Latest / The Happiness in Retirement® Hour / Beyond the Hype: Timeless Investing Principles
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- # Swell AI Transcript: riverside_bill__ sep 9, 2025 002_bill_del-sette's st.wav SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Happiness in Retirement podcast, where we help you turn your retirement dreams into reality. Each week, we'll dive into smart financial strategies, lifestyle tips, and expert insights to help you build a fulfilling and secure retirement. Whether you're planning ahead or already enjoying retirement, this is your go-to place for inspiration and practical advice. So sit back, relax, and let's make your golden years the best years. The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, and it should not be relied on as such. It should not be considered a solicitation to buy or an offer to sell a security. It does not take into account any investor's particular investment objectives, strategies, tax status, or investment horizon. You should consult your financial professional, attorney, or tax advisor. Del-Sette Capital Management, LLC. Del-Sette is a registered investment advisor. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Del-Sette and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For additional information, please visit our website at www.happinessinretirement.com. SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to this episode. of the Happiness and Retirement Program podcast. I'm Bill Del-Sette. Thank you for joining me today. Oh, we've got a very special episode, something we really haven't talked about a whole lot. I'm the Happiness and Retirement Program podcast, and that is investing at Del-Sette Capital. And especially when it comes to this podcast and marketing, we don't spend a whole lot of time talking about investing and I'll tell you why. It certainly is extremely important and we are certainly proud of our investment models. However, it's just something that is best looked at in the context of an annual review or, you know, when we're trying to figure out how someone should be investing, but certainly investing is not a spectator sport and it's not something where you pull up the roots to see how the plants are coming. If you know what I mean, it's something really that in, in the context of a great, in our opinion, great financial plan or retirement plan, it's one of, one of the key pieces, but all the other pieces matter as much. We are fiduciaries at DelSetti Capital Management. It just simply means that by virtue of being a registered investment advisor and also being a certified financial planner, that we have this duty to do what's in your best interest. So we don't talk about investments much, but we are going to today in this podcast. What we're going to talk about today is our opinions and our philosophies at Del-Sette Capital and Management. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. We're not looking for you to go out and buy and sell any investments. We're not selling any investments. We just want to give you what we consider to be the best strategies with your money and investments. Okay, now don't worry. This isn't going to be a dry lecture filled with jargon and charge. Think of this as your cheat sheet to smarter investing, whether you're just getting started or you have been investing for years. So here we go. Grab a cup of coffee, glass of wine, a tequila, depends on how your portfolio's been treating you lately. And let's go through this list. Okay, number one, the greatest investment you could ever make is in yourself. That's right, of course, we have to start with that. Your health, your personal and professional development, your education, your family, your activity values. All the money in the world isn't gonna help you if you're unhealthy. And certainly without personal development, professional development, Developing conscientiousness. You're probably not going to go very far. You're probably not going to have much money to invest or save if you don't get that education, regardless of whether or not you decide to work with your hands as a plumber or a carpenter, or maybe you're going to be a doctor. Whatever it may be, strive to be the best you can be. Continuous improvement and development. Greatest investment you can make. Invest in your family and in activity values, which we talked about in a prior podcast. The things that for you are valuable, obviously health, look at things like a number of steps, height to waist ratio, your diet, what you're eating, personal and professional development, certainly practice gratitude and ideas, et cetera. Very important, greatest investment is the one you make in yourself. Number two, be an optimist about your life and your investments. So important, especially these days, man, it's just such a negative world and There's a reason why advertising is negative and the news is negative. And that's because fear equals two times greed. That's a saying that we have in the investment world, but it applies to life. And all that really means is people are twice as fearful about losing money as they are happy about making money. But people are also extremely fearful as opposed to happy. Generally speaking, we're hardwired for fear and advertisers know that. Newscasters know that. So it's very difficult in this day and age to be an optimist and we're constantly fed negativity. When in fact, if you look at the vast majority of the data, the world is a much better place now than it was even five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. When you look at poverty levels and all of these different stats, that is the truth. But it gets buried in the pessimism. Now I'm not talking about whistling past the graveyard, you have to be a realist as well. When you are an optimist, I personally think you're certainly going to be happier and you're probably going to make better investment decisions. You may have heard of the great mathematician philosopher Blaise Pascal. Well, way back in a philosophy class, I learned of something called Pascal's wager and Blaise Pascal, he was pondering whether or not he should believe in God. And he deduced that, yeah, he should, but here was his rationale. His rationale was, well, look, if I believe in God, and therefore I live a moral life and an ethical life, and I'm a good person, and I build a good character, and at the end of my life I find out that in fact there is no God, well, I actually led a really good, honorable life. And if I believe in God and I live an honorable life, high character ethics and morals, and there is a God, well then I hit the jackpot, so to speak, and I get to go to heaven. So his thinking was you couldn't really lose. Now how does that apply to being an optimist? Well, how do you lose by being an optimist? If you are an optimist, chances are you're going to lead a happier life than if you're a pessimist, certainly. You're probably gonna do the things that we just talked about, investing in yourself if you're an optimist. If you're a pessimist and you believe that the world is a bad place and if you believe nothing is in your control, then certainly you're not going to invest in your health and your personal development and education and all of that. So if you are an optimist and it turns out that you are wrong, well, you probably were much happier. In other words, by wrong I mean we find out that in fact there were reasons for pessimism, then you still will probably happier than if you were a pessimist. And if you are an optimist throughout your life and with your investments, then, and it turns out right, if it turns out to be true that that was a good choice, then certainly you will have accumulated more wealth that way and certainly been happier. Now, we just don't know the future. We don't know if you should be an optimist or not. Is that the truth? Well, it's just a context and a way of living that we think produces better results than being a pessimist, both in the investing world and in your life. So be an optimist. View market declines as opportunities. Number three, stop looking at your investments or else you will make the big mistake. The big mistake is selling low only to watch the market recover And you're stuck because how are you ever going to make your money back if you get out of the market? In fact, when you sell low, you look at your investments too much and you add fear into the equation. You know, emotions, which we're going to talk about in a minute, they don't mix with investing. You make the big mistake and therefore cause the very thing you were trying to avoid. You turn a temporary decline into a permanent loss and can destroy your financial life. I know that's a lot, but that's the truth. Now, again, we don't know the market can keep going lower. You may have been right in selling. All we have to go by is what the market has historically done. But forget about that even, because that doesn't really tell us anything about the future. If you're an optimist, well. You're going to view these declines as opportunities. Now, again, the question is, is that the right thing to do? Who knows? Who knows? Nobody knows the future. The market timer's hall of fame is still empty, but certainly if you don't look at your investments so much, then we think you're going to be happier and you're probably going to be less prone. to make investing mistakes. Now there was a study done, frequently talked about by Vanguard, and the study was about folks who checked their portfolios often compared to those who don't. And it turns out that the people that check their investments often generally have earned lower returns than those who don't because they trade too much and they make bad decisions based on emotion. to stop looking at your investments. And this aligns with what we consider to be good investment advice. Next, we just kind of hit on this, but don't mix money and emotion or money and anything else for that matter, like politics. Now, again, this is difficult to do in practice, but when you mix money and investing, you will make mistakes more often than not. And so there are some biases that can impact your investment performance, by the way, you know, saying is that it's investor performance that matters more than investment performance. So it's investors who call the shots with their investments and. can cause their performance to be worse than the actual investments that they were trying to hold onto. Up to these biases, what are they? Anchoring is one. The tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information you receive. In other words, an investor might get fixated on a stock's purchase price only to see it decline and wait for it to return to that level before selling, and maybe it never does. Overconfidence bias. Many investors overestimate their abilities and knowledge, believing they consistently can do better. This can lead to excessive trading, poor diversification, and taking more risks than is appropriate. Finally, recency bias, the belief that a recent trend or pattern will continue into the future. Now this is deadly because it can lead to chasing performature, buying into hot investments, buying high. For instance, and then there are the emotional biases, one is called loss aversion, and the pain of a loss is felt more intensely than the pleasure of an equivalent gain. Now this goes back to the behavioral finance equation of F equals 2G, or fear equals two times greed. This can cause you to hold on to losing investments for too long in hope of avoiding a realized loss. Next, fear and greed. These two emotions are powerful drivers of poor investment decisions. You see it time and again, thinking this time it's different instead of this too shall pass either at the top or at the bottom. With the current artificial intelligence trade, if you will, this time it's different. Trees are gonna grow to the sky, these investments are gonna go up forever, and therefore you invest too heavily in that sector. Alternatively, fear can lead to panic selling during a market downturn. And so this time it's different. Think the COVID crisis, the market went down about 30% in 30 days. Thinking this time it's different, we're all going to die. People would sell their investments low instead of thinking this too shall pass. So really important, this too shall pass versus this time it's different really matters. Next, be an owner, not a loaner. All that really means is we're big believers in common stocks and great companies at Del-Sette Capital Management, what we consider to be great companies. I can't tell you how many times I've seen young people with a large percentage of their portfolio in bonds, in other words, being a loaner. All a bond is is a loan to a government, to a company, what have you, and instead of being an owner, they have a large percentage in investments that avoid volatility or are not as volatile as stocks, but they therefore don't earn enough to keep up with taxes and inflation so their money actually grows. Be an owner. When you own common stocks, when you own an exchange-traded fund with common stocks in it, you are in essence an owner of those companies. Now it may be a very tiny, tiny piece of each of those companies, but you are an owner. So be an owner, not a loaner. Next, for those of you that are in the accumulation phase, save at least 15% and I would go as high as 20% of your income in the right type of an account. That's a lot to save when you're raising a family, I know. But if you can get there over the course of time by every time you get a raise, you allocate that to your savings. Maybe you've got a 401k with a match, hopefully you do. If you don't, maybe you should find another job, right? So that makes it easier. Some companies match dollar for dollar, let's say four to 6%. So if you're putting away 6%, the savings rate is actually 12. And then you just add on top of that a bit in a tax deferred type of investment, like a 401k. Or if a Roth IRA, which is a tax-free investment, then you stand a fighting chance, assuming that you heed my advice that we just talked about, being an owner, investing in common stocks, then you've got a fighting chance of building a really nice nest egg. Next, invest for growth in the accumulation years, and that plays into what we just talked about. Invest for growth. Now, be diversified. We're big fans at Dell City of diversification, but not asset allocation for young people. What does that mean? Diversification means having your money in many different kinds of companies, kinds of stocks, kinds of exchange traded funds. So that's being diversified. Asset allocation means spreading your money among what we call asset classes, including being A loaner, including bonds. So asset allocation basically means having bonds and stocks in your portfolio. We are not fans of bonds for long-term money, especially for young people. So invest for growth when you're young, you can handle the volatility. And if your dollar costs averaging in your portfolio, meaning you are putting money away in your 401k, every other week, every paycheck, the money goes in there automatically and the funds that you're investing are going down in value. Remember being optimist? You're buying more shares at a lower price. So invest in growth. Do not try and avoid volatility. Avoid not accumulating enough money. so you can retire comfortably. And again, going back to one of the tenants we just talked about, just don't check in your portfolio all that much. Invest for growth, deal with the volatility, view it as the price to pay to have the potential for a good return over time. Next, if you are in retirement, invest for stock dividends. Now, be diversified, own many different dividend paying stocks in your portfolio or exchange traded funds, if you will. You have to have some bonds in there as well, which pay dividends. But we're big believers in common stock dividends at Dell City Capital Management. So dividends historically have gone up, have grown faster than the rate of inflation. Dividends have not declined as much as the market has declined. They're sticky. That's because generally speaking, companies are loathe to decrease their dividends even when they fall on economically hard times, all dividends are a return of profit to shareholders. Remember, being an owner above, if you're a shareholder, you're an owner and therefore entitled to the dividends that the company pays out. Well-run companies, even in years they don't have any profits, they built up a cash reserve from which to pay those dividends. So dividends historically at least have not declined as much as the companies that pay them out in these temporary declines, okay? So we're big fans of dividend paying quality stocks, but you have to be diversified. You also have to have the so-called risk tolerance to not bail out when those companies go on sale, in our opinion. Finally, buy time with your money. Money is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. There's a saying, if you have a problem and you have the money to fix the problem, then you don't have a problem. Money, again, is a means to an end. Use it to enjoy your life. Use it to buy time. Remember Time Affluence from the last podcast to enjoy the things that matter most to you. Buy time with your money. That's it folks. These are the investment philosophies of Del-Sette Capital Management. The top investment philosophies. These are just our opinions. Past performance is no indicator of future results. We have no idea what's going to happen. tomorrow, next day, next month, or next year, but we do know, we believe, if you live with optimism, if you invest in yourself, if you stop looking at your investments all the time, if you stop mixing money and emotion, or money and politics for that matter, if you are an owner instead of a loaner, if you save 15 to 20% of your income and invest for growth as you're growing your wealth, and invest in dividend paying stocks in the enjoyment years of your life, and you buy time with your money, we think you're going to A, have a great shot of having a nice nest egg when you retire and also an even better shot of really enjoying your retirement. Thanks for joining me for today's episode. Remember, good investing is less about finding the perfect idea and more about putting the right ideas into a strategy that works for you. If you'd like to take the next step, I encourage you to review your portfolio and ask. Am I truly aligned with my goals, my timeline, and my comfort level? If the answer feels uncertain, this is a great time to have a conversation. We work with clients every day to design portfolios and retirement income strategies that bring clarity and confidence. If you'd like to schedule a call or learn more, visit www.happinessretirement.com. And if you found today's episode helpful, be sure to follow the show so you won't miss future discussions on retirement planning, investing, lifestyle tips, and building lasting financial security. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, stay focused, stay disciplined, and invest with purpose and optimism. Talk to you soon. Thanks for joining me. SPEAKER_01: That's it for today's episode of the Happiness in Retirement Program podcast. We hope you found some valuable insights to help you create the retirement you deserve. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who's planning for their future. For more tips and resources, visit happinessinretirement.com or the Del-Sette Capital Management Facebook page. Until next time, here's to a happy, healthy, and financially secure retirement.