FT article "Embrace the power of doing nothing"

[Brendan Burgess]

An excellent FT article

https://www.ft.com/content/a89e949c-76be-11e7-90c0-90a9d1bc9691

(If the link requires a subscription, then Google the title)

it is worth revisiting one of the most powerful and repeatedly underrated investment strategies: the ability to do as little as possible.
...


The financial services industry is structurally focused on generating as much activity among its clients as possible, as it principally makes money through fees. Similarly, much of the financial media is similarly biased towards generating activity because it needs things to write about.

Most fund managers are unable to think beyond a year, and many not even beyond a quarter. This instantly puts them at a significant disadvantage to the armchair investor.It is extremely hard for such people to resist the urge to buy and sell things.

 

[galway_blow_in]

Great piece indeed , looking at your portfolio too often is a bad idea too , if you did it this week all the time , you might be swayed by the North Korea drama , the financial media sway from bullish mood to bearish quite quickly also

 

[jpd]

I don't think the problem is looking at your portfolio - it's reacting on day to day news flows that's the problem. Watching your portfolio go up and down as the news flows can give you an insight into how the market moves but you have to be disciplined enough to just watch and learn. Keep your hands in your pockets!

 

[Gordon Gekko]

I think that there's a lot of merit in true "passive" investing...and by passive I mean not looking at it (rather than the actual investment style).

 

[joe sod]

I don't think the problem is looking at your portfolio - it's reacting on day to day news flows that's the problem. Watching your portfolio go up and down as the news flows can give you an insight into how the market moves but you have to be disciplined enough to just watch and learn. Keep your hands in your pockets!

very true how many people got panicked out of the markets at the end of 2015 and january 2016, alot by the way the market dropped then. Its not just people the computers got it wrong then too. They were programmed to sell if the market dropped by a certain percentage because the history of markets up to then showed that if market dropped by x % in the first week of january then they would be much lower by the end of the year, WRONG. So computers were actually responsible for alot of the panick. So they have probably ammended the code to take account of 2016 scenario or just dumped it in the thrash can as rubbish.

 

[galway_blow_in]

very true how many people got panicked out of the markets at the end of 2015 and january 2016, alot by the way the market dropped then. Its not just people the computers got it wrong then too. They were programmed to sell if the market dropped by a certain percentage because the history of markets up to then showed that if market dropped by x % in the first week of january then they would be much lower by the end of the year, WRONG. So computers were actually responsible for alot of the panick. So they have probably ammended the code to take account of 2016 scenario or just dumped it in the thrash can as rubbish.

shorting of oil and a circulating myth that banks were over exposed to energy debt appears to have been the root of that correction , manipulation in other words