Fundsters whose funds have suffered bouts of bad performance recently may want to take comfort and lessons from a new study that reinforces the classic "buy and hold" logic.

Everyone has a bad day, month and/or even year, even top-performing managers. But abandoning them for another flavor of the month is a really bad idea, according to survey by Baird’s advisory services research team.

At some point in their careers, virtually all top-performing money managers under-perform their benchmark and their peers, particularly over time periods of three years or less, according to the survey. Rather than abandoning a top-performing manager during one of these periods, the survey urged investors "anticipate and, quite often, accept this performance cycle".

The study revealed that patient investors who stick with a top manager through trying times are likely to reap greater rewards than those who chase the flavor of the month. The survey also revealed that the longer an investor sticks with a top-performing manager, the better the chances of success will be for the investor. 

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