Genius – I doubt it
Chris notes that investment portfolios of congressmonkeys beat the average portfolio by a whopping 12%. I don’t think they’re baby geniuses but I’m guessing that somehow that whole regulating commerce thing is working out for them.
October 28th, 2005 at 10:33 am
The regulating commerce this acts like inside info as does all the information they gather from testimony from compaines also helps a bit.
October 28th, 2005 at 4:51 pm
You might be putting the cart before the horse a bit here, Uncle. You can’t even get into Congress without having quite a bit of money. Since quite a bit of money is needed to get elected, it stands to reason that people who have gotten elected would be more likely to have better-than-average financial advisers.
Now if you could show that their portfolios improved substantially after election as compared to what it looked like before, then you’d be on to something. But right now, nothing to see here.
October 28th, 2005 at 4:53 pm
Could be, primarily for the senate. I don’t think all house reps are necessarily loaded.
October 30th, 2005 at 2:02 am
Given that the 12% statistic refers specifically to Senators according to your link, I think the point is made.
October 30th, 2005 at 10:24 am
tgirsch: It isn’t just good financial advisers, the Senators beat the professionals: “Over that time, senators beat the market, on average, by twelve per cent annually. Since a mutual-fund manager who beats the market by two or three per cent a year is considered a genius…” I would conclude that any group of stockpickers that consistently do 9% better than that have a better advantage than brains and good computers.
“They did an especially good job of picking up stocks at just the right time; their buys were typically flat before they bought them, but beat the market by thirty per cent, on average, in the year after.” Doesn’t that sound like insider trading?