Everything we've published
Investment claims, checked against the evidence, and the ideas behind them, explained. Newest first.
Explainer Published 15 October 2026
Lump sum or spread it out?
You have a large sum to invest. How often putting it in at once came out ahead, what waiting cost in euros, when spreading it over a few months was the better move, and how your own tolerance for a fall decides.
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Explainer Published 27 September 2026
Backtests: why the past can be fitted
What a backtest is, why a strategy tailored to the past can look brilliant and still predict almost nothing, where you meet one (including behind index funds), and six questions that help you spot one without any maths.
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Explainer Published 17 September 2026
Fees, in euros instead of percentages
What a yearly charge is worth in euros over a decade, why the charge itself is only part of what it costs you, and why the euro figure your provider is already required to send still does not answer the question you have.
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Check Published 10 September 2026
"Gold protects you from inflation."
Over stretches longer than a human life an ounce really has held its buying power, and even gold's sceptics say so. Over the five, ten or twenty years you would actually own it, it kept up in roughly six windows out of ten — a real tilt, not the reliability the word "protects" suggests.
Promised 3 · proven 1 · partly 2 — not very sure
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Explainer Published 3 September 2026
Gold as an inflation hedge
What inflation does to money in a drawer, what gold is as a thing you own, and why "gold moves with inflation" and "gold keeps your purchasing power" are two different claims — both backed by research that only seems to disagree.
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Check Published 26 August 2026 · Updated 2 September 2026
"Dividend is safe income."
The steady cheque is real: in nearly eighty post-war years the aggregate dividend never fell by more than about a fifth. "Safe income" rests on three more things — and the biggest one, that the cash comes on top of your capital, is the one the data does not support.
Promised 4 · proven 1 · partly 2 — fairly sure
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Explainer Published 19 August 2026 · Updated 20 August 2026
What "the market" actually is
What a share, an exchange and an index actually are — and why the index someone picks changes the answer to "did it beat the market?" more than the fund manager does.
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What's coming
The queue, in the order it will appear — one piece a week, alternating. Titles only, because none of these exist yet: we publish when the work holds up, not when the calendar says so.
Check Up next
"This fund pays a consistent monthly income."
Explainer Then
How to read a fund factsheet
Check Then
"Beat the market" newsletters
How a check works
The three steps, what separates a check from an explainer, and how to read a Proof Stack: all on Method.
And after that
Further down the queue, in no promised order:
- Track-record and backtest claims from one specific provider, checked (the general explainer is here).
- "Beat the market" newsletters — checked the way the gurus were.
- How to read a fund factsheet, and survivorship bias with the funds that vanished.