The slide of the month is a reminder that patient investing provides the ultimate payoff. Though our daily lives require near-term focus, successful investing demands a completely different vantage point. Click here for the full detail behind the image.

40 years ago, Charley Ellis published a paper in The Financial Analysts Journal that was decades ahead of its time. He wrote:

“The investment management business (it should be a profession but is not) is built upon a simple and basic belief: Professional money managers can beat the market. That premise appears to be false.”

He’s a legend in the investment world, a hero to Hill Investment Group, and recently participated in a podcast with Bloomberg that we’ve shared below. It’s one of our favorite interviews to date. Please consider listening to this gem of an interview.

https://soundcloud.com/bloombergview/cfa-charley-ellis-masters-in

1. That no one can accurately predict the market:

• in advance,
• consistently,
• or for decades at a time.

2. That trying to pick individual stocks or active managers is a loser’s game. Winners buy the world in bulk at a fair price and let capitalism work its magic.

3. That delegating the activity and attention of my personal investing to someone that knows me:

• is liberating,
• has higher expected returns, and
• frees me to pursue my unique abilities.

4. Investing based on the data and evidence shown in decades of market returns and peer-reviewed academic research beats:

• picking stocks,
• gurus,
• black boxes, and
• Las Vegas.

5. Focusing on the things that matter and that I can control are most important, e.g.:

• asset allocation,
• spending, and
• investment expenses.

6. That managing my investing behavior is MORE important than tracking short-term investment performance.

7. That there will always be an apocalypse du jour, so “taking the long view” reminds me that the multi-decade trend of the global stock market is UP.