This newsletter started as monthly stock picks.
What surprised me wasn’t the performance…
It was the reaction.
The most common response I got wasn’t curiosity.
It was defensiveness:
“It’s impossible to beat the market.”
Everyone seems to have a strong opinion on this.
And the opinions are… weirdly extreme.
Back in 2015
I started learning about investing for the first time—thanks to my then roommate (shoutout Steve P.).
I was taught something simple:
You can’t consistently beat the market
Buy low-cost, diversified index funds
Keep costs low, stay disciplined
It made sense.
So that’s exactly what I did.
Problem solved.
But Something Felt Off
It wasn’t the conclusion that stuck with me…
It was how certain everyone was about it.
If you go on any Reddit forum or investing community, you’ll see the same pattern:
On one side:
Nobody beats the market.
And anyone claiming to is either lying or delusional.
On the other:
People trying to beat the market by:
chasing hype
trading constantly
putting their life savings ($101.52) into a coin featuring a cat wearing a sombrero
calling everyone else sheep for “playing it safe”
And everything in between.
The Weird Part
The only people seriously attempting to beat the market…
didn’t look like people I wanted to learn from.
And the people who did seem thoughtful and disciplined…
were convinced it couldn’t be done.
That felt… off.
The Contrarian Thought
Because when you see two extremes like that—
total certainty on one side,
and total chaos on the other—
it usually means something in the middle is being ignored.
And that’s when it clicked:
If most people believe something is impossible…
there’s a good chance they’re not even looking for how it might be done.
A Better Question
So instead of accepting the answer, I started asking a different question:
Under what conditions might someone actually beat the market?
Not consistently every year.
Not easily.
Not without risk.
But… is it possible?
What I Found
I don’t have all the answers.
But I do have one important data point:
From my own experience, it is possible.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Or repeatable for everyone.
Or even sustainable forever.
But it does mean something important:
The question isn’t whether it can be done.
It’s why it works when it does.
Looking back, a few patterns stand out that create opportunity:
If no one believes it’s possible → fewer people are trying seriously → less real competition
If passive investing dominates → capital is allocated mechanically → price can drift away from value
If most investors think short-term → long-term outcomes get ignored → mispricing persists
If institutions manage careers, not just capital → they avoid being wrong alone →inefficiencies go unexploited
None of these guarantee an edge.
But they point in the same direction:
The system isn’t perfectly efficient.
Where This Leaves Me
I don’t think beating the market is easy.
And I definitely don’t think most people will do it.
But I also don’t think it’s something that should be dismissed outright.
Because when an idea is treated as impossible—
despite clear evidence that it’s been done—
it’s usually worth asking a few more questions.
Who knows? You might find something others have stopped looking for.
