The benchmark you're actually racing
Doing nothing is a strategy
Buying and holding requires no skill, no screen time, and no decisions. It's the default. Any trading you do has to beat it or it wasn't worth doing.
Most active traders don't beat it
This is well documented across every market. Fees, spreads and emotional decisions compound against you. Beating buy-and-hold is genuinely hard.
Which is how Real Crashes are scored
Every scenario shows you buy-and-hold's return next to yours. Losing 10% where the market lost 42% is a good result. Making 5% where holding made 30% is a bad one, even though it's green.
Check yourself
In a scenario where buy-and-hold returns -42%, you finish at -10%. How did you do?
- Badly — you lost money
- Well — you beat the benchmark by 32 points
- Impossible to say
Show the answer
Well — you beat the benchmark by 32 points — In a falling market, losing less is the win. Against the alternative of doing nothing you're 32 points ahead.