To the dismay of active equity managers, the ranks of the random-walk converts are swelling all the time, especially in the United States where passive managers now handle most of the shares in public-sector pension funds.

ECONOMIST: Can you beat the blindfolded monkey?

Authors Guofo Zhou and Yingzi Zu use some complex math based on the random-walk theory to show that the odds of watching half your liquid net worth evaporate are roughly similar to those of another major life event: death.

FORBES: We Can't Avoid Another Market Crash

He made his big splash in 1973 with his best-selling takedown of stock-picking, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, in which he illustrated the futility of accurately predicting future stock prices, noting how a blindfolded chimpanzee throwing darts at the stock page of a newspaper could pick winners as well as a Wall Street professional.

FORBES: Burton Malkiel Advises Running From Bonds Into Dividends, Emerging Markets

Malkiel: It is, and in fact I'm just working on--it'll be out in November--the 10th edition of my Random Walk book.

FORBES

And then finally, the other thing I've always been a big believer in, and Forbes magazine has been a great supporter from the very beginning of my Random Walk book, and that is put your money in low-cost index funds.

FORBES: Intelligent Investing Briefing Book

Gary Shilling, editor of Insight, looks at the economy and the financial sector and remains a bear with claws, while Burton Malkiel, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, counters that trying to predict the market is folly--even though he's a huge bull on China!

FORBES: Special Report