The FTSE 100 declined 3.15% during Monday's trading, nearly wiping out the last remnants of positive cumulative returns since the start of the century. The index, which was down 3.6% at one point Monday, was still just in the black since the start of 2000 at Tuesday's close, up 1.26%. The annualized price return over the almost 19-year period was -0.1% through Monday, but 3.5% when accounting for reinvested dividends.
The index couldn't make up losses suffered in 2002 and 2003 until late 2015, and then the Brexit vote the following year ushered in new market turmoil. Markets recovered from those declines relatively quickly in 2017 before 2018's second half gave it all back.
A £1 million investment in the index on Dec. 31, 1999, would not have broken even until April of 2015.
Active U.K. equity managers were able to curb market losses in most years following the global financial crisis but have had difficulty staying meaningfully above their benchmarks recently.
Like the rest of the active management industry, investor interest in active U.K. equity funds has been paltry with AUM numbers appearing more influenced by market performance than client flows.
