Shawn Tully at Fortune wrote a very thoughtful piece describing Gene Fama’s research and views on efficient markets.
The version I saw on CNN money magazine is unintentionally both hilarious, and ends up making a far deeper point than I think Shawn intended. It is chock full of little links trying to draw you off to other articles on the magazine. These were undoubtedly not put in or even reviewed by Shawn, but they tell you an enormous amount about the world of finance and finance journalism.
For example, here we are in the middle of an article describing Gene and efficient markets.
…Understanding Fama’s evolving view of the market is one of the most valuable, practical guides for today’s investors.
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Fama’s ideas may have received the ultimate validation, but they’re still highly controversial….
Well, they haven’t received the ultimate validation from the bots that run CNN money, that’s for sure!
Only a decade? The comments just write themselves. …“The efficient-market hypothesis is the North Star for everything in finance,” says Asness. “One of the implications of his research is that every manager must be measured against a passive index to show if they’re really successful, and almost all fail over time."
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In that sense, Fama is the intellectual father of today’s index fund industry.
…The overall market is a fabulous discounting machine, Fama contended, that handicaps future performance far more accurately than do active investors. The concept was shocking. It maintained that, contrary to virtually every other human endeavor, amateurs could easily beat professionals who pick individual stocks – in this case by merely following a passive index.
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Fama’s views quickly won acceptance among academics – and scorn from money managers. [my emphasis] "They brushed us off, and they still do,” says Fama. “I’d talk to reporters and they’d get it all backward.”…Hmm. Something tells me Bill Gross isn’t putting his money in the Vanguard total market index, or even DFA core equity. Are the links put in by a human with a devilish sense of humor? How can a computer program put in random links that are so hilarious, and so exactly opposite to the context? How can “more” link to things more exactly not “more?” A few more “mores” :
I saved the best for last:
…AQR Capital now incorporates momentum into the strategies behind many of its funds.
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Perhaps the biggest challenge to the efficient-market hypothesis, however, came out of Fama’s own research….
Just sit back and enjoy that one.
Shawn’s final paragraph asks a deep question, made even deeper by the silly links that his publisher put in the article.
(Epliogue: Jonathan Berk and Rick Green’s papers start down a “rational ” path of understanding active managment, but that’s another story.)
Shawn’s final paragraph asks a deep question, made even deeper by the silly links that his publisher put in the article.
Is it possible, I ask him, that emotion and irrationality – the hallmarks of the behavioral school of finance – are far more powerful in explaining why folks are irrationally attracted to stock-picking managers than in explaining why stocks actually move? Fama shakes his head, chuckling. “I don’t know the reason why active management is so dominant,” he says. “At this stage, I find it completely puzzling.” And inefficient.Gene once said something to the effect that belief in inefficiency is mostly marketing for active management fees. But there is a deep point here. Rationalists like us shouldn’t just deplore something so persistent as folly (unless, I guess, perpetrated by the government). Active management must be serving some purpose to be so persistent in the marketplace… and in the ad machine on CNN’s website.
(Epliogue: Jonathan Berk and Rick Green’s papers start down a “rational ” path of understanding active managment, but that’s another story.)