I have been a "professional" money manger for 35 years. At one point in that journey i was part of a 150 global analyst team and the quant team measured the hit rates across the whole analytical team. the results were illuminating. the study was based across time and number of calls, to get a significant sample, and measured against the stock universe for each analyst. so a big study. the result was i ended up being 4/150, which i thought was great, but the hit rate (above universe return) i recorded was, and this is the real message here, 57.8%. 57.8%!! and that was 4/150!! when you examine the results across all analysts 6/10 made you Buffet and 4/10 got you sacked-quite tight. the message is that you will make alot of mistakes and have to have the character to deal with that. also investing is not for everyone and you must be honest with that, even given intelligence and hard work-small correlation. another implication is the weighting of each call because it was difficult to identify which was the 4 poor calls in advance-the study implied equal weights. you could, however, assess what was risky and what was not. i would recommend being honest with yourself and measure your successes and failures given the hit rate ranges above and see why you win and why you lose and adjust accordingly to be a better investor. :)