> Are you saying that it's literally impossible for me to invest in a local gym, real estate development, plumbing company, landscaper etc. and not beat the US equity market's average return of 9% a year?
Yes, without taking additional risk. SP500 is risk free, everything else, you need to be pricing in additional risk OR you need to have an edge other than providing money (which you can do buy buying VOO). hn_throwaway_99’s second paragraph explains it well.
One common arbitrage opportunity is to be part of an immigrant diaspora. They won’t have access to credit, but will be willing to work 100 hours per week. You can take advantage of that and basically use the fact that you are getting under minimum wage labor that is very invested in the business to get better than public equity returns.
Compared to an equity investment in a local business, sure. On a 5 or even 3 year timeline, the federal US government is not going to let the broad market indices fall. And if they do, Americans have bigger problems to worry about.
Yes, without taking additional risk. SP500 is risk free, everything else, you need to be pricing in additional risk OR you need to have an edge other than providing money (which you can do buy buying VOO). hn_throwaway_99’s second paragraph explains it well.
One common arbitrage opportunity is to be part of an immigrant diaspora. They won’t have access to credit, but will be willing to work 100 hours per week. You can take advantage of that and basically use the fact that you are getting under minimum wage labor that is very invested in the business to get better than public equity returns.