> There are oodles of people doing the same thing, who have access to better information, have more experience, have better search/screening systems, and so on.

> There are oodles of people doing the same thing, who have access to better information, have more experience, have better search/screening systems, and so on. If you're playing the short-term investment game, all of those things matter hugely. It's a zero-sum game. In order to make money at it, you have to have a better system than the rest of the people playing -- just like making money on sports betting. They don't matter nearly so much in the long term. Long-term investing isn't zero-sum; economies can grow, and your goal is to own a growing piece of the economy. There are oodles of people playing the long-term game, but the market is big enough that even I, with my relatively limited information, can make good solid investments. Consider this a corollary to "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent". The market can offer irrational bargains to such a degree that even once those with better information have had their fill, there's some left over for people like me.