Style drift

Style drift is when a person who is supposed to stay within the same rules and guidelines for their work, starts to veer off in a different direction. Think of it like when you're coloring within the lines of a coloring book, but then you accidentally color outside the lines. It's the same idea, but in the world of finance.

Imagine you have a toy box with different toys inside. Each toy is like a different style of investing, such as investing in companies that are big and well-known (called "large-cap stocks"), or investing in companies that are new and growing (called "small-cap stocks"). When someone invests in a certain style, they are supposed to stick with that style and not change it.

But sometimes investors change their minds and start to invest in a different style. This is called style drift. It's like if you were playing with your toy box, but then you suddenly decided to focus only on playing with one type of toy and ignored the others.

Style drift can be bad for investors because it can mess up their investment strategy. It's like if you were trying to build a tower with your toy blocks, but then you suddenly stopped using some of the blocks and started using others that didn't fit well. The tower might not turn out the way you wanted it to.

That's why investors need to be careful and stick to their investment style, so they can have the best chance of achieving their investment goals.