'Active share': what it is, where to find it, and why your funds should always have it

The best performing funds have high 'active share' scores, says Merryn Somerset Webb. Here, she explains what it is, and which funds have it.

Last week I wrote about the mystifying continued existence of funds that pretend to be actively run, with charges to match, but which in reality merely track an index.

I mentioned a simple measure called 'active share' (AS), which can tell us at a glance whether or not a manager is doing the kind of stock selection we should be happy to pay for. I asked you to send in suggestions of who is walking the walk.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.