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Mutual Fund/Institutional Strategy Fund Performance and Performance Persistence

Steve LeCompte | | Posted in: Investing Expertise, Mutual/Hedge Funds

How have active equity investment managers performed over the past three decades? In his November 2021 paper entitled "Active Equity Management, 1991-2020", Gene Hochachka examines whether: (1) active equity managers as a group beat their benchmarks over the last 30 years; and, (2) active equity manager relative performance is persistence. By active equity managers, he means:

  • Live and dead U.S. mutual funds tracked by Morningstar Direct and not classified as an index fund or fund-of-funds, segmented into US LargeCap, US MidCap, US SmallCap and Foreign (International) LargeCap.
  • Institutional strategies tracked as self-reported by Mercer Global Investment Manager Database and not classified as passive in mid-2021, segmented into US LargeCap, US MidCap, US SmallCap, US Small/MidCap, US AllCap and International LargeCap.

Fund/strategy and benchmark returns are for calendar years, including dividends/distributions, and are gross of all fees and expenses. Some analyses compare net-of-expense fund/strategy and net-of-expense benchmark returns. Using the specified annual returns during 1991 through 2020, he finds that:

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