This is a great point. Most people I know largely overestimate their risk tolerance, and go from aggressive to conservative at the first hint of a market crash.
Just because you are unable to be disciplined, does not mean you should project it onto everyone else. You may have jumped in and done stupid things- that's not uncommon- but deciding to give up afterwards, and then claiming that nobody else is capable of being rational-- is an error. You went so far as to say the idea of teaching people about investing was "dangerous".
That's quite a bit of overcompensation on your part!
The 'danger' of teaching people to invest is that the people who generally teach have some sort of ulterior motive that isn't about people's economic welfare, and that generally skews the discussion.
For example, sell-side analysts push trading ideas that the banks don't want to hold, research analysts push ideas that favor their respective funds and clients, and then you have blubbering idiots like Dick Bove (he is particularly memorable for calling citi undervalued when it was $300 [30 before the reverse split] and for calling BAC overvalued when it dipped below 5 recently) showing their faces on CNBC. Stewart had a brilliant segment (~ 9 minutes) walking through the disservice that CNBC performs, wish I had a link.
Most people's exposure to investing involves contributing to a 401K, and lots of people lost boatloads of money when the markets crashed. In fact, lots of people are still suffering losses.
ETA: so I'm 24, and my financial advisor has been pushing for me to put all of my money in the stock market. If I did that, I would have missed out on the great bond rally last year.
Comments
This is a great point. Most people I know largely overestimate their risk tolerance, and go from aggressive to conservative at the first hint of a market crash.
Just because you are unable to be disciplined, does not mean you should project it onto everyone else. You may have jumped in and done stupid things- that's not uncommon- but deciding to give up afterwards, and then claiming that nobody else is capable of being rational-- is an error. You went so far as to say the idea of teaching people about investing was "dangerous".
That's quite a bit of overcompensation on your part!
The 'danger' of teaching people to invest is that the people who generally teach have some sort of ulterior motive that isn't about people's economic welfare, and that generally skews the discussion.
For example, sell-side analysts push trading ideas that the banks don't want to hold, research analysts push ideas that favor their respective funds and clients, and then you have blubbering idiots like Dick Bove (he is particularly memorable for calling citi undervalued when it was $300 [30 before the reverse split] and for calling BAC overvalued when it dipped below 5 recently) showing their faces on CNBC. Stewart had a brilliant segment (~ 9 minutes) walking through the disservice that CNBC performs, wish I had a link.
Most people's exposure to investing involves contributing to a 401K, and lots of people lost boatloads of money when the markets crashed. In fact, lots of people are still suffering losses.
ETA: so I'm 24, and my financial advisor has been pushing for me to put all of my money in the stock market. If I did that, I would have missed out on the great bond rally last year.