Here we are October already. The Minnesota fantasy football season is in full swing as the winners and losers, or contenders and pretenders, are sorted out each weekend for all your friends and co-workers to see.
There are many parallels that can be made between investing and fantasy football. Throughout the fantasy football season each fantasy football manager must be able to adapt to changing performance trends, player injuries, and weather conditions. The same can almost be said for managing your stock and bond market investments.
The investment world is made up of different teams of financial assets. Stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, and money market investments are all options available now to investors. The trick is to have your investment assets in the right combinations on the right teams at the right time.
The process that fantasy football managers use to evaluate their team each week can be the same process used to monitor their stock and bond market investments. The most simple investment management rule to follow is to try to stack the odds in your favor in regard to the stock and bond market investments you currently own.
Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings will not score 3 touchdowns every game. At the same time we know that he does score most of the Minnesota Viking touchdowns every season.
Stocks and stock mutual funds are usually the best place to be invested over the long-term. But most Minnesota investors still have very painful memories of the last big stock market downturn.
The reason that many people, both male and female, participate in a fantasy football league is that they enjoy the process of making their own decisions. They also enjoy watching the results every week of the decisions that they make.
What those same people don’t realize is that they can have the same amount of enjoyment and reward managing their stock and bond market investments.
So start thinking about your current investments as players on your investment team. And make sure that you make the necessary adjustments to your team as the U.S. stock and bond markets go through the necessary “pullback” phase over the next few months.
If you spend the same amount of time watching your investments as you do watching football results this time of year, you might be amazed at your improved investment performance going forward.
Ric Lager
Lager & Company, Inc.
