My focus for the month has been my new column Unconventional wisdom. Successful investors are portrayed as investors that engage in bold and constant action. Successful investors have opinions on each new piece of news and data. Successful investors deftly navigate each twist and turn of the market.

I disagree with this conventional view of successful investors. I believe that it is not the doing but the thinking that leads to success. I'm hoping the wide variety of topics I cover in Unconventional wisdom help you to think. I hope it helps you reconsider why a piece of conventional wisdom may or may not be the right thing for you to do given what you want to accomplish.

This month I covered the following:

Is the flood of money into passive investments a good or bad thing? I explore a study showing investors that own passive products get lower returns than those that don't. Does this mean John Bogle was wrong?

I'm an income investor and I introduced a list of picks for my fellow income investors. My emphasis was on both high yields and dividend growth. I think that rigid definitions of income and growth shares may be holding investors back.

We all want a more certain retirement. I ran various asset allocation and retirement scenarios through a Monte Carlo simulation to see if our preconceptions about retirement are correct.

Other topics I covered:

How to build wealth and financial security as a renter: Many Australians believe that building wealth requires home ownership but there is a pathway for renters.

4 steps to build an ETF portfolio: How to create an ETF portfolio to achieve your goals.

Lessons from the rule of 72: A quick take on how the rule of 72 helps investors understand the pathway to building wealth.

Read all of my articles here

Articles mentioned

Unconventional wisdom: Add certainty to your retirement

Unconventional wisdom: Are passive ETFs leading to lower returns?

Unconventional wisdom: A controversial income pick

How to build wealth and financial security as a renter

4 steps to build an ETF portfolio

Lessons from the rule of 72

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