Investing basics
Start here if you are new. These pages cover what you actually own when you buy a stock or a fund, how index funds work, how compounding builds wealth, and the simple habits that matter more than any single pick.
What is a stock?
A plain-English explanation of what a stock is, how owning shares works, how stock prices are set, and how shareholders make money.
What is an ETF?
What an exchange-traded fund is, how ETFs differ from mutual funds and single stocks, the main types of ETF, and what to check before buying one.
Index funds
What index funds are, why low-cost index investing beats most professional fund managers over time, and how to use index funds as a portfolio core.
Dollar-cost averaging vs lump sum
Dollar-cost averaging compared with investing a lump sum at once: what the historical evidence shows, and when spreading purchases out still makes sense.
How many stocks should you own?
How many individual stocks you need for diversification, what research says about 10, 20 and 30 stock portfolios, and the trade-off with conviction.
Portfolio vs watchlist
Why keeping a portfolio of stocks you own separate from a watchlist of stocks you are studying leads to better decisions and fewer impulse buys.
Compound interest
How compound interest and compound returns work, the formula, the rule of 72, and why starting early matters more than investing large amounts later.
Expense ratios and fund fees
What an expense ratio is, how fund fees are charged, how much a 1% fee costs over decades, and typical expense ratios for index and leveraged ETFs.
Staying invested through downturns
Why missing the market's best days is so costly, why the best days cluster near the worst, and practical ways to stay invested when markets fall.
Position sizing
How much to put in each investment: equal weighting, conviction weighting and risk-based sizing, with simple rules that keep one mistake from sinking a portfolio.
Investing FAQ
Short answers to the questions new investors ask most, from how much money you need to start to when to sell, with links to the full wiki pages.