Woodford: We must stop 'corrosive' stock churning

Invesco Perpetual star Neil Woodford is among a group of high profile investors to hit out at today's short-term performance culture, saying this "obsession" is damaging long-term returns.

Woodford, the UK’s most highly regarded manager, has labelled the increasing short term focus of the stock market as the single most “corrosive characteristic” of the investment industry. Holding periods for UK equities have fallen sharply over the years, with the Bank of England calculating the average duration has fallen from around five years in the mid-1960s to about 7.5 months in 2007. It is a similar story across the Atlantic, with the average holding period for US stocks dropping from more than two years in 1990 to under nine months last year. Woodford, who manages upwards o...