I certainly don’t wish to gloat at the recent misfortunes suffered by many of Neil Woodford’s investments, but the sorry spectacle provides some useful insights into the role of human nature in investing and business in general.
Showing not an ounce of humility, the fund manager who seems to have at least three high profile disasters as week, Neil Woodford has posted a comment on his group's blog explaining why Provident Financial (PFG) shares are cheap after yesterday's disastrous warning. But before you rush out to buy it is worth noting that after the last warning (in June) Nomates Neil posted another blog. Nomates had chatted at length to management, he understood the score, the market was wrong and Nomnates had bought a stack more shares. There seems to be a pattern here.
Earlier this month in Neil Woodford - how long before The Deadwood Press admits that he does not walk on water?, Tom noted a bad record – recently including Provident Financial (PFG). The Mail on Sunday had written “the FTSE 250 doorstep lender whose profits halved after it struggled to move to a new operating model” - the struggles have got considerably worse…
