Wealth Building · 30 min read
The Physician Behavior Gap
Why investors earn less than their own funds — and why high earners are recruited hardest
Your Funds Earned 8.2%. Their Investors Kept 7.0%.
Over the 10 years ending December 31, 2024, the average US mutual fund and ETF returned 8.2% annualized. The average dollar invested in those same funds earned 7.0%. Morningstar's 2025 Mind the Gap study puts the shortfall at 1.2 percentage points per year — roughly 15% of the total return those funds delivered. The gap was not caused by picking bad funds; investors holding excellent funds showed it too. It came from timing. Money flowed in after prices rose and out after prices fell, so the average dollar sat out recoveries it had already paid for in the declines. On a $500,000 portfolio, 1.2 points is $6,000 in the first year alone, and the drag compounds every year you let it run. You spent a decade of training learning to override instinct with evidence at the bedside. This module asks you to run the same protocol on your portfolio, because the data are blunt: the most expensive component of investing is not the market, the fund, or even the fee. It is the hand on the mouse.
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- You Already Practice This — Just Not With Money
- The Trading Tax: 6.5 Points a Year for the Most Active
- Four Failure Modes That Recruit High Earners
- Spending Moves Up Easily and Down at Great Cost
- and 14 more
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