Broad-Market ETFs Top Active Stock Picks Since 2016

Broad-market exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have transitioned from niche vehicles to core portfolio holdings for many institutional and retail investors, driven by persistent active-manager underperformance, dramatically lower fees, and scale advantages that are empirically measurable. Over the last decade the structural case for broad-market ETFs has crystallized: S&P Dow Jones Indices' SPIVA U.S. Scorecard reported that 85% of active large-cap funds underperformed the S&P 500 over the 10-year period ending 2023, a statistic that underpins the argument for broad indexing (S&P Dow Jones Indices, 2023). At the same time, global ETF assets surpassed approximately $11.8 trillion as of December 31, 2023, reflecting sustained investor demand (ETF Global Industry data, Dec 2023). Fee differentials are stark — for example, Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF (VOO) charges 0.03% versus the U.S. actively managed equity mutual fund universe average expense ratio near 0.60% in 2023 (Vanguard, Morningstar Direct). This article examines the data, the mechanics of how ETFs capture market beta, the implications for portfolio construction, and the practical trade-offs investors face when choosing broad-market ETFs over stock selection.

Context

The shift toward passive exposure is not a recent fad; it has technical and behavioral roots that predate the modern ETF era. Mechanically, a broad-market ETF such as the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) or SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) replicates the market-capitalization weighted exposures of its underlying index, delivering market beta at scale and at low cost. That simplicity matters: when active managers pay higher fees and incur turnover, those costs compound, making it more difficult to beat a low-cost benchmark net of fees. The SPIVA 10-year underperformance statistic — 85% of large-cap active funds — quantifies that structural headwind for stock-picking strategies across a long horizon (S&P Dow Jones Indices, 2023).

Institutional adoption of ETFs has accelerated as trading, tax efficiency, and intraday liquidity have improved operational workflows. The ETF wrapper reduces implementation frictions: ETFs can be used for transition management, overlay strategies, and tactical rebalancing without the settlement and tax complexities associated with baskets of individual names. The growth of the ETF ecosystem is visible in market data: by end-2023, global ETF assets were approximately $11.8 trillion, a more than tenfold expansion from the early 2000s and a clear signal of product-market fit (ETFGI/industry data, Dec 2023).

Behavioral factors also reinforce the passive case. Individual investors and many institutional committees are prone to overconfidence bias and home bias; professionally packaged broad-market ETFs reduce the room for skill-based error. When the average investor or committee member cannot demonstrably identify persistent alpha sources that exceed costs and taxes, the default to broad-market ETFs becomes a rational governance decision. The cost of active mistakes is not solely performance drag; it is the opportunity cost of capital and time spent on selection that could otherwise be allocated to asset allocation and risk management.

Data Deep Dive

Three empirical lenses clarify why broad-market ETFs frequently dominate active stock-picking outcomes: performance dispersion, fee differentials, and survivorship/selection biases in active universes. First, dispersion: over long horizons, the dispersion of stock returns compresses the fraction of managers who can meaningfully differentiate performance after costs. The SPIVA U.S. Scorecard (S&P Dow Jones Indices, 2023) shows 85% of large-cap managers underperformed the benchmark over 10 years; similarly, median active shortfall statistics for mid- and small-cap universes have historically been material when adjusted for risk and fees.

Second, fees. Fee compression for passive products is pronounced and persistent. Benchmark ETFs such as VOO and SPY trade at expense ratios of roughly 0.03%–0.09% (Vanguard, State Street, 2024), while the average U.S. actively managed equity mutual fund expense ratio hovered near 0.60% in 2023 (Morningstar Direct, 2023). A 0.5% annual difference compounded over a decade is non-trivial — it is equivalent to reducing gross returns by almost 5% in nominal terms over ten years, before accounting for tax inefficiencies from turnover.

Third, survivorship and selection biases obscure advertised active returns. Many active funds close or merge after poor performance, and published survivorship-adjusted datasets reveal worse outcomes than headline numbers. Passive vehicles, by contrast, offer transparent, replicable exposures; an investor buying a broad-market ETF in 2014, for example, precisely knows the exposure and fee schedule for the coming years. The predictability of that exposure is a risk-management advantage relative to the opaque future alpha prospects of an active manager.

Sector Implications

The ascendancy of broad-market ETFs reshapes multiple parts of the capital markets and influences issuer behavior. For asset managers, economies of scale favor large ETF providers, which can amortize operational costs across large asset bases and underprice smaller competitors. This dynamic has compressed ETF fees across the board; the largest providers now operate multi-billion-dollar ETFs with expense ratios at or below 0.05%, a level that is challenging for active boutiques to match without differentiated strategies.

For sell-side research and corporate engagement, the ETF shift reduces direct retail visibility into company-level narratives but increases the importance of index inclusion events and index reconstitutions. Stocks that enter or leave major benchmarks can experience short-term demand shocks due to index-tracking flows. Market microstructure is affected: reconstitution days for broad indices can generate concentrated trading volumes in a small set of names, a factor that active stock pickers must manage if they seek to exploit inefficiencies around those events.

For fiduciaries, the decision is often binary: allocate to low-cost broad-market ETFs for core beta and use active strategies tactically where there is a clear, research-backed edge. That approach permits active managers to justify fees by focusing on idiosyncratic capture or market-neutral sources of alpha rather than market beta. A comparative view across peers shows that portfolios that allocate 60%–80% to broad-market ETFs and reserve 20%–40% for selective active strategies tend to exhibit lower tracking error and higher net-of-fee returns historically than fully active counterparts, all else equal. Internal governance structures must weigh that evidence against client mandates and liability-driven objectives.

Risk Assessment

Owning broad-market ETFs is not risk-free. Concentration risk is a salient concern: market-cap-weighted broad ETFs allocate more to the largest companies, so a handful of mega-cap names can dominate index returns. For example, at various points since 2020 the top 10 S&P 500 constituents have comprised over 25%–30% of the index market cap, amplifying single-stock and sector-specific vulnerabilities. Investors who seek broad exposure but worry about concentration can consider equal-weight or factor-tilted ETFs, but these introduce tracking error and different risk premia.

Liquidity and market-impact considerations are also relevant for large institutional allocations. While ETF secondary-market liquidity is typically deep, the underlying securities' liquidity matters during stressed market conditions. A large institutional order executed through an ETF may have different market impact than a passive retail trade; execution strategy and use of authorized participants can mitigate but not eliminate that risk. Counterparty and operational risks — e.g., creation/redemption mechanics — are limited but should be understood as part of operational due diligence.

Regulatory and tax risks should not be ignored. Changes to tax policy, capital-gains rules, or market-structure regulation can alter the net benefit calculus of ETFs versus direct stock ownership. Additionally, periods of elevated volatility can widen ETF spreads and compress tracking performance transiently. These are second-order risks relative to fee drag and persistent active underperformance, but they are material for short-horizon tactical uses of ETFs.

Fazen Capital Perspective

Fazen Capital's analysis recognizes the empirical advantages of broad-market ETFs for delivering low-cost beta, but we emphasize a nuanced implementation posture rather than a purely passive orthodoxy. A contrarian insight is that passive dominance creates new active opportunities: when capital is structurally allocated by rules into indices, valuation dispersion and transient mispricings around index reconstitutions and liquidity events can become more pronounced and therefore exploitable by specialist active managers. Our view is that institutional allocators should separate core-satellite roles explicitly — core beta via broad-market ETFs (capturing market returns at minimal cost) and satellite allocations to high-conviction active managers who are demonstrably uncorrelated to cap-weighted beta or who exploit structural inefficiencies.

We also note that product design matters. Not all ETFs are equivalent; index methodology, sampling techniques, tracking error, and creation/redemption liquidity determine realized outcomes. In some markets, enhanced indexing or low-turnover ETFs provide a middle ground that captures much of the passive benefit while modestly improving downside protection. For investors constrained by governance or behavioral considerations, thoughtfully calibrated ETF sleeve design is a pragmatic pathway to capture structural market-level returns without relinquishing the possibility of tactical alpha.

Outlook

Looking forward, we expect continued net flows into broad-market ETFs, but at a moderating pace as markets mature and fee compression asymptotically approaches operational minimums. ETF product innovation will continue — factor ETFs, tax-aware ETFs, and active ETF wrappers will take increasing share, and those innovations will bifurcate the market between pure beta and strategic overlay products. Institutional adoption will increase incremental complexity around implementation choices rather than the primary decision of whether to allocate to ETFs at all.

Macro and regulatory shifts can affect the pace of adoption. If equity markets enter a prolonged regime of low dispersion and high correlation, the value proposition for active stock picking further diminishes; conversely, higher dispersion regimes raise the potential payoff for select active managers. For fiduciaries, the durable lesson is to quantify the cost of active management rigorously and to prioritize transparent, low-cost mechanisms for core equity exposure.

Bottom Line

Broad-market ETFs present a statistically and operationally compelling solution for core equity exposure, supported by SPIVA 2023 data (85% of active large-cap funds underperform over 10 years) and industry-scale metrics (global ETF assets ~ $11.8tn as of Dec 2023). Institutional investors should combine low-cost ETF beta for core exposure with disciplined, evidence-based active sleeves where a clear edge is demonstrable.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

FAQ

Q: How much do fees alone explain active managers' underperformance?

A: Fee differential is a primary driver. With average active equity fees near 0.60% in 2023 versus ETF fees as low as 0.03%, a persistent fee gap of ~0.5% annually compounded materially reduces net returns over multi-year horizons. That gap does not fully explain underperformance — turnover, trading costs, and selection bias contribute — but it is a quantifiable, persistent drag.

Q: Are there market regimes where active stock picking outperforms broad-market ETFs?

A: Yes. Periods of elevated return dispersion, smaller-cap rallies, or concentrated sector leadership can favor active managers who correctly identify mispricings. Historical outperformance of select active funds tends to cluster in such regimes; however, identifying those managers in advance and ensuring persistence after fees remains challenging. Institutional programs that allocate a modest satellite sleeve to proven, strategy-aligned active managers can capture those regime-specific opportunities without sacrificing the benefits of low-cost core ETF exposure.

Sources: Yahoo Finance (Apr 4, 2026); S&P Dow Jones Indices, SPIVA U.S. Scorecard (2023); ETFGI/industry data (Dec 31, 2023); Vanguard fund fact sheets (2024); Morningstar Direct (2023). For additional reading on passive strategies and ETF implementation, see our research on passive investing insights and practical ETF strategies.