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Opinion
Noah Smith

It's Never a Stock Picker's Market

It's never been a stock picker's market as far as investors are concerned because the people doing the picking keep the profits.
Ready, aim, invest.

Ready, aim, invest.

Photographer: Domino Postiglione/Fairfax Media via Getty Images
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These days you hear a lot of people claiming that it’s a “stock picker’s market.” A drop in correlations, in which stocks as a group rise, and the apparent end of the steady bull market of the last several years has some people anticipating a comeback for active investment  management. Even Josh Brown, an inveterate enemy of active investing, caught a little bit of the fever. 

But don’t bet the farm on a return to active management. All the old drivers behind the shift to passive management are still in full force, and there are some new ones too.