Clement Ang

Pull up who you were following during the 2020-2021 era and count how many of the big accounts still post. Better yet, how many of those do you still pay attention to? Zoom, Peloton, Roku, Enphase, Skillz, Fisker, Canoo, Nikola. The list goes on and on. Many of the loudest voices have disappeared, or simply stopped being people you listen to. They were 100% certain. Big positions, even bigger opinions, a following that grew with every green candle. They knew the businesses cold. One subject they never covered, however, was "being wrong". Then the first drawdown came and the threads got longer... Every dollar of the decline had an explanation. They bought more, at least they said so. A bounce arrived and so did the screenshots, and the "told you so". For a few days, doubt looked absolutely foolish. Then the market rolled over again and the same people wrote that "anyone selling here is a trader". I remember that line so vividly. Protecting your financial and mental capital had suddenly become a serious character flaw. The price targets stayed despite being down 50%, then 75%, then more. The dates moved. A trade that was supposed to change their life now needed five years to be understood. "The market is simply wrong", they said. A lot of that research was actually good. You could read the whole thesis and come away impressed. What you couldn't find was the sentence that said when they would leave. Fundamentals help you estimate what a business might be worth. They don't tell you when the market will agree, or how much you will lose waiting. When liquidity is leaving, a perfect model of the company can be a perfect answer to the wrong question. Then there is the audience. Thousands watching, some of whom bought because of the call. Every public declaration made the next private doubt more expensive. How do you quietly change your mind when certainty is what people follow you for? So they didn't. Another big thesis post, another conviction thread, another low, another bounce that reopened the possibility it hadn't been a mistake. Daily updates became weekly, weekly became "nothing changed, generational opportunity it is", then nothing. 90% down, 95% down, no final post. I see the early version of it now. Many of these accounts showed up in the last year or so. They gravitated to the same set of tickers retail had adopted as its favorites, and their following grew about as fast as those stocks rose. The audience rose with the price, and the price had little to do with them. It's an easy thing to mistake for skill, especially when the environment is paying anyone who just happened to be standing in the right place at the right time. How well someone understands the market becomes clearer when it stops cooperating. The last few months have been a revealing test. Nobody introduces themselves as the person who will ride a position down 90%. Somewhere in this chaos, there are quiet people with a clear head, an exit plan and plenty of dry powder. They have probably been wrong too, many times. They just left themselves enough room to be wrong and keep going for years to come.