It's an interesting example. Another one might John Paulson who jumped on the housing short (some say it outright copied the strategy) and, like others, created

It's an interesting example. Another one might John Paulson who jumped on the housing short (some say it outright copied the strategy) and, like others, created products to short. Not possible for a computer or a retail stock trader. But the point here is Paulson has been unable to replicate his success. He extracted huge money in his commodity funds while losing a lot of investor money. So while you're right that these opportunities will exist, and that people will be required to extract them, I'd say there is no proof that these folks are more or less likely to generate returns into the future. It would be interesting to see if, like active mutual funds, there is no correlation between past returns and future returns for activist funds.