The most important rule in investing is not to lose your initial capital. Making money comes later. If you lose 50% of your principal, the loss rate is 50%, but to recover that principal, you need a 100% return. This is because the baseline of your return—the principal—has already been halved. Many people tend to think that if they’ve lost 50%, they only need a 50% return to break even. However, this is a misunderstanding of the starting point. In investing, the baseline is always the original principal. The principal after a loss is no longer the same; it’s already in the past. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
Let’s say I’m a potato farmer. Assuming that I can survive by eating only potatoes, I become wealthy when I work hard to increase potato production. However, to survive, we also need shelter and clothing. No matter how much money we have, we cannot eat the money itself as food. In other words, exchange is vital for survival. This means that if we have to rely on one job, we can only survive by trading needs, apart from potatoes, with other producers, using the output we gain from that job. In an agricultural society, production determined wealth, but in a modern society where industrial products have taken the place of other needs, the greater the potential for exchange between ourselves and others, the more advantageous it is for survival and the greater the potential for wealth. This is known as the power of distribution. The more sales channels you have, the stronger your business competitiveness and market influence. The ability to sell a lot is paramount. - Joseph’s “just my thoug...