I agree a lot with what you&#x27;re saying, but ...<p>&gt; Sure you can outsmart the market. But there are a lot of really smart traders and programmers and robots working against you. Why would I expect to beat them in something I only give a few hours a week to?<p>The goal isn&#x27;t to beat swing traders, options guys, hedge funds and other people. The goal many people have is to just do better than a Vanguard fund (or whatever index you like).<p>But you&#x27;re right, if someone doing this for 40 hours a week only beats an index fund 50% of the time, how will you do better doing it an hour a week?<p>(Full disclosure: sometimes, I do try to beat the indexes. I view it more like tax-deductible gambling.)