Over the previous decade, from 1998 to 2007, an investor who put a notional $1,000 in the IPD index would have trebled his money (assuming he reinvested his income) while an equity portfolio tracking the MSCI index would have merely doubled.Part of that outperformance may be the result of the stratospheric valuations on which equities traded in the late 1990s.
Equity analysts tracking this industry note that those looking for a new mortgage face tightening standards, making the near-term prospects for a home building turnaround look even more remote.
In fact, of the 18 leading equity markets tracked around the world by Bloomberg, 17 rose that day.
The group's 62 domestic equity funds tracked by Morningstar declined 22.5percentt in the first three quarters, compared with a 25.61 percent decline for all domestic equity funds.
The metric, which is becoming popular among publicly traded private equity firms, tracks how much is paid to the limited partners.
During the same period, the average actively managed domestic equity fund tracked by Morningstar had a gain of 0.9 percent, annualized, matching the return of the index fund.
Of the 4,058 equity portfolios tracked by Morningstar Inc., just 54, or a little more than 1percentt, avoided losing money in any year from 1992 through 2001.
Lately, I have been perversely fascinated by statistics on consumer debt, particularly some numbers about home equity loans tracked in the Federal Reserve Board's quarterly Flow of Funds report.
All five beat the S.& P. 500, which gained 2percentt during the first quarter, and one beat the average of 6.5percentt for diversified domestic equity funds tracked by Lipper Inc.
The average expense ratio for the U.S. equity funds tracked by FORBES is 1.23% a year.
The same investment in the average European equity fund tracked by S&P Fund Services would have grown to just $20,718.
