Capital mobility -- seeking smooth trade-offs between risk & reward, or arbitraging the difference (like us!) til the smoothness is there.
Wanted to add that I know personally 2 "traders" who waited roughly 10 million$ too long, as that was what they lost each, and ruined them.
money always chases the yields... and what is so special about getting a coupon every month anyway, while the principle can be cut in half if the 10 year goes from 2.5 to 5% profit is real money, shareholders get rewarded thru share buy backs even if the dividend yield maybe low... people are so blind, they are desperate for yield and chase bonds to ridiculous levels.
Pretty much how it works. You’ll only beat time by access to high leverage or a large stake of money.
The problem is that many who tried to beat time with leverage, got poorer instead of richer... They got beaten while trying to beat time. And if married, they got probably beaten again afterwards. Or divorced.
That’s just the nature of the average human. You have to be superhuman. Livermore summed it up quite well: “The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor.” “Speculation is a hard and trying business, and a speculator must be on the job all the time or he’ll soon have no job to be on.”
A few words of wisdom (or stupidity?) after 21 years of trading: 1: Its takes about 9-10 years to fully develop a trading system that is consistently profitable. 2: Its takes a special kind of psychological makeup to accomplish the disciplined act of trading day after day, week after week, and year after year. Even with a great trading system, without the proper mindset, disciplined trading is impossible. 3: Sometimes you just need to quit for a year or two, and come back with a new trading system (methodology) and a fresh new outlook. 4: Lastly, I borrowed this from George on Seinfeld, "When every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right!"