I mean, if you go outside and everyone else is carrying an umbrella, it's probably going to rain.

camdenreslink 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Or the town has been hoodwinked by a smooth talking umbrella salesman.

	▲	highwaylights 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Again!?!!
	▲	dwattttt 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Mono! Doh!

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quxbar 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you go outside and they are burning witches, it's best to go along with it.

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throwaway27448 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This greatly overestimates the rationality of markets.

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irthomasthomas 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

perhaps tis not the rain but the sun they fear.

	▲	jodrellblank 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That would be compatible with them carrying umbrellas; https://www.etymonline.com/word/umbrella

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Imustaskforhelp 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you go outside and see people buying tulips, it doesn't mean that tulips are great investments.

Another example is how Isaac Newton lost money on some other bubble as well: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/market-crash-cost-... [ The market crash which cost newton fortune]

So even if NEWTON, the legendary ISAAC NEWTON could lose money in bubble and was left holding umbrellas when there was no rain.

From the book Intelligent investor, I want to get a quote so here it goes (opened the book from my shelf, the page number is 13)

The great physicist muttered that he "could calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not hte madness of the people"

This quote seems soo applicable in today's world, I am gonna create a parent comment about it as well.

Also, For the rest of Newton's life, he forbade anyone to speak the words "South Sea" in his pressence.

Newton lost more than $3 Million in today's money because of the south sea company bubble.

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tchalla 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> So even if NEWTON, the legendary ISAAC NEWTON could lose money in bubble and was left holding umbrellas when there was no rain.

The moral of that story is that being a legend or smart doesn’t count for much in investing.

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seanhunter 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People often use that example, but Newton, for all he was unquestionably a giant of physics, was a bit of a weird dude and not 100% rationalist[1]. Additionally, just because he was a great physicist doesn't mean he knew anything at all about investment. You can be an expert in one field and pretty dumb in others. Linus Pauling (a giant in chemistry) had beliefs in terms of medicine that were basically pseudoscience.

Intelligent investor is a great book though.

[1] eg he wrote more than a million words on alchemy during his lifetime https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/project/about.do

	▲	roenxi 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> ...was a bit of a weird dude and not 100% rationalist... That covers everyone. Especially and including the rationalists. Part of being highly intelligent is being a bit weird because the habits and beliefs of ordinary people are those you'd expect of people with ordinary intelligence. Anyone involved in small-time investing should be considering that they aren't rational when setting their strategy. Larger investment houses do what they can but even then every so often will suffer from group-think episodes.
	▲	duskwuff 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Newton, for all he was unquestionably a giant of physics, was a bit of a weird dude and not 100% rationalist The norms of "rational" science hadn't really been established yet. There wasn't really a clear line drawn between alchemy and what we would consider chemistry today.