Tomorrow, Warren Buffett and 30,000 of his closest friends will gather in Omaha for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting. The loyalty of long-term Berkshire shareholders is the stuff of legend, as is the investment performance that produced it. $100 invested in Berkshire stock at the end of 1968 would have grown to more than $850,000 by Read more […]
Here is a 22-year history of a (hypothetical) actively-managed portfolio and its benchmark: Results have been decisively mediocre. The portfolio outperformed in only five years out of 22, for a hit rate of 22.7%. Its cumulative return (68.2%) lagged that of the benchmark (74.0%), and its volatility was higher (4.79% vs. 4.25%). The manager’s marketing department Read more […]
A headline from yesterday was very intriguing: “Why investors crave a return to the art of stock-picking.” Copious data demonstrate the peril of placing hope in active management. The article argues that since we seem to be in a trend that favors value, it is a good time for managers to pick stocks based on Read more […]
Recently, a number of reports highlighted a surge in popularity for actively managed U.S. equity funds in 2019. The main explanation for this trend appears to be the volatility observed in the final few months of 2018: market participants seem to believe active managers are better able to navigate more volatile markets. However, the data Read more […]
Active managers were welcomed by a disheartening headline this morning. “The 2018 Comeback That Wasn’t for Stock Pickers” highlights that “just 38% of actively managed U.S. stock funds tracked by Morningstar outperformed their counterparts at passively managed funds last year.” This should hardly have been considered shocking. Both long-term and more recent data (notably including Read more […]
This morning brought a report that “retail investors have returned to Wall Street, pouring money into mutual funds focused on US equities for the first time since early 2015, according to data from TrimTabs Investment Research…. ‘Maybe people think, in times of higher volatility, active managers will do a better job,’ Winston Chua, an analyst Read more […]
Suppose you, as a hypothetical financial advisor, encounter a hypothetical marketer who presents the following hypothetical performance data: Last Year Trailing 3 Years Trailing 5 Years Trailing 10 Years Portfolio 25.0% 11.9% 16.0% 8.8% Benchmark 21.8% 11.4% 15.8% 8.5% Not only did the portfolio beat its benchmark handily in 2017, says our marketer, but it Read more […]
The last few days have been a feast of entertainment for the sporting enthusiast; the Champions League Final, the Monaco Grand Prix, and the NBA Conference Finals were all on the menu. While the sports represented are distinct, these events have something notable in common: the persistence of their participants. The same two teams reached Read more […]
In prior blogs,[i] we discussed the return contribution of mega-cap securities in 2017, as well as the impact of style classifications that may give small-cap active managers more autonomy to invest in significantly different risk exposures. In this blog, we look at active factor risks taken by active managers across three market-cap ranges against the Read more […]
Market observers have noted that the S&P 500’s performance so far this year has been dominated by a small number of technology stocks. This observation is certainly correct, although it’s fair to question the relevance of a statistic based on fewer than two months’ data. What’s more important is to bear in mind that this Read more […]
