Timing markets is a mistake

Makes things more complicated than they need to be.

Most asset managers will relate to the experience of waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.  Somehow, in the midst of your slumber, your brain chooses to call up one of your terrible investment decisions and sleep is over for the night.  

For us, the most painful investment blunders of the past six years have primarily resulted from us selling good stocks too early.  Contrary to popular belief, the primary aim of an asset manager should be to get more decisions right than wrong - you will always get a reasonable proportion wrong!  Good asset managers have an ability to assess when the odds are stacked in their favour and will bet accordingly, cognizant of the fact they could well be wrong.

So, when we ask ourselves how on earth we could have sold our Shoprite (JSE:SHP)'s at R30 in 2007, with the benefit of hindsight, we got too cute.  The stock price had trebled over...