Revisiting the Gift of Investment Patience
16 December 2025
In a world that seems more impatient than ever, Christmas is when lives slow down and families celebrate the festive season. Work is put on hold. It’s a time for quiet, unhurried reflection.
At the end of last year, I wrote a blog not predicting how financial markets might perform in 2025 but counselling that patience and diversification make you a better investor. That’s what I’ve learned over 30 years in financial markets. I called this ‘the gift of investment patience’.
A year on, financial markets seem less patient than ever. AI-related stocks dominate3 and it has never been easier to speculate. Apps like Robinhood Markets offer real-time trading in stocks and cryptocurrencies at the swipe of a screen. Investors easily leverage their trades with margin loans, options and futures. Robinhood reported 27.1 million ‘funded customers’ at the end of October, with total assets of $343 billion on its platform, or about $12,600 per customer2.
So as 2025 draws to a close, I am revisiting last year’s blog to see what the past 12 months has taught us about investment patience. To see how the four rules I wrote about have held up and what this means for the future.
Assessing 2025 and the Four Rules of Smart Investing
1. Be patient
Let me start with patience. Invest for the longer term such as five years and you’re more likely to make a profit, according to research firm MSCI3. A single year is too short a time to thoroughly test the virtue of patience but 2025 shows how volatility passes. Notably, on 2 April President Trump announced US tariffs, only to reveal a partial reversal a week later. The VIX (Volatility Index) that measures expected volatility in the US S&P 500 index briefly spiked. But the spike was soon over, as were others in the last 20 years, stressing the importance of patience (see chart).
VIX and Its Short-lived Spikes / January 1995 – November 2025
Source: Bloomberg, November 2025.
2. Spread your risk across securities
Spreading your risk across different stocks, bonds or other financial instruments is an equally important rule. Doing so avoids excessive exposure to any single investment. As 2025 draws to a close the world’s stock markets are more concentrated than ever. In fact, the big US tech stocks account for over a fifth of the value of the MSCI World Index of global equities with Top 10 out of 1321 constituents accounting for close to 28% of the benchmark. ETFs might be viewed as an effective tool for achieving diversification.
US Tech Dominates Global Equities
MSCI World Index top 10 / 30 November 2025
| Float Adj Mkt Cap ( USD Billions) | Index Wt. (%) | Sector | |
| NVIDIA | 4,301.10 | 5.23 | Info Tech |
| APPLE | 4,138.24 | 5.03 | Info Tech |
| MICROSOFT CORP | 3,474.33 | 4.22 | Info Tech |
| AMAZON.COM | 2,238.54 | 2.72 | Cons Discr |
| ALPHABET A | 1,862.49 | 2.26 | Comm Srvcs |
| BROADCOM | 1,807.78 | 2.20 | Info Tech |
| ALPHABET C | 1,564.43 | 1.90 | Comm Srvcs |
| META PLATFORMS A | 1,405.93 | 1.71 | Comm Srvcs |
| TESLA | 1,215.82 | 1.48 | Cons Discr |
| LILLY (ELI) & COMPANY | 865.20 | 1.05 | Health Care |
| Total | 22,873.87 | 27.79 |
Source: MSCI, November 2025.
3. Spread your risk internationally
Similarly, last year we emphasized that investing internationally cushions portfolios from risks tied to single countries that suffer economic, political or currency difficulties. In 2025, European and Chinese stocks have outperformed US stocks, despite the talk of US exceptionalism at the beginning of the year, although in the longer term the US has outperformed (see chart).
Investors use a wide range of tools and approaches to build globally diversified portfolios. For instance, some market participants analyze the differences between equal-weighted and market-capitalization-weighted indices to understand how each reflects underlying market dynamics. These examples illustrate how index construction can influence regional exposure and performance characteristics without implying that any specific approach is suitable for any particular investor.
Equal-Weighted Indices Diversify Across Countries
Past performance does not predict future returns.
| YTD | 1 Year | 3 Years | 5 Years | 10 Years | |
| VanEck World Equal Weight Scrn UCITS ETF | 10.23 | 9.14 | 12.47 | 11.54 | 9.25 |
| VanEck Eur Equal Weight Scrn UCITS ETF | 16.78 | 15.64 | 15.07 | 12.36 | 7.63 |
| S&P 500 TR EUR | 5.11 | 4.66 | 15.86 | 15.98 | 13.56 |
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
| VanEck World Equal Weight Scrn UCITS ETF | 10.01 | 8.82 | 8.64 | -5.20 | 27.15 | 5.94 | 27.82 | -12.37 | 16.23 | 17.29 |
| VanEck Eur Equal Weight Scrn UCITS ETF | 8.72 | 4.57 | 9.82 | -9.74 | 24.76 | -3.19 | 27.95 | -12.39 | 20.21 | 12.17 |
| S&P 500 TR EUR | 12.93 | 15.31 | 7.01 | 0.44 | 33.91 | 8.62 | 38.48 | -12.74 | 22.01 | 33.37 |
Source: Morningstar Direct, 30 November 2025. The VanEck World Equal Weight Screened UCITS ETF and the VanEck Europe Equal Weight Screened UCITS ETF are shown because they follow the same equal-weight equity methodology as the promoted fund, giving them a comparable investment objective and risk profile. Performance figures are calculated from daily total-return data in EUR for the period 31 December 2014 – 30 November 2025, based on each fund’s NAV, net of ongoing charges and with dividends reinvested.
4. Spread your risk across asset classes
Our last rule was that a well-diversified portfolio generally has a core allocation in equities and bonds, often with a 60/40 split, as these two asset classes have tended to move in opposite directions to each other. You can diversify further with other asset classes like real estate and commodities. In 2025, the VanEck multi-asset portfolios have tended to be less volatile than a single asset class such as equities.
Multi-Asset Approach Might Deliver Lower Volatility / May 2014 – November 2025
Source: Morningstar Direct, 30 November 2025. Rolling 1-year standard deviation is derived from daily total-return data in EUR for the period 30 May 2014 – 30 November 2025, net of ongoing charges. The VanEck Multi-Asset Balanced Allocation UCITS ETF is compared with the VanEck World Equal Weight Screened UCITS ETF to highlight the difference between a diversified multi-asset strategy and a single-asset global equity strategy; the latter typically carries higher volatility.
A Gift for Years to Come
While 2025 is a short time to judge the wisdom of investment patience, the combination of volatility, investment speculation and increasing stock concentration make our four smart rules for investing more pertinent than ever.
ETFs with their lower fees compared to active funds and diversification characteristics, are frequently considered vehicles for investing patiently. The VanEck World Equal Weight Screened UCITS ETF is a diversified international equity fund which follows an equal weighted philosophy. You get some exposure to US equities, which are 38% of the index, but also 15% in Japan, 7% in the UK and so on4.
Alternatively, VanEck’s multi-asset ETFs spread your investments over several asset classes. You can match them to your risk appetite, with conservative, balanced or growth options.
But being a patient investor means you should really invest for at least five years and evaluate your success over that time, rather than just one. Investment patience is in the spirit of Christmas and may prove a gift for years to come.
1 Stockanalysis, December 2025.
2 Robinhood, October 2025.
3 MSCI.
4 VanEck, November 2025.
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