Refinitiv Lipper's Dewi John: Have equity investors been right to rotate from active to passive?

Active managers underperformed during peak volatility

Last year, UK investors redeemed £23bn from equity mutual funds and ETFs—the second highest on record, surpassed only by 2022.

However, this does not tell the whole tale, as actively managed funds shed £24.13m while index-tracking funds saw modest inflows of £525m. This reflects the growth in passive assets across the market, which have grown from 7.1% of UK mutual fund and ETF assets in 2004 to 26% in 2023. Equity fund flows hit three-year high at £2.6bn in February Has this been the right move? I used Lipper for Investment Management analysis to compare the returns of index tracking and actively managed Equity UK funds between 2014 and 2023 against their benchmarks, over discreet annual three-year and fi...