Insight by Simon Marais of Allan Gray
Simon Marais has over 20 years’ direct experience in the asset management industry. His work at Allan Gray included the period during which Allan Gray posted its highest ever outperformance in the history of the company, when it beat the ALSI by over 60% in 1999.
Marais shares what he has learned and his views on the future of investing. For your convenience we have summarised this article below.
- It’s hard work to beat the market, you need to understand the companies you invest in and why they are selling cheaply.
- What has changed over the years is better information and analysis of stocks.
- Major shift away from big life insurers to independent managers, driven by performance rather than sales.
- The greatest source of value creation is the ability to be contrarian.
- The greatest source of value destruction is overconfidence in your ability to forecast.
- Future challenges to the industry include index funds as well as lower overall returns.
- Cycles go much longer than you think, but it does not mean they are not there.
- If Simon had to make one trade of the next 10 years, it would be short bonds (especially in Japan).
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