No. Both the asset level of the alternative beta universe and the trading volume associated with smart beta exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are still much too small to meaningfully impact most active managers. Managers that blame these products for their underperformance should be pressed to provide specific examples.

Because they offer the promise of appealing returns with low costs and transparency, alternative beta products (rules-based investment products that focus on stocks with certain characteristics such as low volatility, high quality, strong price momentum, or low valuations) are growing rapidly and generating a lot of media attention, industry whitepapers, and conference panel discussion. As index funds’ share of ownership rises (about 38% of the assets of US-domiciled equity funds and ETFs are now indexed rather than active) and as sell-side research departments shrink, some active managers are complaining that prices of some stocks are no longer being determined purely by fundamentals.

Here’s the problem with that: although growing quickly, alternative beta is simply too small to disrupt trading in a meaningful way. Reasonable estimates suggest that alternative beta products hold about $450 billion in assets—only about 1% of the market capitalization of the MSCI All Country World Index. Let’s look specifically at minimum volatility, which seems to elicit the most concern about crowding. All of the minimum volatility ETFs, in aggregate, own only 0.09% of the market capitalization of the stocks in the S&P 500. Of course, one of the signature attributes of alternative beta products is that they are not weighted purely by market capitalization. (They are typically weighted by their score according to the chosen metric, such as their price momentum, sometimes combined with market capitalization.) So, the percentage ownership will be higher for stocks that are included in the minimum volatility indexes and that are among the smallest S&P 500 Index components. Still, the largest minimum volatility ETF holds less than 1% of market capitalization of all but a handful of stocks, and tops out at just 1.5% ownership.

And what about trading volume? Theoretically, a high turnover fund could dominate trading of a stock with only a small ownership percentage. Again, there is no evidence that alternative beta ETFs are particularly impactful. For the largest minimum volatility ETF (the $13 billion iShares Edge MSCI Min Vol USA ETF), we estimated the ETF’s trading volume in each portfolio stock and divided the estimate by that stock’s overall trading volume. For 86% of the ETF’s underlying market capitalization, less than 1% of trading volume is attributable to trading in the ETF shares. For only four portfolio companies (three specialty insurance firms and a mortgage REIT) does the ETF command more than 5% of the stock’s total trading volume, topping out at a not-very-impactful 7.5%.

Sector ETFs and traditional market capitalization–weighted ETFs, on the other hand, are meaningful owners of some individual stocks. For example, as of fall 2016, Credit Suisse calculated that 5.8% of the market capitalization of large-cap real estate stocks was owned by sector ETFs and another 2.9% by capitalization-weighted ETFs. Alternative beta ETFs hold much less sway.

Traditional active equity managers have faced headwinds in recent years. Market trends often associated with strong average manager performance have been absent: smaller-cap stocks have been underperforming mega caps, cash has underperformed equities, and the United States has outperformed stocks listed elsewhere. Managers have cut fees, but probably not by enough to make a meaningful difference in the relentless math of active management; the average active manager should roughly equal the market’s return before the impact of fees, which then mercilessly culls the population of outperformers. The growth of smart beta products is an unavoidable competitive threat to traditional active managers, but it should not shoulder the blame for their performance woes.

As has always been the case, investors that don’t have good reason to believe they will be able to select (and stick with) above-average active equity managers that can deliver value net of fees should consider passive approaches. And investors whose underperforming managers blame distortions caused by smart beta ETFs should be skeptical and demand more introspection and less finger-pointing.

Sean McLaughlin is a Managing Director on Cambridge Associates’ Global Investment Research team.

For an introduction to alternative beta, please see Sean McLaughlin and Deborah Christie, “Alternative Beta Strategies,” Cambridge Associates Research Report, 2014. To learn about recent valuation controversies surrounding the strategies, please see Sean McLaughlin, “Elevated Valuations for ‘Smart Beta’ Strategies: A Crash Waiting to Happen? We’re Not So Sure,” Cambridge Associates Research Note, September 2016.