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Re:BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated ... by cfontes on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @07:52AM (#16167477)
You can add to that that "experts" are pretty clueless as well, 2000 and 2008 are reminders of that. Close to none saw it coming and the ones that did where laughing stock amongst them, you have to be a pretty remarkable person to swim against National bank presidents, government officials and other high ranking people like Alan Greenspan, that was a super respected economist but also has made some of the worst mistakes in history of the world economy and still has power to swing things around I really distrust any finance specialist, but I am also aware that if any high yield information ever reaches me it's either a crime or a scheme to take my money away from me. So it's tricky.
Re:BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated ... by lsadam0 on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @08:38AM (#16167756)
Perhaps then your definition of 'expert' is incorrect? Would it not be that the ones who saw it coming were really the experts? And those who laughed at them were anything but? I would argue that those who laughed at the doomsayers of 2000 & 2008 are the same as those now arguing that BitCoin can only go up. Your reply is a rather odd justification for self-destructive financial behavior.
Re:BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated ... by ncallaway on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @09:23AM (#16168058)
> Would it not be that the ones who saw it coming were really the experts?

No, because there are people that predict fiscal doom all the time.

* People predicted that 2016 would have a huge crash.

* People predicted that 2017 would have a huge crash.

* People predicted that 2018 would have a huge crash.

* People will predict that 2019 would have a huge crash.

* People will predict that 2020 would have a huge crash.

If there's a huge crash in 2019, are you sure the people that predicted the 2019 crash are geniuses? Perhaps some of them were simply lucky. You have to be super careful if you are going to go by a small sample of past predictions, because there are a lot of people that make a lot of predictions. Statistically, some of them will make predictions that are correct by random chance.

Re:BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated ... by soundwave106 on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @12:38PM (#16169923)
It is impossible for people to predict the future perfectly (this is why diversification in investment is so important). "Don't try to time the market" is also generally considered good advise. It's impossible to know exactly when a crash occurs.

That said, it is possible to use market indicators, historical factors, and other numeric qualifications for reasons to be wary, because the investment asset looks too expensive. For instance, up to the 2008 crash, two important indicators -- the price to income ratio, and the price to rent ratio, were very high, indicating real estate was significantly overvalued. The same thing applied to the sky high prices of many .com stocks in 2000, who really didn't have any profit or even cash flow behind it to back the valuation up.

There were plenty of experts raising warning flags on these bubbles. Even from a broader perspective, The Economist was wary of Internet stocks in 1999 (https://www.economist.com/node/183809) and was wary of the housing bubble that caused the 2008 crash in 2005 (http://www.economist.com/node/4079027).

(Of course, The Economist in 1999 used Amazon as the example of an overvalued stock. Whoops. Shows that you "never know". But they wouldn't have been wrong if they had used, say, pets.com.)

Re:BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated ... by bryananderson on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @08:55AM (#16167860)
The difficulty lies not in predicting a crash successfully, but in being able to do so consistently.

At any given time, there is someone who is saying that it’s all about to fall apart. There might even be someone who gets the timing and the reasons right.

The hard part is doing so consistently, and there’s little evidence that anyone can do this, which indicates that luck is the primary factor in various famous “crystal ball” economic predictions.

Re:BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated ... by ceejayoz on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @09:00AM (#16167898)
> Would it not be that the ones who saw it coming were really the experts?

Maybe, maybe not. Without a track record of doing it a whole bunch of times, it's far more likely they made a lucky guess, stumbled into information, etc.

Some are even right but don't get the timing correct. For example, this guy wound up losing everything and owing $106k on a margin call... but if you look at the stock value today he was absolutely correct in shorting it. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/help-my-short-position-got...

Re:BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated ... by tim333 on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @11:16AM (#16169075)
They are probably not as clueless as you think. There's a difference between what they believe and what they say. Try asking any sales professional if buying something they get a 2% commission on is a good idea or not.
Re:BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated ... by nkrisc on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @10:41AM (#16168764)
You don't need to be an expert to foresee the collapse of a Ponzi scheme.
Re:BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated ... by snowwrestler on Wednesday January 17, 2018 @04:14PM (#16171886)
Thank you for illustrating the tall poppy thing so well.