When the markets go down, asset-based fees mean that mutual fund shops and other asset managers take a hit, so it's no surprise that recent market volatility has hit asset managers hard.

John Rekenthaler Morningstar, Inc. VP, Research

Sarah Krouse of the WSJ reports that, per Morningstar data, publicly-traded U.S. asset managers saw their shares fall an average of 18 percent in 2015 and another 14 percent in the first 21 days of 2016. That compares to just a 0.73-percent drop in the S&P 500 in 2015 and a roughly eight-percent drop in the first 21 days of 2016.

The paper notes that the irony that, in analysts' eyes, the very asset managers who seek alpha for their clients suffer from high "beta" in the stocks of their own companies.

In one chart on asset managers' stocks' performance, analyst darling AMG [profile] is the only one of six mentioned asset managers whose earnings per share went up year-over-year, per analysts' estimates. If the analysts' predictions hold, AB [profile], Franklin Resources [profile], T. Rowe Price [profile], and profile] saw year-over-year EPS declines ranging from 4.4 percent to 22.9 percent. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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