By Scott Ronalds

The passive (indexing) vs. active management question is a polarizing debate, but it shouldn’t be. The bottom line is that both strategies have merit when they’re done right.

As Morningstar USA’s President of Fund Research (Don Phillips) notes, credible voices within the index community are being drowned out by a vocal fringe – the indexing extremists. In an article first published earlier this year, Phillips suggests these individuals grossly overstate the indexing case, and that “many of the fund world’s recent stumbles – the misguided expectations surrounding leveraged and inverse ETFs and the poor performance of many commodity products – have come under the indexing banner.” This coming from someone who admits that indexing is a good way to invest and acknowledges to holding much of his personal assets in index funds.

There’s a paragraph in the middle of the article that’s particularly telling as to the state of the debate (in the US, at least):

“At some point, however, many index fans went from making the honest and helpful argument that indexing is good to making the hyperbolic and divisive case that anything other than indexing was not only bad, but also morally suspect. Extreme index supporters went from asserting that indexing beats the average fund to implying that it beats all funds. Ironically, they've advanced this claim during a decade when indexing has experienced unusually weak results. For the 10 years through the end of 2010, the Vanguard 500 Index fund placed in the 49th percentile of the large-blend category--hardly in keeping with its perceived dominance. The dichotomy between the facts and their assertions hasn't humbled the true believers, however. Their words have grown more extreme, as seen in a recent statement from an ETF provider that likened active fund managers to big tobacco companies, claiming that active management was as dangerous to investor wealth as tobacco is to our health.”

As a proponent of active management (undexing), I found Phillips’ article refreshing, although I’m sure it will raise the hackles of many indexers. If nothing else, the ongoing discussion is sure to be entertaining.