Investing Insights

Content provided by S&P Dow Jones Indices Genuine skill is more likely to persist, while luck is random and fleeting. Thus, one measure of skill is the consistency of a fund’s performance relative to its peers. The Persistence Scorecard measures that consistency and shows that, regardless of asset class or style focus, active management outperformance…

Content provided by S&P Dow Jones Indices The latest Australian edition, the SPIVA Australia Mid-Year 2022 Scorecard, provides a number of interesting insights about the performance of active versus passive across active fund categories. Although the long-term performance statistics remain grim reading for fund selectors, the first half of 2022 contained some bright spots for…

Content provided by S&P Dow Jones Indices While comparing active funds against their respective benchmark indices is a typical practice to evaluate their performance, persistence is an additional test that can reveal fund managers’ skills in different market environments. We measure the performance persistence of active funds that outperformed their peers and benchmarks over consecutive…

Content provided by S&P Dow Jones Indices This paper will demonstrate the potential improvements in environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics that are reflected in ESG benchmarks versus traditional market-capitalization-weighted benchmarks in a hypothetical group of Australian equities. We explore how various sustainability-focused indices might provide improved ESG characteristics, while maintaining comparable sectoral and country…

Content provided by S&P Dow Jones Indices As the global markets started to recover, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 17.2% in 2021. Did active managers find opportunities to outperform in this market environment?  The SPIVA Australia Scorecard reports on the performance of Australian active funds against their respective benchmark indices over different time periods. In this…