Remix.run Logo
zahlman 15 hours ago

Time in the market beats timing the market, bears have predicted (large number) out of the last (smaller number) recessions, etc. None of this is novel. "Predicting" a stock crash due to political reasons is effectively just a fancy restatement of anti-those-politics views; and it isn't substantive, especially when the prediction comes with a years-long window.

cosmicgadget 14 hours ago | parent [-]

You need to caveat this with "... if you want to be lazy and ignorant of your port." Otherwise there is so, so much evidence that it is flat wrong.

zahlman an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> Otherwise there is so, so much evidence that it is flat wrong.

Pardon; are you asserting there is mountains of evidence that the bears have not, in fact, claimed impending recession far more often than actual recession occurred? Or that market timers are generally successful (are you not familiar with e.g. https://longbets.org/362/ )?

ergocoder 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, meanwhile all the wealthy people actively manage their port with an insane amount of efforts. They would compensate hedge fund manager with insane amount of money.

Then, they turn around and tell average people to forget about the investment. Just park your money in the index fund over the long run. I mean, if you are either stupid or don't have time, then yeah please only do index fund.

zahlman an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It took me quite a while to figure out that the two of you are using "port" as short for "portfolio". Never heard that before.

"The wealthy people" got wealthy in a whole bunch of different ways that are not investment; and having gained wealth, they invest it for many different reasons aside from maximizing log-mean expectation (or probability of sustaining a given level of cash flow, or other objective metrics that only consider the investment itself). Hiring a well-compensated "hedge" fund manager (many of these funds are not at all about hedging) is barely any more "effort" than buying and holding SPY, as the work is being entirely delegated. Many strategies are dependent on that level of wealth (or designed to address problems that only apply to that level of wealth) for tax-related reasons.

There is plenty of evidence that most lay people who try to time the market lose out on average, and I see no reason to expect you to be an exception. Active trading loses out on average to indexes by mathematical necessity, as both grow on average proportional to the total value of equities, but active traders (and holders of actively managed funds) are exposed to higher fees. The only winners there are the market makers.

cosmicgadget 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"But my 401k advisor showed me a chart!"