A five-year-old female parrot named Strawberry (pictured) has proved smarter than human investors in a stock investment contest, organisers said last Friday.
The parrot from Papa New Guinea finished third in the six week contest which ended on Wednesday, said Paxnet, an on line stock market information provider.
Ddalgi (strawberry) competed with ten stock investors. Human investors picked any stocks they wanted. The parrot, using its beak, made random choices from balls representing 30 blue chips including Samsung Electronics.
"The outcome of our contest was amazing. Ddalgi stood third with her investment return standing at 13.7 percent," Paxnet general manager Chung Yeon-Dae told AFP.
Human investors averaged a 4.6 percent loss, with only two outperforming the parrot - one by 64 percent and one by 21.4 percent.
The human investors, who mostly chose to trade shares of small and medium-sized firms, each made an average of 190 trades over the six weeks. Organisers gave the parrot seven chances to pick shares over the same period.
"Our experiment proved that making long-term investments in blue chips is safe and effective." Chung said.
