You forgot #5: plain dumb luck. I index for a very good reason, some of the smartest people I know chose to work on Wall Street, and they're putting in 60+ hou

You forgot #5: plain dumb luck. I index for a very good reason, some of the smartest people I know chose to work on Wall Street, and they're putting in 60+ hours a week working on this stuff. If you have tens of thousands of people like that, I don't care how smart you are you just aren't going to beat them. Better to insure you are at least average (which net fees probably puts you in the top 30%) than to chase being in the top 5% and failing miserably.