[Retric]

Traders are actually one of the hardest professions to measure. They are risking other peoples money so for example making 50% in an up market at the risk of drooping to 0% in a down one are easy with leverage. It's the choice of when and how much to leverage that takes skill. And this skill is only demonstrated as markets move. This past mess was built from people making a bet with high odds and low payoff with a lot of other peoples money and skimming the fat of the top. Basically, no earthquake today you get 50k until the day when there was an earthquake and they are down 100 billion.

PS: One of the secrets to creating mutual funds is to make 100 of the things with a few million on hand and take lot's of risks. Over time some will preform better, you use their past performance to gather more money and you end up with a small number that have a lot of money and have made the early movers lot's of money but have not necessarily generated a lot of profits for the late adopters. It's like a legal pyramid scheme, but when it stops working they can move you to the next fund with a great track record, and the next, ...