[Frost1x]

>2) Buy/sell where you have unique expertise. If you work in the toilet hardware industry, buy/sell stocks related to that industry.

A lot of success in investment seems to me to gravitate around what the general populace thinks is valuable or should be valuable. I often find that can sometimes drastically differ than assessments I form based entirely on niche expertise I have in a domain. It's a lot more about asessing perception, ability to manage consumer/investment perceptions, and momentum of perception than it is about assessing functional advantage.

When I make an assessment in an area with niche expertise, I often realize I need to then think a lot more about how other people will perceive and assess the same information. Usually my assessment of others' perception better predicts success than my personal assessment, anecdotally speaking.

The good news is, from my niche expertise domains, I usually have a fairly good sample of interactions with those outside the domain to sample their misperceptions and find what it is people think vs what is actually going on. What I fail at is then predicting the irrational decisions that follow after because that distribution seems to be almost random.

Because of this, I stick with indexes which are a sort indirect popularity listing.

[Geee]

That's exactly the situation that you should take advantage of. You can win big if you disagree with everyone else, and you're right.

If you notice that there's a big emotional or even tribalist resistance to a new technology or a business model, then that's probably a good investment, if you know that fundamentally it's going to work. The best investments are those where the general population is wrong, and their mistaken judgement is caused by psychological reasons or emotions rather than facts. The facts will win in the long run.

[Nbox9]

My biggest investment returns have been from doing exactly what you are saying. However I only notice opportunities like this every few years. Obviously there are more opportunities than what I am perceiving in my industry.

[ric2b]

That's what Keynes called a beauty contest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest

[srtjstjsj]

Are you talking about pop culture fad stocks like Apple and Tesla and whatever Jim Cramer is pump and dumping, or niche stocks that most people don't known about?

[ajuc]

Yup. Stock Market is a lot like Family Feud.