Grounded in modern portfolio theory, the dominant orthodoxy in finance over the past seventy years is the Efficient Markets Hypotheses. The key conclusion of this orthodoxy is that trying to beat financial markets is a fool’s errand. In a process analogous to Brownian motion because market prices jiggle about randomly and instantly discount all new information, it is impossible to beat the market. In practice, this has been borne out by many studies over many time periods. As neatly summarised by the academic and investor Bruce Greenwald: ‘approximately 70% of active professional investors have done worse than they would have…

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