A comment from trader Larry Hite:
“Life is nothing more than a series of bets and bets are really nothing more than questions and their answers. There is no real difference between, “Should I take another hit on this Blackjack hand?” and “Should I get out of the way of that speeding and wildly careening bus?” Each shares two universal truths: a set of probabilities of potential outcomes and the singular outcome that takes place. Everyday we place hundreds if not thousands of bets - large and small, some seemingly well considered and others made without a second thought. The vast majority of the latter, life’s little gambles made without any thought, might certainly be trivial. “Should I tie my shoes?” Seems to offer no big risk, nor any big reward. While others, such as the aforementioned - speeding and wildly careening bus - would seem to have greater impact on our lives. However, if deciding not to tie your shoes that morning causes you to trip and fall down in the middle of the road when you finally decide to fold your hand and give that careening bus plenty of leeway, well then, in hindsight the trivial has suddenly become paramount.”
May 17th, 2008 at 9:45 am
[...] Legendary trader Larry Hite offers a great lesson via Michael Covel [...]
May 17th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I think: Peter L Bernstein in his book Against The Gods went into this sort of thing in much greater detail applied to betting, gambling, speculating, investing in the stock market. Thanx for reminding me to re-read Bernstein’s book.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Hi Michael,
once again, you put forward a very provocative and interesting quotation.
Life is always a bet but good investment is powered by common sense which makes you try and guess the probabilities. Leaving your shoes untied is likely to lead to your getting hurt. Ignoring a trend is likely to lead to the same fate. As Philip Fisher wrote, you can always decide to zig when others zag but you better be damn sure you’re right before you do so !
Keep up the great work,
Paul
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Im not as impressed as Mr Azzopardi. This seems like something people casually mention all the time, even many 12 year olds talking with friends. “Billy, isnt it amazing how little things/decisions can have big impacts sometimes..” Surely nothing to provocative. A post in a blog is a post in a blog, but lets not give it some kind of amazing value when its a usual idea.