Reference: The Grant Williams Podcast: Rick Rule, published 12 June 2026.
I recently caught a podcast that featured Rick Rule being interviewed by Grant Williams, and thought the conversation was excellent and should be shared with everyday investors.
One of the hardest parts of long-term investing is not finding good ideas. It is holding them when they become uncomfortable.
Markets do not move in straight lines. Even good investments can fall sharply. Sometimes they fall because the investment case has changed. Other times, they fall because investors have lost patience, confidence or interest. Sometimes it is because the opposite side of the narrative is winning in the short term, such as they are with increasing interest rates so they will beat inflation.
The difference matters.
A poor investor often sees a falling price and assumes something must be wrong. A better investor asks a more useful question: has the value changed, or has only the price changed?
That distinction is central to long-term investing.
Price is not Value
In the discussion between Grant Williams and Rick Rule, Rule made a simple but important point. Good investors focus on value rather than price. That focus naturally makes them contrarian.
The best investors are often buying when the asset is unpopular, unloved or uncomfortable to own. They are not buying because the recent price chart looks good. They are buying because the price being offered is attractive compared with the value they believe exists.
This is easy to say and hard to do.
When an investment is genuinely on sale, it rarely feels comfortable. There is usually a reason people do not want it. The news is poor. Recent performance is weak. The crowd has moved on. The investment may look stupid before it looks obvious.
That is why volatility tests investors.
It is one thing to say you are a long-term investor when prices are rising. It is another thing entirely when an investment falls 30%, 40% or 50% and everyone else is leaving the store.
The Sale Sign Problem
One of the useful observations from the discussion was that the stock market is one of the few places where a sale sign goes up and people run out of the shop. In normal life, people like buying things on sale. In markets, many investors do the opposite. They become more interested after prices rise and less interested after prices fall.
That behaviour is understandable, but it is usually not how wealth is built.
The answer is not to blindly buy every falling asset. Some investments fall because the business, asset or thesis is broken. A falling price alone does not make something cheap.
The point is that investors need to know what they own, why they own it, and what would make them change their mind.
Conviction still needs Discipline
This is also why position sizing matters. Conviction does not mean putting everything into an idea on day one.
If an investor believes an asset is undervalued, but also knows markets are volatile, then keeping room to add during weakness is usually more sensible than assuming the first purchase price will be the lowest price.
Good investing requires two forms of discipline.
The first is the discipline to buy when the price is attractive, but the mood is poor.
The second is the discipline to sell when the price is high and the mood has become too positive.
Rule described this simply as buying what others hate and selling what others love. That sounds easy. In practice, it is emotionally difficult because it usually means acting before the crowd agrees with you.
Remember to get Paid
The second discipline is often ignored.
Being right about an investment is not enough. At some point, investors need to be paid. If an investment becomes loved, expensive and widely accepted, the risk-reward may have changed.
Long-term investing does not mean never selling. It means being clear about the difference between price and value, and acting accordingly.
Volatility will always be part of investing. The issue is whether the investor has enough understanding and discipline to use it rather than be controlled by it.
Source: This article draws on the discussion between Grant Williams and Rick Rule in The Grant Williams Podcast, published 12 June 2026.
This information is general advice and does not take account of investors’ objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on this general advice, investors should therefore consider the appropriateness of the advice having regard to their objectives, financial situation or needs.
Written by Rob Coyte
CEO – Shartru Wealth
