If what he says here is true, the parents of every kid on the planet should test their child for some aptitude in this area--at least a little--because learning your kid was preternaturally adept at, basically, "Making a Lot Of Money" would be the most important thing that ever happened to the kid. Also wouldn't it have been one of the most sensational "news events" of all time, if nothing else, when someone honestly reported Someone Has Found the One Weird Trick To Becoming Really Rich, And It Always Works If You Do It Right. The rise in billionaires I surely would have heard about, at least.

So what's the catch? Why can't I just go and study this book and make a lot money if I think I'm smart, now that I've read this article?

> So what's the catch?

The catch is that testing people for an unexplained adeptness at making money in equities is essentially certain to produce a handful of "successes" that arise from chance, not talent.

Given a pool of ten million investors, all playing the market, and all making random picks, it is certain that a handful will succeed spectacularly because of chance. I know because I have modeled this sort of thing with computer programs, each of which produce "winners" simply by making random picks.

With a large enough population, some will "succeed" spectacularly, through chance. Those successes will find it hard to accept that their success arose from chance rather than genius, just as happens in real life.

> Why can't I just go and study this book and make a lot money if I think I'm smart, now that I've read this article?

If there really was a book that contained secrets to beat the market, secrets that worked, that were reliable, that anyone could put into practice, businesses would abandon equities as a way to raise operating capital. After all, why should they line the pockets of a bunch of non-productive speculators? What possible incentive would they have?

The only reason the equities market works is because investors get a fair return on their investment, consistent with the risks they take, and businesses get operating capital at a reasonable rate as well. Both parties to the transaction get a fair deal. All this talk about making a killing in stocks using "secrets of the winners" overlooks the fact that, if it were possible, if someone could really make a fortune by something other than blind luck, reliably, deterministically, the market would collapse.

And for the life of me, I can't understand why people find this so hard to understand.