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The most fundamental choice that most investors make is whether to buy an actively or passively managed fund. Passive funds have become a prominent feature of global stock markets, in part driven by the higher costs and the mediocre record of ‘average’ active fund managers.

While passive funds will typically underperform the benchmark after fees due to the cost of tracking the index, active funds provide an opportunity to beat the market return, based on manager stock selection and research. In practice, the degree of activeness within actively managed funds can vary significantly, from those managers who only slightly deviate from their benchmark to those who hold very few of the securities in their reference index. In recent years, active share has become a popular measure for making a relative assessment of manager activeness but interpreting it is not as straight forward as many investors think.

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Barney Rowe

Barney Rowe

Ran Wang

Ran Wang

Paras Anand

Paras Anand

Chief Investment Officer, Asia Pacific

Toby Gibb

Toby Gibb

Head of Investment Directing, Equities