Tuesday 26 September 2017

Picking a fund manager? The odds aren’t great

WHO wants mediocrity? That is what a lot of people say when the subject of index-tracking, or passive fund management, comes up. They would rather choose a fund manager (an active manager in the jargon) who tries to beat the market by picking the best stocks. It does sound like a good idea.

The tricky bit is finding the right manager. The temptation is to look at past performance but fund managers rarely beat the market for long.

The average fund manager is always going to struggle to beat the market (this is a separate argument from whether markets are “efficient”). That is because the index reflects the performance of the average investor before costs. In a world dominated by professional fund managers, there aren't enough amateurs for the professionals to beat. Even the hedge funds, those supposed “masters of the universe”, haven't been able to do it; Warren Buffett looks...Continue reading

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