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Wouldn't you just need to look at total returns? For example here's a list of mutual funds sorted by 5 year returns http://www.barchart.com/funds/5year.php The S&P is up 77% over the last 5 years so all those funds beat the market.

The problem is we don't know which funds are going to beat the market over the next 5 years.

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I'd just like to point out that the majority of those are sector funds, so it really doesn't make sense to compare it to a broadly-diversified index like the S&P 500. On top of that, many of the high-fliers in that list are leveraged ETFs, which magnify gains and losses, and would not be suitable at all for long-term portfolios.

Why not? If I have $1 to invest, I can choose either and want to know which will give me a better return after X time. Should I go broad, or sector-specific? Which has more risk? Reward?

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