For more than three decades, interest rates have been declining worldwide. Financial institutions have created over 12 million financial products, all promising added value compared to passive investments. The central theme of an entire industry and science is what investment strategies enable such excess returns. However, only a very few products actually achieve long-term excess returns. Unfortunately, most people tend to complicate simple things. Success in the stock market comes only to those investors who see obvious things earlier than the crowd. This requires thinking like the crowd and not getting in one's own way with complex thought processes. This book provides an overview of empirical capital market research and practice for the first time and outlines ways to achieve an annual excess return of 2 to 3 percent. After just one hour of reading, you can implement the insights gained.