Top Stock Pickers Crush S&P While Failing to Stem Outflows
- U.S. active equity mutual fund outflows are at record pace
- Fidelity Contrafund returned 32% this year amid redemptions
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Star mutual fund managers are beating the soaring stock market in 2020 -- but customers are abandoning them for index-trackers anyway.
Will Danoff’s $134 billion Fidelity Contrafund returned 32% this year through Wednesday, nearly 15 percentage points better than the S&P 500, yet investors yanked a net $23.4 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates. American Funds’ $255 billion Growth Fund of America jumped 37% but lost more than $10 billion to net outflows. Their struggles have been replicated across an industry that’s in danger of being overthrown by low-cost alternatives.