Active management (also called active investing) refers to a portfolio management strategy where the manager makes specific investments with the goal of outperforming an investment benchmark index. Investors or mutual funds that do not aspire to create a return in excess of a benchmark index will often invest in an index fund that replicates as closely as possible the investment weighting and returns of that index; this is called passive management. Active management is the opposite of passive management, because in passive management the manager does not seek to outperform the benchmark index.The effectiveness of an actively-managed investment portfolio obviously depends on the skill of the manager and research staff. In reality, the majority of actively managed collective investment schemes rarely outperform their index counterparts over an extended period of time, assuming that they are benchmarked correctly. For example, the Standard & Poor’s Index Versus Active (SPIVA) quarterly scorecards demonstrate that only a minority of actively managed mutual funds have gains better than the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) index benchmark. As the time period for comparison increases, the percentage of actively-managed funds whose gains exceed the S&P benchmark declines further.
Investors who believe in active management do not follow the efficient market hypothesis. They believe it is possible to profit from the stock market through any number of strategies that aim to identify mispriced securities.
Investment companies and fund sponsors believe it’s possible to outperform the market, and employ professional investment managers to manage one or more of the company’s mutual funds. The objective with active management is to produce better returns than those of passively managed index funds. For example, a large cap stock fund manager would look to beat the performance of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Unfortunately, for a large majority of active managers, this has been difficult. This phenomenon is simply a reflection of how hard it is, no matter how smart the manager, to beat the market.