Where outperformance actually comes from.
Articles
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Churn Is Not Edge: Why More Trading Usually Means Less Return
The accounts that trade the most are usually the brokerage's best customers, not its best performers — here is why turnover, slippage, and per-trade incentives quietly eat returns.
September 3, 2026
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The Real Cost of Alpha Is Psychological: Drawdowns, Recency, and the Urge to Tinker
Most investors don't lose because the strategy failed — they lose because they quit inside the drawdown; pre-commitment is the only durable cure.
September 3, 2026
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Choosing the Right Benchmark: SPY, QQQ, VEA, VT, or 60/40
Whether a strategy beat the market depends entirely on which market you line it up against — here is when SPY, QQQ, VEA, VT, and a 60/40 blend are fair yardsticks, how the wrong one flatters or buries any claim, and why you should demand the benchmark be stated.
September 3, 2026
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The Fee Tax: Where Excess Returns Go to Die
Fee-drag arithmetic on excess returns: how a 1–2% annual AUM charge compounds against your edge every single year, and how a flat fee changes the compounding picture.
September 3, 2026
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Drawdowns Are the Price of Edge — Read Them Like a Price Tag
Every return number hides a drawdown. Learn to read max drawdown as the price tag of an edge — and why a strategy that never hurts is a fantasy.
September 3, 2026
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How to Find Winning Alpha in 2026
A 2026 workflow for finding and verifying outperformance claims: date every record you follow, demand benchmark-honest reports, and prefer flat-fee structures.
September 3, 2026
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Index Funds vs. Systematic Strategies: Cheap Beta vs. Documented Excess
Index funds hand you the benchmark at near-zero cost; a strategy subscription is a bet that someone can document beating it — and the only question that matters is which one you are actually paying for.
September 3, 2026
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Out-of-Sample Evidence: The Only Performance That Should Move You
Dated, out-of-sample performance is the only evidence worth trusting — a backtest is a story, and here is how you check the date a claim became real.
September 3, 2026
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Momentum Rotation Strategies That Beat Their Benchmarks in 2026
Why most momentum-rotation claims are judged against the wrong benchmark, and what it looks like when a rotation strategy is measured against the index that matches what it actually trades.
September 3, 2026
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The disclaimer is correct, and that is exactly why it keeps getting used to dismiss the only evidence investing ever leaves behind — here is how to read a track record without treating it as prophecy.
September 3, 2026
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Reading a Track Record Like a Skeptic: Total Return, CAGR, Max Drawdown, Sharpe
Five numbers tell you most of what a strategy is — if you know which five and what each one hides.
September 3, 2026
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Buy & Hold, Momentum Rotation, or Volatility Targeting: Match the Edge to Your Temperament
A drawdown-tolerance-first comparison of the three strategy families, mapped to documented, backtested systems — because the edge you can survive beats the one with the prettiest CAGR.
September 3, 2026
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What Alpha Actually Means: Excess Returns, Benchmarks, and the Luck Problem
Alpha is not a vibe or a win streak; it is risk-adjusted excess return measured against a stated benchmark, and most short track records cannot prove it.
September 3, 2026
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Where to Find Good Alpha Research Resources: Books, Videos, Articles & Websites
Where to actually learn about outperformance: the books, papers, and websites that show benchmarked evidence — and how to tell real alpha research from noise.
September 3, 2026
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"Market Timing Doesn't Work" — Unless It's a Rule Written Down in Advance
Discretionary timing deserves its bad reputation, but a timing rule written down in advance is a testable hypothesis — and lumping the two together is how a real, documentable edge gets dismissed as a coin flip.
September 3, 2026