Reality Does Not Care What You Believe We do not experience reality directly. We experience stories about reality. The stories we consume shape what we believe, how we interpret the world, and ultimately how we act. Entire societies function because of shared stories. Money itself is one example. As Seth Godin recently observed: “84% of…
A Cautionary Tale: Remember Pets.com? Every market cycle has a story. In the late 1990s it was the internet. In 2017 it was blockchain and cryptocurrencies. In 2021 it was the metaverse. Today it is artificial intelligence. The technology changes. Human behaviour not so much. The pattern is remarkably consistent. A genuinely transformative technology emerges,…
Outcome Bias and the Fund Manager Carousel Not all periods of underperformance are created equal. No investment process, no matter how robust, works in all environments and at all times. Most fund managers eventually have their day in the sun. Until they don’t. Consider where some of today’s top-performing funds ranked just a few years…
When Clients Panic, They Are Really Asking: “Am I Going to Be Okay? Clients are often not reacting to returns; they are sometimes reacting to something deeper. In my 30 years in markets, I have seen the same predictable investor behaviour repeat itself whenever markets become volatile. Most advisors have heard some version of this…
The Portfolio That Knew the Future and Still Lost 76% What a portfolio with perfect foresight teaches us about the emotional reality of investing. People often assume that risk and volatility are the same thing. In investing, “risk” is commonly measured as the dispersion of returns around an average. What statisticians call standard deviation. Put…
“Investing Like Buffett” Is Easier Said Than Done Warren Buffett may be the most quoted investor of all time. He is also perhaps one of the least understood. Everyone admires the outcome. Everyone wants Berkshire Hathaway-like returns. Investors enthusiastically repeat Buffett’s sayings, celebrate long-term compounding, and profess a commitment to patience and discipline. But few…
What Does Long-Term Actually Mean? The investment industry loves slogans. We talk about “staying the course,” “trusting the process,” and “thinking long term” as though repeating the phrases often enough somehow makes them true, but very few people are actually wired to be long-term investors. Not because they lack intelligence or information, but because very…
The Returns We Deserve There was a time when disappointing investment outcomes could be explained by ignorance. Information was scarce, access was limited, and the inner workings of markets were difficult to understand. That is no longer the case. Today, the evidence is widely available and broadly accepted: long-term investment success is shaped less by…
We Need a “Limp Mode” for Important Decisions I am human. Thirty years in markets and more downturns than I can count have not made me immune to fear, doubt, or that uncomfortable feeling when things start falling apart. If anything, the experience has made one thing clear: I don’t need more insight, I need…
Your Engagement with the Market Cycle Shapes What You Get from It We know that markets move in cycles. Expansions give way to contractions. Optimism turns into fear, and fear eventually resets into opportunity. This rhythm is not unusual. In fact, it is fundamental to the world we live in. So why do we keep…