Skip to content

title: Invest & Forget (anti-timing) description: [AFW S.2.11] Investment Principle #11 published: true date: 2026-06-30T08:10:15.392Z tags: editor: markdown dateCreated: 2021-08-26T23:45:23.443Z

Watch Invest & Forget VIDEO


Leave It Alone!

“Are you saying that perhaps I should not look at my stocks too frequently?' You can look at them all you want, but don’t alter your long-term strategy.” ―Jeremy Siegel

“You wouldn't plant a seed and then dig it up every few days to see if it has grown. So why do you do that with your long-term investments? Have patience, stop overthinking, trust the process and keep watering your seeds.” ―Michael

“My favorite holding period is forever.” ―Warren Buffett

“The best investments are 'buy and forget'.” ―Naval Ravikant

“No one knows for sure why the equity market does what it does on any random day. And no long-term, goal-focused, patient, disciplined investor cares.” ―Nick Murray

“Don't watch the market closely. Buy and hold is the best strategy. The money is made in investments by investing, and by owning good companies for long periods of time.” -Warren Buffett

“Listening to the macro or market predictions of others is a waste of time. Indeed, it is dangerous because it may blur your vision of the facts that are truly important. When I hear TV commentators glibly opine on what the market will do next, I am reminded of Mickey Mantle's scathing comment: 'You don't know how easy this game is until you get into that broadcasting booth'.” ―Warren Buffett

“The big money is not in the buying or selling, but in the waiting.” ―Charlie Munger

“Investing is like a bar of soap… The more you touch it, the smaller it gets.” -Darcy Howe

“If you spend more than 13 minutes analyzing economic and market forecasts, you’ve wasted 10 minutes.” -Peter Lynch

“Fidelity has done a study as to which clients had done the best at Fidelity. They were the people who forgot they had an account!” -James O'Shaughnessy)

“I don't predict the rain. I help indivduals build financial arks.” -Jim Rothenburg

“I suggest that perhaps if we checked our actual dividend income every 90 days instead of checking our account balances every 90 minutes, we might become better investors.” -Nick Murray

“Virtually no portfolio strategy more reliably produces worse returns than performance-chasing.” ―Nick Murray

“You could be somewhere where the mail was delayed three weeks and do just fine investing.” ―Warren Buffett

“Be careful of monitoring (and judging) your mutual funds' performance daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly.

Short-term thinking may lead to the temptation to replace it with one that’s faring better short-term. However, funds with exemplary long-term track records tend to experience periods during which they lag short-term.”

“The best investors in the world are really good at doing nothing for long periods of time.”

“Much success can be attributed to inactivity. Most investors cannot resist the temptation to constantly buy and sell.” ―Warren Buffett

“Do not take yearly results too seriously. Instead, focus on four or five-year averages.” ―Warren Buffett

“Money is made by sitting, not trading.” ―Jesse Livermore

“The best way to put odds in your favor is to invest long-term.” ―Dick Davis

“Everyone is a disciplined, long-term investor until the market goes down.” ―Steve Forbes

Read Nick's Around the Year, October 19 - We Assume The Lizard Is Revisiting PDF

  • Think long-term and be patient. I think of long-term investing like trying to keep a healthy body and lifestyle over the span of my life. I should expect to grow and improve over time. There may be some setbacks, but overall the trend will be a long-term improvement in my quality of life. And If I want significant change in the path of my life or health the most probable way to achieve that is by disciplined commitment to a plan.

  • Market cycles are crucial only to short-term investors. History tells us that long-term the markets will trend upward. Short-termers are trying to predict the ups and downs of a market cycle. Most investors aren’t clever enough to win this way. That’s why in the 20-yr period from 1990-2010 the average investor achieved 3.83% average annual return when the S&P 500 did 9.14%.

  • Stop watching and obsessing over the market! Doing nothing is often the best investment strategy.

  • Let the market do what it is supposed to do. You can't control it anyway, so don't try!

  • We can only control our participation in the market, and our behavior while we’re in it.

  • We are long-term advisers serving clients with long-term goals. If my client is exhibiting short-term behavior & emotionally reacting to short-term market conditions, I need to have a serious discussion with the client about his goals, and remind him, reassure him that a long-term perspective is the best perspective. Our greatest value to our clients is our ability to influence their behavior in a positive way.


Don't "Time" the Market

“The more often you trade, the lower your return. The more often you go in and out of the market, the further below the index your returns will be. Hence we don't do market timing.” -Nick Murray

“Timing the market is a fool’s game, whereas time-in the market is your greatest natural advantage.” ―Nick Murray

“The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth.” ―Warren Buffett

“Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can’t be done except by liars.” ―Bernard Baruch

Watch Market Timing VIDEO

Read Nick's Around the Year March 6 - Black Holes PDF

Read Nick's NMS 20 - The folly of market timing PDF

During periods of uncertainty, investors often gravitate to the investment media for insights into how to position their portfolios. While these forecasters and prognosticators may be compelling, they usually add no real value.

The Wall Street Journal Survey of Economists from December 1982 – December 2010, showed that economists’ forecasts were wrong in 37 of the 57 time periods – 65% of the time!

Every public trade that's ever been transacted since the 1800's is logged in a computer(s) somewhere, and if by now a pattern to the market hasn't been discovered, it isn't going to be.

Do not waste time and energy focusing on variables that are unknowable and uncontrollable over the short term, like the direction of interest rates or the level of the stock market. Instead, focus your energy on things that you can control, like creating a properly diversified portfolio and keeping the client in it!


If Someone has the Secret, They're Not Telling You

“Don’t try to time the market. It’s very, very difficult to do. There may be a couple of people in the world who can do it, but if there are, they’re not telling you.” -Ben Bernanke

“The sole function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

“Market forecasters will fill your ear but never fill your wallet.” ―Warren Buffett

Read Nick's Around the Year March 5 - Tools that Don't Work PDF

One of the reason you know that astrology, tarot cards, palm reading, stocking-picking software is bumpkis is because if the person peddling it needs to sell the "secret" to make money, then it doesn't work. If you had a figured out the pattern to picking stocks, would you write a book telling the world how you did it, or would you keep the secret a secret and just "do it"?


Even If You Could, It Doesn't Make Much of a Difference


But staying in the market does matter...