Poll result

Even though not many readers voted the poll to the right, I see less than 50% investors made money from mutual funds in the last three year, which has been a steady up trend. This is sad. I learned this lesson in the 90's before I jumped into the stock market. Because my mutual funds had an average return in a good market, but they dropped like a rock, along with the rest of the market in a bad environment. So what is the purpose of hiring a professional to do this job? I could either invest myself or just buy an ETF. Certainly at that time, there was no ETF available.