How do I check a stock before I buy it?

Start with Boats' three beginner questions — no finance degree needed. One: show me the year-to-date low — where was the valley, not just the peak? Two: show me the year-to-date high — what does the whole ride look like? Three: show me the moat — is there a real business under the chart, something that makes it hard for a competitor to copy the company and steal its customers? Show Me the Money's free checklist walks you through all three, one question at a time, in plain words.

What is the Hype Meter?

The Hype Meter is Show Me the Money's public 1-to-5 hype reading, and every stock the crew scores gets one: 1 is Legit — a real business with real numbers; 2 is Warm — some hype, with something real underneath; 3 is Spicy — hype outweighs substance, use caution; 4 is Junk Food — tastes good, rots your teeth; 5 is Total Scam — the pitch is the product, walk away. Same scale, every scored review, public verdict.

Ask Dollar is the free question box at boatsandchief.com. Type in a stock ticker and Dollar — Show Me the Money's AI researcher — hands back the homework the crew already finished, instantly: the Hype Meter reading first, then the year-to-date low, the high, and the moat, in plain words. If the homework isn't done yet, you get an honest first sniff and the stock's place in the queue instead of a dead end. Dollar never tells anyone what to buy or sell — the answer is in the homework, and the call is yours.

Is OKLO stock a scam?

Show Me the Money's homework rates OKLO (Oklo Inc.) 4 out of 5 on the Hype Meter — Junk Food — and the crew killed it on October 10, 2026. The homework found a nuclear-power story stock with no business underneath yet: no reactor built, no license approved (the NRC turned the application away in 2022), and the only revenue in company history — $1.21M — came from a side business it bought, not from selling power. Meanwhile the company ran three stock-sale programs totaling $3.5B, the share count rose from 139M to 186M in 19 months, and the founders sold about $454M worth and bought none. Full headstone in the Graveyard at boatsandchief.com.

Is RCAT stock a scam?

Show Me the Money's homework rates RCAT (Red Cat Holdings) 4 out of 5 on the Hype Meter — Junk Food — killed September 28, 2026. Red Cat is a real drone maker that won a real Army contract; the drone was not the problem, the printing press was. The share count went from about 74M to 137M in 18 months, insiders sold and made zero open-market buys for a year, and the long ride includes three reverse splits and about −99% over ten years. Real drones, bad deal for shareholders. Full headstone in the Graveyard at boatsandchief.com.

What is Bloom Energy's (BE) Hype Meter reading?

Show Me the Money's homework rates BE (Bloom Energy) 3 out of 5 on the Hype Meter — Spicy: a real company at the wrong price. Bloom makes solid-oxide fuel cells that turn natural gas into electricity on site, and AI data centers are buying them as fast as Bloom can build them; Q2 2026 was the biggest quarter in company history, $1.065B in revenue, up 166%. The year-to-date range ran from a $75.70 low to a $351.28 high, and the crew's stance is wait — a $200 wire is set, and if it never trips, the crew does not chase. The full homework is in the Ask Dollar library at boatsandchief.com.

What is Q2 Holdings' (QTWO) Hype Meter reading?

Show Me the Money's homework rates QTWO (Q2 Holdings) 2 out of 5 on the Hype Meter — Warm: a real, solid company with something real underneath the noise. Q2 builds the digital banking platform banks and credit unions run on, and its moat grades 4 out of 5 — switching costs: banks hate ripping out their digital banking platform, so customers stay. The year's range in the October 16, 2026 homework ran from a $40.79 low to a $76.24 high. The crew's verdict is respect and patience: the fair-price line is $55, and QTWO is a watch, not a buy call. It stands on the Shipshape shelf at boatsandchief.com.

How can I tell if a stock pitch is a scam?

Run it through the same homework the crew runs. Check the Hype Meter tells: a story with no real revenue underneath it, a company that pays its bills by printing new shares (dilution), insiders selling while the pitch says buy, a price that ran on a press release instead of a business, and urgency — a deadline, a celebrity name, or a 'guaranteed' return doing the selling. Show Me the Money's Graveyard at boatsandchief.com keeps a public headstone for every hype stock the crew has checked and killed — UNCY, QNTM, FEED, WETO and more — with the date, the price, and the reason on the record.

Show Me the Money

Ready to invest, but don't know where to begin?

We were you. Start with the checklist — real money, real homework, no hype.

The goal: be the name working families check before they spend a dollar.

Bring us a stock See how we check it

No paid verdicts. No hype-company ads. Same checklist. Every stock. Every time.

01 / The Checklist

Kick the tires before you buy.

A stock can have a slick pitch and still be a busted truck. We check what is real, what is weak, and what can wipe you out.

Is it a real business?

What do they actually sell? Who pays them? If we cannot explain the business in plain words, we slow down.

Do the numbers hold up?

We check sales, cash, debt, and dilution. Big talk does not cover empty pockets.

What is the moat?

Could a competitor copy the company or steal its customers? A real edge — the moat — shows up in the business behind the ticker, not just the pitch deck.

Can competitors kill this business?

Before you buy the stock, check whether the company behind the ticker can defend itself. The moat is what makes it hard for the next outfit to copy the company and steal its customers.

Read the price tag

P/E compares the price you pay with the profit a business earns. Like a $15,000 lemonade stand making $1,000 a year: that is a P/E of 15.

P/E Ratio Explained blue-collar guide showing a $15,000 lemonade stand earning $1,000 a year for a P/E of 15, what low and high P/E can mean, and why P/E is a clue rather than a verdict

Read the whole ride

Never chase the ceiling. Always ask about the floor. See where today's price sits between them before a hot story talks you into chasing the roof.

High versus Low blue-collar guide explaining the year-to-date high as the ceiling, the year-to-date low as the floor, and how to judge today's price between them

Score the risk

R is the truth serum. It scores what a trade made or lost against the dollars put at risk, stripping out account size to show whether the work actually paid.

R-Multiple Explained blue-collar guide showing how a gain of twice the amount risked scores plus 2R, a full loss scores minus 1R, and why R compares trades of different sizes

Catch the printing press

The printing press never stops. When a company prints more slices of the same pie, your piece gets smaller — so check the share count before you buy.

Dilution Explained blue-collar guide using a pie to show how issuing more shares can shrink one investor's ownership from ten percent to five percent, plus warning signs such as a rising share count and reverse splits

More guides land here. One job at a time. Plain words, useful homework.

Who gets paid first?

We look at insiders, lenders, and deal terms. If regular shareholders are last in line, you should know it.

What kills the idea?

Before we talk upside, we write down the ugly part. Every pick gets a reason to walk away.

What price makes sense?

A good company can still be a bad buy. We wait for a setup instead of chasing the crowd.

Now run one yourself

Don't just read the checklist — use it. Pick a stock you're thinking about and answer the crew's questions one at a time. Then check your sheet against the crew's homework — the answer key — before you Ask Dollar or send it to the Mailbag. About a minute, plain words, nothing to sign up for.

Step 1 of 6 · The ticker

The tappable checklist loads here — one question at a time.

The rule: we do not tell you what to buy. We show you what the homework says.

The whole SMTM checklist on one page — the same questions the crew runs on every stock. Print it, stick it on the fridge, and run it before any money moves.

Get the free checklist

Drop your email and you're on the list. When the doors open, the checklist PDF is the first thing in your inbox.

02 / The Hype Meter · Boats' invention

Every scored stock gets a public reading.

No hiding behind fancy language. We put the hype on a 1-to-5 scale so anybody can see whether a real business is carrying the story — or the story is carrying the stock.

Hype reading

Lower is stronger

Legit

Real business. Real numbers.

Warm

Some hype, with something real underneath.

Spicy

Hype outweighs substance. Use caution.

Junk food

Tastes good. Rots your teeth.

Total scam

The pitch is the product. Walk away.

Know your spice level.

The Hype Meter tells you what the stock is. Your spice level tells you what you can handle.

Mild

Sleep-well money. Small positions, strong businesses, money you won't miss if it dips.

Medium

A little kick. You can handle some swings, but nothing that ruins your dinner.

Hot

You're sweating. Real risk, real upside — and only with money you can truly afford to lose.

Ghost pepper

You're crying. That's not investing, that's gambling. The crew doesn't go here.

Pick your level before you pick your stock. There's no prize for ordering hotter than you can handle.

03 / The Graveyard

Hype comes here to die.

21 checked. 21 buried. When a stock fails the homework, we leave the reason on the headstone. No victory laps. Just a record you can check.

Hype Meter legend: 1 Legit, 2 Warm, 3 Spicy, 4 Junk Food, 5 Scam. Read the meter, trust the numbers, not the noise. Workshop rule: if the needle hits scam, walk away. No exceptions.

The freshest three

RBNE

4/5Hype Meter · Junk Food

Real ships, real revenue — the dilution machine and the pump tape did the killing.

Killed — did not clear the bar

Robin Energy Ltd.

Decision recorded October 24, 2026 · Check back January 24, 2027

The record

Price at kill: $0.19 — Oct 24, 2026
Check back: January 24, 2027

No kill chart yet — the numbers above are the record.

SPHL

4/5Hype Meter · Junk Food

Real builder, real revenue — the low-float pump tape and the cash burn did the killing.

Killed — did not clear the bar

Springview Holdings Ltd.

Decision recorded October 24, 2026 · Check back January 24, 2027

The record

Price at kill: $2.42 — Oct 24, 2026
Check back: January 24, 2027

No kill chart yet — the numbers above are the record.

SXTC

4/5Hype Meter · Junk Food

Real medicine, real factory — a dilution machine with one customer did the killing.

Killed — did not clear the bar

China SXT Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Decision recorded October 24, 2026 · Check back January 24, 2027

The record

Price at kill: $0.041 (pre-split) — Oct 24, 2026
Check back: January 24, 2027

No kill chart yet — the numbers above are the record.

The rest of the wall

The freshest three stand up top. The other 18 went down with the ship — every one of them carved on the stone in Davy Jones' Locker, coral and all.

Every stone stays on the record — ticker, Hype number, cause of death. Tap one and Dollar pulls the full homework in the Ask Dollar box.

04 / Shipshape

Good and solid lives here.

The Graveyard is only half the story. These stocks passed the same homework — real business, real numbers, a moat you can point at. The verdict is never "buy." It is respect it — and wait for a fair price.

QTWO

Q2 Holdings — the software banks run on

2/5Hype Meter · Warm

Some noise around it, but a real, solid company underneath — real customers paying real money.

Shipshape — passed the homework

Banks hate ripping this out — so they stay.

Q2 Holdings builds the digital banking platform — the app and website bank customers log into every day. Once a bank runs on it, switching means tearing out the pipes and starting over. So banks stay, and Q2 gets paid year after year.

Homework finished October 16, 2026 · Full card in the Ask Dollar library

The record

Year's low: $40.79
Year's high: $76.24
The moat: 4 out of 5 — switching costs. Banks hate ripping out their digital banking platform, so customers stay.
The crew's line: Fair price: $55. Respect it and wait for the price to come to the line. A watch — not a buy call.

Bloom Energy — power boxes for data centers

3/5Hype Meter · Spicy

A real company at the wrong price — the company didn't lie to you, the chart did.

Shipshape — real company, wrong price. We wait.

Real boxes. Real power. Real customers.

Bloom makes solid-oxide fuel cells — boxes that turn natural gas into electricity right on site. AI data centers are buying them as fast as Bloom can build them, and Q2 2026 was the biggest quarter in company history: $1.065B in revenue, up 166%.

Homework finished October 16, 2026 · Full card in the Ask Dollar library

The record

Year's low: $75.70
Year's high: $351.28
The moat: 3 out of 5 — real, but narrow. The edge is speed: boxes that deploy in weeks, with the hardest customers on earth already signed on.
The crew's line: A $200 wire is set — we'll take the company, but only at the bear's price. If the wire never trips, we do not chase.

ARM

Arm Holdings — the language chips speak

3/5Hype Meter · Spicy

A real company — the strongest moat we own — at a price the hype helped build.

Shipshape — real company, price ran ahead. We wait.

The strongest moat the crew owns.

Arm doesn't build chips — it designs the language chips speak. Its designs sit inside about 99% of smartphones, and Arm collects a royalty on nearly every chip shipped. Nothing here is broken — it's the entry that's expensive.

Homework finished October 16, 2026 · Full card in the Ask Dollar library

The record

Year's low: $100 — the February 2026 low
Year's high: $452.70 — the June 2026 high
The moat: 5 out of 5 — the strongest moat the crew owns. Nearly every smartphone on earth speaks Arm's language, and switching would mean starting over.
The crew's line: Respect it and wait for a fair price. A great company at the wrong price is still the wrong price.

Still on the bench: the Lucky 7

Seven young companies with moats under construction — real walls, still being built. The crew respects every one of them, and the homework is still running. One of them — ARM — already finished its homework and stands on the shelf above.

ARM
FIG
ALAB
CRCL
HNGE
RBRK
KVYO

This is a research list, not a buy list. The other six carry no Hype Meter numbers yet — numbers are earned by finished homework, never guessed. When a card is done, it posts here and in the Ask Dollar library.

05 / The Mailbag

Got a stock you're thinking about? Ask us.

Give us the ticker and tell us what caught your eye. We will run the same checklist we use on everything else.

Free question. Honest answer. No sales pitch.

Ask the Crew

Got a stock you're thinking about? Ask the crew. One click takes you straight to the question form — just tell us the ticker and what caught your eye.

Ask the Crew — submit your question Opens the crew's Google Form in a new tab. Do the three-question homework first — the crew only opens envelopes with homework inside.

Everything here is homework, shared for learning only. It is not financial advice, and we are not financial advisors. We never tell anyone what to buy or sell, and we never promise anyone will make money. Do your own homework, and if you need advice about your own money, talk to a licensed professional.

06 / Ask Dollar

Ask Dollar.

No more coin flips! Ask Dollar.

Got a stock on your mind right now? Type it in. If the crew has already done the homework, Dollar hands it back instantly — Hype Meter, low, high, moat. No lecture. No waiting. A brand-new question is a different job: that's the Mailbag above, where questions become crew answers.

Illustrated portrait of Dollar, SMTM's AI researcher — a young woman with a brown bob haircut with blonde highlights and cat-eye librarian glasses, wearing a camo SMTM cap and navy work shirt, holding a stack of homework papers and her yellow pencil — **You're talking to Dollar** SMTM's AI researcher. Same homework, same plain words, the second you ask. And if the homework isn't done yet, she'll give you a first sniff and tell you that straight.

Dollar Answers instantly, from homework the crew already finished

Homework on file

Or tap one and watch how Dollar answers

Dollar here. Type a ticker — or tap a question above — and I'll hand you the homework the crew already did: Hype Meter first, then the low, the high, and the moat. If the homework isn't done yet, you still don't get a dead end: you get a first sniff — what the stock smells like at a glance — and its place in the queue.

The house rule: Dollar never tells you what to buy or sell. Dollar does the homework and shows you the homework. The answer is in the homework — the call is yours.

07 / The Crew

Built on a job site, not a trading floor.

SMTM started with a working man's question: why should regular people have to gamble just because the homework is hard?

Boats and Chief together — cartoon portrait of the two of them in navy work shirts, khakis, work boots, and camo SMTM crest caps, Chief holding the checklist clipboard and her red pen, gold wedding bands on both their hands

“We break the homework down in blue-collar terms. That's the moat.”

The mission got real in Beaumont, Texas, when one honest stock breakdown helped a coworker step back before buying. One save became the reason to build a place for the next question.

Boats

The working man with the vision: facts first, patience over hype, and no verdict for sale.

Chief

The quality gate. She keeps the money moves, the message, and the mission honest.

$Dollar — cartoon portrait of the crew's AI researcher, a young woman with a brown bob haircut and librarian glasses, camo SMTM cap and navy work shirt, homework papers in one hand and her yellow pencil in the other$

Dollar

The AI researcher who digs through the homework, red-teams the story, and explains what survives in plain English.

Salty

The coin doggy. Salty gives every pitch the first sniff — if she wouldn't trust it, neither should you.

SMTM will never be bought.

The full SMTM cast poster — the Bull riding a rising gold chart arrow, Chief with her clipboard and red pen, Boats, Dollar holding the homework, Slick the salesman fanning his cash, and Beep the little robot — The whole cast — the crew, the Bull, and the two we keep an eye on: Slick and Beep.

The SMTM coin — a gold medallion with Salty the poodle's face minted in it, paws over the rim, stars around the edge, wearing her big camo cap with the gold crest, her pom tail wagging below

Before you spend a dime, bring us the ticker.

The checklist does not care who is selling the story. Neither do we.

Ask the mailbag

Kick the tires before you buy.

Is it a real business?

Do the numbers hold up?

What is the moat?

Can competitors kill this business?

Read the price tag

Read the whole ride

Score the risk

Catch the printing press

Who gets paid first?

What kills the idea?

What price makes sense?

Now run one yourself

Take the checklist with you.

Get the free checklist

You're on the list.

Every scored stock gets a public reading.

Hype reading

Legit

Warm

Spicy

Junk food

Total scam

Know your spice level.

Mild

Medium

Hot

Ghost pepper

Hype comes here to die.

The freshest three

Robin Energy Ltd.

The record

Springview Holdings Ltd.

The record

China SXT Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

The record

The rest of the wall

Good and solid lives here.

Banks hate ripping this out — so they stay.

The record

Real boxes. Real power. Real customers.

The record

The strongest moat the crew owns.

The record

Still on the bench: the Lucky 7

Got a stock you're thinking about? Ask us.

Ask the Crew

Ask Dollar.

Built on a job site, not a trading floor.

Boats

Chief

Dollar

Salty

Before you spend a dime, bring us the ticker.