(and why your portfolio wants to be ignored)
When the global markets get choppy and the headlines start flashing red, human instinct kicks in. We feel a sudden, overwhelming urge to do something. It doesn’t matter if you live in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Americas or the British Isles.
Today, it’s never been easier to act on that urge. We log into our investment apps while waiting in line for a coffee. We refresh the dashboard on the sofa. We read five different market updates in a row, wondering if we should move to cash, double down, or completely rewrite our long-term strategy.
We convince ourselves that by constantly checking the numbers, we are somehow managing the risk and staying informed.
It feels like financial discipline. In reality, it is just an emotional rollercoaster disguised as productivity. We can’t keep hovering like a helicopter.
We all know that helicopter parenting—hovering over one’s kids and micromanaging their every move—does not make them more resilient. It just makes everyone stressed out and anxious.
The same principle applies to your wealth. Checking your portfolio daily does not make it grow faster, nor does it protect it from global events. All it does is fuel short-term thinking. It creates a powerful temptation to tinker with a strategy that was explicitly designed to play out over decades.
The legendary economist and Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson famously summed this up perfectly: “Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.”
He was absolutely right. Good investing is inherently boring. It is the waiting that does the heavy lifting, not the trading.
A little while ago, when the markets were having one of their regular tantrums, I decided to take my own advice. I put my phone in my pocket and took my younger daughter to the park.
There is a ride there—one of those little playground animals on a giant spring that lets kids rock back and forth until they are dizzy with joy. My daughter calls it the “chicken boingy-boing” (which is now its official name, as far as I am concerned).
As I watched her bounce and laugh, living completely in the moment, it hit me: this is exactly what most people need more of when the markets get shaky. Not more screen time. Not more strategy tweaks. Not more financial boingy-boing of their own making.
Your portfolio has shock absorbers. You don’t.
The great irony of all this screen-staring is that your portfolio is probably completely fine.
If you have a properly built financial plan, it was explicitly designed to weather these exact storms. It has shock absorbers built in, calibrated to your specific goals, your timeline, and your risk profile.
The problem is that we do not. Human beings are simply not wired to process constant, daily financial shocks without experiencing a physical and emotional response. The portfolio is designed for volatility; your nervous system is not.
This is also where you get to experience the real value of a qualified financial planner.
I work with clients all over the world. As a Certified Financial Planner, a massive part of my job isn’t just allocating assets, it is behavioural coaching.
It is about helping people stay the course when the 24-hour news cycle is screaming at them to panic. It is about standing between you and the “sell” button so that you do not permanently derail your future over a temporary market downturn.
The clients who feel the most confident and who ultimately see the best long-term results, are the ones who realise they cannot control the market, so they stop trying to micromanage it.
The next time the headlines shout “Panic!”, do the most profitable thing you can do. Close the app. Step outside, go to the park, and find a chicken boingy-boing. Let your portfolio do its job in the background, so you can get back to living your life. And maybe drop me a text.
