We all love a bargain, hence the popularity of Black Friday in the UK which has now extended to almost every industry. I say almost as if you invest in an actively managed UK investment fund you are unlikely to find any Black Friday deals or discounts on offer.

The fund management industry in the UK is huge and manages over £6.9 trillion of assets. Charges for actively managed funds, however, remain stubbornly high with average costs estimated to be 0.9% per annum. These generally do no change whether the fund is £1million in size or £10 billion in size. Economies of scale must exist, but these are not being passed on to customers and explains why fund managers profit margins remain eye wateringly high.

Do higher charges lead to higher returns? The answer is an overwhelming no.

Standard & Poors produces regular scorecards showing that active fund managers consistently underperform against their benchmarks over the longer term.

Whilst some active fund managers do outperform the chances of predicting this in advance is in my opinion virtually nil. As Jack Bogle of Vanguard famously said, "rather than trying to find a needle in the haystack buy the haystack."

There are a band of Financial Planners who offer evidence based investment advice using low cost asset class funds to drive the investment engine. Granite Financial Planning are proud to be one of them.

As Black Friday deals are unlikely to be forthcoming if you would like to see if we can reduce your investment costs please contact us on 01330 826544.