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Keynes the Stock Market Investor: A Quantitative Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2015

David Chambers ,
Elroy Dimson  and
Justin Foo
David Chambers
Affiliation:
d.chambers@jbs.cam.ac.uk, University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, Cambridge CB2 1AG, United Kingdom
Elroy Dimson*
Affiliation:
edimson@london.edu, University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, Cambridge CB2 1AG, United Kingdom, and London Business School.
Justin Foo
Affiliation:
j.foo@cantab.net, University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, Cambridge CB2 1AG, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author: edimson@london.edu
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Abstract

The consensus view of the influential economist John Maynard Keynes is that he was a stellar investor. We provide an extensive quantitative appraisal of his performance over a quarter century and present detailed analysis of his archived trading records. His top-down approach initially generated disappointing returns with no evidence of any market-timing ability. However, from the early 1930s his performance improved as he evolved into a bottom-up stock picker with substantial active risk and pronounced size and value tilts. Our reconstruction of Keynes’s stock trading provides a unique record of realized performance and sheds light on how equity investing developed historically.

Type
Research Articles
Information
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , August 2015 , pp. 843 - 868
Copyright
Copyright © Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington 2015 

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