Our Investment Philosophy

Over the past two decades, doctors have overwhelmingly turned to evidence based medicine (EBM) – the conscientious use of clinical experience and research to make decisions about the care of patients.  Evidence based medicine is about applying the current best evidence, systematic reviews, and the scientific method to the treatment of patients.  The result has been more informed decisions and better outcomes.  `

Evidence based investing (EBI) – the foundation of Golden Bell’s investment approach – judiciously applies the same concepts of evidence based medicine to investing.  We use the long-term evidence of capital markets to formulate optimal investment solutions and apply an objective discipline to achieve better outcomes.  

Even though there is robust and nearly irrefutable evidence that investors overwhelmingly achieve better results by rejecting actively managed funds, market timing strategies, individual stock selection, macroeconomic forecasts, and subjective decision making, most investors still rely on such sub-optimal and under-performing strategies.  These investors follow unscientific models based on untested hypotheses and the idea that they have some special knowledge that is largely unknown to the market or the professional investment community.  Fear and greed – rather than evidence – dictate investment decisions.  As Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

At Golden Bell, we maintain enough humility to appreciate that we are not immune to the same behavioral shortcomings of all humans.  Just because we may be smart, experienced, and have unique access to information does not mean we are better at predicting short-term market movements. 

Our evidence based investing approach – one that has been stress-tested by researchers at the University of Chicago, Yale, MIT, and other academic institutions – applies a systematic discipline to remove emotion and filter out the never-ending avalanche of forecasts, opinions, and noise.  It is not about predicting the next market swing – it is about avoiding the most common of investor mistakes.  While overwhelmingly simple and unexciting, it is a discipline that exploits investment diversification, employs low cost, passive investments, in a tax-efficient manner, and seeks to capture historically reliable long-term risk premiums.  

At the end of the day, our evidence based approach is intended to maximize growth and consistency while minimizing risk, taxes, and emotion.  You will have to get your emotional fix elsewhere.