The casino

Today, I spoke to my friend whom I initiated to the stock market a few years ago. Since he's always been a gambler and since he often tells me that he's excited about a penny stock that doubled overnight and he's angry at a more serious stock like MTY losing 25% of it's value in an exceptional crisis like the current one, I sometimes try to convince him to adopt a more rational way of investing.

For instance, today, I talked to him about Value Line and the importance of predictability. I told him to visit the website and put more emphasis on things like predictability of earnings.

But I saw in his eyes that he wasn't curious about that. Even if he has negative emotions about his stocks, he doesn't want to try a new approach. He seems to really like buying mining stocks and seeing them go from 0,45$ to 0,90$ in a few days.

The market is a mystic casino and learning too much about it would dissipate the magic. It seems that it's exactly how he sees it: going to the roulette and having the chance to make a lot of money even if the probabilities of a loss are greater.

Some people don't simply want to put effort in it. Or simply try to be curious about it.