What do we think of active managers?

Old Answer
Those lousy, no good, overpaid, underperforming, so and so’s…

New Answer
By definition, not all active managers can beat the market before costs, and after costs, only a minority can…We absolutely need people to do research, looking for mispriced securities. The arithmetic still holds, but there is indeed a social service in finding market inefficiencies. From Nobel Laureate William Sharpe