Indexing has been popular with some pension funds and other institutional investors for decades, but Vanguard was the first to offer these funds to individuals. Twenty years later, Vanguard Index 500 has been nearly impossible to beat, primarily because it invests in larger companies than almost all fund managers buy.
All baseball players try to get the highest batting percentage they can each season.
But no more than half will surpass the median batting percentage for all baseball players. After all, the median is the batting percentage that half the players exceed and the other half fall short of. When companies announce their earnings every three months, most of them hold conference calls with analysts. It is a very efficient market. I think an investor who takes the time to thoroughly research funds, or who uses a good source of information, like this book, may well select large-company funds that will consistently outperform the index.