Critique of: “Does ‘Good Portfolio Management’ Exist?”

Critique of the paper Simon, Julian L. 1969. Does “Good portfolio management” exist? Management Sci.15(6, February) B-308–B319. Professor Simon addresses two interesting questions on portfolio management and performance of closed-end investment trusts: 1. Do some trust managers actually “outperform” others, or is trust performance only the result of luck or chance? 2. Are the discounts (or premiums) represented in trust share prices in the open market valid indicators of future portfolio performance? Despite some interesting and creative research, the author's work, unfortunately, falls short of providing a really conclusive answer to the first and most important of these questions.