Re:The real cause of the financial crisis -- An MIT Blackjac...
by zupatol on Thursday January 15, 2009 @04:26AM
(#435016)
I think lots of people are ready to forego higher returns for higher security. That's what I ask from my banker.
For a short while I was looking for a bank that would just have a portfolio that follows the market instead of trying to beat it, and that would take less fees because it took less effort to manage. I contacted two other banks, but they didn't have anything like that. I found it was extremely tiring to speak to bankers, they all seem to want to drown you with words. I eventually stayed with my original bank just to stop wasting time.
Re:The real cause of the financial crisis -- An MIT Blackjac...
by natrius on Thursday January 15, 2009 @04:58AM
(#435028)
I thought such things were common?
Re:The real cause of the financial crisis -- An MIT Blackjac...
by zupatol on Thursday January 15, 2009 @02:46PM
(#435585)
They are common.
The problems they don't solve is how to allocate the assets between currencies. Also part of my money is in fixed income papers. So even when not trying to beat the market, there are some decisions I would like to leave to a professional.
Re:The real cause of the financial crisis -- An MIT Blackjac...
by khafra on Friday January 16, 2009 @03:48PM
(#437241)
Dimensional Fund Advisors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_Fund_Advisors) diversify among currencies, markets, and asset classes according to some math I don't really understand. They seem pretty sharp, though, and they're low-load for the buy-and-hold version (they have market timing funds designed to lower the fluctuation at the cost of lowering the long-term return).
Re:The real cause of the financial crisis -- An MIT Blackjac...
by JeffL on Sunday January 18, 2009 @03:55PM
(#439658)
Yes, maybe after a market crisis more people look for security, but I think that over time they forget the last crises and move back to chasing returns until it gets bad enough for the next crises to occur.
If I'm paid a flat fee to manage money, the people handing me money to manage are still going to look for the manager with the highest returns (that's human nature).
So, I still have an incentive to chase riskier short-term gains; I see less of the upside than if I were also getting a cut of the gains, but the incentives that arise from competition with other money managers remains in place.