Not doing so well in this crazy market? Hire a monkey. In a story for Daily Finance, Ron Dicker reported on monkey stock picking–monkeys who have had better retuens than their human counterparts. One example is circus chimpanzee Lusha…
“Her portfolio topped 94% of Russia’s mutual funds, nearly tripling her initial capital of 1 million rubles ($35,884), the Daily Mail reported. Lusha selected eight cubes among 30 that represented different investments.
The chimp made her homo sapien counterparts look like chumps by mixing equities that were private and state-run. The one move that turbocharged her returns was putting her money on banks that received a Kremlin bailout. Those rose 600%, according to the tabloid.
“It shows that financial knowledge does not play a great role in giving forecasts to how the market will change,” Pavel Trunin, the head of monetary policy at the Institute for the Economy in Transition, said in the article.”
He gave other examples of monkey stock pickers with stellar returns. The experts–whether from the fields of primate research or economics–are quick to point out that the results are entirely due to random chance. Of course, that calls into question the credibility given to human stock pickers after they have a run of good returns.
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Please feel free to comment on monkey stock picking, or to tell us about your dog that can beat the market by barking when your finger hits the right picks in the newspaper.
