People seem to have a natural attraction to negative and sensational news. Bad news gets attention, good news is often ignored, and social media has made everyone a commentator whether they actually know what happened or not.
We hear something, read a headline, see a 30-second video and suddenly we know the whole story. Sometimes we even know who is right, who is wrong and what everyone should have done. All this without being anywhere near the situation.
Social media has made this problem bigger. The loudest opinion often gets more attention than the most accurate one while context rarely goes viral.
Oh! It is easy to comment when you are not the one carrying the risk. I have become more careful about this over the years, particularly because I work with people’s hard-earned wealth. I cannot simply react to every rumour, headline or dramatic piece of news. I have to look at the facts, understand the context and, quite often, listen to more than one side before forming a view.
The same applies to my personal life. I tend to keep my distance from people who have a strong opinion about everything, particularly when they know very little about the subject. There is nothing wrong with having an opinion. However, when every piece of gossip becomes a conclusion and every rumour becomes a fact, the conversation can become exhausting rather quickly.
Nobody is perfect. The interesting thing about markets is that the experts including some of my clients usually become very clear about what should have been done after the event. Hindsight remains one of the world’s most profitable investment strategies, at least for those giving advice.
For me, the job is not to react to everything. It is to separate noise from information, understand what is actually happening and make decisions with the money entrusted to me in mind.
Behind every investment decision, there is usually a real person, and often a lifetime of hard work behind that money regardless of profit and loss.