Active managers can pick the winners – but they keep the winnings to themselves

It's not that active fund managers can't beat the markets, says Piper Terrett. They just don't want to share the profits.

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Any gain from beating the market is swallowed up by fees

Whether talented fund managers can outperform the market is a perennial argument in finance for obvious reasons, asSteve Johnson notes in the FT. "Belief in this concept helps sustain the comfortable lifestyles of a veritable army of well-paid managers, consultants, fund selectors and advisers."

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Piper Terrett is a financial journalist and author. Piper graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1997 and worked for Germaine Greer and for Adam Faith’s Money Channel before embarking on a career in business journalism. 

She has worked for most top financial titles, including Investors Chronicle, Shares magazine, Yahoo! Finance and MSN Money. She lectures part-time at London Metropolitan University and is the author of four books.