Once again you answer with a dismissive, "I am superior" response. Whew yourself.
The point I was making (and I am well aware of Zwieg's book) is that even with gambling, it is not a simple "don't do it" answer. My "minutiae" was an attempt to explain that it isn't simply independent random events.
We all know your position, that to try to actively pick a security or to attempt to time security purchases or sales based on any factor (including investor psychology and behavioral economics) is a fools errand.
Again, why are you here commenting on this thread? To save the masses from their foolishness?
I am almost in complete agreement with you and like the analogy to blackjack you gave.
I am ok with Old Shooter replying as long as he is stating his opinion, even though as you point out it is frequently repetitive and does not see your point
.
I am even ok with JJpop calling me unreliable because of my old posts on my expected decline for the market coming up. The point is through the arguments and posts I think it becomes more clear what the point of the strategy is, what people's opinion of the strategy is and provides a record that can be referred to in the future, as JJpop did on my old thread, even though I disagree with his conclusion.
I am hoping through the thread enough people will stop and try to think through how the present explosion in index investing will effect market prices so that in the couple years where I see this might end, they may be willing to accept and become more open in future expectations should prices get to level seen in 2000 in the Nasdaq or in China in 2006 or Japan way back when and be willing to adjust their portfolio based on valuation and not long term averages. In any case almost anyone who has invested since 1981 should be doing pretty damn well to the point of it should not matter too much to an older retiree.
To put all active investing as a "gambling" exercise that will provide for proper future index valuation and and all passive investing as thoughtful investment that is provable, is not to me a well thought out position, it is a comfortable position to take, which should be taken by anyone not willing to think about valuation.
Between Old Shooter and Benjamin Graham or Charlie Munger I'll take the advice of Graham or Munger "Charlie Munger said it’s alright for investors to maintain a small number of stock positions if they’re looking to outperform the broader stock markets.
I once saw Munger in an interview be asked what would he do if he were to become bankrupt, and he said I'd get a job and save as much as possible and invest it in the market and I figure I'd be rich again in 20 years. The interviewer looked at him and said "really" Charlie just said "yes".
My favorite Munger Quote:
“It’s OK if the individual has a few holdings,” he said. It’s “more important to invest where you have extra knowledge.”
“
The whole idea of diversification when you’re looking for excellence is totally ridiculous. It doesn’t work. It gives you an impossible task.”
Prices, value and understanding where you are in a market cycle matter, whether it is 1926 or 2020. But I will listen and read Old Shooter's posts even that I disagree with, in the chance it may change my investing mind, which JJpop would probably not like.
They don't give a darn whether it is a single stock or the whole market.
