Dear Patrons,
Achilles Heel
In Greek Mythology, the King of Phthia – Peleus, falls in love with Thetis, daughter of the Sea-God Nereus and marries her. They are blessed with a son who is destined to be one of the greatest warriors in the history. The parents were told a prophecy about their son that their son would die at a young age. Worried about the well-being of her son, Thetis, takes the newborn to the river Styx. She performs a ritual to evoke the magical powers of the river water that are supposed to make her son immortal. She dips her son in the river and all the parts of his body that are immersed in the water, are blessed. Unfortunately, the heel from which Thetis held her child did not touch the water and was left vulnerable.
Time passed by and the son was than named Achilles and he indeed grew up to be the greatest warrior of his time. He was the key warrior who won the Trojan War for the Greeks.
At the end of the war however, Prince Paris of Troy shoots a poisonous arrow at Achilles that hits him at the heel and that causes the death of Achilles. The term, Achilles Heel, is hence used to describe a vulnerable point or a key weakness in an otherwise strong constitution.
For investors, Achilles Heel = Investors Ears. Metaphorically speaking, vulnerable point for any investor is their ears. All good investment ideas and plans are vulnerable to investment noise. Noise can be simply viewed as data or information flow that does not help in good decision-making process. It infact deters us from it. Every investor likens the noise to music and keeps on listening it until they realize that there is no significant gain from this data but it may be too late to realize that.
Data << Information << Experience << Knowledge.
No matter how much you feed your brain with data or information, they are only useful with enough experience. Again metaphorically speaking, Noise is to an investor what kryptonite is to Superman! It drains their powers (intellect) and makes them vulnerable.
Nishit Siddharth Shah