Mar Vista Investment Partners
Commentary
Active Managers Can’t Jump
In streetball parlance, active managers have thrown up enough bricks to host a masons’ convention. Marking the worst relative quarter since 1998, less than one-in-five large cap managers, and only 6% of large cap growth managers, outperformed the S&P 500® Index in the first quarter of 2016. We don’t put much weight on just three months of performance data but, despite what Mark Twain writes, statistics don’t lie: fewer than one-quarter of managers outperform their benchmarks over the long-term. With such disappointing outcomes, the economic value of our profession will remain in question and cheap beta will look relatively attractive.
