Um...
Consider that "the writers threw darts at a stock list in the newspaper" is the limit of the description of their method.
Such a list was unlikely to be randomly generated, considering that it was deemed newsworthy.
It's unlikely that the selection drew randomly from stocks that were generally stagnant, or generally falling. It seems obvious that the non-random selection that was reported in the financial news was probably remarkable in some other way.
Don't get me wrong, economics is pseudo-science at best. But if you choose to buy stocks at random, you are likely to perform less well than if you choose stocks that are trending upwards in value, because some of your random selection will be stagnant or trending downwards.
See if you can find a news story about a random stock/shares selection that returns worse results than a broker's choice.
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Mon 8 Nov 2021, 23:00,
Reply)