RBS brace for a “cataclysmic year”

Generali

wotsthat wrote: »

I take the view that investment funds already employ people cleverer than me who have a better insight into the impact of events on businesses.

The low cost trackers I hold have outperformed most of these funds most of the time. The performance of my boring buy and hold dividend shares over the years makes even a dunce like me look like a star performer.

The company I work for has a division, which I work for, that has 6-9 people (depending how you measure it) that devote most of their working lives to studying the stocks that make up the ASX200. They meet the chairman or CEO of about 150 of those companies each year. They will make a site visit to a similar number each year.

They spend 50 hours a week each researching the companies, the markets they operate in, talking to customers and suppliers, looking at providers of finance and a myriad other things.

In their researches they are backed up by a team of c. 6 economists and hundreds of researchers working for brokers who will answer questions on demand.

A small investor has some advantages over our team but access to information is not one of them. We will always know more than you sooner than you. If we don't then you are almost certainly breaking the law.

wotsthat

Generali wrote: »

The company I work for has a division, which I work for, that has 6-9 people (depending how you measure it) that devote most of their working lives to studying the stocks that make up the ASX200. They meet the chairman or CEO of about 150 of those companies each year. They will make a site visit to a similar number each year.

They spend 50 hours a week each researching the companies, the markets they operate in, talking to customers and suppliers, looking at providers of finance and a myriad other things.

In their researches they are backed up by a team of c. 6 economists and hundreds of researchers working for brokers who will answer questions on demand.

A small investor has some advantages over our team but access to information is not one of them. We will always know more than you sooner than you. If we don't then you are almost certainly breaking the law.

Which confirms my bias that there's little point in trying to time the market - apart from not being convinced it's possible I'll always be working on old data.

I don't know if your guys have a track history of consistently beating or predicting the market but, if they do, do you think they're better at using data to make predictions or because they have access to better data or both.

Either way I bet my return per unit effort is higher. I'm inherently lazy when it comes to investing. I'm increasingly moving towards the lowest cost trackers I can find for all new purchases.

Thrugelmir

wotsthat wrote: »

I take the view that investment funds already employ people cleverer than me who have a better insight into the impact of events on businesses.

Clever people correspondingly require higher salary packages. So trades have to be of a far higher scale than a small investor. Being a small investor means that one is nimble and is able to buy/sell without disrupting the market. Hence why many companies simply don't even register on fund managers radars. As the market capitalisation is to small to make buying a significant stake even possible.

Generali

wotsthat wrote: »

Which confirms my bias that there's little point in trying to time the market - apart from not being convinced it's possible I'll always be working on old data.

I don't know if your guys have a track history of consistently beating or predicting the market but, if they do, do you think they're better at using data to make predictions or because they have access to better data or both.

Either way I bet my return per unit effort is higher. I'm inherently lazy when it comes to investing. I'm increasingly moving towards the lowest cost trackers I can find for all new purchases.

We have a new(ish) product at work which rather than trying to pick stocks tries to pick macro trends. It is performing pretty well and has had a lot of in flow of investor cash.

It's an interesting ideas and it's been seeded for a couple of years and now has proper investor money going in. I'll be interested to see how it goes.