Stickable Strategy Principle
The best strategy is the one you'll actually stay invested in.
Investors usually underperform the very funds they invest in. Why? They pile in after a hot run and dump after a drawdown. The 'best' strategy on paper is irrelevant if its volatility shakes the holder out at the wrong time.
This framework flips the question. Instead of asking 'what gives the highest returns?' ask 'what's the best strategy I will actually stick to?' For most people the answer is a simple, low-volatility, tax-efficient global index fund — not because it's optimal in theory, but because it survives contact with their emotions.
The principle generalises: a mediocre plan you execute beats a brilliant plan you abandon at the worst moment.
- Investors usually underperform the funds they invest in.
- Volatility is an emotional cost, not just a statistical one.
- The optimal strategy on paper loses to a mediocre strategy you actually hold.
- Simplicity and tax-efficiency compound when behaviour is consistent.
- Everyone — professional or retail — has the same biases.
- Define your real time and skill budgetHonestly assess how many hours a week you'll spend on investing and how strong your edge is. Most people without 12-15 hour days at it should not run complex strategies.Pro tipIf you wouldn't put in the hours of a junior analyst, don't price yourself like a senior one.
- Pick a strategy you can hold through a 30-50% drawdownImagine the worst plausible drawdown for a candidate strategy. If you wouldn't add to it (or at least hold) at the bottom, pick a less volatile one.WarningBacktested returns assume you held through every drawdown — most investors didn't.
- Default to a simple coreFor most people, a global index fund inside a tax-efficient account is the most accessible and stickable approach. Build from there only if a real reason exists.
- Pre-commit your behaviourWrite down what you will do in a 20% drawdown, a 50% drawdown, and a 50% rally. Reading it later short-circuits emotional decisions.Pro tipSchedule contributions automatically so the decision isn't made in the heat of the moment.
- Audit behaviour, not returnsEvery year, check whether you actually stuck to the plan. Behavioural drift is the leading indicator of long-term underperformance.
ARK had a massive run and inflows piled in near the top. When the stocks fell, redemptions weren't extreme but inflows collapsed — meaning many investors bought high. Wood collected fees regardless of investor outcomes.
Boyle references the well-known stat that Magellan returned ~20% annually under Lynch but the average investor in it earned far less — possibly around 6%. The fund worked; the investor behaviour didn't.
Boyle cites Jack Schwager's Market Sense and Nonsense, which compared fund returns to the returns the fund's own investors actually earned. The gap is huge — investors consistently underperform the funds they hold. Even Peter Lynch's Magellan reportedly returned ~20% a year while the average investor in it earned around 6%. Boyle has watched the same dynamic in Cathie Wood's ARK fund: huge inflows at the top, painful losses on the way down.