We welcome special guest Mark Ainsworth from Schroders to talk about big data.

We discuss:

What is big data?

What are its applications to investing? There is a dust trail we all leave when browsing websites online.

Fund managers are natural “weighers” of lots of different data points. It is natural to work in terms of confidence levels.

The key is to master where data is useful and where it isn’t. Sometimes the trend is useful, but the level isn’t. You can’t wait until its perfect and solid as speed vs solidity trade off is at work in the investment industry.

There is so much you can do with data that is clever but not useful.

So the first question you have to ask is – is it useful? Is it something that can be acted on, and does it already exist or not?

Focus on answering questions. Make it easy as possible to log questions – the questions themselves tell you something interesting.

The act of trying to answer a question is interesting – often the data is too biased, too messy or too partial. So it doesn’t work.

Focus on insights – an insight is something that changes your understanding of the world. Core to this is what the existing knowledge/understanding is.

Data Insights is NOT quant investing.

Data insights is about filling blindspots. Things you don’t know are missing, but if you were to fill it in you see things you wouldn’t otherwise see. That can be a competitive advantage in asset management.

One thing to take away

The value of data comes from the insights – it’s about connecting data with people making real decisions. It’s a team sport to find the insights.

Show hosts Dan Mikulskis and Mary Spencer welcome Claire Walsh to explore the top-of-the-mind issues for individual investors currently and how the investment industry is adapting to changes.

We discuss:

How are individual investors feeling right now?

Current top-of the mind issues for individual investors

Has the “behaviour” of individual investors (eg panic selling) got better over time?

The role of behavioural biases

How individuals actually view investment risk (vs how we in “the industry” might tend to view it.)

How do you build up the right conversations with an individual?

Are there any insights from advising female investors - how is that different to working with male investors?

How do issues pertaining to younger investors, eg those who are in their 20’s or 30’s differ from those further along in the journey?

How is the industry adapting to changes?

One thing to take away

To people in the investment industry: challenging what you can do to be more engaging to your customers. Put yourself in the customers shoes. Don’t always look at everything in the context of our narrow financial services constraints.

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We welcome back our resident epidemiologist Dr Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard to explore the market's response to the vaccine rollout, the likelihood of it's success and the risks attached to it.