The ETF investing playbook

Jonathan, you've been involved with, uh, ETFs since they first arrived in Australia, as I said.

So, and I know this is a, a tough one to narrow down, but what's the single biggest lesson that investors should take from the last 25 years, in, in your opinion?

Yes, it's been a pretty interesting ride over 25 years and, and as you said, Tom, there's a lot of different lessons you could take, but if I had to pick my first lesson or my top lesson, it would be just be a bit slow to react and a bit slow to trade.

Which is a strange thing to say, but sometimes just sitting on an investment long term is the best way to extract value from it.

I mean, those early ETFs, if you'd bought them 25 years ago, you know, back when Taylor Swift was in primary school, if you'd spent $10,000, they might be worth $70,000 now.

Now, they'd probably only be worth half that if you'd just missed the best day each year over that period.

And so, so often investors trade in either heightened panic or fear, and they miss some of the best days in markets and that can detract from your very long-term returns.

So I think that my top message, Tom, would be if you're going to be buying investments like that, try and buy them for the long term and hold them for the long term.

I was, uh, also in primary school at, uh, at that point, so I kind of wish my parents had, [laughs] uh, had bought these for me back then on my behalf.

But, uh, sadly that wasn't the case.

Jonathan, you've been involved with, uh, ETFs since they first arrived in Australia, as I said.

So, and I know this is a, a tough one to narrow down, but what's the single biggest lesson that investors should take from the last 25 years, in, in your opinion?

Yes, it's been a pretty interesting ride over 25 years and, and as you said, Tom, there's a lot of different lessons you could take, but if I had to pick my first lesson or my top lesson, it would be just be a bit slow to react and a bit slow to trade.

Which is a strange thing to say, but sometimes just sitting on an investment long term is the best way to extract value from it.

I mean, those early ETFs, if you'd bought them 25 years ago, you know, back when Taylor Swift was in primary school, if you'd spent $10,000, they might be worth $70,000 now.

Now, they'd probably only be worth half that if you'd just missed the best day each year over that period.

And so, so often investors trade in either heightened panic or fear, and they miss some of the best days in markets and that can detract from your very long-term returns.

So I think that my top message, Tom, would be if you're going to be buying investments like that, try and buy them for the long term and hold them for the long term.

I was, uh, also in primary school at, uh, at that point, so I kind of wish my parents had, [laughs] uh, had bought these for me back then on my behalf.

But, uh, sadly that wasn't the case.