These days it's easy to simply buy an index fund, and your returns should (roughly) match the market. But one can do better than that by picking better than average stocks (as part of a diversified portfolio). To wit, the Restaurant Brands International Limited Partnership ( TSE:QSP.UN ) share price is 27% higher than it was a year ago, much better than the market decline of around 4.2% (not including dividends) in the same period. That's a solid performance by our standards! However, the longer term returns haven't been so impressive, with the stock up just 7.4% in the last three years.