Chimpanzee clobbers investment funds with performance

By Prieur du Plessis, on January 18th, 2010 posted in: Investment, Markets, Money

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The following comes courtesy of the Mail Online:

“They are paid a fortune for their ability to make complex decisions about where to invest millions of pounds every single day. But perhaps the job of an investment banker is not quite as difficult as it might seem.

“A chimpanzee in Russia has outperformed 94% of the country’s investment funds with her portfolio growing by three times in the last year. Moscow TV reported how circus chimp Lusha chose eight companies from a possible 30 in which to invest her one million roubles – around £21,000.

“The money-wise ape was given cubes representing different companies and asked: ‘Lusha where would you like to invest your money this year?’ Pausing briefing to think, she then picked out her eight cubes.

“‘She bought successfully and her portfolio grew by almost three times. She did better than almost the whole of the rest of the market,’ said editor of Russian Finance magazine Oleg Anisimov.”

Any comments, dear readers?

Source: Will Stewart, Mail Online, January 13, 2010.

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Carel

January 18, 2010 at 12:34 pm

The same “research” was done about 10 years ago and published, with the same results

bklash

January 18, 2010 at 6:32 pm

Any idea what the chimp’s fees are?

Prieur du Plessis

January 18, 2010 at 6:51 pm

She works for food, but her performance bonuses are massive. Sure to become a regulatory issue!

Frank W

January 19, 2010 at 2:28 am

This is old hat. Around 25 years ago, two tests with chimpanzees were done. The chimps threw darts at the stock reports page of a newspaper. In both cases, the chimps trumped the markets stock pickers. I once had a temporary broker who told me that he selected stocks by turning the stocks page around and sticking pins thru the back. He said he did much better than when he picked stocks.

Roger

January 19, 2010 at 3:07 am

A lot of her result depends on the pool of companies from which she chose results. and it was a one time event. Stories like these are fun for headlines, but pretty meaningless in general.