Thread by @Ritholtz

Contrarian alert: Color me skeptical that a major business publication is going to call a bubble on its cover in real time.

barrons.com/articles/the-m…

And yes, I spot the hedge in the way its phrased: "Its a bubble but it's not ready to pop" covers all bases.

Blow up? We told you it was a bubble!
Rally? We told you it was not ready to pop!

Not really sure what the value of this duality is to investors...

here is why: We ignore the simple reality that the future is inherently unknown, and unknowable.

Once when we start talking about Uncertainty, what we really mean is our confidence in our flawed models is fading. The optimism we usually shown cracks.

ritholtz.com/2012/07/theres…

Uncertainty is a meme that refuses to go quietly.

Why?

Because we would have to admit our own ignorance about what is going to happen in the future, acknowledging how much randomness impacts our lives.

We hate that.

ritholtz.com/2016/05/162202/

The ‘uncertainty’ meme reveals how little we actually know about the next few months, quarters, years. Its a theme I have been exploring for more than a decade

ritholtz.com/2010/11/kiss-a…

Most of the time, we exist in a happy little bubble of self-created delusion. We lie to ourselves constantly. We rationalize everything we do, past and present. We engage in selective perception, seeing only the things that agree with us.

This works for us in most endeavors.

But it is a disaster to imagine you know the future in investing.

For me, the better approach is to think probabilistically, considering possibilities of what could happen.

Its a more humble way to think about what might occur.