investing?

I read about a one-eyed investor who shorted against sub-prime mortgages, profiteering millions upon its collapse. Shrewd I would say. He is like the less publicized Warren Buffet, who saw what others couldn’t see. He had an autism like disorder though and somehow attributed to his obsession with facts and justice. I liked what I read but wondered if I can one day become like him.

But to imagine going through prospectus of asset backed mortgages, each bearing a hundred pages with jargons. I am not sure how I could survive that. And his mantra for investing is in simple terms: when people go A, you will choose B. Easier said than done in reality. On books it makes total sense but not many can hold on this path.

Somehow it sums up to me that I have to learn to devour information around me. It is important to make sense out of news I read everyday. What does it signal about the market? What impacts are made? How can I profit from it? What are the tools available for me to do so?

On the flipside, I think we must realize that all’s but a zero-sum game. The investor may have profited, but there are others who have lost. When you buy, someone has to sell. Your gain is someone’s loss. What we can hope is our gain is from someone who could afford to lose.