About

Hi, welcome to Occam Investing.

About me

I’m a CFA charterholder, currently working for a large asset manager in the UK.

While I’d love to share more about myself and my background, I’ve chosen to blog anonymously as my views may conflict with those of my employer.

Hopefully I’ll be able to blog under my real name eventually, but for now “Occam” will have to do.

 

Why did I start this blog?

For three reasons.

1) Because investing isn’t like any other profession.

I couldn’t walk into an operating theatre and perform brain surgery better than a well-qualified and experienced surgeon. Nor could I turn up in court and prosecute someone as well an experienced lawyer. Or design a structurally sound building as well an architect.

But investing is different. It’s the only profession where someone with no previous experience can outperform a professional.

There are no other areas where an average person, with very little effort, can do a better job than someone who’s been practising their whole life.

Given the crucial role investments play in all our financial lives, the ease with which it’s possible to to manage them ourselves puts us – and all  investors – in a hugely powerful position.

So that’s what this blog is for. To show you how.

No matter what your previous investment experience, the aim of this blog is to teach you how to take control of your own financial life, manage your own investments, and grow your wealth quicker than if you’d hired professionals.

2) Because this stuff matters.

There are two topics which impact every single person on the planet: health, and money.

We can all get through life pretty well if we don’t understand chemistry, French, or ancient history. I’m not going be disastrously impacted if I don’t know the difference between an ionic and a covalent bond, or how to properly conjugate être.

But understanding investing and personal finance matters.

The cost of not knowing about these things is incredibly high. Your life is going to be much more difficult if you don’t understand how credit cards work, how to create wealth through investing, or the cumulative impact of a 2% investment fee. On the optimistic side, though, having even a basic understanding of finance and investing can be game-changing. And it’s never been easier to learn.

Even a modest time investment in learning the basics of how to invest can result in life-changing amounts of money.

So I write to share my expertise in the world of investing, in the hopes it can in some way help whoever ends up stumbling across this site.

3) Because I enjoy learning.

My final reason is a selfish one – I started this blog to learn.

I learn about all sorts of things, but I particularly like:

  • Deep-diving into a topic. Making any sort of writing public forces the author to clarify their thinking. Especially on the internet, where the penalty for getting something wrong is a torrent of vitriol in the comments section. I like more deeply understanding the topics I write about as a result, and as a bonus, I often discover new and interesting ideas during the writing process.
  • I’ve never been a particularly creative person, nor a particularly good writer. Occam Investing gives me a chance to develop my writing, and I enjoy the struggle to improve. I can only apologise to readers of my earliest posts…
  • I love talking to readers. The aim of the blog is to help investors take control of their own investments, so hearing from readers who have taken the leap to managing their own money, or from those who have improved their investment strategy as a result of the blog is hugely rewarding. Really, this is what keeps me going.

 

Investment philosophy

Occam’s razor is the principle that the simplest solution is usually the best.

Although the world of investing can come across as complicated and confusing, it really isn’t. In fact, simple investment solutions are much stronger than complicated ones. Occam’s razor holds especially true when it comes to investing.

A strong investment portfolio should be:

  • Simple
  • Diversified
  • Cheap
  • Understandable
  • Transparent
  • Evidence-based

Through this blog, I’ll be providing you with all the necessary information to put these ideas into practice, and how to build your own portfolio.

 

Independence

Although I work for an asset manager, my anonymity means I’m able to offer an independent opinion free from ulterior motives.

I’m under no obligation to sell the services of any particular fund manager, investment, manager, adviser, or consultant.

As a result, I’m able to offer an opinion free from financial incentives.

In the spirit of fully transparency (one of the core tenets of my investment philosophy), I would love this blog to generate some income for me one day. I want to dedicate more time to helping others manage their own investments, and the only way that’s going to happen is if Occam Investing starts making some money.

But I’m some way off that point yet.

If and when I’m able to provide enough value to readers that the blog becomes profitable (whether that’s through ads, membership, sponsored posts – I’m not sure yet), my financial incentives will always be based on my investment philosophy – never the other way around.

I value my independence highly, and know from speaking to readers that they do, too.

I don’t post according to any schedule, so if you’d like to be notified of any new posts when they’re released, please sign up using the form on the right sidebar.