Thursday 20 October 2016

Doing nothing can be pretty good

Article in The Wall Street Journal:

"What Does Nevada’s $35 Billion Fund Manager Do All Day? Nothing"

Some snippets:


Steve Edmundson has no co-workers, rarely takes meetings and often eats leftovers at his desk. With that dynamic workday, the investment chief for the Nevada Public Employees’ Retirement System is out-earning pension funds that have hundreds on staff.

His daily trading strategy: Do as little as possible, usually nothing.

The Nevada system’s stocks and bonds are all in low-cost funds that mimic indexes.

Mr. Edmundson may make one change to the portfolio a year.

His strategy is to keep costs low and not try beating markets, he says. “We’re bare bones.”

From his one-story office building in Carson City, Mr. Edmundson commands funds whose returns over one-year, three-year, five-year and 10-year periods ending June 30 bested the nation’s largest public pension, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or Calpers, and deeply-staffed plans of many other states.

With no one else on his investment staff, Mr. Edmundson rarely uses his conference table and four extra chairs. He volunteered his office to pension-fund employees who work for accounting or benefit calculations.

Last month, a wall went up dividing the room. “I’m not going to complain about my office,” he says. “It was too big.”


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