Why You Can't Beat Index Funds

I keep getting better, but so does everyone else...
Alpha and the Paradox of Skill
research-doc.credit-suisse.co...
Financial Planning
I am a Chartered Wealth Manager and Partner in a financial planning practice based in the UK. If you would like to find out more about our services, please follow this link: go.novawm.com/getintouch
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This channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute financial advice - James is not responsible for investment actions taken by viewers. Please seek out a regulated advisor if you require assistance (whilst James is a financial adviser, he does not provide advice through this KZbin Channel, which is not affiliated with his employer).
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00:00 The Paradox of Skill
02:08 Tennis
03:28 Baseball
05:58 Investing
09:12 Index Funds
10:31 Finding Weaker Games

[@SG-xe1mv]

For anyone getting married here's what I did: Hire a field or speak to anyone with a lot of land about using this land for your wedding. Hire a marquee. Find a local large BBQ event provider to cater (I went with the hog roast and people still talk about it) and get over to France to discover and then ship over the wine. You will half the cost of your wedding easily and you'll have very happy and well fed guests( Wedding food is usually 70% of a normal plate). Get a local band to play and feed them too. They'll have a blast and keep playing well past midnight; which you're allowed to do as you're on private land. Request money for your wedding gift to the value of the event. Hey presto you just paid for your wedding with it costing you little to nothing!

[@DrBenVincent]

This is the first finance video that I’ve seen in months which has actually covered new and interesting concepts and ideas! Don’t be afraid to touch on the more statistical aspects of finance - you’ve got a great way of making these ideas accessible

[@JamesShack]

Thanks Ben!

[@nuntiusuk3345]

Also don’t forget your investment window .

[@chrisshave7129]

THE most thought provoking and enlightening video I have seen on YT in a long time! Thank you James

[@davidwelburn]

Fascinating video; thank you. And congratulations on your upcoming wedding.

[@patricksharkey7764]

Great content-as ever. I wonder if your financial knowledge and aptitude has managed to keep a lid on wedding expenses? There may be times when knowledge and skill are best suppressed!

[@Lucky13_537]

Congrats on the wedding! As a tennis fan I was so pleasantly surprised to see the tennis examples mentioned 😍🎾. Despite it being harder and more competitive than ever before in tennis, with absolute skill levels increasing, Federer, Djokovic and don't forget Nadal have each won 20 grand slams. 20! It is an insane stat, it would be the equivalent to winning 30 slams each back in the 70s or something. GOATs, all three of them

[@JamesShack]

Yes that is a good point !!

[@phykell]

Congratulations to you both James - have a great day and best wishes for the future :)

[@garethdwright91]

Good one this. Cheers, Jaminho!

[@Woj_Poznanski]

Great episode.

[@balamurugans9204]

Great News...Many Congratulations for your wedding James.......

[@seraho]

Congratulations James! Wishing you a very long and happy life together ❤

[@metalgirl]

Yes!!! Congratulation on your marriage! Great videos!

[@BobJJ9999]

Congratulations and good luck!

[@johnanth]

Congrats on your wedding James! Been a sub since the very first video and really happy for you. I would be interested in more videos on how financialisation and 'buying the index' affects the market dynamic. There is a general theory which states that nearly every stock is overvalued because of the index buyers, but if every one of them is then none is? And if more money flows from active management to trackers, then what will it mean for the stock market? Thank you.

[@JamesShack]

Thank you! And yes I’ll cover this !

[@veronicajackson3542]

Congratulations to you both.

[@stuartsmith7973]

Great video James. 👍🏼

[@Allocator-ir9kv]

very good informative video

[@saras4472]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding James and thanks for another brilliant video!

[@timlamb9035]

Congratulations!

[@TheWolfXCIX]

Congratulations James, enjoy your big day!

[@chuckmurray1825]

Congrats on the wedding! She's getting a smart guy.

[@JamesShack]

Haha Cheers Chuck. No i'm the lucky one!

[@declanmcardle]

@1:00 it's like the two guys who meet a lion in the jungle and one guy puts on some runners and the other guy says you'll never outrun the lion....

[@erea3355]

Good decision to get married James. I have been for 33 years and it was the best thing I ever did. Also, as you get older you realise the most valuable thing in life is family. Bless you.

[@JamesShack]

Yes indeed I'm realising these things as a I get older!

[@wholovesyababy5574]

I went to the Vanguard website. How do I evaluate what to pick?

[@jonp2224]

Great content in all your vids I’ve watched so far. As a novice investor, would be interested to know your opinion on ETF funds vs index funds.

[@JamesShack]

You can have index funds that are ETFs. ETF relates to the structure of the fund, i.e it's listed on an exchanges. Where as an index is telling you what strategy that fund follows

[@Zycoreination]

I am an index investor for the majority, however I am in 7 different regions with 9 funds. So eventhough I rely on the indexes I still gamble on which index/region will be more profitable over the next 30 years. I have stronger belief in some of the emerging markets. And congrats on the wedding 😁

[@Kushagra.j]

In my opinion India will give the highest return in the next 20-30 years of any major economy or market in the world!

[@Zycoreination]

@@Kushagra.j interesting, I am actually looking into investing more into india lately, will probably start some time next month, just spending time reading up on the market / finding a decent fund

[@mattsheehan843]

Great video. Thanks so much.

[@JamesShack]

You’re welcome!

[@mcooke999]

Congratulations James!

[@JamesShack]

Cheers Michael!

[@hamishwilliams9017]

Really made me think during this vid. Keep up the original content.

[@JamesShack]

Thanks for the feedback Hamish, glad you liked it!

[@ferr0gan]

Congratulations on your wedding, my best wishes for you and your significant other

[@johnathonlivingston7573]

You’re batting 1,000 with these videos. Super interesting. Thanks.

[@JamesShack]

Haha thanks Johnathon!

[@harikrishnanchandramohan4209]

Hermes and P&G are both since 1837. Do you say these 200 year old businesses are gonna disappear within my puny lifespan, if I chose those instead of a thermometer, sorry index.

[@JamesShack]

There is a very high chance of it yes. That's just survivorship bias. 99.9% of business that were operating in 1837 have gone bust.

[@DC-nj8kv]

Congrats!

[@JamesShack]

Cheers !

[@jamesc328]

Congratulations on the wedding

[@benellis3337]

Great videos as always, congratulations and good luck on the big day

[@JamesShack]

Cheers Ben!

[@Oldskooladdict93]

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding, we've had to move ours three times! Back on topic, so something like PE is a classic example of active being a good idea over say an ETF.

[@JamesShack]

Yes, there’s lots of evidence to suggest that the less liquid an investment is, and the less information freely flows about the business/asset the more able expects or experience investors can reap returns.

[@banksii93]

What about if you’re looking for stocks to provide the most about of growth, rather than dividends and passive returns? Is there an index fund you could suggest which focuses on stocks with high growth?

[@JamesShack]

Well you want to be focusing on whatever is going to give you the best possible total return. whether that comes from capital growth or dividends. A normal index fund is good for that !

[@arunmenon6513]

Another good one and all the best for your big day🎉🎉🎉

[@JamesShack]

Thank you Arun!

[@SG-xe1mv]

Brilliant video and really compelling insights. Thank you James!

[@stuartsmith7973]

Oh... and congratulations on your wedding, I hope it all goes well. X

[@JamesShack]

Thank you!

[@tomclowes5874]

Excellent video James. Think it may well be your best. Enjoy the big day🍾🍾🍾

[@JamesShack]

Cheers Tom!

[@bazwan6396]

Congratulations and best wishes for your future happiness together.

[@kisnotel]

congratulations even tho its late, only just watched your video

[@george6977]

SPIVA reports show that over 85% of active fund managers, in all sectors, under perform their index over 20 year periods. If you can identify small cap and EM managers that can consistently produce alpha how do you do it?

[@FrazerBriggs]

Congratulations on the wedding James!

[@JamesShack]

Thank you Frazer!

[@NiKoMARIO]

Congratulations on your marriage, I will be waiting on a video on family finances management! Enjoy your big day!

[@JamesShack]

Haha, or how to get out of debt after a honey moon !!

[@Stevenc1984]

Good luck for the big day!

[@robkyle2008]

You kept that quiet, my invite hasn't even arrived yet. congrats 🥂

[@JamesShack]

Cheers Robert !

[@musheopeaus4125]

But riets and emerging havent perform as well as my s&p 500 index funds

[@balt4439]

Federer and Sampras did play against each other ;) Great vid as always mate

[@Lucky13_537]

True, but neither were at their peaks. These era comparisons are usually discussed in the context of how legends from different eras would fare against each other, with both being at their peak levels.

[@JamesShack]

Yes, they did 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@markgriffiths9377]

I wouldn't put poker up there with tennis and baseball. If you look at the WSOP main event, you tended to have a different winner every year, sometimes a player you'd never heard of before (at least when I used to play it), and that would not be the case at Wimbledon. Even if 5,000 players turned up at Wimbledon, someone like Djokovic would still win as he's not only more skilful but his fitness is on another level to most people. But in poker (I'm only talking about Hold-em here as I never played any other variant for money), there are so many other factors at play. To win the WSOP main event, you effectively need about 10 coin-flips to go your way so luck plays a far larger part than skill. I couldn't put a % on each but it wouldn't be anywhere near 50/50. And when you play online poker, you can't see people's faces, so that makes it even harder to give away or read "tells". You're really relying on patterns of betting (i.e. do they do always raise by x when they have AK? Does this person always try to use the "button" to his/her advantage, regardless of cards held?) and that's tricky when there are so many players on the same site and you don't cross the same players that often. I do like to have ETFs though, and they make up more than half of my portfolio. I don't believe there's a great deal of "skill" in investing, but there is certainly idiocy, as we can see from those who chance their arm at day-trading on Robinhood lol. There are some horror stories from there about people basically losing their entire inheritance making stupid bets on a share price being above or below a certain value on a certain date. That's nothing more than gambling and I'm not even sure why it's even classed as investing.

[@BrunoBelcastro]

Congrats on the wedding mate!

[@JamesShack]

Cheers Bruno!

[@andreavarga5166]

Congratulations James on your big day!

[@JamesShack]

Thanks Andrea!

[@ericsyvertsen5880]

Congratulations on your upcoming marriage, I have learned a tremendous amount from your videos...Thanks

[@JamesShack]

Thank you Eric!

[@hardikmanek5574]

Thanks

[@JamesShack]

Thank you so much Hardik!

[@majohns2nc]

Congratulations! Best wishes to you and your partner.

[@TheCraigTee]

Do you provide paid financial guidance?

[@zoreyaswain1133]

Is marriage a zero sum game?

[@atul9380]

Enjoy your wedding day, James. Looks like your fiancée is a skilled player in the marriage market 👍🏽 I’m sticking to equity crowdfunding for speculation which is less than 5% of my portfolio, the rest is index funds

[@peterbattle2116]

James, do you communicate with people by e mail? Thanks. Peter.

[@mangosorbet8183]

This is very interesting

[@tracythompson4024]

Every happiness on the big day James 🎉🎉

[@JamesShack]

Thank you Tracy!

[@minimad8793]

Could you tell me why it has become the norm to use companies as Nominee accounts and for those who wish to own the stock in there own name is becoming harder and harder to do.

[@JamesShack]

Because using a nominee platform to manage your assets is much easier and more efficient than holding 50-69 stocks directly with company registrars.

[@minimad8793]

@@JamesShack Thanks James for the reply. yeah, I realise its for efficiency and cost but it takes away the feeling of being a part owner in a business. Maybe its just me but can understand the benefits of the nominee service, I just wish they would offer the alternative as well.

[@keithchegwin1222]

Another great video, somebody told me "If you're close to or on over 50K a year, then put the excess into a pension, to keep under the higher tax bracket". My wife is on £70,000 a year, so if she puts £20,000 into a pension every 12 months, will she not be paying the tax on the higher amount? I hope that makes sense. Thanks

[@JamesShack]

If she is reporting the pension contribution in a Self-assement tax return then she will be getting higher rate tax relief on the £20k. You also get to keep certain child benefits if you are both below £50k.

[@musheopeaus4125]

Cheggars - you dead ☠️!! Stop meddling in the affairs of the real !

[@davidjohnston779]

Hi James, I’m just starting in investing and am investing long term as I understand time in the market is most important.. I’m wanting to invest in S&P 500, and have an initial £1,500 to invest and then il be investing £500 a month after, with the markets at all time highs and a lot of talk about a major crash, is it best to wait before starting off or would you recommend investing right away as in 10 years it’s very likely to be higher anyway?Or if anyone else can help? Thanks

[@mangosorbet8183]

This is interesting

[@jshab2503]

Federer did play, and beat, Sampras. It was a huge result

[@neilcook1652]

Congratulations on your marriage, have a great honeymoon James

[@aerialexplorer772]

9:55 I don't agree. I think it is the case that those investors who choose to pick stocks -think- they are good investors. But they are wrong about it. Stockmarket investing and trading is an area where many many people get it wrong. I agree with everything else though. The UK small-cap AIM market has allowed me to generate out-sized returns recently, and I believe the reason is the other market participants are private individuals rather than professional investors.

[@heronsgate7]

10/10… how is the marriage doing 2 years later?

[@JamesShack]

Just about to have a baby... so very very badly!

[@fabiomoraes35]

That’s why I only play online poker with fake money

[@musheopeaus4125]

He has a lot more experience with pies than poker

[@Kushagra.j]

Have an awesome Marriage!

[@JamesShack]

Thank you !

[@SF-fb6lv]

To play devil's advocate - it seems generally that economists and many of these academics researching the markets are not RICH, why not? Who's better at surfing, an average IQ person who surfs every day or a PhD in computational fluid dynamics?

[@RichieBenno]

Used to call this "bum hunting" in poker. Trying to find games with very weak players.

[@DerMeister821]

Sampras wins, we all know that.

[@SylvianLight]

bro you watch cricket not baseball. vid is sus

[@emiliojoao9083]

Congrats!

[@JamesShack]

Thanks Emilio!