“If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.”
-Sun Tzu

The humorously sad side of being in the wealth management business is having listened through the years to the people who want to ignore solid advice and strategies in favor of blindly following the fakakta theories of the talking heads.

A few sadly true examples of what we’ve heard:

  • “I was watching Fox Business this morning and they said…”
  • Our favorite was a client who waited until the ultimate low of the markets in March 2009 to tell us, “There is nothing about this that seems predictable from a historical perspective. Honestly if I had done this when I originally wanted I’d be much further ahead. I’m kicking myself. Don’t take that as I told you so as I am no expert. It’s simply the way it worked out. Everything I hear says this is nowhere close to being over. I hear from our IR guy who speaks to the street every day that they expect it to rise to 8600 then fall back quickly again. I am concerned that waiting it out simply takes me to a negligible position. Taking money out now is foolish. I am watching more closely knowing timing historically is not a good thing but I am looking for capital preservation.”

(Thank goodness regulators require we document client communications…it allows us to enjoy that last gem over and over!)

The point is not to poke fun or make light of things. It’s to remember that sound, holistic strategies (i.e. not focused purely on investments) always win out in the game of securing our respective financial futures.

So during these early days of 2016 and the market volatility they’ve brought (due to China’s stock market…no, wait, because of North Korea’s bomb test…no, wait, because of the decline in the price of oil…no, wait, it’s because of (insert favorite excuse here)) we say thanks to Barry Ritholtz for this wonderful reminder of why making emotional market-timing decisions is always always always a loser’s game.