[CuriouslyC]

All investment profit is to some degree luck.

As far as short term investment goes, the market obeys certain dynamics to a first order at any rate, and by being aware of those dynamics and making statistically sound bets you can pretty much be assured of doing better than a simple buy and hold.

The people who lose their shirts don't use statistics, they buy when a stock is going up and sell when it's going down.