Hi Guys,
Recently on MFO, the tradeoffs between luck and skill have been explored by numerous Board members. That's an especially hot topic in the mutual fund investment universe and has been so for a long time.
Michael Mauboussin has addressed this issue in his engaging book "The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck".
Here is a Link to a 1-hour video in which Mauboussin discusses his wide ranging research, his findings, and his interpretations on this issue.
On the full Luck-Skill spectrum, Mauboussin positions investing more towards the Luck end. Given his occupation and employer, I was somewhat surprised by his assessment. Enjoy the video.
Best Regards.
Comments
Baseball players today can't hit like Ted Williams because they aren't as skilled...... forget the excuses
Thank you for your comments.
Neither Buffett or Williams were especially lucky. Both had exceptional skills in their professional areas. But some luck was layered atop these elevated skill sets.
That layering is a likely explanation for their outstanding performance records. One of Mauboussin's salient points was that average skill levels have increased in both disciplines with a simultaneous tightening of standard deviations. Hence, it would be more difficult to duplicate their marvelous feats today.
Today's money managers have uniform training, uniform tools, and more even resource and support staff. It is a demanding challenge to persistently generate Excess Returns in the current marketplace environment.
Ted Williams had superb hand-eye coordination and an unmatched understanding of the strike zone. Umpires hesitated to call a strike against him. According to Mauboussin, he was a .4 sigma hitter. Mauboussin estimates that to hit .400 today a player needs to be a 6 sigma hitter because of the sharper standard deviation distribution. Williams was rare indeed, but today a 400 hitter is a far rarer likelihood.
Regardless, if I were investing today, I would not want to be on the other side of a Buffett comitment. If I were a fighter pilot, I would not want to be matched against Ted Williams in either WW II or the Korean conflict. It's the losing side to go against a two-time Marine fighter plane ace.
Both these Aces have/.had an abundance of skill and some meaningful and timely luck to augment the skill. Certainly, the skill was a prerequsite. In some instances, folks are just pure lucky.
Thanks again for your participation. Diverse perspectives usually contribute to a fuller exploration of options and better decision making.
Best Wishes.
Thanks for your observations.
I too am a great fan of Williams. I had the privilege of seeing both Williams and Joe DiMaggio at Yankee Statium many times. Williams was always a hero for me although I was a New Yorker at that time.
Indeed Williams fought in both WW II and the Korean conflict. I used "or" when hypothetically encounting him in either conflict since survival was highly unlikely given just one such unwanted duel.
For a time, he surely did defy the aging process. A great hitter. At one time his brain (perhaps body) was being cryogenically preserved. Is that a tall tale or a fact?
Best Wishes.
Thank you all for your insightful and entertaining comments. They were fun.
But I was disappointed that none of them addressed a main theme of the Maubousian talk and how that theme impacts mutual fund investment choices.
Today, most trading is done by professional institutional money managers. They are all highly trained with similar credentials and access to resources. When matched against amateurs they tend to win; when matched against other professionals, they likely neutralize each other. Excess Returns become more difficult to capture.
The empirical data support this concept. Hugely successful fund managers find it a challenge to retain their top of the ladder positions. The variability (standard deviations) in Excess Returns is a decreasing number over the last couple of decades. With the Mauboussin Luck-Skill trade off model, that means that Luck is becoming a more dominant factor in determining mutual fund performance since Skill disparities are attenuated.
The Mauboussin analysis is yet another argument for more passive fund component exposure in a portfolio. That's the direction that institutional agencies are now pursuing.
I had hoped that some comments would be directed either for or against that interpretation.
Regardless, thanks for your submittals. Baseball always generates a diversity of stimulating opinions.
Best Wishes.
I am familiar with several money management firms that assert investment policies and strategies that promise downside protection. Some do so by using a multi-asset strategy that suggests a reduced return (like 80% of the S&P 500 Index) for reduced volatility. I’m not especially impressed.
We accomplish a similar wealth projection outcome by deploying an equity/bond mixed holdings strategy. Diversification works. The multi-asset strategy is simply exploiting that truism.
Some mutual fund managers seem to have Hedge Fund envy. Usually a gap exists between promises and the reality.
But much depends on the current environment. At times, like in an upward trending market, it must be extremely challenging to outdistance a nicely assembled Index portfolio. That task might be easier when the market is trending downward.
The data strongly suggests that active managers play a long-term losing game under most circumstances, but there are exceptional periods that are decades long. But these guys are few in number.
Notwithstanding the accumulated evidence, I still hire active managers for about 30% of the equity portion of my portfolio. That has decreased significantly over the last few years.
Thank you for your question. It is not universally answered. That's why the passive-active debate continues.
Best Wishes.