“There’s no domesticated animal species that has had more of a reputational fall from grace than the sheep. To call someone a sheep today is just about the worst insult there is. To call someone a sheep is to call them stupid and — more pointedly — stupidly obedient and in thrall to some bad shepherd.”
“We don’t get to say that “it’s OK” not to understand what moves markets, because every day we are all making bets that say we do.”
“In a financial world characterized by central bank front running and put issuing, being a swine has been acceptable behavior. You can play the part and not get slapped. However, as we start to seriously contemplate tapering or, dare I say it, normalizing, the risk becomes that the great passel of hogs does meet their prophesized fate and gets butchered.”
“When you see a 350-page slide deck justifying a losing position, it makes sense to wonder whether even a fraction of the effort that went into its creation was allocated to considering whether the investment thesis is misguided.”
“I can’t do it. I can’t embrace the machines and the vol selling and the ETF parade and the central bankers’ “communication policy”. So I’m NOT happy. I don’t sleep well. I DON’T trust the Fed, much less love them, and I never will.”
“What a bunch of superstitious hogwash.”
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
“It also makes us inexorably prone to affectation. We must add our own signature, that thing that distinguishes us or our product; the figurative chili-powder-in-the-meth of whatever our form of productive output happens to be.”
“It may not be optimal to own the most diversified portfolio you can possibly own, because anti-diversifying decisions might, in fact, be worth it. But it is exactly that thought process that must become part of our code as investors. It’s OK to turn down a free lunch, but you’d damn well better know that what you’re going to spend your money on is better.”