Investors are waking up to Wall Street¿s biggest the majority of actively managed mutual funds will regularly underperform the S&P 500 index. Index investments are a new class of easy-to-use investment tools¿WEBs, SPDRs, and others¿that trade like shares of stock, even as they reflect the market indexes they track and the fund-topping performance those indexes provide. Outpacing the Pros provides today¿s independent investor with a detailed introduction to stock indexes as a key element in either short- or long-term investing strategies. This complete guide to stock indexes looks inside today¿s most little-known, exciting investment, *What index investments are and how they work *How to use indexes to safely, effectively diversify any portfolio *Four sample portfolios using indexes