Aapryl Perspectives

The Aapryl Quarterly Market Insight offers a lens on how active managers in general performed in various markets and sub-segments. Using Aapryl’s proprietary methodology, we measure manager skill by using the manager’s static clone (long term factor profile) as a measure of skill instead of the broad market benchmark. Manager skill is calculated by using the manager’s raw return less their static clone return. 1Q2023 saw a reversal when growth rebounded in large cap, while value lead by small cap. Median managers within Aapryl’s peer groups US Large Cap Aggressive Growth lead the pack with +2.68% outperformance (relative to their respective static (style) clones), followed by US Small Value Aggressive Value with +2.40%.  US Large Quality Blend peer group median led the equity losers with -0.86% followed by Global Large Cap Core Growth -0.76%. Below are the top three winners and bottom three losers based on the performance of their respective peer group medians for the prior quarter:

Aapryl Peer Group Manager Skill Performance Matrix

Quarter Ending 3/31/2023

The performance spread between the top and the bottom quartile within their respective peer groups varied for each Aapryl peer group is shown below. The biggest performance spread between the peer groups top quartile vs bottom quartile occurred in the Global Large Cap Aggressive Growth (+8.22%) growth peer group, with the lowest spread occurred in the Non-US Large Cap High Quality Blend (+1.68%) peer group for the quarter.

Top Quartile vs. Bottom Quartile

Quarter Ending 3/31/2023

Fixed Income Manager Performance During the Quarter

Active managers in Fixed Income managed to keep up with the market despite the failures of some regional banks. US Corporate Short Term All Spread peer group median performed the worst (-0.16%) with EM Bonds Long Term All Spread peer group median performing the best (+0.64%). Spreads range as high as +1.91% in EM Bonds Long-term Duration All Spread and as low as +0.24% in Short Term Investment Grade Intermediate Term All Spread.