"If you and I were to go to Columbia Business School orHarvard...

"If you and I were to go to Columbia Business School orHarvard Business School right now and ask the assembled MBA students, “Whatis a trend?” They wouldn’t be able to define it at all. In fact, I don’t know that anyinvestor in the world can define trend. They can define it simplistically like this: “Atrend is the continuation of a price series.” Yeah, well that’s great. What’s causingthe continuation? Right?

And I’ll tell you what a trend is—this is an investmenttrend—actually it’s true for all trends. A trend is the spread of an idea.

That was coined by Everett Rogers in his book "The Diffusion ofInnovations". So, Everett Rogers said all ideaspass through the following stages: you have an innovator who comes up with anidea, and then you have early adopters who go, “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Yeah, Iagree with that.” Now most people aren’t yet convinced, most people need socialproof. So the majority doesn’t come in and the first part of the majority is the earlymajority, they go, “Yeah, there seems to be something to this new trend. I think I’mgoing to buy that stock too,”  right? Then the late majority, and then thelaggards."

The philosopher Schopenhauer once said, “All truth passes through three stages.First; it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; third, it is accepted as selfevident.”  And trends start like that.

(Adam Robinson)