1. They manage risk
2. They are open to changing their mind
But don’t take my word for it, listen to them
RISK
Paul Tudor Jones – “Risk control is the most important thing in trading.”
Sam Zell – “Never risk what you cannot afford to lose.”
George Soros – “It’s not whether you’re right or wrong, but how much money you make when you’re right & how much you lose when you’re wrong.”
Nicholas Nassim Taleb – “If a gambler has a risk of terminal blow-up (losing back everything), the ‘potential returns’ of his strategy are totally inconsequential.”
And what about being OPEN-MINDED?
Charlie Munger – “You have to have the habit of re-examining your old ideas all the time. Because if you don’t, they’ll become so firm you can’t see it when they become wrong. You have to have the habit, like house cleaning, you just can’t let the dust pile up. So you got to clean out your idea cabinet all the time & throw out the bad ideas and put in better ones. You just can’t get through life successfully without it.
Bruce Berkowitz – “Facts change, we change.”
Stanley Druckenmiller – “Probably one of my greatest assets over the last 30 years is that I’m open-minded and I can change my mind very quickly.”
Steve Clark – “Really good traders are also capable of changing their minds in an instant. They can be dogmatic in their opinion and then immediately change it.”
Dan Loeb – You have to kind of listen to the market and be willing to have your stories challenged and be willing to change them. There’s a distinction between sticking to your beliefs that you know to be true, and sticking to an opinion or theory you have, that may or may not be true.”
Marc Andreessen – “Conviction. Conviction. Conviction. New facts. Change.”
Pretty consistent, you agree?
Good, now think of your vaccine strategy
1. Are you managing your risk?
2. Are you open to changing your mind?
Because the UK’s surveillance report week 26 said this:
“Vaccine effectiveness against HOSPITALISATION with 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine is around 98% and with 2 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine around 94%”
And the report in week 31 said this:
“Vaccine effectiveness against MORTALITY with 2 doses of the Pfizer vaccine is around 95 to 99% and with 2 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine around 75 to 99%”
On 4th December 2020 only 2 people had been vaccinated worldwide
And on the 12th August, 4.6bn doses had been administered
4.6bn data points
so when did you form your view?
Because who doesn’t want to take 99% odds of living?
and yet every day I read sad stories of young, fit, healthy, people who on their deathbed, tell their siblings, or partners, or parents, that they wish they had been vaccinated
But didn’t, because they thought they had minimal risk
Sadly, it seems they hadn’t read Sam Zell’s quote
And risked what they couldn’t afford to lose