of different apps.
I constantly search the web for the latest and greatest referral opportunities, and this is an up-to-date list I'm maintaining that details the best offers around right now! There are more than $1500 worth of offers on this page.
Please feel free to leave comments with any thoughts/questions! Gemini, Crypto.com, and N26 are worldwide offers, the rest are US only.

Stock Trading Apps/Websites

• Webull: 2 free stocks (1 worth $2.50-$250, and another worth $8-$1600 for depositing $100).
  • https://act.webull.com/kol-us/share.html?hl=en&inviteCode=PUnH4ruayL3j
• Public: 1 free stock worth **$10 guaranteed (**you get to pick a fraction of a share of stocks like Disney, Apple, Amazon, Tesla, etc.) for opening an account and making a $20 deposit.
  • http://share.public.com/aruiu
• M1 Finance: BONUS IMPROVED! $30 for opening a brokerage account and making a $100 deposit.
  • https://m1.finance/J6aLCt6SRGdW
• FirstTrade: 1 free stock worth $3 - $200 (I got Microsoft!) just for opening an account. No deposit required. 2 more free stocks for depositing $100! Expires February 15th at midnight EST.
  • https://share.firstrade.com/AmadeoEAUZ
• Robinhood: 1 free stock worth $2.50- $200 for opening an account. No deposit required.
  • https://invite.robinhood.com/amadeor3/
• Moomoo: PROMOTION UPGRADED! 1 free stock worth $4-$200 for making a $100 deposit.
  • https://j.moomoo.com/000LR3
• Acorns: $5 for $5 deposit from any source (additional steps required, please see below details).
  • https://www.acorns.com/invite/TLBCPD/
• Round: $20 for opening a brokerage account and making a $500 deposit. Alternatively, you can make $100 for doing a $10,000 deposit (iOS only)
  • https://app.investround.com/inviteCode/amadeo-r360s0
• SoFi Invest: $50 for $1000 deposit from any source, and an optional $25 worth of bitcoin for buying $10 worth of bitcoin on SoFi Crypto.
  • https://www.sofi.com/share/invest/2498539
• Personal Capital: $20 for opening a new account and linking a qualified investment account (e.g. taxable brokerage, 401k, IRA, 529, etc) worth at least $1000. No deposit required!
  • https://share.personalcapital.com/x/oGFEyl

Banking Apps/Websites

• SoFi Money: $50 for depositing $500 from any source.
  • https://www.sofi.com/invite/money?gcp=e65d8ea1-fd35-40bc-b801-547c3fc6e749
• Porte: $50 for depositing $500 from any source.
  • Open this link from your smart phone:
  • https://portebanking.app.link/es7KK8Fb69
• Chime: $50 for $200 direct deposit.
  • https://chime.com/amadeoruiu
• Chase Bank: $200 for opening a checking account and doing a $500 direct deposit. Credits quickly!
  • https://accounts.chase.com/raf/share/2479514579
• One Finance: $50 for opening an online banking account and doing a $250 direct deposit.
  • https://share.onefinance.com/invite/Amadeo6c7b8c22
• Wings Financial Credit Union: $50 for opening a checking account, setting up eDocuments, and doing 5 debit card transactions of $5 or more (anything counts, including Amazon GC reloads), OR a direct deposit of $300+ in 60 days. No fees, can withdraw and close account any time.
  • https://www.referlive.com/wingsfinancial/newcustform/109cb9ea5300f9a4bb2a6884eac831077a4/4/11101268SY4BYUZ
• Aspiration: $50 for spending $250 with their debit card within 3 months.
  • https://my.aspiration.com/app/token/referral/232Y47KAE4OG8Y8W/
• Stash: $20 for $5 deposit from any source.
  • https://get.stashinvest.com/amadeowpr10
• SkyOne: $25 for opening an account and keeping the account open for 30 days. (additional steps required, please see below details).
  • https://refer.skyone.org/amadeoruiu3
• Premier Members Credit Union: $50 for opening a money market (checking) account and making a $5 deposit + $5 donation.
  • https://www.pmcu.org/referred-by-a-friend/VFVJEVQQQ/
• Oxygen: $25 for opening an account, depositing $200, and doing 5 debit card transactions within 60 days (can just buy 5 $1 Amazon GC's reloads, they don't care what the purchase is). Message me for a link.
• N26: $10 for opening an account and making a purchase of $20 or more using their debit card. Available globally, not just the US.
  • https://app.n26.com/referral/amadeor4364
• Radius: $50 for opening a Rewards Checking account, depositing $500,leaving the $500 in there for 60 days, and leaving the account open for 90 days. You must use my referral code when prompted during account signup to get the bonus. - TLAM9428D4
  • https://open.radiusbank.com/?utm_source=referafriend&utm_medium=narmi&promocode=9umylb

Cryptocurrency Apps/Websites

• Voyager: Free $25 worth of Bitcoin for trading $100 on the app. Use referral code "RAY037” in the “Reward Code” field when you create your Voyager account". Open these link from mobile:
  • IOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/voyager-buy-bitcoin-crypto/id1396178579
  • Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.investvoyager
• Gemini: Free $10 worth of Bitcoin for trading $100. Available globally, not just the US.
  • https://gemini.com/share/rllzke26
• Celsius: Free $40 for depositing $200 worth of cryptocurrency and using promo code "web40".
  • https://celsiusnetwork.app.link/101697ce8c
• Crypto.com: Free $25 for "staking" (buying and holding) 5000 CRO (approximately $370) for 6 months. (enter referral code 66v69rwt76 if not pre-filled) Available globally, not just the US.
  • https://platinum.crypto.com/66v69rwt76
• Constant: Free $10 for opening an account, verifying your identity, and depositing $10.
  • https://www.myconstant.com?r=annoyedproduct
• Coinbase: Free $10 worth of Bitcoin for trading $100. They will also give you $12 of the "Orchid" cryptocurrency (which can be re-sold for cash) if you watch 3 1-2 minute videos and answer 3 easy questions about that cryptocurrency. (might get waitlisted, I had to wait a month before getting off it). The "Compound" cryptocurrency has a similar promotion, with $9 of free crypto offered.
  • Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/join/ruiu_8
  • Orchid-$12 of free crypto: https://coinbase.com/earn/oxt/invite/t0wvs4k2
  • Compound-$9 of free crypto: https://coinbase.com.earn.comp.invite.9x21smry

Credit Cards

• Chase Freedom or Flex: Free $200 for signing up for a Chase Freedom Unlimited or Freedom Flex credit card and spending $500 within 3 months. Easy to meet spending terms simply by doing something like buying an Amazon gift card, buying a visa gift card, etc.
  • https://www.referyourchasecard.com/18/8EG7P6BN62
• Discover IT: Free $50 for signing up for a Discover IT credit card and making ANY purchase within 3 months (even $1).
  • https://refer.discover.com/s/hhti4m

Other Offers

• Root: Free $25 for downloading the app, and allowing it to track your driving for 3-4 weeks so that they can offer you an auto insurance quote. You need to keep your phone on while driving so it can give you a quote. You can simply reject the offer and take the $25 bonus if you wish, I did!
  • https://rootbonus.com/AmadeoRuiu
• Worthy Bonds: Free $10 for opening an account, no deposit required.
  • https://worthybonds.com/?r=etyji
• SoFi Loans: Free $10 just for checking your personal loan or student loan refinance rate options with SoFi. Can also get an extra $300 if you go ahead and accept their loan offer, but you can just ignore the offer and keep the $10 if you wish!
  • Personal Loan: https://www.sofi.com/invite/personal-loans/?gcp=bf4f78eb-3e5a-4419-b72c
  • Student Loan Refinance: https://www.sofi.com/invite/student-loans/?gcp=183a665b-be7a-45ac-9d5f
• Fetch Rewards: Receipt scanner app, rewards you 5 cents for each receipt you scan from most major chain stores. $2 bonus for using a referral link and scanning your first receipt (open this link from your phone).
  • https://fetchrewards.onelink.me/vvv3/referraltext?code=JU1GW
• Raise: Free $5 credit towards your first gift card if you sign up using a referral code, you can get an extra $5 off your first gift card purchase. I used it to buy a $10 Uber gift card, combined with their 2% discount, I only paid $4.80 for a $10 gift card!
  • https://www.raise.com/raise-rewards/AMADEO0427

--Details on each offer below--

Stock Trading Apps/Websites-

Webull

Webull is a commission free stock trading platform/app which is giving out 2 free stocks (1 worth $2.50-$250, and 1 worth $8-$1600 each for depositing $100). That's a MINIMUM of $10.50 in free stock!
Webull is available on iOS and Android, or you can use their website.
Referral link- https://act.webull.com/kol-us/share.html?hl=en&inviteCode=PUnH4ruayL3j

Public

Public is another commission free stock trading app which gives you 1 stock worth $10 guaranteed (you get to pick a fraction of a share between stocks like Disney, Apple, Amazon, Tesla, etc.) for opening an account and making a $20 deposit. The way fractional shares work is, you get a piece of one of these stocks. You can still sell it or choose to sell it/hold it/it or whatever you wish, just like with a full share.
Available on iOS or Android only.
http://share.public.com/aruiu

M1 Finance

M1 Finance is an investing account, like Robinhood or Webull. If you open an account using a referral link, deposit $100 to a brokerage account, and keep that initial deposit in your account for 30 days, you will get a free $30 bonus that posts within 14 days.
M1 Finance is available on iOS and Android, or you can use their website.
https://m1.finance/J6aLCt6SRGdW

FirstTrade

FirstTrade is a commission-free stock trading app which gives you a free stock (valued up to $200) when you open an account via a referral link. No initial deposit is required. Additionally, they are running a short-term promo where you can get an additional 2 free stocks for depositing $100. The extra 2 stocks offer expires February 15th!
Available on iOS or Android only.
https://share.firstrade.com/MilaAQOK

Robinhood

Robinhood is a stock trading platform/app which gives you a free stock (valued $2.50 - $200) when you open an account via a referral link. No initial deposit is required.
Available on iOS and Android, or you can use their website.
https://invite.robinhood.com/amadeor3/

Moomoo

Moomoo is a commission free stock trading app which gives you 1 free stock (valued at $4-$200 each) for opening an account via a referral link and making a $100 deposit.
Moomoo is available on iOS or Android only.
https://j.moomoo.com/000LR3

Acorns

Acorns is an online investing app (iOS or Android) which is offering a free $5 bonus for simply opening an account via a referral link, depositing $5, and keeping the money in the account until the 15th of the following month. You can then withdraw the money and close the account, fee free!
If you keep the account longer, they may charge you a $3 fee, so be sure to close it after the 15th on the following month from when you signed up.
Acorns is available on iOS and Android, or you can use their website.
https://www.acorns.com/invite/TLBCPD/

Round

Round is an online auto-investing app (iOS only) which is offering a free $20 bonus for simply opening an account via a referral link and depositing $500. Alternatively, you can get $100 if you deposit $10,000.
Round is available on iOS only.
https://app.investround.com/inviteCode/amadeo-r360s0

SoFi Invest

SoFi gives $50 for anyone who signs up for a SoFi Invest account via a referral link and deposits $1000. This offer stacks with the SoFi Money $25 offer, so you can do both!
Plus, you can get another $25 cash bonus when you buy $10 or more of crypto like Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum. That's a total of $75 cash bonuses with SoFi Invest!
https://www.sofi.com/share/invest/2498539

Personal Capital

Personal Capital is a finance tracking website similar to Mint but tailored for investment accounts. If you open an account and link a qualified investment account for tracking (e.g. taxable brokerage, 401k, IRA, 529, etc) with more than $1000 in it, they will give you a free $20 amazon gift card within a couple weeks.
Accounts that do not qualify as valid investment accounts include bank, credit or debit card, Paypal, Stash, Acorns, Kapitall, Groundfloor, WageWorks HSA, Coinbase, digital currency exchanges, and manual investment accounts. Robinhood works!
https://share.personalcapital.com/x/oGFEyl

Banking Apps/Websites-

SoFi Money

SoFi is a bank/app that give out $50 for anyone who signs up for a SoFi Money (bank) account using a referral code and deposits $500 from any source. So all you have to do is open an account with a referral link, deposit $500, and then instantly collect the bonus and then take it all back.
You can close the account at any time with no fees-
https://www.sofi.com/invite/money?gcp=e65d8ea1-fd35-40bc-b801-547c3fc6e749

Porte

Porte is a bank/app which pays you a $50 bonus for opening an account via a referral code, and making a $500 direct deposit. There are no catches, and you can close the account at any time fee free as soon as you register their debit card (gotta wait a few days to get it in the mail).
A "direct deposit" technically means that they want you to deposit the money right from payroll, Social Security, or other direct payment, but you can actually meet this requirement simply by transferring in $500 from virtually any source including bank accounts, cashapp, etc.
Referral link- https://portebanking.app.link/es7KK8Fb6

Chime

Chime is a bank/app which pays you a $75 bonus for opening an account via a referral code and making a $200 direct deposit. There are no catches, and you can close the account at any time fee free as soon as you register their debit card (gotta wait a few days to get it in the mail).
A "direct deposit" means that they want you to deposit the money right from payroll, Social Security, or other direct payment.
https://chime.com/milazadrozny

One Finance

One Finance is a banking app/website offering $50 for opening an account with a referral code and making a $250 direct deposit.
A "direct deposit" means that they want you to deposit the money right from payroll, Social Security, or other direct payment. They are completely fee free, and you can close your account and pocket the bonus quickly if you wish.
https://share.onefinance.com/invite/Amadeo6c7b8c22

Chase Bank

Chase Bank is offering $200 for opening a checking account with a referral code and making a $500 direct deposit. Can easily get around direct deposit requirement. Credits within a few days of meeting requirements.
A "direct deposit" means that they want you to deposit the money right from payroll, Social Security, or other direct payment.
https://accounts.chase.com/raf/share/2479514579

Wings

Wings Financial Credit Union is a bank offering $50 for opening a checking account, setting up eDocuments, and either doing 5 debit card transactions of $5 or more (anything counts, including Amazon GC reloads), OR a direct deposit of $300+ in 60 days.
No fees, can withdraw and close your account any time.
https://www.wingsfinancial/newcustform/109cb9ea

Aspiration

Aspiration is an online bank which is offering a free $50 bonus for simply opening an account via a referral link and spending $250.
So all you have to do is open a “Spend & Save” account using a referral link, spend $250/1000 using their debit card within 3 months, and then you will get $50 posted to your account! There are no fees to worry about! You can close the account fee free whenever you want!
https://my.aspiration.com/app/token/referral/232Y47KAE4OG8Y8W/

Stash

Stash is a finance app that gives out $20 for anyone who signs up for the Stash (bank) or Stash Invest account via my referral link and deposits at least $5 from any source (payroll, another bank account, PayPal, etc.) So all you have to do is open an account with a referral link, deposit $5, and then the bonus will post to your account!
The app will ask you to open a paid account, but you can simply open a "beginner" account for $1 a month, and then close your account after 1 month after you get your $20 bonus.
https://get.stashinvest.com/amadeowpr10

SkyOne

SkyOne is a credit union which will pay you a $25 bonus for opening a checking account with a referral link, making a $5 opening deposit, and keeping your account open for at least 30 days.
This credit union services the SoCal area, but anyone nationwide can sign up if you follow the steps detailed here. People are normally required to make a donation to a local charity to qualify for a local credit union bank account when they don't live in the area, but SkyOne will actually pay for a donation to the "Surfrider Foundation" themselves because they want everyone on the US to be eligible! In other words, you don't have to spend a dime! Simply click ("None of the above? We've got you! SkyOne will make a one-time donation to one of the following non-profits") on the eligibility page when signing up.
https://refer.skyone.org/amadeoruiu3

Premier Members Credit Union

Premier Members Credit Union is a credit union which will pay you a $50 bonus for opening a money market account with a referral link, and making a $5 opening deposit. They will also require you to open a savings account alongside the money market account, which also requires a $5 opening deposit.
They are located in Boulder Colorado, but will allow anyone to create an account with them as long as you make a $5 donation to one of their local charities (they walk you through it during account signup). That's a total profit of $45!
And you can close the account at any time, fee free!
referral link (please remember to use my referral code during the account setup too)- https://www.pmcu.org/referred-by-a-friend/VFVJEVQQQ/

Oxygen

Oxygen is a mobile banking app that will pay you $25 for opening an account, depositing $200, and doing 5 debit card transaction within 60 days (You can just buy 5 $1 Amazon GC's reloads, they don't care what the purchase is. Lots of different ways to easily get this). PM me for a link.

N26

N26 is a banking app (iOS/Android) which will pay you $10 for opening an account and spending $20 or more on a single purchase using their debit card.
The account has absolutely no fees and can be closed at any time. Account signup only takes a few minutes. You need to fund your N26 account from another bank with enough money to make the $20+ purchase. The debit card is shipped to you immediately after account signup. You receive the $10 bonus in the form of a statement credit. Available globally, not just the US.
N26 is available on iOS or Android only.
https://n26.com/amadeor4364

Radius

Radius is a bank which pays you a $50 bonus for opening an account via a referral code and making a $500 deposit from any source. There are no catches, and you can close the account at any time fee free. You need to keep your account open for at least 90 days after depositing the $500, and keep the $500 in there for at least 60 days to be eligible to keep the bonus. So in other words, you can open the account, deposit $500, leave it in there for 60 days, then withdraw the $500 if you wish, and keep the account open for at least another 30 days to get the $50 bonus.
You need to enter my referral code when prompted during account signup top get the bonus, its TLAM9428D4.
You can see referral terms in the FAQ at the bottom of the page, even though the landing page for the referral link does not do a great job advertising it.
https://open.radiusbank.com/?utm_source=referafriend&utm_medium=narmi&promocode=9umylb

Cryptocurrency Apps/Websites

Voyager

Voyager is a cryptocurrency trading app (iOS/Android only) which will pay you $25 in free bitcoin for trading $100 on the app! Make sure to use the referral code "RAY037" in the “Reward Code” field when you create your account. The bonus posts within a couple of days, from my experience.
Referral link (open from your smart phone)-
iOS- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/voyager-buy-bitcoin-crypto/id1396178579
Android- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.investvoyager

Gemini

Gemini is a cryptocurrency trading app/website which will give you $10 worth of bitcoin for signing up using a referral link and buying/selling $100 worth of cryptocurrency.
Available globally, not just the US. This bonus posts VERY quickly, within a day or two.
https://gemini.com/share/rllzke26

Coinbase

Coinbase is a cryptocurrency trading platform which will pay you $10 in free bitcoin for trading $100 on the platform!
https://www.coinbase.com/join/ruiu_8
They will also give you $9 worth of the "Compound" cryptocurrency (which can be immediately re-sold for cash) if you watch 3 short videos and answer 3 easy questions.
https://coinbase.com.earn.comp.invite.9x21smry
In addition, they will give you $12 worth of the "Orchid" cryptocurrency (which can be immediately re-sold for cash) if you watch 3 short videos and answer 3 easy questions.
https://coinbase.com/earn/oxt/invite/t0wvs4k2

Constant

Constant is a cryptocurrency P2P investing platform which will give you $10 for signing up using a referral link, verifying your ID (pass KYC), and depositing $10.
So all you have to do is open an account using a referral link, verify your ID, deposit $10 via any means, and then you will get a $10 bonus that posts instantly and you can withdraw to your bank immediately. No deposit required.
https://www.myconstant.com?r=annoyedproduct

Celsius

Celsius is a cryptocurrency investing platform which will give you $40 for signing up using a referral link, enter the promo code "web40", and depositing $200 worth of cryptocurrency. You must keep your deposit in the app for 30 days to get the full $40 bonus. You can then withdraw the full $240 and close your account fee free. Available globally, not just the US.

• https://celsiusnetwork.app.link/101697ce8c

Crypto.com

Crypto.com is a cryptocurrency investing platform which will give you $25 for signing up using a referral link, and "staking (aka, buying and holding) 5000 CRO (their special cryptocurrency, worth approximately $370) for 6 months. You need to apply for their "Ruby Steel" debit card when applying, its a 0 risk debit card, no credit impact, no fees. Combo's well with the Celsius promo if you need a platform to send cryptocurrency from, and you can send the $25 bonus crypto to celsius instantly.
Available globally, not just the US.

• (enter referral code 66v69rwt76 if not pre-filled)
  • https://platinum.crypto.com/66v69rwt76

Credit Cards-

Chase Freedom

Chase will pay you $200 for signing up for a Chase Freedom Unlimited or Freedom Flex credit card with a referral link and spending $500 it within the first 3 months. This is one of the best credit card bonuses in the industry!
All you have to do is sign up for a Chase Freedom Unlimited or Freedom Flex credit card using my referral link, spend $500 within the first 3 months, and then get your $200! You can cancel the card at any time with no fees or penalties.
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/18/ONLMEFPEFJ

Discover IT

Discover will pay you $50 for signing up for a Discover IT credit card with a referral link and making ANY purchase using it within the first 3 months. This is one of the easiest credit card bonuses in the industry!
All you have to do is sign up for a Discover IT credit card using my referral link, make ANY purchase using it within the first 3 months, and then get your $50! You can cancel the card at any time fee free.
https://refer.discover.com/s/hhti4m

Other Offers-

Root

Root is an auto insurance app(iOS/Android) that will pay you $25 to download their app, let it track your driving for 3-4 weeks, and then offer you an auto insurance policy based on your driving data. You can easily ignore their policy offer, take the bonus, and walk away with the $25 bonus which then then go to your PayPal account, sent as a check, etc.
https://rootbonus.com/AmadeoRuiu

Worthy Bonds

Worthy Bonds is a finance app(iOS/Android) that will give you a free $10 bond to download their app, and open an account using a referral code. You never have to deposit any money into the account to get the bonus. You can sell the bond and take out the money after 90 days. The bond will also earn 5% yearly interest while you wait to withdraw.
The app may give you a popup saying the bonds are sold out (its a page with a celebratory emoji that pops up). I got this too. They make this popup because they sold out of a certain type of community bond, but have replaced it with a new one for referrals. In other words, you will still get your free bond. Just make sure you hit "next steps", set your initial purchase and monthly contributions to $0, and proceed. It should then credit the free bond immediately.
https://worthybonds.com/?r=etyji

SoFi Loans

SoFi Loans is offering a free $10 just for checking your personal loan or student loan refinance rate options with SoFi. You can also get an extra $300 if you like their offer and decide to actually take it, but you can also just ignore the offer and keep the $10 if you wish!
You should research the pros and cons of student loan refinancing before you consider this option. You can lower your interest rate, but lose some benefits from the federal government. Whether this is worth it to you will depend on individual circumstances.
Personal Loan: https://www.sofi.com/invite/personal-loans/?gcp=bf4f78eb-3e5a-4419-b72c
Student Loan Refinance: https://www.sofi.com/invite/student-loans/?gcp=183a665b-be7a-45ac-9d5f

Fetch

Fetch Rewards pays roughly 5 to 10 cents (7.5 cents on average) for most receipt scanned. Accepts e-receipts if you connect your email/Amazon. Can scan up to 28 receipts in any given 7 day period. $3 minimum payout.
They also give a $2 bonus for signing up using a referral code (open this link from your phone).
https://fetchrewards.onelink.me/vvv3/referraltext?code=JU1GW

Raise

Raise is a discount gift card website, that offers a $5 credit towards your first gift card if you sign up using a referral code. They have gift cards like Amazon or Uber on their site, so its pretty easy to find something you would have needed anyway.
www.sofi.com/share/2498539?src=copy
Thank you for checking out my referral post! As you can probably tell, I spend a lot of time searching the web for referral offers. If you would like, feel free to sign up for my mailing list and I will send new referrals that I come across directly to your inbox.
https://mailchi.mp/c52908afbf15/moneywhisperers-latest-finance-tips-latest-finds
I've also put together a small blog with finance tips and tricks I've learned over the years. If you're potentially interested, here's a link to it.
https://www.youngmoneywhisperer.com/home

Oh yes, you read correctly from the title. 187 Factory finally fixed the front interior lining to black! 👏👏👏👏👏
My first replica purchase was a 187 WOC from Heidi back in 2019. This was the previously model with the snap closure. I was pretty satisfied with it despite it having some discrepancies with the authentic:
· Incorrect burgundy front interior lining which should be black. I mean no one was really going to look that closely at it (except one friend who meticulously examined by bag and then exclaimed she wanted to barf 🤮 in my bag because it was more expensive than hers. We all have that one friend, right? No? 😶)
· The placement of the Mona Lisa pocket was a slightly lower than most authentics. Some authentic did exist with this low pocket placement though 🤷‍♀️
· The leather through the chain was one folded piece of leather instead of one thick leather.
· The CHANEL inner stamping was a bit too tall and too closely spaced together.
Then Chanel came out with the magnetic closure version and 187 Factory came out with their updated version. After reading this REVIEWreview , it seemed like 187 made some improvements- the Mona Lisa pocket was placed higher, the stamping improved and leather through the chain was corrected. However, the 187 WOC still had the incorrect front lining color. 😩
I sold my 187 WOC and I missed it terribly. Months later, I came full circle back to Heidi and 187 Factory. When I received my bag, I peeked into the inner front lining. And to my surprise, it was black! 187 Factory finally corrected the color of the lining. I felt obligated to share this review to you guys. 🥳
187 WOC- PHOTOS and VIDEO
Some photos of my 187 old WOC vs new WOC
187 caviar vs my authentic caviar
Logo and stamping comparison
____________________________________________________________________________
*Disclaimer- I did not receive any incentive to write this review. I did tell Heidi I was writing this review after I received my bag and I saw the correct lining.
*Item: Black Chanel Caviar WOC with SHW, King Version 👜
*Seller: TS-Heidi
*Contact Info: WeChat heidi-hiddencloset
*Factory: 187, King Version
*Price: $300 (She originally quoted me $315, but later quoted me $300)
*Shipping price: Free
*Payment Method: PayPal FF
*Shipping Carrier: FedEx
PSP
Factory Photos
Heidi’s Website link
Authentic
*Timeline:
Nov 18: Inquired about the bag
Nov 19: Paid
Jan 3: Received PSP
Jan 8: Received tracking number
Jan 17: Received item (FYI my tracking number never updated. It still says “Shipping information sent to FedEx”)
_______________________________________________________________________
Quality: 10/10
I have nothing bad to say about the quality of the bag. The material 187 Factory uses is definitely high quality. The caviar leather is shiny, plush and smells luxurious. No fu-fu smell here. The stamping is crisp and the zippers are super smooth. I can easily zip and unzip with one hand. The chain strap is substantial. When I rub the chain together, there’s a satisfying noise it makes. It feels like jewelry in the hands. No tarnish hardware, no loose stitching. The magnetic closure is strong. I have nothing negative to say about the quality.
________________________________________________________________________
Accuracy: 9.8/10
✅Leather: The caviar grain size and texture look and feel identical to the authentic. The caviar is smooth and soft. It’s not too grainy and the sheen is just right.
✅ Alignment: The alignment on my bag is perfect. The number of diamonds across is correct. The positions of the diamonds are correct.
✅ CC hardware: My CC logo is centered. It’s not pressed too deeply or too shallow either. The shape of the CC is correct. Some replica’s CC is too flat or too round. The authentic is kinda flat, but slightly rounded. The 187 looks accurate to me.
✅ Stitching: I counted 9-10 stitches.
✅ Leather through chain: One thick piece of leather woven through the chains
✅ Dimension: Website shows 12.3 x 19.2 x 3.5 cm. I measured 12.5 x 19.5 x 3.75 cm. There are variances of measurements I found online
❌Strap Drop: I measured 23 inches. Fashionphile shows strap-drop 24 to 24.5 inches online
✅ Mona Lisa Back Pocket: The placement of the Mona Lisa is higher than their previous model. The shape and placement are accurate to the authentic
✅ Inner flap Stamping: CHANEL stamping is clear and even. The size of the font and spacing looks correct. Most replicas are too thin and closely spaced
✅ Made in Italy Stamp: Accurate to authentic. Either made in France or Italy ✅ The Made in Italy pocket is made of leather.
✅ Interior: Burgundy fabric lining and 6 card pockets.
✅ Front interior lining: BLACK COLOR
✅ Serial Number Placement: In the front interior pocket. Some replicas have it in the main burgundy compartment
✅ Hardware: I got silver hardware which is hard to mess up. The chain has a nice weight to it.
­_______________________________________________________________________
Satisfaction: 10/10
In case you couldn’t tell, I’m extremely happy with my purchase. I have a confession. I purchased 4 other magnetic closure WOCs 🙈 (all black caviar with SHW) and this version is best of all. I don’t want to go into details of what I think was wrong with each version- that would take forever. I’m glad that 187 Factory made improvements to their WOC. While $300 is quite a bit of money to spend on a WOC, I’m completely happy with the quality and accuracy of this WOC. I honestly think this is my best replica. I feel confident enough to wear this to this Chanel store. One thing to mention when ordering with 187 Factory, expect a wait. Some items are in-stock and some items are not. It’s not uncommon to hear a waiting time of 3-4 months. Luckily, I “only” had to wait two months.
________________________________________________________________________
Seller Communication and Service: 9.8/10
This is my second purchase from Heidi. She’s professional and usually replies within a day.l or two. She doesn’t chit-chat but neither do I so I don’t mind it at all. She replies to my concerns and took additional photos for me. I will continue to purchase 187 items from her and I feel her price is the best.

►LINK.◄

MORE BY THE AUTHOR
Dandelion
Amber Houston was born light-years from Earth, aboard the enormous colony starship Dandelion. By the age of fourteen, she has spent her entire life training as a "Ranger," ready for the day when she will be among the first humans ever to set foot on an alien world & build a new civilization.
When Dandelion suffers an emergency toward the end of its journey, Amber & her fellow young rangers are evacuated & land on the planet Newhome years ahead of schedule. While the adults left behind on Dandelion slow the ship & turn it around to come back---in eight years---Amber & her friends must build lives for themselves amid revelations that will change Humankind's destiny forever.
Meanwhile, aboard the ship, secrets that were buried over three hundred years ago finally come to light...
Co-authored alongside Justin C. Louis, Dandelion is my debut novel, and you can read it right here on Reddit with each of the book's chapters being posted monthly here, as well as on Royal Road.
If you get impatient and would like to read the whole thing, then you can purchase it in hardcover and paperback through your local book store or online wherever good books are sold. Alternatively, you can download it for free through Kindle Unlimited.

What you are about to read...

...is chapter 72 of an ongoing story, the writing of which is funded by the kind donations of my patrons and subscribers.
If you enjoy this story and think that I deserve something for it (thank you!) then you can:

• Join my other patrons on Patreon or on Subscribestar
  
• Drop a one-off donation in the tip jar or buy me a coffee
  
• Buy some of my merchandise
  
• Follow my Facebook page or my Twitter
  
• Vote for The Deathworlders at Top Web Fiction)
  
• ...Or just say nice things about me to people you know.
  

This chapter comes in at 27,285 action-packed words!
In this chapter:
House Henen has committed grave wrongs against the Gao, and the full weight of the Allied military is brought to bear against them. Under the wondrous beauty of Eclipse Palace, however, lie crimes even worse than the deathworlders had believed.
And terrible things must be done to achieve justice.

IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS SERIES...

First of all, welcome! The Deathworlders has been in production now for more than three years, and is now very, very long indeed! Like... two million words maybe? Something like that. I lost count.
While I hope that the story stands well enough on its own, the setting (Also known as “The JVerse”) has often been a collaborative effort, building on the talented work of other writers who have breathed life and detail into its every corner.
Characters, species and concepts have entered this narrative thanks to those other writers, and while I have made every effort to keep the story coherent and readable without requiring you to read those other works…
…Read them. Seriously. Not only are they awesome, but you will gain a much richer understanding of the events unfolding in this story.
In particular, you will want to read:

• “Humans Don’t Make Good Pets” by guidosbestfriend
  
• “Salvage” by Rantarian
  
• “The Xiù Chang Saga” by hume_reddit
  
• “Good Training” by ctwelve
  
• and "The Waters of Babylon" by slice_of_pi
  

They are best read in the chronological Reading Order curated by galrock0 and fourbags or, if you prefer the abridged version which contains only those items most useful to understanding The Deathworlders, you can instead follow the Essential Reading Order

THE STORY SO FAR

Beware Spoilers
In the standard classification system used by those interstellar civilizations which are members of the Interspecies Dominion, a habitability rating of 10 or higher indicates that a planet is a so-called “deathworld”---lethally inimical to most forms of life, and populated by the strongest, toughest, fastest and deadliest forms of life in the galaxy.
For most of their history, the native sophonts of the planet Earth were unaware of their own planet’s habitability rating: A high-end twelve.
This fact only became known to humanity after a force of the feared and reviled entities known as “Hunters” attempted to raid Earth to take slaves for their meat. In the aftermath of the attack, the Rogers Arena in Vancouver was closed for a month while alien blood was meticulously cleaned off the ice and taken away for study.
The Interspecies Dominion responded by quarantining Sol and all its planets behind an impenetrable forcefield.
In the years since this historic event, Mankind have slipped their cage and begun their tortuous journey toward becoming an interstellar power. The colony of Cimbrean represents humanity’s first strong foothold in a hostile galaxy, protected by a stolen duplicate of the same forcefield that quarantines Earth.
There have been ups and downs: A young Canadian woman, abducted by the grey-skinned “Corti” as a zoological research specimen, instead rescued and was befriended by a contingent of colonists from a mammalian species known as the Gao, and from this solid start a firm friendship has flourished between the two species.
But the galaxy is a corrupt place, ruled for countless millennia by the agents of a species known as the Igraens. This “Hierarchy” has one overarching mission above all others---to suppress the evolution of sapient deathworld life-forms. To that end, they have rendered untold thousands of species extinct, and their efforts at containing the situation on Earth have led to the destruction of the city of San Diego.
But in that act, they reached too far. It is now impossible for those alien leaders who are not already under their influence to ignore the signs that something sinister is at work. The Humans and Gaoians have formed an elite force---the SOR, comprised of the hardy JETS and the pinnacle HEAT---whose spaceborne capability are unmatched by anyone, anywhere.
Mankind have barely set foot on the galactic stage before finding themselves embroiled in a deadly fight for survival...but when it comes to survival, there is nothing in the galaxy that matches a Deathworlder.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, THANKS AND DEDICATIONS

This chapter was brought to you with the help of my Patrons and Subscribers
The SOR
Those special individuals whose contributions to this story go above and beyond mere money
cTwelve,
BitterBusiness,
Sally and Stephen Johnson
Sian, Steve, Willow and Riker
Forty Humans
TTTA Adam Shearsby Alvaro Gaitan Anthony Landry Anthony Youhas Armond471 Austin Deschner blackwolf393 Brigid Chris Candreva Chris Dye Daniel Iversen Daniel Morris Eric Hardwick HungryWerewolf James Ren Jeffrey Stults John Norton Joseph Szuma Joshua Mountain Taylor Karthik Mohanarangan Katja Krit Barb Marquis Talmadge Nicolas Gruenbeck Ortheri Rob Rollins Ryan Seaman Sam Berry Shane Wegner Sun Rendered T.A. Carlson Taylor McGee TheMoneyBadger Theningaraf Trevor C Xultanis Yeania Aeon Zachary Galicki Zenith
As well as Fifty-seven Deathworlders...
Adam Beeman Alexandre Smirnov Andrew Andrew Ford Andrew Preece atp Ben Thrussell Brandon Hicks Bruce Ludington Chris Bausch Chris Meeker damnusername Daniel R. David Jamison Derek Price Devin Rousso galrock0 Gavin Smart Ignate Flare Ivan Smirnov Jim Hamrick John Campbell Jon Justin Hood Katie Drzewiecki Kristoffer Skarra Lina lovot Matt Matt Demm Matthew Cook Max Bohling Mel B. Mikee Elliott Nathaniel Batts Nick Annunziata NightKhaos Patrick Huizinga Richard A Anstett RJ Smiley Ryan Cadiz Sam Saph Sean Calvo Sir Xaph Stephen Prescott Stratigan theWorst Valiander Vincent Leighton Volka Creed walter thomas William Kinser Woodsie13 Yshmael Salas ziv Zod Bain
82 Friendly ETs...
4thkorean Aaron Aaron Johnson Abraham Buditama Adam Shields Adrian af12689 Alexander Haruk AlxH Andrew Binnie Andrew Leap Annellysse Anthony Thiebaut Ben Brandwood Ben C Reynolds Bob Brandon J DeGroot Cameron Schneider Chakfor Charles Roche Chase Caynoski chris wood CW Danny Sloan David Florish Divran Doug Carr EliteKiller693 Eric Driggers Eric Kunz Foxwolf Firebane Francisco Henry Moyers Ian Grossman Isaac Hunter J Andrade Jack Edun - Hughes James Jonathan Grimm Jonathan McGee Jonathan Wallace Joseph Mans Joshua King Kai kevin belcik Kevin Hanley Kralizec Lachlan McDonald Lambros Lance Lott Logan Rudie Luke Southwell Martin McCallister Maurice Brown Max Meteroson Mike Barrell Mitchell Dokken Nathan Fish nd Neandertim Nicholas Ragan Nicolas Shallcross Oblomov Olli Erinko Paladin3712x Phillip Varin Robert Buchan Terrey Robert Hosek Robert Milne Sally Johnson Scott Robert Dawson Sean Cooper Sean Haley Sins SourMonkey Space253 ThatEpicPenguin TMarkos Tom Neylan Tyler Powell Watchful1
147 Squishy Xenos and 320 Dizi Rats, who should exercise caution while reading this chapter.
NOW CLICK HERE TO READ CHAPTER 72
—

Note: I’m not a citizen, but I’ve been living in the US long enough to be considered a resident alien for tax purposes. On my visa, I cannot work any job that’s not directly related to my major in grad school (IT/computer science), but I can invest in the stock market.

Section One: Assets and Debt

Net Worth: from -$13,603.63 (Jan 2020) to $9,605.97 (Jan 2021)
Retirement Balance: $16,000 in my 401(K).
I only started working 2 years ago and my company messed up my registration so they basically didn’t put any money into it my first year there (I found out in horror and they gave me around $1,000 to say sorry…). I contribute 9% and my company matches 3%.
Savings account balance: $2,500
I have $2,500 set aside as my “emergency fund”, and I’m building back my vacation & study abroad budgets after having to tap into them for a move. My job is very stable and I won't be let go any time soon (unless I quit myself) so I’m not setting aside a big emergency fund for now.
Checking account balance: $3,111.01
Investment account: $1,500 in some stocks.
I initially dumped half of my 2019 bonus and some monthly contributions (totaling around $4,000) to this account to test strategies. This was my “study fund” and I didn’t care if I’d lose it all. I grew the account to around $10,000 and withdrew almost everything (that went to all the fees I had to pay to break my lease, my brother’s lease, deposit, moving expenses, and new furniture) and left $1,500 worth of stocks in there right now.
Credit card debt: $2,243.76 on my BestBuy card and PayPal Credit.
I had the money to pay for the items in full but they offered X months interest-free and I wanted to throw money into my debts instead. I always pay off all balances well before the deadline. I also pay all my credit cards in full and have never paid any interest.
Student loan debt: $11,046.09 left on my $20,000 loans at 8% for my BA in Biology and Statistics. Day 1 of arriving in the US, they sat us down, handed each of us a pen, and said hey kids here are the terms of your 8% loans, sign the documents now! I just turned 17, didn't even know I had to pay this money back, and remembered thinking "Is 8% a lot?" That's how clueless I was.
As a non-citizen, I will never have them canceled, so my plan was to tackle this as soon as possible and I started paying more aggressively until they made it 0% interest since Q4 last year.
Car loan: $4,900 left on my $10,000 loan at 8.9%. I didn’t have a long credit history when I bought the car (September 2019) since I only got my first credit card after graduation, so the rate was terrible. I’m planning to pay this all off after my bonus comes in March.

Section Two: Income

Income Progression:
2012 - 2016: I had multiple student on-campus jobs all throughout my undergrad, making from $7.25 to $10/hour. After graduation, I couldn't find any job directly related to my majors within 3 months (I had only been searching for Bio lab work), ran out of money, and had to go back home. Honestly, I didn't want to keep doing science either and was very lost back then.
2017: My first full-time job was being a tutor for a private college prep institution when I went back to my home country to “figure out what I wanted to do with my life.” They paid pretty well for the standards of living there ($1,000/mo). I worked that job while self-studying how to code and data science courses on the side and preparing my grad school applications.
2019: I got a job at my current company a semester before I graduated from my MS in Data Science program. This was my first “big girl job.” I started out at $64,000 and couldn’t work for 2 months due to complications in my visa processes so that ate up all my savings that year. By the end of the year, they bumped my salary up to $76,000 and we also had an annual 3% raise, so in total $78,280 + 5% bonus.
2020: One of my teammates left and one thing led to another, I got a title change from Data Analyst to Data Scientist towards the end of the year. I asked for a raise and they bumped it to $96,000 + 5% bonus.
2021: After our annual 3% raise my salary is now $98,880 (+ at least 5% bonus). I think I’m slightly underpaid, but this job is very low-stress and flexible (especially after we WFH).
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $5,082.58
Taken from my last paychecks (before the annual raise)
Gross salary: $8,000
Tax: $2,081.68
401(k) deduction: $720
Health insurance: $115.74

Section Three: Expenses

Rent & renter’s insurance: $935 for my share for a 2bed/3bath condo. My parents pay a flat $700/mo for my brother’s share. He recently moved here since his school went virtual until at least the end of this semester and our family wanted us to be nearby to take care of each other.
Savings contribution: $900
Investment contribution: $420, but will increase once my car loan is paid off.
Debt payments:

• $1,000 on car loan until paid off.
• $200.13 minimum on student loans for now at 0% interest, will increase to $1,100 when car loan is paid off.
• $300 for Best Buy & PayPal Credit promotional deals

Car insurance: $127.01 ($762.05 paid in full every 6 months)
Car registration: $25 ($300 annual)
Donations: $20 monthly (ASPCA), plus several hundreds throughout the year (last year I donated to BLM orgs and local animal shelters)
Gas: $0. I drive an electric car. Charging probably drives up my electric bill by a bit, but still cheaper than gas. Also, this means no car maintenance at all until my car battery dies, which probably won’t happen in the next 5 years.
Utilities (electric, natural gas): ~$150
Wifi: $40
Cellphone: $10.61 ($108.66 for 6 months and I got a $45 credit from my bank)
Groceries: $500 (for 2 people)
Subscriptions: $20 (HP Ink, shared Netflix account, YNAB, Disney+)
Pet expenses: ~$20 for wet cat food
Personal care/hobby: I collect perfumes. Between makeup, skincare, clothes (which I had planned to stop buying this year) and perfume bottles and samples (the majority of my "personal care" expenses...), I averaged $400/mo last year. Without the makeup, skincare and clothes, I budget $150/mo this year for my fragrance hobby.
Household supplies: $30
Education: $30 (language/technical textbooks, Udemy/Coursera)
Gifts: $30
Credit card fee: $21 ($250 annual)

Section Four: Background

Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Education is one of the top priorities in our household and this has been instilled in my mind since I was a kid. Perhaps because my grandparents were both professors and my parents both attended grad school, it was expected of us to have at least a bachelor's degree. With that said, my family tried to support our higher education financially as best they could and I'm very thankful for it. During undergrad, I had need-based financial aid and on-campus jobs, and my parents helped with the rest of my tuition. I still had to take (required by the school) a $20,000 loan. My grandmother helped pay for my 2-year master's program.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
During high school, I had a measly weekly allowance and my dad had me write out all the transactions in a notebook. I thought it was very silly back then but now thinking back, it was probably some good practice. Other than that, they didn't talk about money at all, and I was absolutely clueless and wasn't interested in personal finance until a couple of years ago. I don't remember how but I think I woke up one day and decided to read every book about personal finance I could find and now I do talk with my dad about finances.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My first job was washing dishes as a student worker! We all had to do it our freshman year before we were allowed to find other jobs. I managed to find 3 other jobs (stage crew, sports event worker, and math tutor) and stayed with all of them for 3 years.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Even though our parents never let on to us about their finances, they made sure that we'd grow up comfortable financially, so I didn't worry because I didn't know anything.
Do you worry about money now?
Yes. As I grew up, I came to learn more about my parents' financial situation and realized that they've sacrificed a lot for us. I had the majority of my college tuition supported by the school, but my brother doesn't, and tuition in the US isn't cheap, especially when you convert it to our local currency. I also never know for how long I can stay in the US and keep making the same kind of money I'm making now so I'm trying my best to pay down the student loans ASAP.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I became fully financially responsible for myself when I started working at my current company. Before that my student worker jobs paid for my personal expenses in college but my parents still chipped in for tuition. I guess my family back home is my safety net but personally, I wouldn't ask them for help even if bad things happen to me in the future.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
Nope.

Diary

Day 1 (Thursday) - $3.35

• Alexa wakes me up and turns the light on. I change into my work clothes and head downstairs to my “office.” My boss starts our daily standup call, talking about what we did yesterday and what we plan for the day.
• I have my annual review meeting. Everything goes well and my bosses are very pleased with what I’ve done, especially after I transitioned into my new title as a Data Scientist, which honestly brought me more fulfillment in my job as well. We talk about our annual bonus and raise, which I already expected. It’s not a lot of money but hey any money is money and I’m not saying no.
• Some people bought my photocards so I gather all the orders and purchase a shipping label since 1 order is with tracked shipping. (Don’t ask me how this works but I’m a K-pop fan and we collect expensive cardboards. Depending on the popularity of the member of the group, profit margins can go up to 400%.) I head to the post office and drop off all the packages ($3.35)
• I’ve been waiting for the mailman all day and he finally comes! I’ve been working from home for almost a year now and my back pain is starting to kill me so I decided to “invest” in a $400 chair with lumbar and neck support. My cat happily takes the other chair and starts claiming her territory on it.

Day 2 (Friday) - $206.24

• I wake up on cue at Alexa’s daily briefing. Half an hour passes while I ponder on a perfume sample set I saw in someone’s fragrance collection on Reddit.
• I eventually give in and purchase the Zoologist sample set ($120.24). It’s within my budget this month, I’ve been eyeing this one for some time now and I can resell it for 80% value once I’m done testing them, so it’s not a huge loss anyway.
• Late lunch today. I make a quick lunch with sausages and keto toasts and quickly finish it while watching some YouTube videos on personal finance and updates on $GME (no I did not buy any shares).
• When in doubt, throw every leftover food in your fridge in a pan and make fried rice. Side dish is sweet and sour tomato and egg “cloud soup.” Then we have our weekly family video call with my parents back in my home country.
• I go down the YouTube rabbit hole again and buy 2 more perfume sample sets ($86.00). All the purchases today (~50 samples) would probably take me months to try out so I promise myself no more until next quarter as I click the pay button.

Day 3 (Saturday) - $71.27

• I wake up at 8:45 am and laze around for half an hour, scrolling down Twitter and answering my friend’s questions on how to enter the stock market. Today is my cheat day (I have one every 2-3 weeks), so I contemplate if I should order delivery for lunch. I check YNAB and decide that it’s too expensive, so I go downstairs to make myself a hearty breakfast with a latte, half a croissant, grilled chicken breasts, and snack on some shrimp crackers and tangerines.
• I purchase a shipping label ($3.22) and head out to the post office. For some reason I want to smell like a lemon cake today, so I spritz on Xerjoff Lira, put on sunscreen, and head out. This perfume always makes me feel so warm and delicious.
• I spend the whole afternoon catching up with my Chinese and Korean lessons for the week.
• Suddenly craving some instant noodles, so I immediately get up and head to a local Asian grocery store to shop for instant and pho noodles (I’m planning to make pho for Lunar New Year) and some snacks for my brother ($38.71). We drop by a bubble tea shop nearby and get bubble tea and 2 dessert cakes ($19.71). I usually don’t drink sugary drinks, but since it’s my cheat day, I put in an order and pay for the both of us.
• Some more PC orders came in and they’re all with tracked shipping. The post office is closed tomorrow but I’ll just pay now for the shipping labels so that I won’t forget ($9.63).

Day 4 (Sunday) - $0.00

• I literally do nothing today until 4 pm.
• I make dinner, then finish my Chinese lesson and review the flashcards I made yesterday. That’s enough activity for the day.
• One of my friends calls to show me her album haul of the day and I'm tempted, but (fortunately?) there's no kpop store in my city so I make myself forget about buying any more albums.

Day 5 (Monday) - $40.10

• I wake up with a headache, not feeling too well, so I request a day off and message my boss. I can’t go back to sleep, so I just lie there in bed for a couple of hours. I suddenly remember that WandaVision is on air, and there are a couple of movies on there I haven’t watched yet, so I subscribe to Disney+ ($7.52) and start binge-watching.
• We ran out of soft drinks for my brother, so I have to drive to Costco again after lunch ($32.58). I also need to drop off all the orders that came in over the weekend.
• I go to my old apartment for my move-out inspection (I haven't been living there since December but still had to honor the 2-month notice and pay for all the rent). There are a couple of spots that might cost me some deductions in my deposit. Sigh. At least I get to tell them to remove the charges on my lease for February, and they assure me that they will.
• I finish binge-watching some movies on Disney+. I see Colourpop is advertising some Valentine’s Day palettes on my feed. I do not need those, I do not need those, I do not need those. I should’ve just unfollowed makeup brands on social media. Some more late-night scrolling, and then I finally go to sleep.

Day 6 (Tuesday) - $8.02

• I wake up groggily, still feeling a bit sick. We have a late standup today, so I take my time making my coffee and start working, as my cat also settles in on my lap and starts napping. My head is still aching and I'm not sure if it's the cold or just keto flu so I load up on electrolytes, fish oil, and acetaminophen just in case.
• Somebody lowballed me on one of my postings. Ugh I hate it when they do this, but this one is not selling too well, so I meet them halfway. I purchase another shipping label ($3.03).
• Today is our bi-monthly deployment date, which means all the engineers (and anyone who has committed changes in our codebase) meet up and sit around until all the merges are deployed into production. I had some changes last week so I just sit there and do my own work until it's my turn. My boss told me this morning he had some test API from one of our new clients so I go to check out some of the data there. Oh how I love me some messy, messy data that nobody knows what to do with.
• The repair guy who came to fix our washing machine doesn't leave until 5:15 pm so I drop by the post office late, but just in time as they're collecting the mail! Then I drop by a nearby (rather upscale) grocery store as I'm running out of heavy cream, but everything is so expensive. I compare price per oz and pick up the coffee creamer instead ($4.99).
• I heat up the cauliflower rice and leftover curry and eat dinner as I watch Coco (I can't believe I've never actually watched it!) Then I review my Chinese flashcards for a bit, do half an hour of Just Dance until I sweat, play with my cat, and call it a day.

Day 7 (Wednesday) - $3.49

• I stayed up quite late yesterday playing a mobile game and finally wake up after snoozing the alarm for the 84th time. My boss starts our standup at our usual time; there's nothing urgent or pressing today so I just take my time. I take a quick nap in the afternoon and go back to work.
• I use the last drops of avocado oil to fry up some bulgogi for dinner. Need to go back to Costco for more avocado oil tomorrow, I guess.
• After dinner, a friend asks me about perfume samples that she wants to try. I go online to search for them but no dice since they belong to a new collection that only got launched in Europe. I take this time to try out some similar smelling samples in my collection as well.
• I review my Chinese flashcards and do some workbook exercises. After an hour, my brain is fried on Chinese but I don't want to go to bed yet, so I pick up a book on my bookcase that I was reading a while ago (A Random Walk Down Wall Street) and read one more chapter.
• An order came in so I purchase another shipping label ($3.49), update my budgeting app for a bit, and then head to bed.

Summary

​

Category	Amount	Note
Food & Drink	$95.99	Groceries
Fun / Entertainment	$7.52	Disney+ subscription
Home & Health	$0.00
Clothes & Beauty	$206.24	Perfume samples
Other*	$22.72	Shipping labels
Total	$309.75	shipping labels not included

*I don’t count the shipping labels as expenses because they’re already factored into the profits I made from my sales, but I included them anyway because they're still charges on my accounts. Any profit goes back to funding my album purchases so... I guess it's a vicious cycle.
Overall, a pretty normal week for me in terms of food. I don’t eat out often (I allow myself only one meal and one dessert every month) and have used up my 1 dessert allowance this week so I probably won't have any more this month. I might’ve gone overboard with the perfume purchases this week, but tbh perfumes bring me joy. My mood is lifted and I'm transported to old and new places every time I put on a perfume that I enjoy, so for me, it’s worth it. I try to be frugal whenever I can, but I'll never skimp on education and hobbies that make me happy. Writing this week-long diary, I realize I need to get back to working out, though. I'll probably have to stop procrastinating and pull out my RingFit gears still inside the moving boxes. Playing Just Dance also makes me miss dancing so bad as I used to be active in several dance crews since college (but stopped after I started working full time). I'll try to stick to Just Dance for now to get my cardio until Covid is over and I can get back to in-person dance classes.

Hi RL-ers! I'm back again with another review of one of the items I got from my second XY haul! Just to clarify, I purchased a love ring and also the small love pave but I figured there are already some reviews on the pave so i'll focus on the love ring, which I haven't seen any yet
* Seller: Non-TS Xiang Yao
* Contact: whatsapp +86 137 1000 8058
* Price: Regular Love Ring: 3800 CNY
* Shipping cost: 200 CNY via DHL Express
* Payment method: PayPal
* Order timeline
1/06- Messaged XY and confirmed pricing for pave love and ring (asked about prices previously). Paid that same night through Paypal FF
1/28- PSPs arrived and GL-ed right away. Was told that she will be able to ship the same day
1/29- XY gives me tracking number
2/2- Package arrives
* Please feel free to CCW!
​
\*\*\*
\## \*\*Agent/Seller Service and Communication - 10/10\*\*
I love XY. I cannot say enough good things about her when it comes to her customer service. I've read on RL about her making it right for her customers when something broke on the way there, replacing backings for earrings, or even exchanges for correct sizes. Sellers that go above and beyond are rare nowadays especially in the rep world so when XY provides that level of service, you know you're in for a treat. I've heard mixed things about her timeliness on replying to messages of people wanting to order or asking for PSPs but I honestly have never experienced delays with her replies. She usually gets back to me within minutes or within the day depending on what time I message her. I write to her in english and on whatsapp if anyone is curious.
​
\*\*\*
​
\#### \*\*Quality - 10/10\*\*
The quality of this ring is spectacular. I've been wanting a simple love ring for so long and was going to get it auth but after I came across XY, I figured that I could get a love ring and also use this opportunity to test her love pieces before I commit to a reg love bracelet with 4 diamonds. The ring (along with my pave love bracelet) was packaged beautifully and sealed in a blue jewelry box. When I received the ring, there was good weight to it and felt very substantial. I own many pieces of XY jewelry so I kinda knew what to expect in terms of quality and she sure did not disappoint.
​
\#### \*\*Accuracy - 9.5/10\*\*
The weight of the ring falls within the range that's typical of reg love rings 7-8 grams. The yellow gold colour (which was what I was afraid most of) is true to auth is thankfully the same shade, meaning if you have some auth pieces, the colour will not be different or mismatched. The depth of the screws is quite deep. The width and thickness of the ring is true to auth measurements. The ONLY thing I will gripe about is the engraving inside the ring. I requested a custom serial number for this (no spacing) but I noticed that XY puts a space between her alphabets and numbers in the serial number which I believe auth don't have the space between. For example, auth would be like RKG466 but XY's would be like RKG 466. Please correct me if i'm wrong on this but I don't think there should be a space between alphabets and numbers. I'm not going to deduct a mark for this because I requested a custom serial number, so mine has no spacing fortunately. However, I do notice that the engraving is not as "smooth" or fine as auth but honestly, you wouldn't really notice unless you take the jewelry off and stare DEEPLY into it, so i'll take off -0.5 for that. Otherwise, everything is literally perfection and I couldn't be any happier. Her sizing is true to auth, so i'd look on the chart online and let her know. Otherwise you can tell her your US size and she'll convert it.
​
\#### \*\*Satisfaction - 10/10\*\*
I am so happy with my purchase and I'm going to continue ONLY going to XY for my 18K rep jewelry. She is kind, responsive, and produces very very well made 18K with very competitive prices. Now that I've tested her love with the ring, I have full confidence in her making my Reg love bracelet with 4 diamonds which I will be ordering after the factories open again after CNY.
​
\*\*\*
* No stock photos available as I just browse on auth sites and show her what I want
​
\[My photos\](https://imgur.com/a/KwTBSyg) | \[PSP\]([https://imgur.com/a/tooL5Kp](https://imgur.com/a/xViYU5Q)) | \[Auth\]([https://ca.cartier.com/en-ca/collections/jewelry/jewelry-selections/yellow-gold-jewelry-for-men/b4084600-love-ring.html]

Good Saturday morning to all of you here on smallstreetbets. I hope everyone on this sub made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and is ready for the new trading week ahead.
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning February 1st, 2021.

Wall Street braces for bumpy trading in the week ahead as the GameStop short squeeze unfolds - (Source)

Earnings news from Amazon and Alphabet, the important January jobs report and Washington’s discussion of stimulus could all be important to markets in the week ahead, but none of it is likely to get more attention than the short squeezes driven by retail investors.
Stocks had a rocky week, with the S&P 500 down 3.3% to 3,714. The S&P was down 1.1% for January, its first negative month since October and a warning for the year, according to the old Wall Street adage.
“We were due for some type of decline. We’ve been straight up since October. It’s not unusual that we’re backing off a bit,” said Steve Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Securities.
Trading could remain bumpy in the coming week, as the S&P 500 struggles to hold above 3,716 its 50-day moving average and a key technical level.
“This is the first time we’re at the 50-day moving average since early November,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley Advisory Group. “It’s just a level we haven’t seen in a while and it’s an important first line in the sand of whether the market uses this as a pivot spot to bounce again.”
“The buy the dip mentality doesn’t die easy, but if you break that [50-day], that portends something else,” he said.
Massocca and others see little impact on the broader market from the phenomena of retail investors piling into stocks that are being shorted by big investors. Fueled by no fee trading, retail investors created a flurry of trading in GameStop and other heavily shorted names, like AMC Entertainment. If the stocks rise, in theory, the firms that are short sellers will have to buy stock to cover, and that activity could drive the price even higher in a so-called short squeeze.
GameStop was the poster child for that trade this past week. GameStop shares closed 68% higher on Friday, bringing their gain for the week to 400%. The retailer’s shares hit a high of $483 on Jan. 28.
“This is somewhat isolated,” Massocca said of trading in GameStop and other shorts. He said it may not be a phenomena for that long since there aren’t that many heavily shorted stocks. “I think they may be hunting new names.”
The short squeeze story has garnered broad interest, in the general news media and from Washington.
Lawmakers from both parties are eager to look into the fact that Robinhood and other online brokers restricted trading in the hottest short names when trading was frenzied. Robinhood said it was responding to SEC rules on net capital requirements and clearinghouse deposits that brokers have to comply with.
“This was the busiest week for earnings reported with 82% of the companies reported better than expected earnings. It’s a really good quarter, but obviously overshadowed by the short squeeze news,” said Leo Grohowski, chief investment officer at BNY Mellon Wealth Management.
He said some of the biggest tech names have been lagging, like Apple and Microsoft.
“The combination of demanding valuations and short squeeze news has overshadowed a really good performance of corporate earnings so far,” Grohowski said. “We’re constructive on the market. Fundamentals do look encouraging to us.”
Strategists have expected a pullback in the first part of the year, and many say it would become a buying opportunity. Hedge funds did sell long positions in the past week, but firms like Morgan Stanley and Barclays say the de-leveraging is not likely to have a big impact on stocks.
But for investors who end up buying in at the end of the short squeezes, they could feel some pain.
“I do think this isn’t going to end well,” said Grohowski. “These kind of one way trades they don’t end well particularly for those that come later to the party.”
“I think this will be one of those,” he said. “GameStop is not worth what it is trading for today. I do believe at the end of the day the value of a company is important and it’s going to be driven by fundamentals. These dislocations and distortions of value, they will correct and many will be hurt by that.”
But Grohowski said it’s encouraging that the surge in retail activity was driven by younger investors.
“We’ve wanted for some time for this younger generation to be more interested in the financial markets and equity investing,” he said. “I know a lot of experienced market participants were not anticipating it being this way. It’s not just a one time kind of distortion.
“I think this is thought-provoking in terms of a way a younger generation might be looking at investing, by their rules, not the rules of the traditional market participants,” Grohowski added.
He expects the January employment report to get some attention Friday, and it should be weaker with just 50,000 to 60,000 jobs added.
He said the markets will also monitor the progress of stimulus discussions in Washington, as valuations have risen on expectations of a package coming soon. President Joe Biden has proposed $1.9 trillion in spending, but Republicans are not in agreement.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL S&P TREE MAP FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Indices for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR INDICES FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Futures Markets as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR FUTURES INDICES AS OF FRIDAY!)

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ECONOMIC CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK AHEAD!)

Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

S&P Sectors for the Past Week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!

Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Friday's Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #2!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #3!)

How Stocks Perform in a President’s First Year

2021 kicks off the first year of a new four-year presidential cycle. One of the most popular questions we’ve received lately is how have stocks performed historically during this political year.
For starters, the S&P 500 Index historically has gained 6.8% per year during the first year of the four-year presidential cycle, but stocks have done better when the president was re-elected than when someone new occupied the White House. This makes sense, as a new president could bring new policies and potential uncertainty. Additionally, stocks do better during years three and four under a new president, while they are much weaker early in the cycle.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

As shown in the LPL Chart of the Day, breaking down all the quarters of the four-year presidential cycle shows that the first quarter of the first year in the cycle is one of only two quarters with a negative average return.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Bigger picture, historically the fourth quarter of the year has been the strongest of the year, with the first quarter the second best on average. Don’t forget, the third quarter is usually a weak one. Please note, below is for all years, not just the first year of the cycle.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

We will take a closer look at February returns next week on the blog, but it is worth noting that when a new party is in power in the White House, historically stocks have struggled from late January until early March. “It is interesting, but from around the time of the inauguration to several weeks out, stocks tend to be pretty weak,” according to LPL Financial Chief Market Strategist Ryan Detrick. “It may be as simple as new leadership could bring with it new policies and added uncertainty”.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Will GameStop Stop The Bull Market?

“In the short term, the market is a popularity contest. In the long term, the market is a weighing machine.” -Warren Buffett
The incredible action from some of the most heavily shorted names has investors everywhere wondering what it all means? GameStop (GME) specifically has taken the country’s imagination by storm, as the stock started the year under $20 per share and this morning nearly hit $500.
Please note, we aren’t allowed to discuss individual equities, and in no way are we recommending any stocks in this blog, but from a bigger perspective, what is happening here? Basically, individual investors are using message boards like Reddit to find some of the most shorted stocks, then they all pile in at the same time, forcing large institutions to cover their shorts, and thus producing massive buying pressure.
LPL Research doesn’t think these parabolic moves reflect an overall unhealthy market, but institutions covering shorts at sizable losses may be removing capital from some big cap names. “While these developments could be another sign of excessive optimism in certain segments of the equity markets, we do not believe they represent a sign of a broader market bubble or indicate a major correction is forthcoming,” explained LPL Financial Chief Market Strategist Ryan Detrick. “Don’t forget, overall market breadth is extremely healthy and the credit markets are functioning just fine—we don’t see a repeat of 1999 like some are claiming.”
Lastly, as shown in the LPL Chart of the Day, after a 72% rally in the S&P 500 Index (and more in small caps and the Nasdaq), maybe it is simply time for a break. After all, the current bull market has tracked almost perfectly the start of the 1982 and 2009 bull markets thus far, and both of those took a break for a few months starting around this point in the cycle.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Most Heavily Shorted Stocks at the End of 2020 and Now

In the table below, we show the 20 stocks in the Russell 3000 that currently have the highest short interest as a percentage of float. It should come as no surprise that GameStop (GME) still tops that list with 122.97% of float short as of the most recent data for mid-month. That is even after a 21.36 percentage point drop from the end of 2020 when 144.34% of shares were short. It was also the most heavily shorted stock then. The runner-up is Dillard's (DDS) which currently has 83.04% of shares sold short compared to over 90% at the end of 2020. Again, despite that sizeable decline in the percentage of shares sold short, it was also the second most heavily shorted stock one month ago. Of the rest of the top 20, there are six other names with lower short interest than the end of last year. Looking across the rest of the most heavily shorted stocks, Sumo Logic (SUMO), American Well Corp (AMWL), and Sunpower (SPWR) are the stocks that have seen their short interest as a percentage of equity float rise the most. In terms of stock price performance, SPWR has been the one with the biggest rally having doubled YTD. The only other stock that has doubled YTD in this cohort has been GME.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

In the table below, we show the stocks that have seen the biggest changes in the percent of shares sold short between the end of 2020 and the most recent data as of January 15th. Those currently in the top 20 most shorted stocks are highlighted in gray. Across the entire Russell 3,000, 1,777 stocks have seen their short interest as a percent of short move lower in the two week period from the end of December to mid-January. As shown, even after the massive short squeeze that has taken place, GME is actually not the stock that has seen the biggest decline in shorts. Relay Therapeutics (RLAY) holds that title with a 22.62 percentage point decline. That is even though the stock has experienced a relatively smaller move than some of its peers. Granted, a number of other stocks like nCino (NCNO) and Berkeley Lights (BPYU) to name a few have actually moved lower so far in 2020 and have also seen their short interest decline significantly. On the other end of the spectrum, WW International (WW) has seen its short interest rise the most.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Funding Markets Full of Cash

US funding markets are awash with liquidity thanks to ongoing QE purchases by the Fed and the progression of fiscal policy since the end of the year, as well as normal seasonal tailwinds that see more liquidity after year-end balance sheet constraints would roll off. Funding markets refer to collateralized, short-term lending via repo and related wholesale cash transactions.
Government money market funds that are allowed to conduct repo operations as well as buying Treasury and Agency debt are seeing roughly typical inflows, but those come on top of record share of overall money market funds. As a result, repo rates have been plunging. The secured overnight financing rate, which tracks the volume-weighted general collateral repo rate has fallen to 3 basis points above the bottom of the Fed Funds target range. While repo rates falling below the Fed Funds target range wouldn’t be a catastrophe and some parts of the market have gotten there, it’s not in the FOMC’s interest to have funding rates trading far outside its target policy rate range on a regular basis.
The solution already exists, of course: the NY Fed has a standing overnight reverse repo facility first introduced back in 2013 which is likely to start draining cash as investors seek higher returns than the repo markets offer. Reserve scarcity, which roll-off brought to bear in 2018 and 2019, is now reserve plenty, and so many reserves exist that the NY Fed will start draining them with reverse repos. Reserve balances will continue to grow this year thanks to QE purchases and an expected decline in the balance of the federal government's transaction account at the Federal Reserve.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Federal Reserve Rebukes Hawkish Rumors; Reaffirms Support

It has been a busy past 12 months for the Federal Reserve (Fed), after the onset of the global pandemic prompted historic stimulus from monetary policymakers. With the economy showing signs of being in the early stages of expansion, some have speculated that the Fed may begin to slow the pace of its asset purchases. Recent comments from some Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members that have hinted that the Fed’s bond buying program could be reduced by the end of the year, has signaled that other policymakers may be thinking that way, too.
Adding fuel to the speculation, the 10-year Treasury yield has been climbing, breaking above 1% for the first time since March 2020 as the economy has expanded. Meanwhile, as shown in the LPL Chart of the Day, breakeven inflation rates—the yield difference between Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) and nominal Treasuries—have risen to levels not seen since 2018, suggesting that inflation expectations are heating up, although levels still remain largely benign.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: Stock Market Analysis Video for Week Ending February 1st, 2021

(CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: ShadowTrader Video Weekly 2.1.21

(CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!)

Here are the most notable companies (tickers) reporting earnings in this upcoming trading week ahead-

• $AMZN
• $BABA
• $PFE
• $UPS
• $PINS
• $PYPL
• $SNAP
• $GOOGL
• $XOM
• $F
• $QCOM
• $TMO
• $PTON
• $ABBV
• $APPS
• $SPOT
• $ON
• $ATVI
• $CLX
• $BMY
• $BP
• $GILD
• $CMG
• $EA
• $OTIS
• $EBAY
• $QTNT
• $NXPI
• $FEYE
• $VRTX
• $SIRI
• $CRUS
• $MRK
• $PLUS
• $LGND
• $BIIB
• $PENN
• $HOG
• $ARLP
• $MDC
• $REGN

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S MOST NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S HIGHEST VOLATILITY EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MOST ANTICIPATED EARNINGS RELEASES BEFORE MONDAY'S MARKET OPEN!)

Below are some of the notable companies coming out with earnings releases this upcoming trading week ahead which includes the date/time of release & consensus estimates courtesy of Earnings Whispers:

Monday 2.1.21 Before Market Open:

(CLICK HERE FOR MONDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Monday 2.1.21 After Market Close:

(CLICK HERE FOR MONDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES LINK!)

Tuesday 2.2.21 Before Market Open:

(CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Tuesday 2.2.21 After Market Close:

(CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Wednesday 2.3.21 Before Market Open:

(CLICK HERE FOR WEDNESDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Wednesday 2.3.21 After Market Close:

(CLICK HERE FOR WEDNESDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Thursday 2.4.21 Before Market Open:

(CLICK HERE FOR THURSDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Thursday 2.4.21 After Market Close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THURSDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Friday 2.5.21 Before Market Open:

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Friday 2.5.21 After Market Close:

([CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!]())

(NONE.)

Amazon.com, Inc. -

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:00 PM ET on Tuesday, February 2, 2021. The consensus earnings estimate is $7.05 per share on revenue of $120.36 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $10.45 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 88% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 8.96% with revenue increasing by 37.65%. Short interest has increased by 25.1% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 1.5% from its open following the earnings release to be 7.7% above its 200 day moving average of $2,977.38. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. On Friday, January 15, 2021 there was some notable buying of 6,433 contracts of the $3,200.00 call expiring on Friday, February 19, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 6.5% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 4.5% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. $253.83

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (BABA) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 6:45 AM ET on Tuesday, February 2, 2021. The consensus earnings estimate is $3.22 per share on revenue of $32.00 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $3.51 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 79% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 21.05% with revenue increasing by 37.98%. Short interest has decreased by 15.0% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted lower by 12.2% from its open following the earnings release to be 1.0% above its 200 day moving average of $251.21. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. On Wednesday, January 20, 2021 there was some notable buying of 24,974 contracts of the $280.00 call expiring on Friday, March 19, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 6.6% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 2.4% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Pfizer, Inc. $35.90

Pfizer, Inc. (PFE) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 6:45 AM ET on Tuesday, February 2, 2021. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.45 per share on revenue of $12.85 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.56 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 70% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 18.18% with revenue increasing by 1.28%. The stock has drifted lower by 3.1% from its open following the earnings release to be 2.3% below its 200 day moving average of $36.75. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Monday, January 11, 2021 there was some notable buying of 31,716 contracts of the $42.00 call expiring on Friday, February 19, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 4.6% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 2.9% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

United Parcel Service, Inc. $155.00

United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 6:00 AM ET on Tuesday, February 2, 2021. The consensus earnings estimate is $2.10 per share on revenue of $22.78 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $2.35 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 75% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 0.47% with revenue increasing by 10.75%. Short interest has decreased by 2.2% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted lower by 4.4% from its open following the earnings release to be 9.1% above its 200 day moving average of $142.04. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Wednesday, January 27, 2021 there was some notable buying of 2,756 contracts of the $155.00 call expiring on Friday, February 5, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 8.5% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 7.8% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Pinterest, Inc. $68.51

Pinterest, Inc. (PINS) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:00 PM ET on Thursday, February 4, 2021. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.32 per share on revenue of $645.61 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.37 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 77% expecting an earnings beat The company's guidance was for revenue of approximately $640.00 million. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 68.42% with revenue increasing by 61.44%. Short interest has decreased by 15.4% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 7.0% from its open following the earnings release to be 64.5% above its 200 day moving average of $41.64. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Wednesday, January 13, 2021 there was some notable buying of 6,091 contracts of the $75.00 call expiring on Friday, September 17, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 19.3% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 20.5% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

PayPal $234.31

PayPal (PYPL) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:20 PM ET on Wednesday, February 3, 2021. The consensus earnings estimate is $1.01 per share on revenue of $6.07 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $1.14 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 82% expecting an earnings beat The company's guidance was for earnings of approximately $1.01 per share. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 16.09% with revenue increasing by 22.35%. Short interest has decreased by 18.7% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 31.7% from its open following the earnings release to be 25.4% above its 200 day moving average of $186.88. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. On Monday, January 11, 2021 there was some notable buying of 5,514 contracts of the $230.00 put expiring on Friday, March 19, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 8.8% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 6.1% move in recent quarters.

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Snap Inc. $52.94

Snap Inc. (SNAP) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:10 PM ET on Thursday, February 4, 2021. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.07 per share on revenue of $846.00 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.09 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 74% expecting an earnings beat The company's guidance was for revenue of $824.00 million to $841.00 million. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 240.00% with revenue increasing by 50.83%. Short interest has increased by 4.2% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 51.4% from its open following the earnings release to be 69.3% above its 200 day moving average of $31.26. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Thursday, January 21, 2021 there was some notable buying of 13,726 contracts of the $50.00 put expiring on Friday, February 19, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 16.2% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 18.4% move in recent quarters.

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Alphabet Inc. -

Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:00 PM ET on Tuesday, February 2, 2021. The consensus earnings estimate is $15.89 per share on revenue of $44.09 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $17.05 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 79% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 3.52% with revenue decreasing by 4.31%. Short interest has decreased by 16.0% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 9.6% from its open following the earnings release to be 16.9% above its 200 day moving average of $1,562.67. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Wednesday, January 20, 2021 there was some notable buying of 2,312 contracts of the $1,900.00 call expiring on Friday, March 19, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 6.4% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 4.7% move in recent quarters.

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Exxon Mobil Corp. $44.84

Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 7:30 AM ET on Tuesday, February 2, 2021. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.01 per share on revenue of $48.59 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.03 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 44% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 97.56% with revenue decreasing by 27.66%. Short interest has decreased by 5.1% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 38.4% from its open following the earnings release to be 8.4% above its 200 day moving average of $41.38. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Thursday, January 14, 2021 there was some notable buying of 28,135 contracts of the $55.00 call expiring on Friday, March 19, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 5.7% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 2.8% move in recent quarters.

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Ford Motor Company $10.53

Ford Motor Company (F) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:05 PM ET on Thursday, February 4, 2021. The consensus estimate is for a loss of $0.07 per share on revenue of $32.89 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.01 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 68% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 158.33% with revenue decreasing by 17.18%. Short interest has decreased by 0.7% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 28.9% from its open following the earnings release to be 41.1% above its 200 day moving average of $7.46. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Wednesday, January 20, 2021 there was some notable buying of 120,718 contracts of the $12.00 call expiring on Friday, February 19, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 9.1% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 5.1% move in recent quarters.

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