Hmm, I did not mean institutions do not loose Money, they too do but what I meant was all the players in the Market do not get the same benefits. It's not a level playing ground. Institutions have a greater advantage than any individual does. That's what I intended to say. The Cash market is perhaps good for the individual but the derivatives market is not so good and the leverage involved in the derivatives market can get very dangerous for the individual investor because they can not act as quickly as the institutions and they do not have access to all the information the institutions have. I am not trying to say institutions have better traders than the common man but they have the odds in their favor and it's an unfair game. Mr. Kingpin, I am not saying academics are great traders and the common men who trade are complete idiots, No SIR, i am not saying that. A good example is, LTCM, they had Nobel Prize winning economists but it still crashed spectacularly in 1998. In the Russian Roulette example, we do not know where the Bullet is so we can not say it will come only in the Millionth pull of the trigger and we'll make profits until then. That example was just to emphasize the randomness in the markets and nothing else. Given the randomness in the market, It is good if an individual investor sticks with Stocks w/o much leverage rather than go for the derivatives market which usually involves a much higher leverage. This is what I intended to say and did not mean that the Institutional investors are better than the accumulated wisdom of a few traders among the common men and women. Since, you have studied Finance, you must be knowing how badly leverage can go against you. The fact you mentioned about the common trader "And we are humble enough to suggest that they are successful only 70-75% times and fail during the remaining period." is 100% on target but if we fail in the derivatives market with a huge leverage I think failing 25% of the time is enough to ensure that we're close to getting wiped out. Our portfolio is going to significantly depreciate in value even if we consider a realistic Stop-Loss, unless we have a minuscule stop loss which is just a couple of ticks below the Purchase price. So, that's what I was trying to say. It is usually good if the individual investor stays away from instruments which have a very high leverage like the derivatives Market or the Forex Market. You're bang on target in saying "we are here to make money, not make theories. " No one comes to the markets "Just" to create theories. Most of the academic theories intends is to "give you a sufficient predictive ability." Well, I am honored by what you said but again I must emphasize that due to the high leverage even if we're wrong 20% - 25% of the time, it can hurt us badly. That was my only intention when I suggested that individual investors stay away from Derivative trading, I have no intention of proving the academics are better than the people who trade daily and have accumulated knowledge over a few years. The fight between these two groups of people with different thoughts is going to continue until Markets exist on Planet Earth, neither you nor me can prove that one group is superior and the other is inferior. I was trying to emphasize the dangers involved in Derivative trading and the markets are "unfairly" in favor of the Big players i.e., institutions and I must again say that this doesn't mean that individual investors are hopeless and can't make money. They too can make money in the Market. I believe i have now conveyed my message clearly and have no intention of proving one group of traders are inferior.