Disclaimer
Let me be very clear about who I am and what LibreLeo is. So you can decide whether anything I write here is useful for your situation, and whether it isn't.
I'm not a financial advisor#
Not a CFP, not a CFA, not an RIA, not registered with any regulator anywhere. No professional licenses, no fiduciary duty, no E&O insurance. Nothing on this site is, or should be treated as, personalised financial advice.
I'm a guy who spent a long time in a corporate job, traded my own money the whole time for many years and now writes about how I think about money. That's it.
Reading this site doesn't create any professional relationship between you and me. I'm not your advisor. I'm just a person on the internet sharing what works for me.
What this site is for#
Education and perspective. I share strategies I use, tools I've built, math that holds up, and lessons I learned the expensive way. The point is to help you think more clearly about money — not to tell you what to do with yours.
Read everything here as one informed person's opinion. Then go form your own.
What you have to do#
Your own research. Always. Before acting on anything you read here:
- Check the numbers yourself. I make mistakes. Calculators have bugs. Markets change. Past data is not future data.
- Match the advice to your situation. I'm a Dubai-based expat planning a Philippines retirement. Your tax residency, currency, broker access, family situation, risk tolerance and time horizon are probably different.
- If you're making a big decision such as buying a property, restructuring a portfolio, picking a brokerage, choosing a withdrawal strategy, hire someone who knows your specific situation. Hire a licensed advisor in your jurisdiction if you think it's worth what they charge. I'm not a substitute for that.
What investing actually is#
Every investment carries risk. There's no guarantee you'll make money. There's no guarantee you won't lose money. The math on this site assumes long time horizons and disciplined behaviour, both of which require effort that nobody can do for you.
Specifically:
- Past performance does not predict future returns. Every backtester on this site, including the Safe Withdrawal Rate calculator, looks backward at historical market data. The future does not have to look like the past.
- Options strategies, including the wheel, cash-secured puts, covered calls, credit spreads and iron condors, can lose money. They can lose more money than you might expect. Premium selling has unlimited downside on naked positions. I write about them because I trade them, not because they're safe.
- Dividend investing, index investing and "boring" passive strategies can also lose money. Diversified equity portfolios have had multi-year drawdowns. They will again.
- Geographic arbitrage and expat strategies depend on tax treaty conditions, visa rules and immigration policy that can change without notice. What's true for Dubai in 2026 may not be true in 2030.
Affiliate disclosure#
Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and end up signing up or buying something, LibreLeo may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
A few rules I follow:
- I only recommend brokers, tools and services I actually use or would use.
- Affiliate revenue does not change my opinion of a product. Where I think the affiliate option is worse than the non-affiliate one, I'll say so.
- I'll always tell you if a specific link or post is sponsored.
My own products#
I'm currently building Theta Vault, a desktop options trading journal. When I mention it on this site, that's my own product. I have a financial interest in you trying it. I'll always make that obvious.
Comments, community and contributions#
If you leave a comment, ask a question on a forum, or send me an email, you're sharing your opinion, not asking for advice. I might respond. My responses are still opinions, still not advice, still subject to everything above.
I reserve the right to remove comments that are spam, abusive, illegal, or impersonate someone else.
No liability#
By using LibreLeo you agree that you understand the above. You acknowledge that any decisions you make based on what you read here are your decisions, and any consequences, financial or otherwise, are your responsibility.
I am not liable for losses, missed gains, taxes, fees, broker disputes, or any other financial outcome you experience after reading something on this site. That's not me being defensive. It's a basic truth of how educational content on the internet works.
Updates#
I'll update this page when I add new disclosures, switch tools, or learn something the hard way that's worth surfacing. Date at the top tells you when.
If after reading all of this you still want to dig into the math, the strategies and the calculators on LibreLeo. Welcome. Let's go.
Chris