Trick or Treat? Index Funds Beat Their Benchmarks More Often Than Active Funds Over the Past Decade

Morningstar · Jeffrey Ptak, CFA · 2026-10-28 23:00 UTC

A new set of data points brings out the shades of gray in the active/passive debate.

A new set of data points brings out the shades of gray in the active/passive debate.

Morningstar recently launched some new data points that slice active and passive funds into finer cuts. Formerly, any active fund—whether it was run by a swashbuckling portfolio manager or driven by quantitative factors—got the “active” tag, while the different flavors of passive funds were all labeled “index.”

Now there are some new data points that bring out the shades of gray. They are:

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