by Eben Maré, Head of Fixed Income, ABSA Asset Management
IBM recently estimated that we generate approximately 2.5 quintillion bytes of data daily (one followed by 18 zeros – roughly the equivalent of 57.5 billion 32GB iPads).
The flow of information has had a profound impact on the financial markets and investors’ attitudes. Consider the following two statements:
- “Our favourite holding period is forever.” – Warren Buffet.
- According to the NYSE factbook, in the 1960s stock average holding periods amounted to around eight years – currently it is believed to be of the order of several days.
There are several interpretations one can draw from these two statements.
