diversification

1. 3 September 2023

   Why would an entrepreneur seek external finance when they have the funds themselves?

   Even if you could fund a business venture yourself, that doesn't mean you should. I explore why seeking external funding can make sense even when you have the means — touching on expected value, utili…

2. 3 June 2022

   Every asset class has bad years, even bonds

   Bonds have been performing terribly, yet I still call them defensive assets. Every asset class has bad years; regression to the mean is real; bond losses remain smaller than share losses; and your cap…

3. 28 May 2021

   Active investment is great! Just pick the right domain

   Investing actively is great. By this, I'm talking about putting your time, energy, talents, knowledge, and expertise into how you invest. On the other hand, investing passively is great too. It really…

4. 22 January 2021

   What is your asset allocation?

   Asset allocation — how your investments are split up — is really, really, really important. Get it right and you can make plenty of other mistakes and still be fine. Get it wrong and you're choosing b…

5. 17 April 2020

   Investing in a business can make you rich. It can also make you poor.

   For most of my clients I recommend widely-diversified, low-fee index funds. They're steady, sensible, and almost no one gets really rich from them. Investing in a business is one of the few things tha…

6. 31 March 2020

   Even cash can be risky

   It's not fun being asset poor and cash poor. It's rarely fun to be asset rich and cash poor either. If you've got cash on hand right now, you're probably feeling better than most. But there are real r…

7. 27 March 2020

   Could I have picked this market crash?

   COVID-19 had me questioning a lot of things, including my long-standing devotion to index-based investing. In retrospect it felt like I could have picked the crash — so could I have? Probably not. The…

8. 18 October 2019

   My manifesto

   "Wealth" isn't just about money, and "success" is personal. Don't over-complicate your financial life — make it boring so the rest of your life can be interesting. Everyone has a financial plan, wheth…

9. 14 June 2019

   Stop complicating your financial affairs!

   Kiwi personal finance forums are full of smart people endlessly debating which fund or platform is "best". I get frustrated with those debates, because they're operating in shades of good. Get your as…

10. 29 October 2017

    How to get better-than-market returns

    For most people, I recommend low-cost, index-based funds — don't try to beat the market, just make sure the market doesn't beat you. But the honest answer is that you can get better-than-market return…

11. 11 June 2017

    How to be lucky

    We can organise our lives to make good luck more likely and bad luck less costly. Invert the standard risk-management moves — eliminate, reduce, transfer, retain — and you get a framework for opportun…

12. 14 November 2014

    Picking stocks should be the least exciting part of an investment plan

    A financial planner's job isn't to pick stocks. That's the work of someone at a Bloomberg terminal all day. A planner's focus should be you — your circumstances, goals, risk tolerance, cashflow. Asset…