The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that the rally in U.S. equities this year is largely thanks to the top seven names -- the so-called magnificent seven. The Globe's Tim Shufelt writes that stocks were responsible for practically all of the gains in the S&P 500 index through the first half of the year. Apple alone has a market cap of $2.8-trillion (U.S.), which is larger than the entire S&P/TSX Composite Index. Take what is encompassed in the Canadian benchmark -- banks, the vast oil and gas sector, mining and metals, the rails and telcos, the tech and consumer industries -- and all of it combined is dwarfed by a smart-phone company. Factor in the other big seven -- Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla -- and together they comprise 28 per cent of the S&P 500. In investing, as in life, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. This is the basic idea behind passive investing. A diversified index fund lets you essentially buy into the entire market without having to pick the winners. This year makes an unusually strong case for a broad index approach. Can you find the needle in the haystack? Or, to paraphrase the index-investing pioneer Jack Bogle, should you just buy the haystack?