Young investors may be hurting their long-term returns with this investing habit, here’s how to avoid it — SkimNews
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- CFA Institute surveyed more than 2,400 mass-affluent, high-net-worth and very-high-net-worth investors across India, Canada, Singapore, the UAE, the UK and the US, finding that 63% of Gen Z and millennial respondents monitor or check their portfolios at least once a week.
- Young investors are actively trading alongside monitoring — 46% said they buy, sell or trade investments at least weekly, rising to 52% among young high-net-worth and very-high-net-worth investors.
- CFA Institute warns that frequent checking and trading can foster a short-term mindset, increase transaction costs through high portfolio turnover and reduce investor returns, per its research on short-termism.
- Gen Z and millennial investors are also heavy market-news consumers, with 40% reading market news daily, and increasingly blend advice from financial professionals with apps, social media, finfluencers and AI tools.
- Human advisers ranked as the most trusted source of investment guidance, with the report urging advisers to help younger investors manage behavioural risks like FOMO and overconfidence.
- The survey results are global aggregates and should not be read as India-specific figures, the report notes — Indian investors were part of the overall sample but were not broken out separately.
Why it matters: With 63% of young investors checking portfolios weekly and 46% trading at least that often, CFA Institute flags a behavioural risk: high portfolio turnover raises transaction costs and locks investors into reacting to short-term market moves instead of holding a long-term plan, eroding compounding returns for the very cohort with the longest time horizons.
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