Insights

This section contains essays to support the main lessons.

Investing or Gambling? explains the connection between the two and puts the reader in the right frame of mind for investment decisions.

Probability is a basic primer on the rules of chance that govern all investment outcomes. Yield and Yield Curve take the lid off 'yield' - they're more complicated than you think. Leverage is a piece of financial maths as important as probability.

Hanging Loose is a reminder to value liquidity. Trading or Investing? explains why good advice for one is often bad advice for the other. Shorting explains what it means to sell something you do not own. Equity Markets describes what they are and why they are.

The Fixed Sum Game points out that for every buyer there is a seller. This leads to the conclusion that, for the average saver, Average is Good. Compounding Effect shows what compound interest does to your values in a fixed sum game. History of Returns shows what 'average' would have got you in the past. Affording Risk questions the instinctive attitude to risk of the average saver. Counterparty Risk explains an often-neglected consideration for evaluating risk.

Tracking What? considers whether tracking matters. IT Discounts explains this abstruse aspect of Investment Trusts.

What Mortgage? delivers some insights into a decision that nearly all home-owners have to face