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Comment by Betelbuddy | Hacker News Reader

You dont need to criticize good research, you can just recognize the market can stay gullible, for longer than you stay solvent.

I like to think you can enjoy the ride wave as you are propped above the heads of an hysterical crowd, as they rush to the abyss...Just find some solid tree branch you can latch on, when they realize where the road ends.

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It’s not “good research” when they are wrong >50% of the time. If you invested money in every IPO they told their subscribers to avoid you’d be very rich today.

I define good or bad research, based on my time horizon and the time-value-of-money. For example its irrelevant for me how much money Tesla makes, since I judge there only two possible outcomes for the company: bankruptcy or assimilation.

So would you consider putting money into the Tesla IPO a bad investment?

Would you consider putting money into Tulips in Amsterdam on Feb 1636 ?

How can you eat any food to stay alive? Don't you know that in time it rots?

I feel like the market staying irrational/gullible longer than you can stay solvent argument doesn't really make sense when all you're doing is NOT investing in something. It seems an aphorism more suited to puts and calls, puts especially, than it is to deciding not to invest at all.

> the market can stay gullible, for longer than you stay solvent.

This is essentially just what people say when current reality is different from what they want it to be. Sort of an unfalsifiable escape hatch response to “well observable reality contradicts your claim”

It's usually wise advice when someone thinks they can make money by shorting an overvalued asset. Sure you might eventually be right, but in the meantime you'll go broke.

In the long term, in theory, prices should be tied to value, most most of the time the stock market plays more like a casino.

I agree it makes sense in the context of warning people not to short something. But what I am replying to is a person using it generally, not in the context of shorting, to just say “it only looks like I’m wrong because everyone else is crazy and irrational right now, but they’ll come around eventually”. Not exactly a rigorous argument.

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