11 Comments
User's avatar
Iain's avatar

Or you could just buy the index through a tracker. As Samuelson noted some 50 years ago, nearly all 'Average Stock Market Operators' would be better off and more socially useful as plumbers.

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Sam's avatar

You've not seen my plumbing

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Benedict Isaac's avatar

That’s a reasonable statement given the fact that amongst tradesmen they tend to be the most “wabi-sabi” styled in their operating system...it can make them enjoyable to be around for the more mechanically minded and self-tormented thinker...their kindness to themselves and other is contagious.

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Thomas P.'s avatar

Perfect. You just described the problem with publicly traded companies - it’s treated like a game. No discernible business analysis. Stupid bitcoin logic...

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Habib Singh's avatar

“Than we have the players that picked a number greater than 66. They expected a number close to 100 would be the average pick. Hopefully, those guys know about their very limited knowledge and incompetence. But I highly doubt it.”

I picked 75 and I acknowledge my very limited knowledge and incompetence. Hope it helps with easing your doubts :)

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Ron Connors's avatar

Or maybe your honesty?

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Kathleen W's avatar

“33”

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Ron Connors's avatar

I am very new to investments and not only in practice but in theory. I have been a teacher and artist by trade and, following some advice I gave my young daughter, I decided to get an MBA. (online) One of the courses is Accounting, Finance, and Valuation hence my newfound interest in the stock market and such. Something I find humorous about the "average" human is that I am nearly certain that most of the folks that I know who think they are clever would have read ahead rather than taking the quiz without knowing the answer they were supposed to give. I see this often when someone posts some sort of intelligence exercise, usually involving a picture where "only the most intelligent people can find the___________ in under thirty seconds" or something like this. (The blank of course representing some sort of anomaly.) People love to think of themselves as clever. I doubt investors are any different than your "average" person so, intuitively, their strategy would be to find some way to cheat...

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Chrys Lynn's avatar

This explains everything. I'm an overachieving, but not very confident, idiot. LOL

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sdonohue1632's avatar

Dis the NYT report any distribution information, or a confidence interval around their result?

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Dr. John's avatar

A Keynes quote...perfect...LOL.

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