is in contradiction to
>It's not really elitist.
It's not wrong. But elitist is absolutely is. We're saying, only these people can do these things correctly. Is it true? It's subject to debate. You can be in IT, discover a software product at work and decide you think the company is worth investing in. Don't need an MBA for that.
Like I say, best to leave it to professionals. For some things it's fine for people to have a DIY spirit, like building a website or a cabinet. For other things, which can harm you if you mess up, it's better to leave it to the pro's... electricians, doctors, etc. We're talking about people's life savings here, they can easily lose everything and ruin their lives, not being able to take care of their family etc.
I'm sorry, but how does value matter? I'm not being flippant - the Mag 7 are not 'value' companies. Are Nvidia, Apple, etc., overvalued? And so we should avoid them or short them? Is Tesla 'priced-in'? There's all sorts of psychology in the market. What does 'priced-in' even mean? What wouldn't be priced in. "Water is wet" is what I think of, a tautology, when I hear that all public information is 'priced in'. Things are incredibly dynamic. Here we have at a minimum: algorithmic trading that bounces on common measures like moving averages, institutions that buy or sell at various points strategically (like the big dump when the BOJ raised rates unexpectedly, tax selling, etc.), elections putting oligarch-ish types that own car companies and pump crypto coins, meme stocks that come and go on big reddit forums, regular buys from 401k's into indexes which move markets, etc. etc. With all that going on, to me it feels more "random" than "priced-in".
One more thing. Money is also made not buying and holding, and not trading, but by doing things like 'The Wheel' where you sell puts on something you wouldn't mind holding, monthly, til you get assigned, and sell calls on it, monthly, til it gets called away. In this case, you don't actually have to care very much what the 'value' is, only tracking whether it might have a sudden swing. You don't have to 'time the market' that much either, as you're an insurance salesman.
I'm not saying that people should all jump and do this - but when I read about stocks on HN, I always hear the same counter-argument against 'traders' and 'stock pickers' when there are other ways to make money in the market (i.e. collecting premium).
It's definitely closer to 'gambling' when I put it that way. But I don't see any value in Efficient Market Hypothesis-speak like "is this stock under or over-valued." For that I let the MBA's / golf course discussions / elite experts with insider information rule.
And then you can be still be wrong because you didn't appreciate that the company is operating a low-trust environment/switching costs are high/they didn't have enough industry contacts/competitors outmarketed.