It might seem to make sense that the higher fees associated with actively managed mutual funds would generally correspond with better investment performance. After all, shouldn't a basket of stocks selected by highly paid professionals be able to outperform a passive stock index?However, that's generally not the case. In 2016, for example, just one-third of actively managed large-cap mutual funds beat the S&P 500's performance, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.