What benefit is there to buying an expensive fund when you can buy actively managed ETFs with nearly +200 bps fee differential? Fees are a performance drag correct?

Hi, fees are certainly more expensive for active funds, but a good active fund will not only more than make up for the fee differentials, it will also manage your downside risk (ie. losses) as a good investment manager will know which stocks to avoid. ETFs are typically exposed to all types of securities with limited ability to be managed nimbly when markets are volatile.

Few advantages I can think of is

1. Sensation that your money is actively professionally managed

2. Focused on reduce volalitlty (but may be at expense of returns)

3. Investing into lesser known non efficient markets which usually does not have an index/ETF for

Depends what you are looking for. If you are looking long term (which most ppl investing in funds will anyway) I suggest cancelling out short term noise and go for larger gains with and index ETF which has much lower comissions.​​​