INVESTING amusement average humans myths & traps finally notes & references
Here I present some facts (and OK, some opinions too) that when you hear them, you intuitively know are true. You have probably heard many of them before. Most are from venerable, published authors. I am just an experienced investor. And a human.1
I believe that the purpose of life is for us to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is. I truly hope that these fragments of wisdom help you. They certainly helped me.
Chances are you have already been burned, or maybe just wasted a few years. I have been known to play with fire… but that was another lifetime. Deep down, I always knew how to safely invest, it just took me about 30 years to get around to it. -Larry
As I traipse around the country speaking to investing groups, or just stay in my cage writing my articles, I’m often accused of ‘disempowering’ people because I refuse to give any credence to anyone’s hope of beating the market. The fact that I don’t need to know anything is an incredibly profound form of knowledge. Personally, I think it’s the ultimate form of empowerment. You can’t tune out the massive industry of investment prediction unless you want to: otherwise, you’ll never have the fortitude to stop listening. But if you can plug your ears to every attempt (by anyone) to predict what the markets will do, you will outperform nearly every other investor alive over the long run. Only the mantra of ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care’ will get you there. -Jason Zweig
- Not all of us are. And I do have a belly button. As it turns out, proof of humanity is a thing. Also, proving you are who you say you are is a fundamental principle of cryptography, not to mention the entire digital asset market. ↩︎