US - As at the end of 2002, Barclays Global Investors was the leading manager of S&P indexed assets, Standard & Poor’s says.

BGI, which is the largest manager of European pension fund assets, had a total of 149.8 billion dollars indexed to S&P indices, of which 118.4 billion dollars was indexed to the S&P 500 and 21.1 billion dollars was enhanced to the same index.

Vanguard Group was second with $122.9bn, all indexed. State Street Global Advisors was third, with 78.5 billion dollars.

Assets directly linked to S&P indices declined in to $906bn in 2002, down –14.9% on the 1,064bn estimated for the previous year. The index provider conducts an industry survey to get the figures, but reckons some 90% of its indexed assets market share was captured.

The bulk was indexed to the S&P 500 index, where the assets declined to 841 million dollars from 1,013 billion dollars in 2001, a decrease of 17%, which was less than the market fall of 23%. The cash inflow is attributed to the growth in the ETF assets and other indexed and enhanced index assets into products based on the S&P. The S&P 500 ETF assets increased by 39%.

But other indices were in demand, particularly the S&P SmallCap 600 index, which showed a gain of 120% in ETF, with some $19bn of assets indexed, up 44% on the year.
The S&P Midcap 400 saw an increase of 22% in assets to just over $46bn.

*Index-trackers have outperformed US equities over the past three years, according to research by Standard & Poor’s.

The Standard & Poor’s Indices Versus Active Funds (SPIVA) Scorecard shows that since 2000, 55% of large-cap funds , 68% of mid-cap funds and 73% of small-cap funds lost to indices.

Indices have also won over the longer term. Over the past five years, the S& P 500 has beaten 60.2% of large cap funds, the S&P MidCap 400 has beaten 92.8% of mid-cap funds and the S& P SmallCap 600 has beaten 64.8% of small-cap funds.



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