📮 The Cost of Noise
Why most investors lose their edge chasing updates instead of understanding.
In today’s world, investors are drowning in updates:
New GDP prints every quarter
Policy tweaks every few months
Strategy decks every earnings call
Breaking news every hour
But in over a decade of investing, I’ve found this to be true:
Most noise doesn’t change the outcome — it just erodes your conviction.
Noise Weakens Clarity
Noise forces you to react.
Conviction requires you to reflect.
Every time I’ve overreacted to an earnings miss or a macro scare, I’ve lost the thread of the long-term story.
But when I’ve stayed grounded — in the actual business, in the founder intent, in the capital cycle — the volatility became background music.
Noise Makes You Compare, Not Think
It turns investing into benchmarking.
It pushes you into consensus.
What is everyone else doing?
Why haven’t I moved yet?
What if I miss the wave?
But the best investing isn’t relative.
It’s personal. Process-driven. Patient.
Quiet Helps You Hear What Matters
I don’t ignore information. I just filter ruthlessly.
I’d rather spend one hour with a mid-level employee in a logistics chain than a full day watching CNBC.
Because that conversation tells me:
How fast inventory is moving
What the trade feels about pricing power
How the company is viewed off the record
That’s not data. That’s signal.
And the fewer distractions I allow, the sharper that signal becomes.
Final Word
The biggest risk in investing isn’t volatility.
It’s being swayed by things that don’t matter.
So I choose quiet.
I choose depth.
I choose to shut out noise so I can stay true to the only signal that matters: conviction built over time.
Until next time,
Ravi Srivastava
Long-term investor | Author, Postcard from India
📬 Reflections on investing, India, and quiet compounding