> Buy/sell where you have unique expertise... A safe approach is to trade in companies in one's own industry
For every 1 person who works in the tech industry, there are 1,000 people who don't, but still made fortunes investing long in it, through none other than direct stock picking. That is to say, you have no unique advantage, there are 1000x more people lacking your expertise who perform just as well, I could see no stronger evidence for the irrelevance of such expertise, at least in public markets.
Just from market mechanics, someone has to be buying all that stock at the all-time-highs, repeatedly, it's not the people with tech expertise, it's not possibly only index buyers, they would simply run out of money.
Of course, from an egocentric perspective, you would credit yourself with being some genius stockpicker if, coincidentally, you worked in technology and bought tech stocks.
Consider a different situation where you were an energy industry expert, you would have lost money in long positions most of the last 6 years, and in four of those years, you would probably lose money as frequently as you would win it across all trades.
I think it's safe to assume there are 1 000 000 employees in tech industry worldwide. So, by your calculation, there are 1 000 000 000 people in the world who made fortunes by direct picking tech stocks???
For every 1 person who works in the tech industry, there are 1,000 people who don't, but still made fortunes investing long in it, through none other than direct stock picking. That is to say, you have no unique advantage, there are 1000x more people lacking your expertise who perform just as well, I could see no stronger evidence for the irrelevance of such expertise, at least in public markets.
Just from market mechanics, someone has to be buying all that stock at the all-time-highs, repeatedly, it's not the people with tech expertise, it's not possibly only index buyers, they would simply run out of money.
Of course, from an egocentric perspective, you would credit yourself with being some genius stockpicker if, coincidentally, you worked in technology and bought tech stocks.
Consider a different situation where you were an energy industry expert, you would have lost money in long positions most of the last 6 years, and in four of those years, you would probably lose money as frequently as you would win it across all trades.