The former chief investment officer of the now defunct New Star Asset Management, has published performance figures for his new business - providing evidence that allocating assets using index-trackers can substantially outperform more traditional approaches. The news puts added pressure on active stock-pickers, who traditionally charge higher fees for their services.

Wealth manager SCM Private, which Alan Miller co-founded last year, allocates clients' assets using passive instruments, focusing largely on exchange-traded funds. Miller has been a vocal critic of active managers' fee structures, arguing that using passive instruments eliminates hidden costs, and is ultimately a more productive way to invest assets.