It would be foolish, amid such uncertainty, to make overly confident predictions about how the world economic order will look in five years, or even five months.
(Neil Irwin)
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
(Voltaire, 250 years ago)
Dealing with Uncertainties
The bottom line is clear:
• The world is an uncertain place.
• It’s more uncertain today than at any other time in our lifetimes.
• Few people know what the future holds much better than others.
• And yet investing deals entirely with the future, meaning investors can’t avoid making decisions about it.
• Confidence is indispensable in investing, but too much of it can be lethal.
• The bigger the topic (world, economy, markets, currencies and rates), the less possible it is to achieve superior knowledge.
• Even our decisions about smaller things (companies, industries and securities) have to be conditioned on assumptions regarding the bigger things, so they, too, are uncertain.
• The ability to deal intelligently with uncertainty is one of the most important skills.
• In doing so, we should understand the limitations on our foresight and whether a given forecast is more or less dependable than most.
• Anyone who fails to do so is probably riding for a fall.
Practise intellectual humility.
Reference:
In investing, uncertainty is a given – how we deal with it will be critical. Read Howard Marks’s latest memo, in which he discusses the value of understanding the limitations of our foresight and “investing scared.”
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