It’s the crack of the bat, the taste of a kosher hot dog and the feel of excitement when your favorite player steps up to the plate. It’s watching your kid experience the wave for the first time, and all the memories you make. It’s baseball, of course, but you also just can’t help but think of investing.
That’s right, investing. You may not throw investing in with the seventh inning stretch, but you might be surprised how much investing should remind you of baseball. It carries many of the same lessons:
You’ve Got to Take a Long-Term View:
Baseball players are counseled not to let their lows get too low or their highs get too high. In other words, in any given week they are probably going to both strikeout and score a few runs. But neither should disrupt their discipline: you don’t skip a workout because you hit a home run, after all.
It’s the same with investing. You don’t pull all of your money out of the market just because one of your investments isn’t performing well. You need a long-term strategy that involves mostly just waiting and watching, not reacting every time something goes well or poorly.
Ignore the Chatter:
Players could make themselves crazy tuning in to ESPN or reading every sports article, trying to assess the perception of their skills. Or, it may not even be about them in particular; it could be buzz around a certain training technique or a team’s focus on certain skills that’s earning them some wins.
In investing, similar chatter about volatility in the market or predictions of doom for a particular industry could cause you to dash into an appointment with your investment advisor, demanding an overhaul of your portfolio. That’s why you need to make sure you’re working with an advisor that adheres to time-tested investment principles and pays no heed to chatter.
Trust the Expert:
Every professional ball player has to return home for holidays, and its likely that every one of them has an uncle or brother-in-law, ready to dispense advice.
A baseball player would never trust that advice over that of their coaches, and you shouldn’t when it comes to investing, either. Don’t let your brother-in-law tell you what investments you should make; talk to your investment advisor.
It’s Not About Home Runs:
You don’t have to be a baseball expert to understand that the players that swing for the fences every time aren’t always the most successful. It’s the players that offer consistently good and disciplined skills that win games.
Your investing should take a similar approach. A good investment advisor will guide your portfolio using sound, long-term investment strategies that protect and grow your wealth over time.
When you’re ready to talk about investing, work with an investment advisor that is committed to helping you build a portfolio using time-tested strategies for growth. Contact us at Heritage Investments to learn more.