Large-Cap and Growth-Oriented Funds Underpin Another Strong Quarter for Equities

Equity mutual funds and ETFs celebrated their fifth quarterly gain in six—with the average equity fund (+6.92%) posting its second straight quarterly plus-side return. LSEG Lipper’s U.S. Diversified Equity Funds (+9.07%) outpaced the other seven equity and mixed-assets macro-classifications for the first quarter since Q2 2023.

Q1 2024 had actively managed equity funds (+7.09%) outperform their passive (+5.95%) counterparts by 114 basis points (bps), marking the fourth largest quarterly outperformance by active management since the start of 2013.

In this segment, I provide a market recap plus highlight the quarterly and monthly performance results for conventional equity mutual funds and ETFs.

Summary:

• Macro-classification rankings: U.S. Diversified Equity Funds (+9.07%), Sector Equity Funds (+5.99%), Mixed-Assets Funds (+5.25%), World Equity Funds (+5.12%), World Sector Equity  Funds (+2.87%), Commodities Funds (+2.78%), and Alternative Equity Funds (+$2.76).
• Equity Leverage Funds (+14.62%) posted the strongest return in the equity universe for Q1, marking the second straight quarter as the leader.
• In total, 92.89% of all individual equity and mixed-assetsfunds posted plus-side returns for the quarter, down from Q4 2023 (96.10%).
• For second straight quarter, 95 of Lipper’s 104 equity and mixed-assets fund classifications posted positive returns.

Click here or the Download Full Report link in the upper right-hand column of this page to download the First Quarter 2024 Equity FundMarket Insight Report: Large-Cap and Growth-Oriented Funds Underpin Another Strong Quarter for Equities.