🐎 Equity Is Stock, Not Equitable
Or Why Mr. Market Occasionally Rides A Horse Named Irony 🐴📈
Jason Zweig, Latin Lessons, and the Humbling Rear End of Investing
"Equity" supposedly comes from the Latin aequus, meaning equal or fair.
Jason Zweig, in The Devil's Financial Dictionary, has a different theory.
Perhaps it comes from equus.
As in:
Horse.
Specifically, the part of the horse whose backside resembles investors who sincerely believe that markets guarantee fairness.
Cruel?
Perhaps.
Funny?
Absolutely.
And occasionally true.
Because markets don't promise equality.
They promise opportunity.
Those are not the same thing.
Some years, stocks soar.
Other years, they resemble emotional support animals for pessimists.
Sometimes terrific companies collapse.
Sometimes mediocre businesses flourish.
Sometimes geniuses lose fortunes.
Sometimes ordinary people quietly compound wealth over decades.
Mr. Market is many things.
Fair isn't always one of them.
Which is perhaps why investors should pursue wisdom rather than justice.
Patience rather than predictions.
Process rather than perfection.
After all, life itself isn't entirely equitable either.
Yet we play.
We love.
We build.
We hope.
And occasionally we buy stocks.
Carpe Diem.
😂 Food For Thought
Perhaps "equity" does derive from equus.
Because investing occasionally teaches humility…
from the rear.