Contrarianism requires managing both market extremes
The guest framed true contrarianism as a two-sided discipline of executing during peak pessimism and trimming assets during periods of personal and market euphoria.
The argument
The guest shared how he bought stocks during the extreme pessimism of the March 2020 pandemic lock-downs (triggered by high-profile warnings of 'hell'), but actively trimmed his portfolio in February 2021 when he recognized his own feelings of euphoria as a reliable pattern of market tops.
The thesis, stress-tested
✓ What validates it
- —
▸ Risks discussed
- ▸Being too early when buying or selling
- ▸Over-pessimism leading to staying out of productive assets entirely
Hear it yourself
"No one. And this is part of the contrarian theme that ran through my whole life. I just thought I could go there because I'm sitting with the guys all day long on the trading desk with their $2,000 shoes and nice suits, and they're all in the bubble of .com. They're all doing private placements of things for that had to do with .com. And I didn't really have the money for that. But so I scraped together basically 5,000 of my own money. And I took I don't recommend this. Okay? I just wanna say it. But I took my wife at the time to six banks on the same day and applied for a personal loan."