SPIVA®
For over 20 years, our renowned SPIVA research has measured actively managed funds against their index benchmarks worldwide.
Why does the active vs. passive debate matter ?
The premise of active management is essentially that with enough skill, it’s easy to consistently outperform the market, or the benchmark. When this view was challenged decades ago, it sparked a longstanding debate with strong believers on both sides, and some in between.
The impact of the debate is far-reaching. It informs decisions about whether to use an active manager or invest in an index-based fund such as an ETF. It challenges the notion that alpha is what all investors should strive for. It has also created a need to gauge the suitability of both approaches across a range of time periods and asset classes.
What does SPIVA tell us ?
While no two SPIVA Scorecards are exactly the same, certain themes have emerged over time. One is that actively managed funds have historically tended to underperform their benchmarks over short- and long-term periods. This has tended to hold true (with exceptions) across countries and regions. Another recurring theme is that even when a majority of actively managed funds in a category have outperformed the benchmark over one time period, they have usually failed to outperform over multiple periods.
