On Friday, Robert Gottliebsen (SMSFs: The unsung super heroes) looked at evidence from the superannuation environment that showed individual investors, through self-managed super funds, were outperforming the commercial superannuation sector.
In a report that provides an interesting insight into the world of fund managers, the 2013 SPIVA Australian Scorecard looks at the performance of ‘active’ managed funds over the past five years, to the end of 2013. The findings are not good for managed funds, with only 30% of managed funds in the ‘Australian General Equities’ category beating the benchmark (ASX 200 Index). It should be noted that over one year the returns for managed funds were actually attractive, with 68% of funds outperforming the benchmark. However, by three years this had fallen to 37% of funds outperforming, and then down to 30% over five years.