Information Overload or Filter Failure

Repeat after me:

There is no such thing as information overload…only filter failure.

I remember hearing JP Rangaswami say it during a presentation in Australia (2013) and I have been using it ever since.

I used to have 10 monitors and 100’s of tickers on my screens when I started my hedge fund. That got me nowhere.

I think 99 percent of investors could live with a watchlist of 20-30 tickers on their smartphone which is how I roll these days.

I follow 52-week highs and all-time high lists which I track and screen on Koyfin. It is easy to set up new screens and track them daily.

To give me a full feel of the markets and keep one watchlist on Stocktwits that never gets above 50 stocks.

I follow 80-100 people across my feeds.

Once I get above 50 stocks on my watchlist or 20 stocks across my portfolio’s I have to remove one if I add one. The market has a way of getting me fully invested in a boom and out of the markets in a bear. Of course it’s not perfect but I like the way it works for me.

It took a lot of time and energy to find my way through the information overload of the markets to the filters that have worked for me the last 10 years. Now it is the constant curating/filtering of stocks on my watchlist and people in my feeds that matter.

It is a constant battle to keep information overload at bay.