I saw this pop up today. The tale of Ronald Wayne is somewhat legendary. He was one of Apples original founders but sold his original stake for $800 and later on accepted an additional $1500 to forfeit any future claims against the company. As the billboard states his stake today would be valued at around $58 billion – give or take. However, I feel that judgement of Wayne is a little harsh and somewhat unfair. As Wayne has stated he made the best decision he could at the time with the information available to him and he has no regrets.
This is the nature of life – you make the best decision you can with the information you have. This is a simple function of decision theory. The decisions we make are bounded by the time we have to make them, the quality of the information we possess and our cognitive ability. Our decision making is bounded, you can never have infinite time, perfect information or unbounded intelligence. So you do what you can. Trading is the same -yo do the best you can with what limited information you have and the rest is unknown.
Spot on Chris.
The extension of this is not to belt yourself up in hindsight if the market decides otherwise; providing you follow your rules.
During summer I do cricket umpiring. Everything can be progressing quietly and smoothly when suddenly you have 11 emotional men in your face screaming “HOW’S THAT?’. Umpiring in the park has no camera replay, snick meter or hot spot like on TV. You analgise the facts and make your decision based on the rules and facts presented, as you do in trading. You Must be 100% alert. Snooze and you lose in trading. Snooze and you are Finished in umpiring.