The Long Term Investor Can Active Managers Beat the Market? Anu Ganti of S&P Dow Jones Breaks Down the Data (EP.250)
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Apr 1, 2026 Anu Ganti, Head of U.S. Index Investment Strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, breaks down SPIVA and Persistence scorecards. She highlights why most active large-cap managers underperform and why outperformance rarely persists. The conversation covers long-term trends versus short-term noise, index methodology choices, and how indexes are used for both investing and tactical trading.
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Long Horizon Underperformance Is Very Stable
- Over long horizons (10–20 years) more than 90% of active managers underperform their benchmarks.
- Short-term noise hides this pattern, but multi-decade SPIVA data shows persistent long-term difficulty for active managers.
Fee Savings Explain Much Of Passive Advantage
- Cost is a primary driver: index funds' lower fees materially explain much of active underperformance.
- S&P estimated index investors saved roughly $52 billion last year from fee differentials versus active funds.
A Few Stocks Drive Most Market Returns
- Equity returns are positively skewed so a tiny number of winners drive most gains.
- Research shows very few stocks (e.g., 90 of ~26k) produced half of long-run US returns, favoring broad diversification.
