SPAIN - Enhanced indexing managers are continuing to attract assets, the World Cup of Investment Management conference has been told.

But it was too early to judge the performance of those managers offering international products, said Margaret Stump, chief investment officer of New Jersey-based Quantitative Management Associates.

She told the event in Barcelona that there are not that many international participants. An analysis she undertook of the international managers covered 15 investment firms offering 19 strategies with tracking error of 0.25-3.50, where figures were available for at least three years.

The international strategies were for managers using an EAFE benchmark. The assets they had under management came to $76bn. “This is a figure that was virtually zero three years ago,” said Stumpp.

In a separate study of the US domestic arena she covered 50 strategies from 40 investment firms covering £222bn in assets.

One difference she noted between the domestic and the national managers was that the cash management approach used in the US was not being offered.

In her view there are “significant conceptual advantages to enhanced indexing”.

Managers generally were performing well regardless of the approach they took in their investment processes which included quantitative, derivative- based traditional or cash based. As international and global products emerged with similar attributes she noted, that the cash approach was not being offered.

She emphasised that for US products “there is a lot of ground to be made by combining different managers”.

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