No, because 1. You can't normally short sell mutual funds. As a retail investor, short selling is hard. Plus, short selling has fees, even for institutional

No, because 1. You can't normally short sell mutual funds. As a retail investor, short selling is hard. Plus, short selling has fees, even for institutional investors. 2. Even if a fund gets lucky (or unlucky), its future returns are also normally distributed. I.e, if a fund beats the market 20% one year, its next year is just as likely to be lucky again as unlucky. Funds that underperform the market severely are closed or merged into other funds. Funds that get lucky and trounce the market tend to stay open. If your 5 year track record is +20%/year, and you have a "bad" year, your 6 year track record is still +15%/year.