Why I Believe Following the Crowd All the Time is REALLY BAD Investment Advice

I was thinking about how often following the crowd is bad advice. This isn't to say that you shouldn't follow the crowd if the crowd is right. This is rather to say, that it's ill-advised to follow the crowd all the time. Besides, the majority can be wrong such as how the crowd can demand the release of a guilty person over the innocent, right? This reminds me of how I almost got into a pyramid scam in college more than once. It was a direct-selling team promising returns to a certain extent. It really made me unaware of how pyramids work. Shouldn't they teach it in schools? Sadly, I feel schools are becoming more and more overly theoretical that a degree may become toilet paper for some. One can get a doctorate in economics or a degree in law in very prestigious schools and still be a fool in real life. Some fools are, in fact, highly educated, and tend to think that their being highly educated makes them right all the time. The late John Gokongwei Jr., a class valedictorian for a long time, said that we should never stop learning at all.  

This meme above from Facebook group CERTAMBAYAN shows the sad reality. It's how crowd mentality is more often than not, a fool's or a foolish decision pattern. It was pretty much why I nearly bought into pyramid scams. Later, I got hit by bad credit because I thought of returns without thinking of the risk. Greed makes people stupid, doesn't it? What would totally be, not-so-surprising, is that crowds tend to line up more with pyramid scams (such as direct selling scams), Ponzi scams, gambling dens, cryptocurrency, playing Axie Infinity to earn money, and the list can go on. These are promises too good to be true yet people fall for them, right? It's very easy to feel out of the crowd and lonely when you're lining up with so few people.  You may be lining up in a financial institution to get an investment or insurance. Maybe, the line gets so sparse because more people get into the get rich quick scheme one way or another. 

What goes next is emotions over knowledge. I remembered how often my emotions overpower my head knowledge. I can study hard and get good grades on an exam. However, it becomes a very powerful detractor. Suddenly, all that stock knowledge gets into what I might call emotional brain fog. I know it's a high risk to let someone borrow that much money yet I did it believing in my emotions over logic. It's a very deadly thing to decide on emotions. Fear also caused me to bet phished off what was in my GCash wallet. Thankfully, it wasn't my GSavings but still--I need to be careful with my emotions. Yet, it's these emotions that cause people to join the crowds that are following the get-rich-quick schemes. It's because they want instant gratification. Maybe, somebody playing Axie Infinity is bragging about the earnings and others want to join. Charles Ponzi also operated that way when he operated a scheme that got named after him. The late Bernard Madoff outdid Ponzi in many ways. Either way, we know how emotional judgment makes fools out of educated people. I'm no exception to that rule either.

Whether we want to admit it or not--bandwagoning is a very real thing. We have people who start to bully others for not being "part of the majority". Since when has majority vs. minority been about being right or wrong? That's why I believe that a real democracy hears the voices of the minority and that the minority should win if it's right. Democracy is, after all, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. These bandwagons happen so often and people get insulted so they join the bandwagon. Insults are very hard to bear if one's an extremely emotional person. Learning to overlook an insult might help one avoid the bad investment crowd. Some could brag about their short-term returns but keep in mind--easy come is an easy go. Others also end up doing the opposite of what Warren Buffett or any stock adviser says--buy low and sell high. In some cases, better buy and hold for a certain period of time. Some people end up buying stocks when the prices are too high and panic-selling when the prices are low based on a bandwagon mentality. 

This is where we should think it over. The crowd is a very fickle thing. There are times the crowd is right such as overthrowing a tyrant or making constitutional amendments for the better. However, the crowd can also be very wrong such as how elections tend to do. It was wrong of me that I actually wanted to take information technology because of, again, the crowd. Then the same crowd exited the course either out of difficulty or were eliminated from the course. Instead, it would be better to stand out from the crowd than blend in with the crowd. Sure, the crowd can jeer and scorn if they're in the wrong. However, the fickleness of crowds means that maybe, if someone stands up differently, the crowd can then be led in the right direction.