The Contrarian Investor: Hold on to your anoraks

CONTRARIAN INVESTOR

Over the last couple of weeks, the investing world has boasted two terrifically exciting events almost guaranteed to appeal to the anoraks of modern high finance - the first is the European business school's EDHEC Risk Day in the City, with the more glamorous second one the Value Investing Congress in Las Vegas.

Now, being honest, these events are like chalk and cheese. The former appeals to the strongly European flavoured quant school of investing, which likes to turn equity investing into an exercise that involves breaking down the influence of risk factors and determining whether smart beta is really that smart. The latter event teams with hedge fund types, distressed investors showing off their latest single stock ideas, scornful of new fangled stuff like ETFs and insisting the only long-term route to investor happiness is to embrace your inner contrarian. Yet the two events do, I think, sha...