The Amateur tops most pros long term, too

Strategy Lab is MSN Money's stock-picking challenge. To learn more about the game and the contenders, click here.

Yes, he's my competition here in Strategy Lab. But I'm also a big booster of The Amateur, Vad Yazvinski. And I've followed him longer than you have.

Truth is, we'd all like to find skilled investors to manage our money. That's why, at Marketocracy, we're hunting for the world's greatest investors.

If you want to know if the person managing your money is one of the best, the most important thing you can ask for is their track record.

But, according to Morningstar, almost 70% of domestic equity mutual funds have changed their managers in the last five years. When that happens, the fund’s five-year track record no longer reflects the skill of the mutual fund’s current manager.

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If you don't have a five-year track record for a mutual fund’s current manager, there is little reason to invest in it since it is the current manager who will drive your returns, not the one who left. It's not that the managers of all these funds are unskilled, but they're unproven. It may take five years to tell just how good the new the new manager is skilled. In the meantime, let these unproven managers train, make mistakes and gain experience with someone else's money.

Where can you find people who have great five-year track records?

Well, recently a big group of Marketocracy.com track records turned five -- and one of the best among them belongs to Strategy Lab's current leader. Many of you know Vad's recent track record in the Strategy Lab Open and Strategy Lab itself. But it turns out that, over the past five years, he's averaged 21.45% a year!

To see Vad's Marketocracy track record, click here.

Vad was already a member of our m100, our team of time-tested Marketocracy winners, so investors in our mutual fund have long benefited from Vad's skill. But now I'm pleased to announce that Vad is joining our mFOLIO program so people can invest in his model portfolio through a Marketocracy managed account.

Out of more than 30,000 members with five-year track records, we have selected only 12 for our mFOLIO program so far. Forbes recently wrote about Randolph McDuff, another of the 12, and the person I credit for persuading me to add MasterCard (MA, news, msgs) to my Strategy Lab portfolio.

Congratulations, Vad! You may have started this round as "The Amateur", but your track record at Marketocracy shows that you have more investment skill than most of the pros on Wall Street.