It is commonly stated that nobody can beat the stock market

It is commonly stated that nobody can beat the stock market. In other words, if the market has averaged X% return over the past 5 years, then extremely few of Wall Streets' best can top that. Almost all of Wall Streets' best can not beat that return. When the stock market was crashing during the 2008 recession, many of the stock market gurus lost their shirts. One of the smartest finance people I knew had his MBA with a concentration in finance at the best MBA program in the world. He is my ex-brother-in-law (hence, the operative word is 'ex-brother-in-law". He was making money hand over fist in the stock market until the 2008 recession. Then he lost everything. He tried to make back his losses, but he could not. He maxed out his credit cards, then maxed out my sister's credit card, then took out a second mortgage on the house to try to recoup his losses (all this without my sister knowing, hence the word 'ex').

However, there are a few who seem to do very well. First and foremost is Warren Buffet and back in the day, there was Peter Lynch. Some try to work on insider knowledge, which is illegal. The question for you is if you were to build your own portfolio of 50 different stocks, what are some of the issues you would look at for stocks when you are building the portfolio. 

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