Thanks doc, and I agree on many points.
I just want to be sure it is clear though, just because, and I do not know what ir if this is true or even how long such info would be relevant even if it happened, the firm owes a fiduciary duty to those invested, so there is no way it would be locked just because any person, including the principal of the firm, which is not really how investment funds work anyway, was exposed to info that would, for all intensive purposes make him unable to both fulfill is fiduciary duty and manage that investment. I am sure there are policies for addressing this issue routinely where a firm does direct dd on companies. The problem would be contained, delegated and managed.
That’s why I never bought that concept. I agree with many of your factual points though. I think he liked the stock long-term, and had no intention of even contemplating a sale.
But even if he stumbled on something, there is no way it would have locked him up so long because anything he’d see, and we know they were not unblinded, but for instance the compassionate arm data, that was ultimately revealed. But any opinion that the trial was doing well, would not have all the data, it would just be someone’s opinion. It would and could not be a complete analysis, of unblinded data that would tell him it was some sort of certain approval. I do not think there is anything that could have locked him down for so long, in terms of selling, that was not momentary, that could explain his holding all the way down, and just string there in the stock except an unwillingness to sell because of a belief in the treatment, regardless of whatever machinations he pulled that failed.
But I get you. No worries. Just my opinion on Woodford and his fund. He took a lot of ridicule as well. He never sold intentionally, the bulk of holdings, if he sold any. And I don’t care if he adjusted but I think he did not even do that. If he or the fund, as investment managers, thought DCVax was going to fail, he and his fund company and any other investment managers on the team, would have had a fiduciary’s duty to save his the capital of his many investors. He did not do that because I think he believed, not knew, but believed his choice would be vindicated.
