If you cite a few of the specific studies you're talking about, I'll be happy to explain why they're either 1) not actually concluding what you think they're co

If you cite a few of the specific studies you're talking about, I'll be happy to explain why they're either 1) not actually concluding what you think they're concluding, or 2) simply incorrect. I can tell you very confidently that there is no academic consensus claiming alpha does not exist. It's rather the contrary, actually, and it's far more nuanced than your comment implies. Outside of academic finance you can also find pretty obvious indications that alpna exists. Berkshire Hathaway has averaged about a 20% return between 1964 and 2018. Over the same timespan the S&P 500 averaged about a 7% annual return. Smaller funds have done even better than that. When you actually do the math on some of these firms' performance, you see that the likelihood of their returns emerging by chance is too small to be explained by the number of hedge funds that has ever existed. There are funds which haven't lost money for 20 - 30 years, and whose returns are multiples of the market over the same time.