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I must say I have a different opinion on the madman analogy of the stock market. Nonetheless, on a second thought, my recent review of my investment portfolio actually has a more profound implication.

Let me explain in a slightly convoluted manner.

First, how do we access how well we manage our portfolio - or, actually, the performance of a fund manager? The conventional method is to compare it with a benchmark. For example, for a mutual trust fund that focus on the local stock market, we can compare its performance to the Hang Seng Index. (The alternative method is to determine the investment return and rank it amongst all other similar funds. This is usually what's reported for our MPF, and a similar method is used for the examination result of our medical students.)

But, that doesn't really solve the problem - or prove that your fund manager worth his salt.

For example, would the fund perform even better if the manager did nothing in the past one year?