Path 4 · Advanced

Advanced Topics

These lessons assume the earlier paths. They go deeper into individual asset classes, the psychology of investing, and the analytical skills used to evaluate investments independently.

1. Real Estate as an Asset Class
   How real estate generates returns, direct ownership versus REITs, the role of leverage, and what long-run housing data actually shows about prices and inflation.
   Advanced 3 min read
2. Bonds Deep Dive: Duration, Yield, and Credit Risk
   How bond prices and yields interact, what duration measures, the credit-risk spectrum from Treasuries to high yield, and why bonds lost money in 2022.
   Advanced 3 min read
3. Behavioral Finance: The Biases That Cost Investors Money
   The documented psychological biases — loss aversion, overconfidence, recency, herding, anchoring — that drive investing mistakes, and the structural defenses against them.
   Advanced 3 min read
4. Reading Financial Statements and Key Ratios
   A working tour of the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement, plus the handful of ratios analysts use to judge profitability, risk, and price.
   Advanced 3 min read
5. How to Evaluate Any Investment: A Framework of Questions
   A transferable checklist — return sources, risks, costs, liquidity, incentives, and fit — for analyzing any investment pitch, from index funds to rental property to whatever is trending.
   Advanced 4 min read