Barry Ritholtz, Columnist

Everyone Knew Trump Would Win All Along

People fool themselves into thinking that things turned out just as they expected. But the world doesn’t work that way.

November 11, 2016 at 5:07 PM UTC

Barry Ritholtz is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is chairman and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and was previously chief market strategist at Maxim Group. He is the author of “Bailout Nation.”

Stop. Don’t go there.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images

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The issue of hindsight bias and fooling ourselves about what we think knew a priori haunts investors constantly. We are reminded of this by those who claim they saw the financial meltdown coming. Despite the lack of proof, they remain convinced they knew what was about to happen all along.

These folks are fooling themselves. Due to several cognitive features of the human brain they are convinced of this and other untrue things. Of course, everyone knew Apple was going to be huge, too. Or Amazon or Google or Facebook.