What is the one piece of investment guidance that has worked the best for you?

What is the one piece of investment guidance that has worked the best for you?

Avoid competing against those who are more skilled in your industry.

As a young a researcher, I made stock market investments. I did quite well at first; I now believe that was fortunate. I started to believe that I had information that others lacked. It is simple to overestimate your intelligence.

A friend told me that I was competing with experienced investors when things in the market didn't go well for me. He challenged me to picture a stranger competing against me in a physical sciences test. Imagine that I was competing with some stock broker to solve an elementary physics problem. Would he fare? The answer was clear—the stock broker would perform appallingly.

But here I was casually investing in a market where really intelligent full-time professionals are looking to make money. I might be able to outperform them if I focused just on the stock market. However, if it was just part-time, if I only performed cursory work, reading about businesses in the press instead of visiting them and conducting in-depth analyses, then I would be in competition with real experts.

Some people believe that everyone can win in the stock market and that it is not a game in which everyone loses. However, in every transaction, one party buys, while another party sells; therefore, they are not capable of winning on a comparative basis.

Therefore, the real professionals require a source of all the income from their line of work. I was taking on that job by making stock market investments; I had been one of those providing the capital that would eventually make the real professionals wealthy.

I make the decision to quit spending money on topics I don't understand and instead put more effort into physics, a subject in which I am confident of my skill. This was, in my opinion, a really crucial choice for me. rely on your best qualities.