A Brit kitty named Orlando pounced on the lead in The Observer newspapers’ stock portfolio challenge, casting a stockbroker, fund manager and wealth manager, as well as a team of students, into the litter box.
How good was the orange tabby? Everyone had $8,018.99 to invest at the beginning of 2012. We’ve converted their hoards to U.S. dollars because unlike the cat, we don’t do well with the pound sterling.
Orlando’s portfolio over a year increased to $8,889.21, compared with $8,301.26 generated by the professionals and $7,762.38 by the kids.
“All but one of Orlando’s stocks (Morrisons) rose during the last three months of the year, including specialist plastics and foam company Filtrona, which Orlando had hastily swapped for underperforming Scottish American Investment Trust in September,” the article by the London-based paper says.
“By contrast, the professionals refused to swap any stocks at the end of the third quarter and paid the price. British Gas fell by 19% and Imagination Technologies dropped by 16.8%, dragging their portfolio down by an average 7.1%.”
The Observer writers suggest:
“The result indicates that the ‘random walk hypothesis,’ popularised in economist Burton Malkiel’s book A Random Walk Down Wall Street, is perhaps truer than we thought. Malkiel’s book explores the idea that share prices move completely at random, making stock markets entirely unpredictable.”
We do not believe that for one second. We are followers of A Random Yowl on Wall Street, which proves that felines have superior investing skills.
Researchers have yet to determine, however, whether indulging in catnip unfairly enhances a contestant’s ability to perform in British newspaper investing competitions.
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