Few weeks back I read an interesting comment to an article on seeking alpha; Investor’s sole objective is to maximize capital appreciation (or returns) and in doing so follow a path of minimum risk. This is not a quote but essentially what it meant. I pondered over it and came to conclusion that comments section is not a place to divulge or express the target and goal. In essence, it does sound right.

So I talked to few other folks about their investing objectives and almost everybody had a similar thought process. Maximize your returns within minimum risk, devoid of any target or methodology. Even after few probing questions, it was clear to me the lack of a target. I even gave examples like, I have 100K to invest, now what should I do and how should I grow this capital. With few exceptions, the response I got was; do this for x% return; do that for xx% return; or wait for this opportunity and then invest to xxx% in three years, etc. I was pretty surprised by this.

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