Mox

7 minutes ago, Minimalist said:

Fact remains that the cat was lucky because it has no knowledge and understandings of the markets.

Truth is, the more trades over the length of time/greater scale, you get to see who is the real deal. A cat would be at the bottom of the list. 

To win you need someone else to lose, someone has to be willing to buy what you have at a price you are willing to sell. Professionals go bankrupt, there are many losers who call themselves professional, to break even is to be average?, to make a profit is takes some luck? To beat the professionals is to be the cat, I’d rather be the cat than have to make however many trades to win. Maybe it is luck but you need luck to beat chaos?

2 minutes ago, Minimalist said:

Depends on the rules. If we were allowed to purchase any type of asset at our discretion then I would be confident to beat a cat. As @HawkHybrid pointed out there are limits where only four market purchases are given over each quarter making it clearly a bias. If it was say for example £10,000 starting capital and we had until the end of this year leaving 8 months left the cat would obviously lose.

So, if there had only been one trade and the cat won then you would say it was luck and there should be more. So, there were 4 and the cat won, so you say there should be more. If there were more and the cat won then ‘obviously’ we would need more trades until the professionals won and you could turn round and say “See? Told you so!”. If one has no control over an outcome then the cat can always win, there is no certainty in a game of chance.

But the professionals would still have expected to beat a cat, if they agreed to the challenge then I assume they were confident of success. And before seeing the result the vast majority would have bet on them winning.

Maybe, maybe not. I would bet on you all taking up the challenge v a cat and expect to win?

1 minute ago, Minimalist said:

What book is that and whats this about the cat?

Lee Camp: Bullet Points and Punch Lines p86. Ref https://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2013/01/15/cat-beats-professionals-at-stock-picking/#7e357717621a

Do you own a cat @Wonger Just curious.

Being new to this would it be easy (probably not) to say if I should invest in gold/silver now or not for medium to long term investment and possible trading if prices are favourable?

There’s a lot to try and take in and I am trying to learn fast...