What I would teach in an investment course
Inspired by a list by @JamesAltucher. Our two lists are much different.
1. How market cycles work
The stock market has an up year 72% of the time. Occasionally it goes down, sometimes a lot. Then it stops going down, starts back higher and eventually makes a new high. The only variable is how long that takes.
2. It's never different this time
It's just a matter of how long a downtrend will take to work itself out before going back up.
3. Ergodicity
No matter how much or how little you do, the stock market will go up about 72% of the time. The less active you are, the more that the market's ergodicity works for you. The more active you are, the more you are fighting the market's ergodicity. Not that you should do nothing, I don't believe that even a little bit, but you can probably do less than you think you need to do.
4. How to use negatively correlated assets to smooth out the ride
5. How cross asset dynamics and relationships work
6. Portfolio construction
7. Mitigating risks
8. How and when to be orthogonal to the crowd
9. How to analyze and possibly use investment products
A lot of them are just fee generators that don't add a lot of value.
10. Avoiding gadgets and fads
Me on CNBC right after the Fitbit IPO saying it would be a terrible stock, I have a little cred on this point.
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