Comment by rrrrrrrrrrrryan
2 months ago
> At the time I guessed that he was much smarter than me — that it would take me years to become as investment-savvy as this guy was.
You lucked out by mistakingly believing he was intelligent. The classic scenario is when your neighbor is obviously an idiot, making tremendous amounts of money in the market, and you have to explain to your spouse why you can't/won't emulate them. That's when even bright, (normally) level-headed people start piling in before the bubble bursts.
Indeed, most frustrating is when someone (stupid) is proven right, even though they used completely wrong reasoning (in spirit of Gettier problem).
There’s a common saying in the investing world that applies here: “confusing strategy with outcome.” The outcome may be good, as it was in this case, even though the strategy was terrible. But most people get them confused and think it’s the strategy (going all in on bitcoin or TSLA options or whatever) that was good and won them their riches.