The potential rewards to active investors are higher, but the very act of exploiting those opportunities exhausts them. As always, 10% of traders will beat the market, even net fees. The rest will continue to underperform the index, and importantly, the cadre of 10% traders changes from year to year and decade to decade and there's really no predicting it.

It's always interesting to read the frustrations of star fund managers and how difficult it becomes to sustain success just as they get popular.