Umm, yea I'm still listening - reading actually.
I think you can actually learn a lot from a contest like this. Things like stock tips, especially when people take the time to explain their reasons for buying and selling. You can get a feel for other's level of anxiety or greed in various market situations and see how they react. You can also see how disciplined you are in various scenarios and how well you actually react vs how you thought you might react. ...
I suppose, but if you B&H, most of that doesn't apply. Seems moot to me. OK, a practicing B&H'er can be affected by emotion and might do something like sell at the low, but I don;t see where individual stocks versus funds come into play in that. It's a common theme.
... Per your original implication that passive traders always win and active traders lose; ...
I never said that (and I'm a 'never say never' person). I've always said there will be a distribution across active traders, some winners some losers. With a large enough sample size and time period, I'd expect an approximate log-normal curve.
... this may be true on average and over the long run. But as Keynes famously said; "In the long run we are all dead.". What matters in this game is how well you play over this time period and with this existing market. ....
Well, long run is the real game we all play. My point is (other than entertainment), I don't think that a game "you play over
this time period and with
this existing market" will teach us much about the real, long run game.
As I've already said, I think the skilled players will rise to the top of this game and the B&H indexers will be slightly 'above the average'. I may be wrong, but that's why I'm playing the game. ...
What I've deduced form all the studies, and by putting thought into this, is there is no such thing as a 'skilled' stock-picker (or at least they are super-rare).
It's not like being a carpenter, dentist, plumber, musician, or doctor. Those are skills that can be developed and honed with education, experience, tools, practice. But when you pick a stock, you are trying to predict the future - that is not a skill set that can be developed and honed.
Because it's not about picking 'good stocks'. Good stocks are already bought up to levels that will make it hard for them to beat the market (on average). If you think you can pick overlooked good stocks, now you are in competition with those smart people with deep resources.
A preemptive strike: I expect to hear
"we can agree to disagree on that", but I say you are not disagreeing with me, you are disagreeing with all the studies that show this.
... However, I hope the whole thread is not just about the 'active trader vs passive trader' meme without giving oxygen to the traders who actually want to 'Beat Boho' with what they think are superior trading skills.
Well, for me, the thing to take-away is the active-passive 'meme' (if you want to call it that). But it would be interesting to hear from the top and bottom players, especially the consistent top players. Was it mostly one or two good trades? Are they consistently trading well?
Here's a thought - This is a 3 year contest, right? How about a new 3 year contest is started every 6 months, or maybe every three months, and players (other than a few passive index benchmark players) agree not to trade the same stocks across contests. Can they consistently find under-valued 'good stocks'?
-ERD50
Not unlike tennis, golf, or any other competitive endeavor. 
