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G. Richmond McFarland likes to play contrarian, throwing water on the hottest trends in the mutual fund industry.
Earlier this year, the mutual fund adviser for Widmann, Siff & Co. of Bryn Mawr argued that low expense ratios aren't necessarily a sign of good performance in no-load domestic equity funds. That point ran counter to mutual fund Goliath Vanguard Group's mantra of touting low costs as one key to success.
Now McFarland has a new target - index funds, which in the past few years have beaten managed funds.
Yet, citing Morningstar Inc. data, McFarland says two thirds of all actively managed domestic equity funds have outperformed index funds this year through July 31.
The median performance of 4,086 managed funds surveyed by Morningstar is 0.33 percent, while the average performance is 1.47 percent. Not great, for sure, but...