It has become highly unlikely for an individual investor to make the «one big deal» at a time when companies span the globe with a tightly knit network of process chains and as news makes its rounds within seconds with the help of social media.
It took a stock guru – Paul Tudor Jones – to realize the changing tides In 2016, he said, «no man is better than a machine, and no machine better than a man with a machine.»
Learning Machines
Michael Appenzeller, a Swiss fintech entrepreneur, agrees. He builds portfolios with the help of artificial intelligence. «The world has become too closely interconnected and the financial markets too complex for a single person to be able to make competent investment decisions. Therefore, we use learning machines that support human beings in making investment decisions.»
This suggests that the stock guru of the future will have to share his claim to fame with a machine. In fact, he or she may even have to let algorithms take center stage. The funds of Renaissance Technologies, for instance, are widely admired, but the founder of the firm, mathematician James Simons, is virtually unknown.
Anonymous Gurus?
Remaining anonymous has also become something of a habit among activist investors, who some see as the gurus of tomorrow. Cevian, a Swedish holding company, is currently pursuing the sale of Swiss logistics firm Panalpina at all costs. But apart from its founder, Lars Foerberg, no one among the driving forces behind the firm has emerged to publicly defend their strategy – they prefer to remain anonymous.
At the end of the day, it is not the trader as such that is biding his farewell, but the individual investor. When Carmignac handed his Patrimoine funds over to David Older and Rose Ouahba, he said that he was happy to be able to support such a talented team in the management of the business.
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