Strata blog
How we think about books, theses, factors, and the tooling around them.
Reconcile your portfolio against statements line by line and catch the errors before they cost you. Here's the boring method that actually works.
How many stocks should I own? Stop hunting for a magic number. The honest answer starts with seeing your real, reconciled book in one clear view.
Barista FIRE means quitting the career but keeping a part-time job — often for the benefits. The name is a nod to Starbucks, and the whole idea exists because of one very American problem.
Tax season is misery because your dividend records are scattered everywhere. Keep one reconciled book and the whole thing turns boring. Here's how.
Want to learn how to spot a market rotation? Here's the honest take on rotation signals, why most are hindsight, and the discipline that beats chart-chasing.
Averaging down feels like conviction and is usually your basis talking. Here is how a written thesis turns the add into a test you set in advance.
Position sizing by gut feel is how good ideas blow up your book. Here's how to decide how much to invest in one stock before the excitement hits.
Coast FIRE is the moment you can stop saving for retirement entirely and let compounding carry you the rest of the way. It's the most achievable milestone in the whole movement — and the most misread.
Most stock screeners hand you a magic ranking and dare you to question it. Here's how to screen stocks with a result you can actually take apart.
The market cycle explains why leadership rotates. It won't tell you which phase you're in. Here's how to use business cycle investing to stay calm.
What is a factor model? It is a recipe for ranking investments. Here is factor investing explained without the jargon, the maths anxiety or the black box.
Skip the New Year's resolution. A proper year-end portfolio review settles the whole book, totals the year's realised P&L, and tells you the truth.
The 4% rule is the load-bearing wall of the whole FIRE movement, and most people quoting it have never read the papers. Here is what Bengen and the Trinity Study actually found — and what they didn't.
A net worth spreadsheet starts clean and rots. Here is exactly where the template breaks, and how to keep the part you love without the weekend upkeep.
Growth vs value is the pendulum that swings forever and nobody times. Here is what each style means, why leadership swaps, and how to see your own tilt.
Your options sit in a separate broker tab and never reach your real net worth. Here's how to track options in the same reconciled book as everything else.
Realised vs unrealised gains, in plain English. One is a number on a screen, the other is money that moved. Confuse them and you'll wreck your tax picture.
FIRE did not start on Reddit. It runs from a 1992 bestseller through an extreme Danish engineer to a moustachioed blogger — and the arguments the movement has today are baked into that lineage.
Same ticker in three accounts at three prices? Your gain is probably wrong. Here is how to track cost basis across accounts and keep it honest.
Sector rotation says leadership moves between sectors as conditions change. True enough. Here's the real version, minus the clock diagram pundits sell you.
Your asset allocation isn't what you think, because it's smeared across accounts. See your true exposure in one book, then set targets on purpose.
Your memory lies about your trades. An investment journal that records the plan, the R and the emotion turns gut feeling into a record you can actually review.
FIRE is not a lifestyle blog or a retirement fantasy. It is one arithmetic idea — the point where your investments cover your life — wearing a loud acronym. Here is the plain version.
Want to track crypto and stocks without juggling four apps? Put every asset class in one book you type yourself, so the maths finally agrees.
Risk-on risk-off is the market's mood swing between greed and fear. Here's what it really means, what moves, and how to read your own book instead of the headlines.
FIFO vs average cost decides how big your realised gain looks. Here's the plain-English version of the cost basis method, with a worked example.
Stop guessing when your cash lands. Here's how to build a dividend income tracker that forecasts every payment, across every account, from a book you typed.
Portfolio rebalancing should be rare and deliberate, not a nervous habit. Here's how to know when to act, and let your reconciled book make the call.
What is a market rotation, in words a human can use? Money sloshing between parts of the market. Learn why it happens and why it should make you calmer.
Your net worth is probably a guess stitched from stale tabs. Here is how to track net worth across all accounts in one reconciled figure you can trust.
An investor morning routine is for staying oriented, not trading more. A calm sequence that points you to what changed and protects you from yourself.
Most people never review their portfolio until it is on fire. Here is a calm quarterly ritual that makes the hard calls before the market does.
There is no single best portfolio tracker. There are honest criteria and a category that fits how you really invest. Here is how to judge any tool.
Serious investors end up running a tracker, a journal, a screener and a spreadsheet that all disagree. Here is the case for one reconciled workbench.
Your DIY portfolio spreadsheet is grand until it isn't. Here is where Google Sheets quietly breaks, and how to keep the control but lose the upkeep.
When do I sell is almost unanswerable mid-move because you rebuild your reasoning from the price. The fix is to decide in advance, in writing.
Your holdings are scattered across brokers, a pension, an exchange and cash, and no screen shows the whole thing. Here is how to build one reconciled view.
Most trackers want your bank password. You don't have to play that game. Here's how to see your whole portfolio without handing your logins to anyone.
Strata builds factor heat-maps from three honest objects so every cell decomposes into the signals, weights and normalisation behind it.
Most investors don't lose to the market. They lose to their own unexamined process. Strata makes your reasoning a first-class, time-tracked object.
Strata never holds your brokerage credentials and never moves your money. That is not a missing feature. It is the whole foundation of the thing.
