Thursday night. Friend's text on a smallcase that did 60 pct YTD. The one question that comes before the SIP click.
"It is up 60 percent this year. Should I move my SIP into it?" Asked him one thing back. What made it do 60. The smallcase he was looking at sorts its picks by trailing twelve month return. That is a momentum tilt with a friendly name. The screen that picked it is the screen every other investor in the country is reading on the same evening.
+60pct
YTD on the screenshot
The brain reads this as the next year. The market reads it as the last one. Same number, two completely different sentences.
VS
-19pct
Feb 2025 . crowding unwind
Same factor. Three years earlier. The screen ran the same direction. The exit ran the same direction. Took out the recency buyers first.
A 60 percent year is a record, not a forecast. Recency bias loads the SIP into yesterday. Crowding empties it on the same exit. Card two shows the three times the same factor has done this in eighteen years.