Monday, December 6, 2010

An Investment Thesis for December...Not!

Here is an investment thesis for you: "Pro's performance worries will drive stocks" according to Jeff Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James.


In this short video, Saut outlines why he believes stocks will go higher.  In essence, "Professional money mangers are underinvested and underperforming," and they are facing "performance risk, bonus risk and ultimately job risk."

While this may be true, I am not too sure that it is such a great strategy.  From this perspective, I have trouble with this and have the following questions:

1) why would one give their money to a money manager who is willing to put themselves ahead of their clients?

2) why would one give their money to a money manager who abandons a strategy or discipline to chase performance?

3) why would one give their money to a money manager who is acting like a retail investor?

4) can't our investment professionals do better?

Apparently not.  Let's face it.  This is a tough game, but one thing that makes it tougher is when you don't have the discipline to execute a plan.  In my experience, when you don't follow what you do best, that is the time you get burned.

In any case, the video is below and Saut's comments are in the first third.

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