2010s:

By studying subjects such as behavioral economics according to Kahnemann, analysis tools for decision making and financial institutions & markets, I began to focus more on the topic of finance and cognitive biases.
 

Of course, I also tried to generate alpha or outperformance by investing in individual stocks. But the result for me was similar to that of most (over 80% for the running year) active fund managers failed to achieve an excess return in the long term. Therefore I abandoned this inglorious attempt after often failing to achieve the market return of the respective year with a lot of effort, cost and time.​
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Now that I was starting to work and had less time, I asked myself how I could achieve market returns in an unagitated way and how I could map the many individual securities in a global portfolio without high costs. “New” digital media, such as Finanztip or Finanzfluss, which advertise taking your finances into your own hands and aim to provide financial education and further education rather than selling products, were eagerly consumed. With growing knowledge of investing according to a scientifically based approach and its unagitated implementation, one inevitably comes across the “ETF Pope” Gerd Kommer and his highly interesting books, which contain and quote every conceivable serious financial study. The books not only deal with confident investing with ETFs, but also shed light on the big financial questions in life such as buying or renting and other lifestyle decisions from all sides.​

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To summarize, ~98%* of active fund managers do not manage to beat the global equity market over the long term (more than 10 years) after costs, as fund managers do not have a crystal ball either. Based on the Gaussian normal distribution, there must be the ~2% that do. But there is no reliable way of knowing in advance who that will be. With regard to the systematic maximization of returns, common sense therefore dictates that “all” shares on the global market should be bought as cheaply as possible and held for as long as possible with low running costs so that the compound interest effect can take full effect.

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*Quelle: S&P Dow Jones Indices >Spiva Europe Scorecard Year End 2022<