Momentum investing has beaten buy-and-hold investing by a wide margin according to Econompic:

Here it is (going back all the way to 1871)... it turns out that the easiest thing to do (i.e. a buy and hold listed below as 'total return') was NOT the most profitable by a factor of 80 (according to my calculations, a $1 investment in 1871 is worth less than $2000 in a buy and hold strategy vs. almost $160,000 for the simple momentum strategy described above over that same time frame).

Momentum is defined as buying when the previous month's stock market performance was positive and shorting when it was negative. Buy and hold is calculated by using the total return for the S&P 500.

This will surprise a lot of people, though probably not avid momentum traders. If you're skeptical, about the result above, you can check the data which is available at Econompic.

Looks like you don't need to be a high-frequency trader to make money after all.