Reality Check
Numbers instead of opinions. Every figure with a source and a date. Where numbers can go stale, that's noted.
Active funds against the index
Over ten years, the large majority of actively managed funds fall short of their benchmark index. For European world equity funds, the most recent figure was 98 percent.
Loss rates on CFDs
Analyses by European regulators found that typically 74 to 89 percent of retail client accounts lose money on CFDs. The figure has since been mandatory in every ad.
Declines and recovery
Ten-percent declines occur about once a year on average; declines over forty percent occur a handful of times per century. Recovery periods have ranged from months to decades.
How many day traders actually make money
The largest study ever conducted on day traders analyzed fifteen years of complete exchange data from Taiwan. Result: fewer than one percent of day traders were reliably profitable over multiple years.