Our Lawyers Outperformed the Dow
link NY pension fund to sue BP for investment loss | Reuters.
The CFA program is an intense certification degree which confers on its graduates knowledge of every aspect of finance, accounting and investing analysis and techniques. It appears that a new section will have to be added in the area of achieving investment returns. The sue section. If all the statistical models created do not result in the theoretical return, then sue the investment as a means of achieving the expected result. If you can’t earn it, sue for it.
Actually, this case will set a precedent for anyone who has ever lost money in an investment due to unforeseen circumstances….which means every one, because who can foresee losing money? Who knew that bs.com wasn’t worth 5 jillion dollars at it’s market peak? All the people who ever lost money in General Motors can sue on the grounds that they intentionally made cars that wouldn’t sell.
I wonder how they’re going to frame a case against Apple computers, widely known to be selling new Iphones like booze to sailors, recently moving 1.7 million of them in the first 3 days of their introduction. Yet the stock price has fallen from a high of 279 barely 2 weeks ago to today’s less lofty level of 245. That has to be grounds for some kind of suit. There may be created an entirely new category of investment returns for fund managers, called “entitled returns”, the return that should have happened if the vicissitudes of reality didn’t interfere. They may label this the what would have been, or the “wah wah” return expectation.
It will be most interesting if/when one day government bonds begin defaulting. What will be the basis for the lawsuits then? That they had no idea that the debt had no backing? That they couldn’t have foreseen this coming? Lawyers should constitute a part of every investment program.