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 […]
Our Year-End 2018 Canada SPIVA scorecard was released today. In addition to showing that the majority of Canadian active equity managers failed to outperform their benchmarks, the scorecard’s results provide the opportunity to dispel some common misconceptions. Here is a brief summary. 1) Higher volatility does not necessarily result in outperformance by active managers A Read more […]
The SPIVA® U.S. Year-End 2018 Scorecard shows a reversal of the relative short-term performance of fixed income funds at the end of 2018 from six months prior. Combined with the interest rates move, this might shed some light on understanding the duration positioning of active funds. We focus on government bond funds for our analysis, Read more […]
Risk-adjusted returns showcase the return accrued for every unit of risk held in a portfolio. If two portfolios have the same returns over a given time period, the one that has the lowest risk will have the better risk-adjusted return. Modern portfolio theory (MPT) assumes that an investment with higher risk should compensate the investor, Read more […]
Our SPIVA® readers often ask what percentage of outperforming funds goes on to beat the market over the following years. Our latest research report, Fleeting Alpha: The Challenge of Consistent Outperformance, answers that exact question in detail. In this blog, we demonstrate the difficulty and likelihood of consistently outperforming a benchmark. Using trailing three-year returns Read more […]
In early March over 265 financial advisers came together in Melbourne and Sydney for S&P Dow Jones Indices’ 9th Annual Indexing and ETF Masterclass. This half day Masterclass provided advisers with the opportunity to hear from, and interact with, both local and international peers, S&P DJI subject matter experts, as well as leaders in the Read more […]
S&P Dow Jones Indices recently launched the S&P Global SmallCap Select Index Series. These indices aim to provide broad market exposure to small-cap equities around the world that have a track record of generating positive earnings. As prior S&P DJI research highlighted, the S&P SmallCap 600® outperformed the Russell 2000 by around 2% on an Read more […]
Contrary to the myth that active managers tend to fare better than their benchmarks during volatile markets, 68.83% of domestic equity funds lagged the S&P Composite 1500® during the one-year period ending Dec. 31, 2018, making 2018 the fourth-worst year for active U.S. equity managers since 2001 (see Exhibit 1). Evidence from the SPIVA U.S. 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 […]
