These are the days when you either need to have a 20 year time frame or a 20 minute time frame, and either can be extremely profitable. In either case, owning the sector is going to give you all you need in terms of volatility, so leave the stock picking to the masochists.
Manifesto
Defensive Stocks Go Down Less, But They Still Go Down
As surely as day follows night, in a bear market environment, you will repeatedly hear the clarion call to “get defensive,” or to buy “consumer staples”. Ignore this call, individual investor, as it is merely a b-school trope that all the talking heads like to trot out in tough times to justify what they’re doing…
Trust Only The Chefs Who Eat Their Own Cooking
Is there anything more off-putting than the sight of a chef, clad in his whites and houndstooth trousers, looking emaciated and sickly thin? If he’s even an adequate cook or at least a lover of food, should the chef be anything but well-fed?
I would say that investment professionals should be held to a similar standard. If someone holds themselves out to the public as a brilliant stock picker, a steward of capital, or a talented manager of money and assets, should we not inquire as to how much of their own capital is at risk in the same investments or strategies that they are propounding or endorsing?
