Advisers that turned up to last week's FPA Conference on the Gold Coast were treated to a debate that is at the leading edge of a massive turning point in the investment management industry. It focused on claims by US-based investment manager Rex Sinquefield who claimed that hedge funds investors were "stupid". Sinquefield is co-chair of Dimensional Fund Advisers Inc, one of the largest institutional fund managers in the US with $US79 billion of funds under management and over a A$1 billion in Australia. He is credited as one of the founders of the passive index replication industry, a movement that is leading the charge against active funds management.

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