Since the first publication of the S&P Indices Versus Active Funds (SPIVA) U.S. Scorecard in 2002, S&P Dow Jones Indices has been the de facto scorekeeper of the ongoing active versus passive debate.
This edition marks the 10th anniversary of the SPIVA Europe Scorecard. Over the full decade since we began publishing, a significant majority of the actively managed funds offered in Europe underperformed their assigned benchmark in each of our reported domestic and international equity and fixed income categories.
Exhibit 1 summarizes the percentage of underperforming funds over the 10-year period ending in 2023 across all the fund categories included in this scorecard.
2023 Highlights
- Although rising markets have generally been welcomed by both fund managers and their clients, 2023 was a challenging year for the European active fund industry in terms of relative performance, particularly in equities.
- In the category with the largest number of available funds, namely Global Equity funds denominated in euros, 84% of actively managed funds underperformed the S&P World Index over the full year. Across the broad European and emerging market categories, one-year underperformance rates ranged from 66% for pound sterling-denominated Emerging Markets Equity funds to 83% for broad Europe Equity funds.
- Outperformance was hard to find in European country equity funds, particularly in Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, Denmark and Italy; where actively managed domestic equity funds posted one-year underperformance rates of 87%, 90%, 95%, 97%, 97% and 98%, respectively.
