One of the great myths of the investment world is that you can build a successful long-term strategy around a carefully chosen small number of stocks that are perceived as generating good earnings growth year after year. Just why this myth refuses to die may be a testament to the power of hope over experience.

It should be clear from this recent economic downturn that when you hold a concentrated portfolio you are taking on unnecessary risk. You expose yourself to stock specific and industry factors that can blow your portfolio out of the water.

The fact is, it doesn’t matter how well those individual stocks have performed up until that point. More often than not, their superlative past performance is recognized by the market and is reflected in prices.

When it comes down to it, investment is about what happens next. We don’t know what happens next. And that’s why we diversify.

It’s not often appreciated, but financial television is designed first and foremost as an entertainment medium. And that wouldn’t matter so much hadn’t real investors used its content to guide their own strategies.

For many of these financial ‘shows’ the standard modus operandi is to treat investment like sports news — lots of color, movement and volume. That is why when you watch CNBC or one of the other business networks, you see multiple talking heads, all yelling over the top of each other while animated line charts criss-cross the screen in a smorgasbord of color.

Fortunately for investors, the networks’ game is finally up. The global financial crisis has exposed the failure of many of the self-proclaimed journalists of financial television to represent the interests of the viewing audience.

So turn off the television. Relieve the stress and confusion of investing with a clear and empirical approach to wealth management. After all, ‘Investing should be dull. It shouldn’t be exciting,’ says Nobel economist Paul Samuelson. Leave your investment strategy to us.

Mark Collard authored the above article.

Mark Collard is a Partner in the investment management firm, Odyssey Advisors, LLC. Collard received a BS in Business Finance and Accounting, Cum Laude from Saint Vincent College and an Executive MBA from the State University of New York at Buffalo.