Initially, I thought that by studying this course that I am doing right now will enable me to know about how the financial market works and make a profit and become the best investor around. I was wrong. The fact that I am studying this course right now lets me realise that the eventual winners of the market are not the investors. It is the bankers. They have the best skill of putting your money in their own pockets, right in front of your eyes. That is in the form of transaction cost, management cost or toilet paper cost that you might incur by employing them to invest for you. You can interpret what I say in whichever way you like, my lecturers did not tell me that too.

I am sure you see great investors like Warren Buffett, George Soros or Jesse Livermore (wrong, he was a trader). All these are success cases. Have you ever seen books by failures? Who would want to read? And there we are looking up to the god of Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) everyday, who preach that the market is efficient and all prices reflect true value. Which makes me wonder how did Jerome Kerviel do it. Of course we need to apply the basic law of supply and demand which then show that it is definitely not at its true value as your taxi driver neighbour next door is "investing" as well.

"Investing" is a big word used by wannabes. An investment, by my definition, is a tool which promises future payments (be it dividends or interest) or capital gain over a period of time. We also need to apply the time value of money as well. Poorer people hate the word "invest", so they can only trade. There is this saying, "Technical traders know the price of everything, but the value of nothing." Looking at the market condition right now, the prices are slowly showing its ugly side called the true value as poor people are pulling out of the market worrying more about the inflation that is going to affect their daily living. Do match the P/E ratio (price over earnings) and tell me at what value do u think is acceptable. S&P 500 at 16 times earnings or China at 50 times? Do inform me if you manage to find a stock of a PE ratio between 6 to 10. I would look at the financial report. Beg, borrow or steal, I might invest.