Cute 'n Fuzzy Bunny said:I thought that was a myth...didnt berstein cover that in the four pillars...that actively managed funds in general didnt do better in a bear. It intuitively makes sense, that an active manager could 'steer out of the skid', but I thought the data said otherwise?
It is. Look up SPIVA on the internet. The question is not that straightforward. There are always some active managed funds that beat indexing over a short enough period of time. As the time period gets longer, the number of funds that beat the index diminishes. Standard and Poor's runs a quarterly scorecard to look at managed versus index. The margin that indexes beat managed funds is reduced in bear markets. Occasionaly, I believe, you might find a quarter when just over 50% of the active funds beat the index. But it is rare and it is short lived.
SPIVA: S&P Index Versus Active Funds Scorecard
The Standard & Poor's Index Versus Active (SPIVA) methodology is designed to provide an accurate and objective apples-to-apples comparison of funds’ performance versus their appropriate style indices, correcting for factors that have skewed results in previous index-versus-active analyses in the industry. SPIVA scorecards show both asset-weighted and equal-weighted averages, include survivorship bias correction to account for funds that may have merged or been liquidated during the period under study, and show style consistency for each style group across different time horizons.
The SPIVA Scorecards were developed by a cooperative effort between Standard & Poor’s Quantitative Services, Funds Services and Index Services. Reports released every quarter track index versus fund performance on a quarterly, one-year, three-year and five-year basis.