A man is honorable in proportion to the personal risks he assumes for his opinions.”
—Nassim Taleb
I am an Astrophysicist who shifted to Finance with the turn of the millennium. With more than two decades of experience in the investment industry, I’ve seen a thing or two in my day. I have worked as a quant and Risk Manager for a Swiss hedge fund manager, as well as Director of Alternative Investments and Fund Manager for a Spanish asset manager. After being around the block a few times, now I consider myself a “stoic investor“.
In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, I had a sort of ‘epiphany’.
First, I felt deeply disappointed by the financial industry where I worked, which pretends to help and care about its clients, yet only seeks soullessly to extract more fees without regard for the clients’ interests. I have seen how the industry takes advantage of the widespread belief that the better known an investment firm is, the better it must be to trust it with our investments.
Not working for any firm, especially the big ones, is a prerequisite to be able to offer the best opinion without conflicts of interest.
Secondly, I realized that the conceptual framework used by the industry is not the most appropriate to meet the needs of its clients. That is, that the scientism and Keynesian framework that permeate the industry are both epistemologically inadequate to address the problem of investing, being the Austrian School of Economics the most robust and accurate approach to investing.
Only outside the perverse incentives of the industry and its mental framework did I find myself able to offer others what I have learned and discovered. I left the industry and started this independent advisory path. I am risking my livelihood, but I have the satisfaction of offering something I believe in, with honesty, transparency, simplicity and common sense.
Contact me at (you can write me in English or Spanish, my native language): austrian.investor@gmail.com