Standard & Poor's has launched its Standard & Poor's Indices Versus Active Funds Scorecard (SPIVA), which reveals quarterly performance for domestic equity funds benchmarked against corresponding S&P indices. The benchmarks include the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, S&P SmallCap 600 and S&P SuperComposite 1500 for broad market comparisons. Also, the S&P/BARRA growth and value indices are used for specific style categories.

The fourth quarter 2002 SPIVA Scorecard includes comparisons over the full bull/bear market cycle of the past five years. This quarter's report showed that over 63 percent of all large cap equity funds were unable to beat the S&P 500 benchmark over the last five years. As the market turned bearish, however, actively-managed large-cap funds fared relatively better with 54 percent beating the index over the last three years.

Mid cap funds experienced the most difficulty beating the index, the S&P MicCap 400, across the three time periods studied, with only seven percent showing better returns during the five-year period.

Moreover, 67 percent of actively-managed small-cap funds over the five-year period and 71% over three years under-performed the SmallCap 600. The complete fourth quarter SPIVA Scorecard is available www.standardandpoors.com.

The methodology is designed to provide an accurate, "apples-to-apples" comparison of funds' performance versus their appropriate style indices, and corrects for factors that have previously skewed results. SPIVA scorecards show both asset-weighted and equal-weighted averages, and include "survivorship bias" correction to account for funds that may have merged or been liquidated. 

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