yesterday's masters of the universe

Discuss all general (i.e. non-personal) investing questions and issues, investing news, and theory.
Post Reply
Topic Author
larryswedroe
Posts: 16022
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:28 am
Location: St Louis MO

yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by larryswedroe »

are today's cosmic dust

Thought you would find this of interest
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162 ... ncol;lst;1

hope you find it helpful
Best wishes
Larry

PS I will be on Bloomber radio and TV (I think) on Thursday with Pimm Foxx (one of good interviewers) at about 5 EST
and also with Stuart Varney somewhere between 9-11 for few minutes that morning Fox Business News.

Will also be doing some videos for Yahoo finance tomorrow
555
Posts: 4955
Joined: Thu Dec 24, 2009 6:21 am

Re: yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by 555 »

My only comment is your use of percentile rankings is the reverse of what I'd expect.
User avatar
cinghiale
Posts: 1365
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:37 pm
Location: A latare Mare Nostrum

Re: yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by cinghiale »

I'm just finishing Michael Lewis' The Big Short, where the reader gets the impression that the main characters who Lewis showcased really did (do?) have the smarts, precsience, talent, and foresightedness to see the big trends and make profitable bets on them.

Perhaps they did in 2006-2008. But that, as Larry is careful to remind us, was yesterday's success. Regression to the mean can be sudden and nasty.
"We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are." Anais Nin | | "Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious." George Orwell
richard
Posts: 7961
Joined: Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:38 pm
Contact:

Re: yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by richard »

cinghiale wrote:I'm just finishing Michael Lewis' The Big Short, where the reader gets the impression that the main characters who Lewis showcased really did (do?) have the smarts, precsience, talent, and foresightedness to see the big trends and make profitable bets on them.
Selection bias. How many who succeeded are not talented? How many are talented who do not succeed?
Dadarkar
Posts: 161
Joined: Tue May 22, 2007 9:23 pm

Re: yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by Dadarkar »

Larry,looking forward to hear you on Pimm Fox show.I always listen to him on my way home.
User avatar
Random Musings
Posts: 6771
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 3:24 pm
Location: Pennsylvania

Re: yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by Random Musings »

However, "yesterday's masters of the universe" are most likely "today's wealthy and laughing all of the way to the bank".

Be nice to know what their portfolio's hold. I would venture to say that most active managers don't play their own game (or do very little).

RM
I figure the odds be fifty-fifty I just might have something to say. FZ
ScottW
Posts: 165
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:13 am

Re: yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by ScottW »

You might find this post from Kenster in late 2010 to be of interest. He was responding to a thread discussing the "current" funds to be in, and he noticed that many of the names he'd seen over the years were conspicuously absent in the "new" list. Here are the missing funds, many of which you'll probably recognize.

http://socialize.morningstar.com/NewSoc ... 1326308052
User avatar
nisiprius
Advisory Board
Posts: 52216
Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:33 am
Location: The terrestrial, globular, planetary hunk of matter, flattened at the poles, is my abode.--O. Henry

Re: yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by nisiprius »

I continue to be... fascinated... by statements like "the media was reporting that Miller's 'still got game.'" I am to make serious financial decisions about mutual fund investments by deciding whether the manager has "still got game?"

Barry Ritholtz says you need to judge whether the manager might have "lost his edge" or whether still has "fire in his belly." Ritholtz says should fire your mutual fund managers "when they become closet indexers," but also "when they fight the dominant market trend." In other words, fire 'em if they go with the flow, and fire 'em if they go against the flow! This is about as actionable as Will Rogers' "Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it."

So, what do you think? Is the mojo working for Gerard C. O'Reilly (Total Stock Market)? Has Kenneth E. Volpert (Total Bond) still got game? And does Michael Perre (Total International) have fire in his belly?
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness; Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
User avatar
baw703916
Posts: 6681
Joined: Sun Apr 01, 2007 1:10 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by baw703916 »

nisiprius wrote:Barry Ritholtz says you need to judge whether the manager might have "lost his edge" or whether still has "fire in his belly."
Not sure about fire in his belly, but I'm pretty sure he still has 2 and 20 in his pocket!

Brad
Most of my posts assume no behavioral errors.
User avatar
asset_chaos
Posts: 2629
Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 5:13 pm
Location: Melbourne

Re: yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by asset_chaos »

Bogle had it right when he said investing stars are more like comets, burning brightly for a while then returning to the frozen darkness from whence they came. Unfortunately it appears to require neither a large quantity of nor too long a duration of investing "light" to pull in the suckers' money. Of course, this can all be quantified with the distribution of investment managers' returns and how long a performance series is required to demonstrate skill over luck at the 90% confidence level. But that's really beyond the ken of most investors.
Regards, | | Guy
paper200
Posts: 289
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:40 am

Re: yesterday's masters of the universe

Post by paper200 »

Master's of the "Yesterday's Masters of the Universe" are still quizzically looking at the crystal ball - sorry a little off the original topic but not the title

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/busin ... e#comments
Having freedom, food and roof is being 90% lucky in life and so is index investing. So, don't let the remaining 10% bother you.
Post Reply