Hey Mate, I agree with almost all of it except for point one. Which I think is not as black-and-white as it and more nuanced than it sounds IMO. Depending on the information and relationship to where it came from forming your own opinion in some cases be detrimental and a big net negative.
For example, when I bet sport and would often give tips to my friends. I would ring them after a good week and find out that their results were not as good. Turns out they would take all my selections and then only bet on the ones that they liked. In other words, they were asking me for my opinion, expertise and sections from hours of rigorous research but then spending a few minutes deciding which ones for worthwhile.
Take two extreme examples:
1. You read about a stock on livewire and it sounds great. The writer has an agenda and is pushing a stock they have likely own for some time, the return profile is unlikely as good as when they bought it and they won’t be there to let you know if the thesis changes or they are selling. You must do the work and form your own opinion.
2. You are lucky enough to be the nephew of an extremely good investor let’s call him Warren. Warren calls you and says he has a really good stock that is too small for them but thinks you should buy some and he will let you know if anything changes. You have a couple of options.
a) Go and buy the stock.
b) Thanks Warren I will take a look into it and see what I think.
Option b) is a huge mistake and example of massive overconfidence bias. There is a strong likely hood you won’t see what he sees or perhaps see problems that he has dismissed. You run the risk of passing on an incredible opportunity.
Long story short, the more work you have done vetting the information source the less work you can then do vetting the investment and your opinion is not always helpful.
