What we’re reading (2/1)
“An Army of Faceless Suits Is Taking Over the $4 Trillion Hedge Fund World” (Bloomberg). “A $1 million investment in Millennium’s multi-strategy pool at its launch in 1989 is worth about $67 million now. Citadel has turned a million dollars into about $236 million since its start in Nov. 1990. By contrast, $1m invested in the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index at the start of 1990, when the benchmark started, would be worth $18m…Multi-manager platforms ‘have in effect become the most efficient allocators of capital,’ said Caron Bastianpillai, who invests in a number of such funds at Switzerland-based NS Partners.”
“SEC Finds Some Private-Fund Managers Mislead Investors On Performance” (Wall Street Journal). “Private-fund managers sometimes give investors misleading information about fees and performance, said the Securities and Exchange Commission, which highlighted several types of violations found by examiners as the regulator considers stronger rules for private-equity and hedge-fund managers…[i]n presenting their investment performance to prospective investors, some managers ‘only marketed a favorable or cherry-picked track record’ and ‘presented inaccurate performance calculations,’ the regulator said.”
“The Inevitable Decline Of Growth Stocks (For Now)” (Equius). “[S]maller, lower-priced US companies [small-cap value] performed better than large, high-priced US companies [large-cap growth] for 9½ years after the market recovered in March 2009. It was only three years ago (March 2019) when performance crossed over and large growth stocks took the lead. The way things are going, it wouldn’t surprise us if those lines crossed over soon and the higher expected returns of small value stocks become higher actual returns.”
“The 19-Year-Old Tracking Elon Musk's Jet On Twitter Says The Billionaire Has Blocked Him” (Insider). “Protocol first reported that Musk had approached Sweeney late last year and offered $5,000 to get the account taken down, saying it posed a ‘security risk.’ […] Sweeney, who shared the Twitter private messages exchanged between himself and Musk with Insider, countered with an offer of $50,000. Musk declined, saying it didn't ‘feel right’ to pay for the account's removal…Sweeney told Insider last week Musk had introduced some measures he himself had recommended during their Twitter conversation, which make it harder to track the jet. Harder, Sweeney said, but not impossible. ‘I just have to work around it,’ Sweeney told Insider.”
“No, America Is Not On The Brink Of A Civil War” (The Guardian). “[P]olarized answers on polls and surveys often fail to reflect participants’ genuine views. Indeed, when respondents are provided with incentives to answer questions accurately…the difference between Democrats and Republicans on factual matters often collapses.”
