You’re sitting on a wobbly coffee shop stool, drinking your third espresso shot, when a stranger nearby tells you, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!” Your stomach hurts. You might have seen that basket tip before: broken eggs, broken dreams, and wrecked breakfast. When diversify guy turns up, it’s never a boring day because he always has a lot of unusual investing ideas to share.
He doesn’t look like the average finance nerd, huddled over a laptop. His counsel comes with some funny talk and a few jabs at the stocks you like best. “Guess what had a great week?” “Napkin companies!” he’ll shout, eyes arched, leaving you confused enough to examine your portfolio for anything you forgot.
He never gives in to the easy questions. Have you ever noticed how concentrated people are on the local market? “Why limit yourself to just home turf?” Diversify Guy will say. Has anyone looked at Chile recently? You know, the guy who draws crazy-looking pie charts on a napkin and maps out areas you can barely spell, let alone find on a globe?
He’ll tell you to get out of your comfort zone. “Only stocks?” Come on, change it up. Bonds are more than just things that make you sleepy. He could admit to owning a little bit of crypto, generally for the drama, but then he would warn you not to be the next person to lose a lot of money on a meme.
His arguments come out quickly, almost like he’s trying to make the market crazy. You’ll agree with him about index funds until he starts talking about private equity, makes jokes about sneaker portfolios, or asks whether you’ve ever thought about putting money into farming or modern art. He doesn’t have any holy cows; he simply has new ground to cover.
Next are the truth bombs. “At some point, every investment plays the hero. Don’t hold on to just one. “Have fun with the rotation,” he jokes. Diversification isn’t about hiding under a blanket; it’s about making investing into a fun puzzle. “Date around,” he says. “Don’t settle down with just one hot sector.” “Swipe left until something strange shows up.”
There is always at least one person who doesn’t believe it. He still smiles. “Follow a trend if you have to.” Just don’t put your rent on it. People that say “YOLO” ought to chill down, or at least spread out. He’ll say he enjoys risk, but not too much, like when you put hot sauce in soup. Too much and everything falls apart.
He’ll concede that diversification isn’t a magic shield. Some days, all the markets crash their bikes at once. He still says that spreading your bets keeps calamity from taking everything. One door is closed? Give it another shot. The hallway is lengthy.
He knows everything there is to know about assets. One month he’s talking about wood, and the next month it’s rare baseball cards. “Do you want more surprises?” He says to mix strange things together. “You never know what will work.”
If you ask him about the next moonshot, he’ll just laugh. He says, “Hot tips go cold very quickly.” He is truly loyal to second-guessing everything, including himself.
So, the next time you see him, don’t just ignore him. Fight with him. Put that doubt away. You might come up with new ideas, or at the very least, you’ll be curious about how napkin makers are doing this quarter.