I got this email over the weekend, and it reminded me of why it is I ignore everyone… Or, should I say, those investing “experts.” Not my friends who email me ;)
So back in June of 2013 the market scared me and I chose to move most of my funds to a safer option with Vanguard (401k). Moved it to a fund that has very small growth but very little chance of losing. However back then it was at ~15,200 for the DOW and now the dow is about 17,000 or about 12% increase.
My problem now is I know that I shouldn’t have done that but how do you convince yourself it is a good idea to move it all back into the other funds even though it is up 12% from where it was when I did it in the first place?
Have you done anything like this and how did you get over it? I hate hearing over and over how the DOW is at an all time high and that just seems stupid to move all my money back right then.
Here was my response to him:
Sorry to hear man, that sucks. But honestly you’re not alone – it’s what millions of others do too and why people say to just ignore the news and pundits (and emotions!) as no none can predict anything. You gotta invest for the long haul and sit still – in good times and bad – to fully take advantage of the earnings in the long run. It’ll go up and down hundreds of times throughout our lifetime but you gotta be in it to win it! :) Also, better to learn this lesson early on with less money than later with a lot, eh?
Now is the Dow currently at all-time highs? I guess. But it doesn’t really matter if you’re investing for 20, 30, 40 years. So concentrate more on sound investments now and then avert your eyes later when emotions and panic hits the masses – though I know it’s easier said than done. Also, keep in mind that when stocks go down later – which they will – you’ll only be able to pick them up cheaper! It’s all about dollar cost averaging if you’re able to take advantage of that.
I could care less what the “experts” are saying or not saying because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter at all – no one knows the answer. If you believe the market will go up over time like I do, consider index funds which go up when the market goes up, and goes down when markets go down as it tracks the general stock market. Either way you definitely can’t go in and out based on emotion as that’s a total losing game as you now know :(
Again though, you’re not alone. You pulled the trigger and it’s done, so now it’s time to get back to it and be better the next time around. The good thing here is that you don’t have to touch the $$ for decades and decades (I think you’re young like me, yeah? in your 20s/30s?) so there’s plenty of time to watch it grow again – this is just a small bump in the road.
Oh, and yes – I have done something similar before, only it was trying to game the system by day trading vs based on the market being at an all-time high or whatever. I took out $500 (which was HUGE for me at the time – as I had no real savings or investments and probably had balances on my credit cards too!) and tried to buy stocks of Sirius Satellite Radio when it first came out. I’d pick up as much as $500 would buy early in the morning, and then throughout the day try to sell at higher prices and then buy back in when it dropped a few pennies/percentages, etc etc.
It didn’t work, and I ended up losing a good $300 of it until I called it quits forever ;) And it didn’t help that I worked at E*Trade at the time when everyone around me (aka the “experts”) were trying to make fast money and all acting like they knew what they were doing when they didn’t. We were all chasing the quick buck instead of playing the long game.
Other People & Things I Ignore
After responding back to my friend there, I thought I’d make this into a blog post and share some other people and things I typically ignore too – just like those highfalutin stock “experts.” These things rarely add any value to my life and/or usually depress me:
- Political pundits
- Complainers
- People on Facebook always trying to make you jealous of their lives (you know who they are ;))
- The things people/celebrities are doing
- The things people/celebrities are buying
- General TV News
- General economy news
- Toxic people in general
- And radio commercials. The worst! Always hawking expensive cars and shady loans!
The only two things up there probably worth explaining more is my general disregard to most news and economy updates – especially as a financial blogger ;) I’ll pay attention to it when I’m bored or specifically into a certain story, but the main reason I don’t go out of my way to follow along is because 95% of it is negative every time I turn it on. And rarely does it affect my life or goals directly.
To me, it’s smarter to focus on the stuff within our control rather than get caught up with all the noise out there distracting us. Unless you’re actually planning to run for office or change the world – both noble goals separating you from those who bitch about stuff and then sit back and do nothing.
That said, of course you still need to know what’s going on around you to be a better informed and well-rounded person. And fortunately being so glued to blogs and Twitter all day, I come into a bulk of everything I need to know when my friends and people I respect are discussing it. And usually civilly :)
Which leads me to the people and things I *don’t* ignore!
- People I love
- People I respect
- Things that bring joy to my life
- Things that make my life easier
- Things that are important to me and my values
Go back to that Ignore List up there and tell me if any of those things match with this list below? They don’t, right? I still get my fill of the news and advice that I need to live a decent life, but they come from my “inner circle” vs random/famous people who make a living spewing forecasts that are usually wrong in the end. As my good friend Kathryn likes to say – you never see them come back on TV and talk about all the times they were wrong, do you? They just keep going and pretend it never happened…
Here – watch this video she made, it’s hilarious (because it’s true!):
- Make investment decisions for the long run and sit on your hands when emotions are high
- Don’t day trade – even if your friend just made a million dollars (he’ll soon lose it)
- Do your best to focus on the things within your control
I deviated a bit from my friend’s email there, but hopefully it was worth it ;) What are other things we should ignore or pay attention to? What do you agree or disagree on me with?
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[Photo cred: Rocpoc]
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Man, I know what that feels like. Back when the Recession first happened, I had the chance to invest my annual bonus in the stock market but instead held it back in my Ally account because I was scared. It was a golden chance to invest right at the bottom when stocks were half their price and I blew it. Ever since then I always remind myself: Stay the course! Ignore the predictions of others. You know that as a whole stocks will always gradually increase even though there will be bumps in the road. Invest in what you know.
Oh man, tough lesson to learn but better early on than later in life!
Yep. We are committed to investing for the long haul. We just throw money in there and let it sit. I also agree with you on ignoring most things. Seems the majority of “conventional wisdom” is related to buying things to make life better/easier/more fulfilling/exciting. Am content being my own strand of frugal weirdo.
Classic investment story. These investments are meant to stay put. Buying and selling on emotion (fear) us what will kill you investment wise. Like J says, no one *knows* what will happen, but what we do know is the market goes up over time. When you jump out you miss the best days and end up selling low and buying high. I am not an advisor, just some general tidbits.
Couldn’t agree more, J$. We have shut out pretty much all “experts” in life, going with our gut and viewing cautiously the opinions of “real people” who don’t have anything (or at least not much) to gain by sharing their real life experiences. The media is a bunch of hoo-haa. So are the out-of-touch celebs. In our family, we work to make wise decisions about money and everything else by using wisdom, going with our gut, and by taking a long-term view on things. Once we started ignoring the crowd that’s when our life started to improve on all levels.
I could not agree more J$! The “experts”, at least in the investment world, are generally focused on one thing (especially those on TV) – ratings. I guess it’s their job, but they don’t know the first thing about your portfolio, your needs, etc. Just another reason why the long-term approach is the wise one to take. Another thing about day-trading that people don’t realize is that for every one day trader that’s supposedly killing it in the market, there are hundreds, if not more, of them that are losing tens of thousands of dollars a year simply on commissions. I spoke with them everyday for years. The sad thing is many of them didn’t realize it.
Yeah, when ratings are involved it just amps up the craziness sometimes. Who wants to watch something based on boring simple truths? :)
And your day-trading example reminded me of my only issue I have w/ Shark Tank – they ONLY feature the past deals that did GOOD and none of the other 99% which failed miserably. Drives me bonkers because it paints such a “everyone wins! just do it – it’s easy!” type mentality when the facts are anything but… I guess the only good thing that comes from that is maybe more people try something out in the end?
I enjoying listening to the experts. They are entertaining. Do I do what they say? No, but I will listen to what they have to say, because you can still learn something from them and I am big on trying to never stop learning.
Good point – you’ll def. learn more doing that than the opposite.
I think of the people in my life like depositors and withdrawers. The people who are constantly negative and complaining that suck out all your energy are the withdrawers, and the people who fill you with joy and inspiration every time you see them are the depositors. Not only do I try to spend tim around depositors and limit my exposure to withdrawers, I remember that I’m always striving to be a depositor.
Great mentality! Probably the smartest thing I’ve ever heard out of your mouth, haha.. Love it.
I love ignoring the mainstream media. The way I think about it is that if the average American (think overweight, no retirement fund, depressed, popping pills, watching too much TV) is doing it, then I need to really make a conscious decision on whether or not I’m going to follow along. I listen to audio books in the car and only found out that there was an Ebola issue from a co-worker. Odds are that I’ll win the lottery before contracting Ebola, so I’ll continue ignoring it.
Haha… I found out about ebola by Jimmy Kimmel I believe… that’s the perfect way to learn in my opinion – with short witty jokes :)
My next-door-neighbor is a money manager who thinks he knows everything! He lectures endlessly against buying index funds and says that we’re doing everything wrong. And he advises us to constantly buy and sell, buy and sell, etc. As if I have the time or willpower to do that! I ignore 100 percent of his advice. Honestly, I wish he would just shut up about it!
I know how to accomplish that – have him guest post on your blog and watch your audience tear him up :)
With all of the information available at your finger tips about stock and index fund performance I’m not sure why you would rely on an “expert” without at least educating yourself. The general news always seems to highlights the negative side of most stories.
I remember watching Mad Money between classes in college. Turns out, watching that was even more useless than my ‘Political Science Fiction’ class. Actually, that class was pretty awesome… Watching Mad Money was even more useless than…. paying $7/meal for the campus cafeteria and rarely waking up for breakfast. #truth
Haha…. preach!
Great post. I must admit that when we do invest, the only time we think about it is when we get our statements. I guess we sold into the long term focus early. That being said, maybe we’ll pay more attention when investments are a bigger part of our mix.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. It is much easier said than done, but you really need to ignore the short term volatility in the market. It will always be there, so it’s better to just accept it. Remember, the stock market always comes back and what is an “all-time” high today won’t be in 20-30 years.
I’ve been actively eliminating noise from my life for a solid 5 years. It’s the best thing for health and controlling stress because 9 times out of 10, there is nothing you can do about that noisy news. I’m about to go home to Detroit for a week and my dad and stepmom are all about complaining about everything they can’t control. I’m going to need to channel my inner Buddha, Yoda…whoever it takes to be calm. :)
I’ll have to turn my posts into podcasts so you can channel your inner J$ :)
Great advice!!! Even as someone who talks investments all the time with clients, I practice the same thing. You have to realize that everyone on tv has an agenda and they are trying to push a particular fund or viewpoint. No one who is on tv cares about your money and your investment portfolio. Investing is like a game of double dutch. It seems impossible to figure out when to jump in, but if you just do it and stay in, you will be fine.
Haha…. Even more so like double dutch cuz a lot of people like me don’t even know how to play that game!
Great advise J.! I think you were right on the money about the stock market! The way I see it: it is a win win situation. When the market is up the value of your stock goes up and if the market is down it is an opportunity to by stock on the cheap!
Smart advice. ignore may be the single most important advice an investor can receive.
I love that you agree as a financial advisor too :)
I like this post not for the details re financial experts you should ignore, but for the overarching philosophy or ignoring others around you, including their success. I think getting caught in “what others are doing” is a trap that ensures failure.
Thanks :) It’s a fine line too between following along with people who are successful and MOTIVATING you than it is having the opposite effect. Gotta choose your mentors/heroes carefully.
Every time I’ve taken investment advice from other people (even if it’s advice from investment BLOGS) it’s ended very badly for me.
Whereas every investment I’ve made on my own has been performed awesomely — mainly because I don’t worry about it, I just set it and forget it and that lets it wait out market volatility.
I second your point that no one really knows what’s going to happen. I’m in a financial derivatives class right now where we’re learning how to trade options, which are essentially bets on what the market is going to do, but the key is you can’t buy an option unless someone is willing to sell and vice versa, which means people HAVE to have totally polar opposite opinions on what the market is going to do for these things to even work. Conclusion: nobody has a clue.
Hah! Fascinating… Guess you need all types of people to run this world/economy :)
And I’m glad you mention blogs too – that’s another area you have to be careful (and maybe even more so) since there’s no barriers to entrance whatsoever. Some of us are legit and do our best to put out factual information, and others just do whatever they want… So always keeping in mind the source is super important – especially when we’re talking of thousands of dollars possibly being convinced to move one direction or another.
Fortunately when you find someone you like and trust in the blogging world though the results are even stronger than through other channels :) I’ve learned more from my blogger friends in the past few years than I have anyone else through my entire life!
This is very strange advice you’ve given J$.
In order to live life in a constant frenzy, it’s vital that everyone stay focused on the very short term. For heaven’s sake, no one should ever strain themselves by thinking too far into the future (or think for themselves at all, come to think of it). Thinking is just too much work!
As you fail to recognize, those who appear in mainstream media know their stuff very well—that’s why you see them getting interviewed and giving out their very sound opinions. That’s also why they’ve been able to attract so many advertisers that support their message and provide them such large stages on which to express themselves.
How can I ever hope to become a model consumer envious of the stuff others own if I don’t spend several hours per day consuming the vast wisdom that my television spouts? How can I ever hope to accelerate my lifestyle into 21st Century hyper-consumerism if I listen to the kind of deviant message that you seem to be interested in delivering?
Please treat this comment as formal notice that I am cancelling my subscription to the outrageous opinions you express in this outrageous blog! :)
It was nice having you here while it lasted :) God speed, good sir.
Nice post J. Money! I too am a firm believer that the best time to buy is when everyone else is selling. At least when it comes to index and mutual funds because the diversification makes it unlikely they will stay down forever.
Buying into a troubled company whose shares are selling off may not be smart, but buying low risk investments when the market is down makes perfect sense to me.
After my last week long vacation, where I had been disconnected from even any phone coverage due to remoteness, i realized how clogged my brain was getting with useless information. It wasn’t tv. I got rid of that about 5 years ago because I couldn’t handle talking heads and commercials. It wasn’t Facebook either as I had deactivated my account a couple years ago because I found it to be a time sink that didn’t improve my life. But rather I unfollowed about 90% of my Twitter followers, deleted my long term and gold ridden Reddit account (talk about mostly useless time sink) and cut my internet routine down by about 75%. Life is too short to have my brain be clogged. I still get most of my news from NPR, but sometimes I wonder about that too. It doesn’t annoy me even though most of what I hear on there doesn’t add value to my life.
Good for you for taking *action* after you realized that! It’s so much easier to just slip right back into normal la la land and get re-clogged again. I find I’m getting too caught up with the online world myself and working hard towards detaching enough to “live life” too rather than just read about it all day long… Just working towards a way to make this happen without killing my businesses since they’re all online, hah :)
I made the decision after I came home from 3 weeks abroad to stop watching the nightly news. I keep up with current events online, but I don’t need to hear all of those overly dramatic reports. Much better to ignore the noise!
Amen! It always makes me wonder what type of world we live in when I see that Jim Cramer (of Mad Money) still has a job. That dude told everyone Bear Stearns was completely fine the week before it collapsed and triggered the financial crisis. I write weekly over at Seeking Alpha and all those chumps are the same.
Haha…. Truth.
This is one of the reasons why I rarely watch tv…too much drivel. I work to make enough money to pad our retirements and other savings goals and go on about the business of living life while trying to help others however little I can.
It’s hard to not do anything when things go wrong and it’s all your retirement mula and investments!!! I try to ignore all the experts and not look at my account each day. In it for the long haul so it just causes unnecessary stress to look at it every single day. Though I have to admit sometimes I do because it gives me satisfaction to see how much is in there and how it’s building up! Hahaha.
Haha yeah – that’s exactly why I look at it often too :) And why I track my net worth every month instead of quarter/yearly – it can help motivate you pretty well!
J$, what did you say again?
Hey, I include myself in the people to ignore if you don’t love or trust me! :)
Your life philosophy is spot on J$! A good friend and I were talking about this very thing last week. It was our version of the “life is too short to be unhappy,” introspective dialogue. There is just so much horrible stuff out there centered around the same things we humans have been doing to ourselves since the beginning of time. I do have strong opinions about things and I often want to .>do< something to make a difference. The challenge is I feel so strongly that it can eat me up, become and obsession, affect my mood and outlook. Is that what life is about? I see others who fall into that boat and I just feel the self-imposed misery coming off of them in waves. So for me the choice becomes to let it go (ignore) and be happy or dig in and be miserable by making a change. I used to feel like I was weak for choosing happiness. Honestly, I sometimes still do, but I am choosing to believe that what I do to make myself happy can hopefully have a positive impact on others. Anyhoo. Another great post!
You are so strong!! And know yourself well, my word – that is an incredible trait, my friend. To not only get so passionate about stuff, but to then know when it’s smart to back down or take action – that’s not always easy.
So you keep your head high and rock that self-confidence, friend :) I admire you like crazy for that.
Sure sounds familiar to me!!
I bet it does ;)
I think it’s important to treat your retirement funds as the most boring thing that ever happened to you. You probably don’t even know it exists besides taking a look a couple times a year.
If you have some gamble in you or some pessimism, take some extra money that you would have spent and dable in an investment, be smart with your fun/gamble money not with your retirement money, my advice would be add more. Worried about the stock market going up? Add more. Worried about the stock market going down? Add more.
That’s a good idea actually with the gambling side of things. I used to allow myself to pick individual stocks in my Roth IRA every year as long as I was more conservative w/ my 401k/SEP, and it helped balance the two sides of me pretty evenly :) Now I could care less about the gambling part and just let it all ride on index funds, baby… been nice and relaxing ever since.
I know you have to put your cash somewhere, but however I look at it, markets do seem very over-bought at the moment as a result of all the fresh money being pumped into the system. Education is definitely the key, but the information is conflicting depending on where you look. I’m not a player at these levels: I’ll probably feel stupid six months from now when stock prices have doubled, but I’ll sleep better out of the market for now.
Wow – Kathryn must have them shaking in their boots! This is an area of huge ignorance for me. What do you advise people who want to invest, but for whom retirement will start sooner rather than later (because they’re older, not because they’ve been saving hand-over-fist since they were eighteen)? I might be asking on behalf of myself here.
Oh man, I’m not the right person to answer that one unfortunately… try pinging Jim Collins on his “ask me anything” page – he’s super smart with this stuff (and is already retired and older): http://jlcollinsnh.com/ask-jlcollinsnh/
Thanks! I will check out Jim’s site : )
I’m sure most of us would like to go back in time to 2009 and buy, buy buy! But, at the time few did. Why? For those of us who are a bit older, a lot was lost during this time. It made us question the very fabric of the system. Big companies like GM, Chrysler, GE, AIG, Citi, Bank of America, Fannie Mae, and many others were crushed or totally gone.
Actually stock ownership is at an all time low, even though prices are at an all time high. Many people still question the system now, as it appears to be propped up by unconventional measures. So, I do think equity ownership is a good long term bet – but I can see why individuals have been, and continue to be weary. The rules have changed, and no one is really certain what the new rules are. We have a monetary policy at crisis levels 6 years after the crisis, and no clear indication of how this will all end up. I think people see that the stock market does not seem to be reflective of the economy they see around them.
But, you are right. Once you’ve made your decisions, its best not to listen to various “experts” and second guessing yourself!
J$,
Great video. Hilarious. :)
I hear you on ignoring the noise. Grab a pair of earplugs and go about life. There was a time when DOW 1,000 was an all-time record. Avoiding investing back then because the market was “at an all-time high” obviously wouldn’t have served one well.
Best wishes!
Can you imagine what $1,000 invested back then would be today??? Whew…
Funny. I know a blogger somewhere has a summary of some great professional money managers market prediction fails- i can’t find it. I don’t know how they get away with it. It is a farce. The best is watching analysts upgrade a stock a day or two before they miss earnings and then promptly downgrade. I am lucky I have a level headed husband that is buy and hold strong.
I’ve always believed in the power of information but there is just too much noise these days – I agree with you that we require some filters, if only to keep our sanity!
I think though that keeping tabs on the markets and major world events is valuable even for casual investors (a weekly review of news highlights should be sufficient). A bulk of our investments are long-term but we still periodically go over them to make sure that our allocations continue to make sense.
I’d agree with you on that. Smart people would at least check in here and there to get a nice check in :)
That was a classic video J. Good advice stay the course, read PF blogs, and ignore most big time media.
I’d say even be leery of some PF blogs too – though of course I’m partial to trusting them more :)
Having worked in TV for a long time I can tell you the goal at the end of the day isn’t the information it is getting eyeballs on TV. It has to be provocative so you watch. Could you imagine if all they did was say “you just need to dollar cost average and stay in for the long haul.” No one is going to watch that show. They have to make you think you are going to win big. They want you to come back the next day and hear what the next big thing is going to be. Remember they aren’t doing what is best for you…they are doing what is best for ratings because that is what pays the bills at the end of the day.
Reminds me of that SNL skit the other year:
“Don’t buy stuff you can’t afford” :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qesFpsi2mII
Completely agree with you, especially about ignoring mainstream political and economic news. I mean seriously – if you pay attention to everything you hear on the TV, you’d be flip flopping a bunch of times a day.
And that’s when things are more or less OK. When something is wrong, it gets blows up to such proportions that you would think the world is coming to an end.
News is really about sensation, not sensible advice.
Wow. Taking a huge loss and missing out on a huge return is never fun. I’ve done the same thing, I guess you have to get a little burned in order to learn. I think Ben Graham gives the best advice in the Intelligent Investor about investing for the long haul. He gives great advice to indexers (like you) and more proactive investors (like me), all with a long investing time frame. It could be technical at times, but it’s a great resource. I think you should check it out J. Money
Perhaps I’ll find it on audio book and listen while drinking some beers one day :)
Very good points J! Listening to those you trust and respect and focusing on what makes YOU work is the best way to get ahead.
I love the lists of things you ignore. I feel the same way. That crap doesn’t matter. I try to focus on most of the things on the list of things you don’t ignore. I get caught up with the other junk sometimes, but mostly I am able to stay focused.
I’ve recently been ignoring the news (as broadcasted on TV and the radio) because I had an epiphany that the news isn’t actually the news that I want to hear or need to know – the news as broadcasted on TV is what somebody else is determining that I should know, and a lot of it is just garbage – useless knowledge that is filling up my brain, leaving less room for things that I care about.
If there is something huge going on in the world that I need to know about, social media does the trick to make me aware. I’m an avid reader of blogs and many Twitter feeds, so anything major is covered.
Ignoring the noise and, yes, the “experts” is a great strategy.
“Useless knowledge that is filling up my brain, leaving less room for things that I care about.” – yup! Exactly… Always good to cut out what takes up stupid room like that – whether from TV or the internet, toxic people, etc etc.
If I need a good chuckle I like to listen to the “money” part of news radio every half hour. Yes they give us stock updates 48 times a day. Day to day fluctuations don’t matter at all, so like you said, just stay in it!
I’ll do that too if I’m in the car usually – just cuz it’s better than commercials and for some reason I like the news better in the car than on the TV? Maybe cuz it feels like you’re being productive while getting from A to B?
If nothing else, when we get a small correction (yes this drop is still small), I scour my budget looking fora few extra bucks to throw into my retirement account. Nothing like a flash sale on my favorite stocks to get me excited about investing again! It’s all about perspective. Do you still feel as good about those companies today as you did 2 weeks ago? If so, pull the trigger on some more!
Toxic people are everywhere. It’s like everywhere I go, there is another!
There have been only two people that I have listen to. Mom who never made it through high school. There was a war going on and she worked in the ship yard at 16. And Bob Brinker..
Started at 22 investing in mutual fund and at 55 retired with 1.5 million. But live on 35,000 a year. Paid cash for everything. If I die today I can say I live a good life and would live it just the way I did and do.
Way to figure it out man! You’ll like my post on Friday about “having enough” :)
https://budgetsaresexy.com/2014/10/having-enough/
At this young age, it is easy to view the 10 years of investing as long but essentially, you might only see a good side of the market. There are toxic people but there are also the toxic self who ignores others, doesn’t take in information and reflect in the unbias manner.
We have to be humble enough to acknowledge that at times you have missed something out. this is harder when you have just made 1 mil in networth or successful because your method work, without realizing that you may be at the right place at the right time.
The game is not over yet. There is still 30 years of life left. There are some commentators that talk about asset allocation in value approach with quantitative results to backed it up. Sometimes to guard against confirmation bias is to listen to people that you generally disagree with.
Sure, I’ll agree to most of that. Always good to keep an open mind and challenge your ideas/strategies/etc over time. The important part is to make decisions off of facts/game plan vs emotion. And usually the media and “experts” amp up the emotional side of things more often than the opposite.
You ask if I agree with you & on what. It doesn’t matter. I agree with myself & feel good. You seem to agree with yourself too. That is great. By the way… I agree with you about the whole thing (almost?), take pleasure in reading you & bless you.
glad you’re enjoying the site :)