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.
The 4th quarter of 2024 reversed the performance dominance of U.S. Large Cap Aggressive Growth median managers. In Fact, the peer group ended the quarter as the worst peer median group (-5.02%), which extended down to U.S. Small Cap Aggressive Growth down 4.26%. Global Large Cap Aggressive Growth peer median performed the best (+3.04%) followed by Non-U.S. Large Cap Aggressive Growth peer median (+1.86%) and Non-U.S. Small Cap Aggressive Growth peer median (+1.60%).
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 12/31/2024
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 continued to in the U.S. Large Cap Aggressive Value peer group 10.79% this quarter, with the lowest spread occurred in the Emerging Markets Large Cap Relative Value (+1.68%) peer group for the quarter.
Top Quartile vs. Bottom Quartile
Quarter Ending 12/31/2024
Fixed Income Manager Performance During the Quarter
Active managers in Fixed Income continue to show performance differences between top and bottom quartile managers. The highest spread this quarter continued to be in EM Bond Long Term All Spread in a larger magnitude (+4.58%), while U.S. Corporate Long Term All Spread had the lowest spread of +0.29%. The Global Bonds Intermediate High Risk median managers performed the best with +0.40%, while EM Bond Long Term All Spread performed the worst during the quarter with -2.65% median return.
Quarter Ending 12/31/2024
