However, the research shows managers can produce returns far superior to what can be made in a sector or tracker fund, with even the worst performing manager in the Hargreaves Lansdown analysis produced total returns of £11,849, ahead of simply holding cash where returns would have been £11,361.
The average manager produced total returns of £17,796 based on an initial investment of £10,000.
Khalaf said: “It is notable that even the worst performing manager in our sample has produced a total return ahead of cash.
“Cash is still king for short-term savings because it has that enviable quality of never falling in value, unless you factor inflation in, of course.
“However these results show that longer term investors, who can tolerate fluctuations in the value of their savings, should apportion a healthy slug of their portfolio to the stock market.”
