Friends,

We're just finishing up earnings season. You've been deluged with numbers, statistics, and narratives for six weeks. And now, you have to decide what changes you might make to your portfolio.

If there's one question we get the most, it's this: Given all this data, how do you ever make a decision about what to do?

It's a process that's hard to describe -- as it's never quite the same in any two instances. But recently, I (Stoffel, here) was reading a book that really captured what happens for me.

In the book -- Familiaris by David Wroblewski -- the main character (John) is a famous dog breeder. He is tasked with writing a complete narrative about a dog's life. While this isn't a direct quote, the explanation went something like this:

John would go to the barn and surround himself with every piece of information he had about the dog -- test results, observations, pictures...everything. After laying everything out, he'd write a draft of the dog's life. He'd leave the room, and wouldn't return for a week.

The next week, he'd come back, rip up the first draft, write a second draft, and leave for another week.

Finally, he'd come back a third time, after everything had the chance to settle in his mind, and write a final draft of the dog's life.

In essence, this is what investment decisions ideally look like for me. I consider all the data, write down what I want to do, and then: wait.

Once I've waited for long enough that an answer becomes clear, I act.

Certainly, this slow process means I miss out on some gains -- and suffer some unnecessary losses. At the same time, it's kept me from making any irreversible decisions I end up truly regretting.

That alone -- over the long run -- can be enough to garner market-smashing returns. And over the long run, that's why we're all here in the first place.

Wishing you investing success,

P.S. We just launched a brand new store! Check it out here. Just don't buy anything yet...we're having a 'Black Friday' sale starting this Friday!