Podcast: Scopic’s Paul Ilott on why active multi-asset funds have failed investors

Octo Members
6 May 2020
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Octo Members · Paul Ilott of Scopic Research


A 21-minute listen. 

Paul Ilott, director at Scopic Research, talks us through his new report ‘Is Multi-Asset Worth It?’ where he questions the performance of active funds over the past decade in comparison with simple passive funds investing only in bonds and equities. 

Paul finds that passive portfolios have “massively” outperformed most actively managed multi-asset funds both in terms of risk-adjusted and absolute returns over a 10-year period up to the beginning of this year.

As quantitative easing has artificially inflated equity and bond markets, so Paul says managers reliant upon market fundaments to steer their decision making have been rendered “pretty much redundant”.

Paul adds: “We think the time is coming when advisers will want to reassess the appropriateness of the multi-asset solutions they’re already using – especially since bear markets can sometimes usher in a new investment regime where what’s worked well in the recent past is superseded by a different approach”.

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