Know Your Limitations in the Market, Says Value Investor

A lot of the investing game is not just quantitative and qualitative analysis. While these factors can certainly help in the screening process, Zurich-based value investors Guy Spier acknowledges that a lot of investing is mental, which includes knowing your limitations.

By espousing positivity and ethics, investors from all walks of life can be able to make more sound investment decisions.

“Spier says it is essential for investors to know their limitations, which can come from understanding of self, as well as accepting the short-comings of the human mind. Only then can investors think of a process to work around these flaws,” an Economic Times article noted. “This, he says, can be done by creating the right rational environment and developing an investment process using checklists which can help in avoiding classic mental mistakes.”

In essence, Spier ascribes to an investing process where the mind is free from clutter. As such, investing ideas can flow more freely and not beyond the investor’s scope of knowledge.

“The goal isn’t to be smarter. It’s to construct an environment in which my brain isn’t subjected to quite such an extreme barrage of distractions and disturbing forces that can exacerbate my irrationality. For me, this has been a life-changing idea,” said Spier.

Tilting ETF Exposure to Value

To get exposure to some value-tilted funds, here are a few large cap ETFs to consider with varying strategies:

  1. Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta U.S. Large Cap Equity ETF (GSLC): seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond to the performance of the Goldman Sachs ActiveBeta® U.S. Large Cap Equity Index. The index is designed to deliver exposure to equity securities of large capitalization U.S. issuers.
  2. Goldman Sachs Equal Weight U.S. Large Cap Equity ETF (GSEW): seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond to the performance of the Solactive US Large Cap Equal Weight Index (GTR). The index consists of equity securities of large capitalization U.S. issuers. The index is an equal-weight version of the Solactive US Large Cap Index, a market capitalization-weighted index that includes equity securities of approximately 500 of the largest U.S. companies.
  3. Goldman Sachs JUST U.S. Large Cap Equity ETF (JUST): seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond to the performance of the JUST US Large Cap Diversified Index. The index is designed to deliver exposure to equity securities of large capitalization U.S. issuers that engage in “just business behavior” based on rankings produced by the index provider.

For more market trends, visit ETF Trends.