Some managers are above average:
This reminds me of a sales pitch a neighbor broker once told me about. He would take his clients to lunch or dinner, and tell them a long, happy tail about an old client of his firm who had simply put away a modest amount in a company they recommended for over 20 years, and by the time she retired, she had tens of millions of dollars and spent most of her time on charity. This fantasy was very appealing because it really happened, as Home Depot was one of those stocks that went up 100 fold over its lifetime. Further, doling out charity is a great way to enjoy high status in your golden years without guilt: it's something the non-rich simply can't do or criticize.
Of course, for every lady like this, there were thousands who didn't do nearly as well, but only a cynic would conclude such cases were impossible.
Jay Bowen's stock picking has made the Tampa Firefighters and Police Officers Pension Fund one of the best-performing public pensions in the U.S.... As of Dec. 31, Mr. Bowen's annual returns beat pension giant Calpers—which employs 125 consultants and 1,100 money managers—over three-year, five-year and 10-year spans. ...The Tampa fund appears to be well funded at about 90%. It uses an unusually high annual investment target and discount rate of 10% to calculate the present value of benefits owed to retirees.The fact that a particular manager has generated above average returns over the past 10 years is not an anomaly, but rather, a statistical certainty. Given Tampa discounts their liabilities by 10%, implying an expected return of 7% or so, I suspect that statistical logic isn't their strong suit, so they simply see this case in isolation, and infer his return based on what looks to them like a long track record, over ten years. As the housing bubble showed, you can't argue against someone who has outperformed over the past 10 years, so I'm sure they are going with their rosy assumption, which I bet will fail with a high probability.
This reminds me of a sales pitch a neighbor broker once told me about. He would take his clients to lunch or dinner, and tell them a long, happy tail about an old client of his firm who had simply put away a modest amount in a company they recommended for over 20 years, and by the time she retired, she had tens of millions of dollars and spent most of her time on charity. This fantasy was very appealing because it really happened, as Home Depot was one of those stocks that went up 100 fold over its lifetime. Further, doling out charity is a great way to enjoy high status in your golden years without guilt: it's something the non-rich simply can't do or criticize.
Of course, for every lady like this, there were thousands who didn't do nearly as well, but only a cynic would conclude such cases were impossible.
4 comments:
My favorite is the old bookie/broker technique of taking a large list of potential clients and sending half of them a buy/beat recommendation on a stock or upcoming game(or any other event with a binary outcome) while sending the other half a sell/lose (or won’t beat the spread) recommendation. After the event in question, throw away the half of the list got the loosing recommendation and repeat step 1.
After several iterations you have a relatively small list of people who have received a string of seemingly prescient, money-making recommendations without any bad calls. Then you pick up the phone and try to hook them.
I believe it is perfectly legal for a money management firm to run a dozen seed funds with varying or even opposite strategies and then, after a year or so, quietly close down the losers and market the winners. Further I think you can also market a longer “track-record” of the fund/strategy/model by extrapolating performance backwards on an “as-if” type basis.
Re: ''discount rate of 10% to calculate the present value of benefits owed to retirees''
I think this is wrong. Liabilities should be discounted at the risk-free rate. The present value is thus much higher. The pension fund may be doing better than most others, but it's not out of the doghouse.
On some level, it's surprising it's acceptable to discount liabilities at all.
Can't say much at this point of time! Make sure to read daily reports and insights on the project. Pension fund requires close monitoring.
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