This is a two part series on uncertainty and luck in the stock market. Stay tuned for part two!

It goes without saying that investing comes with a certain degree of uncertainty. No one can predict where the market is going. Even with the safest government bonds, there is a chance that they will default (an extremely low chance, but still there). This means that a certain degree of luck comes into play when investing, since this is an area out of our control.

Investing has an additional dimension which increases uncertainty as compared to other things like lotteries. This aspect is time. The question of time comes into play in the most fundamental idea of earning money in the stock market: buying low and selling high. When is the right time to buy and sell?

In the context of FIRE through ETFs, most of the uncertainty is