Yet there is a simple, destructive idea taking over Wall Street: that stock pickers can’t pick stocks well—or at least well enough for the fees they charge. And even those who do can’t sustain it year after year. In short, the idea of the “active manager” is rapidly losing its intellectual legitimacy to the primacy of the “passive investor” who merely buys an index of shares. That has certainly been true for the last 10 years, when between 71% and 93% of U.S. stock mutual funds either closed or failed to beat their closest index funds. What’s also dying is the idea that some swashbuckling genius or market hero can ride to your rescue and make you rich: The responsibility for becoming wealthy is instead devolving back onto you.

http://graphics.wsj.com/passivists/