ASYMMETRY® Observations are Mike Shell’s observations of all things asymmetry, asymmetric risk/reward, asymmetric payoffs, and asymmetric investment returns.
Exit planning isn’t about retirement — it’s the rotation event that moves business owners from effort-based income to capital-driven freedom. This ASYMMETRY® Observation explains why selling a business is only the beginning, and how engineered risk management keeps owners off the treadmill for good.
A market crash isn't the only cause of wealth management failures. It fails because systems weren’t built for decision pressure. This ASYMMETRY® Observation explains where wealth quietly breaks—long before a sale of a business or medical practice, death, lawsuit, or market shock forces irreversible choices.
If more information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.” Derek Sivers nailed the problem. Outcomes don’t improve because you know more. They improve because your structure survives stress, error, and bad decisions. An ASYMMETRY® Observation on why more information doesn’t lead to better results. Structure, incentives, and process—not insight—determine asymmetric outcomes in investing and life.
RSI isn't a timing oscillator — it’s an asymmetry measure. Built on average gains divided by average losses, RSI reveals which side of the market is dominant and why upside or downside can persist far longer than intuition expects.
It doesn’t matter how high the return is if the drawdown is so severe you tap out before it’s achieved. The same logic applies to broad diversification—even inside trend-following systems. When return drivers concentrate, portfolios that appear diversified can still experience sharp, asymmetric drawdowns.
SLV’s record discount wasn’t a mispricing—it was a signal. Volatility surged. Liquidity vanished. Arbitrage stepped aside. ETF structure didn’t break. It reverted to its true condition: conditional.
SLV’s apparent record discount wasn’t about silver being mispriced. It was about arbitrage stepping aside under extreme velocity. When liquidity providers stop enforcing convergence, risk migrates from price into market structure—and that’s where asymmetry flips.
Selling volatility still works—until it doesn’t. The real issue isn’t whether the volatility risk premium exists, but where it’s been competed away, how capital concentration changes the payoff geometry, and why most investors are selling convexity without being paid for it.
Gold and silver are expressing very different forms of asymmetry. Gold reflects slow-moving structural convexity tied to policy risk, while silver’s explosive moves are driven by liquidity squeezes and regulatory uncertainty. The opportunity isn’t prediction — it’s understanding the risk geometry.
Asymmetry in investing is often misunderstood as large upside potential. In reality, true asymmetric risk/reward is defined by controlled downside, not imagined gains. Without a clearly defined loss, upside narratives are irrelevant because unbounded risk dominates long-term outcomes. Asymmetry begins with survival.