You can be both, especially with a small account (under $50k). BUT...that kind of return is generate by swing trading/short-term trading with leverages.
And the skill of swing trade need to be honed and refined thru the life of trading. And not many people can and have the time to obtain it. It also take money to make money- more risk than investing.
But 28%+ on $10k to $50k is obtainable by individuals that has years of short term trading skills.- especially with low commissions these days.
Alot of these funds fail to generate large return is because they are simply too BIG. When you are BIG, you pay hell of a slippage and might not always find enough investment to deploy your money in.
The size of the fund and return has some correlation.
In summary, I agree with Dullard. Its hard for most fund managers to obtain 28%+ return consistantly. The reason being the manager usually started the fund with small amount of money, as he generate huge return...other people notice and start pouring money in. Now he has all the cash...so he must buy...even the condition might not be attractive or the companies he invest in might not fit his criteria....he has too much cash on his hand...little bit of ruthless investing dampened his return- and the fund eventually get too big and close to new investors.