Mutual Fund Landscape Through 2018
Each year, Dimensional Funds analyzes returns from a large sample of US-based mutual funds. The objective is to assess the performance of mutual fund managers relative to benchmarks. This year’s study updates results through 2018. The evidence shows that a majority of fund managers in the sample failed to deliver benchmark-beating returns after costs. The results of this research provide a strong case for relying on market prices when making investment decisions.
The results of this study suggest that investors are best served by relying on market prices. Investment methods based on a manager’s ability to outguess market prices have resulted in underperformance for the vast majority of mutual funds. The research highlights an important investment principle: The markets do a good job of pricing securities, which intensifies a fund’s challenge to beat its benchmark and other market participants. When fund managers charge high fees and trade frequently, they must overcome high cost barriers as they try to outperform the market. Despite the evidence, many investors continue searching for winning mutual funds and look to past performance as the main criterion for evaluating a manager’s future potential. In their pursuit of returns, many investors surrender performance to high fees, high turnover, and other costs of owning the mutual funds. Choosing a long-term winner involves more than seeking out funds with a successful track record, as past performance offers no guarantee of a successful investment outcome in the future. Moreover, looking at past performance is only one way to evaluate a manager. In the end, investors should consider other aspects of a mutual fund, such as underlying market philosophy, robustness in portfolio design, and attention to total costs, all of which are important to delivering a good investment experience and, ultimately, helping investors achieve their goals.
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