The tables below summarize some of the key results of the study during the Dot-Com Crash, the Great Recession crash and the decade of 2000 – 2010.
The table headings include: Lipper funds category (“large cap core” or “small cap core”), Index (S&P 500 or Russell 2000), the four performance quartiles (the higher the percentage the worse the relative performance), and the Average Percentile Ranking.
The Average Percentile Ranking is not tied to the quartile rankings, and provides a different vantage point on the comparative performance. It measures the average percentile of how they ranked over the given period of time. As with the quartile rankings, a lower percentage indicates better performance while a higher percentage indicates worse performance. For example, in the Dot-Com Crash table below, the average percentage of the S&P 500 was 70.6%, which put it in the bottom 30% among all funds in that category. The Russell 2000 Index fared even worse with an 81.9% average percentage – which means it would have ranked in the bottom 18.1% of funds in the small cap category.
In the following charts, please keep in mind that the top quartile represents the best performance and the bottom quartile represents the worst. For example, in the first table entitled “Dot-Com Crash,” you will see “0.0%” in the top and 2nd quartiles for each of the two indexes. That indicates that neither the S&P 500 nor the Russell 2000 would have ranked in the top half (top or 2nd quartiles) in performance in their respective actively-managed no-load fund groups during a single 12-month period from Sept. 31, 2000 through March 31, 2003.