Timeless Wisdom From 3 Investment Guru's

​Many times when you don't know what to do, it's wise to take advice from people who are experts in their respective fields and have been extremely successful. When things seem unsettled, these 3 savants offer timeless advice for investors.

Such words of wisdom are especially appropriate amid the current turbulent circumstances:  Stocks recently hitting lows and experiencing extreme volatility - to say the least. The variables change, but inevitably crises and problems occur and affect markets like they are today. But most importantly we ALWAYS overcome them.

Here’s some food for thought from three great investors to help avoid investment mistakes:

​Crises in markets come and go: Shelby M.C. Davis.
A legendary mutual fund manager. Human history is the history of crises and relative periods of calm.  

It’s no surprise that markets exhibit the same patterns of exuberance, fear and everything in between. Every crisis seems to have different origins, whether stagflation or inflation, collapsing or soaring energy prices, falling or climbing home prices. A wise investor acknowledges that crises ebb and flow, and that the best investment strategy adjusts to changes but avoids drastic over-reactions.

As Davis puts it: “Crises are painful and difficult, but they are also an inevitable part of any long-term investor’s journey. Investors who bear this in mind may be less likely to react emotionally, more likely to stay the course, and be better positioned to benefit from the long-term growth potential of stocks.”

Don’t let your gut emotions steer investment decisions: Benjamin Graham.
Graham is considered the father of value investing, he taught Warren Buffett and wrote a number of classic books on investing. Graham said: “Individuals who cannot master their emotions are ill-suited to profit from the investment process.”

Avoid market timing: Peter Lynch.
He rose to fame by successfully managing the Fidelity Magellan fund from 1977 to 1990, racking up an eye-popping 29% annual rate of return. Sadly, the average investor in his fund during those 13 years earned a small fraction of 29% by jumping in and out of Magellan to try to enhance returns.

Lynch once summed up his dim view of market timing this way: “Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves."

Another example of market timing’s weakness: The Standard & Poor’s 500 from 1992 to 2012 registered a nice 8.2% annual return. What kind of return did investors earn if they missed the best 10, 30, 60 or 90 trading days during those two decades, which is about 2,500 trading days?
Investors who missed the best 10 S&P 500 days earned half as much, 4.5% annually those who missed the best 30 days realized zero the best 60 days, negative 5.3% the best 90 days, a whopping minus 9.4%. In other words, stay at a party from start to finish - don’t dart in and out if you don’t like the music or find the conversation boring.

The lessons provided by these three investment sages is that your own mistakes may be a bigger source of your own poor return than economic and political factors that move markets and are beyond your individual control.
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