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.
A sharp sector rotation has swept the US stock market, and the instinct is that a clever forecaster could have called it and cashed in. But experiments by Elm Wealth — first with finance graduates handed tomorrow's headlines, then with leading AI models — suggest that even perfect foreknowledge rarely makes an investor money. The deciding factor turns out to be not foresight but how much you choose to stake.
Robin Powell
Jun 279 min read
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