When someone first starts investing, there is the sort of high that comes with it; a high that convinces you that you just might be the next Warren Buffet. Sure. You watched a couple investing tips videos on Youtube, and you think you found some ETFs (with extremely low or no fees) that no one […]
Category: Why Alternatives?
19
Aug
2014
15
Aug
2014
Bloomberg Vomits Alternatives
We couldn’t resist this Bloomberg headline the other day: “Classic Cars, Lean Hogs and Duchamp Art Lead Alternative Investment Ranking” Cars, Hogs, and art… and an alternative investment ranking – this was going to be interesting.
Except the ranking is little more than the trailing 36 month returns – without mention of the volatility, drawdowns, or any other risk to the investments. And the so called “Alternatives” in the article seems to be an odd mish mash of returns for whole investment categories like Private Equity with its 100s of Billions of Dollars invested alongside the returns for single stamps from 1867 which go for around $400.
12
Aug
2014
A Big List of Alternative Investment Folks on Twitter
Here’s our compilation of people and firms currently out there on twitter providing the latest insight, humor, debate, and news on investments – especially the alternative kind:
07
Aug
2014
Mama Said Knock You Out
Well, we bet Emil Van Essen, the quirky (in a good way) Canadian who runs the self named Emil Van Essen managed futures shop here in Chicago, may have been humming that first line (if not the entire song) throughout the month of July. You see, Van Essen managed to post returns of 6.39% in July, his best month since May of 2011, a year the program returned 33%. Since that blowout year, it has been more of a struggle for Emil and his team, however; with losses of about -10.23% in 2012, -6.31% in 2013, and a weak first quarter of this year, down about -4.5%. {past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results}.
01
Aug
2014
Here it is, the Big Sell Off… has been Wrong the past 169 Times
In case you missed it, the Dow was down around 300 points yesterday to bring the index into negative territory for the year (just a handful of days after hitting a new intra-day and all time closing high) – spiking the Vix 27% and no doubt bringing a bunch of worrisome headlines around the financial world today along the lines of:
30
Jul
2014
CNBC didn’t screw up their interview with Winton’s David Harding
This time around, we must say, CNBC chose the right person to interview Harding as Julia Chatterley came prepared to ask the right questions. Here’s our takeaways:
28
Jul
2014
Even Bad Diversification Works
The point, as Josh Brown points out, is to have shorter drawdowns. The point is to be able to regain a peak sooner. The point is to be able to not panic at the bottom. And, of course, the point (for us) is that diversification can “work” even better when you aren’t diversifying with another form of stock market investment (foreign stocks), and instead gaining true diversification with different return drivers.
23
Jul
2014
Attain Launches Family of Alternative Funds (AttainFunds.com)
We’re happy to announce a new website over at www.AttainFunds.com in conjunction with the launch of our new family of alternative investment funds. The new family of Attain Funds contains five single manager funds across five main alternative investment strategies: Trend Following, Short Term Trading, Relative Value, Agriculture, and Global Macro; while containing several “platform” features such as the ability to switch between funds and transparency through the daily reporting of positions.
16
Jul
2014
Alternative Links: Survey Time
The Wall Street Journal explains the rolling of a contract, Mike Harris Interview with Michael Covel on Trend Following Radio, and CME/Thomson Reuters to Run Replacement for Silver Fixin
25
Jun
2014
Rise of the Robo Advisors?
What is a robo-advisor anyway? Why are people supposedly fearing it? It’s the financial equivalent of booking an Uber on your phone versus standing in the cab line at the hotel. And it’s gone beyond the idea stage to real money.
