Basic economic theory suggests that any easily replicable profitable system will find its risk-adjusted returns competed away to the t-bill rate. Given real world assumptions, this may take a few years or even a decade+, but it will happen eventually. If you are one of the first trend-followers or mutual fund timers, you can do really well. But after a while the competition will heat up, the edges will diminish, and the activity will no longer display great profitability. So IMO in the long-run, all fully mechanical systems will degrade. However, good systems traders will know this and will be constantly researching for new edges, and refining their old systems, throwing them out if they become obsolete. So whilst a single system is unlikely to provide superior returns over the very long run, systematic trading is still viable as an approach. The other implication is that discretionary trading is superior in this one respect - it is virtually impossible to copy. A Soros can try to explain how he trades, a Buffett can explain his investing philosophy, but even if people understand it, they still can't replicate it. Therefore if you can genuinely get an edge through discretionary trading/investing, it is much more likely to be permanent. For an edge to be long-lasting, there generally has to be some reason to prevent almost unlimited competition coming in and eating up all the returns. If your strategy does not have some kind of structural barrier to competition, then it will probably be competed away in time. That barrier could be extreme skill, superior research, human nature, barriers to entry, lack of competition and so on. But it has to be there, if you expect your profits to last.
Indeed, very logical question. Why make things complicated? And if the accusations are not correct sue them. As europeans we always thought that sueing people to make quick money was one of the first this americans do. In this case it wouldn't be that stupid at all, because the accustations can indeed damage the business of Schindler.
MAN AHL, Winton Futures, Transtrend AB, Brummers Lynx Tons of successful programs out there managing 100s of billions working fully automated on just technical indicators alone.