"active investors as an aggregate" are the market, so of course they never beat it. By most definitions "active investors" are traders, not investors. The oth

"active investors as an aggregate" are the market, so of course they never beat it. By most definitions "active investors" are traders, not investors. The other problem is that the alternative to not beating the market is picking a generally underperforming mutual fund and giving up almost half of your profit as management fees. If you get 8% on your mutual fund and the manager takes 2% then.... $1000 * 30 years @ 8% = $10,935.73 $1000 * 30 years @ 6% = $6,022.58 (10 935.73 - 6 022.58) / 10 935.73 = 0.449274991 The problem with most people when they go into the market is that they use a buy high sell low strategy. They buy into the market when "it's doing well" and sell when "they lost their money"