TL;DR: 169 people on r/ValueInvesting (post) shared their 2026 returns. 64% said they're up 30% or more. The S&P 500 is up about 13.5%. Either Reddit found the secret to beating the market, or something funny is going on. (It's the second one.)
So I did what any reasonable person would do. I read every comment and put all 169 answers in a spreadsheet.
Here's what Reddit says it did this year.
The numbers
The typical commenter says they're up 30–50%. The market is up 13.5%.
Out of 169 answers:
108 people (64%) said they're up 30% or more
27 people (16%) said they're up 100%+. That means they doubled their money in under nine months.
17 people (10%) said they're up less than 10%
9 people (5%) admitted to losing money
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is up about 13.5% this year, dividends included.
That means at least 130 of the 169 commenters, 77%, say they beat the market by a mile. And 27 of them say they beat it by roughly 7x.
For comparison, 79% of professional large-cap fund managers lost to the S&P 500 last year. These are people with Bloomberg terminals, analyst teams, and MBAs from schools with ivy on the walls.
Apparently they should have been on Reddit.
Beautiful.
So is everyone on Reddit a genius?
Probably not. Here's why these numbers deserve an "allegedly."
To be fair, some of these people may really be crushing it. But before you quit your job and put your 401(k) into whatever u/TendieKing69 is buying, keep a few things in mind.
1. Nobody posts their L's
Imagine someone asks at a party, "Hey, how much money did you make this year?"
The guy who's up 80% answers right away. The guy who's down 20% suddenly needs to refill his drink.
That's the whole thread. The people who reply to a question like this are the people who want to answer it. The 9 people who admitted losses are either very honest or very brave. Respect.
2. Nobody checks the math
Reddit comments don't come with brokerage statements. Some people calculate YTD return correctly. Some count the money they deposited as "gains." Some look at their one best stock and call it their portfolio.
A 100% return on a $2,000 account is also a very different accomplishment from a 100% return on $2 million.
3. Concentration cuts both ways
You don't get to 100% by owning 40 boring dividend stocks. You get there by making a few big, concentrated bets (or using options). When it works, you post on Reddit. When it doesn't, you... don't post on Reddit. See point #1.
4. This is r/ValueInvesting
It's the subreddit for people who worship Benjamin Graham and his "margin of safety." And a sixth of them say they doubled their money in nine months.
Ben would be proud. Or deeply concerned. Hard to say.
So what's the lesson?
Beating the market for one year is easy. Doing it for 15 is almost impossible.
Most professional fund managers lose to the index in any given year, and over long stretches that number gets even worse. Those are people who do this for a living, full-time, with a lot of resources.
So when 64% of a Reddit thread says they've more than doubled the market's return, the most likely explanation isn't that Reddit cracked the code. It's that the people having a great year were the ones who showed up to talk about it.
And if you're one of the 9 who admitted you're down this year: you're the most trustworthy people on the internet.
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