Learn
Understand investing. Make better decisions.
Clear explanations of the questions that actually matter — without jargon and without anything held back.
Start here
New to investing? These 3 lessons give you the foundation, in the right order.
Explore all lessons
Everything published so far. Each lesson answers one question, and stands on its own.
- How investing actually worksPrice, value and expectationsA price is not a measurement of what something is worth. It is what buyers and sellers will trade at now, and it already contains what they collectively expect. That is why an announcement can be good and the price can still fall.Video · Memo · Article
- A strategy is a decision method, not a predictionA prediction says what will happen. A decision method says what you do, under stated conditions, whatever happens. The difference shows up at the only moment that matters — when you have to act and the outcome is still unknown.Video · Memo · Article
- What you can actually ownGoldGold has no issuer, no contract and no internal cash flow — nothing about it pays you for holding it. Its return comes entirely from the change in its price, which makes it a different kind of asset from a share or a bond rather than a defective version of either.Video · Memo · Article
- ETFs, properlyWhat an ETF isAn ETF is a fund whose shares trade on an exchange like a single company's. You own shares in the fund and the fund owns the assets, so one purchase gives you exposure to everything inside it. The wrapper is straightforward; what decides your risk is the rule that fills it and what it costs to hold.Video · Memo · Article
- What you're actually buyingWhat a world equity ETF actually holds"World" on a fund is not a description of the planet. It names an index, and the major world indices cover very different universes — some exclude emerging markets entirely, and most weight by market value, which concentrates them wherever prices have risen most.Video · Memo · Article
- What risk actually meansWhat a drawdown isA drawdown is the fall from a previous high down to the low that follows it, measured as a percentage. Its duration — the time spent below that high before it is regained — is a second measure, and the two are read together to understand what holding the investment involved.Video · Memo · Article
- Putting it togetherReal versus apparent diversificationCounting your funds answers one question about diversification and is silent on another. It tells you something about how exposed you are to any single company failing; it tells you nothing about what your holdings have in common — which is what decides whether they fall together.Video · Memo · Article
- Systematic strategiesWhat tactical asset allocation isTactical asset allocation, or TAA, adjusts how much of a portfolio sits in each broad category as conditions change, rather than holding fixed proportions through everything. Those shifts may be judged by a person or decided by written rules — but they move between whole categories, never between individual companies.Video · Memo · Article