"Here's the story, of a man named Brady…"
"Come and listen to my story about a man named Jed…"
"It's a love story, baby, just say, 'Yes'"
For our younger readers, the first two, of course, are lines from well-known (if a little dated) TV sitcoms, The Brady Bunch and The Beverly Hillbillies.
The last one is from Taylor Swift's song 'Love Story'… but you knew that.
More than just leaving you with an earworm (or three) you'll be stuck with all afternoon, I wanted to highlight the one thing these three lines have in common — the concept of a 'story'.
I'll let you judge my taste in music and television shows for yourself, but one thing each highlight (Tay Tay's song takes its inspiration from perhaps the best known love story of them all, Romeo & Juliet), is our human attraction to stories.
We can't get enough of them.
They're behind the success of generations of books and television shows, most recently the spate of reality TV offerings.
Humans are unavoidably sucked into stories. We relate to the characters. We love them, hate them, and want to be them.
We cheer for our favourites, and we boo the villains.
We want to know what happens next.
We don't choose to be sucked in by a story… we just are.
I'm not the only one who's been sucked into the 'What do they look like now' ads on some websites. (right?)
The 'cliffhanger' season ending is as overused as it is devilishly effective.
We love the tension.
The intrigue.
The drama.
We watch the winners and losers, vicariously riding the waves with them.
I'll leave the sociologists to further break down the whats and whys of our love of a story, but I want to highlight a recent one… and why it could cost you a small fortune.
See, you've almost certainly heard about GameStop.
I've written about it recently, and tweeted about it a few times in the past week.
I've been asked about it on AM and FM radio and on TV.
It is, right now, all anyone wants to talk about.
And fair enough.
As a story, it has everything.
Rags to riches.
Riches to rags.
David vs. Goliath.
Mystery and intrigue.
And, yes, an AFR story quoting a reddit user who goes by the handle buttmunch.
(Don't blame me: I don't make this stuff up… I just report it!)
And I can understand why it has captured the attention of the financial world (and much of the rest of the world, besides).
You know what? That's okay, as far as it goes.
I mean, I'm no fan of The Kardashians, either, but I get that some people enjoy it.
The problems start, though, when stories like these crowd out the bigger picture.
Yes, to invoke yet another story, it's important that we don't let GameStop's hare outshine Aesop's metaphorical tortoise.
As I tweeted earlier today:
"Remember the company that was the GameStop of 2004?
"Me either.
"But the All Ords is up 320% since, then (including dividends).
"Careful what you focus on…"
Or take the Enron collapse of 2001.
Since then, the All Ords is up 360%. (The S&P 500 is up slightly more — but not much).
The point?
While 'the story' got the headlines, the tortoise just kept on doing her thing, putting one foot in front of the other.
Which, of course, is the more important story.
The more valuable story.
The more notable story.
But it's rarely the one that gets told.
So, by all means, enjoy the GameStop drama, if that's your thing.
But don't confuse the excitement with actual investing (or actual progress).
Don't confuse an exciting (often conspiratorial) storyline with what actually matters.
I don't know where GameStop (or the reddit mob, or the short sellers) go from here.
Truthfully, I don't much care, either.
My investing has zero to do with shorting. Or options of any kind.
I have no interest in where an individual stock, or the market at large, goes tomorrow, this month or this year.
My investment horizon is measured in decades. So should yours, even if you're retired.
So sure, grab the popcorn.
Enjoy the show.
But when the lights come back on, and the ushers start cleaning the cinema, don't forget to go back home and back to what actually works:
Methodical saving, regular investing. And patience.
