Who remembers 1986?

⚽ World Cup in Mexico and the famous "Hand of God" 🙋‍♂️

🕺 The first class was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, including Elvis, James Brown and Buddy Holly.

💥 London underwent signficant financial deregulation known as the "Big Bang"

It is also the date we need to go back to for the purposes of this study.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a big believer in not trying to time the market. There is a mountain of evidence to show why staying invested and not trying to be too clever works in the long run, if your goal is to grow your wealth.

I particularly like this table below from Schroders showing the effect of missing out on the 'best days'.

£1,000 invested in 1986 in the FTSE 100 would have grown to £17,323 (total return). If you missed the best 30 days, that growth collapses to just £3,461 (which would be less given the trading costs of missing those days too!)

When markets get volatile or "noisy", it is easy to talk yourself into trading and with this brings the risk of missing out on these "best days".

My advice; tune out the noise when times get tricky and put some classic James Brown on.