28-04-2025
Star Stock Pickers Must Now Beat Their Clones
It's harder to make it as a professional stock picker than it used to be, which is saying a lot because it was never easy. I was reminded of this when I read that celebrated stock picker Will Danoff ended his 34-year run as Fidelity Contrafund's solo manager earlier this month.
When Danoff took the helm at Contrafund in 1990, the measure of a US stock picker was whether they could beat the S&P 500 Index. That's because investors had essentially two options in those days: Buy the market, usually by way of an S&P 500 index fund, or find a fund manager who can beat it.
