What’s your claim on alpha?
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I don’t know any endeavour where the difference between how easy something looks & how difficult it actually is, is as wide as in Investing (in the context of stock picking).
@passivefool says this is a “Blood Sport”. Apt.
2/10
People across the income/wealth spectrum feel it is easy to pick stocks & multiply their savings. They fall for every racket out there - High Risk-High Return/Small Caps Outperform/Divinations by Drawing Lines/Tips from TV Experts/Option Seminars/Leverage….
3/10
The lure of easy & quick riches is just too tempting to resist. It’s a tragedy when someone who doesn’t have even 6 month of his expenses in savings loses about half of it in penny stocks (a close friend of mine did).
Please ask yourself why you can do this?
4/10
There is no junior league in Investing.
The moment you put in an order you are up against the whole wide world with all the wisdom of your heroes and legends on the other side.
What edge do you really have?
5/10
I am very intelligent (top .2% percentile in the 2 most competitive exams in the country). I read ~ 200 pages/20 reports a day. Investing/Trading is my day/night/weekday/weekend job. Everything I do is structured around trying to be a better Investor.
But…
6/10
99% of the time I am just clueless. And this is not humility (as evidenced by the previous tweet) - it’s a fact. My colleagues, & friends are constantly sharing insights & data that is new to me. Leaves no doubt about how little I know & that feeling persists.
7/10
No matter how much time I spend researching a stock, the moment I buy it, within days I start questioning my thesis. It’s constant agony. Even when things work out you feel it was just due to plain luck.
8/10
Every bad call forces you think what have you sacrificed from your family's future wellbeing by being stupid.
And this is when I have spent a lot of time trying to get better at the psychological/behavioral aspects of Investing.
9/10
I am just an average Investor. The bar is really high. Most of you can’t do this. Most of you don’t need to!
Avoid stupidity. Make sensible asset allocation decisions. Save. Work on a skill where you might have an edge in time.
10/10
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