Market Efficiency

The strong form of market efficiency essentially proclaims that it is impossible to consistently outperform the market, particularly in the short term, because it is impossible to predict stock prices. This may be controversial, but by far the most controversial aspect of maket efficiency is the claim that analysts and professional advisors add little or no value to portfolios, especially mutual fund managers (with the notable exception of those managing funds that take on greater risks), and that professionally managed portfolios do not consistently outperform randomly selected portfolios with equivalent risk characteristics.