First of all, hasn't CAPM been shown to be a nice, but not terribly accurate, picture of how the market works? Among other things, it assumes that asset returns are normally distributed random variables, it assumes that investors have homogeneous expectations about the return of an asset (aka everyone has the same info at the same time and observes the same risk and expected return of any particular asset), and it doesn't explain variance in stock returns. In other words, it doesn't accurately mirror reality.

Secondly, while I agree that most people shouldn't be picking stocks, my hair still bristles when I hear someone say that individual investors can't beat the market. True, little retail investors are probably at a disadvantage to the bigger, faster funds out there, but this hasn't stopped a handful of people from beating the market. <brag>I've averaged 28% annual returns over the past 12 years. Maybe you would say I'm just lucky though? </brag>

So most investors can't beat the market. I guess you could also look at the risks - betting a small amount (and finding out if you have the chops) could be a reasonable bet. Leaving large sums in the hands of someone else (as opposed to say an index fund) ... less good.

The model predicts that you can get higher returns by accepting greater variance on those returns. Even at moderate risk levels, it's easy to predict that some investors will happen to get the kind of returns you describe. Were your returns a result of your agency? Who can say.

Let's sidestep the issue of luck. I don't believe it is likely that your prior returns are a meaningful indicator of your future returns. But I could be wrong.

For a given asset, (Jensen's) Alpha is usually quite small compared to total return. How do you isolate the Alpha you identify?

  <brag>I've averaged 28% annual returns over the past 12 years.

Telling us your returns means nothing without a way to compare to the market as a whole.

and

http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&...;