Untested Value

That’s the panicked lieutenant

Aliens is one of my favourite movies. My older brother and I watched it so many times growing up that we wore out the VHS tape.

There’s a scene in the movie I often think about.

How many drops is this for you, Lieutenant?

Thirty-eight…simulated.

How many combat drops?

Uh, two…including this one.

Oh, man…

How many wealth managers promoting “behavioural coaching” as core to their value proposition have delivered it when it matters most?

According to Investment Executive’s 2025 Brokerage Report Card, the average advisor is 51 years old with twenty years of investment experience. That suggests only two thirds of advisors today have been through a hellish, no-end-in-sight market crash like 2008-2009.

But it also suggests the other half of advisors have never been through one. And I haven’t either. The 2020 crash and 2022 were uncomfortable, but they were nothing compared to 2008-2009, or the Tech Crash, or 1973-1974.

I remember 2008 all too well. I was in university and working construction. At school, all we talked about was the credit crisis. Professors openly talked about their pensions disappearing and how crummy the job market was going to look at graduation. Driving to construction sites and listening to the radio was worse. The news every morning was about horrific drops in equity markets and companies going belly up.

I started my career in 2010 and spent the first five or six years managing clients still traumatized by 2008. No one had any interest in equity markets. “I’m happy earning four percent forever. I just don’t want to see another 50 percent drop.” When showing clients potential investments all they asked was “well how did it do in 2008?” Because that’s all that mattered.

Then, in 2013, the market went on a tear (S&P 500 up more than 30%). Everyone forgot about 2008 fast, both investors and advisors. Powerful markets tend to have that effect.

And advisors who haven't been through something like 2008 think they know what to do when the inevitable no-end-in-sight market crash arrives.

But when it happens – and it will – they won’t just have their own fear to deal with. They’ll have the fear of hundreds of their clients engulfing them all at once. The phone won’t stop ringing. Emails will come in at a terrifying clip. Social media will go insane. Sleepless nights will be the norm.

Giving in to your clients' demands to sell will take away the pain. It's also the worst thing you can do and the opposite of appropriate “behavioural coaching.”

I talk about this all the time because hell could be right around the corner. And I'm ready for it. Even if I don't want to be.

Footnote: the image is courtesy the Aliens fandom wiki.