It’s infrequently remarked upon in the financial media but many of the keys to success as a long-term investor derive from qualities that are distinctly out of tune with the times – patience, discipline and a readiness to prioritise distant rewards over instant gratification.
The global pandemic has brought into sharper focus the concept of “financial wellbeing”, a holistic measure of personal security not typically captured by investment returns, consumer spending and saving data or macro-economic aggregates.
More has been written on the active versus passive debate than probably any other issue facing investors. Every day people are coming up with different theories as to why one is better than the other.
John Clifton Bogle, who died in 2019 at the age of 89, may not have been a household name in Ireland, or even in his native country, the United States. But he was a true legend in the world of investing.
A perennial temptation for investors is the urge to quit the market at the top and to get back in at the bottom. While the lure of market timing sells millions of books and is standard fodder for financial TV shows, the reality rarely lives up to the promise.
The classic 2002 book ”When Genius Failed” tells the true story of a hedge fund, run by a supremely confident Wall Street bond dealer who with the help of two Nobel laureate economists thought he had cracked the code to make millions in the markets.