The Marketocracy site, of which I write so much about here, along with its founder Ken Kam, are featured in a Washington Post article I have excerpted below.
I like the bit about the selection process being somewhat like American Idol, since I am–to the ridicule of my friends–a huge fan of the tv show, and almost never miss an episode.
Multi-Cap Funds Seek Middle Ground
NEW YORK — Ken Kam, a portfolio manager, remembers the date before the tech stock bubble imploded, when he warned his closest friends and family it was time to get out of tech stocks. March 18, 2000, was his wedding day and he made the prescient call during a toast at the reception.
Though not the typical stuff of wedding speeches, Kam felt compelled to give the advice because so many friends and family had accepted his guidance during the five years in which he oversaw a technology fund. Toward the end of running that fund, however, he felt increasingly constrained by the fund’s singular focus on technology stocks.
He now oversees what is often referred to as a multi-cap or all-cap fund and contends investors are often better served when managers are free to pursue a broader investment strategy rather than being limited to a particular type of stock or asset class.
(more…)
I knew it!
From the NY Times site:
“Money can’t buy happiness, or so the saying goes. But it may not be true.
”Ed Diener, a University of Illinois psychologist, said that the connection was complex but that very rich people rated substantially higher in satisfaction with life than very poor people did, even within wealthy nations.
“ ‘There is overwhelming evidence that money buys happiness,” said Andrew Oswald, an economist with the University of Warwick, in England. The debate, he said, is how strong the effect is.
“Professor Oswald reported a study of Britons who won $2,000 to $250,000 in a lottery. They showed an increase in happiness averaging just more than a point on a 36-point scale two years later.
“Daniel Kahneman, an economist at Princeton and a winner of the Nobel in economic science, and colleagues declared that the notion that making a lot of money would produce a good overall mood was “mostly illusory.”
“In one study, they said, people with household incomes of $90,000 or more were only slightly more likely to call themselves very happy over all than were people from households making $50,000 to $89,999 — 43 percent to 42 percent. (Members of the first group were nearly twice as likely to be “very happy” as people from households with incomes below $20,000.)
“Other studies, rather than asking for a summary estimate of happiness, followed people and repeatedly recorded their feelings. These studies show a smaller effect of income on happiness, Professor Kahneman and his colleagues said.
“There is another twist to the story of money and happiness. Even though people who make $150,000 are considerably happier than those who make $40,000, it is not clear why, said Richard E. Lucas, a psychologist at Michigan State University.
“Does money make someone happier? Or does being happier allow someone to earn more money?
“In any case, researchers say money’s effect is small. “It’s much better advice, if you’re looking for happiness in life, to try to find the right husband or wife rather than trying to double your salary,” Professor Oswald said.
