Most Retail Investors Think They’re Investing: They’re Actually Trading The Market

I have observed many cycles in the market over the past 35 years. Yes, sure, the market goes up over time and if you are a passive investor and never look at anything, you probably have done very well over that period. However, with stockpicking, there are many nuances and pitfalls that I have seen and there is a quiet mistake many retail investors make. They think they are investing in companies. In reality, they are trading the market. They say they are long-term. Yet they wake up checking futures. They build opinions around CPI, Federal Reserve commentary, bond yields, positioning, and whatever narrative dominates the week. Sadly, nowadays, the news usually comes from social media. The business they invested in becomes secondary. That confusion is expensive.

Markets are designed to be volatile. They respond instantly to liquidity, sentiment, and positioning. Businesses do not change that quickly. Capital allocation decisions unfold over years. Incentives shape behavior gradually. Balance sheets strengthen or weaken across cycles, not headlines.

If your focus is anchored in market mood rather than corporate structure, you will constantly react instead of compounding. The advantage smaller investors have is that they do not forecast the next rate move. It's about understanding what management is actually doing with capital. 

Over decades of observing corporate behavior, one lesson becomes clear. Markets price efficiently. They are far less efficient at pricing changes in incentives, capital discipline, and governance before those changes appear in reported results. Investors who focus primarily on macro conditions often miss these shifts because they are watching the tape rather than the foundation.

Markets Are Good At Pricing What Already Exists. They Are Worse Pricing What Is About To Change.

The S&P 500 can fall sharply on an inflation print. It can rally on a rate comment. It can reverse without any meaningful change to the underlying economics of the companies inside it, yet most retail investors respond to price first and fundamentals second.

They ask whether the market feels strong before asking whether management allocates capital intelligently. That order is backward. Price moves around. Structure is what actually drives the outcome over time, and this is where long-term returns come from. 

Across more than three decades of studying corporate separations and restructurings, one pattern repeats. Markets tend to price the current earnings efficiently. They struggle to price changes in incentives, governance, and capital allocation before those changes appear in reported results, i.e., the structure. Change is mispriced; the status quo is correct if you believe in the efficient market hypothesis (EMH). That distinction matters more than whether the index is up or down this week.

Western Digital, Sandisk And The Mispricing Of Structure

When (WDC) moved toward separation, the macro backdrop was uncertain. Technology stocks were volatile. Sentiment was mixed. They spun off (SNDK) , their storage division. No one really cared for a plug-in storage device. But something structural was happening. A complex organization was becoming more focused. Accountability improves when divisions stand alone. Capital allocation becomes transparent. Management incentives sharpen. Performance becomes easier to evaluate. That is not a headline story. It is a structural shift. (SNDK) went on to become the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 last year, with a return of around 600%. (WDC) didn’t do so badly either.  Markets often wait to see earnings improvement before rerating. But incentives change behavior before earnings reflect it.

If you were focused on the Nasdaq, you likely missed the signal. If you were focused on what separation meant for discipline and clarity, you were positioned differently. The opportunity was not in predicting the market. It was about understanding the changing structure. This is exactly where you should be looking as an investor. Did I mention structural change?

META At $90 And The Difference Between Narrative And Capacity

When (META) traded near $90 back in 2022, the narrative was hostile. Competition fears dominated. Spending decisions were questioned. The stock was treated as broken.

Retail investors reacted to the story. I had calls from serious investors telling me I looked stupid buying it. But the balance sheet told a different story. Cash flow generation remained substantial. The company retained the ability to cut costs. It could redirect capital. It could buy back shares aggressively. The financial structure allowed management to adjust. The sum of the parts was at least $300. The safety margin was huge. Markets extrapolate recent disappointments, and the balance sheet creates options. The key question was not whether sentiment would improve next week. It was whether the company had the structural capacity to correct courses and if it didn’t, what am I holding? I believe the odds were in my favor. Four years later the stock is $650 and I still own it. That was fundamental analysis, not a macro forecast.

The Habit Of Discussing The Fed Instead Of Incentives

Spend five minutes on financial media, and you will hear endless discussion of rates, positioning, and economic forecasts. Most of it is doom and gloom and that sells clicks. Spend five minutes reading a compensation plan and you will understand more about future shareholder returns. Incentives drive behavior. Behavior drives outcomes. Is the CEO compensated based on revenue growth or return on invested capital? Are bonuses tied to adjusted metrics that expand pay regardless of per-share value creation? Has the board demonstrated capital discipline through a full cycle? A company that consistently reinvests above its cost of capital will create value across environments. A company that destroys capital will struggle even with favorable macro tailwinds. Retail investors often overweight the macro environment and underweight managerial behavior. That imbalance explains many disappointing outcomes.

Playing The Market Is Structurally Crowded

When you attempt to trade the market, you compete with institutions that operate on speed, data, and positioning advantages. That is not your edge. Better analysis is. Your structural advantage as a smaller investor is time and focus. Please identify what you are observing that others may not be. You can concentrate. You can tolerate volatility. You can hold through discomfort without career risk constraints. You can study one company deeply while others manage dozens. Institutions often manage benchmarks. Individuals can manage convictions. Too many individual investors believe they are inferior. But that advantage disappears if you behave like a short-term trader. Activity is not the edge; often it is the opposite.

A Better Framework

If you want to shift from market participant to business owner, change the checklist. Act like an owner of a business. Would you sell your business if sales dipped due to the environment, but you knew it would be fine in the long run? No. Then why do it with other companies you own? Start with capital allocation history. Examine five years of decisions. When was stock repurchase d. At what valuations? Debt was reduced opportunistically. Were acquisitions disciplined? Then evaluate incentives. Do compensation metrics align with per-share value creation or primarily with scale and adjusted growth measures?

Assess balance sheet resilience. Can the company withstand stress without diluting shareholders or refinancing under pressure? Finally, consider structural change. Consider structural changes such as spinoffs, divestitures, governance shifts, and strategic changes. Markets often misprice changes because they rely on trailing earnings. Valuation without change can remain static. Change without discipline can destroy value. When structure improves and capital is allocated properly, that’s where the real upside tends to show up.

Smaller Investors Have A Quiet Edge

Large institutions must manage liquidity, optics, and relative performance. You do not.

You can buy when sentiment is negative. You can wait for structural shifts to materialize. You can ignore quarterly volatility if the underlying thesis is intact, but only if your conviction is based on structure rather than price. If you begin every day by checking index futures before reviewing the companies you own, you have reversed your advantage. Focus determines behavior. Behavior determines results. Instead of asking where the market is headed next month, ask this. If markets closed for five years, would I be comfortable owning this business based on its incentives, capital allocation discipline, and balance sheet strength. That question removes noise. It forces you to analyze durability, not direction. Investing is not forecasting the next print. It is underwriting the next cycle.

Final Thought

Markets will remain volatile. Rates will rise and fall. Narratives will rotate. Companies that align incentives properly, allocate capital rationally, and improve structure over time will compound value regardless of short-term noisy markets. Stop playing the market. Start evaluating businesses. Markets price earnings efficiently. They misprice change.

And change, when aligned with discipline, is where long-term durable returns are built.