Despite what many people will say, particularly folks in the index fund industry like Vanguard founder John Bogle, a do it yourself investor or money manager can beat the market, even over long periods of time. The problem is that beating the market is so difficult that most people shouldn’t try. It’s true that for longterm investment advice, you could do a lot worse than to park your money in a lowcost Vanguard index fund and not think about it more than once a quarter. But some mutual fund managers have proven that superior performance can be bought or mimicked.