1. DAlBAR, Inc. has pioneered the measurement of quality in the financial services industry for over 30 years with a unique system that captures the actual experience of customers.
Step 5: Maintain Your Discipline
Investing is an emotional roller coaster. Unfortunately, in most cases, emotions lead to bad decisions. Research has shown investors who maintain discipline and hold their investments through the markets ups and downs are far more successful.
A Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior study conducted by DAlBAR, Inc.1 in 2008 concluded “market declines cause investors to panic” and sell at the wrong time. Investors continuously achieve significantly lower returns because they don’t exercise patience. The average holding period for stock funds is only 3.2 years.
20 Year Returns
Data Source: DALBAR, Inc. March 2009 extract of Quantitative Analysis of Investment Behavior (QAIB). Period ending 12/31/2008
