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Book excerpt: This is likely to be the most important book you will ever read about investing. It recommends a very simple, step-by-step strategy to do what sophisticated professionals do -- use index funds as the vehicle of choice for their investment assets. Why Index Funds? For the fifteen-year period ending December 31, 1997, an S&P 500 index fund beat 90 percent of all diversified stock funds -- before counting sales charges and the tax advantage of index funds. In fact, index funds have outperformed non-index funds across a wide range of asset classes and time periods. What about individual stocks and bonds? Based on the evidence, investing with individual stocks, bonds, or conventional mutual funds is not likely to give you the best results. It makes more sense to invest with a diversified portfolio of index funds, balanced to fit your needs and goals. How do Index Funds perform in bear markets? Index funds in six recent bear markets held up better than conventional, non-index funds.