Eternal Pao once said a very realistic statement:

Retail investors are inherently behind institutions in terms of capital, information, and research capabilities.

And after the emergence of quantitative trading,
this gap,
is not being narrowed,
but being widened.

In the past, you faced humans,
with emotions, hesitation, and judgment errors;
now you face models, algorithms, and computing power,
monitoring the market 24/7,
completely emotionless,
focused on your behavioral patterns.

If you hesitate,
it’s already calculated;
if you follow the trend,
it’s already countered;
just when you think “this time is different,”
it has long categorized you
into a certain type of retail investor in historical data.

So the problem has never been
about how hard you work,
or how many technical indicators you learn,
but about
standing on a naturally unfair battlefield.

This is also why
truly clear-headed people
won’t indulge in short-term speculation,
won’t compete with machines on reaction speed,
but will try to do
things that are
not their strong suit for quantitative strategies,
disdained by institutions,
but where time can work in your favor.

In a market where
“computing power determines win rate,”
the biggest risk for retail investors
is not ignorance,
but thinking they still have a chance.