Banker's Umbrella: Passive investing, is it all that?

Banker's Umbrella: Passive investing, is it all that?

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In his third column for Professional Adviser, the quasi-mysterious Banker's Umbrella explores the not-so-simple world of simple investing via passives...

Momentum, what a great word, I particularly enjoyed hearing that word pronounced Mo-menu-mum by an old American friend of mine. Mo-menu-mum is exactly what passive index funds are currently experiencing. In the US alone, in 2013, index funds made up nearly 20% of all investment fund assets, that's a little over one trillion in the Queen's currency! Not bad for what started in 1972 as a single investment fund with starting capital of only £7m. The case for index funds is simple enough: They perform better than actively managed funds. Last year, 85 % of actively managed funds perf...

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