This is absolute malarky made to make people feel better about sub-optimal returns. There are definitely strategies which provide greater than 8-10% YoY returns, or random walk, or indexes. People that know them, rarely will share the full - but will occasionally share glimpses. It can be hard to do for very large portfolios, say $10B+, but not for smaller portfolios.
I'm not sure Warren Buffett would agree with you. In a 1975 letter to Katherine Graham, he wrote "If above-average performance is to be their yard stick, the vast majority of investment managers must fail. Will a few succeed — due to either to chance or skill? Of course. For some intermediate period of years a few are bound to look better than average due to chance — just as would be the case if 1,000 ‘coin managers’ engaged in a coin-flipping contest. There would be some ‘winners’ over a five or 10-flip measurement cycle. (After five flips, you would expect to have 31 with uniformly ‘successful’ records — who, with their oracular abilities confirmed in the crucible of the marketplace, would author pedantic essays on subjects such as pensions.)”
Notice how whenever someone claims there are ways to consistently beat the market by some incredible amount, they never seem to be able to point to anything specific. It’s always “Ohhh, there are these hidden wizards who do it, and they (conveniently) don’t tell anyone the ways of their sorcery, but trust me, they exist in dark smoky rooms somewhere!! You’re just not invited.”
It’s like “I assure you, extraterrestrials exist, there’s just no visible evidence of them and they never show themselves. But they’re out there I swear!”
Most recent one I heard was to day trade mean reversion for instruments within thirty minutes. No data or proof to back it up. Everyone's got an idea. What kind of glimpse are you referring to?
