Beating the market, as a reachable goal

[NEW YORK] Robert A Olstein finds the arguments for index funds personally insulting. "What do you mean I can't beat the market?" he says angrily.

A forensic accountant- turned-mutual fund manager, he doesn't aim to do as well as everybody else. "That's mediocrity," he says.

Mr Olstein knows that very few investors manage to beat the market consistently, which is why so many people have poured so much money into index funds - more than US$3 trillion, including traditional mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), according to the Investment Company Institute.