It’s been a rocky start for 2016, continuing the choppiness that started in August. US stocks as measured by the CRSP US Total Market Index are down roughly 5% since the beginning of the year and almost 9% since the last market peak on June 22nd.

When I started Beacon almost 20 years ago, I wanted to do one thing for my clients: Grow their wealth faster than they could grow it elsewhere. That's still true today, but everything else has changed.

The obvious answer to the title question is 'yes of course,' but only one in five actually accomplishes it. Here's the fascinating part - anyone can join the elite 20% any time they wish and outperform 80% of other investors as long as the 80% continues doing what they are doing. By now, it's widely accepted that most actively managed portfolios, whether mutual funds, private accounts, or hedge funds, fail to beat the benchmarks against which they are measured. Yet most investors continue to chase the goal of market-beating returns, despite the low odds of success.