After 10 years of investing, I have more questions than answers

It has been 10 years since I started investing.

After 10 years of investing, I have naturally come to understand many things.

There are figures I check when looking at stock prices, such as PER, PBR, and dividend yield.

I have also become more accustomed to reading financial results summaries and IR materials than before.

Another difference from before is that I no longer panic and sell when stock prices drop significantly.

I think I have grown a little since I first started investing.

However, I have been thinking about something lately.

Perhaps I have more things I don’t understand than things I do.

That is what I mean.

For example, just because a company has good performance does not mean its stock price will rise.

There are times when stocks I bought thinking they were undervalued remain undervalued forever.

Conversely, there are stocks I thought were “why are they so expensive?” that continue to rise even further.

Sometimes stock prices fall even when financial results are good, and sometimes they rise even when results don’t seem very good.

In the past, when things like this happened, I thought, “My analysis was insufficient.”

But after doing this for 10 years, I have come to realize that there are many things that cannot be explained by that alone.

Stock prices are not determined solely by a company’s performance.

Various factors such as interest rates, exchange rates, the economy, supply and demand, investor sentiment, and news all have an impact.

Moreover, I do not know when or to what extent these factors will affect stock prices.

That is why, lately, I find it hard to think, “This stock will definitely go up.”

Rather, I have started to think something like,

“I think this company is good. But I don’t know what will happen to the stock price.”

This is something I didn’t think about much when I first started investing.

At first, I thought that the more I studied, the more I would be able to predict stock prices.

I thought that if I read books, looked at financial results, and learned various indicators, I would be able to find good stocks.

That is what I thought.

Of course, what I studied was not in vain.

By knowing things I didn’t know before, I have been able to avoid more mistakes.

However, just because my knowledge has increased does not mean I can see the future.

Rather, because my knowledge has increased, I have come to think more often,

“This is not something that can be easily understood.”

Ten years ago, I thought that things I didn’t understand were just because “I haven’t studied enough yet.”

Now, I think,

“Perhaps it is something that is fundamentally unknowable.”

It is a bit ironic that this is the conclusion I reached after 10 years of investing.

But perhaps leaving things I don’t understand as they are is also important in investing.

Because I don’t know, I don’t push my luck.

Because I don’t know, I don’t bet too much on a single stock.

Because I don’t know, I am not surprised when stock prices don’t go as I expected.

After 10 years of investing, I think I have become more knowledgeable than before.

But at the same time, there are far more things I don’t understand about investing than before.

And now, I don’t think that is a bad thing.

Perhaps, as long as I continue to invest, the day will never come when I think,

“I understand enough now.”

That is why I will continue to study.

And I will continue to live with the things I don’t understand, leaving them as they are.

I think that is what my investing is now.