
Ask HN: What major trend, event, or change is being overlooked by most people? - zbravo
What are we missing?
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thedevindevops
It's got to be the impact of climate change?

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jryan49
I think the fact that more and more money is being invested in index funds,
and index like funds. It feels like to me in the next 10 years something has
to break.

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deanmoriarty
What would break in your opinion? I, like many, have 99% of my net worth in
diversified index funds. When I researched the topic, I came up with the two
following considerations that seems to be in agreement with the general
thinking of everyone who has not a very strong interest against indexing (e.g.
many portfolio managers and investment advisors):

\- If everybody keeps indexing, at some point doing active trading will become
so profitable that there will be a partial reversion of some indexers, so in
other words it’s a self correcting feedback loop like many other economical
phenomenas.

\- Index funds will be nearly bullet proof _if_ the capitalistic machine that
powers our domestic and global economy will continue to overall thrive, with
increasing population/consumption and/or increasing productivity. This one in
my opinion is the real threat, considering how horribly we are treating our
natural habitat these days.

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jiscariot
I am not a financial guy, but do have concerns with indexing, given that these
days it seems that we've reached "shoeshine boy"[1] levels of "just put all
your money in Vanguard's VOO" sentiment--more of an inner contrarian thing
than anything concrete.

It is difficult to argue with the diversification of the ETFs and I by no
means avoid them, but given that most are market-cap weighted, they skew
toward large stocks and self-perpetuate the growth of a handful of large cap
stocks. So every $ invested in VOO, has 4.2% in APPL. I'm not sure what impact
that would have other than perhaps making these large caps more volatile
during a market readjustment or collapse. I also, am not sure there is a
better alternative as you probably wouldn't want equal weighting between #1
and #500 on an S&P index fund.

Not a financial guy so am interested in peoples thoughts on this.

[1]
[http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive...](http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/04/15/211503/index.htm)

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deanmoriarty
The true test will come at the next downturn, my speculation is that most of
the people who buy index funds because the "shoeshine boy" told them, will
panic and sell, realizing significant losses. Shortly after, more active
traders will come in and reap the rewards by buying at the bottom (e.g. like
Buffett did in 2009).

I believe if you continue holding (I will) you'll do fine if we don't face a
catastrophe, but you certainly need to have some sort of financial discipline
to see your net worth slashed by 30%+ and stay still.

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AchieveLife
Organizational cultural shifts to meet market demand for innovation and
dominant brand archetypes.

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ohiovr
The use of the internet to put societys into bondage to national governments
outside of the west.

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yesenadam
In what way?

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Spooky23
The fragility of most companies and industries.

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crypticlizard
Aging research

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savethefuture
Blockchain

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babygoat
What is blockchain actually useful for?

