For a moment this week it looked as if investors were going to ignore the market volatility of the past week or so, but overnight the US market put paid to that. However, it is more likely that the conditions underlying the volatility - including rising US 10 year bond rates, falling unemployment levels raising the potential for a breakout in wages fuelled inflation, and the outcome of the US/China trade war - aren't going to change in a hurry.
Overlay these conditions with a market until recently trading at all-time highs, driven by low rates, improving earnings and dominated by tech stocks with stretched valuations, tax cuts flowing through, and an increase in infrastructure spending which is likely to run for the next decade at least, and it becomes less a case of potential for volatility, as a certainty.
Thus with the ASX200's Accumulation Index recording a negative return of -1.26% in September, and in all likelihood worse than that once October is done and dusted, the outlook for the actively managed fund space is going to be varied. Whilst index funds and ETF's will bear the brunt of the negative performance, falling in line with the market, we are already seeing the divergent performance of active funds based on September's results.
The average reported September return of funds in AFM's database is -0.33% almost 1% better than the ASX200, with 70% outperforming the market, and 32% recording positive results. Averages can be misleading, as the range of September's returns to date varies from +9.85% to -12.09%, the latter due to the market's rout in India.
While averages can be misleading, we all use them. After all, the performance of the ASX200 is the weighted average of all 200 stocks. We have recently analysed a range of key performance numbers over a range of time frames, and after wading through all the numbers one of the most telling results was just that: Averages don't tell the full story.
For instance, over the past 10 years, average annualised performance based on a fund's year of inception (with one exception) has been gradually increasing since 2007, while increasing dramatically for funds launched in 2017 to well over 25%.
Allocating each fund into quintiles based on performance shows an even larger discrepancy. Meanwhile breaking down each fund's performance based on their track record - Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 etc, clearly shows funds perform best during their early years - particularly year 1.
This has long been accepted, although not always understood exactly why. It raises the paradox however that although funds perform better in their early years, research houses, consultants, dealer groups and platforms traditionally insist that a fund has at least a 3 year track record - and in some cases 5 - prior to investing in or recommending them.
Whatever conservative or risk-averse logic is involved, the investor misses out on the fund's first three years - and their best period of performance.
