As sure as the sun rises in the east, the start of each year brings with it a fresh wave of assurances from the “gurus” who appear in the financial media that this year will be a stock picker’s year. And as sure as the sun sets in the west, the year invariably ends with various excuses for why the past year was a difficult one for active managers, and why next year will surely be different.
A perfect example of this, one that falls squarely into a category that Jane Bryant Quinn humorously called “investment porn,” is the Real Clear Markets article by Alexander Hart, “Why Active Managers Underperformed in 2014.”
We’ll review the various excuses made in the article for why active managers had a bad year, and in so doing, reveal that there really is no wizard behind the curtain.
Read the rest of the article on ETF.com.