Experts Can’t Predict Markets: What Actually Works Instead

There’s a quiet admission that most professional wealth managers will make if you catch them at the right moment.

We still can’t tell you whether markets will be higher or lower tomorrow. 

I was reminded of this recently.

A geopolitical conflict escalates. Human misery for those affected directly. Around 20% of the world’s oil supply is under threat. 

If you had to predict the market reaction, you would probably expect a sharp decline.

Instead, the S&P 500 pushed to an all-time high.

That disconnect isn’t unusual. It’s the point.

Markets don’t move in straight lines from headlines to outcomes.

They are shaped by millions of participants with different information and motivations, acting independently. 

No single narrative explains them, and no one can reliably predict them.

Not even those of us who have spent our entire careers attempting to do exactly that.

So if predicting the markets is off the table, even for people who understand the theory, what actually leads to a good investing experience?

I believe it comes down to four key things.

1. Purpose: What Is This Money For?

Most portfolios fail not because of structure. They fail because the investor has no real answer to that question. 

When the money has a defined purpose, like paying off a mortgage earlier, funding children’s education or ensuring financial independence to age 100, behaviour improves. 

This is not because of willpower, but because the goal is real and tangible. 

Purpose doesn’t just shape the portfolio; it protects it because when money has no real meaning, it’s very easy to abandon.

2. Cost: The One Thing You Can Control

Markets are uncertain. Costs are not.

Every pound paid in fees is a pound that cannot compound.

A difference of even 0.5% per year, sustained over decades, can materially alter outcomes. This is not through cleverness, but through arithmetic.

We reduced the cost of Navigate Portfolios from 0.24% to 0.09% when we launched them. 

It’s not glamorous. But it works.

3. Diversification: Own The Haystack

When you select a manager, a region, or a theme, you are making a bet. You are choosing a subset of the market and implicitly rejecting the rest.

The challenge is that a significant portion of long-term market returns comes from a relatively small number of outliers, companies or sectors that deliver extraordinary performance.

Miss those, and the outcome changes dramatically. The problem is, nobody knows in advance which ones they will be.

Broad diversification sidesteps that problem entirely. You don’t need to find the needle; you just need to own the “haystack”. 

The needle is already there.

4. Discipline: The Edge That Actually Matters

At some point, markets will fall, headlines will feel convincing enough to act on, and doing nothing will feel like the hardest decision you’ve ever made.

This is where most value is lost, not through bad investments, but bad timing.

The discipline to stay invested, or to adjust the plan rather than reactively change the portfolio, is what separates a good outcome from a compromised one.

Plans can and should evolve. But they should change deliberately, not emotionally. And never because of markets. 

A Better Relationship with Investing

Markets are unpredictable.

So success cannot depend on prediction; it has to depend on process.

Purpose gives your money meaning, cost preserves returns, diversification reduces reliance on being right, and discipline keeps everything intact when it matters most.

None of these principles relies on knowing what happens next.

The key is to build an investing relationship you can sustain through uncertainty. One that allows you to stay invested long enough to benefit from the very thing markets have consistently delivered over time, which, despite all the unpredictability, they do.