Simple answer: yes. It’s exactly how I managed to learn about investing by myself.
Learn about investing: STEP 1
You remember how I started off, asking Smart Friend questions I couldn’t understand the answer to?
You might know someone in banking or finance you could ask but, because they’re in it professionally, they’ll probably start from a place of assuming you have some idea what they’re talking about when they say things like “risk skew”.
I think we all avoid sitting next to those people at parties.
B-u-u-u-t maybe you’ll find one who doesn’t give monologues recounting phone conversations he’s had with his insurance broker or snap his fingers at bar staff. (My one and only experience dating a London City Banker.)
Learn about investing: STEP 2
Next, seek out blogs, podcasts and/or books to learn about investing.
At first, you might think you’re looking for resources about finance but you’ll quickly realise you can’t get past a few sentences without glazing over and that all this financial expert analysis and predictions about the markets is blowhards just making it up.
It’s like that actual job, Colour Forecasting, where a load of people gather at a global conference to say what the trends will be, companies then use those predictions to design their clothes and products and, whaddaya know, two years later the only things to buy are those colours and the predictions come true. Or, they don’t and everyone forgets that 2023 will be the year of blues, reds, oranges and black.
The only thing more boring than talking about Pantone’s 31 colour picks for the year is listening to people waffle on about markets. Thankfully, finance is the wrong subset of Money Stuff to be tuned into. You’ll realise at some point and Google will lead you to resources on personal finance instead.
Learn about investing: STEP 3
Once you’ve weeded out the personal finance information on debt and budgeting, you’ll probably spend at least 3 months reading and listening to investment growth-focussed podcasts, wondering why everything is always about America and never anywhere else.
Not only does it mean having to listen to the word niche be pronounced /nitch/ instead of /neesh/ half the things Americans can invest in, non-US residents can’t which limits their practical usefulness.
STEP 4
Along the way, you’ll also learn by trial and error, picking products you half know about but not quite enough to do it as well as you’d do it if you waited until the end of this process. With any luck, none of the mistakes will be too costly.
STEP 5
If you haven’t given up by now because you’re like me and find that, to your surprise, you love listening to the DudeBro investing podcast, you might find some reputable and interesting resources from your own global context to fill the gaps left by all the US-centric information. By now, you’ll be several months in and have your portfolio more or less as you want it with a clear plan of how to fix the last hangovers from your early mistakes.
Congratulations!
You’re where I was when I decided to start the chilled investor course. All of that, you’ll be able to streamline and condense into the 6-week course you wish you’d had when you started out.
If that whole journey doesn’t sound like it’s for you, you can save yourself months of research and sign up to my course. In just 6 weeks, I’ll save you all the confusion and DudeBro time, make it interesting and accessible, and you’ll have your money working for you asap.
I wouldn’t change a thing about how I got to this point in my investing “journey” but I’d love to change yours.
So, whether you’ve got nothing invested or a pension product or have dabbled in buying shares, I’ll help you understand it, improve it and make more money than you would have otherwise in far less time than it took me.
Want to learn about investing? Check out the course info and for the next course in Novemeber. The first class is on Nov 2 and you’ll find loads of other key details in the FAQ section and the additional FAQs in the pdf on the course page.
I have a good understanding of technology, complex systems, and I’m good at researching online sources for almost everything. Thus, a part of me thought that I could do it myself. That impression changed very quickly. There are innumerable sources of investing advice and a lot of them are there in order to sell you a particular product or service. Your course saved me hundreds of hours of research, and I can say now with certainty that it was, in itself, a very good investment.
Dario Pescador, Strategic consultant, Science communicator & author