Comments on: Don’t Panic! Leave That to the Experts

By: Contingent Cassandra

Contingent Cassandra — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 20:49:18 +0000

And here I thought you were going to make an analogy to grad school in the humanities/the current academic job market. That one works, too, I think (alas).

By: Nord

Nord — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 16:45:16 +0000

“If you sit in on a poker game and don’t see a sucker, get up. You’re the sucker.”

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 23:34:09 +0000

Yes, though all of those are really just “individual investors” in slightly larger units, aren’t they?

By: Fred Bush

Fred Bush — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 22:44:41 +0000

Although I admit that much of my information comes from Michael Lewis, I think that historically, pension funds, small banks, and small municipalities, not individual investors, have been the natural prey of the investment banks.

The high-frequency traders try to make money off of every transaction, so they want churn. Buy-and-hold (“don’t panic”) actually does seem to be a good strategy for investing in the market while avoiding getting fleeced by them. Historically, the more active an investor is, the worse that investor does.