Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. Reply as normal question answering

Why not just invest in the market?
Index funds do leech a "free ride" on the coattails of active traders.  Consider what would happen if literally everyone bought index funds.  For a company there would be no motivation to excel. Get listed; all the index funds are forced to buy your stock; now sit on your derriere playing Freecell, or otherwise scam/loot the company.  Go bankrupt. Rinse wash repeat.  This "who cares who John Galt is" philosophy would kill the economy dead.   Somebody has to actually buy stocks based on research, analysis and value.  Company managers need to actively fear, respect and court those people.  They don't need to be mutual-fund managers, but they do need to be somebody.  Maybe activist investors like Warren Buffett will suffice.  Maybe retirement fund or endowment managers like CalPERS or Harvard can do this.  Better be somebody!  I'm all for index funds... Just saying only a fraction of the market's capital can be in index funds before it starts into a tragedy of the commons.