There’s a paradox in markets that never fails to amuse me: the less you do, the more you often make.
Think about dollar-cost averaging (DCA). It’s boring, mechanical, and almost aggressively unsexy. You set up a schedule, buy the same amount on repeat, and then… forget about it. No chart porn. No dopamine hits from green candles. Just steady deposits into the abyss of compounding.
And yet, when you zoom out decades later, it works. The patience portfolio doesn’t make headlines, but it quietly outperforms most people who can’t resist fiddling with their holdings.
I once had a friend who checked his brokerage account so often he started calling it “my second job.” The guy was constantly swapping ETFs, chasing “momentum plays,” trying to get clever. After taxes and transaction costs, he was getting smoked by people who just sat still and bought the S&P on autopilot.
Here’s the secret: patience is an active choice. It’s not laziness. It’s not ignorance. It’s saying, “I know my edge is in compounding, not in reaction.” Charlie Munger nailed it: “The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting.”
We live in a culture that rewards immediacy. Instagram likes. Slack pings. Overnight shipping. Patience feels like weakness in that world. But markets don’t run on dopamine. They run on discipline stretched across time.
So if you ever feel guilty for not trading, reframe it: you’re not being passive. You’re playing offense with patience. You’re giving your portfolio space to breathe, to grow, to multiply in silence.
📌 Key Takeaway: Sometimes the smartest move in markets isn’t another trade. It’s sitting still long enough for compounding to do its weird, exponential magic.
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