The Million Dollar Bet.
Alan Smith
Helping business owners build, protect and optimise their wealth through a unique 3-Step Strategy. #Entrepreneurship #FinancialPlanning #WealthManagement #TaxPlanning
In 2008, Warren Buffett placed a $1,000,000 bet with the smartest hedge fund investors on Wall St.
He bet that over 10 years, an investment in a simple index tracker fund would outperform the absolute best hedge funds in the world.
The results were quite surprising.
Ted Seides was CEO of Protege Partners, a leading “fund of hedge funds." It was his job to select the 5 best funds in the world.
All that talent, education, and research within the hedge fund companies—and all they had to do was outperform a humble S&P index tracker.
An easy bet to win, surely?
Not quite. The hedgies got trounced!
After 10 years, Buffett’s plain-vanilla stock fund averaged an annual return of 7.1%
Not bad. ??
But the hedge fund portfolio produced only 2.2% a year after fees.
Not good ??
Buffet won the bet and donated the winnings to Girls Inc, a non-profit organisation which exists to support and mentor girls across the US.
Buffett said “When trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients.
Both large and small investors should stick with low-cost index funds.”
Buffett was saying something that had been known to savvy investors and traders for a century, but which had taken a long time to seep into the average investor’s consciousness: Active fund managers
And the evidence now is even more compelling. Standard & Poor’s has been tracking the record of active managers for more than 20 years.
Their 2022 report indicates that when adjusted for fees and for funds dropping out due to inferior performance, after five years, 84% of actively managed fund managers underperform their benchmark, and after 10 years, 90% underperform.
The fund manager results were so bad that in their report, S&P said the performance of active managers “was worse than would be expected from luck.”
Can you imagine any other industry or profession where the failure rate
And yet large fees are still deducted.
Every investor would benefit from utilising the humble index fund.
A focus on keeping costs low
I recently discussed hedge fund investing and how entrepreneurs can build and keep personal wealth
Out now on the latest episode of Bulletproof Entrepreneur podcast
Independent Commercial Real Estate Professional
1 年I think both results are poor ,especially when one takes inflation into account and I think that before any organisation or individual considers themselves an expert on investment / true financial returns, they should understand that unless we are one of the globilists, none of us actually made any appreciable money . In order to understand the ludicrous financial burden placed on us all and how our financial system mamipulates all of into servitude, I would reccomend two books : The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffen and the more recent book , titled The Great Taking , by David Rogers Webb.
The unvarnished truth around financial planning, guiding you towards an independent and dignified retirement | Voted 4.9 out of 5 on VouchedFor by my clients | 30 years’ plus experience | “Life is not a rehearsal” ??
1 年I know who my money would have been on and it wouldn't have been some Bobby Axelrod wannabe!