Market Breadth’s Return: A New Opening for Active Management

MFS Investment Management’s Strategist’s Corner explores how shifts in market structure and capital costs may restore opportunities for active managers.

• Prolonged low rates and fiscal stimulus suppressed market breadth, diminishing the environment for alpha generation despite manager skill.

• Rising labor, capital, and input costs, combined with persistent deficits, may now act as a new “gravitational force,” fostering wider performance dispersion across companies.

• Firms offering essential, competitive products could gain resilience, while others face obsolescence amid technological disruption.

Explore the full report to examine whether today’s market dynamics can reshape active management’s potential.