[eastbay]

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Contrary to popular opinion, doing well in the stock market does not require inside info. A lot of things are fairly obvious and the trends have been going on for years. For example, war in Iraq (oil stocks go up), people are getting older (HMO stocks go up), gambling is booming (casino stocks go up), low interest rates (housing stocks go up), etc…

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That sounds pretty woefully inefficient, kind of like your basic mid-stakes poker game where most players haven't done their homework and don't really care to - they just want to play cards.

I have seen numbers that show that most mutual funds don't beat the S&P 500. This does seem like powerful evidence that an individual investor would have an extremely difficult time beating the S&P 500, since they probably have a day job and don't have the tools available to the professional fund manager.

Is there some reason this should not be as persuasive as it sounds?

eastbay