And, at the end of 2010, nearly 85% of the plan's assets were held in actively managed Fidelity mutual funds, which tend to charge higher fees than passively managed index funds."

Larry Swedroe of BAM had an interesting encounter with an actively managed fund family Third Avenue that not only insisted that their firm's results were good - they insisted they were competitive against evidence-based investing. On top of that, one of their executives decided to denigrate the pioneering work of Dr. Eugene Fama, an economic Nobel Laureate prize winner.

If you're investing, assuming the returns will be similar - would you prefer a roller coaster ride (which is a certainty) or a double twisting roller coaster (even higher volatility than necessary)?I think most people would agree they would prefer less volatility.

Larry Swedroe writes (click here) about the latest report that active management is (as always) under-performing passive indices.

Hidden among everything are the asset classes that will be the winners over the next 1, 5, 10 and even 20 years.

Reconstitution refers to the moment in time when indexes make changes in the list of companies in their index. Most indexes have a certain number of company stocks included which is part of the name like the S&P500 or the Russell 2000. Obviously they have 500 and 2,000, respectively.