Passive investors are smashing active ones – except in one key area

One of the fastest-growing asset classes in Australia is also a rare happy place for active managers. We explain why.

Andrew Hobbs and Joanna Mather

Apr 4, 2025 – 5.00am

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The case for passive investing – buying assets that track an index and do not try to pick winners or losers – just got made again with new data from S&P Global showing another year of underperformance for actively managed funds in almost all investments from stocks to real estate.

But it wasn’t a total victory.

Andrew Hobbs covers self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs), financial planning, retirement, inheritance, tax, personal finance and, sometimes, the Perth Bears. He has been a financial journalist for 30 years, previously at Bloomberg and AAP.

Joanna Mather joined the AFR as an education reporter in 2008. She spent four years in the Canberra press gallery before becoming superannuation reporter in 2016, deputy news director in 2021 and wealth editor in 2023.