The Stock Market

 I chose an admittedly bad time to start investing. But, it has been an interesting learning experience nonetheless.

For me however, one of the most interesting things is watching just how wrong the market experts are. What people seem to be overlooking is just how different the stock market has become in the past year. And what is insane is that it is so pronounced that even a novice like my can see it.

The stock market has become the new Bitcoin.

Technically speaking, stocks have always been the same sort of a thing as Bitcoin. I once heard Bitcoin described as a scam which relies on the next person being a bigger fool than you. It will keep growing as long as there is a bigger fool than those who came before. In short, it is a gamble against humanity as a smart organism. And it is paying off.

Now, many will argue that stocks are different. But, I disagree. With the exception of perhaps solid dividend performers. Growth stocks are every bit the same thing as Bitcoin. It only remains profitable as long as the next person is willing to spend more on the stock than you did. And "intelligent" investors are gambling that future performance will convince others to spend more than you.

However, the market is equally filled with unintelligent investors who follow trends or invest on whims. And, the future is of course uncertain, so even those trying to play it smart can end up fleeced.

Watching the trends right now, I would say that the market is almost exclusively being dominated by people trading out of emotion rather than sense. And I don't see that changing now that it has started.

What drives this? Well, being Canadian and having my investments in TSX stocks gives me an interesting perspective. While Canada's COVID recovery couldn't be more different from the US, the TSX is following US benchmarks. When the US markets go up, so do Canadian. When US markets go down. So too does the TSX. For two countries on DRASTICALLY different recovery trajectories this doesn't speak to any sort of sanity in the market. 

And, if that wasn't enough, the ebb and flow at the moment is across the board. Which is equally non-sensical. I'm watching my tech stocks fall almost in perfect synchronicity with the rest of the market. Same with renewables. And banks. These are all industries which are both doing well right now and projected to grow. So, why are they falling, and falling at similar rates as energy stocks, and REITs?

I'm watching Shopify fall right now. Shopify has to be among of the companies to profit the most out of anyone... anywhere. And, the news for Shopify only gets better. From doubling revenue this year. To high profile deals coming in one after another, including one announced in conjunction with TikTok just this week. And they are the sort of business which is passively profiting off of the pandemic increasingly with each day. 

While there was certainly a point in the surge when it may have seemed like they were over valued. The continued successes since then should have at least helped close the gap, if not reverse it. And yet... people are leaving in very similar numbers as just about everywhere else.

I don't see how a market which behaves in this fashion is fundamentally any different than Bitcoin.