Financial headlines are dominated by market surges and downturns, which can make investing feel more like a game of Russian roulette than a serious way to build your wealth. But the good news is that you don't need to be the Wolf of Wall Street in order to be a successful investor. In fact, there's plenty of good evidence to suggest that being a boring investor, by simply and slowly drip-feeding small amounts and (almost!)

forgetting about your investments, could give you better returns in the long run. Get familiar with pound-cost averaging Cost averaging is when you put in a fixed amount of money into your investments at regular intervals, such as once a month, regardless of how the markets are performing. With this method, you reduce the risk of inadvertently investing a large sum at the wrong time – such as when the price of a fund or share reaches an all-time high, only to fall sharply soon after.

For example, if you put £250 a month into a diversified index fund for 40 years, assuming an average annual return of five per cent after fees, the value of your investment could rise to over £364,000. The dollar-cost averaging strategy allows you to buy more shares when the markets are down and fewer shares when the markets are up – reducing your exposure to short-term volatility. Understand the magic of compounding Compounding is when money makes money.

In technical terms, it continues to earn interest on previously generated interest. While your investments will never grow in a perfect linear fashion, in the long term, your investments should continue to generate their own earnings. For a full guide to compounding and how it can grow your wealth over the long term, read here.

(Getty Images) As a short example: £1,000 growing by one per cent becomes £1,010 The next one per cent growth applies to the new total not just your initial investment This gives you £1,020.10, not just £1,020 It’s a small change first of all, but over time, this compounding effect accelerates growth – especially when your annual returns are higher Avoid being an emotional investor No one wants to see the value of their investments plunge during a market downturn, such as as a result of the recent Trump tariffs. But remember that short-term price fluctuations are often fuelled by speculation and uncertainty. Unfortunately, sometimes emotions can get the best of us, and some investors may feel compelled to sell everything at a loss if they fear the markets may get worse.

History shows us that markets tend to recover over time; however, timing the market and identifying when prices will rebound or fall is impossible, no matter what anyone tells you.