There is a certain kind of investor who doesn’t need spreadsheets, valuation models, or macroeconomic forecasts.
They need a windshield.
These are the people who invest the way early humans hunted:
by sight, proximity, and gut instinct.
They don’t ask, “What’s the CAGR?”
They ask, “Is that place always busy?”
They don’t read earnings transcripts.
They notice parking lots.
They don’t care about discounted cash flows.
They care whether the drive-thru line wraps around the building at 11:37 a.m. on a Tuesday.
And frankly, they may be onto something.
The Windshield Index
Most investing advice assumes you live your financial life in Excel.
But some people live it at stoplights.
For them, the market isn’t abstract—it’s concrete, literal, and frequently visible from the left turn lane.
This is the Windshield Index:
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How many cars are there?
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How fast are they moving?
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How irritated do the customers look?
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Is the place expanding sideways into what used to be a gas station?
You can mock this approach if you want, but it has advantages.
You can’t gaslight yourself with narratives when you’re staring at:
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full parking lots
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perpetual construction
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“Now Hiring” banners that never come down
You don’t need quarterly guidance when the evidence is blocking traffic.
Why This Strategy Exists (and Refuses to Die)
People who invest this way are often told they’re unsophisticated.
And yet:
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They avoided plenty of implosions they couldn’t physically see.
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They distrust companies whose “growth” only exists in press releases.
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They prefer businesses that visibly exchange money for goods, repeatedly, in public.
This isn’t ignorance.
It’s cognitive self-defense.
Abstract finance invites magical thinking.
Concrete finance limits your imagination to what actually exists.
If you can point at it, it’s harder to pretend it isn’t real.
Parking Lots Are More Honest Than Earnings Calls
An earnings call can:
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spin flat growth
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reframe declining margins
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rebrand desperation as “strategic investment”
A parking lot cannot lie.
It is either:
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full
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half-full
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empty
It does not care about forward guidance.
The investor who buys what they can physically point at understands something deeply uncomfortable for modern finance:
Demand leaves footprints.
Sometimes literally.
The Accidental Wisdom of Repetition
When you drive past the same places every day, patterns emerge.
You notice:
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which stores never seem to close
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which ones rotate signs every six months
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which ones survive recessions without changing anything
This repetition builds a kind of informal longitudinal study.
You may not know the P/E ratio, but you know:
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that coffee place survived three economic cycles
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that big-box store absorbed two competitors
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that warehouse expanded twice without announcing it
This isn’t data science.
It’s pattern recognition with mileage.
Why This Strategy Avoids Certain Traps Automatically
People who only buy what they can see tend to avoid:
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hype-driven vaporware
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business models that require explanation
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revenue that depends on “user engagement” definitions
They don’t need to understand “platform synergies.”
They understand:
“People keep giving them money.”
That filters out a shocking amount of nonsense.
The Psychological Safety of Tangible Businesses
There is a specific kind of stress that comes from owning something you don’t understand.
It shows up at 2:14 a.m.
It whispers, “What if this isn’t real?”
The windshield investor sleeps differently.
They’ve:
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seen the stores
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walked past the shelves
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waited in line behind actual humans
Their conviction is anchored to memory, not theory.
This doesn’t make them smarter.
It makes them calmer.
The Biases—Because Of Course There Are Biases
Let’s not pretend this strategy is flawless.
It has blind spots:
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You overweight consumer-facing businesses.
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You underweight infrastructure.
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You miss companies whose value is invisible to civilians.
You may ignore:
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supply chain companies
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software infrastructure
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boring-but-critical industrials
If you can’t point at it, you probably don’t buy it.
That’s a limitation.
But it’s an honest limitation.
Local Dominance Is Easier to Spot Than Global Fragility
When you see a business dominate locally, you intuitively understand:
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pricing power
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brand loyalty
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operational efficiency
You don’t need to know how many countries they operate in.
You just know:
“Nothing else around here seems to compete.”
This local dominance often scales nationally—and sometimes globally.
Not always.
But often enough to matter.
The Anti-Narrative Portfolio
People who invest this way rarely chase themes.
They don’t build portfolios around:
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“the future of X”
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“the next disruption”
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“what’s coming next decade”
They build portfolios around:
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what works now
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what keeps working
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what hasn’t needed reinvention to survive
This makes their portfolios boring.
And boring, historically, has been a survivable trait.
Why Wall Street Hates This Idea
This approach threatens entire industries.
You cannot monetize:
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someone noticing traffic
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someone trusting their commute
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someone buying slowly, confidently, and infrequently
There’s no subscription model for common sense.
No influencer can sell:
“Look around. Decide calmly.”
So it gets dismissed as unsophisticated.
That dismissal is convenient.
The Overconfidence Trap (Yes, It’s Coming)
Seeing something does not mean understanding it fully.
A busy store can still:
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be overleveraged
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be poorly managed
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be one policy change away from pain
The windshield investor sometimes mistakes visibility for invincibility.
The discipline is knowing when:
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familiarity becomes complacency
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confidence becomes refusal to reassess
Seeing is powerful—but it isn’t omniscience.
The Quiet Discipline of Incremental Buying
These investors often buy:
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slowly
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repeatedly
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without drama
They add when nothing has changed except price.
They don’t feel urgency because:
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they’ll drive past it again tomorrow
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and the day after that
This patience is underrated.
So is boredom.
Why This Strategy Works Best Over Time
This isn’t a trading strategy.
It’s a lifestyle-adjacent investment approach.
It works because:
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you notice change early
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you feel shifts intuitively
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you don’t panic at headlines disconnected from reality
You don’t need to react quickly when your information refreshes daily on the way to work.
The Subtle Edge of Being Under-Impressed
People who invest in what they can point at are rarely dazzled.
They’ve seen:
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expansions fail
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remodels flop
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“new concepts” quietly disappear
They trust longevity more than novelty.
They don’t assume growth just because someone promised it.
They’ve been burned by empty buildings before.
This Is Not Anti-Intellectual—It’s Anti-Delusion
This strategy doesn’t reject research.
It rejects abstraction without accountability.
It asks one brutal question:
“Would this still exist if nobody hyped it?”
If the answer is yes, it passes the first test.
Not the last test.
The first.
When This Strategy Shines the Most
This approach thrives during:
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speculative bubbles
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narrative-driven markets
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periods of extreme optimism or pessimism
When words detach from reality, the windshield investor stays grounded.
They’re not immune to loss.
But they’re less likely to believe in fairy tales.
The Humility of Knowing What You Know
There’s something refreshing about an investor who says:
“I only invest in things I understand—and I only understand what I can see.”
No pretension.
No performative expertise.
No podcasts required.
Just observation, patience, and restraint.
Final Thought
Investing for people who only buy stocks they can physically point at while driving is not about rejecting finance.
It’s about anchoring belief to reality.
It’s about trusting:
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repetition over rhetoric
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presence over promises
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durability over excitement
In a market full of stories, sometimes the strongest signal is the thing that keeps existing without needing to explain itself.
If you can point at it—day after day, year after year—and it’s still there, still busy, still expanding quietly into the lot next door…
That may not be sophisticated.
But it’s rarely stupid.
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