Thirty-five years ago, in a lecture at Stanford Law School, Warren Buffett made an observation that has only grown more relevant with time. “Activity is the mother’s milk of Wall Street,” he said. “People have this whole different attitude just because there’s a little number up there flashing around all the time. It makes them think they have to do something.”
Think about that for a moment. The very feature that makes stock markets convenient – the ability to buy or sell at any moment – has been twisted into a psychological trap. The flashing ticker, designed to inform, has become a command to act. Most investors have inverted the relationship entirely. They believe the market is instructing them, when in reality it exists merely to serve them.
This explains a great deal about why ordinary investors struggle to build wealth even during extended bull markets. They mistake activity for productivity. They confuse motion with progress. Every price movement feels like it demands a response, every piece of news like a call to action. The result is a kind of financial restlessness that benefits everyone except the investor.
Why doing nothing feels wrong
Buffett’s solution sounds almost heretical in today’s hyperconnected world. “People would be way better off if they closed the stock exchange down periodically,” he suggested. When his students asked about the constant opportunities to buy or sell major companies, he was blunt: “Most people feel that because all those opportunities to make those decisions are there, they should make the decision. That we don’t do.”
The wisdom here is counterintuitive. We have been trained to believe that more information and more access lead to better decisions. In most areas of life, this is true. But investing operates under different rules. The constant availability of price information creates an illusion that something important is always happening, that vigilance requires response, that sitting still is somehow negligent.
Think of how much the pressure to act has intensified in India over the past decade. When I started investing three decades ago, checking your portfolio meant calling a broker or waiting for the newspaper. Today, everything is tuned for hyperactivity. The infrastructure of modern investing has been designed, whether intentionally or not, to maximize activity.
This design serves the industry well. Brokers earn fees on transactions, not on patience. Platforms measure engagement, not returns. The entire ecosystem profits when you do something, anything, regardless of whether that action serves your interests. The architecture itself has become an adversary.
Patience as an investment edge
What would it mean to internalise Buffett’s insight truly? It would mean recognising that the ticker is a tool, not a teacher. It would mean understanding that the ability to act is not an obligation to act. It would mean accepting that the best response to most market movements is no response at all.
When asked about waiting for the right opportunity, Buffett was remarkably casual. “If we wait one year, if we wait five years, that’s not a problem.” Imagine saying that to most Indian investors today. The very idea of waiting five years without acting would strike them as absurd, even irresponsible. Yet this patience, this willingness to do nothing, has been central to the most successful investment record in history.A
The practical application is straightforward, even if the execution is difficult. Reduce your exposure to the ticker. Turn off the notifications. Check your portfolio monthly rather than daily, or better yet, quarterly rather than monthly. Treat market prices as information available when you need it, not like a baby crying for attention.
The stock market will be there tomorrow, next year and a decade from now. It will continue to offer opportunities to those with the patience to wait for them. The question is whether you will use it as a tool for building wealth, or allow it to use you as a source of fees and commissions. The flashing numbers on the screen are not commands. They are merely invitations, and most of them deserve polite decline.
Dhirendra Kumar is founder and chief executive officer of Value Research, an independent investment advisory firm
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