In a February 21st, 2009 New York Times article entitled The Index Funds Win Again a teacher at M.I.T. compares index funds against active managed funds, and hedge funds. Here are some excerpts:
Mr. Kritzman, who also teaches a graduate course in financial engineering at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management, set up his study to accurately measure the long-term impact of all the expenses involved in investing in a mutual fund or hedge fund.
A miserable year for stocks, index funds may not look very appealing. But it turns out that, after fees and taxes, it is the extremely rare actively managed fund or hedge fund that does better than a simple index fund.
Net of all expenses, including federal and state taxes for a New York State resident in the highest tax brackets, the winner was the index fund.
The index fund’s average after-expense return was 8.5 percent a year, versus 8 percent for the actively managed fund and 7.7 percent for the hedge fund.
Read the whole article here.
Thanks to Chris Long at Financial Planning Stuff You Need To Know for bringing this article to our attention.