https://1zhang.xyz/en/ A calm, jargon-free path from “I have never invested” to writing your own rules. Principles and habits, not stock tips. For learning only — not investment advice. en Thu, 16 Jul 2026 16:04:37 GMT https://1zhang.xyz/en/foundations/why-invest/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/foundations/why-invest/ Cash in a savings account slowly loses ground to inflation. Owning a slice of the economy is how ordinary people keep up. Here is the plain arithmetic, with no hype. https://1zhang.xyz/en/foundations/the-money-order/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/foundations/the-money-order/ Before your first dollar buys a share, two boxes need checking: a cash buffer and any high-interest debt. Here is the sequence that keeps a dip from becoming a crisis. https://1zhang.xyz/en/foundations/index-funds/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/foundations/index-funds/ An index fund buys the whole haystack instead of hunting for needles. It is cheap, boring, and quietly beats most professional stock pickers over time. https://1zhang.xyz/en/foundations/your-first-buy/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/foundations/your-first-buy/ The first purchase is mostly about plumbing and nerves, not picking. A small, boring order in a broad index fund, placed on an ordinary Tuesday, is the whole trick. https://1zhang.xyz/en/investing-101/what-risk-is/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/investing-101/what-risk-is/ The scary number on your screen and the thing that actually ruins investors are two different animals. Learning to tell them apart is most of what 'risk tolerance' means. https://1zhang.xyz/en/investing-101/dollar-cost-averaging/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/investing-101/dollar-cost-averaging/ Investing a fixed amount on a fixed date is mathematically unremarkable and behaviorally brilliant. Here is what DCA does, what it doesn't, and why it wins anyway. https://1zhang.xyz/en/investing-101/fees/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/investing-101/fees/ You can't control returns, inflation, or the news. You can control what you pay. A single percent a year, compounded over a career, quietly eats a quarter of your money. https://1zhang.xyz/en/investing-101/rebalancing/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/investing-101/rebalancing/ Left alone, a portfolio slowly turns into whatever went up the most. Rebalancing is the unglamorous chore that keeps your risk where you put it. https://1zhang.xyz/en/investing-101/your-policy-page/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/investing-101/your-policy-page/ Institutions write investment policy statements so committees can't improvise. You need one for the same reason: the improviser is you, at 2 a.m., during a crash. https://1zhang.xyz/en/portfolio-construction/stocks-vs-bonds/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/portfolio-construction/stocks-vs-bonds/ Nine-tenths of your portfolio's behavior is decided by one number: the split between stocks and bonds. Here is what each side actually does, with a century of receipts. https://1zhang.xyz/en/portfolio-construction/diversification/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/portfolio-construction/diversification/ Combining assets that suffer at different times lowers risk without giving up the same share of return. The closest thing investing has to magic, limits included. https://1zhang.xyz/en/portfolio-construction/your-allocation/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/portfolio-construction/your-allocation/ The last step of portfolio construction is not math. It is picking, from several defensible mixes, the one that fits your timeline, nerves, and life — then writing it down. https://1zhang.xyz/en/behavioral/loss-aversion/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/behavioral/loss-aversion/ Losses register roughly twice as loudly as equal gains. That asymmetry, not stupidity, explains most panic selling — and it can be engineered around. https://1zhang.xyz/en/behavioral/confirmation-bias/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/behavioral/confirmation-bias/ Once you own a position, your brain quietly switches from detective to defense lawyer. Here is how to catch it filing evidence for one side only. https://1zhang.xyz/en/behavioral/herding/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/behavioral/herding/ Following the crowd is ancient, rational-seeming, and the engine of every bubble. The dangerous part is that it works — right up until everyone is in. https://1zhang.xyz/en/behavioral/disposition-effect/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/behavioral/disposition-effect/ Investors reliably sell winners too early and cling to losers too long. The cause is not analysis but accounting — the mental kind — and it has a receipt trail. https://1zhang.xyz/en/avoiding-traps/anatomy-of-a-scam/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/avoiding-traps/anatomy-of-a-scam/ Ponzi 1920, altcoin 2021, AI-trading bot next year: the costume changes, the skeleton doesn't. Learn four bones and you can identify the species on sight. https://1zhang.xyz/en/avoiding-traps/too-smooth/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/avoiding-traps/too-smooth/ Real returns wobble; only fiction climbs in a straight line. Madoff's impossibly steady fund taught the most reliable fraud test there is: read the smoothness. https://1zhang.xyz/en/field-notes/2026-07/ https://1zhang.xyz/en/field-notes/2026-07/ Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT What the dashboard's rules signaled at the June close: five of six live systems reported, four of them risk-on, while S2 rotated into dollars and commodities.