The Industries Plagued by the Most Uncertainty
blogs.hbr.org
blogs.hbr.org
Most of the venture folks I've talked with over the years talk about "stacking risk" rather than uncertainty but its the same thing. Trying to figure out if you can eliminate the risk of something before the big investment pays huge dividends. A lot of the 'create a signup page' kinds of ideas are built around this.
I would think yes, otherwise we would all be sticking with mining precious metals.
Granted, they don't refer to "uncertainty" exactly, but rather about quantifiable risk in the form of volatility. Also, the key word is "returns" (not exactly profits, but roughly the ratio of total profits over the initial investment). Basically, while investors have different levels of risk tolerance, a rational investor requires higher expected returns for higher expected risks.
While a lot of researchers have been questioning the validity of MPT and CAPM (because these e.g. rely on a lot of questionable assumptions), empirically the answer to your question seems to be "yes". Small cap stocks historically have higher returns than large cap stocks, and tech stocks have higher returns than utilities.
source of the 'a handful of users who really love you' idea pg sprinkles in his essays?