For as long as anyone can remember, the classic hedge fund fee structure has been two and twenty. Or more formally, a 2% annual management fee and a 20% performance fee. The management fee is to allow for the manager to operate their business, invest in technology, and pay their quants. The performance fee is […]
Category: Alternative Investments
13
Aug
2019
Should Jon Corzine be allowed in the financial industry?
Think not…? Then email chairmanoffice@sec.gov and let the SEC know. For those of you who don’t remember Jon Corzine, he’s the ex-Goldman senior partner-turned US Senator-turned New Jersey Governor-turned CEO of futures clearing firm MF Global. Just one little problem with this story…as the picture below alludes to, his tenure at MF Global saw him […]
08
Aug
2019
August shall now be called VIXust
What a way to get August going. First, we had this happening last Thursday = Since Trump announced his China tariffs, the markets have plummeted https://t.co/uVHztmpL5o pic.twitter.com/OAkOPIpwD3 — David Nir (@DavidNir) August 1, 2019 That left us down about -1%. Then, there was a little more of the same on Friday, although nobody on Wall […]
06
Aug
2019
Basics for Building an Alternative Investments Portfolio
Just throwing something into a portfolio labeled an Alternative Investment is likely going to be a mess. But a lot of times, that’s what happens. A client listens to the words Alternative Investments, but hears the words diversification and stabilization and all the rest. Before you know it, some random Alts strategy is in a […]
02
Aug
2019
Asset Scoreboard: July
Not the greatest start to the third quarter of the year. After the returns in the second quarter of 2019, July gave some pretty dismal returns. For the first time this year there isn’t a double-digit return on the board. Managed futures had the best return of the month, and luckily all of the classes […]
30
Jul
2019
900 year old Algorithms!
We’ve been talking a lot about algorithms of late, mostly as to how they are used and relate to so called Quants, as covered in our recent whitepaper. Algorithms Algorithms (or Algos for short) are the tools quants develop to make the lives of traders easier. You can’t get very far in one without the […]
22
Jul
2019
The Definitive List of the Best Investing Movies
We love movies…so much so that we’ve been known to tweet out asking to bring back movie futures, compared the 60/40 portfolio to Top Gun, and put out the greatest infographic of all time aligning 20 investments with Star War characters. Movies have the innate ability of breaking down barriers and making almost any subject […]
11
Jul
2019
The ‘right twice a day clock’ that is gold.
We have long been in the Warren Buffet camp in relation to Gold: “Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their […]
09
Jul
2019
The Pinnacle
The annual Pinnacle awards show put on by the CME and BarclayHedge (now Backstop solutions) does as good a job as any in promoting the industry and awarding those who have stood out in the recent past for their good performance. Which is why we have been proud to sponsor the event for many years. […]
02
Jul
2019
Asset Class Scoreboard: June 2019
It’s like someone put a mirror between asset classes in May and June – with most asset classes performing nearly the exact opposite side of their percentage from the month before. Low volatility continues to persist (as we had suggested at the beginning of the year) bringing in big positives across the board after the […]
