Tech & Biz

Lusha the Chimp Invests Better than 94% of Russian Bankers

by Jordan Yerman | January 14, 2010 at 02:53 pm

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Lusha the chimpanzee, whose day-job is with the Moscow Circus, has picked investments that have outperformed those chosen by 94% of Russian bankers.

Lusha the chimp selected eight stocks based on colored cubes, and her picks ended up appreciating by 600% overall. Lusha's picks were actually backed with 1 million rubles ($33,950).

Lusha's trainer isn't suggesting that chimps (or gibbons or lemurs) take over all financial decisions, but the outcry from brokers strikes me as sour grapes: when a chimp out-invests you, don't blame it on timing. After all, we're still in a recession.

Seriously, though, Lusha teaches a very valuable lesson: financial knowledge (or the claim of having financial knowledge) isn't necessarily linked to real-life market success.

'She bought successfully and her portfolio grew almost three times. She did better than almost the whole of the rest of the market,' said editor of Russian Finance magazine Oleg Anisimov.

He questioned why so-called financial whizz-kids are still receiving hefty perks for their expertise .

'Everyone is shocked. What are they getting their bonuses for? Maybe it's worth sending them all to the circus.'

Said Svetlana Maksimova, Lusha's trainer, "Money questions should be decided by financiers and politicians. If monkeys get into it, our economy will collapse at once." Some might argue that monkeys already did get into it, and so here we are.