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Investors instinctively turn to past performance when choosing funds. But new Morningstar research on 6,003 European funds finds it is far more reliable as a warning sign than a buy signal.

Buying an ESG fund is widely assumed to change corporate behaviour. New research from Drexel University and the University of Texas at Dallas finds that most ESG funds have little measurable impact — but a committed minority, with a genuine financial incentive to engage, drives real improvements in the companies they hold. The difference lies not in what a fund owns but in how it behaves as an owner.

A new working paper has documented the largest price inefficiency ever found in the stock market: a pure-news signal with a Sharpe ratio of 3.1, more than double any known factor. But the researchers used a frontier AI model, millions of news articles and institutional trading costs to find it — and the same evidence that shows markets are inefficient also shows why an ordinary investor still can't beat them.

The managers running the biggest active funds picked stocks that beat the market in 2025 — and most still lagged their benchmark. A Morningstar do-nothing experiment and a body of academic research explain why active funds underperform even when the picking is good: skilled buying undone by poor selling, the hidden cost of trading, and the incentives that keep managers churning. The UK evidence points the same way.

The star manager myth, exposed: a portfolio with no manager beat the NASDAQ by nearly double. The trick that explains real star managers too.

Most fund manager AI systems operate on autopilot, closely tracking the index while charging premium fees for active management. If your portfolio is essentially running itself, why are you paying someone to sit in the cockpit?

Y TREE's analysis of 550 portfolios found that 84 per cent of wealth managers underperformed in 2025. Wealth management underperformance cost investors up to a third of their expected returns — and most don't even know it's happening.

A glowing golden halo hovering above an ordinary cardboard box on a warehouse shelf, representing how HALO stocks are standard investments dressed up with compelling marketing

Every year, some active fund families respond to the SPIVA scorecard with their own numbers — and those numbers always look better. They choose the start dates, benchmarks, and fee treatments that flatter them most. Here's how to see through it, and the one test that exposes what fund family marketing routinely hides.

Scott Adams damaged his own reputation in his later years. But long before that, the creator of Dilbert was using satire to make a serious, evidence-aligned case against active fund management — reaching tens of millions of readers along the way.

A major Morningstar study of more than 5,800 funds has delivered a clear verdict on concentrated funds: they charge higher fees, deliver lower returns, and suffer deeper losses than their more diversified peers. The evidence suggests most investors would be better off on the main road.

The fund industry warns that S&P 500 concentration makes your index fund dangerous. A major new study covering nearly a century of data tells a very different story — and suggests the real risk is listening to people who profit from your fear.

Avantis ETFs give UK investors direct access to systematic factor investing for the first time. Here's why I own three of them — and what could go wrong.

What if Buffett's investment strategy was never about genius? New research shows 87% of his returns came from factors anyone can access.

Active fund managers keep warning about passive investing's dangerous rise. But new research covering $784 billion in institutional assets reveals active management still dominates — capturing 97% of all fees paid.

Terry Smith blames index funds for Fundsmith's five-year slump — but international market data, factor analysis, and 2024's high-dispersion conditions tell a different story. Here's what the evidence actually shows.

Buffer ETFs are designed to limit stock market losses over a set period, usually in exchange for capping potential gains. Now becoming available to UK investors, these downside protection ETFs use options to cushion falls in markets such as the S&P five hundred. This article explains how buffer ETFs work, what they cost, and whether the trade-offs are worth it for long-term investors.

Why do mutual funds underperform? New research from the University of Sydney reveals that at least 55% of fund performance is attributable to luck, not skill. Worse, luck actively predicts future underperformance: lucky funds attract inflows, grow too large, and lose their capacity to generate returns. Morningstar's five-star funds significantly underperform one-star funds in subsequent periods. Stop chasing yesterday's winners and own the market at low cost.

S&P 500 concentration risk is at historic highs. If you own a global tracker, your portfolio may be far less diversified than you think. Here's what you can do about it.

Active fund managers claim they earn their fees when markets fall. New Morningstar research spanning 26 years tests this claim. The findings: active funds in downturns do outperform more often, but markets rise 80% of the time, swamping any advantage. When COVID and 2022 stress-tested the theory, most active managers failed to protect investors. The promised shelter turns out to be little more than a coin flip.