As new investment trends gain momentum, is following them the right move? Milford Wealth Management Adviser Jess Travers talks to Ryan Bridge about why investors can be drawn to the latest market trends – and the risks of following the hype. Jess shares practical guidance on how to look beyond the headlines, assess opportunities on their merits, and stay focused on a long-term investment strategy.

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Bridge talks Business: 20 October 2026
Episode Transcript

Ryan Bridge
Kia ora. And welcome to episode 98 of Bridge talks Business with Milford. This week I’m delighted to have Jess Travers from Milford back in the hot seat. She’s going to talk us through the psychology of investing. What is recency bias? How does it affect our financial decisions? And what can we do to make sure it is mind over money, not just money on our minds? First, here’s your top five from the last week.

    1. US inflation. The jump in prices came in hot last week with upside across the board. The headline number was 3.7% against 3.6 expected. Core was up by a similar margin.
    2. US producer prices also came in steaming hot and broad based. Super core was up almost half a percent month-on-month against 0.3% expected. That was helped by domestic and international airfares, which feed into the PCE and was up off the back of that CPI rise.
    3. US retail sales were mixed. Headline was high, but the control group was weaker than expected, especially in retailers and sporting goods, while restaurant spending was solid.
    4. Warsh spoke at the IMF meetings and as usual said he doesn’t prejudge meetings. Markets focused more on what he didn’t say. No comment on the strong inflation data and not trying to push hike pricing up from only 27%.
    5. In New Zealand, business PMI was up – now well above its long term average and every sub-index rose as well into expansion. Meanwhile, card spending was slightly softer across the board.

Today we’re talking investing strategy and investing psychology. It can be very tempting to chase short-term returns, things you’re seeing in the headlines, things that are suddenly making big profits. So how do we temper that with a more long-term view on investing? Jess Travers, Wealth Management Adviser at Milford is here to talk to us today. Just a reminder, this segment is informational only and should not be considered financial advice. Jess, welcome back.

Jess Travers
Thank you.

Ryan Bridge
Lovely to see you, as always.

Jess Travers
Likewise.

Ryan Bridge
Tell us, when it comes to investing, there’s a lot of things that motivate people when it comes to investing. Obviously, we all want to make more money, but what drives it? Sometimes in terms of decision making, is FOMO quite a big deal?

Jess Travers
It is a big deal, especially when it comes to investing in trends, right? So we’ve seen a lot of trends come and go, some more successful than others, and often we can be driven by anecdotal stories from friends and family, a lot of hype in the media, a lot of companies and investments, getting a lot of headlines, and we’re driven by that fear of missing out. So if we’re hearing these stories, that these returns are really fantastic, we wanna get a piece of that, we wanna get on board. We also know that when we look at behavioural finance, as humans we can have something called recency bias, and that’s where we’re really driven by short-term news flow and performance. So if we see a company or investment doing really well, we may be biased to think those returns are gonna continue, potentially for quite a lot longer, even though we know actually that share markets don’t move in a straight line, things will come down and move around quite a lot.

Ryan Bridge
And if you’ve heard about something doing really well, that’s maybe not necessarily the right time to buy it, because it’s already done the appreciation part.

Jess Travers
Exactly right. So one of the risks about chasing a trend is if you’re following a popular investment, a lot of money may already have flowed into that investment, so a lot of hype and expectation could be already priced in, and you may be buying in near the peak. So it’s a really good thing to stop, make sure that you understand what’s priced in, how much hype is already baked into what you’re paying for it, and understand, hey, is the investment going to be a sensible part of my overall portfolio, or am I putting too much, particularly into a hot trend, that could create some damage if it was to turn or reverse quite quickly and you see a big fall.

Ryan Bridge
What sort of trends are you talking about? We’ve had in recent times, the weight loss drugs are a big trend.

Jess Travers
Yeah, absolutely. There’s been a number coming over the years. So the GLP1 weight loss drugs, big trend. And we’re still seeing that now, still very popular and growing, but the leaders in that space have changed quite dramatically. So the first cab off the rank had a phenomenal run, and now we’ve seen other competitors enter the space. So the first one to do well isn’t the one leading at the moment. We’ve seen the rise and fall of the buy now, pay later stocks. In Covid, we were doing a lot of online shopping and that whole after-pay scenario, they’ve been gone. We’ve had the work from home boom. We remember during Covid, we were all exercising. Well, I wasn’t, I was eating banana bread, but people were on exercise bikes and stocks like Peloton and Zoom, when we were all videoing each other, did really well. And now we’re very much in the middle of AI. AI – the theme and the hype around it – is absolutely dominating share market returns, and it’s also dominating headlines as well. So we’re seeing a lot of news flow. We’re getting a lot of information around future demand, expected growth. So there’s a lot to take into account, but also some good opportunities too.

Ryan Bridge
So, it’s not bad to follow trends and be aware of what’s going on in the world, but maybe leaping into decisions straight off the back of those is unwise?

Jess Travers
Absolutely. You definitely don’t need to avoid trends altogether because some of the new trends are giving you exposure to some really fantastic long-term structural change. And AI is probably a very good example of that. It’s reshaping the way we work and do things. However, you just need to be mindful of when you’re entering them, how much is priced in already? If they’ve had a very, very good run, at what stage are you buying it? How much future growth are you paying for? You need to really understand how much future growth and excitement is already priced into what you’re paying for it now. So by no means do you need to avoid them, but try and have a really good understanding and some discipline around when you’re buying them.

Ryan Bridge
And the other thing is you don’t wanna go too far the other way, I suppose, and miss out on something like an Nvidia.

Jess Travers
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s a really good example. That was a stock well-known for being investing in gaming chips, but now it’s at the forefront of helping the compute power that’s powering all our AI growth and expected growth as well. That stock’s had really strong returns over several years, but you need to be mindful of the outlook from here. And something investors don’t always do really well is having a good plan. So what would make you add to the investment if you buy it? What’s a good plan for holding it? But when would you exit it? When would you take some profit and actually sell it? And that’s something not investors all do well. And that’s why having a really disciplined approach is good. Consulting a financial adviser or independent research will help you maintain some discipline and understand what’s hype and what’s a really good outlook for an investment.

Ryan Bridge
Jess, what are some good questions that we should be asking as investors to differentiate those longer-term benefits or the longer-term growth creators from your short-term trends?

Jess Travers
That’s a really good question. So really understand, is the investment you’re making, does it still have a really strong outlook, really good fundamentals for it, and how much future growth is already priced into it? Does the investment you’re thinking about making, is it actually involved in creating long-term structural change? AI is a good example of that. Is it solving a real problem? Is the product that the company is delivering really gonna be helpful to society? If it is solving a problem, it’s likely gonna have much better staying power over the long-term rather than a short-term fad or trend. So it’s good to sort of step back, look at the investment on its merits, understand what you’re paying for in the price, and really have a good understanding of what the outlook is for it before jumping in.

Ryan Bridge
And some trends might not take over the world, but do change the world a little bit. You mentioned working from home during Covid and the Peloton, everyone was on their exercise bikes, and was on Zoom. We don’t do that all the time, because we’re not in lockdown, but I think attitudes towards them do change, and we sort of use them more often than we did beforehand, right?

Jess Travers
Yeah, absolutely. And look, not all trends need to be super exciting. They can be really simple things that we all use day to day, right? And a good product with good staying power and really defensive earnings, high quality product, and also low barrier to entry. Is this product something that 10 other competitors could bring to market in the next year or so as well? So understanding some of those things which could create disappointment for the share price, but also long-term structural demand as well. So it’s really good to understand what you’re investing in, trying to separate the hype and the excitement from really good fundamentals and a good long-term outlook as well.

Ryan Bridge
What’s a good approach rather than chasing these trends, the trendy trends, trying to keep up with what’s hot? What’s a good approach?

Jess Travers
Great approach is starting with a long-term disciplined strategy that’s right for you. So know your investment timeframe, not the risk you’re willing to take along the way. So when you’re investing in some of these new opportunities and trends, think about, okay, how would I react if the investment went down 30 to 50%? You know, are you likely to get really nervous and sell it at the wrong time? And is it going to have a disproportionate impact on your portfolio? So make sure what you’re investing in suits your strategy. It suits the risk you’re willing to take so that it doesn’t have an adverse impact if it doesn’t perform well or sort of performs poorly in a short amount of time.

The other thing I would really strongly suggest is understanding exactly what you’re investing in. So the risk with some of these trends and hot new investments is you’re following that popularity and you know, that FOMO effect. Can you articulate what the company actually does in really simple terms? Do you understand how it makes its money, who its clients are, where its revenue comes from. If you can’t do that, then there’s a good chance you’re actually buying into that hype and possibly the FOMO. So start there and really understand, are you investing strong fundamentals? What is the outlook and making sure that that aligns with your overall investment strategy. Don’t have too much in one area or particular sector. Make sure you’re maintaining, and we talk about this a lot, that beautiful balanced diversified investment approach. Make sure that you’re not overexposed if that new trend or investment was to turn quite quickly.

Ryan Bridge
Jess, this is why I outsource all this stuff. Because it is literally a full-time job. You talk about a stock dropping 30, 40, 50%, what are you gonna do? It’s like, ah, panic, you know?

Jess Travers
Speak to your adviser. Yeah.

Ryan Bridge
Jess, what about crypto? You know, speaking of hot trends.

Jess Travers
Absolutely.

Ryan Bridge
It’s been hot for a while now.

Jess Travers
It has.

Ryan Bridge
Well, hot and not.

Jess Travers
That’s probably one of the biggest trends we’ve seen over the last few years. And boy, it has been incredibly volatile. You know, again, we talk about that barrier to entry. You know, we had the leaders in crypto initially. You had the well-known ones, Bitcoin and Ethereum. But there are literally hundreds and hundreds of alternatives that have been and gone. Some have failed. We really recommend having a good strategy for owning these types of investments. They can be incredibly volatile, not necessarily correlated to what markets are doing or what interest rates are doing. So understand why you’re investing it, what your plan is, and not having an outside exposure to some of these very hot and very volatile types of investments.

Ryan Bridge
Fantastic as always, Jess, thank you very much for being on the podcast.

Jess Travers
Pleasure.

Ryan Bridge
That was Jess Travers, Wealth Management Adviser at Milford talking to us about strategy, psychology and long-term investing. Don’t forget you can like, follow and subscribe this podcast wherever you like to listen. We love you doing so. Until next week, don’t forget to invest in yourselves.

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