New Delhi, May 7 -- If you talk to people who have read so-called investment gurus or at least summaries of their books, they will earnestly tell you that the way to outperform the market is to have a concentrated portfolio of so-called high conviction bets. The logic goes something like this: If you are buying a number of stocks for your fund or portfolio, then you are replicating the market. How then can you do better than it?

Most market players, especially in the portfolio management services (PMS) industry, pitch themselves as providing value because they buy only around 15 stocks. This is also supposed to distinguish them from mutual fund schemes, which hold a large number of stocks.

The question is: Is it possible to outperform w...