Disclaimer.

What this means

In plain English.

Everything I publish, videos, blog posts, cheatsheets, the practice tools, the courses, social posts, and conversations in comments, is meant to teach you how to think about investing, not to tell you what to do with your money.

I don't know you. I don't know your income, your debts, your goals, your tax situation, your family commitments, or how much risk you can stomach without losing sleep. None of those things make me a worse teacher; they just mean any specific recommendation I gave you would be guesswork dressed up as advice. So I don't make them.

What I am, and what I'm not

I'm a teacher. I'm not your financial adviser.

If you want personal advice, should I invest in X, should I sell Y, am I on track for retirement, please speak to a licensed financial adviser in your jurisdiction. They can take your full circumstances into account in a way that I cannot, and they have a regulatory duty to act in your interest. I don't.

If a search for "financial adviser" feels overwhelming, the practice of choosing one is itself a future video / cheatsheet topic. Until then, look for someone who charges a fee for advice (rather than commissions on products), and ask them to explain how they get paid.

Past performance

It really, genuinely doesn't predict the future.

Charts in my content show what happened. They don't show what's going to happen. A stock that returned 20% per year for ten years can fall 50% in the eleventh, that's not a glitch, that's just the nature of markets. Any time I show historical data, treat it as information about the past, not a prediction about the future.

Risk

All investing involves the possibility of losing money. Yes, all of it.

Even cash sitting in a "high-interest" savings account loses purchasing power to inflation. Stocks can fall. Bonds can fall. Property can fall. Diversified portfolios can fall. There is no investment that is guaranteed to make money, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or selling you something.

Specifically, you can lose your entire principal. That's the worst-case in equities, the worst-case in crypto, the worst-case in leveraged products, and the worst-case in many "low-risk" products people don't read the prospectus on. If losing what you put in would change your life in a way you can't recover from, you shouldn't be putting it in.

Affiliate links & sponsorships

When I make money from a link, I tell you.

Some links on this site or in video descriptions may be affiliate links, meaning I receive a small payment if you sign up or purchase via them. This will always be disclosed at the point of the link, and the affiliate relationship has no influence on what I recommend or what I write about. I refuse far more affiliate offers than I accept.

Sponsored videos are clearly labelled "Sponsored" or "Includes paid promotion" in YouTube's standard format. I only accept sponsorships from products I would personally recommend regardless of payment.

Practice tool data

The numbers in the tools may be illustrative, not live.

The practice tools at arcelia.davidharbert.com use historical, simulated, or delayed data for teaching purposes. They are not designed for, and should not be used to inform, real trading decisions.

Jurisdiction

The disclaimer is written for general use; specific countries may add their own.

The canonical disclaimer above is written in plain English and applies to all content on this site and the YouTube channel. Where local financial-services regulation requires additional or specific disclaimers (for example, the FCA's disclaimer requirements in the UK, or AFSL-related warnings in Australia), those will be added inline to the relevant content. Nothing on this site should be construed as a financial product, financial service, or financial advice within the meaning of any applicable financial-services regulation.

Questions about this disclaimer

If something is unclear, ask.

If anything on this page reads as ambiguous, please email legal@davidharbert.com and I'll clarify. The job of this disclaimer is to be honest with you, not to hide behind legalese.