Currently around $5.6 trillion is invested in U.S. public pensions. Trustees have an ethical and fiduciary duty to ensure that money is carefully managed.
A nearly universally accepted assumption is that, unlike most individual investors, large institutional investors can beat the market. In pursuit of this objective, some U.S. states employ more than 100 investment staff members to invest the capital of public employee retirement funds. Top universities claim to employ the brightest individuals to manage their endowments. And blue chip companies pay large sums to investment consultants and OCIOs, or outsourced chief investment officers, to gain an edge.
But what if this assumption is wrong? What if, in the long-run, their costly efforts are unlikely to produce better returns than those delivered by financial markets? The evidence overwhelmingly shows that the faith that trustees have in their advisors is misplaced.
Many readers will already be aware of the ongoing SPIVA analysis provided by S&P Dow Jones Indices. It’s an ongoing scorecard showing the performance of actively managed funds, not just in the U.S. but all around the world. What it shows us, again and again, is that most funds underperform for most of the time. Over periods of 15 and 20 years or more, only a very small proportion of active funds have succeeded in beating the appropriate benchmark on a proper cost- and risk- adjusted basis. Even over shorter periods, active funds have struggled to survive, let alone outperform the market.
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