Blessed by the Potato

There are a lot of things in the world to potentially research. Even just restricting the conversation to investing, there are a lot of potential avenues to put your money to work. However, you don’t have to have an opinion on everything.

I was on Tom’s podcast recently, and he threw me some questions on bitcoin and peer-to-peer lending. Things like this pop up from time to time, and I usually do have something to say. But just because I have an opinion and want to talk about it doesn’t mean it’s a strong opinion, or that you should go off and waste some time doing a bunch of research.

There’s a difference between having an opinion for the purposes of a discussion or entertainment, and an opinion for guiding your investment decisions. I’m not trying to talk you out of ranting about bitcoin or whatever individual stock is in the news or whatever you like to talk about at parties. But just because some new option is there doesn’t mean you have to give it full due diligence and a careful pro/con decision process to determine if it belongs in your portfolio.

Sure, bitcoin went up however many gagillion percent through to the end of 2017, but it just as easily could have gone another way — that doesn’t mean you have to start researching bitcoin or every potential growth story in the future now. If you missed out on the crypto craze, you’re probably still doing just fine on your trajectory to retirement (and if you jumped in late last year you probably regret it at this point).

And almost all the stuff on TV and in the paper on investing, all the different styles and strategies and specific companies — most of that is just discussion and entertainment. It’s very hard not to talk about something when someone else wants to talk about it. That goes double when there’s a camera on you. Engaging in a discussion on some potential investment is not a pointer that you should be researching this stuff or taking the opinion seriously. Often guests on BNN have opinions on stocks they do not own, to reinforce that point.

Buffett had this concept of the “too hard pile” — he didn’t have to come to a buy or sell decision on every stock, if it turned out it was too complex or outside his circle of competence he could just shelve it and move on to the next opportunity. Sometimes in a conversation someone may give you a forced choice “which one would you pick? OK, but if you could only take one with you when you’re stranded on a desert island…” but real life rarely does in the same way. And it’s ok to say that you don’t know and don’t care to waste the time trying to decide.

Focusing on the essential building blocks — your savings rate, fees, risk tolerance — is what will help you meet your goals. Debating the blockchain flowchart can make for good conversation, learning about new things can be fun, but that doesn’t mean you have to seriously consider how much of your portfolio to put in whatever the obsession of the week is.