Cognitive Investing

The Cognitive Investing Institute was founded with the sole purpose of helping people to make better investment decisions.  In this blog, I hope to present an unbiased, non-self-serving, thorough examination of the investment decision-making process.  It will focus on education, not promotion.  The blog will examine such questions as:

• Why do investors make the mistakes they do?
• What common investor assumptions are incorrect?
• What are the important questions that investors should be asking themselves but aren’t?
• What are the key ingredients to a sound investment decision-making process?

The goal of the Cognitive Investing Institute is to be the premier, independent educational resource for the self-directed investor.

• Premier: The focus is on gaining insights, knowledge, and wisdom regarding the investment decision-making process.  Unlike many other investment-related sites, the focus is not on reporting news about the latest market developments, offering opinions about market direction, judging the values of various securities, or promoting particular investment products and services.
• Independent:  The Cognitive Investing Institute is not affiliated with any provider of financial products or services and receives no compensation in any form from any financial company.  This independent stance is required to maintain complete objectivity and present unbiased analyses.
• Educational: The sole focus of the Cognitive Investing Institute is education.  There are few other entities offering a similar type of educational services.  Many financial companies provide various levels of education as a byproduct to sell their services.  However, they typically provide “just enough” education.  Their goal is to give their customers just enough education for them to buy their services.  They certainly do not want to provide them with additional education that would allow the client to find more cost-effective ways to accomplish the same goals without using their services.  Schools and universities generally do not provide this type of education because their typical student is not an investor, and thus not able to relate to the frequent issues encountered by investors.  The financial media focus on the most immediate and dramatic events, which more often distract than educate, if the goal is to make wise, long-term decisions.
• Resource: The posts on this web site and the book, Cognitive Investing, answer many important questions that investors should consider.  But no site, book, or class can answer every question.  So I encourage you to ask questions, challenge my ideas, and offer suggestions of additional topics to analyze and discuss. Send me an email at richwillis@cognitiveinvesting.com, or post a comment on any item of this web site.
• Self–directed: This site and the associated book, classes, etc., are designed for investors who primarily make their own decisions.  These investors understand that no one else truly has their interests at heart, and no one else will completely understand their personal situation as well as they do.  They do not wish to pay a never-ending stream of costs for someone else to make the key decisions that determine their financial future.
• Investor: The site is focused solely on investing issues, rather than everything involved in personal finance, which is a much broader topic and mostly beyond the scope of this blog. Cognitive investors are not gamblers, speculators, or traders.  They understand the difference between investing and gambling and are not interested in get-rich quick schemes, the latest hot stock tips, or the latest strategies for timing the market.