AI BROKE THE INFO BOTTLENECK, BUT VALUE INVESTING STILL DEPENDS ON INSIGHT

In a Bloomberg column, Guy Spier argues that AI has ended the golden age of value investing by removing the old information edge.

- DHIRENDRA KUMAR

He recalls waiting days for Buffett's annual report—today, ChatGPT can summarize any company instantly. I can relate to it—starting out as a mutual fund analyst in the 1990s, even basic NAVs required visits or faxes, and accessing UTI annual reports meant trips to the parliamentary library.

But Spier's conclusion—that easier access has erased all investing advantages—misses the point: the investing edge never came from hard-to-get information. It came from how you acted on it.

More isn't always better

When data was hard-earned and sparse, we spent quality time with it. You would pore over every word of an annual report, every number in a balance sheet, reading and rereading until you truly understood what the company was about. The scarcity of information necessitated a thorough analysis. You couldn't skim through dozens of reports in an afternoon because you didn't have dozens of reports to skim through. You had to extract maximum insight from limited material.