When people say, that’s just speculation, like it’s a vice, what specific vice are they thinking of? Gambling? Greed? Superstition? Statistical irrationality?
I kinda don’t get it intuitively since I’m pretty firmly on the vice side here. The feel of the behavior to me is like reading science fiction… a kind of imaginative play. Actual gambling bores me to tears, whether unskilled slots, or skilled poker.
Greed is certainly in play sometimes, but not all behaviors that subjectively fall under speculation for me have high risk-reward dynamics. For eg, playing wordle is a speculation type activity for me.
Superstition, yes, but ironically
Statistical irrationality — no. At least not for me. Weird outlier bets are not the same as irrational. Imo, betting on normalcy 100% of the time is the rally wildly irrational thing to do.
“Wishful thinking” is easily conflated with “what if” thinking or “nothing to lose” asymmetric upside low-cost bets, but yeah there’s often an element of that present when speculation willfully blinds itself to downside risks. But is not unique to speculative behavior.
Hmm. Yeah, I’d restate as uncritical self-certainty in their own ability to value things. I’d say the best speculators treat the nature of value as something *revealed* by the effects of speculative behavior.