Chart o’ the Day: Only a Quarter of Funds Beat the Market this Year

The Equity and Quant Strategy group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch updates us on the latest data about active manager performance. Year-to-date, it’s been very difficult for US stock pickers. When benchmarked against the Russell 1000 large cap index, a shockingly small number of funds are above the bogey…

Year to date, 25% of managers beat the
benchmark. Core managers did best, with
27% beating the benchmark. Value
manager had an 11% hit rate. 20% of
Growth managers beat the benchmark.

For some perspective, 37% of managers have been able to beat the market over the last 12 months, so 25% is a really bad showing.

Savita Subramanian & Co do note that July was a good period for active managers, however, as 53% of managers got above their benchmark for the month. Is this the start of something new or just an anomaly during a very tough year?

Source:

Active Managers Improved Results in July
Bank of America Merrill Lynch – August 8th 2014