It has been a contest that has been raging for more than 30 years, but fresh figures from Which? Money suggest there may be a winner.
According to a report published by Which? today, just 38 per cent of all active fund managers that aimed to beat the FTSE All Share index managed to do so in the past 10 years.
Of the 96 actively managed funds that aimed to beat the FTSE All-Share, only 37 managed to do so. The average performer returned 164 per cent with dividends reinvested in that time period, compared to 171 per cent for the index.
The best performing active fund was the higher-risk Invesco Perpetual UK Aggressive, which achieved a 298 per cent return. The worst performer was UBS UK Opportunities, which managed to return just 90 per cent.
The research showed prominent differences in the performance among tracker funds that aim to beat the index. The best tracker was the M&G UK Index, which has a continuing charge of 0.46 per cent, returned 160 per cent over ten years. The worst performer was the Halifax UK FTSE All-Share Index, which achieved 136 per cent.
The Halifax fund recently dropped its charges from 1.5 per cent to 1 per cent, showing that charges may have a severe impact on performance record.
Money Management looks further into the impact of cost on performance of tracker funds in next month’s issue.
