Index funds featuring passive investing strategies are the sentimental favorites on Wall Street these days.  Yet Will Danoff, who manages Fidelity’s $108 billion Contrafund - the biggest actively managed stock or bond mutual fund run by a single person – has a compelling argument for so-called “human intervention.”

Since taking over the fund on 9/17/90 (yes, 26 years ago) Contrafund has averaged a 12.7% annual return, outperforming the S&P 500 index by 2.9%.  A  $10,000 investment in the fund on that date would now be worth $231,000;  the same amount in the S&P 500 would have grown to $118,000.

That’s not to say the Contrafund hasn’t had its ups and downs.  For the past 5 years, the fund has trailed the market on average by ​just over 0.5% ​annually, although it outperformed in 2015 by more than 5%.

“For the average active manager, the index has been tough to beat in the last 5 or 6 years as central bankers have moved interest rates to extraordinarily low levels.”  “I have managed through these cycles before and believe that experienced active managers will make up a lot of ground quickly when the pendulum swings.”

Mr. Danoff, 56, was trained by the formidable Peter Lynch, who managed Fidelity’s Magellan fund until 1990. “Peter believed in turning over more rocks than anybody else,” Mr. Danoff says. “The more companies you see, the more opportunities you will find.”