For the past little while there has been a determined group of folks who believe they are the next Woodward & Bernstein (read All the President’s Men to understand the reference) and if they can find something on Google or even Bing, it must be the gospel truth and thus they can base their entire lives on the basis of these findings.
Specifically the naive folks who believe that Vaccines are simply a scheme by large multinationals to make a fortune and poison our children, thus leading to the new outbreaks of Measles, and other interesting diseases (that were mostly gone from most of the world). I will simply comment that any individual wishes to argue with me that having my son Vaccinated caused him to be on the Autism spectrum, Bring it On, you are wrong.
However, this is not what I am writing about today (I could write far too much about the previous paragraph), I am writing about folks that feel that with a little bit of research they can become experts about investing. Yes, you should do plenty of research on whatever investing scheme you wish, however, this does not make you an expert. Just because I can watch a Youtube video on how to fix the rotors and brakes on my car, that does not make me a mechanic!
The people I know that have become good investors, took a while to figure out how to do it, and some folks (like me) ended up deciding that maybe we should use the simplest methods for investing and not try to “beat the market” (every time I have tried to beat the market, I ended up being the ball (not the Louisville slugger)).
Sometimes You Are the Louisville Slugger but Sometimes You are the Ball
An interesting experiment, do a Google search and figure out Warren Buffett’s investing philosophy is for Berkshire Hathaway ? Now you’ve looked it up (I would suggest if you can find anything on Blomberg you might have a good bit of detail) do you understand it? Think you can implement it? Should you?
Next question, if you can buy a “How to make a million on the market” system, what stops 100,000 other people from using that same system? Food for thought.
Great post Big C8j!
I’d recommend anyone starting out and interested in learning more about why they should use the simplest methods of investing read “The Millionaire Teacher” by Andrew Hallam. If they still believe they can beat the market after that they’re a lost cause.