People ask me “Is poker luck?” and “Is investing luck?”

The answer is, not at all. But sample sizes matter. On any given day a good investor or a good poker player can lose money. Any stock investment can turn out to be a loser no matter how large the edge appears. Same for a poker hand. One poker tournament isn’t very different from a coin-flipping contest and neither is six months of investment results.

On that basis luck plays a role. But over time — over thousands of hands against a variety of players and over hundreds of investments in a variety of market environments — skill wins out.

– David Einhorn, Speech at the Value Investing Congress.

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I for one welcome our new hedge-fund overlords.

Via Patrick Flood.