Continued Mutual Fund Underperformance

Most of our clients know we are big believers in low cost investing with passive investment vehicles. Although it is easy to grasp the concept of paying lower costs, it is harder to grasp that you can pay lower costs and also outperform most other investments.

The most recent SPIVA report, published by Standard & Poor’s, is now available. In 2014, over 86% of mutual fund managers (large cap) underperformed their benchmarks. Although this makes a pretty good case for investing in indexes (ETFs), mutual funds still outnumber ETFs by 10 to 1, based on assets under management.

Pundits used to argue that inefficient asset classes could outperform the market, but as you can see in the report, it is pretty standard across the board, active management loses over nearly every time period and asset class!.




Not All ETFs are Created Equal

We at Canal Capital Management are big believers in ETFs, otherwise known as Exchange Traded Funds, because of their salient characteristics:  cheap, tax efficient, intra-day trading, index replicating, etc.,  But just like with any investment product, they are not all created equal. Due diligence is required when investing in any ETF.  At our firm, we follow a disciplined process when vetting any investment, and ETFs are no exception.  We apply the following test: Efficiency, Tradability & Fit.  Efficiency looks at a fund’s costs, while Tradability assesses average daily trading volume, and Fit examines the securities the fund owns.  Though it may sound corny, this mnemonic device describes a process by which we narrow down some 1,500 ETFs to a more manageable security universe of choices that will best fit our investment objectives.

 

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