A Coin TossMany investors, both amateur and professional, believe that they can beat common stock market benchmarks, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 Index, etc. All of our country’s top universities offer business degrees in finance, and the top brokers, bankers and mutual fund companies pay their managers top dollar to determine what to buy and sell and when to do it. So naturally, being able to outperform an industry benchmark shouldn’t be too difficult—wouldn’t you agree?Think about how many really good money managers you have heard about in your lifetime. They might be defined as those who have been able to consistently outperform a benchmark for, let’s say, ten years in a row. Well, we all know how great Warren Buffett is supposed to be. Peter Lynch (Fidelity Magellan Fund) was also a well-known money manager for the limited time he was in business (he retired at 43). What about other names? Some less famous but no less impre...