Briefings

Week InReview: August 3, 2018

Darts and monkeys.

"I wrote yesterday:

'I am always curious, when people talk about making random stock picks by throwing darts, or hiring a monkey, or hiring a monkey to throw darts, if they are talking metaphorically, or if they are actually throwing darts at the stock tables. Where do you even get printed stock tables these days?'

"That seems to have annoyed some people who work at publications that print stock charts. Sorry! Anyway yes the Wall Street Journal really did throw darts at stock tables to make its random stock picks, and those picks did outperform the best picks of the best hedge-fund managers at this year's Sohn Conference. There is video. (Of the dart-throwing, not the outperformance.) I don't know if the Journal ever actually used a monkey, but some Russian jokers did back in 2010. (The monkey did great.)

"On the other hand, while this controversy was raging, Facebook Inc.'s stock was plummeting; it closed down 19 percent yesterday. Jeffrey Gundlach's Sohn idea was shorting Facebook. The monkeys never saw it coming."

- Matt Levine, Bloomberg View

Read entire Week InReview: August 3, 2018

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