Results Come from Portfolio Construction—and Investor Behavior When it comes to building lasting wealth, investors often focus on finding the perfect portfolio. But even the best-built portfolio can’t overcome poor investor behavior. In our experience, investor success takes two things working together: an efficient portfolio and disciplined investor behavior. One without the other generally won’t deliver the results most investors hope for. The Two Sides of Success An efficient portfolio is designed to do its job over time: it captures upside, protects on the downside, and recovers efficiently to restore compounding. But for compounding to work, investors must give it time to do its work. That’s where behavior enters the picture. Even the most efficient portfolio can’t outperform if an investor sells out of fear in a correction or chases the latest “hot” theme, like artificial intelligence or cryptocurrency, just because it dominated headlines last quarter. In 2021, growth stocks, particularly tech names tied to AI, seemed unstoppable. Many investors abandoned balanced portfolios to pile in. However, by mid-2022, that same group saw double-digit losses, and many sold near the lows—locking in damage that an