Anyone with teenage kids will be familiar with the headline above; stop picking, scratching, fiddling and generally messing about otherwise it will never heal up!

Time for a tenuous link – “What’s investing got to do with pubescence and hormones?” I hear you cry…

Well, as passive strategy investors, the idea of getting the appropriate risk-rated asset allocation right, keeping costs low and maintaining discipline is at the heart of our philosophy.

We picked up a new follower on Twitter today (for which I’m grateful) and for reasons which should become apparent, I won’t mention their name…

In essence it was (yet) another business offering guidance to my business on how to create investment strategies for clients that I think were based around “over 20 years of experience” and some very fancy software designed to spot/recognise trends/sectors that should be the best performing etc etc.

Their website makes some bold claims and some interesting references to Warren Buffet but overall I was confused as to what the point was.

All in all it seemed like another company trying to prove that by using their methodology, philosophy and gee-whiz technobabble, you can get better results from you investments.

I suggest doing less and trusting to more simple understandings will work far better.

taoismThe Chinese philosophy of Taosim has a word for it: “Wuwei”. It literally means “non-doing”. In other words, the busier we are with our long-term investments and the more we tinker, the less likely we are to get good results.

That doesn’t mean, by the way, that we should do nothing whatsoever. But it does mean that the culture of “busyness” and chasing returns promoted by much of the financial services industry and media can work against our interests.

Investment is one area where constant activity and a sense of control are not well correlated. Look at the person who is forever monitoring his portfolio, who fitfully watches business TV or who sits up at night looking for share tips on social media.

In Taoism, by contrast, the student is taught to let go of factors over which he has no control and instead go with the flow. When you plant a tree, you choose a sunny spot with good soil and water. Apart from regular pruning, you leave the tree to grow.

So we can’t control movements in the market. We can’t control news. We have no say over the headlines that threaten to distract us.

But each of us can control how much risk we take. We can diversify those risks across different assets, companies, sectors and countries. We do have a say in the fees we pay. We can influence transaction costs. And we can exercise discipline when our emotional impulses threaten to blow us off course.

I think I may have finally got my point across; to get a better investment experience, talk to us about our investment approach and don’t pick at your current one in the meantime!

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