Novel Investor has seen a few iterations over the years, but at its core, it’s always been about the journey of learning and sharing timeless investing wisdom. There are only three ways to do it, that I know of:
- Learn from others
- Learn from history
- Learn from experience
Charlie Munger summed it up best:
I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting there and trying to dream it up all yourself. Nobody’s that smart.
There is a wealth of knowledge out there just waiting to be added to your collective wisdom. The number of brilliant people, past and present, to borrow from is vast.
And market history is more than just a collection of numbers. When you look beyond the numbers, you can see into the collective minds of millions of investors and how they behaved at different points in the past.
In the end, investing is a lifetime learning process, so you might as well get started now. You’re welcome to follow along on this journey of learning and compounding investing wisdom.
My Story
When I started this experiment years ago, I quickly realized I needed to relearn a lot of stuff I had forgotten since I left the finance industry. Like a lot of sales jobs back then, the company force-fed you its version of finance that best fit its products.
That meant I had to relearn things all over again. And not just on investing, but retirement, taxes, and more because it was all necessary for a clear understanding of how it all worked. Plus some things changed. New things popped up and became more popular – indexing, ETFs, smart beta, factors, etc. – which only added to the pile.
Luckily, I didn’t have to relearn everything. The value investing philosophy I first read about back in college actually stuck. Time and common sense took care of the rest.
But none of this would have happened if I wasn’t willing to learn. That’s the hard lesson I’ve learned through all this – learning doesn’t end once you get a degree. It’s only the beginning.
The people who dedicate time each day toward continuous learning will separate themselves from the rest of the pack.
This site documents what I learn. The act of writing lets me know how well I understand a topic. It helps clarify my thoughts. It helps me understand what I think.
I’ve learned that I don’t really understand a topic until I can explain it simply. So that’s my goal – to take a complex financial topic and explain it in a simple enough way that anyone would understand.
This process has pushed me to read, learn, and share more to become a smarter investor. Hopefully, this site will help make that process easier for you.