Shadowing Practice: The Stock Market is BROKEN (just accept it) - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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At some point over the last few years, investing stopped feeling like analysis and started feeling like watching a game of Wheel of Fortune.
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And honestly, it's been pretty entertaining, because it's hard not to smile when someone on Reddit turns a weekly options trade into a 2 ,000 % gain,
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and then immediately posts a screenshot like they've just unlocked the capitalism speedrun.
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But, while it may be awesome to watch from the sidelines, it's also deeply unsettling.
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Because for most of modern financial history, markets weren't perfect, but they were at least anchored to something real.
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Things like earnings, cash flows, and economic data.
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The boring adult stuff.
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And sure, historically, markets have always had periods where they go through manic phases.
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But whether it was large cap stocks in the 70s, internet stocks in the early 2000s, or even the banks in 2008, eventually fundamentals showed up like gravity.
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You could ignore them for a while, mock them, and even post memes about them.
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But sooner or later, intrinsic valuations mattered again.
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Because there was always an unspoken belief that value investing was at the foundation of markets.
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But over the last few years, it feels like that belief is changing.
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And it's not because prices are high.
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Markets have been expensive before.
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And it's not because speculation is present either.
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Speculation is basically a market tradition.
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What feels different this time around is that the relationship between market prices and fundamentals feels loose.
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It's like they're technically in the same room, but they just aren't on speaking terms anymore.
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Because since 2020, if someone tries to bring fundamentals back into the conversation, they get the same reaction as someone asking the DJ to play Nickelback.
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Because the pandemic wasn't just a shock to the markets.
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It rewired them.
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The story used to be "invest for the long term" and "buy quality companies at fair prices." But since the pandemic, the story has changed.
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Now it's "buy the dip because stocks only go up." a little uncomfortable.
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And not because it hasn't been working, but because it has been.
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And what used to be a strategy has quietly just turned into an assumption.
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And this mindset shift didn't come out of nowhere.
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It was the perfect storm of a mass influx of new investors, interest rates being historically low, and Jerome Powell's money printer doing its best impression of a fire hose.
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And slowly but surely, the markets adopted a new mindset where every dip is a gift
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and every sell -off is a buying opportunity.
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And here's the part nobody likes to talk about.
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retail investors, it's affected professionals.
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Because when markets stop behaving the way you were trained to understand them, experience stops being an advantage and starts becoming a liability.
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Take Michael Burry, for example, the same Michael Burry who famously profited $800 million from his bet against the housing market in 2008
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and the inspiration for the movie The Big Short.
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He is the human embodiment of trust the fundamentals and ignore the noise.
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And recently, he shut down his hedge fund.
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Why?
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Well, in his own words he said, "My estimation of value in securities is not now and has not been for some time in sync with the markets."
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Which really is just him saying, "The market has stopped pricing assets based on fundamentals." And you can see it across the board, from gold to real estate to equities to crypto.
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And if the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, then value investing stops being a viable strategy in markets.
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So if someone who built their entire fortune on trusting fundamentals is wondering whether gravity still applies to markets,
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it forces a deeper question: If fundamentals aren't driving prices anymore, then what is?
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And this is where behavioral finance enters the story.
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Because while traditional finance assumes markets are efficient and rational, behavioral finance starts from a very different assumption.
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It assumes markets are human.
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It assumes that things like human psychology, emotions, and psychological biases drive market behaviors.
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Which may sound obvious, but for most of modern financial history, this was an unpopular concept.
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Because psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky pioneered this field back in the late 1970s, they showed that humans don't evaluate risk objectively,
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that we fear losses more than we value gains, that we anchor to narratives, and that we instinctively follow crowds.
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But despite the evidence backing these ideas,
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behavioral finance still spent decades living explain anomalies in the markets,
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things like why bubbles formed and why panic happens.
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Investors assumed markets were efficient and just sometimes had the occasional emotional hiccup.
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But after 2020, something changed.
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The question shifted from "what is this company's intrinsic value?" to "how will people react to this news?"
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Because when narratives matter more than balance sheets, momentum overpowers valuations, and prices move without fundamentals catching up.
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There is something deeper going on, and investors were forced to adapt.
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Because behavioral finance stopped being used to just explain edge cases, and started being used as the operating system, everything else runs on.
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fuel on this fire, there's something else I need to tell you about.
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Which brings us to the sponsor of today's video, Aura.
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Because here's something that should make you uncomfortable.
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Right now, there are data brokers making billions of dollars by selling personal information online.
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They create detailed reports that include your name, your contact information, your address, and even who your relatives are.
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If they can collect it, they can sell it.
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And the scariest part?
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They don't really care who buys it.
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Scammers, spammers, or stalkers.
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If someone's willing to pay, your personal data is just another product on the shelf, and that's where Aura comes in.
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Aura helps protect your privacy by identifying data brokers that are selling your personal information, and then automatically removing your info from those sites, and keeping it off.
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And Aura is built to cover the full range of modern digital safety.
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With Aura, you get alerts if your personal info shows up on the dark web.
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a secure VPN, and access to 24 /7 US -based fraud support experts who are ready to help if something goes wrong.
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And if it does, Aura includes up to $5 million in identity theft insurance protection.
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If you're interested in checking out Aura, you can try it for free for 14 days at aura .com /casualfinance.
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Thank you to Aura for sponsoring this video.
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And now back to the secret forces that are driving the markets.
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Because human behaviors like But they used to be constrained.
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Information moved slowly, participation in markets was limited, and trading had friction.
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But now, you can wake up, see a hot stock tip online from some guy on Twitter, and then deploy capital before you've even finished brushing your teeth.
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Because narratives don't spread over months anymore.
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They spread over hours.
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And that's how markets have changed.
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Behavioral finance used to be a supplementary force in pricing, and now it's at the forefront.
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information and reaction.
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So when enough people agree on the same story, prices move, and often, with little to no regard for fundamentals.
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And because of this, institutions have been forced to adapt as well.
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Instead of just modeling traditional inputs like cash flows, discount rates, and trading multiples, they're now incorporating online narratives and sentiment analysis.
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And it's not because they just love scraping the dark corners of Reddit at 2am.
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But since 2020, these variables have done a better job explaining short -to -medium -term price action better than traditional metrics.
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And that's how we got to where we are today.
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And the reason I made this video was with the intention to answer one question: Is this just a fad, or is this a structural shift in markets?
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And the more time I spent digging into this question, the more I came to the conclusion that it's just too early to tell, and that's because there's a good argument for both sides.
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Because even after five straight years of behavioral finance being the driving force behind market behaviors, history tends to tell us this is still just a phase.
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Because markets have always gone through periods like this, where psychology takes over, power numbers and prices drift far away from fundamentals,
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but eventually, gravity shows up.
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And if that's the case with what's happening right now, we're just living through a good old -fashioned bubble, and things will make sense again sooner or later.
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But the other possibility is hard to ignore.
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The disappearance of friction, the rise of social media, and the mass influx of new investors may have structurally changed the markets.
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And if that's true, then this isn't just a bubble we're seeing, it's a new regime, one where markets don't just price cash flows, they price attention.
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So the real question isn't whether markets feel strange.
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They do.
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The real question is if whether this strangeness is temporary, or whether we're seeing an investment landscape that's fundamentally changed.
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And I'm curious to hear where you land.
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Do you think this is just another bubble driven by familiar psychology and emotions?
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Or do you think this is a permanent shift in how markets work?
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Drop your take in the comments, and I'll be reading through them.
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And maybe that's the final irony in it all.
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Maybe debating whether this is a bubble or not might be a part of the same psychology that's driving it.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 109 sentences and 1581 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:55. The speaker talks at a natural 177 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- fundamental /ˌfʌn.dəˈmɛn.təl/ (adjective) — Related to a foundation, base, or basis; serving as a foundation.
- aura /ˈɔːɹə/ (noun) — A subtle emanation or exhalation of any substance, such as an aroma or odour.
- behavioral /bɪˈheɪvjəɹəl/ (adjective) — Of or relating to behavior.
- bubble /ˈbʌbəl/ (noun) — A spherically contained volume of air or other gas in a liquid, commonly a soapy liquid.
- investor /ɪnˈvɛs.tə(ɹ)/ (noun) — A person who invests money in order to make a profit.
- narrative /ˈnæɹ.ə.tɪv/ (noun) — The systematic recitation of an event or series of events.
- invest /ɪnˈvɛst/ (verb) — To spend money, time, or energy on something, especially for some benefit or purpose; used with in.
- psychology /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/ (noun) — The study of the human mind.
- ignore /ɪɡˈnɔː/ (verb) — To deliberately not listen or pay attention to.
- gravity /ˈɡɹævɪti/ (noun) — Of an activity such as a ceremony, a person's conduct, etc.: the quality of being deeply serious and solemn, especially in a dignified manner; seriousness…
- belief /bɪˈliːf/ (noun) — Mental acceptance of a claim as true.
- efficient /ɪˈfɪʃənt/ (adjective) — Making good, thorough, or careful use of resources; not consuming extra. Especially, making good use of time or energy.
- fortune /ˈfɔːtjuːn/ (noun) — Destiny, especially favorable.
- emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ (noun) — A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data.
- uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/ (adjective) — Not comfortable; causing discomfort.
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- go through (verb) — To travel from one end of something to the other.
- show up (verb) — To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically.
- back in (verb) — To reverse a vehicle into a space.
- back into (verb) — To advance to the post-season as a result of another team's loss, especially where one's own team has also lost.
- catch up (verb) — To pick up suddenly.
- check out (verb) — To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
- come in /ˌkʌm ˈɪn/ (verb) — To enter.
- dig into (verb) — To research a particular subject.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 22 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, we're, aren't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: efficient /ɪˈfɪʃənt/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, assumption /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/, speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/, valuation /ˌvæ.ljuːˈeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: fundamental /ˌfʌn.dəˈmɛn.təl/, behavioral /bɪˈheɪvjəɹəl/, psychology /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/, historically /hɪˈstɔɹɪkli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like fundamental, aura, behavioral.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to be |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | they've just unlocked · have been · has changed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were trained · were forced · is built |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.