I think many people are missing the point by measuring everything against a single benchmark. The fact that many different investment vehicles (alternatives, in

I think many people are missing the point by measuring everything against a single benchmark. The fact that many different investment vehicles (alternatives, indexes, mutual funds, PE, etc) produce very similiar returns is a sign that the markets are working properly. If every investment dollar was just mindlessly plowed into SPY or vanilla public markets then other kinds of investments would generate huge returns (like hedge funds in the 90’s). The spread between different investments should be low, because that’s how we know the market is efficient. As an aside, I also think it’s silly to just take into account returns. For example, many managers add positions that are predicted to have a net negative on the returns of the portfolio compared to some other position, because it adds diversification or is thought to decrease the variance of the portfolio as a whole.