Hi Ben Le Fort,

Thanks for the response, and I highly appreciate your work. But here I would beg to differ and point out that there are a lot of people out there who really have beaten the market. Beating the market is not a myth at all. I accept the fact that a lot of money managers(majority) can’t beat the market, but there are also investors who have beaten the market considerably and consistently( again, I accept only a few). And my point was that if you go into the statistics of any competition, there is always one winner. But it does not mean, that we should not compete because the chances of winning are abysmally low.

Again, as I had already mentioned, the key is to put in a lot of time and effort in identifying quality businesses which will build wealth over long periods of time. In “The intelligent Investor”, Graham has mentioned about the “Enterprising investor”. In a nutshell, an enterprising investor is basically someone who wants to achieve a return higher than the average. Below is an excerpt from the book. I am not sure if this is the exact text from the book, but it conveys the essence.

“The Enterprising Investor has the time and experience (or proper guidance) in investing to expand the possible universe of opportunities beyond conservative investments. It is an active approach that requires constant attention and monitoring. He or she are willing to put forth the extra effort required for dynamic portfolio management, research, and selection of individual investments.”

I acknowledge the fact that a majority of investors can’t beat the market. A lot of investors would be better off buying an index fund. But if there is someone who wants to learn the art of investing, he or she should be focusing more on the 1% of the investors that make money out of the market rather than getting bogged down by the 99% of the failures.

Thanks,

M