Setting your goals the right way

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When you start a commit yourself to a long project, whether it is building your own house, loosing weight or investing, one of the most important factors for success is your ability to set realistic goals. Especially, if your project lasts for long time, it is wise to split up some separate, easier to achieve goals. It is even more important at the beginning of project, because usually the foundations of success are built early on. If you have just one, abstract, long term goal, you easily fall back and postpone the important decisions which are made day-to-day, early on.

Details on my current portfolio

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I've been using my strategy for past 3 years. I've also been writing other blog about my journey in my native language, Finnish. For this blog, I am not going to repeat everything what has happened in last three years, but rather take a fresh start by explaining what I've been doing during those years.

Bad arguments: My salary is too low

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Most people, who are not investing on stocks or bonds, argue that their salary is too low to save. I barely survive, is what I often hear. At the same time, they are still living in a comfortable home, driving a car, they have Sat TV, new computer, new phone, food in their fridge and they enjoy occasional restaurant dinners. Why it is such a bad argument? 

Strategy basics: Theory of time and timing

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Most people dream about buying stocks at the cheapest moment of history and selling at the highest price ever seen by mankind. This is called "market timing". In reality, nobody knows when market is going up and down. If people knew how to do it, beating the market would be easy. Regular people do not want to spend their entire life looking at stock quotes for 15 hours a day, so I have gathered few tips how to make your life easy. These tips do not suit for people who want to get rich fast, they suit for people who have the same goal as I have: Get wealthier over time.

Strategy basics: Allocation & Risk

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There are many aspects to think when you are forming your investment strategy. One of the most important ones is allocation and risk. There are many other ways to calculate your investment's risk, but I would say that allocation is the easiest and most common sense way to manage your risk and return. There are multiple ways to look at allocation, and here I explain few key concepts.

Portfolio graph added

I added a page, which shows total weighted return of my portfolio. Graph updates automatically once per day, as long as Google provides Finance API on their Spreadsheet tools. You can find the portfolio page on tab bar at top of the site, or via this link: Portfolio

Strategy basics: Costs

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There is only one way to loose money on stock market which has 100% success rate: costs. Many individuals who start their investment career, do not pay attention to cost efficiency. They are just looking for thrill and excitement of buying and selling stocks, bonds or ETFs. This blog is not for thrill seekers, it is about increasing your wealth slowly and steadily, and managing your costs is key factor on your success. I've collected a few basic rules:

Starting the Journey

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Hello all!

Let's start this blog by talking some background information about why I started to write this blog. I am 27 year old male from Finland. Few years ago, when I was studying in University, me and few of my friends started to talk about investing. At first, I was skeptical about the possibility to buy stocks. I was just a poor student, taking benefits from the State.