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The most fascinating thing about investing to me is that it's really easy to tell who the winners and losers are, you just have to look at their portfolio. It's one of the very few areas that is black and white.
Your thesis can be sound and make sense, but at the end of the day, we'll look at your portfolio in 10 or 20 years and we can see what's going on. That's the coolest part about investing.
Most people do not have the knowledge or desire to become wealthy, hopefully like you said, @Lamboda, people will just buy an index fund on a regular basis, but most don't. It's really sad because I know lots of friends that won't have much to their name when we're 60. If my thesis is correct my family will be living the good life while my friends will be still grinding it out.
I subscribed to Buffet and Lynch's paradigm that you should only hold a few businesses and know them really well. If they're good businesses you should buy your stake in it and hold, if the thesis changes, get out, but if it's still a good business, then you have to buy and hold.
I agree, if you want to get exceptional returns you'll have to go outside of index funds, but the risk of investing in individual companies increases exponentially, which is why most people don't make money trading stocks. That being said, my dumbass thinks I can beat the market and in 10-15 years it's going to be really easy to tell if I was right or wrong.
The only reason I can take this risk is that i'm relatively young and my wife gets a government pension at work, which means I get to swing for the fences. I also lucked out during the marijuana craze and got out with some healthy profits, so I secured housing earlier than a lot of my peers in my group.
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