To tweet or not to tweet

Columbia University’s psychiatry department head Jeffrey Lieberman was recently suspended after he tweeted a photo of a dark-skinned model and commented on her skin color.

Jeffrey Lieberman's tweet about model Nyakim Gatwech, who is of South Sudanese descent, is as follows: “Whether a work of art or freak of nature she’s a beautiful sight to behold.” Lieberman's comment was a retweet of a post?claiming Gatwech set a Guinness World Records title for having the darkest skin. She clarified in a tweet that the claim was untrue as follows: "My manager first brought it to my attention in 2020 and although we’ve denied it to multiple fact-checkers, clearly it’s still floating around even after?@guinnessworldrecords?stated that it does NOT monitor skin tones. I can’t imagine it’s even possible to know who’s the lightest or darkest person on the planet! I love my dark skin and my nickname 'Queen of Dark,' but I’ve never said I’m the darkest person on earth."

The condemnation for Lieberman was swift and near universal, with the fallout extending deep into New York’s elite psychiatric and medical establishment. In addition to his indefinite suspension from Columbia, pending an investigation by the university, Lieberman was terminated from his position as the chief of psychiatric services at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The state Office of Mental Health, which operates the New York State Psychiatric Institute, asked Lieberman to resign as director, a government-funded position that paid him almost $250,000 annually in 2020 and 2021,?

Lieberman did apologize for his tweet calling it “racist and sexist” and saying he was “deeply ashamed." However the damage had been done by then. A few words on social media, was all it took to bring to an end a reputation built over a life time as one of recognised names in the field of psychiatry in America.

Confidence in our abilities is always a good thing. But over-confidence leads to a belief that we can do no wrong. There is a fine line that separates the two.

In Oct 19, 2021 when the Sensex touched it's life-time high at 62,245 many investors saw eye watering profits in their investment portfolio and the financial papers were predicting a Sensex target of 70,000 by December 2022, attributing it to top brokerages. Yet as recently as March 2022 top brokerages have reduced the Sensex target to 62,000 for December 2022. These were the same top brokerages who gave a Sensex target of 32,000 for 2020, after the Sensex reached a low of 26,000 in March 2020. Incidentally the Sensex closed at 47,750 in December 2020.

Some of these brokerages have been in business for close to a 100 years. They have seen multiple market cycles, so you would think their predictions would be on target. The hard truth is there are no experts who can accurately predict tomorrow's closing level for the market, so you can take their market predictions for 12 months down the line, with a big bag of salt.

Brokerages make a living if we buy and sell shares they recommend. Hence the Sensex target. Sensex target predictions by experts are at best an estimation based on existing data. However the data changes everyday basis predictable variables such as consumer demand for a company's products, raw material costs, competition, etc and unpredictable variables such as disruption caused by new regulation/technology, pandemic, war, etc. The variables are too many and their impact too unpredictable for any expert to predict accurately the market level 12 months down the line.

The media uses these predictions to create, amplify and sell news. Today's headlines are forgotten a week down the line. So it fuels the confidence of experts to keep up their predictions for the Sensex year after year. Incidentally, have you ever read or heard about any expert being held accountable for his/her market predictions?

Just remember the confidence of experts, shouldn't lead to over-confidence on our part when it comes to our investments. Going overboard while investing in any asset class is avoidable. Sticking to our asset allocation is key to ride out market uncertainties. Equity markets have a tendency of reverting back to their mean periodically after they have run ahead of historical average returns. Historical average annual returns of the Sensex are about 16%. Every few years the Sensex returns turn negative. After positive annual returns year on year since 2016, this year could be different. Diversification may be prudent going forward. The confidence that diversification in asset classes provides, may be the peace of mind we seek when it comes to our investments, amid rising market uncertainties. Let not over-confidence in any asset class be our undoing.

Source: nbcnews.com, thecity.nyc.com

Author: Ashish Joseph George, MMS, CFP. The views shared in this article are my personal views and don’t reflect the views of any organization. This is not an investment advice