A one-horse race

GOSLING'S GROUSE

I went racing recently and my day on the racecourse felt a bit like a day in the markets.

I am always struck by how alike gambling and investing are. Of course it is almost heresy to say such a thing, which always makes me smile because fund managers regularly use gambling language like sector bets’, ‘positions’ or ‘laying off risk’ – which is exactly what gamblers do. There are more than a few fund managers who have been known to have a flutter on the horses and some, like Giles Hargrave – the excellent smaller companies fund manager behind the Hargrave Hale fund – actually own one. Readers with a long memory will know the excellent duo Nigel Thomas and George Luckraft cu...