Back to Insights

Active Versus Passive Equity Investing Revisited

February 1, 2020 | Commentary

  • Recent market conditions including record index levels and the trillion-dollar valuations of Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have provided grist to the mills of both bulls and bears as well as active versus passive advocates. These debates lead many to question their own asset allocations.
  • Index investing may appear totally passive, but it involves the implicit, highly active decision that the investor wants to own a portfolio that mimics the current allocation in that index. One should only invest passively if you think the index makes sense. History shows that is sometimes a short-sighted decision as demonstrated by the popping of the Japanese equity bubble in 1989 and the tech bubble a decade later.
  • The large stock concentration in the S&P 500 today is slightly less extreme than it was 20 years ago. Seeing how the makeup of the top stocks changed rapidly between 1999 and 2000 is a reminder than no company’s place is guaranteed. It also suggests how truly active managers have the potential to add value by identifying both dominant winners and losers before the market.
  • Index investing is widely believed to create momentum as money gets allocated disproportionately to the largest capitalization stocks. Any momentum is not permanent. Nothing prevents fundamental business evolution from ultimately dominating the index picture. Identifying that evolution before the crowd is what motivates active managers.

To continue reading and to learn more about Offit Capital, login or contact us.

Connect Now

Privacy Notice

Provided in accordance with the Securities and Exchange Commission's rule regarding the privacy of consumer financial information (Regulation S-P).

Information We Collect

Offit Capital must collect certain personally identifiable financial information about its clients to ensure that it offers the highest quality financial services and products. The personally identifiable financial information which we gather during the normal course of doing business with you may include:

Information We Disclose

We do not disclose any nonpublic personal information about our clients or former clients to anyone, except as permitted by law. Nonpublic personal information means personally identifiable financial information and any list, description or other grouping of clients that is derived using any personally identifiable financial information that is not publicly available.

In accordance with Section 248.13 of Regulation S-P, we may disclose all of the information we collect, as described above, to certain nonaffiliated third parties such as attorneys, accountants, auditors and persons or entities that are assessing our compliance with industry standards. We enter into contractual agreements with all nonaffiliated third parties that prohibit such third parties from disclosing or using the information other than to carry out the purposes for which we disclose the information.

Confidentiality & Security

We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to those employees who need to know that information to provide financial products or services to you. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal standards to guard your nonpublic personal information.

Forgot your password? No Account? Request Access.

Request Access

Note: You will be emailed an access link upon submitting this form.