Rethinking Passive Investing: Exposing the Hidden Bias Reshaping Global Markets
Passive investing is widely regarded as a low-cost, efficient, and unbiased approach to portfolio construction. But what if its very foundations are biased?
In this session, Mukul Pal will present insights from his book, End of Passive Investing: Story of the Hidden Bias, revealing how market-cap-weighted indexes such as the S&P 500—and increasingly, MSCI EM and global benchmarks used across the world—embed a powerful but overlooked statistical bias.
Key Topics:
· The origins of indexing: from Archimedes to Laspeyres
· Why market-cap weighting introduces compounding bias
· Implications for emerging markets and benchmark-tracking mandates
· How active managers can reposition with probabilistic, adaptive
frameworks
· The future of fair and resilient investing
EVENT DETAILS
Date- 31st October 2025
Time- 6:15 pm to 9:00 pm
Venue- LSEG Office, Mumbai
Registration Fees:
CFA Society India Member: INR 250 (Refundable on attendance)
CFA Society India Members (Renewed Membership on or before 30th June): Free
CFA Society Registered Candidates: INR 250
CFA L3 Passed out: INR 500
Non-Members: INR 500
Mukul Pal
Born in New Delhi, Mukul Pal has spent the past 25 years developing quantitative investment strategies for active managers worldwide. His career began at the Bombay Stock Exchange, where he supported leading Indian institutions, before expanding into Europe to work with asset managers and the securities arms of global banks.He holds two master’s degrees—in finance and statistics—along with the CMT and CAIA designations. His contributions to financial technology have been recognized by MIT, and he has been invited to speak at global conferences, including the Princeton–Chicago Quant Conference. He also played a pivotal role in bringing financial innovations to NASDAQ.As an author, Mukul challenges conventional investment narratives and presents a statistical framework for overcoming market concentration and bias. Today, he leads a deep-tech firm in Toronto that delivers advanced solutions helping active managers achieve consistent market outperformance.
2 PLCFA Institute members can claim PL credit by providing their CFA Institute ID number when registering. |
 Global Passport Accredited Programme Allows members of participating CFA societies to attend each other's society events at the local member price |