Fund managers are overly tied to indexing rather than following the advice of stock-picking “doyen”, Warren Buffett, PM Capital chairman, Paul Moore claims.
Speaking at an event to mark 30 years as a fund manager, Moore, said fund managers were increasingly tying themselves to indexing instead of “genuine investing” for fear of losing their jobs.
Moore said “index funds and their cousins ETFs (exchange traded funds), they’re not based on fundamentals, they’re based on a process”.
“You’re getting more and more indexing, ETFs, and it’s probably wise in periods of volatility,” he said.
“But the amount of true global stock-pickers has got narrower and narrower, and that’s the funny thing, the irony is, because who is the doyen of stock-picking? Warren Buffett… in an environment where the actual incumbency has gone more to indexing, his reputation has gone higher and higher, and he’s telling you not to index, if you want to make a difference.
“The industry’s become more and more process driven, and so irrational things happen… and what’s happening in the US, we’ve now got to the point where you’ve got all these fund managers who’ve tried to closet index so they don’t lose their jobs.
