It’s Getting Harder to Tell Investing From Gambling, and It’s Not Your Fault
When the stock market seems unstoppable, it’s easy to step over the line
By Jason Zweig, The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2026
The biggest danger isn’t that the markets can go crazy, but that they’ll make you go crazy, too.
…
For investors, the war has unfolded against the backdrop of the almost universal adoption of index funds that are cheap as dirt and easy as pie. These investment building blocks—and the seemingly unstoppable rise of the stock market—have made making money feel effortless.
You need to recognize that all this may have made you more receptive to taking big risks…
With the stock market marching upward as if all is right in the world, and with gambling behavior becoming the norm around us, it’s more important than ever to ask yourself a few questions before you make any trade.
Here’s a simple checklist: Have I segregated this account from my long-term investments? Am I trading to make money or to have fun? What do I know that the person on the other side of this trade doesn’t? How do I know it? Am I willing to keep track of all my trades to see whether I’m making money on them overall? …[end quote]
Many people trading today are too young to have experienced the last protracted bear market (2008 GFC and aftermath).
On my stock sale today of Avis Budget Group at $477/share, I’m pretty sure the buyer was a hedge fund that shorted the stock. I can tell that by looking at the chart.
It will be interesting to see if I left any money on the table by today’s market close
Just because some people gamble on Wall Street does not mean the market is a casino. Just because some people invest in Wall Street does not mean the market a bullet proof Treasury Note.
Tom Nash warns about the MSM sensationalism based on cherry picked events. Instead learn about the market’s long time history to guide you. Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch didn’t go broke working Wall Street.
Last Big Wealth Opportunity For A Decade (Get READY!)
What they will remember from GFC is the markets were up 10x from the bottom. 2008, 2009 is not really a protracted bear market, just 7 months of decline, all the losses were erased by 2011, and followed by monster rally.
A real bear market where the market gradually, drip, drop goes down, 30%, 40% or even 50% decline over 3 to 5 years is needed to bring some fear. Right now, I don’t see that.
Look at how ferocious the snapback to ATH in the last 11-12 days. If you are worried individually, reduce your exposure take profits. The yields are going up, so allocate some to fixed income.
But staying in cash, staying in the sideline really hurts.
It can be a little frightening to notice how much good investors (most of you all) both work/think hard BUT also are usually having fun, actually enjoying the game.
I am having a ball selling off real estate in Mexico that has increased enormously in value over the last decade, and even more fun buying ugly cheap "too far away from centro" where all the active action is according to Real Estate agents.
I dont follow brk but i see the company out of the corner of my eye, 30% cash. The things held are brick crap houses. If your that good at ltbh that seems to be the recipe. Always eying dividends.
I started a separate thread with a gift link to the Wall Street Journal article on “Why the Stock Market Makes No Sense Now”. I would have put it here but it didn’t occur to me at the time. At the risk of a repeat, here it is:
The stock market has been trying to ignore the war in Iran. That’s been true over weeks of escalation and de-escalation, cease-fires, a blockade, and a blockade of a blockade (now just a U.S. blockade). Markets have barely flinched, even as crude oil prices swing wildly each day and the world’s supply chains begin to shake.
The word to describe what is happening is “shrug.” The problem is not a lack of information. There is too much information, arriving in late-night social media posts and endless push notifications. These days when I see “Breaking News,” it feels like there’s an emphasis on “breaking,” in the sense of “Things are broken.”
The stock market has decided this available information is not relevant. That is a problem for all of us. President Trump deeply cares about the stock market, and if the stock market had been selling off, there is a good chance that this war would have been over a while ago. More broadly, the markets are showing the single lesson that the past 40 years have taught them.
It will always be saved.
The last half of the piece delves into the future with AI, and I haven’t absorbed it yet (first blush: doesn’t make as much sense as the first half), but there it is.
I am never out of the stock market, even after Black Monday in 1987.
I am comforted that the wealthy, who own 90% of the total stock market, are in the market and likely have more inside information than I. But I do believe the market is expensive. And thus am sitting on a fair amount of cash waiting for an event similar to or worse than Black Monday in hopes of a buying opportunity. Or if another depression hits, I will not be completely ruined. At 75, I am pretty much unemployable.
There are folks for whom Berkshire may be preferable and for Berkshire carrying 30% cash may be preferable. I also own < 5% allocation, because of the rest of the portfolio, I can continue to hold Berkshire, otherwise, I would have sold.
I came across this video yesterday on the 10 traits of people “Good With Money”. Behavioral Economists have found that people who are good with money, don’t actually spend much time thinking about money. They have all their investing and financial decision making on autopilot and are off doing other things. They’re just lucky enough to have all that wired into their DNA.
I understand the Chart on your link states something like that $1 tr plus.
But from the link in the verbiage…
The sum total in February of all net foreign acquisitions of long-term securities, short-term U.S. securities, and banking flows was a net TIC inflow of $184.5 billion. Of this, net foreign private inflows were $166.5 billion, and net foreign official inflows were $18.0 billion.
