MitonOptimal Weekly Comment Week 5 - 2015
Advisory Fund Services Management Kakapo and Pukeko
Previously, I discussed the extinct Moa, a New Zealand bird that was wiped out by the Māori hundreds of years ago. Whilst I promise that The Kakapo (Māori: kākāpō, night this will be the last weekly piece about flightless Kiwi birds (pun parrot), Strigops habroptilus (Gray, 1845), intended), the Kakapo and Pukeko are also New Zealand bird species that faced the same dangers as the Moa and are still alive today. also called owl parrot, is a species of large, flightless, nocturnal, ground-dwelling The message from the Moa was that learnt behavior or complacency parrot of the super family Strigopoidea endemic to New Zealand. Like relating to the year ahead may be your biggest enemy. The Moa was many other New Zealand bird species, the kakapo was historically not able to adapt to its new predator and became extinct. important to the Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, The Kakapo is critically endangered and relies on Government appearing in many of their traditional legends and folklore. It was conservation for survival. It is a flightless parrot that has also struggled hunted and used as a resource by Māori, both for its meat as a food to adapt to the new normal of the past 1,000 years and whilst hunted source and for its feathers, which were used to make highly valued for its feathers and meat, probably would have gone the same way as pieces of clothing. It was also sometimes kept as a pet. The Kakapo the Moa unless it gave up and became a pet! is critically endangered. In contrast, the Pukeko is still common today and is much better adapted to the modern world. According to Māori mythology, they were Pūkeko is the common name, derived from renowned for bold scheming and determination. They even thrived the Māori language, for the purple once cats and rodents were introduced to New Zealand and when they swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio) of New are unsuccessful at repelling predators, they abandon their nest site Zealand. The subspecies occurring there and move to new arrangements. is Porphyrio porphyrio melanotus, which is also found elsewhere in Australasia. The Takahē, a flightless endemic bird of New Zealand, What has this to do with investing? Well, the investment lessons from all this are that (1) quickly recognizing the danger, (2) adapting to the has the purple swamphen as its closest relative, though its ancestor new normal, (3) not blindly accepting the past averages and (4) dogged arrived in New Zealand, probably millions of years ago from Australia, determination, all potentially lead to survival. The VIX is commonly long before the purple swamphen did. Pukeko are not endangered referred to as a ‘fear gauge’ and, when at low levels, complacency is at and classified as common. its highest, such as over the past 2-3 years in the chart above. [Source: Wikipedia - January 2015] If we had a “predator” VIX in 1200 AD, the Moa, Kakapo and Pukeko would have obviously all traded that situation very differently!
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