Topic Guide
Welcome to the Occam Investing topic guide.
This page contains links to all articles written on the blog, as well as my ideas for future posts.
If you’d like to be notified when a new post is published, you can subscribe to receive updates via email.
- Why should I invest? / How much can I expect to make from investing?
- Should I save or invest?
- How much do I need to start investing?
- Am I ready to invest?
- What can I invest in?
- How do I invest?
- Is now a good time to invest?
- Should I invest all at once or drip feed?
- What is diversification and why do I need it?
- The market is crashing, what should I do?
- How often should I rebalance my portfolio?
- When should I sell my investment?
- How much of my salary should I be investing?
- Why do stocks go up?
Introduction
- Active vs passive – what’s in a name?
- Can anyone be truly passive? In search of the Global Market Portfolio
Active vs passive performance – the evidence
Arguments for active management
- What is factor investing?
- Valuations vs long term returns
- Risk parity
- Irrational markets
- You’re not human
Arguments for passive management
- Lower fees
- More transparent
- Survivorship bias
- What’s the best predictor of future returns?
- Identifying winning managers in advance
- Conflicts of interest
- Decisions, decisions – sticking with underperforming managers
- ‘Beating the market’ is not a financial goal
- The market is becoming more efficient
- Simple beats complex
- Problems with smart beta
- Valuations and timing the market
- Closet indexing and herding
- Peer group rankings
- Self-selecting benchmarks
- The uselessness of forecasting
- Separating luck from skill
- Manager risk
- Most companies die/positively skewed returns
- Focus on things you can control
- Asset allocation drives most of your returns
- Passives and the behaviour gap
Debunking the myths of passive investing
- Introduction
- Is passive investing causing a bubble?
- Actives can help you avoid crashes
- Actives outperform in less efficient markets
- Passives buy all stocks, actives buy only good stocks
- Actives give a chance of outperforming
- Active management works for bonds
- Passives don’t contribute to price discovery
- Passives don’t allocate capital efficiently or manage corporate governance
- Passives reduce dispersion and increase correlations
- The market is irrational
- ‘We are not average’
- Passives are untested in a downturn
- Passives have only done well because of QE
- Passives are un-diversified
- Index tracking is momentum investing
- The power of simplicity
- The case for stocks
- Equity – to hedge or not to hedge?
- The case for bonds
- Bonds vs bond funds
- Bonds – to hedge or not to hedge?
- Index funds vs ETFs
- Avoiding hedge funds
- Avoiding other alternatives
- Avoiding gold
- 10-year return expectations: 2020 edition
- Smooth is what we aim for: ergodicity, the volatility tax, and not being stupid
- Investor behaviour – behavioural biases and the behaviour gap
- Avoiding the news
- How does an ETF work?
- Tax efficient investing
- Understanding investment performance
- How do I choose a good passive equity fund?
- How do I choose a good passive bond fund?
- Index funds vs ETFs
- Individual bonds vs bond funds
- A diversifier or a hedge? Understanding bond funds
- Should I invest in the market or a BTL property?
- Should I rent or buy?
- Interest rate effects on stocks/bonds
- Do I need a financial adviser?
- Investing tips
- Sequence of returns risk
- Your returns depend on when you’re born – as do your perceptions of risk. Focus on what you can control.
- The uselessness of peer group benchmarks
- Why there will always be bubbles and crashes
- Avoiding fads/The danger of speculation – how losses are disproportionately bad
- ESG
- Investment consultants