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 reason why so many people receive poor financial advice is the same reason why so many of us overpay for car repairs. Simply put, we lack the basic knowledge to distinguish good advice from bad. A phrase we keep reading is the “advice gap”. And I get it. It’s a big problem I’ve written about many times. Only a tiny fraction of the UK population receives financial advice. The Retail Distribution Review, for all the good it has done, has only widened the gap further, as
Robin Powell
Nov 13, 20244 min read
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