10 Years ago...

January 6, 1999

“Be that as it may, we are not paid to pass judgement on Fed policy. That is best to think tanks. Nor are we in the business of market timing. While we do have certain macro-economic views, we are primarily in the business of managing a portfolio of individual investments. In so doing we lost you a meaningful amount of money last quarter.”

“Essentially, having what appeared to be a number of separate moderate bets, our portfolio was really exposed to one growing bet on the internet.”

It may be time for investors to watch carefully where their investment managers are drifting in order to generate competitive returns. As the "herd" mentality develops managers often find themselves allocating ever more money to (temporary) winning trades and forgetting about the patience required to manage a diversified long term portfolio.

It begs the question: "Have investors become more patient after the recent correction or will they return to short term rewards."

Lastly (and I'm just throwing it out there), is the aging demographics for the US and Japan actually encouraging more short term risk since older investors do not have the time for a long term view...