text: Here are the facts: the majority of retail and institutional investors over the long term will do better in stock investments by using index investing consistently (assuming you invest in the major indices) rather than by trying to be stock pickers or worse yet, trying to figure out which active money managers will be the best performers. So says Stuart Lucas, the heir to the Carnation fortune in his book "Wealth, Grow It, Protect It, Spend It and Share It".  Even if active money managers could beat the market, you still have the drag of costs of management subtracted from their performance plus any capital gains taxes attracted by trading.
  It is true that an active money manager may in certain times do better than the market but there's no way to consistently identify who those money managers will be.