The best investment strategy is simplicity

When investors ask me, “What’s the best investment strategy?” they often expect a complex formula—something that involves chasing the right funds at the right moment. But my answer has always been the opposite: keep it simple. This chapter of my book Money, Markets and Mistakes is a reminder, and perhaps a gentle pushback, against the lure of complexity. It is an antidote to the notion that more features, more products, and more noise somehow make you a smarter investor. They don’t. In fact, they often do the exact opposite. What is the best investment strategy? There are mutual fund investors who want it simple, very simple. And then there are those who want to understand every nuance of funds. The heart of Value Research lies in simplicity — that has been my strong preference ever since we started. However, sometimes, we must bow to the needs (and demands) of those readers who want to go deep into the complex stuff. The cover story of Mutual Fund Insight’s December 2024 issue is something like that. Yet, as a lifelong devotee of simplicity in investing, I decided to break with its content and write this as an antidote to complexity. The entire (and I do mean entire) po

This article was originally published on September 09, 2025.