If I had to pick the next investment calamity over the coming couple of years, I might go for Russia.  The reason is that investors seem to have the unerring knack of pulling out of one problematic investment and piling into the next. 

Not long ago, so much money was pouring into Property funds that the regulator had to express misgivings.  Now, a year or so later, those same people are hastily withdrawing their money amidst lurid headlines about the sector imploding.  By the look of things, these people are not giving any more considered thought to their investment objectives than they did the last time, or the time before that.

It does make you wonder what these people or their advisers are thinking.  It does seem that a large proportion of investors have no strategy whatsoever and simply charge around looking for last year’s best performer.  The problem is not that many investments will not deliver, it is that a lot of investors do not stick around to benefit.

The legendary Peter Lynch who ran Fidelity’s flagship Magellan fund very successfully into the Nineties said that his greatest regret was that many of the fund’s investors had just not benefitted from his performance because they had bought and sold at the wrong time rather than just sticking with it.

For anyone whose time horizon runs beyond next Tuesday, it may pay to try to develop a little patience.