The Broken Record of Broken Records.

When Roger Bannister first ran the 4 minute mile, it changed running forever. Broken records shake up preconceive notions and challenge our limits. Bannister's performance, a feat once considered impossible is now commonplace for runners.

If you pay attention to financial news, it'll appear that records are being broken everyday. The S&P 500 hitting a new high. The Dow suffering its largest drop. These headlines are dramatic but are they meaningful?

In markets, things that never happened before ironically happen all the time. The novel is routine and nothing to fret about.

There's a lot of moving pieces in finance and endless combinations can occur to form a record-breaking narrative. These are largely cosmetic.

The markets are rich with data, data that can be sliced and diced until you find something "historic". Timeframes, sectors, factors - tweak the parameters enough and you'll find something everyday.

You can do the same in your life. When you had your coffee this morning, it was the first time you had that coffee, at that time of day, on this calendar day and year. A first? Technically. Meaningful? No.

True record-breaking events like Bannister's are rare. Most is noise, especially in the markets. Changing nothing, the principles of sensible investing remain the same.

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