bet with. Horse racing handicappers study the past performance of each horse in a race, examining among other things the combination of speed, endurance and grit demonstrated by the animal in prior meets. Mutual Fund Disclosures The phrase “past performance is not an indicator of future performance” (or similar) can be found in the fine print of most mutual fund literature. Nonetheless, past performance of an investment fund or portfolio, and the management thereof, is frequently considered when judging the fund or the management of it. Demonstrating the ability to outperform peers or index funds repeatedly is seen as a way to evaluate a fund manager’s skill. The S&P Persistence Scorecard is published twice a year to answer the question of whether past performance in investment funds matters. This report tracks the consistency of top performers over yearly consecutive periods and measures performance persistence through transition matrices. The University of Chicago’s Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) Survivorship Bias Free Mutual Fund Database serves as the underlying data source for these reports. References Government procurement Horse racing Mutual funds