Morningstar

Still, clients continue to invest their assets into the industry’s cheapest funds and are saving billions as a result.

"It's now June and if you’ve been on a deserted island for the last five months you couldn’t have fathomed the movements we’ve seen," an expert says.

The decade’s top performers also outpaced broader markets over the short term.

The results were “not just predicated on expense ratios,” an expert says.

“Just because someone’s charging 1% doesn’t mean you should take them off your list,” an expert says.

Even some of the industry’s cheapest products “may be overpriced” in that they’re “mirroring a passive index,” an expert says.

Analysis of their performance — and fees — may reveal some surprises.

Firms are spending millions to comply with a controversial rule that is facing a legal challenge while state regulators push their own stringent regulations.

“These funds got an assist from the Fed when they were told they would backstop the higher end of the high-yield credit industry,” an expert says.

“People are just saying, ‘Why should I pay for an active manager when most of them lose to the benchmark anyway?’ This is a big deal,” an expert says.