We find ourselves very frequently responding to the claim that a stock picker’s skill is essential in times of high market volatility. And with the Dow coming off its best weekly performance since March 2000, there has been ample opportunity to examine this assertion.

According to Barron’s during the most recent run up:

The 50 most shorted stocks have rallied 17.6%, outperforming the 50 least shorted stocks by 8.80 percentage points (over the same time frame).

The 50 stocks with the lowest analyst ratings have outperformed the 50 with the highest ratings by 3.80 percentage points.

One sample size does not lend itself to proof of anything but this pattern of underperformance (or simply put “Getting It Wrong”) is very consistent with past events.