Yes, I suspect so :-) However the core of my objection is the transformation of something like "An average retail investor playing in the US equity market will not beat S&P500 returns" into "It is never going to be worthwhile for a personal investor to attempt to beat the market". There are a great many markets in the world, not all of them are large and/or efficient, and, on top of that, the diversity of personal investors is much greater than the diversity of markets.
Not to mention that if you just leverage your investment a bit and the market in which you invest has a positive drift, then you will "beat the market" pretty trivially.
There are a great many markets in the world, not all of them are large and/or efficient, and, on top of that, the diversity of personal investors is much greater than the diversity of markets.
'The', not 'a' or 'any'. Again, I chose to leave out any disambiguation and disclaimers beyond the pronoun choice, to avoid wordiness and because I thought no reasonable reader would misinterpret the statement. My instinct for pedantry that I so cruelly suppressed as 'unduly socially awkward' while writing my comment is now jeering "I told you so" at me. While such precautions come with a cost they at least serve to prevent this kind of exchange from time to time.
P/S/A: There are single sentences which can create life-changing amounts of difference.