Research

Driving portfolio outperformance via manager research and selection

FIWA’s historical simulation analysis and its own real-world results demonstrate that disciplined manager selection can positively contribute to the performance of client portfolios.

By: Mayank Goradia Nicolas Brunetti Faith Tsao Vino Ravichandran Dongling Wu

Updated: 7/28/2026

Key Takeaways

Manager selection has become increasingly important given the growth in available asset classes and multi-asset class investment solutions; but consistently doing it well, without the right people and processes, is challenging.
To quantify how much manager research can positively contribute to performance, FIWA conducted a 25-year historical simulation analysis and found that manager research teams with skill would have outperformed a portfolio constructed utilizing median managers.
FIWA also assessed its own manager research skill, finding that its Preferred-rated managers more frequently outperformed median managers since the team started rating managers in early 2017.
These results highlight the importance of a rigorous manager research process—particularly in an environment of elevated inflation, policy uncertainty, and geopolitical risk, where return dispersion across managers may be higher.

Get the full white paper

Driving portfolio outperformance via manager research and selection

Download PDF

Next steps to consider

Portfolio Construction Solutions

Get ready to manage your client portfolios—and relationships—more effectively with Fidelity's powerful portfolio construction insights, tools, and solutions.

Learn more