A Rising Tide

With a round of Conference games this midweek, a few tipsters were in action, with varying degrees of success. BettingTools.co.uk extended his lead at the top, and his share of the prize money while Club Havana and Mortimer trimmed their deficits. TFA_Raz trimmed his profits slightly, which was not the intention I'm sure, and TFA Draws made its much anticipated debut, but both selections finished as 1:0 results.

For the eagle eyed among you, some of the selection totals are higher than the results because some entries for this coming weekend have already been entered. I'm expecting the weekend to get a little busier. 

One of the less positive aspects of a zero-sum competition like the FTL is that everyone has a vested interest in the success or failure of others, especially if they are a Bounty Entry, but overall, the returns to date overall are good. The net total is -3.08 from 547 bets, and if a certain south London team hadn't snatched a 95th minute equaliser at Newcastle United a couple of weeks ago, @ValueBankFooty's accumulator win would have seen that total be positive. 

I really am trying to wind down the index funds discussion, because as with climate change, its deniers are an ever shrinking minority in the face of overwhelming evidence, however Emp was back with some fine quotes.

Frankly, I couldn't care less about the mythical average guy who has no information, and apparently no time to search for it either

I keep forgetting that Emp is so much better than average. I'm not sure who has no information in this information age, but it certainly doesn't take much time to search for investment advice. Go to Google and type in "Green All Over"...

What you may be missing, is that by definition, the average guy can never do well. There just isn't room in the markets for any but a tiny minority to profit.

Yes, you see this in the harbour when the tide comes in. Those multi-mullion pound yachts just float so much higher than the average ones. Investors in the S&P 500 last year had a torrid time, only making 32%. My heart goes out to the huge minority who did so poorly.

Seriously, I think Emp confuses traders with long-term investors. Not many of the latter have failed to do well over the years. It's exactly the trading (active management) strategy that costs profits and that I am advocating be avoided. Pay attention Prabs!

If hypothetically, everyone jumped into index funds as you advised, the stocks in said index would necessarily become over-valued (because people buy them just because they are in the index).

 "Said index"? Yes, there is only one index in the world markets, and everyone is piling in to it. The stocks in "said index" are indeed becoming over-valued. Perhaps Emp missed the part about diversification?

Plenty of people can and have predicted and benefited colossally from market turns.

And plenty of people have predicted the second coming and the end of the world. If you have a steady stream of experts predicting an upturn or a downturn, of course someone will appear to have made a great prediction after the fact, but it's the way of the world that all the other incorrect predictions they have made are overlooked, and that too much weight is given to a lucky guess:

“The data is clear, 50% unemployment, a 90% stock market drop, and 100% annual inflation . . starting in 2012.”

That catastrophic outlook comes from Robert Wiedemer, economist and author of The New York Times best-seller Aftershock. Before you dismiss Wiedemer’s claims, consider this: In 2006 he accurately predicted the collapse of the U.S. housing market, equity markets, and consumer spending that almost sank the United States.

Oops. Consider this: Someone missed out on some massive returns last year.

Of course there will be a crash, and of course there will be a recovery - at some time - (it's how economies work) but anyone who claims to be able to accurately predict them (date and duration) is either wealthy beyond imagination (The Sultan?) or dishonest, delusional or both (The Sultan!).