THE SKILL LIBRARY






This multi-trillion dollar industry is predicated on the idea that investment managers have skill – or at least many do. Yet, little is known about skill – who has it? How is it measured? This website is dedicated to finding the answers to the questions surrounding skill >>>>
Selecting an active equity fund is a difficult task. It’s made even more so by information shortfalls that undermine capital owners/allocators committed to this asset class. Fund assessment and manager reviews can be vastly improved by addressing the industry’s most significant informational shortfalls.
The presumption of skilled managers underpins the very notion of active management. Yet, direct measures of skill are absent throughout the vast majority of the industry. In its place capital owners/allocators continue to rely on sketchy inferences of skill based on fund outcomes like returns and holdings.
Repeatable decisions, consistent results, and the ability to improve are available only when a fund has in place calibrated investment processes used to guide choices. However, there is little analytic confirmation of processes today. Instead, capital owners/allocators rely upon high-level schematics and verbal descriptions in attempting to understand a fund’s processes.
For those investing for the long term the question is: Which equity funds have a better than average likelihood of outperforming, more often than not, over the next five years, ten years, and more. There is no simple answer nor single analytic result that tells all. By integrating some of the newer analytics now available capital owners/allocators can be much better informed and make more effective allocations.
Our library of resources for identifying skilled investment managers.

Mike Ervolini has authored dozens of articles about active management appearing in both academic journals and trade outlets, including: The Journal of Portfolio Management, The Journal of Investing, Institutional Investor, Pensions & Investments, Investments & Pensions (Europe), The Financial Times, and Forbes.
Behavioral Matters is a series of essays on the application of Behavioral Finance written specifically for professional investors and portfolio managers.


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AUTHOR AND ACTIVE MANAGEMENT EXPERT
The ideas expressed on this website are developed and/or curated by Michael Ervolini. Mike has spent his entire 35+ year career leading efforts to improve and strengthen active management.
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