Another example is how Isaac Newton lost money on some other bubble as well: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/market-crash-cost-... [ The market crash which cost newton fortune]
So even if NEWTON, the legendary ISAAC NEWTON could lose money in bubble and was left holding umbrellas when there was no rain.
From the book Intelligent investor, I want to get a quote so here it goes (opened the book from my shelf, the page number is 13)
The great physicist muttered that he "could calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not hte madness of the people"
This quote seems soo applicable in today's world, I am gonna create a parent comment about it as well.
Also, For the rest of Newton's life, he forbade anyone to speak the words "South Sea" in his pressence.
Newton lost more than $3 Million in today's money because of the south sea company bubble.
The moral of that story is that being a legend or smart doesn’t count for much in investing.
Intelligent investor is a great book though.
[1] eg he wrote more than a million words on alchemy during his lifetime https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/newton/project/about.do
The norms of "rational" science hadn't really been established yet. There wasn't really a clear line drawn between alchemy and what we would consider chemistry today.
That covers everyone. Especially and including the rationalists. Part of being highly intelligent is being a bit weird because the habits and beliefs of ordinary people are those you'd expect of people with ordinary intelligence.
Anyone involved in small-time investing should be considering that they aren't rational when setting their strategy. Larger investment houses do what they can but even then every so often will suffer from group-think episodes.