Contrarian Investor: Could passive providers do more to protect investors' interests?

Passive providers could do everything their active peers do with a little creativity and more joined up thinking, writes David Stevenson.

Back in mid-September, S&P released yet another iteration of its annual SPIVA scorecard comparing active and passive funds. The message was that 84.6% of US-based large-cap managers, 87.9% of mid-cap managers, and 88.8% of small-cap managers underperformed their appropriate benchmark. This increasingly predictable result was preceded in August by another front opening up in the long running active/passive war, one we can loosely describe as "living up to your responsibilities as an asset manager" debate. After all, if there is no active manager sitting at the heart of the stock sel...