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Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:

Active managers may be making a comeback. In its mid-year review of financial advisors' moderate-risk portfolios, Natixis shows active asset management rallying in the first half of 2017, with the best-performing portfolios having higher allocations to US, international and emerging market stocks and greater allocations to active managers than index funds.

The US Trends Report provides a twice-yearly analysis of moderate portfolios submitted to the Natixis Portfolio Clarity consultant team for review. Analysis compares performance and asset allocations of Moderate Model Portfolios with each other and selected benchmarks. Data in this issue represents 345 portfolios submitted by financial advisors from January 1, 2017 through June 30, 2017.

The average moderate-risk model portfolio returned 6.8% for the first half of the year, outpacing the 60/40 portfolio represented by the S&P 500 and the Bloomberg Barclays US Aggregate Bond Index by 0.30%. The top quartile of portfolios, which had lower exposure to passive investments, outperformed the bottom quartile by more than 300 basis points (3.0%). Portfolios favoring passive managers outperformed slightly in 2015 and 2016. But this trend has reversed in the first half of 2017, with portfolios favoring active managers outperforming by 0.26%.

The most successful strategies during the first half of 2017 included higher allocations to US, international and emerging market equities; str......................

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