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What if I’m wrong?
You ever ask yourself that?
Tim Vollans
December 07, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
⚡ The Spark
What if I’m wrong?
You ever ask yourself that?
Humans don’t like being wrong. Cognitive dissonance is something almost everyone battles every single day…
Which is ridiculous. Being wrong is inevitable. Especially in markets.
Yet we avoid (acknowledging) our errors like the plague.
What if…
We actively seek out being wrong in advance?
Obviously we won’t aim to be wrong, but if we understand there’s good odds that we’re gonna be wrong, we can focus on the blindspots.
Which can influence & improve how we approach decisions…
Call it thinking probabilistically if you want to be all boring and intellectual, or call it thinking in bets, write a book, and have a chat with investing legend Howard Marks…
The conversation is rich & well worth absorbing. Both of these have been massively influential in helping me, and many others, understand the concept of risk.
The biggest point is that there’s just too much randomness in the world, so a lot of the time it’s impossible to distinguish between luck & skill.
We need an example.
One reason I enjoy mentioning Michael Burry is because he gained infamy/guru status on the back of the 2007/8 housing crash (and The Big Short movie), but nearly ballsed it up by betting too big.
There’s a reason everyone knows Michael Burry, but very few know Howie Hubler…
That’s not to say that Burry’s success was all luck, but it really doesn’t look like he considered being wrong (about timing & cost/sizing) as much as he should have…
Hubler definitely didn’t.
Being wrong is nothing to fear. It’s perfectly normal, and should be treated as such. Charlie knew:
“Treat those two impostors just the same — success and failure. Of course, there’s going to be some failure in making the correct decisions. Nobody bats a thousand.
I think it’s important to review your past stupidities so you are less likely to repeat them, but I’m not gnashing my teeth over it or suffering or enduring it. I regard it as perfectly normal to fail and make bad decisions. I think the tragedy in life is to be so timid that you don’t play hard enough so you have some reverses”
🧠 The Big Brain
Bank of Japan catches market napping
Yeah, we're gonna hike lads…
We’ve been chatting with premium members since October 20th about the prospect of rate hikes from the Bank of Japan.
Today’s shift in tone caught the market unawares, sending JPY into the stratosphere.
Traders are asking if this is the start of a new trend or just a temporary reaction.
Here’s our thoughts 👇
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💡 The Lightbulb
McExpansion - 10,000 new restaurants
McDonald’s going even more global
Yesterday the fast food giant laid out their aggressive expansion plans to investors.
It’s a big (meal) deal:
Today, McDonald’s has over 40,000 restaurants — and by the end of 2027, we plan to expand to 50,000 restaurants around the world. To put that into perspective, this period of restaurant expansion will be the fastest unit growth in the history of McDonald’s.
Over a third of these new stores are expected to be opened in China. The company is betting big on the Chinese market.
McDonald’s has just bought back the 28% stake of their China business that was sold to Carlyle investment group back in 2017.
It’s not just the physical locations in focus…
We’re also building a presence in our customers’ digital lives with 150 million 90-day active loyalty users around the world who spent over $20 billion with us over the past year.
We plan to increase this active loyalty userbase to 250 million, delivering $45 billion in annual loyalty sales by 2027. As we look toward the future and consider how we can engage those customers in compelling new ways to grow our business, the possibilities are endless.
Absolute beast of a company.