<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>MattyMc</author><text>&amp;gt; What real math is involved in predicting the stock market?&lt;p&gt;I have a MSC in Statistics, studied quantitative finance. Generally I&amp;#x27;d agree with you. For general investing there&amp;#x27;s often little math involved other than some simple ratios and comparisons. Three numbers I look at most often are the Price-to-Sales ratio, Gross Profit %, and annual revenue growth. There&amp;#x27;s no complex math involved here at all.&lt;p&gt;Where investing does get mathy is in calculating risk. When constructing a portfolio, generally the aim is to maximize returns while minimizing risk below some threshold. There is some very interesting and fun maths involved in this process that is beyond the scope of general investing.</text><parent_chain><item><author>UnpossibleJim</author><text>I will preface this statement by stating that I know nothing about the stock market and let my retirement account be handled by an investor...&lt;p&gt;What real math is involved in predicting the stock market? I understand there is a lot of theory behind TRYING to predict it, just as there is a lot of study in trying to predict trends in the stock market, which is why you are better off investing in groups of stocks as opposed to a singled stock (there you go, that&amp;#x27;s the grand total of what I know about the stock market). But so far as shorting stocks (betting that they&amp;#x27;ll fall) and buying stocks (betting that they&amp;#x27;ll rise), there isn&amp;#x27;t much real math, is there? Isn&amp;#x27;t it all just a gamble? Not even a statistical gamble, like dice or cards, but a public market analysis with the uncertainty of public trading and public sentiment thrown in, not to mention the hope of government bailouts on occasion?&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see a huge amount of difference in crypto except for physical assets, which don&amp;#x27;t cover the stock price for public companies, generally.&lt;p&gt;Now, how horribly wrong am I? I&amp;#x27;m willing to admit I missed the mark, entirely as I don&amp;#x27;t understand trading. That&amp;#x27;s what my broker does.</text></item><item><author>IAmWorried</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s less that I&amp;#x27;m glad the market is crashing, and more that I&amp;#x27;m glad that the insufferable crypto bros are finally getting a punch to the mouth. Seriously, these people are the worst. Your average &amp;quot;crypto investor&amp;quot; has no skills, no mathematical foundations, nothing. Except for pure stupid luck, and the ability to spew inane crypto babble 24&amp;#x2F;7. And yes, they think they are much smarter than you, because they achieved better financial results than you did while only doing 1&amp;#x2F;1000 of the work to get there. I truly hate the fact that these people are so rich. It makes me want to move to Alaska and just try to ignore society for the rest of my days.&lt;p&gt;This came off as pretty bitter. I apologize, but I am bitter, and I&amp;#x27;m having a shit couple weeks.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Ask HN: Is anyone else glad the crypto market is crashing?</title><text>Obviously it&amp;#x27;s bad if people lose their entire life savings and all that dead horse beating disclaimer stuff.&lt;p&gt;I fancy myself as a somewhat esoteric idea person, and so when I first discovered cryptocurrency a few years ago, I was very excited to explore the mind bending ways we can build __NEW__ things.&lt;p&gt;Instead, JPEGs and skeuomorphic representations of traditional financial vehicles in web3 space.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m hoping this crash and those in the future rid the space of the toxic backrooms these $30,000 jpegs provide access to and get us to collectively work on building really exciting cool new things.&lt;p&gt;What do you all think?</text></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>epolanski</author><text>&amp;gt; What real math is involved in predicting the stock market?&lt;p&gt;Are we really comparing the two markets?&lt;p&gt;Owning a stock means owning a piece of a business. If you have all the stock in the world, you seized all means of production, good job.&lt;p&gt;If you own all the UnpossibleJimCoins in the world what exactly has changed? Oh but that coin is not &lt;i&gt;insert another coin&lt;/i&gt;, it doesn&amp;#x27;t have the consensus&amp;#x2F;cult.</text><parent_chain><item><author>UnpossibleJim</author><text>I will preface this statement by stating that I know nothing about the stock market and let my retirement account be handled by an investor...&lt;p&gt;What real math is involved in predicting the stock market? I understand there is a lot of theory behind TRYING to predict it, just as there is a lot of study in trying to predict trends in the stock market, which is why you are better off investing in groups of stocks as opposed to a singled stock (there you go, that&amp;#x27;s the grand total of what I know about the stock market). But so far as shorting stocks (betting that they&amp;#x27;ll fall) and buying stocks (betting that they&amp;#x27;ll rise), there isn&amp;#x27;t much real math, is there? Isn&amp;#x27;t it all just a gamble? Not even a statistical gamble, like dice or cards, but a public market analysis with the uncertainty of public trading and public sentiment thrown in, not to mention the hope of government bailouts on occasion?&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see a huge amount of difference in crypto except for physical assets, which don&amp;#x27;t cover the stock price for public companies, generally.&lt;p&gt;Now, how horribly wrong am I? I&amp;#x27;m willing to admit I missed the mark, entirely as I don&amp;#x27;t understand trading. That&amp;#x27;s what my broker does.</text></item><item><author>IAmWorried</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s less that I&amp;#x27;m glad the market is crashing, and more that I&amp;#x27;m glad that the insufferable crypto bros are finally getting a punch to the mouth. Seriously, these people are the worst. Your average &amp;quot;crypto investor&amp;quot; has no skills, no mathematical foundations, nothing. Except for pure stupid luck, and the ability to spew inane crypto babble 24&amp;#x2F;7. And yes, they think they are much smarter than you, because they achieved better financial results than you did while only doing 1&amp;#x2F;1000 of the work to get there. I truly hate the fact that these people are so rich. It makes me want to move to Alaska and just try to ignore society for the rest of my days.&lt;p&gt;This came off as pretty bitter. I apologize, but I am bitter, and I&amp;#x27;m having a shit couple weeks.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Ask HN: Is anyone else glad the crypto market is crashing?</title><text>Obviously it&amp;#x27;s bad if people lose their entire life savings and all that dead horse beating disclaimer stuff.&lt;p&gt;I fancy myself as a somewhat esoteric idea person, and so when I first discovered cryptocurrency a few years ago, I was very excited to explore the mind bending ways we can build __NEW__ things.&lt;p&gt;Instead, JPEGs and skeuomorphic representations of traditional financial vehicles in web3 space.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m hoping this crash and those in the future rid the space of the toxic backrooms these $30,000 jpegs provide access to and get us to collectively work on building really exciting cool new things.&lt;p&gt;What do you all think?</text></story>