Reliable is Cool

We all love more features, more customization, more of the bells and whistles. We get bored with tried-and-true. We crave the new-and-improved even if it means taking on more risk. Opening the present becomes more important than the present itself.

The journey away from battle-tested and reliable methods often leads to failure.

The basics are reliable though. The experimental small-sample new stuff isn’t and often carries tremendous risks. The folks at OceanGate learned this lesson the hard way.

Reliable products last a long time with very little maintenance. Take vintage watches for example. A Rolex from 1960 works just as well today as it did then. It’ll probably work for another 70 years too. It doesn’t require servicing all that often or a new software update every other month.

In the investing business, people don’t bother going with the trend, holding onto winners, getting rid of losers or keeping risk in check. That’s boring. That’s old school.

“That doesn’t work anymore! We need a new edge!”

We want AI, machine-learning, neural nets, etc. That’s what’s cool, not mastering the basics. LTCM learned the hard way (as have many others over the years) that turning your back on the basics will get you killed.

Time-tested investing approaches don’t need to be tinkered with or updated with new cutting edge features to “stay up to date with the market environment”. They’re built to last. They can navigate the markets as well today as they did generations ago.

Think about this for a second…

300 years ago, people used boats and horses to send messages across great distances. Markets exhibited trends.

Today, information travels at nearly the speed of light. Markets still exhibit trends.

Something I think is worth looking at more closely.

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