fortune favours the brave

When I started my career in the early seventies, private client brokers benefited from providing good advice because thatincreased their funds under man- agement and future commission flow, both directly for that client and from others whom the client might recommend. We practised the virtues of diversification and mentioned the performance of the FTSE 30 Share index in our portfolio reviews, but there was no suggestion that we should attempt to replicate its constituents or exclude shares because they were outside the index or indeed outside the country. In those days institutional sales...