Do Mutual Fund Winners Repeat?

For the first time, Standard and Poors has created a new scorecard to measure the consistency of mutual fund performance over time. And, although the results are better than random expectations, it's not a pretty picture. Only 10.7% of large-cap funds, 9.2% of mid-cap funds, and 11.5% of small-cap funds maintained a top-quartile ranking over three consecutive years. Over the same period, just 28.9% of large-cap, 26.4% of mid-cap, and 27.9% of small-cap funds maintained a top-half ranking. Looking at five consecutive years, top-half consistency percentages were smaller at 14.5%, 17.0%, and 18.6% for large-cap, mid-cap, small-cap funds respectively. S&P's full 16-page report, including the top ten funds in each category, is available (in PDF format) here.

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(May '04-Jun '05)