According to Richard J. Alphonso and Steven A. Estrin, president and chairman, respectively, of the Financial Advisory Group in Houston, you should use market indexes to judge the performance of your investments. For example, you can judge your foreign performance against the EAFE and your small company performance against the Russell 2000.

Because you can literally buy most of the major indexes, you can also build an investment portfolio around the indexes. This is a sure way to do at least as well as the market with the least amount of risk.