[ac1294]

This blog post gives off the impression that you must beat the market to make money. Given the author's CFA and enrollment at a top business school, I'm sure the author knows this isn't true. But if I didn't know much about the stock market, I'd think it was zero-sum just from reading this blog post.

Nevertheless, I agree with the premise of this blog post, but I think the author should put more emphasis on the difference between passive management and active management.

Passively investing makes sense -- you can earn higher returns if you're willing to take on higher risk. Actively investing is what the author and I have issue with -- picking individual companies rather than trading the market as a whole.

[xerophtye]

From what i understand, he's not saying that it's a zero sum game. (atleast i didnt get that impression). His major point is very elegantly summarized in the Cecil and Yves story. If you're one of the early few who recognized the opportunity, then yes, you may benefit from it. Because THAT is when the price of the stock is comparatively more accurate. But if you're late (which means you're the avg case), then by the time you buy the stock, the price has already gone "up" due to people buying a lot of it. Sure, it may still go even further up, (case in point: bitcoins), but you can never be sure of that. So he just means you need to be better than the avg at predicting stuff to make some serious profit (and also to make up for your opportunity cost)