Want to make money in the financial markets? Hand me the darts.

Six months ago the Wall Street Journal invited four professionals and four readers to match their stock picks against four stocks chosen at random by throwing darts at a list. You guessed it.

The dartboard portfolio showed a gain of 36.4 per cent, compared to a loss of 3.7 per cent by the experts and 12.7 per cent by the readers, according to yesterday's Journal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down just more than one per cent in the period, from January 10th to June 29th.

Only one stock chosen by the pros, GlaxoSmithKline, showed a gain. Two of the readers' choices, Biomira and Viacom, surged ahead, though their average was pulled down by the 61.9 per cent drop of a third pick, ADC Telecommunications. All four dartboard shares, Electronics Boutique, Walt Disney Internet, Republic Bancorp and Chile electricity showed a profit.

In fairness, the experts usually win against the dart-throwers. In 133 such contests run by the newspaper since 1990 the pros have made an average six-month gain of 10 per cent compared with 4.2 per cent for the darts.