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The Terry Smith timing trap: why most investors lost money

Terry Smith's Fundsmith beat the market for a decade, then trailed four straight years. £3.31bn fled in 2024. Most investors lost money vs a tracker. Why? Timing. They bought high after stellar returns, sold low during underperformance. Jack Bogle's iron law: money arrives after gains, leaves during losses. Even star managers can't beat that.

Robin Powell

Investment consultants showing alternative asset allocation charts to group of pension fund trustees during advisory presentation in boardroom

Optimism as a business model: Why investment consultants can't afford to recommend simplicity

nvestment consultants have systematically raised their return assumptions for alternative assets since 2001 — not because performance improved, but because complexity generates fees. New research from Stanford and Harvard reveals how consultant optimism drives billions in pension allocations, despite mounting evidence that simple, low-cost indexed strategies often outperform alternatives-heavy portfolios. The entire boom may be built on structural conflicts rather than superi

Robin Powell

Oct 2814 min read

Dunster House clock tower at Harvard University. Harvard's $50 billion endowment is among many American charitable institutions that consistently underperform simple, low-cost index fund strategies despite access to sophisticated investment resources.

Poor endowment investment performance costing America's charities billions

Research analysing 374,351 US charities reveals shocking endowment investment performance failures that destroy billions in donor funds. Even sophisticated institutions with professional management consistently underperform simple index portfolios through excessive fees and poor decisions. The study exposes critical lessons for charity trustees worldwide who must maximise every dollar for their missions, and individual investors seeking to avoid the same costly mistakes.

TEBI

Aug 2010 min read

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