Flynn Levy: Forcing portfolio managers to pause leads to better decisions
Clare Flynn Levy · Clare Flynn Levy and Cameron Hight - Moneyball for Managers (Capital Allocators, EP.43) · Mar 12, 2018 · at 24:01
Clare Flynn Levy, founder of Essentia Analytics, explains how behavioral nudges improve fund manager decision-making during portfolio management.
0:00 / 0:16exact quote · 17.0s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“What we find is that people's behavior changes, so when you do that, people do make a better decision, and it's not because we've told them what decision to make, it's because we've told them to pause and make a decision, whatever that decision is.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Clare Flynn Levy
Flynn Levy: Nudge-prompted portfolio trades are usually more successful than normal trades
“And what we find is that they are more successful than your normal trades, usually.”
Flynn Levy: Contentious investment committee decisions often outperform unanimous ones
“And what we found so far is sometimes contentious decisions are the better decisions. For some people anyway, and for the first firm that we did this with, that was the case, which is, and particularly around whether, so when they would vote unanimously on som…”
Flynn Levy: Managers who capture behavioral alpha will survive industry headwinds
“A lot of active managers will leave because it is getting so much harder to have a competitive advantage. But the ones who have behavioral alpha advantage, you know, where they actually are looking at their own behavior and saying, I want to continuously impro…”
Flynn Levy: Most active portfolio managers possess genuine underlying investment skill
“I see managers, it's like I look at x-rays all day long of different managers, and I see a lot of skill. It's quite rare that I see somebody where you're like, oh god, you should really find a different occupation. Usually there's something to work with”
Flynn Levy: Most fund managers capitulate at bottoms due to loss aversion
“The vast majority of fund managers, not surprisingly, show evidence of loss aversion around exit timing when prices have been on a negative trend, or a positive one if they're short. So when the price is moving against you, the tendency is to hold on for too l…”
Flynn Levy: Disposition effect is less prevalent in professional managers than retail
“We definitely do sometimes see the disposition effect as an extension of the loss aversion point, so not just holding on losers for too long, but cutting winners early. Less prevalence in professional fund managers than in retail investors, though.”