Passive ETFs: 4 Big Performance Problems, 2 Solutions

Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are heaped with praise (and continue to gain market dominance). The popular narrative is they provide dramatically better performance than actively managed funds (due to lower fees and less “unsystematic risk”). But just as Fat Tony called Dr. John a sucker (see ludic fallacy) in Nassim Taleb’s famous Black Swan 100-coin-flip example, I’m saying passive ETFs actually hurt investor returns more often than they help, and here are four reasons why: