The question leaps to mind, “Who needs another financial newsletter?”
The short answer: I don’t know.
The longer answer is, I’m going to write one. I think I have some interesting things to say. Hopefully with wit and my own personal verve. I’ve mulled it over for a while, and I really enjoy the writing process, so here we are … writing a newsletter.
I’ve been a self-taught investor for almost 20 years now. I’ve paid a large tuition to the investment markets, and I’d like to think that I learned a lot over that period. And I continue to learn. Investing is almost uniquely great in that way – there is always something new to learn.
I say I’m self-taught, so I should probably explain that a bit. I spent the last 12 years as a financial advisor. To prepare for that, I attained the Certified Financial Planner (TM) designation. There were six college level classes that were associated with the program and a grueling certification exam. So, I’ve had some formal schooling. But most of what I have learned about the craft of investing, I have learned by doing. It has gone a little something like this:
…read a bunch, try some investing, fail, learn what I did wrong
…read some more, try some more investing, fail, learn what I did wrong
…repeat cycle
Eventually, instead of uniformly failing, I started to have success. At first success looked like not losing money. Then eventually making some money. Not always as much as the overall stock market, but a positive return is much better than a negative return. In the beginning, it was comical how much I lost. It’s incredible that I remained dedicated to it. Investing was always in the back of my mind, and somehow, I just could never shake the desire to do it successfully.
“There is no winning or losing. In investing, if you ‘win’ you make money. If you lose, you learn something.” – Unknown (if you know who said this, I’d love to add an attribution)
At this point, I’ve done reasonably well and proven to myself that my investing can yield at least as much as the overall market does, and hopefully a meaningful amount more than that. After years of investing, for me, it is less about the returns, and more about the fact that I so much enjoy the process.
Because of the way I’ve learned investing, here’s what I think I can add to the discussion: mistakes. Lots and lots of mistakes. I plan on writing more about the process and craft of investing than specific investments. I’m sure I will talk plenty about individual stocks. But this is not a stock picking newsletter per se. Or rather, it is about the emotions, behaviors and actions involved in stock picking and investing. I do not intend to write up specific companies with buy, sell or hold investment recommendations.
“Give and woman a fish, and you feed her for a day. Teach a woman to fish and you feed her for a lifetime”
I’m going more for the “Teach a woman to fish” philosophy.
For much of that last two decades, I have diligently written notes and files on my investments. I also wrote frequently when I ran my investment firm. Somewhere along the way, I added journaling to the pile. There I focused more on how I was feeling, what my intentions were, how I expected things to work out, etc. My personal writing is full of experiences with investing and will be the source of much of the newsletter topics - hence the name.
I expect we will continue to learn along the way – there are always more mistakes to be made I find. Hopefully you will enjoy my ramblings.
Do I get a certificate as a founding subscriber. Lol. I look forward to more of your musings. The investment process is humbling but you do not have to be right all the time!