The old internet was a niche community. Only a few nerds were there. Then every September, a batch of university freshmen would join, causing a lot of annoyance. But it was okay, because they eventually learned to behave and settled in.
Then in 1993, AOL gave internet access to everyone. This time the newbies never stopped coming. They never learned to behave. Never settled in. The internet was never the same again. That’s the Eternal September.
Now we’re in the Eternal September of the stock market. Probably have been for a few years now.
Around 2020, Covid made everyone stay at home. People had nothing to do. They noticed that trading on Robinhood was free, so they educated themselves on social media and started trading. There were always newbies to the stock market, but they usually went away after losing their money. This time for some reason, they didn’t. They hodl’d Gamestop long enough. And now there are enough of them to move prices.
Of course, I’m talking about the SpaceX IPO today. The company is worth $1,750,000,000,000. More than almost every company on Earth. (They also lose more money every year than most companies are worth.) All because Elon Musk said something about rockets and Mars.
Or go look at how software companies are doing. They can announce a record quarter. Record revenue, record growth, record everything. Then someone on Twitter says “vibe coding kills SaaS” and the stock price drops 20%. They’re not killed by vibe coding. They’re killed by vibe trading.
The more you know about an industry, the worse you are at predicting its stock price. Because the vibe traders outnumber you. Together they have more money than you. When they buy a stock, the price goes up, then more people will buy, then the price goes up more. Then the stock gets added to an index fund. Don’t take my word for it, Sam Conman said so himself.
What did you say? Fundamentals still matter? Fundamentals matter like gravity still matters to a balloon. There’s a saying that goes, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. You want to know how long “longer” is? How about an Eternity?
Is there a way out of this? Maybe. Maybe you can buy boring companies that nobody talks about. Or redefine “long-term” as 30 years.
… Until AI trading agents come in and ruin everything, that is.