A few years ago, doubting these dominant brands would have been considered foolish. This narrow-minded thinking is representative of our formerly uneducated and naive views on the market. But after last year's performance, mutual funds' investment model has now been proven obsolete. Like the dinosaurs.

Perhaps a better option is to consider alternative investments. Namely investment funds that enjoy and profit from the greatly misunderstood strategy of short selling.

Why not benefit from this strategy that has thrived in this downtrending market? Here, hedge funds hold a distinct edge over their mutual fund brethren competition. Although deemed dangerous, the risks may be less than the forced-to-be-bullish mutual funds.

After all, as fund manager Eric Jackson recently noted in BusinessWeek, "one-third of hedge funds profited in 2008, while 1 in 1,700 mutual funds brought returns for its investors, meaning you were 50 times more likely to succeed while investing in a hedge fund."

The majority of the world's 10,000 hedge funds follow an "unconventional" approach. The rules and risks may scare some investors away, but this passivity can limit potential rewards.

Hedge funds are limited to accredited investors (meaning $200,000 in annual income during each the past two years and a $1 million net worth), require a minimum investment of $250,000 to $1 million before allowing you into their "club" and also have minimum holding periods.

The fee scale as compared to mutual funds is also higher as the standard hedge fund model includes a 2% annual management fee on top of a 20% cut of profits, compared to a only 1-2% annual management fee for mutual funds.

"Hedge funds were criticized for not always returning enough to their investors for the high fees they charge", says Richard Wilson of HedgeFundBlogger.com, who also runs Hedge Fund Group (HFG), a 23,000 person strong networking association. "I think the #1 reason that hedge funds are seen as risky is the lack of knowledge the average person or investor has of them. They have always been seen as secretive and somewhat exotic."

Wilson also noted, "Over the next two years, everyone will look back at what did relatively well during these last 18 months and see that many hedge fund portfolios held up better than the general markets and many real estate markets. Hopefully through more investor education the general public may also learn more about the hundreds of unique hedge fund models and strategies out there as well."