On Stoic Investing
Focus on what you control, accept what you cannot, and build from there.
On Stoic Investing
Key Takeaways
- Stoicism divides your financial life into two buckets: what you control (savings rate, diversification, fees, reactions) and what you don’t (market prices, Fed decisions, recessions). Most people reverse which gets their attention
- Negative visualization (imagining the market dropping 50% and thinking through your response) is preparation that kills panic when real drops happen
- The S&P 500 fell 57% from its October 2007 peak to its March 2009 bottom. Stoic investors bought more while prices were low. By March 2013, the index had recovered fully and they were ahead. Panicked investors were still bitter and afraid to invest.
The Ancient Idea That Works
Markets dropped 20% this week. Your phone buzzes with alerts. Someone at work moves everything to cash. Your neighbor won’t stop talking about it. The financial news cycle is in full panic mode.
Meanwhile, some investors sleep fine. Not smarter. No secret strategy. They simply don’t listen to the noise.
That peace comes from an ancient idea: stoicism. And it applies directly to how you manage money.
The Two Buckets
Stoicism divides your financial life into two buckets.
What you control: How much you save. Which investments you pick and how diversified. Fees you pay. When and how you rebalance. Whether you panic when markets drop.
What you don’t control: Market prices tomorrow or next year. Federal Reserve decisions. Earnings surprises. Recessions. Elections. What others do with their money.
Most people reverse this. They spend 80% of their energy on things beyond their influence and 20% on what they can actually change. That’s the reverse of what works.
When the market crashes, a stoic investor doesn’t panic sell because they accepted years ago that crashes are normal. They already decided how to respond. They follow their plan. Done.
Why Stoicism Works for Investing
It removes emotional decisions. Your wealth doesn’t die from one bad investment. It dies from buying high when you’re excited and selling low when you’re terrified. A stoic investor makes decisions based on a written plan created during calm times, not chaotic ones.
It saves mental energy. You only have so much focus. Every hour reading investment newsletters is an hour not spent on things that matter. Make your plan once, build it, then stop tinkering unless something fundamental changes.
It kills anxiety at the source. Money anxiety usually stems from trying to control the uncontrollable. You’re stressed about your portfolio because you check it constantly and hope to influence something you can’t. Accept what you can’t control, focus on what you can, and anxiety fades.
Practical Stoic Techniques
Negative Visualization
Stoics practice imagining bad outcomes, then thinking through how they’d handle them.
Imagine the market drops 50%. Really think about it. What does your portfolio look like? Can you still pay your bills? Is your plan still intact? Do you still have your job?
Usually, the answer is yes to all of it. You’re actually fine. You have years before you need this money. Your emergency fund is separate. Your diversification protects you.
This is preparation. Preparation kills panic. Spend 15 minutes imagining your worst-case scenario. When real market drops happen, they’ll feel less scary because you’ve already lived through them in your mind.
The View from Above
When worried about a market drop, pull back your view. Look at your 10-year chart. Look at your 30-year plan. One bad day is one bad day.
Marcus Aurelius called this “the view from above.” Your portfolio dropped 2% today. From the perspective of your entire life, it’s insignificant.
History Confirms the Pattern
Between October 2007 and March 2009, the S&P 500 fell 57%. Daily checkers were miserable. Many panicked and sold at the bottom, locking in losses permanently.
Investors with a stoic mindset had already accepted that crashes happen. They checked their allocation, saw it was imbalanced, and bought more while prices were low. They rebalanced. They followed their plan.
By 2013, the market recovered fully. Stoic investors weren’t just okay. They were ahead. Panicked investors were still bitter and afraid to invest.
The lesson repeats: crashes happen, markets recover, you lose only by panic selling at the bottom. And panic selling happens only when you lack a plan.
Daily Practices That Compound
Each morning (one minute): Set your intention about what you control.
Before checking anything (30 seconds): Ask why. Is it a real reason or just habit? Will it change your decision? If not, don’t check.
Weekly journaling (5 minutes): Write one investment decision. Did you use facts or feelings? Patterns here save money later.
Monthly review (15 minutes): Open Gallio and check whether you’re on track for your goals. Review your allocation. Focus on progress toward what matters, not on performance against the market.
Annual review (30 minutes): Once yearly, step back and look at the full picture. Some investors rebalance back to their target allocation. Others trim what’s overgrown and add to what’s fallen behind. Both approaches work - the point is doing it deliberately, from a plan, not from emotion.
The Four-Question Framework
When facing any investment choice, ask yourself:
-
Is this in my control? If not, drop it. If yes, keep going.
-
Does this move me toward my goals? Check against your targets and timeline. If it does, consider it. If not, ask yourself why you’re considering it.
-
Am I reacting to emotions or facts? This is the hard one. Did you decide because you’re afraid or excited? Or because of actual facts that matter to your long-term wealth?
-
Will this matter in 10 years? If you sell now and miss recovery, yes. Buy one stock that crashes, yes. But tweak your allocation or cut fees? That matters over a decade.
Use this framework every time. It protects you.
The Bottom Line
Building wealth is simple in theory: save, invest broadly, hold for decades, let compound interest work. It’s complex in practice because you’re human. You feel fear. You see headlines. You compare yourself to others. You check your portfolio too much.
Stoicism doesn’t make you robotic. It makes you more human by teaching you not to be ruled by fear. It acknowledges that markets move and you can’t control them. So stop wasting energy trying.
A stoic investor is calm not because markets are calm, but because they have a plan and the discipline to follow it. They focus ruthlessly on what they can control. The result: less financial anxiety, fewer panic-driven decisions, a clearer path to the future they’re building.
The ancient stoics would find it amusing that their philosophy works perfectly for modern investing. But they wouldn’t be surprised. Human nature doesn’t change. Neither does the solution: focus on what you control, accept what you can’t, and build from there.
Gallio helps you focus on what matters: your goals, your timeline, your progress. Not the daily noise you can’t control.
On Stoic Investing
Key Takeaways
- Stoicism divides your financial life into two buckets: what you control (savings rate, diversification, fees, reactions) and what you don’t (market prices, Fed decisions, recessions). Most people reverse which gets their attention
- Negative visualization (imagining the market dropping 50% and thinking through your response) is preparation that kills panic when real drops happen
- The S&P 500 fell 57% from its October 2007 peak to its March 2009 bottom. Stoic investors bought more while prices were low. By March 2013, the index had recovered fully and they were ahead. Panicked investors were still bitter and afraid to invest.
The Ancient Idea That Works
Markets dropped 20% this week. Your phone buzzes with alerts. Someone at work moves everything to cash. Your neighbor won’t stop talking about it. The financial news cycle is in full panic mode.
Meanwhile, some investors sleep fine. Not smarter. No secret strategy. They simply don’t listen to the noise.
That peace comes from an ancient idea: stoicism. And it applies directly to how you manage money.
The Two Buckets
Stoicism divides your financial life into two buckets.
What you control: How much you save. Which investments you pick and how diversified. Fees you pay. When and how you rebalance. Whether you panic when markets drop.
What you don’t control: Market prices tomorrow or next year. Federal Reserve decisions. Earnings surprises. Recessions. Elections. What others do with their money.
Most people reverse this. They spend 80% of their energy on things beyond their influence and 20% on what they can actually change. That’s the reverse of what works.
When the market crashes, a stoic investor doesn’t panic sell because they accepted years ago that crashes are normal. They already decided how to respond. They follow their plan. Done.
Why Stoicism Works for Investing
It removes emotional decisions. Your wealth doesn’t die from one bad investment. It dies from buying high when you’re excited and selling low when you’re terrified. A stoic investor makes decisions based on a written plan created during calm times, not chaotic ones.
It saves mental energy. You only have so much focus. Every hour reading investment newsletters is an hour not spent on things that matter. Make your plan once, build it, then stop tinkering unless something fundamental changes.
It kills anxiety at the source. Money anxiety usually stems from trying to control the uncontrollable. You’re stressed about your portfolio because you check it constantly and hope to influence something you can’t. Accept what you can’t control, focus on what you can, and anxiety fades.
Practical Stoic Techniques
Negative Visualization
Stoics practice imagining bad outcomes, then thinking through how they’d handle them.
Imagine the market drops 50%. Really think about it. What does your portfolio look like? Can you still pay your bills? Is your plan still intact? Do you still have your job?
Usually, the answer is yes to all of it. You’re actually fine. You have years before you need this money. Your emergency fund is separate. Your diversification protects you.
This is preparation. Preparation kills panic. Spend 15 minutes imagining your worst-case scenario. When real market drops happen, they’ll feel less scary because you’ve already lived through them in your mind.
The View from Above
When worried about a market drop, pull back your view. Look at your 10-year chart. Look at your 30-year plan. One bad day is one bad day.
Marcus Aurelius called this “the view from above.” Your portfolio dropped 2% today. From the perspective of your entire life, it’s insignificant.
History Confirms the Pattern
Between October 2007 and March 2009, the S&P 500 fell 57%. Daily checkers were miserable. Many panicked and sold at the bottom, locking in losses permanently.
Investors with a stoic mindset had already accepted that crashes happen. They checked their allocation, saw it was imbalanced, and bought more while prices were low. They rebalanced. They followed their plan.
By 2013, the market recovered fully. Stoic investors weren’t just okay. They were ahead. Panicked investors were still bitter and afraid to invest.
The lesson repeats: crashes happen, markets recover, you lose only by panic selling at the bottom. And panic selling happens only when you lack a plan.
Daily Practices That Compound
Each morning (one minute): Set your intention about what you control.
Before checking anything (30 seconds): Ask why. Is it a real reason or just habit? Will it change your decision? If not, don’t check.
Weekly journaling (5 minutes): Write one investment decision. Did you use facts or feelings? Patterns here save money later.
Monthly review (15 minutes): Open Gallio and check whether you’re on track for your goals. Review your allocation. Focus on progress toward what matters, not on performance against the market.
Annual review (30 minutes): Once yearly, step back and look at the full picture. Some investors rebalance back to their target allocation. Others trim what’s overgrown and add to what’s fallen behind. Both approaches work - the point is doing it deliberately, from a plan, not from emotion.
The Four-Question Framework
When facing any investment choice, ask yourself:
-
Is this in my control? If not, drop it. If yes, keep going.
-
Does this move me toward my goals? Check against your targets and timeline. If it does, consider it. If not, ask yourself why you’re considering it.
-
Am I reacting to emotions or facts? This is the hard one. Did you decide because you’re afraid or excited? Or because of actual facts that matter to your long-term wealth?
-
Will this matter in 10 years? If you sell now and miss recovery, yes. Buy one stock that crashes, yes. But tweak your allocation or cut fees? That matters over a decade.
Use this framework every time. It protects you.
The Bottom Line
Building wealth is simple in theory: save, invest broadly, hold for decades, let compound interest work. It’s complex in practice because you’re human. You feel fear. You see headlines. You compare yourself to others. You check your portfolio too much.
Stoicism doesn’t make you robotic. It makes you more human by teaching you not to be ruled by fear. It acknowledges that markets move and you can’t control them. So stop wasting energy trying.
A stoic investor is calm not because markets are calm, but because they have a plan and the discipline to follow it. They focus ruthlessly on what they can control. The result: less financial anxiety, fewer panic-driven decisions, a clearer path to the future they’re building.
The ancient stoics would find it amusing that their philosophy works perfectly for modern investing. But they wouldn’t be surprised. Human nature doesn’t change. Neither does the solution: focus on what you control, accept what you can’t, and build from there.
Gallio helps you focus on what matters: your goals, your timeline, your progress. Not the daily noise you can’t control.