In praise of boring
Quantitative Investment Director Ross Olusanya says the most underrated edge in investing is consistency, not brilliance. Find out why.
Duration: 3 Mins
Date: Aug 19, 2026
In a business that rewards the bold call and the star manager, that sounds like an admission of low ambition. I think it's the opposite.
Consistency compounds
The maths is unsentimental. Consistency can never be taken for granted, but a strategy that adds a small, steady edge and manages to keep it, year after year, without a blow-up, has the potential to compound into something serious.
Consistency isn't the boring cousin of performance.
A strategy that shoots the lights out one year and hands it all back the next does not. The second kind gets the headlines. The first tends to make people richer. Consistency isn't the boring cousin of performance. Over a long enough horizon, it is the performance.
The myth of brilliance
Investment culture finds this hard to accept. Too often investors celebrate the manager who got one big call spectacularly right and mistake one successful outcome for repeatable skill. It’s tempting to treat conviction as a virtue, but in my view, conviction with no discipline behind it is just expensive noise.
The search for the next great idea can crowd out the quieter discipline of trusting good ideas already in place.
Be systematic, not dramatic
The alternative isn't to keep chasing the next idea. It’s about looking to capture good ones systematically. Decide in advance what genuinely drives returns (persistent, evidence-backed risk premia rather than this month’s story), then express those ideas broadly across the opportunity set instead of relying on getting the timing of a handful of companies exactly right.
Keep unintended risks small, so performance reflects the decisions you intended to make, rather than hidden sector, country, geopolitical or thematic risks that quietly creep into portfolios.
The stories we tell
None of this makes for a good dinner-party story. What it can do is help avoid two things that quietly destroy long-term returns: the big mistake, and the big fee you paid for the privilege of making it.
This is really an argument about temperament. The hardest part of a consistency-first approach isn't the modelling. It's sitting still when others are having a spectacular year, and you’re being asked why you aren't.
I’ve seen enough market cycles to know how those spectacular years often end. I'll give up the bragging rights and keep the compounding. The real edge is being consistently disciplined. Boring, done properly, is one of the most powerful ideas in investing, and I'm happy to be its advocate.
Important information
The information contained herein is current at the time of distribution, intended to be of general interest only and does not constitute legal or tax advice. Aberdeen does not warrant the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of the information and materials contained in this document and expressly disclaims liability for errors or omissions in such information and materials. Aberdeen reserves the right to make changes and corrections to its opinions expressed in this document at any time, without notice.
Some of the information in this document may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of countries, markets or companies. These statements are only predictions and actual events or results may differ materially. The reader must make his/her own assessment of the relevance, accuracy and adequacy of the information contained in this document and make such independent investigations as he/she may consider necessary or appropriate for the purpose of such assessment.
Any opinion or estimate contained in this document is made on a general basis and is not to be relied on by the reader as advice. Neither Aberdeen nor any of its agents have given any consideration to nor have they made any investigation of the investment objectives, financial situation or particular need of the reader, any specific person or group of persons. Accordingly, no warranty whatsoever is given and no liability whatsoever is accepted for any loss arising whether directly or indirectly as a result of the reader, any person or group of persons acting on any information, opinion or estimate contained in this document.
AA-130826-211704-1
About the author
Ross Olusanya
Ross is an Investment Director in the Quantitative Investment Solutions team. He spends much of his day managing systematic equity portfolios and trying to distinguish persistent signals from temporary noise.
More from The Witt
Short, incisive perspectives – fresh takes on the issues driving markets today.