Passive Index Funds Trounce Active Managers, But Market Environments Changing

2014 has been another stellar year for low fee passively managed index funds. Investors continued to vote with their feet, piling investment dollars into passive funds and avoiding under-performing active fund managers.  But is the era of passive fund management now behind us as new concerns about volatility have been raised in several official and non-official quarters? As a sign of the times, passive fund behemoth Vanguard Group saw its assets under management swell by $216 billion in 2014, a move a Wall Street Journal article said “gave stock pickers a vote of no confidence.”   Passive index funds saw a…