Do Investment Theories Really Help?

Extract

Last year the Manchester Actuarial Society asked me to speak to it on my experience before I entered the profession, with particular reference to investments. This invitation caused me to review my experience over about twenty years in the Trustee Department of a Bank in supervising a large number of miscellaneous portfolios ranging from quite small ones to substantial pensions funds. The general conclusion which I reached was that investment theories generally were surprisingly little help. This was a conclusion which was rather depressing and I invited the Society to do their best to prove me wrong, adding that for once in a way the speaker would be only too pleased if someone did just that.

Before committing myself to writing the present paper, I awaited that by Messrs Weaver and Hall given to the Institute earlier this year, and the discussion on it, as I hoped that I would find in either one or the other some of the answers to the fundamental questions which were troubling me. I regret to say that whilst I am not in any way criticizing the computer method, I find that these fundamental difficulties still persist.