Let’s say you sponsor a contest to determine the “world’s best coin flippers.” About 100,000 people from across the world come together to participate in this contest. Everyone flips a coin at the same time.
After each coin flip, those who flip “tails” must leave, until the only people left have flipped 10 consecutive heads. Basic statistics suggests that we could expect about 98 coin flippers to remain at the end of the contest.
The odds of flipping heads 10 times in a row are 1/2^10 = 1/1024. So, for 100,000 participants, there will be 100,000/1,024 = 98 people who would have flipped 10 consecutive heads.
Then, these 98 “skilled” coin flippers would get thousands of likes on Facebook, and followers on Twitter. Those with the best smile and social media skills will write bestselling books about coin flipping, sharing their secrets of how to become a world-class coin flipper.
Anyways, let’s now consider investing. If just 50% investors outperform the stock market every year, the odds of one investor outperforming every year for 10 years would be 1/1024. That is, just one out of 1,024 investors would achieve this feat of outperforming the market every year for 10 years.