TLDR: The LICs who add value to their clients will survive while...

TLDR: The LICs who add value to their clients will survive while the ones who gouge fees and are useless will fail and thats overall a good thing.

Trying to sort the good from the bad is really difficult.

There are two heuristics for looking at stocks, neither is correct both are approximations.

For traders movement of the shareprice represents rational expectations for the outlook and is correct. It's not so much individual as the collective genius of humanity squandered in pursuit of money that is 17 steps ahead of any of us.

It's also true that people who make up markets can sometimes believe things which are not true meaning the price is not "correct". In an informationally efficient market these situations primarily come from various false heuristics, the things participants know for sure which just ain't so.

This may be a positive aspect for people in our natural state where we defy our rational doubts and reach for an impossible potential.

"You have to believe in things that aren't true how else can they BECOME".

This in some part explains why people speculate in obviously fraudulent companies and see the market going up as only a good thing.

The fact that people defend their tribal ideologies, whether thats traders vs so-called value investors is a symptom of this. Neither is correct both just a framework for deciphering an impossibly complex world.

I think, & I could be wrong that the trouble is not over for LICs because I have high conviction that the US market is in trouble and a bull market is often confused with brains. Also unless you've been through a few cycles you won't know what you are looking at and it's been 14 years since the last bear market.

There is a buy the dip muscle memory deeply entrenched and it will take a real bear market to destroy their confidence. Most will decide the game was rigged, give up and sell the lows.

Just like discussing "value" investing or politics I've given up trying to convince them of the issues with this approach. I'll just take the other side on my QQQ short PTM long.

I suspect that the crew at PTM have a slightly better model of seeing the world than their peers and quite a lot of experience of their own and from Kerr and Andrew.

Therefore I hope that people sell their PTM shares because they think the price will go lower next week/month/year and that the price keeps falling too so that I can add more. They maybe right !

What I have found is that when everyone is screaming the price will fall, that's the time to buy.
I'm not hearing that with PTM just a slow grinding bouncing.

If I was Jesse Livermore I'd test the low with $100m of sell orders to see if they have the courage of their convictions then turn around and go long if they do.