You Want A Body? Then You Gotta Push

When my 8-year-old daughter and her friends hear the song line in the newsletter title, they go wild. They all start screaming, singing along at the top of their lungs and start dancing. It's quite adorable, really.

But it’s also slightly irritating. The lyrics and beat sit right on that fine line where adults can’t help but raise their eyebrows. The perfect mix to unite young girls while simultaneously drawing a clear line between them and us “oldies”.

For me, the song bridges the gap between “female self-empowerment”, as the Swiss newspaper NZZ’s arts section described it, and investor self-empowerment. Because it's not just those who want a toned body who need to push. Those who want returns also have to sweat and push themselves to their limits.

Stock market casino?

Despite all the love of science and sober figures, human behavior remains the dominant factor in investment success. Studies show time and again that portfolio returns lag far behind the results of stock market indices, ETFs and funds. The reason? It always comes down to investor behavior. 

In my view, greed and fear are only secondary factors. In other words, those emotions that make us chase more stocks and take on more risk on the way up and then get cold feet on the way down.

Clearly, deeply rooted skepticism towards financial markets and stocks remains paramount in Austria and Germany. We’ve been warned too emphatically time and again about the “casino stock market” that many people probably still have that nagging thought: “Maybe there’s some truth to it.”

I assure you, there isn’t. At least not when you look at longer time horizons. What really matters then is how successful the respective company is. If you look at it purely from a day-to-day perspective, I’ll grant you the casino comparison might hold some water.

Goulash or stocks?

But here’s what I certainly won’t accept: “Knowing how to make a goulash is more important than understanding how stocks work.” I’ll give credit where it’s due –the Green Party representative certainly knew how to get quoted.

I enrich my life by knowing both how stocks work and how to make goulash (beef stew). That's why I'll be cooking a goulash next weekend with my grown-up sons while chatting with them about our joint stock investments. Fortunately, the only tears we’ll shed will be from chopping onions. 

P.S: The song I mentioned is called "Bauch Beine Po" by Shirin David. Click the link at your own risk. 
P.P.S: The goulash-versus-stocks quote comes from Eva Blimlinger. You can read about it in the Kurier article – again, at your own risk (in German). Fortunately, it didn’t hit international news).