Hope Springs Eternal (Especially in Baseball)
After starting the baseball year as a San Francisco Giants fan with the hope and optimism only a true fan can hold, we had our hearts crushed…again. This year started out with some stumbles, then we gained traction and started looking and acting like a winning team, and then we fell apart. We watched other teams come alive in the home stretch as we watched our standings slip away. Could I have predicted that at the beginning…or the middle…or toward the end of the season?
Loyalty Matters
As a loyal fan, I am here to tell you that we wholeheartedly believed the Giants would somehow defy the odds and make it to the playoffs. Will we continue to root for and believe in them for next year?? Of course we will! Three World Series rings in a 5-year period….it takes a long time to let go of the notion that another World Series ring is within our grasp…because it is. Thus, we will start out 2024 wondering if it will be a World Series year or a disappointing one.
What Does Team Loyalty Have to Do With Investing?
What does that have to do with investing? Everything. I am struck by the similarities of viewing the markets as we start a new year:
- We put in place our globally diversified, risk-managed models.
- We then watch to see how the markets unfold.
After many years of investing, I’ve learned that the ‘winning sector’ of the prior year is rarely the winning sector the following year, and vice versa. And because investment results are often measured by quarterly reports, we are drawn into artificial segments of measuring our investment success or failure.
This brings me back to the San Francisco Giants – In 2009 it was a dismal year for the fans. We reached only third place in the NL West…after the prior four losing seasons and came close to getting the wild card slot, but failed again. The smart money was not on the Giants finishing as winners.
And then along came 2010…and our first World Series win as the San Francisco Giants – a complete turnaround from 2009 that started our team on a different trajectory. Some people acted like they knew it all along while others were taken completely by surprise. Whatever you thought you knew going into the 2010 season, the outcome was glorious. And then came 2012. And 2014. Glory days!
Long-term investing often provides the same drama – the same ups and downs, the same wild swings, the same unpredictability. As a long-term investor, being a dedicated loyal fan of your own strategic plan and goals will have its own payoff for you. Some years you’ll be delighted and other years you’ll be disappointed. If we’ve learned anything from the magic runs by my beloved San Francisco Giants, iIn the long run you will come out as a winner.