Top Five Posts from the 2014 European Investment Conference

1. Keynes the Investor: Lessons to Be Learned

John Maynard Keynes is widely regarded as a great economist. It is less known that he was also a very successful investor, pioneering techniques and establishing principles that have now become investment lore, said Elroy Dimson.

2. Shareholder Value Maximization: The World’s Dumbest Idea?

James Montier said that the idea of shareholder value maximization didn’t come from businesses but rather originated as an opinion in academia and was unsupported by much evidence.

3. What’s Next for China and India?

Russell Napier, ASIP, contended that investors should be more optimistic about India than about China. His central thesis was that China’s export-driven growth model is not sustainable and its financial infrastructure is ill-equipped to support a shift toward domestic consumption as the driver of economic growth.

4. Investment Industry Must Change Its Behaviors Quickly to Regain Trust

Elizabeth Corley, CEO of Allianz Global Investors, challenged the asset management industry to stop “burying its head in the sand” and acknowledge the “trust deficit” and to do so quickly.

5. All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go: A Theory without a Purpose?

Milton Friedman once argued that theory without realistic assumptions or testable hypotheses is useless. By that measure, “80% of financial theory is not fit for purpose,” said Jerome Booth, head of New Sparta Limited.

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