If you had to pick the most important factors in life, things like time, family, money, health, and love probably come to mind. I want to dive into one of these essentials — money, which we need to support our basic needs and sustain our lives, more specifically, talk about investing in stocks.
So, what’s your take on stock investing? Some people might have a negative impression of it, having heard from others that it's risky and something to avoid. Others might see it as a smart way to safely grow their wealth. Investing, after all, isn’t something schools typically teach; it’s a skill we have to learn ourselves, often through experience and reading. Because of this, many people go through life without really caring about it or seeing the need for it. But in a capitalist society, relying solely on earned income without putting your money to work isn’t necessarily the best choice for someone who values their time and resources.
Stock investing isn’t just an optional thing; it’s something that, ideally, you should start as soon as possible — the earlier, the better. In this video, we’ll look beyond just mindset or technical aspects like chart reading and market trends. Instead, I'll introduce some theories and perspectives on stock investing that I think will help those who are either new to it or already have some experience, based on insights from Nassim Taleb.
Do you think experts exist in areas like stock investing, statistics, or economics — fields where people try to predict the future? Paid groups where people pay for stock picks or timing tips are quite popular, which suggests many people feel uncertain about their investing skills and end up trusting so-called experts with their money. But there's one man, Nassim Taleb, who harshly criticizes these so-called experts in the field of predictions, especially in the stock market. Taleb, who once worked as a derivatives trader and risk manager on Wall Street, later turned to philosophy, math, and probability theory to analyze real-world problems as a philosopher-scientist.
The reason Taleb criticizes these flashy "experts" who rely on data and statistics to make predictions is simple: he understands that the world we live in is a complex system. In a complex system, results don’t come from any single cause or theory; everything is interconnected in ways that make simple cause-and-effect thinking unreliable. We often think we understand the reasons behind an outcome, but in reality, countless unseen factors combine to produce results, and our understanding might be more of an illusion.
In such a complex world, the "Black Swan" phenomenon can happen. The Black Swan theory originates from the moment in the early 17th century when people, who had only ever seen white swans, discovered black swans in Australia. This discovery shattered the long-held belief that all swans were white. In other words, in a complex world, things we think are obvious or certain can turn out to be completely different — and when those beliefs are proven wrong, the impact can be enormous, enough to change everything.
This Black Swan theory applies directly to the stock market. The market is incredibly complex, with so many interwoven factors that it's nearly impossible to know everything. Anyone who’s invested in stocks knows that price movements can be wildly unpredictable, often defying common sense.
Sometimes, even when positive news should theoretically boost a company’s stock price, the opposite happens — it drops instead, simply because the expected “good news” has already been factored in and has become reality. And then there are times when a stable company faces an unexpected crisis, and its stock price takes a sudden plunge. This is why it’s practically impossible to predict everything accurately; only a god could account for all the factors at play. This also means there are no true “experts” in such an unpredictable field. So-called experts often don’t realize they might be wrong. They’re not necessarily more knowledgeable than the general public; they just know how to construct fancy theories and intimidate people with complex mathematical models.
The concept of the "black swan" is all about unpredictability, so it’s better to accept that unknowns exist. Instead of trying to use charts and theories to make exact predictions, it’s best to just go with the randomness and adapt accordingly. Now, if we ignore these “black swans” — those unforeseen risks coming from places we’re not even aware of — what problems might arise? People tend to focus only on what they want to see and end up generalizing it to cover the unseen aspects. The world is far more complex than we perceive, yet we keep trying to organize it neatly to fit our understanding.
Even George Soros, one of the greatest fund managers of the 20th century, constantly looked for ways to disprove his own initial assumptions. He didn’t focus solely on what he knew; he made a point of exploring what he didn’t know. Just because someone is a master of probability, statistics, or economics doesn’t mean they can predict the stock market accurately. The market is fundamentally random, making it hard for any theory or academic approach to get things right consistently. Nassim Taleb even calls people who get stuck in rigid theories and claim to be experts “intellectual yet idiots"
It’s not that everyone dealing with future trends offers useless information, but the “black swan” tendency of change makes it tough to offer anything with clear, lasting value. So, it’s best not to rely too much on big, risky predictions. When investing, other people’s opinions and media insights should just be taken as reference points.
After all, nobody knows exactly what will happen. In the world of predictions, there are no true experts, and there’s never a 100% certainty. Stock investing is more about risk management than it is about prediction. This is why strategies like buying and selling in parts, and holding some cash in reserve, are essential — not for prediction, but for managing and responding to risk. Remember, the stock market always holds unknown “black swan” risks, and managing those risks by sticking to basic principles, investing consistently in blue-chip or dividend stocks, or using ETFs can make stock investment a great tool for building wealth. Finally, the lesson of the black swan applies not only to the stock market but to life itself: being open to learning about what we don’t know can prepare us for those unexpected challenges.
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