What if the biggest return your financial advisor generates has nothing to do with picking the right investments?

As a financial advisor in Lexington, Kentucky, I’ve seen this play out more times than I can count. Vanguard studied thousands of investors and found a consistent performance gap- not from bad funds, but from moving in and out of funds at the wrong moments. Driven by two emotions: FOMO, which pulls people in near the top, and regret, which pushes them out near the bottom. Behavioral coaching addresses both, and Vanguard found it adds up to 1.5% in net annual returns.

This episode is week three of our five-week series on Vanguard’s Advisor’s Alpha — five disciplines that, together, can add approximately 3% in net returns over time.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

•      The two emotions behind most investment decisions: FOMO and Regret — and why neither one is a strategy

•      How the performance gap Vanguard measured was created by bad timing, not bad funds

•      Why moving in and out of the market requires you to be right twice

•      The difference between short-term discomfort and long-term danger

•      What an Investment Policy Statement is and how it removes the guesswork in hard moments

•      Why the problem is rarely logic — it’s emotion

•      Why the advisor relationship has to be built before the bull and bear markets that challenge your confidence

Don’t have someone you trust before the next hard market? That’s worth a conversation today.

If you’re a family in Lexington, Central Kentucky, or anywhere across the Bluegrass, and you’d like to have someone in your corner who can give you direction on what your money needs to do for you, I’d be glad and honored to help you with that.