In August, assets in passively managed U.S. equity funds exceeded actively managed competitors for the first time in history. Already in 2020, mutual funds have fallen behind their passive competitors by a distance that will be hard to make up.
“After a big gain, you’ll see investors piling in and the momentum continues because of the fact that they say, ‘I may have missed out last year and it looks like it’s really running so I better get more money into equity markets,” said TIAA’s Gaffney. “Momentum, especially ETFs and index-type funds, have an impact.”