With geopolitical conflict, elections, oil prices and inflation risks dominating headlines, it’s easy to believe everything is beyond your control. But it’s not. The most important drivers of long-term investment success are often the factors you can control, starting with understanding how you behave when markets feel uncomfortable.

By Adriaan Pask, CIO PSG Wealth

We are living through a period where uncertainty is the baseline. Geopolitical conflicts and elections sit alongside South Africa’s familiar mix of political uncertainty, oil price volatility, renewed concerns about load shedding, rising inflation, and credit rating risk. These factors heighten anxiety and fuel reactive decisions.

But not everything is beyond your control. There are factors you can influence that are important drivers of your long-term investment success. In volatile environments, the real advantage is rarely found in predicting the next headline. It is found in building repeatable habits and making fewer emotional decisions.

Four investor archetypes I see in real markets

Across market cycles, even when things are going quite well, certain investors behave in very specific ways, creating recognisable archetypes. This lens won’t minimise risk, but it can create peace of mind: once you recognise the patterns that pull you off course, it becomes easier to stay on track.

The performance chaser

The performance chaser is glued to fund-ranking tables and trading screens, constantly tracking stock performance and what cryptocurrencies are doing minute by minute. Holding periods are short as they flip-flop into what performed well last year, only to be disappointed this year. Over time, the cycle compromises long-term returns.

If you recognise this in yourself, change your line of questioning. Move from “Which fund is best right now?” to “What savings rate and investment horizon can I commit to over the next 10 to 20 years?” When that becomes the anchor, short-term leaderboards matter less.

The nervous saver

The nervous saver is disciplined with debit orders, retirement annuity contributions, and routine saving. But they never quite feel comfortable with current market levels. There’s always something happening, so they gravitate to conservative asset allocations and underutilise growth assets.

For this archetype, the savings habit is already there. The question becomes: “What is an appropriate level of risk for what I want to achieve?” The key improvement is to retain the discipline of saving while complementing it with an appropriate asset allocation that gives your plan a realistic chance of reaching your investment destination.

The DIY tinkerer

The DIY tinkerer builds complex portfolios, tries to time market events, and trades frequently. Often, they move into cash while waiting for clarity, and in doing so, miss recovery periods. We’ve seen this pattern play out when investors exit markets during a stressful month, only to miss the early part of the recovery soon after.

Trading is also associated with frictional costs like taxes, fees, and expenses. If your portfolio has become overcomplicated through too much tinkering year in, year out, and a clear overarching goal doesn’t drive it, the most valuable step may be to simplify. Identify the right goal and strategy, reduce costs, and trade less.

The disciplined investor

The disciplined investor is the less flashy type. They follow a clear strategy, automate contributions and anchor their behaviour to long-term goals. There are fewer emotional decisions, and more focus on ensuring the right mix of assets. These investors accept that in some years some assets will do well and others won’t, which is the whole point of diversification.

If you see volatile moves in your portfolio, it’s perfectly normal; in fact, it’s by design. Next year it may be the other way around. That should give you a level of comfort; it shouldn’t stress you out into thinking you’re missing out or making mistakes.

Control the controllables: contributions, allocation and goal clarity

Long-term success for most real-world investors is driven far more by savings rate, behaviour, and interaction with their investments than by whether they bought the “best” fund or beat the market by 1% or 2% in a given year. Even a small but sustained increase in contribution rates – say from 8%, 9% or 10% over a 20- or 30-year horizon – can materially improve the outcome.

Investing is a means to an end

In both the nervous saver and performance chaser archetypes, the end goal is often missing. Investing and saving are means to an end. What does that end look like? Is it a retirement goal—and what does that vision of retirement look like? What do you need to accomplish, from a growth, savings and contributions perspective, to reach that goal? That is what anchors you when uncertainty is trying to push you into reactive decisions.

Upgrading your archetype is usually a small shift, repeated consistently

If you can see yourself aligned with one of these archetypes, there are simple things you can do. The performance chaser can focus less on last year’s winners and more on savings rate and horizon. The nervous saver can keep the saving discipline, but align risk with what they want to achieve. The DIY tinkerer can simplify, reduce trading, and avoid stepping out of markets while “waiting for clarity”. And if you are already disciplined, the goal is to keep doing the right things: automate what you can, diversify intentionally, and let volatility be.