Thanks.
Well, I think there's "actively managed funds" and there's yourself. Funds are companies with infrastructures, eyes on them, politics in them. And so forth. I think it's a valid point that it's hard to time the markets and such.
But as a simple person looking at companies you believe in, you can buy and hold. An example. If in 2001/2 when you saw an iPod for the first time, you thought to yourself that the company that made it has potential, maybe you bought some shares in it. That's just one of a lot of examples. Also it helps if you're in the industry that you're examining. We're in tech so maybe we've used some of the products that we believe in, and others we don't believe in.
So that's one consideration.
Also, hedge funds and asset managers do a bit more than buy and sell stocks. They do complex, sometimes crazy things that involve leverage, options/contracts, and very complicated instruments.
There's nothing WRONG with buying a stock index fund, but if you see a company you think might have a winning product, and from some quick analysis seems like it's reasonably well managed, then that's something.
Not everything has to be technical analysis of high risk biotech stocks, shorting strategies and so forth.
And for the retail folks like us, we don't have to "trade" actively, as in buy and sell every day.
That's my middle ground between "competing against high frequency traders or golf course CEO conversations" and "buy index fund and close my eyes for 15 years".