What Benchmark Should You Use to Measure Investment Success?

One of the biggest mistakes we see people make with their investments is to try and compare their portfolio performance to "the index." We'll hear comments from clients (and friends, and family and people in passing) that go something like, "The index did X, but my portfolio did Y and now I'm not happy about it."

There are a few problems here. For one, saying "the index" doesn't really mean much. What index? Most people make the mistake of assuming the S&P 500 is representative of the total stock market and often refer to that when they talk about benchmarks ... but the S&P 500 (albeit a very popular one). And that's