The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that every year, investors are promised a "stock-picker's market" that never seems to materialize. The Globe's Tim Shufelt writes that the investment industry is perpetually claiming that the moment has arrived for active investment strategies to carry the day over low-cost index funds. Fewer than one in five actively traded investment funds in the United States managed to beat the S&P 500 Index in the first half of the year, while in Canada only one in four funds focused on U.S. stock picks has outperformed the market. Canada-focused equity funds, meanwhile, have a slightly better record, with roughly one-third of funds surpassing the S&P/TSX Composite Index year-to-date. Still, that's hardly a banner year for stock picking. "Active managers sell the dream of outperformance. They don't actually outperform," said Terence Shaunessy, a portfolio manager at Forstrong Global Asset Management in Calgary. This is true over virtually any time frame. Widen the lens out to a decade, and the results are similar: only 21 per cent of funds actively investing in Canadian stocks posted a higher annual return than the Canadian benchmark index over the past 10 years.