What can we really learn from the FTSE?

I am an enormous fan of the Today programme on Radio Four, but its investment coverage sometimes amuses me.

We all love it when some pompous CEO gets a good kicking, but it is more than a little predictable and rather besides the point when learned discussion turns to ‘wherefore art thou the FTSE 100?’ Terms like the ‘barometer of investment’ opinion get used – the 8.45am level of the FTSE is fetishised and analysed with great vigour. All to no avail, in my humble opinion. The FTSE 100 is in fact next to useless in my book, except as an index that happens to measure a bunch of companies that have chosen to list in the UK. The point about asset allocation in a portfolio is that your chosen i...