Apple, Microsoft, and Meta proved stock picking works. For individuals. The headline says so.
Ignore the part where these three companies represent approximately 18% of the S&P 500's total market capitalization. Ignore the statistical impossibility of losing money on the three largest technology companies during a decade-long bull run in technology. Ignore the fact that a dartboard thrown at the Nasdaq 100 in 2015 would have hit profitable positions 90% of the time.
This is skill.
The individual investor who bought Apple after watching an iPhone commercial and held it because he forgot his Schwab password is a stock picker now. He read the charts. He understood the technicals. He definitely did not just benefit from the largest share buyback program in corporate history while scrolling through Twitter during work hours.
Microsoft went up because of individual stock picking ability. Not because Azure cloud revenue grew 30% annually while every corporation on earth decided they needed to rent servers or get left behind. Not because the company prints free cash flow like a municipal bond had a baby with a cocaine operation. Stock picking.
Meta dropped 75% in 2022 and the individual stock picker held through it because of conviction and research. Definitely not because he was down so much that selling felt worse than holding. Then it tripled and suddenly he is Warren Buffett with a Robinhood account.
The fool's errand is not stock picking. The fool's errand is convincing yourself you picked stocks when you bought the three most obvious companies on the planet and waited. A child could have done this. A golden retriever with a brokerage account could have done this.
But sure, individuals cracked the code by buying the same three stocks every pension fund and index already owned.
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