^ Janus Balanced (JABAX) has done well for me through thick and thin over the last 10 years, appreciating almost 6% annually, through 3 major economic meltdowns. SP500 Index Funds on the other hand have lost about 10% in value over the same 10 years.
Index funds and buy and hold strategy may be ok if you have a long time horizon, however, in mutual funds whether actively managed, or passive indexes are all about when you get on the merry go round and when you get off. If you don't have the ability or inclination to watch your mutual fund investments they can devalue just as rapidly as individual stocks and as an individual investor, you DO NOT have access to the tools available to professional and institutional investors to be able to time the market.
Information flows way to fast in the digital age and there are too many big sharks moving markets up and down in order to make a buck in the short term to allow laissez faire buy and hold investing to be the "safe haven" it once was thought to be.
If you are putting your savings in equities, even diversified mutual funds, you had better be prepared to exercise a strategy of semi active management, less frenetic than day trading but more attentive than "buy, hold, and lose big when the market turns down".
