Meme stocks are apparently swelling After roaring Kitty made his appearance again after 3 years on x aka Twitter. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/roaring-kitty-back-meme-stocks-110167848

NOTE: This guide contains a ton of gear and narrative spoilers
Most Sword Bard builds are either focused on either ranged or control + melee/AoE attack styles, and I wanted to explore whether or not it would be possible to take the best of both to make the ultimate martial all around build. This build features Sharpshooter with ranged damage of 20-30 per arrow and GWM + smite damage of 60-120 per single hit by the end game.

Background Theme

The theme for the build is a resisting dark urge, with a desire for redemption to become the champion of Baldurs's Gate. And this theme weaves through the playthrough with items and choices along the journey, for example:

• Getting branded by Priestess Gut and getting Loviatar's Love in at the Goblin Camp
• Saving the Nightsong (and Shadowheart) and forgoing the Spear of the Evening
• Becoming partial illithid in a quest for power
• In a moment of weakness, falling prey to the powers of Bhaal by becoming an Unholy Assassin at the Murder Tribunal, only to later realize that Sarevok and the tribunal must die.
• And finally rejecting Bhaal and giving up the dark urge powers.

Build Overview

The build centers around a combination of Bard and Paladin, with all three feats, for a Level 8 Sword Bard / Level 4 Oath of Vengeance Paladin. Feats are Shapshooter, Great Weapons Master and Tavern Brawler centered around Nyrulna for throwing + smite melee and the Titanstring bow for ranged giving absolute martial authority under almost all circumstances.
In addition to the primary martial strength, you gain the jack of all trades benefits of being a Bard, including exceptional social skills, relatively high charisma, good persuasion, deception, sleight of hand and stealth.
Early game, expect to play like any other dexterity/charisma bard, with the first 6 level progression on Bard alone.

• Focus on ranged fighting style, with enough stealth to dip in and out of battles solo, particularly against large groups like the Goblin Camp, in the Creche and the Gnolls
• Use flourishes, both ranged and melee to hit multiple targets in one round.
• Dual wielding hand crossbows early game.

By the end of Act 1, and with the acquisition of the Gloves of Dexterity in Creche Y'llek,a respec is needed to maximize the benefits of the Titanstring and the build plays like a ranged beast through all of the mid-game.
After level 6 of Bard, we begin to level into Paladin, which opens the door for the character to start building up melee power. Truth be told, I may have respec'ed a few times between levels 6-10 trying a few things on for size, but the most effective strategy mid-game was:

• Titanstring with Sharpshooter and Gloves of Dexterity for ranged flourishes and multiple Bard attacks that came online at level 6.
• Dual wield shortswords like Knife of the Undermountain King for smites (starting at level 8 - SSB 6/Pal 2) and melee flourishes.

By Act 3 and the late game, and with the acquisition of Nyrulna from the Djinni at the Circus of the Last Days in Rivington,the martial melee power took center stage, with ranged flourishes still very powerful, but no longer the primary attack strategy. And by level 12 and the end game, you have the choice between throwing Nyrulna for AoE or Slashing Flourish for specific ranged attacks.
Philosophically, the build is focused on fast nova damage to overwhelm a larger group by decimating them in the first 2 turns. High movement is key, we're always looking to surprise enemies, and taking advantage of stealth and invisibility to duck in and out of battle for the occasional "oh shit" moment or recharge of bardic inspiration.

Leveling Guide & Feats

As noted earlier, this build really doesn't come online until level 6, more so at level 8+. Prior to that, you're just an average ranged or melee bard, your choice. The end game goal is Level 8 College of Swords Bard / Level 4 Oath of Vengeance (or Oathbreaker) Paladin.
Race choices include Wood Elf, High Elf, Duegar Dwarf, Half Orc, Gnome or Halfling. I've always opted for one of the elves, primary because of movement speed. The fighting style that has evolved for me throughout multiple solo runs now is that you are often fighting in retreat, and movement is key to manage this. If you're playing this as part of a party, movement is less important.
Levels 1-6 - Bard

• Start at level 1 as a Bard with STR 8, DEX 17, CON 14, INT 8, WIS 10, CHA 16, and you should expect to respec at least once. Select Minor Illusion and Friends for Cantrips if doing a solo run, with a strong case to also be made for Mage Hand. If not for a solo, you have other options here. Longstrider is a key spell as well. For skills, optimize Persuasion (or Deception), Sleight of Hand, Stealth, and Performance, in that order. I chose Persuasion, Sleight of Hand and Stealth.
• At level 3, choose College of Swords. For spells, consider Invisibility, Cloud of Daggers (for some vital early AOE on a solo run), and Hold Person. You can also swap an existing spell slot here to get two of those three. Choose Two-Weapon Fighting for fighting style.
• At level 4, choose Sharpshooter for your first feat.

I recommend a respec as soon as you are able to purchase the Gloves of Dexterity, which for me happens usually around level 4 or 5 somewhere. When you do, choose STR 17, DEX 8, CON 14, INT 8, WIS 10, CHA 16.
Levels 7-8 - Paladin

• At level 7, start with your first Paladin level. I chose Oath of Vengenance.
• At level 8, choose either Defense or Great Weapon Fighting as your fighting style. At this point in the game, I was playing with dual wielded shortswords with Knife of the Undermountain King as primary, but you could also play with Halberd of Vigilance, Mourning Frost or some other two handed weapon. Melee is less important still at this point, since we chose Sharpshooter as our first feat and primary fighting style. This is really about your secondary melee damage dealing, so whatever you prefer for the mid-game.

Levels 9-10 - Bard
We're really just marching towards that second feat here. Choose whatever you want for spells, I like Freedom of Movement, Greater Invisibility, Fear, Hypnotize. For this build, spells are tertiary to ranged and melee damage, so the focus should be on enhancements and prep spells for battle, not in battle casting against enemies.

• At level 10, level 8 bard, grab the Great Weapons Master feat. By this time in the game, we have picked up Nyrulna and have a lot of spell slots for smites. This is where the melee part of this build really shines and starts to outpace the already amazing ranged archer. NOTE: If you chose Defense at level 8, respec to choose Great Weapon Fighting.

Levels 11-12 - Paladin
Again, we're marching to our third feat but you can pick up some great Paladin support and control spells like Command, Bless, Protection from Good and Evil, and additional smites.

• At level 12, level 4 Paladin, get the Tavern Brawler feat and put your ability point in Constitution (kid of doesn't matter, I'll explain in a bit). I thought about getting Savage Attacker here for maximizing crits on smites, or even an ASI into Strength, but ultimately wanted the flexibility of using Nyrulna as a solid throwing option and I'm glad I did. I might go back and try the other two options at some point.

Gear Guide

Not extensive, but I'll list out the important items I picked up and used along the way, but place an asterisk by absolutely essential items
Early Act 1

• Ring of Protection* - Worn pretty much the entire game, best ring in the game IMO (don't @ me)
• Titanstring Bow* - the build revolves around this bow
• Doom Hammer* - Absolutely essential for any solo of Myrkul to prevent healing from Reaper's Reward ability.
• Amulet of Misty Step
• Gloves of Archery
• Crusher's Ring
• Haste Helm

Late Act 1

• Gloves of Dexterity* - Essential to the build, worn throughout the game since the build was based on dumping DEX in the spec.
• DeathStalker's Mantle* - Durge item only, essential to the build to go invisible after a kill.
• Boots of Speed* - Worn pretty much throughout the game, I almost feel are essential for a solo run. These are top 3 items for me all game for any solo run.
• Periapt of Wound Closure* - Essential for me mid-game to have healing potions max heal. I wore throughout act 2.
• Club of Hill Giant Strength - This was essential before Gloves of Dex purchase
• Disintegrating Night Walkers
• Knife of the Undermountain King
• Mourning Frost
• Unseen Menace
• Caustic Band

Act 2

• Risky Ring* - I wore this most of the game as well, with some situational exceptions
• Cloak of Protection* - This was swapped out situationally with the Deathstalker's Mantle throughout the game, really the only two cloaks I used.
• Darkfire Shortbow - used situationally for fire/cold resistance
• Killer's Sweetheart
• Helmet of Arcane Acuity - used surprisingly little, but had to mention

Act 3

• Nyrulna* - Essential to the build, couldn't do this one without it unless you went full evil and did Shar's Spear of the Evening, but that goes against the theme here.
• Bhaalist Armor* - Essential to the build to get the smite damage maximized from Nyrulna.
• Sarevok's Horned Helmet*
• Helm of the Balduran*
• Amulet of Greater Health*
• Band of Mystic Scoundrel - used surprisingly little, but had to mention

End Game items

• Sarevok's Helm
• Bhaalist Armor
• Cloak of Protection
• Boots of Speed
• Gloves of Dexterity
• Ring of Protection
• Risky Ring
• Amulet of Greater Health
• Nyrulna
• Titanstring Bow

Buffs and Enhancements

• Hag's Hair went to Strength - 17 base + 1 = 18 Strength
• Brand of the Absolute and Loviatar's Love
• Volo's Eye
• Necromancy of Thay, both buffs
• Awakened Illithid powers
• Potion of Everlasting Vigor - 18 STR + 2 = 20 Strength
• Partial Illithid, because flying!
• Githrazei Mind Barrier
• Arabella's Shadow Entanglement
• Tharacite Vigor
• Anointed in Splendor
• Statue of myself buff
• Mirror of Loss - 20 STR = 2 = 22 Strength

Other Misc Tactics and Potions

I used Potion of Speed, Elixir of Bloodlust, Elixir of Viciousness, Invisibility, and various posions/toxins for weapon dipping throughout the game. Bloodlust was easily the most important for a solo run, I tried to put it on after as many long rests as possible, followed closely by speed potions and invisibility on a per battle basis. Buy Hyena Ears and Worg Fangs every time you see them.
I stocked up on tons of scrolls along the way, the most important of which were Haste, Remove Curse, Misty Step, Fireball, Lightning (+Chain), Mirror Image, Invisibility, Cone of Cold or other large AOE high level spells.
FOOTNOTE: Thanks for reading this far. I've played through the game now like 12 times or so, with one successful honor run, and the last 3 of which were solo runs on Tactician. The solo runs were inspired by Friendly Lich and his blade warlock: https://www.reddit.com/BG3Builds/comments/1cmn6sb/a_warlock_pact_of_the_blade_multiclass_for_solo/
This resisting the dark urge run was my favorite playthrough so far, for both the narrative storyline, and how it played thematically into this build, with the choices between good and evil waffling back and forth along the way, ultimately leading to redemption. I think this is the best story arc of BG3.
I've considered a couple of other options for this build that I'd like to experiment with in the future, including ditching one of the feats and adding one level of War Cleric to get Sanctuary and Guidance. I will not lie, I save scummed a few times along the way and Guidance and Sanctuary would have helped me a bunch in those situations. However, it was rewarding to get the full martial with Tavern Brawler on Nyrulna in the end, will report back if I end up tinkering. Suggestions welcome!

Happy Tuesday, Barkada --

The PSE gained 92 points to 6604 ▲1.4%

Shout-out to Atot for saving the Inside the Boardroom special [MB link] for their "lunch read" (at least it's not a porcelain chair?), to Trina Cerdenia for retweeting the ITB episode with highlights, to Tenkan Sen for noting the bloodbath that has been the recent (and even not-so-recent) IPO market, to Just'n for recognizing that in most cases a secondary IPO is for exit liquidity, to Enrico P. Villanueva for mentioning the ITB article as a jumping-off point for further research and analysis, to Jonathan Burac for providing interesting background on auditors and former-auditors as Independent Directors, to kalel.RON for having their mind blown by my reveal that I'm not Matteo Guidicelli (deep cut for the OGs), to Tirador for the straight-forward review ("pangit an ipo yan"), and to arkitrader for the Monday vibes GIF.
Thanks also to the many readers who wrote in privately with praise, follow-up questions, and comments about yesterday's Inside the Boardroom special episode with OceanaGold PH's President, Joan Adaci-Cattiling. I won't list your names because you didn't choose to make your comments public, but I appreciate all of the notes that I've received and it's encouraging to see the interesting in the ITB series. Thank you!
Just for background, the Inside the Boardroom series takes a lot of extra work to organize, conduct the interview, and write the content for each episode. MB does not receive anything in return for an Inside the Boardroom interview; I only ask for direct access to the c-suite executive and the understanding that all questions that I ask will be direct (not trying to avoid unfavorable parts), to-the-point (not flowery), and without honorifics or deference (no titles or fawning).
I have a great amount of respect for companies and executives that agree to those terms, as there are many companies here that would never in a million years allow their executives to speak publicly, let alone on topics that are not 100% positive and dripping with marketing talking points.
OK, enough of that, let's get to the new stuff!

▌In today's MB:

• COMING UP: This week
  • PH: OGP 1st week
  • PH: BSP rate decision
  • PH: UBP SRO start
  • INT'L: US April inflation
• OceanaGold falls 6% in 1st day of trading
• CREIT, MREIT, and FILRT declare Q1 divs
• FMETF halted due to broken price tracker

▌Daily meme Subscribe (it's free) Today's email

▌Main stories covered:

• [COMING_UP] The week ahead... PH: While we had the OceanaGold PH [OGP 12.50 ▼6.2%; 100% avgVol] IPO yesterday, the biggest waves will be made on Thursday when the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) meets to evaluate our interest rate situation. The Union Bank [UBP 34.60 ▼6.0%; 83% avgVol] stock rights offer period will also start on Thursday. International: The only datapoint that I’m following for this week is the US April inflation report, which we should get early Thursday morning.
  
  • MB: The inflation metagame is where my mind’s at these days, and that’s all about inflation expectations. Not so much where inflation “is”, but where people (and companies) think inflation “will be” in the future. Inflation expectations matter because they can cause dramatic changes. For individuals, expectations of higher inflation can lead to changes in purchasing behavior and higher wage demands. For corporations, expectations of higher inflation can cause companies to increase their prices. I think you can see why the US Federal Reserve and the BSP are most afraid of these expectations; they’re something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. There should be a lot of analysis to consume on this point after the US CPI report is out on Thursday morning.
• [UPDATE] OceanaGold falls 6% in first day of trading... OceanaGold PH [OGP 12.50 ▼6.2%; 100% avgVol] [link] dropped a little over 6% in its first day of trading, falling ₱0.82 from its ₱13.33/share IPO price to close at ₱12.50/share. The highest the stock traded was ₱13.34 in the first 20 minutes of trading before consistent selling pressure pushed OGP price to an intra-day low of ₱12.46 around 1:30 PM. The stock mounted a significant recovery to around ₱12.90/share before a massive amount of late-day selling pushed it back down to the ₱12.50 level at the close.
  
  • MB: Since this is the first IPO of the year, the questions in my inbox tell me that we need to quickly cover a few points before we move forward. First, yes, OGP does have a stabilization fund, but it’s important to remember that a stabilization fund isn’t supposed to entirely prevent a stock’s price from falling. A stab fund is best thought of as a discretionary pool of money that a paid agent (in this case, BDO Capital) can use to buy shares on the open market to provide some artificial demand for the stock. It has a limited amount of money (usually around 10% of the value of the total IPO) and a limited amount of time (30 days), and once either of those is gone, so is the fund. The other thing to remember about stab funds is that it’s entirely up to the agent to deploy the limited resources of the fund. They might be hands-off for days before suddenly smashing the market with a swarm of buy orders to soak up the selling pressure, or they might constantly drip artificial buy orders into the market. Or they might employ a chaotic mixture of those strategies. Stability funds are a little bit of short-term downside protection and a handy pool of exit liquidity, but they shouldn’t be seen as IPO Investing insurance or a protection against loss! Be careful out there!
• [DIVS] CREIT, MREIT, and FILRT all declare Q1 dividends... Citicore Energy REIT [CREIT 2.83 ▲0.3%; 345% avgVol] [link] and MREIT [MREIT 12.96 ▲0.1%; 96% avgVol] [link] declared their Q1 dividends on Monday, while Filinvest REIT [FILRT 2.93 ▼2.0%; 47% avgVol] [link] declared its Q1 dividend on Friday. For CREIT, the dividend will be ₱0.049/share (stable), payable on July 9, representing 101% of CREIT’s Q1 distributable income (DI). For MREIT, the dividend will be ₱0.246 (stable), payable on June 14, representing 93% of MREIT’s DI. For FILRT, the dividend will be ₱0.062/share (falling), payable on June 7, representing 99.9% of FILRT’s DI for the quarter.
  
  • MB: The name of the REIT game is stability. While REITs cannot help what happens in the macroeconomic world with interest rates (all REITs got smacked when rates rose to fight inflation), what separates a good REIT from a bad one (in my opinion) is the management team’s ability to effectively worry about everything else to protect the income stream from loss. Bonus points should be awarded to teams who grow their dividend over time. Between these three companies, both CREIT and MREIT have shown the ability to deliver a stable dividend. CREIT has even managed to grow its dividend 11%. That leaves FILRT, which has continued to deliver giant turd after giant turd to its bagholders in the form of smaller and smaller dividends. FIRLT’s first three quarterly divs were at the ₱0.112/share level, and their most recent div was just ₱0.062. That’s a 44.6% drop. I don’t have a thesaurus within reach capable of accurately describing to you just how bad that is for a REIT. It’s not like the company suffered some major trauma that nearly halved the dividend; the div level has fallen four times over the past twelve quarters and in each of the last three.
• [NEWS] FMEFT halted due to broken price tracker... FMETF [FMETF 105.20 ▲0.9%; 5% avgVol] [link], the PSE’s only exchange-traded fund, was halted by the PSE at 1 PM yesterday after it was discovered that its iNav had failed to update since 11:30 AM. FMETF said that it would “coordinate” with its “service provider” to implement a fix, but as of this writing, FMETF has not advised that a fix has been implemented nor has the PSE lifted the halt.
  
  • MB: This problem happened six times last year, and while it’s great that we made it into May before we had our first FMETF outage of this year, it’s still discouraging to see “iNav not calculating” as a problem that we need to contend with in 2024. For those who are unfamiliar, FMETF is an exchange-traded fund, so FMEFT’s per-share price is derivative of the per-share prices of all the shares that FMETF owns/represents. The “iNav” that keeps breaking is the number that represents the current value of FMETF’s holdings, expressed as a “NAV per unit” or “NAV per share”. So, if the iNav isn’t updating, then traders are not getting the kind of information they need to place FMETF stock trades. “We need more ETFs” is something that I’ve heard traders say for years now, and while I still count myself as part of that group, I wish we could see some forward progress in the maintenance of FMETF before we introduce anything more exotic to the market.

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Most of us original investors had never left (its great to see over 3000 APES at the time of this post on line). We just lurked around but now lets hear some positive stories from the APES as NEW APES are reading this sub for the first time. I will start....
I originally got into this because of the HYPE I read on line. I knew very little about the company but what got me interested the most was the HYPE I was reading in this sub. I am very grateful to be here since 2021. The amazing creative talent that you APES were posting with the MEMES, Jokes and so on made me feel at home. It solidified my decision to be an investor.
I understand most of you like myself are down a lot however, I have nothing but time on my hands to continue this crazy ride with my Brothers and Sisters. As I have posted before there are two things about this investment that are important to me:

1. I have never had so much fun investing in a stock in my life. This is a wild ride and I am grateful to be sharing the adventure with my fellow APES!
2. Always be PATIENT!

Much love and respect to my fellow warriors! OOOGA BOOOGA!!!

I wont bore you all with the details but long story short I have been steadily investing since I turned 18, I currently have almost 30k invested into the market, 24k of which is in a Roth and the other 6k is in a brokerage account. I am currently invested 90% into VTI and the remaining 10% I am riskier with on single stock picks. I have around 14k in student debt with low interest (ranging around 3 to 4%) and no other debt. My car is paid off, all credit cards are paid off and I have little to no bills yet because I still live at home with family. My income per month is roughly $1600 because I work part-time so that I can focus mainly on school and completing my degree.
Now for the question; What would you do if you were my age? Is VTI a solid choice? Would you head more into Real Estate? I love reading books about finance and after reading "The Simple Path to Wealth" I have been a strong believer in VTI. Please let me know your opinion's, story's, advice, I appreciate it.

I wont bore you all with the details but long story short I have been steadily investing since I turned 18, I currently have almost 30k invested into the market, 24k of which is in a Roth and the other 6k is in a brokerage account. I am currently invested 90% into VTI and the remaining 10% I am riskier with on single stock picks. I have around 14k in student debt with low interest (ranging around 3 to 4%) and no other debt. My car is paid off, all credit cards are paid off and I have little to no bills yet because I still live at home with family. My income per month is roughly $1600 because I work part-time so that I can focus mainly on school and completing my degree.
Now for the question; What would you do if you were my age? Is VTI a solid choice? Would you head more into Real Estate? I love reading books about finance and after reading "The Simple Path to Wealth" I have been a strong believer in VTI. Please let me know your opinion's, story's, advice, I appreciate it.

I’m at the point where I’ve just saved Sigurd from Fulke in the story but it has me thinking how tf is Eivor so powerful. I’ve watched the show vikings and we all know how powerful Ivar was, for Eivor to beat ivar and yet walk away borderline unharmed was just insane. Ivar was borderline a god as we saw when he was set on fire and in Norse legends but if Eivors just a standard Viking how is he out here killing and slaying legends and gods. I’m obviously ignoring the video game factor that he can take out the entirety of king whoever’s army if he eats enough yellow berries but I feel like he’s power is under appreciated unless there’s something I missed at the start that proved Eivor to be a god or something, I know he has a connection to Odin and I read somewhere that he’s Odin re born into another human but jeez I’m looking forward to seeing what this game has in stock for an ending.

so basically for the last few weeks i have been storyboarding the end of my superhero story, and i wanted to finish it with a huge "endgame" style approach, big hype and lots of action, so recently i have made a new group of villains who work with my big bad who is
Astronimus: possesses tons of abilities, much like AFO, he can steal/stock and distribute powers( very underused ability in my opinion) he seeks these Artifacts which are combined to become some reset switch for reality, its really up in the air if he wants to just reset reality because its bad or if he just feels evil, his strength level is on that of being able to level moon or capable of near continental destruction
Dante: part of a fire powered alien race whos colour of fire shows their levels of strength, blue and green are deemed the most powerful with purple and pink also existing, Dante has Black Fire, the only one of his kind in history to have so, son of the king of the planet, he felt neglected as his father feared his power and lust for battle, showing more interest in his newborn daughter, my hero, Infernus, this all comes to a halt as Dante attempts to murder his baby sister and then the king, the king supposedly kills him and he leaves off to join the villains in the quest of ending reality (yipee) in constant pain but only lives off the hatred he has for his father and sister
Wheeler: hes the kind of person that you know is going to pull an AK 47 from his bag, he developed the power of being an Armadillo, a hunch backed and durable villain, often a creepy admirer of his boss and a weird character with a weird power
Jotunn: an experiment to see just how many raw physical abilities one person could be given, right from his strength, impenetrable skin and giant size down to his organs and lifespan, a mindless brute whose only purpose is being a pet to Astronimus even if this titan could face Astronimus head on
Sun-Thief: the power to manipulate gravity on a city wide level, single handedly destroying most of Mumbai as boy when his powers awakened, he would be found after his power awakening by Astronimus who manipulated him through the years, his obnoxious showman act often makes people underlook the power he has, i would imagine him being knocked out during the final fight only for Astronimus to overload his power and cause gravity to go crazy
Zephyr: a self proclaimed god whose abilities developed as young boy in his African Tribe, the village people deemed him a god, treating him with care and love, but fearful of his might, after getting bored with his status, he decided to murder everyone in the village and fly off into society, his ability manipulate air is extremely powerful, whistles can often send opponents flying, he can shoot highly concentrated forms of air that can split through metal, easily top 10 in the verse
Infincron: sentient robot who denies his own mortality in favour of his selfish goal of human extinction, sees Astronimus's plans as a means to an end, even if he dies, he simply chooses to do what his programming says even when he knows its bad and has a choice
Khuso: the humble butler of Astronimus who has the ability to teleport and form shadow like constructs, was turned into this servant after finding Astronimus's operations after a car crash, instead of killing him, Astronimus "fixed" him, made him another puppet who has served him for 300 years
Quasar: the biological son of Astronimus, meant to be his successor or if plans go wrong, a vessel for his new body, has the ability to store up kinetic energy and bounce around with it how he likes
there are few i forgot to mention but i feel like the ideas i have are already decent, but i would like to hear your thoughts, if something doesn't sound original or lacking any depth, feel free to tell me, i'm open to criticism

Hey :)
So the story is as follows: I bought a salvaged 2017 Ford Fusion Sport (2.7L) off of Copart. The car wasn't that damaged - it was run and drive and "only" needed a new bumper, a headlight and radiators in the front. That is to say that the damage was nowhere near anything brakes related.
Knowing it lacked some features, like the Adaptive Cruise Control, I planned to install those myself. For that I needed to replace the ABS unit, as the stock one did not support that. So when the car arrived, I only drove it for a hundred meters before parking and beginning repairs, including replacing the ABS. That also meant removing the tubes going from the master cylinder to the ABS.
I don't remember if the brakes were good or not before I got to replace the ABS - the brake discs were all rusted and I could drive it for long because of the missing antifreeze. Once I was done with the repairs, I manually bled the brakes to at least get to a shop for them to do it properly, and replace the fluid completely in the process.
After the shop bled the brakes, they were kind of shitty. By that I mean that the pedal would feel spongy (going back after releasing the pedal was slower than expected), and the brakes were very linear. Stopping from even 5-10km/h required pressing the pedal to ~30%.
I knew this wasn't normal, because I happened to have three other Fusions (all of the same generation, two pre-facelift) available to test the brakes and they all had the same brake feel that differed from mine. Pressing the pedal just 5-10% was enough to quickly stop the car from 5-10km/h, just like you'd expect on a modern car.
So I thought that maybe I bought a faulty used ABS - so I bought another one, replaced it, bled the brakes, got to the shop - they bled the brakes with a pressure thingy and absolutely nothing changed.
Some other things I tried:

• replaced all four brake pads
  
• got the brake discs resurfaced
  
• replaced the ABS - twice
  
• flashed the correct firmware and configuration into the block - twice, although I'm pretty sure it should've worked anyway
  
• bled the brakes - both manually and with pressure
  
• got the brake hoses replaced on the dealership due to recall
  
• got the brake system inspected and diagnosed on the dealership, with no problems found
  
• checked the vacuum booster pressure - seemed okay
  

Now I'm completely lost on what my next steps should be. I'm certain the brakes should be better than they are - judging from experience with other Fusions and from comments from other Fusion Sport owners. It also seems unlikely to me that the brake booster is bad - the car only has 50k miles. Some other Fusions have 5x that and no reported problems of brake booster failing.
Please advice 🥲

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Sauce: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/roaring-kitty-back-meme-stocks-125356655.html
Roaring Kitty is back and so are meme stocks. GameStop and AMC surge like it's 2021 The Canadian Press Mon, May 13, 2024 at 11:12 a.m. PDT·4 min read
The man at the center of the pandemic meme stock craze appeared online for the first time in three years, sending the prices of thee quirky and volatile shares sharply higher Monday.
Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” posted an image Sunday on the social platform X of a man sitting forward in his chair, a meme used by gamers when things are getting serious.
He followed that tweet with a YouTube video from years before when he championed the beleaguered company GameStop saying, “That’s all for now cuz I’m out of breath. FYI here’s a quick 4min video I put together to summarize the $GME bull case.”
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GameStop in 2021 was a video game retailer that was struggling to survive as consumers switched rapidly from discs to digital downloads. Big Wall Street hedge funds and major investors were betting against it, or shorting its stock, believing that its shares would continue on a drastically downward trend.
Gill and those who agreed with him changed the trajectory of a company that appeared to headed for bankruptcy by buying up thousands of GameStop shares in the face of almost any accepted metrics that told investors that the company was in serious trouble.
That began what is known as a “short squeeze,” when those big investors that had bet against GameStop were forced to buy its rapidly rising stock to offset their massive losses.
At Monday's opening bell it appeared that Gill had reignited the phenomenon as shares of GameStop more than doubled. At midday, shares were trading 60% higher. It's the biggest intraday trading jump for GameStop since the meme craze of early 2021. Other meme stocks like the theater chain AMC were jolted higher as well.
Trading in GameStop was halted eight times before noon on Monday due to volatility.
Gill became a cause célèbre in 2021 after his posts on the Reddit subcategory Wallstreetbets ignited a David vs. Goliath battle with large hedge funds that were betting heavily against the survival of GameStop.
The small guys won, at least for a while, driving shares of GameStop up more than 1,000% in 2021 and other meme stocks as well. The struggling movie theater chain AMC jumped 2,300% in a very short span of time in the same year.
Some big traders posted collosal losses as GameStop raced from less than $20, to close to $400 each. Citron Research, Melvin Capital and other well-known hedge funds lost an estimated $5 billion, according to analytics firm S3 Partners.
Some of those new and smaller investors believed, at least in part, that Ryan Cohen, co-founder of Chewy.com, could push the traditional retailer in a more online direction. Cohen built up a stake in GameStop before eventually joining the board and last year becoming its CEO.
Joining the meme surge Monday was AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., which leapt 33%. Koss Co. a headphone manufacturer, spiked 25% and BlackBerry, the one time dominant smartphone maker, rose 7%. The retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond, another meme stock, sought bankruptcy protection last year.
Some meme stocks, including GameStop and AMC, had been climbing earlier this month, and rapidly.
Shares of GameStop Corp., which have faded steadily since 2021, had already risen 57% this month. In January, GameStop reported its first annual profit since 2018, although it’s still unclear if Cohen’s turnaround plan will succeed.
AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., had risen 10% over the past 30 days.
Those companies broke out Monday following Gill's tweet.
The dynamics of the market as far as companies like GameStop are concerned have changed, however.
When Gill and an online army of retail investors began buying up shares of GameStop, more than 140% of the company's tradeable shares were being shorted. You arrive at that distorted number because some traders were borrowing against already shorted stocks to build even bigger bets against the company, vastly increasing their losses when the stock began to climb.
The short positions against GameStop's tradable shares now stand just over 24%, slightly more than the 22.5% recorded in January.
Gill reaped a big profit investing in a troubled video-game company, but denied when he appeared virtually at a Congressional hearing that he used social media to drive up GameStop's stock price.
He told lawmakers at the time simply, “I like the stock.”
As Roaring Kitty, Gill had vanished from messaging boards after posting a video in June 2021 of kittens going to sleep.
The story of Roaring Kitty and the meme stock craze was turned into a movie last year called “Dumb Money.”
Associated Press, The Associated Press