April Fools isn’t once a year

April Fools isn’t once a year

Dean Cheeseman, Managing Director of Client Investment Solutions, Mattioli Woods

Every April, we’re reminded how easily we can be misled. A headline catches you off guard. A story feels just credible enough to believe – until it isn’t. Markets operate in much the same way. Except the ‘jokes’ are more subtle, and the consequences more meaningful.

A comment from a policymaker moves markets before context catches up. A narrative takes hold, gathers momentum, and becomes accepted truth – until it quietly unwinds. A stock surges or falls in ways that resist explanation, leaving even seasoned investors searching for reasons after the fact. From the inside, it rarely feels random. It feels significant. Intentional. But it isn’t. Markets can be very good at making noise feel like signal.

The market’s most expensive illusion

In my experience, the most damaging market behaviour isn’t volatility itself. It’s what volatility provokes. Sharp movements create a sense of urgency. A feeling that inaction is a decision – and the wrong one. So investors respond.

They reduce exposure. They move to cash. They wait for stability. It feels prudent, sensible, even. But in practice, it often locks in losses at precisely the wrong moment. Because markets don’t ring a bell when uncertainty fades. By the time confidence returns, prices have already adjusted. The recovery – often the most powerful phase – is missed. This is not theory. It’s one of the most persistent patterns observed in investor outcomes over decades. Not poor investment selection, but poor timing – driven by entirely rational human reactions to uncertainty.

What experience teaches you

If there’s one thing markets teach over time, it’s humility. No model captures everything. No forecast is consistently right. And no investor, however experienced, is immune to the emotional pull of short-term movements. But they also teach something more valuable. That successful investing is less about predicting outcomes and more about preparing for them.

The principles are well understood:

• time in the market matters more than timing it
• diversification reduces reliance on any single outcome
• costs compound quietly, but powerfully
• volatility is not a risk to be eliminated, but a reality to be managed

These are not new insights. But they’re often forgotten at precisely the moment they matter most.

The discipline advantage

The investors who succeed over the long term are not those who react fastest. They’re those who remain anchored. Anchored to a clear strategy, to a long-term view. Anchored to an understanding that markets will, at times, behave in ways that feel uncomfortable – and that this is entirely normal.

From an investment perspective, discipline is not passive. It’s an active decision to not be drawn into short-term noise. And that is far harder than it sounds.

Understanding the joke

Markets will continue to surprise. They will move ahead of fundamentals, lag behind reality, and occasionally behave in ways that defy explanation altogether. That isn’t a flaw. It‘s the nature of a complex, forward-looking system driven by millions of decisions. The real risk is not that markets are unpredictable. It’s that investors are. Because when behaviour becomes reactive, outcomes tend to follow.

The investors who build wealth over time are not those who anticipate every twist. They’re the ones who understand what is within their control – and have the discipline to stay aligned to it.

In that sense, the market’s ‘jokes’ never really stop. But the punchline is optional.