我们早已明确一点：即便是极为出色的基金经理，其交易决策也至少有45%的失误概率，必然会经历业绩低迷期——有时这种低迷还会持续相当长的时间。基金经理如何应对这些低谷期，至关重要。客户压力与同行压力交织在一起，可能会带来巨大的压迫感。这就需要基金经理具备极强的抗压韧性，对自己的投资理念抱有坚定信心，坚信自己能够走出低谷。强者会借业绩下滑的契机，重新审视每一个投资假设、每一项投资逻辑，摒弃不合理的部分，对优质标的加倍投入，为下一轮业绩回升筑牢基础。而弱者则会陷入停滞，决策能力大打折扣；或是选择逃避，至少在思想层面会刻意回避那些需要深度思考的难题。

许多基金经理往往会在这类挫折节点黯然离场，要么是被客户或雇主不明智地逼迫出局（比如1999年互联网泡沫顶峰时期的托尼·戴伊），要么就是因为心灰意冷、精力耗尽而选择放弃资管业务。

We have already established that even a really good fund manager is wrong with at least 45 per cent of his or her trades and is bound to have periods – sometimes quite extended – of poor performance. It matters enormously how the fund manager reacts to these poor periods. The combination of client pressure and peer pressure can be intense. You need deep reserves of resilience. Confidence in your convictions. Confidence in yourself to come through the valley. a strong character will use the period of underperformance to lay the foundation for the next period of good performance, by re-examining every assumption, every thesis, discarding some and doubling down on others. a weak character will freeze, their decision-making impaired. Or they might take flight, mentally at least, and avoid the difficult thinking.

Fund managers often exit the business on one of these points of failure, either because they are forced out stupidly by clients or employers (like Tony Dye in 1999 at the peak of the internet bubble) or because they lose heart or energy.