The entire group of investors will earn the market rate of return, and the average will be negatively offset
by active management fees that are higher than index fund fees.
These exchange - traded funds tend to follow a benchmark so most are considered to be passive instruments and therefore do not incur the same sky -
high active management fees.
In FTfm ¸ the FT's voice on the fund management, an editorial and an article appeared on a report from the UK's Department for Communities and Local Government arguing that local government pension funds are wasting money
on active management fees.
Identifying closet indexers is extremely important
because active management fees can be a significant hurdle to outperforming the index for anyone holding a portfolio similar to its benchmark.
The indexes, besides having the advantage of not
incurring active management fees and other expenses, have slightly above - average allocations to emerging markets stocks, which further bolstered returns in the second quarter.
The intensity of investors» preferences may vary, but chasing outlier returns from stocks that are in vogue seems to be a steady habit.12 Growing acceptance of smart beta strategies may put pressure
on active management fees, but delegated investment management is almost certainly here to stay, and the probability of meaningful modifications to the structure of compensation schemes is remote.
Adding together all the funds they own, these investors often end up with a portfolio that doesn't look much different than the market, yet they are
paying active management fees on the entire portfolio.
Further, the amount of outperformance required by the fund's
active management fees (for investors to get their money's worth) is a reasonable hurdle that has been surpassed by the fund since inception.
To justify
its active management fees, the Royce Small Cap Value Fund must outperform its benchmark (IWN) by the following over three years:
It is mathematically irrefutable that (a) the average investor will produce before - fee performance in line with the market average and (b)
active management fees will pull the average investor's return below the market average.