[charlesdm]

To each their own investment style (and there are many), but markets (in my view, and in the view of many others) are not efficient. (More than) half of what determines the stock price is psychology and herd mentality. It's not just numbers, and more an art than it is a science. Larger cap stocks however are generally priced more correctly than small- or mid cap stocks.

Second to that is that your returns will also depend on the risk you are willing to take. Investing through index funds and ETFs will correlate with a certain alpha, but that doesn't mean returns can't be higher if you are less diversified (and thus taking more risk).

Depending on the type of companies you are investing in, you might be comfortable taking a bigger risk with the goal of achieving a higher return.

Say you're working in technology and truly understand it, you can probably outperform the market significantly by investing in 3 to 5 technology stocks. Is it riskier? Yes. Is it worth it? Some people will say yes, others say no. And that is absolutely fine.

[tanderson92]

> Investing through index funds and ETFs will correlate with a certain alpha

Thank you for showing others that you do not know what you are talking about.

[icelancer]

>>Investing through index funds and ETFs will correlate with a certain alpha

This sentence actually means nothing.