It’s that time of year again—the end of March Madness, a period when sports fans are fully immersed in the exhilarating action of the NCAA men’s and women’s playoff basketball games spanning several weeks. What unites sports enthusiasts during this period is the quest for an elusive perfect bracket. With more than tens of millions of Americans submitting brackets each year, anyone who has participated knows the exhilarating feeling of believing they’ve made perfect picks before the tournament begins. But as it usually goes, you get some predictions right, some wrong, all while glued to the screen, eagerly hoping every bounce of the ball favors your choices.
It’s funny. The March Madness approach doesn’t sound too different from how many investors approach the stock market.
But the analogy between the tournament and investing breaks down when it comes to asset allocation. Holding uncorrelated assets in a portfolio isn’t a matter of luck; it’s based on Nobel Prize-worthy mathematics. Recognizing when a major asset class is transitioning from a good diversifier to a potentially lucrative investment opportunity isn’t about luck either. As I’ve highlighted in my previous pieces ( Gold Can’t Be Downgraded and It’s No One’s Liability (forbes.com) and When The Gold Dust Settled (forbes.com)), such is the case for Gold at present. What is fortunate, however, is the apparent lack of attention to this, which could also be construed as a bullish sign.