If investment mutual fund managers were truly skilled at beating the market, then you would expect mutual fund manager performance prowess to persist over time.
Unfortunately, the evidence indicates that superior past professional performance among mutual fund managers tends not to persist. Past superior mutual fund performance is simply not a predictor of future superior mutual fund performance.
Over time, securities prices change, because risk and return expectations change. Older concerns are resolved and new risks arise. As time and events roll forward, new information becomes available, that influences whether investors find a particular security to be more or less attractive. A vast array of financial, competitive, managerial, political, natural, technological, and numerous other factors will influence the evolution of securities market values.
Securities market prices are risk adjusted or risk weighted forecasts of unknowable future events.
Just because the price of an investment security changes over time does not mean that investors were right or wrong before when they purchased or sold short a security. It simply means that the future did not unfold according to the projected risk-adjusted market consensus that existed when the security was acquired. (See: Distinguishing between true investment skill and luck)
Securities prices are bound to change and there will be supposed “winners” and “losers.” Winners will take credit and boast of their supposed wisdom, while losers will tend to keep quiet and lick their wounds. The problem is that rarely do either winners or losers actually win or lose because they made a precise and accurate prediction of future events that actually did occur. (See: Chance creates the illusion that investors can beat the stock market)
When the investment portfolio performance of money managers is measured on a risk-adjusted basis, winners are judged to have captured “positive ‘alpha’ ” (a statistical performance comparison to a benchmark) and losers will have “negative ‘alpha.’ ” Are these positive and negative deviations from the average the result of skill, or are they just due to random price fluctuations?
If mutual fund managers were truly skilled at beating the market, then one would expect their excess investment returns performance to persist over time.
Most individual investors have long-term financial objectives and hope that money managers who are entrusted with their assets will deliver relatively high future performance. Unfortunately, the scientific finance literature does not support this expectation. The evidence indicates that superior past professional performance tends not [...]