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'Resist' the urge to buy AMC, GameStop and Blackberry. Don't be a lemming
- jfengel 5y agoIf you don't want to just buy and hold, then basically what you're doing is trying to profit off the lemmings. You do that by becoming one of them, and then jumping off before the rest of them go over the cliff. (Yes, I know it's a myth.) Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. It doesn't matter how misguided the lemmings are: you can't profit just by being right in the long term. The lemmings are all giving their money away. Why shouldn't you get some? The answer is that you get some by being smarter than them, and if you're not smarter than them, you will lose. It's true of poker and of market timing: there's a sucker at every table, and if you don't know who it is, it's you. Personally, I know who it is: it's me. Or it would be, if I thought I could outsmart the lemmings. So I don't. But I totally get why others would. You're either investing in the market for its long, slow supply of earnings, or you're trying to take excess money from the other players. I happen to prefer the former, as a positive-sum game rather than a zero-sum one. But if you really are smart, or lucky, you'll make more money faster. So I guess TFA is right to not be a lemming. But there's a ton of money to be made by putting on a lemming costume for a while.