BIO: Robin Wigglesworth is the editor of Alphaville, the FT’s financial blog. From Oslo, Norway, he leads a team of writers who dig into anything deeply nerdy or plain delightful that they spot in markets, business, or the global economy.

STORY: Robin invested in an ETF in Norway, a consumer durables company, and a fertilizer company after the 2008 financial crisis. These companies did incredibly well. Unfortunately, Robin reacted to short-term headlines when the European crisis started erupting and sold out.

LEARNING: You can’t outsmart the markets. Always let your winners ride.

“Always let your winners ride.”

Robin Wigglesworth

Guest profile

Robin Wigglesworth is the editor of Alphaville, the FT’s financial blog. From Oslo, Norway, he leads a team of writers who dig into anything deeply nerdy or plain delightful that they spot in markets, business, or the global economy. He is also the author of Trillions, a book on the past, present, and future of passive investing and how it is reshaping financial markets.

Worst investment ever

Robin was a Middle East correspondent for The Financial Times after the financial crisis. The crisis hit later in the Middle East because of the oil price boom. Until the collapse of Lehman, the Gulf was partying. Robin was impressed with how quickly central banks reacted in the last quarter of 2008 after the Lehman collapse.

As a journalist, Robin couldn’t invest in any company he covered, even if it was a broad index fund. But because Robin was in the Middle East, there was a lot of this stuff that he didn’t cover.

In the Gulf, the dirham was pegged to the dollar, so it was suddenly worth a lot more. Robin didn’t have much money, but he had banked the odd few special payments he’d received for special reports on the FT. He put that money in an ETF in Norway, a consumer durables company called Orkla, and a fertilizer company called Yara.

Robin’s choice of investments was brilliant because these companies did incredibly well. Unfortunately, Robin reacted to short-term headlines when the European crisis started erupting and sold out. However, he kept Yara because he figured the world would always need fertilizers to grow food. But Yara got embroiled in a corruption scandal.

Had Robin kept that small pot of money running to date, he’d now have a far larger pot of money.

Lessons learned

You can’t outsmart the markets as a whole.
If you want to trade, you must find something you know and nobody else has discovered.
Always let your winners ride.

Andrew’s takeaways

The average investor in America destroys 30 to 50% of the value that they could have captured in, for example, an index fund simply because of their timing decisions.
First, you have to be able to see the opportunity, then have cash and the flexibility to invest in it, and finally, have the guts to actually pull the trigger and do it and let it ride.

Robin’s recommendations

Robin recommends reading his book Trillions and registering for free to read Alphaville and learn about passive investing.

No.1 goal for the next 12 months

Robin’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to write another book on the history of the bond market.

Parting words

“Buy my book, buy index funds, and most of all, stay boring. I think keeping it simple is the best thing.”

Robin Wigglesworth

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