A few days ago, S&P Down Jones released its Mid-Year 2015 SPIVA Australia Scorecard. (SPIVA stands for “Standard & Poor’s Indices Versus Active”.)
If you are an active fund manager, or you invest with an active fund manager (i.e., those that try to outperform their benchmark), then it tells a pretty somber story.
Over 5 year periods, general Australian equity managers have underperformed their benchmark 71% of the time and general global equity managers have underperformed their benchmark 90% of the time. Fixed income managers haven’t done any better, underperforming their benchmark over five years 86% of the time.
The only positive story is for Australian equity mid/small cap managers who outperformed their benchmark over 5 years 71% of the time (i.e., they underperformed only 29% of the time).
