Actively managed mutual funds and ETFs continue to generate tremendous interest from investors. In July, in fact, active ETFs set a new record with $44.8 billion in flows (out of $123 billion), according to Morningstar. Yet, performance for active strategies continues to lag passive funds, according to a new report.
Overall, Morningstar’s semi-annual report detailed that only 33% of active strategies survived and beat their asset-weighted average passive counterparts, a drop of 14 percentage points from a year earlier and down 9 percentage points from March’s data.
Just 31% of active equities strategies posted a success rate in the 12 months through June, with similar performance from large-cap (32%), small-cap (30%) and mid-cap (28%) managers. The exception was for active internal strategies, which posted a 45% success rate.
Active bond managers also struggled, with success rates falling to 31 percentage points, down to 31% for the past year. Active intermediate-core bond managers fared the best (52%), while active corporate bond managers only posted a 4% success rate.
Active real estate strategies also saw a marked decline, with a success rate falling 37 percentage points from a year earlier.
Over a longer horizon, active real estate strategies have the highest success rate—at 43%. However, among all strategies, only 21% of active funds survived and beat passive counterparts over that time. Morningstar also found that “27% of active funds in the cheapest quintile of their respective categories beat their average passive peer, compared with 15% for the priciest funds.”
