With additional examples including vaping and alternative-to-meat companies, apparently attractive investment opportunities often whizz by. But rather like trying to time the market, this is a pursuit in which we do not engage – our view is that one should always be wary of following the crowd.
Be vigilant
Investors will always try and seek an edge. And the investment world constantly reacts to cater for changing appetites and to adapt to an evolving landscape. (For example, only 28 of the FTSE 100’s original firms in 1984 remained in 2017.)
From our perspective, we try to ignore the volatility of short-term fads. Deciding the strategic mix of which assets to invest in over the long term is the main driver of our portfolio returns.
Yet we recognise that investors may like to have a flutter from time to time, perhaps through their ‘pot three’ investment. We would nevertheless urge caution: if you are tempted by what is hot, the very fact that an investment trend has gone viral may well mean you have missed the boat.
Please remember that when investing your capital is at risk.
1 University of Florida initial public offering (IPO) statistics, 31st December 2018
2 Cannabis investments nearly quadrupled in 2018. Fortune, December 2018