• What We Do
    • Wealth Counseling
    • Investment Advisory Services
  • Who We Are
    • Our Team
    • Research Roundtable
  • How We Invest
    • Our Fiduciary Pledge
    • Investment Approach
    • Questions To Consider
    • Our Transparent Approach
  • Insights and Research

Insights and Research

Home  »  Managing The Market • Simplicity   »   Who Is Passive?

Who Is Passive?

By Preston McSwain, June 24, 2018

Based on My True Stories, I’ll Let You Decide

Not long ago, I noticed noticed another long debate about the difference between passive and active investment management.

When the debate turned to the meaning and use of the words “active” and “passive”, I chimed in by sharing a brief tale of time I spent at a firm that had two different investment management divisions on two different floors.

These two divisions had very different internal cultures as well as different approaches to investing – approaches that today are called passive and active.

A few people asked me tell this story in a little more detail, so here goes.

In the late 1980s, I worked in an equity investment division that was, by any standard, extremely active. The culture on the floor was fast paced, with investment market review and strategy meetings that started at 6am. Days were generally 10-12 hours long and it wasn’t uncommon to come in on weekends. We worked hard to analyze every aspect of what we did and diligently strove to optimize our performance to meet our investment mandate. This included proprietary quantitative and qualitative research conducted by a sizable group of CFAs and math PhDs about how the market was changing and how to most efficiently trade for the maximum benefit of our clients. Returns were evaluated daily versus our benchmark and our performance was reported monthly to clients, net of all fees and expenses.

A few floors below was another equity management group.  I was just starting out, so I was often asked to carry memos back and forth (yes, this was a long time ago) and sometimes we had joint meetings on their floor (their conference room was much nicer than ours). On this other floor, the pace felt much slower and the energy was much lower. Even though we enjoyed the faster pace on our floor, sometimes we were a little jealous. It was well known that work on this floor generally started at 9am and that lunches often took place in the executive dining room on the top floor of the building. When I visited, it wasn’t uncommon to see feet up on desks and very little apparent activity. Their investment operations and process was also quite different. Unlike us, they didn’t have a trading floor and didn’t really question the research provided to them by institutional equity sales professionals. They held what people at the time called “buy and hold ABC portfolios” (one stock per letter of the alphabet – Anheuser-Busch, Boeing, Caterpillar, Dow, etc. – if it was part of the DJIA, it was considered just fine). The floor was generally empty by 5:30pm and I never heard of anyone there coming in on a weekend. This group sent reports to clients once a quarter, but they didn’t include performance figures (they didn’t have systems to track daily net of fees performance).

Based on the descriptions of the activities on the two floors I mention, which investment division would you call active versus passive?

Without my lead-in, my guess is that you would instinctively call the 10-12 hours a day, fast paced floor the active division and the more staid, 9 to 5 floor the passive investors.

If so, you would be wrong.

The more active floor I sat on managed large institutional S&P500 index funds. They are now one of the largest index firms in the world and, from what I hear from friends working there, the pace is as active and dynamic as ever.

The other division was sold to another large firm, but it still exists and manages money for high-net-worth individuals and foundations. Based on meetings that I still have at the firm from time to time, not much has changed. Their ABCs now include Alphabet, but changes are few and far between.  Bottom-line, it’s hard to call their approach anything but passive.

In saying all this, I’m not trying to win a debate about which style of investing is better.

Boring and staid can perform well and, during different time periods, the arguably more passive buy and hold ABC portfolio that I described almost certainly outperformed the S&P 500 and vice versa.

Instead, I’m hoping that the next time you hear someone label a certain type of fund or ETF passive or active, you will ponder how it is being presented, the emotions the labels invoke, and how they can drive investor behavior.

According to the dictionary, “active” means “vital” and “dynamic” and has synonyms such as “hard-working”, “diligent” and “effective.”

By contrast, the word “passive” means “inert” and has synonyms such as “docile,” “acquiescent” and “compliant.” Its literal antonym is the word “active.”

Humans are hard-wired to be attracted to people and things that are vital. It’s a Darwinian survival instinct. We’re also generally competitive and socialized to place a premium on people and processes that are diligent and effective (active).

Translating this to investing, pause a moment.  How do you feel when you hear that certain types of investors are called Passivists? Chances are, not so great.

Yes, regardless of your investment background, deep down you are likely to be more attracted to an investment or firm that sounds dynamic and vibrant versus one that sounds docile and inert.

Words matter and, related to the terms used to describe the work of investment managers or advisors, are labels sometimes wholly divorced from how actively or passively professionals work and the processes they employ?

I think so.

I’m sure many will offer alternative stories and experiences. I welcome comments and only ask that more people think about this…

Back in the 80s, index investing existed, was already large and growing (we managed multiple hundred million dollar plus accounts for the likes of CalPERS, etc.), but I can’t remember hearing the terms passive or active.

Why is it, then, that today, professionals like the ones working on my old more active floor are now called passive and the more passive acting professionals on the other floor I mentioned are called active?

 


Related Reading:

Say It Ain’t So, Joe

Beat the Field by Shooting Par

 

Preston McSwain
+ posts
  • Preston McSwain
    https://fwpwealth.com/author/preston/
    Transparency, Simplicity and Peace of Mind®
  • Preston McSwain
    https://fwpwealth.com/author/preston/
    Fiduciary Wealth Partners Reading List
  • Preston McSwain
    https://fwpwealth.com/author/preston/
    If We Had A Chief Economist We Would Have to Pay Them
  • Preston McSwain
    https://fwpwealth.com/author/preston/
    Is Trying to Pick Active Managers a Loser's Game?
SHARE
Tags:
Active Management, Index funds, Investing
RELATED ARTICLES
Staying Disciplined and Avoiding Unforced Errors
The track records of many successful professionals can be attributed to keeping it simple and avoiding unforced errors
Still Keeping A Steady Hand
Every year over the past 10 years we have written a similar letter.
Recessions – What Should Investors Do?
The evidence may surprise you.
All articles

Follow us on social media

Search Our Ideas

Subscribe to Our Posts


Important disclosures

Most Popular

  • The Simple Alternative
  • The Simple Alternative – Keeps On Winning
  • Say It Ain’t So, Joe
  • Are We Baking Portfolios with Bad Ingredients?
  • Crucial Elements in Wealth Management: Simplicity and Transparency

Browse by Theme

  • Fees
  • Fiduciary Duty
  • Investment Philosophy
  • Managing The Market
  • Peace of Mind
  • Performance Measurement
  • Private Investing
  • Quarterly Letter
  • Simplicity
  • Taxes
  • Transparency
  • Uncategorized
  • Values

FWP Logo Dark

Fiduciary Wealth Partners is a 100% employee owned firm that serves clients in a transparent, fiduciary manner.

We do not have any fee sharing arrangements with managers and do not have any broker-dealer conflicts. In addition, you will never see an arbitration clause in our contracts.

Everything we do is focused on assisting trustees, institutions and families with investment consulting, management and overall asset planning strategies.

  • Disclosures
  • ADV
  • Privacy Policy
  • Form CRS

Useful Links

  • Investment Advisory Services
  • Wealth Counseling
  • Our Team
  • Research Roundtable
  • Our Values
  • Questions To Consider
  • Insights and Ideas
  • Contact Us

Contact us

Phone

(617) 602-1900

Email

info@fwpwealth.com

Address

177 Huntington Avenue
20th Floor
Boston, MA 02115

 

View larger map

© 2020 FWP. All Rights Reserved. Fiduciary Wealth Partners Is An SEC Registered Investment Adviser.