Now that I have been investing in stocks for more than a decade (started in 2012), I thought it would be a good idea to write down some of the most important lessons I have learned during my adventures in the capital markets. The topic of my first blog post was a description of my investing philosophy. That was 5 years ago. Looking back I realize that not a lot has changed during that time.
Shopping is fun in general but shopping for shares of quality companies is really fun. The dividend payments that they provide are a good source of funds for other types of shopping such as clothes or luxury items. So far my investing efforts have been mainly focused on Finland and US based companies. I have previously written about stocks in Helsinki to provide some ideas for investments. While I want to keep those countries as the biggest weights in my portfolio, I am also exploring other markets for smaller additional positions. In this post I will take a look at Estonia.
I have been thinking about the importance of being smart about personal finances as many people are now struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many are losing their jobs and have not saved money to prepare for something like this. It is a rude wake-up call for many, very much in the same way as the 2008 financial crisis was. The lesson is clear: unexpected events will happen to the economy that we cannot control. We must focus on what we can control, which is our personal finances. In this train of thought, I wanted to write a basic guide for personal finance. Just some best practices and common sense information that I have learned over the years. Something a person can follow and know that they will end up being comfortable with money, even in times of economic turbulence.
A nice personal financial goal to have is to own the same companies that you use, so that you will receive in dividends the same amount that you spend with them. This way you are kind of using their service for free. To do this, just calculate how much money you spend annually for a service, then see how much that company pays in annual dividends, and finally calculate how many shares you need to own to cover your expense. Lets look at some examples to illustrate this idea.
It has been a while since I updated my blog, so it is about time. I have just finished reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, arguably one of the most famous "self-help" books when it comes to money and finances. I particularly liked the blunt and straight-to-the-point writing style of the author. So here is a short review of the book.
This is a brief introduction into stock options and how they can be used by a long-term oriented investor, either to purchase shares at a discount or to generate additional income to supplement dividend payments.
In a previous blog post describing my investment philosophy I explained that I try to invest in companies of highest quality. But how to measure the quality of a company? There are many ways of course, such as looking at the strength of the balance sheet, competitive advantage or track record of management. There are also various equity research institutions which provide metrics and rankings to measure the quality of different companies.
Since money and investing will be one of the main themes of my blog, I think it is natural to start off with a quick introduction into my investing philosophy. If I had to sum up my investing philosophy in once sentence, it would be get rich for sure. I have tried various things over the years, but one consistent lesson has been that the get rich quick methods do not work very well. So here is a brief introduction into my thoughts regarding investing for passive income.