Do trading strategies actually beat buy & hold?

71% of judged strategies ended at or below simply buying & holding.

Each bar counts asset×strategy combos by how far the strategy's total return beat (right of 0, green) or lagged (left of 0, red) buy & hold over the same ~5-year window — in percentage points, not per year and not risk-adjusted. Zero is buy & hold; the green bars sum to the 698 that beat, the red bars to the 1,709 that lagged. The 141 combos too thin to score aren't plotted. The far bars (≤ −600pp / > +300pp) collect the extremes and are not to scale. The median is negative and the mean lower still (dragged down by a few blow-ups) — the typical famous strategy lagged. Famous names still trading today; delisted names aren't here (survivorship). Hypothetical / simulated — not advice, not a base rate for every stock.