Wednesday, November 11, 1998

Reliable Sources
By Ken Burchill ([email protected])

Say what you will about journalists, but you have to respect a profession that regularly re-evaluates itself in public. I was watching CNN's "Reliable Sources" recently and the guest journalists were doing just that. They all admitted that they mis-read the public opinion in the days before the election. Their estimates were way off and they over-weighed the importance of the Clinton scandal. The public ignored the pundits and voted on the issues. The journalists messed up and they admitted it on TV.

I wonder when CNN will have an equivalent show for mutual fund managers. It would be great to see the Wise of Wall Street publicly admitting that they consistently underperform the market. With thousands of such mutual fund managers, there would be no shortage of material. I would love to hear them explaining why ordinary Fools beat the market without the benefits (handicaps?) of an MBA, Armani suit, or double-half-decaf-low-fat cappuccinos.

I am guessing that this will never happen, which is a shame. It is almost impossible to improve anything unless you evaluate your mistakes. Mutual fund managers will not serve their "constituents" well until they admit they underperform the market and take steps to fix it. Maybe then, they will outperform the market and maybe even outperform us Fools. Until then... Fool on.

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