Michal Bodi

Tuesday 11 September 2012

Six rules for managing uncertainties and successful investing.

Six rules for managing uncertainties and successful investing.

Perception is sometimes 'realer' than reality.

Also, as long as the information is frequently repeated and rotated, the perception doesn’t verify the quality of ‘expertise’ it’s been fed with and created by.

Our lives are saturated with information lava erupted daily by a financial world volcanos with the spotlight on variables beyond our control - platforms, products, investment managers, interest rates, managed funds, direct shares, ETFs, investment performance, share market, Europe, China, Bora Bora...

However, they only cause noise and a blinding perception that they should be the centre of investor's attention and concentration.
  

The truth is that the focus should be somewhere else.

These variables have very little to do with real life investment outcomes. Why?

People simply do not experience the investment returns published in the magazines they read. The dominant determinant of real life investment results is something we can actually control and anticipate (in some people) – their investment behaviour.
A passionate behavioural coach can ensure that they stick to their plan and follow the six below rules.

Six rules for managing uncertainties and successful investing:

v  Invest in your future – have a plan and a hire a coach

v  Believe in the future – things always get better, stay positive

v  Realise your timeframe  – invest for life and think of your legacy


v  Diversify  – never make a killing, never get killed (as boring as it sounds)

v  Look for value – never chase prices, always chase value 

v  Be patient and disciplined – do not react to noise 

Nothing to do with products, trends or financial magazines you read. 

This is where we have to start. Some would say it’s not too exciting, not too much fun. And that they can manage on their own. Well, they can’t. I can't. No one is immune to noise. 

If people want to experience quantum changes in their investment outcomes they need to firstly acknowledge this and secondly hire the objective third party - behavioural coach. 

It's part of the 'zen of investing' and it's to do with your mind, nothing else. The sooner you acknowledge it and accept it, the sooner you progress.


by Michal Bodi
Email me if you want to know more – mbodi@sydneyfinancialplanning.com.au


Photo source: Freedigitalphotos.net and Darren Robertson