Market beliefs

April 4, 2011

Friday was a day to fool others.  Every day is a day to fool ourselves.

Primed to know

The video gives a great example of how knowing what to expect makes the expectation come true.  The entire 13.5 minute talk is wonderful, but you can skip to about the 9 minute mark to experience the Led Zeppelin example.

Market expectations

How much of what you “know” about the market is just what you let filter through?  What you or others have told you you should see?  We abhor the vacuum of not knowing.

If the efficient market hypothesis were true, then everything you knew about the market would be illusion — the market would be entirely unpredictable. If you’ve been paying attention the last few years, then you won’t think markets are efficient.

But they are close to efficient.  Much market knowledge is just randomness with clothes on.

Epilogue

Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on

from Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin.

Subscribe to the Portfolio Probe blog by Email

Leave a Reply

Related posts

  • July 7, 2011

    The MoneyScience website has recently had a dramatic change. It now has a social infrastructure, and the resources are better organized.  Here I report on the discoveries I've made [...]

  • July 4, 2011

    Low volatility investing and performance measurement -- my favorite topic scheme -- how could I resist? The paper The paper is "Benchmarking Low-Volatility Strategies" by David Blitz and Pim [...]

  • June 17, 2011

    Here is a schematic of a financial bubble. This is taken from a post by The Reformed Broker. Questions The picture feels right to me, but ... Is there [...]