LTR SP Prediction contest, page-748

It depends on how you define "dangerous" and "investor". Speculators who want short term gains are not investors in my books, and they lose money through poorly thought out gambles and then blame everything and everyone but themselves for their mistakes, so sure, doing that can be classified as "dangerous" and will get you into trouble.

An "investor" is someone who thinks long term, makes rational bets for the long term and anyone who follows those principles rarely ever loses. To put this in perspective, roughly 90% of traders lose money, but almost no one loses money in the long term throwing money into their Superannuation. Think about that for a moment. That's a 10% success rate vs a near 100% success rate for the two different approaches. Why is there such a massive discrepancy do you think ? (I actually know the answer, this question is designed to make you think)

The biggest take away I've learnt from being in the markets so far is that fear is the greatest destroyer of profits, not stupidity. Stupidity will lose you money for sure, but it's still not as bad as sitting on the fence forever and doing nothing, allowing your cash to dilute away via inflation every year. I believe most market participants are smart and cautious enough to make money consistently over the long term, it's actually a question of emotional control and temperament, that separates the successful from the not so successful.

It's not a question of caution at all, but one of faith and patience.