Patience Beats Any Market

Over the years I have noticed many trying to beat the market. Those who mostly succeed are the insiders aka those who have privileged information about information that nobody has. In all likelihood you are not such a person and you have to rely on rumour — or worse — meme lines (aka technical analysis). Unfortunately not even those work unless we are talking about some pretty clear indications such as parabolic moves and other pump and dump schemes.

One of my favourite authors on the subject is Nassim Taleb and his books "The Black Swan" and "Fooled By Randomness". The summary of these books is that the world is way to chaotic and trying to guess or predict the future based on some indications from the past is erroneous. When it comes to hypothetical success in regards to investments he speculates the following:

1 year, 93%,

3 months 77%

1 month, 67%

1 day - 54%

1 hour - 51.3%

1 minute - 50.17%

1 second - 50.02%

Notice how the longer you wait the more chances you have to have a great return on your investment. This is how and why HODLing is so successful if you happen to keep your emotions at bay. This is how many people have beat the market by knowing absolutely nothing about the market.

The reason why many people fail with investing is that they observe the fluctuations in their portfolio on a daily basis. Tools like Blockfolio literally spread havoc to most people once they see the read lines. Rarely people observe the long-term returns because we are designed as such by evolution. We want the quick release, the quick fix not the delayed gratification.

We are not designed to understand numbers or statistics. Most people (if not all) are better off checking their portfolio once a month and trades even less. The more information we get on the frequent fluctuations the more emotionally invested we get, loosing touch with what we have and how we should continue with our game. We can't control our emotions in the markets. This is how and why most people, even if they paint on their wall "Sell high, buy low" will do the exact opposite when the going gets tough.

We cannot change who we are. Even if we have great control there are some things that we can never be independent from our nature. The best we can do is free ourselves from the things that push us into making investing mistakes such as updating ups or chasing everyday news about the market. Do some studying, invest, and check back in a year or so. I can almost guarantee you that wil the a healthy spread in your investment you will better off than most pro-traders.