I can't follow the arguments here about beating the market - what is the market the ALSI, Top40, Fin 15, Ind 25, Res 10 - if you are dealing with the broadest measure then nobody should have a problem beating the market (if the ALSI is the benchmark). If you look at the competition Patrick is running the STXIND is beating the ALSI by a few percentage points. So we need to define the market in terms of an index which we are trying to beat and since the broadest measure is the ALSI then that is the market that you are trying to beat. I am a firm believer that if you manage your own portfolio you should be able to beat the market very much annually, whereas the fund managers will battle because they run large and cumbersome funds and they have (bar a few) all set such low bench marks that it doesn't pay to invest with them, the only reason they set such low bench marks is so that they can reward themselves when they do exceed the bench mark by taking large fees from clients.
Some of my funds are invested in Mutual Funds and some companies perform well, and other awfully, and/or average - but if Satrix options as on has today were around 10 - 15 years ago I would have invested in a range of Satrix's as opposed to U/T's