What is an investor?

Here we have another word abused to the point of meaningless.

An ‘‘investor’’ is someone who weighs up the facts, both good and bad, and decides whether to trust their judgment and loosen the purse strings. A gambler, on the other hand, simply takes a chance and places their bets.

We are constantly told by all sorts of media that ‘‘investors’’ are doing this or that and it is they who are driving the markets.

With interest rates at such a low point price signals have been so mangled that they can no longer be read. Markets are now being driven by FOMO (fear of missing out) and the Greater Fool Theory (somebody will come along and pay more than I did for whatever I bought). Most of the headline markets today, stockmarkets, housing, crypto currencies and NFTs, are in bubble territory and history suggests that they will all eventually correct. Read pop.

Only ‘‘gamblers’’ would dare to tread in such territory.

Today’s cancel culture seems to follow Henry Ford’s proclamation that ‘‘History is bunk’’. George Santayana’s quote that ‘‘Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it’’ suggests that the adherents to the cancel culture may be in for a rude shock, probably sooner rather than later.

Those who are buying in today’s markets are either looking for a ‘‘Greater Fool’’, or if the bubble bursts, will become one.

I suspect they may be better off putting their savings under the mattress and waiting for the market to come back to them. History has plenty of examples that suggest it will.