Active Fund Underperformance (SPIVA) Statistics (2026)

SPIVA, the S&P Indices Versus Active scorecard, is the definitive study of how active fund managers stack up against the market. Twice a year, S&P Dow Jones Indices measures the percentage of actively managed funds that trailed their benchmark index, across categories and time horizons.

It is the cleanest answer to a simple question: if you pay someone to beat the market, how often do they? The answer, consistently, is that most do not.

In 2024, about 65% of active large-cap US equity funds underperformed the S&P 500, and preliminary 2025 data put that figure near 79%, the fourth-worst reading in the scorecard's 25-year history (see the chart below).

This is not a one-off. Over the 24-year history of SPIVA, an average of about 64% of large-cap funds have trailed the index in any given year.

The longer the horizon, the harder active management gets. Large-cap funds trailing the S&P 500 climb from about 65% over one year to 92% over 20 years (see the chart below).

Short-term luck fades; over a full investing lifetime, beating the index becomes a near-impossibility for the typical fund.

It is not just large-caps. Over 20 years, roughly 90% or more of active funds trailed their benchmark in nearly every US equity category, and 94% of all domestic equity funds lost to the S&P Composite 1500 (see the chart and table below).

Emerging-market funds fared worst of all, with about 95% trailing over 20 years.

The one category where active managers occasionally shine is small-caps. In 2024, only about 30% of small-cap funds underperformed, their best one-year showing in over two decades, since small, less-covered stocks offer more room for research to add value.

But the edge is temporary: over 20 years, about 91% of small-cap funds still trailed, essentially the same as everyone else.

Style matters at short horizons but not long ones. Large-cap value funds trailed only about 39% of the time in 2024 (a rare tailwind), while large-cap growth funds trailed 92% (see the table below).

Over 20 years the differences wash out: about 97% of large-cap growth funds and 88% of large-cap value funds trailed their style benchmark.

The pattern holds worldwide. Over 15 years, about 92% of global funds, 88% of international funds, and 88% of emerging-market funds trailed their benchmarks (see the table below).

International small-cap is the modest bright spot, the only foreign category where under half trailed over one year, echoing the small-cap edge at home.

Fixed income is where active management does best, at least briefly. In 2024, an average of only about 41% of active bond funds trailed at one year, and a majority beat their benchmark in 11 of 16 categories (see the table below).

But the advantage erodes with time. Over 10 years, most bond categories converge toward underperformance too, with government and intermediate categories exceeding 90% trailing.

Picking last year's winner does not work. In S&P's Persistence Scorecard, 0% of top-quartile US equity funds stayed in the top quartile four years later (see the table below).

Even the looser test, staying in the top half, was cleared by only about 4% of funds, worse than random chance would predict. Past performance genuinely does not persist.

Taxes widen the gap further. S&P's After-Tax Scorecard found the median active fund trailed the S&P 500 by up to 4.4% a year after tax, across every horizon.

Active funds trade more, generating taxable capital gains distributions that index funds largely avoid, so the after-tax shortfall is even larger than the pre-tax one.

Survivorship bias hides how bad the record is. Only about 33% of large-cap funds and 36% of all domestic equity funds survived the full 20 years; roughly two-thirds were merged away or liquidated (see the table below).

The funds that disappear are disproportionately the poor performers, so the headline underperformance rates actually understate how often active management has failed.

The math is unforgiving. Active investing is close to a zero-sum game before costs, so after fees and trading expenses the average active dollar must trail the average passive dollar, a point made decades ago by William Sharpe.

Markets are also highly efficient: with so many professionals competing, durable information edges are rare, and the fees charged to chase them compound against investors year after year.

The practical takeaway is why low-cost index funds have won so much market share: over the long run, buying the whole market cheaply has beaten the large majority of expensive attempts to outsmart it.

None of this means beating the market is impossible, only that it is rare, hard to identify in advance, and not something the odds favor. For most investors, a low-cost, diversified index approach is the higher-probability bet.