“I’m 100% Sure” — The Four Most Expensive Words in Finance
The Degen Cliché:
"I'm certain. My analysis is flawless. LTCM? Those guys were amateurs."
Translation:
“I have never met humility.”
This is the apex predator of arrogance—a trader who believes the universe takes orders. They confuse skill with luck, precision with wisdom, and backtests with divine revelation.
Every crash in history started with someone who was “sure.”
The Inverse Degen Trader’s Wisdom: Intellectual Humility and Process Over Outcome
Veteran investors know the truth:
Nobody knows anything. And that’s okay.
Forecasting is a probabilistic art form wearing a lab coat. The goal is not to predict the future but to behave sensibly in uncertainty.
Mark Twain’s line (which he may or may not have said, but we’ll use it anyway) nails it:
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Lesson:
Your edge isn’t brilliance. It’s humility. Make “not stupid” your baseline operating system.
Final Analogy:
The degen trader treats markets like a casino—jumping from table to table, chasing the loudest crowd.
The inverse degen treats markets like an ocean.
He builds a sturdy ark (Margin of Safety), loads it with supplies (Patience), studies the currents (Valuation), and sails only when conditions are right.
One gets wet.
The other gets wealthy.
Brighter people, says Hofstadter, are those who see more clearly than others when there are grounds for fear. They may react early to perceived danger, but at least they escape in time. Those who continue to play the speculative game live by the motto “retire or get retired, opens new tab”, popularised on WallStreetBets. For them, the latter outcome is far more probable.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reuters.com/commentary/breakingviews/global-markets-breakingviews-2025-11-20/