How's Jesse Livermore Doin'...

[Tugg Speedman]

I think even you'd agree that the men you listed are the exception to the rule and that the vast majority of individual investors could not possibly replicate their success. That statement plays quite nicely into the first Lynch quote, the one you haven't tried to refute.

I do agree ... amateur investors need to operate in a completely different way than professional investors.  Much akin to the way amateur athletes compete versus professional athletes compete.

I'm a professional speculator (not hedge fund manager, that is a different category).  So what I think is different from the individual investor.  Asking me for advice at times can be like a club player asking a tour pro for advice.

I hang out here because I enjoy it.  When it stop being fun, I'll leave.

[MU82]

I do agree ... amateur investors need to operate in a completely different way than professional investors.  Much akin to the way amateur athletes compete versus professional athletes compete.

I'm a professional speculator (not hedge fund manager, that is a different category).  So what I think is different from the individual investor.  Asking me for advice at times can be like a club player asking a tour pro for advice.

I am honored and humbled that you just allow the rest of us to be in your presence. After all, you are the only billionaire most of us know.

[Tugg Speedman]

No need to make this political. It is not a right-wing, left-wing issue.

It is impossible to time the market. It is more effective to just dollar cost average and continue buying over the long haul. I never understood why people would try to shuffle around their 401ks into cash and bonds to time the market. It never worked. I always did better by just continuing to buy, and buy even more when the market went down.

"Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy" - Warren Buffett

I agree and disagree.

Agree that it is very hard for an amateur to time the market.  But for the professional, that is skilled in doing it, it is indeed possible.  My professional life is nothing but talking to investors that do this all day long.

That said, the successful speculators take it very serious and have many people working at it.  It is a discipline that is hard to do part-time (as amateur investors do)

Great book on the subject with a couple of my mentors in it.
https://www.amazon.com/Market-Wizards-Interviews-Top-Traders/dp/1592802974

And here is another great speculator that is from Racine.  I met him while still at MU and he helped me while I was speculating while still in college.  In fact I'm in this book.  (it was written in 1994)

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471035483.html

[Tugg Speedman]

I am honored and humbled that you just allow the rest of us to be in your presence. After all, you are the only billionaire most of us know.

This is why I like this site, it is a great joy to drive you crazy. 

[MU82]

This is why I like this site, it is a great joy to drive you crazy.

Hmmm. And here I thought I was driving you crazy.

Although I will freely admit that your inability to use their, there and they're correctly does get to me sometimes.

[GooooMarquette]

I still want to know why an amateur investor like me knew there was no guarantee that the slide would last more than one day, but the "pro" was sure it would.

Feeling like I just beat MJ in a one-on-one.

[Coleman]

Spot on.  I've only made adjustments by asset class in the past couple of years, and only because I'm not many years from retirement.

Loved the list of a dozen or so guys who became billionaires timing the market.  Wonder how long the list would be if we asked to see the people who ended up far worse off the they would have been if they had just dollar cost averaged into low cost index funds from day 1.  Not sure the Scoop server could handle it.

Adjusting asset class allocations in line with your retirement horizon and your long-term investment strategy is very different than trying to time the market (other than the obvious point of trying to do so when the market is high, not low). Absolutely nothing wrong with getting more conservative as your portfolio matures. I'm sure I will do the same when I get older.

[MU82]

I still want to know why an amateur investor like me knew there was no guarantee that the slide would last more than one day, but the "pro" was sure it would.

Feeling like I just beat MJ in a one-on-one.

Look out ... market's down again today. Which definitely proves something.

Of course, the market probably will be back up tomorrow, which might or might not prove something else.

Don't worry. Smuggles the Speculator will let us know.

[GooooMarquette]

Look out ... market's down again today. Which definitely proves something.

Yep - once again proves that the market is inherently unpredictable on a day to day basis...my point all along.  We all know the pattern will basically be up-down-up-down-up-down, etc.  What we don't know is exactly when a new "up" or "down" will arrive, and how high or low it will be.

Anyone who knows exactly when a given stock or market will hit each high or low could start with $100 and be a billionaire within a month.

[Benny B]

Anyone who knows exactly when a given stock or market will hit each high or low could start with $100 and be a billionaire within a month.

How?

[GooooMarquette]

How?

Buy at the bottom of each low, sell at the top of each high.  Repeat often.

[Tugg Speedman]

You think the only way to make money is be right 100% of the time.  If I could be that right, I would not be a billionaire in a month, I would own all the money in the world in a month.

Fact is you only have to be right 50% to 55% of the time and control risk.  See Ray Dalio and Paul Tudor Jones.  Both are worth billions today and both literally started with something like $1000.  (I first met Ray in 1986 in NYC when he was managing a thousand dollars or so of immediate family money out of a studio apartment in NYC.  Today his hedge funds has $140 billion).

It very hard and takes a huge effort.  And you have to be born with some skill to do it.

Think Jimmy Butler ... he was born with some skills (tall and athletic) and worked very hard to become a great player.  It is really no different.

[THRILLHO]

Think Jimmy Butler ... he was born with some skills (tall and athletic) and worked very hard to become a great player.  It is really no different.

False. Jimmy Butler was only around 2 feet tall when he was born and couldn't even stand up on his own.

[MU82]

You think the only way to make money is be right 100% of the time.  If I could be that right, I would not be a billionaire in a month, I would own all the money in the world in a month.

Fact is you only have to be right 50% to 55% of the time and control risk. 

Hey ... we agree on something!

I don't know to whom this was addressed, but I actually agree with this 100%. An investor need not be perfect. He/she needs to be patient and disciplined; also, to have a sound plan and stick with it.

Maybe if it had been my goal to be richer than rich I could have achieved that using some speculative investing strategy. Maybe not. I don't know, and I never will.

Once I learned enough, got experienced enough and made enough mistakes along the way, I set a realistic goal for me and my family:

To have more than enough to live a financially independent, enjoyable, relatively stress-free life, surrounded by people I love.

I have achieved that goal, and I will continue achieving it until my final days.

Never made close to $100K in any year, laid off at 48, retired (mostly) since, put 2 kids through college, own my home free and clear, zero debt, plenty of travel and entertainment, plenty of "stuff." And I've achieved my financial goals.

I spend some time in the comment stream of a notable personal finance site and sometimes somebody will tell folks like me that we're "doing it wrong" because we're not beating some kind of benchmark of THEIR choosing over some timeframe of THEIR choosing. I just laugh and say, "My goal is to have more than enough ... and I do."

So Smuggles, you might already be 100 times "richer" than I am, or you might have half as much as I do or, more likely, you're probably somewhere in between.

I am content because I have a great family, great friends and more than enough.

I sincerely hope you can say the same.

[reinko]

False. Jimmy Butler was only around 2 feet tall when he was born and couldn't even stand up on his own.

You sir have won the MUSCOOP Championship Belt for internet comment of the day.   Congrats