Thank you for the great piece on the challenges and evolution of manager selection.

A trend that may alleviate some of these challenges in the coming years is wider access to advanced analytic techniques: Indexing and the common sense approach of comparing active managers to passive portfolios were early advances on this road. Similar advances are now taking place in the world of fund selection as consultants, allocators, and fund ranking firms begin to get evaluated on the predictive accuracy of their selections.

Perhaps before too long paying a consultant without a statistically sound record of predictive accuracy will be viewed as at best unwise and at worst source of legal liability.