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How Institutions Game Benchmarks (institutionalinvestor.com)
38 points by yarapavan on Nov 1, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments



In many ways, financial services are a futile attempt at utilizing a crackwhore to navigate other crackwhores on [your] behalf. The list of institutions may sound familiar, though not as blatant as Wells Fargo associates signing up customers for fake commision-based accounts.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/libor-scandal.asp

I still find humor in the DOL fiduciary rule (that obviously is not important). Who uses the word fiduciary in commision-based scams anyways?

https://www.investopedia.com/updates/dol-fiduciary-rule/

In many ways, YoYo investing is just where the linear timeline is at (You're on your own).

Outside of financial services, there are two humorous examples of the prolifieration in the developed world of "Doo Doo Diligence" that made me laugh in 2022 (beyond the use of the word unlimited for Internet data from years prior):

Rental Cars: It is now the customers responsibility to ask if the car has been reported stolen in the past 12 months before a customer takes possession of a vehicle.

https://www.businessinsider.com/armed-police-stopped-driver-...

Purchasing a home: In austraila, they do not have to disclose if a property has been in a flood. Oh.. Thats easy.. Just ask if the home has been in a flood and they will repond yes or no. This occurs in several regions.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-28/qld-flood-damaged-hom...

It looks like just a basic list of questions are needed for basic economic services in 2022. Whoda thunk? Are you a fiduciary? Yes or No? The answers are not surprising.


>Although arcane, Ennis clearly lays out how benchmarks became distorted.

I wish the author of the article would do the same...


So it's a problem that the wrong benchmarks are being selected, but also active funds should also be benchmarked against passively managed indexes




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