Malkiel’s monkeys: a better benchmark for manager skill

10th February, 2026 |
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Authored by Luc Dumontier
Authored by Joan Serfaty

A famous experiment can help shed new light on a common question for asset owners: how good are your active managers? Princeton professor Burton Malkiel claimed in his best-selling book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, that “a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by experts”.

Authored by Luc Dumontier
Authored by Joan Serfaty