Behind the Balance Sheet #5 The Pianist - Lucy Macdonald on Stock Picking, Leading Analyst Teams & Women in Fund Management
10 snips
Dec 16, 2021 AI Snips
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From Piano To Portfolio Manager
- Lucy Macdonald entered finance by chance after playing piano in a wine bar frequented by stockbrokers, which led to a job at Bearings and a switch into fund management.
- She qualified as an analyst evenings, persuaded someone to let her manage money, and found performance quickly validated her move into investing.
Barings Collapse Shaped Her Investment Compass
- The collapse of Barings taught three lasting lessons: danger of financial leverage, the primacy of reputation, and the need for primary research.
- Lucy says these lessons shaped her later avoidance of over‑levered banks and insistence on doing on‑the‑ground research.
Use All Useful Data Sources Relentlessly
- Use any reliable data source and tools that improve understanding, from internal experts to web scraping and NLP, to reduce ignorance about an investment.
- Lucy integrated grassroots product research, expert networks and new data techniques to validate customer response and market reality.