Released: November 02, 2008

Mutual fund managers have to say, I’m Sorry

Source: Steven Mufson, Washington Post (Free Registration)

Being a stock market fund manager or strategist these days means always having to say you’re sorry.

Unlike other apologies, this is a special art form. When stock managers or strategists say they are sorry, their apologies are usually cloaked in a language all its own. They blame irrational market sentiment, hail the Patient Investor, invoke the folk wisdom of Warren Buffett and try to stop badly burned customers from heading to the exits by recalling how suddenly and unpredictably markets have, historically, recovered.

Some fund managers deep in the hole resort to borrowing hackneyed metaphors. “To sail across the ocean, you must balance making progress in fair weather with the ability to withstand the inevitable storms,” Clipper Fund’s Christopher C. Davis, wrote, quoting his father, also a fund manager.

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