Andrew Hallam

I am pleased to have found your website. I am a Canadian textile artist/designer who is fortunate to have a secure pension. However, a couple of years ago seeing that my investment portfolio was going nowhere, I invested and shortly thereafter, lost almost all of my savings. A friend suggested I consider Indonesia upon reading your article in MoneySense. I will visit just as soon as I can. Meanwhile, I appreciate that I can understand your articles. Most of what I had read until now (i.e. bank newsletters), appeared to be written for those familiar with the ‘investment-speak’ for which I did not own a dictionary.
Keep up the good work!
Caroline

Hi Caroline,

You’ve made my day. I’ve really tried to write clearly about investments and I’ve learned a lot about what jargon/concepts most people understand and where they tend to get lost. I give occassional investment seminars in Singapore (where I donate the proceeds to charity) and it gives me the opportunity to question people while I’m speaking, to ensure that the concepts and ideas (and vocabulary) are understood. Thank you so much for the positive comment. I’ll continue aspiring towards ensuring that my investment-related writing (and speaking) is a heck of a lot easier to understand than a bank newsletter would be.

I’m sad to hear, though, that you have lost most of your savings. And I’m also curious to know where it was invested. If you feel like sharing, you can contact me at investlikebuffett@gmail.com

As for Indonesia–you would be amazed to see how well retired expatriates can live, especially if they have a pension coming in from home.

Thanks again,
Andrew

Hi Andrew,

First time visitor to your blog and I really like what I see! Great work and expect to see me around some more!

Cheers,
The Rat

It’s sound advice and proven to work over the long term. The difficulty (at least for me) is in the discipline to stick to it. I love reading financial articles and analyses, but it then leads me to want to out-guess the markets. I really should leave the investing to my much more sensible wife (although I should get should 2 small slush funds to play with: 1 for Vegas and 1 for investing my way)

Keep up the good work!
Theo

Theo (man, you have a cool name!)

Hey, there’s a great book by Jason Zweig that I think you’ll love called Your Money and Your Brain. It describes, neurologically, why most of us make terrible investors because we can’t master our emotions. I think you’d find it fascinating. There’s an argument that people with brain damage could make better investors (at least a small part of the brain needs to be damaged). It ought to make you smile when thinking about the people you know who make more money in the markets than you.

Great blog! I love the insight you present and I’m definitely going to be following your writing.

Thank you Stacy. I’ll try to keep it interesting!