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Write a One-Page Investment Policy Statement

Question one: what is this money for

Name the job and the date. "Retirement around 2045" and "a deposit in 2030" are entirely different briefs, and writing them together in one document is itself a useful discovery. If you find three incompatible jobs attached to one account, split the money conceptually before you pick a single holding. Most allocation mistakes are really job-description mistakes.

Question two: what mix will you hold

Write a target as a range, not a precise number: something like "roughly 70 to 80 percent broad equity funds, the rest in high-quality bonds and cash." A range gives you room to rebalance without turning every one-point drift into a decision. Include which account holds what if you have several, and note any concentration you are deliberately avoiding.

Avoid naming favourite funds in this section. Products change, merge, and close. Asset classes and purposes last longer, and a statement that survives a decade is worth more than one that needs rewriting every spring.

Question three: what will you do when it falls

This is the sentence that earns its keep. Decide now whether a twenty or thirty percent decline triggers selling, buying, or nothing at all, and write it in plain words. A common and defensible answer is: continue the scheduled contributions, rebalance on the annual date, and do not sell because of a price movement alone. Whatever you choose, the point is that the decision is made before the emotion arrives.

Question four: how often will you look

Pick a rhythm. Monthly contributions are automatic; a quarterly glance at the balance is plenty; an annual check of the allocation and the fee schedule is the real review. Write down that you will not open the account during a headline-driven week. Checking frequently does not add information for a long-horizon plan, but it reliably adds impulses.

Question five: what will make you change the plan

List the small set of legitimate reasons: a change in the goal or its date, a major shift in income or dependants, a sustained change in your tolerance for volatility that you have thought about for more than a month, or a genuine error in the original design. Explicitly exclude "a fund had a bad year," "a friend made money in something else," and "a headline was alarming." Naming the invalid reasons is oddly effective.

Question six: what you will never do

1. Borrow to invest.
2. Buy something you cannot explain in one sentence.
3. Move the whole portfolio based on a single forecast.
4. Raid the emergency fund to buy a dip.
5. Trade during a week when you are angry, frightened, or celebrating.

That list is personal. The value is not that it is clever but that it is yours, written when you were not trying to talk yourself into anything.

How to use the page

Print it, or keep it in the same folder as your statements, and read it once a year on a fixed date. If a decision comes up in between, look for the sentence that covers it. If none does, that is a signal to wait a week and think rather than to improvise in the moment.

A market fall is not the time to design a philosophy. It is the time to discover whether you wrote one down. The investors who come through a bad stretch with their plan intact are usually not the ones with the most conviction; they are the ones who made the decision early, in a quiet room, and left themselves a note.