[smolder]

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, as they say. I have tried to make guesses that turned out to be right, with negative returns, because price was detached from value. I don't think that's how securities markets are meant to work or how they work optimally. I don't think the liquidity that pro-HFT people insist is so good means it's net positive. High frequency trading outfits, market manipulators, and trend chasers gain too much while more reasonable investors get sucked dry. A bunch of people have benefitted from predicting sentiment-based price and selling out of overinflated crap just in time. I believe the distortions that behavior creates are unhealthy for the overall economy and disincentivize smart investment, generally.

We have investment based on hype and lies, and the outcome is that the actual labor the market implores is misdirected and falls short of its purpose of raising the net quality of life through real creation of value.

[prepend]

If you bet on the market and not individual stocks, you’ll fair better. Find any 10 year periods where the s&p had crappy returns. The market doesn’t stay irrational, but specific sections can.