Sometimes there's nothing wrong with doing nothing for investors
Sitting back and doing nothing is sometimes the smartest strategy, even for veteran investors armed with a fair bit of knowledge and experience in the sharemarket.
And as any broker will tell you, the market is always right, even if it seems wrong......
Of course, fund managers would also argue that once they own all the stocks they want, and the portfolio is set to their liking, there is nothing wrong with sitting back and watching the market do the rest.
On this point Ben Griffiths, the founder of specialist small caps funds manager Eley Griffiths Group, often refers to the investment classic Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre.
The book charts the highs and lows of one of the most famous Wall Street traders of all-time, Jesse Livermore, and this is one of the well known quotes that talks to doing nothing.
"After spending many years on Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It was never my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! Patience is a key virtue for investment success," he wrote.
