It's Easy to Beat the Market!

[Blueskies]

Most successful speculators were, in fact, just lucky.

Readed Fooled by Randomness

 

[amonasro]

As are most who claim to "beat the market". They won't tell you about the times they were wrong.

But they'll happily sell you their story

 

[helmuth_hubener]

OK, jerk. Everyone who has made millions of dollars [outperforming] the market over the course of decades just got lucky for years on end,

I do not claim that. I think it's possible some of them may have had some special insight or talent that allowed them to outperform the market. Others, yes, got lucky. There is a lot of luck involved in speculating. Surely you would agree with that, yes?

or people are too dumb to understand their explanation.

I think this is absolutely the case! The people cannot effectively and fully understand the explanation. But the solution isn't smarter people. There is a fundamental problem that makes it impossible for the outperformers' books and explanations to successfully convey their talents to the people who read/hear them. Actually, there are many fundamental problems; perhaps we'll go into them in this thread. For one thing, you can't convey a talent you have to another person by writing a book for them. Talents can't be wrapped up and given or exchanged like that.

Congratulations on being the first person on RPF that I've put on ignore.

 

[LibForestPaul]

Well then what is the market and who owns it?

Also, how do they make money in the stock market? And why can no one else?

The market is power, and those with it own the market.
The ones who can naked short day in and day out.
The ones who can not fail regardless of how they perform.
The ones who write the legislation that rules the market.
The ones who hire the people who oversee them and their markets.
Those are the owners. You , and I, and even most CEO's are players for the fleecing.
Just because one wins a little at baccarat does not mean he owns the Bellagio, let alone Vegas.

 

[Zippyjuan]

The "market" is the sum of all investors and all transactions. Nobody "owns" it.