qcomer, thanks for the correction, but it doesn’t change my mind about the low chances of beating the general market. That’s why I switched to index funds in the late 90’s. For example, These are the returns for your fund:
2006
2005 17.23%
2004 19.66%
2003 42.38%
2002 – 9.37%
2001 -12.99%
2000 -8.96%

With its heavy concentration in consumer goods and financials, 2007 is likely to be a year of losses again.

I don’t have tine to check all of AN’s funds, so I picked the highest returning, VGHCX. Again, it had some very good years, and some bad years. In 2001 and 2002 its return was -7%, and -11%. Then 3 years of good returns, 26%, 10%, 15%. What will it be next year? With 91% of holdings in health, the Democrats could put a serious dent in its earnings.

I am aware there are funds with extraordinary returns for one year, two years, or even 3 years. But two important points must be remembered:

1) no fund can consistently beat the general stock market (although Bill Miller came close with almost 2 decades), and

2) although each year, by definition of average, many funds beat the average, we *never know in advance* which funds they will be