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Outdistancing the marke

Hi Guys,

We think deeply and often talk about our strategies to outperform the various markets, but our success rates are close to dismal. No, I’m wrong! They are dismal. Only about 5% of us manage to win this challenging task! Why?

We underestimate the many factors that both influence the complex marketplace while we consistently overestimate our abililiries to evaluate them. That is a recipe for disaster, and disaster is indeed the common ending. It seems like the less I try to outplay this game, the better I do. These days I just ignore the daily predictions and their predictors. This works for me. Trying harder generates poorer outcomes for me. What works for you?

Here is a Link to an article with a few insightful and interesting comments and statistics.

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/more-evidence-that-its-really-hard-to-beat-the-market-over-time-95-of-finance-professionals-cant-do-it/

I especially liked the following paragraph:” Similarly, over the 15-year investment horizon, 92.43% of large-cap managers, 95.13% of mid-cap managers, and 97.70% of small-cap managers failed to outperform on a relative basis.“

I wish you all successful investing and realize the huge odds against that global outcome. We can’t all be winners.





Comments

  • edited February 2021
    Ouch, ouch, ouch! Guilty as charged and the truth hurts.

    p.s. to add: This discussion topic easily fits in the 'Fund Discussions' category FWIW.
  • Agree. This topic should go into Fund Discussion.

    The period of 15 years including 2008 covers a full market cycle. Out-perform their respective benchmarks consistently is challenging with active managed funds. There is nothing wrong with getting market return.
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