Like a Fresh Prince of Bel Air flashback from the early 1990s, middle east violence and geopolitical fears shot back into commodity traders’ lexicon yesterday – with Oil spiking nearly 20% on news there was a coordinated drone attack against Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure. The fantastical headlines by the likes of CNBC followed shortly after: […]
Category: Why Alternatives?
16
Sep
2019
11
Sep
2019
August Performance Snapshot
We field a bunch of calls at the start of each month asking how that hedge fund, this emerging manager, and that mutual fund did last month, and thought to simplify things for you with this categorized list of different alternative investment performance for the month gone by. Check out the August performance snapshot below: […]
05
Sep
2019
We’re back baby
It’s hard to concentrate too hard in Chicago today, you know – with the Bears and Packers facing off for the 195th time at Soldier Field tonight and the NFL taking over half the city in the hours-long buildup. If you want to talk a good long term investment, Halas bought the Bears for about […]
03
Sep
2019
Asset Class Scoreboard: August 2019
Look who’s up there enjoying the double party after a strong August. It’s Managed futures turning in the negatively correlated performance people yearn for in a bumpy month for stocks. US real estate continues to go bonkers, while commodities and bonds are perhaps the biggest surprise YTD near 10% gains. Hedge Funds, meanwhile, continue to […]
27
Aug
2019
Book Review – Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts
Man, were we excited to pick up Annie Duke’s book on game theory and how she approaches life (and poker) by thinking in bets. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts After all, that’s what a good alternative investment strategy does. It “thinks” in terms of an asymmetric […]
22
Aug
2019
A different angle to the China story
While everyone is talking about the risks in China, with them ratcheting up stakes in the trade war with a Yuan devaluation, and threatening troops in Hong Kong to squash protests, many in the quant space are busy analyzing the Chinese markets for investment opportunities. Now, we’re not talking about picking the next Tencent IPO […]
20
Aug
2019
Risk Parity + Trend Following = ?
Bridgewater & Associates is commonly known as the world’s largest hedge fund, with more than $140 Billion in assets under management and close to 1,500 employees. Its founder Ray Dalio is about as eccentric as you would expect from the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund – penning his own manifesto, and installing a […]
15
Aug
2019
Hedge Fund Fees: Should 1 or 30 be the new 2 & 20
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 […]
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 […]