# Opportunity # New, unknown and/or misunderstood markets are perfect opportunities for finding superior returns. ## The asymmetry is obvious: 1) **New**, people just haven't gotten in yet to plateau returns. Position properly early on and you get to ride the adoption hockey stick. 2) **Unknown**, the market hasn't been discovered, even if it has been around for a while. Crypto was like this, with Bitcoin going from less than a dollar to $70,000 each in over a decade. That's a long time to deploy before getting crowded out. 3) **Misunderstood**, again like crypto some people think it is inherently bad, and therefore choose to ignore the entire asset class. Fortunately, for the savvy, there will be tremendous opportunity while the market struggles to figure it out. The common thread is information inefficiency, where you know something which gives you an advantage. ## The issue is, these are often hard to find and/or recognize in real time Plenty of people learned about bitcoin in the early 2010's when the price was so low any high schooler with a part time job could invest and become a millionaire. Unfortunately for them, they either didn't discover it in time, didn't put in the work to learn how to take advantage of the opportunity, couldn't figure it out even if they did put in the time, or any combination of the aforementioned. There are plenty of horror stories of buying drugs with bitcoin, or attempting to mine in 2013 only to quit for years and forget about it. ## Be on the lookout Moving forward, there is still a plethora of opportunity for those who care to find it. Don't just settle for the world's 5 biggest companies or the "traditional" investments people confuse with "safe." If I have to listen to one more financial advisor talk about how bonds are the safe bet in a post-COVID world riddled with money printing and inflation, I might karate chop them in their coffee stained button up paid for by their unsuspecting ~~victims~~ clients who are paying them to underperform. To be continued in another post. Those who don't want to manage this themselves, dollar cost average into low cost index funds and chill. In other words, open a fidelity or vanguard account, buy VOO every week with a minimum of 10% of everything you earn (before taxes), and let it ride. **But for those who do, there are always opportunities ripe for investigation:** - Emerging asset classes (crypto) - Emerging markets (international) - Inefficient markets (perceived crises, depressions, pendulum swings to the favorable side - see [[Pendulum of market cycles]]) - Emerging industries (cannabis, unregulated niches) - Emerging technologies (artificial intelligence) - Any combination of the above (ai crypto out of India) May the decision to work hard and figure this out be made ever in the most helpful to your future self.