A few thoughts about the last 3–4 years.
The last few years have given us a preview of all kinds of markets. But what has worked regardless of market conditions is being sensibly diversified.
If you can predict the best-performing asset class and fund in a given year, diversification makes ZERO sense. But as the famous quote goes:
It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. — Yogi Berra
So the best thing most investors can do is diversify across equities, debt, and gold. Diversification reduces your returns, but also reduces the risk.
Here’s Karthik on diversification
But perhaps, the biggest factor that determines your investing success is your behavior. You could have the ability to pick the best performing funds, but if you can’t hold them through good times and bad, it doesn’t matter.
A mediocre portfolio you can stick with is much better than the perfect portfolio you cannot.
How do you stick with something?
Automate everything and get out of your own way.