The economics of money, banking, and financial markets

FYI 

Should You Hire an Ape as Your Investment Adviser?

The 

San Francisco Chronicle came up with an amus-

ing way of evaluating how successful investment 

advisers are at picking stocks. They asked eight ana-

lysts to pick five stocks at the beginning of the year 

and then compared the performance of their stock 

picks to those chosen by Jolyn, an orangutan living at 

Marine World/Africa USA in Vallejo, California. Jolyn 

beat the investment advisers as often as they beat her. 

Given this result, you might be just as well off hir-

ing an orangutan as your investment adviser as you 

would be hiring a human being!

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